John Jonas explains why you need daily check-ins with Filipino virtual assistants. Use project management tools, instant messaging, and screen recordings to explain processes. A structured daily report answering three questions increases accountability, surfaces problems early, and strengthens trust.
Chapters
Hello and welcome to my series of tips about outsourcing to the Philippines and hiring Filipino virtual assistants. My name is John Jonas, and in this series I hope to share with you a whole bunch of tips that will help you become better at hiring virtual workers. Tip number one, daily communication. So for me, communicating daily with outsourced workers, with virtual workers is critical. And this is where most people make their biggest mistake. If you don't communicate daily with people in the Philippines, it causes all kinds of problems. So let me tell you how I prefer to communicate. For me, I prefer to communicate, number one, through a project management system, which we use Basecamp. Number two, through email and then through Instant messenger, which my team has chosen to use Slack, you could use Skype or Google Chat, or, you know, there's tons of these. And in the Philippines, they don't really care what you're using. Or there's a couple other options that I don't really use but other people use, which is a phone call or a webinar. So I don't do those because, number one, Filipinos are scared about it. They don't typically want to get on a phone call or a webinar. Now they do want to see you communicate with them. And so the way I do that and the way I accomplish that is I use Snagit, which is a screen capture screen recording software that lets me record my screen and my voice. I can talk through processes with them, and with this, I can easily send them communication. Every day of me talking through things that they're working on, and then they're getting to hear my voice and getting to trust me, and they know that I care about them. So lack of communication is probably what creates the biggest problem in outsourcing. Without communication, you as the employer will probably assume everything is okay when it's not. Sometimes it is, but sometimes it's not. And if you're not communicating, you don't know how to find that out. Workers, especially in the Philippines, they don't know what to do because if they don't get feedback or instructions from you. When someone in the Philippines doesn't understand something or doesn't know something, then they don't communicate with you. And if you don't have a habit of communicating every day with them, then you don't know if they're not communicating because they're not working or if they're not communicating because they have a problem. And typically it's not because they're not working, it's because they have a problem if they stop Communicating. So this is a big reason why the daily communication is. Is so important. When daily communication breaks down, then all kinds of processes break down. With hiring Filipino VAs. So what should be in your daily communication? So I asked my people to send me three things in their daily communication in their daily reports. Number one, what did you work on today? Number two, what problems did you run into? And number three, how can I help you? Now, they don't always answer those three, all three of those questions, but having a specific thing that they're going to answer helps them to send the daily report. What did you work on today? Is so important. So this kind of structured daily reporting from them helps in two ways. Number one, it makes your employees accountable. Like, if they didn't work on something today, they have a hard time telling you what they worked on today. Number two, it lets you know that the tasks and projects that you have going on are getting worked on so that you can put those things out of your mind and you can focus on more important things, like making sales. Whereas if you're focusing on those things that they're working on, then you're really working kind of in your business. And letting them report to you daily lets you kind of step away and work on your business. The daily communication, not only does it maintain the relationship and make sure work is getting done, but it helps you become a better manager and a better CEO of your business. And that's my number one tip. Is daily communication required of them? Make sure you communicate every day. If you want more, I have a book out called the outsourcing lever. It's OutsourcingLever.com where I will teach you the whole process of how and why to hire Filipino VA's, what things they can do for you, and how to manage the process so that you're getting really, really good work done at a really affordable rate. Again, outsourcing lever.com My name is John Jonas, and this is my series of tips about how to outsource to the Philippines.
