9 Takeaways from Reef Colman on Living a Purpose-Driven Life: Overcome, Innovate, Succeed

Welcome to beyond you'd why Podcast, where we go beyond just talking about your why and actually help you discover and then live your why. You see, we believe that knowing your why, that driving force behind every decision you make and every action you take, is the essential first step to really knowing yourself. It allows you to move forward faster and have a bigger impact. If you're already a fan of the show, then you know that every week we talk about one of the nine whys and then we introduce you to somebody with that why so you can see how their why has played out in their life. This show will be more powerful for you if you've already discovered your why. If you still need to do that, head over to whyinstitute.com and discover your why today. It'll only take you about five minutes. Now let's meet today's guest.

This week we're going to be talking about the why of challenge. To challenge the status quo and think differently. So if this is your why, then you don't believe in following the rules or drawing inside the lines. You want things to be fun and exciting and different. You rebel against the classic way of doing things. You typically have eccentric friends and eclectic tastes because after all, why would you want to be normal? You love to be different, think different, and you aren't afraid to challenge virtually anyone or anything that is too conventional or typical for your tastes. Pushing the envelope comes naturally to you. So today I have a great guest for you. His name is Rief Coleman. He is the visionary CEO and founder of WeAssist IO. From humble beginnings to becoming a trailblazer in the outsourcing industry, Reef embodies innovation and and global impact. WeAssist IO, his groundbreaking initiative revolutionizes how businesses operate by providing top notch virtual assistant services, enabling entrepreneurs to focus on their highest value tasks. What reef calls the $1,000 an hour genius zone. His platform offers a wide array of services from lead generation across various social media platforms to complete inbox and calendar management, freeing up valuable time for the business leaders. Reef's dedication extends beyond business efficiencies. His mission is deeply rooted in empowering global communities and reshaping the future of work. Join us as Reef shares insight on maximizing productivity and the power of effective outsourcing to transform your business landscape. Reef, welcome to the podcast.

Gary, thank you for having me. This is a huge pleasure. You know when I met you at that conference we just clicked and to have such great conversations and great talks with you, to be able to be doing this with you is a Huge honor. So thank you. Thank you, thank you.

Well, for sure. And that. Well, the timing of us meeting was perfect because I was actually looking for an assistant for an EA right as we met. And so, you know, sometimes you meet somebody saying, well, it's too good to be true. How could this be? The timing be just like this.

And.

And it worked out perfect. So for those of you listening, I did use and am using Reef's company to. For my executive assistance. And so I thought it would be great to share because Reef does it differently. Right. As you saw with his. Why he's always about challenging the status quo.

But.

But Reef, let's let everybody get to know you. Let's go back. Before we talk about Weassist IO, let's go back in your life. Where were you born? What were you like growing up?

Yeah, I was born in Uruguay, South America. And in this season, my mom and I have had quite a few conversations. I've had talks with my uncles, my little cousins, you know, about who I am and my past. I was a very hyper child growing up. I did a lot, you know, I. It was hard to tie me down to do something.

And that. That was just kind of the nature of who I was. I had a comedy, a lot of comedy as a youth. I loved seeing people smile and joking around.

And so I used comedy in a lot of ways. I utilized it as like a coping mechanism, but also a way of survival, you know, and. And breaking barriers. I was, you know, I. I'd say I had quite a season of lostness where, you know, I got into bad crowds and around bad people.

But I found my way out of that circle. And after that, just devoted my life to being a better human, you know, and that's the journey that I'm on now. So every couple of years, I kind of have a new evolution of self that happens. I think the one if I had to say something about my childhood, that. And growing up that my family said was just had a barbecue with them this last weekend and they said that, Reef, you've changed and evolved so many times. You seem like you've had like 15 lives that you've lived, you know, and even just how I showed up at that barbecue, they were just shocked, you know, I was very poised, calm, a lot of composure. I didn't cuss the entire time. They were just used to this wild, savage animal. And to see me show up and present that way was something to them that was, you know, fair, fascinating. They loved it. They loved it. It was very good yeah.

So where did you go to high school in South America?

No, I came when I. I got smuggled into the US at age three. I found out recently. So I was smuggled the US through the border of the south in San Diego, which caused a lot of chaos in my life now, and not knowing it, but that, you know, an event like that can create a lot for a person.

I went to high school in Arcadia. My mom did an incredible job at getting us out of different areas. We were in South Central Los Angeles to Alhambra to South Pasadena, Temple City, finally, Rosemead, Arcadia. And Arcadia was one of the nicest school districts in the entire United States. They'd won the blue ribbon for, like, four years in a row. So I was very fortunate to be there. However, kids were very smart. A lot of Asian kids. It was like 90% Asian. So very, very smart children. I just kind of fell behind, and I used comedy to. To get through school. I was a. I think 1.8 GPA or. Or something like that. As I graduated, you know, it was. And even I got by with the skin of my teeth, you know, the t. I was in a program called the Health Academy. They were trying this pilot for doctors, and I decided to join it. And when I joined it as a. So the pilot, you know, they needed people to graduate so badly, and I knew that they needed, you know, the scores to be good. So I was like, look, I. You know, pass me. So at the end of the. The year, I essentially did a bunch of homeworks, copied everyone's folders, turned it in, and I passed. You know, I. It's either 1.8 or 2.6. Was my GPA one of those two? I don't remember. But either way, not. Not 4.0. Yeah. Yeah.

You were not the valedictorian, huh?

No, no, I was valid something, but not Victorian, for sure. Yeah.

So if we were to see you walking by when you were in high school, what would we have seen?

You would have seen hair like this. Very long hair. You know, I had belt buckles that were novelty because I thought they were so fun. For a while, I wore a tie around my head. I should send you one of those photos. I used to have a tie like the old rock and roll people from the 70s. So I had a tie that hung off the side of my head for a bit. Real rocker era. Loved adventurous. Soccer, surfing. You know, I was constantly trying to get to the beach.

And we were like 45 minutes inland. You'd probably see me in big jeans and A in flip flops. I never stopped wearing sandals or flip flops. And you know, I had a series of shirts like spongebob shirt that was yellow and hilarious and other just like novelty teas that I just thought I got such a kick out of. You know, I was just, I was. My own, my own vibe, my own human, you know, walking around.

That's awesome. Just like the, yeah, just like the definition of challenge. I mean, you're not going to follow the rules. You're not doing it the same as anybody else. You're not going to be told what to do. You can do your own thing. You're going to show up your own way in your own outfits. It's not typical or traditional.

Pretty accurate. Yeah, pretty accurate. I was, I was good friends with everyone in high school. I had very few people that didn't like me. You know, I think I got it.

Yeah.

One was with a guy that had hurt a girl. So I, you know, I got him in the locker room after he had pushed her outside. And another one was when they were making fun of a special needs kid that, you know, they were playing around with them and the kid didn't know. He was just kind of happy. Go lucky. But I saw what they were doing and I stepped in and got in a fistfight. So those are my two biggest fights in high school that happened. But along. Aside from that, everybody I knew, I was kind of a social butterfly. Got along with the jocks, the goths, the Pokemon kids, the magic trading card kids, the mathletes, the chess club, you know, the punk rockers. Like everyone that had the cool kids, the clicky kids, the party kids, the potheads. Like anybody that was in the school, they were just like, oh, reef. You know, just high five people and walk through. It's kind of like a. A free card to walk, walk by and be with people. Very chameleon. I don't. Very adaptable.

And I don't think your life's too different now, right?

I, I think now, you know, I have a lot of acquaintances and I went through a season where I pendulum swung from being a people pleaser to just being a man of character. Someone that's sturdy in who they are and doesn't shift according to the people around them. And I'm proud of myself for that. That was a huge journey for me. I went from, you know, the, I think 30. At 30, I kind of made that shift 29. I said I'm no longer going to be a person that just people pleases everybody because then I'm a friend to no one. I have no true connections to anybody. You know, I'm. I. People may feel like they have a true connection with me, but they have a true connection according to who I am around them. And doing that just didn't feel authentic to me. It felt like I was, you know, I'd have to remember who my Persona was around certain people, you know, So I. I became a person of character and just, I am who I am. Love me or take me as I am. Recently in the season, I've learned to throttle that and I've gone back to learning how to be amicable around people and, you know, conversations. So I'm still a person of character, but instead of having to disagree with people in a live room or have that kind of dialogue, I just smile and nod and say, oh, that's great. I think that's a great perspective. Oh, that's interesting. You know, instead of getting into a heated debate of some sort where, you know, no one's going to win. Yeah, just have a good time. Yeah.

So let's go back then to. All right, you graduate from high school with your 1.8 or 2.6, and what happens to you after high school?

Yeah, so in high school, I was working at a tile company and they extended their hours and made me a manager. So they used to close at 6. They push it to 9. And the reason why they did that is I was getting so many sales. I was just really good at relationships and really enjoyed mathematics. So. So I would get graph paper and when someone came in as a customer, I would create their layout for them of what their bathroom should look like so you can hand it to their contractors. I guess word got around that I was doing that and one person told another and another and another, and I soon had my own clientele of people that were coming in just like a dry out draw out there, you know, bathrooms. And I always liked design. It was something fun for me. Interior design as well. Someone met me at the tile shop and offered me a job at a car dealership. So I went there. I was top salesman three months in a row. I have. I had an award for youngest salesman to win top seller for three months in a row. At 18.

I. I was very novice and green. So I just did what people told me. And I wanted to, again, people pleasing. I wanted to please the uppers, so I just did whatever they told me to do. Ended up getting to a place where an old lady came in and she said that I reminded her of her Grandson. And I had all this trust with her, and the staff in the back said, we're going to gouge her, but with other words, obviously, you know, And I thought, I don't know how I feel about that, you know. You know, we can. She's on a fixed income. We can do less. Why not help her? Like, you know, and like, are you a salesman or are you, you know, wussy, but minus the W at a P? And I thought, yeah, that's. I don't know. That doesn't sound right to me. So I went out and told her what they were doing, and they fired me on the spot. And I, you know, told her, you should walk out with me right now because they are going to try to take advantage of you, you know, and ended up walking out with her. And it just so happened to be that previous week, someone in a El Pollo Loco, when I went to go get dinner, had a Porsche. And I tried to sell him a 350Z, a Nissan, you know, it's like a thousand pounds heavier and less power. And the guy was like, I have a Porsche. And I was like, yeah, but have you driven a 350Z? Oh, nice. You know, And I kept trying with him so much, and I was like, come on, I'll get you on a drive. He went on a drive with me, and he said the only reason he went on a drive with me is because he wanted to see what I was about and how I overcame objections. He offered me a job doing mortgage. So I ended up doing mortgage lending until 2008 when the bubble popped. That was like out of a movie. I. One day I walked into the office on a weekend, Friday, Monday, came in and our paychecks were on the door. Entire place was scraped clean. You know, computers were gone, everything. And yeah, I remember walking by one of the ladies there that was, you know, interesting. And I said, hey, good morning. And she's, hi, go F yourself. You know, and just kept walking. And I was like, well, she's. That was weird. Where are you going? And when I saw the checks, I was like, oh, things have gotten weird here. So, yeah, that. That was me, essentially up till about 20, 21 or so. Yeah.

Okay. And so then at 2008, mortgage industry dies. And where do you go from there?

After the. The crash of 2008, I decided to go work at a restaurant, Olive Garden. And I got a job there. And just again, like most places I've been, I was the highest tipper and highest tip out. And that was just because that's actually where I learned most of my business acumen. That and selling drugs in earlier years, you know, so those two were very good for becoming an entrepreneur. That's like, you know, those will really teach you how to, how to, you know, scale your business, essentially, no pun intended. I ended up getting most of my people that I had in the restaurant, and I would tip them more than anybody else. I would tip out 30, 40, 50% of my earnings at night, where other people would tip 5, 10%, you know, and people would complain. They said brief, you get special privilege, you get special treatment, like I kind of do because I pay to play, you know, would tip out the host. No one else would tip the host. They would run waters for me. You know, I would end up going to the salad lady. You know, no one would ever tip the salad lady. I'd give her ten bucks at the end of the night. So whenever there was a line of people waiting for a salad and complaining to her ear like, where's my salad? Where's my salad? She's going as fast as she can, you know, with 80 tables, I would come to her left shoulder and she'd be like, oh, hi, reef smile. And then make my salad before anybody else hand it to me. And people would get irate. That's not fair. And, you know, finally when people caught on that I was tipping the salad lady, I thought that other people would start tipping her. Not the case. He started complaining and try to make it so that I couldn't tip out. And, you know, I went to management, I said, you can't control where I put my money. If I want to pay, if I want to give the dishwasher five bucks, I can do whatever I want with my money, you know, so that's essentially. Yeah, that was a, that was a good season.

Okay, so you became a restaurateur for a while. And how long did that last?

It lasted about three years. And, you know, I then went, I started doing college. I became a youth group leader for seven years. I worked in ministry with high school and middle school kids, some college kids. That was great. A lot of rock climbing, missions trips. One of the, some of the most beautiful seasons of my life. You know, I hope to pour back into communities that, or groups and organizations that are Christian based or faith based of any kind, that are trying to do better in the world in one format or another. You know, then I, during college and while I was working at Olive Garden, I always had a dream to a snowboarder or surf. So I ended up getting a job as a surf instructor in the mornings and a snowboard instructor in the mornings. And that ended up, you know, being how I got to surf and snowboard. All the other kids had money so they could go surfing and snowboarding, and it was awesome. You know, I didn't. So I decided if I work in the industry, I'll get a discount. So I got discounted. Surfboards, snow boots, snowboards, you know, everything you can imagine, I got discounted. I did the same thing at a rock climbing gym, decided to work there as an instructor, and I was able to get my gear for half off, 60 off. So I collected all my gears. I was working there, and I got paid to do what I loved. I would work on weekends and snowboard and teach snowboarding. And then as soon as I was done with my shift, I'd be able to snowboard the rest of the day or get on the mountain early. So I did that for a while, and then I ran across a gentleman in a jersey. Mike's, who I started talking to about church and soccer. Messi at the time, Barcelona. His name was Alvaro Garcia. Great mentor of mine. He does about 4.2 million a month take home. He's an absolute animal. He grows franchises across the US and one of the biggest franchisors. And he taught me so much, you know, he. I ended up talking to him, and he just like the way he is. He's such a pusher, you know, he sat in front of me and said, I want to give you a job. You know, his accent was like, hey, I want to give you a job. And I was like, I. You know, I have. At the time, in college, I had four to five jobs. I worked at a restaurant. I was doing the youth ministry. I worked at a taco shop. I used to help a guy on Fridays and Saturdays. I was an entrepreneur in the neighborhood that would pick me to come do a bunch of yard work or different things. For $25 an hour. I would do side gigs like, you know, Christmas Light Hanging. There was a speedway where I got to do the VIP speedways. I was just working all the time, consistently. So I told him, you know, I don't have time for any other job. I got stuffed with work. And he wrote down on a piece of paper and said, here, this is what I'll pay you for two weeks work. You know, it, you like it, you stay. You don't like it, you go. Just try it. So he was really good at, you know, negotiating. You know, I learned a Lot from him. Ended up getting the job and stuck with it. I paid, I actually paid two kids in my class $100 to do my homework for me for the rest of the semester so that I could graduate. Because I started, it became like a full time gig type thing, you know, and at my restaurants, I told, you know, the bosses honestly, like, hey, I'm going to go try this opportunity. So I'm going to be gone for two weeks. I hope you're okay with that.

The King Taco was the only one that was not okay with it. And I ended up saying, look, I'm being kind to you. I'm gonna call off sick for the next two weeks. Whether you like it or not, I'm gonna go do this thing. So you can either, you know, adjust your schedule now or, you know, and he's like, if you call off sick, you're fired. I was like, that's your choice. I can't, you know, I, I can't help you there. So ended up is taking that job and I worked there for the next eight years. I became over from Junior Mike's marketer to marketing director in about nine months. And I created the national marketing campaign for how they do fundraisers and grand openings across the US in 2012. Yeah.

Oh, that's amazing. It seems like you do the same thing in every place you go. You find a way to give back, you find a way to do it differently. You find a way to have an impact by just thinking outside the box, right? Not the same as everybody else.

Yeah, correct. So even in Jersey Mike's, there was like, you know, they had a problem. Every grand opening, they would give you a free sandwich card for a dollar donation. And they would usually go to a cancer walk or something that was, you know, you'd get maybe $1200 check cut. You know, 1200 people would come in. It wasn't very big. And sometimes you got people standing outside that were handing, you know, the coupons out to people to get more money back. And, you know, we just thought, man, that's just not a good process. And we didn't have any control over the money because they would get the don, they'd get the cards and keep the dollar donation to hand them out. Oftentimes they wouldn't even get the donation. They would just give it out to friends, you know, which was fine. But the, I just thought that it was a misuse of impact opportunity. I've always, I coined in Jersey Mike's the equally advantageous triangle. And I, I'VE lived my life kind of behind that, where all parties can win in this triangle. You know, everyone has something that everybody needs. If you can find those things and those needs, you can meet each other at the table very well. So what I did is I decided to make a coupon. Four coupons at the bottom. And instead of a grand opening being negative $40,000, a grand opening for a franchisor, I made them positive 40, positive 60,000. And the way I did that was a coupons not only Instead of giving $1 back, each coupon gave $3 back. So now I tripled the impact. It also covered food costs and still had a small margin for profit. So I really created this coupon for four different family sizes. Dine alone, kids, meal, two can eat, and a family meal, you know, so you could hit every kind of demographic. And I've always had a thing for children and youth and schools. You know, I believe that children are our future. They are what is going to make our. Our future. And I've always had a heart that, you know, youth ministry, you name it. You know, I hope to have my own kids one day. I'm really excited for that. You know, I got the schools to band together and compete. So I'd go to the sitting council, go to. To the school board meeting and say, I want to give you guys money. Help me. And immediately it was like open doors. You know, they would just be like, here, talk to this person, these people. So I got all the PTAs to compete against each other. So essentially, instead of going to 1200 people, I ended up hitting populations of 30, 40,000 overnight. And they would disseminate all the flyers for me. I would just make different flyer runs with different watermarks on the back of the coupon. And it. I just would count them at the end of every day. So it I. It got to the point where I was the only one competing against my own numbers, you know, 30, 40,000 grand openings, cutting checks for 18, 20, 30,000 instead of 1200. They got so much recognition that the owner, Peter Cancero, came from New Jersey to hear my presentation. I shared with him how I did this, how I did this. I have a photo with them and everything. They gave me a surfboard Jersey Mike surfboard, which I love.

Yeah, that's awesome.

Yeah.

Okay, so you were with Jersey Mike's for eight years. So that's not too long ago.

That wasn't too long ago. I probably ended that in 2015. Yeah. Okay.

And then what was next for you?

Next? I decided to step away and start my own agency. It was raised marketing. It was a marketing agency. And I never got that past 479,000 in arrival. But I did have a lot of learning lessons. You know, it was a very good place for me to start my first journey of entrepreneurship. You know, officially entrepreneurship, because at Jersey Mike's, I had started a mobile car wash where people would go wash cars. I gave this man that had seven kids, you know, a van and said, hey, go do this and you will split the profits. He ended up taking advantage. So I had to like rebuild the van back from him with a buddy who was a sheriff. Maybe I should share that. I won't say any names. And then we had a. Yeah, I get anybody in hot water. Then I also had a flyer. Since we used to do grand openings, I would help somebody get 15 or 20 people from South Central Los Angeles to come out and put flyers on doors for the grand openings. They used to pay an absurd amount for it. You know, I found out how much they were paying, and then I found out how much people were receiving. They were getting $20 for a day's worth of work because it was illegal immigrants, you know. So what I did is I decided to charge the same amount this competitor did, but instead of paying them $20 for a day's work, I'd pay them $60 for a day's work. So I tripled their income. And part of it was that that I would give them lunch. So I would put a little fob like you would do on like Apple Play. But before that, it was like a little chip that you would use when you were walking to count your steps. So I'd put one in every bag to know if they were actually handing out the flyer. So by the end of the shift, I could look and say, hey, it says here you sat for three hours. You know, where are the flyers? And they know that's you're not allowed to track us, you know. But that system worked really well because I were to see who was honest and who wasn't honest and what areas we had to rehit again. So I'd go on Google Maps and map out the entire thing, all the routes and all the walking. I'd give everybody their own map. Blown up. Yeah, Those are the two businesses I started out officially before I started raise marketing. Yeah, yeah.

So you have some incredibly innovative ways of doing things in every single job you've been to. And it's as well as we assist IO so you're not scared to try new things. Right. You're not scared to try technology. You're not scared to think outside the box. You're just not scared.

Yeah.

Other people.

Yeah. Sorry, after you. Sorry.

No, well, I was just going to say it's, it's really interesting to see that because you do things that others don't typically do or wouldn't do, but you do them for the good of everybody. Right. Not with Matt Mal Intent. It's always, hey, how can we make this a win for everybody? And on a truthful level, that, that's.

What I try to do. Yeah. Very. Thank you for that.

Hey, Puppers.

You know, for me, you're all right. It's all beautiful for me at the end of it. All right. My mom was a huge. She, she experienced a lot in her life, you know, a lot of hardships and she always pushed forward. That's just how she was. She continuously pushed forward. She had mantras like, mijo, your life can either define you or you can define your life. You know, situation can either define you or you can define your situation. You know, it doesn't matter how tired you are, Miho, take one more step forward. You know, don't even, don't even take a step backwards to catch speed, to run forward. You know, you just keep going, son. You know that, that has been very instilled in me from a young age. So I find myself pushing in different areas and, and trying to, trying to create and then the thinking outside the box. Yeah, I really do have a heart for making humanity better. Like that is one of my main mantras. How do our. Yeah, my personal mission statement is, you know, make the world a better place so that future generations have a better platform to answer some of the questions they haven't yet answered. You know. And my north guiding star is how are my inputs today impacting the next two, five or 10 generations? So I find that if, if we can follow simple principles like that, then you are more mindful about how you're walking earth and what your actions are doing. You know, um, I've. I've always had a heart for trying to bridge the gap between problems. You know, even at, even with raise Marketing. You know, when I first started raise marketing, I Ubered from 4:00am to 9:00am. You know, from 9:00am to 6:00pm I worked in an office with no AC, no heater, $500. I still remember that. You know, and 6:00pm to 10:00pm or midnight I postmates door dash or Uber again. I had to have all my in person calls or, or meetings on Wednesdays because every other day I would just sweat through my shirt. But I would have a nice shirt. On Wednesdays I could be in the car with the AC on. The rest of the week I was in a sweatshop just by myself, working. You know, Fridays and Saturdays I'd Uber till 4 or 5 in the morning. I had water bottles in the back, Gatorade, gum. And I'd go to Hollywood, huge bonus amplifiers. And on Sundays I'd go to the 99 cent store and buy sunscreens for a dollar and sell them for 10 bucks a pop of the beach. I'd fill up a backpack and make a quick 200, $300 and go home. I still remember people trying to negotiate with me. I, I'll, I'll buy five for 40, you know, and I'd be like, oh, 45, you know, can you do 40? Oh, you're breaking my arm here. You know, like it was, It'd be like 45, like awesome. Almost the same thing, you know, cost. So it, I just found ways of if there's a problem, there's probably a solution, you know. And it's not that I'm not afraid. I think I, I do feel fear. I experience fear like everybody else. I've just grown, you know, I think that, I think the human being or human person can redevelop their behavioral patterns with enough focus, mental focus. What I used to have is fear. I've created a relationship just like pain, you know, I was pain. I used to be very pain adverse, like, oh, I got to get away from it. I learned that if you enter the pain chamber, which is when you're cycling, road biking, hiking a huge mountain, or doing 100 mile bike ride or you know, doing an 11 mile bike ride in the mountains. You know, if you focus on the pain chamber and you're grateful, full of gratitude for it, you're like, this is my moment, the pain chamber. I'm grateful to be here because on the other side there will be success. You know, you just have gratitude for those moments. And the fear, the fear, instead of having fear or seeing fear, is something to stop me or hold me back. I look at things and I think to myself, someone else has done it. I can do it too. Yeah, know, why not? And then if I mess up, that's the fastest way to learn. Alvaro Garcia One time in a meeting I asked out loud, hey, what's roi? Because I didn't know what it was. And the marketing, you know, head was like, you don't know what roi? Because These are all marketing majors, you know, these are all people gone to college, etc. And I'm there like, you know, with a pen and paper, like, you know, wet behind the ears, like, hey, it's my first day, you know, I just didn't know the technical terms. So I asked like, what's roi? And she answered, you don't know what ROI is. Very, like, with a lot of expression, you know, and. And Alvaro from the back, I still remember him going, you know, that's why he asked you, you know, like, just like literally calling him out. And he was a big dog. Like, nobody messed with him because he was the biggest franchisor, you know, he's like, that's why he asked you. Answer his question. Here, I'll help you. It's return on investment. You're doing good. If you have any other questions, just write them down. I'll help you out. After the meeting, worry about her and just like, literally shut her down in front of the entire meeting. And he was like, you ask questions. You know, he instilled that in me. Ask questions, be gregarious. You never know when you're going to figure something else out. Other people are limited by fear. You keep figuring it out. You're going to fall, you're going to mess up more than most, but that's going to also create tougher skin for you because the more you fall, the stronger your knees are going to be and you're going to be able to fall way more often than anybody else and try way more things than everybody else and experience, experience way more things than anybody else. And for that, you'll have a much richer life in all areas of life. And yeah, I kind of live my life that way, just continuously trying. And worst thing that happens, I probably never see half these people ever again anyway. You know, like, what's. Who cares? You know, enjoy life. Do.

Be.

Be driven by your character, your mission and your vision. What do you want to do on this planet? What impact do you want to leave? And I live by that.

I love it. That's awesome. So, Reef, how did you get into. Well, let everybody know a little bit more about Weassist IO and how did you get into it?

Yeah, great question. You know, I have to thank a buddy of mine that got me into it and I'll. I'll share about. We assist here in a moment. I went. When I was Ubering, I found a guy in a red Lambo and I got out of the car and scared the bejesus out of him. You know, he's 21 Asian kid. You know, I was a big, huge 6 foot 2 Uruguayan, like 220 pounds. He's like, please don't hurt me. And I was like, no, buddy. You know, he's like, do you want my cash? No. You know, so at the McDonald's parking lot or drive through, I hopped out because I would eat McChickens like every day because they were a dollar. It's how I survived during that season. Eleven months of trying to scale my business, working seven days a week. Ended up talking to him and he had two Porsche Cayennes behind him. And I was like, man, you have like a million dollars worth of cars here. What do you do? And he said, e Commerce. So I got his information. Like I always do love getting collecting people. I think humans are fascinating and you never know when you're gonna have to tap on someone's shoulder.

Some of avid, you know, networker ended up a couple months later he put on a event called E Comm Masterminds or E Comm Accelerators. And I didn't have the money to go to it because it was 8k to get in. I was like, there's no way I'm able to pay for this. However, I did call and always offer yourself as a service. You know, how can I help you? Like that's just asking a question of how can I help you? Changes everything. And he said that he needed videographers. He knew I had a marketing agency. He asked me if I had videographers. I was like, sure. Do you know how many do you need? He said, 3. Awesome. What are the dates? Where's the address? He's like, hey, for helping me out, you get to stay at the Hollywood Hills house with us and the other speakers. I was like, awesome, Even better. So I bypassed an 8K ticket by going on up, upwork and Craigslist and offer up and finding three videographers for $500. And they shot for the weekend. I printed them shirts. $527 later I had, you know, three shirts that would said raise marketing on them and new staff, you know, and they essentially shot the entire thing, the entire weekend. Which was a huge gamble. They could have been horrible. But they ended up being really good, which was great. You know, I try to like bet between price point but also really good performance at that event. I met 18 of the most prolific E commerce people at the time. Ben Malal, Sean Kelly, Vince Wang, Beast of ecom. One of them was by the name of Sam Benning. And Sam Benning used to have a very interesting model. He would get a product anything like this, you know, he'd put $50,000 of ad spend behind it over a 14 day period on Facebook. If it had a return on ad spend of 1.25% or more, he would get a team of five outsource professionals to run the store. He was doing 17 stores between a million to 3.5 million. That he was just crushing it. He's like, I can't test product fast enough is my issue. I hate waiting 45 days for product from China for me to test a bunch of different things. But I thought, wow, that's fascinating. He's outsourced professionals like that. And he said something that day that really stuck with me. He said, it's not about if you can utilize an outsourced professional anymore or va. It's about how to utilize them. So I took him to dinner and breakfast before he went back to the UK to his wife and just, you know, asked him all the questions I could ask him and, and he ended up sharing with me that, you know, it's not about if but when. So that's when I started my journey at the agency and it took me nine tries and 11 months to find my first outsourced professional. That's how I started WeAssist. The first three were $150 a month. I thought, oh my gosh, I'm going to hire an army of outsourced professionals, you know, for $150. Like I'm going to hound somebody for everything, you know. Then I learned that it was because they were in the province, so they, it was lower salary but they didn't have good Internet and they just knew how to say yes sir. Yes sir. Yes sir. And so projects were never getting done. They would just be like, yes sir on a meeting. You know, early management skills outwors professional 4, 5 and 6. My sixth one locked me out of all my software and held me ransom. That's when I learned to use softwares like LastPass. I showed up on a Monday and he said, hey, you know, everything, we're locked out of everything. He said, I can get you back in. I was like, awesome, How? And he's like, well, it's going to cost you. And that's when it all clicked. I was like, oh man. The only thing he didn't have access to was a bank account. I've never wanted to go offshore to follow somebody or like chase them down or like take in the movie, you know, like I have a unique Set of skills. I'm gonna get you. You know, never in my life. That was the first time where I was like, I'm gonna get this guy. Never did anything, but I ended up paying him. And then change all the passwords and then learn to use a password locker. So I always suggest that people use LastPass or 1Password or some sort of password locker, even with family, because it's not about, you know, your mom stealing from you, but you don't know what she's clicking on that she may be getting herself into. That may have spyware or something on it or a trojan that could steal your information, you know, so don't share your passwords with anybody. Cousin, family, or anyone. Password locker, everything. It'll save your business. Then it was 7, 8, 9. You know, just again, pain chamber. I knew that it could be done. I just had to keep going. And it was so hard. It was so. I was like, man, every like, other one, I was like, I'm getting so discouraged, I got to quit. And then next thing you know, I'd go get the ninth one. Proved to me what offshoring really was. She was gregarious, hard working. She was always attentive. She was trying to build a company with me. You know, she was always figuring things out. That person really showed me what offshoring looks like. And I realized at that moment, I was like, man, this is a business model. I should do this one day. So fast forward, you know, a few years. I worked with Neil Patel, one of his companies, for a year and nine months. Awesome dude. With Ryan Bancort and Mike Camo. And in a year and nine months, part of my contract was I had to dissolve my marketing agency because he has a marketing company. So I dissolved. It worked in San Diego. And just at that point in time, I had gotten my first we assist client through raise marketing, because nobody wanted my marketing services. They were like, oh, we don't want anything to do with you in marketing, but we do want one of your people, Seven to nine clients of the same thing at a pitch. Because I would have the, you know, on the back, I'd have this giant tv, and I'd be like, hey, next slide. Hey, can you do this? Hey, can you make sure you send that out? Hey, can you get this? And people thought it was black magic. So at first I thought they were trying to poach my players. And then I started thinking, what are they truly asking for? They want someone in their ecosystem they can manage. Okay, if I find you that person, would you pay for It. And that's when we got our first person five years ago. And they're still with a company today. So we source them, recruited them, put them in play. And then I went to San Diego, work with Neil Patel from 7am to 4pm in the office in San Diego, and back to my roots. From 4pm to 10pm or midnight, working on We Assist, weekends on We Assist till I outpace my salary. And We Assist was born. Wow.

And you do it differently. So for those of you listening, Reef doesn't just like everything else. He has a different philosophy, a different process, and that's what really attracted me to what you're doing. So tell everybody a little bit more about how you do it differently. What's typical?

Yeah.

What do you do?

Yeah. Thank you. So, yeah, I think for me, it all stems to how do you make it? It's easy to make. It's hard to make a company. It's even harder to make a company that is driven by impact, you know, because it's not. People are always looking at the PNL profit, not people for the most part. So for me, the challenge was just kind of like in Jersey, Mike's or every other season. You know, how can I create a company that can help people but also be profitable and, you know, make world change and impact?

So I decided to put We Assist together. And it's evolved over time. But essentially what we are is a international headhunting firm. Right? So we. My mission statement is to feed as many people around the world as humanly possible through equally advantageous opportunities. Just how do you feed people? So our main KPI is how many people are fed monthly, which we're very proud of. And that's what the team is all about. Even the recruitment department knows that when they're recruiting, they're not just placing most companies. It's like place, place, place. It's. You're feeding a family, you're changing someone's trajectory in. In life, you're changing a business owner's trajectory in life. These are two very big deals. No one takes it lightly in the company. You know.

There'S three major pillars that it Weiss breaks down to recruitment and headhunting, benefits and payroll. And then the last portion is monitoring and assurance. I. The way I did it was I essentially got all the pain points that people feel when it comes to offshoring and all the pain points that outsource professionals feel with doing offshore work and just created solutions for all of them down a list.

And it is very different. You know, my Big picture, if you really want to know the nitty gritty about me. I've always wanted to create a learning platform, but I, I knew that Facebook and Instagram garnished too much attention there. Nobody goes on a learning platform for any reason. But education has helped me so much. And not school education, education after school, the books I've read, the conversations I've had, the mentors I've had in my life, those are the things that have really made me a better human. All around the ongoing education. I wanted to teach people those soft skills like emotional intelligence, agreeing to disagree, having hard conversations, financial literacy. I used to be a very emotional child, a very emotional youth, you know, and I've gained a lot of emotional intelligence over my entire life to a night and day difference from who I used to be, you know, and I'm still evolving in that, in so many ways, you know, so I, I wanted to create education and what I ended up doing was creating a format where I do people's payroll because they, they're now part of the company. But on Mondays we teach a new type of lesson to our people. Emotional intelligence. Agree to disagree. Financial literacy, child development, you know, having hard conversations, you know, empathy, reacting versus responding. My idea is that if companies like Amazon or Walmart did this, we would have a very different next generation, you know, if they decided to pour into people's education. And for us, we combine it to people's 13 month salary bonus so they get to learn in a year's time. The more I learn, the more I earn. Not some, you know, fictitious. I read rich dad, poor dad and in 10 years I maybe have a Lambo or a nice house. It's in a year's time, what can I create for myself, you know, 365 days.

So that, yeah, I'd say that for me creating the educational side was kind of key. And I wanted to work with mothers. Our company was like 98% female for the first two years because my mom always worked and she wanted to be with me, I wanted to be with her, but she, she never could be around me. She was always working. So I wanted to give women the opportunity to be with their, their kids, working from home. I think that also creates a better next generation because your kids get to see higher level conversations, they get to see where work comes from. They're involved in the process, you know, and it allowed for parents to be with their kids and have a better family structure and fiber. Because I feel like in today's economy we've been divided you know, one's at school, the other ones at work. The other ones at work, you know, you see each other in passing at home before someone goes up in the room, listens to music, the other one goes to the TV and turns it on. One starts, you know, doing something else in the house. So I really wanted to create a format where I could create social change, bring back the family structure, educate, make a better next generation, but then also feed people through giving them the opportunity to do, you know, work from remote places here in the US and that's kind of how the whole thing came to be. Yeah, yeah.

And so I've seen this in action. For those of you listening, this is not just Reef saying that, hey, this would be nice someday to do this. That's what you're doing now. Yes, sir. And that's what my executive assist assistant participates in. And you also focus on their pay and their benefits and, and all of that. So it's not just like you're hiring some random person that you're trying to pay them as little as possible. It does cost more to work with you, but you're also providing a lot more. Is that fair to say?

That is very fair to say. You know, I'd say two parts of the benefits. You know, that a, a player is like a pretty girl at the bar. They have options, you know, drink options, whatever, what have you. So you have to give them a really good package so they don't look somewhere else to go there and be there. They just know that this is the best place for them. Right. So that's part of the benefits. Healthcare, mental healthcare, dental, family. It's also corporate structure. I didn't want to find freelancers. I wanted to find corporate level people that wanted to work from home with corporate level structure, the better team members, you know, longer term team members. So you'd have to turn so often you'd have one player that could be with you for the next two, five or ten years. Because career path for them, what to US$10 an hour might be, you know, gas money to them. They feed an entire household or family. And you're right, we do, we do charge more. But that's because we have a whole process for headhunting. You know, we had a consultant come into our business by the name of Savannah Brewer that absolutely, you know, crushed it. I have to just give her kudos. We had a meeting about her just two hours ago. Just thinking, you know, all the things that she had done, all the process and systems, she had already created something out of the box that no one else had ever seen before at a previous company and did kind of the same thing, rewrote the, rewrote the process of headhunting. So it went from us recruiting to really headhunting, you know, looking for players. Ideal players, ideal candidates. We've hired CFOs, CMOs, COOs and below, you know, executive assistants, personal assistants, bookkeepers, accountants, project managers, director of operations. Like, you know, 68 different roles we've done so far. And we're always open to being challenged. So send us what you think you have and I'd be more than happy to have the recruitment team kind of go for a sprint and see if they could achieve that. And then lastly, we monitor people's screens for assurance. I say, I'll give you all these benefits, but then also we're going to monitor you to create a really good relationship. And then we sit on with somebody for 90 days every week just to coach them along the process to make sure that the person is the right fit. And we're looking out for red flags, mainly because the mission is to feed people, but it's benefiting on both sides of the table. So I want both sides to win. And I don't want someone getting a B player and saying, oh, is this what offshoring is like? You know, and having a bad taste in their mouth. I rather step in and say, here's what to look out for. Here's a player, here's a B player, here's some green flags, here's some red flags. And that's helped out tremendously. So we monitor screens, but we also give great benefits as an exchange and we also keep it as assurance to see if someone's being mistreated as well. Essentially what I did is I took what Google Cox Charter AT&T have done for the last 30 to 40 years. Google is 56% offshored and I created all those tool sets so that SMBs to medium sized businesses and $100 million a year revenue companies could benefit from those same tools without having to stand up an entire center. And that was a model. Yeah.

So I can speak from personal experience on this because I've had assistance virtual and in person for the last few years and some have worked out well and some have not. Mostly not. And.

Until now, that's why I was a little.

I'm sorry, until now.

Until now. And that's what I was going to tell you because I admit when we met that was what you mentioned to me. You said, look, you don't really know what it's like to have an A player yet. And when you have an A plus plus player as your executive assistant, it's a different level of help that you're going to get and experience and capabilities and speed and all those things. And I'm like yeah, you know it all sounds great but I don't know if that that even exists. That's the unicorn, right? But that's what you all found for me. And your process of of searching is different as well. Maybe address that. And this is not meant to be a sales pitch for Reef because this. But I just want you to know that it's possible to.

To do and and you do it differently. So how do you go out and search for somebody? Because that I thought was fascinating as well.

I'll say this to what you just said. You know, we try to make fanatic advocates at we assist everyone's a friend in the company. You know, we don't have clients or customers, we have friends. The reason why we do that is because we want to make sure that we have a company culture that's very tight knit. We are 100% referral based growth. So we just get word of mouth people telling people about our company. And I will, I will grow $100 million company off of referral base. The whole idea behind it is if you do such a great job with somebody and truly give them the care that they need, they're going to tell other people about you and what you're doing. We actually have month to month contract. There's no long term commitment. There's no golden handcuffs. It is made entirely as an equally advantageous relationship just like any other. If I'm doing a great job and you're doing a good job, we should make this work, you know. And that's kind of how the entire business.

Work. So I appreciate you saying that. Because we try to our best marketing. The way we save money in the company is instead of going out and doing outgoing marketing and like putting ads. I say the best marketing we could do is pouring into our team. And the very best marketing we could do is putting a great player into someone's company and changing their lives. That's the best marketing we could do. No other marketing is going to be wonderful fanatic customer service and just love and care through a company. People can feel that there's a difference to that in my opinion. So I guess that is a different company ideal. You know how most people run a company but just kind of me challenging the status quo and Thinking, what does humanity really want? We want more humanity. Want to see each other win. We love the underdog, you know, build underdog up. If you can help an underdog. We feel so accomplished, you know, as people.

Yeah. To the recruitment process again, Savannah Brewer, you know, hate to beat the dead horse. What a horrible saying, huh? Yeah, that's so bad. But like, Savannah came from a great recruitment background and really scaled the bejesus out of this like holy canoli. It's, you know, night and day different from what it used to be. Very different. You know, she kept some of the same functionalities but put her own spin on everything as she does, you know. And that has been radically revolutionary for us. You know, we do a seven stage process. We do a custom three hour long test that catches for ChatGPT, AI tools, screen monitoring, face recognition. We just do, you know, what other people aren't willing to do? Group interviews, you know, large seminars, one on ones, a series of one on ones before we bring the top three to five candidates to the client. Like, we're not just looking for the skill set, we're also looking for cultural set, you know, what is it, who's going to mesh well with this person, etc. We're looking at putting yos into our process to be able to kind of categorize who might work best with each other. And it, yeah, the process is really dedicated. We have a 92% success on first hire. And we keep that. I want to keep that as high as possible because it really does create world change. You're feeding a family, you know, it's not a hat. You can't just refund it and return it. If it doesn't work out with someone that you place because you didn't do your due diligence, that means that person has to go look for another job and could potentially starve that month. Or, you know, their family might not eat or their kids might not eat. So I put a lot of attention into the process of actually sourcing. And I have an amazing team that are so dedicated, mission and vision focused. They know that they're feeding families. You know, we fed another one, we fed another one and they hoorah. And it's, it's awesome. Yeah, it's very, very good. I love it.

I know we're just about out of time here, Reef, but if there are people that are listening and they're like, man, I've thought about it, I would love to learn more about it. Learn more about reef, follow what they're doing, participate in what they're doing. What's the best way for someone to get in touch with you or with we assist.

Yeah. So my handle is Reef Coleman. R E E F C O L M A N. You know, R double E F Coleman without the E. So like the camping gear but without the E. And that's my handle for everything. So anybody can reach out to me at any time. I have no problem. An open book. You can also go on the website WeAssist IO and book an appointment there and we can sit down for discovery. My esa, my executive sales assistant Kate will help out and find you there. If someone's thinking about offshoring, I'd say it's not about thinking about offshoring anymore. It's you should offshore. You know, essentially it breaks down to this. It helps the US economy in a lot of ways. You can Instead of hiring two $60,000 a year employees that may do, you know, medium work, you can hire at 120,000. You can hire a $20,000 a year team member and then $100,000 a year team member that has way more knowledge and background and understanding that can really, you know, push the trajectory of your company. Your company is built by great people. You should spend the most amount of money on hiring the best type of potential. Do not skip on that. Buy nice or buy twice. So you're either going to, you know, spend less and train somebody and waste time and energy and then maybe they leave after they get trained or you're going to put in the dollars and cents so it makes sense and you're going to find someone who's an A player that you just plug and play. So would love. I'm always happy to have a conversation with people, share with them how they can start their off source outsourcing journey. How I did mine, you know, I started with one ea. Yeah, Michelle. She got so busy that I had to get an HR director. Then I brought Michelle back under me. You know, I had a splitter and then she got so busy again that I had to get an ESA and executive sales assistant and split Michelle again. And now she's the executive admin assistant. So you can scale a company just from having one key player and then duplicating that person as needed.

What are some projects people could help on? We just started a. I'm still waiting on the 501C3 paperwork but we started a company called OneMoreStar.org it is a play on the story of the child that throws one more sea star into the ocean. And says, you know, some old guy says it doesn't matter and then the kid says it does to this one, you know, and threw it in. So the company, we say one more, you know, always one more. Because you can always do one more, one more step, one more this, one more that, one more anything, you know. And one more star.org is essentially a product from We Assist. I used to give my outsource professionals up to 1 month salary upfront if they needed a loan for something, an emergency, whatever, what have you. And it got to the point where I had such a waiting list that I realized people need microlending. So now people donate to one more star.org we already have a few people that have given us money before even having the 501C3. And what I do is I then give that money to somebody in another country so they can get, you know, laptop or cell phone or bag of rice, whatever they need and then they pay it back into the foundation. But the way it works is they have to show a budget and that they're in a financial literacy course of some sort of. And they're able to pay it back. And if they have all those things and send it to us, submit it, and they get the money and they pay off the loan fully, then they can nominate. So if I pay the loan off, I can nominate Gary as my next person. I kind of be a co signer and then the loan continues. And then once we're together and we both paid it off, you paid it off and I co signed for you, we can go find a third person, a fourth people. So that way it makes a small group of individuals in a community that micro line with each other and they help each other through their financial pathways. And that way, you know, it's. It's a donation, the giving that never stops giving. So instead of a donation being one time and then it never works again, it actually helps people instill better habits because it's not free money, it's money that they have to work to pay back. And that one donation that someone makes of a thousand dollars gets used over and over and over again with families. So very excited for that project right now. That's just like a little side thing I'm enjoying.

That's awesome. Well, Reef, thank you so much for being here today. It was great to let our audience learn about you, learn about what you're doing, learn about your philosophy. And for those of you that are looking for an ea, I don't think you're going to find a better place to get it. So reef, thank you so much for being here.

Gary, I'm humbled by you. I appreciate you're a great man. I'm thankful for your wise words of wisdom that you give me on our meetings weekly. So you're awesome. Thank you.

Thank you.

I really hope you enjoyed today's episode and that through today's guest, you heard how important it is to know your why and how impactful it can be in your life and the lives of those around you. Be sure to head over to why institute.com and discover your why today. Remember, the more you know about yourself, the more you'll know about others. I'm Dr. Gary Sanchez, and I'll see you on the next episode.