Dave Braun
00:00:01
Welcome folks 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. I’m here with Larry Broughton and I’m Dave Braun. He’s my partner and a great friend. And today’s topic is we’re going to talk about is I’ve never managed someone and I don’t know where to start. So you may be thinking that. Larry, thoughts?
Larry Broughton
00:00:28
What say he, well, there’s a managing anything or managing any one for the first time it’s scary. You know, it’s like anything going on a rollercoaster for the first time is scary. But I think that if we have a look at it for those first time managers and leaders, particularly in the solopreneur or business ownership space, the way I look at it is, everything is hard until it gets easy. You got to start doing it. You got to get in there and just do it. But the great thing is if you, if you consider that managing a team or managing your first team member, we call them team members, not employees, because it changes our mindset about how we treat each other. But when you are managing or leading your first team member, it’s like going on a road trip across country, but, and you’ve never left your hometown. That’s why they have maps. That’s why they have tour guides. That’s why they have GPS. These are tools that are provided to you, or think about the first time you ever made dinner for your girlfriend, boyfriend, significant other. It’s probably a little nerve wracking, particularly if you’re a crappy cook. So that’s why they have cooking show, that’s why they have recipes. These are tools that are used. And so, yeah, it’s, it can be a little bit scary at times, but we provide the tools and the recipes for those folks who have never done this before. This is why HireMyVA was actually created because frankly, we’ve been there. I remember the first VA that I hired, they were actually based here in the U S and it did not go well. And the second one did I hired did not go well, we tried one in the Philippines, did not go well, it took me three or four or five times before I finally figured out, well, what am I doing wrong here? And so it’s hard, t’s scary. It’s hard enough managing someone Dave when you’re in the same room or when you’re managing someone remotely, it can be there are a unique set of challenges in there. And that’s one of the things I love about what we put together with this, this program is how do you deal with those particular challenges? And so giving them tools and tips on how to do that.
Dave Braun
00:02:36
Yeah. And, and I like your point in that all of these things have been discovered through trial and error and a lot of pain on our part. And we don’t want people to go through all of that pain.
Larry Broughton
00:02:49
No. Cause you know, we talked about it all the time. You and I are committed to creating a huge impact on the world by developing more leaders and entrepreneurs. And you don’t do that by not sharing the goods by watching other people suffer.
Dave Braun
00:03:05
Yeah. You know, it reminds me of one of the people in our program that we’ve helped Sarah who owns a web development agency. I mean, she has leveraged the advice that we’ve got our workbooks, our tools, our sheets, and the community that we have, the people that we have, and to get guidance on setting up the systems with our VA, performing reviews, when should you do that? How should you do that?. And then I think one of the most important things though, as we talk about is how do you have fair but tough when needed conversations? One of the things, one of the things that is an important mindset that I had to learn, then I think I had to learn the hard way was you are the boss, I’m the boss, not their friend.
Larry Broughton
00:03:52
It doesn’t mean boss. ugly an your
Dave Braun
00:03:53
Exactly. Yeah. And that it’s, you know, you’re a business and there’s times when you have to have the tough conversations, but there’s that balance. And we talk about that in the course. And how do you balance being a friendly boss, being a friend, being somebody who’s empathetic and understanding of situations, but then not letting that really affect your business or run over you so to speak.
Larry Broughton
00:04:20
Yeah. I think the framework, when it comes down to these first time managers, one of the things that we share throughout all the organizations that I’m with for first time managers, is this what we call the back framework BAC. And when I think we get this, when we nail this down, it helps us manage and lead anything that comes up. And the first thing is making sure that you and your team members, that the D in is direction, making sure that everyone is clear on the vision and the goals of the organization and the project that you’re working on specifically right now. So that’s one of the things we forget, we’re going to hire somebody, but we never clearly set the expectations. So how do people ever meet your expectations if they don’t know what they are? So direction is number one, the A in DAC, DAC is alignment- ensuring that everyone on the team knows their own responsibilities and how their responsibilities are aligned with everyone else on the team, by me doing this, and you’re doing that, then this is what’s going to happen.
Larry Broughton
00:05:24
The third thing, the C DAC is commitment- making sure that everyone is committed to the organization, committed to the goals, committed to the project, and that they’re passionate about making sure that their commitment shines through. And sometimes I say DACC, and the third one, that second C is communication. We have to overly communicate with folks. And particularly during times of crisis or downturns in the economy, or if the organization is struggling, the best communication is over-communication. So it’s either DAC or DACC, which is direction, alignment, commitment. And then the fourth, the second C the fourth letter is a communication.
Dave Braun
00:06:06
Yeah. And that’s great. And sometimes we think that you jump into this and you’re going to like, okay, I want to hire three or four people cause they need so much help, but that’s not what we see. That’s not what we teach. That’s not what we want you to do. You want to start off, with one person. And like, what I did is I started off with Daphne as a general virtual assistant. She helped me move the thinking from tactical to strategic and offload all kinds of stuff to her. Right. So that’s, that’s a path. Right. And, and we help you to create, well, we have a path to find and part of that is preparing yourself to figure out what you really need or who you really need, what role that, that person is going to play. Cause that’s going to be key. And then like my second one that I’ve gone through a few is a developer virtual assistant for my business. And then the third one is we’re developing and this person’s part time. And he we’re doing some SEO work now. So we’re just gradually growing the team. And that’s what we would want you to do. But it all starts with getting your first one.
Larry Broughton
00:07:18
Yeah. And you hit, you kind of touched on it you kind of crossed over it and you hired a few and that the two of them haven’t worked. And I think one of these, we need to remember as a managers and leaders and business owners, you’re gonna make mistakes. They’re gonna make mistakes. You’re gonna make bad hires. If, because you make a mistake, doesn’t mean you’re gonna throw your hands up. Hopefully they’re your hands up in there and say, this is not for me. Hiring people is not for me. But guess what? Even if you’re hiring an in-person real live body, it’s going to be in your office in your home every single day. Guess what? You could actually hire the wrong person. We see it all the time. We see that coaching clients in my business I’ve made bad hires before, but the key is one of the mantras in our organizations.
Larry Broughton
00:07:59
As you know, Dave is slow to hire and quick to fire. And by that I don’t mean, oh, Dave, I don’t like the way you’re combing your hair today. I’m gonna, you know, you’re fired. I’m talking about, oftentimes we know on the first or second day or first or second week, whether someone’s going to work out or not, but we’re so afraid of hurting someone’s feelings or that we’re not a good call. We don’t trust our instincts that we didn’t let it linger. In six months later, we’re still kicking ourselves at this person didn’t work. This is why earlier I said about the, the DAC, the communication, you don’t have to be so concerned if you overly communicate about what your expectations are and they still aren’t meeting them, you’ll know by the second week, whether they’re going to make it or not. And then you just cut them loose.
Larry Broughton
00:08:43
And all you say is this isn’t working. I’m sorry. You know, maybe it’s just a great, it’s just not a great fit for those folks who do stick around and you make it into the first month, what we try to do. And sometimes we’re great at it. And sometimes we’re not, we try to do a very brief 15 minute 30 or 15 minute review with people 30 days in, instead of waiting until 90 days, 30 days in, we actually do a really brief review. And so it’s a two way communication. How are we doing? Here’s how we think you’re doing. How do you think we’re doing? Are we meeting your expectations? And when you do that, plus all the other hundreds of tools and tips that we’ve got, you’re really setting up these new team members to be highly productive, which is going to offer you a whole lot more freedom than you currently have. And you’ve got more freedom. The overwhelm goes down and your productivity skyrockets, and then guess what your confidence starts to exude as well.
Dave Braun
00:09:44
Yeah. And having the tools and resources that we’ve got in the program behind you will help you get that confidence from the get-go.
Larry Broughton
00:09:53
It’s plug and play for crying loud. out
Dave Braun
00:09:56
I mean, one of the key concepts that we talk about when it’s, you know, you think about, oh, I’m scared, I haven’t managed people before. You know, I, I don’t know if you remember, I was a soccer ref for a bunch of years when my kids were little. One of the things that I learned is to start the match correctly, as a ref, I had to take control of the situation. So what I hear, it’s a fun story is that I learned at the very beginning of every match to see what was going on. And I had this really loud whistle. And then I blow it as soon as I could into the match, the kids would be like, ah, that’s so that’s too loud. I’m like, Hey, that’s you don’t want it to be loud, play by the rules. So it’s important to have those, to set yourself up right from the get-go. And so that’s one of the things that we talk about and we teach you, we give you all the startup scripts and things that you need to use. And it’s so important to start off right. But you can do it. Right, Larry? do you agree with me is managing, is a skill that can be learned.
Larry Broughton
01:11:03
Absolutely. And, but when you’ve got a roadmap, you have a recipe, there’s enough things in business to be afraid of. And so if we can take some of that fear away by, I hate to say that 70 some years between us of leading people
Dave Braun
01:11:17
That’s a good thing in this this case
Larry Broughton
01:11:22
But it’s very interesting in thousands, maybe tens of thousand people that we’ve hired and led over over the years, we’ve learned a few things. I love helping people get through this roadblock. And I remember maybe I shouldn’t say her name.
Dave Braun
01:11:40
about How Mrs. X?
Larry Broughton
01:11:41
Okay, Miss X. You may recall this. When she hired her first team member, there were how excited she was. She said that she felt like she was finally a real business, that it was no longer a hobby anymore. She thought, I’m an employer, I’m paying somebody now, there’s something really rewarding about that. And the great thing about hiring VAs is that, although we treat them like team members, they’re really 10 99, their contract it’s contracted people. And when they’re overseas for me, I don’t feel the big that heavy burden, but I get the same benefit without the heavy burden on my shoulders. So there’s a lot of benefits to hiring that first person. And I just promise you, most of us have gotten into business to actually create legacy, change the economic trajectory of our lives and for our family.
Larry Broughton
01:12:42
So the sooner you can become or we, Dave can become more productive and earn more income and earn more revenue, the better. So why not get working in your strengths sooner rather than working out a fear and spending what studies have shown, spending 80% or more of our time doing things that were either not good at what we don’t like, that’s outside of our strengths. Like there’s that earlier for every minute that we can get working in our strengths, there’s a minute where we can start seeing the trajectory of our revenues and income start going up.
Dave Braun
01:13:17
Yeah. And we got that, the resources in the program and to help you. And one of the cool things is, is we are available for questions. So you talked about, Larry, are 70 plus years of experience. And I think one of the important things, when it comes to experiences that you don’t have the same, it’s not like you have 70 years of one year of experience. That’s not what we have. So in other words, you’ve got the experience of running organizations from small to large and coaching others in the entrepreneurial world. I have that in the last few years as well, working with the VAs, but then I’ve managed highly skilled people across the world and the corporate environment. And so, you know, between the two of us, we’ve got a really great balance of, how do you really deal with different situations and all that.
Larry Broughton
01:14:13
Well, it’s not just us. It’s the community that we’re building as well of other people are in the same boat who are hiring VA’s. Hey, this worked for me. This didn’t work, work for me. What do we do about holiday? How you incentivizing people, because this is still a people- Whenever you hire somebody, you still dealing with people and what works for one person may not work for another. And it’s oh, it’s, like a virtual mastermind, that’s going on sharing of ideas.
Dave Braun
01:14:40
Absolutely. And we’re learning all the time. All right. Well, I think that about wraps it up, any final words?
Larry Broughton
01:14:48
No, I’d just say, be bold. Don’t get stuck in fear because I’ve never done it before. As I said earlier, there’s there are people out there who say, gosh, when they’ve hired that first person, it’s been like a big victory for me. It’s like making that first a hundred dollars or that first thousand dollars in your business, because you just know when it goes, well, all of a sudden, you’re gonna start multiplying your time and talents, but don’t beat yourself up with those first hire that second hire doesn’t work. If you get to the third hire and still not working, and then it’s time to bring it to the community and say, Hey, you then work then we’re. And let me just share this really quick thing though, Dave, before we wrap up, one of the things I learned when I was in the military is do an AAR an after action review.
Larry Broughton
01:15:33
If you hire someone and it doesn’t go well, do what we call an AAR, ask yourself, what did I do right in this? What did I do wrong in this? How can I improve the next time around? If it didn’t go well, don’t do the same exact thing all over again. Cause guess what? You’re gonna end up with the same results. And AAR’s is one of the, or one of the tools that we have in the program. And we do deep dives on AAR’s. I think we do it in one of the upcoming podcast, but also we’ve got tools in the program.
Dave Braun
01:16:04
And that’s how we’ve developed a really, really great process and course.
Larry Broughton
01:16:09
That’s right!
Dave Braun
01:16:11
All right. Well folks, that’s all we got for today. If you want to reclaim your freedom, change your life dramatically. You just, you just got to build a team if you want to have significance. And we’re here to help you. So go to hireMyVa.com for more info on our course and community where like we talked about, even without experience, you’ll learn how to prepare for hire and thrive with a virtual assistants. Larry and I have coached a lot of folks. We’ve helped them overcome their hurdles to be successful. We can help you to just go to hiremyva.com for more information. Have an awesome rest of the day!
Larry Broughton
01:16:47
All right, thanks guys!
