Episode 048 - The Easiest and Best Way to Get a VA: Our Interview with OnlineJobs.ph's John Jonas

In this week's episode, we talk to the one and only, John Jonas of OnlineJobs.ph - the BEST way to find a VA, bar none!  When looking for a VA, the Philippines should be the logical choice.  We will explain all the reasons why in this episode.  Plus, we will tell you why you should avoid agencies and use the best service there is, OnlineJobs.ph to find your next VA.  You won't want to miss this episode!

Get John's Book:

Get John's book for free just by paying for shipping by clicking here or cut and paste the link below.

https://www.outsourcinglever.com/freebook

Get John's Training:

 John has a great training course (challenge) that will empower you to get your first VA.  Click here to go to One VA Away or cut and paste the link below.

https://www.onevaaway.com/

Transcript of this Episode:

Hi, it's Michelle, the master bunny mindset, and you are listening to BNB dash boss podcast.

And in today's podcast, we're going to be speaking with John Jones. Of online jobs stop P H. This is a great interview with John all about virtual assistants. Now, virtual assistants changed my business and I positive. I guarantee you, they will change yours too. I got John's book right away after this interview and I've already read it and it's amazing.

He's got a lot of great tips in there. I never thought. And what a unique and talented man, he only works now about 17 hours a week and employs has entire staff in the Philippines. He even has his HR headquarters there. It's so cool. Talking to John, he gives us some great advice on how to pick up our first virtual assistant and why the Philippines is so fantastic.

And you've heard me do podcasts about this and mentioned John. And mentioned online jobs.ph it's because it is literally the go-to virtual assistant website. And it is the fair one because you're just paying a little bit for the service to John. But when you hire somebody, you're going to be hiring them and paying them directly and not using an agency where the agency is collecting the majority of the money and paying the employer fraction of it.

We've got some great, great information. So just sit back and take a listen, John Jonas with online jobs dot P H. Good morning, John. How's it going there. So good. Yeah. Super excited to have you on because virtual assistants, I mean, that is honestly one of the key things. The key elements in our business, growing our business as a short term rental, I mean, it was one of the things that just freed up our time.

Like I could not believe. It's really hard for people to understand what a virtual assistant is, where to get them, how to train them. It seems like an, you know, it seems very overwhelming for people, but it's so simple. Your website is actually one of the best known websites. Everybody talks about your online jobs, pH it's in every training I've ever been to, not just my real estate trainings, but management trainings, um, runs like clockwork business by design.

Everybody talks about. Your website. And so I am super honored to have you on, um, can you give us a little background of how you got started, um, and what that you into the virtual assistant thing? So it was probably the same thing as you, like, I mean, this was, this was 2005 and I was trying to run an online business and.

I like I was new out of college and I thought, oh, it's online. It'll be so easy. No, it just takes so much time. And I had tried hiring contract workers, uh, like off of what's now Upwork, where, where you hire someone and they're going to be like on a project basis. And then I, and that didn't. And I I've tried hiring people in India and that didn't work and I had to try to hire people locally.

And so for me, the first thing they did was quit because they realized, oh, you're making money online. Well, I can do that. You know, like, um, but beyond that, even just like local people, well, it was, it was just such a risk. Like I wasn't making that much money from it. And if they weren't super productive, then it like, it was hard.

Right. So I got a really good tip one day. The guy who owned back country.com, which back country.com is enormous. Um, and he said, he said to me, you know, when you're ready to start outsourcing some of this stuff, make sure you go to the Philippines with it. And I was like, huh, really? And he was like, yeah, because in India, when you tell them something and they say, yes, that means, yes, I heard something come out of your mouth.

It doesn't mean, yes. I understood what you said. Yeah. And that was my reaction. Really are you serious? Like, I, I never thought that a country could make a difference and outsourcing, and he gave me a reference to where I can hire someone full time and I didn't do it because, because I was scared because I didn't think I could keep them busy.

Full-time I didn't think they could do good work. I didn't think I could afford it. Like there was all kinds of things that were like, oh, I don't know. I don't know. And I went back and forth for like two months. Before I finally realized and said, you know, it doesn't matter. Like I can't keep doing what I'm doing.

I can't do this the way that I'm doing. It's just too much and I need help. And so I've got to try this at least try what he said. And so I, I went through this agency where I didn't know this at the time I was paying them $750 a month. They were paying the worker $250 a month. And yeah, I didn't know that, but, um, I hired this guy full time.

And it was the most liberating experience on my life. Like it, it changed everything for me because his, his full-time job was to do anything I asked him to do now. And anything I could teach him to do, basically he could do it and he spoke English and that was about it. That was his only skill was he spoke English and frankly, his English wasn't even that great.

But what I wanted him to do, what I needed to do didn't require like perfect, perfect English. Right. Um, and today it's so easy to find people with. Perfect. Okay. Uh, the Philippines has done such a good job with this. Um, and so I hired this guy and started working with him. And then after a few months I realized like, oh, not only is he busy full time.

And I've, I felt like I had duplicated myself. Like there were two of me because he was doing stuff that I had. I had taught him to do. I realized I need, I need someone else. And so I went, I went back to the agency and this is where I realized the problem. Agencies are fine. And if, if people want to go through an agency to hire someone fine, I went to this agency, which is all I knew.

This is 2005, actually it's 2006 now. And I said, so they said to me, do you want a programmer or a webmaster? And I was like, well, I don't want either of those. I want a content writer. Well, do you want a programmer or a weapon? No, I don't think you're hearing me. So, so I, and, and that was kind of when I realized, like, I just want to recruit someone on my own.

And, and I think, I think I can build this thing that I think I could build this like job board and get a, get a couple of hundred profiles of Filipino resumes in it. So I went back to them and said, I want a program. And they, they found me a programmer. You use the agency to find you a programmer, so you can build your, you just built your competition.

They're awesome. It still works for me today. Um, yeah. And so we started building, uh, we started building online jobs that pH, uh, and. Yeah. And the rest is like, I mean, we had a couple of hundred profiles in the first month. Oh my gosh. It's incredible. The amount of people that are on your website, as soon as you put a job on like, literally you, you can just keep it live for a day.

You won't be able to go through. Like one day, boom. And it's just, it's filled up. It's incredible. And I love what you said too, because this brings up a really good point. The difference between an agency and you is, is night and day. They're keeping the majority of the money. You think you're helping somebody.

And then the next thing you know, they quit or they're gone it's because they needed more money. And you had no idea because you're like, dude, isn't that a lot of money there. And you don't realize that the majority of the money is going in the agency's pocket and not in your VA's pocket. It's really hard to keep them when you're with an agency.

So you do all that time and the training and boom it's gone. And today the, the numbers are more like $2,000 a month and $450 a month or $500 a month. Like at the time it was seven 50 and two 50. But yeah, it's like the agency model is it's hard. Like it's hard. As an agency, it's hard. And as hiring people, it's hard.

And we only see customers flow one direction. Nobody ever finds online job, top pH, and then it goes back to an agency. I don't think I've ever seen it happen. Nope, no. Yeah, exactly. Once you, once you go there, you never go back. And the quality of people shoe that are there, it's incredible. The amount of jobs that they have listed, um, you can put exactly like you send content.

When we first started building the short-term rental business, we had, I mean, content was so easy. They know exactly what you're looking for you. I mean, you just. You know, I need a short term rental article. It has to have to do with this, this, and they're like, oh, like BnBs. And you're like, oh my gosh. They actually knew what I'm talking about, you know, was like, and they get it for you.

I mean, it's so amazing to me. So that's pretty cool. How long did it take you to build it up? So let's see when. That was 2005. No. Okay. The dates are wrong. So when I went back to them in 2006, I hired someone for something else. And that was, that was like the impetus for me to start thinking about it. Like, I really just want to recruit on my own.

It was 2008 when I finally did it. I think it took us like eight months to build it. And then we launched it in 2009. So online jobs we launched in 2009. Wow. Um, so one of the great things about the Philippines is that, I mean, so like I said, that that guy still works for me today. Um, the first person I hired still works for me today.

Um, they're super, super loyal, which really, as a small business owner really changes things. There, it doesn't matter who you hire. Right? If you go through an agency, you have to train the people that they bring in. Right. Because frankly, they're not doing very much work. They know that most of the people they place are not going to work out because, so here's what I've found over the years.

I didn't realize this. Um, if you do the recruiting yourself, The relationship is much, much more likely to work out than if someone else does the recruiting for you. And I know that because we do recruiting for people. I hate it. Um, it's a tiny, tiny part of our business and I don't like it. And we're like 50%, like will 50% of the time people work.

But if you'll do the recruiting yourself and you follow a process when your recruiting, you're like 80%, which is really high and people. So I hear all the time from people like, oh, you have to go through a bunch of bad VA's before you find a good one. No, you don't, you, you just don't use an agency. Right?

Don't don't let, don't don't have someone else do the recruiting for you. Right. Um, and so then with the Philippines, if you've done the recruiting yourself, Filipinos are very, very little. And so like when you've, when you've trained this person, if you've avoided, oftentimes agencies will have like office politics.

In fact, the first person, that first person I hired, he quit. He said, I just can't handle the office politics. And I was like, wait, whoa, whoa, wait a minute. Like, you can't just quit. Like, I've put work into you. You can't like, no. So how much are you making? And that was when I found out how much he was making.

Um, it was like, oh, well I'll double it. And you can come work for me. Which was still less than what you were paying them. Yeah. Right. But because like he quit, he was gone and I was, I was not happy. Right. But, but, and he was thrilled to, to come to work from home and come work for me. And like I said, I mean, I was 2005 that I hired him and he still works for me today.

Right. And that's one of the great things about the Philippines. They're so loyal. When you train them and you spend time putting in the effort into the relationship, they want to keep working for you. They want to work for you for wonderful work. That. I mean, it's not, it's not just their loyalty and want to make you happy.

They want to please you, they want to do a good job. I mean, I, I, it's so amazing to me as well, especially when you're, like you said, you hired kids around here. When you start out, you're like, who do I hire? I'll just take somebody local or something. They they're on their phones. They're doing all this stuff.

This person is focused on you and your business. You know, like, uh, uh, there was a book called sales dogs, like a Labrador retriever, you know, like, I want to please you. And they just, and that's part of the Philippines culture. Like that's, that's part of their culture is they, and that's why they work in hospitality.

That's why you see them in hospitality all over the world, because they're such a pleasing people. They want to make people happy. And so we're like, you'll find. They will go. So everything I'm saying, all of this has a caveat and the caveat is that they trust you, that like you put work in to make them trust you.

If they trust you, um, and you treat them well, they will go above and beyond what you ask them to do to, to make you happy. Yeah. It's such a different culture than, than really anywhere else in the world for hiring, for hiring help. Yeah. I believe that I really do. I mean, I've seen that it's, they're amazing, amazing people.

I love the fact that they seem to understand us to way better than any other VA's I, you know, from other countries that I've had, they, they understand. And I don't mean just, you know, they understand the English. I mean, they. You know how, like, sometimes, especially when you're a new business owner and you are getting your first virtual assistant and you know what you want them to do, but it's really hard for you to articulate it and get it out there and write it down completely.

And they seem to kind of go like, here's what I'm, here's what, I'm the feeling with you? This is what I think you want me to do. And you're like, oh my gosh. You're like reading my mind. I couldn't get it out there. They understand that. In a much different way. So let me, let me talk about that for a second.

So the Philippines number one, the government mandated that English is the official language of business. So like if you go to online jobs, pH has start looking for someone. You'll notice the first thing everything's in English. There's no speaking Tagalog or Filipino, they call it. Um, everything's in English.

And so the people you find and hire will speak English. You'll never have a communication issue with the Philippines because they watch American TV. They watch American movies. They like they'll when you you'll find someone that understands American slang and that like that, that's a big deal. You find some of the understand slang, that's a big deal.

So the other side of this is the Philippines is a very education based. Like almost anybody you find is going to have a college degree and that's like a legitimate post high school, college degree for the most part. They're also very intelligent. This is not so often people think outsourcing is just hiring a robot on the other side of the world and all they can do is follow exact instructions.

And that's, that's not what this is. And that was one of the great things that I figured out. Like in the beginning, I just thought, oh, I'm hiring a robot. Like they can only follow my exact instructions and no, he would come, come up with ways of like, Hey do this. But, uh, I went and did some research and figure out if I do it like this and like this, instead of how you said, if I use these websites in addition to what you said, and if I do it this often, instead of how often you said it's way more effective.

I hope that's okay with you, sir. That was an email that I got from him. Right.

And it it's not uncommon. Right. Um, okay. So I feel like, I feel like we have, we've talked about virtual assistants and like why you should and the Philippines, I think maybe let's talk about, um, like how some, some specifics of this I would like to hear from you. Like, what do. What do your virtual assistants do in your short term, short term rental business?

What are the, what are some of the things that they do specifically? Basically, like you said, it's like, Dupa, it's like Katie and yourself. They can create my listings as soon as I get another person. Um, they'll take the, I'll just send them all the files for the pictures. You know, I actually, I don't even send it to them.

I have my, um, photographers will send them a piles of the, um, all the pictures of the place. They'll create an entire listing. They will create the guest books and if it's a new site for me and they even update old sites, but let's say because I'm here in Phoenix. I also have properties in Tucson. I have properties floor.

I have properties in like three main different locations in Florida, Orlando, west Palm, and the keys they'll create a books for me and they'll get the restaurants and the like, as if they are there, they can create these wonderful things from my desk. They do all my, um, once the listing is up and running and they'll do all of that for me.

And we start getting the bookings, they, they do all the messaging between me and them. So we have somebody live. This is really crucial in building your short-term rental business because bots are easy. You can use smart BNB. And that's great, but when people ask complicated questions, they need a real person on the other end, they can answer all of those questions.

So I think it's really important when I was doing a regular real estate. We had a company called pat live and they would handle our phone calls live it's better than a PATLive. Okay. Because these people are real. They're handling all the questions when something goes wrong, they, they have an, and I give them this permission because I set my boundaries.

I say, you are allowed to do this, this, this, and this. What I won't let you do is this. So my people have permission to hire a plumber or somebody, if there's an emergency going on in a place that the AC is out, they get on it. And then they contact you. I may say, okay, this is what's going on in that unit.

Uh, we just had the AC system go out. I've already contacted this place. They're on their way. There they'll have somebody in there in 10 minutes. I mean, then they tell me what's going on. So I, I give them room and a lot more permission, I think. Uh, and you'll probably be able to talk about that better sending those boundaries for people, what you can give.

And the fact that you can trust them much more, basically everything in my business from sending the cleanings, they'll look at my calendars, keep my calendars balanced between different platforms. They'll make sure that everything is in alignment and hire the cleaning companies, get them to in their scheduling.

If somebody cancels those schedules, somebody else, they do all the scheduling of the maintenance for the properties that has controlled pool, uh, you know, keeping the pool. They do everything. And it's like, it turns it basically into a turnkey business for me, I just, you know, pay them and, you know, hand the, my bookkeeper, the, each property, they do the taxes and stuff.

And I can't say more. They even actually have, when I need more help, when I'm doing something beach, they find more people. So they'll say I have a friend who's looking for something. So it's, it's, it turns into, you know, like it's just an, it's an amazing, amazing process, but it's hard to tell people because they go, how do you do that?

And then you're like, you tell me what you like. Okay. So I have a couple of notes from, from your talking. So this is so awesome. I love it. I love that you've just given them permission to do things right. Yeah. Right. Like with the internet, it it's so easy to find a plumber. Like they know the zip code, search Zillow search.

Right. It's so easy. So one of the biggest questions that I. Super often is how do I trust this person? Right? Like, how do I, how do I trust them that they're not going to steal a bunch of stuff from me, right. Or that, you know, whatever it is, they're not going to steal my listings or like, well, I mean, if you look at it, there's not a whole lot, they could steal.

Right. Um, I mean, you can give them your credit card and they could spend a whole bunch of money on it. And, but why would they do that? So this is one of the great things about the field. So it's a third world country. They don't call it a third world country anymore. They call it an emerging economy, but it's hard to find a job in the Philippines.

And so when they find a job that's stable and long-term, and hopefully full-time, they just want to keep the job. So if they went and spent a whole bunch of stuff on your credit card, then they would lose their job. Right. And your credit card company would give you your money back. You would say these are unauthorized purchases, like super simple.

So, so people often say, how can I trust this person? So I can't, I can't give you, like, here are things you can do to limit their trust, right? And that's not, that's the wrong approach to take with this. So first of all, the Philippines, as a culture, they moral and ethical, very moral and ethical, and it's even more so with a foreign body.

Like, they don't want to do your stuff. They're scared. They're scared of getting in big, big trouble, like punishments consequences in the Philippines are severe. And so they don't want to steal from you. Right. So how can you trust this person? So, I mean, I would trust my life with most of my VAs. Right. Um, I would trust them with my kids.

Uh, Um, I saw that you traveled over there. Yeah. So I've only been there once. Um, in 2010, I took my family there and we spent five weeks sitting on a beach, but I also brought my team at the time there with me and, and like left my kids with one of my VAs as me and my wife went out on a date one night.

You'll you'll learn to love the people that work for you. So trust you as soon as you hire someone, you recognize, oh my gosh. Yeah. Trust. Isn't an issue here, the bigger trust. And so very often we go into this, the wrong way. We go into this thinking. I don't know if I can trust this person. The real issue in this relationship is them thinking, I don't know if I can trust this boss.

Right? So you have to do things to gain their trust. And if you do that, if you don't do that, it's hard. It's they need to have your, they need to trust you or else they will hold back. If you do this and you'll build the relationship with the rockstar virtual assistant that everybody wants. Right. Okay. So let me, let me go back to something else you talked about.

I don't want people to feel like you're going to hire someone and they're going to run your business right away. That's not what this is. These aren't magic humans, right? No it wasn't. Oh yeah. Did I make it seem like it was right away? No, you didn't. But I just want, I just want to make sure, because I've been doing this for a long time and I've seen a lot of things.

That's right. So, um, they're not magic. They are smart. They are hardworking. They want to make you happy. They're honest. They're loyal. They speak American English. Um, they're not entrepreneurial and that just so you know, like that's a big deal for a lot of business owners that, that the person they're hiring is not entrepreneurial.

They don't want to do this on their own. They don't want to steal your domain and they don't want to steal your listings. They don't want to do it. Right. And in the Philippines, like that's a cultural thing. So. When I started, I started by hiring one person and I always recommend that you hire one person.

Everybody always wants to hire a team. I have 38 people in the Philippines who work for me now full time. Uh, but I started with one and then I hired another, and then I realized they're both busy full-time and I have more work to do so I hired another. So let me just tell you the kinds of things you can get done in the Philippines, the kind of work that I get done.

So basically my business is online. And anything that can be done online is done by someone in the Philippines. So all, all of our design work, all of our programming, all of our data entry, all of our, uh, lead generation, all of our research. Um, I have programmers, designers, data security people. I have customer support people.

I have people that do my social media. I have content writers. I have an HR person. Your HR person is in the Philippines. My HR person's in the field. Cause everybody's in the Philippines. Exactly. That's true. I have some project managers, just so you know, I didn't hire a project manager. I hired people to do work and then as we needed more people, I, I helped them transition.

Because they grow with their company, their abilities grow with your company and with you so long that they train other people for you. So it's, it's the best of all worlds, I think. Right. Because they're so affordable. I mean, you can hire a full-time person at $500 a month, very easily. Full-time um, and then they're so loyal that they'll stick with you as long as you're, as long as you're willing.

Um, so, uh, okay, so we've covered like what you can have them do. They can make phone calls. Um, they can talk to customers. Yeah. And seeing the BNB business, almost everything is on-platform meaning it's, it's just text messaging. Yeah. Yeah. They can text. They're very good at text. Right. So, and then, and like, you know, I get it.

I've talked to a lot of people that have, they have multiple side hustles, you know, like you're, you're also. So I have one of my girls in the Philippines just now setting up an account on Amazon seller central, because I have a book that I, we give away for free, but I want it listed on Amazon because people just want to buy on it.

So actually she already listed it on Amazon. I don't even know how, but I gave her the, I gave her the book, the PDF of it. She created, I don't know. She created a listing on Amazon and people are buying this book. People are buying the book and I, and she sent me, she sent me a bunch of orders the other day.

Wait, have we fulfilled these? I don't even know how we were fulfilling. I don't even know. Right. Um, so she's setting up a better seller central account for me right now. I gave her the information for it. Then she's going to hook the seller central account up with our fulfillment warehouse. Uh, do the work, whatever is needed there because I don't want to do it.

I don't want to touch these. And she's your she's eight she's AWS and Amazon send me her skirts and stuff in your life. I don't even know what I'm doing. And she's like, don't worry, we're doing it. Right. Right. And so the point here is like, there's so many things you can do in your business. There's so many things like, oh, I know I shouldn't be posting on social media.

But I'm not, oh, I know I should be doing SEO, but I'm not going to, I shouldn't be using this other platform, but, um, because there's not enough time in the day. Yeah. It's such a good culture. It's so it's so good. And it's so cool to, like, I remember when I, when he said, make sure you go to the Philippines with this.

I remember it being like. Yeah, because I was like, that's, that's weird, but you're telling me that a different country might make a difference. And that gave me hope. Yeah. So, so I want to, if we can, I would like to talk about like, how do you find someone? Yes. Is that good? Yes, absolutely. Um, if, if people don't know if you, if you've never met John or heard, honestly, his website is the go-to website for, I mean, there's no one else it's, it's far above and beyond.

It's legions above and beyond any other site because you can go on there and find somebody and it's actually your site. I, like I said, I, I hadn't been on in a little while. Right. And it's greatly improved your, your classes in the online. You've got all these ways to teach people to do what we're doing.

When, when we first got into this, there wasn't any of that. We were, you just kind of fumbled our way into this, so please tell us how people can get started. Okay. So I, I have, I have two things that I'm going to talk about first and then, um, then I'm going to cover it. So I wrote a book. Called the outsourcing lever.

It's all about, it's about the process of this. Like why you should hire someone, what kind of a difference is going to make in your business? Um, what kind of lifestyle changes you should be making and can be making because of this person? What kinds of things you shouldn't be having them do? Um, how to manage it's the full process called the outsourcing lever.

It's free. I'll give it away. Um, you just have to pay shipping for it. I bought a thousand copies of it recently and it's like $7 shipping on my website, outsourcing lever.com. Or you can get it on Amazon. I don't actually know if we'll ship it to you or not. I don't know if we're fulfilling it or,

and you can get it on Kindle, uh, on it through Amazon or whatever. Okay. So that's, that's one thing I recently did. The other thing that I recently did was I realized that like, so the number, the number two question I get is how do I trust someone? Right. The number one question I get is how do I find someone good?

How do I know that they're going to be good? Right. So, and I, I realized after getting that question a bunch of times, I don't question this anymore. I don't question if I'm going to find someone good. I know I'm going to find someone good because I've developed a really good recruiting process. And so I spent weeks writing down my recruiting process and going through it.

I ended up with 38 single spaced pages of, of content for them. Um, and I recorded it in videos. I edit it and then recorded it as videos. It was, and it's seven steps to finding a great VA. And I made that [email protected]. And I am so confident in it. It's $49. I guarantee that you will find a great view if you follow the steps in, in my one VA away program, or I'll give you your money back.

Whatever, however you want to do. I bought, I bought everything. So, so, so now that you know, like, and, and if you're, if your question, I don't know where to start, that's where to start. Go [email protected]. Um, that it will walk you through the process of like, oh, should I hire a VA? What kind of a person should I hire?

Um, how do I post my job? How do I know how much to pay? What the whole thing. Right, right. Okay. So let me cover that process in five minutes. Um, so it you're new to this, right? The very first thing to ask is. What am I doing in my business that I can teach someone else. That's the first thing to ask, because you're going to, or someone to do something that you know, how to do.

If you hire someone to do, you can hire someone to do something, you don't know how to do it, that's fine. But if you're already working 60 hours a week, you're going to permanently work 70 hours a week now. Right. As opposed to, if you hire someone to do something that you know how to do that you're doing.

Um, you're working 60 hours a week. You're gonna work 65 hours a week for a couple of weeks. Then you're going to start working 50 hours a week as they take something from you. And that's a big, big deal. So, so something that you're going to find something that you know, how to do that you're doing, probably something that you don't like doing.

That's the best case. Right then you're going to go to online jobs.ph, and you're going to search for the skills that you're looking for. Uh, it may be maybe you search Airbnb maybe because you just want people that have said Airbnb and their profile, or maybe you search realtor or real estate. And then you're going to look at profiles for 10 minutes.

You're going to look at 20 or 30 profiles, so you can get a really good idea of salary to pay. You're going to get a good idea of what skills exist, what, what multiple skills exist in the same person. So you know what you're looking for, and then you're going to go and post a job. And at this point you have a pretty good idea of like what skills to post and what job, what salary to pay.

And like you, you, you have a pretty good idea. Um, once you've posted your job. And, and so once you posted your job, you're going to get a whole bunch of applications. So, and depending on the type of position you post for, you could get 200 applications overnight, which is completely reasonable. You can't go through 200 applications, right.

Um, or you can get five or six just depending on the specialty that you're looking for. Um, so my recommendation is the first thing in your job. Post, put something in the middle of it at, or at the end of it that says, as you apply, when you apply, put this in the subject, put something. Um, short term rental application and your name.

That's what I want the subject of your application to be, because then anybody who doesn't follow that instruction, you immediately, you just get rid of them and half the people who apply won't follow that instruction. Right? Yeah. So then, okay. So in addition to that, if you want, like, when you were looking at profiles, you found some really good ones.

So you can, up to this point, you don't have to pay it online. Um, you can post your job. You can get job applications, you can see the applications, you just can't reply to anybody. You can't, you don't get any contacts, the information. So you can see like, oh, is there someone that's legitimate for my position?

Oh yeah. You can see, I have 40 applications here that are legitimate for my position, which is way too many to deal with. But at this point, it's time to pay and it's $70, $69 or $99, depending on. When you've paid, you can also go back and contact people that may have stood out as you were looking at resumes.

Right? So that's another option. You, you post a job and get applications or you practically contact people, whatever. Um, so here's a tip. Do not short list candidates ahead of time. Don't go. As you're looking at candidates, don't like figure out, oh, here's the one I want to hire. That's the wrong approach.

Um, in the Philippines, they're so loyal that if they already have a job, they're likely not even going to respond to you. And just because there's a profile and online jobs, pH doesn't mean they're available for work. Uh, that's like a profile, a resume on indeed.com. So from there, you're going to start interviewing.

So what I say, what I like to say to people is you're not hiring the best person. There is no, the best person there is the best available. Right. So you're going to hire the best person that has applied or that you've contacted. And you're going to do that by starting to interview people. So everybody who responds, who did the subject, correct?

Um, you're going to start asking them questions via email. The first thing to do is not get on a Skype interview with them. Um, that's a mistake. Oh, that's interesting. So yeah, the first thing to do is start responding to people via email and start asking them one to four questions and do that 5, 6, 10 times.

Um, because you're going to get a whole bunch of information as you do this. So you're going to get, you're going to see their attention to detail, right? Like if, if you ask them four questions, they only answer three of them. Well, when you give them four tasks, they're only going to do three of them. And like, for me, in a remote relationship that doesn't work, you get to see their English.

So like their profile may look really great. They may have had a friend help them write their profile. Now when they have to answer 10 different emails across six days, Um, it's hard to have a friend help you respond to each of those. Right? So you'll get a really good idea of their English. You get a good idea of how quick are they?

So if it takes them three days to respond during the recruiting, well, after you've hired them, it's probably going to take them three days to respond and that doesn't work for me. Right. You also get to, you'll get a good idea of like, are there any red flags here? Like, does anything just not sit right?

And if there are then probably best to move on to the next person, So you've done all this. Um, you'll find people will drop out of the recruiting process on their own because they don't want to answer your questions. You'll find that you will drop people out because you don't like the, you don't like their answers.

You'll find some people you're super excited to get a response from others. You're cringing. When you get a response, move on from those people. So at this point, now that you have, so I've, I've talked about trust before. Trust is a really big deal in the Philippines and it starts in the recruiting process.

So now that you've emailed them back and forth, a bunch of times, now's the time to do the Skype interview. If you don't do it this way, here's what's going on. You're going to have 10 potential recruits. You're going to ask them to schedule a Skype interview with you of those 10, five of them will schedule.

And you just lost five because they're scared of doing the Skype interview, uh, of the five-year schedule. Three of them won't show up because they're scared they were willing to schedule it. But then when it came down to actually getting on the interview, they're scared and they don't want to do it. So you have two recruits left and depending on the position that you're hiring for.

It may or may not be important that they actually get on a Skype interview. Now, if they're going to be interacted with, with customers, I'm suggesting it's probably a good idea to like, you want the person competent enough to get on the Skype interview. Otherwise like for a lot of positions, you're hiring a designer, right?

Skyping to me has no bearing on how well they'll do this position. And yet people insist on doing it. And what you're really hiring is the most competent Skype interview, not the best design. That's so true. I didn't even think about that. Um, and, and this is a cultural thing and what the Philippines, where like, they know that they're going to understand you.

They're scared that their English isn't good enough. And I, and I've done, I've done interviews with people like where their English was flawless. Perfect. Amazing. And then I've done stuff where like, I couldn't understand that. And specifically that, that wasn't actually an interview that was talking with one with a programmer that worked for me.

I insisted that I get on the phone with him one time and I could not, I couldn't understand him. His English was so bad and I had no clue. We'd been communicating for probably 18 months through email and his email communication was great. And then I got on the phone. It was like, oh yeah, this isn't working.

But other people I got on the phone with him, I was like, holy crap. Like flawless. Perfect. So at this point in the process, you're going to have a really dang good idea of who to hire if you don't, now's a good time to give a test and what that test is, I don't know. Um, you may give them a test of create a listing for me, here's, you know, do a mock thing.

Um, don't do something live. If the test is going to take them longer than half an hour, pay them for it. You know, I don't know, pay him $20, pay him $10 and give, give it to 10 people and pay him $10. I don't know, but just, just be aware of that. Like having them they're scared about doing a bunch of work and not getting paid for that work.

That's always a concern of theirs. So yeah. That's that's my recruiting process. And at one VA wake-up call my grades a way, way, way more detail on the whole thing. I made way too many mistakes. Now I'm like never going to make those mistakes again. I've done this a lot of times. Like the secret question, I think it was, um, James Wedmore.

Said, when you go in there, put like a secret question kind of hidden in there, you know, ask them for something unique and you'll know when the resumes come back, who read it completely by, you know, answering that question. So I love that, but, but I always jumped right on the right onto a Skype or a zoom call.

And so I'm so glad I got that. Yeah. There was a lot of sense because they're not going to be talking to my people. Face-to-face anyway, and you're right. They're very shy people. So I could be missing out on somebody. Who's like a great customer service person, but just doesn't want to get in front of a camera and who can blame them.

I'm a podcast or, cause I don't like to be in front of a camera. So, and I'll tell you, I'll tell you, I haven't said this yet. I work about 17 hours a week. I've worked about 70 hours a week for more than 10 years now. And. I make a very good seven figure income and my VA's do everything for me. Um, and email takes one minute a, a live interview with someone takes 30 minutes and I'm super productive on my time.

Like I'm going to put the onus on them as far down the process as I can. I'm going to ask a couple of questions, takes me one minute instead of trying to time zones and getting on and. I'll do that at the end, when I need to do it most of the time, I don't do a Skype interview at all, so. Awesome. Okay. So now when you're training them, do you, cause I just tell people, just record what you're doing.

You know, I recorded a loom or you can record it on Camtasia or now Vimeo has a button where you can record your screen. And just record what you're doing. So I'm always like, look, I'm going to show him exactly what to do. And I send that over. Am I doing that wrong? I'm learning right now. Okay. So this, this was the biggest thing that changed my ability to manage more than like three or three or four people.

Because when I, when I started doing screen capture stuff and at the time, so the tools today are so amazing at the time I was using Camtasia, do not use Camtasia for that. So loom is a good one. I use Snagit. Uh, the big deal here is you're going to use a screen capture recording tool that captures a screen, your voice, your mouse, and then the, so the really big deal is that it makes it super, super easy.

To share that video, which can Tasia is not the super easy like Snagit. I know I, I click a button and drag out across my computer, what the area that I want to record. And then I start talking and it recorded my voice and it records my screen and it records my mouse and I can show them exactly what I'm doing when I click stop.

There's one button to click and snag it, uploads it to a server and puts the URL in my clipboard. So all I have to do is click paste and they have seen my screen, my mouse heard my voice. They see exactly what it is that I want them to do. And that, that was like, The biggest, biggest deal. Cause then they can watch it multiple times.

It's not live, I think, slow it down the stopping it this certain point, get it done, you know, continue get it done. Continue screenshot instead of a video and just point an arrow at something. And then add that into an email where I'm typing about it. Like this, this is the biggest, this is how you train people.

This is how I train people in the Philippines. Um, often I'll use often I'll create something more formal, but, um, this is very often how I do art. Perfect. I love this. I love this because I mean that, I think those were the most things that the questions, like you said, when somebody says, ah, I don't know about a virtual assistant.

There are so afraid to take that step and I'm like, look, once you do it, it's know. It is so it's so freeing it, like you said, 17 hours a week. Can you imagine that you guys, I mean, you know, if you're doing, if you're doing short-term rentals right now, and if you're doing it alone, you are, you're doing, I mean, you're always doing most, most of us did when we first got started was you'd wake up, you'd check your phone.

Made sure that there's no requests on. There are messages from people, you know, you, you were so afraid that your phone was going to die because you had to have it now. Do you know what it's like to not have your phone on you, you know, to not have, to be able to check things it's so free and to have just the confidence of knowing that your team is on it.

I think that is the one thing when, when I no offense to America, cause I mean, I was born here. I live here, but my team of VAs, I trust more than the people I hire. Because they will get it done. They like, they won't stop. If something goes wrong, if the chain breaks, they fix the chain, they're on it. And here it's like, um, you you'll have cleaners just not show up or something.

And, and you're like, oh my gosh, how did, how did this happen? How did that place not get cleaned? The people just walked in it. Once you put, I put my VA's on. That never happened because they would make sure that they got the message back from properly. They wanted to see the pictures of the place being clean.

If it wasn't done, they were, they were contacting them saying, did somebody get in there or somebody didn't get in there. And they got another team on it to go in and get it done. And it's amazing to me that they are so persistent. And like you said, the loyalty it's incredible. You have to try virtual assist.

And I honestly, I, I really think it's, I think it's one of the number one things, if not being number one thing that changed my business, do you not agree? Oh, that people ask me all the time. Like what? Okay. So tell me, tell me like the biggest thing that has changed, what you're doing, right? No, I already did like, this is it.

There's a reason I talk about this because it changes. Yeah, everything your whole life will change and you will not believe it. You will not believe it. I'm going to get your book right away and I'm going to send it, mail it to you, and then you can mail it back. I'll assign, but the outsourcing lever.

That's amazing. All right. I think this is perfect. Do you got anything to add anything that we forgot that newbies, you know, Need, uh, I mean, there's so much more that I could cover that. Like we don't have time for. So the, the thing that I always, the thing that I always end with that I, I mentioned this before was it's a leap.

Like it, it takes a leap of faith to do this, like to hire someone, um, is it's a commitment. It's a commitment to them. It's a commitment to yourself. Uh, don't hire someone hourly, hire someone. Uh, they, it will make a big difference. It's a big deal for them to be salaried versus hourly. And it's a big deal for you to have someone a salary.

If you have someone hourly and they're not busy, you don't care. If you have someone salaried and they're not busy, you care. And all of a sudden you're forced to work on your business instead of in your business. Very true, because you're, you're giving them things to do. And as you take that off your plate, you don't even realize what you're doing.

And so this is like, it's, it's a commitment to grow your business. Um, and, and it's like a forced commitment. It's not like a, a mastermind. That's going to give you more things to do or a product that's going to give you more than this is like, I'm going to get something off of my plate, but I'm making a commitment to do that.

And I'm going to quote you on it's a commitment for your business and it, it takes. Like, so it took me two months to make that leap. You know, some, some of you, it's going to take six months now. Uh, some of you are going to do it today. You know, I, I get an email every day from someone that says, I just wish I would have done this sooner every day.

Every time, every time, every time somebody does it, that's so true. Oh my gosh, thousands, we have thousands of active employers on online jobs. And every day I get something like that. Oh my gosh. I got so lucky. My VA's amazing. No, you didn't need a lucky. Um, oh, I just wish I found out about you eight months ago.

I just wish I would've done this sooner. Like yeah. So go, go take the leap, hire someone and see if this works for you, because I will tell you this doesn't work for every. Doesn't work for everybody. Wow. I would honestly, I've never heard of any do it and not have fun. Just have it not be the most freeing experience you've ever had.

Yeah. It's like grandparenting, you know, it's like the kids. So like the commitment,

if you're the kind of person that has zero tolerance for something being wrong or a zero tolerance for. Teaching something twice, like, well, you know, I mean, they're not going to do it right the first time. Yeah. And yeah. So if you have zero tolerance for that, like, okay, well, this isn't for you. Try it and see, but, you know, and I think that's a part of moving, um, working for water Kiyosaki all those years.

We have the cashflow quadrant. So you have the east side and the S side. So the employee, and self-employed moving over from that side to the business owner and investor and doing that, you have to take off the S the self-employed people do everything themselves. You know, they're Superman, I've got to be the one who does this.

I've got to be the one who does that. It does. It's never done right. If I don't do it, and you have to be willing to let that go. To really be successful in your business because, you know, I hate to tell you and I, and I think you can probably vouch for this. Do you not find that as an entrepreneur in a business and especially in a small business, when you're doing everything yourself, you think you're doing everything.

Perfect and exactly right. And, and you, you know, like no one can do it like me, but you're wearing so many hats. You're spinning so many plates that you're not doing anything a hundred percent. You can't be because you are doing way too much to do any one thing, a hundred percent. You think you are. And suddenly you think, well, no one can do it like me.

And you're like, you're right. They're not going to do it. They'll probably end up doing it better than you. And if they don't and if they don't, at least they're doing it. And there's other things that you need to be doing. Right. And that's what frees up your time. You can spend your time duplicating and the processes that actually create more income for you and your family and really move you forward.

So I love this. This is honestly the biggest and best subject in short term rentals that I think there is. I think this is what moves people forward in the duplication process. This will be if you only implement one thing out of the whole summit, I think that grabbing yourself your first virtual assistant will be the one thing that I hope that everyone implements it's that important?

It's that important? It's your life. And I am so grateful too, for your time and for this interview, because honestly, like I said, you are the go-to site. This is probably, you know, bar none, the number one site to go to online jobs.page. Everyone knows it. And there's a reason why you built a wonderful, wonderful resource for people to change their lives.

I mean, the lives you're impacting is amazing. I'm also. What a wonderful thing. Wonderful thing, and a true blessing. I think that's true. Blessing. Yeah. So I'm super grateful for you and, uh, thank you so much for joining me today. It's been great. Thanks for having me. Thanks again for listening guys. And online jobs stopped pH the one VA away.com go there and then grab the outsourcing levels.

Because $7 shipping and handling the AWS thing. If you ha, if you want to grab it there on Amazon, but get that book and this will change your life. Okay. That was John. I want to be his best friend forever because boy, I'll tell you just a really, really nice guy and so smart, so much information. His book was really, really great.

I loved it when I went online, because he has that, he's a warrior for Christ on there. And so we had a great conversation off the air about Christ and it was amazing. It's amazing to be in business with other Christians and being able to talk about. Your religion, your journey, you know, give your testimony of what has happened in your life and stuff.

And John, just a really great family guy, a great businessman, and a very fair employer who absolutely loves people in the Philippines and his employees there. So thank you so much, Sean, for your interview. I really appreciate it. Friday, we're going to continue on with the ABCs of acquisitions in the short-term rental revenue replays.

But Monday we've got a brand new episode with Dana young, from virtual concierge and you are going to, oh, this product is so cool. Cool. You can use your Alexa or your Google. What is it called? Hey, Google or whatever. Right. You can use either of those products inside your BNB. The way Dana has it set up is incredible.

So you've got to listen to this episode next week. It's going to teach you a lot about virtual concierge and all the things it can do, including grabbing live real-time reviews, which are more like testimonials. So it's going to be fantastic. It's going to change things. It's going to change the industry.

It really, really. So I can't wait for you to hear our interview with Dana next week. So stay tuned for that. And thank you so much for listening. God bless you. Have a great day. Go and grow.