John Jonas argues time is the best gift for loved ones. He outsources busywork to remote staff from the Philippines, paying $500–$1,500 monthly, to reclaim hours he'd otherwise spend on tasks that cost far more locally.
Questions this episode answers
Episode 403
May 23, 2024
Approximately $500 to $1,500 per month
$150,000 per year (example of a high-end local hire)
onlinejobs.ph and Upwork
Chapters
Welcome to the Secret sauce of outsourcing podcast that's dedicated to making you better at insourcing from the Philippines. This is episode 403, the best gift you can give. So as I record this, it is the end of March, and I'll be honest, the first six months of the year are hard for me. Okay, let me just. Let me tell you what's hard. I really, really struggle with gifts. And originally this idea came on Valentine's Day where, like, a gift is expected. And my wife is really, really great about not needing gifts, but she still wants something, and I really, really struggle with it. So this starts like December 25th, where I'm expected to fill her stocking, which I struggle with, or to get her any sort of gift at all. And then comes Valentine's Day and her birthday and anniversary. All those things come in the first half of the year for me, and they're like, boom, boom, boom. And I like, I'm just not a gift giver. I'm not a gift receiver. I'm not a gift giver. I don't want you to give me a gift. So this. This whole thing is just hard for me, right? What I am good at is giving time. And I've had this conversation with my wife multiple times where he would much, much rather have my time than she would have me buy her a gift. Now, not everybody's like that, but so I would say that children, for the most part, certainly are like this, where they just want your time. They don't. They don't care about the quality of time. Yes, the gifts are cool and good, but. But as a child, they just crave parent time. As a teenager, they need parent time. And so that's something that I'm pretty good at because I found it. I structure my work life so that I'm not tied to spending time at work anytime. I give a lot of time, right? And as I've thought about this and talked about this with my wife, who she came to know that I'm not a good gift giver. And so her expectations for gifts just kind of went away and she came to accept that, oh, what I am really good at is giving time. And in that time, I serve her by doing all kinds of stuff around the house or for her, whatever it is, that's. That's what I'm really good at, right? And as I think more and more about what is. What are the only things that really matter in this life. I mean, money. You know, nobody dying ever says, I wish I would have Worked more and spent less time with my family. Right. When people are dying, they think about the relationships they have and that's like one of the only things you can take with you out of this life. I don't know if you listening are religious or not. That I certainly am. And I believe there are two things you get to take with you out of this life. One is your knowledge and two is your relationships. So those relationships are a really big deal. And the only thing that, the only way to do that is with time. And that time can be good time or boring time or fun time or crappy time or vacation time or mediocre time, it doesn't really matter. And the only way I know to get more time is by hiring people in the Philippines to do your work for you. Obviously there are other ways you can hire local people, but most people struggle to make that work or local people are expensive. I don't really care if you hire local people. That's great. We provide a really great option to finding this a similar amount of talent or actually probably more talent because you have the entire country of the Philippines to look through when you go through onlinejobs.ph you get millions of resumes rather than like the hundred thousand local resumes. Plus it's just really, really easy to find those people out of the Philippines versus locally. And then the wages, you know, are just super, super reasonable. Where you're going to pay, I don't know, you know, $500 for full time work or $1,500 for full time work for a high end person. And that that difference is, that difference is so committing to you in like you hire someone that's $150,000 a year, well, you know, you're committed in this that you better spend the time at work to make sure that they're productive and complete. Whereas you spend $1,500 a month on a full time programmer and you're not, you're not nearly as committed there and it's okay if you're not there for them for a day where you know that day is going to cost you $100 and instead of it costing you $10,000 or whatever it is, and that just allows you so much more flexibility in spending time with the people you love. So whatever your next holiday is, you know, it's Christmas or it's Valentine's Day or it's whatever's coming up for you, it's an anniversary, it's a birthday in my opinion. And experience the number one thing you can give to people is time. The number one way to get that time back into your life so you can afford that time is to step away from the busyness that you are in your life. Cause we're all busy. Step away from that busyness. Hire someone to take some of that busyness away from you. And I know so many of you are like too busy to hire someone to stop being busy. And you pride yourselves on your busyness. And I'll talk about that in another episode. Step away. Step away and hire someone. And whether you do that onlinejobs, ph or at upwork or locally, I don't really care. But it's life changing when you get the right help that you want for your business.
