Why This Book?

Why a book on this topic? First of all, this book is geared towards Internet marketers, application builders and all entrepreneurs who work in the digital space. This book aims to show you how to get more done in less time, how to outsource, what to outsource and how to find out where to allocate your time.

If a book like the Four Hour Work Week inspires people to find more free time, then this book is more of a how to book. As an entrepreneur, you often think that you have to do it all on your own or that you can’t afford to find help. But, in the global world, where the Internet connects us all, help is just a few keystrokes away.

One of the traditional problems with outsourcing was finding English-speaking workers with the right level of education and skills to handle the type of work that you need to outsource. The Philippines is the perfect nation to outsource to because 95% of the Pinoy people learn how to speak English from a young age and they have a booming tech industry.

Here is an overview of the chapter titles and what we will cover in this book. If you simply want the meat and potatoes of outsourcing, then skip to chapters five to nine:

1: Outsourcing: Not a Dirty Word

In the first chapter we will dispel many of the myths surrounding outsourcing. Outsourcing is something that is often politicized as being bad for the nation, but we see it much differently. In the global world that we live in, minor jobs have to be outsourced or one of two things will happen: (1) Businesses will not thrive (2) Ideas will die in their infancy.

If you have been working as a digital or technology based entrepreneur, you know how expensive it is to find help, you know that finding affordable help is the only thing that will take your business to the next level. From talking with several entrepreneurs I learned that many of them didn’t begin to make any headway with their business until they started outsourcing, because doing so allowed them to focus more on the core things that made their business run.

2: Teamwork Makes Dreams Work

Sure this is a bit of a cheesy title but it does have merit. As much as entrepreneurs fashion themselves as mavericks and self-made men and women, very few people achieve their goals alone.

No, this does not take away from your title as a self-made person, it only shows that the nature of business demands that you build relationships. Even the lone Internet marketer, who works from their home office, depends on interfacing with the world, even if this interface is only created between the content that they produce and their customers.

When it comes to building a company, you need good people. You need workers to take some of the load off you so that you can become a true mastermind, who is allowed to create, organize, and hand off assignments to workers so that they can build your dreams.

3: Some Jobs Are Beneath Your Pay grade

How obnoxious, a super talented future oriented thinker believes that he or she shouldn’t be responsible for bean counting, article writing, button pushing or other forms of grunt work! When writing such a title, suggesting the idea that something is beneath you, some people may take offense at that. However, not people who truly understand their worth and where their intention should lie.

It is the truth, you are too important to your company, and to your dreams, to focus on work that could, and should, be outsourced to someone less pertinent to making your business succeed. You shouldn’t waste your time on grunt work, instead focus on the big things, the money-making things and the things that will truly push you to the next level.

4: Your Role as Mastermind

If you can’t tell, this chapter summary has been working up to this point. What exactly is this point? This point is about you realizing your potential as an ideas man, and the proverbial mastermind, who thinks up big ideas, but who has others implement them. No, this is not a lazy man’s wish, this is instead about efficiency and, like in the last chapter, this is more about knowing your worth and where your true talents lay.

This book is not for the ‘glorified worker bee’ entrepreneur whose business is nothing more than a job, this book is for those who strive towards bigger things while having a high quality lifestyle. In this frame, quality of lifestyle doesn’t directly relate to money, but to freedom. In this frame, freedom relates to your ability to do what you want, when you want and without your business suffering.

In a larger view, becoming the mastermind requires you to be more like a superstar coach than the star quarterback. Your only role is to dream up the ideas, organize and create a plan, and to then send your players out on the field to win you a championship.

5: Why the Philippines?

The Philippines are a great place to outsource work to because this nation has millions of English speakers, millions of skilled workers who understand the digital domain and the workers that you will find are affordable. No, they do not work at Indian wages but they are affordable. If you have ever contracted work overseas, then you know how difficult it is to deal with non-native English speakers - but you will not have these issues with workers from the Philippines.

6: What Type of Work Can You Outsource?

Is this not the biggest question? The easiest answer would be - anything!

In reality, most companies who outsource send work that isn’t crucial to their business. By not crucial, that is work that isn’t sensitive to the safety of the company. All sorts of work is outsourced every day - coding, web design, content creation, link building and posting to sites. The truth is that only you can decide on the type of work that you need outsourced.

Use your own discretion to determine what type of work is safe for you to outsource. Perhaps the really answer is that any kind of work is able to be outsourced.

7: Outsource Center

You are probably thinking that all this outsource stuff sounds great, but that you do not know how to locate workers from the Philippines to work with. Don’t worry, because other entrepreneurs have already solved this problem for you.

Being in business, you already know that demand creates business, and with outsourcing, the demand for workers has created outsource centers. These outsource centers are typically run by Americans and people from the UK, who create agencies in the Philippines where they handpick workers based on the skills that they have. This all works out for you in the fact that you can deal with an American or UK run company, in the Philippines, to find the perfect worker or staff.

8: Can You Afford To Outsource?

Outsourcing sounds awesome, you love the idea of using an outsource center but you aren’t sure if you can afford to outsource or not. If this were a book with the intention to make your sign up for an outsourcing contract, then this would be the part where you receive a pitch saying, “You can’t afford not to outsource.”

In all truthfulness, you need to run the numbers and figure out if it fits in your budget. Depending on the type of work that you need done, outsourcing is really cheap. The time it saves you is also priceless.

9: Putting It All Together

As you can see, this book will provide you with a ton of information on outsourcing work to the Philippines. The intention behind this book is to give you an overview of the process, how it helps you, how to implement outsourcing and even how to think about it. We hope that this book provides you with a lot of value and that it helps your business grow.

Chapter 1 - Outsourcing: Not a Dirty Word

In the introduction we discussed how society can sometimes see outsourcing as a negative thing. We gave a few reasons why outsourcing is actually good for businesses, the country and the world.

In this chapter, we will flesh out this concept and address many of the arguments that are used against outsourcing. This chapter isn’t really for entrepreneurs but is a general breakdown, for the average person, so that they can see how beneficial outsourcing is, and how it even creates jobs-- what a thought! We will also refute the idea that it is exploitative and that the people who do the work will be treated negatively.

It Hurts the Nation

One of the most common arguments against outsourcing is that it hurts the nation and decreases the amount of jobs that are available. Let’s be honest, as digital entrepreneurs most of us do not make enough money, through business, to hire a ton of workers in our own country.

Many of you are at the formative stages and even long term your business model is one that is going to be lean and mean, free from overhead and not needing the help of many stateside employees. The form of outsourcing that you will do has no effect on the nation because you are not shipping jobs overseas; you are only contracting out work that takes too much time for you, personally, to do.

You Are Destroying Jobs

Jobs are important things, and the idea that entrepreneurs destroy jobs when they outsource is a myth that continues to thrive. Ignorance has a way of clinging to life but let’s kill this idea now. Yes, when a huge corporation decides to move their offices, and manufacturing, overseas it does destroy jobs, communities and entire cities. Is this really the type of outsourcing that digital entrepreneurs engage in? The answer is a BIG emphatic no. This is not what you do, you don’t have any jobs to move overseas, and, if anything, the form of outsourcing which will help your business grow will also eventually help the economy, by keeping your business, in business.

You Are Helping Other Countries

This form of short sightedness and ignorance still exists in our global world! Do you know who helps other countries build their economy? China helps the US by buying US bonds and US currency and they intentionally keep their currency devalued so that they can do business with the world - this has both positive and negative consequences.

As a nation, the US gives financial aid to countries all across the globe, and makes deals so that it is easy for the US to trade with their trading partners. Companies like Apple have their i-gadgets manufactured in China but, all in all, they create more jobs in the US.

Someone has to work in the Apple store, someone has to review these products online, someone has to sell third party accessories and develop apps for them. In the new economy, at least in the US, it is a service-based economy, and where the grunt work is performed doesn’t matter, because all sorts of industries and side businesses are created when these companies are successful.

You Are Not a Patriot

The idea here is that Americans should only do business with Americans. The people with these thoughts were the Dixicrats of the past who only wanted people who looked alike to attend the same school or to drink from the same water fountain.

This is old school thinking that has no place into today’s global society. Today’s world is all about connecting with people, all across the world, and bringing our talents and resources together. When we hire an outsource worker, we are teaming with a person who has a specific set of skills, we are providing them with money and, in return, they help us grow our business and have more time to work on other things. We are now global citizens.

You Are Taking Advantage of Poor People

The Philippines is not a poor country. It is a bilingual nation with a very high literacy rate. People outsource technology-based work there because the people are highly trained, they can speak English and they receive a fair wage for the work that they do.

The idea that outsourcing equals slave wages and exploitation comes from the sweatshop model that people associate with outsourcing. That model is not what we suggest that you, or anyone else, use because it is immoral and, for a nation like the Philippines and their talented people, they wouldn’t accept such low ball and exploitative offers.

You Are Greedy

One argument that is used, against outsourcing as a whole, is that people who hire foreign workers are greedy. When it comes to business, it is very hard to define greed. For one thing, businesses are created to make money and when businesses start making less money they have to get rid of workers.

The form of outsourcing that we suggest in this book is not about exploitation of people, and seeking out cheap labor so that jobs can be taken away from your home country, it is all about getting help that you can actually afford, so that your business will prosper.

It’s All About Low Skilled Workers

Some people are so egotistical that they believe that people in the Philippines are not educated and that they lack technical skills. People who present these ideas are often prejudiced in ways that they do not understand.

These workers are very skilled and often have a greater understanding of Internet business than the average person in the western world. After all, this is their profession, and yes, they are professionals when it comes to technology and the Internet.

You Should Do It Yourself

Yep. They think that running a business is all about doing everything yourself, and boy are they wrong. The people who say these things obviously skipped out on the team working exercises in school because teamwork makes dreams work! We talked about this a lot in the introduction and about how people working together is how the world becomes better and how dreams are captured.

Doing it all yourself should never be your goal.

There are too many talented people in the world that can help you achieve your goals for you to struggle at it all alone.

Hard work, Puritan Work Ethic, Lifting Bootstrap and All That Jazz

Just like the do it yourself bunch, this group of people are victims of their own mythology. These are the traditionalist, the 9-5 work crowd who are caught up in an old model of the world. They do not see the world changing for the better but instead see the change as disrupting their world.

They don’t like the idea of someone creating a website and becoming a billionaire, ‘that ain’t honest work’ to them! These people are caught in the middle class mindset, which is now more like the poor man’s mindset, because their ideals do not fit the financial times, where ingenuity is rewarded over steadfastness on a job.

They are the 30 years at the same job, gold watch retirement and pension fund set. This is obviously a model that has been disrupted by the new economy, where people need to be nimble to take advantage of new opportunities as they arise.

Lies, Lies, Lies!

As you can see, these myths are either full out lies or they do not fit the context of the form of outsourcing, that you need to do, to build your company. Let these ideas go and keep your eyes on the prize.

Chapter 2 - Teamwork Makes Dreams Work

The Stories Ever Told

The best stories ever told never focus on a person by themselves, but how they interacted with their environment to change the world. Even the lone Internet marketer, working from his mother’s basement, must interface with the world to make money.

With this interface he must make a connection, create value and relate on a level so that he can earn money. The truth is that the greatest adventures take you out into the world. Running a successful business isn’t any different.

The lone entrepreneur, who does it all on his own, is an archetype that many of us have adopted from time to time and for some people it serves them well, for others it is their downfall. The idea of outsourcing is all about bringing the right people into your business, who will help you to become successful.

Hopefully you realize the need for this in your business, and can see how it can help you to reach a much, much higher level than you are currently at. If you have already made it, then think about how it can save you time, and let you go further again.

The Greatest Businesses

By their very nature, businesses who reach the mountaintop, who become very large and rich, have to depend on others. Huge businesses have to have workers, they have to have someone to answer the phone, they benefit from the ideas of their workers and they create a huge brain trust that makes their company bigger and better.

The stories of all great ventures have the addition of new talent within their chapters. You might not be at the fortune 500 level, but you do have ideas that deserve to exist in the real world. You cannot, and will not, achieve your goals without some help. At this time, we aren’t even talking about your core circle of associates but just looking at things from a labor and workload perspective.

The less grunt work that you have to do, the more time you will have to focus on things that truly matter for your business. So, to become a great company, to make more money, to have more freedom and time to do other things, you must shed some of your workload. From experience, this is one of the most important things for an entrepreneur. The greatest businesses never succeed alone and neither will you. Teamwork makes dreams work.

The Greatest Individual Success Stories

We all love the idea of doing it all alone, it proves to the world that we are the man, that our ideas have merit and that we were right all along. Amen! Those are all great things that can also be achieved with some help.

Stories of lone champions or business greats do exist, but only because we never get to hear how they used others help to reach their goals. One idea, that you have to erase, is that any sort of help from an outside party takes away from you as an entrepreneur - because it does not. It is foolish to try to do everything.

Don’t just run a company, run it well. If your business isn’t doing well because you have too much work, because you have focus issues, because you simply aren’t getting things done, then outsource those things. Many ADHD and time strapped entrepreneurs have shared how outsourcing allowed them to finally make their businesses work.

Outsource to get the things done that you hate to do. Even in solo sports like tennis, where it is up to one person to get things done, they work with coaches and trainers. They use a team who puts them in the best position to win. Do you have anyone like that in your corner? One entrepreneur who runs an SEO company uses a Filipino worker as his virtual assistant/accountability partner. She helps him stay on track and she handles the things that he isn’t great at. You see there are many ways to take advantage of outsourcing, probably more ways than you have ever imagined.

We Are Social Animals

The story of mankind is one of cooperation. Our species has survived, while others have died out, because we know how to work together. We have invested in a global brains trust where we work together and share ideas. Yes, we war and fight but we also work together. We can’t help but do so.

Even if you are the lone entrepreneur, your endgame probably isn’t one where you are left alone, and as such, the route to your endgame will be full of people who help you to achieve this goal, people who you have at your command and who will provide you with new ideas, services, and their labor to make sure that you achieve your goals.

From this moment on, you should focus on outsourcing, and even creating a mastermind group, so that you have all bases covered. Create a base where you share ideas with people who think like you, and have access to workers who will do the work to ensure that your ideas see the world.

Putting It All Together

What have we learned? If anything, you should know that it takes a team to make things happen. This team will not be responsible for your ideas but they will be responsible for doing the detail work that must be done to run a business.

If you are lucky, you might run into a few workers who have great ideas that will help you with your business. If you are really lucky, you will have the mindset where you will easily accept this help. You now realize that all success stories involve more than one person, no, this doesn’t mean that they are responsible for your success but that successful people know how to put in place systems and create systems that make it easy for them to achieve their goals.

This is as much a discussion about optimization as it is a discussion about outsourcing. It is terribly hard to not speak in holistic terms that encompass the entrepreneur, his/her business, their individual roadblocks, their talents, and the things that they must do in order to be successful. Outsourcing is just a tool, a tool that, if used correctly, will optimize your business and your time.

Chapter 3 - Some Jobs Are Beneath Your Pay grade

You Shouldn’t Do Everything

This is a theme that we have been trying to hammer on since the beginning. The optimization talk of the last chapter especially deals with this subject. When it is your baby, you will have a tendency to try to control everything. In many ways, it isn’t just about control but you want your nose in every little thing.

On some levels, this makes a lot of sense, but it also shows a lack of organization and leadership. Believe it or not, it takes a lot of leadership and organization to run a successful business. From the start, that means that you must know how to lead yourself and how to organize your time.

The funny thing is that excelling at those two things will take you very far but will eventually lead you to a place where you will need to lead others. This leadership could be a direct employer to employee, face-to-face relationship or one over the internet where you must instruct an outsourced worked from another country. Eventually, you will learn how to learn and instruct in such a way that you will replicate yourself, or better yet, create ‘selves’ who work on different parts of the business.

This is a form of mastery that comes when you outsource, and when you know how to lead your company, versus simply acting as a self-employed sole worker. Some so-called business owners have just found another way to be an employee - do not follow their path.

Focus On What Makes You Money

Why are you running a business? Sure you might have some great idea, or burning desire to bring something to the world, but ultimately a business’s purpose is to make money, hopefully a lot of money. Too many entrepreneurs get so tied down in the muck that they forget what their purpose is.

Perhaps you have seen this entrepreneur, they are the secretary, the IT nerd, the receptionist, the coder, the grant writer, the content writer, the SEO guy, the marketing and sales director and the salesman. You might be thinking that, as a new business owner, you can’t help but play so many roles, and you are right.

The point isn’t that you might have to do a lot of things, but that you need to find a way to mostly, if not only, focus on the things that will earn you money. If you can outsource any of those grunt tasks that do not earn you money, if you focus on money making, you will be successful and have more free time.

Quality of life also matters! One business owner, who outsources a lot of work, once said, if someone can do something 70% as well as me, I’m going to hand it over to them. This gentleman ran a few e-commerce sites and he was talking about the marketing of his site and the back end computer type work that took up a lot of his time. Instead of paying big money for some Internet marketing company to mark up their services, he instead hired his own outsourcers to do the work at a fraction of the cost. Now that’s what I call a businessman!

Know Your Worth

This section could just as easily be called, “know your role!” If you are like the multi-position entrepreneur who takes on every role in the company, then it is going to be hard to know your true worth to the company. When you try to do everything, you do very little well. Knowing your worth is all about knowing what you are good at, what you aren’t good at and the value that you bring to your company.

One question that you must ask is, “what talents and skills do I have that will make me successful at this business?” The answer to that question might not be immediately obvious but once you come to the answer, which you must do, you will be better able to realize what your worth is, what you should focus on and what you should hand off to others.

It really is that simple. One of the old sayings, which has been passed down through the ages, is “man know thyself.” One problem that entrepreneurs have is that they simply do not know what they should focus on. Even outsourcing won’t work if you don’t know what you should focus on! Entrepreneur, know thyself.

Know Your Wheelhouse

What is a wheelhouse and how does one get to know it? A lot of this section will rehash what we have covered in this chapter. Your wheelhouse is your base of talent, your passion and your skill set.

As much as we talk about focusing on what makes money, a new and troubling question arises, what if what makes your company money isn’t your skill set or passion. In many ways, I hate using the word passion within a business construct. I hate using it because too often dreamer types, who couldn’t run a lemonade stand, let alone a serious business, always suggest that we find our passion.

The problem with this model is that our passion, talents, skills, and what makes money don’t always sync up. Watching Monday Night football is a passion for many people but only a select group of people get paid to watch the game, mostly on air talent and sports writers.

What happens if sales, or content writing, are what makes your company money but you do not have those skills? In the egotistical model of entrepreneurship, where you want to be a Jack of all trades and take credit for everything, you would struggle through content writing and struggle through sales. All of this struggle would end in a business that doesn’t make very much money and a miserable life for you. A smart entrepreneur would learn how to outsource those duties to someone who actually enjoys them and most importantly they would be outsourced to someone who is good at them.

Find your wheelhouse, work within it but outsource everything else!

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Putting This Chapter to Use

Hopefully, you are reading this book to actually improve your business and not just to add some more information to your internal library. In this chapter we have covered a ton of things that are important to running a successful business. Many of these things are very much core issues, and deal with why you should outsource work, but on a deeper level this information teaches you how to have a higher quality of life.

Believe it or not 8 out of 10 entrepreneurs hate what they do. Sure they love the freedom but they hate the failure that inevitably comes with starting a company. This information might just help you escape the 1 in 10 statistic that says only 10% of businesses earn money.

Chapter 4 - Your Role as Mastermind

We are sorry if you expected 10,000 words on simply how to outsource to the Philippines. We find it immoral to simply teach you how to outsource without first teaching you why you have to do it, what hangups you probably have with the idea, what type of work to outsource and what mindset to take. Also, forgive us if you are a really successful business because this book is more geared towards businesses who are struggling to reach their goals. The last 4 chapters deal directly with outsourcing but for now, let’s play around with your mind.

Your role as mastermind - for me, being an entrepreneur is something that is special, it’s like being a wizard vs living as a muggle. As an entrepreneur, you get to take the contents of your mind, project them out into the world, and add value to the world. You get to live in the world of creation, in the world of thought and the world of action. We’ve already talked about knowing what your worth is and working within your wheelhouse but we are going to take it up a notch (Boom, Emerald style.)

The Puppet Master

I would hope that most entrepreneurs who are reading this book consider themselves to be master thinkers. At the very least, when it comes to your industry I hope that you are a forward thinker, that you are someone who knows how to strategize and that you have plenty of creative ideas.

This section is all about stepping into the role of the mastermind of your company. It has been this author’s experience that he is better off creating ideas, creating new strategies to make money and thinking of ways to better his business than he is slaving away like a worker. You might like grinding away at work but as a mastermind my wheelhouse is more in the world of creation and strategizing.

The problem is that there’s work that has to be done and if I’m not the worker bee type, how does this work get done? You know the answer to that one, OUTSOURCING. Without outsourcing I would be under a bridge somewhere or working retail. Outsourcing has personally helped me to get more done and has made it so that I get to focus on my unique business skills.

You are probably the same and have asked a million times, “if only I could clone myself, if only I had a team of workers.” Outsourcing is the key!

The Thinker

Working in IT and then as an Internet Marketer, then as an SEO/Social Media Manager has taught me a lot about smart people. A lot of smart people are attracted to the Internet, I know, duh. Nerds really do like the Internet and we have made a ton of money from the Internet.

What I’ve found is that there are more good ideas than workers! What this means is that when it comes to smart people, and I’m assuming that you are smart, a lot of ideas get thrown away but most of these ideas die inside of these people. I wonder how many of your good ideas would have made you money if you could have worked them?

As a thinker, you probably aren’t much of a worker bee and it would be a waste of your time to try to turn you into a grunt worker. For thinkers, outsourcing is a no brainer and will help them quickly test out their billions of ideas in the real world. Who do you think made outsourcing work to the Philippines popular - thinkers who are better suited to masterminding than laboring.

The Organizer

Many entrepreneur types are dreamers, but they aren’t the only ones. Many are organizers and they share a similar fate as do purely thinker types. Their purpose and talent in life is putting people and ideas together so that they effectively go about reaching a goal.

These people aren’t worker bees either and they often struggle when they are underutilized in the role of a worker bee, even if that worker bee position is within their own company. Maybe you see a lot of yourself in this type or you know someone like this.

From experience, this type already knows what they would use an outsourced army for and they are sick of this book already and want a baker’s dozen of talented Pinoy workers. Ultimately, everyone in business needs to become an organizer type or hire someone to play that role in their life. It isn’t odd to see very successful businesses being mastermind by a thinking type and structured by an organizer.

It’s all about that wheelhouse that we talked about last chapter and learning where to apply your talents. It is also about finding people to handle the details that really do not suit you.

The Leader

Some are meant to rally the troops and have them caught in a time loop that they create the iPod 1 and overpriced computers in 40 nights. Leaders know how to pump people up and they go to battle with you or they just pull an all-nighter with you.

This type probably doesn’t need this book because they have talked some nerdy programmers and housewives into working for them for free. There is something to say about being the driving force behind a business and inspiring people.

Even when working with outsource workers you have to provide that turbo boost and know how to get the most out of workers. Some people simply want to hand over work but I promise outsourcing is more rewarding when you build a rapport with the people that you outsource work to.

As you can see, knowing your role and knowing how to think about your industry and your business are the keys to success. Your personality type has to do a lot with if you have to use outsourcers.

In this chapter we have presented a framework for the type of entrepreneurs who would most likely benefit from outsourcing work to the Philippines. We have also provided advice on how to become a little bit of all types and how this would help you to get the most out of outsourcing and, more importantly, how it would help your business be more successful.

Chapter 5 - Why the Philippines?

You are probably happy to see this chapter because the others were more the backbone of how and why to outsource. If you read the introduction, it suggested that impatient types skip to this chapter. A question that we constantly get is “why is the Philippines such a great country to outsource to”? We will cover this question in 11 points.

English Speaking Nation

The majority of people in the cities of the Philippines speak English. The reason for this is the US’s involvement with the country and the various US military bases in the Philippines. US involvement led to an Asian nation with the most native English speakers in that part of the world.

If you have ever tried outsourcing to various countries, then you know the difficulty that language can play when you are dealing with someone who isn’t a skilled English speaker. For this reason, many businesses bypass nations like India for the Philippines. As an entrepreneur, it is much easier working with workers from the Philippines than anywhere else in the world.

Highly Educated

The workers that you will use in the Philippines will have a university degree and training for the work that they will perform for you. If you have played around on freelance sites, then you have seen that almost every third world nation has people jockeying for work from western nations. A lot of these job seekers are not highly educated, they don’t speak English well, they are hard to communicate with and they are untrained. For these reasons, the Philippines is second to none when it comes to finding highly educated workers, who are affordable, to contract work to.

Technologically Advanced

The Philippines is a little country with a lot of technological might. They have some of the fastest Internet networks in the world and millions of people who work in the Tech sector. It is very easy to find computer programmers, database administrators, SEO and SEM workers, link builders, content writers, people who understand social media and video marketing, manual submission workers and a host of other duties. One service that is becoming very large is the use of Pinoy workers as customer support agents. As you can see, they have a lot of skills and can be trained to do even more.

Hardworking

The workers that you will find in the Philippines are hard-working. Their culture stresses family and hard work. They very much have a blue collar work ethic that they have transformed into the tech world. For you, this means that you will find workers who are serious about getting things done in a timely manner. They work hard, they work fast and they want more work. You cannot beat this and they easily out-work more expensive American workers. This is not something you can say about all countries but it is generally true when it comes to the Philippines - they come to work hard and they get it done.

They Understand Western Culture

This might not immediately seem important but it will once I explain it to you. While English skills are important, they aren’t so useful without knowing the culture. Culture clashes happen all of the time when dealing with workers not in the Philippines. Workers who do not understand western culture might have different ideas of what good work is, when hired for content creation work they won’t get certain idioms and their work comes off as sloppy. When you deal with a Pinoy worker this isn’t an issue because they are highly influenced by western culture and have been for at least 100 years.

Relatively Inexpensive

This is a big one but note the “relatively inexpensive part.” Compared to American workers, hiring a worker from the Philippines is inexpensive but, compared to outsourcing to China or India, they cost more money - but they are more than worth it. Just reread what we have presented in this chapter and you will see why they are worth the money.

You don’t really save money by going out and finding a cheap worker, from another country, who doesn’t have the tech and English skills of a Filipino worker. It really isn’t worth your time to even try to find cheaper workers from another country. I does make sense to compare prices between workers within the Philippines to get the best deal, but do not be afraid to pay for quality. This is about improving your business and not just about cheap labor.

Stable Countries

The Philippines isn’t going to go into a civil war anytime soon, or be involved in any other wars. Sure they have their issues, like any other country, but none that will shut down the government, or that would prevent your workers from being able to stay in contact with you. The Philippines is safe and stable and, as such, they are the perfect nation to outsource to.

Avoid war torn nations or those without the proper technological infrastructure. Save yourself the headache and stick with the Philippines because they are a well proven nation and the top nation where entrepreneurs outsource work to.

Protected By the US

Extending the stable country theme, the Philippines has a treaty with the US and is protected by the US. What this means is that no one is going to start a war with the Philippines. Other nations tread lightly when it comes to offending or hurting allies of the west, most importantly the US.

What does this mean for you ? It means that you have another factor that supports why the Philippines is the best nation to outsource work to. By now it should be clear that the Philippines is the top nation that you should consider.

Outsource Centers

This is icing on the cake and is something we will talk more about later. There are dozens of outsource centers run by westerners, these outsource centers almost act as job agencies who train and qualify workers so that you do not have to. Imagine how difficult and tiresome it would be to have to use freelance sites to weed through workers, outsource centers do all of the hard work for you, so that you do not have to do it. This allows you to avoid bad workers and to have some insurance that you are working with a skilled person.

Well Trained Workers

Everyone wants a piece of the pie, even unskilled and undeserving people. Around the globe, people are attempting to work online and doing outsourced work is one of the quickest and surefire ways to make a buck. The people of the world know this and have flooded the market with bad English, awful writing skills and questionable work ethic. We have mentioned several safeguards in this article against that type of shoddy worker. The Philippines has plenty of skilled workers, who are well trained and who are ready to get to work. Put them to work and get the most out of them.

Good People

They are good people who treat this type of work as their profession. You will find that they aren’t just freelancers but are people who make this type of work their career. As such, they are very consistent, they are happy, they are kind and they are good people who are not facing a lot of scarcity.

Try working with people from poorer countries and you will see a big difference. The Philippines simply have the best workers who you will enjoy working with. The come well trained and ready to work. They know what to do and they get the job done. What more could you ask for?

Experience

We have hit on this a few times in this chapter but we will talk about it some more. People from the Philippines treat this type of work as their career. They aren’t stay at home moms who are trying to work a few weeks to buy the latest iPhone, this is their career and they bring to it a lot of experience.

Many start out as freelancers and then join agencies or outsource centres and learn even more about their craft, they come to you knowledgeable, capable, competent and ready to do a great job. This is one of the many reason why they make such great workers and why I can’t say enough good things about them.

As you can see, there are many great reasons to outsource to the Philippines and these are just a few.

Chapter 6 - What Type of Work Can Be Outsourced?

This is a good question, and the type of question that is asked a lot. People ask this question because they aren’t really sure what type of skills these workers have. Some ask this question for safety and legal reasons. The safety reasons often have to deal with keeping information and a site secure. Safety also matters when paying people to code program and when they are creating websites.

A lot of malicious ware and back doors can be introduced into sites by such programmers giving people an entry point into an important web property. The answer to most of these questions comes down to knowing who you are hiring and building trust. It also comes down to background checking workers. A lot of these issues disappear when you team up with an agency who background checks workers and who only hires honest workers. Doing your own due diligence throughout the process is also a sensible precaution.

Personally, I have not heard any stories of Filipino workers doing malicious things, but playing it safe is always the smartest choice, when it comes to your money and your business. Hiring from well-known agencies is your best choice when dealing with sensitive work.

Non sensitive work can be handled by just about anyone, and through any channel, as long as the person is qualified to do the work. With Filipino workers you are dealing with some of the most skilled workers when it comes to digital work. More so than any other country, their workers are in high demand and they bring a lot of skills with them.

You really don’t have to worry about much, if anything, going wrong because they treat this work as their occupation and not as a hobby. They aren’t moonlighting until something else comes along, they aren’t just trying to quickly make money to buy a phone or something else wasteful, this is their job and they treat their job as seriously as you treat your business.

The businesses who outsource the most to the Philippines are digital based businesses like websites and app makers. A lot of content creation is done in the Philippines as well as all sorts of SEO and SEM work. Social media management is often outsourced to the Philippines and pretty much any time intensive work which can be strategized in the west but implemented in the east.

There are some full service companies in the Philippines who can do it all from strategy to implementation. For some site owners and business owners this is well worth the money because they can do what US companies charge thousands to do, for hundreds. There are many ways to outsource work in the Philippines - you must first become acquainted with the various players and have a plan of what you desire to do.

That really is the key - the workers can do just about anything and many outsource companies will train workers to do new duties. They truly cater to your needs. They don’t work at sweatshop wages, and you shouldn’t expect them to, but do expect them to be significantly cheaper than anyone that you can find in the US.

At this point, you should do more research and learn what to expect, do some research to find suitable outsource agencies and independent workers, talk to others who have outsourced so that you can receive some recommendations. Even though it is the internet, it is still all about networking and word of mouth. Your research will help you to find what you are looking for in the form of an outsourcer.

Off the cuff, if you need any sort of manual submission work, SEO, SEM, Social media or content writing work you will easily find hundreds, if not thousands of workers in the Philippines who are highly skilled at these tasks. More importantly, you will find them to be affordable and great to work with. These are things that you just can’t beat.

For many years I ran an SEO business and I was often slammed with work and had a lot of overhead, too much overhead. I finally found my way to outsourcing, first with Americans on various sites, then with Filipinos on these same sites and eventually with agencies and then independents. Outsourcing saved, and made, me a lot of money, it also gave me my life back.

One thing that you will learn is that the quality of your instructions has a direct relationship with the quality of work that you will receive. Learn how to communicate and structure what you want in a clear and easy manner and you will never be disappointed.

Programming work is also popular to outsource but is a bit more specialized. It isn’t hard to find people to do this work but it is good to know what you want. One great thing about dealing with English speaking Filipinos is that the difficulty of tech jargon doesn’t become any more difficult as is can be if you were working with someone from India.

I’ve known many entrepreneurs who have had custom programs and scripts created for them by Filipino programmers. They were able to save a lot of money versus hiring an American or a British programmer. As always, it comes down to communication skills, mostly yours, your ability to organize and structure the program, your ability to describe exactly what you want and their ability to understand this.

Rapport building and good explanations are the backbone of this process. This project management type of working is needed, and is very important, and you will find out that this will help you in all areas of your life. The ability to give good explanations and to cut things down into core values has so many uses beyond working with outsourced contractors.

Such skills are useful in all areas of life, especially in communicating with partners. So, you would be wise to learn this skill and put it into good use in every area of your life, especially when you are outsourcing coding to the Philippines.

As you can see, almost any type of work can be outsourced to the Philippines but it takes good communication skills to ensure that a project is executed properly.

Chapter 7 - Outsource Centers- What Are They And Why You Should Use Them.

So far we have sprinkled in a lot of hints on the use of outsource centers and agencies. We have done this because we know that it can be stressful for someone who has never outsourced before to find the perfect worker or workers for their projects. Those of us who have been in the outsource game for a few years all started off like you, wanting all the advantages of outsourcing but not truly knowing where to start.

The best place to start is not with an agency but with yourself. By this I mean that you should first assess your needs, something we mentioned a few chapters ago, and then figure out where you need help. After you have figured that out, then it is time to consult with an outsource center or agency.

Why an Agency?

Agencies deal with all of the things that you do not want to deal with. For example, do you want to talk to dozens if not hundreds of potential workers to figure out which ones are best for the job? Personally, I have done that before and it isn’t worth the time.

It makes far more sense to consult with one of these agencies because they likely have the perfect workers who have the right skills that you need to do the job. It doesn’t make sense to do this on your own and it goes against the wheelhouse principle we introduced earlier and even the pay grade chapter.

Many of these agencies are started by westerners who understand your needs and your culture and they act as a filter between you and the worker. Many have project managers who handle the workers for you so that you do not have to deal with them at all. Your only duties are to pay your money and to create a set of criteria that the workers should follow. Going back to the last chapter, it is all about good explanations and clearly describing what it is that you are looking for. If you can manage that, you will get what you want.

Chapter 8 - Can You Afford To Outsource?

This is an interesting question that only one person can answer and that person is you. Simply know your budget and your needs. It’s so easy to say that everyone needs to outsource, when that isn’t necessarily true, or to say that you can’t afford to outsource. The first thing that you have to do is to figure out if you need outsourcing.

If the answer is yes, then you need to do the math and the research and shop around for the best price. For some people, they might have to adjust their budget in order to pay for outsourcing, but others will see it as not much money at all. I can tell you this, if you plan well, if you know your needs, if you know where the money is made in your business, if you know how an outsourced workforce can help you, then it is more than worth it to hire some help.

An Investment

For some businesses this isn’t going to be an instant reward, but more of an investment. For example, with hiring Pinoy content writers, that type of work isn’t going to immediately bring you money but it will save you money and time, and over the long run it will bring you money. Ultimately it is a good investment if you look at like that. For some other services, it will bring in money almost immediately but this is based on your business model.

Outsourced workers are most often used for tasks and duties that take up a lot of time but that are important to a business, they are also used for important services that would cost a lot more money elsewhere.

As you can see, a lot goes into knowing if you can afford to hire an outsourced workforce, in many situations it is a no brainer but for some it isn’t so clear cut. Knowing your business model and your needs is the first step, and from there you will be able to decide on the very best course of action. When buying anything it makes a lot of sense to shop around for the deals, and with outsourcing to the Philippines this is also true. Look around, talk to different agencies, and even independents, to see if you can find both a great price and a great worker.

Chapter 9 - Putting It All Together

We’ve covered many things in this book but they aren’t worth anything if you do not put them into action. You might find out that you cannot afford to outsource or that it isn’t the best option for you, but the other topics in this book will still help you and your business. Make sure that you do the foundational things that are mentioned in this book before outsourcing.

Good luck.

A Recap of the Chapters in This Book:

1: Outsourcing: Not a Dirty Word

In this chapter we worked hard to dispel the many myths surrounding outsourcing, and how it doesn’t need to be a dirty word, especially for digital entrepreneurs. We also showed how many of the myths were based on ignorance, fear and old-fashioned thinking, which is no longer important to the global society. We showed how today’s economy isn’t locked into isolationist idealism but is based on people all across the world working together.

2: Teamwork Makes Dreams Work

This was a fun chapter to write, especially since we started off with such a clichéd quote that self-help gurus and preachers used and then we transformed it into something that is very much functional, and on the topic of this book, outsourcing, psychologically shaping yourself and your business to succeed, how to accept others into your business, the various truths about being self-made and other topics that are important to entrepreneurs.

3: Some Jobs Are Beneath Your Pay grade

As business owners we must not get caught in the Jack-of-all-trades trap. In this chapter we discussed the dangers of stretching yourself too thin and how it will harm your business. We also spoke about stepping into your most powerful role and how the realization that you don’t have to and shouldn’t build your business alone is one of the pivotal points in every future entrepreneur’s path. We also discussed how outsourcing will aid this entire process.

4: Your Role as Mastermind

This chapter shared a lot of important business information, not just outsourcing information. We went into the different personality types that most entrepreneurs have, and how outsourcing is important to them. We also talked about the thinking type, the mastermind type, the organizer and the leader type, what all of these have to offer, and how outsourcing can allow them to better work within their wheelhouse so that they can reach their potential and focus on the things that are most important to their business. In many ways, this is as much a mental health chapter as it is one about personality types and outsourcing.

5: Why the Philippines?

In this chapter we went into details on why the Philippines is a great place to outsource. We addressed this subject by making 11 points that dealt with the functional reasons why the Philippines has become a hotbed for outsourcing in the tech community and why it is better than so many other countries. We mentioned Geopolitical reasons, literacy and English skills, technical skills and the culture of the country as some of the reason why we suggest the Philippines.

6: What Type of Work Can You Outsource?

Is this not the biggest question? The easiest answer would be, anything! In reality, most companies who outsource send work that isn’t crucial to their business. By not crucial, that is work that isn’t sensitive to the safety of the company.

All sorts of work is outsourced every day, coding, web design, content creation, link building and posting to sites. The truth is that only you can decide on the type of work that you need outsourced. Use your own discretion to determine what type of work is safe for you to outsource. Perhaps the real answer is that any kind of work can be outsourced.

7: Outsource Center

You are probably thinking that all this outsource stuff sounds great but that you do not know how to locate workers from the Philippines to work with. Don’t worry because other entrepreneurs have already solved this problem for you. Being in business you already know that demand creates business and with outsourcing the demand for workers has created outsource centers. These outsource centers are typically run by Americans and people from the UK, who create agencies in the Philippines where they handpick workers based on the skills that they have, and this all works out for you in the fact that you can deal with an American or UK run company in the Philippines to find the perfect worker or staff.

8: Can You Afford To Outsource?

In this chapter we discussed whether you could afford to outsource. Much of this dealt with figuring out how outsourcing would be useful to your company and how it is sometimes an investment, sometimes a way to save time and sometimes a way to make immediate money. This chapter dealt with themes that were introduced much earlier in the book and shows how the earlier chapters are foundational and needed.

Conclusion

We hope that this book was as fun and useful to read, as it was to create. Outsourcing really is a great tool that can help you and your business. Outsourcing is something that most people should consider in one shape or the other and is very much part of optimizing your life and your business. As an entrepreneur your life and your business are almost synonymous. Most importantly put this information to use, don’t just lock it away in your head.