The VA Hiring Blueprint: Michael Sjogren's Proven Strategies

All right, everybody, welcome back to the Boostly podcast. Today, I want to talk about something which I know a lot of you struggle with. I see it all the time in the hospitality community, the Boostly community, and further afield, and it's hiring. There's a certain point in your business career where you go from doing everything yourself and you go, right, I want to hire. And then, you know, you've heard of things like upwork and online jobs, ph and all those crazy places, and you go out and you hire, and it's a disaster. And there's many reasons why it is a. Is a disaster. And then, you know, you have to start all over again. And if you get burned the first time, you get overwhelmed, you never do it again. You just got. Sorry, I'm not doing that. But I heard about a solution. My good friend is with me on the left, and I really want to. I wanted to get him on. It's taken a while for us to do it, but I'm really glad we're going to get it done now, because this service is something that I want you all to dial into. There's a link we're going to give you, so make sure you check out for that. We'll have it in all the notes and all the things, but without further. Michael Shan, thank you very much for coming back. I believe this is the hat Trick, the third appearance on the podcast. So get the hat Trick ball next time I see you. So thank you for coming.

Absolutely, absolutely.

Yeah.

Thanks for having me.

So by now, everybody knows who you are, the story, the journey, etc. But can you just sort of wound it back to the day that you realized that this service that you're offering now and what we're talking about now, what made you, like, get that light bulb moment of, actually, I think I can do something with this?

Yeah. You know, it comes back to, like, why I started from the beginning. I mentioned it, and I'll keep it short, but, like, I talked about it in Nashville last year. I was like, I didn't get into this business because I loved hosting and all that stuff. And, you know, that's great if you're into it. I got into it as a business opportunity because my kid was sick, and I wanted to create a business that didn't rely on me, like, something that I could build, that eventually I could build a team and I wouldn't have to trade time for money. And when I got around eight properties, that's when I really started to notice, like, my. My tech was dialed in my systems were dialed in. I had a lot of AI and automation, but at the eight property mark I just, I couldn't step away and I kept getting sucked back in and I was like, man, I'm spending way too much time like in the weeds. And you know, like a lot of people, I went to upwork, I went to online jobs, ph I went through a lot of different services and you know, found somebody, they seemed good, brought them on. And the thing that I hear the most and I resonate with is like I feel like they just ask me questions all day. It's like I should just do it myself, right? And I learned a lot. I went through 4vs before I eventually found Mark and ended up scaling my team from there. And now we have like six. Yeah, six VAs. But the reality was it, like you said, it was a multitude of factors. The first one was I had no set criteria for what I was even looking for. It was just like somebody with a pulse that was somewhat responsible that could help me. Um, so I really had to get clear about what I wanted from this person. And the biggest recommendation I can make for people is to do a two week time study. And I got this from Alex Sharpen a couple of years ago who was big on this. And it's, it's so simple. But create it in a spreadsheet or a Google sheet or whatever, just Sunday to Saturday from 5am to 10pm or whatever your waking hours are, print it out and then every 15 minutes just write down what you're doing. It's not just work, it's everything. You know, every 15 minutes, write it down. And then at the end of the two weeks you want to go through that and figure out where were the biggest time sucks in my business that I could use help with. And if you just do that one thing, it's going to give you so much clarity, right? And then from that point it was like, okay, I started learning about personality assessments, right? And you could talk to Steve Trover over at Better Talent and those guys, like they've got that stuff dialed in, but I'm like, okay, who's going to be naturally good at the things that I need help with? Because somebody can suck it up and do it for a while, but if they're not going to enjoy it and they're not going to want to stay long term, what's the point? I'm going to have to go through this all over again, right? So really getting the right, right butts in the right seats and then from that point it's like, okay, now I've got the right person, they have the right skill sets, or at least the right personality type for those skill sets. Now what do I do? And when I was first onboarding people, it was basically all right, on Monday we're going to jump on Zoom and you're just going to shadow me for the day.

Right?

I, I know a lot of people have done this and I want you to put yourself in that person's shoes for a second. Imagine you left a job to go work for some company and they had no formal onboarding, they had no SOPs for you to look at. There was no employee manual. Your boss just said, hey, you're just going to shadow me, we're going to figure this out. Like, it doesn't exactly set the right tone that you're a reputable business. Right. So over time we started to develop. Initially it was like a seven day onboarding process and then it was a 14 day, now it's a hundred day onboarding process. So that there's structure on how we take somebody who's brand new to our business, walk them through all of our processes and guide them and then eventually within that three month mark, like they're ready to go with minimal supervision. But again, that took years to develop. You know, I don't want to make it sound like I had it all figured out. It took a really long time. Yeah. And then the last piece is like your leadership. Like again, I thought I was a systems guy, I was a process guy. I had a really good playbook with all these super detailed SOPs. I thought I could just give it to them and be like, all right, go and run with it. But your team needs a leader, they need a visionary, they need somebody to check in with them and train them and like give them time. And there's no going around that, like you still have to do that. I still meet with my team every single week.

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One of our sales team. Wait. And it's like you start off as scrappy business owners. You start off by doing it all yourself. And as you grow, like boosting now is at a level we're about to hit. 50 members of staff. I don't see myself as the boss or the CEO. I see myself as a coach like you coach your staff. And I, I, I've been devouring books like Scaling up and Traction. I do, you know, literally being on the car today and it's, and everybody just keeps repeating the same things, whether it's Mike McCallowitz or whoever. It's like you grow and it's so important to have these things in place because if you build everything on really rocky foundations, it's just, it can it just collapse so quickly. And we see it so much. I mean, I'm sure you see it in the coaching part of what you do. You see people grow and do all of. But if they don't get these sort of things in place right now and they document things properly because so many business owners create everything with it in here and they go, I know everything. So they know everything. So yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's very, very good. So where did you get your, your inspiration from? Because obviously the thing I love about you, and I've said this to a lot of people, is that I feel like your vertical has fallen upon short term rentals, but you are so knowledgeable and you've got so much discipline and structure in place. You could have gone on any vertical, could have gone down cars, it could have been anything. You would have been a success into it. So how have you brought all of this into your world? Like, what's the books that have inspired you? What are the, who are the people that you've been tuned in to sort of train your brain to be this way?

Yeah. So like a lot of people, man, I reading Rich Dad, Poor dad, in my mid-20s, it was like the light bulb went off. I was like, you know, and I went through college, got my undergrad, my mba, CPA license, all this stuff. But that book changed my life. So I knew real estate investing was going to be the vehicle and I thought I was going to raise money and buy apartment buildings. You know, since 2014, I started like diving into that, hired coaches and mentors in that space. But it was a struggle, man, and I just didn't get any traction. I was trying to raise money, I was Trying to find deals. I was working a full time job, you know, I had a sick kid. It was just born. Like, it was just crazy. And then I met a guy in a mastermind group, Marcos, who his primary thing was tax deeds and tax liens. I think he's thinking the tax deed hunter or something like that. But he introduced me to short term rentals. He was doing arbitrage back in 2016, 2017, before. It was a huge thing. And I was like, this is interesting. I don't know if this is legal, but it's really interesting, right? And I told Kristen about it, and I was like, I think this is going to be our ticket. Because traditional rentals, you might make 100, 200, maybe 300 bucks a month. With this, you're making 1,000, $2,000 a month. And he didn't even need to own the properties. So that was the light bulb moment. And then I ran into guys like Eric Mueller, Jay Massey, a lot of these guys that had just started getting into it, scaling it up, and I was like, huh, okay. So, like, this is a viable thing. And so I just devoured as much information as I could. I went through different programs. Eric stuff, I went through J stuff, I went through Marcos stuff. And that was it, man. Like, that was the spark. And I started to get a little bit of success. And then a lot of my focus shifted to the stuff that you talked about. I read, I'm looking at my bookshelf. I went through the E Myth and then traction, just like you talked about. And then I went through all Mike Michalowicz's stuff, like, devoured all of that. And now my goal from the beginning was to work no more than four hours a week on the business. I'm like, if this is what I'm. If I'm going for time, freedom, that has to be my guiding light. So how do I do that? And it was just getting around people like that and reading books like that, listening to podcasts, and, you know, Alex Charfen was a great one. I was in his mastermind for a year. I hired a attraction coach through EOS to help me get that system set up. Like, I was just. I've always been a fan of education. Like, I reinvest a lot into, like, coaches, mentorships, everything. Because it's just a cheat code. It's like, if I'm trying to get this result, somebody already else has. Like, I'm happy to pay them for that, you know, fast lane.

So this brings us along nicely to. You've Got undone. So you've learned everything. You've learned the, the rough and the smooth. You've scaled and grown and built these teams. And now you've been showing people that come through your coaching program to do the same, but it's come to this point. So this point now is where you are actually now, walking people through, showing them what to do when it comes to hiring, but also to hiring as well. So just walk us through exactly what this all means, how you go about working and how the process looks and why should a short term rental host decide to book a call?

Yeah, I mean, at the beginning, it was just folks that were in our Mastermind program. I was teaching them how to go out and recruit people, and they were like, well, can you just go recruit some people for me? And I kept getting that over and over and over again. And then finally I approached Mark, who was my operations manager at the time, and we had an unfair advantage, to be honest. So he was employee number three at Airbnb's call center in the Philippines, and he grew it to 5,000 agents. So he built a call center over there. So he knows everybody that's working over there. So he just goes and cherry picks people that used to work for him and just offers them a new opportunity. And so we started doing that for folks in the Mastermind, and then through different speaking engagements and conferences and everything else, people kept asking me like, hey, can you just recruit bas for us? And I was like, well, it's, it's only for the Mastermind people. I kind of do it as like a favor for them and whatever. And I just. It just kept coming up and coming up and coming up. And so finally we just said, all right, well, let's just put something together, whether they're with us or not, that we can at least help them. Because the, the true, honest truth is if you don't build a good team, you will never have time, freedom. You just won't. As good as your systems are, you will always have that anxiety in the back of your head that you can't shut this thing off. You just can't. You can't shut your phone off. So the team is what really gives it to you. And so what we started doing was just offering the recruiting, and then what we found is, okay, we could give you the best candidate, but if you don't have the right systems, you don't have the right cadence, you don't have the right meeting structure, all of that, it's not going to work. So we packaged it all together. So we'll recruit people for you, we'll help you build out your systems. I give you my entire SOP playbook if you have nothing to use for now, and then we'll help you build yours while we go recruit people for you and then we integrate them into your business. And Mark no longer runs my portfolio. He does this full time and he manages all the VAs on the back end and gives them continuous support. So it's worked out pretty well, man. And people are grateful because as you scale, you build that traction. You're not afraid to get deals now you're growing, but it's like how the hell do you step out of the day to day and just focus on the things that you want to focus on? And it's through building a good team.

And plus as well, one of the things that I've learned the most over the last six years of hiring, especially hiring in the Philippines, is you don't find the best people now on OnlineJobs, PH or Upwork. It's literally through referral networks. That's where we've absolutely hit like a, a home run. We, we needed to have that system in place first and foremost to find our now chief of operations. But from there it's all through the referral networks and that's where the best of the best and that's how you get the right people in the right bums and places. And so do you call him Mark? Mark? Is that who your person?

Yes.

So for him to tap into that network of 5,000 plus people, that is insane. So yeah, unbelievable resource. So but like you say, it's, it's not only just about hiring because you could easily go get Mark to go and hire somebody and you could give me a VA right now and that would be like 50% of it. So the other half of it is, is, is the coaching as well. And you've had now been doing this for a few months, been doing a mastermind, you've opened it further afield and you've having people now that are coming through the process. What would you say is the one thing that you see the new people, not the mastermind people, the new people coming to your world who are looking to hire. What do you think is the main mistake that you see these people making when they first start to use your services? Like from, from like the sort of three or four months sort of Runway you've had of this so far? Like what could people be potentially looking at it differently?

I think the biggest thing is you still have to invest a couple hours a week to check in with your team. You can't just hire somebody. It's not like you buy a software and then it's done. Like, you have to invest in your people. So I want to challenge everybody to like shift your mindset to like you said, you're now a coach and you're investing in your people. And as I've grown a few different businesses now, the best investments I make are one, in my skill sets. Two, it's in the people. It's not the properties, it's the people. Because without the people, the properties don't mean anything. You're just buying a job or you're buying a piece of real estate. So you want to look at it as, okay, if I invest two hours a week into this person, how many hours am I getting back by doing that? Right. It's not just, oh, I'm going to have Mike go hire somebody and then they're just going to know how to run my business. On day one, you have to go in with the right expectation of like, we're going to get you the cream of the crop. We're going to work with you, we're going to show you how to implement everything. But you still need to coach these people on the way you like to do business, the way that you've set it up. That's the biggest mistake I've seen.

Yeah, because again, just because you hire a VA and let's just say they've worked with somebody's guesty account, that doesn't mean they know your guesty account. No two guesty accounts are the same. Even if you've got the same pms, you've got the same pricing tool or anything like that, it's it, everything is, is very different. So you've got to, got to make sure you, you put the, put the time back time back into it.

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You on the other side. And from the people that have been Coming on board, like have they been, have you been able to get like enough data to find out like their biggest wins? Did you find like people are coming to you and saying, oh, I didn't realize this was going to be the knock on effect of this. Have you seen like the people and like the wins that they're having and the, the things that I get, the results they're getting on the back of it now?

Yeah. The cool thing and the funny thing is is like once you start to get that time back, you don't know what to fill it with. So a lot of people like want to jump back in or they, they just find things to stay busy. So I'm constantly reminding them of like, okay, you have freedom now, so what do you want to do with it? You want to keep growing the portfolio? Do you want to spend more time with your kids? You want to golf a couple times a week like me, like, stop filling your time with being busy. And they're just, it's just like such an epiphany of like, what do you mean I don't have to do this anymore. You know, I don't have to check in with the cleaners, I don't have to message the contractor, I don't have to like talk to the guests. Like, what are you talking about? Right. It's just such a mental shift to go from being in the weeds every day to actually having a team do it for you. That's one of the coolest things.

It's also one of the hardest things I can personally speak to that who has grown up, just always been working, working, working, working to have that freedom and then most importantly, know the trust, the trust as well is a big thing. Once you trust somebody to do something, it's everything. And when you can trust your team to like deal with solutions or issues like you say, otherwise, you are glued to your phone, you're glued to emails, you're glued to dealing with problem. So very, very cool. Okay. So very, we, we've teased this link. Where is the link for people to go and check out?

Yeah, just www.strsecrets.com va fantastic.

And from there I guess do they book a call, chat to the team, see if you're a good fit?

Yeah, exactly. So there's a video they can watch and then they'll set up a call with a demo call with my team, they'll walk them through how everything works and then if they decide to do it, great. If they don't, totally cool. We'll give you Some homework, some pointers, and you go off and do your business.

Brilliant. And apart from helping people with VAs and coaching, what else is happening in the world of Mike right now? How is everything?

It's. It's great, man. You and I talk about flying all the time, and my son's big into football or soccer here in the US and he just got his first hat trick over the weekend, so that was amazing to watch. That was super cool. He's seven now, and so really excited about that. We've got some other stuff that I can't quite share yet, but really excited. We're moving. We just bought a new house on the ocean, so I cannot wait. We're doing some work to it, but hopefully by the end of this month, we'll be in, you know, again. I encourage everybody to write your goals down and create a vision board. This house has been on my vision board since 2014, you know, and seeing it come to fruition now, you know, nine years later, is pretty wild. So pretty, pretty excited for that. And we're getting geared up for Nashville, man. It's going to come up quick.

So Nashville, 2024, this is the third year. What was the plan? So, like, you've gone from first year figuring it all out, second year, smashing it with Mr. Mike McAller. It's. What's the plans for. For year three?

Yeah, so we've got. We're upping the venue. It's still going to be in Nashville, but now we're going to have 2500 people at a amazing venue. You guys can check out all the details@str wealthconference.com but we've got Damon John from Shark Tank lined up as a speaker and we've got a whole bunch of other people. I was actually just sending some texts earlier, confirming some other speakers, so it's going to be awesome, man. It's an absolute blast. And it's kind of like a. A family reunion at this point, like getting hang out with you and everybody else that I see like, once or twice a year. It's just. It's awesome.

Yeah. And Nashville is a perfect city to do so. Definitely. So looking forward to that. So I'm sure there's going to be more information coming out over. Over that. So there's loads of things going on. It's very, very busy with the fall season coming up, and everybody's going to be gearing up for 2024. But one thing I can just really emphasize, and I'm personally going for it with, with what we Do. And we're not even in, you know, we don't deal with properties, we deal with websites. And helping people is make sure you get your systems and structures in place. We are finding that out so much. And we are just about to hire attraction coach ourself over here. So it's, it's so important. Go check out that book. Even if you're just ground basics, go check out Traction. I'm feeling so many people have read it by now, but do go and check it out. Okay, final, final question. And this is a, a random one for my podcast question question board. So if you could only follow five people on social media for the rest of the year, just five people, who would they be?

Me personally or if I was just.

Starting out, you personally. So just you right now. So where, like, if you could just follow five people, can be business, could be fun, could be whatever. Just on social media, doesn't matter what platform. If you could just follow five people for the rest of the rest of the year. She can't pick five. Just pick your top three.

Number one, definitely Alex Hormozi. Whether I was new or not, definitely follow him. I just, I'm on the second reading of his new book. Yep. So Alex Horozi, Jocko Willink, who's a former Navy seal, if you don't know who he is, but wrote a few amazing books about leadership. I follow you. Not to, not to blow you up here, but I definitely follow you because again, like, just, even if you weren't in this industry, just your knowledge of marketing and how, how the psychology of marketing works, you always have these, like, I always have these little like light bulb moments watching your stuff. And in line with that, I'd follow Bill again for like marketing and just that whole other side of the equation and so many. I'm such a podcast guy. I'm gonna throw out two more just for bonus this year. I love Patrick bet David, who I got to meet last year, which is really cool. That was a bucket list thing for me and Garrett and Danielle White. So they've got a really good podcast called date your wife. And so again, like keeping, keeping your goals well rounded, right? Like, I'm always looking to optimize different areas of my life, like, how do I make my business better? How do I make my relationship, my wife better? How do I make relationship, my son better? Like, you want to have that well rounded piece because it's easy to just get sucked into the business?

Yeah, absolutely. Well, there's some pretty strong, pretty strong shouts there. Patrick Bet David. I've just discovered this guy on YouTube. He's YouTube.

Oh, dude, you got to watch Valley, Damon. It's so good.

I go down these rabbit holes. Like, once you follow one thing of his, he just is everywhere. And yeah, very good. Very clever guy. Very switched on. Lovely. Great choices. Love those choices. All right, my friend, so we'll see you in a couple of months. We'll get all these links up and please, please, please everybody who's tuning in and go and go and check it out, because it is a massive resource and I know you're going to get a lot from it and there's a lot of people who are going through the system right now. So thank you. All right, any final words of wisdom? Anything you'd like to leave the Boostly people with before we let you go?

The. The biggest thing that I always say is just get clear on your goal, like, and, and your why. Like, if you could hit whatever goal it is with your business, what would it be and why? And once you have that clarity, it's going to be your North Star. So every decision you make is going to pull you towards that and it's going to make a lot of the decisions so much cleaner. It's a hard yes or it's a hard no. You just need that clarity.

Amazing. All right, everybody, we'll let you go. Thanks for tuning in. We will be back again very soon with another episode closing in on 650 episodes now of the Boostly podcast. Thank you very much, everybody who tunes in and downloads and tells people because it is amazing to see. So we'll see you all very soon. Thank you very much.