Dave Braun
00:00:00
Welcome everyone 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 your bank. I’m Dave Braun and I’m here with my partner, co-host, friend, former Green-Beret well, actually, once you are you’re always one, right?
Larry Broughton
00:00:20
I hadn’t heard that one, but yeah. Hey, I’ll take it. Hey Dave, it’s great to see you, my friend.
Dave Braun
00:00:26
Yeah, you too, buddy. This is fun. All right, so we’ve got a question and our topic today is, if I’m going to hire a VA, you know, the problem is I, maybe I can afford the pay, but I can’t afford both pay and benefits.
Larry Broughton
00:00:41
Oh. Can I jump on this first? Can I take a stab at it? Well, the interesting thing about VAs is the way that we’re kind of approaching this and the HireMyVA program masterclass is that these folks would be 1099. These would be independent contractors, actually, maybe 1099. But the thing is, they’re not going to be employees of yours, right? So they’re not going to be on your payroll. So at a minimum, all you’re paying is just your hourly rate to these folks. Okay? So you’re not going to be paying medical and dental and vision. You’re not going to be paying payroll taxes that you would pay here, but to somebody who’s on your payroll, an employee here in the states, right? One of the countries that we’re suggesting and where we’ve had the most luck thus far is our VAs, our virtual assistants are based in the Philippines. And so you pay them the hourly rate. Let’s say that you’re paying a healthy hourly rate of, you know, $5 an hour. It’s just whatever, the hourly rate times the number of hours they’re working. That’s it! That’s one of the great benefits of hiring virtual assistants, right?
Dave Braun
00:01:49
Yeah. Definitely from another country and, and, you know, outside of your state and all that kind of stuff. And I think the other thing to think about is, you know, I, I think that ends up being a, what, a lack mindset, right? I can’t afford pay and benefits. Well, guess what? Once you hire somebody and have somebody on your team, then guess what will happen is you will be freed up to, you know, spend your time to earn more money in your business. Your business will grow. So if you do this right, have the right virtual assistant, your business is going to grow and you’ll have more revenue and then you’ll be able to afford what you need.
Larry Broughton
00:02:26
Exactly. That’s the way that we need to look at virtual assistants is these aren’t expenses. These are investments, they’re investments in your time, they’re investments in your productivity. And most importantly, and this is the thing, the reason we’ve developed this program, it’s an investment in your future. Freedom, for crying out loud. I would not encourage anyone to hire anybody, whether it’s a virtual assistant or it’s an in-house marketing person or in-house operations person or an in-house accounting person who is going to be in your office every day, if they’re not adding more freedom to your life. So when you’re ready to bring someone on board, you need to expect there’s going to be a boost in productivity, somewhere in the organization. And if you follow the Prepare and the Hire modules in the program, we’re going to make it super easy for you. And you’re going to know exactly which VA to hire, to exponentially grow your productivity and get the stuff off your plate that you hate. That’s so important because then all of a sudden your morale’s going to change, your mood’s going to change. And the big Mo is going to happen.
Dave Braun
00:03:33
And you know, you, but you still do have the option, even though, you know, you don’t have to, there’s still an option for you to pay some benefits for them. I mean, you can cover some of their expenses like healthcare or a computer, buying them a second monitor.
Larry Broughton
00:03:51
We’re big believers in that!
Dave Braun
00:03:53
Oh yeah. Yeah. But you know, there’s a time and place to do that. You’re not going to all of a sudden give them a bunch of benefits if they just started, right? It needs to be down the road in your relationship with them. Once you feel like that they’ve kind of earned it. Right?
Larry Broughton
00:04:06
Yeah. Like, so what are some of those things that you might consider as a bonus, what are some benefits is a better way to put this. Like we’ve helped with computers or helping them invest in a better high speed internet at their home because it makes their life easier and more productive. And it makes their professional life more productive as well. But again, I wouldn’t hire, I wouldn’t hire somebody out of the gate, buy them a new computer, upgrade their internet and all these kinds of things until you actually got a track record of success.
Dave Braun
00:04:42
Yes, that’s right.
Larry Broughton
00:04:45
But there are other benefits that are kind of cultural that they should consider as well. Don’t you think?
Dave Braun
00:04:52
Yeah. And, and for sure, in the Philippines, there’s one in particular is the 13th month pay.
Larry Broughton
00:04:58
It’s called the 13th month pay.
Dave Braun
00:05:00
It’s called the 13th month pay and it’s always in December is when you give it. The employers, if you’re an employer in the Philippines, if you’re located there by law, you’ve got to give them a 13th month pay. And it’s prorated based upon how long they’ve been with you during that year. If they’ve been with you a full year, you give them the full 13, 13th month, a full month of their salary as a bonus. If they’ve been with you for like six months, then it’s, you know, half of a month. But by law, it has to be done there by December 25th. A lot of companies will actually do it earlier, but for us here say you’re in the United States or somewhere else, it is optional, but we still recommend doing that because you want these folks to stay with you the longest. You don’t want them to look outside of working with you and they do count on that money for, you know, typically, maybe buying Christmas presents or to celebrate with family.
Larry Broughton
00:06:03
Well, let’s do the math on this for a second. If somebody says, oh my gosh, how much is that? Let’s break this down. A healthy pay for a VA based in the Philippines might be $5 an hour. Yeah. Okay. So let’s say that they were working for you full-time and I know a lot of you are just thinking about a part-time VA, but let’s say that’s a full-time just to keep it easy. So $5 times 40 hours a week times 4.3 weeks in the year is $860. If you pay half of that, it’s $430. Okay. That hopefully is not going to break you, but it’s going to build a really strong level of loyalty and show some appreciation. And that’s assuming that they’ve been with you for a full year. And if they’ve only been with you six months, it’s a couple hundred dollars, you know? So I think it’s a really good question, but fret not, you know, again, let’s look at this as an investment into your business, it’s investment into your freedom and into your productivity, and let’s get away from the, the lack mentality and more into an abundance mentality. But take into account the cultural norms as well when you’re considering benefits.
Dave Braun
00:07:24
Yeah. And you know, and I think it’s so important because some US employers of Philippine folks or any other country, they won’t know if you’re going to do this or not. So I think it’s really important for you to be upfront with them in the contract, signing time, or when you’re first starting to say, Hey, here’s our policy. And here’s what we do.
Larry Broughton
00:07:47
I would make it more of an agreement, but yes, you’re absolutely right. This should be part of the hiring process. And this is part of the checklist of conversations that you’re going to have. And if you consider this, that we’ve talked about, when you bring people on, it’s almost like a tryout period, they’re going to be interviewing you as well. They may not act that way, but they’re going to be going through this mental checklist of, okay, this person who wants to hire me, they’re going to be offering me this benefit, and this one is not, and this one over here, they want to pay me $3 an hour, this one wants to give me $5 an hour, this guy seems to be a jerk, and this one seems to be joyful and kind to work with – who are they going to pick?
Larry Broughton
00:08:31
And let’s remember, let’s not take the first team member who comes down the road. You are worthy of having rockstars work for you. And I love talking about this stuff in the community. And I’m so glad that these questions keep coming in. But if you’ve got any questions about this, this is what we’re here for. This is why the community is here. This is why the forum is around. This is why we have the thrive module in this and ask any question that you want, we’ll address it. And our VA’s are on these things as well. And you can hear it right from their mouth, you know, no filter from us.
Dave Braun
00:09:09
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Awesome. I think we’ve got this one down. Right? Good.
Larry Broughton
00:09:15
Awesome. Good.
Dave Braun
00:09:16
All right. Well thank you everybody for being with us today and remember building a team is the way to reclaim your freedom. And of course, we are here to help you, as Larry talked about. Now, there’s three things we’d love for you to do, and we really appreciate it if you do those. Number one, subscribe to this podcast, if you haven’t already done so. And then number two, give us a rating, of course we’d love it if it’s a five-star, but give us what you feel we deserve. And then number three, go to hiremyva.com for more information on our course and community. Now remember, even without experience, you’ll learn how to prepare for a hire, and thrive with virtual assistants. Andy Larry and I have helped, oh my gosh, folks. We’re helping people in the community now. It’s pretty exciting what’s going on! And we’d love to help you to. So just go to hiremyva.com for more information.
Larry Broughton
01:10:03
Hey folks, do yourself a favor. Do the world a favor. Do the community a favor. Go do something significant today. All right, folks, go get ’em! All right, bye.
