42. How Hiring Overseas Can Help Grow Your Business

Burhaan Pattel: 0:00

Welcome back to The Marketing Stack podcast. And today I am sitting with Kirsten and Jeanne. And you guys are just doing some amazing stuff in Six Figure Business Coaching. And Jeanne, you have your own other business, where you're doing websites and funnels and marketing for your clients as well. And you guys have been in business for a long, long time. So I'm really curious to ask and to get into some of the nuts and bolts as to one, how you guys got started? How it all came about? How you guys got to partner together and also how, like, what changes have you seen over the years of you guys doing this marketing business entrepreneurship thing for all these years. So welcome.Jeanne Willson: 0:47

Yes. Thank you so much. We're really, really excited to be here with you Burhaan. So thank you so much for having us. We're really excited to be here and to talk to you and to talk to your audience. And yes, we've seen a lot of changes over the years in marketing. So we want to tell them a little bit about our history.

Kirsten Graham: 1:05

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So I've always been self-employed. I joke that I'm not employable. My dad used to say, you should go into the military if they would start you off as a general. So I just, I'm very bossy. So I did have a pillow that my sister-in-law gave me that says I'm not bossy. I just had better ideas. So I'm actually at my mortgage company at the time. And Jeanne and her husband had come in for a loan and I got to know them. Like you go through the process a couple of years later, they will call in to say, Hey, the rates have gone down. What should we do? And I knew from my first conversation with Jeanne, that she'd always wanted to start her own business. That was something, you know, we kind of talked about when we first met and she said, well, I did actually leave my job and started my business. And I said, how is it going? And she said, it's going, you know? And she said, I feel like it needs some help or mentor. And at the time, you know, I was running two different businesses, but I had started coaching on the side, like business coaching just kind of came to me. I didn't really go to it, so to speak. Um, and I think that's because I did so many loans for people that were self-employed. So they would call me and say, Hey, you know, you see my business tax returns, you see my personal tax returns, you know everything about me and my business. Can I take you to lunch and pick your brain? So that's how my coaching kind of started. So I said, Hey, I'm happy to mentor you. Like let's get together. And so at that time, w we're going to, I'm going to age us, JD. I'm really going age us. Um, marketing was really about getting websites for businesses. We're talking 15 years ago and websites have been around a lot longer, but you know how it takes small businesses a while to move there. And so Jeanne was doing websites, rat cards, business cards, brochures, you know, things for trade shows. And this is right when Facebook kind of launched fan pages. LinkedIn came on the scene. People were now starting to talk about blogging and email marketing. So we came up with an idea to put together a focus group of business owners. And we just ask them, like, what are your questions about email marketing and blogging and Facebook and LinkedIn. And of course, a lot of people thought Facebook is just for kids. It's not for business. And so. After that focus group, Jeanne put together five amazing classes and invited people to them and actually fill them up. They were like, you know, a lot of times where 50 to a hundred people like packed in for these classes and it was amazing, but what happened was, you know, she had started her business with a toddler and a newborn. So she's at home being a mom and you know what, in her business and all of these people that she had taught how to do their market. I called her and said, can you do this for me? Will you do my email marketing? Will you set up my business page? Will you set up my LinkedIn page? Will you post for me? And it was like an avalanche and she's kind of like deer in the headlights. Right? And so I had read a lot, you know, The Four Hour Work Week was popular back, I think 2006. And so I read a lot about outsourcing overseas because you know how it is for most small businesses, even though you get busy, you don't always have a lot of cashflow right away. And so hiring state side was not really an option. So I said, you know, would you want to try this? I'll help. I'll help you every step of the way, but I've never done this. And so she was a good sport, she said, sure. And that's where our journey went up 15 years ago to outsourcing overseas. And we joked that it was like baptism by fire. If it could be done wrong, we did it wrong. But Jeanne is amazing at documenting systems and processes. So over the years, we've just got this incredible, you know, process for hiring the right person. Like we train our virtual assistants, we've we train our clients virtual assistants, and then we have this amazing process for managing them to make sure they're getting the workflow done efficiently happens. And so it really did just kind of come out of a big problem that we had and that we solved and now we help other people problem solve that same problem.

Burhaan Pattel: 4:47

Wow, I can't imagine what, what the business world, or even, even technology, like the internet was like, uh, that back then, because now we have all these tools and we can manage things and we can track people's time and there's payment gateways, and there's platforms that you can manage, you know, the payments and all of these things. But back then, uh, was there any of that? I don't think so.

Kirsten Graham: 5:13

No. Um, so basically you go to a site, you place an ad and people would apply and everything was done via email. Right. So it was just email. So you were kind of interviewing via email, like you didn't have the face to face with Zoom and like you didn't have messenger and Facebook. Um, I think we quickly moved on to Skype and there might've been something before Skype. I can't remember. I think Skype was maybe the first was that right? Yeah. The first kind of tool where we had instant conversation, it was, it was crazy. It was the one was definitely the wild, wild west. And I think even in the Philippines, you know, um, over the past 15 years, we've seen like English improved, dramatically skillsets, improved dramatically. There's, you know, wonderful people and constantly working to get better. So even that's made it a lot easier.

Burhaan Pattel: 5:55

You, you mentioned the Philippines a lot, any particular reason why the Philippines?

Kirsten Graham: 6:00

So we've hired like six different countries over the years because we, we definitely to try new things. Um, but we always kind of come back to the Philippines and I think it's. I think it's just a cultural thing. We do a lot of conversations with our clients about cultural differences, because it's really important to understand how to work really well with someone who is living in a different country. Like communication styles are different. So when we've hired in other countries and Jeanne and I still hire sometimes in other countries, not, not that often, but then in order to teach that we'd have to teach, you know, cultural differences for other countries and for us personally, we've just always had the best success with virtual assistants in the Philippines for us and for our clients. Um, so that's, that's what we tend to focus on.

Burhaan Pattel: 6:44

And it's not, not necessarily because of the rate, it's just, it's more convenient because of language and, uh, and, and the, and those factors.

Kirsten Graham: 6:53

Yeah, I think the rate is you can find the rate similar in other countries, obviously, but yeah, I think the fact that they've the Philippines, I feel like they've spent so much time. The government has spent so much time on the infrastructure for internet and things like that. I think they've also spent a lot of time. Um, creating an outsourced workforce. Right? So, you know, they kind of go into job hunting, knowing that they may be working from their home for a company in the US or Australia or the UK. So they're kind of conditioned to want this type of work. And, um, they, they definitely have the skillsets to do this type of work.

Burhaan Pattel: 7:28

I know, I know a lot of like phone services used to go through to the Philippines before, um, with like you're dialing a toll free number, but actually it's somebody foreign who's sitting at in their house, maybe answering the phone, uh, but representing the big bank or whatever. Um, and that, that was fascinated me because when I first heard of that, or I first phoned, you know, a number called the number and there was this other type of voice, me being South African, I was only used to South African voices, like, and it's like all of a sudden I'm speaking to an Indian dude. And I think that, you know, the call went through to India and I was like, uh, am I at the right place? So that brings in a whole dynamic of, well, how do you operate with people who are maybe client facing, who are, who are in other countries?

Kirsten Graham: 8:25

Ok, so for us, generally, we don't have virtual assistants interfacing with clients. So we've kind of really focused on helping our clients hire what we refer to as a Marketing Virtual Assistant. So this is someone who does their video editing, repurposes their content, helps them with email marketing, helps them with the technology of their funnels. So they tend to mean more back end. However, once our clients have gotten used to having all of those things done for them, we do have clients. We do have virtual assistants that will do outreach. So, for example, one of our virtual assistants handles everyone that comes into our Facebook group. You know, she, um, she makes sure that their, all of their information is in our CRM. She makes sure that she sends them a personal note, right. To welcome them to the group. And then generally what will happen is when that person replies, Jeanne will take over that conversation. So that, because the goal is for us to build relationships like us to build relationships. So, you know, Angela can start that conversation for us. But then we, we, we kind of take it over. However, we do have clients who, um, will have their virtual assistants confirm appointments and things like that. So it definitely happens. Um, it's just a trust factor, right? You have to hire the right person for that particular job, and then you have to train them really well to do that job. And then you just have to, you know, help them improve until you feel like you can really let them do that for you.

Burhaan Pattel: 9:46

Right. Right. Jeanne, if you could answer this one, what has been the best experience you've ever had with a virtual assistant?

Jeanne Willson: 9:56

Oh, we've had tons of great experiences. We've had some not so great experiences, but, um, yeah, my favorite part is when I can assign them work and then they work overnight. Cause it's 12 hours difference for us and I can wake up in the morning and everything I need done is done. So I am just way ahead of the game, because you know, it's something would have taken me, you know, a couple more days to get through because I've also got, you know, other things going on. So that's my absolute favorite part.

Burhaan Pattel: 10:27

I see. And your worst?

Jeanne Willson: 10:31

Ooh. Um, my worst actually is, um, was the one of the first virtual assistants that we had. And we didn't hear from her for like a few days, which was very unusual because we normally, we, we, we, um, get at least chit chat online, you know, every day, just to kind of check in or we're exchanging, you know, notes with each. And it turned out she had to go to the hospital. And, but so eventually she had her sister actually sent us pictures, not of her, but you know, like just to prove that she was there and it was like, no, no, no, I don't need proof. Just, I just want to make sure that you're okay. You know, that we didn't lose you. So, you know, so there are a few little issues and things that you need to know about, and that is, you know, have, um, a second way of communicating. With your, with your virtual assistant in case something happens. Cause they also have, um, they're not hurricanes. What are they over there? Tsunamis, Yeah. And they have, there's a really bad season. And so they'll lose internet connection and they'll lose. So, you know, there are just things that, that you really need to know about. Um, and some things, some reasons why things. Might happen that you don't expect? Yeah.

Kirsten Graham: 11:42

I will say over the years we had terminated people. So like we've had to fire people. So, you know, I'm usually like we joke bad cop, good cop, bad cop, good cop. So I'm using, you know, so we have made bad hiring choices, right? So we've hired people, you know, you, you spend time training them. And this was especially early on. Like, we definitely. Made lots of hiring mistakes because we didn't know what we were doing. So a lot of times it wasn't their fault. We didn't, we didn't hire the right hard skillset and soft skill set for what we needed, you know, so we've, we've definitely had, you know, experiences as we were learning, um, where we've had people who, um, you know, were paying, but they just weren't getting the work that, and there's always excuses. Right. And so you can only give someone so much time, so we've never had anyone steel passwords or do anything like that. But we have had to let people go who just for whatever reason, a bad hiring choice for us, or they thought they could work for four or five different people and they couldn't manage workflow. So we have had to let people go. And that's always hard I think, you know, again, I do that part, so she needs like, oh, that's not the worst part. Cause she doesn't do that part. But, um, it is hard, you know, especially. You know, cause when you hire someone, you invest time in them. And so you want to make sure that you get it right. And so that's, that was a big challenge for us in the beginning.

Jeanne Willson: 12:58

Yeah. And we're obviously we know what to look for now, so we can make those decisions faster. You know, we can recognize this person doesn't have the skillset we thought they did. So, you know, let's just move.

Burhaan Pattel: 13:11

Yeah. Well, you've mentioned a couple of obstacles there just in those two questions. So it's like, yeah. You know, people, people have struggle finding the right person. Right. And the only way you find the right person is to find a lot of people and then you find the right one or two or three, uh, that's been my experience and just from my own. So. If you don't know my story, I started on Upwork, uh, eight years ago now at something like $11 an hour and built myself up to where I now have a thriving business and agency and. Yeah. Like I think back then, or even now it's like, I thrive on service. I thrive on communication. I thrive on the fact that I'm speaking to you now at 10:30 on a Friday night, uh, doing this podcast it's because I have that work ethic. I have that level of commitment to my own success, and to my own survival of my own business. Right. So, um, I found that a lot of. I don't think that way they don't work that way, even though they've been trained or they have the skills and that's kind of unfortunate. Um, and as entrepreneurs, we do need quick turn around. We need, we need the skillset, but also we need, um, like good communication, would you agree?.

Kirsten Graham: 14:29

Absolutely. Yeah, I think we've been really lucky because when we hire, most of our clients are hiring for someone for like 20 hours a week, um, which is about $200 a month. So 20 hours every week is about $200 US dollars a month or 40 hours a week, which is of course, $400 a month. So most of our clients are hiring people who like they may have a full-time job, but then they'll work. Our client for 20 hours a week, or they work for a client full time. And I think that's a little bit different than a freelancer. Um, our clients do still outsource to freelancers. We do cover that as well. Um, more teaching, but most of them are hiring someone as a team member. And I think that makes a little bit of a difference. Um, and then all of our training is around, you know, one like, and hire the right person, but then managing workflow. So it's one of those things where. You're still the boss and they're still the employee. I feel like when you hire someone on Fiverr, it's more of a business to business transaction, because you're a professional, like you're a business owner. If I were to hire you to create a funnel for me, I've got to trust that you know what you're doing and that you're going to guide the process because I wouldn't maybe wouldn't know how to do those things. Where when you hire a team member, it's different, you have to be the one who is in charge, like assigns work. It manages workflow. And that's where having SOP's, project management software. That's where that makes it really easy. And that's how you have success.

Burhaan Pattel: 15:52

Um, I was, I was going to ask you about the, cause you mentioned the full-time thing a lot on your YouTube channel as well. And I wanted to ask why, you know, why, why the full time, and I guess you've answered that in a way where part-time, it's too flexible maybe, or just not enough.

Kirsten Graham: 16:13

Well, we're not, we're not opposed to our clients hiring part-time right. We don't mind if they wanted to hire someone for 10 hours a week or 20 hours a week, because we do have several part-time VA's that work for us as well as full-time virtual assistants, but it's a little bit different than hiring someone as a team member and hiring someone as a freelancer, right? Because as a freelancer, you manage your workflow. Right. You take on the project, you know, you say, you know, Hey Kirsten, I can have this funnel built for you in X amount of weeks. As long as you get me these things by this time you're in control, right? This is a little bit different. We're having them actually hire a team member. Where they're in control of workflow, they're in control of getting their deadlines met. And so it really just depends on how much work they have. Um, but ultimately what we have found is that if you hire the right person and they come into your business and they see how much structure you have and how much training is provided for them, and that That you're on top of your side, right? Then it makes a big difference. And they'll stay with you for a long time, because that makes you a really good boss, right? We've all had jobs at some point in our life where they just kind of throw you in. You don't get very good training. There's not a lot of structure set up and you constantly dread going to work because you just feel like you're failing because you, you know, you're, you're drowning, but you don't know what to do. Right. And so it's really important for us. That, you know, when our clients hire a virtual assistant, they bring them on as a team member and they see them as a valuable asset in someone that they want to be with them for years and years and years.

Burhaan Pattel: 17:40

Yeah. That makes total sense. I had never thought about it that way actually. And now that you say that yeah, I've been hired, uh, either as a freelance or as a business owner, like to strategically build out things for, for my clients. And I've had issues where clients were giving me the strategy, even though like, so, okay, fine. You've given me this strategy, but you're seeing me as a task master and as an entrepreneur, like entrepreneurs, don't like being told what to do. It's just, it's a shitty thing. Like we hate that. And so, so that always is to like, uh, bother me. Not to say that I wouldn't do the work like i'd do the work, like yeah. We need the cash, you know, the client keep the client happy. Um, but yeah, I guess, I guess you've categorized those two factors for me. So thank you for that.

Kirsten Graham: 18:31

You're welcome. And we do actually spend time with our clients talking to them about, like, if you did need to outsource, let's say you wanted like a really, really professional website, you know, they should hire an agency. Right. And the reason why you hire that agency, let's say they hired you to do that website. You're hiring them because they're professional because they know what needs to be done. They know how long it takes. So with us, when we talk about hiring a freelancer for project management, we talk about that freelancer should provide the contract. Like you're, you know, they're the ones that are like, you know, managing the process and then you work collaboratively with them. Right. But you're the freelancers managing how that project runs with Jeanne's agency clients. She manages that process, right? She brings that client on with a certain amount of tasks that they're going to do for them, but she says, this is what I need from you. These are the timelines we'll meet, she's in control of that workflow. And so that's a different process and we do really train our clients on that because you're not always just hiring a team member. Sometimes you do need to hire a freelancer who is a professional business owner who can guide you and help you do something very specific, right?

Burhaan Pattel: 19:38

Yeah. That's, that's cool. Thank you for that. Um, so you mentioned some rates, right? $400 for, was it a 40 hour work week? So that's 160 hours. So that's like $2.50 an hour. Uh, if you really like break it down. How do you, how do your clients normally feel about hiring at that rate, like sure there's huge benefits in terms of budgeting and things, but from an ethical point of view have you had discussions around that? Is that something that comes up?

Kirsten Graham: 20:11

Yeah, we actually have a video on our YouTube channel called "Is it ethical to hire in the Philippines.?" Because we do get that question quite a bit. And so, um, it costs about 80% less to live in the Philippines than it does in the US. Right. So we're looking at cost differences, but we also, because we are bringing on team members, we're talking to our clients about what holidays their virtual assistant gets off, you know, but what they don't work, you know, that they get one week of vacation. You know that the first week, and then you moved that to two weeks after the first year. Um, we talk about the 13th month, which is a tradition in the Philippines where in December you pay them for an extra month of work. So we do go over all of that with our clients, because again, they're not hiring a free a freelancer to do a specific task. They're hiring a team member. And so again, when we get into cultural differences, we talked about different holidays, you know, what to expect. Um, so they end up making more, but we also have, uh, you know, they ended up working less, I guess, because of the holidays and vacation and stuff, but we also, and they make more because of the 13th month. But we also, um, talk about bonuses. Like if you've had a really great month, if your virtual assistant got a ton of stuff done, and that resulted in you getting just a ton of revenue in. You know, give them a bonus. Right? Right. So we always talk about share the wealth, you know, when to give them a raise and when to give them a bonus, because again, for us and for our clients, the goal is long-term team members because it takes time to hire and train. And, um, I'll have to tell you another thing that's really interesting is when we get a lot of, um, kind of pushback about hiring overseas, what I can tell you, inevitably, what happens is a virtual, what a virtual assistant hired to help with marketing, right. Um, the marketing gets done and a lot of business owners do not get their marketing done. It always gets put on the back burner and gets pushed to the bottom of the list, right? So when they hire marketing virtual assistant and now their marketing is consistently getting done and they're generating leads and they're bringing in revenue, what happens is they then have the opportunity to employ other people. And that will often be in the US um, we had a professional organizer. And she was really good at our marketing cause professional organizers are very well organized with almost everything in their lives, but she would market and then she'd get busy. So she'd stopped marketing and she'd get busy, like, so she was on that rollercoaster and, uh, we had a conversation and so she ended up, she had a lot of resistance, like she really wanted to hire locally. And we, you know, we get that. Um, but once you hired a marketing virtual assistant, what happened was the marketing was getting done and then she stayed busy. She wasn't riding those income rollercoasters, but it allowed her to hire two or three more professional organizers because she started getting so much business in and now she was employing other people in her community, serving clients. So it's sometimes just allows you to actually build your business a lot faster. And, um, and that allows you to employ people locally.

Burhaan Pattel: 22:57

Yeah, I have that as well. Um, I've experienced that where it's like, oh yeah, you know, got time for content. So let's go make videos and let's like do stuff and then it gets busy and it's like, uh, don't really have time for myself now. I can't even go to the toilet type of thing. Um, it literally like that's sometimes used to go. I've gotten better. Yeah. Yeah,

Jeanne Willson: 23:25

yeah.

Burhaan Pattel: 23:27

What is the craziest task that you've ever outsourced?

Kirsten Graham: 23:34

I think we might be very boring Jeanne. We're very vanilla, very boring. Um, we are pretty consistent with what we do. So, um, you know, with Jeanne has her team of virtual assistants that work, her agency obviously are doing client work.

Jeanne Willson: 23:50

What I love actually is that we, we asked them to do things that we don't necessarily know if they can do. And I love being surprised by, oh my gosh, this is amazing. You know, if I love designing, I love design work. That's kind of where I started way back when. Um, but I don't have the time to do it. And you know, when they can come back with something that's designed better than something that I could have done, you know, it's such a wonderful surprise.

Burhaan Pattel: 24:17

Yeah. Um, Tim Ferriss in The Four Hour Work Week talks about how he did an experiment too. I think. Buy flowers for his girlfriend or the birthday gift or something or the other. And he hadn't even seen what it was and when it was delivered, he just got this huge, thank you. And he was just like, this is so amazing. Like, so that's, that's where that question comes from, because I think like the dream for entrepreneurs is to like, just hand over everything, but then at the same time, there's this huge risk that we think we have when handing over what seems to be our life to, to the other person, especially when it comes to like passwords or, you know, managing QuickBooks or your accounting or whatever. Um, how do you overcome those? Like how do you help clients work through those challenges? Okay. I think the first thing I think Jeanne would probably agree is hiring the right person. It always goes back to that. Right. And we are asked all the time, if we're an agency that just provides virtual assistance and we do not. And the reason for that is because we feel like part of having a healthy working relationship with a virtual assistant or an employee for that matter is personality. Like you've got to click with that person. And the second part of that is it really helps if they're passionate about what you do. So for example, you know, you asked about awkward, but, you know, we have like a person who does like a sex therapist, right? So with interview and we had to make sure the person that she hired was comfortable with those conversations. Right. Because you know, that it's really important, but what we found with our clients because we do talk a lot about, you know, being able to connect with them as a person. And it's also making sure that there is somewhat passionate about what you do as well, is that we find that our clients often hire someone who are very much like them. So we had a dietician who hired a person in the Philippines who was also a dietician, right? So now all of a sudden they're having these great conversations, they're passionate about the same things. And when you start to build relationships, because that's what trust is, right? Trust is about relationships. You needed us to be on the pod. You know, we said, yeah. So you had to trust that we would show up, you know, we have to trust that you're not gonna, you know, edit what we say and make us sound silly or stupid or stuff, they, right. So it's a trust factor. And so we do talk about like, when you hire the right person, you start to build trust. And then by managing things through systems and processes, which includes, you know, giving password slowly, like you're gonna have them do certain tasks that the passwords for. And as that trust builds, you can work with them to do other things. Now, us personally, we generally recommend having your bookkeeping done locally. Or within your country, so to speak, I'm not really comfortable giving bank accounts or things like that overseas. I know a lot of people do. I'm just not there yet. Um, I'm a little bit of a control freak about certain things and money tends to be one of them. Um, but you definitely could, but it's about building the relationship and then having a structure to make sure that you're, you're delegating those passwords and those tasks. And again, as that person builds relationship with you, then you can trust them more on the flip side of that. You don't have to think about it. That virtual assistant works for you for two weeks, not knowing if you were going to pay them. And we hear all kinds of horror stories from virtual assistants. Who've been hired from people who are total jerks to them who, you know, have them do all kinds of work and then don't pay them or pay them late or pay them less. So we have to realize it's a relationship and it is a two-way street, right? Yeah. That's, that is an important, important point because I think. Yes, some entrepreneurs or certain business owners can be very difficult. It will say difficult to work with. Uh, I've had my own experiences as well, even being an agency. Uh, it can be challenging. Um, and so, yeah, that is important. Um, so let's at the beginning of the podcast we spoke about sort of the change that might've happened or that has happened not only because of COVID, but also prior, um, would you say that because the tools are becoming easier to use that more people are comfortable with being able to hire outside?.

Jeanne Willson: 28:30

Yeah, I would definitely think so. Um, it's really funny. Cause I remember, you know, long ago, if you asked someone to get on a video call with you, it was like, oh no, I don't want you to see me. You know? And now it's, it's just commonplace, which is fantastic.

Burhaan Pattel: 28:47

Well, if you think of it, of like, you know, we used to have. Um, a very early version of MailChimp or a very early version of constant contact, which was actually very difficult to, to use. And you needed to have a specialist type of skill to be able to set it up and get it all working and create those automations and all of those things. Um, whereas now I think because. The platforms, the software has gotten better, faster. There's more training around it. There's much more like webinars. There's more help guides. Um, for me, I think it's, it's, it's easy, but then it's like certain entrepreneurs or certain business owners may think, oh, they can figure it out themselves. Like this looks easy, but then they don't outsource because they think that it's it's it's they can't find the person who's skilled enough.

Kirsten Graham: 29:41

So what happens with entrepreneurs and I get up and self-employed, my whole life is just because you can do something doesn't mean you should, right? Because it's not always the best use of your time. And if you think about it, like, you know, you started off at $11 an hour. Let's just say, I don't know where you are, but lets just say you're a hundred dollars an hour. Now, does it make sense for you to do it, to do $11 an hour tasks? No, it doesn't right. You should just been right. You should spend your genius and your time doing what, you know, you're paid the money to do. And so for a lot of entrepreneurs, it's understanding that just because you can do it or you can learn, it doesn't mean you should. And I think that men are far better at outsourcing and delegating the women. I think women have this thing with self-worth and they feel like they shouldn't be able to do it all. And so they, and they kind of beat themselves up. I mean that was kinda Jeanne story about like, you know, maybe I need a better time management plan or maybe I need a better tool. But the reality is there just was not enough hours in the day to do all of the work that she had coming in and managed great clients relationships. So again, just because you can do it doesn't mean you should do it. Another thing that I very much different from a lot of entrepreneurs is that you should be able to do it yourself before you hire or delegate it right. and a lot of entrepreneurs are like, you need to know how to do everything in your business. I can guarantee you, you know, most huge investors don't have to do anything other business, right? Like a Warren Buffett. Do you think he can go in and sell a house and do all these, like, you know what I'm saying? Like, it doesn't do all the things that all of his businesses, he just, and he can't know how right. Um, so I feel like the difference between a self-employed person and an entrepreneur is understanding that you can hire the right person because hiring is a skill. Um, I'm not a tech person. Like I joke that there's very few days that I'm not saying bad words to my computer and threatening to throw it in the lake out back. So. we tend to attract a lot of people like me who are not great with tech, they don't enjoy technology. And then, oh dear God, if you could have someone do that, thank you. And what happens is they end up valuing and appreciating their virtual assistant because they don't have to learn how to do video editing. They don't have to learn how to set up their funnels. They don't have to learn how to set up their email to go out each week. It's being done for them. And I think that's a very powerful place to come from. And it's also win win. You know, because the virtual assistant enjoys doing the video editing, they they're in there, they're in their unique genius. Right. They love all the tech stuff. They love all the creative stuff. And so it really is a win-win. Um, yeah, so it really boils down to just because you know how to do it doesn't mean you should do it. You do not have to know how to do something to delegate it. And the thing that third part of that was, you know, your self worth should not be tied up as an entrepreneur in the fact that you can do everything that, that doesn't, that's not what it's meant. That's not what it means to be an entrepreneur. Sorry, I got super excited about that topic.

Burhaan Pattel: 32:26

has there been instances where it hasn't worked out for, for a client?

Kirsten Graham: 32:31

Okay. So here's where we were. Here's where our clients struggle the most. And we actually, you know, probably have some video of some of them talking about that, but, you know, they've, let's say they've hired in corporate America, or they've had team members that they've managed in corporate America. They will often come in and kind of just kind of peruse what we tell them to do and not do it. And inevitably they hire the wrong person and then they come back and they say, I wish I'd listened to you. I'm going to go back and follow the step by step. I'm going to do this. And inevitably they end up hiring the right person. So I think what happens is when people. It fails, so to speak it's because they haven't followed the structure and it's the same structure we follow. If it's been a few months or a year since we've hired someone new, you know, we go back to our hiring process and do it the exact same way. Like we don't reinvent the wheel every time we hire someone, we go back and do it step by step by step because that's what works. Um, yeah. So I think, you know, and then as far as like, once they've hired them, even if it is the right person, when it comes to managing that person, Like we have to grow as entrepreneurs. Like if you've never managed team members, it means you're learning new skills. You know, you're learning how to say, oh my gosh, you did a fabulous job. Or these certain edits. However, I don't really care for that transition. Could you please change that? You know, learning how to give constructive criticism and positive feedback? I think that it's gonna be hard for people sometimes. So as we grow and get better at being bosses, You find that your virtual assistants grow and become better virtual assistant,

Burhaan Pattel: 34:01

uh, speaking of video editing, as you know, YouTube as a platform has evolved over time. And I know you guys talk about YouTube on your YouTube channel and you talk about how your one of your business taglines. It includes YouTube as well or video marketing. YouTube in my opinion has evolved where quality needs to be. Like, top-notch like to a point where you're, you know, A lot of people say, yeah, you could, or you could do it from your phone and all of this stuff. But for the, from the greatest that I've watched or that I follow, their quality is always like high, high quality, fully scripted, lots of B roll. Like it's just like almost a mini documentary or mini like Netflix show that they're putting together each week. Now, is it possible to find somebody who can edit those videos in the Phillipines? Is it possible?

Jeanne Willson: 34:59

Yes. Yeah, it's really funny too, because when we first were getting ready to hire someone to do video editing, We we wanted, we had like folders and things set up and we were going to, I thought we had to find our own B roll and we had to tell them exactly every step that had to be done. But you'd be surprised that the people who, who know how to do video editing, they know where to find the extra B roll. They know how to put some really cool animations in there. And I was, I was totally surprised. So we ended up never having to supply them any B roll. So, cause we were thinking, oh my gosh, we've got a video. So video ourselves, you know, walking or, you know, or doing this or, you know, the dog running or, you know, something that had to be added and we didn't have to do any of that. Cause, cause you said that technology has come so far and there's so many more tools and resources out there that, and they know how to find them. So it's been such a pleasant surprise.

Kirsten Graham: 35:55

Interesting. Yeah. And part of our training is actually we do, um, we do actually have places where they get free B roll, because we do go into a lot about, you cannot use things that have to be paid for. So we do for us, we, we pay for a lot of different services. So for our virtual assistants, they have access to some freebie role in images, but they also have access to paid, paid stuff as well. Um, and we do talk about that. We also talk about, you know, your virtual assistant, isn't a mind reader. So we primarily work with women and we do have male. So we want, you know, our B roll at our images to represent more women than men. So it's just a matter of talking to them through that, but it's interesting. You brought up YouTube because YouTube surpassed, uh, Netflix last year, as far as revenue, first time ever, like that's amazing to me. And it was more amazing is that, you know, that out of that, how many billion it was that, that, that YouTube brought in. 55% of that goes to the creators. So when you look at that, it, of course, Netflix spends a fortune on creating content too, but this is where, you know, your average Joe can get a piece of that pie where they may not get cast on a show for Netflix. Right. Right. I, you know, I feel like what happens when people start a channel. They have to start where they are. Like, we still video from our phone. I'm not a tech person. If I have to set up a fancy camera, I'm going to throw it out, back to the lake and just that'd be good. So for me, less is more and just get it done. And what I find is that most people will start off with their phone, some good lighting, and we talk a lot about not having clutter and things like the background. And then you can move up. Like if you want to get fancier lights or if you want to get, um, you know, backdrops, or if you want to get a better camera. Those are all things you can do. And then of course, as you're making more money, if you want to have someone follow you around with the camera, so that you're in all of your B roll, drinking your coffee and walking. That's great. Um, but I think that a lot of times people are searching for things, which is what makes YouTube amazing SEO search engine optimization. So if you can get your title to rank, if people see it, I don't think people judge the content as harshly as we do. Right. I think if you're answering someone's question and you're giving them the information. A lot of times, they aren't quite as picky about what it looks like is maybe we are because we, we, we, we, as creators, we think about what everything looks like. And, um, we always tell our clients don't let that stop. You like every single person who has amazing videos now had crappy videos in the beginning. Like you've got to start somewhere and then you get better,

Burhaan Pattel: 38:22

RIght. Just like work as well. You know, it starts at $11 an hour. Well, I'm living the life now. So it's the same. Yeah. Well, um, any final thoughts, anything you wanted to bring to the audience? any places that people can reach out, you got any promotions going on at the moment? Sure. We have a free resource for you guys. It's called double your income with a marketing virtual assistant, even on a tight budget. And so we'll provide that for you and you can also find us on YouTube at Six Figure Business Coaching, and we have lots of training, videos and tutorials. They are so absolutely cool. Jeanne anything, anything from your again?

Jeanne Willson: 39:00

Uh, yeah, the resource is actually at https://outsourcingforbosses.com. So like Kirsten said, we'll give you that. But, um, I just wanted to say one last thing in that, um, one of the most exciting things for us has been watching people who were solopreneurs, who are doing it all themselves, hire someone and how it made them feel. Like they felt like, oh my gosh. Now on a business owner, it's almost like they started standing taller and they felt stronger. And that's such a wonderful feeling to give that, you know, to someone else. So, you know, there's so many fears and unknowns and you know, I know I'm doing too much and I don't know what to do. You know, so we just love helping walk them through the process and seeing, you know, all the, their eyes widen and they're, they're thinking bigger and, you know, everything seems more attainable because they don't have to do it themselves. So it's just really, really rewarding.

Burhaan Pattel: 39:54

Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's always nice when. Like you said earlier when somebody amazes you, something that you thought you could do well, uh, and the other person or somebody else, especially somebody in your team does it better than you then, then it feels like teamwork, then it feels like, um, you're creating something special.

Jeanne Willson: 40:15

So we just want to say thank you so much for having us. It's been really fun. We can talk about all day long.

Kirsten Graham: 40:22

Thank you so much for this opportunity. We really, really appreciate it.

Burhaan Pattel: 40:25

You're welcome.

‍