April 3, 2023 • 51 mins
Running the Bases today with John Jonas, Founder and CEO of OnlineJobs.PH
Today’s guest is a self-professed “Terrible Employee”, and we can see why. On Monday mornings, when others are brushing their weekends off to get back into the office grind, he is most likely still out in the Mountains in Utah, where he lives with his wife and 5 kids. An extreme sports enthusiast, today’s guest is an avid backcountry skier and mountain biker. His helmet cam videos of him racing down the slopes can give you whiplash from watching.
When he’s not on the mountain, you might find him at the Lake - boating, windsurfing, or even flying around with a Jet Pack like Iron Man. He has a lot, a LOT of Time to spend with his family and his hobbies!!
He created the world’s largest website for finding Virtual Assistants in the Philippines. His company has over 2 Million resumes, and he currently has over 500,000 employers worldwide.
Key Lessons
- Hiring someone from the Philippines can be a great way to find success in business.
- There are no back-end costs or communication restrictions when hiring online.
- Providing value to employees is essential for efficient time and resource management.
To learn more about John and hiring VA’s visit: https://www.onlinejobs.ph/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
there we go.
Alright, so let me count thisdown.
Three, I'm Randy Rodi, and I'mfascinated with Archpreneurs and
small business owners.
Plus, I love baseball.
Every show I sit down with a smallbusiness owner, and we discussed
their running the basis ofArchpreneurs show.
(00:24):
We throw the ball around onstrategy, management, execution,
and innovation.
Plus, a little fun baseball tug.
Hey, thanks for joining us today.
Settelain, grab your crackerjacks, and you know what they say.
Lay ball.
Alright, it's a great day for aball game, and today we have
something really spectacular we'regoing to discover.
(00:46):
But let me get into the introhere.
Today's guest is a self-professed,terrible employee, and probably
could fall into that samecategory.
On any given Monday morning whenothers are brushing their weekends
off to get back into the officegrind, he is most likely still out
in the mountains in Utah where helives with his wife and five kids.
(01:11):
He's an extreme sports enthusiast.
Today's guest is an avidbackcountry skier and mountain
biker.
His helmet can videos of himracing down the slopeskin,
certainly give you whiplash justfrom watching.
And when he's not on the mountain,you might find him at the lake,
boating, wind surfing, or evenflying around with a jet pack just
(01:31):
like Iron Man.
He has a lot of time to spend withhis family and his hobbies, and
when he's not doing all of that,he is running his very successful
business.
He created the world's largestwebsite for finding virtual
assistance or VA's in thePhilippines.
His company has over 1 millionresumes and currently has over
(01:54):
500,000 employers worldwide usingit.
And his goal is to help allentrepreneurs live like him.
That sounds fun, I think I'mmind-trying that.
So please welcome the founder andCEO of onlinejobs.ph.
(02:15):
John Jonas.
John, welcome, man, welcome toHey, thanks for having me.
Yeah, I'm me.
Yeah, I'm excited.
Man, you've got all of the toys.
So right now, you're like in themidst of winter season.
So how is the snow season andskiing out in Utah This has been
the best season that I have everexperienced so far.
(02:38):
I've skied like 35 times sinceOctober.
I mean, our first day was October24th.
all done.
That is amazing.
So I know the West Coast, likeCalifornia has gotten a ton of
that storm, the rain and snow upin the mountains.
Are you getting impacted by thatas well with the snow in the Yes,
(02:59):
for sure.
Like we're probably at, like, andwe're in our top five years ever
since they started tracking sofar.
I'm sure you're out there.
You're enjoying it 35 times.
I probably haven't gone 35 timesin my life.
So before we get into online jobs,pH, I have to talk with you about
(03:25):
your summer.
You did something that I wouldlove, love, love to do.
My research team calls it the UtahVon Jonas family European biking
tour.
So you took a month off with yourfamily, clad in matching clothing.
I didn't get to watch this, butKathy on her team was like, hey,
(03:47):
you got to see this stuff clothingcycled around Europe for what a
month.
You got to give me the info onthis.
This is incredible.
Some of the stuff she did show mesome images of some of the places
I think that you've went.
So where did you go?
How did you get there?
How did you put this whole thing abig cycling family.
(04:09):
We're a big outdoor family.
Our mountain bikes lead to skiingin the winter and back to mountain
bikes.
I mean, my kids, my kids areriding their bikes preparing for
races.
I mean, it's January 10th andthey're on their bikes
consistently outside.
Nice.
And so last summer we took ourbikes and our five kids to Europe.
I have two littles who are, whoare nine and 11.
Actually, they were eight and 10at the time, and so I bought e바ics
(04:33):
for them so they could keep upwith the rest of us.
And then we rode we rode throughoff to Paris and we rode east and
went into Germany and South toSwitzerland and and back east to
you to close the van, the vanJonas family.
So we went to we went toSalisburg, we're trapped family.
It was and sounded music and sawsome of their stuff and a little
(04:59):
bit more of the Austrian up at aworld cup mountain bike race,
which was really amazing for us.
Yeah, we wrote it.
We didn't, I mean, we didn't havea car.
We didn't, we took a coupletrains, but really we just rode
our bikes every day.
That is incredible.
Every day we Every day we wouldplan the next hotel.
(05:19):
Did you get a C any of the I'm abig cycling fan.
I love watching professionalcycling.
So did you get a C any of the tourto France?
Was it that time season or it thattime and we so we did we were
early.
We did ride through a couplecities that the tour passed
through this year.
Yeah.
Which was then cool for my kids.
You know, my kids have never beeninterested in the tour to France.
But then this year having been tosome of these places they were
(05:44):
interested, which was really cool.
Oh, that is cool.
Oh, man, I love, I love it.
Love the idea.
So here's the big question.
I'm sure everybody listeners arelike, what great trip.
How were you able to take a monthoff from work?
I mean, you, not like you have asmall little operation going on
here.
You're running a successfulcompany.
I get you take a month off and gocycle is Europe.
Yeah.
(06:04):
So I didn't take a laptop with me,which is like the biggest like the
biggest shock that people here.
I did not have all I just had myphone.
Wow.
So I, I people, I have a reallygood team that worked for me.
They're all in the Philippines.
I don't I don't have any US basedemployees.
all in the Philippines.
(06:25):
And the only thing I had to do waskeep up on my newsletter, which I
was like three weeks ahead when Istarted.
And so I only had to write acouple of them while I was there.
And, and realistically, I don't, Idon't write my newsletter.
Someone in the Philippines writesit for me in my voice.
(06:46):
And I just edit a little bit oradd to it.
And so, you know, I mean, everyday I was able to check email and
see like, oh, what's going on?
Or is anything urgent?
Or can I respond to someone?
the actual work, not doing it.
So like, right, whatever, I don'tknow who's doing your research,
but I didn't, I never, I don'thave Instagram or Facebook on my
phone.
So I never did that.
(07:07):
Whatever posts made.
Okay.
So other people are living yourlife where well, that is amazing.
good for you.
We're going to get into you.
Certainly when you talk aboutyour, your staff that located
there in the Philippines.
But I want to get a little bitmore on the background.
(07:27):
So your background, computerscience degree from BYU,
programmer, developer, worked forsome companies doing that kind of
work point.
And then at some point yourealize, I want to go do my own
thing.
I want to go be an entrepreneur.
I want to go play more golf,something, right?
How did you end up kind of gettinginto this business, into into this
(07:49):
business for said, I'm a terribleemployee.
And I had a job for eight monthsout of college.
I was a programmer.
There was the only job I've everhad.
I liked the incentive structuresjust didn't work for me.
Where like, if I did great work,sweet, I got paid the same amount.
If I did terrible work, didn'tmatter, I got paid the same
(08:12):
amount.
And that was like, it for a lot ofpeople.
It didn't work for me.
wasn't an incentive to me.
And so I started working trying todo some stuff online.
I had something that was making atiny bit of money.
I had some consulting work that Iwas doing for other people.
(08:32):
And day my wife would, my wifewould call me and say, oh my gosh,
you just missed the cutest thingthat your son did.
And I met work and I hated it.
I my job, but I hated being awayfrom my kids.
And I had the chance and I justtold my wife, one day, hey, this
(08:52):
is it.
This is the chance.
I'm you have six months.
You have six months to make thiswork.
If not, you're know, that's shewas raised that way, like find
someone with a good education,with a good stable job, with good
benefits.
And wasn't me.
And her parents then warned herlike, you have to be really
careful with this, right?
(09:15):
And so I go out of my own andthings are working.
You know, it's not, it's not likeI'm making tons of money.
But I'm making about the same as Iwas at my job.
Now were you doing when you wentout on your own where you're doing
consulting, doing just kind of...
had programming jobs kind offreelancing had two different
programming consulting things thatwere like some number of hours a
(09:37):
week and they were paying mereally, really well.
Okay.
Which was sweet.
I also had no debt.
Like we didn't have a owned ourhouse, but our house payment was
like $750 a month, and we hadfinished the basement rented it
out for 500 a month.
So, you know, like we had solittle debt, you know, no credit
cards, no It just makes life somuch easier.
(09:59):
It gives you freedoms.
What I tell my kids, you know,having money is freedom is what it
does for you.
It doesn't, you know, and ifyou're not in if you're not in
debt, yeah.
Yeah, debt is like really likeenslaving.
Yes.
Like if you have if you have debtpayments, you can't take the risk
of quitting.
(10:22):
Yeah.
And so that I've told my kids thatreally well.
allow you to make choices that youwant.
Savings does, having savings makesyou gives you freedom to make I, I
start help in my business.
I'm working, I'm working more nowthan I was before, right?
Like I quit, I quit the nine tofive to work 24 seven.
Yeah, even even though you were athome, but I'm home.
(10:42):
So like I'm with my kids, which issweet, but I'm working so much
more, which, right?
You know, I mean, I think so manypeople have this experience where
like, oh, I'm going to work on myown, I'm And as your own boss, you
work so much and so hard to tryand build.
(11:03):
And, and I just knew I neededhelp.
And so I started trying to hirepeople.
I hired people locally and itdidn't work very well.
The first thing that it was quit,like, oh, you're making money
online.
And this is what you're doing.
Like, oh, I And I hired people inIndia and that was kind of a mess.
(11:24):
And I hired people off of upwork.
Actually, it wasn't upwork at thetime.
It was elant.
This is before upwork existed, butelant turned into upwork.
And I thought, like, oh, this isamazing.
This is going to be it.
And then I paid the dude and hewent off and got another job.
And then it wasn't done right.
I realized and it was too latebecause he was off and getting
another job, which is, that's howthe upwork system is built.
Like, it's based on turnover.
(11:45):
Right.
Like, you have to turn people overbecause they have to get a review
so they can get another job that'shigher paying so they can get a
review.
And it just didn't work for me.
And I was so frustrated andsomeone gave me a really good tip.
Like, hey, when you registered outthere to do some of this stuff,
make sure you go to thePhilippines like, what?
That?
What?
You know, like, out there is justout there and it sucks and it's a
(12:05):
headache and it's a problem.
And he told me differently and hegave me a reference where I could
hire someone full And to me, thatwas a problem because I didn't
want someone full time.
I just wanted someone hourly or aproject and that's not And so I
didn't do it for a couple ofmonths and I finally was like,
well, it doesn't really matter ifI can afford this person or it
doesn't really matter if theycan't do great work or if I can't
keep them busy full time, can'tkeep doing what I'm doing.
(12:29):
You know, And so I took the leapand I hired this guy through this
agency, which was the referencethat this guy gave me.
And full time and it was the mostliberating experience in my life.
All of a sudden, I had this dudewho I had to keep him busy full
time and he was willing to doanything I was willing to teach
him.
And I had 40 hours a week of workthat he would do.
(12:52):
And I think I was paying theagency like $700 a month, maybe
$750 a month and they were payinghim $250 a month.
So he was making $250 a time,which I didn't know that at the
time.
But life changing to me to findsomeone that was sticking around
and and intelligent.
And he didn't know anything.
He wasn't talented, but he wasintelligent and willing to try
hard.
And so you, so I guess it kind ofbegan germinated with you and that
(13:14):
out of your own need and youpursued off-shoring source, some
resources for you for a system.
What was the moment that you werelike, here So group at the time
and we would meet every week andthere were like 15 of us on the
phone and it was awesome.
It was so good.
we found talking about my peoplein the Philippines.
I had two of them.
They just wanted to talk about mypeople in the Philippines over and
(13:38):
over and over again.
How are you doing this?
How's it working so well?
I was going on and I was like,dude, we've talked about this like
six times now.
And finally I recorded an audioof, here's what's going on.
(13:59):
Here's how I'm doing this.
Here's what's going on.
And I put it on my So everyone canjust select fade-end waveform and
just And so, and then these peoplein my mastermind group started
asking me to teach their audiencesabout it and I wasn't selling
(14:24):
anything.
So I created something that I waslike, I can sell something.
Like I have a bunch of trainingsthat I've created for my guys and
let me sell this to, I'll givethese, make these on角.
Now everything is switched, behindon the Vayk And after, after a
year or so of doing that, findingpeople was really hard.
You had to go through an agencyand I wanted to recruit someone
(14:44):
myself because the agency said,well, do you want a webmaster or a
programmer?
I was like, well, I want a contentwriter.
Well, do you want a webmaster or aah, fine, I'll take a webmaster.
And that was the moment when Iwanted to recruit someone for
myself.
Right.
I was like, there's a I think Icould build like a job board and
get a hundred resumes into it.
(15:06):
And that was my vision at thetime.
I'm not very visionary.
Like I could get a couple hundredresumes into this and then I can
recruit someone myself.
Like I would have a coupleprogrammers and that would be
sufficient and I would have acouple of good content writers and
(15:26):
that would be sufficient.
And that was my my thoughts.
It was like, I have a need whichwill be great.
I should be able to like for thatand maybe a couple of my and yeah,
exactly.
And so I went back to the agencyand said, And I hired this
programmer and had him buildonline jobs.ph.
First, the first version of it.
And so then I went to my team,which I think my team was like
five or six at the time.
And I said to them, Hey, what canwe do to like market this?
(15:49):
How can we get people to put theirprofiles in?
They were like, Oh, I could tellmy friends.
I could put it on my friend'sstore, which was a social media
network at the time.
I could put a classified ads.
That was the extent of what wedid.
And we had a couple hundredprofiles the first month.
And today, so you mentioned amillion profiles.
We actually just passed twomillion profiles.
Oh my gosh, And it just exploded.
And that's that's like the historystory of online jobs, up.
so now, so that's a great story.
(16:11):
Two million profiles is amazing.
So what average person?
I am familiar with your site withyour services.
I actually have used it in thepast.
I've know a lot of people in myindustry who utilize it.
In your, I guess, presentation ofonline jobs, that pH, what is it?
How does it work?
What's the So I built exactly whatI wanted to find.
I didn't want a middleman.
I didn't want, you know, I didn'twant this agency telling me who I
(16:34):
could and couldn't And then Ididn't want them triple marking up
the salary, you know?
I mean, when I found out, I'mpaying them 750.
And when he found out, we bothfound out And I was like, that
totally sucks for him.
And it's not the worst thing forme, but it, hi, it just doesn't
sit super well, right?
Right.
So we built a platform where youcan come in and search profiles,
(16:58):
which turned out to be so amazing.
Like you go editor and you'll findhundreds of people who are super
talented at it.
And you can, and this was the bigthing that we did.
We made it so you can contactthem, And or you can post a job
(17:19):
and have people apply and And so,you know, when we had a thousand
profiles, that was pretty sweet.
When we had 10,000 profiles, thatwas sweet.
You come on, you pay $69 to accessthe database and then you can
contact whoever you want.
You post your job, you're going toget, you could get a dozen
(17:44):
applicants, you could get hundredsof applicants.
And then you're going to interviewthem just like I wanted.
I wanted to interview them myself.
I wanted to pick the right personbecause hiring, this is an
interesting thing.
I didn't realize at the time.
But so this, this agency was justpulling people off the street,
basically, you know, they'repulling someone off the street,
giving them very little trainingand saying, here's your webmaster.
(18:07):
And what I later realized washiring, you're not hiring a skill.
You're hiring a person and thatperson is a personality and they
have a workflow and a work styleand does that workflow style work
for you?
Well, when someone else isrecruiting for know.
so like that first person I hiredfrom the agency still works for me
(18:35):
today.
That was 2005 when I hired Ourpersonality is mesh.
It's super awesome.
And when I hired him, he knewnothing and today is amazing.
That's incredible.
But with online jobs, you get tointerview, you get to make the
choice, you get to negotiatesalary, we do not take a markup or
a cut.
We don't force you to work in oursystem.
(18:55):
was that pH just into yourpersonal email and communicate
directly with That's Like it'slike but for the Philippines and
way, way, way cheaper.
Right, right.
That is amazing.
I'm so impressed that the yourfirst guy is still with you.
I mean, that just had to be almosta little bit of fluke in some
destiny probably, because thinkabout the odds that you would land
with a guy who just, okay, hold ona second.
So it's neither fluke nor destiny.
(19:17):
So So I have someone that I hiredin 2007.
He built online jobs.
He's the first, he still works forI have someone that I have people
that I hired in 2009 and 10 and 11and 12.
They all still work for me.
I think I have 38 people rightnow.
(19:37):
And I've probably hired 50 peopleover the years.
That's my turnover rate.
And some of that is the culture ofthe Philippines where they're
super duper loyal.
As long as you treat them well,they're super, super loyal.
Great people.
And then some of that is mymanagement style in treating them
well.
There's this just this reallyinteresting cultural thing that
exists in the Philippines thatreally kind of doesn't exist
(20:00):
elsewhere that allows for peopleto have long term workers
stability with them that are superaffordable.
Cause I'm definitely not the onlyone that has people.
I mean, I talk to people every daythat like, oh, I hired my person
two years ago and they're stillwith me and they're amazing.
(20:21):
Oh, I have had these people forseven years.
Right, right.
Like it's not uncommon at all.
Which is a really big deal forsmall Which is Yeah, yeah.
So that is kind of interestingbecause I wonder would it have
worked in day, way back in time ifthe person you were talking with
(20:42):
said gave you a lead to an agencybut it was in a completely
different country, maybe over inthe Middle Asia or somewhere,
right?
You think it would have worked thesame or do you think the
experience with the Filipinos,their culture that it just I get
asked every week, hey, John, whenyou start this business in
(21:06):
Cambodia, when you start this inGhana, no, I won't.
And it's not that you can't findgood people elsewhere.
You definitely can.
Right.
Yeah, sure.
But yeah, but the chances ofsuccess are just so much higher on
the Philippines.
And there's a reason that we seethe world's outsourcing going to
the Philippines now.
(21:28):
Like when you call call center,you don't get India anymore.
You get the And that has, I'vewatched that change over the last
12, 13 years where people arewaking up, people have woken up to
the Philippines is superwesternized.
They watch American TV, English ismandated as the primary language
of the Philippines.
Even though they speak Tagalog,they also speak English.
And like you won't, you'll neverhave a communication problem
there.
(21:49):
And they are super duper pleasingby nature.
They want to make you happy.
That's part of it.
They look up to foreigners, whichis super different than elsewhere
where, you know, they're notentrepreneurial.
They don't want to steal your ideaor your business.
So there's this like full set ofcultural things that are
different.
Yeah.
They're, it's different thanelsewhere in the world.
(22:11):
And so I get asked all the time,hey, what about, Brazil.
Yeah.
Brazil's awesome.
It's not the same.
So many questions kind of pop intomy mind here in regards to, I
think, the model and the businessitself.
One of the things though that Ifind, and as you mentioned, that I
find really attractive about yourplatform is that you don't
(22:34):
handcuff either the profile or thepotential employee or the
employers.
You don't handcuff them to yourplatform in the sense of able to
conduct the, whether it'scommunication or transactions or
any of that.
Like, you know, you mentionedupward.
So many of these other kind ofplatforms, you can't do.
They like, hey, you can't talk tothese people outside of here.
(22:57):
This is the only method, the onlyplace.
Right.
You can find that reallyrefreshing it.
And as I think, for the businessesthat would want to essentially
utilize the services.
How did you land on that as aconcept or as the model, rather
than what so many of the otherplatforms even at the time when
(23:20):
you started so many of them that'sit did something I think kind of
completely opposite of whateverybody else was doing and still
I wanted first.
Um, didn't elans at the time.
I didn't want to be tied into theplatform where they're taking a
cut, you know, they're marking itup 20%.
And so can you imagine if I'd paidthis guy now for what's, I mean,
(23:41):
20, 22 years?
You know, 17 that upward takes,like that's so much money that he
doesn't get to improve his life,So that's, that was really the big
thing.
There was another website that wasreally small at the time that was
similar to our concept and thatwas, that was like an impetus of
(24:02):
like, okay, this is, this is agood way where we could do this
where we People pay up front.
We give you full access.
We're not going to charge So we'llguarantee you'll find someone
good.
(24:23):
You don't find someone good.
We'll give you money back.
Right.
Super easy.
That easy.
That is amazing.
Well, I applaud you for thatbecause I think it provides the
opportunity for the, the employeeto really improve their life.
I think it's even stated.
It gives them freedom and reallycreates an opportunity.
So I want to ask you, and I'm sureyou, you've got so many different
(24:48):
resources out there where peoplecan tap into information and
answer questions and kind of getan idea about how this potentially
works.
But just as a, you know, whenwe're talking about VA's or
virtual assistants, how do youknow?
How does it, how does a smallbusiness owner know if they're
ready to hire a VA?
So have a really good answer tothat.
(25:15):
When you have something in yourbusiness that you know how to do,
that you feel like you could teachsomeone else, you're ready to
hire.
So I've always found myself goingagainst the grain.
I don't do things the way thatother people do or the way that
people teach generally.
And what most people will tell youis stick good at and outsource
(25:37):
everything else.
And I think that is terribleadvice.
I'm really good at programming.
Should I stick with programmingand outsource?
Like I should outsource ourmarketing and outsource the CEO
and no, it doesn't work.
You don't run a business likethat, right?
I'm really good at social mediamarketing.
Well, social media marketingdoesn't make money.
Like making sales makes money,right?
So you don't, you don't stick withwhat you're good at.
(26:01):
You stick with what makes moneyand outsource the things that you
know how to do that are takingyour time.
So when you have something in yourbusiness that you could teach
someone else to do, that's thefirst person you hire.
Hire someone to do that thing,teach them how to do it, get them
(26:22):
good at it, get them doing it yourway, or maybe they do it better
And then you free up some time foryourself, which is unbelievably
effective at growing your businessbecause what most entrepreneurs
are is they're just mentallystrapped.
Like they're mentally And it'sreally hard to work on your
business when you're on the edgeand when like when there's no more
(26:45):
mental And if you can get yourselfa little bit of mental bandwidth,
everything becomes clearer.
The path to growth becomes clear,the path to what should we work
on?
Where?
Where all of it becomes clear whenyou get yourself a little bit of
time and mental bandwidth.
That's Right there.
(27:07):
How does all of the finances andthe benefits or if there are
benefits that are provided for theemployees?
How does that all happen?
So that all off So it's all offplatform.
Number one.
To they're not employees.
I call them employees, but theywork for me full time.
There is no way to classify themas an employee.
(27:30):
They're an They don't have a UStax ID number.
There's no treaty with thePhilippines requiring you to pay
US taxes or pay Filipino taxes forthem.
In fact, in the Philippines, youcannot pay their taxes for them.
You can't do with holding.
It's against the law.
They're an independent contractorby Philippines So anywhere you
look at this full time, part timehourly per project, whatever
(27:51):
they're an independent contractor.
You do not have any or officespace or utilities or any of that.
On our taxes every year, we have aline item on our other deductions
or taxes or benefit.
subcontractors.
We put their salary there.
So the salary is actually costingme like, I don't know, 40% less
than it actually is, than what Ipay out because of the tax
savings.
benefits for them, which this, Idid not do this in the beginning,
(28:11):
this took, I mean, many yearsbefore I started doing this, there
are a number of things that youcould do.
One of them is insurance, butthere's a pre-insurance that you
could do called fill health, whichis Philippines like socialized
(28:32):
health insurance kind of.
It's like $10 a month, I think.
Super, super cheap.
Or you can provide their SSS,which is like, there's so
security, which gives them allkinds of benefits like disability
or maternity or their pensionafter they've contributed for a
long time.
Or there's all kinds of stuff thatyou can give with SSS.
(28:57):
You can provide private healthinsurance.
We do it for our team.
It costs us like $400 or $500 ayear per person.
So it's like, way, way, way, waycheaper than it's in the US.
For like full health insurance.
So there's all kinds of things,you know, like you have paid time
(29:19):
off that you can give.
For us, we keep this as simple asPaid time off, we say, you can
have as much paid time off as youwant.
We just want to know about itahead of time if you can.
If you're sick, just tell us whenyou We don't care because I don't
(29:40):
want to track it.
Right.
I don't want to give myself onemore you know?
Yeah.
You want to take time off?
Great, take time off.
I don't care.
You know, their time is soaffordable.
You know, I have full time, 38full time people.
(30:02):
They make between $550 and $2,000a month for full time work.
And at like $550, I have likelower skilled data entry or admin
verification people.
At the high end, I have likeFacebook ads, people or really
high end design or programming or,you know, like really high end
(30:23):
stuff.
And then I have everything in themiddle.
Right.
The salaries are just superaffordable.
The benefits are super easy.
And really, we of their benefits.
We just add it to their salary.
Right.
And say you have to deal with thison your own, which they do.
And then they send us a receipt toprove that they actually used it
(30:43):
for one good way to do it.
way to do it.
Sure.
Wow.
I want to dig back into this.
I do what before we head off tothe seventh inning stretch here.
I do want to mention something.
(31:03):
People can go on to your site ononline jobs.ph.
You'll also have some other onlineresources and offers that are
available for free for folks asthey're thinking about virtual
assistance and maybe dumping intothat.
One of which is OFSTASTS.com.
What does that offer that you haveYes.
Maybe this is a really good chanceto talk about virtual assistance.
Okay.
Sure.
I don't like the word.
I don't like the acronym VA.
(31:25):
Because people assume a virtualassistant is just an assistant.
They're like a robot.
They're kind of dumb.
They can only follow exactinstructions.
They're not thinking.
They can only do mediocre tasks.
Just data entry.
And that's not who I hire.
And that's not who you want to Ihave these really talented
programmers who built onlinejobs.ph.
I have a really talented userinterface designer.
He's not a graphic designer.
He's not a logo designer.
In fact, I've had him do boththose things.
(31:47):
He sucks at it.
But he is so good at userinterface design.
Thinking through, how does thiswork?
How someone can interact, right?
He's a specialist.
I have someone that writes mynewsletter.
She's a content specialist.
She's really, really good at it.
Not so good at SEO, but she'sreally good at content.
And so years ago, I stoppedcalling them virtual assistants
(32:09):
because these are specialists.
And they're online.
And they're in the Philippines.
And I call them OFS, onlineFilipino So OFSTask.com is the
result of me asking like 100employers, what do your OFS do for
you?
What are they doing?
And getting responses back thatwere unbelievable, the things that
people have, OFS doing for them.
And I put it all together into alist and categorize lists by
(32:30):
industry.
And there's like 220, actually.
We that OFS can do for you.
Like the new kind of virtualassistant, these more specialized
talented people.
it 221 tasks.
But we call it 221 because westopped counting at 221.
There were more.
And it like when I looked at it,and actually, so I would email
employers, I didn't write thebook.
(32:51):
Someone in the Philippines wroteit and combined all of these
responses into these categories.
And just this, when I read thisthing, my jaw dropped.
Number one, because it was so welldone.
Number two, because of the thingsthat people have invented to have
(33:16):
OFS do for them, I was And so it'savailable at OFSTASK.com.
It's Nice.
Great.
All right, so folks, get overthere.
OFSTASK.com, go check that out.
Onlinejobs.ph, go check that out.
Right now, John, it is And it'stime for the seventh inning
stretch.
seventh inning stretch, John.
Hopefully, I didn't do you likebaseball?
(33:36):
I didn't have a team in Utah.
But you do like baseball, though,to some extent.
So you'll follow a team out on thecoast or somewhere.
I grew up in LA, so I grew I grewup in LA, so I grew up a dodgers
fan.
And I mean, the angels weren't athing when I was little, but as I
(33:58):
got older, the angels were cool.
Nice.
And then obviously, like DonMattingley was, was around when I
was collecting baseball cards.
And so I was a Yankeesan Angels inDodgers, right?
That doesn't really work.
But, you work.
But, you know, well, I loved Eastof live in LA way back.
And I loved going to Dodgersgames.
But I'm a Cubs fan, deep in myroots.
(34:22):
So I'm always a Cubs fan.
But all right.
So my staff put together aquestion around Filipino MLB
players.
And I'm going to hit you up withthe question here.
There are about 16 current MLBplayers of Filipino descent tied
(34:42):
with the MLB.
About half of them were allpitchers, actually, which I think
is interesting.
Do you know who is the first majorleague baseball player born in the
Philippines?
No clue.
I have no clue.
He debuted.
I'll give you this a little more.
Debuted with the Oakland Athleticsin 1996.
(35:03):
So it wasn't that long it Here,that's like crime time for us.
My senior year Yeah, I Even aCalifornia team, right?
Bobby Shinard.
I think I'm pronouncing his namecorrectly.
Was the first player born in thePhilippines, and then was playing
MLB.
A lot of different, a lot ofdifferent players that connected
descendants, parents, but yeah,Bobby Shinard.
(35:23):
That's cool.
That's cool.
Cool.
Yeah.
Filming doesn't a big baseballcountry.
There also not a big soccercountry either.
also They're a big basketball andboxing boxing because I'm
anti-pack.
Oh, yeah, they're a really bigbasketball country.
No kidding.
They love the NBA.
They have the PBA, the PhilippinesBasketball Yeah, like they play
basketball.
And they're super short.
(35:45):
It's so it's really reallyinteresting.
In my mind, I was saying, that'skind of interesting with
basketball because I don't thinkmy experience with Filipino is as
they're not, except my tall.
All right.
Well, very good.
Well, thank you for playing the17-inch church.
All right, let's get back I wantto ask you, so you start out on
(36:08):
this thing.
You've got all of these profilesout on your site.
What kind of challenges did yourun into?
Been some of the obstacles thatyou faced while you're building
this massive site, helpingthousands and thousands of people.
But where were some of thosethings that you ran across it?
Like, my kids and had you So thebiggest obstacle that people
always want to know is, how do youbuild both sides?
It's a chicken and egg thing whereyou have to have employers and you
(36:29):
have to have workers.
How do you get them both?
that with content because bringingthe employers to the site is
harder than bringing the workers.
The workers were really, reallyeasy.
And so, our biggest challenge washaving employers come, which for
me, I was running podcasts and Iwas teaching people how, why and
how the And so, I just supereasily transitioned from saying,
(36:54):
hey, here's this agency to, here'sonline jobs.
So, that was reasonable for me.
But over the years, creatingcontent and teaching has been the
affected that part of ourbusiness.
And so, that's like the number onething that I do is create Some
other issues always want to know,how do I trust this person?
(37:19):
trust this person.
And it's a good do the years, welike, I don't want to get scammed,
right?
That's people's biggest thing.
I don't want to get scanned.
people's biggest thing.
I don't want to know that?
So figuring out that we could notoffer a free trial to employers
(37:40):
was a really big deal towardsgetting rid of scams because free
trial, Craigslist or any otherwebsite that offers a free access
to hiring people instantly createsscams where employers can scam
workers, they can get them to workwithout paying them.
Right.
then, and then workers know that'sthe situation.
(38:02):
So workers start scammingemployers.
Right.
And we figured out that having itbe paid upfront, eliminates that
almost 100%.
Right.
And when you say, we see a say, wesee a friend really is net
necessarily that the employer ispaying the, and maybe it is, I
don't know, but it's notnecessarily you're talking about
(38:23):
just paid upfront for access.
it's Pay to access the system.
Yeah, don't ever pay some pay yourworker front.
That's a no. Pay them afterthey've done the work.
But yeah, paying to access thesystem instantly eliminates almost
all scam employers.
And so the workers really areally, really good how do we, how
do we create trust from employersto workers?
(38:47):
So like we've done a lot of stufftowards verifying workers.
And we don't vet anybody, youknow, like we get 60,000 Filipino
profiles a month right now.
We're not interviewing them.
We're not talking with them, butwe do require them to verify
upload a government ID, upload apicture of themselves with their
government ID, verify theiraddress.
So we do require like you are whoyou say you are verification,
(39:07):
which, which really also goes along ways towards preventing.
And he's sort of scams because nowwe can easily ban you from the
site if, if you're a problem, youknow, and then if you're a
problem, you get banned, likeyou're permanently know, on the
jobs at two million profiles, it'slike 8% of the workforce of the
(39:28):
Philippines.
That's what I mean.
There's I mean.
There's a hundred million people.
I was just patching on my phone,like, what is the population of
the Philippines?
Yeah. 100 Yeah. 100 million.
You know, like from 18 to 55, like8% of that population.
(39:50):
And so, you know, if you getbanned, and online jobs is pretty
big.
Yeah.
And it's kind of a prop, like youroption now is to go to work.
You just lost 20% of your pay.
That sucks.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So, so those are those have beensome of the challenges that had.
So, I had a curiosity.
(40:12):
Sometimes bad things do happen,unfortunately, right?
I always have told people andformer careers that I've had
always stayed like, well,sometimes you put things in place
just to really prevent the badthings from happening.
You're not going to you're notgoing to eliminate all of them all
(40:33):
the time.
But you just kind of put things inplace, keep people honest.
I in general, people want to behonest.
And so when you do some checks ofbalances, it makes it work.
But sometimes bad things dohappen.
you or online jobs?
Do you have any liabilities atthose instances when, you know,
whether an employer gets scammed,I use in that word, but you know,
(40:56):
the bad things happen to theemployer or vice versa, the
employee.
I mean, what is your organization?
Because you kind of did thathandshake.
Yeah.
So we don't have any liabilitydon't have any liability there.
We do try and mediate.
And, you know, we often hear bothsides and both sides are mad.
(41:16):
see very few instances of theft.
Like very, very few instances oftheft.
And almost all of them are becausean the work that the worker did.
There was a disagreement of likewas actually supposed to be
delivered.
It wasn't clear.
the worker is not getting paid.
(41:38):
So now they're just trying to getpaid.
You know, like it, so we don't wedon't have any liability.
will, for a worker who doesn't getpaid, we will offer them the
amount of money that the employerhas paid in accessing the
(41:58):
database.
It's not, I mean, that doesn'tmake up usually for what they
lost, but it's something.
So yeah, we don't we don't reallyhave any liability there.
All right.
So you I really like to platformthough, because I think you really
are creating an opportunity forgood people, employers.
workers to kind of come togetherand really be a good operation, a
good team together and execute onthings.
(42:23):
You have an idea of, so say, smallbusiness owner comes, utilizes the
database, hires, settles on anemployee at an OFS.
How do they get them up to speedquickly?
How do they get up that ramp asquick as possible to get them why
I say that the first person youshould hire should be something to
do, to do someone to do somethingthat you know how to do because
you know how to provide trainingto that person.
(42:44):
And for me, the way I providetraining, I use Snagit, which this
is from Camtasia Studio.
You can use loom, lots of peopleuse loom or there's tiny take,
which is free.
I'm going to create a screenrecording video of myself walking
through the process.
And it's super, super effective.
(43:07):
It lets them watch it multipletimes.
And let's them ask you questions.
It's way faster than typing out anemail and trying to explain.
You know, they get to see it, theyget to hear your voice, which also
goes a long ways towards treatingthem well.
Like I talked about earlier, themgaining trust in you.
So that initial training is a bigdeal.
go into this thinking, I don'tknow if I can trust this person.
(43:32):
They feel the same way.
Sure.
They don't know if they can trustyou.
Only if their feeling is strongerthan your you can do to gain their
trust And in terms of onboardingsomeone, that initial video of
them hearing your voice, seeingthat you're willing to provide
some training is a big, big dealtowards gaining their trust.
That's a great idea.
What's around the corner foronline jobs?
(43:53):
What's I mean, we have a couplebig changes coming towards the,
for the communication process ininterviewing like messages that
there's a big change coming.
I hope this week, but not.
We have coming this like a any daynow.
(44:14):
What's happening?
It's It's designed.
It's been in the programmingprocess.
It's like in the works for achange in the application process
for workers that will allowemployers to more easily see who
is relevant to their job post,like instantly, which is really,
really cool.
We would love to better at doingpayments.
Like right now, right now wepartner with Pioneer to pay people
(44:36):
or you can pay using PayPal orwise.com or Western Union.
We don't We created Easy Pay,which partners with Pioneer.
And it's good.
I mean, it's as good as anythingelse.
We would just like to do itbetter.
So that's something we would towork on.
Nice.
I always love to grow with thishappens.
(45:10):
right.
So, John, we're down here to thebottom of the ninth, where I get
to ask all of our guests, whatadvice do you have for rookies in
the game, meaning those who arejust starting out in business or
maybe who already have theirbusiness and are looking for some
guidance.
So an old veteran like you've beenaround.
You've been operating a massivesite, tremendous growth.
What kind of advice do you havefor a new new So I have two
(45:34):
things.
Number one is provide value.
Look at whatever it is you'redoing and see and evaluate and
say, am I providing value here?
Is this something that someonesomewhere else or I'm doing it
better or I'm the value I'madding?
Because if you're not addingwasting your time.
Like if you just drop shippingfrom, you know, like something
that someone can get any otherplace, well, you're not really
adding value.
(45:55):
Right?
And that's, so it's really hard torun that kind of thing long term.
So people always want to, like,how do I, how do I make money as a
have to add value.
You're not just going to slapsomething out there and have
people make money from it.
You know, like this is not goingto add two is when you're ready to
do something that a leap.
(46:16):
Like it's, it's not, it's notjust, oh, I have someone and so,
okay, let is how simple it is.
But usually it's a leap of faithfor most people.
Like it, I don't know if I canafford someone.
Can they actually do good work?
Can I actually find someone?
I'm super busy.
I can't really spend the 10minutes to find someone.
(46:39):
You know, it's a leap, it's a leapof faith.
And the only way you know if thisworks, like I have said it does is
if you try it, right?
And you have to take the value.
I think that is, well, that's agold nugget right there, but I
love that thought about providevalue.
(47:01):
And if you're not adding value,you're wasting time.
I think so much that is right ontarget.
Good stuff.
Well, listen, John, thanks so muchfor being on the show, for hanging
out with us for a little bit.
wish all the best of luck andsuccess.
And I know we are planning to goback and bring some people on
(47:26):
board utilizing your services.
So look forward to that.
Maybe you'll see me in yourdatabase in there.
Awesome.
Sounds great.
Thanks for having me.
I appreciate this.
It's been fun.
Yeah, that's good.
All right, folks, that's the ballgame.
Thanks for joining us today.
And if you like our show, pleasetell your friends, subscribe and
(47:46):
review.
And we'll see you around the thebases with small businesses is
brought to you by 38 digitalmarket, a digital marketing agency
committed to client growth withlead generation, higher
conversions and increased sales.
Connect at
there we go.
Alright, so let me count thisdown.
Three, I'm Randy Rodi, and I'mfascinated with Archpreneurs and
small business owners.
Plus, I love baseball.
Every show I sit down with a smallbusiness owner, and we discussed
their running the basis ofArchpreneurs show.
(00:24):
We throw the ball around onstrategy, management, execution,
and innovation.
Plus, a little fun baseball tug.
Hey, thanks for joining us today.
Settelain, grab your crackerjacks, and you know what they say.
Lay ball.
Alright, it's a great day for aball game, and today we have
something really spectacular we'regoing to discover.
(00:46):
But let me get into the introhere.
Today's guest is a self-professed,terrible employee, and probably
could fall into that samecategory.
On any given Monday morning whenothers are brushing their weekends
off to get back into the officegrind, he is most likely still out
in the mountains in Utah where helives with his wife and five kids.
(01:11):
He's an extreme sports enthusiast.
Today's guest is an avidbackcountry skier and mountain
biker.
His helmet can videos of himracing down the slopeskin,
certainly give you whiplash justfrom watching.
And when he's not on the mountain,you might find him at the lake,
boating, wind surfing, or evenflying around with a jet pack just
(01:31):
like Iron Man.
He has a lot of time to spend withhis family and his hobbies, and
when he's not doing all of that,he is running his very successful
business.
He created the world's largestwebsite for finding virtual
assistance or VA's in thePhilippines.
His company has over 1 millionresumes and currently has over
(01:54):
500,000 employers worldwide usingit.
And his goal is to help allentrepreneurs live like him.
That sounds fun, I think I'mmind-trying that.
So please welcome the founder andCEO of onlinejobs.ph.
(02:15):
John Jonas.
John, welcome, man, welcome toHey, thanks for having me.
Yeah, I'm me.
Yeah, I'm excited.
Man, you've got all of the toys.
So right now, you're like in themidst of winter season.
So how is the snow season andskiing out in Utah This has been
the best season that I have everexperienced so far.
(02:38):
I've skied like 35 times sinceOctober.
I mean, our first day was October24th.
all done.
That is amazing.
So I know the West Coast, likeCalifornia has gotten a ton of
that storm, the rain and snow upin the mountains.
Are you getting impacted by thatas well with the snow in the Yes,
(02:59):
for sure.
Like we're probably at, like, andwe're in our top five years ever
since they started tracking sofar.
I'm sure you're out there.
You're enjoying it 35 times.
I probably haven't gone 35 timesin my life.
So before we get into online jobs,pH, I have to talk with you about
(03:25):
your summer.
You did something that I wouldlove, love, love to do.
My research team calls it the UtahVon Jonas family European biking
tour.
So you took a month off with yourfamily, clad in matching clothing.
I didn't get to watch this, butKathy on her team was like, hey,
(03:47):
you got to see this stuff clothingcycled around Europe for what a
month.
You got to give me the info onthis.
This is incredible.
Some of the stuff she did show mesome images of some of the places
I think that you've went.
So where did you go?
How did you get there?
How did you put this whole thing abig cycling family.
(04:09):
We're a big outdoor family.
Our mountain bikes lead to skiingin the winter and back to mountain
bikes.
I mean, my kids, my kids areriding their bikes preparing for
races.
I mean, it's January 10th andthey're on their bikes
consistently outside.
Nice.
And so last summer we took ourbikes and our five kids to Europe.
I have two littles who are, whoare nine and 11.
Actually, they were eight and 10at the time, and so I bought e바ics
(04:33):
for them so they could keep upwith the rest of us.
And then we rode we rode throughoff to Paris and we rode east and
went into Germany and South toSwitzerland and and back east to
you to close the van, the vanJonas family.
So we went to we went toSalisburg, we're trapped family.
It was and sounded music and sawsome of their stuff and a little
(04:59):
bit more of the Austrian up at aworld cup mountain bike race,
which was really amazing for us.
Yeah, we wrote it.
We didn't, I mean, we didn't havea car.
We didn't, we took a coupletrains, but really we just rode
our bikes every day.
That is incredible.
Every day we Every day we wouldplan the next hotel.
(05:19):
Did you get a C any of the I'm abig cycling fan.
I love watching professionalcycling.
So did you get a C any of the tourto France?
Was it that time season or it thattime and we so we did we were
early.
We did ride through a couplecities that the tour passed
through this year.
Yeah.
Which was then cool for my kids.
You know, my kids have never beeninterested in the tour to France.
But then this year having been tosome of these places they were
(05:44):
interested, which was really cool.
Oh, that is cool.
Oh, man, I love, I love it.
Love the idea.
So here's the big question.
I'm sure everybody listeners arelike, what great trip.
How were you able to take a monthoff from work?
I mean, you, not like you have asmall little operation going on
here.
You're running a successfulcompany.
I get you take a month off and gocycle is Europe.
Yeah.
(06:04):
So I didn't take a laptop with me,which is like the biggest like the
biggest shock that people here.
I did not have all I just had myphone.
Wow.
So I, I people, I have a reallygood team that worked for me.
They're all in the Philippines.
I don't I don't have any US basedemployees.
all in the Philippines.
(06:25):
And the only thing I had to do waskeep up on my newsletter, which I
was like three weeks ahead when Istarted.
And so I only had to write acouple of them while I was there.
And, and realistically, I don't, Idon't write my newsletter.
Someone in the Philippines writesit for me in my voice.
(06:46):
And I just edit a little bit oradd to it.
And so, you know, I mean, everyday I was able to check email and
see like, oh, what's going on?
Or is anything urgent?
Or can I respond to someone?
the actual work, not doing it.
So like, right, whatever, I don'tknow who's doing your research,
but I didn't, I never, I don'thave Instagram or Facebook on my
phone.
So I never did that.
(07:07):
Whatever posts made.
Okay.
So other people are living yourlife where well, that is amazing.
good for you.
We're going to get into you.
Certainly when you talk aboutyour, your staff that located
there in the Philippines.
But I want to get a little bitmore on the background.
(07:27):
So your background, computerscience degree from BYU,
programmer, developer, worked forsome companies doing that kind of
work point.
And then at some point yourealize, I want to go do my own
thing.
I want to go be an entrepreneur.
I want to go play more golf,something, right?
How did you end up kind of gettinginto this business, into into this
(07:49):
business for said, I'm a terribleemployee.
And I had a job for eight monthsout of college.
I was a programmer.
There was the only job I've everhad.
I liked the incentive structuresjust didn't work for me.
Where like, if I did great work,sweet, I got paid the same amount.
If I did terrible work, didn'tmatter, I got paid the same
(08:12):
amount.
And that was like, it for a lot ofpeople.
It didn't work for me.
wasn't an incentive to me.
And so I started working trying todo some stuff online.
I had something that was making atiny bit of money.
I had some consulting work that Iwas doing for other people.
(08:32):
And day my wife would, my wifewould call me and say, oh my gosh,
you just missed the cutest thingthat your son did.
And I met work and I hated it.
I my job, but I hated being awayfrom my kids.
And I had the chance and I justtold my wife, one day, hey, this
(08:52):
is it.
This is the chance.
I'm you have six months.
You have six months to make thiswork.
If not, you're know, that's shewas raised that way, like find
someone with a good education,with a good stable job, with good
benefits.
And wasn't me.
And her parents then warned herlike, you have to be really
careful with this, right?
(09:15):
And so I go out of my own andthings are working.
You know, it's not, it's not likeI'm making tons of money.
But I'm making about the same as Iwas at my job.
Now were you doing when you wentout on your own where you're doing
consulting, doing just kind of...
had programming jobs kind offreelancing had two different
programming consulting things thatwere like some number of hours a
(09:37):
week and they were paying mereally, really well.
Okay.
Which was sweet.
I also had no debt.
Like we didn't have a owned ourhouse, but our house payment was
like $750 a month, and we hadfinished the basement rented it
out for 500 a month.
So, you know, like we had solittle debt, you know, no credit
cards, no It just makes life somuch easier.
(09:59):
It gives you freedoms.
What I tell my kids, you know,having money is freedom is what it
does for you.
It doesn't, you know, and ifyou're not in if you're not in
debt, yeah.
Yeah, debt is like really likeenslaving.
Yes.
Like if you have if you have debtpayments, you can't take the risk
of quitting.
(10:22):
Yeah.
And so that I've told my kids thatreally well.
allow you to make choices that youwant.
Savings does, having savings makesyou gives you freedom to make I, I
start help in my business.
I'm working, I'm working more nowthan I was before, right?
Like I quit, I quit the nine tofive to work 24 seven.
Yeah, even even though you were athome, but I'm home.
(10:42):
So like I'm with my kids, which issweet, but I'm working so much
more, which, right?
You know, I mean, I think so manypeople have this experience where
like, oh, I'm going to work on myown, I'm And as your own boss, you
work so much and so hard to tryand build.
(11:03):
And, and I just knew I neededhelp.
And so I started trying to hirepeople.
I hired people locally and itdidn't work very well.
The first thing that it was quit,like, oh, you're making money
online.
And this is what you're doing.
Like, oh, I And I hired people inIndia and that was kind of a mess.
(11:24):
And I hired people off of upwork.
Actually, it wasn't upwork at thetime.
It was elant.
This is before upwork existed, butelant turned into upwork.
And I thought, like, oh, this isamazing.
This is going to be it.
And then I paid the dude and hewent off and got another job.
And then it wasn't done right.
I realized and it was too latebecause he was off and getting
another job, which is, that's howthe upwork system is built.
Like, it's based on turnover.
(11:45):
Right.
Like, you have to turn people overbecause they have to get a review
so they can get another job that'shigher paying so they can get a
review.
And it just didn't work for me.
And I was so frustrated andsomeone gave me a really good tip.
Like, hey, when you registered outthere to do some of this stuff,
make sure you go to thePhilippines like, what?
That?
What?
You know, like, out there is justout there and it sucks and it's a
(12:05):
headache and it's a problem.
And he told me differently and hegave me a reference where I could
hire someone full And to me, thatwas a problem because I didn't
want someone full time.
I just wanted someone hourly or aproject and that's not And so I
didn't do it for a couple ofmonths and I finally was like,
well, it doesn't really matter ifI can afford this person or it
doesn't really matter if theycan't do great work or if I can't
keep them busy full time, can'tkeep doing what I'm doing.
(12:29):
You know, And so I took the leapand I hired this guy through this
agency, which was the referencethat this guy gave me.
And full time and it was the mostliberating experience in my life.
All of a sudden, I had this dudewho I had to keep him busy full
time and he was willing to doanything I was willing to teach
him.
And I had 40 hours a week of workthat he would do.
(12:52):
And I think I was paying theagency like $700 a month, maybe
$750 a month and they were payinghim $250 a month.
So he was making $250 a time,which I didn't know that at the
time.
But life changing to me to findsomeone that was sticking around
and and intelligent.
And he didn't know anything.
He wasn't talented, but he wasintelligent and willing to try
hard.
And so you, so I guess it kind ofbegan germinated with you and that
(13:14):
out of your own need and youpursued off-shoring source, some
resources for you for a system.
What was the moment that you werelike, here So group at the time
and we would meet every week andthere were like 15 of us on the
phone and it was awesome.
It was so good.
we found talking about my peoplein the Philippines.
I had two of them.
They just wanted to talk about mypeople in the Philippines over and
(13:38):
over and over again.
How are you doing this?
How's it working so well?
I was going on and I was like,dude, we've talked about this like
six times now.
And finally I recorded an audioof, here's what's going on.
(13:59):
Here's how I'm doing this.
Here's what's going on.
And I put it on my So everyone canjust select fade-end waveform and
just And so, and then these peoplein my mastermind group started
asking me to teach their audiencesabout it and I wasn't selling
(14:24):
anything.
So I created something that I waslike, I can sell something.
Like I have a bunch of trainingsthat I've created for my guys and
let me sell this to, I'll givethese, make these on角.
Now everything is switched, behindon the Vayk And after, after a
year or so of doing that, findingpeople was really hard.
You had to go through an agencyand I wanted to recruit someone
(14:44):
myself because the agency said,well, do you want a webmaster or a
programmer?
I was like, well, I want a contentwriter.
Well, do you want a webmaster or aah, fine, I'll take a webmaster.
And that was the moment when Iwanted to recruit someone for
myself.
Right.
I was like, there's a I think Icould build like a job board and
get a hundred resumes into it.
(15:06):
And that was my vision at thetime.
I'm not very visionary.
Like I could get a couple hundredresumes into this and then I can
recruit someone myself.
Like I would have a coupleprogrammers and that would be
sufficient and I would have acouple of good content writers and
(15:26):
that would be sufficient.
And that was my my thoughts.
It was like, I have a need whichwill be great.
I should be able to like for thatand maybe a couple of my and yeah,
exactly.
And so I went back to the agencyand said, And I hired this
programmer and had him buildonline jobs.ph.
First, the first version of it.
And so then I went to my team,which I think my team was like
five or six at the time.
And I said to them, Hey, what canwe do to like market this?
(15:49):
How can we get people to put theirprofiles in?
They were like, Oh, I could tellmy friends.
I could put it on my friend'sstore, which was a social media
network at the time.
I could put a classified ads.
That was the extent of what wedid.
And we had a couple hundredprofiles the first month.
And today, so you mentioned amillion profiles.
We actually just passed twomillion profiles.
Oh my gosh, And it just exploded.
And that's that's like the historystory of online jobs, up.
so now, so that's a great story.
(16:11):
Two million profiles is amazing.
So what average person?
I am familiar with your site withyour services.
I actually have used it in thepast.
I've know a lot of people in myindustry who utilize it.
In your, I guess, presentation ofonline jobs, that pH, what is it?
How does it work?
What's the So I built exactly whatI wanted to find.
I didn't want a middleman.
I didn't want, you know, I didn'twant this agency telling me who I
(16:34):
could and couldn't And then Ididn't want them triple marking up
the salary, you know?
I mean, when I found out, I'mpaying them 750.
And when he found out, we bothfound out And I was like, that
totally sucks for him.
And it's not the worst thing forme, but it, hi, it just doesn't
sit super well, right?
Right.
So we built a platform where youcan come in and search profiles,
(16:58):
which turned out to be so amazing.
Like you go editor and you'll findhundreds of people who are super
talented at it.
And you can, and this was the bigthing that we did.
We made it so you can contactthem, And or you can post a job
(17:19):
and have people apply and And so,you know, when we had a thousand
profiles, that was pretty sweet.
When we had 10,000 profiles, thatwas sweet.
You come on, you pay $69 to accessthe database and then you can
contact whoever you want.
You post your job, you're going toget, you could get a dozen
(17:44):
applicants, you could get hundredsof applicants.
And then you're going to interviewthem just like I wanted.
I wanted to interview them myself.
I wanted to pick the right personbecause hiring, this is an
interesting thing.
I didn't realize at the time.
But so this, this agency was justpulling people off the street,
basically, you know, they'repulling someone off the street,
giving them very little trainingand saying, here's your webmaster.
(18:07):
And what I later realized washiring, you're not hiring a skill.
You're hiring a person and thatperson is a personality and they
have a workflow and a work styleand does that workflow style work
for you?
Well, when someone else isrecruiting for know.
so like that first person I hiredfrom the agency still works for me
(18:35):
today.
That was 2005 when I hired Ourpersonality is mesh.
It's super awesome.
And when I hired him, he knewnothing and today is amazing.
That's incredible.
But with online jobs, you get tointerview, you get to make the
choice, you get to negotiatesalary, we do not take a markup or
a cut.
We don't force you to work in oursystem.
(18:55):
was that pH just into yourpersonal email and communicate
directly with That's Like it'slike but for the Philippines and
way, way, way cheaper.
Right, right.
That is amazing.
I'm so impressed that the yourfirst guy is still with you.
I mean, that just had to be almosta little bit of fluke in some
destiny probably, because thinkabout the odds that you would land
with a guy who just, okay, hold ona second.
So it's neither fluke nor destiny.
(19:17):
So So I have someone that I hiredin 2007.
He built online jobs.
He's the first, he still works forI have someone that I have people
that I hired in 2009 and 10 and 11and 12.
They all still work for me.
I think I have 38 people rightnow.
(19:37):
And I've probably hired 50 peopleover the years.
That's my turnover rate.
And some of that is the culture ofthe Philippines where they're
super duper loyal.
As long as you treat them well,they're super, super loyal.
Great people.
And then some of that is mymanagement style in treating them
well.
There's this just this reallyinteresting cultural thing that
exists in the Philippines thatreally kind of doesn't exist
(20:00):
elsewhere that allows for peopleto have long term workers
stability with them that are superaffordable.
Cause I'm definitely not the onlyone that has people.
I mean, I talk to people every daythat like, oh, I hired my person
two years ago and they're stillwith me and they're amazing.
(20:21):
Oh, I have had these people forseven years.
Right, right.
Like it's not uncommon at all.
Which is a really big deal forsmall Which is Yeah, yeah.
So that is kind of interestingbecause I wonder would it have
worked in day, way back in time ifthe person you were talking with
(20:42):
said gave you a lead to an agencybut it was in a completely
different country, maybe over inthe Middle Asia or somewhere,
right?
You think it would have worked thesame or do you think the
experience with the Filipinos,their culture that it just I get
asked every week, hey, John, whenyou start this business in
(21:06):
Cambodia, when you start this inGhana, no, I won't.
And it's not that you can't findgood people elsewhere.
You definitely can.
Right.
Yeah, sure.
But yeah, but the chances ofsuccess are just so much higher on
the Philippines.
And there's a reason that we seethe world's outsourcing going to
the Philippines now.
(21:28):
Like when you call call center,you don't get India anymore.
You get the And that has, I'vewatched that change over the last
12, 13 years where people arewaking up, people have woken up to
the Philippines is superwesternized.
They watch American TV, English ismandated as the primary language
of the Philippines.
Even though they speak Tagalog,they also speak English.
And like you won't, you'll neverhave a communication problem
there.
(21:49):
And they are super duper pleasingby nature.
They want to make you happy.
That's part of it.
They look up to foreigners, whichis super different than elsewhere
where, you know, they're notentrepreneurial.
They don't want to steal your ideaor your business.
So there's this like full set ofcultural things that are
different.
Yeah.
They're, it's different thanelsewhere in the world.
(22:11):
And so I get asked all the time,hey, what about, Brazil.
Yeah.
Brazil's awesome.
It's not the same.
So many questions kind of pop intomy mind here in regards to, I
think, the model and the businessitself.
One of the things though that Ifind, and as you mentioned, that I
find really attractive about yourplatform is that you don't
(22:34):
handcuff either the profile or thepotential employee or the
employers.
You don't handcuff them to yourplatform in the sense of able to
conduct the, whether it'scommunication or transactions or
any of that.
Like, you know, you mentionedupward.
So many of these other kind ofplatforms, you can't do.
They like, hey, you can't talk tothese people outside of here.
(22:57):
This is the only method, the onlyplace.
Right.
You can find that reallyrefreshing it.
And as I think, for the businessesthat would want to essentially
utilize the services.
How did you land on that as aconcept or as the model, rather
than what so many of the otherplatforms even at the time when
(23:20):
you started so many of them that'sit did something I think kind of
completely opposite of whateverybody else was doing and still
I wanted first.
Um, didn't elans at the time.
I didn't want to be tied into theplatform where they're taking a
cut, you know, they're marking itup 20%.
And so can you imagine if I'd paidthis guy now for what's, I mean,
(23:41):
20, 22 years?
You know, 17 that upward takes,like that's so much money that he
doesn't get to improve his life,So that's, that was really the big
thing.
There was another website that wasreally small at the time that was
similar to our concept and thatwas, that was like an impetus of
(24:02):
like, okay, this is, this is agood way where we could do this
where we People pay up front.
We give you full access.
We're not going to charge So we'llguarantee you'll find someone
good.
(24:23):
You don't find someone good.
We'll give you money back.
Right.
Super easy.
That easy.
That is amazing.
Well, I applaud you for thatbecause I think it provides the
opportunity for the, the employeeto really improve their life.
I think it's even stated.
It gives them freedom and reallycreates an opportunity.
So I want to ask you, and I'm sureyou, you've got so many different
(24:48):
resources out there where peoplecan tap into information and
answer questions and kind of getan idea about how this potentially
works.
But just as a, you know, whenwe're talking about VA's or
virtual assistants, how do youknow?
How does it, how does a smallbusiness owner know if they're
ready to hire a VA?
So have a really good answer tothat.
(25:15):
When you have something in yourbusiness that you know how to do,
that you feel like you could teachsomeone else, you're ready to
hire.
So I've always found myself goingagainst the grain.
I don't do things the way thatother people do or the way that
people teach generally.
And what most people will tell youis stick good at and outsource
(25:37):
everything else.
And I think that is terribleadvice.
I'm really good at programming.
Should I stick with programmingand outsource?
Like I should outsource ourmarketing and outsource the CEO
and no, it doesn't work.
You don't run a business likethat, right?
I'm really good at social mediamarketing.
Well, social media marketingdoesn't make money.
Like making sales makes money,right?
So you don't, you don't stick withwhat you're good at.
(26:01):
You stick with what makes moneyand outsource the things that you
know how to do that are takingyour time.
So when you have something in yourbusiness that you could teach
someone else to do, that's thefirst person you hire.
Hire someone to do that thing,teach them how to do it, get them
(26:22):
good at it, get them doing it yourway, or maybe they do it better
And then you free up some time foryourself, which is unbelievably
effective at growing your businessbecause what most entrepreneurs
are is they're just mentallystrapped.
Like they're mentally And it'sreally hard to work on your
business when you're on the edgeand when like when there's no more
(26:45):
mental And if you can get yourselfa little bit of mental bandwidth,
everything becomes clearer.
The path to growth becomes clear,the path to what should we work
on?
Where?
Where all of it becomes clear whenyou get yourself a little bit of
time and mental bandwidth.
That's Right there.
(27:07):
How does all of the finances andthe benefits or if there are
benefits that are provided for theemployees?
How does that all happen?
So that all off So it's all offplatform.
Number one.
To they're not employees.
I call them employees, but theywork for me full time.
There is no way to classify themas an employee.
(27:30):
They're an They don't have a UStax ID number.
There's no treaty with thePhilippines requiring you to pay
US taxes or pay Filipino taxes forthem.
In fact, in the Philippines, youcannot pay their taxes for them.
You can't do with holding.
It's against the law.
They're an independent contractorby Philippines So anywhere you
look at this full time, part timehourly per project, whatever
(27:51):
they're an independent contractor.
You do not have any or officespace or utilities or any of that.
On our taxes every year, we have aline item on our other deductions
or taxes or benefit.
subcontractors.
We put their salary there.
So the salary is actually costingme like, I don't know, 40% less
than it actually is, than what Ipay out because of the tax
savings.
benefits for them, which this, Idid not do this in the beginning,
(28:11):
this took, I mean, many yearsbefore I started doing this, there
are a number of things that youcould do.
One of them is insurance, butthere's a pre-insurance that you
could do called fill health, whichis Philippines like socialized
(28:32):
health insurance kind of.
It's like $10 a month, I think.
Super, super cheap.
Or you can provide their SSS,which is like, there's so
security, which gives them allkinds of benefits like disability
or maternity or their pensionafter they've contributed for a
long time.
Or there's all kinds of stuff thatyou can give with SSS.
(28:57):
You can provide private healthinsurance.
We do it for our team.
It costs us like $400 or $500 ayear per person.
So it's like, way, way, way, waycheaper than it's in the US.
For like full health insurance.
So there's all kinds of things,you know, like you have paid time
(29:19):
off that you can give.
For us, we keep this as simple asPaid time off, we say, you can
have as much paid time off as youwant.
We just want to know about itahead of time if you can.
If you're sick, just tell us whenyou We don't care because I don't
(29:40):
want to track it.
Right.
I don't want to give myself onemore you know?
Yeah.
You want to take time off?
Great, take time off.
I don't care.
You know, their time is soaffordable.
You know, I have full time, 38full time people.
(30:02):
They make between $550 and $2,000a month for full time work.
And at like $550, I have likelower skilled data entry or admin
verification people.
At the high end, I have likeFacebook ads, people or really
high end design or programming or,you know, like really high end
(30:23):
stuff.
And then I have everything in themiddle.
Right.
The salaries are just superaffordable.
The benefits are super easy.
And really, we of their benefits.
We just add it to their salary.
Right.
And say you have to deal with thison your own, which they do.
And then they send us a receipt toprove that they actually used it
(30:43):
for one good way to do it.
way to do it.
Sure.
Wow.
I want to dig back into this.
I do what before we head off tothe seventh inning stretch here.
I do want to mention something.
(31:03):
People can go on to your site ononline jobs.ph.
You'll also have some other onlineresources and offers that are
available for free for folks asthey're thinking about virtual
assistance and maybe dumping intothat.
One of which is OFSTASTS.com.
What does that offer that you haveYes.
Maybe this is a really good chanceto talk about virtual assistance.
Okay.
Sure.
I don't like the word.
I don't like the acronym VA.
(31:25):
Because people assume a virtualassistant is just an assistant.
They're like a robot.
They're kind of dumb.
They can only follow exactinstructions.
They're not thinking.
They can only do mediocre tasks.
Just data entry.
And that's not who I hire.
And that's not who you want to Ihave these really talented
programmers who built onlinejobs.ph.
I have a really talented userinterface designer.
He's not a graphic designer.
He's not a logo designer.
In fact, I've had him do boththose things.
(31:47):
He sucks at it.
But he is so good at userinterface design.
Thinking through, how does thiswork?
How someone can interact, right?
He's a specialist.
I have someone that writes mynewsletter.
She's a content specialist.
She's really, really good at it.
Not so good at SEO, but she'sreally good at content.
And so years ago, I stoppedcalling them virtual assistants
(32:09):
because these are specialists.
And they're online.
And they're in the Philippines.
And I call them OFS, onlineFilipino So OFSTask.com is the
result of me asking like 100employers, what do your OFS do for
you?
What are they doing?
And getting responses back thatwere unbelievable, the things that
people have, OFS doing for them.
And I put it all together into alist and categorize lists by
(32:30):
industry.
And there's like 220, actually.
We that OFS can do for you.
Like the new kind of virtualassistant, these more specialized
talented people.
it 221 tasks.
But we call it 221 because westopped counting at 221.
There were more.
And it like when I looked at it,and actually, so I would email
employers, I didn't write thebook.
(32:51):
Someone in the Philippines wroteit and combined all of these
responses into these categories.
And just this, when I read thisthing, my jaw dropped.
Number one, because it was so welldone.
Number two, because of the thingsthat people have invented to have
(33:16):
OFS do for them, I was And so it'savailable at OFSTASK.com.
It's Nice.
Great.
All right, so folks, get overthere.
OFSTASK.com, go check that out.
Onlinejobs.ph, go check that out.
Right now, John, it is And it'stime for the seventh inning
stretch.
seventh inning stretch, John.
Hopefully, I didn't do you likebaseball?
(33:36):
I didn't have a team in Utah.
But you do like baseball, though,to some extent.
So you'll follow a team out on thecoast or somewhere.
I grew up in LA, so I grew I grewup in LA, so I grew up a dodgers
fan.
And I mean, the angels weren't athing when I was little, but as I
(33:58):
got older, the angels were cool.
Nice.
And then obviously, like DonMattingley was, was around when I
was collecting baseball cards.
And so I was a Yankeesan Angels inDodgers, right?
That doesn't really work.
But, you work.
But, you know, well, I loved Eastof live in LA way back.
And I loved going to Dodgersgames.
But I'm a Cubs fan, deep in myroots.
(34:22):
So I'm always a Cubs fan.
But all right.
So my staff put together aquestion around Filipino MLB
players.
And I'm going to hit you up withthe question here.
There are about 16 current MLBplayers of Filipino descent tied
(34:42):
with the MLB.
About half of them were allpitchers, actually, which I think
is interesting.
Do you know who is the first majorleague baseball player born in the
Philippines?
No clue.
I have no clue.
He debuted.
I'll give you this a little more.
Debuted with the Oakland Athleticsin 1996.
(35:03):
So it wasn't that long it Here,that's like crime time for us.
My senior year Yeah, I Even aCalifornia team, right?
Bobby Shinard.
I think I'm pronouncing his namecorrectly.
Was the first player born in thePhilippines, and then was playing
MLB.
A lot of different, a lot ofdifferent players that connected
descendants, parents, but yeah,Bobby Shinard.
(35:23):
That's cool.
That's cool.
Cool.
Yeah.
Filming doesn't a big baseballcountry.
There also not a big soccercountry either.
also They're a big basketball andboxing boxing because I'm
anti-pack.
Oh, yeah, they're a really bigbasketball country.
No kidding.
They love the NBA.
They have the PBA, the PhilippinesBasketball Yeah, like they play
basketball.
And they're super short.
(35:45):
It's so it's really reallyinteresting.
In my mind, I was saying, that'skind of interesting with
basketball because I don't thinkmy experience with Filipino is as
they're not, except my tall.
All right.
Well, very good.
Well, thank you for playing the17-inch church.
All right, let's get back I wantto ask you, so you start out on
(36:08):
this thing.
You've got all of these profilesout on your site.
What kind of challenges did yourun into?
Been some of the obstacles thatyou faced while you're building
this massive site, helpingthousands and thousands of people.
But where were some of thosethings that you ran across it?
Like, my kids and had you So thebiggest obstacle that people
always want to know is, how do youbuild both sides?
It's a chicken and egg thing whereyou have to have employers and you
(36:29):
have to have workers.
How do you get them both?
that with content because bringingthe employers to the site is
harder than bringing the workers.
The workers were really, reallyeasy.
And so, our biggest challenge washaving employers come, which for
me, I was running podcasts and Iwas teaching people how, why and
how the And so, I just supereasily transitioned from saying,
(36:54):
hey, here's this agency to, here'sonline jobs.
So, that was reasonable for me.
But over the years, creatingcontent and teaching has been the
affected that part of ourbusiness.
And so, that's like the number onething that I do is create Some
other issues always want to know,how do I trust this person?
(37:19):
trust this person.
And it's a good do the years, welike, I don't want to get scammed,
right?
That's people's biggest thing.
I don't want to get scanned.
people's biggest thing.
I don't want to know that?
So figuring out that we could notoffer a free trial to employers
(37:40):
was a really big deal towardsgetting rid of scams because free
trial, Craigslist or any otherwebsite that offers a free access
to hiring people instantly createsscams where employers can scam
workers, they can get them to workwithout paying them.
Right.
then, and then workers know that'sthe situation.
(38:02):
So workers start scammingemployers.
Right.
And we figured out that having itbe paid upfront, eliminates that
almost 100%.
Right.
And when you say, we see a say, wesee a friend really is net
necessarily that the employer ispaying the, and maybe it is, I
don't know, but it's notnecessarily you're talking about
(38:23):
just paid upfront for access.
it's Pay to access the system.
Yeah, don't ever pay some pay yourworker front.
That's a no. Pay them afterthey've done the work.
But yeah, paying to access thesystem instantly eliminates almost
all scam employers.
And so the workers really areally, really good how do we, how
do we create trust from employersto workers?
(38:47):
So like we've done a lot of stufftowards verifying workers.
And we don't vet anybody, youknow, like we get 60,000 Filipino
profiles a month right now.
We're not interviewing them.
We're not talking with them, butwe do require them to verify
upload a government ID, upload apicture of themselves with their
government ID, verify theiraddress.
So we do require like you are whoyou say you are verification,
(39:07):
which, which really also goes along ways towards preventing.
And he's sort of scams because nowwe can easily ban you from the
site if, if you're a problem, youknow, and then if you're a
problem, you get banned, likeyou're permanently know, on the
jobs at two million profiles, it'slike 8% of the workforce of the
(39:28):
Philippines.
That's what I mean.
There's I mean.
There's a hundred million people.
I was just patching on my phone,like, what is the population of
the Philippines?
Yeah. 100 Yeah. 100 million.
You know, like from 18 to 55, like8% of that population.
(39:50):
And so, you know, if you getbanned, and online jobs is pretty
big.
Yeah.
And it's kind of a prop, like youroption now is to go to work.
You just lost 20% of your pay.
That sucks.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So, so those are those have beensome of the challenges that had.
So, I had a curiosity.
(40:12):
Sometimes bad things do happen,unfortunately, right?
I always have told people andformer careers that I've had
always stayed like, well,sometimes you put things in place
just to really prevent the badthings from happening.
You're not going to you're notgoing to eliminate all of them all
(40:33):
the time.
But you just kind of put things inplace, keep people honest.
I in general, people want to behonest.
And so when you do some checks ofbalances, it makes it work.
But sometimes bad things dohappen.
you or online jobs?
Do you have any liabilities atthose instances when, you know,
whether an employer gets scammed,I use in that word, but you know,
(40:56):
the bad things happen to theemployer or vice versa, the
employee.
I mean, what is your organization?
Because you kind of did thathandshake.
Yeah.
So we don't have any liabilitydon't have any liability there.
We do try and mediate.
And, you know, we often hear bothsides and both sides are mad.
(41:16):
see very few instances of theft.
Like very, very few instances oftheft.
And almost all of them are becausean the work that the worker did.
There was a disagreement of likewas actually supposed to be
delivered.
It wasn't clear.
the worker is not getting paid.
(41:38):
So now they're just trying to getpaid.
You know, like it, so we don't wedon't have any liability.
will, for a worker who doesn't getpaid, we will offer them the
amount of money that the employerhas paid in accessing the
(41:58):
database.
It's not, I mean, that doesn'tmake up usually for what they
lost, but it's something.
So yeah, we don't we don't reallyhave any liability there.
All right.
So you I really like to platformthough, because I think you really
are creating an opportunity forgood people, employers.
workers to kind of come togetherand really be a good operation, a
good team together and execute onthings.
(42:23):
You have an idea of, so say, smallbusiness owner comes, utilizes the
database, hires, settles on anemployee at an OFS.
How do they get them up to speedquickly?
How do they get up that ramp asquick as possible to get them why
I say that the first person youshould hire should be something to
do, to do someone to do somethingthat you know how to do because
you know how to provide trainingto that person.
(42:44):
And for me, the way I providetraining, I use Snagit, which this
is from Camtasia Studio.
You can use loom, lots of peopleuse loom or there's tiny take,
which is free.
I'm going to create a screenrecording video of myself walking
through the process.
And it's super, super effective.
(43:07):
It lets them watch it multipletimes.
And let's them ask you questions.
It's way faster than typing out anemail and trying to explain.
You know, they get to see it, theyget to hear your voice, which also
goes a long ways towards treatingthem well.
Like I talked about earlier, themgaining trust in you.
So that initial training is a bigdeal.
go into this thinking, I don'tknow if I can trust this person.
(43:32):
They feel the same way.
Sure.
They don't know if they can trustyou.
Only if their feeling is strongerthan your you can do to gain their
trust And in terms of onboardingsomeone, that initial video of
them hearing your voice, seeingthat you're willing to provide
some training is a big, big dealtowards gaining their trust.
That's a great idea.
What's around the corner foronline jobs?
(43:53):
What's I mean, we have a couplebig changes coming towards the,
for the communication process ininterviewing like messages that
there's a big change coming.
I hope this week, but not.
We have coming this like a any daynow.
(44:14):
What's happening?
It's It's designed.
It's been in the programmingprocess.
It's like in the works for achange in the application process
for workers that will allowemployers to more easily see who
is relevant to their job post,like instantly, which is really,
really cool.
We would love to better at doingpayments.
Like right now, right now wepartner with Pioneer to pay people
(44:36):
or you can pay using PayPal orwise.com or Western Union.
We don't We created Easy Pay,which partners with Pioneer.
And it's good.
I mean, it's as good as anythingelse.
We would just like to do itbetter.
So that's something we would towork on.
Nice.
I always love to grow with thishappens.
(45:10):
right.
So, John, we're down here to thebottom of the ninth, where I get
to ask all of our guests, whatadvice do you have for rookies in
the game, meaning those who arejust starting out in business or
maybe who already have theirbusiness and are looking for some
guidance.
So an old veteran like you've beenaround.
You've been operating a massivesite, tremendous growth.
What kind of advice do you havefor a new new So I have two
(45:34):
things.
Number one is provide value.
Look at whatever it is you'redoing and see and evaluate and
say, am I providing value here?
Is this something that someonesomewhere else or I'm doing it
better or I'm the value I'madding?
Because if you're not addingwasting your time.
Like if you just drop shippingfrom, you know, like something
that someone can get any otherplace, well, you're not really
adding value.
(45:55):
Right?
And that's, so it's really hard torun that kind of thing long term.
So people always want to, like,how do I, how do I make money as a
have to add value.
You're not just going to slapsomething out there and have
people make money from it.
You know, like this is not goingto add two is when you're ready to
do something that a leap.
(46:16):
Like it's, it's not, it's notjust, oh, I have someone and so,
okay, let is how simple it is.
But usually it's a leap of faithfor most people.
Like it, I don't know if I canafford someone.
Can they actually do good work?
Can I actually find someone?
I'm super busy.
I can't really spend the 10minutes to find someone.
(46:39):
You know, it's a leap, it's a leapof faith.
And the only way you know if thisworks, like I have said it does is
if you try it, right?
And you have to take the value.
I think that is, well, that's agold nugget right there, but I
love that thought about providevalue.
(47:01):
And if you're not adding value,you're wasting time.
I think so much that is right ontarget.
Good stuff.
Well, listen, John, thanks so muchfor being on the show, for hanging
out with us for a little bit.
wish all the best of luck andsuccess.
And I know we are planning to goback and bring some people on
(47:26):
board utilizing your services.
So look forward to that.
Maybe you'll see me in yourdatabase in there.
Awesome.
Sounds great.
Thanks for having me.
I appreciate this.
It's been fun.
Yeah, that's good.
All right, folks, that's the ballgame.
Thanks for joining us today.
And if you like our show, pleasetell your friends, subscribe and
(47:46):
review.
And we'll see you around the thebases with small businesses is
brought to you by 38 digitalmarket, a digital marketing agency
committed to client growth withlead generation, higher
conversions and increased sales.
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