HireMyVA Podcast

HireMyVA Podcast 11 – I’ve hired someone from the Philippines before and it’s never worked out

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Dave Braun
00:00:01
Hello, everyone! Welcome to the HireMyVA Team and Business Building Podcast, where we help you to reclaim your freedom through hiring and thriving with virtual assistants without breaking the bank- YOUR bank. I’m Dave Braun and I’m here with my partner, cohost. great friend, buddy, crazy guy, Larry Broughton. Hey, Larry!

Larry Broughton
00:00:25
Crazy guy’s about right, man. Dave, I love you. I thank you for being my friend. You’re awesome. I appreciate you.

Dave Braun
00:00:30
Thank you, Larry. Thank you for that too. Yeah. Hey, so let’s get into the topic. Today’s topic is I’ve hired someone from the Philippines before and you know, it’s just never worked out for me.

Larry Broughton
00:00:45
Yeah. Welcome to managing and leading people

Dave Braun
00:00:50
To business.

Larry Broughton
00:00:53
You know, the interesting thing, Dave, about this, this question and by the way, thank you for sending in your questions and we’ll make sure and tell you, remind you how to do that is one of the great things about the community that we have online is that people can share questions and we can all join in and answer these. But you know, when I saw this question, what I don’t want folks Dave, to get stuck on is that I hired someone from the Philippines or Vietnam or wherever around the world, wherever you might find a VA from crying out loud, David we’ve hired people right here in Orange County who haven’t worked out before. Right? You can hire people in the U S or the Philippines or wherever, and they may not work out. So let’s not get stuck on that because some of what we need to separate. And I say this often we need to determine what are we rationalized? watched them make excuse. And what’s your reason so it could be, these people could be from anywhere and they might not work out.

Dave Braun
00:01:48
Oh yeah, absolutely. It’s not a country specific issue. It really is, the issue is, you know, not knowing what or whom to look for that, the right characteristics. Not being able to filter them out up front and have them, the cream of the crop come into you so that you can pick from the cream of the crop and not from, you know, anybody. And it’s also partly that not, you’re not able to manage right as well.

Larry Broughton
00:02:15
Yeah. It was one of the things I do love about the program. There’s a lot of things, obviously I love about the program is that we walk you folks through what to look for, how to hire the right person, how to vet the right candidate. So the you can limit or at least mitigate their risk of having bad hires. Do not get me wrong, we cannot guarantee that the very first VA you hire after watching this program or participating in this program is going to be a Rockstar, that they’re going to be around forever. I can’t guarantee that. But the whole thing about business and entrepreneurship and when you launch your practice is to mitigate risk. Is to follow in the path of those folks who’ve gone before you and to learn from them so that you’re not losing as often.

Dave Braun
00:03:01
Absolutely. In fact, yeah. When I first started out doing web development, I realized I got to build a team because otherwise I’m going to get stuck. And I can’t serve my clients unless I build a team with some qualified folks. So I ended up hiring Joe, not his real name. And then he was around for awhile, but he just wasn’t progressing. I made a few mistakes and then had to let him go. And then I thought, I’ve thought, okay, I’ve got it all down. I hired Mary, not her real name. Guess what? She just stopped communicating after a few days. Like what the heck? And so then I adjusted the process and then I hired Brian, I’ll use his real name. Cause he’s still, he was with us and he left and then he’s back with us doing some work too. And he’s inside the community right now. And he’s been around for like three plus four years at the time of this recording.

Larry Broughton
00:03:57
Well, one of the things that we do always Dave is our or AAR after action review. And that is one of the tools that’s part of the program. And we have to ask ourselves when these hires don’t work, how much it is with them and how much of it was us. Did we communicate effectively what our expectations were. Did we make the right hire? Did we take the time to coach them, train them, to make sure that they could do the job effectively? Or did we just make the hire and let them go and expect that they’re going to meet our expectations when they really didn’t even know what our expectations are for the job. That’s a hard thing with, if you’re a leader, practitioner, professional, entrepreneur business owner, to look in the mirror and say, how much of this is me and how much of this is them.

Dave Braun
00:04:40
Yeah. And that’s, and that’s why we’ve got the thrive part of the membership in the community because that, you know, everybody else leaves that out, but that really that’s the most important part. That’s what’s gonna really get you having great VA’s that continue to be productive and grow with you in your business. Because I mean, our business has got to have to morph. They have to grow, they have to move, provide more services and clients to be able to do that. And we’ve got to have stars on our teams to be able to do that. So, yeah. I think that the idea for folks is that remember it’s not a country specific issue. It’s more of, you know, did I get the right person? Am I managing correctly? And you know like you said, Larry, I think it was a great point. Learn from basically learn from our mistakes. Come help us guide you through the process because it does work and the clients that we have are living proof.

Larry Broughton
00:05:37
Yeah, that’s right. That’s right. If you think, I want to go back and just pick at the scab a little bit, and then we can kind of go on to the next question, if you don’t mind. And that is this when we are feeling overwhelmed, which a lot of us are, or else we wouldn’t be looking for our VA, it’s rare that someone is looking down the field out at the battlefield and you say, Hey, they identify what their need is before they actually need it. That’s rare. Usually it’s, they’re overwhelmed. Usually it’s they’re missing deadlines. And then there’s a wake up call like, oh my gosh, I need help. But I don’t need a, maybe I don’t need a full-time person who’s in my office. Or maybe my business is located in such a place like I live remotely. And I can’t find, I don’t have a very deep labor pool around me, whatever the reason is that we’ve got VAs. However, if we follow the path, if we follow the plan, then we can limit the number of mistakes that we make. And I’ve lost my train of thought, oh, here, I’m back. And that is this.

Larry Broughton
00:06:50
We can always come up with excuses and reasons or rationalize why we’re not going to have somebody, but if we don’t bring people onto our team, we’re going to limit our growth. There’s only so much we can do as a “truly solopreneur”, a one person shop. I would argue. there’s never, there’s no such thing as a solopreneur. That’s just me. We could talk about that one day, but you’re gonna limit your growth, you’re gonna limit your freedom. And that’s what this program is all about is giving you your freedom back. You can’t do it if you’re doing it all by yourself.

Dave Braun
00:07:21
Yeah. And, and a lot of times what’s going to happen is the business will almost, if you’re doing it right, will grow almost beyond your capability as well. So for example, I, we have some friends, they just came over last night, good friends of ours from church. You may know them Larry, Paul and Celeste. And they went on a, I had some, a friend, the client went on as really nice 75 foot luxury cruise boat. Well, the owner of the business who owns the boat is like, I can’t maneuver this thing myself. So I’ve got to hire an expert, a captain who goes out with us to be able to, you know, dock this and the mover maneuver it around. And so it’s like grown beyond his individual capability. Now he could do it in an emergency I’m sure. But he just doesn’t do it as well as this person that he’s hired. So now he’s hired that person to, you know, manage it and then he can go back and relax with friends and not have to worry about it.

Larry Broughton
00:08:21
Yeah. Well, you touched on something there. None of us are experts at everything we need to grow a business. So why not surround ourselves with people who are?

Dave Braun
00:08:33
Absolutely. Absolutely. And we’ll have a lot more fun along the way. Right?

Larry Broughton
00:08:37
For sure. More freedom that’s for sure.

Dave Braun
00:08:39
Yeah.

Larry Broughton
00:08:41
No, I think that’s it. I think we touched on that one. That’s good. All right.

Dave Braun
00:08:44
All right. Well folks, thanks for joining us again today. And remember building a team, as we talked about is really the way to reclaim your freedom, to help you relax, to actually get more done, to actually build your business. And we’re here to help you and, and three things we’d love for you to do right now. And we’d really appreciate it. If you would do that. Number one, subscribe to the podcast or in our YouTube channel, if you haven’t done so already. Number two, give us a rating, hopefully five stars. And then number three, go to hiremyva.com for more information on our course and community. And remember with our course and community, without experience, you’ll learn how to prepare for hire and thrive with virtual assistants. Larry and I have helped folks, you know, we, it’s hard to count anymore, right? And we’d love to help you too. We’ve got a great community and folks I’m ready to help come alongside you. So just go to hiremyva.com for more information.

Larry Broughton
00:09:41
And do yourself a favor. Do the world a favor, go do something significant today. Go get them! All right, Bye!

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