New tools appear every week, all designed to allow people to connect collectively at each person’s own convenience and own schedule. When teams focus on data availability rather than synchronization, they gain in efficiency what they lose in interactivity.
For the average 9-to-5 worker that deals with only a few deadlines per week and whose main job responsibility is to be present, asynchronous collaboration brings no value. But for the young entrepreneur or digital marketing professional, it is a blessing. In today’s work environment, we’re confronting with a time-wasting meeting epidemic. Office politics and poor management practices generated an email CC-ing plague. There is no time left to do your actual job.
In asynchronous work environments, work gets done. Highly-effective individuals are thriving. They feel liberated, and they help business owners improve their bottom lines.
Asynchronous communication and the American business market
The top outsourcing destinations for digital marketing and customer support tasks are India, the Philippines, and China. China and the Philippines are 12 hours ahead of Washington while India is just 9 hours and a half.
Out of the 3, the Philippines is the only country to have close ties to the U.S. As you might remember, the Philippines used to be an American colony for half a century. Filipinos are native English speakers. Dial a Philippine mobile number at random, and there’s a good chance you’ll get someone speaking with a slight American accent.
Many people think that half a day time zone difference between the U.S. and the Philippines is making collaboration difficult, but actually it can represent a big advantage. Here’s why:
Meet David. He lives in Houston, Texas. He owns a social media marketing agency and handles several small clients. He does it all: drafting social media content strategies, setting up Facebook ads, managing the social communities of his clients, setting up landing pages and sending email blasts.
He’d like to offer some services with a higher perceived value, but he never has the time to start working on a new offer. On top of that, he’s not making enough money to be able to hire a new employee.
In Houston, a social media manager expects a yearly salary of $50-60,000. That doesn’t even include health insurance. Luckily, David found out there’s another way to give his business a much-needed boost.
He’ll hire a Philippine-based social media manager. He’ll go to his office as he usually does, waking up at 7 AM, working out till 8, pulling over in the office parking at 9 AM. He’ll start his day by reviewing and emailing reports to his clients with the work his Philippine-based social media manager did last night.
He would go on about his day, talking with potential clients, up-selling his services, working on those new value propositions. At 4 PM he’s emailing his social media manager a new task list for the following day. At this point, in Manila, where his social media manager lives, is 5 AM. In 4 hours, his remote assistant we’ll start work, finishing the work David would have had to finish the next day.
While David is sleeping, his work gets done. Content is being written, posts scheduled to go live when the U.S. is waking up, strategies are being drafted. When David goes to the office in the morning, the tasks he assigned before leaving yesterday are already done.
As you might imagine the most difficult task here is to find that perfect Philippine-based virtual assistant that could be reliable and efficient. When entrepreneurs decide to handle the recruitment process themselves, they often get disappointed.
There are many Filipinos that would love to work for a Western company, but not all of them have the necessary skills for the job or to be a fantastic remote worker. This is why getting a Philippine-based recruiter to help is a great idea. They know where and how to identify the best candidates for the job and what are the most relevant questions during the screening process.
Once the recruitment process is finalised, businesses can be transformed in a matter of weeks.
Asynchronous communication is not for everybody, but those capable of harnessing its power will most certainly change their market by outsmarting their competitors.
