Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
Tyrone: All right, welcome to the Internet Podcast with Chris Ducker and Tyrone Shum
on the Tyroneshum.com blog. Itís a real pleasure to be able to have Chris on the call today,
heís our special guest. I wanted to share with you today on the call a little bit more
about what Chris does because heís a real expert in the outsourcing field and itís
really interesting to be able to see because heís living in the Philippines, whatís heís
currently doing out there and how heís been able to achieve excellent and growing massive
business there. So, welcome Chris to the call!
Chris: And hello Tyrone, how are you?
Tyrone: Good man, Iím good.
Chris: Very good.
Tyrone: Well, firstly I wanted to start off with you just sharing your story with the
audience and letting the people know what you currently do also why youíre living in
the Philippines. Yeah, whatís your story?
Chris: Okay, Iíll give you in a nutshell because itís approaching 40 years in terms
of a life story. So aha, Iíll give you in a nutshell ó 20 years in business, majority
around the telemarketing industry and 12 years ago I came out to Asia. I started working
originally in Hongkong in the film industry over there doing film distribution. Then I
stumbled across to the Philippines, beautiful islands of the Philippines for a long weekend
and I kind of fell in love with the place to be honest with you. Came back, made some
good friends, and did some consulting work 5 years ago. That was 10 years ago when I
first eventually came to the Philippines and 5 years ago I opened up my own company and
started to build things up from the ground out there. We are seven people when we started
including myself and my wife and now we have about 213 like that, I think all close to
it something along those lines.
Tyrone: Okay, Iím going to ask you, what enticed you to move or I should say you came
right into the Philippines. Thatís a major move and major change in your lifestyle.
Chris: Yeah, I mean because Iíve been traveling across Asia quite frequently in quite couple
of years and I was working in and out Hongkong quite a bit. I guess I probably got the bug
for Asia more than anything else because I didnít just went to Hongkong. I went over
to Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, and when youíre in Asia itís quite easy to travel
around as you probably know. I got to the point where there was a couple of personal
circumstances back in the U.K. that were quite life-changing events for me and I felt ìYou
know what, Iím going to just screw it for a bit and see what happensÖî and I was very,
very lucky to get some great 2-3 years of great consultancy work over here based over
in Manila and eventually I stumbled across Cebu City which is where Iím based full-time
now with HSBC. They hired me to come over and basically train the telemarketers here,
work with a telemarketing team. The rest is a little bit of history as I say, I guess.
Tyrone: Thatís amazing. So youíve been there now for at least 5 years. Youíve known this
area for the last 10 years or so. Over the last 5 years, what have you accomplished in
terms of your business and share with the audience exactly what this business is as
well?
Chris: Well fundamentally, weíre an outsourcing company. We work in 3 major fields which is
customer service so all of those sort of overtaking 100 numbers of inbound work, we also do quite
a bit of telemarketing ó lead generation, appointment setting, database cleansing, surveys
those sorts of stuff and probably for the last couple of years, weíve been quite focused
on the virtual assistant aspect of outsourcing. But you know itís a lot more than the freelancing
stuff where they work on home based stuff obviously. They have this huge infrastructure
that we have, the facility, and everything that goes with that. At that part of the business
actually is the one thatís truly when you look at it seat-by-seat, client-based client
ratio, thatís the one thatís grown fast than anything else for the last couple of
years. But the telemarketing probably still has the lead a little bit on everything else
that we do. Weíre kind of known in telemarketing and sort of lead generation and things like
that. But I mean yeah, when we started out 5 years ago, weíve started doing nothing
but telemarketing because itís new and simple. Even though, I had been in contact centers
and call centers areas in the Philippines for training purposes for consultancy and
management work and things like that, I knew the industry and I knew the outsourcing world.
Iíve been involved in it ever pretty much since the day I arrived in the country 10
years ago but it wasnít like I said around in the middle of 2000, middle of 2005 where
I decided, ìWait a minute, thereís way too much money being laid in this luck and I need
to get involve with this.î We literally started off with 7 members of staff, we had facility
which was good for around 30 but we only built desks for about 15 of them. You know literally,
8 weeks later, weíre building extra 15 desks and then free mums into it, we got 30 people
working for us. We actually started as a pretty smally outsourcing company for about a year
and a half or so. Thereís no more than 50 people working for us for a while. It was
nice because we were still kind of finding a way a little bit, weíre still learning
how to market ourselves properly and things like that. We fast-forward 5 years later,
we now have 3 floors in the building where we are and like I said almost 220 people are
working for us so itís moving very quickly in the last few years. The last 3 years seem
a real major growth force and itís been a rollercoaster I can tell you. Itís not simple
running a growing organization in the Philippines, itís a tough country to do business in with
regards to people might say about it being paralyzed to work like ìYes, Iím 30 minutes
away from the beach, and the resorts are beautiful, the waters are crystal-clear and the fishes
are gorgeous and all the rest of itÖî but if youíre doing business on a global scale
based here, itís a slightly different board game. You know when weíre talking about a
little bit before you hit the record button. Itís not as easy as most people think particularly
when youíre talking about several hundred people working for you, itís a touch caper
in it.
Tyrone: Exactly, you know Iím just dealing with one or two people and you said youíre
dealing with couple of hundred people.
Chris: Yeah, indeed.
Tyrone: I think a lot of people I think will be actually curious about jumping from around
50 to say 200 people in that span of time. Did you get the demand first before you decided
to fill the seats or was it like basically you said ìOkay, weíre looking to target
at growing at this pace. I need to get these seats put in thereÖî Which was it?
Chris: Sure, like I said when we first setup, we had a relatively small area on the 5th
floor building which is now where my own personal office where Iím sitting at right now. That
space was good for 30, weíve expanded it to about good for about 60 after about 8 or
9 months being in the business. Then we filled it up like I said we basically stayed at that
sort or level for about a year and a half to 3 years or so. I think we went from 60
to about a hundred. Weíre very lucky weíre in a building where the landlordís contract
we had it written that he would give us first that we use on any space in the building.
It was a relatively old building about 10 years old but the infrastructure is great,
cable wires everything like that. But weíre actually above the number 1 high-end dealership
in the entire country ó itís a 5-story building and the first story has obviously nothing
but cars. Right?
Tyrone: Exactly.
Chris: So itís a very easy place. You know when we have clients coming to visit us they
say, ìHow do I find your office?î and we say ìItís in blah, blah streetÖî then
theyíll say ìWhere the hell is that?î Just get in a taxi and tell him itís like a high-end
building, and theyíre able to find it. Itís a very big showroom.
Tyrone: Just make sure your virtual staff donít go downstairs and start to testdrive
cars and put on their credit cards.
Chris: Thatís right, exactly. They got them locked up pretty good. It was something that
was planned I think in every major growth step. You know we consistently have seats
empty waiting to be filled. We build out and then fill them up, build out a little bit
more and fill them up. So went from the 5th floor which was a relatively small area and
we took the entire 3rd floor which was kind of our own showroom I guess where we have
the lobby, conference room, training room, chill-out lounge for the staff, the pantry
area and then the entire floor has all the servers down there, everythingís there. Then,
we also then took about free calls on the second floor for additional calling space
and VA space as well. Itís slowly but surely, we got about 40 seats empty right now. I mean
theyíll be filled by the end of the year, but easy, easy.
Tyrone: Thatís interesting because what we are going to probably talk about is I want
to jump over to your blog that youíve created called the Virtual Business Lifestyle. This
is how Chris and I actually met, I contacted Chris through the Virtual Business Lifestyle
blog and also I think I sent you a message on FaceBook and Twitter as well. We got in
contact and we started chatting and this is how we came across the interview. But it was
very interesting because we complemented each other very well, we are both in the outsourcing
field and we like to teach people and we also have very much similar mindset. What I wanted
to ask as well for the audience is to ask you what inspired you to create this blog
firstly?
Chris: My wife, actually.
Tyrone: Okay, thatís interesting.
Chris: As with most lucky guys say you know usually thereís usually this decent woman
behind all or to the side of them and sometimes in front. But no, I mean leading the way,
leading the bloody way right? Come on, this isnít a family production weíre talking
about.
Tyrone: Family channel, yes.
Chris: Terrible, basically youíve completely lost me now. But okay, it was my wifeís idea
to start a blog and it was basically, it came about because last year, I think it was around
the end of the first quarter I started my blog ChrisDucker.com which is now no more.
But I started talking about anything and everything you can think of. Following one of the most
successful posts on the blog was about outsourcing ó what it is, how it works, how to do it,
how to not do it. It was quite months to post, thereís good couple of thousand words. But
usually when they get a long blog post like that usually people are like ìGeez, Iím
not going to read all that, thatís insane.î But it became very popular, there were about
70 or 80 comments on there by the time I took it off, I mean thatís sort of period of months.
But I mean that for a blog that has come out from nowhere, it became quite popular.
Tyrone: Exactly.
Chris: I noticed that all of the posts that Iíve been putting on there that were in relation
to creating more free lifestyle but still revolving around business so you can make
money and living more of virtual kind of life, been able to travel while seamlessly at work
and things like that, I noticed it was those particular posts that were showing all real
interest on the blog. I did a post about how I did a fantastic experience in Starbucks
with my son and the staff at Starbucks. I love writing that blog post because it was
very close to my heart but Iíve had like 5 comments on it. That was a very popular
blog post and I thought it was great! But tt didnít quite float with the audience.
The bottom-line here is that those kind of posts became more popular and so we sat down
over Christmas period and I was sort of strategizing a little bit for this year for growth, things
like that and making some key-highs. It just sort of went into one thing that led to another
and she said to me, ìYou know what you should do, you should create a site where youíre
giving away advice, starting discussions and a community where people can come and talk
about that kind of lifestyle design and still revolving around business but with a real
heavy twist on outsourcing and virtual staff and things like that because thatís what
I do, thatís what I know.î Itís kind of hit me and I was just ìOkay, what am I going
to call it?î She came up with the name, she came up with everything. It was quite ironic
because Iíve been involved to marketing and sales, branding in my whole career and I didnít
come up with a single thing so it was all down to her. Honey, if youíre watching, thank
you.
Tyrone: Itís always them. Theyíre always gearing us good values.
Chris: We shouldnít really tell them so much right? That will create problems at some point.
But no, it just managed the snowboard. Weíve launched it in the middle of weíre up to
where week away from being 6 months old and itís just spoiled. Iíve been interviewed
by so many people and I get asked literally daily to do guest posts for people and things
like that. The big thing surrounding the blog is my goal for this year and that was the
main focus when we launched it. I launched it with a video post and told everybody about
my 2000-thing goal. A lot of people have quite a few goals that they want to achieve every
year but I wanted to put together the mother of all goals and that is to completely and
actually remove myself from this brick-and-mortar business on a day-to-day basis and become
a full-time virtual CEO by the end of this year. Without giving the entire giveaway because
no one will come and visit the blog otherwise. The bottom-line is Iíve broken the goals
down to month by month miniature goals. We tried to achieve and in fact actually Iím
3 weeks ahead of June so far and slowly but surely itís developing. The one big major
requirement for this goal to be hit is for me to hire another foreigner, another expat
as we call them here in the Philippines. Predominantly, they have to be American because 80% of all
marketers are Americans and once I hire that one person, the rest is just icing on a cake
really. Once Iíve got that person, I can become fundamentally do whatever I do everyday
here myself and I can leave. I may hit the goal sooner if I can find that person, I donít
know.
Tyrone: That is great. I mean looking at replacing yourself is something that I think a lot of
people want to be able to achieve. If you can achieve it in the scale of your business,
thereís a huge market out there who wants to be able to follow your footsteps. Iím
for one whoís really, really excited because Iíve been following your goals as well. Itís
just really interesting to be able to learn so much from it. Iím sort of on the small
scale of things but Iím still quite happy with what Iíve got and achieved here. For
people who want to achieve what Chrisí doing, this is a fantastic way to be able to learn
how heís done it. This is a real inspiration to be able to learn straight from you because
youíre doing what you do, you know you walk your footsteps and you really do what you
talk as well.
Chris: But on the blog itself just so for your viewers, now on the blog itself, there
are actually monthly reports for the dues at the end of every month where I talk about
what I did that month to get myself one step closer to that ultimate goal. And when I say
virtual, I mean completely virtual ó I donít want this chair, I donít want this nice office,
I donít want a place that is Chrisí place in this building for my company. I want to
come in the office once a week for a 2-hour management meeting and thatís it. The rest
of the time, Iíll work out of my home office so Iím completely setup at home as well so
I work out of my home office and anywhere else I want to. Thatís the whole deal.
Tyrone: Exactly. Do you see yourself as well once youíve created this virtual CEO, what
do you see yourself doing once youíve get yourself out of the business and working less?
Chris: Absolutely nothing. No, Iím just joking. I would go stuck crazy doing nothing everyday.
Tyrone: I can see that already.
Chris: I understand when people say ìYou know if Iím going to sell my own company,
Iím going to get $10 million, Iím not doing anything for the rest of my lifeÖî and Iím
like how boring life crap is that? I mean itís just so crap, why would you want to
do that? I have a couple of business interests that I donít really focus on right now that
I would like to focus on to see what I can make off them. They donít really making a
whole lot of money but they do okay but I also have a lot of plans for the online world
in producing very high quality information products for aspiring lifestyle designers
and virtual boxers, things like that. They really all obviously, theyíre not happening
this year. Iím actually going to launch a brand new service in July which will bridge
the gap between the service provided virtual staff and the freelancing virtual staff. It
will bridge the gap perfectly in regards to the uneasiness and unreliable kind of factual
work from freelancers from time to time. Weíre completely eliminating that sort of stuff
and I canít get to much more about it but weíre still finalizing it. When the time
comes, Iíll tell you about it so you can let your guys know.
Tyrone: Yep.
Chris: But the bottom-line is thatís the one online project that weíre launching and
probably I think Iím about halfway through an e-book in regards to the work of a virtual
staff as well which is a very condensed e-book, itís not one of those waffling e-books which
are 120 pages long and it looks pretty, things like that. It will still look pretty but it
wonít be 120 pages long. To be honest with you itís priceless, I can be literally giving
it away to give people the opportunity to learn from it a little bit. But thereís going
to be a lot of different things and thatís the whole point about versifying your income
and creating several strings of passive income which is part of the process for the Virtual
Business Lifestyle and weíll see what happens. Iím a pretty flexible fellow and Iím not
one of those guys who are sort of rigid who knows what he does in business. Thereís no
right or wrong way, thereís only your way to do business. Thatís why I think you mentioned
youíre quite happy with what youíre doing right now, the money youíre making and the
way youíre living your life and your success. Youíre already a success.
Tyrone: Everybody has got their own definitions of success and it doesnít mean youíre going
to get other peopleís approval. As long as youíre happy within your own life, you could
be making $500 a week living the lifestyle that you enjoy.
Chris: Exactly.
Tyrone: I know that there are plenty of people doing that as well. There are people who can
make million dollars in a year and Iím happy so you have to look at what success has defined
you not other peopleís successes. Absolutely youíre creative with that one.
Chris: Absolutely, yep.
Tyrone: Are you interested in going back in the U.K or in the U.S. once you create this
virtual business lifestyle or virtual CEO. Or do you plan to stay in the Philippines?
Chris: Full time? Probably not, to be frank with you. I do want to spend a little bit
more time in the United States mainly for business reasons. I get over there once a
year pretty religiously and Iím usually there for about a month at the time when Iím there.
For the last year, Iíve actually been taking and Iím going to quote Mr. Ferriss here.
Iíve been taking mini, what do you call theseÖmini retirements where Iíve been doing a month
here and there. Iíve really enjoyed them and Iíve also found that even though Iím
exposed to those mini retirements, Iíve been incredibly productive in that kind of setting
so I wanted to do a little bit more traveling with my family as well and weíll see what
happens. As for going back full time, I mean for the U.K. absolutely not, no way. The U.K.
now is a completely different country to the one that I grew up in and enjoyed growing
up in. You know when I go back there now and I find myself shaking my head and you ask
anybody, anybody in my age in the U.K. would say exactly the same thing. If they not, if
they canít say exactly the same thing, they are either blinds or deaf or theyíre just
mental phased because the place is just going to crap, it really is. Itís not the same
country. Look, Iím English and Iím patriotic and Iím very true in the lands of tomorrow
and things like that, but the bottom-line is that I would not want to live in the U.K.
full-time again, I wouldnít want to do it. Both myself and my wife enjoy the U.S. and
we are eying San Francisco or L.A. one of the two
Tyrone: Nice.
Chris: And there maybe a little good quality six to eight weeks at the beginning in next
year. Weíll also probably do a month in England as well and weíll see what else happens,
there you go. But that month would be July/August month. That would be the whole months.
Tyrone: Thatís a nice practical advice there so youíre not coming back there.
Chris: No. Weíll spoil here in the Philippines, you know the weather is beautiful all the
time and weíll completely spoil.
Tyrone: Well youíre lucky, itís freezing here today. Itís been freezing for the last
few months and that way, it keeps you in bed. But if some of those comes around, theyíll
definitely come under Australia, itís a nice place. Check it out as well.
Chris: You know what, I always want to come around there, I just never get around to it.
Iím only 8,9 hours away from it or whatever it isÖ
Tyrone: Exactly!
Chris: I know, and itís just as easy to get on a plane. Get Sydney, or Perth or wherever
anybody then it is getting on a plane going to Hongkong or anywhere else. Itís just slightly
long and a little bit expensive but I will have to do Australia actually. Iíve never
done it, I have always wanted to so you know maybe you can pick me up from the airport.
Tyrone: Yeah, whenever that happens. Sounds good. All right, I want to sort of go on to
a little bit more to helping and giving some valuable content, not that we havenít been
giving a lot of content today but for anyone whoís starting out in their internet business
and who are looking to outsource as well, what three tips of advice can you give to
people who are looking to outsource to say, Philippines and looking to create a business
lifestyle like yourself?
Chris: Three tipsÖokay, thereís really two major ways to be able to outsource to the
Philippines. The first one is with a provider like our company, somebody whoís setup in
a relatively large building with a great infrastructure, management all the rest of it, and then you
can outsource in a freelance way. I think probably a lot of people are going to be watching
this and visit your blog as well as mine to be very frank, Iíll probably going to be
more leaning towards the freelancing because itís a cheaper version quite frankly, plain
and simple. So weíll focus on that one otherwise Iíll just be waffling on like ìYeah, get
the freelancer stuffÖî so thatís what Iíll focus on. When you work with a freelancer,
there are three major tips that I usually give out. The first one is make sure that
you make your expectations of your virtual assistant very clear in terms of the way you
want work done, the way you want it produced, I mean Iím talking about the details, Iím
a detail-freak. Write the way down to what font you use, what size of the font you use,
everything because ultimately you may have to spend a little bit of time to going through
those specifics and being clear in those things at the beginning but ultimately you donít
have to correct them all the time. Correcting somebody at a distance particularly through
on different time zone, itís a lot harder and time consuming than it is if youíre registered
in the same office where you can talk to each other on the same desks. I have a luxury of
having a personal assistant here in the office literally on the other side of world over
there, sheís spectacular. But I also actually hire and work with two virtual assistants
who have not anything to do with the company. The reason why I do that and the main reason
why I started it is because I wanted to experience the freelancer route myself. So I know what
Iím talking about when Iím talking to the readersí blog and things like that. But as
time has progressed for both of those, I mean working with them for about four months now,
I now utilize them very heavily every single day. They both on a full-time payroll for
me and theyíre both fantastic. Finally enough, theyíre both actually here in Cebu so I do
get to meet them and I buy them pizza or ice cream stuffs like that and everybodyís happy.
Getting back to the question, the first one is being real clear on your expectations,
the second one is when youíre working with tasks is to put timelines in place because
if you donít, nothingís really prioritized. Youíll find that VAs do need that kind of
guidance, really heavily in terms of timelines. Youíre not just giving them one task a day,
you can give them several tasks then thereís going to be what I call revolving tasks that
they do everyday ó be it comment on blogs for you, or send tweets on your behalf or
whatever the case maybe. So you have to with any major project or any major tasks, you
have to put timelines in place. The third one is very simple ó pay them on time.
Tyrone: I like that one.
Chris: As simple as that. Telling you right now in the Philippines particularly with the
freelancing virtual assistants that Iíve met, I mean Iíve done seminars for them so
Iíve met hundreds of freelancing VAs over here, everything from admin assistants to
web programmers. The number one break with virtual assistants in the Philippines is getting
paid late because here this is not about generally building a career. Itís about job security,
job stability and you know a week before payday is here, theyíve already spent the month.
Theyíre giving this to the sister for college, theyíre giving this to their mothers for
the rent, and it really is. You pay a Filipino late man, Iím telling you, and theyíre not
going to stick around very long. Plain and simple.
Tyrone: I know that and that happens generally in any industry. Iíve been working with trades
people, they love it when you pay on time especially when I was running my other Dragonboat
business, since I paid on my supplies on time, Iíll get the deliveries right and expected.
Chris: Absolutely!
Tyrone: Itís the same relationship. Itís big, big thing and make sure you look over
you staff and pay them on time.
Chris: Thatís it. We actually have virtual assistants whoíve worked with Live2Sell and
whoís virtual bosses are say in the U.S. or in the U.K. whatever and you would be surprised
and this is actually down to me telling our clients to do these types of things because
it does keep all VAs happy and with us instead of working with another company is that I
say to them, ìAfter youíve developed a relationship with them, after they do a really good job
on a major task or major project for you, donít just say thank you, yes say thank you
but do it in a way that they really are going to remember.î Weíve had flowers delivered
at the office, weíve had FedEx packages with books and DVDs, and weíve actually had, we
actually had one and I swear itís true. I asked the guy if I could do a press release
about it because itís just a PR magic but you would never let me do it. We actually
had a relationship between a virtual boss and the VA developed so enrich that he asked
his VA to be present at his wifeís birth via Skype. I swear. The reason why is because
the VA actually was a registered nurse here in the Philippines, back in the nursing industry
to come and work in a call center environment. Because the boss himself was traveling all
the time, she developed quite a relationship and quite a rapport with the wife. She talked
about the kidís schooling, doing this and doing that and all sorts of stuff. So quite
a relationship built up and she was there for the birth.
Tyrone: Wow, thatísÖ
Chris: Thatís probably ultimate conclusion for the birth. It was a U.S. client I wasnít
on the shift that night but I do remember several of the staff laughing and joking about
it the next day and saying, ìWhy canít I do things like that, thatís just an easy
job.î Being in the buzz, you know what I mean.
Tyrone: Oh, that is amazing, thatís fantastic. What you shared is definitely called a laugh
story there.
Chris: Laughed 5 years in business, if you donít have few stories like that you tell
them you havenít done a very good job in business right?
Tyrone: Exactly, Iím pretty sure, thereíll be more stories to come which weíll share
to the audience another time. I think we should probably even one podcast story after story.
Chris: Just a story? Story time with Tyrone!
Tyrone: Thatís excellent. All right Chris, I wanted to wrap this up now and let the audience
know that they can still get in contact with you. You seem to be someone whoís very easy
to talk to which I found going to know you over this short period of time. How will people
get in contact with you Chris?
Chris: You can invite them on the blog, plain and simple itís VirtualBusinessLifestyle.com.
You can also find me on Twitter and FaceBook, and you can get all the links on the YouTube
channel. I do quite a bit video posting and things like that. Actually if you guys are
interested in virtual assistance out there on your readership, I have 10 video clips,
very short and condensed about 2 minutes each that I shot on a beautiful paradise here called
Boracay at the beginning of the year ó my top ten virtual assistant video tips and you
can find them on YouTube. But just go to my blog VirtualBusinessLifestyle.com and everything
else is there.
Tyrone: Iíll definitely put that as links down the bottom and insert. Iíll make sure
people will get them.
Chris: Awesome.
Tyrone: Itís a pleasure to be able to do this podcast interview with you and I hope
that the audience has benefited quite a lot from this. Thanks very much again Chris.
Chris: No problem.
Tyrone: If anyone wants to find anymore podcasts out or listening to anything similar to this,
just go to Tyroneshum.com. My name is Tyrone Shum from Tyroneshum.com. Have a great day
and catch up soon!