Paying Virtual Assistants And The Tasks They Do With Team Land Geek

Hey, it's Mark Podolski, the land geek with a favorite niche real estate website, thelandgeek.com and on this week's Roundtable podcast, we have almost all the usual suspects. We've got Landon AI Harris. Landon, how are you doing?

Well, Mark, good to see you.

We've got your partner in crime, Taria, putting in the reps. Harris Trea.

How are you?

I am great, thank you.

Good to see you. We've got Eric the Technician Peterson. Eric, how are things in Nashville?

All is well. Happy day after Labor Day to you.

Happy, happy day after Labor Day. Which to us really means nothing. I actually put on threads. I'm like, if you're excited about Labor Day, it might be time to reevaluate what you're doing with your life. You know, was that. Is that too harsh? But last but not least, I love it when you call me Big Papa Tate. Litchfield Tate. How are things in Sin City?

Starting to cool off. Happy to be on here.

Thanks.

You know, it's funny because this morning was, like, 70s here. Did you. Did you cycle?

I did. I enjoyed that. Cool weather. It was beautiful day.

Beautiful, Beautiful. Well, we've got a really interesting topic. We were monitoring the WhatsApp chat for our coaching clients, and they're all asking each other, hey, what do you pay your VA for this? What do you pay your VA for that? So I thought, why don't we talk about virtual assistants and what we pay depending on the role? So, Landon, first of all, is this a personal question? Like, do. Do people feel like. Well, I don't. You know, maybe we shouldn't say what we pay? I don't think so, but just curious.

No, I don't mind sharing that. I think one of the things that we always run into is obviously the talent, what you're. What you're finding. So I like to kind of have this broad range. Unfortunately, I do find that if you have foreign va, sometimes you're not paying them as much as you're paying the American vas. So, like, let's say I've got my intake manager and I'm taking her, and I'm gonna pay her probably. I'm gonna start her at 15, and I might give her some room to increase, you know, fitness. Like 15 an hour and give her room to increase year by year, depending on how she performs. Or maybe we've got something lower end, like. Like our sales transition person. So maybe they're. We're paying them, like, six or seven bucks, and they are, you know, foreign based Maybe they're in the Philippines or something like that. We're paying them six or seven bucks. So I find it just ranges. It's such a broad range. I hate to just say that there's just no answer to it, but there is such a broad range. I think it depends on level and talent.

Who's the most expensive VA that you have per hour and the least expensive VA per hour? What role are they in?

That's a good question. So I would say our most expensive per hour is probably our sales assistant. We want to make sure that they're being paid and compensated accordingly for the amount of time that they're putting in. And we want them to kind of push a little bit. The least expensive. And I should know this, I could pull up my metrics, but if I'm thinking about our least expensive. Yeah, I was going to say, what do you think? Drawing a blank.

Our least expensive would be the person that kind of stages our properties from intake to the marketing side. These are least expensive. She's probably like $5 now.

Okay.

And.

And she's just working within in the software and sort of like copying and pasting.

Yes, that's it. Like data entry. Really?

Data entry. Okay, that's fair. That's fair. Tr. I mean, as we'll go to you and just. And just sort of ask, you know, as. As far as, you know, when you think about VA compensation, how do you think about it? Do you think about it differently than Landon?

No, I do. I definitely agree that a lot of it is based on experience and, and sometimes location of where they're located. For us, I'll say we started off when we first started our business. We had a budget that we could spend on VA, so. So we had cheap VA, like $3 an hour, $4 an hour, as cheap as we could get them. And we understood that would take a little more handholding. We understood that that was going to take a lot more explaining. We had to kind of look over their work a little bit more, but that's all we could afford really, to pay in VA services. And then over time, as our passive increase, we were able to kind of upgrade our talents as well. So instead of getting the person who just got on upwork, you know, who can barely spell land, we were able to kind of upgrade. I will say that for us, our most expensive VA will be kind of the client facing va. The ones that have to communicate either with sellers or buyers. Those are going to be kind of our most expensive. And our least expensive are like the data Entry ones, the ones that just kind of do things behind the scene.

Okay, great. And so you would say from a range of low $3 an hour, as high as $20 an hour.

We don't have anyone that we pay 20. I think the most we pay is 18 for. For an intake manager for intake.

All right, so, Eric, same question to you.

All right. Well, you know, I think first when we're talking about this question in general, so it's, it's a common one that we hear, right, Whether it be on the Mastermind, whether it's in the WhatsApp channel, etc. But I think that where it comes from is people just maybe not being familiar with the idea of having to go out and hire someone to help out with a given task in their business. So, you know, they're a little bit nervous. They're like, I don't want to overpay. I don't want to underpin pay. You know, I, I want to compensate someone appropriately for that. So I think in general, that's kind of the, the nature of that question, where it's coming from. So from that standpoint, like, I get it, but at the same time, like Landon and Teria were already saying, you know, I mean, it's kind of hard to say that, you know, this person, you should pay this amount per hour, because the reality is it does have a lot to do with location, with skill set, with the requirements that you may have around that task and maybe the, the time requirements around that task, whether it's, you know, maybe you have a task that every time you ask it to be completed, you want it done in, I don't know, eight hours from the time you ask for it. Well, you might have to pay more for that, even if it's a basic data entry thing, because you're really asking someone to be highly responsive in that role, you know, whereas, you know, the same role that you don't have a deadline that's eight hours out, maybe it's a week long, or get to it when you can, you know, then, you know, that's probably the, the lower tier of the amount you might pay someone an hour for that. So I think that's, that's also a consideration there. In addition to that, I would say, you know, consider the bonuses that might come with this role. So depending on what the role is, there may be an additional compensation plan in place, perhaps for a transaction coordinator. We might give bonuses based on them saving us money when we're purchasing properties, or, you know, maybe in some other role, there's, you know, some kind of quota or something and if they meet that quota, there's a bonus associated with it. So those kind of factor in to, you know, how you pay that person, you might pay them lower because there's this option for a bonus. Ultimately, just like when we go higher for a given role, like people are going to come to us and you know, someone might be at $5 an hour and someone else might be asking $12 an hour.

Right.

So for the same role, well, they probably value their experience differently or their skillset differently and you may choose to value that in the same way or you may have a conversation about that.

Right.

But that, that's the other factor of, you know, we don't have a set amount that we pay people. I guess I like to speak in ranges. So when we talk about someone like a transaction quarter coordinator, typically one of the higher paid hourly roles in, in this land business, and often that's because they're USA based and they're highly integral to, to interacting with those sellers. Right. So we tend to pay them more because of that. I think in today's market, you're probably looking at 16 to $20 an hour. My transaction coordinators fall into that, that range. They're not at the high end, they're not at the low end, but they're in the middle.

Okay.

On the low end, you know, your basic data, data entry type roles, things like getting the list, uploading list to LGPass, you know, maybe managing other data in your business, like Teria talked about, moving data from one location to another. Those tend to be the, the lower paid roles often tend to be people overseas that, you know, I mean, it might be a lower rate, but it's still a good amount of income for them to accomplish that task.

So. No, absolutely. I, I think that's really helpful for the listener as well just to kind of get an idea. Tate, what about you? How do you, how do you think about it?

You know, my mindset has changed over time. Right. And I really think this question, like Eric says, you got to understand where it stems from.

Right.

It's somebody who is new to this. I find this question to be difficult to address entirely because how I value my time personally is going to determine how much I'm willing to spend to buy someone else's time. Right. And that's a really important concept to wrap your head around. And then you add this idea of, we've all heard this analogy of like you can have things be, you know, cheap, fast or Good or high quality, and you get to pick two of those things. Well, it's no different in the world of VAs if you're working on a limited budget. Well, you have to choose somebody who's going to do the work for cheap. But then do you want it to be done fast? Well, if that's the case, the quality that you're given is going to be extremely low. If you look for somebody who's affordable and does good work, it's going to take forever to get that job completed. Right. So you've got to look at what you're trying to accomplish and spend money in the right areas. So, for example, don't go cheap on your due diligence. Right. Hire somebody who knows what they're doing. Now, that might not mean they're 20, 30, $50 an hour, but it's okay if it takes a couple of days to get a turnaround on that because you want good quality due diligence. Now, when it comes to maybe moving data or even building a list, you can go cheap there and it can be, you know, so, so quality, right? So it's just how you value things. Typically, you know, if you look at a established land business and you look at the cost to run these things, I'm going to go out on a limb and say there's, you know, not many businesses that could beat us as far as overhead. Our overhead's relatively low. In fact, it's extremely low. And that's because we've kind of balanced this out between where can we afford to dump a ton of money into personnel and where should we hold back a little bit because it doesn't matter as much. So pay what you're comfortable with and base that on your hourly rate. I mean, I've got VAs who range from few bucks an hour all the way up to, you know, 20 or more.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, what do you guys think about turnover? So, for example, if we look at the fast food industry, they have 300% turnover. So they're constantly losing people having to hire people three times in a year for, for one role. And that, that is a drain on resources. And so in, in some cases it's better long term when you get an A player to bonus them, to pay them more so that they stay. So but when you're first starting, it's sort of hard to, to gauge that. And what should the expectation be as far as let's, let's just pick on the intake manager, for example. That's a pivotal role. How long do you think on average that person would stay in that role?

You know, actually I'll jump in. So with an intake manager, because you're not, they don't have tons and tons of work. I would say that they are pretty, they can be pretty steady and consistent. I mean we've had, we maintain intake managers for years. If they're doing their job, they know how to. We won't. Yeah. Since we've started and it, they've been very steady and very consistent. So something like that. Or even if a sales manager, you, you can, you want to try to keep those on as best you can if they're being consistent. And once again, that's what two for us on that one. But we've also changed our, how much we're paying these, these, these roles. I think we started a lot lower in the beginning and now because we want to retain them, because we want to be able to have them have some longevity, we've changed our, our, our, our structure as far as our pay structure that goes with them. So I mean, I think that's an important point to, you know, kind of bring up.

Yeah, yeah. Trio. Which, which role would you say has the least turnover? Which one would you say is the most turnover?

The least has been for us, sales and intake. The most has been like ad writers. Deal of the week people. Those one off. Sometimes those have been the most turnover for us.

Yeah.

Okay, good to know. Eric, how about you?

Yeah, I see something similar. I think that those, those very repetitive tasks, whether it's an ad poster or if you're still using an ad writer, those, those jobs get old really quick. There's a reason we outsource those so quickly because it is not fun to do the same thing over and over and over. And that's what it requires.

Right, Right. But don't you think ChatGPT is going to just change all that?

Well, I don't think it's going to post your ads.

Look, we use AI, but I don't think that websites where you can market like AI and so yeah, you can get content created, but there is a trackable formula in that content that you and I can't discern. But these websites, it's killing their ranking in Google Search when everything is created by AI. So sure, like hitting the easy button. But again, where does it fall? Is it good? Is it quality or is it cheap? In that case, you know, the quality is not, not there. And when I think about marketing, I want my best people on it because that's where I make the money. Right, Right. My marketing is not dialed. It's not. I'm not selling land. I don't know.

Yeah. How about. Yeah. So same thing for you, Tate. Least. Least turnovers in sales and intake. Most is in ad writing.

Yeah, I think most of it's in ad writing. We don't see a ton of turnover. You do it first because. Struggling to get people to work and pay them well. And once people start earning money, I think they kind of buckle in a little bit and give you a little bit more dedication and time and resources.

No, absolutely. And it's so important. We've talked about this in the past, but whenever you're making that training video, you're creating that processor system, you need to let that virtual assistant know what the importance of that role is in the overall scheme of things so that they're working for something bigger than themselves. It's not just, hey, I'm copying and pasting an ad. It's, you know, look, because of your labor, if you do a good job of this, all these amazing things happen, right? You're. You're helping somebody that has. That was once an asset to them is now a liability. You're helping them get money, and they can take that money and go do something more productive with it.

Right?

Or I guess that for the ad writer. But, yeah, you're helping somebody who's never thought they could afford this asset. And by the way, it's the only asset that lasts. Everything else in everyone's life is going to go away. This is the only thing that's going to last. And because of your labor and your work, you're helping someone have this legacy investment for themselves, for their family, for the generations. So it's really important that you put emotional labor into this, and we're going to help you, you know, be successful in it. So, you know, there's that. That old saying, you know, someone who's, you know, the. The bricklayer, you know, on building on. On the. On the church is like, yeah, I'm. I'm. I'm laying bricks, right? Then the other bricklayer is like, yeah, I'm. I'm helping build this church or something like that. The other third one's like, you know, I'm. I'm. I'm building the house of God, right? Or something like that. I forget. I forget the cliche, but it's. It's like, hey, I'm do. This is like, I'm not just, you know, laying bricks here. It's for, you know, a really great purpose. So I thought this was a, a really good round table. I think a lot of people are going to get value from it. But I know that everyone waits for the tip of the week. And Landon, a website, a resource, a book, something else actionable for the art of passive income listeners to go improve their businesses, improve their lives. But before you give that tip, have to give a shout out to our sponsor flight school. Learn how the next 16 weeks can transform your life. Go up that mountain of land, investing safely, quickly, efficiently. Have to deal with any renters, rehabs, renovations or roads. And I know what you're thinking. Passive income without any headaches. How is that possible? The tuition must be crazy. Yeah, it's not, it's not going to cost you anything. Guaranteed. You're going to make back that money 180 days or less. Just show us your work. Go to thelandgeek.com forward/training thelandgeek.com training and learn more land. And AI Harris, what is your tip of the week?

Well, it's actually interesting, our conversation, our topic today kind of flows along with this tip that I actually came across. It's an excellent, it's an article, I just put it in the chat. So this article is, it's called the Adult learning Theory. And basically it kind of goes through a process of, of just how to. And it's more of an outline, I give it like more of an outline of just ways that people learn, way to set you can teach your team. One of the things I hear a lot from some of the white school students, even coaching students, is I don't really know how to train my team. I don't really know how to walk them through, how to do certain things. And some of it is just one not having a plan, an organized plan and the process of how to go through it. But the other thing is some of it is just more of knowing how do you actually teach certain skills and things with, with people. And so this article is kind of, like I said, it's a loose, loose example, kind of an outline of kind of some ways that you can teach, some guided approaches towards way that you can, that people learn. And so some of the main points that I actually, and I actually wrote them down because these are kind of really important points that were great reminders to me. So one of the points that they brought up was so as a business owner we should never, we should always remember to constantly experiment and test different approaches. And I think with what we do, because things evolve, you want to make sure that you are Constantly testing to see if this is going to work and if this works in your business and if it doesn't, what changes do you need to make? Another point that I was really interested in was don't put a set it and forget it mindset like that. That resonated so heavy with me because sometimes we get to this training that we're trying to get our team to know and we set it up and we've got the video and we just put it out there. In a year or two, maybe things have evolved, maybe things have changed. Maybe, you know, systems have. Are different. And so we need to make some updates and how do we actually go through this process because that's always a big thing. So just having a different mentality with that because one of the points that they bring up is like your mentality of just set it and forget it, it quickly results in outdated content. So I don't know. Found this article would just be really interesting. And like I said, it just kind of flowed along with kind of what we're talking about a little bit today.

I love it. It's like Kaizen for learning, just continuous improvement. And I mean, you know, I always say, like, I don't know anything, anything about anything, because the more I learn, the less I realize I know. And, you know, and everything is just so interesting. It's like, you know, you always want to kind of have beginner's mind and constantly be learning and never get to that point where like, you think, oh, I know, you know, I know this so well. Like, you might know it really well compared to someone else. Like, you know, you guys are all land experts for sure, but doesn't mean you don't want to continue learning and growing just like till the day we die. It's, you know, I hope I. I die with a book in my hand if I'm lucky, you know, trying to try to learn something. So great tip, Great tip. Well, I want to just thank the listeners and remind you the only way we're going to be able to keep hazing Landon to do tips of the week if you do three little favors. Follow rate, review the podcast, send a screenshot of that review. Supporthelandgeek.com I'm going to send you a signed copy of Dirt Rich. And even if you don't want Dirt Rich, just do it selfishly for yourself because then Landon will keep coming back. So you get valuable tips.

It's in your motivation.

A little motivation. All right, are we ready to do this?

Yes.

1, 2, 3. Let's.

Freedom.

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Don't forget to remind them that last year was last live boot camp. There was a wait list of over 50, right? That wait list was large.

That was. Yeah.

Don't drag your feet.

Don't drag your feet. Look, you know what they say, live events change lives. Hopefully, we'll see you. All right, thanks, everybody.

Thanks for listening to the Art of Passive Income podcast. I can. Are you ready to learn how you can start building a passive income without renters, rehabs, renovations or rodents? Schedule a free consultation@thelandgeek.com training let freedom ring.