Dave Braun
00:00:00
Hello, everyone again 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, without breaking your bank, your bank, the most important one, right? And I’m Dave Braun and I’m here with my partner, co-host, buddy. All that good stuff… Larry Broughton
Larry Broughton
00:00:24
It gets more awkward every week. Okay, Dave, I love you. I am glad you’re in my life. My friend, man. I just, I feel, I feel particularly blessed this week, that that you’re in my life. So thanks buddy.
Dave Braun
00:00:38
Before we were recording today, we were talking about some pretty intense stuff happening to some of our friends and everything. Right? Right. Exactly. Wow. That’s not take ourselves too seriously with this podcast.
Larry Broughton
00:00:49
We got deep there for a bit.
Dave Braun
00:00:52
All right. So here is our subject in a question somebody asks for this one and I think it’s a pretty good one. So it’s, and it’s a little bit long here. So bear with me. Okay. Do we need non-disclosure agreements and how would they be enforceable? How do we cover legal issues like exchanging tax or medical info? And he goes on to say, these are issues I should have been addressing anyway, but now I must address them if I want to scale,
Larry Broughton
00:01:23
That is a heavy one to be starting with. It’s very, if you’re not careful, this can be a legal conundrum, right? I mean, because the truth is Dave, you know, our program is developed for any VA, no matter where you are, they could be here in the US they could be in Ukraine, they could be in Vietnam, they could be in the Philippines. But the, the fact of the matter is most people who are going through this program that we see so far are hiring people from Philippines and other international countries. Right? And so I think the question we need to ask is, even though you’re doing business with a company where there might be jurisdiction, what’s the likelihood you’re going to be able to actually enforce that. So if you have a Philippine VA that steals your stuff or shares your information with somebody, you have the legal means you have the financial means to pursue that in a Philippine court.
Larry Broughton
00:02:19
Now NDA’s can be drafted in such a way where you say, Hey, this is going to be covered under the Philippine law, but it’s actually going to be tried here in the US, but man, that gets complicated, right? So yes, you can do NDAs of course, but let’s say that you’ve got a Chinese VA. I’m just going to tell you, it’s not, it’s not going to be enforceable. That is the big problem we have between the U S and China. China’s constantly stealing intellectual property. Right. So my sense, Dave, is that you should do NDAs and confidentiality agreements with your VA’s, even if it’s not enforceable, you’re setting the tone. Correct. Right. Yeah. But additionally, I’d just be careful with what are you sharing with people before there’s a level of trust that’s built. This is why in the prep section and in the hire section, we talk about integrity, hiring people with integrity.
Larry Broughton
00:03:19
Certainly there are technology issues that you’re much more, Dave, you’re much more versed in that stuff than I am. And maybe we can talk about that. Like, how do you protect your, your client’s information? But I think my first pass, I may change this during our, during the conversation here today. But my, the first blush at this is, yeah, I do do NDAs do confidentiality agreements because it sets the tone. And so that people know, hey, don’t be stealing our stuff, but the truth is, again, executing. it, is going to be a challenge, right. It gets to the point hire, you get to the point hire a US, VA, but also there’s insurance, right? There’s a business liability insurance that you, that you should have there’s errors and omissions insurance that you should have. So, Dave, why don’t you jump in on, on this?
Dave Braun
00:04:13
Yeah. And, and yeah, I agree with you, Larry. And, you know, part of it starts with making sure you have the proper protection for your business. Right. And you talked about the errors and omission’s liability insurance, and just making sure you have the, you know, your LLC form or your S-corp or whatever. Right. And then of course, personally, you know, having like a, like a, maybe an umbrella insurance over you, so that in case somebody does sue you, because the problem is, is people can sue you for anything at any time, whether or not they are correct. And so you have a lot of costs for that.
Larry Broughton
00:04:46
Just to protect yourself whether it’s valid or not. This is why you should, I’m not a big fan of sole proprietors. Yeah. I really think you need to have some veil of protection. You kind of alluded to that. Right. Whereas an S-corp or an LLC or whatever it is. And we can talk about that at some other other time, but keep going, Dave, I’m sorry. No,
Dave Braun
00:05:06
No, that’s okay. And I agree with you, but one of the things you have to think about too is if you are handling some sensitive information and you think that there would be a possibility that somebody may sue you, and then you even do hire somebody in the US as your virtual assistant, do you have the financial means and the funds to actually pursue them? You know? Cause that, even that is going to be really expensive. And you may, you may do that, but I think it does come down to exactly what you said, hiring for integrity. Number one, number two is you don’t give them sensitive information no matter where they’re from until you feel like they are trustworthy. And then number three is if you’re gonna, you know, worry about like medical information and, and, you know, social security numbers and all that kind of stuff, if you have to have access, if you have access to that and you need it, there are proper software programs where you can give access, certain levels of access within the program where they don’t see that kind of stuff that it’s hidden.
Dave Braun
00:06:08
Right? So in other words, they would be able to work on a client’s tax information or whatever, but all they would see is dollars and cents. They wouldn’t see social security numbers or anything else that might be sensitive. You know, an example I was just looking today is we use transfer wise to go ahead and, and pay our VA’s in the Philippines, you know, Brian and Daph and Adrian right now. And, you know, and, and there is a user level that I can give them access to that, you know, the, the stuff is that, you know, like, oh, let’s see, I was going to say that my bank account information that’s hidden, you know, all they see would be like the last four numbers of it so that they would know if they wanted to go in, or if I allowed them to go in and actually like have Daph pay somebody else, all she would see is the last four numbers. So she couldn’t get my bank information. So I think that’s a very important aspect of whatever you’re giving them access to in the software that you have, has got to have those protections. And it only makes sense, only makes sense.
Larry Broughton
00:07:13
It’s so, that’s such great points, Dave, you know, I was having a coffee with a buddy of mine yesterday and similarly, this came up when we were talking about just business integrity, right? And integrity of employees. You know, I think one of the biggest scams and frauds in US history is a whole Bernie Madoff thing. Right. And everyone thought that this guy was the real deal, because there were people who were the real deal who believed that he was the real deal, right? Accounting firms thought that he was the real deal, right? Like nationally, national accounting firms, national law firms, thought he was the real deal. So you can get bamboozled. Even if you think that you’re hiring the right person, they answer all the questions about integrity, the right way, you can still get bamboozled, you can, is my point.
Larry Broughton
00:08:02
So there is no fail safe way here. I’ve I have hired people in my company over the years, who I thought where just amazing people. And I had visions of them growing in the organization, come to find out they were stealing from me, you know, so it can happen. Sadly. I don’t know how many bad, ill intended people are out there, but they’re out there. Right? And so we just have to be aware and, and, and take those steps like transfer wise and some of those other steps and NDAs. And, you know, there are some people, and I’m one of them who says that there there’s two areas that as a business owner, you always need to keep your finger on the pulse. One is the finances and one is the marketing. You must always have your finger on the pulse of those. So even if you are, no matter what it is, have audits in place where periodically you’re going to go in and audit this stuff.
Larry Broughton
00:08:56
Because the problem is where people get caught with their pants down, so to speak, is when they have not checked in, that goes on for extended periods of time. I could share dozens of stories with you, but if you’re going in every couple of weeks and checking work on people, because there’s also a software where you can check every think and keystroke that your team members make on their computers, right. Then you can double-check is basically, it’s just, you know, forensic audits on things. Because what I’ve seen over the years is generally, it’s an incremental thing. Generally, somebody who’s in your organization or a VA, they’re going to start small first. Generally, they’re not going to go in and go for the big dollar amount right out of the gate. You’re going to check something small that can be passed off with an error first, you know, a few times. And then over time they’re going to embezzle a hundred thousand dollars or whatever it’s going to be. That makes sense?
Dave Braun
00:09:51
Oh yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And it, yeah, it definitely starts with having a, you know, a really good separation between what they can get access to that is sensitive and what they can’t, and you, you will give them more access over time, but there may be a point where depending upon your business, that you never give them access to those things. And it’s just like, you are the one that has to go do that. And of course I do love what you said about doing those audits because, and you, and I think you would want to do them depending upon how sensitive the information is and you’d want to do it more often or less often. Right. That’s right. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, I think we’ve got that pretty well covered. Like maybe as a quick summary is there is no fail, safe mechanism.
Dave Braun
01:10:36
Doesn’t matter where you live, that you are going to be taking a chance, but, I mean, the upside of doing this is, I mean, you’re getting freedom in your life and your business, and, and there is no other way, if you’re, if you’re going to be the, I mean, you can choose to be the obstacle that gets stuff, to get stuff done. You could be the person that’s in the way of, of having your business grow if you are over-protective of some of this as well. Right? Yeah. So you just have to be prudent and think about it. And that’s one of the reasons why we’re here in our, in our community is these are great questions. You can ask these things and we can share the different stories and say, okay, well, let’s look at this software or that software that may help us protect things. Yeah.
Larry Broughton
01:11:20
Yeah. I would encourage folks, as you just said, I’m going to put an exclamation point on it and go to the community on this, because this is just right now a conversation between Dave and I, based on the initial question, and you know, how conversations go, Dave might mention something or I might mention something and then there’s the, oh yeah. But what if this happens? So go to the forum, ask, ask a question there. And between all of us, we can kind of banter and bat this one around, but I think there’s a great question.
Dave Braun
01:11:48
All right. Good. I think we’re done, right with that one.
Larry Broughton
01:11:51
Yeah. Okay. Good. I question! that love
Dave Braun
01:11:54
That was a, that was a fun one. That was a hard one too. Yeah. All right, everybody. Well, thanks for joining us today. And remember building a team is the way to reclaim your freedom and we’re here to help you and our course in community. So right now, though, we’d love you to do three things right now. Number one, subscribe to this podcast, if you haven’t already done so. Number two, give us a rating, preferably five stars. And then number three is go to Hiremyva.com for more information on our course and the community. Because remember, even without experience, you’ll learn how to prepare for, hire and thrive with virtual assistants. Larry and I, we love helping folks. These questions are great, and we’d love to help you too and get your questions answered. So just go to Hiremyva.com for more information.
Larry Broughton
01:12:40
Yeah. Do yourself a favor folks. Get it out of your mind that, that about this whole lone wolf myth thing that you can do this by herself, participate in the community. Let’s go on this journey together. Let’s gain more freedom in your life. Do the world a favor. Do yourself a favor and go do something significant today. All right, team, go get ’em.
Dave Braun
01:13:01
Bye. Bye.
