Typing this up on my Cebu Pacific flight back to Hong Kong, bright and early on Saturday morning. Riding a high, even though I only had 4 hours of sleep! Though sometimes those nights you don’t get much sleep you have this sudden burst of energy.
That is me right now.
Why do people sleep on flights? This is when I crank out so much work.
I digress….
This last trip to the Philippines was one of the most fruitful of all my trips down to the island nation. Guess like anything in business and life, you just gotta keep pushing and keep chipping away and soon you’ll hit a breakthrough.
Josh, my business partner down in Cebu, has done an amazing job and has broken through for sure.
Been Huge Progress Since Starting New Office A Year Ago
Some of you who follow this blog may remember I took a trip down to Philippines about 1 year ago. That is when we kicked off our new partnership. Both of us have been doing SEO and internet marketing for over a decade (each) and thought if we put our forces together we can make things happen.
He is good at managing people, not shy to hire and fire people and ensure the execution happens. He saw that I am a content marketer (duh! I blog like a machine!) and also was impressed with my SOPs and systems I have in place on my other businesses so thought we’d make a good match.
The last year has been hell though. We put together a budget, and it was way underestimated. That is just the tricky thing in business, and Philippines especially, so many hidden costs pop up. Many people think it is cheap here in Philippines – but electricity, hardware, and many other things are extremely expensive.
I cna’t take too much credit for what has shaped up to be an amazing office – Josh did all the heavy lifting. We pooled together money and clients and pushed through. Keeping in touch with him remotely over the months and almost a year now – there was definitely a roller coaster of ups and big downs. So proud Josh stuck with it even in the darkest days and now we are realizing some of this investment and hard work.
This Is The Foundation of Something Big
This visit I was waiting for quite some time. After about a year ago, we knew I would have to get back down, to meet the team and do some training and orientation. I showed them the SOP system, the video training, and just got to know them better.
Also timed it nicely as it was Josh’s birthday during my time there – nice!
Finally I can chat to them on Slack and they will know me better. Especially Filipinos, they are a bit shy to people they don’t know.
I used all my gear, my microphone, my camera, hard drives, and whipped together some photos and videos.
The video will also be in my normal video blog series, but here’s the corporate only on on the Global Tech Service Phils Corp Youtube channel
Didn’t want to make it too formal – think this is real, and you can get a clear picture of who we are, what we do, and hopefully trust us enough to do some business together.
Putting Together All The Business Pieces
Been in Asia for almost a decade now, and finally getting a grove. Balancing the good connections I have built in Philippines, Hong Kong, and throughout Mainland China. Josh I met way back in 2009, and we have been talking about doing this since then!
This is what business takes – patience. Especially when you are outside of your home country. Already it is hard enough to start a business in your home country or home town – but doing it when you’re on foreign soil, jeez, that is a whole new level.
Being in the Philippines this time, there were no surprises. I had my wallet with my Pesos, and SIM, and I just got right down to business.
Can’t wait to link up all these various business deals I have and make somer real synergies.
Introducing Valery to Josh and the Cebu team, added her to the Slack channel. She’s mostly been focusing on the Global From Asia Hong Kong business agency, but she is awesome at client services, so why not get her involved with client services for SEO and web design.
Chad is the office manager in Cebu, and Josh said we can talk to him directly about deals – this will make communication much faster.
There is a whole other section of the office open and ready for expansion, as well as empty desks and computers. Perfect for a dedicated seat or a new service to be provided.
Lots of resources to work with and build out. So exciting.
I love Internet Marketing
People always ask me what it is I do. I have done so many businesses, e-commerce, china sourcing, mobile app startups, blogs, podcasts, ebooks, etc etc.
The heart of it is always around internet marketing. I love to get to the top of the search engines and build traffic. Create content to engage people and motivate them to take action. I always credit this back to Greg Shwartz at Mobatech when I met him back in 2003! I was helping him out there and he saw that I am good at technical marketing with his mobile app company (J2ME days!) I saw the server log, the traffic stats of people coming to the website from all around the world.
Lead me to message boards on SEO, meetups, and into e-commerce in 2004. Just love it so much.
SO, if you want to cooperate with us in our Cebu SEO and Web Design company, reach out! I’d love to make some deals and see how we can help you. Focusing on Google rankings and building out wordpress sites – let’s take our businesses to the next level.
Valery will be your client services rep. I am happy to have her assist me as she is so much better at that job than me! Cheers.