Outsourcing is a growing trend and all companies should be trying to capitalize on the benefits of getting the best talents from across the world. This presentation is an overview of why you would do it, the limitations, how you need to approach it as an owner, building a team, hiring, communications, and next steps.
4. WHY
➤ Do the most you can, as quick as you can, with the budget
you have.
➤ Energy vs Time vs Cost
➤ Unlike Quality vs Time vs Cost, it’s not pick one or two,
it’s ALL (or NONE).
➤ PS. Quality you can screen ahead of time. You pay for what
you get and what you screen out.
➤ Upward trend for years. Not going away.
5. WHY
➤ Benefits
➤ Pay for hours, typical office worker efficiency is between 60-80% per hour
vs North American 37.5% cause you’re not paying for them to use
Facebook, unless their your marketing expert.
➤ You can work, or seem to work 24 hrs per day, which can streamline
existing processes. You can help reduce the load off of existing employees.
➤ Because of the details required, it forces you to have a system and a team
who specializes in their individual tasks.
➤ Virtual staff act as employees, even though they aren’t.
➤ Larger work pool to select from.
➤ If this is something you offer, you can white label and charge a premium.
➤ You won't go back once you have a great experience.
7. LIMITATIONS
➤ Language and Culture and Life Style
➤ Apart from natural confusion and annoyance from different pronunciations, talking speeds, and slang (or lack
of understanding of), you may have to deal with the religions/holidays/sexisms of that country. Don’t forget
this includes the low efficiency of North America.
➤ Lesson: Set clear processes and expectations. Be open minded and respectful.
Experiment with
contractors when
asked to photoshop
what beauty meant
to them.
8. LIMITATIONS
➤ Timezone,
➤ If outsourcing to 3rd world, either you or they have to work in
the late evenings or early mornings. OR you’ll have about a 24hr
delay (when you send, they will be sleeping, when they respond,
you’ll be sleeping).
➤ Lesson: Set communication standards or hire within reasonable
timezone.
9. LIMITATIONS
➤ Global Risk
➤ Hurricane: Jamaica. Martial Law: Venezuela. Typhoons: Philippines. War: Eastern Europe. Firewall (i.e. can’t
access google): China. Terrorist Attack: Egypt.
➤ Lesson: Diversify or pay more.
➤ Internet Speed/Power reliability are affected by above too.
➤ Legal constraints
➤ Employee vs Contractor: If the contractor works solely for you and you’re their only source of income and they
are smart enough to call the Government stating they were an employee, you will get retroactively dinged for
Payroll Taxes and Workers Compensation.
➤ Lesson: Don’t piss off contractors.
➤ Privacy concerns
➤ Lesson: Establish a privacy management program, so that data is secured and access to customer data is limited.
➤ Trust factor
➤ Can you really do background checks? Not really.
➤ Lesson: Portfolio and prescreening required. Don’t go with someone new at outsourcing, especially in North
America. One small task at first, for the first week or two. Fire fast!
➤ Contractors overpromise on cost, capabilities, and time
➤ Lesson: Just be aware and account for it.
12. OWNERS APPROACH
➤ Some things are the same as employees
➤ Respect and trust. They have families and obligations outside of work.
➤ If you can’t meet them in person, be prepared to do human things, like mail them
a Christmas goodie pack or some company swag.
➤ Have to set rules and clear standards.
➤ Allow room for failure, but stick to established and proven KPIs.
➤ Some things are not like employees
➤ Be prepared to micromanage at first, but if you find someone intuitive, let them
self manage. Micromanage is different than complaining, don’t complain.
➤ Turn over is higher unless you pay well over their local rate, they can stop
responding (see global risks), they could quit without notice (hence
documentation).
➤ They can’t help you out in person tasks or based on friendship or goodwill,
everything usually is clocked.
13. OWNERS APPROACH
➤ Understand:
➤ Still takes disciple because instead of revolving around the
store or office, the system revolves around you. The
environment and pace is as fast as you want it to be. So if
you’re slow and assign tasks slowly, they will find other work
and work slow for you.
➤ Even though the mistakes are cheaper or faster to fix with
outsourced contractors than if employees dealt with it, it hurts
more because your paying for it at a variable rate, so there’s
more pressure on you.
➤ Don’t make assumptions.
➤ Not an instant cure all.
15. BUILDING “A” TEAM
➤ This comes before hiring because you have to have some basic structure (to help reduce the time and
cost of figuring it out)
➤ Tips
➤ Integrate into your team as if they were right beside you.
➤ Build your culture first (do you already values established that you base all your/their decisions on)
➤ Build your HR next
➤ On-boarding process (new accounts, training from existing documentation, passwords)
➤ Off-boarding process (deleting/archiving accounts, changing passwords - ideally a single VA
just for this function)
➤ Have a Common Enemy
➤ Meetings
➤ Be on time, and prepare just like in person. Establish routine and agenda.
➤ Smaller teams have a Weekly One on One with a set agenda.
➤ Larger Teams best have morning huddles where you actually stand up (no more than 30
minutes) hence Skype won’t be the best option for video.
16. BUILDING “A” TEAM
➤ Setting Goals and Expectations
➤ KPIs for
➤ Weekly Planning - You can’t just walk in their office and secretly find
what they are up to, you have to ask and it will be obvious.
➤ Efficiency - Needs to have a metric to be measured so they maintain
their efficiency even after a year doing the same thing.
➤ Quality Assurance - Need to have a metric to ensure, they are doing
it well and correctly.
➤ Mutually Agreed Upon Functional Accountability Chart aka “To confirm
our discussions, you are responsible for this ABC function of our
company and report to XYZ on a [daily/weekly/monthly] basis.”
➤ Set realistic expectations by talking to experienced local companies who
perform the functions you are outsourcing.
18. HIRING
➤ Hire for attitude, trust, and work ethic.
➤ Make sure you know what other jobs they are also doing to prevent conflicts
with schedule and interests.
➤ Don’t get someone who is new to Freelancing. LOTS of people want to make
money from the luxury of their own home, but when they realize they have to
work at a high level, they will waste your time. Also scammers exist, and know
exactly what to say, so you want to make sure they are legit.
➤ Level of experience on topic, country, timezone, and English ability may be
reflected in the price you pay.
➤ Additional note for timezone, there are no long term prospects who work night
shift to meet your requirements.
➤ You can reach out to candidates if you see one that matches your criteria.
Usually they are busy, so be patient and they won’t likely do your screening
requirements (mentioned next slide).
19. HIRING
➤ Requirements:
➤ Don’t lowball or go for lowest offer.
➤ Has a high review for medium to large jobs (or jobs that costed more than $100).
➤ Been a freelancer for at least 10 previous unique projects (not the same one repeated over and over
again).
➤ Has a portfolio.
➤ Check internet connection speeds.
➤ Job postings should be brief with just your KPIs, basic expectations, and screening questions. You can
send a document later detailing the job description and roles/responsibilities and verify they meet the
requirements. (Also ask, which of these responsibilities would you not do?)
➤ For screening, always put a question that check their attention to written detail and get them to perform
an action.
➤ In my Job Posting, I clearly put “At the end of this application, you’ll be asked what your one
strength is and the answer is jumping jacks” only about 10% of applicants get this answer correctly.
➤ Create a PDF document with a screenshot of your internet connection and attach it with your
resume.
21. COMMUNICATION
➤ First, go with what you already have. And if you have nothing, then use the free/most basic
apps first and then when you have done it for a while, then you will know what you need.
➤ Instant Messaging: Slack/Whatsapp/Email
➤ Your availability, response expectations, muting or “quiet time” to prevent overloading.
➤ Grouping/Channels (One for each team? One for each project?)
➤ Emoji rules (i.e. Thumbs up on instructions to mark clarity)
➤ Tools for feedback, polling, engagement (officevibe, tacos)
➤ Culture #random (sharing family pictures, group activities, water cooler talk )
➤ Emails
➤ Set one up for them? Do you want daily summaries? Weekly? No emails?
➤ Video
➤ Skype is only good for initial interviews, small teams. Use zoom.us, appear.in or hosted
solution if you want to run a virtual team
22. COMMUNICATION
➤ Document sharing/Backup
➤ Google drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, Apple iCloud, NextCloud (self hosting
option),
➤ Peer Built Standard Operating Procedures
➤ Must have a Definitions section for shared business language. Make sure
they document their processes step by step. You can add in more details later
in that document. It could also be videos.
➤ Google Doc, Word doc, Wiki, Confluence, Read the Docs, process.st,
nuclino.com, youtube.com
➤ Task and Time Management
➤ Asana, Basecamp, Trello, Salesforce, Apple Reminders, Google Calendar, etc.
➤ Password Management
➤ 1Password, LastPass
24. NEXT STEPS
➤ Wrap your head around the organizational structure you want
and how virtually extensive you want your company to be.
➤ Budget.
➤ Build a quick on-boarding/off-boarding process that applies to
any Virtual role.
➤ Think of the worst pain point and break it down into as small
as possible as a task or a process.
➤ Create a job-description and post it.
➤ Screen people and hire.
➤ OR Alternatively hire an outsourcing consultant like us ;)
26. VIRTUAL ASSISTANT CLOUD PRODUCT LINE
➤ Distributed virtual assistant network to perform work tasks or processes from
established businesses.
➤ Performs repetitive VA tasks. Also allocation of resources so that only trained
specialists perform the duties they are best at. Tackling one issue of a business at a
time that creates a customer experience that helps to make progress in their business.
➤ Currently managing a portfolio of companies that accumulating to $10 million in
value.
➤ Minimum requirements are companies with 6 months of operations and at least 30K
in revenues. Alternatively, venture/incubators backed companies. Basically, companies
with track records or that banks or investors have given the green light to.
➤ Average company size is 250K in yearly revenues, >2 years in operation, and have 1-3
full time staff members.
➤ Addresses the need to reduce workload of those staff members by taking care of one
problem at a time.
