I decided to write this article to give you all the information you need to know to make an informed decision when hiring virtual assistants in the Philippines.
I understand there's a lot of information out there. Much of it is outdated or peddled by "info-marketers," promising you a silver bullet attached to the silver bullet is usually a $995 price tag.
The truth is, there are no secrets. There is no silver bullet. However, essential facts and valuable information are often learned by experiencing the mistakes and successes of hiring Filipino VA's and outsourcing to the Philippines.
You can read an article I wrote, "6 Filipino virtual assistant myths busted", to discover some of the biggest misconceptions and mistruths or porky pies, as we say in England, that has permeated the online world.
What you'll learn from this article:
- The benefits of hiring a virtual assistant in the Philippines
- How much it costs to hire a Filipino VA
- The difference between a Filipino virtual assistant" and virtual staff in the Philippines
- When should you hire a virtual assistant?
- How to hire a virtual assistant in the Philippines
- Fun facts: Why outsource to the Philippines?
But before I delve into the meaty parts of the article, let me first answer a question that you're probably asking yourself. What makes "Michael Brodie" worth listening to?
Who am I, Why should you care, and what makes me worth listening to?
In a world of self-inflated egos, hyperbole, and speaking about oneself in the third person, you have every right to be thinking to yourself, why invest 5-7 minutes of my time reading about what this guy has to say.
So let me cut to the chase. Without bragging or blowing my own trumpet, let me give you a few reasons why I believe I have the experience and expertise to provide you with a tremendous amount of value.
- I do this every day. I employ well over 300 people in the Philippines, and I've hired staff in the Philippines to fill almost every single job position imaginable.
- I live in the Philippines, and I have for many years. This means I understand the culture and understand every aspect of hiring, working with, and managing staff.
- I founded the Philippines' outsourcing marketplace. On VirtualStaff.ph, you can choose from hundreds of thousands of Filipino virtual assistants and virtual staff in the Philippines.
With my credentials above, I hope that I have given you enough confidence to trust my judgment and learn from the content I will share with you below. It's based on actual data, my own experience, and the experience of hundreds of business owners that I've had the pleasure to either help, talk to, or share ideas with.
The benefits of hiring a virtual assistant in the Philippines
There are many reasons why hiring a Filipino virtual assistant is an excellent thing to do. Once I share the information below, you'll realize that it almost becomes a no-brainer decision.
You'll save a lot of money
You could save as much as 80% on what it would cost you to hire an employee or contractor locally. The average salary for a virtual assistant in the Philippines ranges from $4.00 to $6.00 per hour. You can also hire entry-level virtual assistants for as low as $3.00 to $4.00 per hour and, of course, highly skilled virtual assistants for between $5.00 and $10.00 per hour.
The data above is based on our database of hundreds of thousands of virtual assistants/remote staff registered on our marketplace.
You'll increase your productivity
Whether you're a small business owner, solopreneur, or in a business similar to real estate, having a virtual assistant will help you increase your productivity because you can effectively outsource or delegate tasks that are not the best value for your time.
Examples would include the following:
- Managing and posting on your social media channels
- Creating basic graphics on Canva
- Replying to emails and live chat queries
- Creating emails
- Data entry or processing
- Content creation
Those are some examples of things you can immediately remove from your "to-do lists," or worse still, something you can do that you're maybe semi neglecting right now because you have a million other things eating away at your limited time.
Increased flexibility
This is extremely important if you're in a business like e-commerce or FBA. You know you have a lot of stuff to do that is both repetitive and time-consuming.
These include reviewing product listings, creating content for listings, replying to customer support, following up on product shipments, and other admin-based stuff that is both essential and boring.
Now, the beauty of having a Filipino VA lies in creating more flexibility for yourself while still ensuring everything is getting done.
I remember having a conversation with Michael Gerber, who wrote a fantastic book called "the e-myth," and he and I agreed that having a VA fits in perfectly with the concept of owning and running a turnkey business.
Skills your business needs to take it up a notch and grow
Whether you are a one-person business or someone who already has staff locally, regardless of the size of your business, it's unlikely you have every skill you need to fire at all cylinders.
No matter what job needs completing, you can find a qualified virtual assistant who has the skill set you're looking for.
How much does it cost to hire a Filipino Virtual Assistant?
Because many people often interchange the words "virtual assistant" and "virtual staff," I'll go ahead and list some of the most popular positions that people generally hire for when outsourcing to the Philippines.
- General Virtual Assistant: $400 to $1,200/month
- Content Writer/Article Writer: $450 to $900/month
- SEO Specialist: $500-$1500/month
- Digital Marketing: $500-$1500/month
- Front-end web developer: $500-$1200/month
- Back-end web developer: $500-$1500/month
- Full-Stack web developer: $600-$3,000/month
- Graphic Designer: $500-$1100/month
- Video Editor: $450-$1200/month
- Data Entry: $350-$750/month
- Amazon VA (Amazon virtual assistant): $450-$750/month
- Bookkeeper: $400-$800/month
- Accountant (CPA): $500-$1500/month
- Customer Service: $400-$1,000/month
- Telemarketer: $400-$800/month
Note: These are just averages. The actual salary you'll pay your virtual assistant is between you and the virtual assistant. Some skilled VAs will, of course, command a higher salary than an entry-level virtual assistant.
You can, of course, hire virtual assistants in the Philippines at cheaper rates. However, based on my experience and the fact I live here in the Philippines and understand the local hiring market, as well as the VA and online working market, I'd strongly suggest paying your VA within the ranges mentioned above.
Ultimately if you pay too low, someone might take the job, but they'll always be looking out for a better opportunity. That's why the rates above factor in what VA's want, as opposed to the "what is the lowest I can pay my VA" kind of mindset which some "info guru's" preach, in their quest to sell you a "how-to" course.
However, it's ultimately up to you to decide how much you want to pay your virtual assistants in the Philippines.
The Philippines outsourcing industry continues to change and grow as more Filipinos work home-based with full-time online jobs. Here on VirtualStaff.ph, we have thousands of new virtual assistants creating accounts every day.
To stay competitive and ensure you can attract, hire and keep the best talent you can get for your money, make sure you keep up to date with salaries by looking at what hourly rate other businesses are offering when posting jobs on VirtualStaff.ph.
One thing that is important to mention is don't base your decision on salary cost alone. By this, I mean, for example, if the difference in salary rate is $1.00 to $2.00 per hour, evaluate whether or not it is worth paying for the skills and experience that person brings to the table. In most cases, it is!
What is the difference between a "virtual assistant" and a "virtual staff"?
I mentioned earlier that most people who are looking to hire a "Filipino VA" are looking to hire a "remote staff" or "virtual staff" who happens to be based in the Philippines.
I created a "quote" and definition to make it easy to understand the significant differences.
Virtual Assistant:
This is basically like hiring an assistant in your home country, except the difference is this assistant is "virtual" or "remote."
Typically a virtual assistant will help you with many general things, such as social media posting, admin, research, diary planning, and other typical assistant tasks.
Virtual Staff/Remote Staff:
This means any position that is generally more specialized. For example, video editors, graphic designers, developers, digital marketing managers, PPC specialists, telemarketers, accountants, and other such positions would fall under what I would term as virtual staff or remote staff.
In a nutshell, imagine if you were looking to hire staff locally in your home country. Whatever the job position or job title, it is the same as what you would put when hiring virtual staff in the Philippines.
When should you hire a virtual assistant?
This decision is ultimately down to you. Only you know whether or not you need an extra pair of hands or not.
I will, however, give you some questions to ask yourself, and if you answer yes, to any of these questions, then hiring a virtual assistant might be something you should seriously consider doing.
- Do you feel that you could get more stuff done if you had an extra pair of hands?
- Are you doing stuff in your business that you find boring and monotonous?
- If you outsource tasks to a virtual assistant, would it allow you to do more high-paying tasks that would increase your profits?
- Are you working more hours than you'd like to? Perhaps if you had a virtual assistant, you could spend more time with family or doing other stuff that you'd enjoy doing?
- Do you currently hire a local employee, and you could increase your business profits by replacing them with a virtual assistant in the Philippines?
How to hire a virtual assistant in the Philippines on the VirtualStaff.ph marketplace
It's easy. All you need to do is go to the VirtualStaff.ph outsourcing marketplace and create an account!
After creating your account, you can choose from thousands of Filipino virtual assistants and immediately begin outsourcing to the Philippines and building your virtual team. It starts by simply posting jobs, getting applicants, and then sending job offers to the virtual assistants you want to hire!
Why businesses outsource to the Philippines (+ fun facts)
- English is the joint official language. This means all road signs, official documents, and even the constitution is written in English.
- Degrees in the Philippines are tested in English. All written exams are in English.
- If you go to the cinema in the Philippines, virtually every movie is in English, and there are no subtitles.
- On average, by hiring virtual staff in the Philippines, you'll save between 70-80% on American/British/Australian salary costs.
- The Philippines was one of the few countries in the world to have been a colony of the USA. (1898-1946), this came about because the USA bought the Philippines from Spain.
- The Philippines are named after King Philip II of Spain. (It was a Spanish colony from 1521-1898)
- The Philippines is alongside India, the outsourcing capital of the world. In fact, for customer support-related roles, the Philippines is by far #1, with over 1.2 million people officially employed in the BPO (business outsourcing) industry.
