Jill Sessa and Outsourcing Rockstar VAs for Web Development Businesses

I recently found out that one of my outsources is outsourcing some of his work. How amazing is that? Right? I had no idea because the work that you had been providing was up to my standards.

Welcome. I am super excited to have Jill Sessa here. Jill has VAs in the Philippines and she also has a super interesting business that she runs, which is really cool. So just tell us, what is your business?

First of all, my main business is ultimate WP help. It's a WordPress primarily a WordPress maintenance service for small businesses.

Okay. So you set up, you fix, you maintain WordPress sites for people.

You got it. Whether they have problems or not. Some people sign up with us at the beginning, other people come to us because ah, my site is broken and we fix it. And our goal is to maintain that site for them long term. Basically where they're outsourced for their website tech and maintenance.

Sweet. Sweet. So you have VAs in the Philippines.

How many right now? At this very recording I have five because we've recently lost two. But I've brought on a couple of additional. Just this past week we on ramped two new additional outsources that are in the Philippines and I do sometimes also outsource to other countries and occasionally have somebody in the us.

Okay, sweet. So I know that you're super mobile.

Correct. This is today's office behind me. It won't be tomorrow's office.

Right, right. I mean, you're traveling around the country just for fun. Yes, yes, it sounds awesome. So what do your VAs do for you? What do they do in your business?

What don't they do? So basically my goal is to make myself obsolete in my business. So I want them to be able to do anything that I used to, to do, you know, all the tasks that I used to do when I was a one or two person operation. So they should be able to fill in my brain and then take on their personal and unique talents and add them to my business. So we, as I said, do primarily website maintenance. So I have people that do all of the updates on our websites. I should never press the update button. That's my goal. And our clients should never press it either. So I have staff that, that's their entire job is to maintain those websites. I have others that their specialty is actually in design. We don't do a ton of design. That's not really my genius. But we do certainly take on projects. So we might take a website that needs to be replicated in a new theme or something that was on other than WordPress and put it into WordPress. So like a different CMS put it into WordPress. So I have people that specialize in like pixel by pixel conversions in that way. And then I also. And this is a person I just brought on last week. I've had people that have sort of been my personal assistants and customer support related. And I found a gem last week on this really fantastic site you might know about called onlinejobs. Ph. And so my goal was to even further eliminate myself from the business and make sure that I was not the bottleneck. I did a recent analysis of our business and looked at any time there was a delay in time or communication errors with the client. And 90% of the time it was me because of my travel. And so my goal was to also bring on somebody that could speak for me. So I wanted them to have a high level of cognition and understanding us language skills. Just great customer support because that's my goal.

That's amazing. It's so cool. So I'm just gonna recap who you have because I think this is super interesting for a lot of people. One, you have a personal assistant who is replacing you in the business.

Yes.

Like, they speak to customers, they do the things that you were previously doing. They maintain communication. That's amazing.

Right.

And I think so many people would benefit from that person.

Right. My goal is that every time I do a task and we might talk about this and expand on it further, but I have this rule that if there's a task in our business and it's just something that's a complete one off that uses my brain, I'll usually do it because I started my business because I'm good at what I do and I love what I do. I have a real passion for it, but I record it. And so I screencast every everything. I mean, it's like Snagit is my best friend. And then if I'm going to do it a second time, I record it with much more of a documentary lens. So the person that's kind of speaking for me, they're learning through watching those videos and communication that we have my style and also learning about our clients. We have hundreds of clients, so I want that relationship to be just as personal with them. But yet, as you can see here, I like traveling and being somewhere different. In this past year, I've been in seven countries in 23 states, and that was not mostly for my job. Although a couple of those were because I do speaking engagements around the world. I want to be able to make sure our customers are still being served. So I think that the best way that I can serve them is to give them more of me. And I don't want to give them more of my time. So I decided to give them more people that acted like me.

Oh, so awesome. That is so awesome. I think, dang, if so many, if more people would think like you do, this world would be a better place.

I just think that first of all, our tagline for our business, for instance, is you focus on your genius, let us focus on ours. And so I decided to look at all of the places where I can be doing that, even for myself. And how do I multiply myself is get more people that I'm either training them or on what makes my genius mine. Right. Because I don't want to think that I'm so darn special that I'm the only one that can do these things that really is undervaluing our relationship with our clients and also undervaluing the people that I've decided to trust by bringing into my business. So I figure if I can teach them some of this special sauce, it frees me up. But another real, it's just a benefit to everyone. You know, I can provide life changing income for people, right? So I can live this dream life. I mean, I'm sitting here in this gorgeous park right now, and it was just a decision I made two days ago that I wanted to come here, but yet I'm providing salaries to people who work for me that they wouldn't be able to get in their home country. And I just think that that's really beautiful. It's like a win, win, win, not just a win win, Right?

Yeah, it totally is. So this is, this is. I wanted to go deeper into this then.

Yeah.

So you talked about like you provide a first documentary video and then a second and a third maybe. Can you go into detail of like how you're replacing yourself?

Right. I mean, you're multiplying myself. I hope never to totally replace myself, but yes, I am in part replacing myself.

I love it. So can you go into more detail of like your thought process of. Of what do you teach someone? What don't you, what do you feel like you need to do to teach someone? Where's your threshold of like, oh, you're doing this just the same as I am or it's not as good as I am? Can you go into some of those things?

Oh, I love that. Is this as good as what I do? So even the thought process of am I Going to pass this off to somebody starts with is this a task I've done before? So I just feel like if it's something that I'm repeating, whether it's for the same client or a very, very similar process for a different client, then there's got to be some commonalities about how I'm going to proceed. And there's very few cases where they're so unique. But if I've documented it the first time and I recognize because we have a rather extensive file management system for all of those videos and you know, every client task that we've ever done is recorded. So once I recognize that I've done that task before, I might just search keywords, that kind of a thing. Often I'll review that video and say, okay, what was special about this? Or what was completely repeatable. So again, if it's on the same client site or now I've taken on a different client. But you know, a lot of our clients have WooCommerce for instance, so I might be setting up a product or something. Then I take a look at where is my brain. Taking a pretty special analysis of this. I have a fairly unique way of looking at things. I am part tech and part woo woo. So the rote stuff is the something that really doesn't require my vision of genius, then that has to go to somebody else. That's the first thing that I'm going to train on. So that's kind of step one. Then as far as the unique stuff that makes Jill Jill with our clients, I then look at okay, what's so special about it or what's my thought process and I'll often record myself and talk through it and realize that 50% of what I thought was unique probably isn't. So sometimes this is a one minute task and I should pass it off. But like just yesterday I was recording a process that put together five different SaaS services on a client's website. SaaS online services software as service So I needed to say as I was thinking about that task, okay, this is what the client said to me and this is what immediately turned in my brain is that this is a combination task. So again, those five things weren't all that unique. It was just that first step of me recognizing it. So in my handoff process there might be a long time with a particular outsourcer that I triage that task and talk them through each of those steps. But then I want to get to the point where they can also look at that similar type of task. And realize, oh, this isn't a one site thing. This is a five site thing. But the more you train people in your style and in your methods, your clients start to build trust in them as well. So I'm getting to the point where my clients are excited when they hear from one of my staff members. People are really great at certain things. Let them be great at them. I don't need to be the master and controller of all things that are great. That means that I get to work less, which is super cool. But also they get to operate in a space that probably feels pretty great for them. Yeah. And I affect 150 to 250 hours a week. Think about that. My triage, my ability to get myself out of the process, multiplied my business 10 to some weeks, 20 times the amount of hours I'm putting in. What? That's amazing. That creates life change for me, for my staff, and also for my clients. So I love sharing this philosophy with people. And I've actually had some people say, because I present on outsourcing a lot, because they think it's the magic for how we can work now in this new space. And people say, oh, that's your secret. Don't teach people that. I'm like, why? I have more than enough. Why do we need to be working 40, 50, 60, 100 hours a week? Why? I don't even like for my outsources to work 40 hours a week. I think that the magic for a lot of them is in 30 hours a week, but it makes them refreshed and delightful staff members. Why not give them the same benefits that you're giving yourself? I recently found out that one of my outsources is outsourcing some of his work. How amazing is that? Right? I had no idea because the work that you had been providing was up to my standards.

The video records two different pieces. Right.

Okay.

I don't know if people could see that. I was just speechless about your approach to this. I want to point out a couple things that you're doing well. Cause I often think, like, what you're saying, like, oh, this is your secret sauce, but it's not mine. Right. Like, I can't, you know, that doesn't work for me. Right. So there's a couple things that you do super well. Number one, when you start training someone, this isn't a, oh my gosh, he didn't do it right the first time thing. This is a. I'm gonna teach him one piece of this while giving him the full overview. I'm Going to teach him another piece of this within that full overview. And he's going to get that first piece and that second piece. He's probably going to connect the third piece of it too.

Yes.

And then I'm going to go through it again with him. Whatever it takes to get them doing this thing. And over time, which this is, the second piece of this is that over time, with a long term perspective on this, with this person, you get them inside your brain.

Yes.

Like they think like you do.

That's my goal.

And so there's a couple pieces there. Number one, you're patient with it and you're willing to work over a long period with them. Number two, you are willing to look at it from a long term perspective. And so the interesting thing to me is I've been working, like I call it the 17 hour workweek for like 10 or 12 years.

Even Tim Ferriss has said that the four hour workweek is just. It's a myth, it's a number that he came up with. Right. You know, I mean. Right. Everybody talks about that, but.

And I've been there, I've been at the four hour work week and it wasn't enough for me. Like, I need more to keep my brain.

I love to work. Yeah. I love what I do. Right? Yeah.

But like 10 years, 12 years of 15, 17, maybe 20 hours a week. I'm good friends with Russell Brunson and we were talking this week and he was like, dude, I love that you're working. I was like, yeah, I'm up to like 20 or 22 hours a week right now because I got all kinds of stuff going on because things are.

Going on or even like this week I came to this campground after driving cross country. So I started in Redondo Beach, California and I'm gonna end in Farrington. It's just a little town where they're holding Overland Expo.

Okay.

So, yeah, so I'm driving cross country. I live in a van, you know, 2,400 miles so far. I have 400 to go. So this week I decided to treat myself to a campground that I've enjoyed in a town that I've enjoyed. And I will possibly work 60 hours this week. But it's work that I so greatly enjoy. And it's also the multiplying work. So I am creating some presentation templates. I've got nine upcoming presentations on that subject. So spending time on that once. But of course I've got an outsourcer doing the handouts and the booklets. And you know all that kind of stuff. But I need to spend time on my presentation because that's my, that is the. Nobody else can give that presentation. Right. That's my genius. That's my special gift to the world. But the only work that I did was speaking into Otter all week. And then I did something super fun. I opened up my calendar to anybody that wanted to have a chat with me about anything. Full time travel, outsourcing, running a business on the road, my dog Logan, who's super cute, you know, anything that they wanted to talk about. So I had these like half hour to hour long conversations while I was driving also recorded. And then those transcripts are being analyzed by another staff member so that maybe if there's some gold in there to use in my presentations, I can use it. So my brain is always looking at how can I capture what I'm doing and how can I really make the best use of it. I can work a lot more efficiently.

And be super effective at it.

Right.

I want to change gears here because I see that there's some genius here. So you talked about you just found someone new this week. Can you go through your recruiting process?

I've honed this so I would love to go through it. Awesome. I don't put up job posts. I actually look through the applicants available like on onlinejobs Ph this cool website I look at once for four to seven people. It's such a tiny investment because I do a one week trial that they get paid for. But at that time I generally have two to three different types of jobs available and I actually allow them to self select based on what they love to do and what they're great at. I'm looking for people that a are available 30 hours a week. I generally don't love 20 hour a week part timers because that usually means that they're working for not one other person, they're working for two other people. You'll find that until you start paying, especially you know, if you're looking at US dollars versus Filipino dollars, I'm going to pay them well in the long term so they won't have to. But I've just noticed this. So somebody that's working 20 hours a week, I don't want them, you know, their brain split with three different jobs.

I'm exactly the same.

So 30 hours, it means probably that they have one other job that they're stacking this on after a full time job or another part time job. And then my hope is if they're great then I'm going to convince them to come and work for me full time and I'll cover this salary. Generally I'm looking at 125 to 150, maybe up to $200 a week equivalent. Right. Based on their salary, I pay what they show as their requested salary for that first week on online jobs. Ph, they're showing. Right.

Like they're requesting a certain amount. I want to make this much money for this many hours.

Exactly.

So during that first week when you hire them, you pay that amount?

I pay that amount.

You pay the full month amount for that week?

No, no, no, no. I pay the equivalent. That equivalent. So for the week. So they say per month or then there's like a dollar per hour equivalent. And so I'll pay that times the usually 30 hours in a trial. Unless there's somebody that's out of work and is looking for a job, I certainly will pay them for the 40. So my philosophy around that is they are showing me how they value themselves. And if somebody values themselves very, very, very high, they might not actually be that coachable unless they have a skill that I desperately need in my business at this time. So I generally won't go for those super high salary people. But generally I'm looking for kind of this sweet spot. And if somebody's salary is too low, then I look at their disc score. Most of the candidates or all, I only look at ones that have disc available. But if their disc score is showing and their salary request is low, they generally are high in C for compliance. Somebody high in C for compliance is going to make a great admin assistant. They're also possibly going to make a great like site updater because that's a pretty rote job. Right. It's somebody that has to like look at details over and over again. I don't want them recreating the wheel. So I'm looking kind of for this sweet spot of a salary that makes sense for me for a personality score that makes sense. So if they've got the general skill set, their personality style matches, hopefully they have a review or they've worked before. I also only look at people who have been on the site in either the last week or the last month.

As in they've been active like the profile has been active because there's an identifier on online jobs on their profile that says when they were last active.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Okay. So that means that they're keen on either moving or, you know, I also just don't want to waste my time with people who aren't even paying attention to their profiles anymore. Right. So then my first task, I might assign to three people the same task. So if it's a competitive position, like I only have one person, you know, one spot available for a website designer, which is generally, usually we don't do a lot of that. I might hire three people and give all three of them a variation, you know, make this site or copy this site into WordPress and then just hire the best. But the best doesn't necessarily mean that the site looks the best for me. Best is things like, did they communicate with me? Did they ask clarifying questions? Were they willing to say, I don't know and can you show me? Did they just, you know, I don't want somebody that's just bull in a china shop through a task. I want somebody who's going to maybe even a day longer than, you know, what you assigned or what would be expected. But by doing that, it's because they're slowing down and looking at what is this exact task Instead of just like, I've done this before and you know, and just kind of barrel through it.

I wrote a video script this week where I described exactly what you just said.

And again, because this is not unique or genius. Right. I mean, this is genius, but it's not super unique to me. We're thinking this way because.

But I love that you're not like. So I get so many people that are like, oh, I just need the best one. Right. It's not about the best one. It's about someone who can do the job who works well with you.

Yeah, it might be the best for you. Right. Like, and be really clear on what that is for you. So I want somebody that's going to say, I wasn't able to get in touch with you and I had this question. So here's the research that I did to try to answer the question. I do a one week trial and then I do a three week trial. After the one week trial, I send them a survey. This is where they're going to ask me for their pay because I pay afterwards. We always pay the following week or the following month after work and then they're hired full time. So that three week trial is where I'm going to push it a little bit. I'm going to really look at how specific I can get with tasks. Do they really know what they say? So if I know somebody has an interest, like they really are passionate about doing one thing, but their genius lies in something else. That gives me A chance to expand even my repertoire by saying, maybe this person is going to be in dual roles for a while, and then maybe I'll move them into the thing that they're really most interested in. So here's where I get to tell you that I just lost. Only due to an expanding family on her side. I just lost an original outsourcer that I got from your site. I think she was 19 when she started with me. She was 23 when I got a phone call from a bank in the Philippines asking for a referral. Cause she was applying for a home loan, and the home was for her parents.

She was buying her parents a house.

Yes, I could. I'm sorry, I get like.

I know.

That'S life changing. And it's because she was a human, right? She was a human to me. Is a human to me. She's not gone. She's not deceased. She's having a family. But in year one, she was doing great work. And so I wanted to raise her salary. And I offered her this salary, which basically was doubling because again, I start paying with what they tell me they want to make, but then I want to match it up to their skill set and the impact that they're having on my business, Right? So I offered this salary, and then she disappeared. This is not uncommon. So I tell this as a warning story, and it happens to be that one of my very good friends is half Filipino. So I'm like, maybe this is cultural. Let me talk to her. And so I asked her about it, and she said, I wonder if the salary that you're giving her was more than what her father makes. And she said, you can't do that. That's, you know, putting a layer of respect or taking, you know, it's respect and shame and all these things roll into it. So I backpedaled and I sent an email saying, I am so sorry. I realized I misquoted what I was going to pay you moving forward. But since I gave you that number, here's what I'm going to say. This is actually the number I meant. But if you continue to perform at this level of excellence, then I will pay that additional amount in a bonus every month. Wow.

Super. Well done.

So that gave her the chance to, like, in her father's mind, she was only making this. Or, you know, it didn't scare her, but I then was able to pay her that. Yeah, Same salary, really. But it was just paying attention to, like, if you had offered that kind of a raise to somebody in the US they would have gone out and bought drinks for their friends that afternoon. Right, right. So just paying attention to some of the differences in culture that I recognize because I realized that these are humans.

I love it. I have two questions. What is the, what are you using to do your one week surveys?

Just a Gravity Forms because we have an operations manual that's on our website and so everything for our surveys staff is basically like a membership portal. And so they don't have access to it as a member, a full staff member at that point, but they can still access the Gravity form. And so that way it's saving all of the data for me into a Google Doc or Google Sheets. And that way over time it gives me a chance to look at kind of equivalencies. It's got conditional logic. So that's why if somebody says yes, I want to continue. They see different set of questions than somebody that says no. Great.

Second question, what are you using to manage your documentation? You said you have a huge library.

So our primary, we operate everything through Google Drive or Google Suite. So our email addresses and so that ties everybody into drives and all that kind of stuff. And then I keep a copy of everything or the bigger files in Dropbox and all of our videos then actually sit in Dropbox or then the videos that I'm going to share in the membership portal go on to Vimeo so that way they can be private. So the sharing of information happens in basically a learndash portal in our WordPress site that's specific to staff and then that way I can give access to specific modules based on somebody's role or where they are at in the on ramping process. And then every single client that, that we have has their own set of folders inside Google Drive, everybody to have access. But it also enables me to cut off access in case that person wasn't working with me. We use LastPass to share any passwords and all that kind of stuff. And after their one week trial they actually get a domain based email address so that I control that within our G suite. And so if somebody is leaving us, I can also like in one instance cut them off from accessing the email password. And therefore that cuts them off from everything else instantly.

I've talked to a lot of people and there are very few that I have talked to that operate at the level you do. And it's not even like, it's not that you're like crazy. You just make these decisions towards living.

A lifestyle, living a lifestyle and living really in abundance and gratitude and I mentioned earlier that half of me is tech and half of me is woo woo. And I think that woo woo side comes into play here. And I say woohoo woo woo in all the best ways. Not saying like somebody shouldn't be, but it's really looking at what makes you feel good as a human. And a lot of that is how much kindness you extend to others. And the less we try to act like we are the end all and be all of the universe, the more we can extend out that, you know, that abundance to others and then it just brings it right back. I mentioned earlier, I've been in five countries, 23 states in the last seven months. Yep. It didn't work very much.

Okay.

Our income did not go down one century. So that means that I was still able to pay my employees and, you know, my outsourcers, staff, whatever you want to call them.

This has been amazing. And I'm similar. And I think part, a big part of that is because, number one, it's life changing for you.

Yes.

Right. It changed my life the first.

My life exists the way it does because of this.

It changed my life.

Right.

But number two, it changes their lives. And when you start seeing that.

Yeah.

It's like it changed your life and then you see, oh my gosh, it changed their life. Oh my gosh, this is amazing.

Right. And I love that. I love that effect. It's, you know, it's that beautiful butterfly effect that we hope to have in the world. Right, Right.

Everyone wants to contribute. And as you look at your business, you're like, I'm contributing every day in doing what I love and in making money and supporting myself and my family. I'm also contributing to the world.

Right. I want to get to the point where you are. I think I had to double my current staffing to get to your number. Right.

So If I'm at 7, I'm at 26 right now.

Okay. Then I'm going to give myself a year to double on board. And then I'm going to get up to your level just because it's just so gratifying to me to be able to do that. And I do want to grow my business. Right. So that they're going to be on board to help me do that. Right.

Any, any last things you would say to people, someone watching this video, you just blew their mind. What would you say to them?

Just, you have to start going for it. That the initial investment is so small in the scope of everything that you do. Look at it as your own training ground. You are going to screw things up in that first relationship and probably in the 2nd, 3rd, 7th, and so on. And the investment's pretty small in the scope of things. So just look at it as your own playground to start getting used to this, getting comfortable with getting out of your own way. Because that's what a lot of this is, especially for small business owners, is that they think they have to be the ones doing everything. Start with maybe something super simple. Here's a task I just did this past week while I was driving cross country. My labels in my Gmail were a mess. So it was a great trial for somebody, right? Like there's. It's pretty low. They got my email password. So you have to think about that. You have to think about what's in your email account. But I can also, through LastPass, they could have taken it away as soon as I saw a millisecond of something that seemed improper. My labels are now a thing of beauty. That seems like a small task, however, when you're looking for something in your mailbox or you're trying to, you know, create a process, properly formatted folders and labels in your Gmail or Google Mail, whatever saves you so much time. So just start with something that you've been looking at and feeling like a really heavy weight about something that you're like, ugh, if only somebody else would do this. And it should be the first task. It should be something that you know how to do so that you can talk through it and, you know, have an idea of what they're going to do. Because eventually I want you outsourcing all the stuff you don't need to know, right? But the first one, just to get your feet wet. It should be something that you know how to do and you just are not taking the time to do it. And then if that doesn't work out, try it again. And try it again. You've just given somebody a little boost of income. If hiring somebody for 30 hours totally freaks you out, get a social media post designed on Fiverr. Just get used to communicating with somebody about what's in your head, then outsourcing it. But I think that very quickly you start to realize the benefits of having one person that you can outsource your own brain to. So just get started. My average staff member's weekly salary is one hour in my business. Wow, right? So what, a client pays for one hour rate, right? Okay, so say if it's even three. Say if it's even ten. Do you think maybe it's worth it. I certainly do. And I've now thought it's worth it so many times over, I can't even count.

This has been amazing.

Thanks, John.

I want to continue talking, but I feel like I've taken an hour of your time. Thank you so much, Jill. I'm gonna have you on again another time.

Yay. I'd love to. Anytime. This is just so fun. Thank you.

Thank you so much. We'll talk to you later.