History of RP

On July 15, 2005, after many, many months of planning - Jodi Diehl and Angela Parker launched their “brainchild” — RemoteProfessionals.com. Below, they chat about how it all started, their personal philosophies and where they see the industry headed.

The Early Days:

“Angela and I both started as virtual assistants,” said Diehl. “We volunteered actively in professional organizations in the virtual assistance industry. In fact, we were both elected to preside over the leading International VA organization, the IVAA. We have long-term experience in the outsourcing profession and knew it was often difficult for clients to find the best fit for their projects. It is especially difficult for small business owners to juggle interviewing individuals while trying to run their own businesses.”

“Being a VA was great,” said Parker. “But most people associated that term with primarily administrative tasks. Most professional outsource workers have a specialty, and administration is only one on a long list. We wanted to build a site that would help capture the full spectrum of the top specialties within the booming remote services industry and provide a way to access those specialties delivered by career providers.”

The two decided to build a network of veteran outsourcing professionals. These full-time offsite workers need a place to easily collaborate with likeminded, and equally sophisticated, peers.

“It’s always difficult to find people to connect with on a professional level,” said Diehl. “And that difficulty is compounded when you work remotely. RemoteProfessionals.com addresses that need.”

Helping Clients Succeed : Locating Good Outsourcing Providers

“It’s not easy for clients to find good ‘connections’ with quality service providers,” said Parker, “it’s especially difficult for those new to the concept of outsourcing. Having an elite army of offsite professionals provides small business owners a serious advantage over their less-equipped competition. What we have built is not a place for generalists or people just beginning their businesses. We are selective, and we are proud of our exclusivity. We are building an extremely high-caliber resource.”

“I’ve had so many clients come to me after failed attempts to work with providers who were new to outsourcing. I felt it was my duty to find them a qualified provider, even if their needs fell outside my area of expertise,” said Parker. “Like most professionals in this industry, I did my part to restore their faith in the concept of outsourcing.”

Diehl agreed, “One or two bad experiences can undermine trust and permanently damage a potential client’s belief in the value of outsourcing for a potential client.”

Building a Better, More Comfortable Machine for Outsource Professionals

RemoteProfessionals.com is built on the fact that expert providers, with a full client load and extensive outsourcing experience, will have a synergistic advantage when working with peers of the same caliber. They will be able to connect with peers, get personal support, and even help out other Members to make working in this type of solo career more enjoyable.

The partners say most outsourcing entrepreneurs don’t have this kind of relationship with a peer. “We are lucky,” they agree.

“Finding people you can trust with your client list, with your livelihood, isn’t easy,” said Diehl. “In this traditionally ’solo’ business, you can’t take a vacation because there’s no one to tend your clients. Angela and I developed a strong a relationship some years ago to help each other with this, because we both wanted to have a business AND a life.”

RemoteProfessionals.com will provide an excellent environment for growing beneficial relationships between Members. These relationships will enable Members to take regular vacations, have backup help for overflow work, and to access premiere specialists for portions of projects outside their own niche.

Building in Security for Clients Using Offsite Services

“Jodi and I are lucky. We make a great team! We each have very different areas of specialization, so there was never competition, only cooperation and collaboration,” said Parker. “And, my professional relationship with Jodi made running this type of business more comfortable.”

“I was glad to help Angela, and it was nice to know that if I ever needed her, she was willing to return the favor,” said Diehl.

“My clients depend on me. If something ever happened to me, Jodi had agreed in advance to help my clients access any needed information,” said Parker. “Jodi promised to offer to help find a replacement for me — temporarily or permanently.”

“Even though she is in Kentucky, and I’m in Florida, our clients are pleased to know that there is professional backup available and on-call in an emergency,” said Diehl.

“Maybe I’m just paranoid,” admits Parker, “But it was something I needed to do. All my long-term clients have Jodi’s contact information because if something ever happened to me, I didn’t want it to adversely affect my clients or their businesses.”

“Clients and peers who know me laugh when I begin with ‘In case I get hit by a bus…’ before providing essential project information. But you need a backup in this business. You owe it to your clients to ‘build in’ the ability for them to carry on if something happens to you,” said Parker. “Doing so removes the only real disadvantage to hiring an offsite specialist. RemoteProfessionals.com takes a giant step toward eliminating that drawback… for our clients, for our Members and for our Members’ clients.”

The Future of the Industry

The partners believe the outsourcing industry will continue to change, will keep growing, and will take on even bigger portions of the traditionally “onsite” workload. They believe that access to a larger pool of talent, even one that is geographically diverse, improves the resources available to any company and helps smaller companies compete more effectively with larger entities. Both agree that the changes they have seen in the last five years are remarkable.

The digital revolution and the concept of constant connectivity have boosted the outsourcing industry. The continued growth — in not just this field, but in all related fields — will feed the remote and offsite industry.

“Telecommuting never really ‘took off’ in the 70s because the technology hadn’t quite come of age,” said Diehl. “Now it has.”

It’s not just about technology; it’s also about a change in philosophy. In the 80s and 90s people worked away their lives, leaving others to tend to things that were not considered ‘business’ - like all aspects of personal life. That has now started to change.

“I may work as many hours as my parents did, but I’m onsite when my family needs me,” said Parker. “And, with the right tech tools, I can go nearly anywhere and continue to provide clients with excellent service. Some of them know how I do it. (I share if they are ‘tech-geeks’ too.) But others never know that sometimes I’m several hundred miles away from my office. And even fewer of them realize that I occasionally type on my Treo using a Bluetooth fold-out keyboard, or that I answer their calls and send them their projects and other attachments via email using that same device.”

“Today, clients don’t care how I deliver the services, or how it all works,” said Parker. “They care that it’s delivered, it’s what they need, and it’s there every time, on time. And that’s the key to providing outsourcing services for a living. How you do it on your end, well, that’s just the fun part (at least for ‘techies’)!”