Hey, guys, welcome to the REI Network podcast with me. Gavin Timms. Hey, guys, how you doing, Gavin Timms there with REI Network. Welcome back for another episode. Before we get going here, just do me a favor like always feel listening for the first time or you you are a regular listener. Please give me a link and subscribe to the channel. Whether it’s on YouTube or your listen on the podcast, I would really appreciate that. Feel free as well to give you the share. I want to reach as many people as possible. I consistently do all these episodes every single week, sometimes multiple times a week, and try and deliver as much value as possible.  

So let’s dove into today what we’re going to be talking about, and sometimes this may be actually tough one for you to work to swallow. And it’s not virtual assistants get a lot of questions on this. Why? What is the content around it? And I have a question for all of you. Is it your virtual assistant? It’s not working out. Or is it you that’s not working out? Now, I’m going to explain what I mean by that. What does that look like as we kind of talk about virtual assistants? OK? What are the best practices to get them to be successful in your business, which then will make you more successful? We have a very good high tolerance or hit rate of success when it comes to work and when we actually find the VAs for our clients because we do try and get them with experience, with knowledge of that area of the field that they’re in, and there’s a difference between a trained VA. What does that mean? I’m really diving into that in this episode because I think a lot of you expect too much and it’s not that you maintain it’s just sometimes the way it is, because when we think all these VAs are trained, you expect them to be able to take your business to the next level, and it’s not quite that easy. OK, so let’s talk about firstly, we go look at personalities just like in the UK or in America or wherever you hold less than from a case. You always have different personalities, so you need to identify that you have a cold collar, for instance, and admit, let’s just use them to when we can go onto a social media VA or an editor and be a it doesn’t matter what it is, we have to get the right personalities okay to fit the right job role. Now I most of my VAs from the Philippines, what you can get from all over the world. But I do like the Philippines. I feel just from their culture, their work ethic, and it’s something that I’ve used for years and years. So I normally stick to it again, not disregarding any from from any other country whatsoever. It’s just kind of what I get used to. I kind of know that culture in the way that they think, and that really helps. In the Philippines, I find that they are very pleasing people and sometimes they will agree with you when they really don’t understand what’s actually happening. I think that’s one of the problems that people run into. They say, Well, I explain what to do. They said they understand them. Then they didn’t do it. It’s because they actually want to please you and they don’t want to disappoint and lose their job. So they’re just going to agree with you. So you need to use little techniques like, OK, this is what I want you to do. That makes sense. I will say yes. And then you just use something very simple as their case. Explain it back to me or show me what you’re going to do and guess what? By doing that, if they can show you half of it or some of it, you know you need to do a little more work with them. So they really understand it and they show you, then obviously they do get it right. So little things like that could actually save you. Actually, it was in weeks and months of work just by say, OK, now I’ve explained, I’ve shown now you show me or you explain back to me what you’re going to do, telling me now that alone is going to save you months of hassle of going all they work and they’ve been doing it wrong the whole time. Like all of them think, OK, well, that’s obviously the personality cold. Call it someone that is a sales person that loves to talk, right? They are your kind of episodes is the one that actually want to dry, get on the phone, interact. That’s what needs a cold call. The people that are scared to get on the phone don’t want to talk a normally more your admin people. So very rarely you will ever get a cold call of doing admin tasks and admin doing cold calling tasks. They are two different people, so when I see that the VA says they can do it, it’s because they probably want more hours. They want to make more money, they don’t want to miss on that opportunity. But if that’s not right for them, you’re not going to get the results. And that is the main problem.  

So make sure that your admin VA isn’t staying on the admin task. Your cold cold is staying on cold call, and if you’re doing text messaging, I would say that is more of a task, OK than cold cold tax. So you need to watch out for these call personality traits when you’re hiring these people and that is going full. What is their experience? How much have they done it for? And when we hire, I always. For someone that’s already done it, and I don’t even need it to be real estate cold, call it still insured or work for Delta or whatever, and they say bid on all the time dollars before, that’s important. I want my cold call on an auto dealer, then obviously I want to make sure that they have experience. I never want to bring a van that’s never done something before in the in the topic that I want them to do unless I understand that, OK, well, I’ll use mojo, but I wanted to use Batch now. Of course, they can figure that out. It’s just a different type of system with at least a bit of an auto dialer before. So a cold caller. I normally hire with cold call and experience one or two years or more. Okay with dialing experience. And guess what? They might be selling them things. But when I actually put them on there and put them to the test, if I know absolutely nothing, then I know that they can’t do it. So when I narrow that hiring process down, it’s very simple. We run a simple ad for cold calling our admin we give them. Then if it’s on the cold call and front, I normally say thank you for applying. Please send me a one minute recording telling me a little bit about yourself that gives you then that information to listen to that voice. How do they sound? How do they interact? Now, obviously that could have been a record in that they could have done 100 times to get it perfect. And I will know that when I go into the final interview on the way that they interact with me, people say, Well, you want me to with my clients. What I normally do, as I say, hey, was hire from. And then a lot will. I don’t know what to say, and I just want you to engage, hear some questions and talking points. And I literally want them to see how they interact with you. If it’s awkward, is it weird or are they very conversational, very confident that the things I look for in a cold caller, OK? And you will find the all comfortable in the weirdness from the admin side normally, which is fine because they’re not going to be interacting with people. So that would be so I get that recorded with narrow it down and then I get two or three that I would actually go and interview. I would say, Hey, so you use this software or that? And they would say, Yeah, we’ve done this and this, and then I might put them on a trial or, Hey, show me what you did or how did you run it when you did your last campaign? And I would see some things actually match up very quickly was I have the dialog, I sit them cold call and said, I can get them call in and generate leads. Normally, I would say from hiring a vacuum cold calling, it would take me about 10 minutes if I have the right VA to actually get them going and dialing. And then obviously the ongoing training on listening to their calls tweak and change and keeping them accountable. Running a scorecard. All of my have scorecards. They report on their numbers every single day. How many goals did they do, how many leads, how many conversations they had have leads they bought into the CRM. We track that every single day and I can then actually see on the graph of what’s working and what’s not. And that could be the age of the the less that we need a new list. Is it the VA? If it’s a brand new list and they’re not performing of the, they have a lot of full time while they show in the light, I can kind of track all this to find out what is going on and keep them accountable.  

Now, obviously, if you’re building your business out, the way that I have it is I have a lead VA that does all of those things for me. Then we have on the admin side, on the admin, it could be they are sending out contracts, bulk data notes, making offers. You could have them texting to generate to lead gen. You have all of these things. And again, yes, they might be trained on your CRM and people say, well, they’re trained, especially what they’re doing. They’re not going to run the business for you. So there’s a difference between having a trained VA. When we bring the VA in, we have them trained on the basics of the system or the software that we want them to use. So yes, they know how to send out a text. Yes, they know how to send the contract out. OK, but you need to be telling them or training them in the way that what goes on that contract? Or you need to be telling them what to say in the text messages just because they know what to do, how to do the text? Does it mean that they can actually do it? Does that make sense? So making sure that you understand that? So when a VA comes in? Yes, they’re trained on the software. What you need to put your spin on it. People want to do it like, you know, I’m going in my business potentially different to you. I run in multiple different markets. I run with partners on the ground. I do a lot of jobs and you might be an acquisition specialist for you. So yours might be different to mine. And the way that I talk and the way that you talk may be different. And you might be in New York and I’m in Miami or Birmingham, Alabama or wherever I am, and things are going to be slightly different. So what you need to do is you need to make sure. That you’re making your own tweaks and changes, so it runs for you, remember a very big one of the biggest things that folks on this whole year is building a business to serve you using systems and processes that are in line with your vision of what you want to create by actually building a business. Right. And that’s what a lot of my episodes are going to be in the first half that you should ever make in the virtual assistant. Why? Because the great, the inexpensive. And they are super small. OK, I have some. I mean, I should probably do clips of what my coaching calls like. My my clients like the VA is. This VA is amazing five dollars an hour and they take care of all of these things for me. And it’s because if you have that interaction, you install the belief in them. You actually talk with them on a multiple especially or admit you cold call should be checking twice a day minimum. Your admin could be 10 times a day, depending on what it is, and it could be. Hey, I need to do this for me. Hey, I need you to do that. Hey, stop doing, not get this out for me. I don’t know my interaction level. The your argument is going to be higher, but if you don’t have binding is bring them in. While I, I’m either successful VA and they’re not doing anything, it’s because you’re not guided. And that is the difference between is it you or is it there? And it could be them. Are they showing up late? Well, they bring in excuses where the internet’s down constantly, but it’s like, Well, obviously they have bad weather, so you need to do your research on this. Or is it that you have the VA admin trying to cold call never going to work? Right? So analyze, is it what is it you or is it then is it something that you need to step what we tried telling you now, but it need to be a part that I do not try any of my team, from the people, from my business partners to my VA is get treated exactly the same way I talk with them in the same way they have the same input. I always ask them, Hey, if there’s one thing that you could change, what would it be? Do you think there’s a better way of doing this? Do you think there’s more efficient way of doing this? Have you done this in a better way before? Let’s talk about it, because if they can show me to get me the same result? And it’s like, OK, yeah, we’ll do it that way. No problem. And that works for their mind. And I get the result I want. I’m down to do.  

The biggest thing is is that you don’t want to be micromanaging. I’m not saying that there’s a key difference here between being a leader and a micromanager. If you’re a micromanager, you will bottleneck in your business and you do not want to be that position because if you are a micromanager, no one can make a decision without you. All the problems come to you and you’re like, I might as well do this business myself. And that’s because you’ve not installed and allowed them to make their own decisions. That is why that happens. OK. Where I get my team and I go, Bring a problem, bring me a solution. And if they bring me a problem, I’ll say, Well, what do you think we should do? And they will say, Well, I will do this and I will go, Let’s do that. And that is what I do. Now, obviously, I don’t think it’s the right decision. I will say, Well, that’s a good idea. This is the consequence if we do it that way. What about if we did it this way? What do you? Oh yeah, we all know how to do it that way. Yeah, no problem. And then you will build them in that position of building that rapport in that team environment to allow them to make decisions because often they have a better pull like Rod, my main VA runs all my other VAS. He has a better pulse on what’s happened than me. So what he says, I have to listen to because I’m like, we all work the day out. So if you say this needs to happen, who am I to question it unless I say, Well, all right, if we made that decision, this is the gap that’s going to happen. Like, what are we going to do there? Okay, let’s delay, or let’s give them another chance or whatever that may be.  

So we have them discussions what you have to let people make decisions. And that’s not the views of everyone in your team. And sometimes you have to eat right. I let you make decision. And it wouldn’t be the decision I made. But at the same time, I give you that and I wanted you to own a next time. You might say, Well, OK, tweet this or that or learn from this moment. But for the most part, you can’t really do anything wrong, OK? But the interaction, the communication is absolutely key. And that is why most Vas will fail. And I want to say one other thing as well a VA will make you busier. That is the job of VA. As much as they take from your plate can make you busier. What does that mean? While you don’t want a cold call so you haven’t got a cold call, but they’re going to go in cold call and generate leads for you that are going to come in for you, to you, to work. If you’re not prepared to work, that leads. Now you’ve got someone generating leads and you’re not working because they’re making you’re busier, all right, because you’ve gone from not doing something for then doing it and owning it and delivering on it, which then means you’re going to have more to do. The same with if they’re doing texting and generating leads. Or that the sending out contracts, will they have questions on the contracts by hiring them because you’re moving the business forward and they’re doing their job will actually make you more busy to start with, but also more tentative in terms of focus and actually wanting to. You need to deliver in that area that they’re producing that work for. But that’s how we’re going to get results. And that’s the difference between doing deals of multiple deals or doing nothing. OK. So remember, you should be utilizing VAs to make you busy in the right areas, making sure that you’re focused on the high dollar and our activities for you to be able to get results.  

OK. So I could go on and on. I’m going to be doing more videos on virtual assistants, but again, it should be the first hire. I highly recommend. Make sure we have great communication. Make sure you set your expectations. They are not going to run the business for you. They are going to help you develop your business and take it to the next level by helping you focus on your high money generating activities. That is the goal. All right, guys. Hopefully this out, if it did, please give me a like. Subscribe, drop me a comment. Share anything you can to help if you want to leave me a review. If you’ve been watching me for a while going to Review Gavin dot com, you can click on a video review or a text review. I’d really appreciate that. Anything else that any of the content that you want me to do? Please reach out. Happy to create videos on on anything that you need as well. Happy investing. Let’s have a great week was still in January as I’m recording this. Now we got we got all the year ahead to make this successful one. So I wish you all the best. And I will see you on the next episode. Thanks, guys.