Francis

March 1, 2016 By Francis Leave a Comment

Tim Ferriss’ Personal Productivity Tips – How To Lower Information Input

Tim Ferriss, the famous Guru for outsourcing and the author of the ‘Four Hour Work Week’ has made a really interesting 5 minute presentation and shared some of his personal productivity tips with you:

Here are the most important personal productivity tips I took from the video. It’s great advice and I really recommend that you follow it:

Decrease the Amount of Information You Take in

man fed up with lots of thoughts and ideas and holding his head with his hands

Every day on the web we are bombarded with an infinitive amount of information. However you cannot possibly digest all this info.

In other words; you think that you learn a lot, but you actually waste time.

What’s the solution?

Decrease the amount of information you have to take-in.
Focus on the most necessary parts only

Tim Ferriss called this ‘Selective Ignorance’

This great strategy is more of an applied principle of getting your priorities straight.

Increase Productivity Tip # 1 – Batching Your Tasks

Based on the ‘Pomodoro Technique,’ Tim Ferriss recommends that you batch your tasks. In other words, set a site a time-chunk of 25 minutes and do one task until it is done.

Then take a break!

Actually we have created a page about a great productivity software that uses exactly this principle.

Productivity Tip # 2 – Decrease the Amount of Emails You Have to Take Care of by Using Auto-responders

His next recommendation is to prepare an auto-responder for all your emails. In Gmail, it is very easy to do.

Here is what he proposes that your auto-responder could say, but please adapt it to your needs and to your own communication style:

Dear all!

I read my emails twice a day at 11am and 4pm. If you need a response before this time, please contact me on my cell-phone XXXXX XXXXX in urgent matters.

Thank you for understanding.

On a side note: Google provides a lot of efficient tools – that are all free. It really makes sense to get familiarized with all of them.

If you follow his personal productivity tips, don’t worry about missing a critical email. Do you remember the time, only a few years ago when there was no email?

The world was still turning and no one died because they couldn’t read the email. So don’t worry about not receiving the email and responding to it right away. You will actually save time by disciplining yourself to only read your emails twice a day.

Always think about how much your time is worth in money and in health. The time you save by not reading emails all the time can be well invested in gaining additional income.

Time Efficiency Principle # 3 – Apply the Pareto Principle to People

The ‘Pareto principle’ or ‘80/20 principle’ is called like this because you can generate 80% of the results with 20% of the efforts.

In other words:

“By focusing on what is critical, you can get almost complete results.“

Taking his personal productivity tips about time wasters to the next level…

Now, Tim Ferriss’ trick is to apply this principle to people. You probably have a few people before your inner eye right now that are complete time wasters, but that you cannot eliminate from your life.

Focus on the 20% of people, friends or clients that bring you most of your results. In other words, who brings you most joy in life, revenue and success.

What about the 80% that waste your time?

Strictly apply the auto-responder logic to them and try to keep communication with them to a minimum!

Why put energy into people that will waste your time.

Time Efficiency Principle # 4 – Outsourcing Your Life

Man in a grey suit holding world globe in both hands

Tim Ferriss is probably the most famous person on earth to really live the dream of outsourcing his private life.

Personally, I’ve outsourced a huge deal of work related to website building to my team of virtual assistants and it works really well.

When you want to outsource private matters, then it gets a bit more complicated. But if you apply your brain and read up everything about outsourcing that you can find, you can actually increase the free time that you have every day to do what you love to do.

One of the greatest personal productivity tips that Tim shared if you need an assistant with great native English skills is to hire someone from Canada. He claims at least that you can find people there who would be willing to work at $5/hour.

Actually I posted an example of a person from Canada who is happy to work for $1/hour, but perhaps he is an exception.

Time Efficiency Principle # 5 – Calculate Your Return of Interest or ROI

calculator with pencil, paper and currency note

Here is a quick rule of thumb that Tim Ferriss shares with us in the video to determine if it’s worth it to spend your money for outsourcing, think about how much you make per hour.

If you can afford to invest half of that amount into a virtual assistant that saves you an hour of work, then you should clearly go for it.

I think that this rule of thumb is correct when you think about it roughly. Still you cannot scale that up infinitively.

Let’s say you make $10 an hour, but you probably have living expenses that are higher when you live in western countries.

In this case you should rather consider how much money you’ve left at the end of the month in order to decide if you can actually afford a virtual assistant.

And when you do go for it and hire someone, make sure that you get the most bang for your buck. My recommendation is to use one of the established outsourcing services.

Final Tip – Establish a work/life separation

If you follow along all of his personal productivity tips, Tim Ferriss strongly believes in planning your life and so do I.

There is a mountain of difference between

waking up and scratching your stomach lying around in your bed or
waking up, feeling energized, doing something for your health and body and getting started with your projects right away.

I have been guilty of moping around in bed more than enough myself. But I am trying, you know. 🙂

According to his personal productivity tips, a good tool to plan your life is a solid to-do list. This way you know what tasks to attack right away.

Here is what not to do:

Do not check emails first things in the morning
I have a smartphone myself and I have been guilty of this unproductive sin more often than necessary.

One good solution for this is to deactivate your wireless internet access on your smartphone before you go to sleep and activate it only after you’ve at least taken a shower.

March 1, 2016 By Francis Leave a Comment

Personal Assistant Wanted To Help You Maintain Your Website And Increase Your Traffic?

Ever thought: “Personal Assistant wanted”?

Here is a story of my website building efforts that encouraged me to hire a virtual assistant.

How it all began

One of the latest Google changes called “Penguin & Panda” attacked websites which have a lot of broken links and missing information.

Sitesell’s proven philosophy that works, the C->T->P->M model helped out thousands of SBI website owners overcome these algorithm challenges.

Personal Assistant wanted to overcome Google’s algorithm challenges

One of my other websites which has grown pretty large due to many guest submissions. After some time I had easily hundreds of broken links that needed correction.
I also had some pictures on this website which were taken from creative commons and used to illustrate my blog entries or guest submissions.

Needless to say that I worked with my virtual assistant and he researched pictures for me. But I will discuss this on another blog post.

The pictures were outdated and many attribution links did not work anymore.

Google is penalizing websites with too many broken links and I was experiencing dropping traffic levels due to these changes.

Personal Assistant wanted to replace hundreds of pictures

First, I asked my virtual assistant to research through hundreds of web pages for broken pictures or pictures which have been licensed.

Working with pictures that are licensed is very tricky. You can run into trouble and might end up paying hefty sums of money because a licensing company thinks that you are stealing their pictures. Even if you took these pictures from Creative Commons before and the user changes the licensing level of the picture afterward.

The legal consequences are unclear. If you don’t want to risk losing much money, you better make sure that all your licensing information is up to date.

If you are a small (one man) online company, this means that you take care of your website all alone. As long as you have hundreds of pages of content with pictures, this task is almost not doable.

A virtual assistant is crucial to keep you updated and fresh on all the tasks you have.

So what did I do?

I asked my virtual assistant to help me update all my pictures and the attribution links on my website.

Since I am using the content management system of SBI, my personal assistant wanted me to first explain to him how to do this. This was easy by using a screen recording software. I just recorded every step of the process by talking, explaining and clicking and pointing.

Then I asked him to do the same on a specific example which I showed him step by step. Afterward he was pretty much able to do everything on his own. The guest submissions which all have pictures are good and bad at the same time.

Personal Assistant wanted to manage hundreds of guest posts

One of the strengths of SBI is their Content 2.0 system. This functionality makes my website grow quickly because visitors want to contribute to it.

I got many long blog entries written by guest writers for free. That was the good part.

The bad part is that we have to clean up all pictures and information which was not up to date anymore. Alone, it would have been an excruciatingly long task. With a virtual assistant that was very doable.

Has this convinced you to try out working with a virtual assistant?
Or is taking care of hundred of pictures within you blog and website pages not enough to answer the question: “personal assistant wanted”?

February 29, 2016 By Francis Leave a Comment

Part-Time vs Full-Time Virtual Assistants: Which One Fits the Job Title for Outsourcing?

full-time vs part-time VA comparison Part-time vs full-time virtual assistants is part-13 of an interview with Eric, a fellow entrepreneur interested in outsourcing his work to virtual assistants all over the world.

Follow along to learn from our experience on working with VAs!

Click here to read part 12 of this interview – How do you fire assistant who is unfit for the job?

Summary:

Learn about the pros and cons between part-time vs full-time virtual assistants

Learn which virtual assistant works best with your online business: part-time vs full-time.

Learn when will be the right time to hire part-time and full-time virtual assistants.

Start of the Interview:

Eric

If we could talk a little bit about the first one because I know that I have a little bit of experience working with project based assistants and you’ve had a little bit of experience using permanent assistants. Maybe we could talk about that.

Francis

Actually, it’s the other way around. I have had almost only project based assistants. Well, not project, but non-permanent assistants. So, on oDesk, what will define project based assistant and permanent assistants?

Permanent assistants are like a full time position from an assistant in the Philippines. For example, I’m saying that because I believe they are for full time assistant positions because often they are looking for that.

So, someone who really has a contract – has 40 hours paid work time even if you don’t come up with ideas for them to work. So, they still get paid like a real employee. That’s, in my opinion, are personal assistant.

And then a project based assistant, or how I understood it, was someone from oDesk or Elance or any other hourly billed service. And then you just tell them what you would like to do and they work on that. If they don’t work, they don’t get paid.

Eric

Okay. I get what you’re saying. I get you.

Francis

So, I have most experience with oDesk based assistants who are working on one project after another or several at the same time. Except for my main assistant who’s working about 30 hours a week for me, so almost full time; I have had no full time assistant for long.

Eric

Yeah, yeah. Most of the time, I’m just doing specific projects, specific things that I need done and then call on those people when I need those things done.

Francis

Okay. So in principle, we are on the same page based on our experience with the assistants. So, perhaps let’s change the topic to “In what ways do I believe a full time assistant is better or worse than a project based assistant?”

Eric

Okay, that will work.

Francis

So, obviously, I know the advantages of a project based assistant. And only if you sort of have a project based assistant and really feel okay, he’s working 30-40 hours regularly; I might just as well have a full time assistant.

Eric

Now here’s the thing, I didn’t feel like I had enough work or enough tasks because I would like to have somebody working full time. Because, where I am right now, I could pay to have somebody working full time.

But, I just don’t feel like that I have enough things for them to do. And it might just be me who was thinking that, you know I’m not willing to give up certain parts of my business here. You know what I’m saying?

Francis

Yes. That’s true

Eric

Because, I think that there are certain things that I could give to a virtual assistant that I’m just not ready to give away at this point. I think that’s where we have to kind of bear ourselves as employers and be like okay:

what are the things that we don’t want to do?

what are the things that we shouldn’t be doing?

And then give those things off because it’s going to free us up for more time, free us up for more opportunities to do more high level tasks. You know what I’m saying?

Francis

Yep. I totally get that. But, there’s also a slight difference between going back to high level maintenance and being sort of the inspiration guy and just giving away the business. So that the assistant sort of works to make the money for you while you don’t care.

Eric

Yeah, right. Yeah. I know what you’re saying.

Francis

And the second option is I think what many people associate it with when you have a full time virtual assistant. Also, there is some marketing into that direction which perhaps gives people the wrong perception.

Like, “Okay, I have this business in a box idea.” You just hire a full time virtual assistant then you just give them the idea and then they’d find out the rest and you get tons of money.

I do not really believe that this works, at least not on a long term, stable and fulfilling basis. Perhaps, it does technically work. But, I think one of these factors is then not meant.

So, I have the same problem of finding a list of tasks, especially for a beginning virtual assistant, that will fill 40 hours.

But, from the experience with my full time VA, the beginning was so rough with discussions going back and forth and I was not really habituated to having so many questions anymore. Because, working with my main assistant has been so long already that I’m used to that.

Also, that assistant is helping me in managing the full time assistant. So, I think it makes sense to first start out with hourly based assistant until you have reached a certain experience with the outsourcing thing. And then have a person to help with training the next person.

Eric

Yeah, and you can almost promote that person who is your general assistant to kind of be more like a team leader or a management type of position, I guess you could say.

Francis

Exactly. That’s actually what I’m doing. So, I try to do everything on my own when, or mostly on my own, my assistant did some research for the candidate.

But, then when I was interviewing and getting to know that person which was my last full time assistant from the Philippines, I was involved too early.

I was personally involved and I really felt connected to that person. She’s fun and was interesting to talk to and I had almost all these ideas ready. And then when it didn’t work out like I wanted it to, I was not able to give up easily.

My assistant had to get very, for his standards, very drastic in his rhetoric to tell me, okay; perhaps my approach is not the most efficient one to just continue doing what does not work.

And because I did not only give that assistant (the full time assistant) one second chance; I gave her like 4 second chances. And really there were many people who were giving me advice to say “Okay, just try someone else. Perhaps, someone else will make you much happier.”

And I do not think my previous virtual assistant (full time assistant) was a bad person nor did bad quality work. But, we really had problems with the internet connections and they just weren’t solvable. So before, I’m technically stuck.

It’s better to switch to another assistant and go away in peace. And then find someone where it really clicks. Right?

Eric

Right, yeah.

Francis

So, those are obviously the disadvantages of the full time assistant. You have to set them up and then you probably need support to keep them going. So, in the beginning, I had all these ideas and we were just talking about SBI! sites and my ideas in how the content management system feeds then this system.

Then there’s an auto-responder who delivers traffic which can be split test optimized to monetize, you know. Right? Then I just lose them.

But then I said okay, if there are any questions, please first talk it out with my sort of Hiring Manager assistant. And then if both of you can come to the conclusion that there’s something you don’t know then come back to me. This filters out 95% of the questions.

Continue reading part 14 – Learn how to handle a newbie full-time virtual assistant

February 29, 2016 By Francis Leave a Comment

What Are The Standards In Hiring Part-Time Administrative Assistant?

Part-time virtual assistant is part-16 of an interview with Eric, a fellow entrepreneur interested in outsourcing his work to virtual assistants all over the world.

Follow along to learn from our experience on working with VAs!

Click here to read part 15 of this interview – How to outsource tasks with a team of virtual assistants?

Summary:

Learn how to hire a part-time administrative assistant for project-based tasks

Know the rules and standards in hiring a part-time administrative assistant

How to effectively progress project-based tasks with a part-time virtual assistant

Start of the Interview:

Eric

I have a question for you, Francis. Like say, for example, that you’re trying to build your team and you want to have somebody do those specific roles; would you hire somebody specifically for like say, for example, graphic design? Do you think that that’s something that you would hire that person for full time?

Like, say that you got to the point in your business where you felt like you were able to support that role, would that be something that you think that should be hired full time or you think it’s something that should be just a project type of thing?

Okay, I needed a new graphic created for this particular page or I need something created, you know what I’m saying?

Francis

Yes. Unless you are in the service business yourself or unless your day to day work needs graphic design often, I would not have an idea why I should hire a graphic designer person full time.

Also, in my opinion, graphic design is one of the most expensive things to outsource. At least if you want quality.

Eric

Because I’ve been thinking about, okay, if I wanted to really build my team the way that I wanted, I would probably need a graphic designer. I probably need a video editor, an audio editor and all these different things.

But, then I thought okay, that’s going to be very expensive to keep up with each of these roles. I wouldn’t be able to pay for each one of those people. So, I thought, okay, maybe I could just keep them, you know the functions that I really like and then just use them as I need them to do specific things.

Francis

Yeah. And also, I think you have to find a sweet spot between expanding your team and losing additional time with communication. So I talk to my assistant through video recordings almost every day for sort of, let’s say, on average half an hour.

This means that sometimes I don’t say anything and sometimes I record just a 5 minute feedback because I had a good idea. And sometimes I sit down and record a one hour big, big talk about everything.

On average, half an hour a day and with one assistant. And that assistant takes care of the communication with up to 3 or 4 other assistants at the moment. So I leverage the time so that I only talk to him and don’t need to talk to 5 different people.

But in the end, it makes sense to stay in contact with your other team members because they have to feel also like part of the team.

Even if your communication goes over one hiring assistant, from time to time you have to talk to your other team members directly. That they know we have an open ear for their feelings, for their problems and even if it’s only to tell them Happy Birthday, Merry Christmas, something like that. I have to say I’m not very good about that either, but I’m trying.

Eric

Yeah, yeah. Well I think it’s just that there are so many different things that we do as online business owners that I feel like I could hire a hundred different people to do all of the little things that I do.

Francis

Yep.

Eric

But, I couldn’t see myself paying the money to do that right now, you know what I’m saying

Francis

Yes.

Eric

And have a hundred different people working for me at the same time.

Francis

Yeah, it makes sense to sort of max out the time working with one person as much as possible. So if you have a project based video designer, I think it makes much more sense to train them for a podcast creation and, I don’t know, slideshow creation or something like that because it’s similar.

And it has the same business strategy ideas behind them. You build a podcast on iTunes for the same reason that you build a video presence on YouTube.

So the big picture is the same. And I think the technical aspects are also similar.

Eric

Right. Because I mean, it doesn’t have to be a perfect video, I can just find somebody that can maybe transition into both roles rather than having to have an individual do every single thing, I guess.

Francis

Yeah, exactly. When you have that and you say, okay, you still have more videos and things to do, then you expand. You either expand by one other project person to take care of the 10 additional hours.

And then as you expand more, you then just say which person does a better job on videos and which person does a better job on podcasts and then separate the roles.

They still can complement each other when needed. But, if you start out and say, okay, I have 10 hours a week for podcast and 10 hours a week for video and you just hire 2 full time positions. And you end up with lots of overtime that you just fill with nonsense because I want to fill them, the time.

Or you lose time because you have to do the hiring process and the business relationship building with both people.

Eric

Great, yeah. I mean, that’s great. Thank you. I appreciate that. It makes a little bit more sense than having to go out and just hire 20 people to do something that you could split off between maybe 4 or 5, you know.

Continue reading part 17 – how to outsource with YouTube marketing strategy effectively

February 29, 2016 By Francis Leave a Comment

Real Life Experiences About Outsourcing to the Philippines

Outsourcing to the Philippines is part-7 of an interview from Stefan from Germany, who lives the Four Hour Work Week lifestyle in Thailand.

Click here to read part 6– Qualities A Professional Administrative Assistant Must Have

Summary:

If you are outsourcing to the Philippines, you will find them very hard working, active and charming.
Thes best quality most of the virtual assistants from the Philippines have is their English language skills.
On the flipside, they are very sensitive and require special treatment and attention when working with them.

Start of the Interview:

Francis:

Please go ahead. I will separate this interview in subsections into ‘Outsourcing to the Philippines’ so that it will readable for anyone.

Stefan:

Okay because ‘outsourcing to the Philippines’ is a little bit outside of this context.

Francis:

No problem.

Stefan:

I had this one assistant from the Philippines. It was a girl. Her job was, because I wanted to rebuild the idea from Tim Ferriss that he outsourced his dating life… and I wanted to rebuild that.

I wanted to make it a business. I wanted to see if it’s possible to hire somebody to create dates and then faking that this outsourcer is a person somewhere.

Francis:

Okay.

Stefan:

Going on a website meeting people, arranging dates and the client just has to go to the café and go on the date with the other person that the outsourcer arranged.

I had this and she was very active. She was charming. I had the feeling that she was charming and she had very good English skills.

I had the feeling that it was from male client to find girls. So I thought it was the right kind of way to go with a female to flirt with other girls because she has the understanding of how women think.

That’s was my first idea. And we worked but very soon she was like two weeks into the work; she’s got it. I reviewed her work again and again.

In the beginning I was giving her time to find a solution. The problem was I couldn’t teach her how to arrange these dates.

I didn’t have the time and I didn’t want to take her by the hand. I want that she finds a way because I didn’t know myself how to make the best possible way.

So I wanted her to try out a little bit. And I told her again and again, it isn’t about success. We don’t have rates. We just have to find this out. To figure out if there is a way to figure it out.

Okay, this is all trial. I paid her hourly and I told her, a lot of times, this is a long term commitment. Okay, this is a long term job. Please do your best because I’m confident in you.

After a couple of weeks I reviewed her work and I gave her daily or 2 days for the things that she should have done until then.

Francis:

Yes. Yeah.

Stefan:

And she didn’t achieve that. For example, writing 50 messages in one day even if it’s just 5 different types of messages 10 times sent each. You know what I mean?

I constructed the workload so that it will be definitely possible for her to do on this day, on these two days. And she didn’t fulfill that.

Instead of 50 messages, she did 5 messages or 20 messages or 15. So I told her I reviewed your work and you didn’t do as much as I wanted from you. It’s not a problem. If you have to work more hours on that job, please do that. No problem. I pay you more. This is all no problem but please achieve that amount that I want from you.

The problem continued that I don’t know, maybe it’s the same problem because she didn’t reach the goals at all. And I told her, I saw that you didn’t achieve that goal today, please achieve it tomorrow.

But she didn’t achieve it tomorrow and it continued and continued and continued. And I tried to fix that, to find why she isn’t doing the things that I tell her because they were simple things.

At some point, she just quit. She just couldn’t do it anymore. And wasn’t able to communicate with me why she couldn’t do it.

So this work relationship broke apart.

Francis:

Yes. If I can give you my take on what happened, you did a few things good and a few things not so good but without knowing enough about outsourcing to the Phillipines.

What you did good is that you encouraged her. And what you did very good for someone from the Philippines is that you emphasized the long term relationship.

If you’re outsourcing to the Philippines, they as virtual assistants in general are looking for, ideally, a fixed term job with one employer which they can do on a long term basis. That would make them happy.

They are not asking to be partners in your business. They do not want get risks or even be part of your gains – you money gains.

Stefan:

Yes.

Francis:

If you tell them I will pay you half of what I earn, they will not be so interested. But if you tell them I will pay you this amount of money for this amount of time and there’s a possibility of a raise; they will be interested.

Stefan:

Yes.

Francis:

So that’s perhaps the first thing what you did very good while outsourcing to the Philippines. What was not so good was, in general, that you ask from her something which you couldn’t do yourself.

So, please set up this online dating thing without you knowing exactly how to formulate these emails. There were many things she could have been unsure of.

From which cultural area can these people be from?
How long do the message have to be?
are they chats? Are they emails?
Have their pictures?
Have their fake personal information?
Which characters does she impersonate or whatever?

So all these uncertainty will help make her insecure about her work. She could have proposed something and you might have been happy with it.

But because she thought there are so many possibilities, the probability that I do the right things is low; so my employer will be angry even if he doesn’t say he’s angry. He will be angry. So, I’m feeling insecure. So I don’t say anything.

Stefan:

Yeah I understand why she could have thought so but the only thing that I wanted from her is that she does like the thing – the specific amount of emails.

Even if she would copy-paste it like 50 times the same thing. At least, she would’ve reached that…

Francis:

Goals?

Stefan:

Yes the number goals. And that is the only thing that I criticized about her.

Francis:

Okay. But perhaps, she had her work ethics that would not allow her to make one email and copy-pasted 15 times and say, I’m done.

She wouldn’t have accepted that for herself. And so perhaps, she wrote 4 emails and then she ran out of ideas, didn’t know where to get new ones; didn’t know how to make you happy.

Just stayed there in front of a computer trying to find it out. Time went by. Perhaps, she started do to something else where she felt more comfortable doing it. And then your work got stuck.

Stefan:

Yes, I definitely see it the same way.

Francis:

Okay.

Stefan:

We tried to figure that out in the beginning with possible ways to approach that work. And from there on, I let her because I needed information. I needed a statistic and I didn’t have that statistic.

Like let’s say from thousand emails that she wrote, 1% was the success; which 1%? And if we just make it all emails like this 1%, is it then 100%? I needed data. I couldn’t give her data because I didn’t have any data.

Francis:

Okay.

Stefan:

I could do it myself and then it would work but I couldn’t give her a way that always works. We didn’t find a way that always works. I only knew a way that works because I do it and I’m creative about the approach of how I’m doing it with online dating, for example.

That was very hard. I knew that I couldn’t outsource my knowledge. I couldn’t outsource people to behave like I would behave.

So, I needed more data and I needed her to create that data to maybe then spread it to other outsourcers. And yeah, it didn’t work out like I wished.

Francis:

Perhaps, we’ll slowly come back to the subject. Let me share a few last ideas and then propose that we discuss this topic on another time.

I’m very interested in your project because I like the idea of personal real life outsourcing very much. I’m also interested in starting several projects of my own life where I outsourced my own life.

This one, fortunately, I don’t need to outsource but I’m very interested in the results. And if you would start any web project, I would be interested and motivated to plug it from my website.

So my last ideas towards this project, if you would have a new assistant who wouldn’t be – I’m confused about what you wanted to do.

Let’s say you want to start to work yourself, you start going on an internet forum where people date online. Then you would take out a few threats and use voice recordings to tell your assistant how you would have reacted.

So take a chat from whatever platform you would be using and then react in several different ways illustrating your knowledge as you do so.

In one time be like the honest guy, one time be the cool and sassy guy; one time be totally macho. Different ways.

I’m sure you know what I mean.

Stefan:

Yeah.

Francis:

And as you do so, you can either have your reactions be transcribed as a basis or it is training material for your assistant so that he/she knows what scopes of reactions are allowed.

You can also make negative examples. Say, you have a chat from a female person who contacts you and says, “Your profile is very cute, I would like to know you.”

And then you say, literally say, in a voice recording, “See, I just got this message. This would be the wrong way to react, ’Haha! You’re hot! lol’ or something like that.”

Stefan:

Yeah.

Francis:

And you really exaggerate. You can even make it funny especially when outsourcing to the Philippines. But it will teach your assistant where the line is to be drawn.

And it will also teach your assistant that you can make fun, that you can be a fun employer. And this will make everything a little bit less formal.

Stefan:

Yes.

Francis:

So with this, I propose that you come back from outsourcing to the Philippines to the main topic from your job description.

Continue reading part 8 – How to improve the existing job description…

February 29, 2016 By Francis Leave a Comment

Project: Outsourcing Philippines – If You Need Loyal, Long Term VAs

From my personal experience, I have made great experiences with VA’s from the Philippines. The project: “Outsourcing Philippines” is your overview page and look behind the scenes to see how efficient it can be to get a VA from this country. And what to look out for.

Background: Outsourcing Philippines

Why are the Philippines special?

The Philippines are a developing country with much lower cost of living than states in the EU or US.

At the same time, they have

The language skills equivalent of a native English speaker
Extremely high work ethics
And a very high level of education (almost everyone you can hire will at least have a Bachelor’s degree!)

How much personal experience do I have with outsourcing to the Philippines?

Aside from smaller, short time projects with 5-10 people from the Philippines, I have had a personal assistant, Kristine, for half a year.

And I have worked with a teacher from the Philippines, Yvonne, who helped me with coaching in Chemistry and Biochemistry over almost two years.

I can of course not talk for all people from the Philippines – but what I’ll tell you about working with them applies to most of them.

Advantages of outsourcing to the Philippines

Meet ‘Kareeza‘
A real-life virtual assistant from the Philippines

They have awesome English skills

Every person from this country speaks fluent English. Even more important, their culture is just like in the US.

They watch the same shows, and there is almost no cultural or language barrier!

They are the friendliest people ever

First of all:

They will call you, their boss, two things: Sir/Madam, or Boss (rarely).

There isn’t much you can do against this (you can insist, but they won’t feel too comfortable with it). Let them do that.

I haven’t found warmer, friendlier people to work with anywhere. The whole experience of cooperating with them on a project is just gentle, friendly and sweet (with sugar on top).

When I had coaching with Yvonne, there rarely was a time when we both weren’t laughing in a coaching session. She has a great sense of humor – aside from teaching really well.

They won’t ever steal your ideas

If you work on an online business with a personal assistant, you might be careful about what ideas you share with him. The people from the Philippines are extremely honest and loyal. Also, they are not interested in becoming a business owner – they just want a stable job.

I know a few people that even trust them with their credit card info, without problem. (Don’t do that until there is enough trust between you!)

They are really affordable

While outsourcing data entry type jobs to India or Pakistan may be doable at a cheaper rate, for all tasks that need someone with excellent English skills, spoken and written, you won’t find much more affordable than the Philippines.

How affordable?

It always depends on the person, the project, your budget and negotiation skills – but as a rule of thumb:

Most providers on Odesk from the Philippines will be very comfortable working for 3$/hour.

Problem: Outsourcing Philippines – Two disadvantages to look out for

Disadvantages of outsourcing to the Phillipines

Frequent floods will cut off the communication a few times a year

The Philippines are geographically located in an area that has frequent storms. I have made the experience with both my long term assistants that a few times a year we had communication issues.

There is nothing to do against this. Actually, your Philippines assistant is likely to run to the next internet café – while his house is inundated – just to apologize that the work from today will not be completed in time!

What you can do: stay calm when this happens.

Communicate clearly to your assistant that you are not angry (why should you!?) and that they should take care of themselves. You can share your mobile number for urgent text messages in such catastrophe circumstances, just to keep up the communication.

Their feelings are easily hurt

Try not to:

Overwhelm them with instructions
Intimidate them when you’re upset about anything
Let them work on projects that they are uncomfortable with

This literally has happened to me once:

My long term personal assistant Kristine had some problems, we had many urgent projects, my communication was too direct (a classic German problem) – and I never heard from her again!

Virtual Assistants from the Philippines are very un-confrontational. If you ever raise your voice (in a video instruction for example), use an even a little unfriendly tone in your email, then they will feel insecure with the work they do for you.

What will happen?

They will never tell you.

They might just leave.

No communication, no discussion – they just disappear.

Strategy: Outsourcing Philippines – Where you will most benefit

If you need a personal assistant on a long term basis

A person from the Philippines will love to work for you on a long term basis. That’s like a deep, secret wish from them.

Having a long term contract with you will make them feel secure and actually raise their status amongst their friends. (It simply is cool for them!)

Let them work in areas that don’t need hard decision making

Because they don’t want to argue too much, I have found they are not best suited as a hiring manager.

One long term personal assistant from India, Mahesh, actually was the best negotiator I had until now. My Virtual Assistant from Pakistan is also very effective for constructive feedback that disagrees with me – something that I had trouble getting from contractors from the Philippines.

If you need help with decision making, then a virtual assistant from the Philippines is not your best choice.

However, if you have clear instructions for long term work ready – then they are a great choice!

Francis

Decrease the Amount of Information You Take in

Increase Productivity Tip # 1 – Batching Your Tasks

Productivity Tip # 2 – Decrease the Amount of Emails You Have to Take Care of by Using Auto-responders

Time Efficiency Principle # 3 – Apply the Pareto Principle to People

Time Efficiency Principle # 4 – Outsourcing Your Life

Time Efficiency Principle # 5 – Calculate Your Return of Interest or ROI

Final Tip – Establish a work/life separation

How it all began

Personal Assistant wanted to overcome Google’s algorithm challenges

Personal Assistant wanted to replace hundreds of pictures

Personal Assistant wanted to manage hundreds of guest posts

Summary:

Start of the Interview:

Summary:

Start of the Interview:

Summary:

Start of the Interview:

Background: Outsourcing Philippines

Advantages of outsourcing to the Philippines

Problem: Outsourcing Philippines – Two disadvantages to look out for

This literally has happened to me once:

Strategy: Outsourcing Philippines – Where you will most benefit

Outsourcing Philippines: Your Story Or Question!

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