Growth To 1,000 Staff Through Referrals Alone – with Chris Rush of Staff Outsourcing

In this week’s episode of the Outsource Accelerator Podcast, Derek is joined by Chris Rush, CEO and Founder of Staff Outsourcing.

Chris comes with a background in e-commerce. Their conversation takes them through his perspectives in e-commerce and outsourcing, as well as how his networks grew Staff Outsourcing to 1000 employees. 

Staff Outsourcing

Chris begins by introducing Staff Outsourcing. 

“Staff Outsourcing is based in Cebu. We started in 2010 as a very small startup company for the needs of my own e-commerce company. And it’s grown exponentially over the years.

Now we’re 1000 seats, we run multiple shifts, and we have clients all over the world in a wide diversity of industries.”

His journey started when he needed staff for his first e-commerce company. 

“I looked into outsourcing. I’ve heard you speak a few times on the podcast about how e-commerce sellers were early adopters of outsourcing. Well, that was us.”

However, their experience left them the worse for wear, and Chris impulsively decided to open his own office in the Philippines to provide better services than what he had experienced.  

This proved to be a long learning process, but eventually they were able to move forward. 

“We didn’t really begin offering it as a business [to clients] for a couple of years. It was more just friends in my network that knew what I was doing and asked me to get them an employee or things like this.

And then after that, it really started to scale. We tried to just create a better solution for customers worldwide.” 

Chris admits that they didn’t even have a sales team, instead relying on connections. 

“We were just dealing with strictly referrals…[our partners] just continued to hand business to us. 

And we got a lot of clients that way where they would send their business friends to us and we would do a great job for them.” 

Experiences in the e-commerce environment

Chris notes that outsourcing has an easier time in the e-commerce space. 

“It’s very widely adopted in e-commerce. I would say probably over 60% of businesses are using some form of outsourcing any e-commerce now, just because it’s hyper-competitive.” 

He explains how his team talks to clients who have previously been burned by outsourcing. Part of that is the importance of clear objectives. 

“They need to have a clear plan, they need to have goals as a company of what they’re trying to achieve. Don’t just come to outsourcing expecting someone halfway around the world to know your business and solve your problems.” 

Speaking on the current situation of e-commerce, Chris reveals that many are struggling after a high during the COVID-19 pandemic era. 

“There’s definitely been a downturn. But for us and outsourcing in general, it’s also been a boost because you have all these companies now trying to cut costs further, seeing what they can do with their staff, seeing what possibilities are out there to help them grow some new initiatives.” 

He’s also optimistic that if ever companies see the need to downsize, his staff would be the last to go. 

“In our case, we’re doing a lot of customer service for them. We may be doing a lot of product entry or data entry or data analysts. We may be ordering products for them in these kinds of administrative roles that they have to have.

But if we already have them at a low cost, you know, once you get rid of that, you pretty much don’t have a business left. So we feel somewhat insulated.”

Finding success in offshore partnerships

Chris is fully focused on Staff Outsourcing at the moment, finding fulfillment in the industry. 

“We’re providing great jobs for people [who] are very deserving. We’re helping out our clients, and of course, it’s benefiting our company as well.

I also like learning about these various companies and what they’re doing, and seeing ways [in which] my experience can help them.”

According to Chris, establishing relationships lies at the very core of what they do. 

“For us, it’s really about building relationships, so I personally get involved with every client. 

In our business, our core motto is ‘our client’s success is ours.”  

He does face some challenges in onboarding new clients, but there’s still plenty of freedom in the arrangement. 

“We get involved as much as the client wants us to. In general they’ll do their own training, they will have their own team there to help manage and collaborate with our team leader.

And those are the relationships we see that are the most successful.” 

You may learn more about Staff Outsourcing through their website. Chris can be reached directly via email at [email protected] or through his LinkedIn profile. 

For any other questions, drop us a line at [email protected].