Episode #10 - Outsourcing your way to freedom. (What I've learned from hiring over 40 VA's)

Hey, it's Ollie here. Very warm welcome to another episode of the E Commerce Freedom Podcast. Welcome to the E Commerce Freedom Podcast with your host, Oliver Denier. Learn the practical steps you need to take to build a business you can run on your own terms, escape the 9 to 5 and work from anywhere in the world. So in this episode, we're going to be talking about outsourcing. Now, one of the most exciting things about actually being able to outsource tasks in your business is that you can have, say, 500 hours worth of work going into your business every single week, and you could only be doing, say, 20 hours. You can actually hire people from across the world who are really, really excited about doing a lot of the tasks in your business that you aren't really interested in, that you don't want to be doing repetitively every single day. You can pay them a fair wage for their end, and it can actually end up being very, very cheap for you. Now, when I actually started looking into being an entrepreneur and starting to research the process of looking for businesses to start, outsourcing was probably one of the most exciting things about it for me, because I just thought to myself, you know, if you're in a job or if you're working 9 to 5 or, I mean, I was working in a bar, there's absolutely no way you can create any leverage for yourself. Aside from perhaps becoming a manager and delegating tasks to people below you, there isn't really any way that you can work less and earn more and have that structure directly affect the amount of income that goes into your bank each month. But if you run your own business, like if you run an Amazon business, for example, and you start outsourcing, then you really can do that. I mean, if I were to hire another four virtual assistants this week and got them all researching products in the background for my business, that would instantly affect my sales, right? That would instantly make it so there was more products listed on my account and I would make more sales pretty much within a few weeks. So this is just, just such an awesome topic. And today I wanted to dive into a few of the details around outsourcing, because you don't just want to outsource just for the sake of it. There's a few things you want to have in place before you actually hire somebody. You want to know when the right time is to hire someone as well. You want to know where to find vas and where the best places are to actually reach out to them and hire them, how to hire them properly. And screen and interview and make sure you're not just working with people who aren't capable of the job, how to train them properly. So you want to know exactly how to get the tasks that you know really, really well off the back of your hand, down on paper, video training, audio training, and how to pass that on so that somebody else can learn them as quickly as possible. And also, once you've got a few VA's going, your position as a business owner will transition from the jack of all trades guy who does absolutely everything to somebody who manages a team. And that in itself can actually be a new skill set, which can be a little bit scary. But there's a few things you can do to make it really, really easy and make the time that you are managing your team, rather than micromanaging absolutely everything that they're doing, but to make the time as useful as possible. Right? And allow them to have space to do what they do best to enable your staff to get on with their tasks properly, but also make them feel that they're part of a mission. Like, if you, if you give your team your goals with your business and you allow them to embody those goals for themselves, they'll feel like they're really working for something worthwhile. So we're going to be talking about all of these topics on today's episode. Not too sure how long it's going to go on for because really I'm just going off the cuff and I'm going to be sharing with you probably some of my best tips. And I can't wait to see you guys actually put these things into action. So if anything that I discussed today you really find valuable and you actually take it away, just do shoot me an email. I love reading you guys having success from this stuff that I share. So the first thing we want to talk about is when do you actually outsource? When is the right time to hire your first virtual assistant? Well, I think the definition of a task that can be very effectively outsourced is first of all, something that's relatively menial. So for example, I always like to use the example of product research looking for products to sell on your account. It's something that has to be done, but it's quite boring. Right. And also it takes a lot of time. So that's why product research is such a great thing for you to actually outsource because it has to be like a menial task that's relatively easy to learn. Also, it has to be something that happens over and over again. Like, if you've got one task that needs to be done in your business that you know is going to take you like an hour, then you're never gonna have to do it again unless it's something very, very technical. It's probably not best that you outsource it necessarily. Unless you've already got somebody on your team who's easily capable of doing this. I wouldn't necessarily hire somebody new to do that task. Because remember, you're gonna have to actually prepare all the training materials for this task, pass it on to them and oversee them whilst they're doing it. So that could effectively take longer than you just doing the thing yourself, right? So you want the task to be menial, relatively easy to learn, but also something that happens over and over again, and it's relatively time consuming. If any particular task that happens in your business that you're doing day in, day out fits those two criteria, then it's definitely time for you to outsource it. Now, what I like to do with any task like this is time myself doing this task before I outsource it. And this is for a couple of reasons. The first reason is that I can get a good estimate of how much money I'm bringing in by doing this particular task per hour. So if I'm doing this task and I'm being effective and I'm in a good state whilst I'm working for an hour and I know what I'm doing, then let's say I make $50 from that work, right? I find, say, five products of its product research. Each one of those makes $10 profit and I'll make $50 for that hour. That's the first reason you want to time it. The second reason is because you want to know once somebody is trained and they know exactly how to do this task, you want to know exactly what to expect from them. So if I can research five products in an hour, then there's no reason why VA couldn't do that as well. Especially if that's going to be their only task and they're going to be doing that for say, 40 hours a week. They should become like a master at this particular task, and they'll probably be better at it than me and they'll be better at than you. So there are two reasons why you should actually time the tasks that you do in the beginning. To get a estimate for how much you should be earning for the hour, and also what to expect in terms of targets for your VA's once you've done that. You can actually go out there and have a look for somebody to do this task for you. You can actually start to outsource it once you've got that figure. Let's say this. This task is bringing in $50 profit for your business per hour. You could actually pay somebody anything up to $50 an hour, and that staff will be making you profit. If you pay them $40 an hour, they'll still be making you $10 an hour profit. Right. So you can actually use this figure for how much you're earning an hour to figure out what to pay the member of staff. However, of course, some tasks pay more than others. And to get an idea of how much to pay a staff member is probably a good idea to look on these websites I'm about to tell you, and see what the staff are being paid, depending on where they live in the world and what tasks they're doing. So you can have a look and see. But make sure you've got that hourly figure for how much this task is bringing in to your business, because it's going to be useful. So let's talk about where to find vas. Right? You've decided the task is definitely a fit to be outsourced. It's menial. It takes a lot of time. Where's the first place you're going to look? Well, one of my favorite places to source VA's is from a place called OnlineJobsPH. It's called OnlineJobsPH, and I'm going to put a link in the description. If you go to ecommercefreedom.com 10ecommercefreedom.com 10 that's 1 and 0. Or, or you can spell it out. T, E N. You'll get all the show notes for this podcast and I'll put the link there. Onlinejobs ph. And this is probably my favorite place for hiring VAs. And the main reason why is because all of the virtual assistants on that website are actually from the Philippines. And there's several reasons why Filipino virtual assistants are so good to have on your side. First reason is because of the conversion rate. If you were to pay a Filipino assistant two to three dollars an hour, that might sound like an incredibly low rate for you, but for them, that's actually more than what they would probably get in a job in their country. So rather than exploiting the person like, you're still giving them a great living wage, because for them, a lot of things in the Philippines are actually cheaper. And also you're just exploiting the currency conversion Rate. Right. Because dollars are stronger than Filipino currency. So that's the first reason they're incredibly cost effective. Second reason is they all speak really awesome English. So if you're going to be hiring people from around the world, language barriers can really tamper with your ability to train them, to hire them and to manage them. So you want the people you're hiring to speak great English. And the majority of the people in the Philippines do speak great English and they can be really, really great communicators. Another reason is because Filipinos seem to be really hard workers. I don't know if it's something in their culture and I've spoken to a lot of Filipinos about this. They seem to agree with me, even though generalizations can usually be a bad idea. But generally Filipinos are quite hard working and they're very committed, doing a good job. So I found historically, of all the places in the world, Philippines seems to work out really, really well. So onlinejobs ph is definitely the first place to go. Another place to go to find people to outsource your tasks is Upwork. And I think they've actually changed their name to or they used to be called Elance and now they're called Upwork. So it's U P W o R K Upwork.com now on this website you can actually find people from all over the world and they won't just be Filipinos. And usually you'll find people with a variety of different skills and they will be asking for a variety of different wages or hourly pays. This website is awesome because they've actually got more tools you can use when you're hiring virtual assistants. For example, they have a tracker software so they can actually turn on this tracker whilst they're doing work and it will take screenshots of their desktop every 20 minutes. So you can actually go back and look at their week's work. So they've done 40 hours a week, skim through all these screenshots and make sure they're actually doing the task at hand. Therefore you'll actually get proof that they're, you know, doing the work you want them to. And they're not just on Facebook or whatever. So it can be really useful. It's not one of those things I don't really ever look at, but it's just nice to know it's there. And also the billing is all done automatically on upwork as well, which is really handy. So say with Onlinejobs ph, you actually have to probably pay them by PayPal. And remember to do it every week or every two weeks. With Upwork, the tracker tracks how many hours they work and then automatically bills you every week, which I find really, really nice because I just don't have to worry about that side of things. So they're my two favorite places to find Vas Upwork.com and Onlinejobs.ph now they've probably both got good uses. Upworks probably better if you want to find someone with a higher skill cap. If you need something very technical done or something that requires previous credentials, I'd say upworks probably better because you've got a wider range of people freelancers on there. But online jobs is also really, really good. So have a look at both of those and snoop around, try and find a VA that works for you. So you've got a couple of websites there to go and have a look at and I want to talk you through quickly how to actually hire properly. How do you find somebody who's reliable, great communicator, fun to work with, but also is incredibly capable of doing the task you actually want to do for the rate that you're looking to pay them right? So the first thing you need to think about with hiring properly is the job post. If you write the job post incorrectly and you put some bad information on there or you frame it wrong, that job post is going to attract all the wrong kind of candidates. And you're going to find when it comes to actually speaking to these people, they really don't have the skills they need to be doing the particular tasks that you want them to do right? So it's really important to actually get this right. Now I recommend thinking a little bit about the title that you put together for your job post. I would always try and make it very relevant. So if you're going to be looking for a virtual assistant to do one particular task, I wouldn't, for example, just write virtual assistant in the title. I'd put something like product researcher or customer support or whatever it is that their main task will be. I would put that the title also if there's any particular tools or software they have to be proficient with for them to be a good candidate, I'd also put that in the title as well. So if they absolutely have to know how to use some kind of bookkeeping software, then I'd put that in the title because that's really important as well. Another thing I would do is also write Skype interview needed asap or just mention that they're going to need to talk to you on Skype now, some, in some occasions, what you actually get is people who don't necessarily speak the best English, but they want to try and wing their way into a job with you. And this could end up wasting a lot of your time because they might try and dodge the Skype interview and just try and do everything via chat, on Skype, via text. And I've had this happen a few times, so I know it's not just like a fluke you might run into this. So in order to avoid people who can't speak very good English and are just going to be using Google Translate to communicate with you relatively badly, you want to make sure that they're up for doing a Skype interview with you. And also this will make it a lot more secure because if someone will speak to you on Skype with video, then usually they're going to be a little bit more honest and you're going to avoid dealing with people who want to hide their identity or anything dodgy like that. So there's a couple of tips for you. For the title, just think about it. Put in the main thing that they're going to be doing, any tough software or tools that they're going to need to use, and also the fact that they're going to need to speak to you on Skype. Then for the main body of the job post, I'd write a little paragraph at the top about the tasks they're going to be doing on a day to day basis, maybe a little bit about your company. And then I'd put a few bullet points about the absolute essential qualities they need to have to be able to apply for your position. Now, things like very, very fast Internet might be something you might not have thought of before, but in a lot of countries out there, actually Internet speeds can be quite low. So if you're going to be paying somebody, say five, ten dollars an hour to do a task and their Internet is a quarter of the speed of what it should be, you're going to be paying them four times the amount when you actually hire them. So I'd 100% recommend you guarantee that they have fast Internet and you actually require them to take a screenshot of a speed test of their Internet at some point as well. Obviously this will all be revealed when you get them doing some work and you see how fast they can actually do it. Because usually Internet can be one of the main reasons why virtual assistants slow down. So yeah, one of those bullet points should definitely be fast Internet connection. Also things like ability to speak, write and Read really good English and communicate well. Should be another one. And then you just got to think about the position. Are you going to have them targets to set for them? I recommend you definitely have targets. So maybe put ability to meet targets. I would probably avoid having bullet points that are very, very generic, like saying very reliable, super enthusiastic and things like that. Because to be honest with you, anybody can say that they're enthusiastic and reliable. It's very hard to actually prove that you are until you've been working for somebody for a month or two. So I'd stick to very specific things that you require from them in those bullet points and just put say four or five. Then at the bottom, just write a little line, say, you know, I look forward to speaking with you on Skype. And then make sure you put your name at the bottom of the job post. And the reason for this is because what you'll find is a lot of these candidates will actually message you with a generic cover letter that doesn't really match anything that you've written in your job post. They'll ignore all of the bullet points. They won't have the qualifications or anything that they need for your job, and they won't even put your name at the top of their cover letter. They'll usually put something like Dear Hiring Manager or Dear sir or just hi. And what you'll find is the candidates that have actually used your name will really stand out from those who've just copied and pasted the same message to everybody. And you can actually have this as the first part of your screening process. You can have a look through people's covering letters. You don't even need to look at their CVS to see whether they have attention to detail and things like that, just by what they say to you initially. So if they say, you know, they're messaging me and say, dear Ollie, thanks a lot for your job post. I think I'd be a great candidate for this position because I have very fast Internet connection. I use the tool that you said you wanted me to use, and, you know, they're mentioning a few of the things you actually mentioned in your job post. You know, instantly they're on the ball. They're not just messing around and they're serious about getting a job that actually fits for them. Right. Because a lot of people on these websites will literally just take any work that comes to them, even though they can't do the job properly. So I definitely recommend being very particular about your job post, writing things specific that you need for your task and then when it comes to actually hiring the right person, you can have a look at the applications and make sure that person matches with what you've written in that job post. So that's the job post out of the way, right? Think about it. Write something really good up there. Make sure you take a little bit of time to personalize it for the task in hand. The next thing to do once you've posted that job post is to sit and wait for all the applications to come through. And what you're going to find is you're probably going to get a couple hundred. Like if the task that you need to do doesn't require very much skill, like product research, anybody can go online effectively look for products in online stores or whatever it is, or private label research, anyone can really learn how to do that, right? So you're going to get a flood of people applying for your job. And then what you can do is, if you've done your job post correctly, like I mentioned before, you can look through these applications and see which of these people stand out who's bothered to write your name at the top of their email to you. This is really crucial. If they actually bother to do that, then they'll stand out because you'll find most people won't. Also, you can see if they've actually given you a cover letter that corresponds to your requirements on the job post. And you can just go through and actually select maybe four or five of the best applicants that look like they're going to be a great fit, have a look at their CVs, have a look at where they live, have a look at how much they're expecting to earn per month or per hour, and just select maybe four or five of the best candidates. Once you've done that, you can send them a message and say, thanks a lot for your application. I've read it and you seem like you might be a good fit for this job. Would you be free at such and such time and date for a Skype interview? You can have a chat with them on Skype. And there's a few questions I'd usually ask candidates when you talk on Skype. To be honest with you, the Skype interview isn't necessarily about their answers to these questions or about what questions you ask. So there's. There's no like perfect way to do an interview. It's more to see if you guys are actually a good fit to work together. Do you feel natural when you're talking to this person? Do they reciprocate really? Well, have you guys got rapport together? Could you see yourself working with this person for the next couple of years? Right. These are all things that are really important and the more your vas actually click with you, the easier it's going to be for you to train them and the more money you're going to be making over the next couple of years from their work. Right. So this is really key. Rather than worrying about exactly what questions to ask them on the interview, just try and get out of them what you need to know to decide whether they're going to be a good fit to work with you. So the first thing I usually ask them is I'd usually say, hey, it's Ollie, how are you doing? Thanks for agreeing to do an interview with me. Then I'd talk a little bit about my company. I'd say, I'm an E commerce company, I sell on Amazon. We do a lot of these kind of products and we're looking for somebody to help us research more products to list on our account. And then I'd say something like, could you tell me how the previous work that you've had corresponds to the kind of work that you're going to be doing in this job? Right. And once you've asked them that question, they should be able to give you some really awesome answers. Right. If they've given you a reply to your job post that really corresponds to what you were looking for and you selected a good person, they should really be able to tell you a lot of experience they've had, which will be helpful when they're working for you. Now, as they're telling you this stuff, just, you know, just listen and let them talk. And from this you can usually get a good idea of what they're like. You know, are they intelligent, are they clear with how they communicate and are they listing jobs that actually are relevant? You know, are they making good points? And you can get a pretty good quick gut feeling from the first sort of 30 seconds of an interview. Now, even though you've screened everybody and you've only chosen people who've given you good cover letters, sometimes you're going to interview people who look great on paper. When you actually talk to them, you'll find they're really not that compatible for the job and you might find that you really don't click with them or actually their English isn't as great as it was on their cover letter that they've spent, you know, hours and hours putting together. So this is going to be quite a quick process. You know, so let them talk, ask them a few questions. And then there's a few other questions. I generally tend to ask people on the interview things like, what's your availability? You know, have you got any other jobs right now? Are you going to be able to do the amount of hours I need you to do in this position? Ask them if they're okay with the pay that you're offering. And there's a few other things that might be specific to your particular job. But the point is here is not to like to worry too much about the particular questions you ask. Just get a vibe for the person. They're probably not going to be doing any rocket science in your business. You know, you don't need to figure out exactly what their IQ is or what previous tasks they've done, you know, to a T. They're going to be doing relatively menial tasks in your business anyway, so you don't need to worry too much about all their credentials. It's more just about a vibe for how you actually get on with them. So after you've done these four or five interviews with different candidates, you've probably realized that some are better than others. You might find that maybe 1, 2 or 3 are probably good enough for the job. Right. But I wouldn't go and hire them yet. What you should do next is actually give them a. A trial shift. Trial shift. At least two people. And the reason we do this is because there's absolutely no way you can tell how good somebody is going to be at doing a task until they're actually doing it. There's so many variables that could go wrong whilst you guys are working together. You might find out that they're just really not very computer savvy like they say they are. They say they've worked with computers before, they're really awesome to talk to on the phone, but when it comes to actually doing simple things in Excel or Google Sheets, they just fall behind and they're really, really slow. Like that could happen. Or you might find that actually their Internet speed is really slow and they're just not very good at it. Or maybe this job just isn't for them. Sometimes out of, you know, pure desperation, people apply for jobs. Like, I know I've done it in the past, applied for a job just for the money, and the actual task I'm supposed to be doing in the job really isn't for me. So you might find all this stuff out through the trial shift. And that's why it's so important not to just Hire somebody straight away. So for this trial shift, I always recommend you pay them. Right, Just pay them what they would have earned if they had worked you for the same amount of hours, because they're obviously putting in their time. So I definitely make sure you give them some cash for that and just get them doing maybe one or two simple tasks similar to the tasks they're going to be doing in the future. Now, rather than training them on absolutely everything that happens in your business right away for this trial shift, that could be a waste of time because they might not end up working for you, just train them on the specific task that you want them to do, maybe for four, eight hours or 16 hours over two days and just see how you guys work together. You will learn so much from how they actually pick up the task you want them to do, how they perform, how they communicate with you when they have a problem, if they ask you decent questions and, and at the end of the day how good their results are. After a couple of days work, you might find, you know, after two days they only find you two products if there's a product research task. And that's just not ever going to be good enough. So, you know, you're going to know that they're not a good match for you. Obviously they haven't been doing it for very long. So after two days their performance isn't going to be as good as it will be after a month. But you can get a good idea for how naturally they adapt to the tasks you're giving them. So this is what I recommend you do. After you do one or two screening trial shifts and you've got their results and you've got a little bit of work that they've done and you've paid them, you can make a final decision of who to hire. And what I recommend you do is once you do decide and you say, you know, this person really performed well, great in the interview, good cover letter, good trial shift. I want to hire them. I would consider at least the first four weeks to be a probation period. And you can be perfectly transparent with them and you can say, okay, you're hired, but for the first four weeks it's still probation. So you haven't necessarily got a long term job of us just yet. We just want to see if this continues to work well for both of us. We don't want you to find out that you hate the job or we don't want us to find out that maybe you weren't the right person. So for the first four Weeks, you know, we're just gonna have it as maybe like an extended trial or probation. Now the reason is for this is actually very specific reason. I mean, I've hired probably over 30 virtual assistants in my time. Probably more actually, if you consider all the smaller tasks I've had done. And you'll find that people will be really good with the COVID letter, great on the interview, really, really good on the screening trial shift. And then three weeks down the line you just find out something else about them that you just can't stand. And for some reason, you guys just don't work together. Sometimes it's hard to figure out whether someone is going to be great for the job right away, you know, in those first couple of days when you're hiring. So it's good to allow that four week period just for your sanity sake, so you don't think you're doing something wrong. Like, I've had a lot of my students hire, hire VAs, go through this whole process and then after three weeks they just realize this VA is not as good as they thought and they thought they were doing something wrong. Well, hiring people takes time. Like to find good people to work for your business, it's the most rewarding thing in the world. But it does take time. Right. So you have to allow for these things to happen. So just be aware that the first four weeks of that person working for you will be really the final decider of whether they're going to work for you long term. Awesome. So once that's all done, really, you should know exactly who is going to be a long term staff member for your business. So what we want to talk about now for a little bit is actually how to train these VAs and get them doing the tasks that you do. Now the most simple way for you to actually train somebody and show them exactly what they need to be doing is to use a video capture software. I use Camtasia, but you can use a software called Jing. It's J I n g dot com. You can record up to five minutes of screen captures. Anything that's happening on your desktop will get recorded, including voiceover. If you have a mic on your laptop, you can actually record your voice as well whilst you're doing the task. And then you can just email those to your virtual assistant. And then rather than, you know, having to explain everything over Skype or whatever, they can see exactly what they need to do and they can learn it really quickly. Also, what I like to do is give them a text step by step breakdown as well as that. So they can actually follow without having to, you know, find the part in the video where you mention a certain thing or a way to do something. They can have a look at the steps on a piece of paper, maybe with screenshots of each thing that's happening on screen as well. And then it makes it really easy and really clear for them to learn exactly how to do the task. I've had a lot of my virtual assistants say that because the way I train them, they feel very secure and they understand the task a lot better than how they've had to deal with it from employers in the past. And I think it's because I just make it really easy. And I think, you know, if you do focus on making things as simple as possible for them to pick up, you will get much better results out of your virtual assistants. So grab a screen capture software like Jing or Camtasia and you can record the screen. Also, you could do Skype screen share and you could record it whilst you're talking them through it, and actually broadcast your screen, your desktop to them on Skype. You can have a look on Skype's help to figure out how to do this. And that's another great way of doing it. And you can actually record it whilst you're doing that and then send them the recording and they can go back and view that. So that's how you kind of capture the task and pass it to them. Before you actually do that, though, I'd really recommend you make the task as simple as possible. Eliminate all the fat from the task, try and systemize it so it's as simple as possible. So if you want them to go out and find products for you, rather than just saying, okay, you go to websites and you look for products and you find the best ones, actually give them a step by step breakdown of the best way to do it. So you start with the toys category, you go to the clearance section, you compare one toy to the toy on Amazon, the next toy to the toy on Amazon. You track the profit and you keep going through until you find something good and you note it on a database. That's a much better clear system for them to actually go and replicate, rather than them just not knowing really where to go when you've just said, you know, you just find toys online to sell on Amazon, right? So get it very, very clear, get the system created so it's very smooth and streamlined so they can go and replicate it. And once you've done that, you can actually start giving them Targets and say, right, we need 50 products researched a day, or whatever it is, whatever it is. When you timed yourself doing this task, how much you could do should be how much they can do as well, because it's only fair, right? And then you can push them as well. You can say, look, you know, you're doing this stuff full time. You're really good at it. I'm going to push you, try and actually do more than I did, give them even better targets. And then one thing that's really, really powerful actually with virtual assistants is the ability to give them bonuses. If they perform really, really well, you can give them extra money on top of what you're paying them already. And you'll find this really, really incentivizes them to actually do the best work for you. And I'd really like to emphasize the fact that you should look after these people as if they were part of your family, right? Because at the end of the day, the work that they're doing for your business, the income that they're bringing in, will actually help to pay for your meals, right? It will help to pay for your wages. So really, they are effectively part of your family. So you should really treat them like that. On several occasions. VAs that work for us have had issues that they need financial help with, and we've, you know, always been as generous as we could be at the time, and I recommend you do that as well. So if you're going to be hiring virtual assistants in the Philippines, actually, you can look for, there's a certain type of health insurance that they can, they can get and you can pay for this for them and it will cover all of their health. If they have any health issues, they'll get it covered by this insurance. Again, very, very cheap for us. So you might as well add it onto their package, especially if someone's been working for you for a while. And then you'll know they'll feel like they've been looking after by you, they'll work for you longer, and they'll actually work better. So treat your VAs as well as you possibly can. Give them bonuses when they perform really, really well. You could even work in some kind of commission structure, like if they're making you, say, if each VA is making you, say, an extra thousand dollars a month, you could give them 10% of that or whatever makes sense for your business, and it would incentivize them, give them a better lifestyle, better wages, and also they'll end up working even harder for you as well. So it's a win win. So by now, hopefully, if you've used all these tips, you know, everything you need to do to actually hire and train a VA and get them working for you. Now, after a while, if you're in my situation, I think I've got six, maybe even seven. I can't even keep track right now of the VA's that I have working for me. And they're not just a bunch of random people, you know, they're a team. So what we do is we all chat on the same Skype chat window all the time and update each other with what's going on in our lives. Like, recent va, just his wife just had a kid, so we gave them a bit of maternity paternity leave and they're showing pictures of the baby on the, on the Skype chat and stuff and just that kind of thing really does build a nice sort of culture for everybody to work. And they feel like they're open with you, they can tell you what's going on in their lives, have a nice chat. But also it's kind of formal as well. So they know it's like work, but also like, it's friendly and, you know, we're human beings. So that kind of thing really does help. And another thing I recommend you do as well is every single week, get all of your VAs on the phone for like an hour and just talk with them through, like, what actions you want them to take through the week, what targets you want to meet, keep reminding them of the mission you're on. So if you're selling on Amazon or you have some other kind of business and you've got a target, you want to hit 500,000 this year, tell them, say, look, I really want to hit 500,000 this year. And if we do this, like, it's going to really improve my life. And also I want to make sure that I pay you guys back when we hit this target. We'll celebrate together and I give you guys bonuses as well. So getting them involved in your goal and your vision when you're managing your team can just be so powerful and allow them to feel like they're working for something bigger than just, you know, adding random products to a spreadsheet day. Because at the end of the day, as an entrepreneur, you're doing this because you've got a bigger why, right? You've got a reason why you want to start this business. So if you let them tap into that and tap into it for themselves, you're going to get much more loyalty, much better results and your team's going to be more of a unit and you know, hiring people as you're going to find with hiring VAs, if you've never done it before, it takes time. You do not want to be hiring people every couple of months. I mean, that might be the case if you want to expand, but like you want your VAS to stick with you as much as they possibly can. Right. In fact, another thing I could add to this whilst I'm on this topic is you could actually pay them in arrears. That's what we do. So we say like, you'll get your first month's pay after four weeks of working for us and ask them if that's okay and everything. But then if they do ever leave, then at least you've got four, four weeks to actually hire a new va. But yeah, bit of a tangent there, but the point is keep them as loyal as possible by making them feel like they're part of your team, they're on the same mission as you, and you will have so much more success than doing everything in your business by yourself. It's so much more fun when you're working with other people. It's nice to just be able to have this mammoth task that you need to do and just pass it onto somebody else. It feels great. You should not be doing every single task in your business all by yourself. So action steps from today's podcast. Go out there, see what's going on in your business that can be outsourced and hire your first virtual assistant. It's going to be one of the most rewarding things you've ever done. Probably going to be frustrating as well as you go through all these applicants that's just send you rubbish cover letters and interviewing people that can hardly speak English. But still you'll get there and then it's going to be unbelievably rewarding. Thanks so much for watching and yes, shoot me an email if this stuff's working for you and you're enjoying it. If I. If you're getting emails from me, then reply to any of them and just let me know how you're getting on. Go to ecommerce freedom.com forward/ten to get all the show notes for this. I'll put a couple bonuses and stuff in there for you as well to help you get you outsourcing help get your e commerce business off the off to a great start. Awesome. Have an awesome time implementing these tips and I can't wait to see your results. Take care, guys. And keep believing. Sa.