Her Empire Builder Show: Building a great VA Team with Kody Thompson

Hello, Cody Thompson, and welcome to her Empire Builder Show.

Thanks, Tina. Great to be here.

Yay. Okay, so I have lots of questions that I want to ask you all about VAs, because so many course creators want to have VAs, have BAS, have a lot of experience with BAS. Some have positive, some have negative, but most people want to nail it. And I find it's few and far in between the success stories. So I really want to get that from you because you've been so good at it. But before we get into that, you started with graphic design, then you grew, like your big kahuna company, Lightning Sites, which has just recently sold. Congratulations. How did that all morph and then come into your VA company, which is Workpod, which has also had very many iterations from what it started with. Right?

Yeah. Yeah. So I started as a freelance graphic designer, as you said. I did it so that I could take on a volunteer position. I was actually working full time as a pastor before that, running youth programs in high schools and things like that. And I took on a volunteer role and I needed to make some money, so I started using my skill set. I had a degree in graphic design, and I actually started by Photoshopping, like, eyebrows off my friends. So I got good at Photoshop by doing silly things like that, and it turned into me.

Still run pretty hot on Fiverr, I think.

Yeah. Do you reckon I could. That could be my.

I reckon you could go back and moonlight at removing Fiverr.

Yeah. So I started doing that, and then. Then that turned into a web development company. And the reason it kind of turned into that was that I found it was much easier to teach people how to build websites than it was to teach my staff how to be good designers. So I was able to scale that business. We started selling websites on a subscription about eight years ago. So we built Lightning Sites up. A big part of that was hiring staff overseas. So we ended up creating our own office over there. We had, you know, when we sold it, we had 80 staff with lightning Sites. So we got good at, I guess, building offshore teams. We had five people here in Australia and 80 people in the Philippines. And then Lightning Sites was a, you know, successful company. And so a lot of our. Our clients who saw what we were doing, a lot of my friends from business circles started to ask me for help. Like, hey, how did you hire the staff overseas? Like you said, a lot of them hadn't had a lot of success. It's kind of like a bit hit and miss with hiring staff overseas. And so it was really born out of that. I had space in my office. I just built a new office for my own team and I had like 50 spare desks. So I just started helping my friends to hire staff. And then within three months, we filled those 50 desks and I realized that lots more people needed help with this service. And so that's how Workpod was born. Yeah.

And so when you started doing that, was it always the intention to build your team offshore or was it you just kind of started and then it went well and by accident you grew that team?

Yeah. I heard people talk about VAs very early on in my journey, like when I was, when it was just me. Um, I heard people talking about this idea of having staff overseas, you know, $5 an hour help you with your admin. Like that sounds great. So I did, I guess, what most people would do. I went to freelancer.com I went to Upwork. I used Fiverr. You joke about Fiverr, those types of tools.

I went through a stage where I was using Fiverr, like every week to do the most random things.

Yeah, some pretty amazingly funny stuff on there that you can do.

On my 40th birthday recently, Clint, our mutual friend for everybody, sent me this, like a guy saying, tina Tower, welcome to the Senior Citizens Association. It's like, see, this is what the Internet is great for.

You could get people to send lumpy mail and like all kinds of like funny stuff. Record songs for you, record raps.

Yeah.

So anyway, I tried all of those, all of those types of tools. And then I guess you tend to find people who have a freelancer mindset, like they're not looking for permanent jobs most of the time. And so you spend a lot of. I spend a lot of time like hiring people and like testing them out. And you kind of, sometimes you have a win and you find someone who's great. Most the time you don't. And then the ones that you find that are great, they tend to get busy because they're good other people, you know, like using them as well. And so they tend to get too busy to like work for you full time. And so it's just not like a very good option for building a long term team. So I discovered that fairly early on, probably in my first 12 months of experimenting with VAS and I was like, if I really want to be serious about this, I just need to go to the Philippines and, and see like what I can figure out. And so I had a really good EA that I had worked with. And at this stage I had about four freelancers that were regularly working for me. And I went to the Philippines and just started exploring, like, what would. Like, what options there were. And there really wasn't any very good options. There was only, like, the only model that I could find over there was like an agency model where they hire the staff on your behalf.

Yeah.

And then they, you know, triple the price and sell them to you.

Yeah.

And to me, it was like borderline slave labor. I'm like, hang on a minute. They're getting paid 500 bucks and you're charging me like, 1500 or $2,000? Like, what am I getting for the. For this margin? And so that was when I was like, I don't think this is going to work. I'm going to have to just do it myself. And so I met with a lawyer over there. I figured out how to start my own company. And then I then. Cause you need to have a company to rent a building. So then I got a. I started a company, then I rented a building, and then I put.

Which is a big leap from being a graphic designer freelancer, a website developer, to going into an international country, establishing a company, renting a building. Like, that seems like a big leap.

Yeah. I don't really know how. I. I don't really know why I don't. I. I guess my personality is sort of like, what's the worst that could happen? Like, and so I tend to think about things like that, and it's sort of like, well, the worst that could happen is I lose some money and then I'll just, you know, try something else. Yeah. So.

And so I want to touch on what you just said before, because one of the reasons why I discovered you as work pod. I mean, we've known each other for years and years, but I hadn't ever used Workpod until a few years ago. And one of those reasons was the VA agency that I was using was they started off at $7 an hour. And I think our VAs were getting about four or five dollars an hour. And then the. It went up to $10 an hour and $12 an hour. And I asked the V, got a pay rise. And I was disgusted by that. In going, okay, there's something about this. This does not feel right and does not feel fair. And so you've set Workpot up in a really different way. Can you talk about that structure and how you've done it?

Yeah. So what I've tried to do is set it up. Basically what I wish I had when I started my team which is I need someone who has the infrastructure, I. E. A building Internet connection. I need, I needed someone who had the ability to help me find and recruit talent that was looking for long term careers.

Yeah.

And then I wanted them to let me hire them and then have them work from their office in a like, productive environment. And so that's what I, what we've produced. So the way we're different is we recruit for our clients and then we negotiate the salaries. We help them negotiate the contracts, help them to understand, I guess, the intricacies of working with someone in the Philippines around their healthcare contributions, how much they should be paid, 13th month pay. All these things that.

Yeah.

If people haven't worked with staff in the Philippines, they won't have experience with that. So we kind of help them negotiate, help them sort of navigate all of that. And then once they get hired, our clients pay them directly so they're in control of their, the, the how much they're paid. They, they have them as an asset in their business. So if they want to sell their business one day, like for example, with the business that I recently sold, one of the most valuable things to, the company that bought my business was my team.

Yeah.

Now imagine if that team was leased to the company. I probably, it would have been the difference between 500, even up to a million dollars of my sale price was based on, probably based on my, my team. So when we hire for our clients, the team is theirs, they hire them directly and then they pay us a fee for our service. So everything's very transparent. You know what you're paying Workpod for, you know how much your staff's being paid. You get to build a direct relationship with your team so you can create your own culture, your own team, your asset. Yeah. So that's how we're different, I guess, to the models that I, I found when I went there.

Yeah. And what have you found? Because there's quite a few common misconceptions about hiring virtual assistants, I think. What do you think are the most common ones that people come to you with and they're like, this has happened. And you're like, of course this has happened. What things should people be aware of if they, if they've either haven't hired a VA before or they've had a negative experience and they're ready to try again?

Yeah. I mean, to be honest, whenever anything happens in my business that's sort of a negative experience, I always try to look at myself and see like where I could do things differently. And I Think there's a tendency with, with all business owners to probably with human beings in general, we'd rather the problem be somebody else's problem. But I found as my companies have grown, generally the reason why when it comes to building teams, things are not working. It usually comes back to me as the leader of the business. And so you have to put your big boy or big girl pants on and look at yourself in the mirror and figure out what ways could I manage my team differently. For example, like if you've got poor behaviors that are constantly happening, people arriving late to the to work, they're not, you know, following instructions, then I would look at something like that and be like, am I, do I have the right systems? Have I given them the right training? Am I being too lenient with my policies around my expectations of when they come to work? Like my first. I guess a response is not to be like, this person's stinks. It's to look at myself and be like, what have I not set up, you know, to build a culture where like, how come my culture has made this person feel like this is acceptable behavior? Yeah, because if my company has a culture where everybody feels united around our vision, everyone's going to work, they're working for hard for their colleagues, then you don't have those problems because they, they are engaged in the vision of the business. So typically I'd be looking back at myself and being like, where have, where have I not been able to build that? So I guess, you know, that's fairly broad. But I think that's, you know, generally when you're having issues, look at it.

But then it leads me into another question. In going so remote teams, I think one of the hardest things, and you know, I've seen a lot of reports lately about people going back to offices with traditional jobs and local jobs because of the disconnect that happens when people are working remotely. You've built beautiful, successful teams on remote work. How do you create that culture so people feel part of something when they are silent, especially if it's not. I understand how it could be easier when you've got 10 people there and they can all have that together. But if you've just got your single va, which is what most course creators will have, one or two bas, how do you create that culture and that getting them invested and engaged when they're on the other side of the world in a totally different culture?

Yeah, that's a really great question. And it's a big challenge, I think, particularly like you said, for People that have smaller teams, you have to do daily huddles or regular huddles. Like you have to spend time with each other, whether that be just 10, 15 minutes each day. When I was, when I had a small team, we would do a huddle in the morning which is just like one piece of good news. What are your three tasks for the day? And then we would do something called warm fuzzies which is like basically what are you grateful for for anyone else on the team? So we just do like a little coach. Yeah. A little culture thing. And then so it would be 15 minute meeting, we'd do that every day. So if you can't get over there then, then that's the start. But that's really not going to cut it like long term if you want to build a, like a long term team. Now if you just need a VA for, you know, to do basic admin tasks and your. Maybe you don't mind if they only stay for two years but for me personally I was trying to build a long term team. And so that's one of the benefits of Workpod is that even if you've got a small team, we've hired, you know, 600 people in the last 12 months. So our offices are full of VAs working for course creators and other entrepreneurs. So they still get that, some sense of that community where they have other friends in the office even if they don't work in the same company. And then we have large private offices. So as our, as our clients grow their teams, they're able to take on like private spaces in our facilities where they can brand it, they can have their. Yeah, and I think that's where if people are trying to build serious, I guess companies then that's where trying to get away from just having one and having a minimum of say three. It gives you a lot more consistency because the challenge is if you've got one and they get pregnant or they have a health concern or their parents are sick or whatever, from no fault of your own, you can be put in a position where you lose your best team player and you're back to square one. Whereas once you get to say three, they can help train each other, they can help connect with each other, they can help keep each other accountable so you've got less hands on, you know, time that you have to spend when you're training new staff and things like that. So I do try to encourage people to try to get to that like micro team size because it is, they do have much more consistency once they get to that size.

Yeah, good tip. And in terms of what to actually outsource to a va, because I get this question quite a lot of which I'll put our job description that we use for VAs in the show notes as well. Or you can just DM me on Instagram at her Empire Builder or Tina Underscore Tower VA help, and then you'll get that sent straight away. And any resources that Cody will give us, I'll put in there as well. So you can find work pod and do all of that. So just DM me VA help and you can get all of those links. But one of the questions that I get frequently, which is why I've set that up, is what do I actually get them to do? And is a VA the same as, like a PA that you would hire locally? How do you discern the difference?

Yeah, so va, I mean, we use the term VA to. To describe them only because in the Philippines, that's actually how they describe themselves. But in actual fact, we hire staff for all different types of companies. So for example, we have a financial planning firm, and we hire like, para mortgage brokers that work with their, you know, work with their local staff to put together mortgage packages and paperwork. We have teams that we've hired, lawyers for law firms that work as paralegals writing contracts. We have video editors working for media companies. We have podcast editors. We have, like, all different types, CAD drawers, graphic designers. So we can find all different types of talent. And so the key thing is to figure out what you need in your business. And so one of the resources, Tina, I'll give you, we have a checklist. It's like 156 things you can outsource. So I'll give you that. You can make that available to any of your listeners. So the first thing I would do would be look at that checklist and tick all the things you're like, man, things that you're doing yourself that could, you know, that you could take off your plate or things that you would like to do in the future, and you can tick all those things, and then we can come up with a job description based off of. Off of the needs that you have in the business right now.

I mean, it's been like, I do a time audit every 90 days, which is one of the most annoying things that I do in my entire life, but it's been one of the most valuable. So every 90 days for two weeks, I. I have an alarm go off every 15 minutes, and I write down what I'M doing because I think that a lot of people, you know, you get to the end of the day and you're like, I've been super busy, but what did I actually do? And you don't realize everything that you did and everything that you're doing that you don't have to be doing. So I do that and then figure out like Tim Ferriss thing, what do I need to eliminate automate and delegate. So I go through all of that and every time I do it, I then look at who in our team exists already that can do it. And if I don't have someone who can we hire and how can we systemize it? And I have been amazed like the. When we first started working with virtual assistants, I think it was harder to communicate. Whereas now like loom, I mean. Oh yeah, I do like 50 million loom.

Isn't that the coolest tool? Like I remember when it came out and I was like, oh, this is clever. You know, I had no idea like how much I would use it. What a simple little.

You can just explain anything. Yeah. So I will go, okay, well I did that thing. So I'll just record myself next time I do it and talk through why. And then we've got a system there and then what our va like, it's just exceptional with what they can do and just copy what we do. And I think so often we hang on to. I don't know if it's ego based or the feeling of importance in going, only I can do this, no one else can do this. But it's amazing how good it feels when you've got team like pumping and doing all these things and you get to have your big ideas and your space and your creativity. I think it's, it's totally underutilized.

Yeah, you touched on like they're basically the ego that we have as business owners. I think like a lot of business owners would say that they want staff to do all of this stuff for them, but it's actually the ego, like you said, that stops us. Like I'm the only one who can do this. It's pretty egotistical when you think about it. And we've all had feelings like that before. I sometimes call it superhero syndrome, where you enjoy being the superhero in your own business, but the best business operators actually create superheroes of the people around them. You know what I mean? And that's the, that's the real goal is if you can, you know, empower other people around you to become superheroes. That's when you really get leverage in your business.

Yeah. And so I want to talk about long term relationships because I think that Sometimes relationships with VAs can, can be set up in a bit of a transactional sort of a way. And I know that, you know, even with Chris, who is our like whole operational assistant, he does all of the back end of our business and is absolutely exceptional at it. But we had chats in the early days because sometimes people would email him in a very different tone to what they would email me and with the way that people would just naturally treat offshore teams. And I think that one of the things that he liked the most when he started was how defensive Mama Bear I was about that. Like it's imagine. I can imagine that I've just picked up on this. But what would be your tips for. For people that want to have long lasting teams and have them part of their core teams in that combination and not have it on the periphery and more transactional? How do you create that long lasting relationship with a, with a va? Do you set it up from the beginning and saying like, I want this to be long term. Do you think it's necessary to go and visit or to bring them out to either. Most of our clients and listeners are in Australia and the US like would you bring them out or.

Yeah.

What do you, what's your advice?

Yeah, I mean, so you touched on a great one, which is just actually listening to them and talking to them about like their challenges. Treat them like an employee that you would have locally. Like they, they are human beings and they have things going on in their life. So being a, you know, being there for them and chatting to them about like, hey, what's working for you? What's not, you know, being, I guess having that attitude that you had that they're one of your team, they're not some robot on the end of a, on, on the end of a voice message or, or a slack message. They're a real person. They don't just, you know, they're not a robot that just does tasks and sends them back to us. They're a person on the end of the line. So having that, that attitude is really important. I would say how you set the contracts up initially can really help. So that's one of the things that we do at workpoint is that the contracts that we set up between our clients and the VAs, we, although it's not a legal employment contract because our clients don't have legal companies in the Philippines, we try to make that contract feel, feel Real, like a real long term, long lasting job. So there's information about their leave, if there's information about, about what benefits are included in their pay, how many days off they get for sick, you know, paternity, maternity leave, what, how long their probation period is, you know, non disclosure agreements, things like that. Every. All that's in the contract. So when they sign it, that feels like they're signing a, an employment agreement for any other company that they would work for. So right from the outset, we're trying to create that sense of long term, you know, long term, secure job. So they're not just working for some random person on upwork. They're working, you know, as part of the team. And then it's just about trying to find ways that you can make them feel a part of the team. So even on their first day, like have, have a polo shirt, you know, a mug, a hat with your branding on it, have that sitting on their desk when they arrive on the first day, you know, get them involved in not just doing the systems, but providing feedback on the systems that they're running in the business. Like I always say to my staff, like in our systems, like, this is the system. But I always finish by saying, unless you know a better way, you know, so if there's a better way to do this, I want to know about it and we can improve it. So try to make them feel like they're part of the team, part of the process of growing the business. I try to involve them. Yeah, try to involve them in the stuff that we're doing locally here in Australia. And then if you can get to the Philippines or bring them out, certainly that is a. It's very hard to build all of the culture through zoom. It's just.

Yeah.

You know, there is a digital disconnect when you actually get to the Philippines and you meet their family, you, you know, you get to spend time with them outside of work, their relationship will be much stronger.

Yeah. I did look at bringing LVA out to Australia for our conference and the, it was not a simple process.

The visa process can be challenging. Yeah, yeah.

So I was like, okay, we'll have to look at that next year, because that's quite a. I was like, you know, we can just book you a ticket and you can come on out.

No, just let us know, Tina. We'll show you the little tricks. But you just need to know how to submit the application to the, you know, to the government in the Philippines to make sure their visa gets approved.

Yeah. Okay. I'll talk to you about that later.

Yeah, yeah, definitely.

That would be amazing. Okay, so my last question is, what does success look like for you? Like, where are you? Do you have an end game for Workpod or what? Because you've got very interesting growth plans going on at the moment and you recently sold lightning sites. Is this to grow and sell? Like, is this your legacy business? What about you personally?

Yeah, I don't know. I've never sort of been a person who plans everything out. Like, even you asked the question before. Nah, like even you asked the question before about getting the office in the Philippines. For me, it's always just like, I know this is the right next move.

Yeah.

And then, and then I guess adaptability, I guess would be probably one of my strengths. I think I just, I figure out what I feel like the next thing to do is and I do that and then I work things out as I go along. But certainly for Workpod, we have a goal to grow the business. We want to create 10,000 jobs in the next five years. So so far we've created about 800 jobs.

Wow, that's a big goal.

Yeah. So in the Philippines, the government says that one full time employee at the salary range that our clients hire these VAs at basically cares for about 20 Filipinos. So if we can help create, you know, 50,000, if we can create 10,000 jobs, then we would be basically helping to care for 200,000. And then once we get to that goal in the next five years, we'll see how we go. But then the next milestone would be to try to create like 50,000 jobs. And then that would be a million Filipinos that we would have created opportunities to support. So I know what I'm doing for the next five years, what the end game looks like. I'm not quite sure. One of the challenges of this business model is building infrastructure. So we, you know, we've spent, you know, two and a half million already on buildings in the Philippines. So one of the challenges will be if we grow that rapidly, funding those facilities might get, you know, challenging for me personally with my personal, you know, cash in my bank account. So we might have to look at how we fund things. So I'll, I'll kind of like, you know, play things a little bit by ear. But certainly in terms of the personal goal, there's something very, very fulfilling about helping people land a great job. Like, it really, it really changes their life. Like I. Unless you've been to the Philippines and met these people, it's really hard to Explain. We do have a few videos on our website of stories of, of stuff. But yeah, every time I go there, I, I end up just, you know, weeping in boardrooms half the time I'm there because I, I interview a lot of staff that have got jobs with us and their stories are just insane. Like what, what getting a job with you're like, what a job. Getting a job with you or like another one of our clients. It's just what it means to them is insane.

Yeah, you mentioned, I did say that was the last question, but you did mention something and I'm like, I really want to ask you about that salary range because we kind of touched on that at the beginning for that was something that both got us at the start in going, okay, this is not an equitable split in going, how do you, is there a salary range that you recommend? How do people define what their salary is that they're going to offer for the job that is both, that is very fair and generous for what they are getting in. I know when I have chats about VA salaries with our members, there's, there's people like, I feel bad paying that amount. Like, is this enough or like what is your view and what is your guidance on that for people?

Yeah, there's a little checklist. I'm going to give it, give it to you again for your listeners. There's like a pricing matrix that I can send you.

Yeah.

However it's, it's only helpful as a guide because you can imagine if you're like if we're hiring an executive assistant, for example, for a client, we'll put the ad out. We might get someone straight out of university who's, who's just done a business administrator administration degree in the same application. We might get someone who's had 10 years experience as an executive assistant for a manager. So they're not the same person in terms of what they would get paid. So the matrix will give you junior, mid and senior. But even then it still doesn't really tell the story. So I guess part of where I feel like workpods very helpful is that we know the market locally where we're hiring because it's even different from city to city. If you hire someone in Manila, they're going to earn more than if they're hired in Dumaguete where our offices are, because Manila is more highly competitive. The cost of living there is insane from a Filipino standpoint. And so yeah, so I think that's something that it's great to have expert help with. That our little guide will give people like a bit of an understanding. But, you know, depending on the person's experience and potential, then yeah, then it's something that you have to kind of play a little bit by ear when you're going through the recruitment process.

Amazing. And I do have one final one. I'm like, I'm not finished yet, Cody. I'm not, I'm not done. I finished with the questions I had written down, but I'm still not done. So when someone's like, I want to get started with the va, which will link to all of the information in there and they want to go through work on. Can you. For someone that's never been through the process before, what is the process? The timeline, how do they train them? Like from woe to go.

Yeah.

What does that look like?

So you can book a call with our team on our website so we can have a chat to make sure workpod is like a good fit for what you're looking for. So that'll be the first step. And then if you decide to go ahead with us and our service is the right fit for your business, then there's an order that's placed on our website. There's templates for job descriptions you get access to, so you can edit those templates or create a job description template from scratch. Then our recruitment manager meets with you. They'll go through that with you. They'll ask about some of the values of the business so that we're not just looking at a, at a job list. We're also understanding like the type of business that you have and the type of people that will fit into your team. And then from there we, we place ads online. It takes us about three weeks to, to send you candidates because we go through basically we might get a hundred applicants for the job. We phone every single applicant, we check their references. They have to get a police check. And then we get them into film video interviews. So we interview them kind of like Tina's interviewing me now. We ask them questions, we, we record that and then we send you the best candidates from those video recordings. So that saves you like huge amounts of time.

Yeah, I did love that when I went through it. And I could just watch the interviews on like two times speed.

Exactly.

Get all the information that I needed. Yeah, it was great.

Exactly. Yeah. So. And then once you choose the person from that, from the video interviews, we hook up a in person meeting on Zoom with, with our clients. And then once you're ready to hire, we help with all the contracts. So once they get hired, we have a training center called Skill Builder, which is my business partner, Dale Beaumont, has like a business coaching program. So we've taken a lot of his content and turned them into online courses. So all of the staff that get hired have access to Skill Builder and that helps, you know, to supplement any training that, that our clients would be doing on their side. They can use Skill Builder. We've got courses in social media management. We've got courses in, you know, AI, in copywriting. Whole bunch of different stuff that can help upskill the VA's, depending on the. The tasks that our clients have them, you know, doing in their business.

Amazing. Cody, I love your work. I love what you do. It's so good. I can't wait to see you. We can have a party to celebrate 10,000 employed people in the Philippines in how long? Eight years?

Five years.

Five years.

Okay, five years. That's the goal. We've got a lot of work to do. We're doing about 50 hires a month at the moment. But our next goal is to get to 100 hires a month. So I've got to double the our capacity and then I probably need to double it again, I'd say to get it to a point where we can hit our. Hit our target. So there's lots of things that need to be worked through to make that happen.

Well, you're fantastic, and I'm sure there's a lot of people listening that could benefit. It's such a win win, which is what I love so much.

Thanks.

Thank you, Cody.

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