24 Nov 2025 · 8 min
John Jonas recommends hiring a Filipino specialist for one specific task, training them narrowly on that task, reviewing their work closely and iterating until they get it right, then repeating for new tasks. Build procedures as you go rather than writing them all first.
Welcome to the Secret Sauce of Outsourcing podcast that's dedicated to making you better at working with OFS online Filipino specialists. This is episode 390, my second best advice in working with OFS. So I'm not going to get into my first best advice, but my second best advice in working with OFS is to start with one task. And there's a slew of reasons for doing this, but here's how to start with hiring an OFS for one task. First, you. You're going to create training for that one task. No, before that. You're going to hire someone based around working on one task. It's fine to hire someone for a role that's better, but for most people, getting to a role and understanding the whole role is really difficult and you're not there yet. And so most people will just put it off and not hire someone. Rather than understanding why I need this one task done, let me hire someone for that one task. So hire someone for the task. Create. Create training for that task. Give that training to the person you hire and have them attempt the task. What's actually going to happen is you're going to find, oh, they didn't do it very well. My training wasn't very good, and their understanding of this thing that I thought they understood isn't quite there. So then you can check how they did the work, and you're going to give them feedback, and then you're going to modify your instructions. If you try and get someone to fill a role rather than a task, what you're going to find is you have six different tasks, and every one of them suffers from this same problem where there's a gap in understanding between what you want them to do and what they're actually doing. And there's a gap in your instructions and what you think you're explaining versus what you're actually explaining. And if you'll start with just one thing, which is super simple for you, giving one task is easy for you. Giving multiple tasks is hard. Managing one task is really easy for you. Starting with one task is easy for you. Creating training for one task is easy for you. If you'll start with just one task, make it easy for you, and then work through getting that task done right with that person. When you do this, what you find is that person is going to gain so much knowledge about your business and how it works and about you and how you work and your expectations and quality and quantity and speed of work. They're going to understand so much because of this. One task, then when you're ready to do another task, you're going to repeat the whole process, but the whole thing is going to be much, much, much easier. So now I know you're thinking, oh, but if I only give one task, that's not enough. It's not enough to keep them busy full time. If I'm hiring a full time, then they're not using all their time. You know, that's okay. It's okay to have them busy for the beginning of work, to have them busy less than full time. It's not super important that you fill every single second of their $5 an hour. It's much more important that you get the ball rolling, that you get the experience and understanding of what it's like to work with someone and to see, can the two of us work together to accomplish this one task? Because if you can't work together to accomplish this one task, there's no point in trying to have them become a marketing director. There's no point in having them doing all six of these other tasks that you want done. If you can't accomplish one, well, then you know the chance of you accomplishing six others is not very likely. So a couple more thoughts about this. Number one, checking the first few times they do something is really, really important. It is unlikely that the person you hire is going to do things perfectly the first time. It definitely happens, and it's happened to me quite a few times. But more than that, it happens that things just aren't quite done right or not that they're not done right. They're just not done how I wanted it or how I envisioned it or something like that. And so checking the work and giving good feedback is really, really important in this. And it's especially important with the Philippines. Like, this accomplishes more than just getting the work done right. It accomplishes getting them to trust you, that you care about them, that you care about the work, that you care about them succeeding in their job. And that's what giving feedback does. And so it's really, really important that as you work through this first task, you give feedback until they get it right. It's also important in that feedback that you point out things that they did do right and you thank them for their effort and for the work that they've done. Now, all of this is really important in the beginning. I mean, yeah, you should continue to point out good things that people do and continue to correct, but it gets easier and easier and easier the more you do it. The next task, they do, you're going to spend way less time on it. And the third task you do, you're going to spend even less time on it until in the future, you're going to give them things and they're going to come back to you with ideas and feedback and like, hey, you didn't think about this or you missed that or whatever it is because you've already taught them and you've gained their trust and you've gotten them to a point where they understand how things work for you. But it definitely does. Take this in the beginning from your OFS perspective, it's way easier to focus on one task than it is to try and deal with six tasks where you're not sure which one's the priority or which one should be done faster than others, or should I do one of this and one of this and one of this and one of this, or should I do six of this one and. And then wait and do six of that one later? When they're new, they just don't know what your expectations are. And it often causes problems in trying to get people to do multiple things all at once. So one task, get it going well, you'll learn to work really well with someone after that. It's. It's super reasonable to have your OFS managing more than one thing. Once you've gotten one thing, you move on to a second. Now you say, hey, look, I want you to continue doing that one now you're doing that one efficiently, and it's not taking you that long. Let's work on this other one. Let's go through the process again. Once you're doing two things now, okay, that first one is still really important. Do that one first, but spend an hour on it. Spend a couple hours on the second one because it's more difficult, but it's not as important as the first one. And now you have a couple hours for this third task. And what you'll find as you do this is that it snowballs not just in you have to teach less, but that in the they do and understand more and better. As you teach more, they'll be able to do more with each of them. So, like, as you teach the third one, the first task will improve and they'll be able to do it faster and more efficiently, and they'll be better at. They'll be doing it better than when you taught them just about that first task in the beginning. So then just remember, this isn't a magic bullet. Like, these aren't magic human beings. That can do everything all at once and everything's perfect. This requires time, it requires iteration, it requires small improvements day after day, which is really how the most amazing things are created. Small improvements over time, continuous feedback, improve feedback, improve, rinse and repeat. This is how I built my business. So many people want to get all of the improvement done at once, or they think they do. In creating a standard operating procedure where the best actual processes are ones where you don't have to create the process ahead of time, you create the process ahead of time as you work on it, because you discover things as you work that you don't realize when you just try and create it up front. Last thing, you want to make this even more simple for yourself, hire someone first, create the process second. And I know that sounds backwards to so many people. I mean, Michael Gerber's E Myth, like the E Myth revisited, is so deeply ingrained in us that you have to have all these SOPs and you have to create the training and then you can hire someone. And it's just not correct today where you can hire someone and create the training as you go. And it takes time off of your plate rather than adding burden to you. If you hire first, create the training second. If you try and create the training first and get organized, it just adds burden to what you're already doing, knowing, oh, I'm creating this training, but I can't manage this training because I'm so busy. Whereas you hire someone, then you create the training, knowing, oh, yeah, I can get this. As soon as I'm done with this small bit of training, then it's going to get done for me and I can move on. So my second best piece of advice, start with one task. It.
