Scaling Your Business and Increasing Profits with Virtual Assistants
Today, I welcome Daniel Ramsey to the Just Start Real Estate Podcast to talk about all things Virtual Assistants. Daniel is the founder & CEO of MyOutDesk, the highest-rated Virtual Assistant company in the marketplace with over 500 five-star reviews, and over 13 years of experience serving more than 6000 clients.
Daniel’s journey to launching MyOutDesk actually began on his honeymoon in Guatemala, when he suddenly found himself working and closing real estate deals at the bar at 1:00am. He realized that if he wanted to have the life he had dreamed of and be able to take some time off, he would need more leverage. So he returned to the US and spent two years completely rebuilding his real estate business with Virtual Assistants, before taking 6 months off to move to South America.
Daniel explains that MyOutDesk was born in 2008 when one of his friends asked him if Daniel could help him to find five assistants for his business. Daniel agreed to supply the team, but it would be a lot of effort, so he would have to charge for it. He registered the business and supplied the assistants and before long, his friend had a team of seventeen assistants saving him around 150k per year. That’s how MyOutDesk was born accidentally. The team now consists of twenty US-based employees and forty freelancers in the Philippines.
Daniel then explains that as businesses grow and generate more revenue, they pass through different stages. First ‘I do it,’ which then becomes ‘we do it,’ which then transforms to ‘they do it,’ and in each stage, the focus shifts, and different things are a priority. When your business moves from ‘we do it’ to ‘they do it’ - all of your focus lies on systems and processes.
I am then particularly interested in why Daniel has chosen the Philippines as a country to source VAs from, and he explains that his reasons are mostly because the English language is taught from a young age, and the culture and understanding of right and wrong is very similar to the US.
Daniel then explains that hiring is hard if you don’t have the right process, and even then it may not be a perfect fit the first time around. He then goes into his hiring process in more detail and also shares what happens before a VA is presented to a client, how long it normally takes for their clients to hire someone, and what the expected cost for a full-time VA is.
Daniel then compares their service to marriage rather than dating - all of their assistants are already doing the job they are being hired for and have experience, and that’s the reason why they only source full-time team members.
Because I have had experience with Virtual Assistants in the past, I wanted to share a struggle I had which is I found the ones I hired unable to think outside of the box or to use deductive reasoning in certain situations. Daniel explains that the problem really lies within the business and a lack of well-documented systems and processes. He explains that everything in a business can really be explained with if/then statements and that takes a lot of time to document. And the more complex your business is, the longer it takes to find someone and train them.
Throughout the interview, Daniel has shared a lot of gold nuggets that you can take and implement in your business, so give it a listen to catch all the details!
Notable Quotes:
“I never learn a lesson unless my heart, or my wallet, hurts.”
- Daniel Ramsey
“I had a pretty big epiphany. I wanted to stay married. I wanted to one day have kids. I wanted to have a life.”
- Daniel Ramsey
“As an entrepreneur, we all think ‘I’m going to start a business, so I can build this beautiful life,’ but the reality is that you’re constantly in the fight.”
- Daniel Ramsey
“I was a helicopter delegator, I’d tell somebody to do it. Then they’d do it and screw it up and then I’d have to go back over it to fix it.”
- Daniel Ramsey
“I picked up that property, built a duplex, and I learned a lot, which is code (if you’re an entrepreneur) for I lost money.”
- Daniel Ramsey
“In the process of building your home, there is a step-by-step process. In the process of building leverage in your business, there is a step-by-step process.”
- Daniel Ramsey
“If you take two or three hours and focus on growing the business, that’s when you start to see magic. That’s when scaling starts to happen.”
- Daniel Ramsey
“There is a point at which you say, ‘Oh my God, I just bought half of my day back.’”
- Daniel Ramsey
Links:
For a consultation text SVP to 31996
Scaling Your Business with MOD Virtual Professionals
Level Jumping: How I Grew My Business to Over $1 Million in Profits in 12 Months
