Anyone here actually hired a virtual assistant from the Philippines? Trying to figure out if its worth it.
I've been looking into hiring a virtual assistant from the Philippines for the last few weeks and I'm getting a lot of mixed signals. Some people say its the best decision they ever made for their business, other people say they got burned pretty bad.
For context I run a small service business, about 12 clients right now. I'm doing everything myself, emails, scheduling, invoicing, following up on leads. It's maybe 15 to 20 hours a week of pure admin and its killing my ability to actually grow.
I've looked at upwork and onlinejobs ph but honestly the amount of options is overwhelming and I don't know how to tell who's actually good. Rates seem to range from 5 to 15 dollars an hour which is way more affordable than hiring locally but i keep reading about people getting ghosted or quality dropping off after month one.
For those of you who went the virtual assistant Philippines route, what actually worked? Did you hire direct or go through an agency? how long before they were actually useful? any red flags i should watch for?