#22 How to Lead and Unlock Growth with the Perfect Super Who

Unlocking Business Growth with Virtual Assistants: An In-Depth Conversation with Valentina

In this episode, we delve into the incredible potential of hiring virtual assistants to scale and enhance business efficiency. Valentina, an expert in integrating 'super who's' into entrepreneurial organizations, shares her personal journey from Moldova to the United States and how she built a successful VA placement company. We discuss the importance of focusing on responsibilities instead of tasks, overcoming fear in entrepreneurship, and the tactical steps to ensure successful VA integration. Highlighted are the strategies of generating leads, using social media for business growth, and the critical role of clear vision and intention in business scaling. This engaging conversation provides a wealth of practical insights for entrepreneurs looking to elevate their operations.

00:00 Introduction to Valentina and Her Superpower
01:14 Valentina's Journey: From Moldova to the US
03:01 Overcoming Challenges and Finding Success
06:20 The Importance of Mindset and Opportunity
11:38 Starting and Growing a Business
15:48 The Role of Virtual Assistants in Business
33:45 Empowering Teams with Responsibility
37:59 Leadership and Virtual Assistants
38:21 The Car Analogy: Business and Performance
39:47 Investing in Top Talent
42:07 Exotic Car Business Insights
44:17 Paths to Success: Multiple Avenues
45:45 YouTube Growth Strategy
49:03 Business Models and Recurring Revenue
57:10 Lead Generation and Dream 100
01:03:30 Social Media Strategies
01:13:42 The Importance of Immersion in Business
01:14:13 Qualifying Leads for Better Business
01:15:20 The Delegation Workshop: A Game Changer
01:17:29 Overcoming Perfectionism and Trust Issues
01:23:09 The Role of Virtual Assistants in Business Growth
01:40:13 Mastermind Groups and Continuous Improvement
01:47:20 Final Thoughts and Farewell 

Transcript

0:06

What would it mean for your business to get the super who and bring them in to solve your problem? I'm here today with Valentina, who has a very special superpower. She puts super who's into entrepreneurs organizations to help them scale, thrive and succeed. Valentina, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself, introduce who you are and what you do. Yeah, absolutely. I think that was, uh, a very good introduction. Exactly what I do. I find super whos, no one can scale their company by themselves. There's no such thing as a self-made, mm-hmm. Or successful entrepreneur. We need the right people in our corner and it's not that easy to find the right person for the right seat. And I feel like this is what I, uh, specialize in. I have a wonderful team behind me. I have a company where we hire and we train virtual assistants for different roles for US-based companies. So we specialize in finding talent all over the world, not just one particular country. Mm-hmm. And we run a lot of tests. We, uh, do a skill set test. We do a personality test. We check references just to make sure that we bring you the person that will solve. Like that you have in a company. Well, right on. So it takes a very special individual or type of person to become an entrepreneur. And I think you have a very unique backstory and perspective. I think you know, most of these successes right. Came for you in the last seven years. So why don't you tell us a little bit about who you are, where you came from in this journey? Yeah. And how you kind of ended up. Solving this problem of putting the who into a position to allow growth and remove bottlenecks. I think your listeners might notice a little bit of an accent, which I don't know. I don't hear an accent. Accent. I dunno what you're talking about. Exactly. Right. No accent. I don't know what people are telling me, but yeah, I moved to the states seven years ago. I'm originally from a small country in Eastern Europe. It's called Moldovan. A lot of people haven't heard of that, but we moved here because we won the green card lottery. And if you don't know, this is a thing you can apply. And I've been applying ever since I turned 18. So I've been applying every year. Every year, every year. And it's a lottery based win, right? So every year I was rejected. Rejection. Rejection. I was so frustrated. I was like, come on, why can't it be merit based? I'm young, I'm smart. I speak the language. I'm actually educated in the. States, I need to have that opportunity, but they want to give this opportunity to people, uh, to experience the American dream and, and come to the States. When my first daughter was 1-year-old, we, uh, I open up the email and I see, wait a second. Um, this email doesn't look like the others. You know, like it says, congratulations, you are selected. Um, I actually had to shut everything down. I turned back the computer back on, and, uh, I see, oh, that's probably a glitch. It's not happening. And yeah, sure enough, you said congratulations, uh, you are one of the finalists. And then you had, we had to have a whole year of, uh, checks and you have a background check. Obviously you wanna make sure that you bring people that are, uh, good to the United States, right? So a year later we came to the United States. My daughter was 1-year-old at the time, and we come here to the US and we find out that we can't access our funds from back home. We only had $400 in our pocket to rely on. Wow. And this was very stressful. It was the most stressful period in my life. But looking back, this was the most growth that happened in my life ever. Because it pushed me in that position where I had to find another side of myself that I didn't know I had. I would step out of the comfort zone quite literally. Mm-hmm. So we came to the United States and we have to find a job. Right?$400. We don't have a car, we don't have a place to stay. Luckily we stayed with some, uh, relatives. So I'm looking for jobs and I found a job of working remotely from home for a real estate company. And I said, there's no way this company is gonna accept me. I have no experience in real estate. Uh, just so you know, uh, I don't know what the word. Ballpark meant, I thought it was a park where people play ball, you know, like, like, like, just like this is how green I was in real estate. Absolutely knew nothing. My goal was to apply to three jobs every day and I just put it off. I, I applied to anything else besides the real estate because I didn't think they would, they would accept me. I was running out of things to apply and I said, ah, I'll just go ahead and apply and, um. To my surprise, they invited me to an interview and they wanted me on board. And I became a person who answered the phone calls for the company, was working from home, which was a blessing. I didn't need to have a car. And this was the first time that I understood the power of working from home because before that I would've thought you can focus at home. I showed very good results to the company and they said, okay, how about you hire your own team, you do everything you're doing, train your team on everything, you know how to do this and, and you know, you run the whole department. Mm-hmm. This is someone who has no experience in real estate. Three months later I was promoted to manager and we really had great results. Um, we had, we were closing deals, real estate deals, and a lot of people came to me and said. Teach my team everything you know how to do. And I said, I don't know if I can do this, but I can find someone like me. And it, it was for real estate. I can find someone like me and I can, I can train them to be an asset for you. I'm not American. I understand what people from outside of the United States have to go through mentally to work on the US market. Mm-hmm. So I said, I can teach virtual assistants, I can find people all over the world who are just as hungry as me, who, who wanna work on the US market, who want to have this opportunity that I'm having. Yeah. You know, I can find them, I can find eager people, smart people, talented people, and I can train them for your company. And that's sort of what I started doing. Um, I started with a couple of companies. They had success and then it grew. It grew. And we've been in business for four years now and things have been going pretty well and people recommend us. It's a, a lot of what we do is word of mouth, which we're very, very grateful for. So. A lot to unpack there. I suspect almost the hardship of the immigration process coming to the United States, $400 in your pocket, that puts you in that, that corner in the mindset, like you said, you use the term hungry. Yes. When your back's against the wall, you develop a hunger. And that hunger isn't just a, I need money. It's a I need to win, I need to succeed. Yes. Yes. And I think that that's a common theme that we see with a lot of entrepreneurs. So do you mind maybe talking about how that experience in particular, and then the experience of working in the real estate company, how did that actually pivot your mindset into a place where you could start your own business and succeed in entrepreneurship? There's a great book, it's called The Immigrant Edge. Immigrant advantage. I came here, I knew America was the land of opportunities. This is what everybody speak, everybody says. Right. So I already had that mindset, like, I will find my way here in this country. So what happens, you know this, when you're thinking about the red car, everything, you, you see the red car everywhere, right? Yeah. You know, I know that it has a name in psychology, but for me, because I was primed to like, this is the land of opportunities. I will find opportunities. They might be disguised, they will be hidden, but I will find them. Mm-hmm. So I just need to keep looking and I just need to be open to accepting them. And I think this is what got me probably started and, and having a business because I was treating everything that came my way as an opportunity. Yeah. I didn't know really estate Great. That's an opportunity to learn. Um, I, I didn't know how to build a, a team successfully. Good. This is an opportunity to learn. It's sort of like everything I'm doing, I'm just very, um, grateful. I, I thank God every day for what I have and for, for putting me on this path, which is much better than I would've ever designed for myself. Mm-hmm. In a way it kind of found me, but I think the fact that I was open to accepting it, this is what got me to a place where I can have a business. So you mentioned, you know, America's the land of opportunity. Yes. You're looking for the opportunities. There is a psychological concept. I can't remember the fancy term for it now, but in short, what it, what it says is you find what you're looking for. Yes. Or you have a bias to find what you're looking for. So I think it's really critical that. One. If you want to find an opportunity like that, you have to have it in your mind that you're searching for the opportunity. The entrepreneurs that are maybe listening to this, they're trying to figure out how to get their feet under them and find some success. Recognize that you're more likely to find success if you are searching for it. If you're open to the opportunity, if you were, you know, very closed-minded and focused on, you know, maybe I'm just gonna work in this role. I'm just gonna work at this job. You miss out on the potential for so much growth, not just professionally and with, you know, monetary value, but also personally as a, as an individual. There is a lot of personal growth that comes with entrepreneurship, and I think that they really go hand in hand. You're focused on growing a business, but the reality is, is your business grows. So do you as an individual, and if you're not open to that opportunity, what a travesty it is for someone to just miss out on that personal professional growth. This is a really cool story already. I mean, the background, again, very unique. I similarly just had no concept of wealth growing up. I wasn't exposed to it. I didn't know about it. It wasn't until for me actually leaving the United States that I started to see wealth around the world and the different levels. But obviously, coming back here to the land of opportunities, what unlocks all that for us? I mean, we're, we're blessed to live in, in a place that allows us to pursue this dream of entrepreneurship. What I really like about the United States is that it doesn't matter who you are, where you're from. Yeah. Uh, it, it really doesn't matter. This is the place where I felt like I fit in where I belong. Like no one said, oh, you're not one of us. Never had this feeling. Because as long as you bring value, as long as you're doing something, people respect you. It's not about who you are, it's about the actions you're doing. It's about the value that you bring. Yes. It's about the impact you're making. And this is a unique. U unique place. Probably the only one in the world that can offer this. I lived in Europe as well, and I loved living in Europe, but sometimes there was a little bit of a disconnect. Us versus them, right? Yes. Like a little bit different. Like I probably wouldn't feel comfortable voicing my opinion in a meeting because again, I'm not, um, a local. But here in the United States I never had this, uh, feeling like I don't belong. So, um, for this, I I, I'm really grateful and this is, it is the land of opportunity and how many immigrant success stories we have, how many stories are out there of people who were jailed or addicts, and they can still live a life that they want because you are given this opportunity here and you're not judged on. So I think it's a great country to be in. So this is super inspirational and I hope our viewers or listeners are getting the same inspiration out of it that I am. My parents raised six kids on like $30,000 a year. Hmm. An immigrant can come to this country and find success. And if I can find success and you can find success, I think it's not a cliche to say that anyone can do it. If you come here and like you said, you're taking action. Mm-hmm. You're not giving up your trying. I've often referred to the Entrepreneur's Success formula. It's continuous action as in just take so much action that it would be unlikely for you to fail continuous learning, keep learning how to do it better, more efficiently, more productive. And if you do those two things, you'll win sooner or later. Then it's just a matter of time time's the variable. But if you keep learning and you keep taking action, you win. And I mean, I've done it. You've done it. Anyone can do it. You can do it. Mm-hmm. I hope that was cool on the camera, how I did that. Um, right on. So I, I'd like to kind of structure these, these podcasts. One, it's very important to understand the entrepreneur and your backstory. I think we have to always, always share that because it takes a very strong person to go down this path. There's a lot of risk in entrepreneurship. And then we focus on on the business and we focus on the strategy. And the reason I've kind of built it like that is the majority of my viewers are very much beginner entrepreneurs, or they're starting their journey, or they're researching their journey still, but they're searching for the avenues of success. And I think a lot of it is. We need to do a good job as entrepreneurs at broadening the horizons of the people around us, showing them what's possible. I remember when I was a new entrepreneur, I bottlenecked on my work. I got tunnel vision, and I suffered in silence by myself because I didn't feel like any of my friends could relate. And that was true. None of my friends could, they weren't on the same path or journey at the time. But that prevented me from seeing that there were other people in the world that had gone through the struggles of entrepreneurship, that had learned the hard lessons that I was learning or that had overcome the obstacles that I was facing. Mm-hmm. So I never thought to ask for help. I never sought mentorship that way. The hope of the podcast, you know. Moving forward into our next couple like pieces of this is that we are providing value to the young entrepreneur. We're letting them know that they're not alone, that there's different ways of thinking, different perspectives, different businesses, different business models. Giving them that exposure so that they can elevate their frame of reference and elevate their identity so they can see what's possible and they can go take action to, to achieve it. With that in mind, would you tell us a little bit about your business, what you do now, what it looks like and why it matters? I think that's what you said, that there's also a lot that I could comment on this, like just Please do. Yeah. Give the entrepreneur it's all free flow. Yeah. Also give the entrepreneurs the permission. To not be great from the beginning. This is so important. Oh yeah. It's so I can send that too. It's so important for your growth, um, because a lot of entrepreneurs, what they do before they start a business, they feel like they have to have everything perfect. They have to have the perfect website. They have to have everything but the perfect business plan for the next five years. Trust me, things will change. Yeah. Once you start doing the business, the way you plan it from you are where, from the place you stand right now, it will change because the more you take actions, the more you elevate a different path will unfold in front of you. Yes. Maybe not the one that you have planned. It might be better, but learn to understand what people want or what opportunities are there. Analyze. Don't say yes to everything, but you will learn through that. This is a lesson that I had from my company. I used to say yes to every opportunity. You know, like, yes, we can do this, we can do that. I was trying to be everything to everyone, but only through. My experience only through analyzing what happened and, and just, you know, lots of tears and lots of like, it's not easy. It takes a thick skin. Yeah. But I'm so grateful for the lessons that I learned because now I understand which opportunities I should say yes to and what I should say no to, what I should focus on. Mm-hmm. So instead of multitasking, instead of having a lot of businesses focus on one thing that's working and see how you can make it even better, but in order for it to be great, you have to be good. But in order to be good, you have to be bad at first. Yeah. And this is so important for, especially for if, if you mention young entrepreneurs, this is part of. Growing. It's part of evolution. It doesn't mean you don't know how to play this game. It doesn't mean you're not cut for business. It doesn't mean that. It just means you have to give it time, like you said. Absolutely. And go through that because it will get, it will get much better. And the exact same thing happening in my business. You know, we hire virtual assistants now years later. I understand what match will be good for the people we give this virtual assistant for. Mm-hmm. I understand the client side, understand the entrepreneur, but I also understand the virtual assistant. And before when I started out, it wasn't as fine tuned as it is now. So if, if a lot of people want to hire a virtual assistant for themselves, for example, right. Uh, on their own, they will miss on these little things that make a good match. Something like personality profile. Mm-hmm. Um, the work preferences, understanding, putting the skillset to a test, but in a way that really. Test their skills, not just they say they can do things. All of this comes from trial and error. Trial and error. I'll give you an example. We hired a video editor for us, for example, right? And, um, now we have just an amazing editor because we, because we had to go through this, but before we hired someone and I said, can you do this? This is what I need. Can you do this? Yes, I can do this. And then we put them, we gave them a project, they had to work on this, and I realized they don't know how to do this. Mm-hmm. Um, so. How do you get on the same page? So now, because of this failure, if you may wanna call it like that, now, it's like, okay, learning opportunity, learning oppor. I like this. Yeah. Because of, and it is a learning opportunity. Now when we hire this video editor, we ask them, okay, this is the effect that I want to have on my reel. Can you do it? Yes. How do you do it? And I want that person to tell me exactly, oh, you need a mask here, you need this, you need this. I don't need him to actually do the work I need. I need to understand that he knows what he's talking about. What if I want the real, where the captions are like this? Or you know, just give it something specific. And now we found a team that works best for my company right now, and this is how we also find the best person for the people we work with. Mm-hmm. I need to understand your why. Well, I'm not just giving a person. I need to understand like. What is the desired outcome? What is the bottleneck? What, what is, where is point A and what do you want? Point B2B, why is this happening? Tell me the vision. Once you tell me the vision, I can already start looking for the person who might be in that vision. And to answer your question, like a couple of years ago, I didn't know what I know now. Mm-hmm. But it's only because of this, again, back and forth, back and forth, and this is not working and this is frustrating and hey, this is working and you have to go through this. Wow. Okay. Tons to unpack there. I apologize. I asked such a big question at once. That was great. Brilliant. We have to go back and chop this up now. You talked about taking action early and not letting the pursuit of perfection stop you from trying. Right. Uh, I like to teach my clients. A variation of the 80 20 rule. Essentially, if you have 80% of a concept figured out, just start making the concept real. And when you have 80% of how to make it real and how to do the thing, you start doing the thing. And that last 20% is gonna come as a refinement, right? You can start taking action, like you said, a new plan or a new road will open up in front of you and you have to change, you have to pivot. But that's where that back 20% is for you just have to get on the road. Yes. If you don't get on the road, you'll never get where you're going. That that was almost poetic. Okay. Uh, so I really liked that you shared that because I think that that's a very common theme and it's something that I've even struggled with in the past. My podcast, for example, we're sitting here filming. Thanks so much for hosting me. You might notice this is a different background. This is, uh, Valentina's house. I made three episodes my first season of the podcast and they were okay. They didn't get a lot of views. And I watched them and I said, wow, uh, the production quality's not great. Uh, sound quality's not good. So I identified all these things that I needed to fix, and then it took me five or six months to order the cameras and research the software and how I was gonna, you know, do sound editing, learn how to do that, and it prevented me from continuing the podcast. So then a year later when I released the next, you know, four episodes or five episodes, and those were all still really bad, I became very discouraged. I went back to the drawing board, how am I gonna make the episodes better? What am I gonna do? How do I, how do I correct it? But then I took another year. Before I started making episodes again. So I think this is like, I don't know, an 18 or 19th episode of my podcast, but I'm like, I've been, I was doing this for three years and I really wasn't doing it for three years. I really have only been doing it for the last two months now. But now it's just the understanding. I have 80% of this concept. I'm going to keep taking action and making it a reality, and I'll get better as I go. Yes. And once you accept that as an operating procedure for you, for your business, everything unlocks, all of a sudden taking action becomes so much easier. But you have to get to a point where you can accept, I'm good with 80% and I'll figure it out on the backend. I mean, look at even Mr. Beast stuff. I mean, if you saw his early, early works, it's nowhere near where he was, where he is now. Mm-hmm. But he needed that early work in order to become what he's now. It paves the way. Exactly. It's the groundwork, the foundation. Exactly. Yeah. So I think that that's important for people to understand. Right. You might be putting in effort now, and it goes unrewarded. Not a lot of people know this. When I started, um, my journey of entrepreneurship, I worked for free for two years. I didn't get a paycheck. I was literally living in my grandmother's basement on student loans. I had to go through that process of not making any money and grinding to learn what I needed to learn to be successful. Exactly. And then, you know, as you start making a little bit of money, your identity shifts to, okay, I'm a real entrepreneur. Now I'm a real businessman. I don't know, but I, I had that identity shift and then you're already kind of, it's like that's a reward almost like, um, in dog training or something like that. You're trying to teach a dog to do the task and you give 'em a reward when they do it well. So you get that reward and you're like, oh, I gotta keep going. I can do it again. But then it just becomes easier and easier and easier because you put in all of that work on the front end, and that's the stuff nobody sees when they see you start getting paid. Then it's like, oh, you're an overnight success. No, I was never an overnight success. I worked for two years without a paycheck just to get the company off the ground. Yeah. It's important that we tell those kind of stories, I think, because it really puts into perspective the reality of entrepreneurship. Everyone thinks it's glamorous, but the reality is it might become glamorous if you do well and you stick with it and you continue. But it's never glamorous when you start. Oh no. It's messy. It's messy, and it's okay. It's okay to be messy, and honestly, you learn more. Yes, you learn more. When it's messy. It puts you in uncomfortable situations where you have to grow. And I, one of the things that's very important I think, is that we perpetually try to keep ourselves in an opportunity for growth, and that looks different for different people because we have different strengths and weaknesses. But the reality is you have to do the things that make you uncomfortable or you'll never develop into the person who is comfortable. At those things and you will know it. Here's another thing that you will know it, this is when I knew that it's time for growth. Like, whenever you don't feel comfortable with yourself, you are, you are, you are seeing how other people post their lives on social media and it's like, why can't I have this? Why am I not? You will feel it inside of you that you're playing small. Mm-hmm. And this drains your energy so much more. It's such a painful feeling. Like I knew when it was time for me to step into entrepreneurship was like, I am playing small. I need to this, I, I need to do something more. I need to do something bigger. And that feeling was scarier than my fear of failure. Mm-hmm. You know? And you will feel it. Like every entrepreneur has this idea, like, I want more for myself. I'm capable of more. Because when you are, when you're older, right? And you look back on your, on, on your life, just, just take the leap. You would have preferred to take the leap and failed than not try at all. You mentioned fear. Can I talk about fear for a minute, please? Turn to the camera for the seriousness here. I have been going back and forth on how to attack fear in my mind. So we're both in the ClickFunnels community. Mm-hmm. Uh, we met through Russell Brunson's Mastermind. He's really big on the Napoleon Hill books. Yes. It's crazy how good Russell is, or his team is at the targeting of people. I've been in his community since, or I started with ClickFunnels in early 2017. I was already a Napoleon Hill fan. I was already an Ayn Rand fan. Like, and now this is years later. He wasn't about those, he didn't, wasn't sharing those books and the, the, those kind of commentaries back then. But I'm like, I've been in that community for seven or eight years now, and now he's getting into or sharing and being really, uh, like present about all of the interests I had back when I started the group. Yeah. I was like, that was just crazy. Uh, but the Napoleon Hill thing talks about overcoming fear as an entrepreneur. Mm-hmm. And in his book, outwitting the Devil, have you read? Oh, it's one of my top three books, so good For sure. Maybe top two. Mm-hmm. Uh, behind Atlas Shrugged, of course. Anyways, he, um, talks about how the devil uses fear. To prevent you from acting, yes, to keep you, they call it drifting in the book, but it's essentially to prevent you from taking the action that's required for you to be successful in life. I actually just saw, um, on the airplane, I'm like getting my free flight wifi or whatever Russell posted, uh, an Instagram post, I think it said, this phrase is used in the Bible, 300 some odd times. And then when you go to like swipe and look at what the phrase was, it's do not be afraid. And I'm like, okay, there's a pattern of fear as the greatest obstacle for an entrepreneur to overcome. But the reality is if you. Can overcome fear, literally just fear. You can take enough action. You can find a way to win and get over every other obstacle. It's when things get hard that you fall back on the fear as an excuse, and maybe you don't even consciously recognize it as fear. You're thinking about how hard this, you know, uh oh, we need funding. We can't get funding. Well, it's not actually that funding is the problem. You can find a way to get funding, whether that's, uh, I mean, you can bootstrap, you can get a loan, you can seek out an entrepreneur's fund, things like that. Um, there's hard money lending. I mean, there's always a way to figure out how to get a deal done when it comes to that. Mm-hmm. But the reality is you are afraid to take that action. You have to be able to overcome fear on a fundamental level to be able to succeed as an entrepreneur. If I could like give one message to anybody right now that's listening to this, it would be to invest in yourself and overcome the fear. For me and my backstory, it was building the confidence with how I lead myself to do hard things, but then also, how do I develop teams to be unstoppable, to do hard things? Mm-hmm. And I knew that if I could lead myself and lead my team, that nothing could stop me. And so fear became irrelevant because I was confident in me and I was confident in my team. So I really emphasized this, how do we develop confidence as an entrepreneur to overcome fear? Because that unlocks the continuous action piece. Mm-hmm. So how do you unlock, yeah. Fear or unblock yourself so that you can overcome fear. Through action really? Because the more I do something, the less afraid I am. Oh, yeah. Interestingly enough, right? You are most afraid when you start doing something, you're most afraid of what other people will think. Mm-hmm. You are most afraid of what if I fail? I, I ruin my reputation. People will not believe in me. But then you start doing this and like, huh, the world isn't collapsing. Everything is fine, and then you do it again. I'm like, oh, I guess it's not that bad. Right. So then when you actually do. Fail or when, when your fear, for example, does come true, for example, it's, it's not as bad as you had made it up in your mind. Yeah. So to me it's like with every action I am taking, it's, I'm casting a vote towards the person that I want to become towards the identity I want to be. Right. And part of my identity for to, for me to become the person I want to be, I need to let go of the person I was. I cannot leave with that fear because the, the reason I'm, I'm playing small is because I was that person that kept me small. I need to let go of that. I accept what it takes. I accept it's not gonna be a perfect smooth sail. I accept it. And also to minimize my risk, or minimize my fear. I agree that we share this fear again with the team members that we have, have a, a strong person in place, or with our, uh, partners, with my husband. It's very important to have a strong partnership at home, again, with someone who understands what you're going through and someone who can stand behind you and, and, and, and support you no matter what. If you fail or if you win, if you lose, you have somebody to hold your hand throughout this whole process. And I think it's very important. I can't say that I'm not afraid. I mean, probably that will, that still is a part of me, but. I do it anyway through, through Fear. I still do it. That's probably like, you know, how, how it works. But yeah, like I said, interestingly, it's not, reality is not as bad as what I, my mind thinks it is. Just do it. Yeah. And have a support system. Friends, mentors, spouses. I like the concept of the support system. So I recently published a book, it's called, how the Hell Are You Doing This? Chapter two is all about family. It's the support system. I know that they have my back, that they are there to support me and my endeavors and entrepreneurship, the military, whatever. But also they become a why it's a fuel. Mm-hmm. To some degree as well, because when you have that support system, you wanna be there for them just as much as they're there for you. Yeah. So you take that action, you find successes, you come back, you can share that with them. That's a really, I think, beautiful concept. Mm-hmm. We start with why and the family, the support giving and receiving is why at the end of the day for me. Yeah. Okay. Love this. Can we talk more maybe specifically about your business Please? So why don't you go ahead and, and introduce us. Hire, train, va. Correct? Yes. So tell us about Hire Train VA specifically. We kind of got an overview, but what makes you unique and what is I, I guess we kind of shared your superpower already, but like what positions you differently from other maybe VA services? I have a saying that. If something can be done on a computer or on the phone, it can be done by anyone anywhere in the world. Oh, that's good. Yeah. Literally with the, the, with the technology we have nowadays, anyone can do it, but at the same time, not anyone can do it. Meaning that you can do it from every, all over the world, but you have to have that special person that's super who. Mm-hmm. It's not just anybody. You have to have the right person in the right seat. Right. Maybe they have that hunger that you mentioned earlier. You have to have hunger, you have to have passion. So that's actually one thing that we use when we screen virtual assistants. So we try to understand not just what they're good at skill wise, but also their why. Mm-hmm. Like, why are you doing this? Like, what, what's happening in your life? What happened in your previous job? Like what, what is, what is their desire? What's their motivation? We find that people who. Have a clear plan. People who understand what they want, they're much more successful and they don't job hop, they're stable. So there's a couple of things that we do. Um, when we look for virtual assistants, a couple of red flags that we never hire, first of all is job hopping. If someone worked two, two months here, two months there, two months everywhere, why would they make an exception for you? Yeah. So that's number one thing. And I understand sometimes it happens, uh, that they worked in a place for two months. But if this is a pattern that's been going on for years and years and years, uh, most likely they're not going to make an exception for you. And most likely these people dunno what they want. That's number one thing we're looking at. The number two thing we're looking at, and this is what entrepreneurs get so excited about it. I'm like, no, this is a red flag. They get so excited when they see a virtual assistant who can do social media and bookkeeping and they good on sales. Oh yeah, no, this is a unicorn. Nope. It depends. Do you need a general VA then? Yeah, that might, that person might be good, but if you need someone, a specialist in something, you'll be very disappointed with that virtual system. Can I chime in on the specialist thing please? Unstoppable teams do not hire generalists. Unstoppable teams specialize in what they do and they do it very well. It is a common problem. So I coach leadership and team development. Mm-hmm. It is a common problem in people expecting their teams to be like A players and unstoppable and, and go out and scale the business. But instead of having the people who are actually the experts that can do that, or developing the experts, 'cause you don't have to hire somebody to be an expert. You can train 'em, develop 'em, coach'em, but you have to specialize them. Yes. If you don't specialize them, they will never be able to scale a system or an organization. And that's just the reality of the situation. Exactly. There's a very big difference between a special forces operator clearing a room and clearing a building. Then a platoon of mechanics. It's just a different skillset. It's a different methodology that comes with that as well. Mm-hmm. But you have to put in the time, the hours, the effort to get to that point. Yes. Okay. Sorry. Had to go in on the specialization.'cause once you said that, I was like a hundred percent. Everyone needs to pick up on this. That is crucial. Yes. So we specialize in finding specialists and actually what we tell people that we work with that do not give virtual assistant tasks, stop giving them tasks. If you give virtual, I'm gonna look in. If you give virtual assistant tasks, you are keeping your company small. Okay. So here's why. Because instead of giving tasks, you need to give them responsibilities. What happens if you give somebody a task, they will come to you like, okay, boss, I'm done with the task. What's next? Meaning you have to put everything aside, what you're working on and be like, okay, what's next? What are you doing? What did you do? Okay, what's next? What else do I need to give you? No, you're basically creating another job for yourself. Yeah, by giving them tasks instead, give them a responsibility. And when you do that, they take ownership of that role. For example, let's take again real estate. We spoke about real estate. You are responsible for lead generation. We in marketing, we are making the phones ring. You are responsible to make sure that they are, they're well taken care of, and you set appointments and that already includes cold calling, following up, taking inbound calls, um, making sure the CRM is taken care of, right? This is your responsibility. Setting appointments for acquisition team or whatever. Think about any other roles. As opposed to when you give them tasks and you say, you're gonna be a cold caller, then the VA's like, why are you giving me follow up? I'm, I'm, or Give me a raise. Gimme a raise because you hired me to do cold calling. Now you want me to do follow up calls or taking phone calls. Mm-hmm. It's completely different. And they will only focus on the task instead of give them a responsibility. Like our social media, for example, you are responsible for my social media. Mm-hmm. If it goes great, it's thanks to you. If it doesn't go well, figure out what's not going well. Like, I should not be spending time because I'm hiring you as a specialist. I should not be spending time figuring out how you do, how you do your job. So this is very important. And then people know exactly if they're being successful or not. Nobody should ever be surprised that they're being let go, ever. Okay. If, if people are surprised they're being let go, that means you failed as a leader. Because there have to be metrics, there have to be numbers, there has to be a responsibility that you hold them accountable to. Mm-hmm. And they know if I'm hitting this accounta, if I'm hitting this result, my job is safe. If I'm not hitting this result, they could let me go. So nobody should ever be surprised. Did you know you're a leadership expert? How come the things that you are talking about right now are the things that people pay me to coach them on? Oh, interesting. So I'm like, I'm getting excited as I'm listening to you because I'm like, holy smokes. Like she, she's on what? I'm on up here it. Okay. The responsibilities thing, I share a concept about, I call it tactical team development. How do you develop your team? In a tactical manner to help you accomplish whatever your mission is. And one of the core tenets of this is decentralized leadership. Mm-hmm. What that really boils down to is how do we maximally empower the people on our teams to be successful? Mm-hmm. And it starts with responsibility. So when you say, don't give them a task, give them responsibility, I'm like, holy smokes. She already knows my, you know, $25,000 secret. That's so funny. How do you give people ownership of their roles? It's not task based. It's responsibility based. Exactly. And you let them take the actions that they need to take to be better at those roles, grow in those roles, or succeed. And if they fail, you talk to'em about it, pull 'em aside. Like you said, you get your KPIs, you get your metrics, the things that you can track, you can go over those. You can use those as your. Basis for, are you doing good or are you doing poorly? Let them know when they're doing poorly and then send them back out there. And if there's a habit of failure or it's, or it's perpetual mm-hmm. That's when you cut the tie and you move on. Right. But if someone is doing that and they're actually taking responsibility, they become successful because they want to succeed in their responsibilities and their ownership of that position and that role in your company. Whew. Yes. Yes. Feeling so good about that. Absolutely. It's really interesting. I'm drawing kind of the similarity or the, the connection between, you know, you plug in a VA to a, a company or a business and you might be, you know, prone to just treating them like any other employee, but it's really the leadership that goes into how you interact with them that's gonna determine whether or not they're successful. Yes. Can I comment something? Please, please. Okay. So I have this analogy. I don't know if you like, um, um, car races. Uh, right. I'm, I'm very into cars. Yes. Okay. Okay. So I always say something like this, like, you can have the best driver in the world, but if you put them in a, in a race car, and if you put them in a. Regular car you can, they're gonna have completely different results. Mm-hmm. So I could, for example, I could give you the best virtual assistant in the world, but if your company is not a sports car, if your company is a regular Honda or I don't know, whatever it is, then that person is not gonna give the best uh, performance. Correct.'cause your. Company is the vehicle. So you need to have the best vehicle for the best driver. And this is very important and I feel like a lot of entrepreneurs, they think when they hire help, it's abdicating responsibilities. Okay, you go figure out, I'm up. It's not abdication, right? You need to work on yourself because A players, they follow a leaders. Yes. So you need to become a, an A leader in order to attract the best talent. Mm-hmm. So, and to maintain it. And to maintain it.'cause if you have an A player, they will leave, they'll come in that work, and then they see that you are not an A team leader. Exactly. They're out. They're out. Or if they're out, if you have B or C players on the team, they'll be like, why am I putting extra effort if you are tolerating mediocrity? And again, it takes time, but as a business owner, the reason you are hiring teams, it's not because the team will scale your company. And again, that's another truth. You do not hire people to scale your company. You hire people to free up your time so that you can scale your company so that you can work on your vehicle to make it as strong and as powerful and as fast as possible. Because that will attract good people. And a lot of people say, oh, I'm just hiring help now I can go to the beach and I can go relax. No, no. Like you hire help because you need to work on needle moving activities. How do you make a business stronger? How do you keep this top talent? How do you attract more top talent? Like this is the main. Reason, like you are the visionary, you are the, you know, the designer, the driver of the organization, not of the car that we were previously referencing. Exactly. But let me go back to that analogy for a second. You could put a super who, a really good driver, max v Steppen into a 1985 Honda Accord. And I bet he will get a faster lap time than you would in that same car, on that same racetrack. Mm-hmm. But do you think he's content driving that 1985 Honda Accord? No. He's going to leave your team to get into a better car because he wants a faster time. So you have to develop that. A team leadership that we talked about, which becomes essentially the vehicle Yes. To put them in, to have them succeed. If you are not elevating the quality of your leadership, the quality of your business, you are never going to maintain A players. The beauty is you can hire a players, but I've, I mean, on a personal level, I found more success when I invest in developing them, right? We hire for culture, we hire for the fit, the trustworthiness, those kind of things. Mm-hmm. And yes, we want you to have a skillset, but if it's not perfect yet, don't worry. You will specialize in that and we will get you to a point where you are perfect. And if I can't teach you how to do that myself, we'll invest in a way for you to figure out that growth or that trajectory still. Mm-hmm. Whether that's formal education, whether that's online courses or seminars or whatever, like leaders who invest in their people and leaders who promote responsibility through their ownership in the role, they're the ones who succeed. They're the ones that develop the unstoppable teams. I. Gosh, I really liked that analogy. It was good. Mm-hmm. I am a big car guy. Oh, okay. If you didn't know, I, one of my companies is called Time Pieces and exotics. I buy, sell, trade, exotic and luxury cars. Oh, wow. I got into it as hard asset investing, actually, like alternative assets, I guess is a better term. You can actually buy like an exotic car and everyone always would say, you lose so much money on an exotic car, you're, they're, they're such a problem. They're so expensive to repair. It's just not true. Like all that stuff is just myths. Hmm. Maybe it used to be true, but the reality is so many different cars share different parts now. For example, Volkswagen Group, mm-hmm. Owns Lamborghini, owns Porsche, owns Volkswagen, or owns Volkswagen, owns Bentley. Like all those cars, car brands, they all share parts interest. So now it's actually super affordable to repair cars because of the prevalence of the parts. Hmm. Because all of the brands are using the same pieces. That's one. Second, some cars scarcity based the right make the right model, high trim level, really desirable options, color combinations, contrasting interiors, things like that. They add value to the car and then. After the leases are up usually three to four years, those cars reach what's called base cash value and that's where they will not depreciate any further based on time. They will re-appreciate if they have low miles and are in excellent condition. So I try to buy cars that three to four year mark, five years maybe, and you hold them for a year or two. You let 'em re-appreciate and value so that when you go to sell 'em, they are the lowest mile best conditioned vehicle. And then you make money to own and drive exotic cars for a year or two. That's interesting. Wow. Super cool business model, right? Yeah. But it just goes to show, like for entrepreneurs there is so much you can do. There's so many different ways to start up a business model or even just types of businesses. Like if you are willing to put in the research, if you're willing to put in the time on the front end to figure out how to do that. Literally the world is your oyster. Like anything is possible if you just actually commit to learning and taking action. I'm gonna ask you a question, okay? And I promise you it's not a tricky question, okay? Okay. What is eight plus two 10? What is five plus five? 10. What is seven plus three? 10. What is 20 divided by two? 10? What is a hundred divided by 10? 10. All of these are 10, right? Yep. It's the same thing, like look, there are so many ways to get to 10, right? There are so many ways to get to success. There's an infinite ways to get to success. Some people say real estate is the way to success. Yes. But also coaching is the real and, and this and this and this. Anything, I promise you, anything that you wanna do can lead you to success. If what you just said commit to one, here's what a couple of people are doing. There's like, oh, um, eight plus two. I hear this is the, the level to the road to success, but you know what? But someone said seven plus three, so I should abandon eight plus two and instead I should focus seven plus three. Uh, no, but someone else said five plus five, so I should abandon this two and maybe focus my attention on five plus five. Yeah. A lot of energy is spent on finding the way to success rather than eight plus two. And just go figure out, until you get to this 10, go figure out until you get to success. And I think what you just mentioned, like literally the world is a oyster, especially now with social media can become an influencer. It can become a gamer. I'm sure there's a successful person in any. Thing out there, commit to it, learn research, commit, try and just, just do it. And then once you master that, move on to the next thing if you want to. You mentioned social media, so I have to bring this up. I was telling you in the car ride over here, YouTube in particular, I had no following, no subscribers, like no views, was very inactive on YouTube Two months ago when I started doing the podcast more consistently again, and I was trying to up the production quality, all those things, I was investing in myself and my efforts. I was taking action. I was learning how to do it better. I started posting. Videos. And I made a commitment that I was gonna go in all in on YouTube is what I promised to myself. And in two months I went from a nobody account to a top 1% YouTube account based on watch time.'cause somebody's gonna go look at this, they're gonna be like, you only have like 110 subscribers. I'm gonna be like, but I have 150 watch hours. And for whatever reason, that's the top 1%. So it just goes to show one, it's not necessarily impressive. So I'm not trying to share it as a brag, but I am trying to share it in the sense that this is what's possible in as little as 60 days. And if you can do that in 60 days, imagine what you can do in a year. And if you can do it in a year, I mean, it's compounding at that point. Mm-hmm. But you have to commit to it. Right? When I was posting on YouTube, you know, six times a year, I never got traction. I never got followers, I never got views. But when I post on YouTube six times in a week. It's like exponential growth. And part of the reason I'm so big on YouTube, I talk about it almost every episode, is that it's a search engine. YouTube's not just social media like we see on Instagram or Facebook. And while you should go all in on those platforms, if like you're passionate about one of them, commit to it and do it. Um, the reality I think for YouTube is that they're rewarded, the platform is rewarded if they can best serve your content. Mm-hmm. Because they keep viewers on the platform longer. Mm-hmm. We giving them the things that they're searching for. So I'm like, how do you position something as an answer? You get it on YouTube, you do that consistently. You growth, it just happened. Like there's no other way. If you're providing value and doing it consistently and you're niched down, that's probably a good clarification. You win like on, on any platform when you really think about it. But two months, it took me two months to get to the top 1%. So take the action. And go all in. There's, like you said, any different business you can be successful in. I really, I genuinely believe that, and I like to teach my students that you can be successful in anything that you are interested or passionate in, and I encourage people to actually pursue their passions as a means for business. I think that that plays into your why. Mm-hmm. If you're passionate about something, you're more likely to stick with it. If you run into an obstacle, you're more likely to work through it. If you have a fear based objection, you're more likely to find a way to work through that and overcome the fear. Mm-hmm. If you have a passion, a legitimate care, or an interest in the product, the service or the audience that you are trying to reach. Yeah. Yeah. Whew. That's really good. We're on fire. We're on fire right now. Woo. Okay. Do you mind talking a little bit about your business model? You don't have to share any details you don't wanna share. Mm-hmm. But again, it's the understanding of what's possible and structuring things different. A lot of entrepreneurs, I know I was this way and, and you know, it took me years to maybe see that there were other ways. But you have this, this thought that I need to provide a product or a service and it's maybe just a one time transaction. Mm-hmm. It's beneficial if we can share the information about, well, how do you get recurring revenue? How do you get subscribers? How do you like, does that make sense? Yes. So a little bit about maybe the model. I know we talked a little bit in the car about, uh, one-time purchases, but also agencies. So our original model was you just look for a virtual assistant, we give you that person, but then you pay them, you take care of them. Like we have no. Nothing with that virtual assistant. We we're just head hunting. Right. Tell us what you need. We're gonna find the person for you. We had the situation that kind of triggered something. We had a virtual assistant who came to us and said, I haven't been paid for the past two weeks. Am I being let go? What's happening? I was like, oh, oh, let me reach out to the, the company we work with. I reach out to them and I say, is everything okay? Is? And they said, oh, she's fantastic. We love her. She's like, well, she said she hasn't been paid for the past two weeks. Yeah. I need to upload these documents to this paying platform, and it's taken a while and they need to verify me that I'm a real business and they ask for this information and, and my, a copy of my ID, and they need this. And it is a lot of things, and it is just taking time. So, okay, well, I'll tell the VA what's happening and then see how, how, what can we do in the meantime? How can we fix it? Right. So I did tell the va, but she said, I understand, but I have bills to pay. Like, you know, like the VA was very understanding. Uh, things worked out in the end, but the, the trust in a way was broken. Mm-hmm. So then we were thinking, you know what? People don't hire VAs to become part-time hr. Like you, you get help, you hire some help because you want to free up your time. Yeah. Not because you have to, uh, track their time and make, manage payroll and do this and do that. Like, that's not the reason. It's like, why don't we take it? We already have accounts and all the platforms. We already know how to pay international fees. We already know how to do this. So what if we could pay the VA every two weeks like clockwork and instead you as the company, you pay us once a month for you. It's very simple. It's a business to business transaction. You don't have to worry about 10 90 nines. W twos. Yeah. It's just a us US based, right? And we'll fi we'll worry about everything else. Tracking their time, taking screenshots, whatever it is. So we started offering that as a service and people loved it. VAs loved it even more, you know, because it's like, Hey, I feel like I, I'm a place that I belong. Because a lot of entrepreneurs, they don't have time to manage that VAs. Um, you know, and those virtual assistant, they want to feel like they belong to a place. So we offer this them, this community. We the payment on time, everything's on time. So we started offering this as an agency service. And this is good for a couple of reasons. Well, first of all, uh, we can help the VA right away if there's an issue. They run to us first, not to the client, but also it's good for our business because we have monthly recurring revenue, right? So, and, and we are more invested in making the relationship work because we know the happier they are, the longer they will keep this virtual assistant. We don't want them to replace that person. We don't want 'em to cancel the service with us. So what can we do as a company? We, we are so much more involved in this relationship. What do you need this be? Yeah, you need an AI tool. We have an AI tool that can help you be more efficient. So we empower the VAs to work with AI because we we're interested in keeping this relationship going, right? So this is our MRR. When you're in business, you analyze, you understand, you try, you pivot, right? You experiment and you see what, what's working. So if you didn't catch it, she highlighted the. Transition or, or the, the starting with the single purchase. That was the placement and then it a flow into monthly recurring revenue. Right. But then what happened, and this is like, uh, um, actually today we had this like epiphany. We've been focused so much on this new model because everybody likes it, people like it, but then sometimes, you know, we get on sales calls and they're like, I already have a team of Visa. I already know what I'm doing. I just really need the person. So we're like, we shouldn't ditch the old model. Instead of like, let's listen to what people need. The reason we created the new model is because we wanna make it easier for the entrepreneur. Yeah. You don't have to manage payroll, but if they have somebody on their team who knows how to manage the payroll, who literally just needs a person, they don't want that person to be managed by us necessarily. They just want the person to be fully ingrained into their company and culture. And that's it. We shouldn't. Digital, like we shouldn't forget about the old model. Let's offer this too. So we're gonna offer two services. Whether you wanna hire someone direct or whether you wanna hire someone without even worrying about paying them or all of this headache, we can accommodate you. And I think as a business, it's so important to recognize, to listen to what people need because they will tell you. And a lot of times people don't know what they need, but you ask smart questions. Okay. Tell me about, okay, imagine you bring this person on board. What do you want to see happening? And they will say, I wanna give my time back. Okay, how much time do you wanna get back? 20 hours? What are you gonna do with those 20 hours? So you ask smart questions and then you understand, I will give you this person, but um, I have this option where you manage the payroll. It doesn't sound like you're gonna get 20 hours back. You might get 15, 10. I don't know. Right? Because you have to manage, you have to have meetings with them. Is that what you want? You understand through smart questions, you understand what they need best. Can I jump in? So. Businesses. All different markets, all different niches. The strategy is the same. Business strategy is the same across markets. What changes is the tactics? That's the preface. Last month I did a podcast episode with Richmond Inn, tiny Challenges. Good, great episode, really good content. He told me one of the reasons that he's so big on the tiny challenge is it's five days of 30 minute phone calls with an individual, and over the course of the phone calls, he asks those questions, he listens, and then what he offers on day five is what they've told him that they need. Previously. The tactic is maybe a little bit different, but the strategy here is the same. You're listening to what the customer wants and you're providing that service.'cause the reality is a really good offer isn't just something that you throw out. I mean, you can have an offer that you just throw out, but the great offers are the ones that are tailored to the people that you're offering them to. That's what makes 'em stick. It's what makes 'em convert. Yes. You listen, you learn, and then you provide. Exactly. Exactly. And like, like I said, like you, it's so important you as a business owner or someone who's doing sales, it's important to ask questions like ask questions. Because a lot of business owners, they don't know what they need. Yeah. They might be so stuck in the weeds that they don't understand what it, what's the way out. But the more you ask questions like, imagine how, how is this going to work out? They will tell you what their pain point is and what the solution needs to look like. And then you have to act with integrity. Can you or can you not solve it? If you can't solve it, it's your responsibility to tell them about it. Yeah. Okay. And if you can't solve it, just be honest about it because it's maybe there's maybe not a fit and that's okay. Sometimes it happens. We don't work with absolutely everyone. If I can't help someone, um, I would just rather tell them. Can we talk a little bit about the strategy? Mm-hmm. One of the problems and we're, we'll maybe start at square one and we'll work our way through the pipeline of a customer, perhaps. Mm-hmm. So. Every entrepreneur runs into this problem. It's right at the forefront of every business lead generation. Like I mentioned a minute ago. The strategy is the same. Yeah. The tactics may be vary. Mm-hmm. But as far as your strategy goes, how are you doing lead generation for your business? A lot of it is word of mouth, uh, referrals. Um, join communities. So Dream 100, that's also works for us. Like find people who already have your community and, and join those communities. Can we talk about how you're doing those? So I, yeah. Which one recently shared, um, about lead magnets and Dream 102? Yes. My viewers. Yes. So let's maybe start there. So I talked about the Dream 100 specifically, like I find the people that have my audience captivated. Yes. I reach out to them over and over and over again and I'm super annoying. And eventually maybe some of them. Reply to me. Mm-hmm. Then I get podcasts booked, I get featured content, whatever it is, you know? Mm-hmm. That's, uh, one method of doing it, but other people do it different ways. What's, what's yours look like as far as implementing the Dream 100, first of all, is identifying who your Dream 100 is, and we work with a lot of real estate companies. So then we say, okay, who has real estate investors? What communities have that? Uh, we work with every entrepreneur, you know, like we're basically tell us what the bottleneck is and we'll find the person, the super who I'm just giving this example for, uh, real estate because that's my background and the way that. Have, have worked for us is I try to get on a podcast with the person who is running the Mastermind. Mm-hmm. And, um, try to bring value. You lead with value. I don't have any expectations. I'm totally okay. Not even mentioning the name of my company on the podcast. Totally fine with that. Just bring value. And I say, what does your audience need? What do your people need? And a lot of times they say they're struggling with legend, they're struggling with this. Okay. Because if I have the experience, is it okay if I tell them how I made a company $9 million in the three years that I was with them? Just kinda share my, my story with them. Just, just bring value. And if you want to, you can make an introduction. But this is what I start with. I bring value. We talk about life, we talk about business, we talk about strategies. If people are interested in you, they will research you. Yeah. So make sure you, um, on your social media profile, if they Google your name or YouTube, they know what you do so they can reach out to your service. And yeah, you can, you can mention a little bit. So when I go to podcasts, I say, uh, look, I hired virtual assistants and now I'm actually, you know, I have built a whole business where I hire virtual assistants. I don't have to mention the name of my company, but I'm just kind mentioning what I do. Yeah. So, uh, bring value, ask questions. Uh, I get on calls for that community as like, I'm not gonna be paid, but, uh, let me talk to your community and answer questions one-on-one, not just on a podcast, but one-on-one questions. So this is another thing that, that I do that works and build that trust. Because the more you build that trust, the more people know who you are and the more they see you, uh, the more likely they are to. Uh, trust you with their businesses as well. This is what we do for Dream 100. And then of course it's word of mouth. It's like, who else do you know that might need this? Now, when we work with people in a certain community, the chances are that they're probably members of other communities as well. Yeah. Especially if they have a good result with you. It's like, can you put me in touch with someone, someone else from that community? We have somebody who hired 10 virtual assistants with us, super happy. She says, I recommend you guys to everyone. You're the best company I've ever worked with. And I said, great. Are you any part of Mastermind Michelle? Oh yeah. I mean this masterminding, that Mastermind. Could you connect me with someone from that mastermind so that I could be on a podcast or I could share, get on a call? Yeah. It's through word of mouth, but of course you have to have good results. People can open the doors for you. You have to walk through them, and you have to walk through those doors with your head held high. Mm-hmm. You know? So, uh, that's how we do with Dream 100. I think you mentioned something that's important too, and I didn't want it to just get glazed over. You identified who could make a connection Potentially. Yeah. And you asked. I asked, yeah. A lot of people I see, mostly it's the younger generation. Mostly they can lead with value. But it's uncomfortable to ask. Mm-hmm. How do you recommend somebody approach those questions or conversations? Is it just as simple as overcoming the fear and asking and just know that if you don't ask it's a hundred percent guarantee, then you're not gonna get it. Mm-hmm. If you do ask, it's 50 50, you know, so you never get what you don't ask for. And if you provided good value, it might even be a better odd than that. Exactly. Yeah. Provide good value. And sometimes I say, Hey, I would like you to, to try our service first. I'll give you a virtual assistant Absolutely. For free. Just try it out. You know, just see how it goes and if you like it, we can continue this. If not, I'll take the whole risk because I'm so confident in, um, we, we've seen it over and over again with so many people with service. Yeah. That I feel com comforting to, to do that. I mean, what do you have to lose if you ask and they say No. At least they know who you are. Mm-hmm. Right? And then you ask again, or just bring value, be active on social media as well. This is something I'm actually putting a lot of focus on now. I don't think I've been doing a good job, but, uh, I'm trying now to bring more awareness and like, because if you know that you can solve a problem mm-hmm. And you're not talking about this, you're doing it a, a disservice to everyone. You're not helping anyone by not talking about this. Yes. Hey, I have a solution to your problem, but I'm not giving it to you. You know? So in the past week, I've had three people reach out to me. Sorry, I've had more people than that in the last week, but I had three, um, two new clients, one new podcast invite, reach out to me, and all three of them led with, Hey, I don't know what you're like if you're running ads, but I see you everywhere. I open my Instagram, you're on my Instagram, I open Facebook, you're on my Facebook, I open YouTube. You're on my YouTube. Out of those three outreaches, uh, one of 'em is closed and my, I closed the deal for coaching. Uh, one of them is a warmish lead that I'm trying to nurture. And then one of 'em was an invite to go do a relatively large podcast. Great. So I'm like all three of those and all three of those opportunities, which, you know, maybe I close number two and maybe the podcast brings me a few clients or something like that. I don't know. That's the future. That's like good money just for posting on social media. I wasn't running paid ads, I wasn't, uh, investing in crazy production. I was just sharing my podcasts, chopping 'em up into shorts and reels, sharing those consistently. And then people come to you because you're present on those platforms. So I'm like very big on advocating for people to be present on social media. So when you mention you need to be doing that. Go all in on that one. Yes. Because even if you get, you know, just a couple, a couple clients a year on that, isn't it worth it? Oh, totally. Doesn't it pay for itself? Totally. I'm like totally. And, and social media. I'm experimenting on social media. So if anyone's curious to see my, my journey and the growth I'm gonna get out of this. Just find me, find my name on social media. Excuse my name, Rega. But look, what I'm experimenting with right now is going top of the funnel. Not not talking about virtual assistants per se, but talking about entrepreneurship, making some funny, ski, something relatable. Yeah. Maybe, you know, some, some situations with my kids. Just still building trust, relatability, building trust. Yeah. Like I want people to see that to, to, to see me like, look what you said. I see you everywhere. And I think it's so important to cut through the noise. Uh, there's a lot of things on social media happening. Uh, our attention span is so small now, right? So it's like mm-hmm. People scroll past you. So if you give a ton of value, I feel like, uh, they may, they may skip. So how do I get people's attention? How do I get them to know who I am and, and get them curious enough about me? So they're like, oh, what is she talking about? Because I do have value posts there as well, but I'm also experimenting with more, uh, entertain the masses, educate the interested. So everything, uh, and this is just my opinion. But it works. Yeah. Everything's hook, story offer. Yeah. Right. But there's added complexity on social media because it's not just hook as in writing the headline on your ad. It's not just hook as in a subject line on an email. It's both visual and audio. Yes. And again, it's not just text. You need an actual visual hook, otherwise someone scrolls right past you, so there's just this layer of difficulty that's added. Yeah. One of the things that I've done to get past that, or to help me succeed beyond it is props. Sounds silly, and it is a little bit silly for my e-commerce business. I bought Halloween costumes and I wear them in the first shot. Of some of my ads. So it's like me in a 1920s bodybuilder muscle man suit with like the circus, uh, leotard type thing on it. And I'm curling, like do Oh yeah. But it's just something that you don't normally see. I can see this. So somebody stops to see what is going on there. Yeah. And then it, you know, they get to see some of the content. So a really good hook on the front end for my podcast actually in my home studio, I have a portrait. I don't know if you're familiar with the, uh, TV show, the Office. Of course. So when Dwight Tr becomes manager Yeah. He gets a portrait done in the style of like Kim Jong-Un or something like that, like the sun behind him, like an icon. And he's got his hand out leading the office. Yeah, I have a portrait of me. Oh my God, that's that. No, my wife made it for me when I took command of the field artillery battery that I'm in, in the National Guard. But I have that portrait hanging on the wall, so anybody scrolling sees that. They go, what? And like it's me in military uniform with like this supreme leader portrait. So good. But that's a visual hook. So good. So people stop and they're like, what is this dude doing next to his own portrait? Like, so good. And then I get 'em in, but they're in just long enough for me to start the story or provide the value there anyways, that's working for me. So it's, it's one, they have to have the visual to stop the scroll two, they need the audio to hook 'em. So start with a really bold statement, typically, like how much better would your business be if we could put the super who that could solve your problems in bottleneck into it today. That was bam. Boom. That was another one. We're gonna use that on a reel. I'm gonna use that one. But yeah, so you get immediate visual feedback, immediate audio feedback, and if you get that one two punch right out the gate. They're hooked for three seconds. Mm-hmm. So then how do you rehook? Mm-hmm. It's, you get 'em in for three seconds, you show a little bit of information, bam, hit 'em with another hook. The next hook in my muscle man curling. All of a sudden I'm, I'm doing front squats and I'm holding a flag pole over my head. You know, something crazy like that. Yeah. But then they're brought back into the, the video again, and then I can hit'em with another piece of information. So it's this process of hook story, rehook story leading to your offer. Yeah. Anyways, that's how I'm doing it. It's working pretty well for me. I feel like my short form, as far as the podcast goes, I key heavily on the visual hooks. So I have the portrait of me. I've got, um, I dunno if you saw my, my shoes. I wear custom painted. I saw sneakers as a reminder to be authentic to myself. Because I'm a nerd. I'm just a big old nerd, and maybe I've had some success in business, but that doesn't mean I stopped liking nerdy things. So I wear Naruto painted sneakers because I think that they're cool, and it reminds me to be genuinely me. I have a portrait of one of my favorite characters from that television show on the other wall. So you've got self portrait of me. You've got a portrait of Diah the Gallant. Mm. But then somebody scrolls, they see this anime portrait, they see this weird supreme leader portrait, and they'll just your're immediately. Your brain is like, what the heck is going on here? And you stop and listen for a second. Yeah. And then if I can have some good content right there, audio wise, that snags 'em, hooks 'em in, shows them. Why my content's there to begin with, then I win. Yeah. So good. So since I started doing that, I've ended up getting like a hundred followers a week, which is, I mean, I think that's pretty substantial. Mm-hmm. And it's not just Instagram, Facebook, like my ex account has grown, my YouTube account obviously the top 1% now. So that one's grown a lot. And it's just the consistency with those two things. The hook, the story rehook. That's so good. I, I love talking about social media and it's not as easy as people think. Like, but, but it's so worth it. It's so, it's not easy. But it is easy because I don't know how to best describe that. Even bad content will help you grow if you're consistent with it. Hmm. Because again, those algorithms for each of these platforms are incentivized to. Deliver your content to the people that will receive it best. Mm-hmm. So even if you have poor production quality, but your value's really, really good, mm-hmm. It will find a way to get that good value to the person looking for it. But then you have the consistency piece. The harder part for me was when I had good value, but low quality content. I wasn't proud of that content. My biggest obstacle to posting then was myself. It wasn't that the content, like the wasn't valuable. I knew that someone would get value from it. The information was there, but it was that I'm sharing this, it looks bad, therefore I look bad. So I just wouldn't take the action. That's my interpretation of that. Okay. And you use lead magnets, you said, sorry, we're going down all these rabbit holes. It, yes. I love it too. Yes, we use lead magnets and again, experiments, see what's working. We had at some point we had like 20 lead magnets, but only one performed best better than anything else. So can I ask why you had 20? Yeah, because we don't know what our people want. We had, so you split testing? So split testing, that's one thing, but also I wanted to show people good values. Like look, I can give you a guide on how to get to inbox zero. Not that many people got it. The one. Uh, lead magnet that worked best was a hundred plus tasks a VA can do for you. Mm. And they gave me something, wait a minute, people, they may not know this is what's stopping them. It's like, I know I need help. I just dunno what to give them. So how about this a hundred plus tasks? Plus they, then they see the number a hundred plus. So it looks good. It looks like they get so much more value rather than, yeah. Here's the guide, how to clean your inbox. People don't want to clean inboxes. They wanna hire someone to clean their inboxes for them. Right. So that would've been a good lead magnet maybe for VAs, but not for entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs want to know, why can I get off my plate? How do I make my life easier? How do I find someone who does it for me? Yeah. Okay. So that's, that's again, that's a lesson learned. That's why I love entrepreneurship because you grow as a person so much. No business school, the, the highest degree in the best business school in the world is not gonna get you as prepared as the real world Yes. Of entrepreneurship. So I'm finishing my doctorate right now. Yeah. Like, I, I love to continue learning. But I've said this before, and I'll say it a million times, anytime somebody asks me, business school taught me all the ways to be unsuccessful as an entrepreneur. When I was in business school, it was geared towards how to work at a Fortune 500 company. It was geared towards how to be in someone else's business. It wasn't geared towards building your own. So they told us things like, you're gonna get on social media and you're gonna be, you know, very mild. We're not gonna offend anybody. We need to make sure that the things that we say don't, um, ruffle any feathers the wrong way. You need to be very, you know, generic with your posts almost. Yeah. And we're only gonna use five hashtags because anymore just it, it weighs down your post and it looks tacky and it's not a good image for your company. And so they're telling us these things. And I think, like I said, two years I lived in my grandmother's basement. I lived on student loans. When I stopped listening to my instructors at business school and I just tried things differently, all of a sudden I blew up. That's when the company grew. Yeah. And one, it grew because I was doing things that made me separate, stand apart. Two, I was being authentic to myself then, and I wasn't trying to be this generic nobody, no face business. I was putting my face mm-hmm. In front of the company and the products, and I was taking ownership of the actions and the, the services that we were providing. And when you, when I did that, so I was separated from the formal education and I went to the school of hard knocks. That's when I was successful, that's when things blew up. So I, I've a hundred percent agreed. You will never learn a better way to do business than by just doing business. It's kind of like learning to speak a language without actually speaking it, right? Yeah. Well you need immersion. You need immersion. Yeah. You learn a language by speaking the language. You learn to write by writing. You learn a business by running a business. I like it a lot. Okay. But yeah. So we talked about dream 100 lead magnets. We talked about Dream 100 to lead magnets. Mm-hmm. I hope we've covered those enough. If you have a question, drop into the comments below, we'll be happy to help you out. So you take a, a lead. Mm-hmm. How are you qualifying your lead before you maybe start the outreach in the conversation? Before we used to just speak to everyone. Uh, now we defined who our avatar is, who we can help best, who will see best success, uh, with that. Right now we ask them to book a call and. At the call, I'm trying to have a good understanding of what is it that I can, I can help them with. Like I said, we can't help just about anyone, right? Mm-hmm. So, but we want, we want to understand what do they go through, and is our service really the best service for where they are on their journey right now in their business? For example, sometimes I talk to people who have no. Clarity on what they want to achieve. I ask them like, okay, tell me about what's the bottleneck in the business? What's happening right now, where, where you are right now, and where do you hope this person, this new hire will take you? Yeah. And they say, oh, I have no idea what to give them. I have no idea what to, uh, delegate to them. I'm just, I just know I need help. And I saw this a hundred plus tasks that you can do for you, which is great, but I don't know how to combine them to make a responsibility. Mm-hmm. Okay. Great. So that gave us a, let's have a, let's have a delegation workshop. We actually have a delegation workshop. I don't think right now they qualify for our service, per se, not until they have the clarity. Correct. So for you to get the clarity, here's our delegation workshop. Go through it. And, and people love that the delegation workshop becomes the qualifier to some degree. It does. Exactly. The delegation workshop is something that we created ourselves. It's our proprietary asset. But it's so good because it, you literally, you put down. The idea might not be new, but the tool, it's automated and it's so good. You write down everything and then it asks you a couple of questions. How important is it for you to, whatever you're doing this item, is it generating revenue for you? Yes or no? Is it important? Is it so? And then based on the answers you give, it automatically puts it into the right quadrants. This is what you should be focusing on, this is what you should delegate. Mm-hmm. This is what you should plan and this is what should automatically automate or delete completely. And it's such a powerful tool because of that. But when people go through it, it's like, oh, Uhhuh, so this is what I can delegate to someone, because then it asks you questions and like you know how to combine those tasks to create a responsibility. Yeah. And once people have the clarity, they come back to us and said, I know what I want my person to do, and then we can have a conversation about our service. And then I say, okay. We have fulfilled this position. If you need this person, what, how exactly will this person go into your company and what will they fix? What, what needs to happen? What are they assisting you with? Do you have SOPs? Because this is an assistant, after all, this is not a person who's gonna run the business for you, right? Yeah. They assist you to, to make your business better. Before that, we just like, oh, I'm sorry. We, we can't really help you. But now that we have this delegation workshop, I think it, it helps entrepreneurs a lot, understanding themselves as a leader. We have a quiz there on what's holding you back from delegating and like, are you overly perfectionist? Are you this, so it kind of has a quiz and people have this aha moments like. So I am a control freak. I, I know I need help, but it's so hard for me to let go of this control. And this quiz, this resistance quiz showed me that another very popular one was, no one can do it better than me. I'm, uh, I need to have control. A hundred percent. There are a couple of categories there, but like, can we talk about some of those real quick? Yeah, sure. So these are, uh, like I said, your mojo here. So in line with the leadership and team development coaching too, the two you just mentioned, no one can do it better than me. Yes. Can I ask how do you help people overcome that? How do you position the VA as the solution? Chances are you are not gonna find yourself. You are not gonna clone yourself. Maybe you really are right? And people do not care as much as you do. People do not want it as much as you. They're not gonna be you a hundred percent, but if they can do 70% of what you're doing, and if you have two people who can do this at 70% your capacity, you are freeing up your time. You became an entrepreneur because you think you can solve a problem. Mm-hmm. And right now, you can't solve this problem because you're too focused on this perfectionism, on this two. Yeah. So free yourself up so you can reach out to more people who need your service, who need to hear you, who've been praying for someone like you to like God, show me a sign. And then you, you come their way. Right? So to solve their their problem, find someone who's 80% good and then train them for the rest 20%. So I take a different approach. Are you familiar with the concept of the zone of genius? I think every entrepreneur Yes. Has their own zone of genius that they operate in. Yes, yes. You do what you do best, you outsource the rest. Yep. So when you think about a virtual assistant or even ai, something like that, you are, you should be delegating the responsibilities that are outside of your zone of genius that allow you to operate at that level and in that space for a greater period of time. That's my take on it. Yes. So I tell people to honestly stop and assess, are you really the best in the world at these tasks? Is there no one who could write that email better or who could, you know, do uh, more, more calls than you in a day or who could Oh, yeah. You know, so you take those things that are kind of maybe mundane or that, that take you out of your zone of genius, like you mentioned, driving the organization versus being inside of the weeds. And if you're not genuinely the best in the world at that task. You shouldn't be doing that task. And it's easy to let go. Like you should be letting that go because going back to specialization, we can make someone the best in the world of that task. Yeah. And if that's all they're doing and they hyper specialize in it. Yep. They'll become better than you in no time, but you gotta give them the chance to get better than you. I like this. And this is exactly what happened in my company. So when I hired my team before, when I started my company, I was doing everything myself. I need to understand how this is going. I need to know everything about it. Before I delegate, I hired my team and I let go. Like, I'm going to just hand the interviews, they will interview the virtual assistants and, and I will make the connections with the companies. Mm-hmm. And then little by little, and right now they, they were probably 70% as good as I was at the beginning. I was, I, I had my pulse on everything. But by now, because they're doing this day in and day out. I am nowhere near as good as they are. So give people this room to grow. I completely agree with you. Yeah. They are much better at doing their job much better than I am. My fulfillment team is on point. Like they understand what a virtual assistant needs, what kind of a company needs, how to make the, they understand it's so well, much better than I do, but that's not where they started. So I would say probably, yeah, find the super who, right. Find the person, but give them some time to grow. Right? Like don't expect them to be. Uh, uh, probably a hundred percent ready. Maybe. That's probably my message. Like my threshold is like, is it 80% as good as I would do it? Yeah. Because I can train you for the rest. 20, you can be much better than me. Uh, if you're coachable, you have to be coachable. That's one thing we're looking at. Are you coachable? Are open to feedback. When I give feedback, it's not personal. It's about the work. Like I'm so focused on how this needs to look, that we are going to get there together. Do you wanna be on this journey with me? Definitely. So, yeah. But that's, that's what I tell people. It's like, just give people time and you are right. There are people who can, especially with calls, some real estate investors, they say, I'm doing cold calling. I'm so tired of being hung up on and cussed at. And it's like, give that to someone else. Give it to someone else. That takes you out of your zone of genius. Yeah. Pass it off. Yeah. Like you should not be doing cold calls. Dan Martel has a very good quote that I often quote, and he said, $10 million companies will not build on $10 tasks. No, I have a variation. I say $10 million companies have $10 million teams. Yeah. Oh, that's a good one too. So if you are still doing, uh, tasks that are value that $10 per hour, then why are you surprised that your revenue's not growing? Yeah. Oh hundred percent. You know, like, so get, get yourself out of that if you're so. Word about the quality. Um, invest in this. Look at it as an investment. Invest in your team. Grow your team so that you can take it off your plate. It's not just, okay, I found someone, I'm completely abdicating this responsibility and it's your headache now, and I have nothing to do with this. It's an investment, but it pays off dividends. And then people ask me, okay, well what if I invest in someone and they leave my company? Well, that's why you need to have documents. That's why you need to have SOPs. You don't want your. Process to be dependent on one person. Correct. You want, if you have a, a process that is dependent on one person, you have a point of failure that is one person. Exactly. Yes. So if that person leaves and don't expect people to stay with you forever, at some point they will leave. And I don't expect people to stay with me forever, but I know I have a process that I can put someone else in and it shortens my training period. I will still have to be involved a little bit, but not as much as I did eventually because I put everything, I document everything. Okay. So we talked about the unwillingness to maybe let go, right? Yeah.'cause you think you're the best in the world at something. Uh, the second point that you shared before I cut you off, I believe that one was the trust. Yes. Right. How do you help an entrepreneur overcome the trust issue associated with giving up responsibility? I. Mentioned to you on the drive in mm-hmm. Some of my clients solopreneurs, and they're doing good business, like they make good money. They're, they're on the right path. They're absolutely capped, both of 'em working way too many hours a week, constantly busy. I know one of my buddies is gonna be listening to this and he is like, oh, sorry, I canceled lunch on you last week because I had to pick up another job. The reality is you needed to hire another person. Mm-hmm. Dang, that was a shot. But I love you, but how do you help people overcome that? Because the, the biggest complaints that I see when I'm working with a solopreneur, they don't want to give up the responsibility because they're afraid of trusting an individual to take that, and then losing control of quality and the reputation and things like that. Yes. How do you help people work through that mindset? People who don't trust that this is, this might work, they need a quick win. So let's define together. What is a quick win? What needs to happen in your business for you to gain momentum? Mm-hmm. I wouldn't necessarily trust someone new with my credit card information, all of that. Now I have people on my team that I can completely trust them with anything, you know? Sure. But it didn't start here. But what is the quick win for you to, to see that this is working? Maybe it's something like, what is one thing we need to take off your plate? Maybe you are tired of checking your emails 30 times a day. How about we have somebody do do that for you? Would that be helpful? And they say, yeah, that'll be helpful. I, I get notifications, I get distracted, all of that. This is what we try to work with and say, okay, what's next? So you put one step in front of the other, and what happens is when people see that this is working, they trust the process more and more. The, the, the person I mentioned earlier who hired 10 virtual assistants from us, she was very skeptical at first, the first time. Not only that, but she also was burned by a different company she worked with. Uh, so she had a very negative probably experience with that, and she's like, I don't know. I'm, I'm not sure if I should, that's how we address it. Like, what needs to happen? What would be a quick win for you? Yeah. So we, we agreed that this would be a quick success, right? Something like that. And now she hired 10 virtual assistants, and she is, she is growing multiple businesses. Um, she is very successful and she knows how to build a team, a, a loyal team. But, and all of that came from skepticism. I'm actually curious to know how you would handle this, because I know you, you, so I typically approach it with a very logical, like it's a logic stack for me. Everything's a logic stack. Mm-hmm. I look at the numbers, right? Mm-hmm. So how much time are you actually putting into your business? What money are you making on the backend of that, right after your, uh, we'll call it your net, like what are you actually taking home? And then what happens? And we just do some basic modeling. If you hire an employee. And they take half of your workload even, but then they also can take in the new leads, right? So for example, in in a couple of the, the people that I mentioned that I'm coaching, they're booked out for like four weeks, right? So they just have so much work that they cannot do it for a full month. If you bring in another person, what's the time look like for you to be able to do all of that work? Well, now it's just two weeks. Mm-hmm. Right? Assuming that you're both doing it full time, but that then allows you to book out more people. Sorry, I gotta put a pin in that though. So previously you're doing this over four weeks, your X amount of work. When you have two people doing that work and you do it in two weeks, you're now doubling your weekly revenue, right? Mm-hmm. Not only are you doubling the weekly revenue, then yes, you're paying an employee, but it's like, okay, with that revenue increase. The amount that we're paying the employee, how much is your net, your bottom line that you're taking home still increasing. And then when they look at the number and they say, oh, I can make an extra 10 grand a month. If I just hire another person, then it becomes a little bit easier for them to like work through it and just get to the point where they can hire another person. But it's all financial modeled is typically how I approach those conversations. The harder part is that it doesn't always work, right? There's some emotion to it as well and some people just aren't as open to the logical approach of I was gonna value. I was like, there's emotional, logical. And I will admit that is my weakness. I am a robot of logic perhaps, and have been referred to as a cold and unfeeling robot in the past. But for the emotional side of things. It's almost like you're making a sale, right? It's how do we get you the outcome that you want, right? You're not, you don't necessarily care about the, the money aspect of things. Yeah. Yeah. And even if we do the same modeling for time, you don't care about the time aspect. It's the outcome that comes from that time or that freedom. So what does it look like? If we can get you out of the business for an extra 15 to 20 hours a week? Well, that means that you're at home, you know, another four hours a day, five hours a day with your family, with your kids, that would be perfect. Like, what does that mean for, for them? So then it's how do we get you to a position where you can spend more time doing what you love with the people that you love? And that's where the emotional people maybe start to come around the catches. Not everybody has, like, there's emotional people out there. They won't, um, align with the logical argument. So you have to present them with the emotional argument. But they don't have a strong emotional why. Mm-hmm. And then you run into an issue where they have to grow as an individual before their business can grow because their emotional and intellectual development maybe is not at a position where they can allow themselves to develop further. Does that make sense? Yes. Yes. Yes. Then it becomes a, a situation of just coaching an individual to become a higher level, more, um, more developed version of themselves. Yeah. I always say like if you, if you feel like you need an executive assistant now, then you needed an executive assistant six months ago. Yeah. But you, you just don't know, but you just didn't know that. Correct.'cause if you feel like you're overwhelmed now, that means now you need someone you might hire out of desperation, but instead, like, understand, see the trajectory, see that you're growing and, and you might need someone so you avoid this pain point. Mm-hmm. So, uh, yeah, that's, that's something I, I, um, tell people and. What I see is happening. I see people like, I need an executive assistant now, and they're overwhelmed with, uh, emails and calendars and double bookings and rescheduling and a lot of that, that can be done by a virtual assistant. Yeah. Well, I really like what you said earlier. If it's on the phone or it's on any on a computer, it can be done from anywhere. Right now with technology that we have nowadays, they can be anywhere in the world and they have a US phone number with a local area code. There are virtual assistants out there who have zero accent when they speak English, minimal to no accent. When we hire people, uh, we're looking for minimal to no accent in English, and we actually have an AI agent that we built inside to test that ax and that socalled. But there are some virtual assistants out there. You wouldn't tell they're not local, plus the local area code. And it's crazy what technology can do nowadays. Definitely. So I'm, I'm curious, what are you seeing as the most. Common perhaps, but maybe more effective use cases for VAs, like for the entrepreneur that knows they maybe need to grow a team or they're feeling that overwhelmed, maybe they need an executive assistant to help with those, those kind of things. What are the most common applications that you're seeing for VAs that are making an impact for an entrepreneur? The VA should either bring more revenue or more time back. Mm-hmm. Whatever they are in their business. So if they're just starting out, they might need to hire a virtual assistant to help with, uh, revenue. So that's lead gen, that's cold calling. That's um, um, called outreach on LinkedIn, Facebook, whatever it is. Right. But then as they are more. Um, established businesses, they are looking, people are looking to get their time back, and that's when they need an executive assistant. Every business owner needs an executive assistant. Mm-hmm. Uh, someone to book travel for them and do research and put the slides and presentations and create webinars and make sure that everything's good on the tech side of webinar and create funnels and literally everything that you can think of, that's not something that a, an entrepreneur should do. It can be outsourced and can be delegated. So I always ask, when I have people on the on calls with us, discovery calls, I ask, okay, how will this person either make you more money or making more time so you can focus on making more money? But in the end of the day, there should be a difference in your, uh, in your financial, uh, status if they freeing up your time. Then focus on what you need to do to bring more money to the company. Sure. I try to focus very heavily on, uh, revenue per head. Mm-hmm. Right. That's, that's my metric of choice. Yes. Now, everybody has a little bit of a different flavor on that, but I even extend that to virtual assistants. Yes. I, they have to hit the same metric as far as the people that are in-house goes. The beauty of it is this can still be applied. Again, the tactic might be different. The strategy's the same across business. This can be applied to pretty much any market when you really think about it. Right. Because every business at some level has office administration work, lead generation work. They have bookkeeping. I mean like, yes, bookkeeping's popular, so there's room for. Virtual assistants pretty much anywhere, right? Yes, yes. What industries would you say are benefiting the most right now? Just out of curiosity? That's actually a question that I'm getting is like, yeah, but I'm not sure my industry would need a virtual assistant. Like what? In look, do you have an email? Do you have a calendar? Do you have this? Like the business is you have a phone, you use virtual assistant. All businesses need social media. Yeah. All businesses need one thing. Businesses need. Clients. Mm-hmm. It doesn't matter what industry you're in, it doesn't matter what you do. It doesn't matter where you're located. Businesses need leads. They need clients. Right. So how are you gonna get that? Social media Exactly. Exposure to social media, direct outreach. How is your industry different? Mm-hmm. Do you have emails? Do you have calendars? Do you need to do research? Do you need to have, be on social media? It's really no different. Any industry can help and we have helped industries besides real estate, we also help medical field. We work with a lot of medical fields, attorneys, uh, e-commerce, um, trying to think entertainers, so YouTubers even, um, homeschooling. There are, there's, did you know that there's a virtual assistant out there who can homeschool your child on math? I actually just learned about this like a month or two ago from, uh, Phyllis song. She was telling me that all of her. Her, her kids are homeschooled. Yeah. Via Zoom. By virtual assistants. Yes. And when I was doing homeschooling, my, my child, she's a social butterfly. She needs interaction, she needs kids, so she loves going to school. But when we were homeschooling, uh, our native language is Romanian. We hired someone, a virtual assistant from my country who was teaching her Romanian or making sure that she doesn't forget because she would prefer just to speak English all day. So yeah, we had somebody teach her, uh, piano, uh, math, Romanian, uh, just reading, uh, just have a conversation. It was anything that can be done on a com, on a computer can be done by anyone, anywhere in the world. Again, just go back to that. It's fantastic what they can do. Another user of virtual assistant, they can be your personal stylist. They can buy clothes for you. You can find a stylist and like, oh my goodness, I never even thought about this kind of stuff. Yeah. Like, I'm actually, I think there's way more to it now. I'm actually thinking of doing that. Like, okay, look, I, I hate going shopping and I don't have time to go shopping. So like, just, okay. Uh, show me a couple of outfits that you would recommend. Go ahead, buy them. This are my size and whatever. Like, you know, that, that's so kind of virtu system can do. Like there's obviously levels to this that Yeah. Most people don't even recognize. Yeah. Think about the level of talent, anything you do on a computer. Yeah. Think about the level of talent that is worldwide. I mean, your best talent for your company might not be in your zip code and that's probably very true. I mean, what is the likelihood of finding the best talent in your area code versus worldwide? So, not to derail too much here, but you mentioned a minute ago, one of the industries that you've been placing VAs in is e-commerce. Yes. My background is e-commerce. I know a couple of my listeners are e-commerce. How do you see VAs most effectively being used for e-commerce brands? I wish I had someone from my team here 'cause, um, just from my limited knowledge, because that's what my team handles. But advertising the products you're selling, uh, reaching out, making, uh, pictures, videos nowadays, you can use. Uh, AI to enhance the picture, like reaching out, asking for testimonials. Um, anything. I've primarily used virtual assistants in e-commerce for abandoned cart recovery. Yes, right. They get an automated message or whatever, but it's a soft touch and it's the personalization aspect that comes with that a little bit to a little bit of a higher level. Um, but for abandon cart recovery and lead generation, right. Engaging on social media, directing people back to the sales team, getting mm-hmm. Calls going essentially. Um, but I like that you highlighted just barely the creative aspect as well. Mm-hmm. Uh, so much of, again, maybe I'm just a cold unfeeling robot focused on logic only, but it, I, I focus on the giving away the tasks that get me out of the zone of genius. Mm-hmm. But for different people, that zone is different and for some people it might be the creative aspect. Yes. So it's really cool that you shared. Yeah, absolutely. Do you have, um, any, I guess, tips, best practices? So if somebody's listening to this right now and they are interested in a virtual assistant mm-hmm. What would help them be prepared when they come talk to you? The more clarity you have, the better we can help you understand your business, understand how this person fits in, and, uh, help us help you. We know how to find best talent. We know how to do this. We've done it successfully many, many times, and we're gonna guide you. We're gonna ask the right questions and try to understand where you are and what needs to happen in your company. But if you know this in advance, it makes things so much easier. So it's the vision I talk often about, I teach people to build a command. Philosophy and command. Philosophy is inspired by my military background, but essentially what it is, is. Your mission statement. That's your why, why you exist as an organization, your vision statement, where it's going. Mm-hmm. And your non-negotiables. It's like your left and right limits. What you're gonna operate within, what you're going to do and what you're not going to do. Mm-hmm. And you put those three things together and that should influence then how you lead your team and how you lead your organization. Mm-hmm. Those apply here to implementing the va. If you don't have the clear vision for where your organization is going, you can't successfully bring in new talent or new helpers or individuals. Uh, they can't make a difference because they don't know where they're going because you don't know where you're leading them. We had to stop the cameras for a minute to change batteries. So sorry for the awkward cut. But thanks for sticking with us viewers while we were on our, uh, quick battery. Mm-hmm. Break. Your husband was bringing up some of the points to reframe, uh, how we present. You know, the need for growth to entrepreneurs. I mean, if we have somebody who's working a hundred hours a week, they're totally capped out. They can't keep growing or scaling without help. Mm-hmm. But they won't be hands off and they, they don't trust somebody to do that work. Uh, then how do you reframe that? And there was always a, a little bit of a different angle, but I thought it was a really interesting perspective. So I wanted to share maybe the intelligent argument or the logical argument doesn't appeal to them. And maybe they don't have a strong emotional why to, you know, um, fall back on. But they're an emotion-based individual. You can pitch it in a different way. Well, what does hiring someone and developing them look like for. Them and their family. It's almost like you're doing a charity and a service to someone because you're providing a quality and caliber of life through your organization, through your business for other people. Now, it's really, it was just a cool way to kind of pause and reframe, you know, there's another way to approach these kind of conversations, and it's not one that I was, you know, yeah. Thinking of or aware of, so I just wanted to share that with the, the audience. One of the things that I really like about the Mastermind concept is that you get people in the same room and, uh, there's a concept called ontological humility. Where essentially I recognize my perception is different from your perception, and that doesn't mean either one is correct or either one is wrong. It just means that the reality of what we're viewing or what we're acting on might actually be somewhere between our two perceptions. And it's not that either one of us is totally, totally correct. Mm-hmm. In the Mastermind, you get all of these different perceptions, right. My perception, your perception, your husband's perception, just barely, and they're all a little bit different. And then you can work together to find the most successful course of action or the, the, the reality of the situation. Yeah. Oh, masterminds are wonderful. I also like masterminds because you, you learn from what other people tried mm-hmm. And what worked for them or what didn't work for them. So you really shorten your learning curve and, uh, masterminds are phenomenal. Yeah. And you're right, absolutely. You've been exposed to so many new ideas. People are in different parts of their, uh, on their entrepreneurial journey, and they try different things that you maybe didn't think of, but they said, that's a good idea. But then they say, actually, no, it didn't work out. We backfired. So like, man, it, it, it's wonderful. We talked earlier about, um, elevating your frame of reference and your identity mm-hmm. And how that's maybe necessary for you to find success in an entrepreneur. Because if you don't know it's possible, you can't go and achieve it. The mastermind shortcuts that process because for a brief period of time while you're participating in that mastermind, it's not just your frame of reference. Yes. It's the frame of reference of everyone in the room. And so now you can get ideas, like if you're an entrepreneur and you're struggling to get to, you know, maybe six figures. You can get an idea, a shortcut, a path from someone who's doing 7, 8, 9 figures a year because you're in the same room with them and you're working together. Yeah. Isn't that great? It's so good. Oh, I wanted to share some free chicken to the entrepreneurs that are listening to this. It's a system you can immediately take into your business and start getting wins. It will help you implement virtual assistants. It will help you implement new hires. It will help you develop them into the unstoppable A players that you want to grow your organization. First, it's a concept of the mission brief. So before you give a task or a responsibility, sit down and explain to the individual or the team what winning looks like. Mm-hmm. Give them a very clear end state. What is this supposed to be? What, when it's done, what is it supposed to look like? Right? And then include your key metrics along the way. So very clear, detailed, upfront. Let 'em go do the task like we talked about earlier, we're trying to be hands off. We're trying to be decentralized to encourage their responsibility. We want to empower them to act and take ownership of the role on the backend. When the task is complete or the time is up. We do what's called an after action review. So we sit down, the leaders involved, the key players in the team, and we talk about what was supposed to happen, IE, the mission and the end state that we wanted to achieve, what actually happened. So where we actually are in the process, or what was completed, what wasn't completed, why it happened that way. How we can do it better the next time. And even if we think we did it really, really well, we're still gonna talk about how we did, how we can do better next time. So we put ourselves into this framed reference group for continuous growth. Like we are going to be focused as a group on the process and improvement in everything that we do. So when you're training a new virtual assistant or an executive assistant, or you've, you know, brought 'em in, you're giving 'em a task for the first time. You're very detailed and explicit about what that's supposed to look like, and then you are constantly supervising and refining. Based on the outcomes that you're receiving, how do you go about this learning? Do you have, do you have something like Asana or like a, like a project management tool? Like, so when you cast the vision, for example, I'll give you an example. Right now we're, we're looking to build a V community where people can ask questions and they can get training and all of this. And I have a person on the team who will be responsible for this. Should I cast the vision? And then be like, you come up with ideas, like, how would you do it? Because I have my way and I can talk about my way, but I wanna Sure. I wanna hear from, from you as well. Like, so there's, or do you break it down, like do this and that, and like, how do you do that? The way I, I view this is that there's stages to any operation, right? And it sounds like you're in the planning stage still. There's not a wrong answer when it comes to. Collecting the brainstorming of ideas, right? You're still trying to figure out what this is actually going to look like. You have somebody that's responsible for it. Yes. Let them know what you wanna see, what your goal for the platform is, and then let them brainstorm the ideas on how to make that the reality. Bring 'em to you. You guys go through 'em together, right? Because you should be supervising the process. Still trust them to do the work, supervise and refine what the outputs are. But I would do like some pretty consistent meetings. I don't know what your timeline is for this, but like I've been working on an app for my e-commerce business for the last, um, I dunno, six months, give or take. We at least weekly are just having a quick sync where we touch base with each other and everybody gets on the same page. We make sure that we're all in the know. I would make sure that you're still doing that with her while yes, she's providing you with things that will help achieve the end goal. And you can also identify at that point, right, because they're coming to you with feedback. If they're going down a rabbit hole that isn't going to facilitate the end goal. Yeah. So you prevent wasted time as well, which is good. And then again, when that stage of the planning process is done and you go to like actually creating and, and implementing, it's the same process. I would break try to fraction it out into steps, right? So, hey, how do we get the foundation of this thing built so that it can support the rest of the platform? And you give the vision for what that looks like, and then they go and they do it. And you meet at the end of that and you refine based on what that is, and you kick it back and you let 'em go do their work and their corrections. And when those things are done, then you have another meeting. You go through it what was supposed to happen, what actually happened, how's it looking now how can we do this better? Okay, great. And we move on to the next step. And we just, just a process of doing that over and over and over again. Yeah. But you, the entire time you're doing that, you are incentivizing them to be efficient and to learn. You are learning too. Everyone gets better. The organization has to get better as a byproduct. Exactly. Yeah. That's our process as well. I just wanted to know if you are having the same or just, but yeah, so, so far yeah, we're in the planning stage, so wanna make sure we do it right. It's a big project for us. Sweet. And it sounds like, uh, you're on the right track with it. Yeah. So you've provided a ton of value to the viewers on this. I really appreciate you having me over and, and being willing to be on the show. Can I ask, is there anything that I can do for you or do you have any problems I can help you work through? Oh, thank you so much. Um, I would love to keep in touch with you and just, you know, um, share some ideas. I think we are aligned in a lot of, uh, the views and I would love to, um, run some ideas by you and, and get your opinion. So if you wanna be my friend, I would love to be. Absolutely. Don't ever hesitate to reach out. That's number one thing. And the second thing is, um. If you know anyone that I can help and someone in your community, I would love to just have a conversation and bring clarity to them. I'm excited to get this podcast out because it, I never, I mean, I never, it took me five, six years of entrepreneurship before I was even aware of the concept of a virtual assistant, right? I think a lot of people get hung up on hiring someone for the first time, and the gravity of being responsible for someone's life and livelihood, especially when they're in your office every single day with you. It's a little bit different. Almost easier to hire a virtual assistant for your first hire, and especially if you have some office work that you can give up. Like you said, phones, computers, it can be done anywhere. This might be a really good avenue to help entrepreneurs grow. Quickly without maybe that pain point, that fear of taking responsibility for someone else's entire life. Yes. So it's really cool what you're doing and I wanna make sure that we share that with all the cool entrepreneurs on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, X, LinkedIn, wherever you're watching this at. Uh, I also brought a gift for you. Oh, you did? I mentioned earlier my, my book. How the hell are you doing this? Oh, that's amazing. A Story of Life and Leadership from Captain Parker, McCumber. Wow, that's amazing. Thank you so much. Wow. It talks about the principles that I used to. Uh, really start and grow my business in my organization. It is a true first edition copy, so forgive the editorial errors that I've caught after the fact. So exciting. So I'm thinking about writing a book myself. You should. And I would love to reach out to you just to get some logistics on how, how to do this, but I Absolutely, I love that you put your thoughts into this. Like, books are phenomenal. Like you can download someone's mind for like, what, $20. That's amazing. That's amazing. I, I'm with you. Thank you. I think everybody, if you have something to say, if you can come on a podcast and do a two hour episode, you can write a book. Yeah. A hundred percent. That's so great. I actually, I mean, speaking of overcoming the fear earlier, it took me three years to write that book. Hmm. I started, um, with my, my co-author Chris, and we. We're writing questions, we were doing drafts. We kind of started to get some things done and it like, it just wasn't right. It didn't feel right, it wasn't complete. There was more for me to do as an individual. Like it got to the point last year, maybe last fall, where we like, we have to get something out or we're never gonna get anything out. So it was just, how do we publish this book now? So, so great. A true first edition, but now that it's out, I'm like, there's so many more books I need to write. I need to, I need to write about command philosophy, I need to write about team development. I need to like, yeah. Will you sign it for me off camera? It is already signed. Oh, this is perfect. So I, uh, yeah, I left a note and a signature on the front page for you. Ah, thank, thank you. I put it in the wrapper just so that it would be protected and super clean when we get here. And yeah, it looks so new as it doesn't maybe get banged up on the airplane or anything like that. Thank you. I appreciate that. I appreciate you having me. Again, thank you for hosting and if there is anything that I can do to help you, please don't hesitate to reach out. Likewise, if there's anything I can do for you, I'll be happy to. Thanks so much. Thank you. And cut.