1612 – What A Small Business Owner Needs with FreeTime Solutions’ Barry Coziahr

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0:59with us right now barry kozire barry you are the owner of free time solutions your website is free time dot solutions barry thanks so much for joining us thanks for having me all right so you are in the va staffing world uh give us an overview of like what makes free time solutions unique compared to all the different ways that we may be able to connect with VAs? Well, I've had a lot of businesses, so I've learned a lot. And I've done consulting and coaching, life coaching, as well as business coaching over the years. So I guess what I've done, we used VAs a lot ourselves to grow our different businesses.

1:39And so we figured out what needed to be incorporated to make sure you get a good hire. So we go hardcore on selecting the right person. Extensive testing, interviews, interviews I've put together to make sure that we and I'm constantly like working over and working on who. There's a great book called Who out there that I'm a big believer on. I'm choosing the right, the starting and choosing the right person. And so it all starts with choosing the right person. And that includes like knowing exact really, really fully naming out exactly what the person needs, what needs they need to fulfill. And then and then from there, we act as sort of like an outsourced HR department monitoring and coaching and coaching both the client and the VA, making sure everything just kind of comes together like a good HR department should do.

2:34and then, or a good coach would do. And then, you know, and then putting in all the other things that we forget to put in our business sometimes, which is like daily reporting so that you constantly know what the person's up to and you can monitor progress, writing up their processes so that you can, one, know that they understood your instructions and two, you can pass it on to the next guy. And then we constantly invest in our people just training. Training is a big deal. These are all things that I do myself for my people. And I have a lot of VAs that work for me because, like I said, I have a number of businesses.

3:13And so I know this is exactly what a small business owner needs to make sure it's going to work. Yeah. And, you know, here we are in 2023. And, you know, obviously, I know I can speak for ourselves. You know, there were some things that, you know, we were paying staff to do. And, you know, when ChatGPT really hit the scene, you know, I was able to kind of reassign them to other tasks. And in some cases, you know, we're able to lower our outlay just because we were able to do some things more efficiently, you know, creating content, obviously, for social is a big one. How did you see your company or your, you know, the staff that you connect with?

3:58How have you seen evolution taking place this year because of AI tools? Yeah, it's kind of interesting. I mean, well, content is a big deal, right? We're able to do a lot more content for people quicker. The VAs are able to work on that. That's one of the areas we've really, really focused on was content, both the illustrations and pictures and stuff, graphics, as well as the text part of the thing. And obviously, the client still needs to look it over and the VA still needs to look it over to make sure that the AI thing is really just another assistant. It's not a thing that I think that you should rely on or count on.

4:43It's just a machine. It's just a tool. And so the VA has to be trained in AI. There's a lot of letters flying around here. But AI, VI. But the AI has to be trained in that. And, you know, sometimes the client doesn't want to be trained in it. So that works out great for the client because he can take advantage of these new tools. Or sometimes the client's really good at it and wants to pass along his processes so he can move on to other things. And that's what I've done. I basically say, great, here's exactly how I want it done. Good. You guys now start taking care of that. I'm moving on to other important pieces of the business.

5:25It's all about like, if your listeners haven't read it, 80-20 principle. Richard Kosh has a great book on it. Doing the important things within your business and then figuring out how to like get more and more onto those things that are key. And the tools help you do it as well as the people. Yeah. And Barry, how would you compare working with free time solutions versus, let's say, connecting with overseas talent through like a platform like Upwork, for example? Yeah, I'd say, I mean, one, you have to go through all the hiring process yourself. When you go and you find somebody for yourself, that can take an incredible amount of time.

6:11Or you're sloppy about it and you pick somebody and then they don't work out. We basically figured out who's not going to work out and what kind of people are definitely not going to work out. So your odds are greatly increased that you're going to have a much better person from the get-go. We do all of that work of selecting the person. And I mean, that makes it completely different. And then you've got somebody who helps you with accountability, who helps you to make sure that your processes are recorded. You know, it's like it's like having a team member rather than having just like somebody who, you know, you throw something, some work out for them to do and hope it comes back correctly.

6:51You've actually got somebody that you can groove in and make part of your team and develop a relationship with. And I mean, that's why I like it. Yeah. And how did you get into this? I know you're like many of us serial entrepreneur, right? Like once you, you know, once you got a taste of, you know, running the show, it's a hard game to get out of. But how did you find yourself into this into this space? Yeah, it's kind of like I mean, the journey was that my dad was a serial entrepreneur and I'm 57. I worked for I started working for him when I was 16. so I got to see what he was busy doing, creating all these different businesses.

7:29I worked for him for quite some time and other sales jobs, and then I went to nonprofit running volunteers, so I'm used to running lots of people, and then halfway through my nonprofit career, I decided I needed to make some money, so I started my own business and used everything I learned about community outreach and marketing and sales from my dad to start my own businesses and started using remote personnel. And so I've been working with freelancers, I guess now for 17 years. So that's how I got where I'm at basically. And I just start, I keep pouring everything I learn. I love to read, right?

8:06I'm reading books every week. I keep pouring everything I learn into making these guys better and helping the entrepreneurs that we work with. And so that's kind of like the brief. Yeah. What would be, you know, kind of back to tasks that, that you know, that the VAs are doing. What do you see is just like, what would you like, if you were to rank like the top three, like, Oh, come on. Like if you're not doing this, you are really missing out on like super, super high ROI activity. What would you put in that, in that, in, on that top three list? Yeah. I mean, I, I mean, the first thing, I mean, it's like, really you should do like a little assessment of your business, right?

8:50What are the things, what are the you take a look at that 80 20 principle what are the things that are the 20 that are the key things in your business that make it grow well good so you should get some backup on those things maybe it's lead generation maybe it's setting appointments maybe it's like whatever it is maybe it's finding you speaking engagements or getting on to podcasts what are those key things that actually push and grow your business so like podcast guesting is one of the things lead generation ends up being one of those things and there's a list of others that might fit in with somebody's particular business.

9:23On the other side of it, you got the 80 % of those things that are kind of like, they have to get done, but you shouldn't be doing them. And that would fall like, maybe cold calling has always been part of your business. You shouldn't be doing it. That's for sure. I don't like to do bookkeeping. I should never, nobody should ever make me do that. I have a person for that. Those are one of the things we do. We do for doctors, we do things like medical billing, which works out really great. But we literally have a list of an e-book, 249 things that a virtual assistant can do for you. And I'd say, but you really should start with the 80-20 principle.

10:00What are those 20 % vital things? And those 80 % that maybe have to get done, but you certainly shouldn't be doing it. And it's really$10 an hour work for somebody else to handle. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And again, I don't know if you can really get into this a whole lot, but obviously, using a VA for social media is pretty valuable. What might be some of those areas of social media that are like an immediate, yeah, hand this over, get this, don't be doing this yourself. VAs can do that perfectly well. Because I know maybe some people might be concerned about their voice or, ooh, this VA is going to be representing me on social media.

10:40I don't want to screw up. any advice there? Yeah. I mean, I would have, I mean, yes, a VA can basically, one of the things they can do, like I have somebody reach out for me on LinkedIn. I have three people that like spend about 20 hours each reaching out on my LinkedIn profile, introducing new people, just saying, what on the DMS direct messages. All right. I mean, and really I don't do like a sales pitch type thing. It's really like, Hey, I'm Barry. I'd love to meet and chat and network, see how I can help you. how you can help, you know, see if we can help each other. And I meet, I meet about 20 people a week.

11:17Sure. You know, just, just introducing myself to people. And I mean, it's great, you know, don't, don't make any big asks, but you know, just again, be cordial. I can't stand that on LinkedIn. Yeah, no, I think what people hate is they go right into a robo pitch I write the message. I write the message for that. So it needs to be your voice. So that's one aspect of social media, just reaching out and making introductions. Right. But it needs to be your message. It shouldn't be salesy. I can't stand that. Right. I mean, I'm a salesperson, but I don't want to be a high pressure salesperson. Right.

11:55Other tasks on social media could be like, you know, just creating graphics and putting together a social media calendar with all sorts of stuff that basically then you have to look over and make sure it fits your voice and then coaching that person into the into the right space um i i love using linkedin i mean i linkedin but there's so much stuff like doing that outreach is great for me doing the posting is great for me helping me create content that i have to look over really quick and make sure it fits my voice and then have them fix and then posting those on other platforms. A virtual assistant can organize all that for you and get it done.

12:36And again, it needs to be in your style and it shouldn't be. I mean, nobody really wants to be sold on social media. It has to be like interesting, fun, you know, all about just connecting and making a new friend. Like the people I connect with, I'm like, hey, I'm great. If I give them some good advice, And that's all that happens. And that's great. You know, and people really like my approach for that, too. So I've taught my VAs when they're working for clients to use that same approach. It has to be kicked back, relaxed, all about meeting people and getting to know other people. Yeah, and go from there.

13:13yeah all right so your website facetime.solutions when somebody goes there what would you recommend that they do i unless i bet i know what you're going to recommend i'm looking at your web page right now yeah it's free it's free time.solutions right uh did i say it wrong i'm so did i say no no no you said it's right you said facetime.solutions oh i don't know what i was thinking about free time.solutions thanks for catching me there what they're gonna find when they go to facetime Oh, don't go there. But basically, freetime.solutions, if you go there, there's a link we can share, which is a little e-book, 249 Things That a Virtual Assistant Can Do for You, or They Can Help You With.

13:56And you can download that little e-book, check it out. You can also just reach out via the website if you want to talk with me and get a little bit of consultation on that 80-20 principle and how a VA can help you. So there you go. Yeah. All right. Freetime.solutions. Scroll down to the bottom here. You're going to see a big button that says download our free checklist today. 249 things a VA can do for you. Barry Kozire. I love that last name. and also I'd recommend connecting with you on LinkedIn as well. You're a good LinkedIn-er. Yeah. And again, once again, your website, freetime.solutions.

14:36Barry, thank you so much for joining us. Great, thank you.

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