A framework for delegating

Two weeks ago my email about delegating got a lot of replies. My favorite came from a reader named Jamie, who runs a law firm in Australia. He wrote back with something his team uses called SMEAC. I'd never heard of it. Now I use it. SMEAC comes from the military. It's how they hand off orders — enough detail that someone can execute without you standing over their shoulder, but not so much that you've wasted an hour writing a novel nobody reads. It's what I've been trying to explain...Jamie just did a better job of it.  Here's SMEAC, with a VA slant. S - Situation The "why now" and "why this matters." Most bad instructions skip this completely. You just say "post this to Instagram" and expect your VA to read your mind about the context. Tell them what's going on. What's this connected to? What do they need to know that isn't obvious from outside your head? They need to know the background and the reason. If you only teach the steps, your VA can follow steps. If you teach the situation, your VA can make good decisions when something doesn't go the way you planned. That's the difference between someone who does exactly what you said and someone who does what you actually needed. M - Mission One sentence. What does "done" look like? Not "improve our social media." That's not a mission, that's a vibe. "Post one Reel by Friday at 9am." That's a mission. You'll know instantly if it happened. If your VA can't tell you whether they finished the task, you didn't give them a mission. You gave them a suggestion. E - Execution The how. The actual steps. Record a Loom. Walk through it once, screen recorded, talking through what you're doing and why. That video is now your training — forever, for every VA you ever hire to do that task again. And don't build this before you've hired someone. Training built for a person who doesn't exist yet is a guess, not training. A - Administration (and Logistics) What do they need to actually do the job? Logins, a tool, a template, access to a shared folder. Don't get stuck here. Give the access and see what happens.  C - Command and Communication Who do they report to? How do they tell you it's done — a daily email report, a Slack message, a Basecamp comment? This is also where trust gets built. When your VA knows exactly who's in charge and how to reach them, they stop guessing and start working. When they don't, they sit on a question for two days because they're afraid to bother the wrong person. Try it on the next thing you hand off. Even a short version — two sentences of Situation, one sentence of Mission, a Loom for Execution — beats what most of us actually send our VAs, which is "hey can you handle this" with zero context. Thanks, Jamie, for the framework. And if you don't have anyone to SMEAC a task to yet — that's the actual bottleneck. Go to OnlineJobs.ph and find someone. John   Our mailing address is: OnlineJobs.ph 770 E Main St Ste 250 Lehi, UT 84043-2293 USA unsubscribe

We're here to help with your UHS onboarding

A few onboarding items still need your attention.

United Human Services Onboarding Notification UHS Complete your UHS onboarding Hello Geovanne Navalta, We noticed that a few items in your onboarding are not completed yet, and we want to make sure nothing is holding you up. Outstanding onboarding item(s):•  PIE Writing Assessment•  CANS documents•  IDs / identification documents•  Health documents•  Fingerprint information•  Signed onboarding documents Please let us know how we can help you. No question is too small, and there is no wrong time to ask. If you need assistance, contact Rose Wells at rwells@unitedhumanservices.com or call (346) 330-9853. Open your onboarding portal We are glad you are joining the team, and we are here to support you every step of the way. Automated message from the secure UHS onboarding portal.

I've only been to the Philippines once!

When people hear I own OnlineJobs.ph, they ask: So do you travel to the Philippines all the time? Nope I've only been there once.  2010. Spent 5 weeks on the beach on the island of Boracay. Took my whole family (3 little kids at the time). Why don't I go more? Because I don't have to. And neither do you. Do I want to?  Yes. It's the one place in the world I feel drawn back to. The people are so good. So friendly. So easy to talk to. So kind. So humble.  I just don't like traveling away from my family and they don't feel the draw like I do.  ----- You too can easily build a team around you. Start with one person. Then add someone else with different skills.  Then another. When it's so easy to find talented people, building a team is less daunting. And their loyalty (if you treat them well) makes that team more likely to stick. Get started today at OnlineJobs.ph John   Our mailing address is: OnlineJobs.ph 770 E Main St Ste 250 Lehi, UT 84043-2293 USA unsubscribe

A Stanford AI pioneer and a psychologist, live on the main stage. Oct 19–21, San Francisco.Fei-Fei Li and Adam Grant join the Connect 2026 main stage. The NextNet Speaker Series is live.

Cloudflare Connect · San Francisco See Fei-Fei Li and Adam Grant live at Cloudflare Connect. Every team building with AI is asking two questions: where the technology is going, and how to get people to actually adopt it. At Connect, you'll hear from two people who've spent their careers on each. Fei-Fei Li AI pioneer and professor, Stanford University Adam Grant Organizational psychologist and bestselling author Live on the main stage in San Francisco - alongside 100+ technical sessions and 5,000+ architects, developers, and security leaders. Add them to your agenda. Register now Start building   ·  Log in  ·  Visit Community Copyright © 2026 Cloudflare, Inc. 101 Townsend Street, San Francisco, CA 94107 cloudflare.com  ·  Privacy policy   ·  Unsubscribe LinkedIn  ·  X  ·  Instagram

We're here to help with your UHS onboarding

A few onboarding items still need your attention.

United Human Services Onboarding Notification UHS Complete your UHS onboarding Hello Geovanne Navalta, We noticed that a few items in your onboarding are not completed yet, and we want to make sure nothing is holding you up. Outstanding onboarding item(s):•  PIE Writing Assessment•  CANS documents•  IDs / identification documents•  Health documents•  Fingerprint information•  Signed onboarding documents Please let us know how we can help you. No question is too small, and there is no wrong time to ask. If you need assistance, contact Rose Wells at rwells@unitedhumanservices.com or call (346) 330-9853. Open your onboarding portal We are glad you are joining the team, and we are here to support you every step of the way. Automated message from the secure UHS onboarding portal.

Why English is so good in the Philippines

Did you know that the Philippines actually has two official languages: Filipino and English?

I didn't really realize this until I went there in 2010 (my first...and only time there).

Billboards were in English!
Street signs were in English!

Here are some pics I took. Things look surprisingly like they do at home.








Filipinos start learning English in pre-school. It’s a required subject for all schools. It’s used in government and business. Filipinos have to learn English, one way or another, to get by.

Julia told me that often school subjects are taught in English.  Science: taught in English. Math: taught in English. 

My second day in the Philippines I was in the hotel lobby and I heard an argument. I looked over to the front desk to see the hotel clerk and a guest, both Filipino, arguing in English!

So why did the Philippines include English as an official language? Why not just use Filipino? The weird thing about Filipino is it’s not a language that developed organically; the Philippine government created it. 

The base language of Filipino is Tagalog, with words from other dialects mixed in. Even though Tagalog is the most used language in the Philippines, only 31% of Filipinos speak it. There are 120+ languages spoken in the Philippines.
Not dialects. Languages!

Cebuano
Ilocano
Sambal
Aklanon
Central Bikol
...

Non-native Tagalog speakers often have a hard time learning it. Especially if it's not spoken at home or around them. 

It’s often easier to learn English because even if they don’t use it at home, they use it in school or work. They’re also constantly exposed to English through Youtube, TikTok, Insta, TV, movies, and books.

What happens when someone from Davao travels to Manila?  How do they communicate?  English. 

Here’s what my OFS, Julia, told me about how this weird language barrier affects their life.

I’m not a native Tagalog speaker, so I’m not that fluent in Filipino. I’m a Cebuano speaker.

My husband, Jam, is a native Tagalog speaker and is fluent in Filipino. Jam’s parents are native Ilokano speakers who are also fluent in Filipino because they live amongst native Tagalog speakers.

If you forced us to only speak in our native language, we wouldn’t understand each other. I don’t understand Ilokano. My in-laws don’t understand Cebuano. So when we get together, we use Filipino AND English to understand each other, but I lean more towards English because my Tagalog isn’t that good.

People often ask me if they can find someone who speaks good English in the Philippines.

YES!

It's completely reasonable to find someone with perfect English.

When recruiting, see if you can find someone who uses English slang.  If they do, you know English is deeply entrenched in their life.

John

https://johnjonas.com/how-do-filipinos-learn-english/

Our mailing address is:
OnlineJobs.ph 770 E Main St Ste 250 Lehi, UT 84043-2293 USA

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Bigger free tier, metrics API, and MCP spec support

Plus agent plugins, suppression list control, and our first conference.

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Hey, it's Zeno. This month, we gave every account 3 free domains on the free tier, we've added custom suppression lists, support for agent plugins and the new MCP spec. We also dropped an entire headless analytics API that's extensible so we can continue to add additional metrics to fit your needs. And don't forget our first-ever conference, Resend Forward, is quickly approaching. Quick question: What feature should we put on our roadmap? Just hit reply. We read every answer. 3 Domains for all The free tier now includes 3 verified domains, so you can build and send from more projects without upgrading. Every free team can now verify up to three domains, in any region, at no cost. → Read the changelog Headless email analytics Get data about your emails, from the send volume to unsubscribe rate, grouped or filtered by the period, domain, broadcast, or email. → Try the new Metrics API A new way to verify your email A new proposal aims to enable email verification directly within the browser. We covered all the details, and built a library for you to try it out. → Read the blog post Resend now supports Agent Plugins Resend Skills added support for the Agent Plugins Standard, an open, vendor-neutral standard for packaging skills and MCP servers into a portable plugin. → Check the guide Manage your own suppressions Spam complaints and hard bounces can wreck your sending reputation, which is why Resend has always suppressed those addresses behind the scenes. Now you can see, manage, and automate your suppression list yourself. Here's how the new tools work. → Learn more about Suppressions Resend supports the new MCP spec The MCP specification just released a major upgrade, and now Resend's remote MCP server supports this latest version. → Read the changelog A full video tour Take a full tour of Resend, the email API built for developers. In under 8 minutes, see how to authenticate your domain, send transactional and marketing emails, build automations, and debug with full observability, all from the dashboard, API, SDKs, CLI, or MCP. → Watch the video For builders who care It's easier than ever to make software, fast. Today, true artisans are differentiated on their attention to detail. We're hosting a conference to gather builders who still care about their craft. Those who: Lose sleep over an abstraction Tweak designs pixel-by-pixel Spend time fixing things most will never notice Resend Forward takes place October 21, 2026 in San Francisco. Since you're a user, we've set aside a reduced rate for you. → Attend Forward Happy sending, Zeno Rocha You are receiving this email as a user of Resend. Want to change how you receive these emails? You can unsubscribe from this list. 2261 Market Street #5039 San Francisco, CA 94114

Implementing AI in your business

I'm asking for your help in this email. Everything I do is focused on you having a better experience finding the right help for your business.  Getting the right help is magical. To that end, we're beginning to teach VAs how to implement common AI workflows.  The point is that you can hire someone who has already done a bunch of implementations and have them implement in your business. So my question: In your business, you want a VA to implement AI  to do ________? What are your ideas for how you'd like to implement AI in your business? Hit reply.  John   Our mailing address is: OnlineJobs.ph 770 E Main St Ste 250 Lehi, UT 84043-2293 USA unsubscribe

We're here to help with your UHS onboarding

A few onboarding items still need your attention.

United Human Services Onboarding Notification UHS Complete your UHS onboarding Hello Geovanne Navalta, We noticed that a few items in your onboarding are not completed yet, and we want to make sure nothing is holding you up. Outstanding onboarding item(s):•  PIE Writing Assessment•  CANS documents•  IDs / identification documents•  Health documents•  Fingerprint information•  Signed onboarding documents Please let us know how we can help you. No question is too small, and there is no wrong time to ask. If you need assistance, contact Rose Wells at rwells@unitedhumanservices.com or call (346) 330-9853. Open your onboarding portal We are glad you are joining the team, and we are here to support you every step of the way. Automated message from the secure UHS onboarding portal.

The top 14 "VA" experts people are hiring

"What are Filipino VAs best at?" I always struggle to answer that question because they're people.   I want to ask "What are Americans best at?" Uhhh...you can find someone to do anything? Same in the Philippines.  But...here are what your peers are searching and hiring for on OnlineJobs.ph in 2026:   Rank Skill Search/Job Post Count 1 Video Editing 144,013 2 Virtual Assistant & Admin 141,738 3 Sales & Cold Calling 106,277 4 Social Media 102,635 5 Advertising & Marketing 94,317 6 English & Communication 71,337 7 Graphic Design 59,398 8 Customer Service 51,464 9 Bookkeeping & Finance 36,789 10 Shopify & Ecommerce 30,936 11 GoHighLevel 30,728 12 Content Creation & Copywriting 24,740 13 SEO 24,456 14 Lead Generation 18,948 There were 2 surprises in this list for me: 1. Video editing was more sought after than Virtual Assistants (including "executive assistant, personal assistant, general assistant..."). So much Youtube/TikTok/Insta/FB and high level video editing is being done in the Philippines.  2. Sales - I'm not surprised it's in the top 10, I was just surprised it was #3. I get asked all the time if you can hire someone who can sell.  According to your peers, yes you can.  Everything else on the list?  I was like - Yep - Yep - Yep - Yep - Easy - Yep - ... Super easy to hire for any one of these roles.   John   Our mailing address is: OnlineJobs.ph 770 E Main St Ste 250 Lehi, UT 84043-2293 USA unsubscribe