Do You Need a Job To Make Money?
I get a lot of questions and searches here at PhilFAQs, the source for Living In The Philippines information, about jobs for foreigners in the Philippines.
Well, they do exist, although decent ones, especially ones that yu can find from within thePhilippines are few and far between. At the same time, though, I think the Philippines can be a great place to earn a living … for those astute enough to realize you don’y have to be singed up with a company, commuting an dpunching a time clock to earn.
For those of you who haven’t looked at my overall “job philosophy”, rather thna re-invent the wheel I let my fellow blogger Steve Pavlina say it, because he explains so well why you probably should never have a job.
So if you don’t have a job, what else can you do to earn aliving? Well I recommend this book, by my freind Bob Martin who has been living very well here in the Philippines for more than 8 years now. Bob doesn’t have a job and doesn’t need one. He also doesn’t get any checks from the government or any outside support … Bob’s far from the only guy earning a living here, so it is certainly not impossible.
Today I read a post on another blog reviewing a service, run by some folks in China, offering “virtual assistants” to offices in the US and other countries who need office help and don’t want to go in for the overhead of hiring a live assistant in their home city. The bottom line is, they offer a full-time (40 hour a week) assistant service for as low as $900 USD per month, which is about one fifth the total cost of providing office space, computers, and even minimum mandated employee benefits for equivilent service in the States. Read the review and see if it doesn’t awake thoughts in your mind as it did mine….
Outsourcing All of Your Professional Needs
Conventional thought would lead you to believe that you should get yourself a brick-and-mortar office and populate it with full-time employees. That may be well and good for certain kinds of businesses, but it may not be the most cost-effective solution. The single greatest selling point that BPOVIA uses in selling its virtual assistant service is that you are able to save a lot of money by taking the virtual route rather than the in-person route. … full article here.
If you took the time to read the review you’ll see that the company, in my view, doesn’t really have it together so far as a service I would want to buy … but they are on the right track.
A person liivng in the Philippines who can provide basic office assitant services, or who can hire and supervise folks here who have those skills ought to be able to put together a similarr service here in the Philippines and do much better. The costs to provide a place to work here are minimal, a computer, the Open Office package, an Internet connection and maybe a 1-800 number in the US which rings at your deak here in the Philippines is about all you would need. $900 USD a month is more than 3 times what an average office worker is getting here, so you could hire talented people, pay them well and still be making a very nice profit. When I worked for defense contractors in the US who provided workers to replace government workers as if they were part of the government agencies themselves, (a body shop) we always tried to get a price double the salary we were going to pay the worker and made out very well at that 100% markup. Marking up 200% gives a pretty significant profit margin.
Food for thought. There’s a Lot of ways to make mney in the Philippines.
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There are some virtual assistant service provider in Philippines as well, just like BPOVIA in China. Philippines virtual assistant service provider may have better languages skills. China virtual assistant service providers also have competitive edge.
@Larry: Hi Larry, thanks for reading and for your comment.
Indeed that is the point of why I highlighted this review. Both Filipino and foreigners sit here in the Philippines thinking there is no way to earn a living in the Philippines, while Chinese who do not think of themselves as ’second class’ are using the Internet for what it is useful for … making money long-distance.
For those clinging to the “Internet cafe” dream or wanting work as a second-class foreigner in a third-world job, read that review with a critical eye and think about how much better you can do it … from the Philippines. The obstacles are all in your mind.
It’s better work than cleaning toilets for some rich Saudi, that’s for sure.