John Jonas hired his first full-time worker in the Philippines in 2005. Within a couple of weeks, he says it felt like there were suddenly “two of me.”

That experience eventually led John to create OnlineJobs.ph, and today he has roughly 60 people working for him in the Philippines. Some of the people he hired nearly 20 years ago are still on his team.

But this conversation isn’t really about finding someone to manage your calendar. It’s about leverage.

John prefers the term Online Filipino Specialist (OFS) because the people he hires aren’t limited to traditional VA work. His team includes developers, content specialists, marketers, and other people responsible for business-critical functions.

And that distinction matters for freelancers. At some point, doing everything yourself stops being evidence that you’re capable and starts being the reason your business can’t grow.

John’s philosophy is refreshingly simple: Getting it done is more important than getting it done your way.

Yes, someone else may make mistakes. Yes, training them will require time. Yes, you may currently be terrible at delegation.

John’s response to that last objection is basically: Okay. Then learn.

Because staying buried in email, client work, admin, marketing, and every other detail of the business leaves very little room for the work only you can do: thinking, selling, strategizing, and leading. John says he has spent years working around 15 hours per week precisely because his team gives him room for that higher-value work.

We also get into AI.

John is hardly anti-AI. His entire team uses it. But his argument is that AI and human talent don’t have to be competitors. Use AI for what AI does well. Use talented people for everything else. Most importantly, don’t spend the next three years waiting for some magical agent to run your business while you remain the bottleneck today.

Finally, John walks through his hiring process, including why he prefers email before video interviews, what he looks for in a test task, and the surprisingly important question he asks when an employee isn’t performing:

What did I do wrong?

The employers John sees succeed take responsibility for their instructions, communication, and leadership before assuming the person they hired is lazy or incompetent. They also remember that the person on the other side of the screen is exactly that—a person, not an expendable commodity.

If success has somehow made your freelance business heavier instead of lighter, this conversation may help you see what’s missing.

Maybe you don’t need to work harder. Maybe you need help.

Key Points

• Doing everything yourself eventually becomes the bottleneck. The skills that helped you build a successful freelance business can trap you in its day-to-day details if you never learn to delegate.
• Think beyond the traditional VA. John calls the people he hires Online Filipino Specialists because they can own specialized and business-critical work—not just calendars and data entry.
• Getting it done beats getting it done your way. Perfectionism and control can masquerade as quality standards while quietly keeping everything on your plate.
• Training is an investment, not an instant time saver. John readily admits that a new hire may consume more time than they save during the first month. The payoff comes when great people stick around long enough for that investment to compound.
• Delegate where your time is actually going. Instead of automatically outsourcing the task you dislike most, John recommends looking at what consumes the most time and figuring out how another person can support or own it.
• Hiring can force you to think like a CEO. Committing to another person creates pressure to find meaningful work for them—and gives you room to spend more time on sales, strategy, systems, and growth.
• AI and people aren't mutually exclusive. John’s team uses AI extensively. His point is to use the technology to make good people better rather than assuming AI has already eliminated the need for people.
• Test for collaboration, not just technical ability. John uses test tasks partly to see whether candidates ask smart questions, clarify ambiguity, and work well with him—not merely whether they can produce the deliverable.
• When something goes wrong, check your instructions first. One of John’s biggest distinctions between successful and unsuccessful employers is whether they immediately blame the worker or first examine their own communication and leadership.

Notable Quotes

“What I found over the years is getting it done is way, way, way, way, way more important than getting it done your way. Like getting it done your way is good but getting it done is so, so much more important.” — John Jonas

“What is the thing that you are spending time on? Outsource that. Hire someone to do that. Because your most precious resource is time. And if you can get someone to do that thing of yours… what is the thing that you're spending the most time on? Hire someone to do that.” — John Jonas

“You want to make a commitment to growing your business? Hire someone full time… When you hire someone full time, you're making a commitment to them and yourself. No, I'm going to grow my business. I'm going to keep you employed full time. I'm going to keep you busy full time.” — John Jonas

“This is one of the things that successful employers do. I've always said, you don't hire a rock star worker. You manage someone into a rock star worker… They want to contribute to your business. They want to be amazing. You have to, you have to find the problem.” — John Jonas

Resources Mentioned

• Check out OnlineJobs.ph: https://v2.onlinejobs.ph/
• Follow John Jonas on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-jonas-41128b/
• Get John’s free Quick Start Guide: https://www.onevaaway.com/quickstartguide

Watch This Episode

Transcript

00:01

Hey there, welcome to the Freelance Cake Podcast. I'm your host, Austin L. Church, founder of the Freelance Cake community. The goal of this show is to help full-time committed freelancers get better leverage. As the sworn enemy of busyness and burnout, I have no desire whatsoever to see you work harder. So I reveal the specific beliefs, principles, and practices  you can use right away to make the freelance game more profitable and satisfying. So chill out, listen in, because the best is yet to come.

00:39

Welcome to another episode of the Freelance Cake Podcast. Most freelancers eventually run into the same problem: the business grows, the opportunities increase, and somehow success starts feeling heavier instead of lighter. The very skills that got you here become the reason you're stuck. My guest today is John Jonas, founder of OnlineJobs.ph and one of the pioneers of online outsourcing. For nearly two decades, John has helped business owners build remote teams and create leverage through delegation, systems, and leadership.

01:22

In this conversation, we talk about what really keeps freelancers trapped in the operator role and why hiring support is often less about tactics and more about identity. John shares how bringing on the right help can free up time for strategy, business development, and growth—and why waiting until you're already overwhelmed is usually waiting too long. John and I discuss common hiring fears, including how to know when someone isn't the right fit, we discuss why training takes less time than most people think, we discuss what separates freelancers who successfully build teams from those who remain stuck doing everything themselves.

02:07

And because it's impossible to have this conversation without talking about AI, we explore where AI fits into the picture, what it can do well, and why human talent remains one of the most valuable assets a freelance business can invest in. If you're feeling stretched thin, if you’re craving more capacity, if you’re wondering whether it's time to stop being the sole engine behind your business, this episode will give you a different way to think about growth. All right, sit back and enjoy my conversation with John Jonas.

02:50

John Jonas,  I am so happy to be having a conversation with you. For  people who are listening who don't know who you are, have any clue what you're doing, can you give them the two-minute summary - How did you become one of the world's outsourcing pioneers?

03:17

So I run an online job board for virtual workers in the Philippines. So if you're looking to get any sort of work done that's done on a computer or on the phone or online or whatever, you find them at Onlinejobs.ph. So how did I get there? Well, in 2005, I got some really good advice to hire someone in the Philippines because I was trying to run my own businesses online and was really kind of struggling and I got some really good advice and hired someone and it completely changed my life. It was like, mean, within a couple of weeks, it was like there were two of me where previously it had just been me doing everything and I was drowning. And having two of me was amazing, especially because I was paying this agency $750 a month to hire this person. And I knew I could get another person and do whatever.

04:17

How did I get here? Well, I did that a few times and I was in a mastermind group and people just started asking. They were asking every single week. How are you doing this? How are you doing this? How are you doing this? Finally, I was like, dude, look, I keep explaining the same things. So how about I record everything I know, which was very, very little at the time. I recorded a 45-minute audio. This is 2007. And it went crazy. People all over the internet were listening to it. And that was kind of how it progressed. And there was just a progression from there.

04:58

I wonder how many businesses have begun with irritation. Please stop asking me the same questions over and over again. So you had success in getting the support you needed. That support transformed your life. Then there's the 45-minute audio. And eventually you started Onlinejobs.ph. Why the Philippines? And then why is the Philippines an especially good place for solopreneurs and advanced freelancers to look for support?

05:44

So I started Onlinejobs.ph because finding… people are listening to this audio. And then I start doing phone calls with people kind of like this, but back in 2006 and 2007 and finding people just sucked. It was terrible. You had to go through an agency to find people and it was bad. So  to answer your question, why the Philippines? So taking a step even previous to that, I had tried all of the methods that were out there. I had tried, Odesk, which is now Upwork. And I had tried India and I had tried hiring people locally. I had tried all these things. AI didn't exist at the time. And every one of them was a disappointment. When I tried Odesk the first time I was like, Oh yes, this is it. I finally found the thing I've been looking for and I hire this guy. That's how I felt like, Oh my gosh, this is amazing. I could actually find talent.

06:37

What I didn't realize at the time was those platforms are, and they don't do this intentionally, but this is how they're built because this is what people demand. They're built around a hundred percent turnover. Turnover is required in those businesses because someone comes on. They have no choice but to start at $3 an hour, but in order to make more money, they have to get a job, get feedback and get another job that pays $3.50 an hour. So that person is no longer with you, right? So now they're making $3.50 an hour on another job and they have to get, do that and get feedback so they can make $4 an hour. And so that person, like you put in the same amount of work to find that person for that job. This is what I did. You put in the same amount of work as I do now to find a full-time long-term person. So like that first person I hired in 2006 is still with me today. Which, so you asked, why the Philippines? Here's what I found in… what I came across in the Philippines, so I had tried all these methods and when I found the Philippines I found this guy is intelligent. He doesn't know very much. I mean this is 2006. There just wasn't a lot then there's way way more now, but he didn't know very much, but he was willing to try really hard. He was willing to follow instructions. He was willing to think between the lines. Like I'm giving instructions and my instructions aren't perfect and I missed something and he's like, oh, well, I’ll figure this out on my own. And then I just found they're super loyal, like almost to a fault to where he still works for me today. And the next person I hired in late 2006 still works for me today. And the person I hired in 2007 still works for me today. And one that I hired in 2008 left for a few years. Actually, we let him go for a few years. He went and got experience elsewhere and then came back to us and he works for us again today, right? And he's amazing. So I have like 60 people that work for me today, all in the Philippines, almost all full time. And there's just this set of cultural things that makes the Philippines different, including like, you'll notice really quickly if they're honest with you or not. And not everybody is, but you'll know.

09:02

They're intelligent. They're college educated, which is where people learn to think. You'll find almost everybody has a university degree. English is a primary language in the Philippines, so you'll never have a communication problem.  Not everybody is fluent, but at least the communication issue won't be there. It's super easy to find people who are very, very fluent, like speak better English than I do. They're very hardworking by nature. They're very pleasing by nature. Like culturally, they want to please. That's why they work in the hospitality industry across the world, because they're pleasing. That's part of their culture. They're not very entrepreneurial, so they don't want to steal your ideas or your business or your clients. They don't want to go do it on their own. So there's this like unique, super unique set of circumstances where they want a job, they want a stable job, they want to do good work, they're thinkers, they're willing to think outside the box as long as you're willing to give them the ability to. That makes it different than… really than anywhere else in the world. I mean, you can definitely get this in your home country, right? But the cost difference is just so much.

10:19

I have to say  my experience mirrors what you described, what you just described perfectly. And I don't say that just to toot your horn. Like I occasionally still will meet someone who will speak in a very disparaging manner about any worker in any country other than the U.S. There's like some cultural or national elitism there. And they will say kind of with shade of mockery in their voice. I mean, why would you, why would you ever hire someone in the Philippines when you could hire someone local? And my answer is always the same. I cannot find someone local who is better than my assistant who has been with me for four years now, over four years. And when I say better, I'm not talking strictly about her talent or her sort of quantifiable capabilities. I'm also talking about her demeanor, her soft skills. I'm not exaggerating when I say I have never gotten the smallest hint of a bad attitude. There is zero entitlement and it's almost shocking to communicate and collaborate with someone who doesn't always come having that posture of here's what I deserve. It's like… it's almost cultural and anathema to those of us in the U.S. because we think we deserve so much to encounter people whose assumption isn't that I always deserve more than I already have. What were you gonna say?

12:11

Okay, so I have 2 things to add to this conversation of what you're saying because not everybody you find is going to be like this. Most are. Most are, and when when an employer… This is the interesting piece. Like I'm going to read an email that I got yesterday and this is so common, but I just pulled it up as you were talking because it's so easy because I got this email yesterday, right? When someone is different than what you're saying, I hear about it. Like almost every time I hear about it. Because if you've had a bad experience, well, you're going to complain to me, right? So like we've had…. We're close to 700,000 employers using Onlinejobs right now. And  if someone has a bad experience, I hear about it. So, and I hear about almost every one of them, but then your experience, you never told me that. You didn't come back to tell me this. Here's an email. Here's the email I got yesterday that describes what you're saying. Thank you so much for your outstanding newsletter, blog, courses, and jobs platform. I've recommended Onlinejobs at… and hired, and I've hired an in-house front desk biller, surgical scheduler and executive assistant for a medical practice. I'm working on hiring more. I'm exceeding the gratefulness for the outstanding and dedicated talent I've been able to hire and for all the cultural insight you've shared. My VA's have all expressed how grateful they are for their jobs. I have a question for you. He has a question, but then he says, my OFS, which is what I call people in the Philippines, I don't call them VA's, we can talk about it, is amazing. And my patients comment on how wonderful he is, which is rare for a medical practice. My patients have told me things such as, I'm surprised nobody steals him referring to my VA because he's wonderful. A 70 year old cataract patient started tearing up in my chair when recalling how sincerely kind and helpful that quote nice young man on the phone was with her. She was touched that there are quote good young people in this world. And that's, I mean, look, not everybody's like this, right? But that's my experience and that's your experience. And it's super reasonable to find this. Even in like, everyone's so skeptical because that's not what we find in India, right? That's not what we find in the US. And how could the Philippines be any different?

14:40

And I always say, trust me. And then if you do manage to hire the wrong person the first time, then part ways with kindness and then try again. And chances are it will stick the second time. Tell me what OFS means.

15:02

So this guy who she's talking about, who's talking with clients. He's not a virtual assistant. He's not a secretary. I mean, that's what, that's what we assume a VA means. It's a low level data entry secretary. They can kind of manage your calendar a little bit. That's not what he does. He manages client accounts. He's making phone calls and checking on patients. Like I have 12 full time developers on my team, programmers like really really high level people…

15:43

Critical functions in your business beyond administrative support.

15:48

Full on right? All of my social media in fact someone asked me the other day what our LinkedIn is and I was like dude I have no idea. I don't even know what you're talking. I mean someone on my team set up our LinkedIn and someone on my team does, someone does the graphics. Someone does the content creation. Someone does the posting. Like, I don't know. That's not  a secretary, right? These are specialists in what they do. Someone writes and manages my newsletter. No, I edit it because I want to make sure it's flawless, right? She's not a secretary. And that's where I get away from the VA term, and I want to call them Online Filipino Specialists. (OFS). Because they're specialists. Maybe I should call them virtual specialists. But you want to find someone who's really good at lead generation, or at content writing, or at content editing, or using AI to write content, and then to modify that content so it's human and not AI because people don't actually want to be sold to by AI. Yeah, you can definitely find that human who's really, really good at it. And that's not a secretary.

17:11

I'm going to piggyback on that and say, what has surprised me is, and it shouldn't have surprised me, is how good at these various business critical roles, some of the specialists I have hired in the Philippines have been. It shouldn't have surprised me that someone in another country could be as good or better than I am at something like, Hey Austin, can you get off the arrogance horse just for a second? But I do want to talk about the paradigm shift because a lot of advanced freelancers are so accustomed to and pride themselves on doing everything themselves. All the writing, all the client management, invoicing, marketing. What we're talking about though, John, is this paradigm shift from doing everything yourself to actually being willing and able to empower someone else to help you. What would you say to people who haven't yet been able to empower someone else?

18:23

Yeah, it's a leap of faith. Like it takes a leap to.. exactly what you're saying. I mean, it took a leap for me, right? I got a reference to where I could hire someone. This is in late 2005. It took me two months before I was willing to do it because I was worried, like, I don't think they could do good work. I don't know if they can… I don't know if I can afford it. I don't know if I can keep them busy. I just didn't know, you know. And then what I found over the years is getting it done is way, way, way, way, way more important than getting it done your way. Like getting it done your way is good but getting it done is so, so much more important. Because otherwise it like, my team does all of our social media. And I told them no for a couple of years. Like, no, I don't want to do that. No, I don't want to that. No, I don't want do that. And it just wasn't happening. And then one day I found a Facebook page that had like 80,000 followers or something like that. I don't know what it is on Facebook. And I was like, what is this? And I asked my team and one of them responded and said, Oh, I created that because I thought it would be good for us to have a Facebook page.

19:34

And 80,000 people following it.

19:36

Yeah. And so like you're hesitant to hand something off. Here's what you're hesitant. You're hesitant to lose control and you're worried about… are they going to do something wrong and hurt my business? That's that's the real… that was my worry. Like dude, if I hire a programmer and he messes up my software, then what? Well, so number one, it's a human, right? There's a person. It's not AI. We know AI makes mistakes. People make mistakes, but people don't make malicious mistakes when they're in a job.

20:12

Cause they don't want to get fired. No one sets out to make a catastrophic mistake or even a small mistake for that matter.

20:22

Right. And I've had people make mistakes, lots of mistakes. And when I find it, it's like, oh, yeah, no, fix this. So are they going to do something malicious to you? It's exceedingly unlikely. And part of that is because of the culture of the Philippines. We're like… So I had someone come to me once and he was like, hey, I'm wondering about the Philippines because I just went to this company in India and the first question they asked me was, well, what's your business model? He's like, well, why does that matter? I'm giving you exactly what I need done. And they're like, no, we want to know your business model. And he's like, well, that's irrelevant. I'm like, yeah, they want to steal your business. They want to know, can we actively steal your business, right? It's not the case in the Philippines. They don't want to do that. So like the malicious piece of this that you're worried about is not the right approach of like, why can't I hand stuff over to other people? Or they're not going to do it as good as me? Yeah, maybe they're not. Or maybe they'll do it better because I have lots of people on my team that do stuff better than I do. And it took me a long time to realize that. Or maybe it doesn't matter. Either way, it just needs to get done. And so like the video editing that gets done. Yeah, it was never going to get done. And yeah, I probably would have done that edit slightly differently than he did. And it took us six months to get it to where I was really happy with it. But now he's been with me for 10 years and I don't ever touch a video of any sort at all. And he keeps getting better and better at it. And now there's so, so much better than I would ever have been.

22:08

That's right. Hiring brought me face to face with my addiction to control, and in to chaos. And so my objection to hiring about, well, I don't want them to make a mistake and make me look bad was not a real objection. There's another one that comes up that I hear about quite often. Hey, I'm worried that training a VA will cost me more time than it saves. What do you say to that?

22:41

It will. It will. Well, so that's… And that's what I found with Odesk, Upwork was, yeah, it doesn't matter what kind of person you find. Like you can go and find someone with 4,000 five-star reviews on Upwork. You still have to do the same amount of work to get that person in your business as a new person that you just brought in. But the difference is with Upwork, you know that person's moving on. So you've put in the work. At Onlinejobs, at least you have a chance of keeping that person for 20 years. That's the real magic that I found was I hire staff. So like Jovan that I hired in 2006, who knew nothing. And the very first thing I wanted him to do was write articles and publish them and do all this SEO stuff for me. And I had to teach him all of it. That was 20 years ago. Now we have a full SEO team and I didn't teach them anything. Jovan oversaw it. And Jovan oversees Onlinejobs. And Jovan is overseeing us creating a university in the Philippines. And I have other people like that, that like, yeah. The first month is definitely going to take you more time than it's going to save you. I'm not  going to lie to you. And maybe not. I mean, I have some people that I hire and immediately they're like super, super amazing and there's very little for me to do. But I can't tell you how to find that. What's the difference? You just have to go through it. You have to hire. You have to try. And then... It's the loyalty thing of the Filipinos, which I didn't, maybe I didn't talk about that. They're loyal almost to a fault to where when you hire someone, if you treat them well, they'll never stop working for you. And as long as you're willing to provide them a job. And that right there is like the difference. That's the shift between being a freelancer and being a CEO. That's the shift is having a full time person who will stick with you long term that you're like, Oh, I need this done. Will you do it?

24:16

And I will take it a step further and say, if you hire the right people who have that character, not only will they take what you give to them when you say this needs to be done, they will notice that something needs to be done. And I'm telling you some of the best moments in my business  when I have started to act like the CEO of my business. And that's a whole other thing that we could talk about, the need to start thinking like a CEO. But when my Online Filipino Specialists have seen things that needed to be done before I did. And I find out about them after they've already done them. Like, Hey, Austin, you know how we're selling your book on Shopify? We have to specify in Shopify what our shipping rates are to all of the countries in your printers distribution network. So I went ahead and did all the research and I put all of our shipping rates into this Google spreadsheet and I'll make sure and add it to my task list to update that every six months. So we needed this. I made it. She didn't say this, but I inserted and I did it better than you would have because you would have hated it while you were doing it. You would have been so bored and you would have tried to look for shortcuts. But that is the thing that I think we forget about when we're worried about, well, are they going to make a mistake? Are they going to make me look bad? Are they not going to do it as well as I would? Are they not going to do it my way is, but what would it mean if you had other people who were fixing things before you had even noticed them? It's transformative to use your word. You said it transformed your life. It's transformed mine too. I think we've already kind of talked about all the different things that an Online Filipino Specialist can do. And I think we may have also answered that objection. I'm just looking at my list here. No one else can do it as well as I can. Can you talk about what keeps an advanced freelancer stuck in the hustle as opposed to one who actually breaks out of it and builds a sustainable and scalable business?

27:55

Yeah. Email. Now you're making it personal, So email’s the example, right? It's like, no, I got it. I got to answer these emails. I'm so busy. I got to. That's what keeps you stuck. That's the thing. That's I'm so busy. Dude, being so busy is the worst case scenario. I am not so busy. If I work more than 15 hours in a week, which right now I'm working more than 15 hours a week, I am stuck in a cast. I can't go ride my bike. I can't go running. I can't go skiing. I'm working more than 15 hours a week. I haven't worked more than 15 hours a week in like 15 years. And I work 15 hours a week because those 15 hours are exceedingly productive time. It's thinking time. I have two people that manage my email so that I don't see all the garbage. I respond to emails. I manage people. I think through processes and I'm the CEO and that so the question is what keeps someone stuck? It's continuing to be in the details of the business and not being able to ever move beyond that. And that was one of the very first things that I noticed. I hired this guy, I hired Jovan, and he takes this one task away from me. And it was something that I hated doing. And I was spending, I don't know, hours a week. And all of a sudden I found I don't even have to think about this thing. I didn't realize this, but I don't have to think about this thing because he's doing it. And I had time to think about making sales. And making sales is like everything, right?

30:04

Generating revenue. Maybe my business could use more of that.

30:09

Who knew, right? And so I started learning some copywriting, which it was that was like not even on my radar before that. That wasn't even a possibility because I had so much like, you know, and I learn copywriting and it like opened a whole new world for me. Like, oh, I can sell this. And then I learned I can hire a copywriter in the Philippines. Oh, that's easy. This is probably a reasonable time to talk about AI. I can have AI do copywriting. Do you want to get into that?

30:49

I do, but I have three more things that I want to touch on quickly. And I'm just going to quote them. I'm not good at delegating. I'm not sure I have enough work for an online Filipino specialist to do. And I'm not sure I can afford to hire one yet.

31:12

Look, delegation takes practice.  Sorry. You're not good at it. Yep. Correct. Well, that crap's got to change.

31:20

You've got to change. You've got to learn a new competency.

31:24

Sorry. Fine. You're not good at delegating. You just assume you're not good at delegating. Then you can stay stuck where you are forever. That's it. Move on. Next, I'm not sure I can keep someone, I'm not sure I can keep someone full time.

31:36

Yeah, I'm not sure I have enough work.

31:39

I don't have enough work. Then hire someone part time. Fine. Hire someone hourly. Hire someone for four hours a week. Fine, whatever. Like I hire people full time because I learned with my very first person, oh, there's more than enough work to do in a business. Like I had no choice but to hire them full time because that was the option. And when I gave...

32:02

Yeah, I mean, here's my… so true. Go for it. Go for it.

32:06

I send him this task. And no, this was like this was like the third thing I did with him. It's been 20 years, but this is like the third. I just remember this experience so well. I send him this task. I think it's going to take him a couple of days. And he comes back and he says he comes back four hours later, Sir, I'm done with it. What do want me to do now? And I was like, Oh, I don't know, but I better invent something for you to do. Well, here's this other thing I've heard about that we could be doing as marketing. Can you try this? Sure. And he tried it and was like, oh, yeah, it didn't work, but let's tweak it. Right. So do you have enough for them to do? Well, what's the other thing in your business that you're spending time on? And that's. OK, here's like my best piece of advice. What is the thing that you are spending time on? Outsource that. Hire someone to do that. Because your most precious resource is time. And if you can get someone to do that thing of yours, like I know you want someone to do your bookkeeping because it sucks. I get it. I know you want someone to handle your calendar because it sucks. I get it. But what is the thing that you're spending the most time on? Hire someone to do that.

33:27

And if that's your bread and butter, maybe you're not quite ready for that, right? Like if your bread and butter is writing, well, maybe you're not quite ready, but maybe you need some help with your writing. Maybe you can hire someone to do the prelim, or maybe you can hire someone to do the ideas or the research or all of this stuff. Okay, the third thing was you can't afford it. Same answer. Hire someone part-time, hire someone temporary. You don't have to hire full-time.

33:56

You mentioned something earlier that I think is the crux of it. A lot of these objections or concerns, whether it's I'm not sure how to delegate, I'm not sure I can afford it, I'm not sure they'll do it as well. We have our vision that is suppressed. It's like too small. We have these great big imaginations and we’re incredible at problem solving and we’re very creative but we are so focused on inbox management and scheduling. It's like we don't even have room for the ideas that are crowding just on the edge and my experience and what you just described is as soon as you free up one or two or three hours a week to think and to dream and to strategize and to ask, well, what else could we do? Or what are marketing fundamentals that I'm currently not doing? Because in the past I was the only one who could. Suddenly the ideas come fast and furious and you have no trouble seeing how to grow your business because suddenly it doesn't all depend on you. Like that's what's so crazy is our businesses want to grow but they don't grow because subconsciously we block the growth knowing I don't have time for that. So what I hear you saying is if you just get some support and there's someone who can like free you up just a couple of hours a week to think you will see clearly how to grow your business. Does that track?

35:47

You want to, you want to make a commitment to growing your business? Hire someone full time. This was the thing that I didn't know that happened to me. I was forced to hire someone full time because that's what the agency allowed. There was no option to hire someone on your own at the time. And  it forced me into being the CEO, where I wanted to hire someone hourly and just like give them work when I could, which surprisingly is one of the things that keeps people down. Like it keeps a business from progressing because it's a commitment towards yeah, if I don't have anything to do, then you're not my problem. I have too many emails to write. I can't think about that. But when you hire someone full time, you're making a commitment to them and yourself. No, I'm going to grow my business. I'm going to keep you employed full time. I'm going to keep you busy full time. And when you're not busy, I'm going to find something for you to do. Which is... I'm going to find something marketing. I'm going to find something that we didn't think about. I'm to find some task that improves the business that I haven't thought about before.  And I'm going to come up with this. We're going to make this work.

37:08

I want to ask about some more tactical things related to hiring, but first I do think we need to bring up the elephant in the room, which you already alluded to… AI. Why shouldn't I just use Claude Cowork or Viktor AI or any number of agentic apps out there to just do whatever I need?

37:32

So it's coming, right? It's coming. It's not there yet today. Like some of it is, it'll do some of it. But so I want to go back to your example because I loved it. She found we have to specify all these shipping rates in Amazon. And I did the research and I put it in. And let me know, right? Maybe there's an AI agent that has that kind of access or can do that. Maybe I don't really know. I don't think so. But that was like one tiny thing. What are the rest of the things? So like I said, we're starting this university for Filipinos to educate people better, more. And is an AI agent going to build a university? No, not not going to happen, right? But I have two people working on building this university in the Philippines right now. Doing a great job. This morning, one of them sent me, hey, here are the other pages that I think we need on the website, and here's what I think they should have on them. Yes, write those, please. And I don't care. You can use AI, but here's where it comes. Here's where it comes back to. So over the last year, we've looked at our hiring process and we started going down the path of employers want to filter people with AI. Cool. Fine. Like we can filter. I get contacts by companies once a week that say, we'll interview people with AI. And I'm like, dude, everyone in the Philippines is using AI to apply to jobs. And you can tell you're not stupid. Like, you know, when something's AI. They're applying to jobs with AI and we're interviewing with AI. And now there's no humans involved. This is just AI talking to AI. Is that really what you want? Like if you go to a business, do you want to interact with AI? I mean, do you want an AI doing your social media? Do you want to read AI posts from social media?

38:21

What I think is going to happen, we're going to swing this pendulum super far. We're like, AI is going to do everything. And humans are going to be like, yeah, I don't want your AI crap. I mean, I got on Twitter the other day to look at some snow forecast stuff. And I get X, I got on X the other day. And I saw AI post after AI post after AI post after AI post. And I closed it. I'm like, I'm out. Sorry, I'm done. Is your business just AI? Well, I don't want to do business with you. That's what I think is going to happen. Obviously, AI is amazing and it's doing all kinds of stuff. I still want a human to human interaction. I think, I mean, that's like deeply, deeply ingrained in human nature is person to person interaction. Like that's like all of love and relationships and everything.

41:01

And our pleasure in life.

41:03

Yeah. All of it. Right. We're going to swing this pendulum so far where like an AI agent is doing all this stuff and, you're going to be like, yeah, I'm out of Facebook. I'm done. And pretty soon Facebook is just AI talking to AI and people are out.

41:20

Yeah. We're hanging out at coffee shops, talking to one another in person or whatever. To  prove your point, right? When I asked for a video from my now assistant, just to give me a sense of her personality when she was applying for the job. And I asked all the applicants to send a video. I could tell she was really introverted, would prefer to not be on camera, but toward the end, she just cracked a joke. Like her personality came through. And I love humor. I love laughing. think life's too short to not sort of whistle while you work and have a good time, even if you're working. And I thought, well, I can work with someone who has a sense of humor. I would prefer to work with someone who has a sense of humor. And sure enough, a lot of my clients and customers just appreciate the human touch all over any interaction. Even if it's a mistake or it's a typo in an email or it's oops, definitely not what I meant to say, right? A lot of that stuff is endearing. Imperfection is endearing. So I think you're right that before… no matter what happens with AI, we are actually losing some of the good stuff of life. If we try to cut real people out of hiring, out of business, out of every facet of business because it's like, what's the point? Like you can walk into one business and have just a really meaningful interaction with someone who's just working at the front desk or a waiter at a restaurant, or even over an email where someone says something or shares something that brightens your day. And I'm like, AI isn't quite there yet, but we would be remiss to not kind of get into the process because even though you and I have been through it.

43:29

Can I stop you for a second?

43:30

Yeah, for sure.

43:31

I want to get into the process. I have two more things to say about AI because I don't want people to think that I'm like, Oh no, AI is not coming. No AI is coming. Right. And in the future, you know, maybe it does what you, your example, right. But it's not there now. And do you want to grow your business now or not? Like you just want to wait. You want to keep waiting… until I did that once with solar. I was like, yeah, I'm not going to do solar until there's this nano technology coming in and I'll do it then. Yeah, dude. That was 20 years ago. I have solar now. I got on board. And I'm not saying AI is going to take that long, but when are you going to grow your business is you're to wait until, now the AI will… Well, and maybe it will do it already. So do whatever AI will do and use people to do the rest. On my team... My team, every single person on my team is using AI right now. They're all using it to make themselves better at their jobs. Okay. Here's the second piece. And what maybe you don't realize AI is unbelievably good at creating videos, marketing videos. You can say, Hey, make me a marketing video. Someone talking about this thing, right? I have a good friend that's running a performance company. He has a performance substance, whatever. And he's been making videos himself and he's been making these AI videos. He's like, dude, look at this video AI created.  And I'm like, wow, that is unbelievable. Like it is so good. Better than what, better than what I could create. And he came back to me a week later. He was like, dude, I've been running all these videos. The ad videos will not perform. They won't perform. Like the ads just don't perform. The videos are unbelievably good. Every single video I create outperforms them. Why? I don't know. I'm just giving another situation where like…

45:42

Anecdotal data that I think the point made is really  good. I've had some friends who got, who kind of went all in on AI and they've actually spent so much time learning how to create agents, how to connect agents with each other  and how to try to delegate all this. But the thing that hasn't happened is the revenue hasn't gone up. Now other people, maybe they have seen revenue go up, but I think it's that classic conundrum that entrepreneurs find ourselves in, which is, are we keeping the main thing the main thing? And if I really want to grow my business and I can grow my business right now by getting out of my inbox and out of calendars and scheduling activity, giving that to someone else or delegating coding to someone else or in my case, I hired a marketing coordinator. I'm a marketing advisor. I know how to market. And I'm like, I'm still the bottleneck in my own marketing. I can't find agents to do that for me. I need a person, but, I know that there are going to be people listening, John, who are curious, maybe even eager, but  they're still not sure about what the process looks like. So can you just talk me through specifically with Onlinejobs.ph. What it just means, like how do I do it? How do I hire someone?

47:22

Yeah. Okay. So Onlinejobs.ph is not an agency. We don't find the people for you, which that's the whole point of it. An agency will find someone for you. You tell them what you want. They'll find the person and they'll mark up the salary three times and you'll work with them paying their marked up salary forever. At OnlineJobs, we give you access to all of the Philippines. We have almost 5 million peopl  in OnlineJobs now. The Philippines has 100 million people. So there's 5% of the population in OnlineJobs and it's something like 20% of the workforce of like the working age workforce. You can find any talent, skill, whatever it is. So here's how it works. It's like if you were to hire someone locally, you're going to go to a job where you're to go to Indeed.com and you're going to post a job and people are going to apply to the job and you're going to then look at what people have applied and you're going to contact them and interview them. It's the same thing. We just give you instant access to an incredibly affordable talent pool. So you go into Onlinejobs, you can immediately search resumes. You can search the whole database of 5 million resumes and or profiles and see does this skill exist that I'm looking for? And you can contact people and see if they're looking for work because just having a profile doesn't mean they're available to work. But contact them and say, hey, I have this job that I'm looking to get done. I'm hiring part time. I hire full time. Are you interested or or do both or post a job? So like look and contact people or post a job and let people apply to your job. Your job post says I'm looking for a marketing coordinator for this type of business. This is a full time position. I am looking to pay… my recommendation right now is between four and seven dollars an hour, four on the kind of lower end, seven on the higher end. And when you apply, here's my advice, when you apply, make the title of your application marketing coordinator dash your name here. And when you apply, use seven apply points. And when you get in, you'll see apply points, and there'll be an explanation of what apply points is. Ask them to use a specific number of apply points. It will significantly improve your process. And then what I really, really recommend is over the last year and a half, we've developed an AI matching process where you'll get… depending on the job, you're going to get 100 applicants and sorting through 100 applicants is impossible. And  the AI will do it for you and we'll do a really, really good job, including looking at so much more data than you could ever look at and having so much more knowledge of like… Here's the personality that is required for this job. Here's the personalities of the people who have applied to this job. These ones match. These ones don't, even though their skills look perfect. Their personality type doesn't match. Here's their behavioral data on Onlinejobs. This type of behavioral data presents a problem. And you would never know this, but we know this. And so the AI is looking at it. Here's their job history. And it's going to look at all of these things and give you a ranked list of candidates. Here's the top four. Interview these four. Don't even look at the rest of your applicants. Just interview those four and see who fits. Do none of them fit? Interview the fifth one. And here's so that's like the the shortest shortcut to finding someone amazing.

51:38

Put up a job posting, let your like this incredible amount of data that you have that feeds the AI matchmaking tell you which candidates to focus on first. That sounds like it would be much faster than going through everybody by hand for sure.

52:01

And that's the point. The point isn't that the AI matching hires someone for you. It's that it cuts down your time really, really significantly and like gives you a pretty dang good idea that who you're gonna interview is gonna work out.  So then you interview them. And my recommendation is you do not do a video interview, at least not at first. Start with an email interview and the AI will tell you questions you should be asking and interview them through email for two or three days. And the point here is usually you're not going to be on the phone with someone every day. At least I'm not. Maybe you will be, but I'm going to interview them the way that I'm going to work with them. And if I'm going to work with them through email or through computer based messaging, right? I'm going to interview them that way. And in this, you're going to see their personality. You're going to see how detail oriented they are. If you ask them three questions, they only answer two. Well, you know that when you give them three tasks, they're only going to do two of them.

53:07

You get to see how quickly they respond. Like, are they responding in six hours or are they responding in three days? Well, like if you respond in three days during an interview, the chances of you doing that after I've hired you are really high. That doesn't work.

53:19

You're to get more of the same. So pay attention to those patterns.

53:24

Pay attention, right? Work with them the way you're going to work with them later. Then and you'll find like this works so stinking well. A bad Apple does not want to go through this process.

53:38

It weeds out those people automatically.

53:40

They will drop themselves out. They just won't respond to you. You're asking too many questions. I don't want to do this. I've seen that so many times. Or at least when I've done this, I've never once hired a bad Apple when I've gone through the process.

53:56

That's such a great point. It's a self selection out. If you put some good friction into the process.

54:07

Yeah. And it's not friction for you. Like usually for me, I'm sending the same four questions to each of six applicants. I'm just copying and pasting and I'm making them prove to me why I should hire them. I'm not writing big, long emails. I'm asking questions and I'm asking for their responses. Then I'm dropping people out like I'm sorry. I do not like your responses. I don't like the way I'm getting… And I'll just say sorry, I chose to go a different direction with this right. At some point. I'll I'll give a test task and you could do this first also a test like I want to I want you to do this and I want to see. Now the problem with doing that first. Is my goal with the test is different than most people's. My goal is to see how well we work together like. It's not to see how well you do the work. I mean, yes, that can be a part of it, but it is to see, do we work together? Like, do you ask good questions? Do you get it done right? Or do you ask good clarifying questions so that we can work together to get this done right? Because if you just do it wrong and you don't ask anything, well, the chances of you just doing it wrong later are pretty high. And then now's the time to do a video interview.

53:56

And the problem is the culture of the Philippines does not want to do a video interview up front. They don't trust you. It's all about trust in the Philippines. If they don't trust you, you're going to have a bad experience and they don't trust you in the beginning. They don't trust you to not embarrass them, to not yell at them. Once you've emailed them a few times, they start to trust you and now they'll show up to an interview. Now you're going to get what you're looking for. And now it's super easy to hire. Now it's like, okay, well, I like you. I want to offer you a job. Here's the salary. And when can you start? Tomorrow. Okay.

56:11

So two questions to follow on that before we end. I'll let you decide which order. How do you know if someone isn't working out? Because my experience is no matter how good the preliminary tests are, sometimes you still discover things that make a person not a great fit. But I want you to answer that question. And then two, are there any other patterns that you've seen amongst your most successful users, like people who are very successfully hiring on Onlinejobs.ph. What are they doing differently than the people who are unsuccessful? So have that.

56:56

That's best question I've ever been asked. Well, you just totally distracted me from the first question.

57:04

Sorry. The first one was if it's not working out, how do you know?

57:09

Yeah, okay. Well, I mean, usually you're just going to know, right? Like, gosh, I really don't like getting an email from them every day. I don't like getting their daily report. The work just is not working and they're not following instructions. So the first thing you should do when this happens is look at yourself because. Usually I find your instructions aren't as good as you think they are. I mean, sorry, like I've seen that too many times. Both with everybody, mean, hundreds of thousands of people, right? And myself. When I find that I'm not getting the right work done, I'm like, dude, this is so easy and obvious. I made these amazing instructions. And when I go back and look at my instructions, I'm like, whoa, that was bad. So that's the first thing to do. Assume it's your fault. And if you assume it's your fault, you're probably gonna have a really good experience. And that is one of the things that I see employers who succeed do differently than employers who don't. Employers who don't assume this person's lazy, they don't actually want the job, they're not showing up, they didn't show up today and I'm gonna fire them. Hire slow, fire fast. Where employers I see succeeding, they take responsibility and they're like, well, what did I do wrong here? And usually, look, if someone in the Philippines gets a job working for you, working for a foreign employer, they want that job. Like it's hard to find a job in the Philippines. It's not like the US where, oh, you just go get another job. No, a job is a really precious commodity, especially a stable job. And if they're not doing the work, there is something else wrong. And employers who just assume this person sucks or the Philippines sucks or this doesn't work are the ones that they don't make this work. Those who assume this is my fault, what did I do wrong here are the ones that like, they come back to me and say, I've had people working for me for 12 years now and it's amazing. They're all amazing, right? Those who do a good job care. Those who succeed care. That's the thing. They care about the people they hire and they treat them that way. It's not a robot. It's not a commodity to be discarded. It's not an expendable commodity. It's a person.

59:51

What's the timeframe like I'm low ego. I'm assuming I provided incomplete or bad instructions. I'm continuing to give you more chances to actually please me at what point do I listen to my frustration or disappointment or confusion  and pull the plug.

01:00:19

I don't I don't know. I don't have an answer to that. I have historically gone way too long with it, but that has also helped me figure out some people. And then they're like, when you build through, when you push through that. They become amazing. I've let some people go and it's been great. I'm so glad I let him go. Just a month ago, I hired a developer. This is probably two months ago now. I hired a developer off of a recommendation from one of our current developers. And the first thing we gave him was a disaster. It was a disaster. And I was like, oh my gosh. I vetted this dude and one of my really amazing developers vetted this dude like he knew him from before. He's known him for years. This guy's really good, but this is a freaking disaster. He is not fitting in. And I wanted to just let him go. Instead, I went and found another project that we were working In fact, I let him work on a completely separate, hey, build an AI agent for us. Which he did, which was like shockingly fast. It was like, okay, this is the developer I thought I hired. And then we brought him back into our current project and he took off and it was like, so good, right? And my initial reaction was like, oh, I've done this enough times. I know this is not going to work out. And it's definitely working out. I don't have a great, how long, you'll have a feeling. And if you don't  email me. I mean, I get emails from employers every day saying, here's the issue I'm having, what should I do? And usually the responses have a frank conversation with them. And this is surprisingly effective. Have a frank conversation and say, hey, look, this isn't working. And I fear it's my fault. But I need your feedback and information on why it's not working. Why is the work not getting done as it's supposed to? Or why are you not… why do I think you're not showing up every day? Because here's the data I have. Here's what I see. And I like you, but if this is how it's going to be, I don't want you to work for… I want you to work for me, but I can't have you working for me like this. That kind of an email is shockingly effective at like, they  know there's a problem.

01:02:54

They know too, right? They're not stupid. They're not oblivious.

01:02:58

And when you acknowledge it and you bring it up, there, and I've done this so many times, they're like, sir, I'm so sorry.

01:03:05

There's relief  because you're lead, you're the leader and you're leading them with honesty and vulnerability.

01:03:14

Sir, I'm so sorry. I am blind right now. I can't look at my computer because of this problem.

01:03:20

And you're like, what?

01:03:22

I need two weeks off, but I was afraid you were going to be so mad and fire me. Like, holy crap, dude, you're amazing. don't, I definitely take two weeks off and go to the doctor and how can I, I'm going to help you pay for this. Like let's get this fixed. Yeah. But that's why he's not, that's why his work sucks. Holy crap.

01:03:43

Then can see again and comes back and ends up being a great team member. On that point, and then we can close cause I know we've definitely filled up some time with valuable perspective, but my assistant who's now, like I said, been with me four years.  We were maybe four to six weeks in. And she came to me and she said, John. This isn't working. And I said, well, why is it not working? And she said, well, I am trying to work on a U.S. time zone like U.S. working hours, because I know that's what you want. And it has just totally wrecked my life. And I just don't think I can do it. And I said, well, what if you worked on Philippines working hours? And she said, you'd be open to that. And I'm like, well, I mean, let's at least give it a shot. And that was four years ago. And I don't know what it is about Filipino employers. Maybe culturally, there's like a lack of flexibility or there's just not a whole lot of room for back and forth conversation and this sort of generative collaborative problem solving approach that maybe the employers give a little and the employees give a little, but sure enough, as soon as we got her circadian rhythms back in order and she was sleeping, she's been an amazing team member. And I thought I almost lost her. She, or I almost let her quit before expressing like showing curiosity and compassion and being like, well, what's going on? So I want to bring up one thing which you've danced around this this whole time, which is if your assumption is that people want to do good, meaningful work. And if that is your assumption and good, meaningful work is not happening, then you can often find the obstacles or the pathways forward so that good meaningful work can happen. But it seems like so many people who are hiring assume that people are lazy by default, don't want to do good work, want to take money and not get, not give anything in return. And that just has not been my experience with people around the world, especially in the Philippines. Like very few people feel good about taking money and not doing great work. That's my experience.

01:06:24

This is one of the things that successful employers do. Like I've always said, you don't hire a rock star worker. You manage someone into a rock star worker.

01:06:38

There you go.

01:06:39

Right. She was a problem until you figured out the problem. Like she wants to contribute. Almost everybody wants to contribute.

01:06:50

95% of people.

01:06:53

Yeah. They want to contribute to your business. They want to be amazing. You have to, you have to find the problem. I had that exact same conversation with, with Jovan in the beginning. And then I never made someone work the night shift again, except for our customer support team, some of them.

01:07:11

And then some people are night owls anyway, and they don't mind. It works for the life that they want. Okay. You have been so generous.  I cannot wait for people to actually go for it and hire their first or third or fifth or tenth Online Filipino Specialist. You have  graciously offered your VA quick start guide. Can you tell me briefly what people can expect? And this is free everybody, but what will people find inside of this quick start guide? Just give me like 20 seconds.

01:07:49

So the quick start guy will go over like, I think it's 24 things that you have in your mind, or maybe things that you haven't thought about that you should know. And they're like one paragraph each, super short, just so that you're like, okay, I feel comfortable now doing this. That's the point of it.

01:08:10

Get clarity so that you can take action and hire confidently. Sounds like. Also, and this is for folks who buy the all access pass, there's a giveaway. 10 people are going to get the one VA away challenge. Again, I appreciate your generosity and I'm guessing that this challenge is go hire an online Filipino specialist. Do it, like take the challenge and go do it.

01:08:41

It’s no.

01:08:43

I got that wrong.

01:08:43

Yeah, sorry. Look, the One VA challenge is my process, it's exactly what I do to hire someone great every time. If you're doing that, you're already on board with hiring someone like you're going to go hire someone. But this is exactly  what I do and what I'm thinking about when I'm doing these things so that you don't make mistakes. Because that's that's I know that's a huge fear like I'm gonna make mistakes. I'm gonna do something wrong. I'm gonna hire the wrong person. I'm not it's not gonna work like you're paying for online jobs. You have to pay for Onlinejobs. Well, here's how I use Onlinejobs…

01:09:26

In the way most of the mistakes most of the time.

01:09:29

And it makes it easy for you and so like what I say is if you go through the videos of One VA Away and you do the steps at the same time, it shouldn't take you more than two to three hours of your time total across a week to hire someone amazing.

01:09:49

Wow. That's awesome. John, thank you again. Always a pleasure. And I can't wait to start getting stories about people who are making these hires and saying what took me so long. So I appreciate you and I look forward to the next one.

01:10:07

Thank you so much. It's good. So good to be here.

01:10:10

Hey, before you go, let me invite you to join our community for more established advanced freelancers. It's called the freelance cake community. One member named Michelle had this to say, I'm just so impressed by the quality of the conversation that's happening in the group. The in-depth questions, experiments and thoughts being shared are just so refreshing. And the other communities I'm a part of, it's all beginner questions, which is fine, but it's awesome to find a more advanced space where it's okay to ask more advanced questions. Thank you, Michelle. Here's a little more about the community. Each week we do live group coaching and live coworking. You get access to a massive resource library and obviously the community itself, which we host using Circle. Of course, the people are the best part of all this. It really helps to surround yourself. with smart, accomplished, and optimistic people who are out there taking risks and building the businesses they really want. If that interests you, visit http://freelancecake.com/community to learn more and apply. You can find that link in the show notes. I hope to see you there.