HUSBAND. FATHER. DISCIPLE OF JESUS CHRIST.
ENTREPRENEUR. MEDIOCRE GOLFER.

Aaron Hall is an attorney. He also makes educational videos to help business owners avoid legal pitfalls and grow their companies. He outsources a lot of work to his Filipino team. He's been outsourcing to the Philippines for over 14 years. Like any business owner, he...

Occasionally someone emails me with something like: “I hired someone from Onlinejobs.ph and it didn’t work. The worker was terrible.” “I posted my first job post and I couldn’t find the person that I needed.” "I didn't get very many applicants. This doesn't work."...

I have mentioned before that my son is on a mission in the Philippines with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He’s on an island called Marinduque. He’s been sending me videos and pictures of what they’re doing there. As you can see, the island is really...

Look...I know you don't want to train someone. I know you're too busy.  I get it. And...I know you want to just hire someone who is already super skilled. You can! But you still have to bring the person into your business. You still have to provide some training! I’ve...

Before we can talk about how to balance flexibility and accountability with your Online Filipino Specialist, I think we need to ask "why" first. Isn’t accountability the only thing that matters? Accountability and flexibility are just as important if you want an OFS...

I remember the first time I saw the culture of loyalty in the Philippines. I had this amazing programmer working for me. I’d put his talent up against anyone. He sent me an email: “Sir, This is a hard email to write. I got offered my dream job.  I’ll be going to...

In my newsletters, videos, podcast, and blog posts, I often talk about giving your Online Filipino Specialist one task to start and training them for that task. The idea here is that by focusing on one task at the beginning, you can make sure that they’re doing that...

The number one concern people have before hiring an OFS is "I'm not sure about the talent" "I wasn't sure if I could find people with legit talent" "Are there actually talented people?" The short answer: YES! I've hired talented programmers, designers, content...

I do a lot of teaching. - teaching my kids to read - teaching multiplication tables - teaching the gospel of Jesus Christ - teaching to ride a bike - teaching how to ski moguls - teaching how to be an adult - teaching ... Teaching an OFS is SO much easier than...

This is less about OFS and more about general online business advice. In building an online business there are 2 specific situations where I see people struggle: 1. “I don’t really know what to sell and I’m not sure what to have my OFS do” Yeah…if you don’t know what...

After I sent out the newsletter on “How do you handle when an OFS gets sick”, I got a lot of responses. I was blown away seeing so many employers who sincerely care for their OFS. Their emails also gave me a lot of great ideas on what to do when your OFS does get sick...

If you're new to my newsletter, you might not know what OFS means. The term VA or Virtual Assistant has bugged me for a long time. You’re not hiring an “assistant”. They’re not a nebulous “do anything but don’t be particularly good at anything” person. Yes, I’ve hired...

From Julia: —————— Maternity leave is a long-established employee benefit here in the Philippines. Here are answers to questions: How long does maternity leave in the Philippines last? Under Philippine law, women are entitled to up to 105 days of maternity leave with...

When Julia, my OFS, wrote this email, she started it with a lie: "I will share a badly kept secret: I don’t read all the daily reports my team sends me." Which is not true! and means I'm not doing a great job of letting people know they're appreciated. The crazy thing...

People often ask me "How do I pay people?" Paying people is the easiest part of working with an OFS. There are so many options. You can pay through Paypal, wise.com, Western Union, or our favorite, Easypay at OnlineJobs.ph (www.OnlineJobs.ph/easypay). You can use...

I got this interesting email from Adam in response to my newsletter about OFS resigning too early. For those of us who don’t yet have this problem, it would be nice to know some specific examples of why a OFS left early on in the process.  To be honest, this has...

If you've already hired OFS, STOP READING! Archive. If you haven't hired an OFS, why? I want to know. Hit reply and tell me what's holding you up from hiring someone. Is it: - you don't know where to start? - you're concerned about legalities and taxes? - you don't...

I got this response to my newsletter about an OFS resigning early. You should do a blog post making sure the people know not to pay in advance. I tried that and got no work in return. My bad, obviously, should have known better. I've talked about this a lot, but in...

I got an email from one of my long-time subscribers about getting poor work delivered. I wanted to share it with you because it talks about something you may have observed with some of your OFS. If they make a mistake, they'll do anything else to save face rather than...

It’s hard to seek mental health services in the Philippines. Not only is it expensive and scarce, but there’s also a social stigma associated with it. Here’s a story about it from one of my longtime subscribers. We re-wrote the email for clarity and to protect the...

When you hire your 2nd OFS, the process becomes much easier. By then, you’ll start to really build a hiring process because of what you went through with your first OFS. You’ll know what to write in your job post and how to message jobseekers in the OnlineJobs.ph...

“John, are your OFS really independent contractors or not? If you’re giving them benefits, that means they’re employees, right?” I get this A LOT. I’ve talked about how your OFS are independent contractors but I also talk a lot about the benefits you can give your...

Just want to give you a head’s up that this week is Holy Week.  It's a big deal in the Philippines, so expect that your OFS might take a leave of absence on April 6 and 7, Maundy Thursday and Good Friday, respectively. The Philippines is predominantly Catholic, which...

Writing a good job post that attracts good applicants isn’t that hard. I know that’s easy for me to say because I’ve done this so many times that I know what works and what doesn’t. But seriously, it’s not that hard. I think so many people think that writing a good...

When I give my OFS team instructions on Basecamp or send them video instructions, I don’t ask them whether they understood it. Instead, I ask them what they think about what I sent them. Often I ask them how we can improve the process. I ask them these questions...

I got this email from Virgine, which is another question I get asked a lot about hiring an Online Filipino Specialist. We seem to be getting a lot of great potential VA - they all say the right things on the interview but then we train them for 2 weeks and they leave-...

There’s this quote from Teddy Roosevelt “In any situation, the best thing you can do is the right thing. The second best thing is the wrong thing. The worst thing you can do is nothing.” When hiring someone, we all want to do the right thing. We all want to hire the...

Email.  How many emails do you get every day?  100?  2,000? It used to suck for me too. But it doesn't have to. And inbox zero is totally achievable. Here's my current inbox as I write this: Years ago I decided I wasn't the only one who could get junk out of my inbox....

Something different for this Friday. If you want some ideas for how to unify your virtual team and inspire them to grow professionally, watch this case study with Bibi Raven from BibiBuzz. https://youtu.be/EeqJSLgLJwA Human beings thrive on personal connection,...

I’ve talked before that setting up shop in the Philippines is really hard, and that’s still the case today. People sometimes want advice on how to set up a legal entity in the Philippines and my advice is DON'T. It's really difficult, and the Philippines government is...

Most people aren't going to like hearing this. Working 40 hours/week is overrated. Most people working 40 hours/week fritter away time. They watch funny cat videos on YouTube, they scroll Facebook. They read "news". I don't do any of it. No FB. No news. No Youtube....

Every day I get emails from people saying "Do you have X type of worker?" Yes, yes we do. I usually reply with a search result from OnlineJobs.ph. With over 2,000,000 Filipino profiles, we have people who can do almost anything. And, it’s easy to find great applicants...

Job titles aren’t that important to me. But in the Philippines, it’s a big deal. An impressive job title is a source of pride. A nice-sounding job title announces to their family and friends how good they are at their job or how much money they’re making without...

Riding a bike is so easy...once you know how. Once you know, you can't imagine not knowing how. To a lot of people, a bike adds freedom, opportunity, exercise, competition, transportation... Here's my daughter competing in her last high school race: Hiring an OFS is...

I have a neighbor who sells shoes on eBay. He has like 3,000-5,000 Pairs of shoes...in his basement! He's always wearing some cool new pair of unique shoes. I've mentioned to him a number of times about hiring OFS and he's always like "Oh, there's nothing they could...

I talk a lot about earning your OFS (Online Filipino Specialist) trust and giving them training and benefits. Why? Why be so nice to Filipino workers? They work for you! You’re paying them to do their jobs! You’re paying them to work, right!? Right??? Yes, you’re...

I get a lot of emails from employers and Filipino workers telling me how Onlinejobs.ph changed their lives. But this...is different. Here's a conversation I had last week with my oldest child, Austin. He was sent to the Philippines for his mission with the Church of...

You can dream, create, design and build the most wonderful place in the world…but it requires people to make the dream a reality.  - Walt Disney I don't think I can say it better than him. Your business requires people. Ready to take the leap? Start with...

People always tell me "How can I trust this person?" Their minds immediately go to “What if my OFS steals from me?” With a local hire, you know you can go to the police. But what if your OFS steals your financial information or client list or destroys your website,...

I’ve mentioned a few times that “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” is one of those books that shaped the course of my life. It kept me out of debt. It taught me to take appropriate risks.  It taught me to buy assets before liabilities. There’s a line in that book that, I think,...

I got this email from one of my newsletter subscribers asking about how I organize my video training library. I love your emails and am extremely grateful for what you've created with OnlineJobs. I hired a wonderful person a little over a year ago through your site...

You want to hire an OFS (or maybe even a VA!) but you've been putting it off because you're afraid you don’t know how to do it right? There’s one thing you can do to help you get over your fear of hiring AND help you learn how to hire someone faster. Write and post a...

Last week I told you about my son in the Philippines and how he had a friend there who needed a job.  My son had vetted Marc for me.  Marc was trustworthy and hard working, just not super skilled. His option was to travel to Manila for work and leave his wife and 2...

After I released that newsletter on phone services, I got a lot of responses on phone services that are not on the list. So here's an update based on what subscribers told me: Unitel Dialpad Ooma Office Twilio WhatsApp ZegoCloud DialDesk Not a phone service but a...

"John - How do I know if I can trust them?" It's one of the first questions people ask me. Humans are hardwired to be suspicious of things we don’t know or understand. That’s how we protect ourselves. So I understand why you’d be reluctant to trust a stranger halfway...

Here's a VA I know who is available to hire. Notice I didn't call him an OFS.  He's not. And...I don't actually KNOW him. Here's the story... My oldest son is serving as a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  The "Mormons".  Yes, I'm an...

Chat GPT is everywhere. People keep asking me if it is replacing VAs. Yes and No. Yes, in a sense that it can help get rid of a lot of busy work that your VA is doing. If you need your VA to write ten articles daily for your content marketing, an AI can do that...

In 2022, many Philippine holidays fell on the weekend. But in 2023, you may have noticed that many of those holidays now land on a Monday or Friday. If your OFS doesn’t work on the weekends, they can expect around 9 “long weekends” if we count regular and special...

My OFS, Julia, is in the process of getting her driver’s license. She’s in her forties, so I was surprised to learn that she’s only started learning how to drive. She tried learning to drive when she was younger. But she crashed the car, which scared her from driving...

"Hey John, you should create a job board like OnlineJobs.ph in...." I get a lot of requests from people asking me to replicate Onlinejobs.ph in their country. No. Why? Because employers have a better experience in the Philippines than anywhere else in the world. Not...