All of a sudden, you are drowning in 60, 70, 80 hours of work each week, and you don't know how to fit anything in, and you're letting balls drop all the time.
(Welcome to builder nuggets hosted by Dwayne Johns and Dave young. Hey, our mission is simple, build freedom. We are a couple of entrepreneurs turned business coaches who have dedicated ourselves to helping our builder remodeler clients create the most rewarding businesses in the industry. My co-host Dwayne has been a successful builder and remodeler for over 30 years. He's seen the highs and the lows. From the beginning though, Dwayne has been on a quest to find a better way to run a contracting business. In 2016, he found that better way. That's how I met Dave, a lifelong entrepreneur and visionary who measures his success by the success of those around him. He reached out one day with a formula on how to transform my business and the rest is history. Since then, we've teamed up to help hundreds of contractors like you build better businesses and better lives. Now we've decided to open up our network and share our secrets so we can start moving the needle with you. It's collaboration over competition. Each week, we bring together industry peers and experts who share their stories so that we can all build freedom together.
(01:09): on belay is the voice command issued by a rock climbing partner to indicate he or she is prepared to keep the tension of the rope. As you climb, thereby ensuring your safety a VA or virtual assistant can be that kind of support role for you and your business. Our guest today is the CFO and original culture cultivator at belay, a leading virtual staffing solutions company. She ensures that the optimum people and processes are in place to allow belay to realize you are maximum success. She is fanatical about people in numbers, the utilization of agile methodologies, bottom line profitability, and creating opportunities for professional and personal growth, a lifelong learner, avid reader, history buff, and architecture geek. It's my pleasure to welcome. Lisa's email to today's show. Welcome Lisa. Thank you guys. Excited to be here.
(02:01): Absolutely great to have you. So when you and I spoke really, we kind of focused on the last 18 months and how more and more people really have been exposed to working remotely and some love it, some don't, but either way, this must have been great and you know, a great opportunity for ballet and then what you guys are doing there. What's your take on this?
(02:19): It was fabulous. 10 years ago, we started belay you know, the, the majority of the people thought we were crazy. I can't tell you how many people would want to come to our office. Right? You know, you have your, the sales folks that would just love to bring you donuts. I like couldn't figure out that we didn't have a brick and mortar. And the sales process took a little bit more time too, because so many individuals were just scared. They did not think that they could hire administrative help. That would not sit next to them. It would just was foreign to them to think that how do I know they're working was one of my favorite questions people would ask. And then unfortunately the pandemic happened and everyone was sent home. And the fortunate side for us as we kind of got to relish in the fact that we've been doing this for eight and a half years, and we know
(03:10): Not only was there a flood of prospects reaching out to us saying, Hey I did have administrative help and they don't know how to do this remotely. And it sounds like you guys have people that know how to do this remotely. And that's awesome. On the other side, we just had great partners, you know, and other organizations who kind of raised their hand and said can you just tell me how you can create a company, have phenomenal culture being on Inc 5,000 list of fastest growing companies, you know, six years running. How can you do this remotely? Do you mind giving us some tips and tricks? And so it really positioned us as the thought leader in remote work. And so, you know, through this you know, this pandemic we've been able to help out fellow entrepreneurs and business leaders, not only by giving them real-world advice, but we're also able to help them staff wise as well
(04:02): For a softball up there. How do you know that they're working? Because you're not, that's like, cause you're not having to do it yourself probably, but I'd love to hear. I'd love to hear, you know, you said that's one of the most common questions I would love to hear the most common answer
(04:20): First and foremost need to hire adults. And so I think it really starts with the hiring process. I don't think a lot of business owners really know HR is one of those areas I think is foreign to a lot of business owners. They know their area of expertise. So, you know, if you are in construction, if you're in the trades, you know it, if you're a CPA, you know how to do financials and forecast. But the whole HR side of hiring great people is kind of elusive. And so I think it starts with hiring great people, people that you can trust outside of that you have to delegate well, and then you have to follow up. You have to actually ask them put in parameters, great due dates, put in structure, meet with them to make sure that there's some accountability there. It's not that you're going to hire somebody and walk away and they're going to be a mind reader. It just doesn't happen. Yes.
(05:14): So some base requirements. And it's probably not, not for everybody either, but I, I like what you said and I get what you said about hiring somebody who's already good at what they're doing. They're a specialist. They know what to do already. They're used to doing it and it's most of their work they've probably done or things that they do on their own anyway. So you don't need to be setting. Right. Excellent. Okay. What were you doing? So you eight and half years ago, everybody told you, you were crazy. What were you doing before you went crazy?
(05:46): Well, for me, particularly, I had taken a break. So I came out of wealth management. So I was helping other individuals kind of grow their legacy from a financial perspective and then took some time off. I've got two wonderful kids, a great family, and then received a phone call from a friend of mine who said, I've got this couple I'm working for. And they have this crazy idea to start a company where they're going to provide remote administrative, help, bookkeepers virtual assistants. Now we've gone and added on a web specialist and social media managers and all those crazy things, you know, do you have five hours a week that you could work for us? And I was like, sure, five hours a week. Totally. I can do that. At that point, I was getting pretty good at shopping and a lot of things that were not making me money, I knew better because I had come out.
(06:37): But she said, yeah, can you work five hours a week? I said, yeah, I think I can do that. And five turned into 50. And so I actually started out as one of the virtual assistants or belay I've had clients of my own. So I, when I speak about the benefits of having a virtual assistant, I know what it's like to be a virtual assistant. And I know what it's like to have one cause now I do. I've had several over the past couple of years and was able to serve in a variety of capacities. Anybody listening knows that when you start a business, it's all hands on deck. If pretty sure if we would've had a brick and mortar, I would have cleaned some toilets and restock the refrigerator and done that. We were, you know, doing all sorts of things early off and became HR manager, became VP of finance. And then back in 2015 was promoted to CFO. So kind of run the gamut, did a short stint as COO as well. And now in this season, I'm focusing back on finances as we continue to grow and forge a way for this industry, which there's a lot of competition out there. And and we're really rising above that and showing that we are the, the world-class provider,
(07:47): It is great. And I follow the belay story for a while, and this is no advertisement, but we are currently working with belay and a couple of capacities just using some virtual assistants. And I think it was one of the first folks I had talked to on the sales end for you guys. And it was, it was such a breath of fresh air. It actually, at one point during the call, I actually said, I hope this call is being recorded because I just want to let you know that this was one of the best sales calls I've ever sat through and what it was because it was so refreshing. It was, you guys were taking the time to truly learn about who I was, what is my business, what are my needs? It was just, it was really cool. And I think it just speaks to the culture and what you guys are doing on that. Maybe you could just, just touch a little bit on what does blade do and what the concept of virtual assistant, because I'm sure some people, when they hear that, I guess they can maybe come up with their own connotations of what that is, but you know, how do you guys operate and some of the benefits around it. So just give us the overview of the VA concept.
(08:46): Yeah, yeah. W well, thank you for that. Nice non-commercial and I'm glad that you had a great sales experience because truthfully, what we want to do is we want to get to know you to help you be more successful in your business. A ballet was created from an entrepreneur mind and really the desire that we wanted to help small businesses in America grow. And the problem becomes is that a lot of small business leaders, as I kind of shed light on before, don't know how to delegate well, don't know where to go to ask for help have a hard time asking for help. And so this idea, and this concept is that we would match people who are gifted administratively. Whether again, that's a virtual assistant, a bookkeeper social media manager, or website specialist who are gifted administratively to come alongside an entrepreneur or a business leader, and really become an extension of them and an extension of their business.
(09:39): And so if you think about that, let's just throw out a, you know, a business leader right now, you know, construction is, is crazy. You can't make it to all of the prospect calls that are coming in. Your kids have soccer games that you're supposed to forget about that your wife is begging for a date night, right? Sure. You forgotten somebody's birthday in there. And anniversary Christmas is just right around the corner. And all of a sudden you are drowning in 60, 70, 80 hours of work each week, and you don't know how to fit anything in, and you're letting balls drop all the time. Insert a bullae virtual assistant who helps you start to make sense of all that he or she is the person who's able to vet. Some of those prospect calls for you take a look at your calendar, help you protect your calendar.
(10:25): So you can make sure that you have time to make to your kid's soccer games. So you can make sure that you're doing date nights can remind you that your anniversary is next week. We should probably buy a gift and a, what do you think your spouse might like get dinner reservations down, help with travel, because ultimately what we want to do is free you up. So you can do the things that only you can do in your business, where you can make the most amount of money. And all of a sudden you start to see that that virtual assistant or the bookkeeper totally different thing here, because people get lost in finances that you can make more money when you delegate those things, because you're focused on the things that matter most in your business and that only you can do.
(11:03): Certainly it speaks to our highest and best use concept, delegate and elevate it's right in line with what we, what we try to practice all the time. You can't be a good leader if you're spending your time working on these things that somebody else can do, you should be focusing on the things that only you can do, or that move the needle. The most that make you the happiest. A lot of the things you described, Lisa were more personal assistant type things as well. Examples, do you have cases where you have specialists dive right into the businesses and become more involved in the day to day business operations and just get deeper and deeper as they get to know you?
(11:40): Oh yeah, absolutely. I think it's easy to start out what I would like to call with low hanging fruit, right? Because you're building that trust over time. So if you start off and you're handing over email management, calendar management, like you said, some more of those personal things before long, they start to understand you and the culture of your business. And then that's, when you can say, Hey, can you run this meeting for me? Can you pull these people together? Can you start handling that presentation? Of course you can dive right into that, but there is a little bit of a learning curve just like it would be. If someone were to sit next to you in the office, you have to understand that the remote work thing works just the same. And sometimes you have to have a little bit more patience with that, but completely. And one of the benefits that ballet has that a lot of other services don't have is you have the opportunity to buy out is what we call the contract of your virtual specialist. And so if they've really become embedded in your business we've had lots of virtual assistants who go on to become operations managers who go on to become directors within those organizations because they get so in-bedded in their, helping it grow that their skillset is higher than the administrative role that they were originally hired for.
(12:50): And what a great cultural move to do that. Cause a lot of companies would, you know, do the exact opposite to have a non poach or a non-compete to thing in here for the employee too. But to bring, you know, your virtual assistant in to say, Hey, we work with some amazing companies and it may be that you become so valuable to one that we're cool. We're willing to elevate you to leave us to go and pursue something that's super meaningful for you. That's, that's awesome. From a culture standpoint right there, and we'll probably draw attracts more virtual assistants who want to be able to have that opportunity and the same thing, more clients who say, wow, the dream scenario is to find somebody I can't live without. And how do we get them? This company is bringing them cool.
(13:35): Yeah. Especially in the climate. We are today with the great resignation as it spends. So dubbed, you know, you've got individuals who are looking for meaningful work in a remote capacity. And so what we're seeing is there's a lot of businesses who are struggling to find great people and our applications are going through the roof. So we've got a bench of available waiting virtual assistants, virtual specialist, and all four of those of those disciplines who are just waiting to be placed because they know that not only do we care about our clients and we're going to find the best virtual specialist for our client, but we want to make sure that it's a match on the virtual specialist side as well. There's a lot of thought that goes behind it. It's not just a computer algorithm that spits it out. You know, Dwayne, that's all we ask you all those questions because we really wanted to know who you were and we took time to find the right specialist for you.
(14:25): Yeah. And again, I go back to that call and I told several of my colleagues about it. You know, it was, again, it was just so refreshing to get on a call like that and, and walk away from and say, I'm not being sold. You know what I mean? You think of the sales pitches you can hear or try to sit through and that's not what it was at all. I mean, you guys were really digging into what are was doing, what, what can, what is ultimately going to benefit my business? And I think one of the biggest takeaways was I was probably 15 minutes into the call and went, they've really got their together. I mean, just, just from the way the guides yes. From the questions you asked to, it was apparent to me already that I'm going, I haven't even engaged with these folks yet, but they're already structuring this conversation and where we're going to take it and then how it should work.
(15:07): And that's what I've found, you know, in, in the early days. So far of working with a virtual assistant is that it's taking those things that are so much chaos. Some of the things that I just don't need to be doing, and it's, as you said, it's a learning process. We're probably going to go through the first three months of really finding out what things do I need to get off my plate. What can you know, the VA helped me with, how do I get her? And it sort of, as Dave, as we talked about work together, we're kind of finding our highest and best use. I'm going to learn what the VA wants to do. Sasha. Then I'm working with, you know, what's, what is she really going to aspire to? What does she do? The tasks that she wants to take on.
(15:42): And it's a great relationship. It's more than just this slide, the credit card and, and just get a virtual assistant. That's too vanilla sounding. And this is it it's personalized. And it's, it's challenging to a degree because I've been thoroughly impressed. So for the quality and the efficiency of the work that's getting done, you know, what a great way to do it without that huge investment of bringing somebody on board, trying to train them, trying to figure it out. I don't even know what that role is supposed to look like. So anyway, so far the experience has been has been great.
(16:10): It's interesting because they come on as a virtual assistant and then all of a sudden they're just Sasha and doing what they were meant to do in your business. And I think the virtual assistant thing probably just slides to the wayside because they're just a valued team member. You know, there's not a name on it necessarily anymore. It's just, this is, this is something that Sasha does just like you would delegate to any other valued team member
(16:36): Within the first 14 days, I realized this is just another powerful part of my team. You know, I mean, she's fit right in. There's a place we've got our weekly check-in that we're doing. There's some things that work. There's some things that don't work, but that's all part of it. Like you would with any, anybody that you're going to add to the team, the structure that they bring to it, the level of professionalism. It's great. Without again, that effort that I would have to put into screen people to find people to go through it. That's exhausting. And I'm sure most of our listeners out there, you know, just the thought of doing that is, is enough to make you run from it. Anyway,
(17:09): I've been thinking of a question for both of you and Lisa, your response will probably be from what you've heard from multiple clients. And I'm not sure if you've how many you've dealt with in the construction industry. So I'll start Dwayne with you. What are the things, you know, as a builder and, or having a construction company and a construction coaching company, what are some of the things that are freeing you up? And what are some of the misconceptions that you think the typical builder might have? Where, because we get this a lot. Well, that won't work in my business or bad. That doesn't sound right for me. Dwayne, what kind of stuff is she doing?
(17:48): Lisa can dive deeper into this, but just one example was, you know, one of the things that we've been struggling with, and I'm sure everybody in the industry is right now is just, just trays and vendors. You know, they're all swamped, they're all overwhelmed. We've got to find another plumber. We need another electrician. What about dry wall? And I spent probably 15 minutes on the phone where they're talking about what we need, gave her some categories and some parameters around what we would probably look for, you know, and within 48 hours, I've got this built out list of probably six or eight in every category that I gave her of people that can be contacted. I can now have my project managers reach out directly to, and these are fairly vetted because I'd already given, given her some parameters. And I'm looking back at that for me is that's spinach, that's moth balls.
(18:33): It's for me to sit there and, you know, yes, I've got my network of people, but things constantly change. So who are the new plumbers in town who are some folks out there that repulses me to think that I'm even going to take time to sit there and try to do that? However, you know, like I said, very quickly, I got handed a list that I now can use. I can take to my team and they've got some people that they can call directly. So that's just an example. Yeah. Resource something that I know I need to do, but I can't stand doing
(19:01): So. Anything you're procrastinating on, you know, we just have, going back to the episode we recently had with Shannon Waller, talking about procrastination is a form of wisdom. It's actually enlightenment where it's like, this is something I shouldn't be doing. If you're procrastinating on it, it's probably a sign that it's something that you should get off your plate. You need to find somebody to do it. And it's nice to know that there's possibly a virtual assistant out there who could do some of those, some of those things, if you don't have somebody on your team, so what a go-to position to be able to add to your roster for all the stuff that either falls through the cracks or is falling to somebody on default and it's not their highest and best use. So,
(19:41): And Lisa, I'm sure you can speak to it. I know when I originally talked to, to a few people in within belay, it sounded like, you know, the small business construction owner, custom home builder, a modeler, you have a lot of clients like that. Yeah. And there's folks that could come on as virtual assistants, as you said, that have turned right into full-time team members with, with those companies. So maybe you could talk about a few examples of things that folks are doing specific to our industry.
(20:07): Yeah. And project managers. I mean, they just kind of jump in because you have to remember that you are doing hopefully what you love to do. And so all of a sudden you're going to partner with a virtual specialist who really loves to do what they're doing, right? Like you, you said on my bio that I love people in numbers. So it would make sense that you would put me in a role where I can talk about people and numbers all day long with these virtual specialists, love to do things administratively. So while you are struggling with all the research and building out a beautiful Google sheet or Excel document that shows them all, and you know what their you know, their ratings are and all that information, he or she is just taking it and loving it that like it can't wait to get their hands on it.
(20:49): So I think definitely I love how you said that they become such an integral part of your business right away. I think it's also important to note that our assistants, our specialists are technology agnostic. And that's a good thing because no matter what technology you are using in your business, we can find a virtual specialist to fit into that. So if you are on Google suite and you need to find some, because they're going to have an email address with your business, which is key, right? You talked about them being a part of your team. Nobody outside of you is going to know that you were working with a assistant because they're going to have their email address. That's branded for your company. If you're on Microsoft, they can use Microsoft too. If you've got specific builder software that you're using, they can do that too.
(21:33): And so I think that's a key point to know, and that doesn't happen a lot of times as finding somebody who can literally just start to become a part of your organization right away, back to the things that they can take off. Yes. If you aren't getting people right now, I know everybody. Gosh, I have so many friends and colleagues who are looking for people to do work on their homes right now. They can't find anybody. So I would imagine the phone voicemail is blowing up. Email is blowing up prospecting, right? People are just looking for it to get work done. And so imagine all of a sudden having somebody who is vetting those for you, who's taking the first pass of returning phone calls to say, you know, is this actually a viable customer? Maybe your services is more niche and they're looking for a generalist.
(22:18): Well, your virtual specialist can go ahead and give them a call and be like, yeah, I'm sorry. This is not a good fit. So maybe you had 20 calls that week. And all of a sudden, now you only have four that you have to return or even better train them to return the first call. And so all of a sudden you're working on the job, right? It's not just finding the trades to do it, but now you have somebody who is actually helping you get more business. They can even do some light bookkeeping, maybe at some lights account payable that they can take off your plate. Or like I mentioned, project management. They can help you with your scheduling to make sure if you do find a trade, who's actually willing to do the work that they're going to show up when they're supposed to following up with them.
(22:57): So those are just a handful of things. But yeah, I mean, we find that the building and construction industry, because the days vary, you know, depending upon seasonality during the summer, you're running a pool company, you might be working 12, 14 hour days. Cause you're trying to get it into every little bit. You can in the sunlight and the winter time, things are slowing down a little bit, right? And so all of a sudden you're having somebody who can help you with the scheduling of things, finding space for it, and really working in your industry, the way that they need to work, which I think is, is a huge, huge benefit.
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(23:53): Scaling is, is so crucial to, and most people, when you talk with them about scaling, they think more about growing and scaling because scaling is bi-directional. And like you said, with the fluctuations in production, daylight seasons, you may need less at certain times. And it sounds like this is a good, flexible option. And it's one of the, we, it's one of the questions we get a lot. When is the right time to hire a project manager or to bring on staff? Well, the answer is always before you need them, because you need some time to train them and get them up to speed, but it can be a daunting task for somebody to go out and commit to a whole employee, knowing that all these swings and fluctuations could, could happen at any time. So share with us a little, maybe about the flexibility that your program offers.
(24:39): Yeah. So you're exactly right. It's hard to commit from the finance girl's mouth. I'm going to tell you that your CPA is not going to want you to commit to an FTE unless you know, your, your margins can afford it. So hiring fractional is a win-win for everybody, because what you're doing is you're finding individuals who only have a finite amount of time. Now I say that, however, we at bullae always make sure that there's availability to grow. So I'm with all of our virtual specialists, because we, that is the worst. If we place somebody with you who can't grow. So we want to make sure we can play somebody, but somebody who has the flexibility to, to really change their hours. So you can come to us throughout that call, like Dwayne was talking about, we get a really good list of items that we know immediately.
(25:25): You can delegate and get off your plate. Then we're going to suggest an amount of a monthly amount of hours for you to start working with. And we there's a minimum, right? So you gotta, you know, we can maybe start you in the middle or maybe start you out in the minimum and then you can grow from there. But as I was talking, you're, you're a pool contractor. You're working those 12, 14 hour days. You need somebody to maybe work with you 80 hours a month. You're looking for somebody who's working 20 hours a week, still part-time, but 20 hours you'd be amazed. Anybody who's listening, you'd be amazed at what gets done remote because there is, they're only working for you when you have tasks for them. Versus if you have somebody sitting in your office and you want to celebrate a birthday and everybody's hanging out in the, in the break room and they're enjoying some coffee and some cake, right.
(26:07): You're paying for them to do that. Not that that's a bad thing. We love culture, but it's something to think about. But then maybe it gets to be around the holidays, businesses slowing down, all of a sudden you're able to decrease that contract, but you're never going to give away that resource, which is good to know. And during those slow periods, maybe that's when you start thinking about marketing. And so maybe you've even got some light marketing work that you want that VA to start researching for you. So maybe you keep them at their original planned amount of hours. But you know, at the end of the day, you have the flexibility to do that. And that's really the win from a fractional standpoint,
(26:43): It would be more like the other way around that you would want to increase the hours because you're going to learn more and more. You're going to have more and more confidence that, Hey, they get it. They want it. They have the capacity to do it. They're thriving at it. I could delegate more. And
(26:57): That's probably what the great discovery is for most business owners is, well, I go in here thinking I'm going to start with the minimum. You're probably quickly maxing them out too. As you become more comfortable, more confident in delegating. And when they get more proficient at what they're doing, my virtual assistant, her and I have been working together for two and a half years. Now she's a mind reader. I mean, she goes in my email. She knows exactly what's happening. She's got full access to it. She's responding to emails for me. She knows, Hey, I've already know exactly what room you want in the hotel. I've already booked the flight. I saw that email come in. She took care of it. I'm like, oh, this is amazing. You know, she takes care of everything. And so to your point, it's not that you become better at delegating, but that the virtual assistant becomes better at staying one and two steps ahead of you to take that off before you even know about it
(27:46): Sounds dreamy. We do have this a little bit with one of like, since we brought on Kate into our business, she's not virtual. Dwayne for you, I guess Kate is the grades. Virtual lives five minutes from me. This is one of our, one of our employees that is, you know, an hugely valued team member. But during COVID we realized like we're never sitting in an office together. She's, she's working from home and I'm experiencing the same thing that you guys are talking about, where she knows her job so well and has the freedom to do it on her own, you know, get stuff that she just puts in her bucket and works on. And you know, I don't have to think about it again. And we know Dwayne and I know that it's done well better than we could ever do it ourselves. And it's so freeing
(28:33): And imagine, you know, going to your CPA next year and letting them know that all of a sudden, you're not going to have rent costs anymore, right? Because you've realized that you can do your work from home or you're doing it in your truck, or you're stopping off at a coffee shop. You've got your team. Who's now working remotely as well, because now you've delegated to them. You trust them, culture's going through the roof because now they're actually being able to do what they want to do quicker. Right? Maybe it's they want to be able to be there for their family and not have a commute anymore. All of a sudden, I mean, things just get better from a cultural personal standpoint, but also from a financial standpoint, when you can reallocate those resources to maybe adding another position, or maybe just increasing your margins. Yeah.
(29:12): Do you get a lot of pushback or by the time you talk to somebody, are they already curious enough? And open-minded enough that they're coming to say, Hey, I'm looking for a solution and I want this to work. I mean, cause that's, that's such an advantage versus reaching out to somebody that has not expressed that degree of curiosity or interest to start with, but I'm just interested in some of the misconceptions that people have
(29:38): For the most part, all of our leads are inbound. So these are individuals who have heard about ballet. There's a level of curiosity. Now the level of curiosity runs the gamut and you have people who perhaps have seen an ad, you know, in an airport, they're walking in the airport and the billboard catches their eye. And they're like, I'm curious about this. Let me just call and kind of beat up the tires a little bit. We have some misconceptions on whether we do any offshoring at belay. We really wanted to work with individuals here in the United States that were looking for employment. We wanted to, to be able to partner with them. And so as such, you know, we're not the cheapest out there and we don't claim to be. And so, you know, some of the pushback can just be cost because you're going to pay for, you know, really high quality, educated, experienced virtual specialists.
(30:27): But no, for the most part, people call us typically exhausted at their wit's end and they need help. They had somebody who reached out to, wow, you look like hell or why are you not returning emails? Or do you know how much business you've missed that? That's like a dagger to the heart, right? Do you know how much business you're missing? And so they call and they really want to know how fast we can do it. How fast can you find me a virtual specialist tomorrow? Can you start them tomorrow? And there's a process, right? Dwayne there's process to it. But that's, you know, the pushback either comes around. They they're just out of curiosity, they kick in the tires. Perhaps they wanted a really cheap solution that was off shore. That's not us. Or they're looking for something that they can have tomorrow. And again, that's not us. We believe in a long-term relationship. This is not transactional.
(31:17): So if you're an exhausted builder out there and you're clinging to the rock face by your fingertips, make the call. Now the rope will be here in a few weeks. How long does it take once you have the call and you decide, I want to learn more about it. I want to invest in the interview. How does that all work? What does it look like to get started?
(31:38): Yeah, I would say from the very first call, like you, this is the first you dialed that one 800 number until you're partnered with that person. I would say Atmos 30 days. We can do it quicker if you're ready to move quicker. But again, you know, if we've got somebody who's calling, they want to talk twice, they've got more questions to ask. There is an, a discovery period, which is where we need to find out about you. And then we go and there's a process by which we match again, it's that thoughtful matching process where we have a team of people who read the requirements, all the wishlist that Dwayne gave us, they sit down together and they read those. And then they go through the bench of available specialist to find the one that will be the perfect match for you. And scheduling gets in there too.
(32:23): Let's face it. I mean, there there's, you guys will go through the chance and maybe the first person isn't necessarily the right fit and you will work to find the next person, right? Yeah,
(32:31): Absolutely. Absolutely. But you know, typically what we can do it in under 30 days, but this is not a solution that you're going to be matched with them tomorrow because we want it to be long what we're investing in this relationship. And you walk away with a, with a CSC, which is our clients solutions, consultant, somebody who is just as invested in the engagement as you and your specialists are. And so they're going to walk through and make sure you don't have any questions they're going to be there for the kickoff call they're going to do in this case. Yes, exactly. Exactly.
(33:04): I think the message too out there is just that there's things you can get off your plate and once they're off your plate and they're being taken care of in a professional way, that's the freedom that we talk about. I mean, there's, there's other, other places I want to be spending my time. And this has just been another great solution for me to say, Hey, you know what? I found a bucket of items that I can get off my plate done better than I can do on myself. And I'm going to continue to just keep adding to this list. That's the cool part.
(33:27): I mean, I challenge every leader out there, whether in there's a lot of consultants who will tell you to do the same, but if you're a business owner, do you actually know what you really want? Right. I mean, it is. If you're sitting there right now and you're listening to this podcast, is, is entrepreneurship all that you would ever dreamed of? Or did you start this business or become a business leader because you wanted more freedom. You wanted more time with your family. Was it solely because you just wanted to knock it out of the park and make a crap ton of money. That's great too, but it's revisiting why you got into business in the first place and making sure that you don't lose track of those goals when you revisit what those goals are then asking for help and delegating starts to make a lot more sense, because delegation is the freedom for you to do what you created the business for, what you got into business for.
(34:16): When you understand that it becomes a lot easier to open up your hands and to give it away. You know, we tend to think that if we hold it all that we're going to do it right. Nobody can do it the same way that we can do it. Nobody has those relationships, you know, Dwayne, like you have, they're not going to be able to call up Fred and they're not going to know who she is. He or she is. They're going to give them the run around. Let me just call Fred myself and I'll get it taken care of. That's a joke you got to learn to delegate. So you can live your best life, create the business that you wanted to create in the first place and grow it, build a legacy, or just get more time back to me. That's where it starts. And that's where it becomes a lot easier decision, better decision. When you keep that in mind, I'm pumped up. I want to get, I want to get interviewed. Let's do a date. We can do it right here.
(35:06): Oh gosh, no, not here. It really feels like you've nailed the culture and that you're really matchmaking and putting, you know, there's the, everybody goes into it thinking how much is it going to cost and, and what work is going to be done. But it really starts with the personality matches and finding the good fit there and then empowering each other to go work on stuff that matters to them. And then your job as the leader, who's hiring this person is to find things for them. And as you do those things fly off the backs of your team already. And they're not, they're not, it's not a passing of the buck situation. It's a creating opportunity situation. And she's examined all those opportunities within your business because there are people out there and the Lisa's team is a perfect example of this. They're out there. They want to do this stuff. They're dying to meet you. Look them up.
(36:03): We gravitate towards things that I think align with our thinking. And you know again, lead to building some freedom in your business. This is one of those solutions that is not going to require tons of your time. It's not going to SAP your energy. It's going to do just the opposite for listeners out there, as well as this is something from whether you're just starting your business all the way through to if you're established and well-run business, it's everything in between. And especially for the people that might be starting, what a level of professionalism. It helps you add to the mix, whether you're, you know, when you're talking with clients or clients realize that you have an assistant, someone, like you said, this may be helping you set up some of those initial phone calls and appointments, and you can elevate yourself pretty quickly by having somebody on a professional level, that's there to help you with that stuff. That frankly you need a lot of help with,
(36:52): Right? Yeah. I mean, working with vendors that might have a different knowledge set than you do, and knowing how to talk to them and massage the situation so that you get the best deal, or maybe it's, you know, talking with consult professional consultants, maybe that's your CPA or your attorneys, you know, having the vernacular to know how to hang and those conversations that maybe you might not be, feel, feel comfortable with. I think is key too. And I just want to touch on, like you said, this is not for, you know, ballet is not for everybody. We don't think that we are for everybody, you know, but the great thing about it is starting out with a conversation. We can help steer you in the right direction. We're not opposed to giving you a list of our competitors and telling you which one is the best one to go with. If it's not belay, because ultimately it goes back to our mission and that's, we want to help you climb higher. We want your business to be better. We want to help entrepreneurs and business leaders in our great country, build a business and do what they love to do. And so ultimately we just want people to take things off of their plate that they don't need to be doing.
(37:53): The sole reason we do this podcast is just bring more access to more information to folks out there that there, there are all sorts of different solutions that may not seem like the, the ordinary there's a lot of folks that are probably never really given the idea of a virtual assistant, you know, any thought, but it's something that I think is definitely worth looking into, at least again, I look at the challenges that you could have sometimes I think in small business, you think that you need something in the first instinct is you have to hire someone, you know, have to establish a new position for that gnat's overhead and that's HR problems and all that. Whereas this is a solution that you can try it out. If it doesn't work, you can.
(38:30): Exactly. Yeah. And that you have a partner who's, who's your intermediary. Who's, who's actually helping you do it again. It goes back to that CSC. Alison, if you're saying, Hey, I don't think that you want to, everybody wants to work with someone. They like, you've been with them, you know, three, four or five months. Like, ah, we're just not clicking. You don't have to put the ad back out there on indeed. You don't have to worry about, you know, reviewing resumes and widdling it down to the top five. You're going to interview top three and nowadays, hopefully they even show up for the interview. You don't have to worry about any of that. You just go to Alison, you let her know what you need. And she takes
(39:04): And one thing's for sure. My note people there's a lot of people that are chomping at the bit to get back to doing more and more in-person stuff in person meetings and things like that. But at the same point, I think these virtual meetings, virtual team working together that's grown and is going to continue to grow. So for you guys what's so what's on the horizon. What's exciting for you at belay. What's what's coming up over the next six months.
(39:25): Yeah. I mean, I think it's continued focus on growing our business finding additional services. A great one I love to talk about is when the pandemic hit and all the businesses were sent to work remotely we started getting a lot of questions around social media. Can my virtual assistant help me with my social media? And so we put our heads together and very quickly because we already had the talent within our subset of specialists. We said, Hey, let's launch social media managers, social media strategists. Like let's, let's offer that. And so I think that we're right now starting to look at what are additional services that small to medium sized businesses are looking for to work remotely. How can we come along and assist them? So super excited to expand that service line additionally, and just really excited that there's more conversation around remote work, remote culture.
(40:16): I think that's something that's very important. Anybody out there listening, they've gotten rid of maybe their brick and mortar, maybe they're contemplating it. Maybe they just don't have anybody who's actually even seen each other anymore, but a handful of times a month, don't let your culture slip, you know, continue to connect with people, continue to, to talk about cast vision around what is on the horizon for you and your business. You know, those are the types of things that excite us as people just being, having more curiosity about remote work, because that gives us a bigger platform to serve businesses. So it's not going away.
(40:51): No, I don't think so. I don't think so. Even the big companies now are like, yeah, we're not going back into the office anytime soon. And, and I love to see, you know, what was all the dogs that were animals that were adopted because people are now home and, you know, families sitting down for family meals that they hadn't been able to do. I think there's, there's so much benefit to having the option. People love on you don't want it.
(41:17): No, no, it doesn't have to be a hundred percent on either way. Just the flexibility there, I think is key to our quality of life as a society. Well, very cool. This has been some great info. I think there's a lot of stuff out there that people could, could consider. How can they find you? Yeah, absolutely . Check us out@belaysolutions.com.
Hey, thanks for listening. Dwayne and I love hearing from you. Your stories are inspiring and your challenges can be overcome. Got a cool tip? Idea for a show? Problem that you haven't been able to solve or maybe just struggling to figure out what you need next and where to get it. We can help. Hit us up at BuilderNuggets.com and start building freedom.
