Topics:

Never Miss a Beat - Get Updates Direct to Your Inbox

Home » Podcast » The Best Sources for Philippine VAs

FILTER:

The Best Sources for Philippine VAs

John Jonas is the Founder of OnlineJobs.ph, a job board that has brought hundreds of thousands of jobs to virtual workers in the Philippines. He is also the host of The Secret Sauce of Outsourcing, a podcast where he talks about tips, tricks, advice, and stories on how to be more efficient through outsourcing.

Before this, John worked as the Chief Technology Advisor for ClientSkills, a Lead Developer for Familylearn LLC and iCount.com, and a PHP Programmer for QComm.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

[01:28] John Jonas introduces his online job board for remote workers in the Philippines
[09:45] John describes the cultural differences and priorities with education in the Philippines
[12:42] What is the biggest mistake companies make when hiring a VA?
[17:04] The benefits of hiring a full-time assistant to scale your brand
[26:51] John shares his advice for outsourcing and managing tasks
[31:05] How can a virtual assistant help you save valuable time in your schedule?
[37:11] Why OnlineJobs.ph should be your go-to place to hire a personal assistant

In this episode…

Do you feel like something is holding you back from working on your business instead of in it? How can you outsource tasks to talented individuals to help your business grow and scale?

According to John Jonas, every business can benefit from hiring a Filipino virtual assistant. As he says, your company will thrive from a diverse team whose values match your own. Whether you’re an entrepreneur of a new, established, big, or small business, the results of outsourcing to a VA will speak for themselves. Listen as John talks about growing your business with suitable candidates.

In this episode of the Quiet Light Podcast, Joe Valley sits down with John Jonas, Founder of OnlineJobs.ph, to talk about hiring virtual assistants in the Philippines to scale your brand. John discusses some of the cultural differences that make the Philippines a valuable source for employees, how outsourcing tasks can grow your business, and his tips for building a talent pipeline aligned with your values and skills.

Resources Mentioned in this episode

Sponsor for this episode

This episode is brought to you by Quiet Light, a brokerage firm that wants to help you successfully sell your online business.

There is no wrong reason for selling your business. However, there is a right time and a right way. The team of leading entrepreneurs at Quiet Light wants to help you discover the right time and strategy for selling your business. By providing trustworthy advice, effective strategies, and honest valuations, your Quiet Light advisor isn’t your every-day broker—they’re your partner and friend through every phase of the exit planning process.

If you’re new to the prospect of buying and selling, Quiet Light is here to support you. Their plethora of top-notch resources will provide everything you need to know about when and how to buy or sell an online business. Quiet Light offers high-quality videos, articles, podcasts, and guides to help you make the best decision for your online business.

Not sure what your business is really worth? No worries. Quiet Light offers a free valuation and marketplace-ready assessment on their website. That’s right—this quick, easy, and free valuation has no strings attached. Knowing the true value of your business has never been easier!

What are you waiting for? Quiet Light is offering the best experience, strategies, and advice to make your exit successful. To learn more, go to quietlight.com, email [email protected], or call 800.746.5034 today.

Episode Transcript

Intro 0:07

Hi, folks. It’s the Quiet Light Podcast where we share relentlessly honest insights, actionable tips, and entrepreneurial stories that will help founders identify and reach their goals

Joe Valley 0:29

Hey, folks, thanks for joining me. I’m going to just start on my way through this because I’m sitting in my in my carriage house quarantine with COVID. So I get a little bit of a brain fog. But I’ve got John Jonas with me from OnlineJobs.PH. And by the way, this is Joe and yes, this is the Quiet Light Podcast, but you know who I am. So thanks for joining us today. Brain fog here, John, but you’ve had it too. So you understand a little bit

John Jonas 0:54

right. It was horrible. But yeah, yeah, I understand.

Joe Valley 0:57

I’m, I’m four days in and I’m on Vax, the ENA boosted and I still got cold and my severe cold and mild flu like symptoms, but I’m recovering and feeling a little bit better. But we didn’t need to talk about me and what’s going on here. VAs, this is something I’ve had a challenge with, this is something where you’re an expert in, but I don’t want to try to recount your your bio here. Can you tell the folks listening a little bit about what you do and your history and background?

John Jonas 1:28

Yes, so I own a job board for the Philippines. And it’s like, kind of like indeed.com. But just for looking for virtual workers out of the Philippines? I don’t find people for you. I don’t, I don’t I don’t know someone that you can hire. I think that’s a that’s a super common question, Hey, do you know someone that is really good, I don’t, because if I know them, then that means they’re working for me. And they work for me full time. So we just own this job board where there’s almost 2 million Filipino profiles. And basically, like any skill that can be done online, you can find someone in the Philippines to do it. They’re very affordable. They are talented. Still need to provide training. It’s part of their culture, it’s part of their culture is even if you’re an expert at something, you still going to get some training from your employer. I have 38 full time people in the Philippines that worked for me, and

Joe Valley 2:34

it’s amazing. Wow. So is one of them in charge of the other 37? Or is that something that you do?

John Jonas 2:41

So that’s an interesting story. The very first person I ever hired was in 2005. And he still works with me today. And about a month ago, I made him the onlinejobs.ph General Manager. So now he’s overseeing. He’s overseeing our software, our design or QA, some of our marketing, which is super awesome. And it has allowed me so much freedom. And which that’s kind of one of the things about why this is just for the Philippines because they’re super, super loyal when you hire someone as long as you treat them. Well. Of course, they’ll never, they’ll never quit working for you, which is really, really amazing for small business owners. So yeah, I have someone that manages a social media team. She’s in the Philippines, she started doing the social media, she said she needed help. So she hired someone else. And then she hired someone else. And then I think she hired a third person. I have someone that runs our ads stuff, and she manages an ADS person and manages creative people. My business partner is the only other person in the US that we have. And he manages all of our customer support and admin staff.

Joe Valley 4:01

So it’s all there. It’s all good. So I love the fact that it’s described as what it is, which is an online job board in the Philippines. It’s not a you’re not an agency, which is great. It’s a funny thing. You know, I, for the first time in my entrepreneurial career have virtual assistants Well, Filipino virtual assistants, I guess I technically had this discount as a VA if I had a I guess she was a contractor. I was in North Carolina and she was in Texas that’s virtual when she was my assistants. Right. But the idea of doing it in the Philippines or somebody overseas always seems a bit more mysterious and challenging even though it’s It’s fairly common. But someone like myself resisted it for a very long time. And now I have two folks. One, he’s 28 years old has a degree in economics works from a full time he works. The night shift so that he’s on my day. shift. And the other person is my social media VA. And she works four hours a week for four hours a day for me, and I tell you what, she anything, anything that needs to be done, I asked her and she jumps on it. And she’s on it, whether it’s designing a pamphlet, I just gave a presentation where I got COVID at the DCF in Norfolk a week ago, and I needed some handouts. And she does some design work and like, Hey, can you do this? Yes, on it. And she just did it brilliantly. Very little instruction actually didn’t have to train her much at all. She’s also editing videos for me. She’s doing social media posts. She’s done a social media calendar for me, things that I was so challenged with, right on, and this is on the EXITpreneurs Playbook trying to get, you know, do more social media, because I have some things to say. And I just didn’t have the organizational capabilities to save them. And she stepped in. And does that for me. What do you think? What do you think that would cost me? You’re an expert in the area? She’s four hours a day. 25 years old, smart, very well spoken. college degree? What should she be costing me?

John Jonas 6:13

She should be costing you $400 a month.

Joe Valley 6:18

Close 450. So I got her. I got her before you and I met I got it through an agency. And it’s you know, it’s probably where the extra 50 bucks goes. And the agents didn’t bring much what they did is just narrow it down a little bit. But, you know, I think everybody listening is probably hired people on Upwork and things of that nature. You know, this is similar to that. But it’s just in the Philippines and hiring. I think again, like you said very incredibly loyal people. I wish John had done it 15 years ago. You know, we’ve we’ve got we’ve got a ballooning staff, they require light, and sometimes traveling to events is very important group of folks who are just at the PROSPER show. And I didn’t go but Mark was there. He said, It’s just incredible how dedicated they are to, you know, representing and building up our company. So that that’s a challenge, I think, right? You the Filipino folks are not traveling for most of the people that hire them. Correct. They’re just working remotely. Right? And what about the working hours? This is something that was, you know, sort of a new concept to me that my guy would be willing to work. His night shift for to be on the day shift with me. Is that fairly common? Or? Yeah, eventually I figured I’d get him shifted over. He’s only been with me for two months.

John Jonas 7:42

Yeah. Okay. So it’s, it is super common for people in the Philippines to work the night shift. There’s tons and tons of call centers there. And so they’re obviously working us hours, however. So that first person I hired a i, the agency that I went through to hire them at the time, because that was all there was back then said, Oh, do you want him to work your hours? And I had never even thought like, oh, yeah, that’s possible. Like, sure. Yeah, that sounds great. Well, a couple of weeks in, he emails me and says, Sir, this is really, really hard. And I’m losing, I’m not sleeping during the day, and it’s affecting my family, and it’s affecting my work, my work isn’t as good. It’s affecting my health, could I please maybe work the day shift at your night? And I was like, Sure, that’s not a problem at all, like, it doesn’t really matter, right. So if you’re gonna, my advice to people is if you’re gonna find someone that you want them to work the day shift in your job post, put that you want them work, you want them working the night shift, I mean, like you want them working daytime, your hours, that way, you can hopefully find someone who’s already used to it, cuz it just makes a big difference. If they’re used to it, it’s fine if they’re not. And then the other thing that I find is, very often people over there, they don’t work the same. They don’t often work nine to five, like they get up at 430 in the morning, because that’s when the sun comes up. And so they’re working at five o’clock. And so for me, I find that I get a couple hours of overlap or they’re a night person and they want to start working at at four in the afternoon. So I just find that I get I get overlap at some time with almost everybody on my team because almost nobody works

Joe Valley 9:24

nine to five. That’s incredible. Tell me Tell me about the educational aspects of the the the Filipino VAs, what are you seeing in terms of higher education? And how good is that higher education and what did they bring to the table to? Let’s just assume US employers.

John Jonas 9:45

So they have primary school like elementary school and kind of like a middle school and they have high school, which is like ours, and then they have university and in the Philippines a university degree is Much, much more highly valued than it is in the US. Like we value it, and it’s important, but over there, if you don’t have a university degree, you’re worth nothing. It’s, it’s so interesting the cultural piece of this, like, they assume as a woman, if you, as a female, if you don’t have a college degree, you’re only qualified to be a nanny. That’s it. You can make $175 per month for full time work, that’s all you’re qualified to do. So basically, what you’re gonna find is, almost everybody has a college degree. And it’s a legitimate three or four year college degree, where they also usually teach skills, like usually, colleges will require a class in Photoshop. So that they’re prepared to do some everybody thinks they’re a graphic designer in the Philippines, because they have, they’ve taken a Photoshop class, right? Yeah. But then you get legitimate designers that are really, really good. Right? So yeah, the college education is, it’s it’s definitely there. And so when I started, like, there just wasn’t all that much talent. Because they hadn’t had the international working experience yet. I mean, this is 2005. Today, there’s hundreds of 1000s of people with with really good online working experience and online meaning like programming or design or social media, or SEO or lead generation or, or whatever it is, right. ecommerce experience. How did they get this experience?

Joe Valley 11:39

Did they get it through, you know, gaining experience by working for US companies? And do they have training over there that they can get that’s beyond, you know, their, their three or four year college education,

John Jonas 11:51

there’s both happening there are, you know, online, the online world boomed in the Philippines. And it’s people are working in at businesses over there that are online, or that have online components to them. People are working for American companies, they’re working for Comcast, they’re working for T Mobile, they’re working for me, or, you know, whatever. There’s just so and then there’s tons and tons of, of training for, for these things there. And the government’s behind it, the government involved, they recognize this as a really big source of jobs for the future.

Joe Valley 12:31

So what’s the number one mistake you’ve seen people like myself, making hiring a VA? I’m

John Jonas 12:42

expectations is the number one mistake, like you think you’re gonna find someone that’s gonna take over your business and do everything for you, you’re not gonna have to talk to them. It’s just not. It’s not real, like this is a human. It’s a, it’s like someone you hire in the US, they’re just overseas. And that’s another big mistake that I see, as people assume this is just a robot. They’re dumb. They can’t. They’re not capable, right. And in other countries, that’s true, not that they’re dumb, or they’re not capable. But the culture, the cultural differences, don’t allow them to do things. In the Philippines, they want to contribute, they want to be intelligent, they want to help the business grow, they need to trust you. And that’s a big thing that employers make a mistake of is, you go into this thinking, I don’t know, if I can trust this person. When the reality is that they’re thinking that they have that same feeling towards you, but their feeling is stronger than yours is towards them, like, oh, I don’t know, if I can trust this employer, I don’t know that I can trust him to not embarrass me to not yell at me to not fire me, if I make a mistake, then they’re gonna fire me. And that if they feel that way, then that leads them to be hesitant to do less, rather than to do more to try and gain your trust, the cultural response there is to do less, until you show that you’re willing to trust them that that like you’re trustworthy as an employer. And then

Joe Valley 14:14

that’s fascinating. I just Just let me interject. Because Jan, who may or may not listen to this, is I feel like he’s a smart kid. I have not given him enough work. And that’s part of the challenge, I think that people like me have is I have to find, I have to, I have to make the time to find the work to give to him, and then I have to train him and then eventually, you know, 90 days later, I’ll be thrilled. I’m just not even at that thrilled part yet, because I haven’t found the work or the time to give him and he seems to be, you know, retrieving within himself and and not going above and beyond like I had kind of hoped he would. And maybe it’s because of the culture and because he’s afraid to I’m disappointed me or something like that

John Jonas 15:02

he’s afraid to make a mistake. He’s afraid that if he makes a mistake, you’ll be disappointed in him. And yeah. And so as soon as you can give him, give him some, give him a reason to think that you’re going to be happy regardless of what he does. Yeah. He’ll probably step up and amaze you.

Joe Valley 15:22

Let me just interject, I just want to interject for people that are listening, like, come on, this is an employee, why do you have to do that? The reason the the objective, in my view of doing this is, it’s a huge value, I paid Jan $750 a month for a full time job. He works for me 40 hours a week, and I pay him $750 a month. And he’s a degree in economics. He’s a smart guy. If I were to do that, in the States, they were talking about, you know, an extra $70,000. Right. And that’s an expense when it comes to what I do in this world that I live in. For people that are running online businesses, when they eventually want to exit that $70,000 is really going to cost them 210 To 280,003 to four times that amount when they sell their business because it’s an expense. So there’s a really strong, strong reason to use the psychological aspects that you’re talking about to to help help them understand them a little bit and make it work both ways. This is good. For me, this is therapy for me, because I feel like I’m failing Jan, because I haven’t given him enough work. And I know that I know that he’s trying to be an independent person and grow and support himself and eventually a family as well, which is important for me to understand that.

John Jonas 16:42

So let me add, let me add to what you said, cuz you said something really interesting that you, you haven’t given him the work because you have to find the time to do something. So this is one of the biggest things that I see. That makes a difference in I mean, so we’ve seen hundreds of 1000s of employers hire people in the Philippines, right. And hiring someone full time is probably the number one thing that I see that changes in employers life, not because now you you’re getting some task done, but because it often transitions, your mindset from, I gotta work, I gotta work, I got to work, too. Oh, my gosh, I have someone that I’m responsible for, they have to work 40 hours a week, I need to give them something to do. Which means I have to work on my business for the first time ever, for most people. Instead of working in the business, I have to create a system here somehow to give them some of the work. And it’s the first time that people become the CEO. Instead of just being the grunt worker. And that full time you have this guy full time. And it’s, it’s amazing to me when I when I see it. It’s so cool. Like people, people will say like, oh my gosh, this changed my life. I started giving him work. And then I realized, oh, yeah, he was more capable. And I started giving him more work. And I realized I had less things. I given him something that I was doing. And there’s a snowball effect here. But you’re right. It takes a change in in what you’re doing. That was what I found for myself, it took a change in the way that I thought about what I’m doing.

Joe Valley 18:21

Yeah, no question it. Look, we’ve got 25 People that are part of the team at Quiet Light. And Chen is the first VA. I’m not advocating that we’re not going to have it now. 15 of those folks are advisors, they’re entrepreneurs turn advisors share quite a bit. So we’ve got, you know, another nine or 10 people that are employees, but they’re not VA s. And there are opportunities for us as we grow to utilize more VAs than employees in the US, especially California never want to hire from California even though we’ve got Sam, she’s amazing. We just wish she didn’t live in California, but it just cost so much money there and the red tapes. Crazy. And I’m sure you’ve heard this before and everybody that’s going Yeah, Joe. Yeah, we just hired somebody from California to I actually advocate when I’m talking to clients, John, if they live in California, and they’re not planning to sell for two or three years, I’m like, you might want to move to South Carolina or Texas, New Hampshire, someplace where you’re not going to get you know, pay 13% in in capital gains taxes when you sell. But you know, we’ve got a big team. But as we add on new people, we need to think Should we do it with us people or with Filipinos? We mark just hired a executive assistants. And you know, he hired somebody in Texas nice paying $80,000 a year. Could could he have found a an incredibly talented executive assistants in the Philippines for a 10th of that cost in your opinion?

John Jonas 19:52

Oh, yes, for sure. And it’s maybe not the same thing. Maybe they’re 90% sent as effective. Maybe you hire too? Or maybe they’re just as good. You know, it depends on how you recruit and how you hire. I mean, I have some people that are pretty stinking amazing. You know?

Joe Valley 20:18

What, what are? I mean, you’ve been through this. And maybe I’m going to ask questions that don’t relate. Because you’re, you know, an online jobs board in the Philippines. You’re not actually, you’re not ever talking to the employers, are you? Or do they occasionally connect with you reach out to you? Oh, I

John Jonas 20:35

can. I mean, people connect with me all the time. I talk to people, but I don’t I never recruit someone for them. I never find someone for them.

Joe Valley 20:43

But you advise them on how to use your your board.

John Jonas 20:46

I get questions all the time. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Okay. All right.

Joe Valley 20:50

Let’s talk about you building your business. What was the biggest challenge when you started off? They’re like 15 100,000 of them are why’d you pause? So

John Jonas 21:09

there’s a lot a lot of challenges. No, because there haven’t been very many. And the reality, the reality is the biggest challenge, the biggest challenge for me was figuring out how to get the help that I needed, how to get a team. That was, that was my biggest challenge. Once I figured out that I could get I can build a team. Everything just flowed, really. And everything hasn’t been perfect. It’s not roses. But so to me, progress is a really, really big deal if there’s progress being made, like not that everything has to be gigantic all at once, right? Because it hasn’t been. But if there’s progress being made it that’s such a big deal. And and every time I got stagnated, something went wrong. Something wasn’t right. I knew I could find someone to help me push through that. And I could push through, but I also knew that I could I could get the help that I needed. Right. And that was always such a big deal where I had tried that in the US and it just hadn’t worked for me. The helm and especially needed

Joe Valley 22:23

in terms of the right people helping you change or grow the business. And that was people in the Philippines that you found.

John Jonas 22:31

Yeah. And so partly it’s been people in the Philippines because we started OnlineJobs in 2009. And I want to make sure that I I walk the talk. Yeah. So like, I’ve hired copywriter sales copywriters that you know, I writing sales pages, I’ve have people writing my personal. My newsletter, like that comes from me and people know, it’s from me, and it tells stories about my family. I have people reading my social media. How do you do

Joe Valley 23:03

that? Do they interview you? Do? Do they chat with you? Do they just stalk you on social media and learn about what you’re doing? No,

John Jonas 23:08

because they do my social media. I don’t post on social media, they they make the social media posts, you prove

Joe Valley 23:14

it, you prove what they say in advance. So of course, right?

John Jonas 23:17

Oh, I did for a long time. I don’t anymore.

Joe Valley 23:22

I’m uh, I’m approving what Deb is saying now, but she’s coming up with she’s, she’s writing things from my voice. So I hear what you’re saying. I just have to tweak it a little bit. And over time, she’ll be smarter about what has been better and better.

John Jonas 23:36

Yeah, there was like, a game changer for me was putting the quality assurance person in place where like, the person doing it, is doing it. And then someone else there’s another set of eyes seeing it with, you know, below him a perfect English. And maybe she got lazy, you know, like she didn’t proofread it. He does. And it just says really, really good. You know,

Joe Valley 24:00

what do you use for you know, the ability to project oriented stuff, we just click up here at Quiet Light Do you use any tools like that to help communicate with your, I think you said you have 38 VAs now, right? We use Basecamp you use Basecamp. Okay, yeah. All right. And you find that you find that that allows them to communicate incredibly well. project oriented stuff flies through

John Jonas 24:23

pretty well. So good. It’s so so so good. And there’s okay so there’s two things in this that I want to talk about. One is empowering them. So you’re a long ways into this right? I’m guessing that a lot of people listening to this aren’t as far in as you are as far as I write you only five people. Yeah, right. So a lot of people are but a lot right. They may

Joe Valley 24:47

be solopreneurs out there that are thinking they could use some help. I’m grinding it out every day and I just need some help. Or they could be like, Mike Jackness was once upon a time who is a former client of mine also upon Kaster is having dinner with him in Texas. And he’s talking about how he went into the office in San Diego at 10am. And his six employees all gave him the stink eye. Because he dragged his ass in at 10am. Right? When they were there at eight, I’m like, why are you paying them? To give you the stink eye? Why don’t you just hire? And I didn’t know what the hell I was talking about. John, I knew that everybody a lot of a lot of others are doing John. He’s got a team of like 12 Vas now no employees in San Diego whatsoever now. So it’s it’s one or the other, somebody that has a big team like he does, or someone wanting to do it for the very first time that it’s really those first timers that I kind of want to speak to here because I, you know, yes, I’ve got a team of 25. But I know that others, like yourself are saving a fortune by hiring Filipinos. And it’s not just the savings, you’re also gaining an incredible amount of loyalty and finding incredibly talented people as well.

John Jonas 26:00

Okay, so I have two things in terms of like the project management and how you’re able to manage I’m guessing most people that most people know of like, zoom or loom or snag it. Yeah, like screen capture software that lets you talk through what’s you’re seeing on your computer is such a big deal. In a virtual relationship. When you’re not working in the office of someone, you can go over and point at things like oh, no, let’s do this, you know, like, then you just record, you record your screen that was that alone, like changed my ability to manage three people to 30 people, because I can talk through stuff in real time, there’s no distractions ever. That’s a big deal. So snag it or lose. And then from someone who is this is your first virtual hire, right? So here’s my, my best piece of advice is hire someone to do something you know how to do. Most people want to give the advice of do what you’re good at, and outsource everything else. And what that leads to is, unless you’re like exceptional at hiring the right company to do whatever that thing is, and even then there’s still like internal things. You end up working your 50 hours a week, and then you end up managing those other things that you don’t know how to do. And you’re not very good at managing it because you’re not, you have no idea how to do them. So my advice is, hire someone to do something you know how to do first. And then and get that thing either off of your plate because you’re doing it or you’re not doing it and now you’re accomplishing it because you know how to do it. It makes it easy to it makes the hire easy. Because you know what you want done. It makes knowing the skills you’re looking for easy. It makes giving feedback easy. It makes giving training easy, it makes the outcome easy, because you know, it makes the whole process easy. Right? And then you get someone like I think is Jan is Jan girl.

Joe Valley 28:05

Yeah, that Jan’s the guy Devis the girl

John Jonas 28:07

actually yeah, then you get someone like Deb, because you you’ve been able to put some some stuff into into working with her. And you feel like like, dang, she’s amazing. Yeah, because you put some effort in.

Joe Valley 28:22

Yeah. And Jan, you know, to his credit, he it’s kind of funny the things you’re saying here because the one thing that he’s doing incredibly well, week in and week out, is the one thing that I knew inside and out and taught him how to do. So you’re speaking proof, but it preaching to the choir here, it’s off my plate. It was a pain in the ass for me to do, John, it took me anywhere from two to four hours a week to do. Because I was often interrupted and distracted while doing it. Because it’s just a task I had to get done for a weekly meeting. Now it’s in my inbox Wednesday morning, all the reports everything I need to know for that meeting, and he does it for me. So saving up a credible amount of time. Such a big deal. But you’re right, to the point, you know, it’s something that I knew how to do very well. So I need to go back to my list of things that I know how to do very well, but I do on a regular basis and and teach Jen how to do those and get them off of my plate. Yeah, yeah, totally.

John Jonas 29:19

I, I have so here’s here’s kind of a recent story for me about that. And just so people have an idea. So to me in, in my business, content creation is everything. And I think a lot of online businesses content creation is I mean, people have said this for years content is king, right? If you can create content, you can drive the market. And for a lot of years, I just created kind of crappy content. I created videos sometimes but that was about it because I hate writing. And then one day Russell Brunson is a good friend of mine and he convinced me to start a newsletter. And I was like, Okay, fine, like I could start writing a newsletter, I ended up I test it and I ended up four days a week is about right for my audience and, and it’s taking me like two hours a week to do this newsletter. And, and then I, I went to one of my VAs and said, Hey, I want you to start trying to write this, I’m going to send you a whole big thing. And then beginning I started sending her boxes, I would send audio messages to her through Voxer. And she would, she started to transcribe and I was like, I don’t want you to transcribe these, I want you to take it and write it into a newsletter, right? I want you to write it. And I’m kind of giving you how I work with people to in this too. So she starts writing these things and sending them back to me. And I was like, Ah, okay, like, let’s modify, and I would edit it. And then she got better at it right. And to the point where I stopped sending her, I stopped sending her Vox audio messages describing everything, and she’s been through enough stuff over the years that she now she, I send her the topic and she writes the newsletter. And we did that for a while. And it got to the point where it was taking me took me two hours a week to write these four newsletters. Now it took me 30 minutes to Read, Edit, schedule the newsletters. And then I realized I could do a podcast with this. And so I started doing a podcast based off of the newsletters. Since the newsletters are taking me 30 minutes, and then I record the podcast, take me 10 minutes to record the podcast. And I don’t I just send that to an editor in the Philippines. He edits the audio, he gives it to her. She she publishes the I don’t even know what she she publishes the podcast. I don’t know how she does it. And then I realized if I’m going to record these audios, I can record these videos. I just sit in front of a camera. So now I do. I we got she got better at writing the emails, it takes me less time, less than 30 minutes, I get a video for YouTube, which is edited and published. I get a podcast episode, edited, published, I get a newsletter, I get a blog post, all all four of those things happen. And all I do is read the newsletter, maybe edit a little bit of it. I record a video and audio comes out of that. It takes me half an hour a week to do those four things. Yeah, four

Joe Valley 32:28

times as much work. And it’s a fourth of the time that used to do for just the newsletter.

John Jonas 32:33

And that content creation. It’s It’s incredible what it does for growth. Yeah,

Joe Valley 32:40

I totally agree. It’s huge. It’s amazing that she’s able to write for you. Okay, because content creation has always been a challenge. You’re quiet because you are working. But this is what everybody’s gonna say, you know, our content, John, it’s very technical. It’s about buying and selling businesses. It’s very complicated. You can’t really write about that unless you know about it. I’m full of it, aren’t I?

John Jonas 33:04

It’s, it’s, it’s amazing man. Like, I mean, I bet I would be willing to bet someone could go through your past content. And and get enough of like, oh, yeah, we can reuse this and this and this, and this and this. And you could talk your way for an hour about a subject and they could write four different pieces from that. Everybody says, oh, no, mine’s different. Sorry, you’ve been saying it for?

Joe Valley 33:31

We’ve been saying it for 20 years now. Right? Isn’t that quite? Yeah. I’m sorry. Yeah. Okay. We’re not special. Are you telling us we’re not special? No,

John Jonas 33:39

you’re not? I’m sorry. We don’t have to everybody says that. But with us. It’s true. It doesn’t work in my industry. It’s done. No, there’s enough information out there on selling businesses that some of the Philippines can take what you do and verify?

Joe Valley 33:56

Well, I think what it is, it’s just like anyone else, you have to figure out how to write for our audience, you have to write on our subject. And that’s true whether you’re an American or a Filipino or Canadian, or whatever. It

John Jonas 34:09

might totally. Yeah, it’s not it’s not an overnight thing. I didn’t I didn’t say that. She took over writing my newsletter overnight. It didn’t happen that way. Yes, time. Yeah. And it took it took some effort on my part. But dang, it’s

Joe Valley 34:21

what about a simple thing like editing. So we’ve got 15 really savvy, smart, successful entrepreneurs that, you know, I think must have been in remedial English in high school. They’re, they’re selling these multimillion, we had like a $20 million listing, but they can’t, you know, your five sentences together without typos, but they’re the ones who actually make the case and would put it up online, right. We have a very, all you know, all in approach with an advisor. They take it from A to Z. We have We have an editor in place now, an American editor with a, you know, a degree in English that we pay, you know, an exorbitant amount of money per hour to review these little snippets, easily outsource to somebody in

John Jonas 35:14

the Philippines so easily. Okay, so listen to this. In the Philippines, the government mandated that English is a primary language. In fact, they did it for two reasons. One, because it was they the government so interesting, the government of the Philippines so often does things that that benefits us so well, they recognize we don’t have a huge booming economy, we don’t have natural resources for this. So we’re gonna have, we’re gonna bring money in from overseas because we’re really talented. So they mandate government or English is the language of business. That’s the government mandating it. The other side of it is the Philippines is 7000 Islands. And then those 7000 islands they’re like 128 different languages and it ranges like 100 to like 190 or something like that, depending on what you consider a language. So one of my VA has told me that her that she speaks Locarno, and her in laws speak Sybil Otto, two completely different languages. They said they spoke their languages they would not understand each other at all. So the there the government says there’s two national languages Filipino and English. Well, for someone who speaks in Locarno, learning Filipino isn’t reasonable. Like it’s not there’s not reasonable, it’s just hard. And so they say they teach elementary school in English. So kids start learning this, like built each cycle.

Joe Valley 36:45

They teach it in English, it’s not teaching in a language. Oh,

John Jonas 36:49

yes. So like scientists taught in English. In the Philippines, right? So you get people over there that speak really, really well. You get people that you can people that don’t basically everyone speak something. Right?

Joe Valley 37:04

Well, we have the same situation this country. Yeah, totally. I English really well, but some people don’t.

John Jonas 37:10

But when you have so OnlineJobs.PH has almost 2 million Filipino profiles, right? And basically, everybody has a college degree.

Joe Valley 37:20

What’s the population of the Philippines? Just 100 million. So you get 2% of the population.

John Jonas 37:26

Really? So? Yeah. So you get like really, really talented. People that that love. They love writing and editing. Right. That’s the thing. Like, it’s not my thing. I hate it. I despise it. But for someone else, that’s their thing. You know, I

Joe Valley 37:43

wrote a book I can’t write I did it day. I had a ghostwriter. I basically talked to them for hours Ignasi some people call me a writer. I’m not a writer,

John Jonas 37:51

somebody else did it for me on the same story thing. So can you can you hire an editor who would do really, really well with it? Yeah, that’s super reasonable.

Joe Valley 37:59

Fair enough. We got to do that. All right. Listen, man, I honestly think I could talk to you for another hour, but my COVID brain is starting to melt. And this is this is not going to go into good direction. If we do that. I’m going to make this rated R and start dropping F bombs instead of just TJ which it is now. So we’ll, we’ll stop with that. But John, how do people connect with you learn more about what you do beyond what we’ve already talked about here today?

John Jonas 38:24

Okay, so, um, I don’t do social media. I already said that. My my team does all my social media for me. If you connect with me on social media, you will get one of them. However, if you want to connect with me on social media, you will also if you ask a question, they don’t know how to answer it, then they will come to me. I am available through email. If you want to contact me. Totally old school I do not. I don’t do phone calls. I will not answer my phone. If you use the contact us at any of my websites, Johnjones.com or OnlineJobs.PH Or oneva.com. It doesn’t come to me, obviously, but but if you ask for me, if you if you say hey, this is for John, they will send it to me and I will respond directly to you.

Joe Valley 39:11

Let me let me just let me just interrupt because you’re saying this almost apologetically. Cut this shit because this is exactly how the rest of us want to live. Alright, I don’t want to answer my phone. I want somebody else to be there in front of me, you know, guarding my time. Like you have VAs guarding yours to protect you so you can spend more time with your family and on the important things in business because that’s exactly what you’re doing. Am I wrong? No,

John Jonas 39:40

you’re you’re absolutely right. You just asked me like how can how can people it’s hard because I like

Joe Valley 39:49

this. This is the first time anybody’s ever said like how can you well, it’s really hard to reach me and it’s intentional.

John Jonas 39:54

That’s brilliant. It’s intentional. I love it. We have we’ve 10,000 plus people customers with 10,000 people who join OnlineJobs.PH every month 10,000 employers, right? Every single one of them wants a phone call with me. Yeah. And every everyday people like, hey, hey, let’s discuss this really quick schedule a 15 minute phone call with

Joe Valley 40:15

Know, how the heck did you wind up in my inbox on on the Quiet Light Podcast is what I’m thinking out loud right now in my

John Jonas 40:26

I don’t know maybe one of my VAs. I’m sure.

Joe Valley 40:30

Come on not maybe that’s probably

John Jonas 40:32

what happened. Because I mean, I have I got people that do lead generation for podcasts for me, right?

Joe Valley 40:36

Yeah, that’s exactly what it was. You don’t you don’t hire an agency to do that. You’ve got VA to do it. The VA for everything. That’s amazing.

John Jonas 40:44

You can it’s amazing. It’s amazing. But it’s not once you become the CEO, and you realize like, oh, yeah, I don’t have to do this. But there’s this thing that I want to do that I kind of understand. And I could teach someone else to do it. Oh, yeah.

Joe Valley 40:59

All right. I’m a big advocate, folks. I’m going to constantly mention hiring VAs and going to OnlineJobs.PH. And I would challenge any of you to actually reach out to John Jonas and see if you can connect with him, because I don’t think you’re gonna be able to and it’s by design, just through email. It’s just your email. It’s old school, and nobody really wants to be that patient. wait that long. We want instant messages back and forth. Right. Appreciate, listen to all the work that you’ve done over the years, I appreciate that. You’ve done it in strange ways, both for the American entrepreneurs, a worldwide entrepreneurs that are using services like yours, because we’re getting more done at less cost, and able to spend more time on the important things that our businesses and the more important things in life, which is our families. And also because you’ve made a significant can’t talk folks significant difference. You know, this right, in the individual lives of people in the Philippines, you’ve changed their lives for the better. You know that right?

John Jonas 42:04

I get I mean, what I do is so dang fulfilling, I get an email, I get multiple emails every day from employers around the world saying this has changed my life. And then I get stuff from people in the Philippines every day that says, I got a job. I can’t believe I ever got a job. You know, like it’s,

Joe Valley 42:20

yeah, you’re running it. It’s It’s funny how you can, you know, do what you’re doing and have an amazing life for yourself, but you’re also making such positive impact on so many others. So, good job. Good on you. I appreciate it. Thank you. Thanks for coming on the podcast precise on

Outro 42:38

today’s podcast was produced by Rise25 And the Quiet Light content team. If you have a suggestion for a future podcast subject or guest, email us at [email protected]. Be sure to follow us on YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram, and subscribe to the show wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for listening. We’ll see you next week.