Inside episode thirty one on Outsourcinglive, you will find out how to outsource to the Philippines with Filipino based, CEO of Live2Sell Group and owner of Virtual Staff Finder. Also in the “Insider Info” section I have a tool that will allow you track how productive you are whilst you are on the computer anytime automatically.

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Items Mentioned Inside:

• Get Virtual Staff Finder
• Rescue Time

Transcript:

Inside episode 31 on Outsourcing Live, you’ll find out how to outsource to the Philippines with Filipino-based CEO of Live2Sell Group and owner of Virtual Staff Finder. And also in the Inside Info section, I have a tool that will allow you to track how productive you are whilst you are on the computer anytime automatically. All right, let’s roll the music.

[audio effects]

VO: This is Outsourcing Live with Tyrone Shum. Outsourcing the hot stuff, so you can focus on the fun stuff.

Tyrone:

Hey there, I’m really excited to be on the next episode of Outsourcing Live because there’s just so many great things to share with you. In the last week or so, I’ve been really, really focused on just cranking out a lot of videos. I actually cranked out almost about 30 videos in about 2 weeks or so, brand new videos for one of my courses specifically outsourcing course on how to be able to find people in the Philippines, how to be able to manage and also how to be able to outsource to a virtual team overseas. So I’ve got some brand new videos, really high quality, I’m actually recording everything now in 1080 HD, and if you don’t know what that means, it just means that you’re able to watch it on full big flat screen TVs if you ever wanted to, I just hope I don’t look too big there.

But yeah, I’ve been switching over now with the new iMac that my wife bought me for Christmas, I’ve been cranking out a lot of brand new videos very, very quickly and recording them and then sending them over to my video editor who’s been able to do some amazing stuff on it and add some really cool visual effects and so forth. But anyway, that’s what’s been happening for me, I’ve been focusing on just doing that and that’s been the power of focus because I’ve said to myself I’m not going to work on anything else until I finish this course. And because of that, instead of working over a 6-month period of say doing this course, I’ve actually focused and managed to crank out everything almost within about 2 to 3 weeks. So I hope in the next week or so, I should be able to fine-tune everything and re-launch this course out there so that people can check it out and let me know what they think.

In addition, I’ll probably be posting up some sneak previews or snippets of what’s inside the course on one of my channels so I’ll definitely be announcing that hopefully by next podcast and to show you exactly what I actually do and what’s inside it. So that way if you’re interested in purchasing this course down the track, or wanting to learn more about outsourcing, you can actually get first-hand sneak peek of what’s actually expected inside this course. And I’m just letting you know, everything is going to be in high quality. I don’t to exceed the expectations but I’ve made sure that I deliver value to all my customers which includes yourself as well if you become a customer of my courses and I hope you do anyway.

More Outsourcing Live Podcast Reviews

All right so that’s what’s been happening with me. I also want to give out a few shoutouts and also thank yous to the people who have also left some more reviews on the iTunes podcast. It’s been amazing because I’ve always been very encouraged and supported to continue to put this podcast together because of all the feedback and the reviews that you continue to leave for me, I’m just honored to do this. So let me just read out some of the reviews that I’ve got here from iTunes in the last few weeks, I know I haven’t read them out since probably about 2 or 3 episodes ago but I thought let me share with you some more on what’s been going on there. And for example, the first one that I’ve got here is from Josh Frankfantics from Australia, he says here, “Great podcast. I like that Tyrone does it clear to me and explain all areas of internet business, he’s an expert on outsourcing therefore he comments on the subject of online business most often. He also has great guests and has a lot of wildly successful Australian and UK’s guest.” So awesome, thanks so much for that Josh.

And also too, I’ve got another review from Angel P.V. so thanks for that. “I have been following Tyrone for a while now and I must say everything he teaches and does on Outsourcing Live is incredible. He didn’t limit consistent valuable content on outsourcing and on other content relevant to outsourcing. His latest advice about outsourcing and video marketing and the tips and tricks, he hands off his sleeve, very helpful. I also really enjoy his teaching style as it resonates with me and love learning from him. I definitely recommend listening to this podcast, thank you Tyrone in a nice big smile.” So thank you so much for that Angel. Really, really appreciate you leaving an amazing review and also 5-star rating as well and I guess everyone who hasn’t left a review or if you haven’t left a review on iTunes and you love this podcast then please do so and I really love the feedback that you give me because it helps me to continue to provide really good content and to support all the people who are listening to this podcast.

Now if you want to leave a review, all you have to do is go to Outsourcinglive.com/leave-review. It’s pretty easy so it’s just Outsourcinglive.com/leave-review and I’ll make sure that I’ll put down a link down the bottom of this episode which is episode 31 so if you want to just check it out on the blog, it’s Outsourcinglive.com/episode31.

All right so that’s pretty much the reviews and that’s what have been up to in the last week or two and I’ll definitely keep you up to date on what’s going on in the next podcast and hopefully I’ll be able to share with you some more exciting news not just yet but I will let you know what this course is all about anyway.

All right, next thing is I want to jump into and share with you an interview that I did with the CEO, Filipino CEO of Live2Sell Group and Virtual Staff Finder. And as you may or may not know if you’ve been hearing all my previous podcasts, I have talked a lot about and recommended people to go and check out Virtual Staff Finder which is owned by this CEO which his name is Chris Ducker and he’s Filipino-based which means that he lives in the Philippines in Cebu and he does manage and run over 300 people in his staff. So he’s a very, very well-known outsourcing expert in that arena and he has a lot of stuff with over 10 years worth of experience there. So that’s the reason why I want to get him on the call because not only to just share for my outsourcing experience but we can collaborate on his experience as well and put it together and get him to share a little bit more about in-depth on how to be able to outsource to the Philippines. So let’s roll straight into it and hear from Chris.

Chris:

Howdy?

Tyrone:

Hi Chris. Now for the people who are listening to this on a podcast, we’re also doing a video interview so you can go check it out on Youtube as well to see both us live having a nice sunny day actually. I think Chris got a sunny day and I’ve got one too so it’s good.

Chris:

It is, it’s pretty good here in the Philippines lately, you’re not going to hardly moan about it.

Tyrone:

Haha, so what’s been happening for you Chris with Virtual Staff Finder and I should say it’s early 2012, January 2012 right now, what’s been happening with you on that?

Chris:

Well you know we started the company off as you are well aware in the middle of 2010, it was kind of – it was a soft launch. We didn’t make any big announcements about it, we just sort of started helping people out in finding their homebased VAs over here and it really started to pick up some serious traction in beginning of 2011. And last year was just unbelievable year for us. We ended up actually on the year – I believe it was almost 360 virtual assistants placed throughout the course of the year -

Tyrone:

Wow.

Chris:

With busy entrepreneurs from literally all around the world I mean you name it – US, UK, Australia, South Africa, Germany, literally from all around the world yeah. It was unbelievable year for the company actually and this year so far, January, we’re recording this 13th of January and I think we’re already up to about 23 or 24 VAs already hired this month so – it’s really taken off. This service was obviously required that’s for sure.

Tyrone:

Yeah, definitely there was a huge demand for it and personally, I wasn’t going to go down that path to set one up as I mentioned to you and I said it’ll be greater if I can just find person to do that. And I said all right perfect, Chris is doing it, he’s got a team already back and behind him I mean you’ve already got a company that’s in there. You’ve already got a company that’s in there that is called Live2Sell which you already have 300 staff there, you’ve got the infrastructure, you’ve got the people, you might as well just branch off into this area and I thought perfect, I can always refer people because people are always asking me. So for the people who are listening to this podcast it’s kind of the perfect thing but I didn’t want to get Chris on the call to start selling Virtual Staff Finder. That was not the reason for this call.

Chris:

Pitch to that service, everybody sign up now.

Tyrone:

You might as well do that. You can click on the link straight below and start.

Chris:

That’s it end of podcast.

Tyrone:

That’s it.

Chris:

You know what though, honestly speaking I don’t even – and I know I’m the owner of the company and yadah yadah but frankly speaking, I don’t think we need a pitching service. I think you need to know whether you need the virtual help or support or not. A lot of people come to us after they’ve been down the oDesk, the eLance roots and it hasn’t worked out for them. Because – and I – I use it purely as an example, the job sites are what they are, they are not going to go anywhere anytime soon in this industry that’s for sure.

But the fact to the matter is, 9 times out of 10 – the reason why entrepreneurs are looking for virtual assistants of any type, any shape or form is because they’re busy and they need help and they need support and because of that, why would they want to waste valuable time, energy and effort going through all those resumes, doing all those interviews, and all those background checks and all the rest of it. It just makes entrepreneurial sense to utilize a company such as ours that has – like you said the infrastructure, the experience and generally all deduction of a row already and takes out a lot of the guess work and that’s the one thing that people say after they’re done with our service, they’re done using it is like you know, there’s so many things that could have gone wrong if I have done it on my own but the fact to the matter is I’ve already ordered that via you guys.

It’s a great service I mean I’m not pitching out.

Tyrone:

That’s a nice pitch. We’re going to stop it now Chris.

Chris:

I’m not pitching it, it doesn’t mean to be pitching anyway.

Tyrone:

It sells itself I mean that’s the reason why I recommend it because one, I’ve used it personally and two, a lot of the people who I referred through to Chris has used it and said that they’ve received amazing feedback from it and you know, it just goes to show. I don’t need to go and say to people you need to use this service. Just go and check it out if it’s suitable for you, go for it.

But I guess what I wanted to do was to take this call and sort of de-brief or actually breakdown exactly what Virtual Staff Finder service can do for my audience and also my listeners because I get this question all the time, “Tyrone, I’ve been to eLance, I’ve been trying this at Bestjobs.ph trying to find people. Why is it so hard to find that right person and even when I find that person and they’re willing to start work with me, they just haven’t worked out.”

So what I want to do is ask Chris right now for you to explain how this service helps with firstly filtering the process of finding the right people and then secondly making your life or their lives a lot easier when they find that right person.

Chris:

Well, I think towards the initial question and that people are asking you a lot of the time is that I’ve done this, it hasn’t worked out. Why? Why aren’t things working out for me? And a lot of the time, I can put it down to mostly down to cultural differences right at the back because Filipinos and Westerners are obviously from two completely different worlds and a Filipino is educated, is raised with that employee mindset. There aren’t too many entrepreneurs in the Philippines and so they are raised with the mindset of one day I’m going to work for somebody and if I’m going to work for someone, I want to please them, I want to make them happy, I want to do a great job, be loyal, be trustworthy and all that stuff but that’s the mentality, that’s what they are about.

Whereas the expats as we’re called here in the Philippines or the foreigners or the Westerners whatever you want to call us, those – we do have a lot more of an entrepreneurial tendency about us and we – I say it all the time. Entrepreneurs are very weird, strange breed.

Tyrone:

That could be you, that could be you man, I’m not part of that breed. Haha.

Chris:

Oh yes you are.

Tyrone:

I’m pretty normal.

Chris:

That means to yourself you might try and kid yourself on that. But trust me you’re weird just like the rest of us. Because here’s the thing -

Tyrone:

I don’t want to be part of that part man -

Chris:

Haha, here’s the thing though, here’s the thing. And I say it with the greatest of respect to each and every single entrepreneur in the world, myself and yourself included. We have what I call superhero syndrome. We believe that we are bigger, better and more powerful and we can do everything better than anyone else in the entire universe and that is where we have problems. So the major difference between a Western entrepreneur can do on their own in regards to using eLance or oDesk or Freelancer or what any other freelance job sites out there. And what you can do with utilizing Virtual Staff Finder – like I said, the top of the core, a lot of the guess work has taken out of it even before it’s begun because what you’ll do is you’ll get run through, you post your job, you go for all the questioning, you interview people -

Tyrone:

This is through you we’re talking about now? Or we’re talking about – eLance?

Chris:

Yeah eLance or one of the other job sites. So for one of the job sites, you post your job, you receive all those inquiries back – you’ll go through all those resumes not really knowing what you should look for because 9 times out of 10 you haven’t hired a Filipino before and generally you might try to do some background checks like all the rest did. That’s what you’ll do on your own, you’ll pick someone – sometimes it’ll work out, sometimes it will not work out. Whereas with Virtual Staff Finder, we’re here we’re in the country.

I had a team of about 10 people working now on Virtual Staff Finder. It’s amazing to think when we started it off, we only had me and one other person on it.

Tyrone:

Which is Stephanie – your – yes. I’ve been working with Stephanie for quite some time now so -

Chris:

Yeah and Steph is great, she’s our project manager and I certainly have other things planned for her for the future but the fact to the matter is, is that we now have a team 9 or 10 people working full time on this service and what they do is they will base from your requirement. So the first thing you do when you sign up is Steph will send out or one of the other – the job description documents, you’ll complete that job description and you’ll send that back to us. And that’s your time to tell us what you want just like posting a job ad one of the job sites, that’s the time to tell us what you need your virtual assistant to be doing whether it be a general VA, or a web developer or a writer or an SEO person, whatever the case maybe.

We take that job description, we stick it into our database or database as you guys down under would say.

Tyrone:

Come on, get ___.

Chris:

Haha, and we stick that into the database and we go through that and we pull out all of the applicants that we have that match your requirements. We didn’t stop calling, we do voice to voice over the telephone – interviews with them initially. If they pass those interviews, then they go through a personality and IQ test which is done online. And you get all these results, you get everything emailed to you along with the resumes and all the rest of it. But then we go one step further and this is 99.9% of the time this is where the people will try to do this on their own go wrong, they don’t check references properly.

Tyrone:

That’s the deal breakup, that’s the deal breakup.

Chris:

And because we’re here, we can do it very easily by picking up a landline and calling ex employers or ex teachers even, we can call your University sometimes and things like that as well. We can do that, we have the infrastructure here – I would say 40-50% of the applicants drop off the list right there, they just don’t cut it right there. So that then squeezes down all of talent even further eventually will go through a couple of other interviews and to cut the long story short, we then present pre-qualified to you as the client. You will then interview them usually via Skype, you’ll pick the one that you like the sound of the most and you get to work. Takes out almost all of the guessing work – possible.

I mean there’s always going to be that time and little bit of guess work but still leftover because you think it will be human element, it is what it is but for all intensive purposes, we’ve done all of that hardwork and that’s what – that’s really what people are paying for, they are not paying to find the virtual assistant. They’re paying to not have the headaches of doing all that stuff themselves, that’s what they pay.

Tyrone:

Exactly, actually I was going to ask yourself a question, this is for the listeners is how much time is your time worth really? If you spend all those hours going out finding the person, making sure, doing the reference checks and stuff like that. If you do find the right person, great. You know, I’m really happy for you but if you don’t then you’re going to go through this whole process again, twice, three times, four times and I’ve heard stories.

Chris:

Yeah.

Tyrone:

I’ve had team members and also students come back to me and said this is the fifth person and I said well, you know I don’t know what’s going on but definitely go and speak to Chris and Chris will help you and solve this out because more than likely, they’ll find the right person for you because they’re on – on ground.

And I think that’s makes the biggest difference between a lot of companies. I know that there are companies in Australia that do this, there are companies in the US that does this and they say that they do have teams in the Philippines that also goes through this process and filter and so forth. But nothing beats being having a source in there that could find out and make sure and deliver it to you because ultimately you are looking for a Filipino if that’s what you’re looking for to hire.

Chris:

Well on the other thing is this is where I’m going to sing my praises just a little bit here. I don’t usually ego-bash my own self.

Tyrone:

Oh no let me just cut this out Chris.

Chris:

Here’s the thing. I’ve lived in the Philippines 11 years – I don’t know anybody else in this industry, in the entire outsourcing industry that reclaimed that and I’ve trained probably in access now, I would have worked around 10,000 Filipinos and that’s no exaggeration.

Tyrone:

And I believe it’s true.

Chris:

With the roles right? But the thing is this, I know what makes them tick and I think from a Westerner standpoint being here, working with the Filipinos to find other Filipinos for Western entrepreneurs, there’s no one else who can really facilitate that. I mean 10 years – 11 years in the country, 10 years in the outsourcing industry. Believe me I’ve seen it all – I mean I -

Tyrone:

Well actually if you guys are watching on us on a video, you can just see from Chris’ face so I don’t need to say.

Chris:
And the lack of hair of my head as well.

Tyrone:

Sorry Chris I couldn’t help to say that because you are talking about foreigners.

Tyrone:

Yeah, yeah but that’s what it’s about. It’s just about really – trying to break the entire the process down as much as possible and a lot of the time we get – even now, even with Live2Sell which is my – my call center company which is largest I have, I still get people emailing and calling and saying I’ve seen Chris’ blog or I’ve listened to Chris’ podcast so just from that kind of – I guess that kind of pre-conceived expert status if you want to call it, people already have a little bit of the – a little bit of the doubt as already removed from the entire process.

Tyrone:

Sort of already – you’re receive basically warm leads because at the end of the day, they’ve firstly seen you on your blog, have seen your videos – they’ve kind of already know who you already without even speaking to you.

Chris:

Right, right.

Tyrone:

I mean I get this all the time – people – it’s funny I was walking down the street -

Chris:

No doubt.

Tyrone:

And then they just said, “Hey Tyrone,” “Oh, hi.” “I’m sorry I don’t – unfortunately know who you are…” but they said I’ve been following yadah, yah. And it’s that same principle, it just breaks down that whole skpeticism and also fear because when you are real online, people see who you are and then when they actually talk to you like how we’re talking right now, in actual fact they’ll realize it’s actually not as scary as it seems, they’re just presenting who they really are and whatever they’re buying to, I guess whatever services you offer which is exactly -

Chris:

That right there is a business lesson in its own because people wanting to do business with other people, they don’t necessarily want to do business with their company. They want to do business with the person who owns the company or manages the company. So you know like yourself or myself we do a lot of video online and things like that. People automatically – can I have that relationship with you because you’ve opened yourself up in a visual format. A perfect story to tell to prove this point very, very right is last year when I spoke at BlogWorld on a subject of virtual assistants, I was in the Starbucks which is in the LA Convention Center then I was getting myself a coffee one morning. Somebody came up to me and they said to me and this is no BS I swear, my wife was with me so there’s a witness there right?

Tyrone:

You got a witness yes.

Chris:

So this lady came up to me and said, “Chris I just wanted to come and introduce myself to you. I’ve been listening to your podcast, reading your blog for about a year or so now. Your stuff on outsourcing has completely changed my life and you’re actually one of the main reasons why I came to BlogWorld because I wanted to hear you speak live.” And I was just like my jaw hit the floor. I’ve never had anybody come up to me in public and say that sort of stuff. And it was cool, it was next to my wife.

Tyrone:

I hope your wife wasn’t thinking the same thing going man, wish I should be the one saying that.

Chris:

It’s cool, it’s cool but you know, that right there is the perfect example. People want to live but inspire other people and I think particularly online, with online entrepreneurs, they forget about that. Think think all they knew is that blog and a buy now button but it’s not that.

Tyrone:

Yeah it’s not that anymore – which is really good to be able to talk into. Actually well let’s just take a step back because we kind of got side tracked. We have brought up – either business now we’re talking about that but I think what I think people want to know as well is – this is a common question is, once I’ve gone through your service Chris, what do I do after that? Do I need – yeah where do I start after you found that person? That’s the big question they always ask.

Chris:

Well a lot of – you know the answer to that – well, a lot of the times, it depends on the type of person that you hire.

Tyrone:

Okay let’s say a VA to make it simple.

Chris:

General VAs or general VA would do things such as your online research, keyword research if you’re into niche site creations and things like that, will manage your social media, maybe do all of your Youtube and podcasts, uploading for you. They can manage your blog or they can draft all the blog posts and everything because that’s pretty time-consuming stuff.

Tyrone:

Yes.

Chris:

And you can then just go in, give it a one survey and hit that publish button and all that sort of time-consuming stuff. Work that I call busy work – it’s work that really as a business owner, if you can get someone else to do that for you, it’s never going to be a bad thing because with that busy work to one side, you can then focus on the things that are really more into your business such as spending more time with clients, marketing to find more clients, putting growth strategies in place, expansion ideas, etc, etc.

So your general VA is really your right-hand man but virtually. People said to me what is a virtual assistant – I said well, it’s like a personal assistant, except for the fact that they can’t pick up the dry cleaning and making cups of coffee all the time.

Tyrone:

Unless you want to get it sent over via post and be waiting for a few weeks.

Chris:

I’m not sure if FedEx is ready to ship a cup of coffee yet. I’m not sure they are. So -

Tyrone:

If they are then that will be the day that transportation or teleportation is already in so I can’t wait to see that day.

Chris:

So the first thing you do after you hire your general VA is really I mean – you know, you’ve got to start training. A lot of people think that outsourcing is this magic pill that you can pop and everything is going to work perfectly from day one. If you think that, you’re in Lala Land and it ain’t going to work like that in the real world.

Tyrone:

I’m glad you said that.

Chris:

So why should it look like that in the virtual world right? So you’re going to spend a little bit of time training obviously if you’ve hired the right person particular for Virtual Staff Finder, there’ll be a number of items that have already been ticked off that you know that they understand or they’ve got experience in or they’re willing to learn, or whatever the case maybe.

So that kind of makes that transition period a little bit shorter but generally speaking, I say a 4 to 6-week periods is a good kind of honeymoon as I call it for your general VA to really start understanding how you like things done, the way you like things presented, how are you presenting tasks to your VA and things like that as well. So your training period isn’t necessarily going to be focused on how to do ABC but more focused on this is how I like ABC to be done. Because a lot of the general VAs will have a very clear understanding of how to update Facebook Page or how to present a spreadsheet for the research to you but they might not know that you want that spreadsheet to have – you know, blue and red colors and have Arial font type – you know, size 12.

Tyrone:

So it’s kind of like the personalization of everything you do.

Chris:

That’s it.

Tyrone:

To put your personalized touch depending on what it is that you’re blogging, if you’re running your own business, there’s always going to be the branding behind it which you’re going to inject into.

Chris:

Absolutely, absolutely. Perfect example is when I hired a VA recently, I have – I have 2 full time VAs that have been with me for a couple of years now that don’t work for my company, they work outside of my company’s facilities over in Manila -

Tyrone:

Okay.

Chris:

As you know we’re based here in the south in Cebu. For everybody watching and listening, that’s around about an hour plane ride away from Manila which is the capital of the country. But Cebu is actually the fastest growing economic zone in the country and has been in the last 3 to 4 years but we digressed. Fact to the matter is, I just hired somebody about 6 months ago which is one of my part time VA who actually works for another Virtual Staff Finder client for the other half of the week but what she does for me is she actually manages my blog form so she’ll go out and she’ll find images to use on the creative comments and on the rest so they won’t get any copyright issues.

She’ll draft all of my posts – I haven’t actually written a blog post for over 6 months. I dictate everything and then I send the audio file into the Dropbox folder that we share, she gets it, transcribes the blog post, tweaks it, edits it a little bit and she’s actually a – the reason why I hired her is because she’s got a writing background as well.

Tyrone:

Ah excellent.

Chris:

And she’ll edit kind of edit that content a little bit to kind of take out the ahhs and the uhhms and the stutters and things like that when you dictate and she then puts it all there. Now, here’s the one thing. If you look at my blog, VirtualBusinessLifestyle.com, you’ll see that the last paragraph of every post is short, it’s sweet, it usually has either an action item required for the reader or at least a question for them to reply to in the comments section and always – that last paragraph is in bold an italics just to make it stand out a little bit.

So that was one of the things that she didn’t get the first few blog posts, she didn’t see on her own so I had to tell her. Last paragraph is always – blah, blah. So that’s really the first thing you do is kind of spend some time with your VA, teaching them how you want things done, how you want things presented and generally that will enable you to go into that second month of working with each other with a much kind of nicer footing, a much nicer grounding where she can really start for, or he can really start getting the work for.

Tyrone:

So Chris, because you’re in the Philippines, you’re able to talk to say these virtual staff or your part time VA, are you talking to her physically or are you communicating via email or Skype all that kind of stuff?

Chris:

Skype is used but usually just for messaging. I don’t actually pick up and speak to my VAs now very often.

Tyrone:

Okay.

Chris:

I did in the first month or so, spend at least 15, 20 minutes a day with them, just going over the work that they’ve done, giving them a pat on the back for the stuff that they’ve done well, critiquing them a little bit for the stuff that they didn’t do so well. But everybody longs by making mistakes and better-ing themselves all the time and Filipino virtual assistants are no different.

Tyrone:

Exactly.

Chris:

I do that and I usually – because I’m here, I have a luxury of being able to get on an airplane and being in Manila in an hour so I do – I tend to go over, spend usually a full day with my VAs as a group so they can all get to know each other as well and that way I’m not repeating myself all the time.

Tyrone:

Exactly. All at once, I just want to emphasize just for the listeners something that is really, really important and Chris really emphasized it here but I want to re-emphasize it again which I really think it’s good is that he compliments his VAs and I think a lot of people don’t do enough of that. So compliment makes you compliment your VAs but also when you are giving them critical feedback, giving in a nice way but at the same time be stern with it so that they can understand otherwise they won’t learn what to do then compliment them again which builds up that good relationship with them and I’ve found that in the past, a lot of people who haven’t been able to succeed successfully keep a virtual assistant is because they just keep pounding them of work and they just criticize them and stuff and it’s just – you know, it can be demoralizing.

And especially when it’s virtual, it’s so easy just to send a task but without saying thank you or encouraging them saying this is a great work because I know personally when I work with my virtual assistant, everytime I compliment them, productivity just skyrockets. And she’s probably going to be listening to this podcast right now transcribing for me too.

Chris:

Haha.

Tyrone:

Which is great because that’s – yeah.

Chris:

Exactly. Everybody likes to get a compliment right? If we dress up nicely, we want someone to say man you look great today and for the husbands out there you say that everyday anyway to your life regardless of what she looks like.

Tyrone:

Haha.

Chris:

So you know, and your wife will always that compliment every single day. No but from a working environment, because you don’t have the ability to come and see, feel and touch your virtual employee in the flesh – hang on that sounds a bit of wrong, touch your VA in the flesh.

Tyrone:

I was going to say something but – haha.

Chris:

You don’t have the ability to sit there face to face in the same room.

Tyrone:

Yes that’s right in the same room.

Chris:

And because of that, a lot of things can get lost in translation particularly via email. So yeah I use Skype a little bit, I use email daily and I do go and see them I usually pop over in Manila about once every quarter at the end of each quarter. And I get together with them, we go out and we’ll do some balling, take them to the movies or have dinner and usually while I’m there I get all -

Tyrone:

Grab a little bit of a drink.

Chris:

No, not like that. I get a little emotional I usually end up taking them out you know maybe if it’s a girl, buy them nice flowers or a pair of jeans or something. Or if it’s a guy I’ll put the guy up with a pair of sneakers or something like that.

Tyrone:

Why does it have to be clothy? Haha.

Chris:

You don’t understand man, Filipinos – they love their clothing. They love.

Tyrone:

It sounds like it’s very similar to like the Asian countries. In Hong Kong it’s very much like that too, they love their dresses, they love their clothes.

Chris:

Yeah, oh yeah.

Tyrone:

Must be an Asian too.

Chris:

But also it’s the act of taking them out and buying them something with them letting them choose what they want as well. That’s not going to happen very often.

Tyrone:

No.

Chris:

Particularly with their virtual boss so they’ll really appreciate that.

Tyrone:

Which is great and that’s really, really good tips and that’s why I wanted to ask you those questions because unfortunately a lot of people don’t get to see and if they’re all virtual, it’s very hard to really know what’s going on and you know, make the most out of it when you’ve got to communicate via Skype and also email and so forth.

What I wanted to find out next was to find out more about managing them because we’ve talked about training, we’ve talked about communication with the staff, is there a system that you run through with them? Is there something that you use to communicate with them? Like I said I know a lot of people use BasecampHQ, a lot of people are using different project management systems, is it something like that, that you recommend as well?

Chris:

Well I think the first and foremost thing when it comes to managing is it also goes back to tasks delegation in the way you can get tasks out because you’ll generally find that it’s easier to manage virtual staff if you give them one task at a time instead of loading them a ton of tasks. Now you will have what I call revolving tasks and they’ll do it everyday or 3 times a week or whatever and that doesn’t count.

When I say a task, I mean a task which is a one-off task. You know, I’m going to write a 1,000-word blog post on the subject of skydiving. Go and find out some information in regards to skydiving.

Tyrone:

Why skydiving? I only just did that on my 30th just then.

Chris:

I know, I saw the video and you’re mad. I’ll never do that shit ever.

Tyrone:

I’ll do it again for sure, it’s the best experience ever.

Chris:

Okay we’re going to digress again, and maybe break – this is why I will never ever skydive okay. Let me just bring it down to the bare essentials. You we’re jumping out of an aerop – jumping out -

Tyrone:

14,000 feet as well.

Chris:

At 14,000 feet with nothing but an oversized silk handkerchief between you and your certain death.

Tyrone:

It’s called a parachute Chris, parachute.

Chris:

Oh do it, you’re a bigger than me ever. And bungee jumping, why would you want to do that for? Jump over a bridge?

Tyrone:

Bungee jumping I won’t do because the fact is that it can break your back. I’ve seen and heard stories from closest friends and unfortunately yes that’s why. But the thing is when I did skydiving, the whole – or not whole but one of the persons in my mastermind group decided to do it because I’m in a mastermind group on a weekly basis and I told them about that and they said one of the things they wanted to do for so long is skydiving so it was like enticing for them and they went and did it just last week.

So it’s – I guess we’re young you know, go and live it and that’s one of my bucket listings that I said I’ll be doing and I’ve definitely done it now since -

Chris:

No, no.

Tyrone:

I’m going to have more though!

Chris:

It’s not on my bucket list and it will never ever will be ever now.

Tyrone:

Okay let’s go back to what we’re talking about which is managing virtual assistant.

Chris:

What are we talking about, oh managing right yeah.

Tyrone:

And you’re talking about writing an article on skydiving.

Chris:

Okay so that I think goes back to the first thing is that number one, don’t overload your VA with tasks. Give them a task, let them complete the task, it’s the best way to do. It’s honestly the best way to do it. There might be from time to time where you need couple of things done and it’s always unmanageable then that’s okay. The other thing is that when you delegate a task, make sure you put a decent timeline or target for its completion in place as well.

If you feel a task is going to take 6 hours to complete, give the VA 6 hours. Don’t force them to do it half the time because you’re the boss. There’s just no point in doing that even with 6 hours let them complete the task and then you’ll be happy with the result. If you’re going to rush them, chances are you won’t be happy with the results. So that’s part of the management side of things.

The other thing -

Tyrone:

Actually sorry to interrupt there Chris.

Chris:

Yes.

Tyrone:

When you say give the virtual staff or virtual assistant 6 hours but you don’t know how long the task is, how do you also determine that too?

Chris:

Well because you have to think about what – if I was going to do this myself, how long would it take? Now why would it be different for everyone else?

Tyrone:

True but I’m just saying say for example it’s a new task that you’ve not done before -

Chris:

Ahh.

Tyrone:

But you decide you want to delegate it somewhere else expecting they know how to do it, how would we know. That’s where I struggle as well actually.

Chris:

Sure well it’s a guess-timate what it is and I think based on similar tasks that you might have done or your VA might have done in the past, you can kind of guess it around that. You know.

Tyrone:

Yeah I think it’s right.

Chris:

But that’s really – I mean if it really is a first-time task, that’s another management thing right there and you can’t expect it to be done perfectly -

Tyrone:

Yes.

Chris:

Number one, first time around. And b, with a timely fashion because chances are when the VA is learning how to do that particular task on their feet at the same time so it’s a little hard because of that but I think you’ll find that following those two rules, one task at a time, realistic timelines in place and targets in place for that task, couple that together with some kind of management system like Basecamp or Huddle or something along those lines which are fundamentally same things.

Now I’ve used those before in the past, I don’t use them now. And I think that a lot of virtual bosses could probably do the exact same thing. I know a lot of people just swear by Basecamp for example, they just love it, it is what it is. And I can see the benefits behind that, it keeps your inbox relatively clean because you’re not going to get a lot of emails. It is – there’s a portal and obviously they’re all that mobile apps nowadays, you can check it out when you’re on-the-go with your iPhone, or iPad or whatever as well.

There’s a lot of pros to that and I know there’s a certain number of cons but it always comes down to your personal preference and for me now, you want to know what my really high-tech system is for managing my VAs on a day-to-day basis?

Tyrone:

I could probably guess, email.

Chris:

Super tech. It’s – and it’s not even multiple emails, it’s one email a day. And it’s right at the end of their working day, they drop me an email, “Hey boss, here’s what I did today.” And then there’s a bullet point of list and maybe in one day, no more than 5 things are done – blah, blah. Thanks very much, let me know if you got any questions regards blah, blah.

Tyrone:

That’s pretty much exactly what I do as well, too what we call a daily accountability.

Chris:

But bear in mind Tyrone, you and I have been doing this for a while where a lot of newbies might be coming into this with that kind of VA virgin mentality without knowing what to do. They might need that security blanket of a project management system in place for a couple of months for them to get used in delegating tasks, and getting feedback and things like that.

Tyrone:

Which is why I’m asking you from experience, it’s very important because we can all learn from this. I’m learning from you, you’re learning from me, and they’re learning from you as well and if email works then it works. If it doesn’t then try project management system. It’s always different ways on how people work and everybody’s all wide differently as you know so the advice you’ve given is great tips. Simple. That’s the thing, I like simplistic, minimalistic feel and that’s across everything I’m doing now.

Chris:

Absolutely. And the good thing about that system is it allows me right at the end of my day that goes about to say which is usually around 1AM my time because I have clients over in the US so we need to work with those as well. So my VAs are long gone into Lala Land, you know at that point they’re sleeping beauties are wide awake. And at 1AM, I reply to that email and what I’ll do is I’ll actually reply right next to the bullet point.

Tyrone:

Excellent.

Chris:

And then if there’s nothing next to that bullet point, I’m fine I’m happy no problems but if there is a note, I might ask them to tweak something or I might ask them to completely delete something on a website or present something to me in this regard or that regard so it’s really – for me, it’s just I mean literally, how long it takes me to manage my 3 VAs everyday? 15 minutes, 5 minutes or more.

Tyrone:

Yeah, it shouldn’t take you more than that. To write emails, it’ll be probably 5 minutes each max. And it’s very easy and if you need to make any changes, this is the one step I guess onto the emails because my VAs also do send me an email at the end of everyday and has Chris has mentioned the tasks they’ve done then I’ve got a section for them to leave some feedback on how we can improve our systems if there are any and then furthermore, any other specific questions that they want to ask me.

Most of the time they fill in the first 2, the last one you know, that’s sort of self-explanatory because we do answer those 3 during the call or email and so forth. So it’s excellent. All right well Chris, before we do wrap up, I usually ask my guest or people who come onto the Outsourcing Live podcast this final question which is what is currently working for you with your virtual team that you can part on as a practical tip for others?

Chris:

Hmm, good question. Well above and beyond everything else that I’ve just spoken about I think -

Tyrone:

Yeah I mean maybe just one final tip that is really straight to the point and something that can help them to take practical action when they’re starting out.

Chris:

Sure, it’s very, very easy and it’s very easy but it’s an aha moment for a lot of people and that is don’t micromanage.

Tyrone:

Good, I like that very much.

Chris:

Because the reason why I think it’s stupid to micromanage, plain and simple. First off, this always makes me laugh because it’s so obvious but people were like oh yeah but here’s the first thing. First and foremost, it completely defeats the object of the game. You’re outsourcing to leverage more time so you can do other more important thing but if you’re micromanaging your virtual assistant or go for big, you have a team of virtual assistants and you’re micromanaging all of them, where is that extra time gone? It’s got back into managing your VAs. So micromanaging is completely defeating the object of the entire outsourcing strategy as far as I’m concerned.

The other thing is this, and I know this from very solid experience in the past. Nobody likes and respects  and enjoys working for micromanaging a-hole. It doesn’t happen ever. I worked for a guy, it was such a bad micromanager, it’s true. He used to make me BCCM into every single email that I send to clients because he was just so transfixed into the idea one and the B and loop point and everything. And in the end all bunch people are working for him, imagine the amount of emails he has to read every single day. Insane, mad man, absolute mad man.

I respected him for the man that he was in regards to giving me money every month to live on but everything else, forget about it. I couldn’t care less about the guy. So that’s really my number one tip is to choose not to micromanage your staff because ultimately in the long run, it ain’t going to live – it’s just not going to live to pretty, pretty ending endeavor.

Tyrone:

Yeah, well actually I probably want to add to that for people who don’t really know what the term micromanage is, it’s basically don’t be on the back of your virtual assistant every minute of the day telling them exactly how to do that, what to do and so forth. So I know that people try to track the times on the times on what they do, what they’re doing exactly, don’t do that. I used to say that to people you can insert it but use it only for reporting and managing purposes, don’t use it to be on their back, simple as that.

Chris:

And yeah, the other thing is there’s other software that takes a snapshot and emails it to you, completely a waste of time. And the other thing is this, I guarantee you, your employees absolutely are going to update in their Facebook status in the middle of the working day. I guarantee that! You don’t need a screenshot to do that, you know they’re going to do that but ultimately it comes down to one thing.

Tyrone:

Are they -

Chris:

If they’re productive and they’re giving you what you’re paying them for and the tasks are done properly, productively and in a timely fashion, who cares what they’re doing at the end other time during the day? I don’t. As long as work gets done, all okay.

Tyrone:

Totally agree, totally agree. That’s awesome Chris. Well firstly, I want to thank you so much for coming onto the call today and what I’m going to do is for people who want to get in contact with Chris and find out more about the Virtual Staff Finder service, you can go and visit his website, I’ll actually give you an affiliate link here so I’m just going to disclose this, it’s GetVirtualStaffFinder.com and what I’ll do is I’ll put that link down below here as well.

So if you want to find out more about that either I guess go through this service which is something we’ve talked about today, I’m not going to say to you that you need to go there but if you are struggling and you need some help with finding the right team member or virtual assistant, web developer, whatever you need, definitely check it out and have a look at that. And then from there, he will be able to look after you which I’m pretty sure you will Chris, we’re talking right now.

Chris:

I will. I will do it.

Tyrone:

He swears he will.

Chris:

Hand on hat. The other thing, I also have an additional blog and podcast -

Tyrone:

Sure.

Chris:

Which recently gone live which is OutsourceToThePhilippines.com. It’s 100% focused on nothing but outsourcing tips and tactics towards the Philippines and working with Filipinos and things like that. It’s brand new, it just literally kicked off for a little while back so if you guys are interested out there, you can find me over email Chris (at) Outsourcetothephilippines (dot) com. I’d be more than happy to be there for everyone.

Tyrone:

Excellent yeah definitely check it out. I know that podcast was originally from Dan, Dan from Lifestyle Business Podcast and you took it over from there -

Chris:

Yep.

Tyrone:

Because he left the Philippines, I know that there’s quality information so guys go and check it out and add that to your list of learning how to outsource as well. So thank you so much again Chris for coming onto the call today and sharing your information about virtual staff and hiring and so forth and managing staff again.

Chris:

It’s my absolute pleasure, it’s good to chat with you.

Outsourcing Live Inside Info: Track Productivity With RescueTime

All right, inside this tip that I want to share with you is an amazing tool that has been used by hundreds and thousands of people all around the world, even Tim Ferriss from the 4-Hour Work Week recommends this tool and this tool I’ve been using for quite sometime personally with myself and also with my team. You might be wondering what it’s called. All right, let me tell you what it is, it’s called RescueTime. And Rescuetime’s a really, really powerful which you can get access to, I’ll just give you the link it’s at Outsourcinglive.com/Rescuetime and it’ll take you directly to the page there.

Basically it’s been recommended by people from people from CNBC, Lifehacker, US News, The New York Times, etc. You may or may not have heard of it but what it does is that all you have to do is install a little tool or little tracking device on your computer and it literally tracks everything that you do and then what it does is also too, sees which screens you’re browsing on, what applications you’re opening and track how long you’ve been spending on them. Then what it’ll do is record that onto their system and from there, it’ll categorize into the certain activities.

And say for example, if you’re to categorize your dollar-productive activities such as either web development if you’re a web development company or if you’re running emails to say for example your database or creating content, those are say for example dollar-productive activities, then RescueTime will categorize in that way. But if you are hopping on and doing Facebook, and Twitter-ing and socializing, and things that are not related to your business, you can actually set those things as being non-dollar productive.

And the great thing is at the end of the week, RescueTime will send you a little report saying how productive you are in comparison to pretty much base line of other people who are on RescueTime as well and it’ll give you sort of little percentage that says this is your productivity for the week and also in comparison to others. Lots of people are using it and personally, I think it’s a great tool for that because it’s important to know exactly what you’re up to while you’re online or while you’re working as well and I definitely highly recommend check it out and install it to use it for yourself just to track for at least a week to see what you’re currently up to as well. All right once again the link to this RescueTime is Outsourcinglive.com/Rescuetime spelled R-E-S-C-U-E-T-I-M-E. All right so check it out there and I’ll make sure I’ll put the link down on the shownotes as well so that you can get access to it. And also too, let me know what you think in the comments as well.

Discover more resources to grow your business inside Mass Outsource Mastermind. Watch the video tutorials and follow the easy instructions to take your business to the next level. Start your 30-day no risk trial membership at Freevideoset.com, that’s Freevideoset.com. This has been Outsourcing Live with Tyrone Shum, outsourcing the hot stuff so you can focus on the fun stuff.