Anne and Mark Lackey of HireSmart Virtual Assistants – Small Business Show Episode 277

Hey, folks. Welcome to another edition of the Small Business Show. How are you, Dave?

I'm doing well. Shannon. How are you?

I'm doing great. I am plugging away in the age of COVID We're all doing the best we can. I'm thrilled to see businesses starting to open back up in different states and different counties. That's awesome. And I'm really excited to meet our guests that we have today that have some really unique outlook on ways to maximize your employees and staffing. And they quite possibly shared the best advice we've ever had on the show about working with your spouse.

Oh.

Would you agree?

I, I, I, I only disagree in that I am certain they shared the best advice we've ever heard about working with your spouse.

Yeah. Yeah.

It's not. Quite possibly. It is. I am certain of it. It's great advice. Yeah. Yeah. And really applies to all partnerships, but especially with your spouse. So I'm curious, I want to take a minute before, before we get into the interview, we talk about. Cause business is reopening right here in New Hampshire. A week ago, we had hairdressers and some retail shops opening.

Okay.

Yeah. And all with very tight restrictions. Like, with hairdressers, there's no more than one customer per, you know, per employee in the shop at any time. There's no waiting room. You wait in your car to get a text. You know, and everybody wears a mask the whole time through. So you gotta figure out how to get a mask that's not gonna get in your way while you're getting your haircut. But, but, you know, like, it's nice to see that we're, we're pushing and testing the limits. This week. Restaurants are able to open here as of Monday with outdoor seating reserved only. Right. You know, and, and the tables. No more than six people at a table. All six of those people, you have to sign a thing that you're not signed, but you have to agree that they're, you know, you've all been in the same social bubble. Right. And then. And waitstaff stays at a distance when possible. And other tables. Right. You know, and, and this weekend, we, as a family, we have an outing. I'm so excited.

Yeah. That's great.

Yeah. We're going to an escape room because.

Wow.

They, they've got like, four different rooms in their facility, but they say the, the facility is only open to one family at a time. So they're like, you don't even have to tell us before you get here what room you.

Yeah.

You know, and they leave enough time between sessions or whatever. But we're really excited to have like a thing to do. It's nice to be able to spend some money with, you know, with some local businesses. But, but it's also nice to just have a thing to do.

Yeah, yeah.

And I think there, and I've said this a couple times before on recent shows, there is more opportunity coming up in the last quarter this year and into 2021, I think than we've had in a long time. There's a pent up demand for services and those folks that can figure out how to bring those services to people are really going to benefit, I can tell you, with one of our vacation rentals up on the Trinity river in California. They just opened up last week and within I'd say 48 to 72 hours, we had booked 20 days, 20 nights worth of stays. Because people just want to get away.

They want to get away and absolutely get away.

Yeah, no, it's good.

I, you know, one of the other podcasts I do is for working musicians. It's called Gig Gab, if anybody wants to listen. And we were talking about, you know, because right now, not really opportunities to play out, you know, sure, but with restaurants opening, are there opportunities for that? You know, out on some deck or whatever, you might be able to sort that out. But, but when things can really reopen, man, I feel like there's a huge opportunity because people that might have chosen to stay in on a Saturday night, you for the past five years or whatever, that's not going to be the case, man. When you're allowed to leave, when you're told you can't go out and now you're told you can, you're going to go out. You know, nobody's going to say, hey, you want to stay home? It's like, no, I, I did that for a few months.

Like, I'm good, I'm excited about it.

Yeah, it's good, it's good. I'm also excited about our sponsor today, which is linode@linode.com SBS. They are still in business, of course, because they provide you your servers in the cloud. So socially distancing is perfectly normal for this business because this is how it works. And now is the perfect time to set up a server for your business. Figure out what you're going to do with that next project. Well, you're going to put it on server somewhere and your server is going to be from Linode because they know how to do this. They make things so that they're super efficient and even at the lowest price tier, their Nano'd which is just five bucks a month, you can get all the access to their 40 gigabit network, industry leading processors, all native SSD storage and you pick from one of their worldwide data centers. It's awesome what they put together there. And we got 20 bucks for you. It's true. If you go to linode.comsbs that gets you a $20 credit on your account and you can start with that $5 a month nanode server and go for a little while here while you're experimenting and building things and getting things ready. And then when you want to sc well you just scale up. It's that simple. So go check it out. Linode.comsbs and our thanks to Linode for sponsoring this episode. All right man, you got anything else before we jump into this interview?

Here I am. Ready to go man. Let's do it.

All right. He's Shannon Jean, I'm Dave Hamilton and this is episode 277 of the Small Business Show.

We divide up our business departments and we look at who has the best background knowledge and experience in a particular department and we let that person run and be that department manager no matter what they have final say. So now granted, you know, if I'm in charge of finance and Ann's got a comment about something, I want to hear what it is, but I have the final say. So if it's marketing and Ann's got asked me for feedback, she doesn't think what I'm saying is going to be the right thing. She goes forward with what she wants and we support each other 100% even though our concept or our idea wasn't applied and the other partner is because we know nobody's going to have our back better than each other.

Dave, I was talking to one of my really good friends, longtime small business owner, just this week and he told me one of the best pieces of advice that he ever had received was, and I'll paraphrase, it was something like hire an assistant and you'll double your income. And I was like, that's pretty powerful. And I realized it encapsulates so much about creating a system to allow you to get outside of your business, focus on long term success and everything. And timing for the quote was perfect. Since our guests this week, their current business, they focus on virtual assistants that can help take your business to another level. Ann and Mark Lackey, they're founders of Hire Smart Virtual assistants and we're really happy to have them on the show today. Anne Marc, thanks so much for joining us.

We appreciate it very much.

Yes, thank you for having us here.

Yeah, that's great. I'm a huge fan of virtual assistants. I've used them in one way or another during my career at just about everything. So I'm really interested to get your take on it. So why don't we start, Give us some background on Hire Smart. Tell us what services you offer and is there a specific kind of business category that you operate in or is it broad?

So that's very great question. So Hire Smart only provides full time dedicated, sort of like virtual employees. So that's kind of our biggest differentiator. So there's a lot of VA companies out there that do project work. We specialize in four main areas. Customer service, sales support, administration, and accounting. Those are our four buckets.

Yeah. And our business came about in an interesting way. We were in a business that had a frontline marketing person. She answered the phone, worked for us for many years, had some personal issues we didn't realize were so bad. We went for our first vacation after seven years and got a text from her and says, I've left the office for lunch, I'm not coming back and I've left my key sitting on the desk. And that was a big, yeah, that was a big wake up call for us as to our staffing needs of having somebody that is going to be there. And it gave us an opportunity to look at different ways to staff. We ended up going with a virtual assistant brought on board a VA to answer our frontline phones. And that's still happening just like it was today. It is today. Like it was five and a half years ago now.

And it's really changed our lives. And that's why we started Hire Smart. We actually had a, had a friend of ours that was a CEO of a business and she couldn't find somebody to work highly paid, benefits and all that. And she, we're having lunch and she says, well, you guys are happy again. What's kind of happened in your world? And I said, well, I've got a Teresa.

Teresa was our first va. She was.

Our first va. And so she goes, well, can I have a, can I have a Teresa? And I'm like, yes, you can. And I can help you with that. So that's kind of how Hire Smart was born.

Yeah, that's great. I love it.

Yeah.

And you know, the thing about it I always hear, or I was talking to business owners is everyone's kind of a Problem solver. And it seems like, you know, you solve your own problem and then you start thinking, okay, well gee, if I have this problem, certainly everybody else does. You know, that's, that's terrific. Let me ask you this. Do you think you would have. You, you folks have had some great business experience over the years, different companies, as you developed your talent stack over the years, would this, would you been able to start Hire Smart earlier? Would you have recognized the opportunity? Or do you think it was because of all the experience that you've accumulated over time that that let you kind of jump into that?

I think for us, technology has played a big part in this. I don't know that we could have started it so much sooner, mainly because the technology wasn't there. I remember Mark and I reading a book called the World is Flat. You guys may remember that from. I think it was 2007. And we were fascinated by that book. Like, wow, okay, so it is possible. But our brains really couldn't wrap around that until we got to be 2014. We started thinking about, okay, maybe this.

Is a bible now. Now we had done project jobs, you know, we had gone to what then was called Elance, I believe.

Oh yeah, sure.

Yeah, we used Elance quite a bit. Yep.

Yeah, I need a logo. So here's, you know, 112 bucks. And then we needed a, A story, bunch of characters telling a story, cartoon, you know, and so, you know, paid a couple of. So we did all these project things and that I think Elance became upwork or something like that. But we kept going there for different things. And then we found Fiverr and you know, we pay five bucks and get something done. Now it's 50 or. Because, you know.

Yeah, many stacks of fives now.

Right, exactly. Right. So. So we had a grasp on outsourcing and we knew of call centers and were investigating that, but weren't really comfortable with bringing on somebody that had a script that's going to open the book up when the certain line rings and not really be familiar with our company. So that's when we really dug in and said, I need somebody that's full time, dedicated to me, that knows me, that comes to my office at 8 o', clock, goes home at 5 o' clock every day, works for us, works for nobody else, doesn't need a script in front of them because they eventually get acclimated just like any employee.

Right.

And I needed that accountability and, and that finally came about once the. We knew the technology was there. And then when we had that need when somebody quit, that makes sense.

So when I think, and I think I already know the answer to this, but I'm gonna ask anyway. The first thing that pops into my head when I think about virtual assistants is cost savings. I mean, is that the most important thing or is it. I mean, it sounds to me like there's a much broader umbrella here of opportunity.

There absolutely is a broader opportunity. You know, you can find people that'll work for a dime. Right. So, you know, we're about quality of people. So just to kind of give you an example, we've run in the last two years 18,000 tests on prospects and all of that.

Okay.

Clearly, we don't have that many people working for us.

About 1% make it through, and it's.

About 1% that actually makes it through. And there's a lot of different things that we do because, again, we're like a traditional recruiter. So that's the other part. So, like, we, for our clients, will go out and source people. I don't have a room full of people behind me that I say, pick this one or this one. We actually go source, vet, certify, and, you know, help our clients with their full staffing. And yes, saving is a piece of that, but it's not the only piece because there are certainly people you can get, you know, to do bits and pieces of what we do for a lot less money.

But. But in. In business school, they didn't teach me how to hire. They didn't teach me how to interview. They, you know, I. I went out and interviewed for my jobs, but I really didn't sit on the other side of the table. So unfortunately, many business people are not good hiring managers. You know, they find somebody they like, oh, I'm going to hire Julie or Sam. I like them. And then, you know, Tuesday, then they go, oh, my gosh, why did I do that? So we really help them in their staffing level. Money savings is definitely it, but it's to increase the customer satisfaction that is delivered from that company to their clients that has made a big difference. And then creating an environment for their staff, their local staff, to really excel, because then they can do what we call highest and best use when they've got somebody else that's doing the answering the phones and the emails, the inputting data, the drudgery stuff.

Yeah, no, that's great. And I love hearing about the, you know, that hiring expertise, because I wasn't. I wasn't even thinking about that. And it makes so much sense that as you have like you said, 18,000 tests and interviewing so many people, you know, get that expertise, you add that to your talent stack and you can bring that to your customers. That's awesome.

It's a huge time saving in addition. So it makes again a big difference in the quality of people that our clients get and also the longevity, you know, we're all about, at least in our business. Like churn is not a good thing when you have a revolving door of staff. It's never good. It pulls you away from the original intent of the business. So part of how we've structured Hire Smart is for, you know, this long term career path, quote unquote for these virtual professionals. And what that does for our clients is it does reduce the churn also because they are saving money, they now have a little extra money to bonus their in house people for things that are profitable or things that you know, again are quote unquote wins for the business. So they, they actually benefit in a wide variety of ways. One of the interesting things that one of our clients mentioned to us as a side benefit that he wasn't even considering was that three years ago when he started with us, his average in house staff was leaving at 7, 8 o' clock at night. Because there's just, you know, so they.

Have a large staff.

They do, they, I mean it's a huge company. And so when I saw him a year later, he said, and I just, I just want to tell you what a difference you've made in my company. He says, now when I walk through my office at 5:45, everybody's gone, all.

The work's been done, their quality of life is better.

They've been able to gift them a work life balance. So you know, if I have, if I'm an employee looking at companies to work for, would I rather work for one that gives me the support so that I know I can easily comfortably go home at 5:45 because everybody else is going home? Or would I rather work for the company that literally everybody's having to stay till 7 and 8 o' clock at night to get the work done?

Yeah, that's really interesting and a really great part of the story that you can tell is improves the quality of your company culture in ways that I wouldn't even think about that.

Unintended consequences.

Yeah, unintended consequences, exactly.

Yeah.

That's really cool. I love it.

Well, and you've approached this and I know I'm not telling you anything you don't know, but you've approached this in a way that really is a hybrid of what most people think of when you say virtual assistant, which is someone that you never really truly integrate with. Although over time that might happen. But that's the intention here is you really are treating this like a hiring process in a much more meaningful way and it can lead to more meaningful results. Yeah, it makes sense.

It absolutely does. And interestingly enough, the impact that we've had on our clients business is extraordinary just because we're able to help them strategically staff. So obviously this conversation's happening post Covid. Right. So now everybody's a virtual assistant.

Everybody works at home now. Right.

Whether they want to be or not. Right. So that's actually kind of been an interesting shift in our business. Right. So a lot of our clients are going, okay, I know for a fact that some of my people are not going to come back either because the jobs change, their personal situations change, whatever. And so they're coming to me saying, how can we shift duties around? How can we get underpin and support their core, you know, their core people so that they can get the work done. So we are also, as part of our services, do strategic staffing, you know, for growth and for reorganization. All of those things are things that we help our clients with so that they know what to expect in their hiring process.

And prior to Covid, our whole thought process was we can really help these companies grow. We can save them a lot of money and increase their customer experience, make it all better. And you know, people would come up and say, well, yeah, what about this? Some of the pushbacks we had were, well, you're taking American jobs. And, and what we ended up finding out is we were increasing the satisfaction of the jobs that the Americans had because we outsource out into the Philippines. And our clients were concerned about multiple reasons, but we're able to do an FBI equivalent background check on the individuals that are going to go to work for them, you know, with non disclosures and so forth, probably higher level than they actually are checking on the employees that they have coming in that could, you know, just steal their customer base and walk right down the street and set up a new shop, which isn't going to happen in the Philippines. But another big thing that. And we sourced from the Philippines because about 100% we've yet to find one of the Fortune 500 firms that does not have a call center set up over there. And we're talking to people and say, but if you call Chase bank, bank of America, Home Depot, Allstate, Dish, that and any of these, you're getting somebody in the Philippines and it's transparent. You don't even know it. And then they're like, oh, now that I recognize it. Yeah. Because they were concerned about, well, what about the English? We've overcome a lot of the issues, and right now the issues are people are having to work from home. Their productivity has changed. They need different support. We have tools that we've had in place for years for essentially a work from home. It's work in the Philippines, around halfway around the world and have been so successful. These tools, the owners that we have as customers are now using those and applying those to their own staff.

Well, and I will say something else. So I've done a lot of conversations with our clients, clearly checking on them, making sure they're all okay.

Right.

That's the most important thing. But I asked them this question and said, do you think you were better prepared for what has happened? And across the board, they say, absolutely, 100%. This type of what you've done for me has really helped us continue to provide levels of service without missing a beat. A lot of our clients didn't even. Didn't even skip a beat. And you know, where a lot of our competitors have laid off whole departments, we've really only lost one or two. And I think that that speaks to kind of our systems and processes that we teach and that we help our clients implement as well as really just giving them again, as Mark said, some of the tools of technology and accountability.

We don't just deliver a VA and walk away. Yeah, and becomes your HR department. We have monthly, what we call. We have these zoom sessions. Now everybody's zooming to death, but we have office hours where we do training, whether it's customer service for call management or sales coordination of how the process for sales should work. You know, some business owner may have never been a salesperson, really needs to know that. So we have this training and this ongoing support and a whole team that does that. So we come alongside as a team member for all of our clients.

Yeah, that's terrific. I love the whole concept and your grasp of the value of it in a different way, especially the way I was anticipating. So that's great. I always say on the show, I always learn the most. So perfect. It's great. So one of the things that I think Dave and I would both agree on, we're big fans of, of working with your spouse. I've worked with mine for many, many years. So has Dave. We're just getting ready to publish A book on partnerships, and there's a huge section on spouse partnerships in there. So doing a little research, it looks like you guys have worked together for a long time at different companies, different ventures that you've started. I'm going to put you on the spot here. Can you talk about that relationship and maybe provide some insight into working with your spouse to listeners that either, you know, maybe just getting started or maybe they're struggling a little bit. How have you made it work so successfully?

That's a great question. So we kind of have to back up a little bit in our marriage contract, I think. So part of our marriage contract that we had with each other is that.

We wanted 20 some years ago.

Yeah, we wanted to be together. Like, that was important to us. I wanted to marry a partner that really wanted to be a partner with me. And I remember handing Mark a list of my demands when we were dating. And I said, this is what I'm looking for in my spouse. If this isn't you, we can be great friends. But if, if you are interested, this is what I'm looking for. And that's actually a true story. So people laugh at me for that. But I think you have to be really clear on, on what you want in a. In a partner relationship first. So. So we knew we wanted to always be together. Now, granted, I didn't really understand that that would mean 24, seven days a week with. With seven businesses. Like, I never kind of dreamed that kind of togetherness.

Careful.

I say that all the time, too. So interestingly enough, we've been in business. We started businesses 19 years ago, and we really haven't looked back. There's a lot of tips and tricks. So I'll turn it over to Mark.

Yeah. And a couple things that we've coached a lot of couples and they want to know, well, how do you make it work? A couple things that we look at, and one is we divide up our business departments and we look at who has the best background knowledge and experience in a particular department and we let that person run and be that department manager, no matter what, they have final say. So now granted, you know, if I'm in charge of finance and Ann's got a comment about something, I want to hear what it is, but I have the final say. So if it's marketing and Ann's got ask me for feedback, she doesn't think what I'm saying is going to be the right thing. She goes forward with what she wants and we support each other 100%, even though our concept or our idea wasn't applied and the other partner is. Because we know nobody's going to have our back better than each other.

That is brilliant. That's the best spouse working together advice that I've ever, ever heard. And we've heard a lot of it on this show. That makes perfect sense. We always talk about taking your org chart, and even if it's just you. In fact, especially if it's just you, you build the org chart. You do. You put yourself in all the boxes, because that's how it happens. And then as you hire people, you already have a clue as to how to divvy things up and how to. How to hand things out. But with a spouse, what a great idea. I like it.

That's great.

So how that plays out is, like Mark said, so I'm in charge of the marketing department.

She's the better batter. You know, it's like, yeah, absolutely.

But I will tell you, Mark is much more creative than I will ever be. So the rub with that, like, it's ultimately my decision. But he provides so much value as a resource. So I'll give you an example of that. You like stories. So let me tell you this quick story. So do you guys Remember the 1978 commercial? You could have had a VA.

Absolutely.

So Mark had the idea of, I could have had a va. And so we did a little play on that commercial. We, you know, I did the. I did the lyrics, but he had the concept. Right.

And so I got up in front of a crowd and I took a bottle of V8 and made it VA. Yeah.

Graphics.

And I sang, and I don't sing good, but, you know, it was good for laughs. And I said, wow, you could have had a va. And it was a big hit to that room. Something they'll remember.

Yeah.

And wasn't 100% on board with it.

No, but. But I knew he was clever, and so I said, you know what? We're gonna. We're gonna try it, whatever. So. So I think partnerships really is about being open to the other people's idea, as well as realizing that had I really hated that idea or I thought it would not work in that scenario, he would have respected my decision to say, we're not going to. We're not going to go there.

And if. And if whatever we are doing doesn't work and fails, and, gosh, no, things do fail, we don't stand around and blame each other. We say, what did we learn from that? And we move on. And that's the biggest Problem we found with a lot of the people that we were coaching is the. They carry chips on their shoulders. You know, they can divide the business up and know that, oh, you're better at this than I am, but if something fails, they want to go around pointing fingers, and you can't do that in any business. You have to learn from it and move on.

Yeah, that makes total sense. That's great. That's some great advice. And so one other area that we like to ask all our guests is, you know, we're big fans of mistakes on this show. We kind of think they're tuition. And I can just tell from the depth of your knowledge and answers here that you might have had a couple of mistakes in your. Your career. And what I'd love to know, you know, looking back, is there a best mistake, something that really taught you something, a valuable lesson as you built your businesses?

Yes, there is. And it's right around our business now. The. The model that we started with with our VA business is not what we ended up with.

Oh, okay.

Yeah. In the beginning, we thought, all these business owners will certainly want a virtual assistant. They'll want to have somebody on that can save money, increase customer satisfaction. All they need are the tools on how to train that person, where to find them, how to bring them on board, and how to go through the process of everything to have that VA show up for work and then be able to get acclimated, train and start working. And we fell flat on our face.

So our mentor used to call it polishing a turd. He's like, you keep putting money into this and you keep making it better, but nobody wants it. So you are just doomed to continue this cycle if you don't change it. And so what we found that people want was the done for you. And so that's where we transitioned, and we transitioned to that, like I said, in full force about four years ago.

Yeah. Yeah.

That's fascinating. We've heard that before where, you know, business owners thinking, like, this is what I would want, and trying to roll it out and realizing that. No, no. I think there was a phrase, Dave, you. Something about give your customer just enough to be lazy or something along those lines.

Well, that's it. Yeah. You want them to be able to be lazy and comfortable.

Yeah. So that's great. That's awesome. So the other thing I noticed when I was looking at your info, your companies and stuff is that you both have authored a number of books about your real estate business, about virtual assistants, and have the books helped to promote your, your businesses and your personal brand. And would you recommend other small business owners put out content like that as well?

So yes, our business books are kind of our business card and when we go to shows we give out physical copies of our book. We've actually written three best selling books, but we've written a total of eight books. Some of them are not on Amazon, some of them are literally the only.

Way, we've never published them.

Right. The only way you can ever get them is through meeting us or through us gifting them to you. And so they tend to be specialized. We're actually getting ready, I think to launch one of our, one of our more general books which we would be happy to give to your listeners if you would like us to do that. And it's called the Ultimate Guide to Hiring a Virtual Assistant. So it's kind of a question and answer kind of book. So it's very straightforward. But I think writing a book if you know how to promote it is a great thing. You know, we were very fortunate that again we invested in mentors. We, we do masterminds, we do, we invest a lot in our education personally.

Right.

And I think that that has really because so one of the things that we said and actually Marco laugh at me for this back then was I actually just kind of got a burr up my fanny. And literally in 2013 I said in 2014 we're going to write four, four books. And he went what? He went what? Like why? Where did that come from? And I said it's been a personal goal of mine that I want to become a best selling author and I have the mentor to help us do that.

And they're all business books.

Yeah, they're all sure. And he goes well, why four? And I was like one a quarter. I just want, that's just a personal thing.

So we then sought out an expert to get help. We didn't know where to start, what to do. I mean everybody thinks oh I'm going to write a book. Well, how do you do it? And so, you know, we reach out to the experts in the field. They taught us what to do, how to do, how to launch it and how to become best selling authors. And we've done it three times. And, and when you're in being introduced in a room of a thousand people and you know, here's marketing and lackey, they're three time best selling authors, people perk up and listen and if you can and take the time to learn how you should as a business owner Write a book about what you know about and put it out there and then either deliver it electronically, we print them hard copy and hand them out. We carry them with us to shows and speaking events and. And just hand them out for free. And people love them. They fly home and read them and land and they call us up and say, hey, I want to buy your services.

Yeah, that's great. That's. That's some great advice. And you both have. You've got, just like I said before, a great depth of experience with your businesses, your. Your publishing. And, you know, there's a. There's a portion of our audience. We talk to thousands of business owners each week, but there's also a lot of aspirational folks that are, like, trying to make the leap and get started, you know, And I always like to ask, is there one piece of advice that you could share with those people to help, you know, as they're getting going, Something you wish someone had told you when you were just getting started, you know, 20 years ago with your. Your businesses?

I think the best thing for me and Mark may have something different is know your Prime Directive. So we're big Star Trek fans, right? So that'll resonate with some of your.

People, maybe some of you.

What.

What's the Prime Directive? So the Prime Directive is like, what. What. What are you all about? Like, what are. What is it that you want to do? What's your contribution to the world? And so Mark and I have. We have a Prime Directive, and every business serves that Prime Directive. And. Or we don't do it, or we don't do it. And that allows us, you know, people like seven businesses. Are you crazy? Every one of those businesses contributes to that Prime Directive. Or we'll close it down. And there's several that we've closed because they didn't. They no longer served us.

And we had some other great ideas, but they didn't work around what we were trying to accomplish. But there's a couple of other things that resonate, and I'm a perfectionist, really. And what. What was really hard for me, and especially putting out that first book, was making it perfect. And what we've learned is done is better than perfect, because I could spend my whole life continuing to improve that first book that we wrote, and it would not be published yet, of course.

Absolutely.

I can continue and continue. So if you've got an idea, recognize done is better than perfect. And that's the concept we have with the VAs. When people are like, well, what if they don't do exactly like I. But your employees don't do exactly like, you know, it's, it's being able to be comfortable that the bigger pieces, the bigger workload or whatever it is is getting done and leaves a lot less for you to have to worry about.

That's awesome.

Yeah, makes sense.

Yeah, totally. For sure. That's so great. And Mark, you know, I've learned a ton. It's, you know, I love hearing about your business and I also really value listening to your experience and all the things you've done. It sounds like you've had a great time doing it, which is, you know, all that much more important. Thank you again for coming on the show. What's the best way for our listeners to connect with you and to learn more about Hire Smart?

Sure. Well, there's two ways. One is, of course, go to our website@hiresmartvas.com and if you want to talk to me, you can do appointment and you can book a 30 minute time to speak with me about your particular staffing needs and I'd be happy to help kind of guide you about what would be the best option for you. And the other one is if you want to go to Slash podcast, we'll be happy to give you one of our books and you can learn more about, you know, virtual assistants. What do you need to know? And we would be happy to gift those to anybody who is interested.

That's awesome.

Thank you so much for doing that. That's great.

That is great. Yeah, very good. Well, thank you again. We wish you the best and we'd love to keep in touch with you and see how things are going to be, you know, over the next few years.

Absolutely. Shannon, Dave, thank you so much for having us.

It's been our pleasure.

It's been our pleasure.

You know, man, there's always something to learn, but they had some killer lessons like that thing about, about divvying up the org chart. To sort of put it into our terminology. Divvying up the org chart and then assigning each of of the partners, the spouse spouses. But this would work with your partners too. In a partnership business. I mean, it's sort of what we advise people to do when you're bringing in a business partner is, is divvy up the work and find someone that wants to do the things you don't want to do. And I feel like that's even more important with a spouse. That's really. It was a great lesson. Great lesson.

Yeah, I think it's great and, and like I, I said a couple times on the show, I could just feel the experience kind of oozing out of the microphone. They're just dropping all these little tidbits of great advice for, for business owners of all kinds, whether you need a VA or not, but just little things about how they've made their companies successful over the years.

They said at one point we decided to be best selling authors.

I like that.

That blew my mind. It was like, of course you did. Because you're not going to get there if, I mean you might get there if you don't decide decided, but it's, it's way easier to get there if, if that's actually a path that you're on. Like you said, you know, you, you want to, you write the story that you want to tell. Well, they, they wrote the story that they wanted to tell that they were best selling authors. And so that's what they did. Then they figured out how to get to the end.

It's powerful. I mean, everything's accessible to you. You got to just figure out what the price is to pay to get it right.

Is it right time, Time, money, whatever.

Yeah, no, it's really good. Hey, you know, I want to mention too also you want to mention Those reviews at BusinessShow Co review, please go up, click that link, take 30 seconds and leave us a 5 star review. It really, really helps. And last thing for me this week is if you have a kid, a student athlete at home, and they're thinking about college sports and you're trying to understand how the whole college sports system works, you do not want to miss next week's show. We have a guest coming on that will just rock your world. So I'll leave it at that. Make sure you come back next Wednesday. Next Wednesday.

Sounds good. Yeah, I'm looking forward to it, man. Thanks for pulling this interviews together. Thanks for listening folks and well, keep living that charmed life. We'll see you next week.