Podcast episode (Ep. 02) by John Jonas arguing that the Philippines is an especially good country for outsourcing. The host explains key advantages: cultural honesty, exceptional employee loyalty, strong American-style English skills, a pleasing service-oriented culture, reliable home-based internet/computer access, and low risk of digital theft — supported by personal hiring anecdotes across many years.
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Hello, and welcome to the Secret Sauce of Outsourcing Podcast, the podcast that's dedicated to making you better at outsourcing your work. My name is John Jonas, and this is episode two. Let's talk about the Philippines. So when I was told to go to the Philippines with my outsourcing stuff, I had no idea that it would be so different than elsewhere. I had no idea that there was this country in Asia where wages were super reasonable, they were super westernized, they spoke almost perfect English, and you can definitely find people with perfect English. They would understand our culture and they would. They understand slang. There's just so many things that make the Philippines amazing for this. So for those of you who don't have people in the Philippines working for you, this podcast is going to be exclusively dedicated to finding people in the Philippines because it is a different experience than anywhere else in the world. And every time I tell someone this, they're always really surprised that the country can make such a difference. So let's talk about it real quickly. So over the years, I've learned that people in the Philippines are honest, number one, which is always people's biggest concern. How do I trust this person? So in the Philippines, they're honest. And obviously not everyone is honest in the Philippines. But you'll know pretty quickly if the person that you are hiring is being honest with you. They'll do things that will show you, like, oh, I'm not trying to cheat you. So, for example, you get an email from them that will say, sir, I'm so sorry, the power went out today for four hours, so I couldn't work. But don't worry, I'll make it up for you tonight and on Saturday. You know, it's one of those things that, like, oh, you didn't have to tell me that, but you did, and you're just trying to be honest with me. And you'll find that they really try to be honest. So my guys in the Philippines have my credit cards, they have access to my bank account, they have my home address, they have access to my email accounts. The only thing they don't do is they don't pay themselves, because if they did, then they would know how much each other made. So having said that, don't go do something that you're not comfortable with and get yourself ripped off. I've helped hundreds of thousands of people hire people in the Philippines, and I see very few cases where people get ripped off. And usually when they do it because the employer tried to get the worker to do something, and then not pay them for it. So if you're reasonable with people, they really will try and be honest with you. So the second thing that I found was in the Philippines, they're exceptionally loyal, like almost to a fault, where once you hire someone and if you treat them well, they will never quit working for you. And this is the kind of thing that like doesn't exist in the world anymore. Like in the us there's no such thing as employer loyalty. People just aren't loyal to their, to their work anymore. In the Philippines, that's a different story. So the first person I ever hired in 2005 still works for me today. You know, that's been a long time. And when he started, he knew nothing. And today I could trust him with anything and he would get it done. And it's amazing. I have people that I hired in 2006 and 2008 and 2009, 2011 all the way along. People who still work for me today. And so I'll just tell you a couple quick stories. One, I was giving one of my people a customer facing role where they were gonna interact with people on Facebook. And I told them, hey, look, as soon as you're in this role and you're gonna start getting job offers from people because they know you work for me. And the person said to me, oh, don't worry, sir, I get job offers every day. I'm not leaving you. I'm not gonna take one of these other offers. And that was really cool. Like, okay, I can put you in front of other people and you're still gonna stay working for me. That's a big deal. Especially for a small business owner to know I'm gonna hire this person, I'm gonna train this person, and they're not gonna leave. So I don't have to have my systems perfect, I don't have to have all my standard operating procedures perfect before I hire this person. Cause they're still gonna work for me in 10 years if I treat them well. And that's a really big key is you treating them well. And I'll cover that in another episode next. In the Philippines, they speak American English. And that's a really big deal. Not Indian English. You'll never have a communication issue with them. They will understand what you say. If you're writing, you'll always understand them. They may not speak perfect English. You can find people who speak perfect English. I've had two different conversations I like to talk about. One of them was with one of my programmers. And I didn't want to get on the phone with him because I didn't really know, but he wanted to. We got on the phone and his English was flawless, like perfect. Another one of my programmers, I really felt like I needed to talk to him and we'd never have had a communication issue. It's been a couple, it had been a couple years of him working for me and he didn't want to. He was hesitant and I got on the phone with him and he was incomprehensible on the phone. I couldn't understand a single thing he said. And it was really surprising to me. Like we had communicated via email for a long time and never ever had an issue. Things were great and I got on the phone with him. I couldn't understand him where the other guy was like, oh, like his English was flawless. So their English is going to be really, really good. Communication is not an issue. They're a very pleasing culture. Like they want to make you happy. It's not like other places where they don't give a crap about you. In the Philippines, if you're not happy, then they're really upset and it's almost like a fault of theirs where if they're worried that they're not going to make you happy, then their tendency is to disappear. And I'll talk about the disappearing VA in another episode. But they want to make you happy. And then they have computers and Internet access, which makes it really easy to find people. You don't have to go through a service to get them, which really, you know, isn't like the end of the world. But if you have to go through a service, it's going to cost you like 10 or 12 or $15,000 more a year than if you just hire them directly and they work from home. And frankly, you're probably more likely to keep someone if they work from home because you don't have to deal with office politics and commutes. Commutes in the Philippines are terrible. Traffic is, it's probably, it's not worse than like most other major metropolitan cities, but it's not uncommon for people to have a two hour commute to work every day. It's just, it's common. And then the last thing I like to talk about that I realized over the years is in the Philippines, they're not entrepreneurial. They don't want to steal your business, they don't want to steal your idea, they don't want to steal your domain. They don't want to, they don't want to take your data they don't want to steal your, your customer list and go sell it online. There's just not that much money in theft for them. And especially since digital theft laws in the Philippines are twice have carry twice the punishment as normal theft laws, the Philippine government got on board with this virtual work a long time ago, realized, yeah, we need to create a culture of trust. And so digital theft is a double the punishment as a normal theft which is already carries a heavy punishment. And so Filipinos don't want to steal your stuff. They don't want to start their own business. They don't want to take the domain or the idea which is different than elsewhere. Like I had a friend say he tried to hire someone in India and the first question they asked was, well, what's your business model with this? And he was like, well, that doesn't matter to you? No, no, I just want to know your business model. No, what you want is to steal the business to know if you can, if you can steal it or not. And that's not the case with the Philippines. They don't want to steal it. So when you combine all these things together, you get this super interesting situation where it's hard to find a job in the Philippines. They call it an emerging economy. They don't like to call it a third world country, but it's an emerging economy. And they have a hard time finding a full time job. They have a hard time finding a long term stable job. And if you'll provide them a long term stable job and it doesn't necessarily have to be full time, but it could be part time or full time that they trust you. You create the situation where they'll go above and beyond what you ask them to try and make sure that you're happy in order to keep their job. Because the prospect of going out and getting another job is really hard. So it's interesting that the Philippines makes a difference, but it is a different experience than anywhere in the world. So if you've tried outsourcing before and you've had a bad experience, give it another shot with the Philippines. Now just so you know, this doesn't work for everyone. The Philippines isn't a magic bullet. It still requires work on your part. But if it does work for you. Yeah, I mean I have thousands and thousands and thousands of other employers who will tell you this has changed their businesses. So my name is John Jonas. Thanks for listening.
