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

Ever noticed how many Filipino nurses there are? Or that many caregivers are Filipinos? Caring for a sickly or elderly family member is a big part of Filipino culture. If you’re young and healthy, you’re expected to care for the elderly and the sick, whether they’re...

Rachel’s OFS has been working for her for over a year, and recently asked for a raise. So she emails me and asks. How much of a raise is expected?  I started her at $8.00 an hour and that seemed to be the upper end for the bookkeeping/secretarial work she does for us....

When I read this email from Spencer, I just had to share it with you guys. I just hired my first OFS! I posted a job and got 71 applicants. I made up the interview process as i went along. There were four rounds of 4-5 questions. Out of the 71 initial applicants, 29...

I have often talked about how hiring an OFS can be life-changing for you. But for Filipinos, having a full-time job that lets them work from home is just as life-changing. Mariah’s OFS story may sound unbelievable, but it’s quite common. https://youtu.be/gn6FAMCO0jo...

I got this email from one of my OFS graphic designers the other day. She makes creatives for social media (posts and ads): Good morning. I will try to finish the Ads as soon as I can. I am currently at the hospital. My father got car accident yesterday.  The neck of...

I see some people brag about their hiring philosophy of “Hire slow and fire fast.” I know I’m going to make a lot of people angry by saying this, but I think it’s stupid. Let’s start with the “hire slow” part of this statement. If your hiring process is really slow,...

We have this messed up culture here in the US where we’re proud of the fact that we work all the time. We celebrate people who work 60-80 hour work weeks. We brag about the fact that we rarely take vacations and have very little sleep. It’s like we equate our value...

I can’t really say this better than Rhonda. It’s eye-opening if you haven’t done this yet. We've been considering a side business of focused bookkeeping for a specific business type. Every business has it's own quirks, and it's a useful sales and marketing tool to...

Filipino culture revolves around the family. The parents and grandparents care for the kids. Adult children are expected to care for the aging parents. But it’s not that easy for a lot of Filipino families. My son Austin saw this firsthand in Marinduque. For a lot of...

I get a lot of emails and messages like the one I’m sharing with you today. This one is from Kathleen. She’s one of the hundreds of thousands of business owners who found amazing Filipino workers through Onlinejobs.ph. People who just want to work. People who, if...

I've said this before but I'll say it again. When you hire OFS, you'll change generations of lives. Yesterday one of my OFS sent me the following email: -------------- Hi John and Dan! Remember last year when I asked you and Dan to give my daughter a summer job? She's...

I have no idea what you do in your business on a day to day basis. Talk with clients? Deal with computers? Think about and create marketing material? Sell! Software? Email. Employees? R&D? Invoices, accounts, bookkeeping, taxes, inventory, ... For your business: I...

When I was in college I had this conversation with a roommate ------------ I want to own my own business so I can have freedom Him: Don't you know small business owners work more than anyone else? I think I can do it differently ------------- That conversation was a...

As business owners, we know what’s going on in our business. But there are little details that we don’t have to know in order to implement. Take my FB ads, for example. I have never been on the Meta Business Suite (is that even what it's called???). I rarely open my...

Steve has a very technical business (analytics and data engineering), so the tips on using AI are really helpful. But what really caught my eye is how he finds and keeps his team of OFS engineers and analysts. I responded a couple of years ago on how well things have...

Of the 100,000 people who get this newsletter, I'd say 95% of them are experienced business owners. But the 5%... “John, I’m just starting out my business. Can I have an OFS build it for me?” My answer to this is, "Yes BUT..." - You have to ensure you understand your...

I got this fantastic response from Wyn after I sent out the newsletter about tax and accounting firms: https://johnjonas.com/ofs-for-accounting-and-tax-firms/ Wyn's advice applies to most people. Wyn is also in the same business as Cathy. He took the OneVAAway.com...

I’ve heard from a lot of business owners who tell me that they’re too overwhelmed to hire someone right now. I've felt this before. "Ugh...I have so much to do...I can't take the time to post a job and interview/hire someone right now." FULL STOP! Did you hear what...

I don't get asked this a lot, but I think it's worth talking about. I don't want OnlineJobs.ph to be like Fiverr or Upwork. If I prioritized freelance work or short projects, I would make more money because employers would need to keep coming back to hire workers. We...

How do you live the 4 hour workweek? You learn to say “NO”. I say “No” to most things that come my way. - Business opportunities - Feature requests - Bug fixes - Content to create - “We could do this…” - Customers - Requests - Phone calls - Ways to grow the business -...

Sometimes I'm a good retail consumer… other times I’m a really bad retail consumer. Once, I went to a doctor because I heard he was a good doctor, even though I wasn’t feeling anything wrong with me. I wanted to support. Good retail consumer. Recently I bought some...

I get emailed almost every day by people telling me how they got more free time by hiring an online Filipino Specialist (OFS) from OnlineJobs.PH. Super often they say “I just wish I had done this sooner!” or “Why didn’t someone tell me this would be so good!” I...

The first thing most people want to do when they get a bunch of applicants for their job post is schedule Zoom interviews. Don't do it. Here's my experience (and thousands of other people's experiences). You have 10 applicants. You ask them to schedule a Zoom call. 5...

Artificial Intelligence can be good and bad for you, your OFS, and your business. AI can be good if it makes your business and OFS more efficient. My OFS has used AI to help with idea generation when they need to come up with new content. They use Grammarly AI to...

I got an email from Cathy, who owns a brick-and-mortar accounting firm. She wants to hire an Online Filipino Specialist, but she doesn’t know how it would work for her. So she sent me a bunch of questions. I’m sharing them here in case you have the same questions, you...

I work about 17 hours/week. I have since ~2008. I hope to share some of how I do it with you.  Today is #1 out of 12 actionable ways to cut your working time down. This is how I make decisions about business opportunities I do or don't pursue. I know there’s always...

Marcjem is one of the people my son, Austin, has been helping as a missionary of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Marcjem is a college graduate and an experienced graphic designer. He’s also unemployed. Why? By all accounts, he shouldn’t be unemployed....

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...