John Jonas argues salaried VAs in the Philippines create more stability and loyalty than hourly workers. He pays $300/month for 20 hours weekly or $800/month for full-time roles. His salaried hires helped double his income year-over-year starting in 2005.
Questions this video answers
$300 per month for a 20-hours-per-week role.
$800 per month for a 40-hours-per-week role.
He said he began hiring full-time Filipino VAs in 2005 and that his income started doubling every year initially.
Chapters
Do I pay someone hourly or do I pay them a salary when I hire a virtual assistant in the Philippines? So a question I often get is how do I pay people? Well, paying people, sending the money is pretty easy. You can use easy pay on onlinejobs.ph, you can use PayPal, you can use Zoom, you can use Western Union. There's a ton of ways to send money to the Philippines. The real answer to this question that people want to know is do I structure their pay as an hourly payment or do I structure it as a salary payment? What if I hire them for 20 hours a week? Do I pay them a salary on 20 hours? Do I pay them hourly? Or what if they only work 18 hours? Here's how I do this and there's not a right way or a wrong way. But I have, there's pros and cons. I hire people and pay them a salary. I tell them you're going to work 20 hours a week and I'm going to pay you $300 a month for that 20 hours a week. And whether you work 18 or 22 or 12, I'm going to pay you $300 a month. I don't tell them that, but I tell them I expect you to work 20 hours a week. And then I just gauge based on productivity. Usually I will hire 40 hours a week. Usually I hire full time and I will say I expect you to work 40 hours a week and I'm going to pay your salary. Your salary is $800 a month and I'm going to pay you that regardless of what happens. So I'm not going to track your time. I'm not going to pay you based on how many hours you worked. I'm just going to pay you $800 a month and I will expect you to take care of this like it's a full time job. So what often people want to do is pay an hourly wage and then they want to know like how do I know exactly how many hours they work? So I pay them exactly. So like I'm going to pay them $5 an hour. They only work 15 and a half hours. So I'll take 15 and a half. Times five is $75, $80. Now I can pay them 81. So the problem with doing it this way, there's two things. There's a problem on the Philippines side and there's a problem on your side. In the Philippines, hourly work is always associated with temporary work. If you hire someone hourly, they're looking for a job somewhere else, guaranteed they Know that their contract with you is going to end at some point, even though you may not intend it that way. That's what they think. And so they're probably going to be looking for a job somewhere else. So you're not their number one priority. In the Philippines. They really value stability and if you can get them a stable job where a salary is equated with stability, it's a big deal for them and they'll put more of their heart into their work on your side. And this is the part that most people never recognize because it sure seems appealing to have no commitment when you hire someone hourly. Like, if they don't work, then I don't have to pay them and it's not that big of a deal. And if I run out of things for them to do, then, you know, I don't have to pay them. And that's not the big of a deal. What you don't see when you do this is you're handicapping yourself because when they run out of work, it's okay for you to go back and just answer emails, which doesn't grow your business. But it's easy and it, and it doesn't require your brain power. So if you hire someone on a salary basis, that changes. Like if they, if you give them a task and it takes them eight hours to do that task, and you have 40 hours of work to do this week, well, now you care if they, if you don't have enough work for them to do, so now you have to invent something for them to do, which is where you start working on your business. And this is where the transition for most people happens, where they realize the magic of hiring virtual workers in the Philippines is when you hire someone full time, salaried, and you care about that person like you care if they're busy, you care about the work that they do, you start to care. And now you step away from being the grunt worker in your business and you force yourself to work on your business. And this is where I see most people who grow their businesses. This is why, because all of a sudden they become the CEO and they change their role in the business. Rather than like, oh, I'll just do that myself, they say, oh, I have this person has time, I'll teach them to do this. And then that thing gets off of your plate forever. And most people will never see the difference here between an hourly wage and a salary. Most people don't ever care because it's easier to pay the hourly wage. What they don't see is paying the salary will change your life forever. And that's where my life changed back in 2005. I didn't realize this was what was happening, but I paid this salary. I took a leap and I paid this salary. And all of a sudden, I had this guy who was fully dependent on me, and I had to create work for him to do. And it changed my life and it changed my business, and it changed my profitability, and it changed my trajectory. In fact, I'll tell you that when I started hiring virtual assistants in the Philippines full time, my salary, my income started doubling every single year. And that was 2005. It hasn't doubled every year since, but a lot of years it has. So can you pay someone hourly? Yes. Should you pay someone a salary? So much better. I talk all through this in my book, the Outsourcing Lever. It's available@outroundinglever.com all about hiring virtual assistants in the Philippines, how and why and where. And I talk through all the nuances and the culture and everything that you need to know so that you're going to do it the right way so that you can transition to becoming the CEO of your business. OutsourcingLever.com, go get it. It's free. Go get it today and I'll ship it to. Sam.
