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John Jonas and I spent several months trying to connect to get this interview done, but it was worth the wait.
I was referred to him via Adam Short from Niche Profit Classroom as a guy who has a unique insight into a particular type of outsourcing online – in this case, hiring people specifically from the Philippines.
Why the Philippines? Well, there are many reasons, most of which John outlines in this interview, and by the end of it, I’m sure you will be rushing to look into this method yourself.
This is a really, really good podcast interview. It’s one of those discussions where the person being interviewed is willing to share the exact steps used to get something done. If you have ever considered doing any outsourcing online to help grow your business, listen to this call.
Outsourcing Is Not Always Easy
I’ve been telling people to “outsource” for many years, and unfortunately, a lot of people come back to me with stories about how difficult it is to find quality contractors.
Common wisdom with outsourcing is that you go to a site like upwork.com, guru.com or freelancer.com, submit a job and then attempt to find the best person to get the project done. This can work, but it’s hit and miss and in most cases, you have to go through some “bad” experiences before you get to the good people.
John Jonas has a different system, one that focuses on hiring people full time at very affordable rates, and then establishing a long-term relationship that’s more like an outsourced employee than an odd job contractor, who only works with you when you have a project on.
When I say a relationship with his outsourcers, John well and truly trusts his people. He’s willing to give them access to his hosting accounts and even his Paypal account. There’s a lot of trust required to be that comfortable letting other people, especially people in another country far away, have control over pretty much everything in your business.
If you’re curious how John can do this, listen to the interview and you will find out how.
Show Notes
- How John started off and was able to quit his job thanks to online marketing
- How he first found out about outsourcing to the Philippines
- Why John stopped using elance type sites and instead started hiring full time
- John explains an entire case study of how he had his outsourcers set up an entire income stream that they manage without him
- Why John is able to trust his outsourcers with every aspect of his business
- What website options are available for outsourcing to the Philippines
- John takes us through an example of how to locate a Philippino worker using the website he uses to find good people
- We discuss the ethical concerns of hiring a full time worker for as little as $200 a month
- What John teaches in his ReplaceMyself.com website
Want To Outsource To The Philippines?
If you’re interested in doing what John does, and getting access to more training materials and his system you can use to train your outsourcers once you hire them, check out John’s site, ReplaceMyself.com.
John spends much of his time helping to outsource the way he does because he enjoys it, and since so much of his business is outsourced already, he has the time to do so. If you want his help, check out –
Yaro
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Wow.
I’ve been looking into outsourcing for many months, and it all seemed so complicated, and there was always the concern about quality.
There were so many questions of trust and such that I just couldn’t answer.
And getting a quality professional is usually very expensive.
This audio was just what I needed. Thanks Yaro and John.
And adding the ethical concerns part really rounded out most of my questions. So all I have to say is thanks!
I know what you mean friend. I used to find it very hard to find good outsourcers myself. From my experience I can tell that outsourcing to countries such as the phillipines or india may not always be worth it.
You see, it depends on your tasks. I usually hire people from the phillipines to take care of my graphic designs and/or coding. Some of them are really good at this. But for article writing, I hire native english speakers. It’s expensive I know, but it’s much better that way.
Cheers,
& Nice post BTW
Johnny
It all sounds fantastic. Just sit back on the white sands of Boracay and let some poor exploited pinoy/pinay do all those irksome tasks for you. Only problem is, you better be careful if you’re hiring them for article writing, blogging etc. Now we know that Google doesn’t always pay too much attention to grammar, syntax etc… But the potential audience you’re trying to reach just might. Especially if English happens to be their first language. Don’t believe me? Go to http://www.onlinejobs.ph ( one of the sites Mr. Jonas mentions on his $99.00 per month membership site ) and check out the work samples of some of the good folks there seeking article writing assignments in the West. The example of the article on baby blankets is a gem. And these are from job seekers that are highly recommended with ‘Majors’ in the English language. If that’s the best they’ve got, I’d hate to think what the rest are like. Although, having said that, if you’re looking for article writers in Tagalog, this could be just what the doctor ordered..
I currently use a lot of individuals to help with my internet tasks. I’m looking forward to listening to the mp3. Hope to learn something new.
Thanks Yaro and John.
Phil
Trust me, mean the guy. I almost bought his product several months ago, he is really very professional. I have watched one of hiis video in niche profit classroom.com, he has introduced what, where, how and why you need outsourcing. I think that he is really a genius. Work for several hours per week, but make a quite good money, I can’t believe it.
That is great of his course.
honestly I feel that this guy lacks credibility. the sum total of the interview is that you can hire filipinos. he has less than 10 products, five of which are produced in the last few months, and he claims six figures from them – his ebooks must dominate clickbank for that to be true. he cant remember whether his good example of filipinos being proactive relates to article marketing as it was a while ago, yet on the other hand he says that he has these positive experiences all the time. he can even remember whether two of his 10 products are profitable.
i am not a hater, and i rarely feel driven to publish negative comments, but these are my honest feelings on a weak interviewee with little to indicate that he walks the walk.
my guess is that replacemyself.com is what he hopes will make him cash.
what do others think?
Well, I have never tried this, but I think that it is a good try if you hire a Filipino. We both know that it is very expensive to hire an American or Englishman although they all speak perfect English. I think that if you want to outsource, the people in Philippines would be your best choice, because they don’t need your to pay so high like Americans, and they also could speak good English, this is really rare in English-speaking countries, am I right :)?
I rarely comment on blog posts, but I have to agree to your post. 😀 Majority of Filipinos speak very good English. Not only they do speak good English, but they can write very good articles as well (and I mean excellent grammar). You should hire one. I know, I have 3 Filipino writers who chunk out 30 excellent articles per day.
I agree completly with you.
Yaro asks:
“why did you need to hire someone, what were you doing that you were generating enough money to justify hiring someone” J
John Jonas response:
I can’t remember…..WTF? yea im making 6 figures but i forgot what I was doing. He completly avoided the question. Just another bs marketer. Sorry for the hate, just calling like i see it.
Yaro is a great interviewer, but this John Jonas guy is impossible to get in depth info from for free. This is the 3rd interview I’ve heard him do and he always leaves me hanging and disappointed that I ever bothered to listen. His info is not new to me, but I do think that the concept of outsourcing is valuable. Even though I won’t waste anymore time if I happen upon another interview with him, I’m still not opposed to buying his products; mainly because the guys at Niche Profit Classroom vouch for him and I tried their site and was very pleased with it. It’s more likely though, that I’ll find a Rich Schefren product on outsourcing instead; even if it does end up costing me more. Thanks for trying Yaro, I know you saw through the bull, but just couldn’t say anything, lol.
@disappointed – What kind of “in depth” info do you want from me? I don’t purposefully hold anything back in interviews like this.
Someone once said that a poem that only has 3 good lines should only be 3 lines long. I listened for an hour and all I got was “outsource to this country”. Look, I understand the concept of teaching the *what* for free and charging for the *how*,, but in Yaro’s interviews I’m used to getting more actionable info. It’s nothing personal.
Oh, and I was especially annoyed at being taken step by step through something that isn’t even available in my country. That’s where my “bull” comment came in. I’m done commenting on this. Namaste.
Work is outsourced to me and I oursource work outside. I find this interview to be the answer to all naysayers who claim that outsourcing is difficult. Yes, Philipines is a great place to oursource work.
Hi,
I am really looking forward to hearing about people’s results with these ideas. I was exposed to John Jonas many months ago and my results were truly a mixed bag i.e.
I went to bestjobs.ph ( these were the days that the site was not going through its current turmoil), created the scripts and followed his process to the best of my ability. Within 24 hours I had new employees.
However, after working full time using his ideas for a month all I managed to get were really flaky workers ( which is weird, considering the fact that the Phillipinos I know in real life are the furthest thing from it and actually personify the characteristics he talks about).
I probably blew through about 10 staff (and maybe 10 more who never made it to the first day or barely made it before dropping out) in PHP programming, VA and transcription fields over a period of somewhere between a month and two months.
What I came out with, that is rarely emphasized, but is really powerful, were great employment contracts, work conditions, high leverage ways to hire ( e.g. hire the friends of your qualified staff member, conditions such as requiring a daily summary of work done).
Eventually I ended up on Elance and I managed to hire an Indian team for $4 an hour who were much more reliable and professional than anyone I found in Phillipines and stuck with them for a couple of months before letting them go simply because the project I was working on had come to an end. Oddly enough later on I hired another 2 Indian teams who were also quite reliable and worked quite well as a result of scripts developed through John Jonas work.
As I said I would love to hear other people’s results and compare notes.
Cheers,
Tony Mwangi
Outsourcing is definitely extremely valuable and affordable. I would NOT be able to accomplish half of what I’ve accomplished if I didn’t outsource. When I first started online, I tried to do everything myself, got a lot done, and was extremely burnt out. Then I realized that when I used some of my profits to outsource, my business changed.
The Philippines is definitely a great place to find people. They generally do great work, are great with English and very affordable, from what I’ve found so far.
I’ve just downloaded the interview and am going to be listening to it throughout the day 🙂
My experience with outsourcing is that finding the right person or people with whom to develop a productive long term relationship is critical.
Finding such people can be very time consuming.
Dave I fully agree with you, Back when my parents owned a super market, in part the failure of the business was because of the employees. We found out that several of our employees stole from the business, since we didn’t have reliable employees it definitely hindered the performance of the business.
Till then,
Jean
Outsourcing is a cost effective way to run many businesses, but predominantly work that is related to web programming can be sufficiently done off-shore. I have used sub-contractors in the Phillipines and prefer them to those of India. Most speak American English with little or no accent at all, and have an excellent work ethic and most of all, they are trust worthy.
– New York Legal Eagle
A friend of mine has recently released a product called source control, it has some really good advice and tools to help create systems behind your outsourcing. Employing someone regularly is very desirable jumping from one to another on elance will get frustrating and be very time consuming.
Hi Dan
Do you have a link to this product?
Thanks
Phil
I think the biggest hassle I have to deal with when it comes to outsourcing is that of trying to organise all my contractors so that they all know what to do, at the right time and in conjunction with one another.
Funny… Finding John Jonas a while back and hiring 2 full-time people in the Philippines has been gold for me. It really does take all the grunt work out of your day.
it is interesting that John chooses to focus on the Philippines. Outsourcing to overseas countries is a great way to get quality work done for a low price. The money you pay them is worth a lot more in their country. It can be a struggle to weed through low quality freelancers to find the good ones. When you do find good outsourced employees, it is extremely beneficial. I highly recommend outsourcing if you are trying to expand your business.
Outsourcing is definitely the way forward in this business. I am fairly new to outsourcing, but like you say, trying to find decent people on rentacoder and the like is a nightmare!
I have recently found someone that is ok (just ok!) for writing articles, but wouldn’t like to trust them with much more than that…
This could be an option to look at in the future 🙂
Thanks for the great post!
Talk soon,
Paul
Wow, this was really great it open my eyes to a possible solution to my biggest problem right now. Time, and not having enough of it to do what I need to do. Seems like I need to do this so I can stop working in the business and start working on the business.
For less then $400 a month I can have a full time employee and really increase amount of work that gets done by x4. Looks like I will have to start to explore this more.
THANK YOU!:-)
How do you feel about the virtual assistance services that are recommended in the 4 hour work week? Seem to be more in line with what John is doing.
We hire a Filipino here, and it was a huge task sniffing out the quality. Really worth it in the end, though. He’s a lifesaver.
I certainly have some ixed emotions regarding this video, Yaro and John. As an American living full time in the Philippines for four years now (and doing business here) I found the information John is promulgating a big inconsistent. From a general content point of view I never would have listened to the end if the subject didn’t include the Philippines … because John’s “laid back” attitude toward what he is doing, what makes money and what loses, etc. is disconcerting.
Turning over the ‘keys’ to your entire business is a suicidal gesture here in the Philippines or in any country I can think of … bad people exist in every society. Proper business management practice includes checks and balances against theft, fraud or just plain dumb mistakes, no matter what the nationality of your employees.
I have way to much info to put into a comment, so I will write a post or two on my own blog, and I’ll see if I can put together an honest review of John’s “system” as it reflects real-world Philippine conditions.
I will say this in the spirit not of hating, but of keeping people out of court/jail. The reasons foreigners may be excluded from recruiting Filipinos via web sites may have distinct legal ramifications.
Illegal job recruitment and fraud is a BIG problem in the Philippines and the Philippine government is very interested in the problem, protecting their citizens from scams, and the laws of what is legal online in the Philippines may not be the same as what is leagl in the USA, Australia, etc.
Just make sure your recruitment activities are 100% in compliance with Philippine law and your home country law … certain activities of foreigners in the Philippines are very tightly controlled … when you operate in a foreign country yopu are governed by the law oftat country and niot the laws of your home country … nuff said.
“John’s “laid back” attitude toward what he is doing, what makes money and what loses, etc. is disconcerting.”
To me it suggests that it is not real. He doesn’t have any depth, any value add, any concrete examples. All he says is I outsource, it works great. If I was going to pay for someone’s product to advise me on outsourcing I would need to see a lot more evidence that they have successfully executed – i know outsourcing works, but I would only pay an expert on advice on best practice.
John’s advice is that you just hire a team to implement Niche Profit Classroom and watch the money role in. He is selling a dream – I prefer to be grounded in reality.
Yaro, there has got to be many many more people willing to ACTUALLY share information that don’t just say “oh I don’t remember what I was doing but I was making loads of cash, ha ha”.
I know you use various techniques of outsourcing and contractors in your own business/s.. I (and I’m sure others) would much prefer you tell us about your own experiences and embed your affiliate links in there saying what products you got what kind of information from.
Actually, he teaches a ton of great tactics for managing outsourcing.
You might want to actually check out his products before you come to a conclusion.
He has 7 full-time people and definitely has a lot to teach from experience.
John’s team launched a software product a while ago all by themselves while John was away from the business tending to a family emergency… and made close to $2,000,000. He’s not selling the dream, he’s living it… and teaches you how.
I feel blessed I found John’s guidance because it’s changed the way I do business forever.
I’m not really at the stage to outsource yet, but Its definitely something I plan to do in the not so distant future.
Thanks for the free download of the podcast, Yaro. I’ll be sure to listen to it soon and take notes.
I can’t believe this guy lets these people into his Paypal account though, that’s not something I will be doing.
Paul.
My name is Bob Martin, and I am an American who has lived in the Philippines for nearly 10 years now. I am a strong supporter of the Philippines, and of Filipino people. I am also an Internet Entrepreneur. I have e-commerce businesses, websites that make money from content, I write eBooks, lots of streams of income, all of which are Internet Related. I make my living 100% on the Internet, and have for a decade now.
I am really sorry to say, but this fellow simply is living in a dream world. I have had many, many Filipino employees over the past decade. There is one person, only one, who has worked for me, whom I would consider a really good employee. I’ve had a lot of mediocre employees in that time. But, a lot of the things that John Jonas says about the “culture of the Philippines” are simply grossly inaccurate.
I was excited to hear this interview, given that I am a long term resident of the Philippines. What a disappointment, though. I wish I didn’t have to say that…..
I felt like there was some exaggerating on John’s part. His website blogs post don’t match up exactly to his words in the recording. I also don’t like he reffered to them as “my phillipinos” on his blog. It sounds like he owns them!
I also feel if someone is making large profits from cheap labour, that they need to reward their staff more than just a wage. Give them large bonuses when projects are finished, let them reap some of the reward…I mean basically they are making you rich, so how can you walk away know that you are making like 10-20 times more than them?
Like Lychee I was also very put off by the “My Filipino” comments. These are people, not a breed of dogs or something else the people who consider themselves superior “own”.
I wrote about this on my own blog and am presently writing a second article after listening to Mr. Jonas’ own promo podcast. First of all, and I certainly agree with Bob Martin above, Mr. Jonas displays what seems to me a shocking lack of knowledge about the Philippines in general. His statements remind me of someone writing about the US or Australia having never visited there, having their history all wrong, and basing his entire assumptions on a whole country and people upon a very isolated experience.
Those of us who live here in the Philippines and are “in the trenches” on a daily basis know the actual facts, and many would have been happy to contribute in advance to help make this offering something which was a bit closer to reality.
Oh….and also John is a programmer so he knows what to look for. He’s more likely to find the right developers, compared to those that have no IT background.
So don’t assume it will be easy to just hire a developer OS and everything will be hunky dory. I think it’s all trial and error and there will be a lot errors along the way.
Great!!!! My next podcast for tomorrows walk. Yes Hiring in the Philippines is a great way to get stuff written in good English, for much less than it would cost here in the US. Some people may say some things about that and the price but the way I see it is we are helping them to improve their standard of living. Or we could not hire them and then they struggle. Which is the lesser of two evils?
Larry C.
Jonas tells us in an email message, “Inside ReplaceMyself.com you’ll get access to the exact place that I used to hire both of those $100/month people. That tip alone is worth at least $500/month for the rest of your life. With a ReplaceMyself.com subscription, you’ll be able to hire people for less than $250/month.”
I really think that this guy has nothing to sell other than say “outsourcing is great, hire here”.
OK anyway, I wish Jonas all the best in making lots of money. I am not going to comment any further. His product is not right for me, but maybe it will be the spark that some people need so I wish him and his customers all the best! Also, since I have not purchased his product I should not speculate further on what it might contain.
Good luck to everyone in their MMO endeavors!
Trust is the key player in outsourcing ventures… and it always a handy.. that’s why people uses guru, elance and all. However the trust that John shows towards his employees is really appreciable… and risky too… because I don’t think I’ll ever be able to give away my hosting and PayPal detail to a person shores away. I mean this is like bringing your business at stake.
Hey Yaro and John, thank you so much for sharing this valuable information! It was great timing for me to hear this because I’m at the point in my business where outsourcing and hiring more people pretty much needs to take place asap. You’ve been a great help and I appreciate it! 🙂 Thanks again!
Katie
All who have commented,
Thanks for the feedback on the interview I did with Yaro. I really appreciate it.
I can totally understand why you would think that I’m too laid back with my attitude towards this. I probably am. That’s part of my personality. I’ve found it works for me.
I’ve also found that being a bit more laid back helps me distance myself from the work that’s going on in my business. Honestly, I would say that’s one of the bigger reasons for my success over the years. The fact that I can give something to someone and completely forget about it and trust them to get it done. I really try to not micro-manage things. It really frees me to think about the more important things in my business, instead of trying to juggle all the things other people are doing for me.
As for me not remembering some things (what I was working on, what task I had given, …), I can understand why that would make you think I’m not legit. It’s understandable now that I think about it. It makes me sound like I’m making stuff up.
The reality is that I actually didn’t remember some of the time frames and exactly what I had given people, in the moment when Yaro asked. If you want to know now, I can tell you some of the business I was doing was massive “traffic equalizer” stuff back in the day. Also keywordtopia.com and undercoverprofits.com were a few others.
To this day I don’t actually remember what was the exact project I had given one of my guys where he went and significantly improved upon it. What the task was isn’t the point of that story. The point is, he went and improved on it.
I know it sounds vague, but it actually happened, and it’s probably a bi-weekly occurrence in my business.
I know you can’t please everyone all the time. I know outsourcing the way I do it isn’t right for everyone, but it is right for a lot of people. That’s why I teach the whole thing for free. I really try not to hold anything back from this so people can decide for themselves if it’s right for them. If my stuff (ReplaceMyself.com) isn’t right for you, I totally understand. That’s why I didn’t give you a hyped up sales pitch without teaching you anything.
The only thing I would encourage people who have doubts is to at least give it a try. No, outsourcing to the Philippines isn’t a magic bullet. It’s not going to solve all your problems. It is still a business that you have to run and be sensible about. The Philippines just gives you a much better shot at success than anywhere else I’ve ever seen.
Thanks,
John Jonas
John don’t worry about it. I think people are just lazy (me included.) They want somebody to do the outsourcing for them. All you should need to say is “Outsource to the Philippines”, if they can’t handle if from there then they don’t deserve it.
Wow, what a great listen. I am now at the point where I can outsource but I am happy I know where to look when the time comes. Thanks Yaro and John.
I am shocked see John Jonas here and great to see his success. About 2003, I came across his website. At that time he was inviting and paying people to write articles for him to publish. That was very smart. I considered but didn’t do it. I was just too careful. I recognise him by his son’s unique smile. Today he is a big success & I have just started blogging for 3 months after attending Yaro’s courses. I may be a bit late but I’m really glad I didn’t wait further. I’m so thankful to Yaro & Gideon for their amazing courses to help me fulfil my blogging dream and started off well. I still have a lot to learn and all these are such an inspiration to me. I’m looking forward to be a success too.
Wow, great interview. With outsourcing like that there’s no limit to what he can do!
He made it all sound so easy but I’m sure its a bit more difficult in the beginning. And I’d have a hard time handing over my credit cards and bank account to anyone.
Mike Collins,
You’re right, it’s not quite as easy as I made it sound…but it’s not that much harder either.
I think there’s 2 keys to it:
1. realize that you’re making an investment in the person you hire. Spend time with them. Train them. Let them know they have a long term job so they’re willing to work hard to figure stuff out. The person you hire doesn’t know how to run your business when they start with you.
2. realize that this isn’t a magic bullet solution. This is still running a business. The great thing is, this is a 10x cheaper way to run your business than what most people do.
John
As a Filipino and full time freelancer, I’m happy to read through all the comments posted and I must say, if you are outsourcing to the Philippines, you are making a sound choice. Some may not have good experience outsourcing in my country but I am pretty sure that the positive outweighs the downside of it. You can get great writers, virtual assistants (which i am one of), programmers, PA’s, telemarketers to name a few. If you want to thrive in this kind of economic situation, outsourcing, in the Philippines can be your best arsenal of getting both quality results and your money’s worth.
ok, I am going to comment and probably have to bite my tongue so I will be nice. I listened to this on my walk the other day as I commented above, and I got a bit irked. Actually I got really irked. I am not sure that I got Irked at jon, but I just got irked at the whole internet marketing crowd in general. Even though I am an internet marketer, I sometimes feel that most IMers have less than great morals and that’s all I am going to say about that.
Now I enjoyed some of the things that Jon talked about, and got irked at others, but I also learned a few things at the same time. Part of the reason I listened to this was because I have been thinking more and more that I need to hire someone to clear off my plate. I have SO MUCH on my plate it is not funny, and if I had a writer I could maybe get some things done and actually be MORE productive.
After listening to the podcast I went to great jobs and saw the blurb, then I tried using a proxy server to get around the blurb, but I couldn’t find one that would work. So I went to Craigs list Manilla and I posted an ad, and I have gotten so many resumes I had to take the ad down.
I hired one Female Philippino, and one American female. I am paying more for the America, and I am paying much much less for the Philippina. The Philippina if very happy to be working and making money, yet so is the American. I also googled “philippino blog” and found several job boards and forums in the PI. which I posted an ad and had a flood of resumes yet again.
Anyway you don’t need to go to Jons place to hire PI outsourcing, however what he has to offer in training is good, but I think that most PI people who are in this industry already know how to do much of the stuff already.
IDK, just my .02.
At the end of the day you have to weigh up “quality” versus “cost” versus “your budget”.
If outsourcing to the Phillipines and India was the magic bullet then there would not be any thriving solutions in other more developed countries.
360 Digital Performance is based in Australia and we provide outstanding value for money and synergy for all USA based clients.
The reason why many people do not have an outsourcing strategy is because many do not know what it really involves. Outsourcing occurs when a business or individual contracts an offshore provider in order to perform some of their business tasks. Very simply, it involves hiring someone not part of your business to do tasks that require specialized skills or are not cost effective to do in-house.
Hi,
I just started reading your posts and they really give you a different perspective! I can personally relate to the outsourcing part because I have been outsourcing to India for quite a time now.
I guess the key to hiring the right team is to make sure that you give them test projects in the beginning. I have also felt that my outsourcing team works best when I provide them with ALL the instructions!
Great job by the way!
Yasir
Thanks for the great interview, Yaro.
Outsourcing is a very effective way to push your business to the next level. I have over 10 website and I have to outsource a lot of work. I give the work to my study collegues. They need the money and I need their skills. For example a lot of content creating work.
Cheers,
Volksphone!
I am a freelancer from the Philippines and after listening to the audio cast and reading all your comments, I thought you might be interested to read from the perspective of a Filipino employee.
Most of what Jon said about us are true but a lot must be taken with a grain of salt.
Yes, most of us normally go the extra mile to do our job. We’ll do research, learn new things for you, take the initiative to do something if we think it’ll have better outcomes. We want to work for happy clients and we know that clients will be happy when we exceed their expectations. If you know how to treat us well (meaning treat us other than just ‘your Filipinos’), we know how to reciprocate.
Yes, we can be loyal and trustworthy. We value our client’s trust because we understand that in an online job community, our reputation is vital and is often built on feedback and recommendations given by previous employers. We break your trust, we risk our career. But I cannot attest that all Filipino employees can be trusted fully esp with accounts relating to money. It’s just too risky to put that much trust in anybody, regardless of where he’s from.
On the subject of loyalty, I agree with Jon on some points. Yes, we tend to stick to a job, but only if we feel that we’re being compensated fairly. You can hire a Filipino to work for you for as low as $1/hour, but you can’t expect him to work with that rate for more than a year. Yes, a long-term job sounds good to us, but a long-term slavery is another thing. We, of course, want to climb up the steps and improve our living condition. We simply cannot subsist on a meager pay out of loyalty to the person who’s giving us a job. (But I can tell you, some do.)
If Jon was able to hire employees on a $200-monthly-salary for more than a year, then he is a lucky guy. But maybe, what he didn’t know is that his ‘Filipinos’ are accepting other smaller projects outside their jobs because what he’s paying them is just not enough. $200 doesn’t mean a lot here especially if we factor in all the bills that we need to pay. It’s very common for Filipino freelancers to take 2-4 online jobs at a time and spend as much as 16 hours of work in a day in order to earn decently. Still, a lot of us are grateful. I know of one Filipina Virtual Assistant who was so happy because she got a 5th online job. And this is despite the fact that it means less than 4 hours of sleep everyday.
We’re not culturally loyal, but we’re generally grateful. And it doesn’t mean that you’re improving our lives by paying us $200/month. It only means that you’re paying us $200.
On the $400 PHP progammer/graphic artist. I used to work as Visual Basic 6 Programmer for a local company here and was receiving around $600/month. In the programming arena, a VB6 programmer belongs to the lowest end of the spectrum. A PHP programmer can command a higher rate (the real good ones with more than 5 years of experience range from $800-$1000/month). So why would someone accept $400 when he can earn more elsewhere? One factor that I see is because the Philippine Government puts taxes on everything. With a $600 salary, they deduct about $200 so I’m left with just $400. But the beauty of working from home for a freelance programmer is he can accept the $400/month salary, knowing that he can also take smaller projects on the side because he has more time on his hands.
$400/month for a bachelor is good enough, but if he’s a married guy with a family to feed and take care of, $400 is hardly enough.
So again, yes you’re giving us jobs. But no, it doesn’t mean you’re improving our lives. If we take only $200-$400/month, we’ll have enough to get by but not enough to have a comfortable lifestyle.
But a lot of Filipinos will still be grateful because we consider any paying jobs as blessings to be thankful for.
I’ve nothing against Jon Jonas. I’m sure the Filipinos working for him are staying for a reason, and that Jon has helped them in one way or the other. I’m just showing you the other side of the coin, our side. And of course, I’m partial to Filipino online workers, because I am one of them. You just might need to weed out a few mediocre to find the good ones. But if find you them, treat them nicely =)
I’m also surprised that oDesk.com was not mentioned as a good place for outsourcing jobs. oDesk has a great tool to monitor your online employees and make sure that you’re paying only for the time that they’ve worked. You don’t pay monthly but by the hour. It’s what I use to find jobs online and I can attest that it’s ‘safer’ for both the employee and the employer. (and if you want to help me, you can put my id (snuque) on the referral field. i’ll get $50 for every $1000 paid or earned by my referrals. only if you want to help. if not, it’s okay).
Thanks! Got to go back to my work now, my client is waiting for my deliverables. =)
Shinta
Shinta – Thank you very much for your long comment, it really helps to clarify the situation from someone who is actually living there.
I’m pleased a post like this can educate people from all sides of the parties involved. I appreciate you taking the time to write. It’s made me think about how I will outsource in the future.
Hi Shinta,
I agree with you.
I’m also from the Philippines and my business is hooking employers with possible employees. I use guru.com and elance.com to find customers and local ads to find employees. Regardless of what work involved, for example virtual assistant, writers, transcribers etc. I do not bid on projects that has a budget of $2-3 per hour. I usually bid on projects with $5 or more budget.
You will notice if you have been in this business for a very long time already, like me I started doing since the year 2000, that fair employers pay their employees fairly and $1-$2 is not fair.
Thanks,
Fran
I couldn’t agree more. I was about to write a long comment here to correct all the misinformation and\ misinterpretations about hiring Filipinos online shared here by Mr. Jason, but Shinta’s well-written comment already has a lot more than I could say.
Mr Jonas, I mean. Not Mr. Jason.
That was a GREAT intro to anyone looking to outsource. Sure, there are pitfalls to watch out for, but it can save a lot of time, headaches and money if you’re able to get things setup the right way.
This is just what i’ve been looking for. I have so many different projects going on at the moment and i’ve been looking to outsource for a while. The problem i’ve found is that you need someone who is:
1. reliable
2. cheap
Otherwise the cost of the outsourcing just doesnt compensate for the return. But for $200 a month full time, well… cant go wrong really!
$200 for a full time month is pretty good! I been tempted to use those something of fortune guys but they are around $600
Cheers!
Six months ago, I used John’s ideas and hired an attorney from outside the United States. She works half time and does an excellent job. Outsourcing isn’t tough, but it takes someone like John to explain the steps and where to get started.
Hey Yaro, I’m from the Philippines. And we are not Philippino we are Filipinos. 🙂
Yeah – remember Writing Up – I was on it for 2 years until it shut down and I never got any of my blogs back. Not only did I now make nearly as much as they said because people were clicking google ads left and right but I lost all my blogs. I wouldn’t believe a word this jerk has to say let alone give him $100 – that is how he is making money….he selling crappy information and stupid people are buying it!
I agree that elance is clearly bad. I havent’ tried hiring people in the philippines but it seems very interesting! Thanks for the interview Yaro…
What made me feel amazed about the outsourcing secrets is the less expense yet leveraged time in the business while also taking time for yourself. I used this strategy as I also wanted to spend my personal time while checking on my business as well. Also, I got this idea from a blogger who emailed me about the easy ways of outsourcing which can be found at: http://www.massoutsource.com
It has free videos all can be accessed through this Australian guy’s website which also gave me an inspiration to bring back the success of my business in the long run.
I think the biggest hassle I have to deal with when it comes to outsourcing is that of trying to organise all my contractors so that they all know what to do, at the right time and in conjunction with one another.
Great info! I’m inspired by the transparency of the processes that success stories provide.
On a side note, may I add that it’s “Filipinos” not “Phillipinos”. 🙂
A week ago I was really intimidated by the idea of hiring someone oversees, or just hiring someone at all. Now I can’t understand why everyone doesn’t do it.
Great insight on how to use outsourcing effectively. There is a risk involved, however, which is why sometimes it is better to outsource to people within the United States that you can even meet face-to-face. It is a different form of outsourcing, but still effective. Take something like hiring a company for link building services, for example. This is still somewhat considered outsourcing to build up your company’s website, but it is much less risky and more effective.
I’ve listened to John’s stuff and think he’s got some good advice. If I can hire a guy for 5x less than in the US, this may be worth looking into.
Outsourcing can really save you money and can bring you a high quality product. I personally had a good experience outsourcing. I had few websites done by a good guy in Russia and wonderful articles written by a lady from South Africa. Haven’t worked with Filipinos though, but I think they should be good because they have good English. A lot of big companies bring there call centers there.
Wonderful resources right here. I’ll be back for the next your posting. maintain writing and happy blogging.
Yes outsourcing maybe a good solution especially when small business is starting to pick up. But still you need to be careful on who to deal with.
I have been there and know the hassle of dealing with outsourcing.
Thanks Yaro and John for sharing this interesting information. It’s always nice to listen to a person who is willing to share the exact steps used to get something done. I’m the owner of an office cleaning company and there was a time when I was thinking about an outsourcing, but couldn’t actually find useful information about it. Now I have trained and professional full time stuff that lives in the Seattle area, where we provide our services.
We write a lot of articles but I usually hire from places like elance.com, and it is always hit and miss. Hiring writers from outside of the US is almost always cheaper, but there are often issues with grammar, etc., and we end up re-writing a lot of material. I haven’t hired anyone from the Philippines, though, and it might be worth trying that. Quality is really key for us.
Being a professional marketing consultant, I do not agree with outsourcing your marketing to other countries just because you get a deal! There are so many other more important aspects to marketing, internet marketing and search engine marketing that someone “even US based people” just don’t get. Go ahead and try it for a while then contact someone like me to clean up the mess and get you the results you were after in the first place.
Outsourcing is a blessing, especially to those who are just starting a business and need quality work done at an affordable rate. I’ve outsourced some marketing and I have to say that it really depends on the country you pick. Some countries have become more Americanized and will produce a product that is identical, sometimes superior, to what you could get in the US.