Welcome back I'm excited I have my
friend Karen Farfan here. We're going to
spend a day filming episode after
episode of building her YouTube channel.
But we're starting with a video kind of
out of order. We're talking about
outsourcing just for a minute because I
know a lot of viewers on the channel
love to know why I hire people in the
Philippines. And so we're going to start
there. There's a specific reason why just
the Philippines and we'll dive into that
in this episode. -Nate, so can you tell me
why the Philippines? Why not South
America, why not India... -There's great
people all over the planet. I love... You
know, everywhere I've gone I found people that I love
but there's so many great advantages to
the Philippines. They're a developing
nation and you know, the furthest
extent of the word. Meaning I can hire
somebody there for 450 bucks a month
that is a very highly educated and
skilled they've got a computer, they've
got internet. The communication is
fantastic, the way that they speak
English. There's just so many event. I can
trust them. They're people that I can
trust that there... On one hand, like I look
for entrepreneurial qualities yet I can
train them everything and share all my
secrets and I'm not going to be my
competitor. -In fact, I'll show you
this picture that I took. Because I I've
been hiring people in the Philippines
for nine and a half years. Never met them
in person. But I just went over last
November. And this is the night that we
all met. This was a kind of a fancy
buffet. Delicious, actually.
So, I ate whole food plant-based. And like, I
only went to this section and then after
I was full, I realized that I had only
been to a third of the restaurant. Anyway,
meeting my team for the first time was a
real...
Is really touching. You know, my project
manager came and met me. That's his
sister. They're the only 2 that had
known each other beforehand. Well
at least these 2 are brothers, actually.
So, there's 2 that have known each
other. But otherwise, they work from their
homes. So, it's kind of nervous like, "Are
we going to get along? Is it going to just be
awkward sitting there all together?" But
you know, all the guys that hear, all the
women sit here and we're chit-chatting
and talking about clients and things
that we'd worked with and having laughs.
And I would... I just had this kind of a
wave of emotion hit me of gratitude and
of them gratitude grateful to me for
providing them jobs. And it's a really
neat experience. -Nice. And how do you build
that trust with your team? Because you met
them for the first time --after how many
years? -Yeah, it takes time but really I
don't micromanage them as far as hours. I
tell them, you know, put in 8 hours a
day you get to control your schedule. But
I give them a very specific system to
follow. And you know, if it's editing then
I'll see a certain number of edited
videos come out each day. And as long as
there's consistency in their work and
they're open with communication with me,
just more and more trust gets built. And
I get to see like... What I really
love is when my team comes to me with
ideas of, "You know what? If we, there's
kind of been a bottleneck here." And if so
if they kind of discover a problem and
they can provide a solution, I just
realized, "Man, you guys are loyal and I've
seen lots of loyalty like that." And I've
also seen where one of my project
managers I now call my system creator
because he creates lots of systems for
me in our company. He noticed 2 of our
team members who were doing great work.
But he thought, "You know, I think this one
we do better as the thumbnail designer.
And I think this I'm going to do better
editor. But if we have them switch roles..."
I'm like, "Let's give it a try." And they're
both happy you're doing... -What they're good at.
-Yeah. So, it's developed over
time to where we've got that type of
dynamic. Really when... Just the culture in
the Philippines they really want to do a
good job. They really want that their
boss to be pleased with them. And if they
make a mistake, they kind of felt quiet
and they'll just not say anything. And so,
what I've learned to do is... We'll just
use editing of video as an example. So if
that's the project they're working on, I
give them a project, give them all the
footage and they edit it I tell them
this is how I want you to edit it. Create
it. You know, like this other video here.
They'll send it back to me and I'll
review it. I'm not expecting it to be
perfect. But I'll see what they've done
maybe they're 80% of the way there. And
I'll go through my point, "Okay, yep. You
did this right, you did this right, this
is really good. I like what you did here.
Here's some other things that you can do.
If you just shorten, this tighten this up
a little." You know, so I'll give them
feedback and give them another chance to
go through and improve it. And they'll
come back. Maybe now it's 90% way
there. So, as long as I'm patient and I
can give them feedback, eventually, I'll
get up to that 100%. And then
the next time I give them a similar
video editing project, they'll get a lot
closer that time. And eventually get to
the point where I just trust them. I
don't have to review it anymore on my
own because they've done it so much.
They've learned, they've adapted. They've
listened to what I said. So, it's a
process but to now have a team. I've got
14 full time members in the Philippines.
That all just send everything their way
and I don't have to oversee it anymore.
It's...
-S,o you don't have the language barrier,
you have loyalty. How much do you pay for
this? -On average, it's about 450 per month
per team member. So, some of my team
members that have been longer they've
gotten pay raises and things but... -You
start... It starts at 450. -Mm-hmm.
That's pretty good. They're helping you
and that you're helping changing their
lives. Is there a specific
requirements that you asked for your team
members? College degree? -No. What I
do is I'll look at their experience.
I actually don't like a resume. So, if
they send me their resume, I'm never
going to look at it. But what I have them do
is send in a video application. So, I'll
send them a video of myself. So, I'll just
pull out my phone. I'll fill in the
selfie video talking to them for about
5 minutes and say, "This is what I'm
looking for. And this..." You know,
introducing them to me and my company.
And tell them what I'm looking for and
then I say I want you to send a video
back to me. So, if you just pull out your
phone, talk to your camera it doesn't
have to be good video production quality.
Let me know what your experience is and
why you want to work for my company. And
that's been extremely helpful in really
just trying to build a connection with
somebody on the other side of the planet.
Because I don't even talk to them on the
phone. We talked about I don't like phone
calls. They don't like phone calls either.
So, we'll email, we'll use a Voxer but
video communication like that, it's
actually very helpful. -Yeah. -And so that's
how I have them apply and then
I'll give them a trial assignment. And
I'll say, "Okay, I'm going to hire you. This
first week is just a trial period. Just
to make sure that we work well together
and I'll pay you. If it doesn't work out,
you'll still get paid for this week. But
otherwise, I hope to have you work with
for me for many, many years." And I
actually had that experience where I
hired a writer who just didn't have the
ability that I thought she did. She
actually was with me for a few weeks. I
paid her for. I said... I apologize I'm
just going to need to find somebody else
that can do these tasks. And she was
gracious and said, "Yeah, I understand. You
know, all the best." And so and then I
heard a different writer who's on my
team now. So... -That's great. And I love
your way of hiring people because anyone
can make up a resume, right? You can, right?
But with the video, you kind of... You can
tell the essence of a person to. Kind of
see if if it's a match or not. -So, a
question I have for you is if, if you
could give yourself an extra 8 hours
in the day, what what tasks would you do
more than what you're already doing? -What
tasks would I be doing? I'm a bit more like a lifetime learner.
I'd love to learn. So, I'll keep learning,
I'll keep family, I love culture. I love
connecting with people. So I'll be doing
a lot harder than that. -So, I wonder how
you could use outsourcing then because
you can hire somebody 450 bucks a
month. -Yeah, if I can hire anyone that can
do what I eventually will be doing will
be the editing part. I love writing and I
love creating the content and then I
don't want to do... It's like I want to
start it and then not touch it again or
not even see. -Talking about editing is a
good fit for you then. -Have you do much
editing yourself? Do you use Final Cut
Pro or Adobe Premiere? -I don't know how
to do that. -So, my advice will be to learn
it. Kind of develop your style of editing.
And then when you hire an editor in the
Philippines, they'll pick it up and
that way you can just best oversee and
know you can kind of have creative
control over that. But yet... -What I've done
in the past
that I use references. So, people that I
like or inspire me and I use that and
kind of like send it to you at this
point like my best friend link will edit
whatever I have. But that's a good point.
So, you're in the first that will be your
first advisor there first. And then
create my style. -And the great thing is I
mean, 450 a month, in the month, that's a
lot of videos that they could create.
Even if you're filming a vlog and it
takes a full week of editing. That's
going to be an amazing episode, right? You're
only paying 100 bucks or so for that
episode. So, even if it doesn't turn out
right but chances are it'll turn out
pretty good. Or they'll they'll be a
place to grow from. So it's a real, real
affordable safe way to hire somebody
else to do your editing. -Perfect. So where
do we... Where do we find... I'm not sure. I
forgot if you mentioned that... -Virtual
assistanttool.com. Friend of mine, John
Jonas created this website. And now,
there's... I believe there's a couple
hundred thousand Filipinos that have
submitted and created their profiles
there that are hoping to work for
Americans. And so you can go through and
just really narrow it down. I'll put the
I'll put the link down below for that
virtual assistant tool. Because you can
just go in search and find the exact
skillsets you're looking for. And then
you just contact them directly. So, I
don't work through an agency. Most times
when you hire you know somebody in
another country, you go through an agency
who then marks up the price. So, instead
of paying will distract instead of
paying 500 bucks a month, I would pay
1,500. 1,000 of that would
go to the agency and they only pay the
500 to the person. So this way it's you
get a hire somebody directly. -Right. Skip
the middleman.
So, who was the first person that you
hire? And as a YouTuber what are the... You
know, what 3 people or 2 people
to somebody hire... -Yeah, well my first
person is a funny story. So, I'll share
that. Let me answer your other question
first because then we'll end on a funny,
funny failure. And editors is a good
place to start. Also somebody that can
manage YouTube that's got design ability
with the thumbnail, that can do your
description and kind of schedule things
out. Those are the 2 people that I
would if I were kind of building my team
from scratch. Definitely start with an
editor and then as you're... As they're
editing and you're learning the ropes of
YouTube and kind of managing that, then
turn that over to a kind of calmer
YouTube project manager or something
like that. That's what I would do. -Perfect.
-Okay, funny story. I was still an employee.
So, this is going back over a decade. So,
this is a... I was still employee. This one
back 9 and a half years. I was doing
telemarketing but I also for the same
company had an independent contractor
position writing articles. And the
company that they would... They would do
article marketing. And they would pay me
10 or 12 bucks per article that I
would write. So, they'd give me a topic
and I'd write the article and they'd pay
me 10 or 12 bucks. So, I learned
about hiring people in the Philippines.
So, I hired a writer that I would give
the topic to. She would write the article,
I proofread it. Correct a couple things
and sent it in. I get paid the 10 or
12 bucks and I'd pay her 2 bucks.
And eventually got a system going where
she was writing all the articles and I
was making a pretty good spread. Being
able to write a lot more but actually
not doing the writing myself.
So, the reason I say that this is a funny
failure is I stopped doing quality
control. And I just
wasn't careful. And she started
taking shortcuts. Instead of writing when
she did her research on the different
topics, she just take a paragraph here, a
sentence here. And just pieced it
together. And there was less grammatical
errors because she was using other people's
content. And so, when I went through and
kind of did a copyright check or whatnot,
I just found that she was... It was
basically plagiarized content in these
articles. And I and the previous fifty. I
counted it was a nice round number. If
the previous 50 articles had been that
way that I had already been paid for. And
so I was really nervous. I went in the
next day went to the CEO of the company.
And because I didn't want to have them
catch me. I went to them and said, "Hey,
this is what I've been doing. I hired
some in the Philippines that they've
actually been writing the articles for
me and this is what happened." And the guy
just laughed. He thought it was so funny.
But he says, "I'm not the decision-maker
on this. You got to go talk to your
supervisor over the articles." And he was
a young kid who was kind of a punk. And
he was not happy with me. So, he said... He
gave me permission to rewrite the 50
that I already been paid for. But I was
not allowed to write any more articles
after that. And you know, I don't know... I
don't think the person that I hired was
you know doing it maliciously. But I
fired her. I could have been probably
more patient and like talked to her like... Did you know... Like, anyway. So that was my
first person I hired. And it was...
Definitely... Well, I would say that there's
a right way you could do that.
In fact, I would encourage... I just learned
that, "Wow, outsourcing." There's a lot of
possibilities. And within a few
months of that, I quit my job, I had
my company and got up to a team of
10 employees on my web design company.
And was very very successful. So,
yeah. Highly recommend hiring people in
the Philippines, I think. So, my hope is
that this video is helpful for you and
understanding what a great opportunity
is to hire people in the Philippines.
That I'm curious there's probably a lot
of questions that you have about that.
Like what's holding you back from taking
that step in hiring an assistant in the
Philippines. So go ahead and comment
below and I'll make another episode and
answer your question.
