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I love the idea that we’ve been doing for a while, Dave, and that is starting to recording how things are done because we get overwhelmed, we think we’re just going to sit at our keyboard and start typing out how to do everything in your business. I still remember, I’m never going to forget, we had that coaching client for a long time who was absolutely stuck. Couldn’t get his operation systems in place. And so you got on a plane, flew to his business, and you guys just started recording from, Hey, when you pull into the parking lot, that day, that morning, what’s the first thing you do? Step-by-step step, you just recorded everything from how to turn off the alarm, how to fill the tills, the banks and the cash registers.

13th-month pay is a bonus that is required for your Filipino employee or team member, if you are a Philippine based employer. So it’s required by the country. It’s a law there. However, for those of you who are in the US or another country, employing people who are actually residing in the Philippines, it’s not a requirement, but, like you said, Larry, it’s a cultural norm and it’s kind of a, it’s a good thing to do. It really is. And all of our research has said, if you hire somebody in November, you don’t have to pay a whole 13th month salary, which is, you know, one 12th of their annual salary. You just do it on a prorated basis.

Well, my friends, thank you for joining us here on this. This is part two of a podcast that we started earlier. We’re really reflecting on 2020. What are the lessons that we learned there? And so if you’re kind of just finding this one, go back and listen to part one of this, but this has to do with the Whole Health Spider Graph, a tool that I developed a bunch of years ago, that Dave, once we became partners, business partners, it really helped me hone and develop and really flesh out to this great, amazing tool that it is today. And what we realized is that measuring “success” on eight different spans of life, help us have a more balanced, rewarding life than just focusing on what’s my bottom line look like, because truly life begins beyond the bottom line.

And so what we have here is basically goal setting using smart goals, a tool on these eight different spans. And the idea here is that, again, as I mentioned earlier, there are eight different areas where we want folks to be measuring improvement or areas where they’ve seen the less progress in their lives, on physical, financial, professional, leisure/fun, mental, spiritual, family and friends.

Melanie ad cock is an agency owner who brings her artistic skill and web development background together to help small businesses and nonprofits. She began her digital consulting career in 2010 and is now co owner of ad cock creative. She has a specialty known for creating beautiful church websites, providing excellent support to our clients and being a creative problem solver. And we’re going to talk about how Melanie has excelled with virtual assistants, but I’ve known Melanie for a few years now. We’re part of a mastermind group led by Nathan Ingram.

All right. Well, let’s get going folks. We want to get you to the content. So this is going to be part two of what we talked about last week, which was basically the question is I’ve heard a lot about getting a mentor or a coach, but how do I go about doing this and what are some of the considerations qualities in the person and why should I even get one? So last episode, we went through an introduction to that. And then we also, we talked about keys 1 through 11, because we got 20 total and it was just getting like we were long. And one to break it up for more easy listening for you guys. So we ended up number key eh number key number 11, which was offers direct and respectful feedback. But let’s read off what the first 10 are.

Mentors are so important to people’s life. If you really want to reach your fullest potential and find freedom in your life. One of the quickest ways to do is to hire a mentor.

So today without further ado, we’re going to do something a little bit different. We had an interview, I did an interview with Sarah Lang a while ago. She’s a web agency owner and located in Ontario, Canada, and she’s been a friend we’ve helped her get a great VA, a little bit ago still with her today, did a great interview with her. And I learned, you know, several things from her and I’ve, you know, I’ve got a list here, but you know, one of the things that she did to prepare herself and she’ll talk about this is, is that she ended up just starting to do her processes, recording her processes. And we, and we talk about, that’s a huge side benefit of deciding to actually employ somebody to work on your team is that it kind of forces you to be, to grow up and be a real business. Right? Get your processes down.

So why not me? You know, am I the smartest person? No. Do I have the most resources? No. Do I have the best network? No. Did I go to the best schools? You know? No, but sometimes the person who just grinds it out more than anybody else, sometimes it’s the last person standing, right. That success finds. Right. And we’re learning about this in this economy that we’re in right now. Right? So why not you, truly, why not you? Just don’t give up. But I don’t, I don’t want people to get stuck in this, you know, for awhile, every meme you would see on social media was never, never, never quit. Right? Oh yeah. I get that. I get that mentality about being tenacious, but sometimes you need to separate that thinking about never, never, never quit, with enough is enough. Yes. Right. There’s a subtle nuance. Then we can talk about that in the community, which by the way, I think one of the most important elements, one of the most valuable elements of this whole program is the community.

Hey, I have said as a bunch of times, Dave, it’s going to get the point where people are going to be sick of me saying it. I think it’s a good question. But what I’ve said is that you and I are committed to creating Rockstar entrepreneurs and, and leaders. And that’s what this masterclass is all about, right? That it happens to be wrapped into hiring VAs because we believe that hiring VA’s are gonna help you recapture freedom. So you can focus on what you’re really good at and what your strengths are. And this is one of those questions. That’s not necessarily about VA’s, but what if I fail? This is a mindset thing. I think Dave, I agree. I would reframe this because what that tells me is you’re afraid of success. So what, what if I succeed might be a better question. What if I succeed? How will my life be different? How will the legacy of my life impact my children or my family members or my community just reframe it sometimes.

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. 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.

There’s a group of four guys that we, Dave, you and a couple of our buddies, get together with and we talk about life and what’s going on. Like we were built for community people, and even at my advanced age, I’m learning every single day. Right. And we’re not meant to go through this alone, particularly in the business arena. But before I kind of dive into what I want to say, I just want to remind folks to send it and keep these questions coming in. I love to hear these questions because it gets me thinking as well. 

Well, listen, the great news. I’ve got a good piece of news for these folks who say that is that, you know, like leadership and management skills are learned skills. You can learn how to do this. And we all started somewhere like this. Hey, if you’re just a jerk, that’s a different story. I can’t fix being a jerk. I can’t. And that might be why people don’t want to work for you or with you. If you’ve got an attitude where you are better than other people and you like to manipulate, then this program is not right for you. But if honestly, it’s just that, Hey, I’m, I’m nervous about it. And I’ve never had the experience before. This is why we have the community. This is why Dave and I are here.

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.

What some people call it, MIC, some people call it mic and it’s motivation, integrity, and capacity, right? The way you find these right people is through the interviewing process. And we, and we give you in the program, a whole list of sample interview questions that help you flush this out. When you’re hiring somebody, you want to hire someone who is highly motivated. They want to be there. They’ve got the attitude. Like I get to go work with Dave today. Now I have to go work with Dave today. I get to get out of bed today, not, oh, I have to get up today. Right? And so we were going to help you hire people who are highly motivated. Now, oftentimes it’s better to find. It’s easier to find people who are motivated when they’re working in their strengths. We help you with that. The second thing is this integrity.

One of the most important elements of the program as to how to get someone on board and then they will want to stay there. If we create a really attractive work environment where they’re working in their strengths and they’re feeling challenged and they’re being rewarding and you’re being positive and upbeat with them, they’re not going to want to go someplace else. But honestly, if you treat them like a hired hand, you treat them like a virtual assistant, like traditional virtual assistant, where they’re really not part of the team. You’re disrespectful, you’re dismissive. Guess what? Yeah. They’re going to go somewhere else. And they, they deserve it. They deserve to have a great place to work and you deserve to have them leave.

You know, and, and I’m glad you started that way because your clients are your clients because of the main reason is because they know like, and they trust you. That’s why they came on board. That’s why they want to do business with you in the first place. I think you and your company, what you have created. And you know, that’s not going to be able to be, I mean, you can’t just easily duplicate that. Right. A virtual assistant, they may try, but, you know, chances are, it’s going to be pretty difficult for them to duplicate it, especially if you’ve got somebody in, you know, in a, in another country. Right. And you know, likely, especially if you’re doing your first one or two or three, most likely you’ll be limiting any kind of interactions that you have with those, those clients to pretty much you and them, as opposed to you and your VA’s.

It’s going to take you time. But if you don’t do this, what’s the alternative. And before I get to that, about the alternative, listen, we have to, one of the problems I think that we have is as a society, we want a quick fix to everything, right? Microwave. Exactly. To microwave society. We want immediate satisfaction. We want somebody to come in and save the day today and believe me, I believe we’re in COVID right now when we are recording this thing, I think a lot of people want this to be over. However. I’m one of them. Yeah, that’s right. Those folks that are investing their time and energy into pivoting, their businesses, creating new skill are preparing for the future. And so that’s the same way when you’re build, when you’re bringing team members on board.

It’s a legitimate concern Dave. I mean, we both know people where this has happened to, but here here’s the funny thing. There’s two sides to every coin is that there are service providers and VAs out there who have the same concern. I’m going to do all this work for somebody and they’re not going to pay me. Right. Well, I think one of the great things about, well, there’s a lot of great things about this program, but we walk everyone through on how to make sure and avoid that from happening, right? Whether it’s small projects, first test the waters, build trust, but really most of them, most the VA’s that we work with and lead you to and recommend they’re all professionals. And so they understand that I provide work and then there’s gonna be a specific payday.

Oftentimes when you feel ground down, when you feel burned out, when you just lose motivation, it’s because you’re not working in your strengths. And imagine if every VA that you hired, every person in your team was working in their strengths as well. You know, everything would just be buzzing. It’d be a great experience. So I would just caution you about being fearful of bringing on people only because you think, oh, you know, I’m not going to find anybody as smart as me. You know, there probably are, like I said, I’m glad that you have high self-esteem about it.