Outsourcing Services for Weak Economic Times – with Pavel Stepanov of Virtudesk

In this week’s episode of the Outsource Accelerator Podcast, Derek speaks with Pavel Stepanov, founder and CEO of Virtudesk. 

They discuss the nature of his company, how they adjusted to continue services during slow economic periods, and how their product has evolved to meet changing needs. 

Virtudesk

Pavel starts by introducing his company. 

“Virtudesk is a premier virtual assistant services company. We’re based out of Seattle, Washington, and we’ve been in the industry for almost eight years. 

We started out as a small VA company where we were just offering services of virtual assistants located in the Philippines to United States real estate agents.” 

Pavel describes this period as “dipping his toes” into the outsourcing world. 

“While I was the real estate agent, I hired my first virtual assistant to do some prospecting and some back office support, [and] that kind of grew into the big company that we have right now.” 

He talks about how things are going in the US economically, mentioning rising interest rates amidst the country’s historic inflation. 

“When it happened, a lot of businesses kind of [came] to a screeching halt. 

And obviously since we were serving a lot of real estate agents, we saw the cancellations, we saw people not able to pay. We knew worse things will come later on.” 

Fortunately, he had the foresight to adapt. 

“So we decided to pivot at that moment and [develop] more products and services that will be more accessible to people during this so-called recession time or bad economic time.”  

Offshoring during economic downturns

The conversation turns to different companies’ responses during tough economic times. 

Pavel reacts to the idea that people quit offshoring during these times when, in theory, they’re actually saving money by offshoring more. 

“I think a lot of it has to do with fear. [The] whole economy [and] stock market is based on the beliefs and fears of people.

So it’s a natural reaction, I suppose. And that’s okay, because at the end of the day, they’re still gonna come back.”

He explains that when his clients do this, he poses them some difficult questions to ponder. 

“So who’s going to be doing all the work that your virtual assistant was doing?’ And that starts to hit them as well. 

And they say, ‘Well, I can do it myself.’ [So I ask] When are you going to have time to run your business?” 

He goes on to elaborate that virtual assistants can become extremely vital to a business’s operations. 

“A lot of people think of an assistant as a luxury item, [and] during the hard times they say you’ve got to cut the fat so you could actually survive, so your business can run. 

And we obviously say yes, you can cut the fat, but don’t cut the muscle, because you need the muscle to run your business. If you’re cutting people who are essential, [your] business will suffer.” 

Pavel reiterates that this is what his company always aims to do with its VAs.

“It’s important for us to make sure that the virtual assistant we provide [can] actually become a day-to-day operations assistant [who] is essential to the operator of the business.” 

Evolving the VA product

Pavel goes a little more into how Virtudesk evolved from its real estate roots into a full-on managed services company. 

“When we saw the first signs of the economy worsening, [I] knew it was a sign that cash is going to be scarce, and when it happens, business is going to start cutting workforce luxury items.

So we started to offer auxiliary services, we started to offer less hours, [and] we started offering lite options, like Virtudesk Lite [which] is 10 hours a week.

People saw value, and we’ve seen an increase of people signing up. And that actually runs up a very nice revenue for us.” 

Pairing all of those with new technology features allowed Virtudesk to stay afloat, Pavel says. 

He also looks forward to finding new industries to serve in. 

“We’re basically expanding to all industries because virtual assistants of BPOs can be used in any industry where outsourced work is required.” 

For more information and to schedule a demo call, feel free to visit the Virtudesk website.