🔗 Listen to Stamp TV on Your Favorite Platforms:
We have created this with the aim to provide helpful insight to small business owners and entrepreneurs who want to go with the trend. We want to give you some ideas and lead you and be a resource for you to always come back to when you need to help you find something. Welcome back to the Stamp Staff Virtual Assistant Podcast. We hope that you watch our first episode where we talked about challenges. What we did when we first started hiring virtual assistants and the reason why we actually created this podcast is to help entrepreneurs and small business owners. And giving tips and guidance and helpful insights. Because since we've started our virtual assistant company six years ago, we have learned a lot. And one of the things that we learned is about 50% of the time when virtual assistants don't work out. A lot of it has to do with the person who's leading them, the person who's managing them, because they necessarily don't have the best tools or they don't really know how to manage people that well. So there are a lot of things that we've seen along the way and we're hoping that this podcast is going to be able to help you. Each episode is going to focus on something different and that you can go back and actually watch an episode to help you with your virtual assistant. So so what's the first thing you did when virtual assistants are working for you? I know we've talked about it before, but let's go over it again. What did you do to figure out what to take off your plate? Yeah. So that's a great question. And it's a lot that, you know, people have because they don't know where to start with virtual assistants. So the first thing that I did is I saw that I was working on the business and in the business. And this just happened to be at the time, you know, as a realtor. So what I did is I was working with buyers and sellers so much and I was doing everything else myself. So like what? Like what would be the first thing? Was it writing, contracts, writing, listing? Those were some of the things. So I personally had done more listings than I did working with buyers. But it was the marketing, it was the tracking, it was, you know, answering all the questions. It was making presentations that I wasn't good at. It was making fliers, marketing fliers. It was marketing open houses. It was inputting new listings in writing the content for the marketing. I mean, I was working two jobs, too, you know, So there were so many things that had to be done. And I definitely knew to grow that I was going to need some help. So that's kind of where it all started. And so from there, did you start with repetitive tasks, things that you were doing over and over again? You kind of showed them how to do it. What I want to do is like if I'm just hiring a virtual assistant or thinking about it and basically saying, Hey, this person, I'm paying 100 grand too is not worth it. And I'm like, Maybe looking for something different and something more cost effective. Yeah. So what I did is I went and I wrote down everything that I did every day. So I spent like a week going and writing every day, you know, every two weeks and every day it was like at 8 a.m.. Yeah, I did this till eight, ten, Yeah, eight, 10 to 825 I did this. So, like, did you do everything like if you got coffee, if you did yoga, like what? No, no, no, of course not. You know, the coffee and that kind of stuff, but anything that I had to do that was a task in the business or even personal tasks, stuff. Not obviously getting coffee, but other things I would write down. So then I had a list of a couple hundred things pretty much, Yeah. But then it also gives you an idea of how long it should take. Yeah. And then you basically had, Hey, if it takes me 20 minutes to do this. Yeah, it might take somebody else 25 or 30. But I knew about how long it would take. So I figured out, okay, what are the things that I could take off my plate that would free up a great amount of time? But also, like you said, that were task oriented, that were daily, and that I could train somebody else to do and get similar results. We've worked with thousands and probably businesses over the years, whether it's with our VA company, whether it's whatever, like for us personally. So what's the first thing that a business, small business or a growing business that they should look at basically hiring first? So I think that depending on your skill set, but an assistant for sure, and I think it should be a marketing assistant, not somebody to actually do your marketing and be in charge of your marketing, because I still think that is you that should be in charge of it. But somebody that can assist you with all the things on a daily, weekly, monthly basis and in being a marketing assistant. So is there a revenue for any company I suppose is probably different for industries based on their profit? But like, is there a profitability and a point where you turn over your marketing? Like is it 10 million in profit, Is it 100 million and profit? I don't really know exact number on that, but I definitely think. But it's not a million. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. It's not 5 million. No, no, no, no, no, no. So, like, it's it's a big number. Yeah, it is a big number. I don't know that exact number, but I know the people that we work with are usually, you know, under 15 to 20 million, and all of them should still be involved with their marketing. And so how do you determine, like when you're you're looking at hiring somebody who's working remotely, a remote staff? Like virtual assistants kind of have a bad term because people think they're just callers. Mm hmm. And that's not really what they are. But like, let's say, remote staffers. So, like, they're working remotely, whether it's in the Philippines, whether it's somewhere else they're working remotely. What's a skill set that I should look at if I'm looking to hire one? But I just think it's different depending on who it is. So the first thing we did is we assessed their needs. The second thing we did is we wrote down the the repetitive tasks and then we determined the personality and the skills needed. So, for example, we were talking to a client yesterday, and she's one that does a lot of business and she's partnered with her mom, but she still struggles at wrapping her head around how to utilize the virtual assistant. And, you know, we kind of went through and analyzed her business and what they could do. And she figured out what her needs are first, that she'd like to utilize the virtual assistant because she needed somebody to really do a lot of the tracking and analytics and repetitive tasks, but they needed to be detailed. So one of the things that she did is she micromanages every single part of her business and that's what she's used to doing. And I said, Oh my gosh, you can't do that to grow. And there are already just a million in revenue. And so she can't be involved with everything. But what she needs is her first assistant. And we were able to determine that, Well, she is somebody who is really detail. Okay. So one of the first things you need to do as a business owner is you need to know how you like stuff. So like, I'm not a detail person. I don't plan anything. Yeah, you fly by, you fly by your seat every day and I am I've made it this far. And so. And whereas you. You plan for weeks, I'm the planner, but I am not as I got that you're not that. But like, you know what you are. So, like, you need to know yourself first. So one of the big problems that I see is like, I want to replace what I'm not good at right? And they don't know what they're not good at. Yeah. Yeah. So they think they're this and they're really not. So like, that's one of the things for me to take an intake, whether it's a personality or whatever type of assessment of yourself first and then somebody you're close to a spouse, brother, sister, mom, dad, something you need that you know that you've known for a while. You need to take their assessment so that you can kind of compare it first. And they need to look at the assessment to see you need to look at it and say, oh yeah, this is me, boom, boom, boom. And then they need to look at it and say, Oh yeah, this is you. Because then as you learn, you're like, Oh, okay. So now when I'm hiring somebody, when we tell people, Hey, I want to see an assessment, and I'm like, Do you know what your assessment is? I was anti against it. And now you literally look at everybody on what their personality is. Yeah, I don't need them to take it like I now I look at and see how they their mannerisms and everything they do. I'm pretty good at determining. I'm like this is what they're going to come across as. And so but that's just watching people and learning because when somebody is looking for a job, they come in for that 30 minutes to an hour. No, like, oh yes, you need somebody detailed, detailed. I do this, I do that. And they're like, you know, did you go look at their clock? Like if you could go back to their closet at their home, It's like stuff like, Oh, yeah, everything went everywhere. There's clothes over here, blah, blah, blah. So that's not detailed. Right. But they're telling you in a job interview that, Oh yes, I'm very detailed. So getting to know who you are and what your needs are. Because when you would ask me about what you need first, it really depends on what the job is. So a creative person, marketing assistant, their skill set is very creative, but a lot of them might not be really, really detailed. So you have to make sure that you know that what is more important to you, somebody who's really creative or somebody who's sort of creative but really, really detailed. So you have to figure that out. You have to figure out what the position you want and then what's going to fit that skill set. And more importantly, what's going to fit your personality. When somebody says, I need to see the benefit of it or I need to see the return, that's my favorite. I've not seen the return term. So what? How would you come back to someone who says, I'm not seeing a return on my investment for hiring a virtual assistant? Did I have the right expectation of what they're supposed to be doing? You know, how much is your time worth It? When I look at it is the first thing I'm buying back is my time. I'm not looking them to generate more business yet. That's right. I'm looking for them to buy back my time. So if I'm spending less time doing stuff that I was normally doing, it allows me to do more stuff where I make more money. Like that's the goal. Or it allows me to spend more time with my family. That's right. So is there a value on that? So like to me, that's where people miss, where I'm not getting the return on my investment. I'm like, okay, what where was your where was your and what was your expectation? So that's a really good point, Mark. And one of the things that I did is when I first started, you know, before I hired a virtual assistant, I figured out what was my time worth. And at the time, you know, many years ago, 12 years ago, when I started with virtual assistants, I looked at like $25 an hour. So anything that was more about dollars an hour got a lot more 12 years to go then and does today. Yeah. And, and obviously my time is worth the crazy amount today than it was back then, but I was just getting started. So $25 an hour to me was about what my time was worth. So if I was doing anything that wasn't at least $25 an hour, I shouldn't have been doing it. And so at first when I hired Virtual Assistant, because that's a good point, a lot of people say, is my business growing well? Are you buying back your time to either spend with your family or to spend money producing activities on your team or training or hiring the things that you should be doing? Because that's a good point. So like what I consider is like, I don't mind people spending more time with your family, right? But if your your business isn't going to be grown, then. So if you're offloading this time to go spend more time with your family, don't expect your business to grow. Yeah, because you are doing less or you're doing the same amount of money producing stuff as before you hired the assistant. Right? So for us, because we're able to travel and do other things, I think after you've hired several and they've now for the first time, right? Yeah. So we want to make sure we don't usually get that with people who understand business, right? So where where I see the big problem is, is when they understand business and they bring in the people making 100,000 a year, because the people making 100,000 a year are usually the work. I'm not going to say the worst, but they're usually the first thing they want to do is cut. Yeah, that's true, because that's true. That's another good point. So when you are the business owner and maybe you have a couple of virtual assistants to start with and now you want to hire an in-house, which is okay, so let's say you're let's say you're at seven, $8 million in revenue a year and it's time for you to or even a couple million depending on what you want. But it's time for you to bring in that that person that you're I'm yep. I can pay them 100 I can pay my CEO SEO all of whatever. And that was the first thing they all do. This is doesn't matter now I wouldn't say all, but what a lot of them do if they don't understand a virtual assistant, they definitely want to get rid of them. So and that's the thing that you don't want them to do. You want them to understand more of the profit through virtual assistants. And if they manage them well, most of the time they're going to actually bring a lot more to the bottom line, which usually is going to make them a lot more. The customer likes it better usually too. So remember what is the customer like? They like the availability. And so if you're paying in the United States, person 20, $30 now, what type of experiences, if I call in, are you going to because you just experienced it yesterday. Yeah. You called somebody who works for one of our companies and they're in Tampa, Florida. They sent you an email and you're like, I just need to talk to them on the phone. And it was a two minute conversation, 2 minutes and 15 seconds with someone. You just talk to them. Well, and that point is, is that it took 2 minutes and 15 seconds. And what I told him is that the customer experience and if I were a customer calling because that's how he handles his phone, his phones answered, if I was a customer and you were putting me through that many hoops, I'm not doing business with you. Yeah. So that's is one thing we want to talk about with that in terms of going forward. The low income people are usually the most profitable though, artificial intelligence unit or virtual assistant. So that's another good point. So the first thing that you've got to do is you got to think mindset. You know, what is the mindset You've got to be able to change as a business owner or entrepreneur or a manager or managing companies, that you got to think, can this work? How do I make this work? So when I first started with virtual assistants, I didn't look at the problems. I looked at how can we make this work? I didn't look at how can we not make it work. I looked at how can we make it work and then how can we make it work better? So, you know, we met somebody at a conference, Cody Sanchez conference, which I thought was really good. Yeah. And a lot of the owners and Cody Sanchez buys, you know, hundreds businesses and a lot of them, obviously, the people that she had, the speakers that she had there, also owned a lot of businesses worth a lot of money. And I thought it was interesting that every person that was up there that we saw all talked about having virtual assistants and how it's so important today to learn that skill. No occasion was for the first speaker, like literally within the first 2 minutes. Who was it? Noah Kagan. Noah Kagan. Yep. He was like within the first 2 minutes of the conference. Yeah. Was you need to hire. Like if you're just getting going, you need to hire somebody virtually. The bottom line is, is hiring virtual assistants. Yeah, you just got to have people get cost effective artificial intelligence and virtual assistants. Like that's where you start. Yeah. So, I mean, and that's another good point. So number one is a person that we met there and she has lots of virtual assistants and she runs it like we do. She basically runs all of her businesses that way. And she says first of it first, can an app do it? It can she find an app that she can use in her business and can an app do it? Can I do it then? Can virtual assistant do it? And the last thing that she said was, I need somebody here physically with boots on the ground that I have to have that I have to have but everything else. She said what that generally speaking, in business, you don't have to have somebody with boots on the ground. Yeah. And she owns many businesses, so that's how she looks at it. And I thought that was very interesting. So we see so many people today that really understand what virtual assistants can do for you, how to make them cost effective, how you can make a lot more money off of them. Your business can be a lot more profitable because profitability is so tough today and what they can do for you. So they can do pretty much anything for you that you don't need somebody physically in-house to do. So what do you need physically in-house for somebody to do to go mail the stuff? Yeah, to go to visit houses, to go on appointments. You know, to a house to maybe put signs in the yard. I mean, if you have to go and meet a customer, like they probably need to be there. Or if a customer comes in to where you're at, located. But other than that, like you, pretty much you don't need anything. You can do anything virtually. Yeah. So going back to this, which I think all small businesses and entrepreneurs need to really look at is if you're considering a virtual assistant, start with figuring out everything that either people that you're paying a lot of money in-house if you already have assistants and then utilize them to bring in more revenue or yourself, if you're the only person in your business, write down everything that you do. What is your time worth per hour and say to yourself, Can I outsource this? Can I hire somebody to take this off my plate so I can do more money producing activities, which is going to be marketing, hiring, training and things like that, appointments, sales appointments, or if you have an in-house assistant, don't the I'm not saying get rid of your in-house assistant. I'm not saying that. But what I am saying is how can you leverage your in-house assistant to do more? Like I see people paying these in-house assistants 25, 30, $35 an hour to write on envelopes. So here's the thing with that. So how is that cost effective? Because if you go and figure out the cost of postage, the cost of envelope, the cost of how many you have to send out. Right. So we have to send out more now than we did five, six, seven years ago. That's right. More envelopes out now. I have to send out 2000 to get one call. Or if I have to send out 1000. Well, yeah. So it's but whatever the tracking number is like that the cost $25 per hour goes into that envelope. Yeah. So if you do the math on that, all of a sudden you could be paying a couple thousand dollars per appointment. Well, and you can get an actual company to write those. And obviously a virtual assistant in the Philippines can't do that, but a virtual assistant in the Philippines, for example, they can pull information, they can pull data, they can track it. And I'm seeing what people are doing is paying that 30, 35 or whatever an hour to the in-house assistant to be doing the things that virtual assistants can do. And that's really my point is if you have an in-house assistant, okay, and it's working great for you, awesome. But my point being is that, you know, if you have an in-house assistant number one, you figure out what you're worth per hour, You figure out what the assistant is worth per hour, and then what can we leverage and what can the assistant be doing that your in-house assistant that actually move your business forward to make you more money and then have assistants underneath the in-house assistant is is really what I'm saying. What do you think? That's fine. I mean, we have different personalities on it and I know we have different and that's the good thing, is that we have different I mean, you have different thoughts. We'll just we'll just leave it at that. Yeah. I mean, we have different opinions on different things and that's the good thing. But we both feel that virtual assistants absolutely are important in any business today. Well, no, it's just it's not even important. It's in necessity. Like, there's a difference. Like, you cannot go your first hire cannot be that CEO. Oh, yeah. Making a couple hundred thousand a year. Yeah. Like it can't be that right. And people hire those. And your right hand, man. Your right hand like that can't be right. And one of the things that I like is, you know, there's a lot of parents out there that are working really hard and that want to go and see their kids play sports and things like that. So they're buying back their time with virtual assistants that they're paying. If you're going to a company, you know, you're paying whatever, ten bucks an hour on average, and they're going now go and see their kids, play sports and be more involved in their day to day lives. So buying back that time is important. So anyways, you just need to figure out what you need to do yourself down to productive activities. And if you don't have anybody else working for you, what they can be doing for you. And so on our next episode, we're going to actually start getting into different jobs and different things that people can can do. And the next what I think is Mark's favorite. And that's your virtual assistant marketing assistant. Yep. So we'll see if she allows my opinions. Anyways, thanks for tuning in and we'll see you on the next episode of what a virtual assistant marketing assistant can do for you.d about challenges. What we did when we first started hiring virtual assistants and the reason why we actually created this podcast is to help entrepreneurs and small business owners. And giving tips and guidance and helpful insights. Because since we've started our virtual assistant company six years ago, we have learned a lot. And one of the things that we learned is about 50% of the time when virtual assistants don't work out. A lot of it has to do with the person who's leading them, the person who's managing them, because they necessarily don't have the best tools or they don't really know how to manage people that well. So there are a lot of things that we've seen along the way and we're hoping that this podcast is going to be able to help you. Each episode is going to focus on something different and that you can go back and actually watch an episode to help you with your virtual assistant. So so what's the first thing you did when virtual assistants are working for you? I know we've talked about it before, but let's go over it again. What did you do to figure out what to take off your plate? Yeah. So that's a great question. And it's a lot that, you know, people have because they don't know where to start with virtual assistants. So the first thing that I did is I saw that I was working on the business and in the business. And this just happened to be at the time, you know, as a realtor. So what I did is I was working with buyers and sellers so much and I was doing everything else myself. So like what? Like what would be the first thing? Was it writing, contracts, writing, listing? Those were some of the things. So I personally had done more listings than I did working with buyers. But it was the marketing, it was the tracking, it was, you know, answering all the questions. It was making presentations that I wasn't good at. It was making fliers, marketing fliers. It was marketing open houses. It was inputting new listings in writing the content for the marketing. I mean, I was working two jobs, too, you know, So there were so many things that had to be done. And I definitely knew to grow that I was going to need some help. So that's kind of where it all started. And so from there, did you start with repetitive tasks, things that you were doing over and over again? You kind of showed them how to do it. What I want to do is like if I'm just hiring a virtual assistant or thinking about it and basically saying, Hey, this person, I'm paying 100 grand too is not worth it. And I'm like, Maybe looking for something different and something more cost effective. Yeah. So what I did is I went and I wrote down everything that I did every day. So I spent like a week going and writing every day, you know, every two weeks and every day it was like at 8 a.m.. Yeah, I did this till eight, ten, Yeah, eight, 10 to 825 I did this. So, like, did you do everything like if you got coffee, if you did yoga, like what? No, no, no, of course not. You know, the coffee and that kind of stuff, but anything that I had to do that was a task in the business or even personal tasks, stuff. Not obviously getting coffee, but other things I would write down. So then I had a list of a couple hundred things pretty much, Yeah. But then it also gives you an idea of how long it should take. Yeah. And then you basically had, Hey, if it takes me 20 minutes to do this. Yeah, it might take somebody else 25 or 30. But I knew about how long it would take. So I figured out, okay, what are the things that I could take off my plate that would free up a great amount of time? But also, like you said, that were task oriented, that were daily, and that I could train somebody else to do and get similar results. We've worked with thousands and probably businesses over the years, whether it's with our VA company, whether it's whatever, like for us personally. So what's the first thing that a business, small business or a growing business that they should look at basically hiring first? So I think that depending on your skill set, but an assistant for sure, and I think it should be a marketing assistant, not somebody to actually do your marketing and be in charge of your marketing, because I still think that is you that should be in charge of it. But somebody that can assist you with all the things on a daily, weekly, monthly basis and in being a marketing assistant. So is there a revenue for any company I suppose is probably different for industries based on their profit? But like, is there a profitability and a point where you turn over your marketing? Like is it 10 million in profit, Is it 100 million and profit? I don't really know exact number on that, but I definitely think. But it's not a million. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. It's not 5 million. No, no, no, no, no, no. So, like, it's it's a big number. Yeah, it is a big number. I don't know that exact number, but I know the people that we work with are usually, you know, under 15 to 20 million, and all of them should still be involved with their marketing. And so how do you determine, like when you're you're looking at hiring somebody who's working remotely, a remote staff? Like virtual assistants kind of have a bad term because people think they're just callers. Mm hmm. And that's not really what they are. But like, let's say, remote staffers. So, like, they're working remotely, whether it's in the Philippines, whether it's somewhere else they're working remotely. What's a skill set that I should look at if I'm looking to hire one? But I just think it's different depending on who it is. So the first thing we did is we assessed their needs. The second thing we did is we wrote down the the repetitive tasks and then we determined the personality and the skills needed. So, for example, we were talking to a client yesterday, and she's one that does a lot of business and she's partnered with her mom, but she still struggles at wrapping her head around how to utilize the virtual assistant. And, you know, we kind of went through and analyzed her business and what they could do. And she figured out what her needs are first, that she'd like to utilize the virtual assistant because she needed somebody to really do a lot of the tracking and analytics and repetitive tasks, but they needed to be detailed. So one of the things that she did is she micromanages every single part of her business and that's what she's used to doing. And I said, Oh my gosh, you can't do that to grow. And there are already just a million in revenue. And so she can't be involved with everything. But what she needs is her first assistant. And we were able to determine that, Well, she is somebody who is really detail. Okay. So one of the first things you need to do as a business owner is you need to know how you like stuff. So like, I'm not a detail person. I don't plan anything. Yeah, you fly by, you fly by your seat every day and I am I've made it this far. And so. And whereas you. You plan for weeks, I'm the planner, but I am not as I got that you're not that. But like, you know what you are. So, like, you need to know yourself first. So one of the big problems that I see is like, I want to replace what I'm not good at right? And they don't know what they're not good at. Yeah. Yeah. So they think they're this and they're really not. So like, that's one of the things for me to take an intake, whether it's a personality or whatever type of assessment of yourself first and then somebody you're close to a spouse, brother, sister, mom, dad, something you need that you know that you've known for a while. You need to take their assessment so that you can kind of compare it first. And they need to look at the assessment to see you need to look at it and say, oh yeah, this is me, boom, boom, boom. And then they need to look at it and say, Oh yeah, this is you. Because then as you learn, you're like, Oh, okay. So now when I'm hiring somebody, when we tell people, Hey, I want to see an assessment, and I'm like, Do you know what your assessment is? I was anti against it. And now you literally look at everybody on what their personality is. Yeah, I don't need them to take it like I now I look at and see how they their mannerisms and everything they do. I'm pretty good at determining. I'm like this is what they're going to come across as. And so but that's just watching people and learning because when somebody is looking for a job, they come in for that 30 minutes to an hour. No, like, oh yes, you need somebody detailed, detailed. I do this, I do that. And they're like, you know, did you go look at their clock? Like if you could go back to their closet at their home, It's like stuff like, Oh, yeah, everything went everywhere. There's clothes over here, blah, blah, blah. So that's not detailed. Right. But they're telling you in a job interview that, Oh yes, I'm very detailed. So getting to know who you are and what your needs are. Because when you would ask me about what you need first, it really depends on what the job is. So a creative person, marketing assistant, their skill set is very creative, but a lot of them might not be really, really detailed. So you have to make sure that you know that what is more important to you, somebody who's really creative or somebody who's sort of creative but really, really detailed. So you have to figure that out. You have to figure out what the position you want and then what's going to fit that skill set. And more importantly, what's going to fit your personality. When somebody says, I need to see the benefit of it or I need to see the return, that's my favorite. I've not seen the return term. So what? How would you come back to someone who says, I'm not seeing a return on my investment for hiring a virtual assistant? Did I have the right expectation of what they're supposed to be doing? You know, how much is your time worth It? When I look at it is the first thing I'm buying back is my time. I'm not looking them to generate more business yet. That's right. I'm looking for them to buy back my time. So if I'm spending less time doing stuff that I was normally doing, it allows me to do more stuff where I make more money. Like that's the goal. Or it allows me to spend more time with my family. That's right. So is there a value on that? So like to me, that's where people miss, where I'm not getting the return on my investment. I'm like, okay, what where was your where was your and what was your expectation? So that's a really good point, Mark. And one of the things that I did is when I first started, you know, before I hired a virtual assistant, I figured out what was my time worth. And at the time, you know, many years ago, 12 years ago, when I started with virtual assistants, I looked at like $25 an hour. So anything that was more about dollars an hour got a lot more 12 years to go then and does today. Yeah. And, and obviously my time is worth the crazy amount today than it was back then, but I was just getting started. So $25 an hour to me was about what my time was worth. So if I was doing anything that wasn't at least $25 an hour, I shouldn't have been doing it. And so at first when I hired Virtual Assistant, because that's a good point, a lot of people say, is my business growing well? Are you buying back your time to either spend with your family or to spend money producing activities on your team or training or hiring the things that you should be doing? Because that's a good point. So like what I consider is like, I don't mind people spending more time with your family, right? But if your your business isn't going to be grown, then. So if you're offloading this time to go spend more time with your family, don't expect your business to grow. Yeah, because you are doing less or you're doing the same amount of money producing stuff as before you hired the assistant. Right? So for us, because we're able to travel and do other things, I think after you've hired several and they've now for the first time, right? Yeah. So we want to make sure we don't usually get that with people who understand business, right? So where where I see the big problem is, is when they understand business and they bring in the people making 100,000 a year, because the people making 100,000 a year are usually the work. I'm not going to say the worst, but they're usually the first thing they want to do is cut. Yeah, that's true, because that's true. That's another good point. So when you are the business owner and maybe you have a couple of virtual assistants to start with and now you want to hire an in-house, which is okay, so let's say you're let's say you're at seven, $8 million in revenue a year and it's time for you to or even a couple million depending on what you want. But it's time for you to bring in that that person that you're I'm yep. I can pay them 100 I can pay my CEO SEO all of whatever. And that was the first thing they all do. This is doesn't matter now I wouldn't say all, but what a lot of them do if they don't understand a virtual assistant, they definitely want to get rid of them. So and that's the thing that you don't want them to do. You want them to understand more of the profit through virtual assistants. And if they manage them well, most of the time they're going to actually bring a lot more to the bottom line, which usually is going to make them a lot more. The customer likes it better usually too. So remember what is the customer like? They like the availability. And so if you're paying in the United States, person 20, $30 now, what type of experiences, if I call in, are you going to because you just experienced it yesterday. Yeah. You called somebody who works for one of our companies and they're in Tampa, Florida. They sent you an email and you're like, I just need to talk to them on the phone. And it was a two minute conversation, 2 minutes and 15 seconds with someone. You just talk to them. Well, and that point is, is that it took 2 minutes and 15 seconds. And what I told him is that the customer experience and if I were a customer calling because that's how he handles his phone, his phones answered, if I was a customer and you were putting me through that many hoops, I'm not doing business with you. Yeah. So that's is one thing we want to talk about with that in terms of going forward. The low income people are usually the most profitable though, artificial intelligence unit or virtual assistant. So that's another good point. So the first thing that you've got to do is you got to think mindset. You know, what is the mindset You've got to be able to change as a business owner or entrepreneur or a manager or managing companies, that you got to think, can this work? How do I make this work? So when I first started with virtual assistants, I didn't look at the problems. I looked at how can we make this work? I didn't look at how can we not make it work. I looked at how can we make it work and then how can we make it work better? So, you know, we met somebody at a conference, Cody Sanchez conference, which I thought was really good. Yeah. And a lot of the owners and Cody Sanchez buys, you know, hundreds businesses and a lot of them, obviously, the people that she had, the speakers that she had there, also owned a lot of businesses worth a lot of money. And I thought it was interesting that every person that was up there that we saw all talked about having virtual assistants and how it's so important today to learn that skill. No occasion was for the first speaker, like literally within the first 2 minutes. Who was it? Noah Kagan. Noah Kagan. Yep. He was like within the first 2 minutes of the conference. Yeah. Was you need to hire. Like if you're just getting going, you need to hire somebody virtually. The bottom line is, is hiring virtual assistants. Yeah, you just got to have people get cost effective artificial intelligence and virtual assistants. Like that's where you start. Yeah. So, I mean, and that's another good point. So number one is a person that we met there and she has lots of virtual assistants and she runs it like we do. She basically runs all of her businesses that way. And she says first of it first, can an app do it? It can she find an app that she can use in her business and can an app do it? Can I do it then? Can virtual assistant do it? And the last thing that she said was, I need somebody here physically with boots on the ground that I have to have that I have to have but everything else. She said what that generally speaking, in business, you don't have to have somebody with boots on the ground. Yeah. And she owns many businesses, so that's how she looks at it. And I thought that was very interesting. So we see so many people today that really understand what virtual assistants can do for you, how to make them cost effective, how you can make a lot more money off of them. Your business can be a lot more profitable because profitability is so tough today and what they can do for you. So they can do pretty much anything for you that you don't need somebody physically in-house to do. So what do you need physically in-house for somebody to do to go mail the stuff? Yeah, to go to visit houses, to go on appointments. You know, to a house to maybe put signs in the yard. I mean, if you have to go and meet a customer, like they probably need to be there. Or if a customer comes in to where you're at, located. But other than that, like you, pretty much you don't need anything. You can do anything virtually. Yeah. So going back to this, which I think all small businesses and entrepreneurs need to really look at is if you're considering a virtual assistant, start with figuring out everything that either people that you're paying a lot of money in-house if you already have assistants and then utilize them to bring in more revenue or yourself, if you're the only person in your business, write down everything that you do. What is your time worth per hour and say to yourself, Can I outsource this? Can I hire somebody to take this off my plate so I can do more money producing activities, which is going to be marketing, hiring, training and things like that, appointments, sales appointments, or if you have an in-house assistant, don't the I'm not saying get rid of your in-house assistant. I'm not saying that. But what I am saying is how can you leverage your in-house assistant to do more? Like I see people paying these in-house assistants 25, 30, $35 an hour to write on envelopes. So here's the thing with that. So how is that cost effective? Because if you go and figure out the cost of postage, the cost of envelope, the cost of how many you have to send out. Right. So we have to send out more now than we did five, six, seven years ago. That's right. More envelopes out now. I have to send out 2000 to get one call. Or if I have to send out 1000. Well, yeah. So it's but whatever the tracking number is like that the cost $25 per hour goes into that envelope. Yeah. So if you do the math on that, all of a sudden you could be paying a couple thousand dollars per appointment. Well, and you can get an actual company to write those. And obviously a virtual assistant in the Philippines can't do that, but a virtual assistant in the Philippines, for example, they can pull information, they can pull data, they can track it. And I'm seeing what people are doing is paying that 30, 35 or whatever an hour to the in-house assistant to be doing the things that virtual assistants can do. And that's really my point is if you have an in-house assistant, okay, and it's working great for you, awesome. But my point being is that, you know, if you have an in-house assistant number one, you figure out what you're worth per hour, You figure out what the assistant is worth per hour, and then what can we leverage and what can the assistant be doing that your in-house assistant that actually move your business forward to make you more money and then have assistants underneath the in-house assistant is is really what I'm saying. What do you think? That's fine. I mean, we have different personalities on it and I know we have different and that's the good thing, is that we have different I mean, you have different thoughts. We'll just we'll just leave it at that. Yeah. I mean, we have different opinions on different things and that's the good thing. But we both feel that virtual assistants absolutely are important in any business today. Well, no, it's just it's not even important. It's in necessity. Like, there's a difference. Like, you cannot go your first hire cannot be that CEO. Oh, yeah. Making a couple hundred thousand a year. Yeah. Like it can't be that right. And people hire those. And your right hand, man. Your right hand like that can't be right. And one of the things that I like is, you know, there's a lot of parents out there that are working really hard and that want to go and see their kids play sports and things like that. So they're buying back their time with virtual assistants that they're paying. If you're going to a company, you know, you're paying whatever, ten bucks an hour on average, and they're going now go and see their kids, play sports and be more involved in their day to day lives. So buying back that time is important. So anyways, you just need to figure out what you need to do yourself down to productive activities. And if you don't have anybody else working for you, what they can be doing for you. And so on our next episode, we're going to actually start getting into different jobs and different things that people can can do. And the next what I think is Mark's favorite. And that's your virtual assistant marketing assistant. Yep. So we'll see if she allows my opinions. Anyways, thanks for tuning in and we'll see you on the next episode of what a virtual assistant marketing assistant can do for you. #VirtualAssistants #Virtualassistantbenefits #ProductivityHacks #StampStaff
🔗 Listen to Stamp TV on Your Favorite Platforms: