Marketer Connects Filipino Employees with Global Employers

This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.

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Today we're gonna go into the pioneer days of outsourcing. At least we're gonna look at those days. In modern time, you may already know where to go if you want to hire a virtual assistant or other faraway contractor for less money than it costs in wealthier countries. But back in the wild west of 2009, it wasn't as clear. The marketer I'll tell you about today was frustrated with the few solutions that existed.

So in creating his own, he ended up creating a company. At the end of the episode, I'll also give you five tips for outsourcing that can help you save time, money, and miscommunication. It's really important to follow some best practices, at least if you want to save time, money, and avoid some of that miscommunication. And you will hear about those best practices shortly. So stay tuned.

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When John Jonas was building marketing websites, he was working anywhere from 10 to 12 hours a day. With a busy day job and a family, he realized this arrangement was not ideal for him or for that family of his. The obvious solution was to outsource some of his work to someone else. He needed to work smarter, not just harder. This was way back in 2009.

And at that time, there wasn't a comprehensive online marketplace you could turn to whenever you needed virtual help with a task. John had to go through an agency, which was a frustrating experience. All he could do was inform the agency of his requirements and then accept whoever they sent his way. As you might expect, that first candidate that he received was someone who did not meet his needs. Subsequent candidates that he looked for got better, but with so many aspects of the process outside his control, John always had a nagging concern that the work would not be completed to his satisfaction.

That was a big pain point. And he thought it was something that he might be able to fix. True to his mantra of working smarter, not harder, John acted by bypassing the agency and hiring his own programmer from the Philippines. With his degree in computer science, he was able to explain exactly what he needed and could verify that the work was done properly. He had little idea what that would cost him initially.

All he knew was that he was paying that person $500 a month. This was a win-win solution because it was far cheaper than hiring another programmer in the US. And at the same time, this was a wage that was significantly higher than the market rate in the Philippines. The work ended up going so well that John decided to expand. He decided to create a job site as a platform for hiring Filipino workers.

The project took somewhere around eight months to finish. And while the end result wasn't perfect, it was promising. He'd made this conscious choice after working with several employees from the Philippines. Not only were many of them fluent in English, but it was also a location in which it made financial sense for work to be outsourced. Employers could lower their costs while workers would get a higher wage.

This was a value proposition that was not immediately obvious at the time. As remember, this was way back in 2009 and John's site, Online Jobs PH, was built when outsourcing and remote work wasn't as common as it is now. But through webinars, telesiminars, and videos, John evangelized about the reasons why people and companies should consider it. This proved to be the most effective way of marketing since it was also deeply personal. But that wasn't all.

John needed to find a way to make his job board site stand out. He decided that he wouldn't use the common recruitment model of taking a commission from each gig that was posted. Instead, he would angle his business toward employers who were looking for employees of a more permanent nature. The only difference was that the employees he would refer were in a different part of the world. To this end, he decided he would operate a subscription service where employers could pay a monthly fee to access the site.

The only way that the portal would make money would be to ensure that employers would keep using it, or at least refer other customers to it because of how competent and compatible their previous hires had been. In this sense, John had some skin in the game, a fact that was appreciated by his customers who rewarded him by taking a chance and hiring from his site. As online jobs pH grew, the main source of referrals quickly became word of mouth. Growth was organic with employers and employees joining because of the good things they heard, as well as through methods such as SEO. 10 years later, the model has proven to be highly sustainable.

John now has 21 virtual employees from the Philippines working for him. And this year, online jobs pH has over 5,000 paying employers and earned revenue of over $4 million. It's worth noting that John's initial goal was not to set up an online job board. He only did so after trying to outsource some of his work and then discovering that there was such a gap in the market. Solving his own problem, however, has turned a small idea into a daily hustle, and not just for himself, but for thousands of people around the world.

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All right, let's talk about a few tips for outsourcing, specifically five tips if you're using Upwork or Fiverr, or perhaps online jobs pH, which is really cool to hear about. I love the focus on permanent employees or at least longer term employees, as opposed to just hiring somebody to do a quick job. So I'm glad it's working out so well for him and for lots of employers around the world. I'm gonna check it out myself at some point. So five tips.

First, start with a small project. Having just said that about permanent jobs, I think it's often good to see, okay, what's a little trial run here? How do we work together? How do we work with this person? Do we have a good communication flow?

Do they understand what I'm asking? And are they actually doing the work that I need, to the standards that I want to see? So start with a small project. You can always add more later. Provide clear deliverables.

This is really, really important. Just be really specific about what it is that you need. Also want to give approval limits. Like in other words, if you think the project is gonna take 10 hours, but you have some flexibility, if you think, well, I think it's gonna take 10 hours, but maybe it could take 15 or 20, then just specify that and say, hey, before you get to 15 hours, check in with me so I can see how much work has been done before you go any further. Now next, as I mentioned, it's good to be clear about your deliverables and what your expectations are.

If you welcome some creativity or interpretation for your project, say that up front. What I mean here is that in web design and web development in particular, there's often multiple ways to solve a problem or multiple ideas for how to present something to an end user or multiple ways to do something on the backend. So if you know exactly what you want, then of course be specific about it. But if you're just concerned about the outcome and there could be a variety of ways to achieve that outcome, then feel free to say, hey, this is how I think it might be done, but if you've got a better idea, I would love to listen. I would love to check that out.

Some people actually end up doing really good work that way. Some people want to have some creative input to contribute in that way, even if it's a small but still significant way, whereas other people, they don't want that at all. So it's important to say that up front if you want it. And then lastly, take bids, but also invite providers that you're interested in. What I mean here is if you go on Upwork or any of these forums, you can usually post a project and people will bid on it.

But you can also see profiles of lots of individual providers, sorted by country, sorted by skill, sorted by experience, sorted by reviews, all kinds of different filters. So you might want to go through and look and see, identify some providers that could be good to work with. And there's usually a way to say, invite this person to bid on a job or invite this person to have a conversation. So often in these things, it's like this huge marketplace and every project is getting tons of bids. So it really helps if you want to connect with somebody specific to go to that person.

And they're going to appreciate that too, because you're actually bringing them in. They know that they have already attracted your attention. So they have much better odds of getting the project than they might if they were just bidding randomly among everybody else. So start with a small project, set clear deliverables, give approval limits. If you welcome some creativity or interpretation, say that up front and take bids, but also invite providers that you're interested in.

All right, five tips for you there. We're going to include them on the show notes page. Of course, those show notes are at sidehustleschool.com/945, where you can also find links to online jobs pH and anything else I mentioned. I really appreciate you. Thank you so much for listening.

Inspiration is good, but inspiration with action is so much better. I'm having so much fun making this program for you. I can't wait to bring you the weekly recap tomorrow and a whole new set of stories all next week. My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is Side Hustle School.

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