HireMyVA Podcast

HireMyVA Podcast 47- What would you say are the top three myths about building a team?

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Dave Braun
00:00:00
Hey, 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 and without breaking your bank. And I’m Dave Braun. I’m here with my partner and my great friend, Larry Broughton. Larry, how are you doing today?

Larry Broughton
00:00:19
I am awesome, David Braun. How are you, sir?

Dave Braun
00:00:22
I am doing fantastic. It’s a pleasure to be here with you and talk about team building and Virtual Assistants and business building, all that kind of stuff. We just have a good time together talking about this.

Larry Broughton
00:00:33
Well, listen. It’s great to have a partner on this journey because boy, life can suck sometimes when you’re doing it by yourself. But if you got somebody you can lean on and vent with once in a while, it sure does make it a whole lot more enjoyable.

Dave Braun
00:00:47
Yeah. You talk a lot about—

Larry Broughton
00:00:49
Right?

Dave Braun
00:00:49
Yeah. You’re right. And you talk a lot about not being the lone Wolf and having people along on the journey with you so important.

Larry Broughton
00:00:57
That’s right.

Dave Braun
00:00:59
Okay. Well, let’s talk today about what we advocate a lot. And one of the things we advocate is that in order to reach your fullest potential, you’ve gotta build a team. But some people have asked us, what would you say are the top three myths about building a team? And it turns out in something that Larry you’re teaching and I’m there with you, a group of entrepreneurs about how to get to having their business get up to like a seven-figure level. And so, just this last week you did an awesome training. And we talked about those top three myths about building a team that some people really think are facts and the reality of their myths. Right?

Larry Broughton
00:01:42
Well, their myths or their excuses.

Dave Braun
00:01:45
There you go. Yeah.

Larry Broughton
00:01:47
We catch that as myths, just to make it a little bit more palatable. Why don’t I do this? Why don’t I just list what those three myths are? And then we can go back and talk about each of them. Is that okay if we approach it that way? Well, the one that I’ve heard for years from entrepreneurs, but also just from managers who are inside an organization, is that it just takes too long to train someone.

Dave Braun
00:02:15
Yeah.

Larry Broughton
00:02:16
You heard that before. Right? Myth number two that I hear all the time is—and this is particularly true from micromanagers, is it’s quicker and easier if I just do things myself. And the third one is, Dave, that it is way too expensive to hire a team. So those are the three that we hear most often, maybe we ought to go back and actually talk about maybe the first one first, it takes too long to train someone. What are your thoughts on that?

Dave Braun
00:02:45
Yep. Let’s go into that. Dive into that.

Larry Broughton
00:02:48
What do you think?

Dave Braun
00:02:49
What do I think? It takes too long to train someone? Well, number one, it can take a while but that might be you have the wrong person. And it does take a little bit of time upfront. But the whole idea is that what we want to do is, when you have a team, you’re in a position where you can start multiplying your time. So the idea is that you spend five minutes doing something or 10 minutes, even an hour doing something. And it may not give you an advantage right then. But the idea is that you can leverage that over and over and over. So you spend that five minutes now, but it’s gonna save you hours in the long run. And so when they say, some people think, well, it takes too long to train someone. Like I said, you may have the wrong person, but if you invent, this is more of an investment. Right. Larry? For sure, absolutely. Invest a little bit of time. It’s gonna save you time in the long run.

Larry Broughton
00:03:51
Well, yes. I think those are excellent points, but there are a couple of other elements I would add in there. Sometimes because we had leaders or just because you do something really well doesn’t mean you’re great at training someone on how to do it. So sometimes we need to ask, okay, what’s my training system look like? And the truth is the more—this is one of the benefits of having some turnover, is that you learn to train someone. What I would do is if you’ve never had to train somebody before then record or somehow capture the training that you’re doing for the person that you bring on board. Maybe you videotape it. Maybe you get it transcribed. Maybe this is being recorded on your phone or something. But start somewhere in recording the training process.

Larry Broughton
00:04:42
And the more you train on it, the more smooth, the more the wrinkles will be smoothed out on it. Once you find a real rock star in whatever position you’re hiring, have them set up a training program to really identify what are their best practices, what are some of the mistakes that are oftentimes made with hiring that person. But Dave, I think you’re absolutely right. In the beginning, it’s an absolute investment. It will take some additional time if you’ve never hired someone for this position before, or you’ve ever never hired somebody at all before. Yes, but this is why we’re here, right? This is why we have a community to help people out. And what we have found oftentimes when it comes to hiring a VA, is that there are few VA positions I can think of at this point that someone in the community has not hired for in the past. And we can help you identify what are some of the training missteps that are often made. So yes it’ll take a little bit of time, but the whole idea of this program is to ultimately give you more freedom.

Dave Braun
00:05:50
Right?

Larry Broughton
00:05:51
I’m not just trying to tie a millstone around your neck— yeah, train all these people, and then you can’t even run your business. No, but guess what? You’re the owner of the business, you’re the founder of the business or you’re the entrepreneur. Is it worth spending additional 20 hours of time over a week period where you get less sleep or whatever it is so that ultimately you’ve got more time? I do that math every single day.

Dave Braun
00:06:18
Oh, absolutely.

Larry Broughton
00:06:18
Or the week if I know that ultimately I’m gonna have more freedom. So yes. I think Dave, you may have hired the wrong person or your training system is just not effective yet. But it does get better, I promise you.

Dave Braun
00:06:32
Yeah. So in reality, it really doesn’t take too long to train someone. It takes time, but you get that time back and that’s the thing.

Larry Broughton
00:06:44
It gets easier. Absolutely.

Dave Braun
00:06:45
And it does. Okay. Well, how about the second one, where it’s quick and easier to do things myself. People will think that. What do you think?

Larry Broughton
00:06:56
All right, sure, yes, maybe. But I can promise you this, you’re not the best at every aspect of your business. You may be doing things in your business that you are great at, but that you don’t love. So I would encourage you to identify what are some of the things that you’re doing that you’re not great at and that you don’t love. And that’s a great place to start. If you go through the prepared module, particularly in this program, it’ll help you identify what’s the position profile that you need in your organization. And hopefully, they’ll bring a set of skills and experiences to compliment yours. So hopefully they’re really, really great at something that you’re just mediocre at. We don’t want you working in areas that you’re mediocre or that you don’t enjoy, that you don’t love. So I would really push back hard on you on this one.

Larry Broughton
00:07:56
If you are having VAs do things that you are hands down quicker at than they are, then you’re hiring the wrong person. You wanna hire somebody who’s bolder and brighter and better than you are in certain skills or certain areas. But that takes courage to do, to hire somebody who’s bolder, brighter, and better than you are at a certain skillset. Did you catch it? It takes courage. It takes guts. Because sometimes you feel—and it’s not always true, oh, but I’m gonna look stupid. How can I do that to my employee or to my VA? Most people is grateful they’ve got a job. And if you tell ’em, Hey, I’m bringing you on because I’m not so good at this. You get it out there in the open. But if you pretend, which I do see, Dave, what happens oftentimes with new entrepreneurs or new managers, is that they pretend that they’re better at things than anybody else in the organization. And you know what? Everyone sees through it.

Dave Braun
00:08:56
Yeah.

Larry Broughton
00:08:57
They may not tell it to your face, but they’re talking about it behind your back. So, I just don’t think if you’re hiring the right people, that you’re not gonna be able to do everything quicker and easier.

Dave Braun
00:09:11
Yeah. You can’t, that’s right. You can’t do everything and if you wanna scale your business, even as fast and as quick as you are, you are going to come up the limits. Right?

Larry Broughton
00:09:23
Yeah. That’s a great point.

Dave Braun
00:09:25
Then the other thing that came to my mind is that—and this is what we talk about in some of the training, is that if you are constantly spending your time executing tasks, then you are not thinking strategically and coming up with, say new products or new services or improving your systems and how to do that. So that’s really as, if you’re a business owner or somebody higher up in your organization, that’s really what you should be spending more and more of your time on and moving towards that. Right?

Larry Broughton
00:09:55
Absolutely. It’s a great one.

Dave Braun
00:09:57
So you may be able to do something better and faster but you know, like I said, it’s not gonna scale and that’s not necessarily the best use of your time. Right?

Larry Broughton
01:10:05
Yeah, it’s not. Well, it brings us to the third myth, Dave, and that one was that it’s just too expensive to hire a team. How do you debunk that one?

Dave Braun
01:10:17
Well, I, I know how you’re gonna debunk it and I’m gonna let you explain it the way you do it really well because you’re much better at it than me. But one of the things that we advocate is going offshore and typically to the Philippines to get some great talent at what’s typically a fit through a tenth of the cost. So, it really isn’t that expensive at all. If you think about a position that somebody might earn a certain amount of money here, divide that by five or ten, and you can really get some great help and get a lot of stuff done by going offshore. Now, the other thing is, Larry, I want you to talk about your example about how there’s an efficiency calculation when you’re doing something that you aren’t as good at in your time.

Larry Broughton
01:11:09
Yeah. Before I do that though, I just wanna share this. Now when you’re hiring someone offshore, there are some people that are saying what? I’m not gonna pay somebody $5 an hour or $7 an hour to do a task, that’s like below poverty. Well, actually no one puts it like the Philippines, Ph.D. level people are making, $7 to $10 an hour, like experts in that field. The cost of living is much lower, better than here. Housing is cheaper. So you gotta take that into account. So we are not advocates of paying people the lowest amount possible. We’re not. We want to push you towards the top of their pay scale possible because you’re gonna attract higher quality people and they’re gonna stick around a whole lot longer. So it may seem low by our standards, but it’s high by their standards. So that’s number one. So number two, yeah, I think sometimes Dave, the math is being calculated incorrectly on this too expensive to hire a new team person or a new team member. Thank you.

Larry Broughton
01:12:25
Because here’s the math that we oftentimes do. And most people get this one. Okay, since most entrepreneurs are not great at accounting. This is one that they look at, Larry, I can’t afford to hire an accountant. You know, we’ll keep the math really simple. It takes me 10 hours a week to do my accounting or 10 hours a month to do my accounting. Let’s say it’s 10 hours a month to do my account accounting. And what’s it gonna cost you to hire a good accountant? Let’s say a bookkeeper. Let’s just say a bookkeeper, $50 an hour, an accountant might be a hundred dollars an hour, but let’s say, Hey, I’m spending 10 hours a month to hire a bookkeeper. So what’s the math on that for you? Because they can use 10 hours, it’s $500, right? You say, well I can’t afford $500 a month just to do my bookkeeping. Well, here’s the thing. You’re not a bookkeeper. You’re not an accountant. And so what takes you 10 hours might take someone who’s trained one hour or two hours.

Larry Broughton
01:13:32
Okay? So the math is not 10 X 50 that costs you. It might be 1 X 50. So it might be $50 an hour, right? It might only take them one hour, but it’s not $50 that you’re hiring somebody here. It’s it might take an hour of someone in the Philippines, you know, an hour and you’re paying them $7 an hour, it’s $70. It’s a big difference. That is different, okay? So if you are hiring, if you’re doing the prepare section and you’re hiring people properly, you’re hiring people that are better at these tasks than you are.

Dave Braun
01:14:13
Right. So, let me summarize. So basically what you’re saying is—

Larry Broughton
01:14:17
That was all over the place.

Dave Braun
01:14:19
No, it was good. So I’ll summarize it, is that we are projecting the number of hours on a task, based upon our expertise.

Larry Broughton
01:14:27
Or lack thereof.

Dave Braun
01:14:29
Or lack thereof. Right. And so your example is accounting. We’re thinking that it’s gonna take somebody 10 hours, but in reality, it’ll take one or two hours. And even if you know, they’re paid $50 an hour, it’s not nearly as much as it would be if we were paying ourselves to do that. The other cost, I think along the lines there is if you are spending 10 hours a month doing something that’s outside of your level of, outside of you enjoying it or your expertise, think about opportunity cost.

Larry Broughton
01:15:04
Yeah. That’s right.

Dave Braun
01:15:05
I mean, how much is that costing you? Right? That could be costing you—

Larry Broughton
01:15:09
So the opportunity—

Dave Braun
01:15:09
Heck of a lot more.

Larry Broughton
01:15:11
Yeah. So the opportunity cost could be, where am I spending my time? Like if I’m spending 10 hours doing something I’m not good at, or I’m not great at, that I’m not loving, then hand that off to somebody else. So, now I’ve got 10 hours more in my life that I could do something I’m great at. And I love that, hopefully, it’s revenue-generating —not only of you, right? The freedom there is awesome. So most entrepreneurs, part of their month ought to be at generating revenue for the business. That new energy that you put into generating revenue is just exponentially paid for. I’m stepping all over myself today.

Dave Braun
01:15:55
No. That makes sense.

Larry Broughton
01:15:57
Your pain and your increased revenue is easily covering the cost of that new team member.

Dave Braun
01:16:02
Yeah. Let’s just take a good example here. So what if you got 10 hours back a month?

Larry Broughton
01:16:08
Yes.

Dave Braun
01:16:08
You could spend that 10 hours calling current clients and just checking in with them and seeing what’s going on in their business, how they’re doing if you can help them in any way. I would almost guarantee that you’re gonna get some little bit of extra business out of that. That will pay for that accountant.

Larry Broughton
01:16:26
Yeah, that’s right. Just spend your time doing more strategic things that you should be doing anyway. You will have time for it. Now granted, particularly with new team members, you’re not gonna automatically gain 10 new hours. Let’s be realistic, right? And going forward, let’s say that now it’s only gonna take you an hour to supervise that rather than 10 hours. So the net gain might be, you know, 90% recapture of your time. So I don’t want to pretend that there’s not gonna be some supervision because particularly in the accounting area, you don’t wanna take your finger off the pulse of your marketing or any of your accounting functions. You wanna keep your finger on the pulse of those two, more than anything else in the organization.

Dave Braun
01:17:13
Yeah. I think the keywords— That’s my belief. No, you’re absolutely right. I think the keywords here for some of this is you’re delegating, not abdicating. Right?

Larry Broughton
01:17:20
There you go. Very good. Yes.

Dave Braun
01:17:23
Okay. Anything else, sir, on this one?

Larry Broughton
01:17:25
No, those are the three myths. There are more, lots of excuses that we come up with. But I promise you this. If you invest in your team, you’ll get closer to your fullest potential, and recapture more freedom. And honestly, the journey will be more rewarding because you’re doing this with other people. Right? It’s more fun. It just will be more, It’ll be a lot more fun for sure. And you’ll reach your revenue goals a lot faster. I’ve just seen it too often. Seen it too often.

Dave Braun
01:17:57
And then ultimately, what does that do? It helps you do reclaim your freedom. It really does.

Larry Broughton
01:18:02
That’s right.

Dave Braun
01:18:03
Well, that’s what our program is all about. Right?

Larry Broughton
01:18:06
Shocking.

Dave Braun
01:18:08
I’ve heard that somewhere before. Well anyway, thanks, Larry, and thanks to all of you folks for joining us today. We want you to do three things though as we close this out. Number one, subscribe to the podcast if you haven’t already done so. Number two, give us a rating, preferably five stars of course. And then number three is go to Hiremyva.com for more information on our course and community and other programs and products that we have. So remember though, even without experience, you’ll learn how to prepare for hire and thrive with Virtual assistants. Larry and I have helped a lot of folks. We love doing that and we wanna help you too. So just go to Hiremyva.com for more information.

Larry Broughton
01:18:48
Yes, and do yourself a favor, my friends. Do the world of favor. Go do something significant today. So, God bless you. God hold you. God keep you. All right, my friends. Go get ’em. See you later.

Dave Braun
01:19:01
Bye, everybody.

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