Using Virtual Assistants to Scale with Justin Nelson

0:01Light that spark fire nation JLD here and welcome to entrepreneurs on fire brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals with great shows like Marketing Made Simple. Today, we'll be breaking down how to use virtual assistants to scale. To drop these value bombs, I brought Justin Nelson into EO Fire Studios. Justin is an eight-figure entrepreneur who has hired over 5 ,000 virtual assistants since his company's inception in 2020 with over 3 ,000 clients. And today at Fire Nation, we'll talk about why somebody should consider hiring a VA, how to find a quality one, three reasons why someone may not hire a VA, and so much more.

0:43And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Justin and our sponsors. The Gold Digger Podcast, hosted by my good friend, Jenna Kuchar, is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. The Gold Digger Podcast helps you discover your dream career with productivity tips, social strategies, business hacks, inspirational stories, and so much more. A must listen episode is one of Jenna's recents on everything you need to know about affiliate marketing. Listen to Gold Digger wherever you get your podcasts. Many EO Fire listeners have launched non-food franchises and Franbridge Consulting has guided them.

1:20Franbridge's founder and frequent EO Fire guest, John Ostenson, has done more placements than any other in the country and his service is free. Sign up for a consultation with John or get a free copy of his book, Non-Food Franchising at FranBridgeConsulting.com. Justin, say what's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with. Yeah. So one thing I think that most people would disagree with is I don't believe that when you're first starting a business and really trying to grow it, that balance of your personal life and business life is always possible or needed.

2:00Fire Nation, and that's why we're talking today about using virtual assistants to scale, because there's some ways that you can maybe help balance the scale. Never balance completely like Justin mentioned, but maybe getting a little bit more normalcy back into your life. And that's why I want to start with a basic question, Justin. Why? Why should someone consider hiring a virtual assistant? I think one of the main reasons why people should consider hiring any assistant, obviously I specialize in virtual, but especially virtual for those that are looking to live a little bit more of a life of freedom, not maybe tied to an office.

2:42Ultimately, at the end of the day, we all get into business to create a life by design. And usually most people's life by design is not having a business that's solely tied to every action you make. So that's one of the main reasons. It's just to have a business that's not built solely on your actions. Let's talk about a couple minor reasons to go along with that major reason. Because the reality is it's a big step for a lot of people. So let's give them some more goodness. Yeah, absolutely. So I can kind of give like a minor one. You know, obviously, I work with a lot of entrepreneurs that are families, right?

3:20They have kids, they have different things like that. And, you know, so for a lot of people, it doesn't have to be a big leap and a goal of I want to just make my business completely be automated, completely be leveraged. It could just be a first small step of, hey, I want to be able to attend, you know, my kids soccer games, you know, on a Friday afternoon or the practice at four o 'clock. So, you know, maybe I'm going to start by leveraging just my social media piece, right, or just my copywriting. You know, it really just is a big part. Just maybe get a few hours of your life back to really enjoy, you know, what your purpose is.

3:57And for everybody, that's a little bit different. But here's the reality is finding quality help is tough. I mean, it's flipping difficult. So let's go through some of the best ways that you found to source a quality VA. Yeah. So for me, it's all about massive numbers, right? So the reason I first got into the virtual world is I was in a really small market, not a lot of talent, which I think is what we hear a lot from entrepreneurs, especially in certain countries where they're like, I don't have anybody around me that wants to work hard. And so I know when I was a super busy entrepreneur and I just had no time, I was slammed and I know I needed help, I would put out ads, right?

4:38I'd be like, I need an assistant or a social media manager. And I would get like five resumes or my brother's friend would send me a resume. And I was like, you know what, I'll take it. I'll take it. And I what I realized really early on, one of the big mistakes I made was, I didn't get enough resumes coming in, I just kind of settled for whatever it was, because I was so busy at the time. So I would say one of the biggest ways that we've really narrowed in on recruiting is you can solve a lot of recruiting issues if you have a big pool to choose from. And obviously in a virtual world, I now don't only have a pool of my state of Tennessee or the United States or even my country.

5:16Now I can recruit from all across the world. And when you're recruiting from billions of people versus just a few thousand, the level of success has to rise. It just has to have better quality in there when you open those gates. So So I'd say that's the biggest thing we focus on is how many applications can I get for a position so I have better options to choose from. Now, when you're actually conducting the interview itself, are there any tips, tools, or tactics that you've seen that really do work to help narrow and winnow that field? Because sometimes when you have the world to choose from, that can actually be daunting and it can be really hard to say, okay, from the 9 billion people in this world, I'm looking for one person that's kind of freaking me out right now So what are some ways once you do get a lot of these potential individuals That you found is really good to winnow down to You know a handful before proceeding to your final choice.

6:12Yeah, so for me personally, we have a two-step process So our team first is going to go through let's say on any given month at sphere rocket We have about 80 000 applications a month to work for us and we only hire out about 200 of those. So I say that because if I'm hiring, for example, for a social media manager and I have 80 ,000 applications, what I'm first going to do is have my team go through the interview process and do a first round and just go, we're looking solely at skill here. You know, is there a thousand out of the 80 ,000? Is there 500? I'm going to try and just figure out first what small percentage of these people have the skill that I need to where they can jump in the business and really take off without a ton of handholding.

6:51And then once I get that segmented down. The key is, is I want to find someone that I match energy with that obviously has similar core values, you know, the best we can get. So we kind of make it a two-stage process. So in that way, it's not as cumbersome. But the key is finding number one, do they have the skill set? And then from there, making sure that they align in value. So the biggest question we probably ask people is, is where do you see yourself in five years? Now that might sound cliche, really base level. But if you just kind of ask that question and let them ramble for two, three, four, five minutes, it really for us gives us everything we need to know about what kind of team player they are and kind of what they envision for their career.

7:33One thing that I've done Fire Nation that's been a big success is once I've gotten down to like two, three, four individuals, I let them know, honestly, I'm like, listen, you are one of the finalists, period, end of story. I have a task that I want you to complete. You can choose not to complete it. That's fine. Pull yourself out of the running, but I am going to make my final hiring decision based off of whoever completes this task to the best of what we're looking for. Here's the parameters. Here's the task. It's not going to take you an obnoxious amount of time, but this is what I want to be done.

8:07Go. And then I get back, you know, usually a pretty wide array of some terrible, some amazing, some in the middle. And that really helps me say, okay, this is what this person is going to actually be like when it comes down to doing the work. And you've identified, Justin, three reasons that somebody may not hire a VA. We're going to go through all those reasons, but I just want to focus on one right now. What is one of those reasons that somebody may not hire a VA? Yeah, so the very first reason, and it's probably the biggest reason, and COVID kind of helped solve this reason, but the biggest reason I see is what I call location blockage.

8:48Like a lot of times in the past, in COVID, we obviously, as business owners, embraced Zoom, embraced Skype, embraced all kinds of technology 10 times more than we ever had in the past. And so really from like the early 2000s to about 2019, when you thought about virtual assistants, you thought, oh, someone in the Philippines or somewhere in a foreign country. And then what you would do is you would send a task to them and then they would send it back. And then you would say, oh, it's wrong or it's right. Thank you. And then you kind of have like this lag delay. And so I would say a lot of times people have this limiting belief and problem.

9:22They're like, well, I don't I want to work with someone that's in my office that I can talk to every day that I can talk to all the time. and obviously with COVID, like, you know, you know, full transparency, John, if I had you on the screen right now and the VA on the screen, I wouldn't even know how far you guys are. And so I'd say that's probably the biggest thing is people don't realize that with the virtual environment now you can have team members. You know, I know in my office, I have a computer screen that has my marketing department on it. I have a computer screen that has, you know, my copywriting department.

9:51I have one with my finance department and I can see them talk to them probably even more than if I was sitting in an office where I had to walk down the hallway. So I would say that's probably the biggest reason. And one thing that I actually love is when you are in an office and you're walking down the hallway, you're disturbing yourself. You're getting up, you're walking down there. And by the way, you're disturbing them. You're actually bumping in and they have to physically acknowledge you and have that because you've done that. You've gone down and you've knocked on their door. Whereas I love it.

10:18Even though Kate's right next to me in my office, I send her a Skype message and she may see it, she may not, but she'll get to it. And when she gets to it, then boom, on her time without interrupting her or disturbing her workflow, then she gets back to me. And we're always able to kind of continue to work throughout that day with that kind of communication. Of course, if something's urgent, yeah, I can get up and go. And so I need this right now. It rarely happens, but there is something that I want to ask her, but I want her to answer when it's convenient for her. and that allows you to do that.

10:51You can do that with VAs, of course, which is really cool. And Fire Nation, we're talking about using virtual assistants to scale your business. We're going to get into some really important stuff when we get back from thanking our sponsors. Artificial intelligence is at the top of everyone's newsfeed. So we all know there are plenty of business pros out there benefiting from AI. AI can help you save time, brainstorm ideas and tackle your to-do list. But knowing about it and putting it into practice are two different things. So what's the first step? If you find yourself spending hours each day on content creation, then meet HubSpot's new AI-powered campaign assistant, a totally free-to-use AI tool tailor-made for marketers and business builders who spend hours each day on content creation.

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12:48John has served as an Inc. 500 franchisor and a multi-brand franchisee himself, and he does more placements than any other in the country. Sign up for a free consultation call with John today or get a free copy of his book, Non-Food Franchising, at FranBridgeConsulting.com. That's FranBridgeConsulting.com. Justin, we're back, and before the break, we identified one reason that somebody may not hire a VA. You have two more. Take that away now. Yeah. So reason number two I see is I think a lot of times people, you know, obviously from America, and I know you've got listeners all across the world, a lot of times people have a hesitancy because when they hear a virtual assistant, you know, it obviously, you could have a virtual assistant that lives just down the street from you.

13:33But a lot of times people hear virtual assistant, like a company like ours, where we outsource, you know, to take advantage of a digital currency exchange, you know, like in the Philippines where, you know, the wages are way lower, you know, the same reason why sometimes people like go out to Puerto Rico to save on some taxes, you know, similar vibes as people are afraid that when they were growing up, a lot of times we would be involved with places like Uber or Lyft or, you know, big corporations that outsourced and they built a big company and then they outsourced all the work overseas. And so a lot of times we get this bad taste in our mouth.

14:05We're like, oh, well, we don't want to outsource our work where the reality is, is when we have the global economy to take advantage of, you know, and when I say take advantage, it allows us to have better opportunity for our business, better talent. A lot of times people just have pre-made limiting beliefs of, well, I may not be able to understand them. There may be an accent. They may not have a higher quality of, you know, a high enough quality of work, or they might not have the college education I need. And the reality is, is the top entrepreneurs know that that's not true. That's just something we pray make up in our mind.

14:40And it kind of goes back to one of your first questions, John, is what's our key to hiring? Well, if you're hiring a virtual assistant and you only have 10 resumes to choose from, because you only got 10 to choose from, well, yeah, you might see some problems with language barriers or college education. But if you have 50, 100 ,000 people to choose from, you're going to find people with master's degrees and high, high fluency in English where you would never even know that they live in a different country. So I'd say that's probably the second reason is preconceived notions about something that they've actually maybe never dove into.

15:16Yeah, I can say with my experience, especially in the Philippines, hiring individuals there, I mean, they grow up, they're listening to the music, they're watching the TV. I mean, English is definitely a second language and they're incredibly fluent, especially the ones that I've been dealing with and working with for a long time. So definitely a lot of great opportunities there. But I think, Justin, the problem right now for a lot of listeners is, okay, I see the benefits. I see how I can scale. I see how I can do the hiring correctly. But where do I even start? How do I know what position we need to fill first?

15:52And I think that kind of comes down to another reason. It's like just paralysis analysis, right? Like, where do I go? I know I need help, but what part of my 50 things? So we always break it down to two things. It's, I want to get a virtual assistant. If I'm looking at my business that does one of two things, number one is I want them to do something I'm already doing and I'm already good at, but should no longer be doing. So an example of that may be I have 500 past customers now and they all love me, but I no longer have the time to make my quarterly calls to thank them and just stay in touch.

16:24Well, that's something I'm good at, something I've done before. It's something I can teach, but it's something that I need to get to someone else. So that's obviously kind of step one, those things that you're already a master at, and yet you're willing to give up so you can go do higher dollar producing activities. That's a great place to start is looking at what are those tasks. And then the second other half of that are what are tasks that I'm avoiding that I know that if I did would change my business, right? So for some people, it's cold calling, right? Some people we talk to, they'll never get over their fear of cold calling.

16:54So you might have to hire that off. I know sometimes depending on age and generations or love or hate for social media, some people are like, I know my business needs social media, but I just know myself. I'm never going to get to the point where I do that. So that would be considered something that I know I need to do, but I'm willing to have someone else do it for me. So I think when we really boil down our business into those two buckets, that a lot of times people start off with virtual assistants and say, hey, cold call for me. Hey, video edit for me. Hey, do this for me. all things that you've never even done yourself.

17:26And that's really hard to start off with and get small wins versus, hey, come take some of the things I'm already good at and can be a really good teacher at off my plate first. Fire Nation, so much value here. And I can tell you, it started unlocking so many opportunities for me when I hired a virtual assistant, not necessarily because of what they were doing, but because of what I was now able to do because I was freed up of the extra time, energy, and bandwidth to go after some really cool opportunities, which I think is one of the reasons that led you to creating and founding Sphere Rocket.

18:03So talk to us about your desire and your decision to create this company and how it's different from other virtual assistant companies. Yeah. So, I mean, my desire was I've been an entrepreneur since I was 15, got into real estate at 18. And when I got into real estate at 18, I had was using a lot of virtual assistants, a lot of them. And at the time, there was kind of the two extremes, you either had to go and find them yourself, you know, using a website like Craigslist or online jobs, pH, or you had to go to the opposite end of the spectrum. And you had to hire a company that was like, awesome, the VA is going to cost you 600 bucks.

18:40And you got to pay us 1000 1500 bucks on top of that for every single VA. And at the time, I was like, awesome, you know, 2000 bucks, it's still cheaper than, you know, hiring a US based assistant at the time that I couldn't afford. So I was like, I'll do it. But it was really, really hard to scale my business when I looked back and I was like, man, I have 10 VAs, but none of them work for me directly. I'm kind of like subcontracting them from a big company. And then on the other hand, I looked at some other VAs I had, and I'm like, but I also had to spend like 50 hours to find these on my own.

19:12And so like, there wasn't really a middle ground. And so So obviously, Sphere Rocket was founded to where it's like, hey, we're going to do all of the headhunting, all of the recruiting for you at just one cost, no hourly upcharge, etc. But we're also going to combine that with the fact that we're going to give that to our employers and say, this virtual assistant, once we find them, they're on your staff, right? We don't have say over them. We can't change their hourly rates on you. Our rate doesn't change on you. So we really were a company that came in and blended the worlds of what we call self-sourcing and fully managed and kind of put it a little bit into a middle area for people that wanted to scale, but also make sure that their team members were on their own team.

19:54because I saw, John, in full transparency, I saw a really big company that was using a lot of VAs from some of the biggest VA companies. And every time they kept getting their evaluation hit when they went to go sell the company because they were subcontracting VAs from a different company. And so they're like, that's great. You have an organization of 100 VAs with your company, but they're not yours, right? So we have no control. So that's kind of the origin story of where Sphere Rocket started. Justin, we dropped a lot of value bombs. today. We talked about quality help, how to find it, the three reasons why someone may not hire a VA.

20:30We talked about what position to fill first and some other awesome content. Give Fire Nation the one thing you want them to walk away with. What is the one theme you want to make sure that we get from our conversation today? Yeah. So I think the one thing I would tell people is, obviously I'm biased to virtual assistants and I'd love for every person in the world to be a customer of ours. But at the end of the day, like my passion comes from, you need to find a way to build your business through leverage, right? It doesn't have to be 50 team members. Maybe you can run a lifestyle business where you have one VA or one personal assistant.

21:06It doesn't even have to be a virtual assistant, which is kind of shocking, John. Like I'm a VA guy. Like that's what I'm biased to. But if, if someone takes anything away from this business or this podcast, should I say is you owe it to your children, you owe it to your spouses, you owe it to your parents, you owe it to your family to build a business with just a little bit more leverage than you most likely have in it now. And whether that's a VA through someone like us, or whether that's hiring the local assistant that you know you've been avoiding to hire, take the risk on yourself because it's not only for you, it's going to pay dividends across your family.

21:38So just believe in yourself a little bit more and go after that leverage. So if we want to connect with you, Justin, with Sphere Rockets, what is your call to action for our listeners today? Yeah, it's pretty straightforward. You can just go to hireleverage.com, which is H-I-R-E, hireleverage.com. We're one of the only VA companies in the world that has a full trial system. So we go in, learn what you need or what you want to experiment with. We hire the virtual assistant to you at no cost. You get to use that VA up to 45 to 60 days at no cost. And then, of course, if you love them and it's working out great for you, you're off to the races.

22:15Now you're obviously paying the VA's fee. And if not, awesome. you've at least bet on yourself, experimented around the VA world, and you can at least say, hey, it's not for me. So higherleverage.com. Wow, that is an absolute no-brainer offer opportunity and something you need to take advantage of, Fire Nation, if you're finding yourself in any of the situations we're talking about here today, because you're the average. Of the five people you spend the most time with, you've been hanging out with JN and JLD today, so keep up that heat. For links to everything we talked about, visit eofire.com, type Justin in the search bar.

22:52The show notes page will pop right up. And of course, hireleverage.com, H-I-R-E leverage.com. Justin, thank you for sharing your truth, your knowledge, your value with Fire Nation. For that, we salute you and we'll catch you on the flip side. Appreciate it, John. Hey, Fire Nation, a huge thank you to our sponsors and Justin for sponsoring today's episode. And Fire Nation, over the last decade, I've interviewed more than 3 ,000 of the world's most successful entrepreneurs, and I've created a revolutionary 17-step roadmap to your financial freedom and fulfillment. I put it all into my first traditionally published book, The Common Path to Uncommon Success, personally endorsed by Seth Godin and Gary Vaynerchuk.

23:35The Common Path to Uncommon Success is the step-by-step guidance that you need to achieve the lifestyle of your dreams. visit UncommonSuccessBook.com. Get your copy and I'll catch you there or on the flip side. The Gold Digger Podcast, hosted by my good friend, Jenna Kuchar, is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. The Gold Digger Podcast helps you discover your dream career with productivity tips, social strategies, business hacks, inspirational stories, and so much more. A must-listen episode is one of Jenna's recents on everything you need to know about affiliate marketing.

24:12Listen to Gold Digger wherever you get your podcasts. Many EO Fire listeners have launched non-food franchises and Franbridge Consulting has guided them. Franbridge's founder and frequent EO Fire guest, John Ostenson, has done more placements than any other in the country and his service is free. Sign up for a consultation with John or get a free copy of his book, Non-Food Franchising at FranbridgeConsulting.com.