Chris Ducker

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#NewBusiness Chit-Chat: Offshore Virtual Assistants: Good, or Bad for the Economy?

February 15, 2012 by Chris 35 Comments

offshore worker economyEarlier today I was interviewed for a podcast, we spoke about a lot of small business principles and strategies, and one of the questions poised to me was today’s discussion point. Obviously, I’m a big believer in working with offshore staff to leverage your time, financials and business growth potential.

I was also ‘cornered’ by pro-blogger John Chow minutes before my presentation at BlogWorld Expo (I’ve been asked to speak again in New York, this coming June, too!) last year where he asked the question ‘How does it feel to know you’re destroying the American economy by promoting offshore outsourcing?”.

It was a fair enough question – and I gave my answer, which was basically the following:

The fact is that it’s the small businesses that fuel any local economy, and a lot of the time these businesses are in bootstrapping mode. Every little the can save makes a big difference to their bottom line. Not only this, but from a business owner standpoint, it simply doesn’t make any sense to me why you would decide to pay $3,000 to have a web developer work for you, managing your websites, when an offshore, highly skilled and experience worker can do the same job for $800…

Fair comment, I believe… And I’m obviously a big believer in working with offshore staff to leverage your time, financials and business growth potential and have helped hundreds of business owners do just that through my Virtual Staff Finder company.

Now… I appreciate that this is a touchy subject, one that we’ve discussed in a round-about way before, and one where opinions will come into play quite heavily, hence today’s discussion point.

Please keep it friendly, and in the spirit of entrepreneurship. Over to you…

Replace Yourself Like a Ninja: How I’ve Disappeared from Another Business!

February 20, 2011 by Chris 22 Comments

Ninja

Replace yourself, Chris!!! What? Again?! Fair comment, but, over the last six weeks I have seen an incredible boost to the sales numbers over at Virtual Staff Finder. Since we launched the service back in September this year, we’ve done good, steady business – but, since the beginning of the year we’ve experienced roughly a 30% increase in sign-up’s.

This has done two things. One – made me happy, obviously, as we’ve been able to help tons of great entrepreneurs find solid virtual employees. And, two – made me VERY busy. Let me explain why…

Virtual Staff Finder helps business owners and entrepreneurs, both online and off, to find good quality, reliable virtual staff. Simple enough for us to do – we’re here in the Philippines, I own and operate an outsourcing company and have years of experience in the field, I have great support staff and a clear marketing vision locally – so we attract GREAT home-based VA’s that want to be involved in what we’re doing and get work with awesome overseas employers, that have ‘Replace yourself, Mike!’ written all over their thought process!

However, part of the process of the VSF service includes a 30min consultation with yours truly. Do you see where I’m going with this now..? You got it – the busier we get, the more people that sign-up to utilize the service, the more consultation calls I have to do.

Now, don’t get me wrong – I absolutely LOVE doing these calls. It allows me to connect with great entrepreneurs and likeminded people, and I’ve actually become good buddies with a few of the VSF clients. But, and for me as a Virtual CEO, its a BIG but… It’s taking massive chunks of my time away from me. My entrepreneurial clock was being slowed done because of the step – regardless of how much I was enjoying interacting with the clients.

So, last week the decision was made to fundamentally take me out of the process. In fact it was my VSF project manager that actually came right out and said, “Boss, you need to replace yourself to be able to focus on other things, too”. She’s awesome! Thinking about it, if I didn’t, I wasn’t going to be able to continue to grow my core business, the Live2Sell Group, as well as the Virtual Staff Finder service – plus, launch all the other projects I am working on for this year, such as the first ever VBL Product – more news on this next week!

The Problem

With this decision, however, came a problem. I had noticed that on pretty much all of these calls I was coaching and helping the clients through vital decision making steps in working with VA’s. How to train them. How to pay them. How MUCH to pay their VA. How to keep them motivated, and so on.

Surely the success of the people that signed-up for the service, in regards to working with the VA’s, must have something to do with all those tips, tools and tactics I was giving them on the call. But, if the call wasn’t part of the VSF equation any more, how would I be able to help the clients?

The Solution

After much deliberation, and several trips to Starbucks, myself and a select few staff at the Live2Sell Group decided that I was going to shoot a series of exclusive videos that would help coach the clients through the entire process, just as if they were on the phone with me. The content of the videos would be pretty much identical to the calls I had been making for the last almost-six-months, but, it was a one-time deal. Once they were shot, edited and uploaded, I would never have to do it again. “Talk about literally, replace yourself!”, I thought to myself… The tick-tock of my entrepreneurial clock was sounding again!

So, Monday last week, I worked on Powerpoint presentations – just simple white screen, black typeface, to be able to follow when I was filming, so that the information was concise and to the point and so I wouldn’t just waffle on… Then, the next day, we shot the videos in one sitting, back to back – surprisingly fast, with no do-overs, thanks to the Powerpoint slides. Then, on Wednesday, they were edited and finalized.

At the beginning of this week we made several very fine adjustments to the VSF Website, that changed certain wording in regards to the consultation call, and everything is now set. For me – this service now becomes a brand new 100% passive income product. As my good friend, Pat Flynn would say “Awesome..!” (in only the way that Pat could say it..!!). Well… Almost.

What Do You Mean ‘Almost’…?!!

As some of you may know, I also offer consultation services on this website – in case you’ve never checked out that section, you can do so for information on personal branding coaching, VA support services and general entrepreneurial brainstorming, amongst other things. So, I still DO a certain amount of consulting – why? Because I enjoy it, plain and simple.

So, what I decided to do, right at the last moment, was to include the ability for people to still have that VSF consultation call with me, however, for a slightly increased price point. Instead of the $350 usual fee, we’re pricing it up at $500.

Ultimately, I don’t expect a lot of people to sign-up using this option. At the end of the day they are using the service to find a qualified, experienced virtual assistant, not to talk to me. However, giving them the opportunity to do so, I believe shows that although I am not part of the ‘normal’ process any more, it doesn’t mean that I don’t care about my clients. And they ARE my clients. It’s my company, after all.

So, that is the tale of how I went about the mission to replace myself from a day-to-day business model, for the second time in 3 months! 🙂 – Getting good at it, aren’t I..?!!

Why I Wrote This Post

Simple. I wanted to illustrate that although sometimes you start a business in one way, it doesn’t mean that the business has to remain that way. Stagnant. Unmovable. Unchangeable. Especially when the success of that business stops you from doing other things that you want to!

This type of move is commonly called an ‘entrepreneurial pivot’. Much like the pivot in basketball, where you plant one of your feet in one particular position, and although you cant then move that foot (its superglued to the floor!), you can still rotate and reposition it to give you more options of a pass, or shot. The entrepreneurial pivot is a powerful weapon, and one that I have used countless times to great success.  And, I’m also planning one for this blog to happen soon, too!

What Says The Crowd…?!

I’m curious to know what you guys think of this plan, and whether you think it will affect the service in general and – ultimately, its sales. Personally, I think I’ve covered pretty much all the bases in those videos and my support staff on the service are all AWESOME, and take great care of all our clients.

The concept to replace yourself as a business owner might not always be your first choice. However, like I said… Hearing from you guys (as you’re such a smart bunch!), would be great… So, please let me know what you think.

Top 3 Surefire Ways To Effectively Delegate To Your Virtual Team

October 12, 2010 by Chris 40 Comments

Screen Shot 2013-09-01 at 1.37.04 AMHave you ever delegated to your virtual team, but been frustrated with the finished result? It just wasn’t what you were expecting, and you didn’t feel that your VA really understood what you were trying to get at. Well, you’re not alone, this happens to a majority of entrepreneurs starting out in virtual delegation, and can often lead to them giving up entirely and going back to the old reliable — themselves!

I am going to share with you now the “Top 3 Surefire Ways” to delegate effectively, quickly and easily to your virtual team so you can get your tasks and projects back right – first time, every time….

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Baby Boomers and the Virtual Business Lifestyle!

October 6, 2010 by Chris 28 Comments

This guest post by Steve Thomas is part of the VBL Guest Post Month!

Most blogs and articles about online business are geared toward the twenty or thirty something crowd. These young people have become disillusioned with the world of work and want to spend more time traveling and enjoying life. Fine for them, but what if you are forty, fifty, or older?…

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The Definitive Guide to Paying Home-Based Filipino Virtual Assistants

September 29, 2010 by Chris

paying home based virtual staff

PLEASE NOTE: This post was originally published in September 2010. Since then the ‘work from home’ industry in the Philippines has, and will continue to develop immensely over. I’ve therefore decided to update this post regularly, so that no matter when you visit, it’s always up to date!

Last Updated: January, 2017

One thing is for sure – if you pay peanuts, you’ll get monkeys!

Since launching Virtual Staff Finder back in 2010, we’ve received thousands of questions on the subject of working with virtual assistants – particularly from the Philippines. Everything from hiring and training them, right the way down to working with your VA on a day to day basis, and how to keep them motivated.

However, the number one question we hear more than anything else is “How much do I pay my Filipino Virtual Assistant…?”.

So, to answer this question in a concise, yet highly knowledgable way – based on years of experience – and the fact that myself and my VSF Team are based here in the Philippines, all year round, this post has been put together as a general guide to doing just that – paying your Virtual Assistant based in the Philippines.

Please bear in mind these salary guidelines are for home-based Virtual Assistant’s from the Philippines, working from their homes, for you directly. If you don’t want to work with virtual staff directly, nor train them, motivate them or even speak to them – then I suggest looking into a more professional outsourcing set-up.

Different Types of Virtual Assistants

So, here you go a guideline on the four main types of Virtual Assistant’s, what you can expect them to be able to do, task wise, and what you should be looking to pay them for both full-time, and part-time positions. Hope this clears a few things up for everyone.

Virtual Assistant Skill Sets

There are also other types of virtual workers available from the Philippines, such as video editors, audio editors, graphic designers and the like, however, based on us working with hundreds of entrepreneurs over the time we’ve been in business at Virtual Staff Finder, we’ve found this set of four to be the most sought-after.

Please note: After a full signup audit in November 2013, we realized that 72% of our clients are looking for General VAs (GVA), and therefore now only focus on this one role at Virtual Staff Finder.

Paying Your Virtual Staff in the Philippines

For the longest time, Paypal has been the standard for paying your staff in the Philippines… and it remains that way. It’s super easy for your staff to get their hands on their money, and a whiz for you to set-up – just be cool and pay the fees!

Salary Guidelines

Ultimately, its down to you, as the virtual boss to decide what you are happy paying for your virtual staff. However, to be able to attract, hire and keep great staff working for you virtually by outsourcing to the Philippines, you also have to be very aware that the industry has, and continues to change immensely. The people are becoming more and more experienced, and more and more in-demand.

They know this, and therefore it is no longer possible (in our eyes, anyway) to get a General VA for $250 a month. Not if you want them to do a great job for you, anyway!

The following are current average full-time salary guidelines that you can follow, keeping in mind that there are less experienced workers willing to work for less, and more experienced workers that will want to see much bigger numbers – its all relevant:

  • General Virtual Assistant (GVA) – $500-$800 a month
  • Article / Content Writer – $500-$700 a month
  • SEO / Web Marketer VA – $750-$950 a month
  • Web Developer – $800-$1,400 a month

Additional / Emerging Virtual Staff Roles

I’ve seen more people recently asking for additional types of virtual staff on a regular basis over the last year or so. They are as follows, and again – all rates are approximate and based upon market conditions and experience levels, obviously:

  • Graphic Designers – $700 – $1,200 a month
  • Audio / Video VA’s – $600 – $1,200 a month
  • Mobile App Developer VA’s – $800 – $1,400 a month (Note: not popular in the Philippines currently. Look to Eastern Europe for this for the time being!)

* Part-time rates would obviously be 50% of full-time rates.

Now, again, these are just guidelines. For example, 5-6 years ago, you could get a full-time General Virtual Assistant from the Philippines to work for you for that $250 I mentioned earlier. But, times change, and the home-based virtual staffing world is changing, too.

If you have any more questions on this subject feel free to comment below, or for more in-depth answers and advice, just reach out to the fantastic Virtual Staff Finder team directly.

May 2010 “Virtual CEO Goal” Monthly Report

June 9, 2010 by Chris 26 Comments

Helping to Promote a Local Brand of 'I Love Cebu' T-Shirts!

Location: Company HQ – Reading Time: 5-6mins

Number of Days in the Office: 19, Total Number of Employees: 186

So, another month passes, and I am now officially just 7 months away from my target of becoming a Full-Time Virtual CEO. Will I hit it? You bet your ass I will…! I don’t set targets to not hit them, guys…!

Amongst other things this past month, a local company wanted me to help promote their new ‘I Love Cebu’ t-shirt range, via billboards, mall banners and newspaper ad’s (as above!), which I was happy to do – as I whole-heartedly DO love this great little city! The rest of the month wasn’t as busy as past ones, mainly because it wasn’t meant to be. Let me explain…

May 2010 was very much my ‘sit back and see how things are going so far’ month. And that’s exactly what I did. I contemplated. I thought. I planned, and actually re-planned certain parts of the next 7 months ahead of me. And I came to one big conclusion – although I have excellent local management around me (some of the best in the business, I believe), I am going to have to hire a full-time expat to come and work for me here in the Philippines, at my company’s HQ.

…

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Want Success in Business? Get Some GREAT Support, NOW!

May 27, 2010 by Chris 14 Comments

Location: Home Office – Reading Time: 8mins

Pictured with me above is my Personal Assistant, Stephanie (she’ll kill me for posting this photo, but – too late!). Steph helps me with my day-to-day business tasks, and definitely plays a big part in me achieving what I achieve every day – whether I’m working from the company’s HQ, or home (like today), or anywhere else for that matter!

Judging by the amount of visitors I get each day to the blog, which is growing every single day – and the 700+ people that have downloaded my free eBook on working with Virtual Assistants, I figure a lot of you, for whatever reason, haven’t gotten around to grabbing your copy yet. So, this post is actually a sneak peek at part of a chapter from the eBook, along with some new material (labeled clearly for the VBL devotee’s out there that have already read it).

This stuff is NEW: Most companies and individuals who have been working with virtual assistants with great success have one thing in common: they are pleased to have somebody else handle their time-consuming, repetitive, mundane, administrative tasks that get in the way of spending quality time with their family, or focusing on more important business issues, such as planning and growth.

…

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Can Offshore Virtual Assistants Create Good Quality, Original Web Content? The Virtual Business Lifestyle Case Study – Day One

February 10, 2010 by Chris 12 Comments

creating original content, virtual assistant writing

Location: New York, USA – Reading Time: 7mins

Outsourcing. It’s a funny old game! Over the last year I’ve gotten tons, and I mean TONS of emails from business owners and aspiring internet marketers asking if Philippine virtual assistants can handle tasks such as blogging and content creation for websites. Simple answer to the question: Yes, they can. You will always have to ‘clean it up’ a little, if you want it to be 100% perfect, but they do a darn fine job, I can tell you. So, not that I feel as if I have to back-up this statement, I thought I would try something out.

Starting today, and lasting exactly THREE DAYS, I will not be writing the content on my blog. I have instead asked one of my employees, that works at my company as a virtual assistant, to “write an in-depth article on cool online web applications that entrepreneurs can use to make their life easier and be a little more productive on the move”. That was literally what I asked for! The following is the article that she came up with (spread over the next three posts, including this one). I am really looking forward to the comments on this one!!! Here we go……

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