- Do you wanna start an online business
that allows you to work anywhere,
you can work from home, work at the beach.
And the best part is, you don't need the time, the skills
or the money to actually make it work.
And in this so, this video I'm gonna share with you
the exact business model that I started
which is the outsourcing business,
and I'm gonna share with you all the tips
and trick on how I started and you can start it, too.
(upbeat pop music)
So hi, everybody, for those of you who don't know who I am,
I'm Linh Podetti, mother of three and a serial entrepreneur.
And in this channel, my goal
is to help you achieve your time and financial freedom.
And if you're new here, please support me by subscribing
and pressing the bell button to get notified
about my videos, every single week.
And so let's get straight into
how to start an outsourcing business.
So how did I come across outsourcing?
Okay, so I just wanna take you back to the time
where I first started an ecommerce store.
So I started an ecommerce store thinking
that it's an online business selling nail polish.
But it wasn't really online
because I gotta still deliver the product.
But if you watch my other previous videos,
I share with you all the different types of businesses
that you can start online
and one of them included ecommerce
but there were other ones and I showed the pros and cons.
But what happened after my nail polish business
was that other business owners wanted my help
with how to do a website or how to do marketing.
So for my first business,
I learned a thing or two about marketing.
But what I also realized that I learned
that I didn't realize, was the ability to outsource,
to find people to do the work for myself, at the time.
But when it came to what am I gonna do next?
I don't want to do my nail polish business anymore,
what am I gonna do next?
And I don't wanna go back to nine to five.
Was when other business owners asked me
if I could actually help them get a website done.
And so I basically charged 'em at a higher rate
than what I could get it done for.
So I remember my first website.
I charged about, maybe $1,000,
and I found someone from the Philippines to do it for $600.
And so I collected the money first from the client,
or even 50% of it,
and I paid the contractor also 50% of what I owe him.
So I didn't have to fork out any money
and I didn't have to worry about the skills
because well I'm not a web developer,
but I had a web developer to do it.
And in terms of time, well the only time I really put in
is just checking the work and showing the client.
'Cause the client didn't really wanna deal
with the outsource contractor,
they just wanted to get the website done.
But what they're happy is to liaise with me.
And so at every stage if I've got the website done,
I just show the client
and if the client has any questions,
I passed it to the web developer to answer
or to update me on what I need to tell the client.
So that's what really an outsourcing business is all about.
An outsourcing business
is where you can actually provide any services
that you'd like,
but you don't actually need to be the one doing it.
This is good because that means
that you don't have a capacity problem.
That means you can scale yourself.
You could be busy going out there and get clients,
and you have a team to do it.
And so that's how I first started
and I didn't start just do website development.
When the client goes, "Okay, after my website,
"I would like to get some content written"
or, "I would like to get some SEO done",
and all I would say, "Yes",
and just found contractors to do those work for the clients.
So what I've demonstrated here
is that you don't really need the money
because you are collecting the money from the client
as a deposit on the 50%, or even up-front,
and you'll pay the contractors at the end, when it's done.
So this is where my business
was always positive cash-flow from the beginning.
I never had to inject any money in it.
And in terms of the skills, like I said,
you don't really need the skills of web development or SEO.
I guess there are prerequisites
in order to succeed in any business,
let alone outsourcing business.
It's really the ability to persuade, make sales.
So I'm able to really be a friendly person
understanding the client's problem
and being able to articulate reasons why they should use me.
I could say I was able to be charming and honest enough
that they trusted me to allow me to take on the project.
So you start to develop sales
and marketing skills, in that sense.
To succeed in any business, you need to hustle.
So I went out there hustling and got the clients,
but that kind of skill you need for any kind of business.
So I just wanted to set it straight
that I know I said you don't need any skills,
but I am saying that unless you have the foundational skills
which is how to hustle, how to work hard, how to persuade,
how to make a sale, how to project-manage
and communicate with your team and with the client.
Without that, you can't make any business succeed,
so you need to work on that
and to make this business succeed.
But apart from that, all the other technical skills,
you don't need to go to school
to learn how to do web development or anything else
because you can find the people to do it.
Okay so you may ask me,
"Well what kinda business can I start?"
Well here's the thing,
there's millions and millions of providers online.
On websites such as Upwork, Fiverr,
OnlineJobs.ph, Freelancer,
there are just so many platforms out there just like Ebay,
but it's for services.
So the reason why I got into web development,
and SEO and all that
it's because I learned some marketing stuff
from my previous business.
So I was able to, I guess, problem-solve
those things for them.
But if you've got experience in other areas,
like maybe you've been an accountant
and your knowledge is in finance and accounting,
you could actually start a business in finance
but using the outsourcing model.
So what I mean by that is you need to understand
what the problems the clients are having.
Like maybe if you're out networking
and meeting people in your industry
and they have a certain problem about, you know,
"I wish our company could do this and that"
and they're finance, and you listening
and you try to solve that problem
and say, "Okay, I can help you with that."
And so you then find the person to do it.
And so I'm not saying that you all need to go out there
and starting a marketing agency,
but marketing stuff is very common nowadays.
A lot of people do social media marketing, email marketing,
graphic design sort of thing.
But you could start a business in anything.
Even an example like,
if you're into party planning,
don't go over there and start a party planning business
and you do all the work.
You need to start thinking
about the outsourcing model
'cause what I love about it
is you are not limited by the time or capacity.
So if you're into party planning sort of industry,
you could solve any problem.
They might need a cake and you can say,
"Sure, I could do a cake"
and you find the best cake provider,
and then on top of that, "Do you need a photographer?
"I can find you the best photographer"
and you have contractors that are the best at doing that.
But what you are really solving a problem here,
is just making it easy for the client to come to you
for all the problems that they need,
and you're reliable and you're friendly.
At the end of the day, they just
want their solutions provided at the easiest way.
And if you can do that without you being caught up.
Because what I find with a lot of self-employed people
is that they go out there and start a business
and they do it themself, so they're limited.
So how can you grow a business if you're stuck in doing it?
So let's say you're into party planning
and then you're like, let's say you're a cake maker.
You're busy making cake
that you just don't have time to grow your business.
You just bought yourself a job.
A job at home that is unpredictable,
you don't know when you're gonna get paid.
So what I'm trying to challenge you
is to think of any business that you do like,
but think of that in an outsourcing way, outsourcing model.
And don't always think that you're always gonna
use these people on a contractor level.
I started off as a casual basis.
I would use them on, I paid them per job,
but eventually I hired them in-house.
So that's when you start to grow to a next level
when you actually can hire them to work full-time for you.
Because once you've developed your business
and you've got that ongoing referral,
people coming back to you for work,
then you can actually afford
to have them part-time or full-time.
But all it starts off
is finding the right people to do the thing
rather than you getting caught up in doing it.
Okay so you may wonder,
"How do I actually start the business?"
I actually didn't start my business
until I started making some money.
So you don't have to get caught up in worrying
about getting a website up, getting business cards
and trying to figure out your name or anything.
Just first of all, figure out
what the problems people have are and what your interest is.
Then say yes to the problem and start solving it.
And if whether or not you could even do
like at first time free,
or discount at the beginning
just to get testimonials and reviews,
and just to build your confidence, you can do that.
And once you've got your first client,
I mean my first client was a paid client
but I charged him really cheap.
And from then on, I was able to get a testimonial
and I was able to sort of prove to myself
that my model works or I enjoyed doing this kind of project.
And once I got the funding from the first few projects
I then thought of a name.
Then I thought about putting up a website
and sharing with everyone what I actually do.
But you don't have to do that
until you actually make some money.
So it's all about getting some money in
and making sure that it's a positive cash-flow business
before you try to inject anything in it.
I've never had to inject money in any of my businesses
since I've started the outsourcing model.
The outsourcing model really allows me
to be able to sort of use resources whenever I need to
rather than buy equipments and things
or with other kinds of business
you have to invest in before you can actually make money.
Whereas a outsourcing model,
you are leveraging on other people's time, and skills
and the money of your client.
So let me know what you think about outsourcing so far.
Do you have a negative perception about outsourcing?
What did you actually think about outsourcing
before I started talking about the outsourcing business?
Let me know in the comments below.
Okay so let me go a little bit into depth
about if you wanted to start something online.
And not the party planning kind of thing
where it's physical, sort of, product,
but it's an online service.
Let's say marketing, website development
or things like that.
So what it is, is sites like Upwork, or Fiverr
or OnlineJobs.ph.
What it is, is they are job sites
able to post up jobs, for people to apply for.
And so you post 'em a job
that I need someone to develop this website, five pages,
and you give 'em a budget.
And people would apply for it, then you interview them
and you find the best provider.
That's how you get the resources in.
You know, if you're looking for local resources,
you could use sites like Gumtree to find people locally,
rather than using oversees.
But these platforms allow you to access people
from all around the world
that are able to work for you on fixed-price projects
or once-off, or hourly rate,
or like a part-time, regular hours or full-time hours.
And so that's how I started my business,
my first business which is an agency.
But what happened after about three or four years inwards
then I changed it into a recruitment model.
So as I was telling you how to actually find these people,
I've decided that I wanted to focus
on helping companies hire people,
rather than doing those projects myself.
So, in my next video, I'm gonna share with you
how to actually start an offshore recruitment business.
So that is the more profitable, the more enjoyable business
that I've been working on.
It's passive income
because once I've recruited someone for the client,
I get to make the money on an ongoing basis
rather than a project base.
So I wanna share with you, in my next video,
on how to actually start an offshore business.
So that's all I have for you for today.
Thank you so much for watching.
If you are interested in learning more from me,
I'm actually thinking about starting
some sort of coaching online community program or something.
If you are interested, I am sort of opening a waiting list
just to see if there are interest.
There will be a link in the description below.
And if you'd love to learn more
about my business Outsourcing Angel, yeah,
all the information's below.
But before I go, let me know
what's the one thing you learned
about the outsourcing business that really got you excited?
Was there something that you haven't heard of before
that you now go, "Oh, light bulb moment?"
Let me know in the comments below.
And thanks again for watching
and please don't forget to like
and comment or subscribe to my channel.
Bye!