The Benefits of Hiring A Virtual Assistant For Your Business Growth

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0:56Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is Jon Janssen. My guest today is Rob Levin. He co-founded Work Better Now in 2018 and currently serves as the chairman. He's also the managing member of the Oasis Strategy Group and CEO of RSL Media. Previously, Rob was the founder and publisher of the New York Enterprise Report, a media company that serves small and mid-sized businesses. Having been nationally recognized for his small business leadership, Rob began his career as a big six CPA and held senior positions in several entrepreneurial companies. So, Rob, welcome to the show.

1:35Thanks for having me, John. You know, you and I have known each other for at least a decade back when you were with, as I mentioned, had the New York Enterprise Report, but I did not know you were a CPA. Yeah, started my career my first four years. And it was a great place to start a career. Big company was one of the big at the time, big six accounting firms. And they did something which is really interesting. They taught me how to work, how to communicate with clients, how to get stuff done and how to work hard. It's a great way to start a career. Not to mention, you know, accounting is one of the languages of business.

2:07So it's a good background to have in my back pocket. Yeah, absolutely. I think that probably more businesses fail because of a lack of any knowledge there, or at least understanding there, probably more so that, well, I don't know, maybe marketing is up there pretty high too. Yeah, Mark, yeah, it's going to be necky necky. Exactly. So we're going to talk about your current company, Work Better Now. And maybe I really want to spend a lot of time just talking about the fact that, I mean, everybody knows that getting people, period, right now is a challenge for some companies. But talk about Work Better Now, what it is, what it does, what kind of its unique place in the market.

2:45Yeah, I'll just give you a quick story because I think that's the best way to describe what we do and actually kind of how we started. It evolved a little bit. So it started, as many things in my life do, and it did in a bar with a friend of mine from college. And I was saying, I want to start this company. I want virtual assistants for every business owner. I believe every business owner should have an assistant. And my partner, Andrew Cohen, who's also worked with small businesses, said, holy cow, you're totally right about that. and he said, I'm in. And I said, what do you mean you're in? Anyway, we became partners.

3:19And the idea, again, was we, based on my experience, having assistants based in Latin America, incredibly talented, eager to work people. And of course, you have a big cost of living difference in Latin America as you do in the States. So it's affordable for just about everybody. And we launched the business and it was going very slowly, just basically referrals and stuff. And then once COVID hit, the business started to explode. And the other thing, because people became more comfortable with remote workers. And the other thing that happened at the same time is we saw some of our clients hiring two, three, four, five, six, seven and more of our people.

3:58And we started to take a look. And what happened is they would hire an assistant, realize that assistant had all of these other skills that they can use elsewhere in the company, project management, customer service. I mean, 40 different roles now. So that we then pivoted from just being a virtual assistant company to providing remote professionals from Latin America for U.S. and Canadian based small and midsize businesses. Yeah, there's a couple of things you mentioned there that I want to talk about. First, the idea that every executive or every business owner or every CEO should have an assistant.

4:32That's something that, you know, a lot of we talked about you were in big corporate, you know, anybody that was at a C level had several assistants, right? I mean, that was just a thing. And I think a lot of business owners don't realize the drag of admin work that they're doing. I mean, I heard somebody say, you have an assistant. It's just you, right? Jack Daly says, if you don't have an assistant, you are an assistant. Yeah, yeah. And what I find is that we work with a lot of people, obviously, with marketing, in the area of marketing. And a lot of business owners can't focus on the strategic work of marketing, the day-to-day marketing, which is certainly an important aspect of market, because they're doing all this other stuff that probably shouldn't be doing.

5:13And it's almost like until they can get out of that, they can't go to the important work. And so I think that certainly makes a case for this idea of everybody should have that level that they can delegate to, shouldn't they? It's a combination of a few things. First of all, you hit the nail on the head. You know this probably better than anybody, but you have to set aside time to think about the strategy of your business, the product strategy, the service strategy. Even if you have a simple business, it's something you really need to spend time on. And marketing is, in a way, there's more opportunity than ever, but it's also more challenging than ever because there's so many different channels and what your message should be.

5:50And your customer's buying habits, by the way, have changed a lot in the past 10 or 15 years, as anybody who listens to your podcast would know. You need to set aside time for that. And you can't do that if you're setting up your own meetings and rescheduling them because everything gets rescheduled. And checking your own email, dealing with all of these little things that somebody else can do. And by the way, let's take a business owner. Here's another way to think about it. Let's take a business owner making, let's just say$200 ,000 a year. So a successful business owner, right? You know, what is their hourly rate?

6:24If you do the math, 2 ,000 hours in a year, that's$100 an hour. So the other way to look at it is you're spending$100 an hour for an assistant. Yeah. Right. Not to mention you're probably doing things you don't enjoy doing or probably not good at doing. Yeah. Yeah. And just the disruptions too. I know in mine, I mean, I'm one of those people that if somebody sends me an email, asks me a question or need something, you know, I'm going to, if I read it, it's going to be hard for me to just say no. And what I found, as you know, I use an assistant who is in my inbox is that they don't have the same tug.

7:00You know, it's very easy for them to say, no, you do not qualify or no, we don't do work, you know, for that rate or, you know, whatever it is. And they're not going to respond as emotionally as we will because we're people and we have these relationships. Right. I mean, or worse, you know, I use that idea of a fee. You know, a lot of times people say, oh, can you just do it for this? And I'm, well, I want to help. Right. You know, but the assistant who has a rule that says, no, we don't do work for this. Does it really have that? They're not going to give away the farm. Right. And I think that's an element that a lot of people underestimate.

7:35You mentioned the idea of COVID bringing people who'd never done virtual work, never met with a client this way, all of a sudden were forced to. And that's obviously done a lot of very positive things in that people, I think, realize, oh, I can get talent from anywhere. I can get talent that is unique to this one very specific thing I need. And it doesn't matter if they're in my town or not. And that's really opened a lot of possibilities for business owners, hasn't it? Huge, huge. Whether you're in one place in the States and then you're hiring from another place in the States, which has been going on for some time.

8:14But now this notion also is now a lot more accessible to hire people from anywhere in the globe. And you have incredible talent throughout the globe. Again, you have a big cost of living differential. But, you know, a lot of people, a lot of my friends who are business owners, most of my friends are, have told me over the past few years how hard it is to hire people who are eager to work, who are very enthusiastic. It's getting harder and harder to find that. Whereas around the globe, there are plenty of people that have the skills and the desire and the enthusiasm. So that whole world is now opened up to businesses.

8:50And by the way, big businesses have been doing this for years and years, right? And now I think smaller businesses are learning that, hey, there's a huge opportunity for me too. Yeah, I think that's actually something I've seen a lot. A lot of smaller businesses are embracing, I think, what have long been big business practices. You know, the whole C-suite idea. I mean, we have, you know, this idea of fractional CMO or fractional CFO. So it's really made itself to the small business who maybe 10 years ago thought, oh, I don't have C-suite positions. I mean, they do. I just don't have anybody filling them, right?

9:25And I think they're really embracing a myriad of those roles. Let's talk a little bit about overseas talent. You've mentioned Latin America is where your folks are coming from. Do you find, I mean, you mentioned some of the obvious things. Cost of living is different. So a great opportunity for them would be different than a great opportunity for somebody, say, in the States. Do you find that there is a difference in work ethic and culturally in some fashion that exists in Latin America that maybe doesn't exist everywhere? Well, we decided to focus in on Latin America for a few reasons. First, starting with my experience, I've had an assistant from Latin America for the past 10 years.

10:02Actually, my assistant for eight years is now the general manager, work better now. And not only did I have that experience, but I referred a lot of other people over to Latin American talent. This goes back to 2014 and all the way until we started and we were able to provide that service. What we found was very enthusiastic workforce, very talented, willing to learn, willing to find the hours. But then there were some other things, too, like cultural similarities, certainly as you compare us to other parts of the world, compare Latin America to other parts of the world. And also, and this can't be underestimated, similar time zones as us in the States, right?

10:40And that's really important because either if you're working with somebody, let's say in Asia, then either they're working while you're sleeping and vice versa, which can work by the way for some situations, or they are working your business hours, which means they are working in the middle of the night, which anybody who knows anything about circadian rhythms is not a good thing for somebody's health, not something that we wanted to promote. So for all of those reasons, as well as fantastic English skills, we focused in on Latin America. We now hire from 19 different countries throughout the region.

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12:50So I want to just throw this out there. I know the answer to this, but I want to hear you address it because I'm sure you've been asked this question before. You know, sometimes when people talk about offshore or hiring people from other countries, there's an element of exploitation even to it. I mean, it's like this is the only job they can get so we can pay them five dollars an hour. Right. I want you to talk a little bit about what you've seen is actually the opportunity, you know, as opposed to exploitation. Yeah. So first of all, our particular approach is we want to make sure that our people are well paid.

13:23They're paid considerably more than what they can make. But more importantly, what you'll hear from a lot of the people that work for our clients, as well as our talent force, by the way, other than my partner and I and a few salespeople, our entire company is run out of Latin America. So what you're going to hear from them is the opportunities that I get locally are, I don't really like the culture. I'm not doing work that is interesting or exciting. I'm not learning. And I'm certainly not making as much money. So one of the reasons why I said to somebody literally today at lunch that this is the coolest thing I've ever done, and I had a media company serving business owners, that was pretty cool too, is because I'm hearing from both sides about how amazing this is.

14:09I'm hearing from our clients, thank you. This has changed my business. This has changed my life. Another thing I heard today at lunch from a friend and a client. And then we're hearing from the talent that I'm doing meaningful work. I'm appreciated. I'm making more money. I'm able to buy that house that I couldn't buy. So like I said, John, it's the coolest thing I've ever done. Yeah. So I know that I've talked to business owners that because this idea of every business owner needs an executive. I mean, that's been around for an executive assistant. That's been around for a long time. I think a lot that that advice has been given by many people.

14:43But I also know a lot of people that tried it and failed. It's like, I just couldn't work with them, or I didn't want to give up my email or, you know, so what have you found the people that let's focus on executive assistant for the moment, the people that have successfully engaged and really embraced this idea of the executive assistant freed up 20 hours a week of their time, you know, what have Have there been some things that they've done, some best practices or mindset even, you know, maybe that it requires? You hit the nail on the head. It starts with mindset. It starts by saying, even if I can do these things well, I know that I'm not best served and I'm not serving my company very well if I continue to do these things because I'm not doing all of those other things that we spoke about earlier.

15:24It's a mindset. It took me a long time to get there, too, by the way. Yeah. Between when I first considered an assistant and when I hired one was about 18 months or so. And of course, you immediately once you start doing it, you're like, I wish I started 10 years ago. But so it starts with mindset knowing I don't have to and I'm not going to and I don't want to do everything because I know my time is spent. It should be spent in other places. And then as far as tactically, it's, you know, it's as simple as once you know that there are other things you can be doing. The next thing to figure out is what can come off my list and to build that list to at least start to build that list before you hire somebody.

16:01Right. It's calendar management. If anybody has calls or meetings, they know that it takes about 25 minutes to schedule a meeting, at least the back and forth. And then, of course, that meeting will probably get rescheduled. That's another 25 minutes. That's that's almost an hour for every meeting that you're having. That alone is crazy. Some people are into having their emails scanned and addressed by their assistant, like my accountant. He's turned his inbox from$600 to$50 a day. But some people like me, I don't need that. My email is very much under control. I don't need that. But then there are so many other things that can be done, like all of those bills that are not on auto pay.

16:39Have them pay it to, by the way, personal things like scheduling medical appointments for you or your family, travel plans. I can go on and on. Auto credit card. Our credit card statements, that's one that every month we're like, holy crap. Credit card statements, expense reports. I mean, there's probably a list of 150 things, but you just start creating your own. Then when you do hire the assistant, you at least have a starting point. And then here's another trick. First of all, you do have to let go. But what I did is I said, because I know how important processes are, but I don't want to create them.

17:13I mean, that would just drive me bonkers, right? Like a lot of business owners. So I just said, look, every time you're going to do something, I'm going to show you how to do it. Document it. Number one, you can go back to it. Number two, if you're out and I need to have somebody cover for you, I can just give them a manual. So it's really just show them literally once or twice how to do certain things. Tell them what is the outcomes that you're expecting. And you hire somebody sharp. They're going to figure it out. And before you know it, what's interesting that happens is when I started, and this happens to many people, I only had 10 hours a week of stuff for them to do.

17:4930, 30. And I was like, wow, does this really make sense? 30 days later, they have more than that, you know, more things to do than they have time in the day and things are carrying over and they are working, you know, 40 hours a week, nonstop, getting things done, taking things off your plate, because you're feeling more comfortable giving to them. You realizing, wow, you know what? They can do this. They can do that. So it's a combination of mindset all the way to tactics, to really painting a picture to your assistant, this is what success looks like by us working together. I don't have to deal with these things.

18:20They just get done. And I think to your point, and I've probably talked about it before in, in other environments, but you know, we have several work better now folks on our team. And one of the things that we noticed right off the bat was certainly highly educated. So, you know, clearly could, could handle probably more than we were initially asking. And that's what we've really, that's been the mindset that we've taken is. Okay. What else can they do? What else can they do? And so, you know, my assistant who came in, you know, essentially to do some of the administrative stuff is really sharp guy.

18:54He's editing our podcast. Now he is, you know, putting together our, you know, weekly newsletter. So this is my wife. This is the only call that rings on my phone, but putting together our newsletter. I mean, so, you know, just, I'm excited to see how far we can take it. And that's really what we have found. And I think once you start then stacking some of these things up, you know, all of a sudden the return on investment is ridiculous. And it's big first because you're getting great people and then it happens to be at a rate. It's I don't have a problem telling your your listeners that it's twenty one hundred dollars a month for a full time and dedicated assistant.

19:31When you add that in, it's just it becomes a no brainer. Yeah, we're actually, you know, where there's a lot of business owners that I firmly believe we could help more with their marketing if they would get some of this. have a marketing assistant. And so we're actually working on placing, you know, marketing assistants with clients who we can then do strategic work for, but we can also make sure that they're getting a ton of output on a lot of the stuff that's just not getting done, frankly, by anybody currently. Yeah. Yeah. What we're helping, and again, our clients told us this, that they found that, you know, wow, these people are so good.

20:07I'm taking projects and things that I need to do that have been on the shelf. They've been sitting there for a while and I can now make them happen. It's like I said, it's just, we're having a lot of fun. And then of course, from my perspective, you and I have known each other, I think it's closer to 15, 16 years. And I've been listening to your podcast. I read duct tape marketing way back in the day. And to have someone like you say, you know, not only that you're using our services, but then referring us out. I mean, it doesn't get any better than that, John. So Rob, I appreciate you stopping by the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast.

20:42You want to invite people where they can find out more about Work Better Now and maybe connect with you even. Yeah, workbetternow.com. Find out all about us, hear what our clients have to say, and you can certainly connect with me on LinkedIn, Rob Levin, Work Better Now. All right, Rob. Again, it was great catching up with you and I appreciate you taking a few moments and hopefully we'll run into you one of these days soon out there on the road. Looking forward to it, John. Thanks. Hey, marketing agency owners, you know, I can teach you the keys to doubling your business in just 90 days or your money back.

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