Anyone outsourcing to the Philippines?

I am glad you posted this, as I have been looking

for the same info. I hope this thread gets strong because

I have a lot of ideas for outsourcing, and need to know the

best place to outsource to.

Thanks, Birddog

Hey Guys,
I am planning a trip there in the next month or so to see about setting up an outsourcing company for my clients and I. I would be glad to keep you updated or trade any information. Just PM me.

Bryant

I've hired a couple. The work ethic has been quite low, but I'm paying $2.00/hr, so I can't complain too much. From my experience, you have to be on top of things or 2-3 days go by and nothing is done. I started paying based on time sheets presented to me rather than a set monthly fee. That way, you can see how much time is being spent for different projects. I notice that it takes 3-4x longer than it'd take me for a lot of things, but even if I can do in an hour what they can do in four, it's still worth it. And, some people strike gold with $2-4/hr workers more knowledgeable and efficient then they are.

Tons of people are having success outsourcing to the Phillipines...

My VA performs all kinds of tasks for me like website design, blog creation, FTPing ZIP files, programming etc. While I was at the Continuity Summit last weekend while I was networking he was even immediately sending emails to people who I met "BAM" right on the spot

At this point simply put I would never work without a VA ever again.

If anyone is looking for a VA or writer I have helped connect 4 other warriors up until this point with part-time or full-time help so feel free to PM me for more info.

I have been to the Philippines about ten times and I know people from there abroad but I never outsourced from there (but I will).
So my 2 cents is generally speaking they are honest, cheap, have good (not great) English; they are particularly good at design. And odesk seems to have crews of link builders from there. For admin tasks you will get great value.
But as they say, hire fast, fire faster.

Do you have any more info on what happened, so we don't make the same mistake?

Has anyone had trust issues, especially with a VA?

I have worked in the computer field for 13 years and am just starting in IM, I havent done any outsourcing yet. But...

My first computer job the owner of the company raved about the philippinos he had working for him, he said they worked cheaply, never asked for a raise and were excellent workers.

There was one guy who worked the night shift, his english wasnt very good, the first time I called him he answered and said "nobody here call back in morning" I found out later that was about the only englisg phrase he knew.

From my experience they did work hard, and never complained, that I saw...as far as money I wasnt involved in that aspect.

So when the time comes I will give them a go..

Wow...compared to the bad experiences I have had with Indians and Pakistanis Philippinos are fantastic. I have used Philippino outsourcers a couple of times now and have had excellent luck. Of course there are good and bad from every country.

My experience is that philippinos have very good work ethic and are hard working decent and moral people. That is more than I can say for the multiple bad experiences I have had with indians and pakistanis.

The company I work for also recently outsourced inbound customer service calls to the phillipines too.

It goes without mentioning (but i'll mention it anyway) ask for verifyable references. Don't be impatient. Make sure their experience is with projects similar to your own. Make no exceptions.

I use an SEO company over there and they're awesome. They assigned a little gal to me who promotes everything I want. Building blogs, twitter, submitting articles, bookmarking.. ect. The work ethic is fantastic as well! She asks me all the time if i'm happy with the services. For the price you can't beat it especially since I doubled my sales.

Jordan Hall told about the video and then I found out I had to pay $97 to get the jest of it. I paid Jordan $1500.00 and he won't give it back to me. He is a real scammer! I', probably not allowed to say that, but if someone else said it I woulldn't have lost $1500.

Why isn't there a place on the internet that warns people about people like Jordan?

I have several folks help from PH and have had great results. As long as you create decent instructions and manage the process, my overall experience with outsourcing has been excellent.

I also believe the people from the Philippines are hard working. I have had the same impression as Sophia. I am sure there are some in all countries that do not fall in the hard working category but you must do your homework.

To Our Success,

Charles

I kinda skimmed through this thread and thought I'd throw a little perspective on it. In a nutshell...be very careful of stereotyping by country or culture in this business. It's not smart and will backfire on you

I've hired and worked with a good number of people from just about every developed country on the planet. I've had my share of successful relationships and my share of those that went sour.

I would never say to anyone, "Go to the Philippines or stay away from India or whatever". That's ludicrous - not everyone in India drops the ball, nor has every freelancer in the Philippines come through perfectly.

In my experience, it's no different in any one country or culture - you can find great people to work with anywhere on the planet, if you're patient, develop a good working relationship with them and pay them well.

What a great topic! Thank you for all the information. ;0)

I've used Get Friday in the past and I found it a bit slow and expensive, I hardly use it now and I'm paying $10 just to keep the account active.

Just recently I started dealing directly with freelancers and it's been great! I'm not at a point where I need or want to hire full time and if I do I have enough experience with my "temps" that the choice should be very straightforward if and when the need arises.

Just make sure you have 2 providers per specialty as a backup measure

Outsourcing to the Philippines is the best thing that could happen to anyone hoping to make money online. The people are very honest, friendly, humble, resourceful, enterprising and informed about internet marketing.

I work well with Ross Dalangin. You can find him at Make Money Online With Ross Dalangin| Money Making Online Opportunities hopefully if his hands are not full, you'll be lucky to nab him.

Though I hesitate to share him with the public but I will do anything for fellow warriors, to help you enjoy self employment and make more money.

Yes, Filipinos are worth every pound in Gold!

OK, I know this is kind of specific, but how about using full time Filipino outsourcers specifically in the "offline gold" niche? I would love to get some help on getting this started.

Just a quick note about outsourcing to the Philippines: Beware. Don't be so quick to sign up.

I used a company (I term that word lightly) that ranks high in Google. Trust me, that doesn't mean ANYTHING to me anymore. It does not mean that they are reputable.

I was promised the moon (supposedly they knew how to build Wordpress sites, research keyword niches, and so on) with nothing to show as a result. Terrible communication problems with the website builder and the guy in charge (a non filipino) just didn't care---unless he gets the money first, of course. Phone calls to him were largely ignored.

As a result, I have to delete the websites which are embarrassingly bad, and now I'll just do it myself. I wasted a month and good money on this. Don't believe what you hear from people, and beware. Ask for a sample, be skeptical, and again---buyer beware. Don't waste your money if you are not sure about the outsourcing service.

I use an excellent service from the Philippines for social bookmarking, blog & forum posting which is reliable and trustworthy.

But I will take the time to learn all I can and just do the website building on my own for the time being.

I want to thank all of you for sharing your amazing knowledge and ideas.
With your help, my outsourcing results will improve. The learning curve
never ends.

My only real problem is that whenever I visit the WF, I can't find the exit.

So much to see... !!!!!!!!!!!

Hi everyone,

Chanced upon this thread and may be able to help. I am currently here in Manila sitting out the "economic crisis" in London

Just send me a PM of what you need, your budget, etc and will see what I can do.

I know quite a few freelancers here so can ask around for you.

Cheers,

Kaye

Hi everyone,

Chanced upon this thread and may be able to help. I am currently here in Manila sitting out the "economic crisis" in London

Just send me a PM of what you need, your budget, etc and will see what I can do.

I know quite a few freelancers here so can ask around for you.

Cheers,

Kaye

I'm from the Philippines. If you come here to find teams to outsource, let's meet personally. Maybe I can help...

Ian del Carmen

PS: Just PM me anytime...

I've followed John Jonas's training in Replace Myself .com and found it excellent.

We used BestJobs.ph, emailed people who met our qualifications, gave them a task to complete. This weeds out most people and the ones who complete it can see what their work looks like.

One thing not discussed is your expectations.

For the most part, they will do some things great and some things they do will leave you scratching your head thinking "why would they ever do that???"

Realize there is a 3 to 6 month learning process for this person... which is true for most people being hired. A full-time outsourced person is no different then hiring a US employee.

You will want to provide very clear and detailed step-by-step instructions of what you want, a camtashia video showing how to do it, and examples of what the finished work should look like so they can visually see what you want.

Then provide feedback on what they did via camtashia (or jingproject is faster) "what they did right, what wasn't correct, and what should have done" And again example of what it should have looked like when done correctly.

Once you have a well trained person they will be invaluable. Spending the time upfront to get that point is a great investment you can make.
However don't freak out when they do something that is not what you wanted. If they have the right work ethic qualities and have good english, then they can be taught the "how to" portion.

-Kevin

I'm a Replacemyself.com member as well....I've really enjoyed my membership and John Jonas is great. I must say though, I've been pretty disappointed with the caliber of people on Best Jobs. I've hired 2 people to do full time work. I gave them very specific information and step by step instructions for what I needed done. Both people I hired have been very slow in getting their task done, and their reporting has been terrible to say the least. I'm on my third person, so we'll see.

I'm a filipina and i'm so glad with the positive feedbacks you're giving us. Thanks!

Thanks guys for the information, I came accross replacemyself too and was thinking of hiring somebody to outsource my repetitive tasks and focus on research.

I have just started to Outsource. I have used a Filipino programmer part time for 2 months and I am more than satisfied.

I am planning to seek more Web Design and VA help from there shortly.

I have outsourced successfully to the Philipines, Malaysia, India, China and several other third world countries.

Stay away from Ukraine as I had a bad experience over there with a freelance programmer.

I was told to stay away from Russia as well.

I have been using Getafreelancer.com for my outsourcing.

Usually I will stay away from a freelancer with zero feedback but the ones that have a lot of good feedback will charge you upfront.

$100 to one of theese freelancers is like a bonus to them since they are making like $50 a week at their regular job. Freelance Students may not have a regular job and most of them will want to earn your repeat business so they will try to outperform for you.,

My son also has a lot of outsourced programming done. Look at getmoretwitters.com as this was all done by an overseas individual.

The Philippines are outsourcing heaven but as with anything you get good and bad quality work. My suggestion is to use a service like Odesk and check the job history of that person for that specific outsourcing agent. As a rule their cost of living determines that you will get better quality work at a better price than in USA

i am a Filipino and i do several jobs for people from FL and CA. mostly data entry and we cater one company's call center, its not that big, having 7 people doing the data entry during the day(thats night time in the US) and processing calls during night time(day time in the US)

thank you all for the info as it's first time i read on outsourcing internet marketing tasks to the Philippines using John Jonas' website.

I have hired a few people from the Philippines at Odesk and I am very disappointed. The only good freelancer I found there was American and she was great.
I have found one great freelancer from the Philippines but she's at $7/hour. I don't like Odesk because when a freelancer gets hot he asks for a raise and still forgets about you and keeps asking for more while the work quality and communication quality drops.
I feel I have spent 4 times the time trying to find a decent freelancer at Odesk than it would have taken to do the job myself.

Hi,

First post on WF, but long time lurker...

I have 3 people working for me now, I managed everything with Odesk
Odesk make it incredibly easy to post jobs , find and hire the right people and more importantly manage them...

I have a webmaster from Macedonia (5.5$ an hour)and 2 data entry people doing backlinking for me (1.50$) .

Do check them out....

Outsourcing is the way to go!

I am outsourcing it is GREAT!!!

There are 2 ways you can hire 1. Through a company 2 Direct. You get what you pay for, I suggest a company for customer service that if it does not happen can put a road block in your business.

Using direct is hit or miss. I have had people that did not work out from the start. They dont do anything and after 3 days of saying yes and giving assignment, you get nothing back.

I had one guy who road some stuff and I asked him, he said that his friend told him it would be good SEO stuff. This guy was motivated, sharp and straight, but no skills. I hired him at $120 for a month project. AMAZING CHOICE!!!!!

I LOVE outsourcing.

sure would be nice if we could put some of the out of work people here in the states to work!!

robert

The company I use is GREAT. I have the person do everything customer service related (Email, live chat, 1 800 #, Messenger) + she works on projects of updating the site. When she does not have anything to do she will even goto Yahoo Answers and market. It is great outsourcing.

Hey,

Just got the chance to read all the post. We'll I have an outsourcing company here in the Philippines. I already posted my service thread and paid for it in the Classified Ads area in this forum just waiting for it to go live..

So far my VA has been working great.. I have good reviews on other forums, dp, wf, etc. You can also check my website firstpagewebsearch.com

PM me if you are interested. THanks.

Great point Mustard, you are right, there are too many people who teach that do not understand it or have experience success.

Well there will have to be 2 parts 1. For the business owner/IM/Boss whatever (educate them) and 2. Outsource employee.

I should have mentioned this is 100% based around my expertee's, getting traffic.

I currently have a backlinking team in the Phillipines as well as a couple of article writers I use. Outsourcing these manual tasks has been the best thing I have ever done for my internet business.

Unfortunately I took some time to assemble my team. I posted small projects and based on the performance I would then hire (or not) the person for regular or larger projects. I have only hired about 15% of the people a second time.

Hi,

I'm from the Philippines too and I'm happy that many of you want Filipinos to do the work. I create accounts for easy submitting of your marketing materials like videos using tubemogul, press releases, articlebot article directories, etc. Just PM me if you need one

Regards,

Ronald

I outsource to India. Never used the Phillipines. If you need some good developers, let me know.

Personally i lost 600 wasted on a Virtual Assistant from the Philippines. I now have an assistant that is in South Africa a bit higher price 6.00 HR but better English, better internet connection etc..

I am toying with the possibility of employing a few Filipinos to help with internet-related work. However when I search on the internet the rate are very much higher. I suppose most of the income goes to the agent or owner of the site. Just for information, the income of a nurse there is about $150 a month.

Being a neighbour of Philippines I intend to pay a visit and seek the possibility of finding my assistants myself instead relying on other people.

I wonder if I can hire a VA to come onto WF for me, since it would save me more time

I love this place

Has anyone had much success with outsourcing writing assignments? If so, what's the quality been like?

Yes, I am having success. They are mainly doing Social Bookmarking and RSS feeds submissions. The important thing is they should speak good English. Most Filipinos have a good understanding of English but their written skills may not be as good.

But Social Bookmarking and RSS feeds submissions does not need any writing skills

I have been outsourcing in PH for the last 3 years.
Still i have not worked with a company but strictly with individuals.

How to find them.
I have ads running full time on graiglist (ads running in all PH cities) so i am never out of people willing to work.
People come and go, but at the end you will be able to get some really good workers to build up your team.

About SEO
In general i give everybody a little bit of all tasks to ensure that if someone decides to leave i will have no down time.

About articles.
Still the same principle, people come and go spread your work to several writers. Eventually you will have a very good team

Rates
I usually pay per project. Articles around $1.5-$4 depending on size, original or rewrite.
SEO tasks, accounts creation and link building around $20-$30 per 50-75 properties.

This is the way i do it and it works out fine for me.

Hope i was helpful.

I am having success outsourcing to the Philippines and am actually looking to hire two more people over there right now.

Ryan

bit of an update on John jonas. I got an email today stating he has opened (onlinejobs.ph) Find a real, online job! | Home I've had a quick look seems ok and it's free to join.

Just like anything there are good and bad.Overall the service is good,they speak good english,many telco's are using their call centres.
Their skills are very good and they are cheap. I came across this report which is very good.

Look around.
Cheers
Graeme

I have a great web builder from the Philippines since may 09 working part time 20 hours per week and i have never spoke to him. But his english writing is great, he calls me Sir Dan and it made me feel like one of the Beatles!


Heck my english is probably worse. I was looking on craigslist before i hired my guy and the CL web builders in word press wanted $25 to $50 per hour. I only pay a fraction of that and the work is doen when I wake up the next day.

If you use CL or elance you need to start any employee or contractor with a 30 day trial period.

Best

DanielWynn

I placed some ads on Craigs list, looking for article writers. I got many responses and hired a couple of people. It was ok, nothing great. I had to fix grammar on all the articles, but it was much easier than writing them from scratch. I also asked for research and sometimes it took a little more explaining to get done.

Work ethic varies, just like anywhere. Some people were very responsible and careful to produce the best possible result. Others were promising and yet never showed up after 50% of their job was done and they got paid for that part. So, I haven't found anyone yet I would want to work with long-term.

Hi there,

I've actually got a small outsourcing team in the Philippines (where I am now), although I'm actually from the UK. Here are some thoughts on how to make a success of outsourcing here:

1. Filipino's really don't like to say "I don't know" - this will get you all the time if you get the wrong person and a little bit with the right person. Make sure they clear things up when they don't understand.
2. Try to break everything down to very small steps & put it in writing as well as just verbally.
3. Get them to show you what they are going to do first. There are loads of screen-sharing tools for this.
4. Find out where they went to school - my fav school is 'University of the Philippines' as they are pretty understated but normally very reliable. (it's a state school with tough entrance requirements). I know there are lots of other good schools, and that is just my personal favorite.
5. Find someone who has worked overseas for a while - it doesn't matter where; China or the Mid East are fine. This will help them to understand you.
6. Try to make sure they have an option if the internet goes wrong - we have to get two or three ISP's to cover downtime.
7. Clarify in advance if they are going to work bank holidays here - there are a lot of them and they sometimes announce them 2 days in advance. If they work bank holidays they are meant to get double pay or pay plus 30% (the rules get a bit complex). Also they might expect a double salary in December - that's a legal requirement if you have a company here.
8. Keep on top of what they are doing. Use something like rememberthemilk (dot com) to to send them tasks & get them to do a full daily report. Again - it's good to get something that records what they've been doing on their screen.
9. Give them a small basic salary and lots of bonus when they get things right. Companies here tend to also do the opposite and fine when they make mistakes but that's a little too much for me.
10. Ask them all the time what they are doing and why - they can be totally clueless and not tell you. (see 1.)

Drop me a PM if you'd like to know a bit about what we could do - we're not really looking for clients for a few weeks, but I've got a couple of new guys would could do with some projects to work on at a much lower cost as we train them up.

I am looking to hire several people from the Phillipines, but I am actually having trouble finding people to do automotive forum posting for me. All I am requiring is good written english and some automotive/car knowledge.

Be careful when you outsource, it is not easy to work with freelancers. Better work with outsourcing company. They do cost more but they provide better quality and supervised workers.

Here is what exactly happen to me. Quoted from Jason Potash.
Not trying to hold you back. Its just the reality.

Yeah I'll second that Arbitrager, I've been working with full-time and part-time outsoucers for a few years now. For the last 6 months I've been using bestjobs.ph facilities and so far I've found the people pretty much the same as other websites I've used to source workers. You still have to micro manage them and constantly check their work.

Outsourcing is definetly the key to growth but it is far from a walk in the park. I've been sucked into some purchases for outsourcing products in the past where the sales letter says that these workers from X are 'really trustworthy' and 'you don't have to micro manage them' 'we'll provide you with the exact plan you need to outsource your business' blah blah blah.

But the reality is you will have to Micro manage them for a substantial period of time. But even before you get to that stage, you'll have to go through tens or even even hundreds of resumes and contact them with your job offer.

Then you'll have to pick who you think are good candidates for the job. Then go through and interview each of your shortlist. After going through the process you'll finally pick one who you think is right for the job, only to find out when you hire them that they're not!

Then you start the whole process again.

Don't get me wrong, I don't want to put anyone of outsourcing as I believe it's essential to grow your business and like myself you will find some good workers.

Just be prepared for the reality of finding, training and managing them. It is far from easy and can be very time consuming.

I have had a tough time in PH getting good help and lost many hours trying to train even ones that speak good English. I am finding many do not know how to use wordpress only Dreamweaver. The prices dont equate to what you could lose in time value vs. production. I have had some good luck with simple tasks like bookmarking but not much else. Found a good VA on e lance that lives in South Africa which is nice because there is not a 15 hour time difference more like close to East cost time

Yes there are challenges, but once you get it to work, it is well worth it.

Sidetrack
9 out of 10 business dont work
999 out of 1000 Internet Marketers dont make it.

Point being that challenges is part of the path.

You need to expect a little give and take when working with them, treat them like people and part of your team and they will overdeliver for you. I got one that created a Facebook group and got like 70 people on it in a day (still amazed) OR was on my case before I even heard of tweetdeck to grow business

Next, understand there culture. If they only doing articles, bookmarking, link building. Give them there holidays off.

Let them choose there hours. I work GREAT in the day time, my wife up til very late night and sleeps til noon. Whatever works, use it.

This is all knowing them, treating them like part of team to get results.

When you outsource in the Philippines, have them work in regular day time job 8am-5PM, 9am - 6PM. DON'T force them to adjust to your own timezone. They could produce better quality of service, may that be link building, article writing, programming, etc.

There are many Filipinos here at warrior forum who are providing services, some of them are freelancer and some of them are Company.. I prefer established company because I don't need to babysit the staffs. They are well trained to all the services they are providing and I don't need to train them from time to time. They have their supervisors and training officers in their company so I don't need to worry that they will not do what I want them to do for me with out training them. Unlike when I was using freelancers before, I need to train them from time to time.

The problem is, it waste too much time also to train people my purpose to outsource leg works to get freer times seems not meet because I spend a lot of time to train my staff every time there are new technologies or techniques I need to implement for my online business.

Luckily, I find a great Philippine base company offering outsourcing services for internet marketer like me here at warrior forum. Now, I don't need to do all those training and upgrading of their knowledge, I have more free time now. One more problem with freelancers from Philippines, India, Pakistan, Vietnam, and even from US is that when they learn all things you've teaching them, they are leaving you and I experience this many times before.

I've recently hired two full time employees in the Philippines - a web programmer and a graphic designer/web designer. I found them both at onlinejobs.ph, which is John Jonas' site.

After two months, my experience is very positive overall. Philippinos are very loyal and eager to please. The quality of the work of my two guys is excellent.

The only downside I've found is they tend to have a very laid back approach to work. In other words, their output is about half what I would expect from a full time employee.

This is understandable, given that they are working in a the corner of the family's main living room, with constant activity and noise going on around them, and continual interruptions.

When I talk to my guys on skype I can hear roosters crowing in the background, babies crying, people laughing etc. It's a third world environment. And the Internet goes down if they have a storm.

Having said all that, outsourcing to the Philippines has been one of the best things I ever did in my business.

I do believe filipinos are worth to hire..they are hard working people..

Hi guys

i thought it was going to be a real hassle outsourcing to the philippines and had a bad experience of it via a classified ad on here and then gave it a wide birth.

A few months later i realised that i couldnt through in the towel just because of one bad one so now i have a team of 50 based there and they do an amazing job. You are hiring staff that might not know your methods so as long as you are prepared to train them its a real life saver. If you are fairly new to internet marketing its great as its a real low expense to pay out for.

kind regards


sam
X

Yeah ... quite simply go get access to John's site. If you wanna read about my hiring experiences, the first link in my sig is to my "outsourcing" posts. Basically how I started with elance, moved to Replacemyself, etc.

ALWAYS chat with your candidates before hiring. Do not believe what is claimed on a resume unless it is described in detail. If they check off "advanced" for SEO that means nothing. If they say "I performed detailed keyword research and site optimization around those keywords on 3 prior websites, while in my last job" ... then you can trust it's a bit more accurate since it reflects some actual knowledge.

I'll never go to an agency if I can avoid it. I want to control how my guys get paid, meaning I want to be able to bonus them directly for great work. I would rather than feel comfortable working at home, knowing they will be treated really well.

Try hiring freelancers at easyoutsource.com. It is good place to hire Filipinos. Most Filipino online freelancers who register at sites like these are already experienced with online work.

Outsourcing is not depends upon the country, its depend the company or person you are provide outsource. We can find good and bad outsources from any company.This is new youth generation, we are all in the computer world.So peoples from all countries really wiling to hardword to acheive their own goal.

Having lived and worked all over the world and now claim my permanent residence in Las Pinas City (Metro Manila), I find that Filipinos, for the most part are honest and hard working. It's a different culture and things there run on "Filipino time". An hour to a Filipino usually means at least two or three. If anyone wants outsourcing, I can recommend some that I use, and would be happy to help anyone else looking for specific areas of competency. Although I am currently in London, my son is local there and speaks the language, so no mis-communication!

Hello Charles,

i am in need of php programer that would need to build me websites from scratch,
actually have one found already through onlinejobs.ph, but since you posted here I m open for additional options, specially if they are already proved;

I sent you an email to your websites contact;

best regards!

Klemen

Hi Charles,

Thank you, I ve spoke with Quincy, but since he is frontend developer, maybe you could recommend someone who does backend programming too?

thank you,

Klemen

Hey guys, newbie here. We are an outsourcing provider from the Philippines.

This is just to give you an idea. If you would like to know more about how an outsourcing company works try visiting linkedin website. There you can read some recommendations from the clients or you can even ask them if you want.

For me it's always a two way business. You work with wrong people or right people is entirely on you as you select and decide to work with them.

Can someone please post a good outsourcing company? It seems very hard to find one. I have been trying to organise a part time VA for several weeks now, but keep getting messed around.

Ya graphic design

The work is very decent but the designer is flakey.. vanishes for days on end

Yes, I outsourced some article writing to the Philippines and liked the results, but I've screened several candidates until I found the ones I liked. Some things (really technical articles) I couldn't outsource.

You just have to work a bit on the hiring. Ask them about their setup and connection.

Get them to complete some tasks for you as a (paid) trial.

Accept the downsides (electricity and internet black outs, training required, cultural differences, language barriers) as well as the upsides (huge cost savings)

Hello everyone.

I'm sorry to be an intruder to this thread but I'd just like to inform everyone that might be interested in our outsourcing and other virtual assistance services that we cater. We're an American-led Filipino outsourcing company based here in Manila, Philippines. We have several SEO experts on board, ready to serve you and we're committed to do our best to make you a very happy customer!

Should you consider us, we'd be glad to be working with you! Kindly visit our website (through my signature below) for further inquiries.

Thank you,
Gerry
SEO, McCoy Inc.

I have had great success with my workers. If fact, they turned me here to this website. I also pay them very well and give them bonuses fast. They average about $450 per month each but crack out work fast and good. I'm happy with the amount of time and headache they save me monthly.

I've had great experiences outsourcing work to the Philippines. I have been using Xoom.com to pay them but recently Xoom.com has stopped all non-USA credit cards from their service. This is the only problem I have faced when outsourcing to the Philippines.

However, I have found local remittance services to the Philippines that have enabled me to send money to the Phillipines at a lower rate than Xoom.com and Western Union.

If you are an American, you should have to deal with these payment problems but for everyone else, we just have to find other ways to pay them.

I have found several decent , hard working people at Find a real, online job! | Home

it is worth having a look

Marco

When it comes to outsourcing I stick to the same person for writing articles. She costs a bit more but her writing makes sense.

When it comes to design I also stick to paying a bit more and working with somebody I know and trust with the task.

If I am outsourcing anything that doesnt require any creativity or much thought I prepare clear written or videos instructions and hand the job to the cheapest bidder!!!

It's very unlikely that you will ever find one person to do all tasks. I'm not pre-judging any nationality but if you are having articles written it's probably best to choose somebody that is from the same country as your readers! Not just because of language but there are differences in culture and slang to consider too.

Here is a HUGE important thing to know: when you employ someone, even if you tell them it's "full time" they will almost certainly be working for someone else as well.

I've spoken with several potential employees who have admitted they planned to do 8hrs per day for me after their other office-based job (i.e. starting at 7pm)

You CAN get really cheap workers in the Philippines but if you try to be too cheap, this is what you'll get!

A lot of workers get health and transport benefits from their office jobs, so you need to pay them extra to cover those if you don't want them to keep their job.

I have tried a couple of different ways to outsource to the Philippines with some success.

First I put an add in Craig's list for an article writer in the Philippines and got several reply's. Many of them had good writing skills, but little internet experience or knowledge. I was looking for someone who could post on 3 blogs daily with enough internet knowledge to do a little research. I found one lady that did an outstanding job, but only lasted a couple of months. She found that she didn't have the time to do the job longer term.

The next time I went through ODesk and found that to be much more successful. You have many applicants to choose from and they all have to pass certain tests to qualify. You will find applicants from all over the world and for a variety of wages.

I hope this is helpful.

I was using Thymer, which is simple, easy, and effective for small teams.

I tried basecamp, active collab and a bunch of others, and it was major overkill and too much to setup.

Checkout thymer, it rocks...

One thing i would absolutely recommend for outsourcing, is to make it a condition of contract that the worker is ALWAYS logged onto skype or Gtalk when working. I found as soon as i asked my worker to do this, they disappeared. Some digging on the internet (a simple search for her name) found her twitter account, where i found here updates revealed working till the early hours of the morning from a coffee shop... or hey boyfriends place... and taking days trips to visit friends... all when she was meant to be working.

One thing i cannot stand is the lying. From my experience, it seems commonplace for these workers to lie about what they are doing. That really ticks me off. I'm flexible, pay bonus, good hourly rate... holiday and sick pay... and in return i'm being lied to about all kinds of things.


Sorry, but from my experience i cannot recommend philippino's for this reason. Yup, it's only based on my experience, so YMMV

In my opinion, its really up to the way we work, our experience in outsourcing and managing staff (even better if you've managed remote staff), and overall project management experience. Our work style may fit best with a freelancer model, whereas some of us might like working with a firm that can supply VAs.

I've done both for several years, and I know the type of work I'll send to freelancers versus sending to a firm.

However, one thing I'd like to bring up is that generalizing that you "cant trust Filipinos" is just not right. I often hear the same thing about Indians, Russians, Vietnamese, and even Americans (ohh nooo..)... bottom line, don't generalize a whole country just because of one bad freelancer that you most likely hired for $1 - $2 bucks an hour, whom you probably never met, and didnt bother to check references..

I personally have worked with Filipinos, and have had way more positive experiences than negative ones..

The funny thing is I actually work in Asia, and one of the things I often hear is that tech companies out here are a bit apprehensive about hiring Americans... why?? because they are lazy..

By the way, I've personally used edpudol1973's firm Luxorsoft.net, and I'd recommend them to anyone..

Here's where i think the problem lies.

If you look at most applicants on bestjobs.ph, they're young kids between 19-24.

They think 'woohoo', home job, it will be cruisy. They've had friends tell them 'hey, that work rocks, you can do things in your own time... work from home'

They are always motivated to start off with (I've had some great paid trial results) and everything seems great. Initial work is high quality and done well.

Things get a bit mundane for them. They get sick of working from home. They start to take time off to get out of the house. They're not used to not interacting with others in a normal office.

Work quality drops. They feel unmotivated. Employer is frustrating, wondering why work quality and ethic is dropping.

Employee quits, disappears, and or gets fired.

& To those who think it's the 'employers fault'...

I spent hours making easy to use manuals with loads of screenshots.
I setup a great, easy to use project management system
I sent up systems to make things as easy as possible for the employee
I motivated them with a payday bonus if work was high quality & done well
I paid out sick leave, holiday pay (13th month, paid biannually)

My first assistant was OK. She was slow to start off with, but i wonder if thats because i gave her too many hours to do things. It got to the point where it was obvious she was just not working half the time, and taking longer and longer to do things. She had good references. I fired her because she was clearly lying to me about how long things took to get done (if anything people get quicker to do the same task, not slower!)

My second assistant was top notch, high qualty, much faster. But soon after she began working with me, the wierd stories and excuses started. Too almost every friday off, with a different excuse every time. She used the 'i forgot to pay the internet bill' twice, which is clearly BS.

Then she got sick, which i believe actually happened, however she was submitting reports to me at 4AM Manilla time, which i questioned her on. That cannot be healthy for anyone & could be why she got sick.

Then, she would take odd days off, and not tell me. She would catch up... but wouldn't reply to my emails asking why she didn't work.

Eventually she disappeared. I found out on her twitter she had gone to the city for a few days, and just didn't bother to tell me.

I warned her a few weeks before firing her that she needed to pick things up. She never responded to that either. One thing i've found constant is that, in my experience, philippinos avoid confrontation and for me this is huge downfall. If i've got a problem, i'll voice it to see what resolution can be reached.

However, i've always gotten the 'sorry, i won't happen again'... and guess what... it happens again, and again.

Dont' take this as gospel, but i swear that the general view on these jobs for philippinos is that online based home base jobs are 'easy, cruisy' and a good standby, or extra job for easy cash. Work ethic is variable, as is attendance and general attitude. Yep, they're hard working, yep they're better then other countries with similar economies, but they are not without faults.

All this BS that they are the 'next best thing' is just Hype, usually pedalled by people who are directly invested in making money.

MODERATOR NOTE

The Philippines has a population of over 90 million people. Please avoid generalizations, either positive or negative, about a country based upon experience with only a handful of people.

Thanks,

Pearson

Like I said, it's common for them to have more than one "full time" job (I don't believe they're trying to rip you off - I believe they want to work hard)

Which is why you will get replies at 4am Manila time.

anteck,

It's too bad that you had bad experiences, my whole point in replying was to highlight that people have bad experiences everywhere.. not just the Philippines.

As for me, I've had great experiences with teams I've used in PH, especially in Davao. I'm also really high on Vietnam, specifically Hanoi. Other places you might want to look is Malaysia and SG (although the costs are a bit high).

I will usually use a firm for technical work, since these types of projects require the use of formal software development best practices (Requirements Management, Software Project Planning, Software Project Tracking & Oversight, QA, etc......), and will use freelancers/VAs for work such as link building, article writing, etc.

However, this is just my own personal preference and what works for me, may not necessarily work for you or someone else.. which is why I cringe when I see programs such as Outsource Force advice people to stay away from outsourcing firms.

I don't know how many times i can stipulate this is based on 'my experiences'. I think i've said it three times now. Why do some of you keep re-interpreting my experiences as 'generalisations'?

I can only state it so many times.

How you interpret what i've experienced is up to you, it's not my responsibility.

This is a forum right? A place for different people's opinions, experiences and perspectives?

I have a right to voice my opinions here, and i won't hold back because some of you think i'm referencing things on a global basis, when in reality i'm just another person with one experience.

In reality, the best facts anyone has to hand is their own experiences. This is where i'm coming from. I find it surprising that some of you are offended by this, as it's very obvious to me, and i think to anyone with some half decent reasoning skills.

Your perspectives that 'the philippino VA's are honest, and hard working' is as equally valid, and as equally bias as any other statement. Just because your statements are in a positive light, and mine are not, does not make you any less or more right about anything.

fypnlp : I stand by what i said. Like i said, what you make of it is up to you. If you look through this thread there are many people saying 'it didn't work for me, i wouldn't recommend it'. Go have a look for yourself. Check the thread before you ask me to check my facts. I actually described at length that i have had TWO assistants. Doesn't sound like you read my last post in this thread. Who's quick to shoot from the hip here?

Yes, there are good and bad people everywhere. Yes i think philippinos are probably the best of the bunch based on what i've read. But who knows? I surely can't make that statement for everyone, and i'm not trying to. I'm providing YET ANOTHER PERSPECTIVE. Can you people understand that? I hope so.

There is a LOT of hype at the moment, and a LOT of bold, bias and generalization being made that 'Philippinos are great, hard working, the best place to outsource'. Hell, it's being sold like wildfire by Jon Jonas, and now a handful of other IM 'Guru's'. What i'm doing here is going against the tide... and highlighting what i've found. Nothing is ever black and white.


Thanks for all your input, suggestions, and comments. I think hiring VA's in a firm is a much better idea, as they have a workplace, a routine set in, and some supervision.

& For the last time, YMMV (Your Miliage May Vary). I won't say that again.