To protect his privacy (and mine...I never tell the names of my VAs; people try to hire them when I do), we’ll call my first Filipino VA "Jake". Jake was perfect. Hiring him was the most liberating experience of my life.
I had tons of ideas and processes I wanted to implement in my business and I did NOT have enough hours in the day to do them. But Jake did! It blew my mind that his full-time job was to do anything I asked him and taught him to do.
Jake was incredibly intelligent and intuitive too. He followed directions and read between the lines. If I left out a step in my instructions, he would use his problem solving and deductive logic skills and figure it out. It was amazing.
The Revelation
I was paying the Filipino hiring agency $750 a month to employ Jake full-time. It was more affordable than local alternatives, and he earned every penny. But through a turn of events, I learned something that really ticked me off.
Come to find out, the agency was siphoning $500 of what I thought I was paying Jake every month. My VA was only getting $250 of my intended compensation! I had no idea. Neither did he.
(note, this was 2005. Today you're more likely to pay the agency $2500/month and they pay the VA $650)
When we realized what was happening, we were both upset. We both felt taken advantage of. I mean, when the agency brought Jake to me, he knew nothing. They hadn't found me someone great. They hadn't provided him any training. They hadn't given him (or me) any advantage towards succeeding. They just put a warm body in a seat and connected the two of us.
The day after we recognized the discrepancy, I got an email from Jake. “Sir, I quit. I walked into the agency, quit, and walked out.”
I didn’t know what to do except celebrate. I directly offered him a full-time job, increased his salary considerably (and he got to keep all of it), and we got back to work.
Was I Finally Getting Outsourcing Right??
Remember my article-marketing nightmare from a couple emails ago? Jake forever freed me of it.
I taught him the whole process - how to structure and write articles, create headings, resource boxes, links, seo, and where to submit the articles when he was done. He did EVERYTHING.
It was all automated -- which was the entire reason I’d started my online business in the first place! I was in heaven.
Masterclass tip #4a - Hire someone to do something you know how to do. Then automate it.
The key to changing your lifestyle (which is why you do everything in business) is to offload your work to other people.
If you first hire people to do things you don’t know how to do, you just create more work for yourself (your current work plus managing a process you don’t understand).
If you first hire people to do things you DO know how to do:
- You get time back
- You get the task done
- You’ll have a much better outsourcing experience
- You’ll become better at running your business
I can’t emphasize the benefits of this enough.
THE FIRST THING YOU SHOULD OUTSOURCE IS SOMETHING YOU KNOW HOW TO DO!
It can be something you like to do or something you hate to do (preferrably hate), but needs to be something you can teach someone.
What could you teach someone to do in your business?
Now go hire that person.
Masterclass Tip #4b - Work to gain their trust
In the Philippines, trust is everything.
When you start out, they don’t trust you!
Working with them, helping them complete a task that you know how to do will help them begin to trust you.
Gaining their trust in you will solve 90% of problems people encounter in the Philippines.
In my next email, you’ll learn about the scariest and most challenging trial of my adult life -- and how my VAs helped me through it.
John
PS. Jake WAS a VA. Today he's an OFS (Online Filipino Specialist -- and yes, he still works for me today). He's a specialist at so many things in my business because he has been with me so long. Now he manages other people doing the work he used to do.
Want to find an OFS like Jake? Let me help you! OneVAAway.com
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