HUSBAND. FATHER. DISCIPLE OF JESUS CHRIST.
ENTREPRENEUR. MEDIOCRE GOLFER.
I’m John Jonas. I live in Utah and I founded OnlineJobs.ph. My life is better because of my Filipino OFS (Online Filipino Specialist). My team.
I had a normal “job” for 8 months after college and my biggest goal at that time was to be able to quit that job. I managed to quit back in 2004 and worked from home for myself ever since then.
When I first hired someone from the Philippines in January of 2006, I knew I was onto something special. Since then I’ve learned that for most people, life is definitely better with Filipino workers on your team.
Yes, because of my Filipino workers I get to play a lot of golf, spend a lot of time with my wife and kids, and get out backpacking in the middle of the week. I work for about 17 hours a week because of the amazing work they do. However it’s not just better for us; it’s better for them too.
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P.S.
I DON’T DO SOCIAL MEDIA…
MY OFS DO IT FOR ME.
Lessons from 20+ Years of Hiring VAs
Last August I tore my right ACL. Surgery. Months off.
Last month I tore my achilles tendon. Surgery. More months off.
I’m not very good at sitting around.
But… it has given me time to think about what outsourcing has actually taught me.
When I first hired someone in the Philippines in 2005, I wasn’t trying to build a team of 60+ people. I wasn’t trying to build an 8 figure business. I wasn’t thinking about company culture or leadership or how to manage people on the other side of the world.
I just wanted stuff off my plate.
I wanted to work less. I wanted more time with my family. I wanted more sleep. I wanted time to ski and bike and do the things I wanted to do.
Hiring someone in the Philippines helped with that.
But over the years, it taught me a lot more than I expected.
I talk a lot about how easy it is to hire someone in the Philippines. And it is easy. Post a job. Get applicants. Use AI Matching. Email interview a few people. Do a short video call. Hire someone. That process is pretty simple.
What I didn’t expect was how much hiring someone would change the way I run my business.
— The first thing outsourcing taught me is that I shouldn’t be doing everything myself.
This sounds obvious, but it wasn’t obvious to me. I thought I needed to touch everything. I thought if I didn’t do it myself, it wouldn’t be done right. I thought I needed to know every little thing going on in every little corner of the business.
That’s not how you grow.
If everything depends on you, you don’t really have a business. You have a job that owns you.
My job is to think through problems, come up with ideas, set direction, and help my team solve things when they get stuck. My job is not to do every task. That took me a while to learn.
— The second thing outsourcing taught me is that the people working for me are people.
Also obvious.
Also easy to forget when they’re 8,000 miles away.
They’re not “a VA.” They’re not a task machine. They’re not just someone checking boxes in Basecamp. They have kids. Parents. Health problems. Hobbies. Bad days. Good days. Things they’re excited about. Things they’re worried about.
I’ve been frustrated with my team before. I’ve been angry. I’ve sent emails I probably shouldn’t have sent. I’ve assumed someone was being lazy when really something else was going on.
Over time I’ve learned to ask better questions.
What’s going on? Did I give bad instructions? Did I put them in a hard situation? Is there something in their life I don’t know about?
That doesn’t mean you accept poor work. It means you treat them like people while you work through the problem.
That one change has made a massive difference in my business.
— The third thing outsourcing taught me is that what I model matters.
I talk to my team about my family. I talk about skiing and biking and going to the gym. I ask about their kids. I ask what they’re working on. I ask what they’re excited about. I try to be kind. I don’t always get it right, but I try.
Over the years, I’ve seen those same things show up inside my team. They help each other. They train each other. They cover for each other. They volunteer in their communities. They take care of their families. They try to do good work because they care about the company and the people around them.
A lot of this comes down to whether people feel safe with you. Safe to ask questions. Safe to give ideas. Safe to tell you when something isn’t working. Safe to grow into more than the job you originally hired them to do.
That doesn’t happen because you wrote a policy.
It happens because people watch how you treat them.
This is the part of outsourcing I didn’t understand when I started. I thought I was hiring someone to do tasks. What actually happened was I started building a team.
There’s a big difference.
A task gets completed. A team grows with you.
The first person I hired still works with me today. A bunch of the people I hired in 2007, 2008, 2010, and 2011 still work with me today.
That’s not because I’m some amazing manager.
It’s because the Philippines has good people. It’s because long-term work matters to them. It’s because, when you treat people well, they usually want to stay and grow with you.
But you still have to do your part.
Hire well. Train them. Treat them well. Give feedback. Give responsibility. Let them grow.
If you do that, you’re not just getting stuff off your plate. You’re building something that can run without you doing everything yourself.
That was the goal in the beginning.
I just didn’t know how big of a deal it would become.
John
PS. My team wrote more about how this has worked inside OnlineJobs.ph here:
https://blog.onlinejobs.ph/creating-company-culture-with-the-right-people-at-onlinejobs-ph/
It’s not a corporate culture thing. It’s what happens when good people feel safe, trusted, and treated well.
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