I live in Australia and a lot of the small business owners I work with do feel that they get charged way too much for simple services by local companies and I can offer them the services for a fraction of the cost with outsourcing which keeps all my clients happy.

I’m not terribly surprised with the overwhelming support (or at least agreement) with outsourcing…I think it has much to do with your audience and probably the IM community in general. You WILL start getting some much more negative comments, I’m sure, if some anti-outsourcing community or group starts linking in and commenting, hehe.

Sort-of uncool for someone to hammer your right before your BlogWorld presentation, eh? That sounds a bit rough…

I think that many of the negativity surrounding offshore outsourcing to places like the Philippines has to do with a bit of narrow-mindedness. (Such as a brother/cousin/parent losing their job to a company taking the work offshore) The broader scope of what’s happening is often missed. It’s a bit depressing to hear the US president rattling off about how he wants to penalize those that are going offshore…really not cool.

For those that have more legitimate arguments about going offshore, their arguments are often around the QUALITY of the work. If you take that argument away (let’s assume the same job can be done by a VA in the Philippines as can be done by an American in the US) that argument doesn’t hold water.

That being said…there ARE things that are better handled, on average, by someone in the US as opposed to someone in the Philippines. It’s not that you can’t find ANYONE in the Philippines to do it…it’s just that it might be much harder to find the same quality level as you might find, on average, in the US, UK, etc. (Note: I live/work in the Philippines) For those specific situations…I tend to do some “offshore outsourcing” to the US!

My questions are, how easy is it setting up an Internet Marketing coy in Philippines as a foreigner plus are these fees meant if those VAs work from home? What will the fees be if they are hired to come to office to work full time per month?

What about those IT guys? Those that works on apps? I’m thinking of hiring 2-4 full time guys to work on different apps as well.

Sheyi

I must say that some of these comments have blown me away.

Not to mention the fact that I absolutely expected some negative comments, too. Yet, haven’t seen any. Amazing.

It seems that this community of smart, savvy entrepreneurs is BANG ON when it comes to whats best for their businesses, their families and what life is all about.

Thanks to all for contributing thus far.

Over to you all – again…

C

This is also outsourcing, even if they don’t call it that, so the Americans have nothing to complain about in that regard.

Many people seem to criticise offshoring just because of xenophobia. Who is to say that a western worker is worth 10 times as much as an Asian worker?? I’d say by their work standards and attitudes that it should almost be the other way around!

In fact the gap is continually narrowing because it is unsustainable. The pound, euro and usa dollar are collapsing now that the world has realised the western wealth was all a big ponzi scheme based on worthless pieces of paper, and that they haven’t actually been creating anything of value for years!

Chinese wages are rising fast, and factories are moving to the poor western provinces or to poorer countries such as Indonesia, where the cycle will begin again there.

I don’t feel the slightest bit of guilt in paying money to Asian workers instead of local workers. I use both depending on the circumstances. I’ve noticed that whenever I advertise a project or job, that it’s very rare for English people to apply, yet I get hundreds of applications from very keen Asians. And I’m talking here about UK based vacancies that aren’t open to offshore workers. If local people want to be getting more work then they need to change their attitudes. They will be forced to do so eventually.

In my case, I’m intending to do the offshore outsourcing because workers here in Malaysia didn’t even have the skill that I need and their English SUCKS. I don’t care whether they graduate with CGPA 4.0 but if their English sucks, they don’t bother to learn and improve themselves and most importantly, they don’t have the skill that I need, I might as well do it myself or outsource it offshore. I don’t want to waste the company resources to hire talentless and useless brats. After all, my business is an international business and English is a must.

Also, it is my dream to build a virtual, multinational organization so I’m not limiting my business to hire locals only.

Maybe we should increase our migrant and refugee intakes and then we could employ them within the country and all those who object to outsourcing would be happy.

I’m proud of Canada because it’s a great place to live, but I consider myself an international citizen. Most of my business is based in the USA, my customers are worldwide, and I plan on living in a different country every five years or so, in addition to traveling frequently. I’ve wanted the virtual business lifestyle since long before I heard the term; I called it continuous working vacation.

There is no doubt in my mind that it would benefit my local economy more if I strictly hired locally, so I am harming the local economy by outsourcing, but I don’t give a crap. My top priorities are myself and my family, and the local economy is way down the priority list.

Furthermore, I know what it’s like to grow up on welfare and be poor in a rich country, and it sucks pretty bad. But it’s nothing compared to the appalling hell of being truly poor in places like India or the Philippines. Most Americans would commit suicide in a week if they had to live like that. The last Filipino I chatted with online has a full-time job in a soda factory, and makes 105 pesos per day. That’s $2.46 US.

China especially has taken a lot of flak for ‘stealing our jobs’. Their government really plays hardball with other countries, and they do bend the rules as far as they can to benefit their own people, even if it’s at the expense of others. And I can’t blame them a bit. They’ve brought six hundred million people out of horrible poverty in the last twenty years, and they still have another five hundred million who haven’t been helped yet.

Anyone in a developed country who says that we should hire locally instead of outsourcing to a developing country is either ignorant of the conditions there, or is lacking in human compassion.

Besides, even if I had to pay Filipinos (or Mexicans, Or Indians, etc.) the same money as Canadians, I’d still hire them. On the average, they work harder and do a better job than Canadians, so they deserve the work more.

to me John Chow’s remark is simply ridiculous.

Why would we only care about ‘our own’ economy in the first place? We all live on the same planet, we all breathe the same air. There is really just one economy, the global economy (especially online!)

The future of this world is not just about securing our own jobs or making sure that only our own children will get an education and enough food on the table. It’s about ALL of us.

I really thought it was clear to anyone by now that all human beings need to work together and help each other but I guess some people just don’t get it. They don’t seem to understand that we are all interconnected and that if there is poverty anywhere on this planet, it automatically effects all of us.

Country borders are really just random lines drawn in the sand by people who came to a place, announced they ‘discovered’ it and then killed or enslaved almost anyone living there.

I know I will get an offshore VA as soon as I can afford it and I will be happy to to know that I enabled someone to put food on the table for their family.

Yamile

Times have changed, we are switching (since the last recession in 2008 I believe) to a more global economy – it’s shouldn’t be about “us” and “them” it should be about what we do to help and support each other to create a sustainable business and to pay our local taxes from that business, wherever we happen to be, whether it’s the USA or TimBukTu. By working together as one world united we can achieve so much more.

Given that I was actually interviewing you on a podcast discussing this point recently you already know my point of view.

Beyond that, I’d like to understand why people in one country are more important than people in another? I just don’t get the “local” argument. Let’s say I employ 5 Filipino staff (and therefore help support 5 families) where I’d only be able to afford one local employee…isn’t this doing more for people?

Cheers, Adam

PS The podcast interview will be released on 8 March. Thx.

In my opinion, VA’s are awesome for the economy because they help Bootstrapping Entrepreneurs grow their businesses, which means that they spend more money locally.

@Martha, I totally agree with you. There are people out there that are bidding too low, but I think it is about educating everyone that if you pay your VA what they’re worth, they will work harder for you, and tend to stay with you, for as long as you need them, which means that jobs are done properly.

Cheers!

I’ll tell you those workers from Mexico and Guatemala do work that Americans wouldn’t do. Plus they work much harder because the wages here are so much more than what they could make back at home.

Foxconn, the factory that makes the iPhone/iPad and other electronic equipment has over 1 million people working! Their wages are a lot less than what it is here, but over there it’s good pay. The iPhone would probably cost thousands of dollars if it were made in the US. Just look at what the iPhone has done to others businesses. It has a huge ripple effect.

So I don’t see VA’s ruining the US economy. They are helping.

Thank you very much for your thought leadership on this subject.

The next time someone confronts you with this, just tell them that Apple employes 60,400+ employees worldwide (http://files.shareholder.com/downloads/AAPL/1700676355x0xS1193125-11-282113/320193/filing.pdf, page 4), with more than 1/2 of that in the US alone. And they outsource all of the manufacturing and production outside the US (mainly China). Why? Because they have no choice. And this is not just because US labor is too expensive or that they’re unpatriotic, etc. It’s because there’s nowhere near-shore (US, Mexico or anywhere else in this hemisphere) where they could scale up production to the levels needed to satisfy the insatiable demand for Apple products.

AAPL currently has a market cap of $464B (http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=AAPL) and their products are written about and desired all over the news. Take Exxon (XOM)’s market cap of $398B (http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=XOM). How many people do you see driving out of their way to purchase Exxon gasoline, for example.

The fact of the matter is: the more that us SMBs do to make our businesses more profitable, the more we’re able to support our families, pay our mortgages, and spend hard-earned $USD right here at home; helping everyone.

Honestly, by paying a a cut-rate salary for exceptional work, the more money I have in my pocket to stimulate MY ECONOMY right here at home. Come on guys: Do you really think that you’re saving our economy by shopping at WalMart?

~Jeff

In terms of this type of issue you have to look at the micro and the macro. In the micro it can look like, in terms of here is the US, that money is going over seas and jobs along with it. However, in the macro, especially with bootstrapers that just isn’t the case. Small businesses are typically anywhere between 50-250 employees (on the low side) and the typical Blogger is either a one man crew or a few at best. The typical Blogger doesn’t make a big enough splash in the economic report to budge any of these numbers. A small business typically doesn’t offshore either according to the numbers.

Small businesses tend to hire locally as offshoring doesn’t make any sense. Medium to large businesses, where things may need to be done in bulk, make more sense. Then there are things that don’t make financial sense to keep local like production or manufacturing. Most of those go out of the country.

The bottom line is businesses are in business to make a profit regardless of the local economy (some of the biggest companies in the world were created during downturns afterall) and if offshoring keeps them in the black, that indirectly helps the economy.

Sam

Yet another mind blowing post – Well done!

I am a UK based virtual assistant with the majority of my clients being US based. I have outsourced some of “my own business” tasks to offshore VA’s. Some I have been happy with and some I haven’t! That’s the nature of the beast.

As far as damaging the economy with hiring offshore VA’s, I really don’t think so. As you say, small businesses can’t afford to spend thousands of $’s on large projects so it makes perfect sense to go offshore however, I don’t charge a fortune for a website (as you mentioned in your post). I do websites for $800 (or cheaper for a basic blog site) and I’m not offshore.

What does annoy me is that on some outsourcing sites offshore VA’s are bidding ridiculous amounts like $2 per hour – I think this is damaging. Some VA’s are business owners also and not just fly-by-night secretaries. They run legitimate ‘successful’ businesses and to be asked to be paid $2 I think is degrading to the VA industry. In saying that, if small business owners want to pay an offshore VA $2 an hour, that’s their decision – But from experience, the always end up paying more in the long run for work to be re-done.

Ella has got it right, she is raising the profile for offshore VA’s!

Apologies if I have offended anyone, but that’s just my opinion – You pay for what you get!

I then out sourced it and received a great design for …$99.00

Why would it hurt to find someone to do the work elsewhere when we are all part of a global economy?
Chris, I am not able to totally go VA right now, but I would rather have a fighting chance eventually with someone there then fail with someone here.

No other offshore freelancers or business owners would want a downfall of their foreign counterparts. In fact we often hope for the opposite. Because if our “offshore” clients continue to prosper and succeed then our business will move up along the way too…

Europe is a “social” continent and cannot compete to Asia, where wages are low and the quality of staff is excellent.

I think that if for instance an average salary in Ph. or India is 400 – 500 USD per month, people will be more than happy to work for 800 USD and we as employers will be satisfied as for the same work in Europe we would have to pay 3000 USD per month due to social security and other taxes. So I do not see anything bad on employing people from “developping” countries if we pay them a proper wage in line with average salary in their country. We all have to get ready for new era and look for more efficient options to get things done.