Detailed Notes
Scaling with virtual assistants is one of the fastest ways to grow your business — but only if you do it correctly.
In this episode of Building Better Developers, Antwon Person breaks down how to scale with virtual assistants using structure, systems, and strategy. We cover task-based productivity, hiring VAs in their zone of excellence, when to hire an operations manager, and how AI fits into the equation.
If you’re an entrepreneur, side hustler, or founder trying to grow without burning out, this conversation is packed with practical insights.
In This Episode: * How to scale with virtual assistants without losing control * Why task-based productivity beats hourly tracking * Hiring VAs based on specialization * When to add an operations manager * AI vs virtual assistants: where each fits * Bootstrapping revenue to fund growth
Connect with Antwon Person:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aentwonperson Learn more: https://skillfulladvisors.com
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Subscribe for more conversations on: * [email protected] * https://develpreneur.com/ * https://www.youtube.com/@develpreneur * https://facebook.com/Develpreneur * https://x.com/develpreneur * https://www.linkedin.com/company/develpreneur/
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⏱ Chapters
00:00 Introduction 02:15 Hiring VAs in Their Zone of Excellence 06:40 Task-Based Productivity vs Hour Tracking 10:10 Building Culture with Remote VAs 14:25 When to Hire an Operations Manager 18:30 AI vs Virtual Assistants 22:10 Reducing Tool Subscriptions & Building Internal Systems 26:45 Structure, Systems, Strategy Framework 31:20 Bootstrapping Side Hustles the Smart Way 35:00 Final Advice for Entrepreneurs
Transcript Text
Well, hello and welcome back. We are continuing our season of building better developers. We are building momentum this season. We're focused on getting unstuck, getting those blockers out of your way, and diving into the new year. As I said, this is Building Better Developers, also known as the Developer North podcast. I am Rob Broadhead, one of the founders of Developer, also the founder of RB Consulting, where we help you with the technology reality check. It's like, where are you at before you take that big step before you make that big investment? What the heck have you got? Where do you need to go? Do you maybe need to step back and pause for a second? Good thing and bad thing. Good thing is in one weekend I had my good thing and bad thing. I went off on a ski vacation for a weekend. The first day was sort of the bad thing. Even though it was good. I was out skiing. Hadn't skied there before. Whole different country I'd never skied in. All that was good. The bad thing was the visibility was about zero. It was basically there was nothing you could see out there. I couldn't I couldn't see the mountains that I was in. It was very challenging for most of the day. The better thing, the good thing out of that is the second day I was there was the most gorgeous day I have ever skied just about and many many years of skiing. I think that is in like my top three. The views were gorgeous. The weather was perfect. I didn't fall a single time. Didn't hurt myself. Survived the vacation. All of that good stuff. And it allows me to pass the introduction on to Michael. Hey everyone, my name is Michael Malage. I'm one of the co-founders of Building Better Developers, also known as Developer. I'm also the founder of Envision QA, where we create reliable, tailored software that helps you work smarter, scale faster, and stay in control. Good thing and bad thing. Uh, I'll start with the bad thing. So, we've had a lot of bad weather here, a lot of rain, and unfortunately, we've had some erosion on the property. Had to bring an engineer out, got a quote, and while we can get it fixed, it's going to cost a lot of money. So that was the bad side. The good thing is though, uh, after talking to said contractor, once they do all this work, we are going to pretty much be set and a lot of the problems that we've been seeing due to the weather are going to go away. So that is one of the awesome. It's like a peace of mind. Once this gets done, it's going to be like, thank goodness. It's just unfortunately that price tag is just so painful. I guarantee you this has nothing to do with Michael leading us into the episode we're talking about, but it is one of those kinds of things. It's a perfect example like you go get a VA, you get an assistant, you get somebody else to do the work you can't do or you don't want to do. It doesn't have to be that expensive though. That's what VAS usually are. That's like their selling point is that they're very affordable. Uh or if you use AI, oh, I shouldn't have said that. If you use AI as your VA, then that could also be very cheap depending on how you do it or very expensive if you do it wrongly. But yes, that is what we're going to talk about along with a lot of other things about entrepreneurship and side hustles and building your business as we continue part two with our discussion with Antoine. So, if you haven't gotten the first part, go back and listen to it because I think it'll help quite a bit because as always, we paused there and we're going to pick right back up where we left off. And here we go with part two. Now just we'll go a little further a field on this. Have you found um because I know you can get you can find VAS just individually and you know just here and there and find people one-offs and stuff like that but then there's also whole agencies that will offer you uh VAS particularly of a wide range. Have you found uh one or the other that is has been more successful particularly since you're sort of adopting them into your your organization? Have you found that that works better in in one situation or another or or is it does it matter? >> Yeah. So, I would say for us, we've already always sourced our own VAS. Um, and the way we um do it and we get continuous VAS all the time is we will post uh a ad for our job online on different sites um online jobs ph and we have that VA uh apply at the link. So, we have a form set up that's in our ad where the VA comes in and applies for the position and we leave the posting up so it always stays up. So, we're always getting additional uh applicants for the position. What we what we will do then is so we will always have running VAS apply for that position. So, then we will go in and say, "Hey, this is a good fit. This is a not not a good fit." And everyone that's a good fit for us, we leave them in our database. So if one VA end up leaving or doesn't work out, we've already interviewed multiple other VAS that we felt that were good fits for us. Um, and some of the questions that we ask VAS are, hey, do you have multiple jobs? Um, you know, how many hours can you dedicate to us a week? Do you have any referrals? Um, and then we also pay our VAS on a flat um a flat monthly fee uh instead of about an hour. So then that eliminates us having to track how many hours a person has worked per week. >> So that's an interesting approach. How do you track uh productivity with that then? >> So the pro productivity is based on the task that we're assigned you know every day. So, you know, it it's based on a task requirement versus an hour requirement. So, you know, we sign them three or four tasks per day. Um, you know, as long as they're getting that done per day, uh, you know, that's pretty much our productivity. We're not having to track, well, hey, this person, you know, we gave this task to them and, you know, five days later they haven't finished it yet. >> Gotcha. That makes sense. I'm just curious cuz some people track it differently and kind of try to do it hourly based versus taskbased uh which I I like the taskbased approach better um myself. So you primarily are using VAS. Do you actually also uh look at hiring additional employees as well or are you just still kind of in the mindset of just um hiring the the workers you need at the time as like assistants and then scale up and scale down as needed. >> So we've we've um you know brought you know the VAS um on and and one of the here's another thing as well when we're we're talking about VAS. So when I initially started um I hired one VA and I gave that VA like five different hats and uh I quickly realized that that was probably not the right thing to do. Um so now what we do is we hire VAS just for certain things. So we have a graphic designer VA. We have someone for um you know doing editing videos. We have someone that you know uh does admin work. And that specialty that's their zone of excellence. So we don't have to worry about a VA saying that they could do something and then they can't. We only hire um VAS in their zone of excellence. Um and that works out a lot of better for us. So I don't want to sidebar too far into this um next question but have to ask it because this kind of leads to it is so with the advancements of the AI chatbots and AI systems and that do you still see do you see AI taking over the VA rules more or do you still see the need for the VA versus kind of going more with the AI chat bots and kind of rules engines? Yeah. So, I I I think it's kind of depending on what you're using the VA for because if you really think about it, even before AI came out, you know, they had come out with different automations that could send emails and respond to, you know, uh different forms that are submitted. Um so, it's really based on what you're using the VA for. Um for us, I think we've used both. uh we don't use VAs and things like that to make calls because just of the regulations and everything that you you know that different states have about can a VA call a individual or or not and then you have to get access. So a lot of the things that we do we still use VAS for hands-on approach. Um and then I think a lot of the different um you know courses and things it it teaches you you know hey you really do need uh like human people to actually be able to expand uh you know to certain levels. >> So what would you consider using the uh AI for then? >> How has AI helped your business? So um what we use AI for is we we do use it on our websites for you know different chats and then also we use AI for just a lot of data research versus actually making calls and receiving calls. It's more just on the data and doing the analysis um that we need. It's it's a lot quicker. >> Nice. That's a good use of the tools. uh are you using your own custom tools or are you using just the tools that are out there? >> Yeah, so we we actually designed our own tools and uh one of the things that uh you know the reason why is we designed internal tools initially to just help us out. Uh and then we realized that the tools that we designed were really good. Uh so you know we started offering them to our our students um to actually build out their systems and everyone loved it. So then we started offering uh the tools that we have to other clients as well. >> Nice. Um are these tools on your website or are they um how like are they open to the general public where we could go check them out? >> Uh yes. So uh the name of our company is skillful brands and we have a skillful family of products. So you know uh we have skillful advisor uh which is our uh accelerator program. We have skillful CRM which is our CRM uh program and then we have skillful projects. Uh skillful projects is a tool we use to communicate with our VAS assign tasks our calendars. Um, so you know, in our skillful family of products, it's pretty much everything a entrepreneur would need to get going. But we don't promote that as much as our mastermind accelerator program because that is the the key of our focus to help entrepreneurs like understand where they need to be and then they get access to a lot of our tools to just help them out. >> Yeah. Wonderful. because because you know I would say that really uh as a new entrepreneur it's about cost savings. So, you know what also drove us to actually create our own tools um is because when we started before we knew it, we had $600 or $700 in subscriptions for this tool and that tool. And as a new entrepreneur, that's kind of um a big burden on, you know, new entrepreneurs that come out of pocket for $600 or $700 to be able to run their business a month. >> Oh, yeah. I remember pain points. Go ahead. Those things tend to grow on their own, too. As you, you know, you get something, you're like, "Oh, there's just >> I've got this new problem I got to solve and this thing's out there and it'll solve it." And sometimes it's like you nickel and dime yourself. It's, you know, 10 bucks here and 20 bucks there and next thing you know, like you said, you've got several hundred a month that you're not really, you know, utilizing it to the level you need to. And, you know, it helps immensely to to coalesce that down into something that's that's actually more focused. >> Now, you mentioned your uh your mastermind groups. Do you have a um I guess two things is like how often do you run cohorts or or mastermind groups and then do you have a certain size that you found is like a a sweet spot for them? >> Yes. So we run um one mastermind every quarter. Uh it's a nine-week program uh where we have industry experts come in to talk to our students about um you know marketing, about structure, um about building your business. Um and our our focus is no more than 25 students per cohort. Um I think once you start getting over 25, it becomes a challenge to be able to support everyone um and give everyone the attention for their business that they need. Now, do you guys meet every week? You said nine weeks. You like once each week? >> Uh, yes. So, we meet um once. So, we meet once a week um on Thursdays and then also they have individual sessions with me. So, individual sessions with me uh once a week and then the industry expert comes in uh once a week as well. Oh, >> so your schedule's full. You're you're not going to be able to to expand too much more on that. There's only so much of you to go around. Huh. Now, one of the things that um we sort of talked about the once you get to a certain point growth of of you know, now you're you've like you've sort of you're getting out of that like you said, so you put a number that like making 10K a month is you're sort of like working your way up to that. But before even that like what are some of the what are some of the things that you see that is that almost every entrepreneur you see a lot with the entrepreneurs that if if they just knew this in the first you know three to six months that alone would be a big help to them. So uh so are you saying like within the first three or four months of getting started? Is that what you're saying? >> Yes. Yep. >> So I would say just you know starting with laying the framework. Um you know I I I have these three S's that I try to teach everyone which is structure systems and strategy right so structure you know having the right mindset you know putting the right system. I consider system stands for savior self time energy money. So putting the right system in place and then the strategy um you know just knowing uh and working on the right things at the right time um versus you know doing marketing now versus doing marketing later doing mindset now versus you know doing mindset later. So just having the right strategy in place uh at the right time when you need it is very helpful. Now you mentioned bringing in this is I hate to jump back to this but I forgot I wanted to talk about this a little more. So you mentioned bringing your your VAS in and make them a feel a part of the company and things like that is that they so they feel some ownership. Are there any are there any things that you do that to outside of like you've got a you know you've got a really good onboarding process of sort of how you uh parcel out projects and and tasks but are there any additional things that you do that are part of what like make people feel a part of your organization? So, um, yes. So, a lot of times, um, depending on what the VA, uh, specialty is, I'll bring them into the meetings that I have with, you know, different clients to make them, you know, feel, you know, comfortable. Um, when we assign them a task, we don't micromanage them. You know, they have that ownership. And then as we continue to grow, it's an incentive for the VA because they'll, you know, obviously get raises and things like that. So they feel as they own a portion of the company as well in this uh you know theirs as well. So it's just about bringing them in making them feel comfortable showing them that we care about you know them as well as employees. Um so you know doing our you know weekly meetings that we have you know we talk to them like tell us one excited thing that you've done you know you know during your like one win that you had during the week. It doesn't have to be business related, but you know, we give them opportunities to share and it's not always just about, you know, running a business. >> So, how do you uh manage all these multiple VAS? I know you mentioned ASA and Monday, but do you pull them together like weekly? Have like are you doing like an agile shop where you have your standups in the morning, talk to everyone, get get them on task or because they're so task focused, you just drive everything through the tools. >> Yeah. So, um I don't meet with every VA um every day. I do meet with um my admin assistant uh every day. Um and then the other VAS I uh manage them and through a operations manager. So the operation manager is pretty the person pretty much the person that's communicating with the VAS every day and then I meet with them every week once a week. Um I meet with everyone once a week um is how we do it. Like on Tuesday mornings we meet you know uh with everyone and that's where we go over our KPIs. We go over, you know, different events coming up, how many people that we have in the company, how many clients issues um so we have a good system in place um that really helps us out. >> So I love the structure. Interestingly there you mentioned an operations op officer to kind of help you manage that. At what point did you realize that you had scaled to the point that you needed additional help to manage the VAS to keep things growing and keep things moving forward? Um well uh it may not be a um a place in your business. It's all about everyone's personality. So sometimes you know people don't like you know giving instructions or people are not listening. For me it was a little bit of both. I just didn't have the time to keep keep meeting with everyone every day to just tell them what task or I would assign a task and then I would turn around and it would be a couple of days and it may not be done. So I felt for me and you know my experience being in the leaders you know in the military that that was valuable to have someone that could oversee um you know different uh tasks that we had and projects that we had going on. >> Excellent. No, I'm kind of that way too. It's like I struggle. It's like you kind of get in that mindset where well I can do it myself. Why hire someone? Then you hire someone. It's like okay now I'm spending time managing them. Why don't I just do it? it it's kind of that feedback loop, you know, it's like when do you let go of the reins? And sometimes that's hard. Um, but thank you so much. Is there something you would like to part uh pass on to our listeners to help them uh or encourage them with their businesses? >> Yeah. So, I will say that one uh you can't do it all on your own. Um, and then you know getting in the mindset of leveraging other people's knowledge. Um, seek out you know different mentors um that definitely can help you. It doesn't have to be paid. There are people out there that you can definitely research and make connections with um that can help you uh operate your business. Um, you know, LinkedIn is a great source um for, you know, different business owners that are willing to help. Um, so, uh, a lot of people are are are not using LinkedIn, um, but they're, you know, they're on Facebook or Instagram, but LinkedIn is also a great tool to be able to find clients and also, um, people that can help you with your business. >> Yeah, I love that is that that idea of, you know, there's a lot of places you can reach out. You can and honestly, you can help others with that as well. I think there's a lot of give and take that you can get into these groups where you know maybe you know how to solve a sp a problem but somebody else knows how to solve your problem and you know that's what networking to me that's what networking is all about is like finding those people and being able to to grow your uh for lack of a better term grow your knowledge base through you know getting a wider group of people that is your your circle. I want to thank you so much for your time. This has been as I expected this has been great. Uh this has been it's been really fun to to pick your mind and and see where we've had similar strugglers and see where you've you've seen people with similar struggles strugglers strugglers I'll say struggles that we can uh you know work our way through especially because I think it it feels like you sort of you're on your own sometimes as an entrepreneur the solo and soloreneur sometimes feels a little bit strong and judgy almost you feel like you're almost chained by that but you're not. you can reach out to other people. There's mentors, there's coaches and things of that nature. If they've heard people out here have heard some good stuff from you, what is the best way for them to get a hold of you and and maybe talk further to you about this stuff? >> Yeah. So, there's a couple of different ways. So, if you're interested in um communicating with me, you can find me on LinkedIn, uh Antoine Person. So, that's a nt wo n last name person p r s o n. And if you're interested in finding more about our accelerator program, you can go to skillfuladvisors.com and you can find out more about our program there. And we will make sure that we get links in the show notes for uh all of those pieces. And that means it's about time for us to wrap this one up. So, thank you so much for your time for hanging out with us. Everybody is there's a standing ovation. I'm trying to talk over all the loud applause that's going on right now. It's everybody hooting hollering back there for you. uh appreciate so much your time and your your energy in doing so and in helping the the entrepreneur community because I think that is one that uh it's not completely overlooked but I think definitely does not get the the help and the assistance that sometimes it can. That being said, I want to thank everybody else out there. Thank you for your time and your patience and hanging out with us. Uh always uh you guys are why we do it. Thank you so much and have yourself a great day, a great week and we will talk to you next time. Now, a bonus that we do for the the video side of it is uh we like to do, you know, a couple different things. A new one we're starting newish. By the time we get this out, it'll actually be not so much. We have a a weekly challenge that we've we'll talk to somebody like yourself. This ends up split into two episodes. We get to end the week and we say, "Well, hey, we talked to Antoine this week and we've got a challenge for you." Now, sometimes we've made up our own, but I think this is a perfect opportunity to you either for you to either say, "Hey, here's something that I think everybody can benefit from." It's just some free information to help the entrepreneurial level get higher. Or if you've got something be a good challenge to throw out there to somebody that is an entrepreneur, particularly a side hustler that's in that, like, am I going to side hustle? Am I going to work my way up to entrepreneurs? Is there maybe a challenge they could you could throw at them this week for them to uh accomplish that and get a little better? >> Um, so I would say a side hustle. Um, you know, a lot of people are doing like retail arbitrage where they're you know finding uh you know different low ticket items that they can sell online to actually sell higher ticket items. So you know digital products um is is a good business that people are doing. I will say, you know, people are still selling on uh Amazon and different things like that, doing retail arbitrage, Walmart. So, all of those are are good tools for individuals that are trying to start business that may not have a lot of money. Um, you know, right now upfront. >> I love that. I'm a huge fan of bootstrapping your your way into your business and finding way to you. If you can't take the big bite right away, maybe take a smaller bite and see if you can get that. Yeah, because people love I mean money isn't everything, but boy, it feels nice when you've got a little revenue stream coming along that you can now say, "All right, I can invest in my my business and in my future, >> right?" And based on your your your market or your industry, a lot of times people focus on the high ticket u items, but you know, focusing on the low ticket items can drive other things. I.e., Hey, you have a low ticket item that could that make could fund your marketing campaign or that they can fund another campaign that you um you know need funded to actually drive more traffic to your high ticket items. >> Uh boy, that's you're you're singing to the the preacher in the choir right now. I love that. And have have looked for those options many times over the years through the various businesses we've been in. And it's like, how do we like, okay, we can't get it all going today, but how can we get something going today? It's that kind of goes back to that forward momentum and getting unstuck and just getting something going. Even if you're, you know, if you're earning a dollar a day, that's better than not earning a dollar a day. And then you can take that dollar and you can advertise with it or do something to grow your business. So, love that. Um, that is more than worth the bonus time for anybody that has shown up, stuck around for this and and watched the show and looked at at our mug, ugly mugs and your pretty mug. At least they get a good-looking guest this time instead of the the host they have to deal with. So, I want to thank you so much for your time. Appreciate you you hanging out. Uh, this will be I think we're about towards the end of March, I think about is when this will go out at this point. Somewhere where the the pipeline is on such things. when it does, as I mentioned before, it'll be in two parts. Uh go out on a Tuesday and a Thursday. At least that's our current schedule. I think we'll keep to that. Um and then we'll give you links as we get closer to that time so that you'll be able to, you know, feel free to share that wherever you want. Uh if you have any questions for us, uh between now and then, just uh let me know, reach out. Uh more than happy to help out. And then is there anything that we can do for you before we let you you go back off and enjoy your day? >> Hey, I just want to say thank you for having me on your platform. Um, you know, I'm doing more of these, so, you know, it's been valuable. I know hosting a a podcast is not easy. Um, so I know you're always trying to provide valuable content to your your your audience. So, again, I just want to thank you for having me. >> Well, thanks so much. That's great. That's awesome feedback. Everybody listening, we love feedback. Even if it's even if it's bad, we love feedback. So, definitely just like Antoine did, just let us know what you think and where you'd like us to go next. And of course, you know, we'll pass on all the praise that you have for our guests this week. All right, we're gonna let you get to it. Thanks so much for your time. Hope you have a great day. And like I said, we'll talk to you in a few weeks as some of these things go out and between now and then, let us know if we can do anything else for you. >> All right. Thank you. Have a great day. >> Thank you. Take care.
Transcript Segments
Well, hello and welcome back. We are
continuing our season of building better
developers. We are building momentum
this season. We're focused on getting
unstuck, getting those blockers out of
your way, and diving into the new year.
As I said, this is Building Better
Developers, also known as the Developer
North podcast. I am Rob Broadhead, one
of the founders of Developer, also the
founder of RB Consulting, where we help
you with the technology reality check.
It's like, where are you at before you
take that big step before you make that
big investment? What the heck have you
got? Where do you need to go? Do you
maybe need to step back and pause for a
second? Good thing and bad thing.
Good thing is
in one weekend I had my good thing and
bad thing. I went off on a ski vacation
for a weekend. The first day was sort of
the bad thing. Even though it was good.
I was out skiing. Hadn't skied there
before. Whole different country I'd
never skied in. All that was good. The
bad thing was the visibility was about
zero. It was basically there was nothing
you could see out there. I couldn't I
couldn't see the mountains that I was
in. It was very challenging for most of
the day. The better thing, the good
thing out of that is the second day I
was there was the most gorgeous day I
have ever skied just about and many many
years of skiing. I think that is in like
my top three. The views were gorgeous.
The weather was perfect. I didn't fall a
single time. Didn't hurt myself.
Survived the vacation. All of that good
stuff. And it allows me to pass the
introduction on to Michael. Hey
everyone, my name is Michael Malage. I'm
one of the co-founders of Building
Better Developers, also known as
Developer. I'm also the founder of
Envision QA, where we create reliable,
tailored software that helps you work
smarter, scale faster, and stay in
control. Good thing and bad thing. Uh,
I'll start with the bad thing. So, we've
had a lot of bad weather here, a lot of
rain, and unfortunately, we've had some
erosion on the property. Had to bring an
engineer out, got a quote, and while we
can get it fixed, it's going to cost a
lot of money. So that was the bad side.
The good thing is though, uh, after
talking to said contractor, once they do
all this work, we are going to pretty
much be set and a lot of the problems
that we've been seeing due to the
weather are going to go away. So that is
one of the awesome. It's like a peace of
mind. Once this gets done, it's going to
be like, thank goodness. It's just
unfortunately that price tag is just so
painful.
I guarantee you this has nothing to do
with Michael leading us into the episode
we're talking about, but it is one of
those kinds of things. It's a perfect
example like you go get a VA, you get an
assistant, you get somebody else to do
the work you can't do or you don't want
to do. It doesn't have to be that
expensive though. That's what VAS
usually are. That's like their selling
point is that they're very affordable.
Uh or if you use AI, oh, I shouldn't
have said that. If you use AI as your
VA, then that could also be very cheap
depending on how you do it or very
expensive if you do it wrongly. But yes,
that is what we're going to talk about
along with a lot of other things about
entrepreneurship and side hustles and
building your business as we continue
part two with our discussion with
Antoine. So, if you haven't gotten the
first part, go back and listen to it
because I think it'll help quite a bit
because as always, we paused there and
we're going to pick right back up where
we left off. And here we go with part
two.
Now just we'll go a little further a
field on this. Have you found um because
I know you can get you can find VAS just
individually and you know just here and
there and find people one-offs and stuff
like that but then there's also whole
agencies that will offer you uh VAS
particularly of a wide range. Have you
found uh one or the other that is has
been more successful particularly since
you're sort of adopting them into your
your organization? Have you found that
that works better in in one situation or
another or or is it does it matter?
>> Yeah. So, I would say for us, we've
already always sourced our own VAS. Um,
and the way we um do it and we get
continuous VAS all the time is we will
post uh a ad for our job online on
different sites um online jobs ph and we
have that VA uh apply at the link. So,
we have a form set up that's in our ad
where the VA comes in and applies for
the position and we leave the posting up
so it always stays up. So, we're always
getting additional uh applicants for the
position. What we what we will do then
is so we will always have running VAS
apply for that position. So, then we
will go in and say, "Hey, this is a good
fit. This is a not not a good fit." And
everyone that's a good fit for us, we
leave them in our database. So if one VA
end up leaving or doesn't work out,
we've already interviewed multiple other
VAS that we felt that were good fits for
us. Um, and some of the questions that
we ask VAS are, hey, do you have
multiple jobs? Um, you know, how many
hours can you dedicate to us a week? Do
you have any referrals? Um, and then we
also pay our VAS on a flat um a flat
monthly fee uh instead of about an hour.
So then that eliminates us having to
track how many hours a person has worked
per week.
>> So that's an interesting approach. How
do you track uh productivity with that
then?
>> So the pro productivity is based on the
task that we're assigned you know every
day. So, you know, it it's based on a
task requirement versus an hour
requirement. So, you know, we sign them
three or four tasks per day. Um, you
know, as long as they're getting that
done per day, uh, you know, that's
pretty much our productivity. We're not
having to track, well, hey, this person,
you know, we gave this task to them and,
you know, five days later they haven't
finished it yet.
>> Gotcha. That makes sense. I'm just
curious cuz some people track it
differently and
kind of try to do it hourly based versus
taskbased uh which I I like the
taskbased approach better um myself.
So
you primarily are using VAS. Do you
actually also uh look at hiring
additional employees as well or are you
just still kind of in the mindset of
just um hiring the the workers you need
at the time as like assistants and then
scale up and scale down as needed.
>> So we've we've um you know brought you
know the VAS um on and and one of the
here's another thing as well when we're
we're talking about VAS. So when I
initially started um I hired one VA and
I gave that VA like five different hats
and uh I quickly realized that that was
probably not the right thing to do. Um
so now what we do is we hire VAS just
for certain things. So we have a graphic
designer VA. We have someone for um you
know doing editing videos. We have
someone that you know uh does admin
work. And that specialty that's their
zone of excellence. So we don't have to
worry about a VA saying that they could
do something and then they can't. We
only hire um VAS in their zone of
excellence. Um and that works out a lot
of better for us.
So I don't want to sidebar too far into
this um next question but have to ask it
because this kind of leads to it is so
with the advancements of the AI chatbots
and AI systems and that do you still see
do you see AI taking over the VA rules
more or do you still see the need for
the VA versus kind of going more with
the AI chat bots and kind of rules
engines?
Yeah. So, I I I think it's kind of
depending on what you're using the VA
for because if you really think about
it, even before AI came out, you know,
they had come out with different
automations that could send emails and
respond to, you know, uh different forms
that are submitted. Um so, it's really
based on what you're using the VA for.
Um for us, I think we've used both. uh
we don't use VAs and things like that to
make calls because just of the
regulations and everything that you you
know that different states have about
can a VA call a individual or or not and
then you have to get access. So a lot of
the things that we do we still use VAS
for hands-on approach. Um and then I
think a lot of the different um you know
courses and things it it teaches you you
know hey you really do need uh like
human people to actually be able to
expand uh you know to certain levels.
>> So what would you consider using the uh
AI for then?
>> How has AI helped your business?
So um what we use AI for is we we do use
it on our websites for you know
different chats and then also we use AI
for just a lot of data research versus
actually making calls and receiving
calls. It's more just on the data and
doing the analysis um that we need. It's
it's a lot quicker.
>> Nice. That's a good use of the tools. uh
are you using your own custom tools or
are you using just the tools that are
out there?
>> Yeah, so we we actually designed our own
tools and uh one of the things that uh
you know the reason why is we designed
internal tools initially to just help us
out. Uh and then we realized that the
tools that we designed were really good.
Uh so you know we started offering them
to our our students um to actually build
out their systems and everyone loved it.
So then we started offering uh the tools
that we have to other clients as well.
>> Nice. Um are these tools on your website
or are they um how like are they open to
the general public where we could go
check them out?
>> Uh yes. So uh the name of our company is
skillful brands and we have a skillful
family of products. So you know uh we
have skillful advisor uh which is our uh
accelerator program. We have skillful
CRM which is our CRM uh program and then
we have skillful projects. Uh skillful
projects is a tool we use to communicate
with our VAS assign tasks our calendars.
Um, so you know, in our skillful family
of products, it's pretty much everything
a entrepreneur
would need to get going. But we don't
promote that as much as our mastermind
accelerator program because that is the
the key of our focus to help
entrepreneurs like understand where they
need to be and then they get access to a
lot of our tools to just help them out.
>> Yeah. Wonderful. because because you
know I would say that really uh as a new
entrepreneur it's about cost savings.
So, you know what also drove us to
actually create our own tools um is
because when we started before we knew
it, we had $600 or $700 in subscriptions
for this tool and that tool. And as a
new entrepreneur, that's kind of um a
big burden on, you know, new
entrepreneurs that come out of pocket
for $600 or $700 to be able to run their
business a month.
>> Oh, yeah. I remember pain points. Go
ahead. Those things tend to grow on
their own, too. As you, you know, you
get something, you're like, "Oh, there's
just
>> I've got this new problem I got to solve
and this thing's out there and it'll
solve it." And sometimes it's like you
nickel and dime yourself. It's, you
know, 10 bucks here and 20 bucks there
and next thing you know, like you said,
you've got several hundred a month that
you're not really, you know, utilizing
it to the level you need to. And, you
know, it helps immensely to to coalesce
that down into something that's that's
actually more focused.
>> Now, you mentioned your uh your
mastermind groups. Do you have a
um I guess two things is like how often
do you run cohorts or or mastermind
groups and then do you have a certain
size that you found is like a a sweet
spot for them?
>> Yes. So we run um one mastermind every
quarter. Uh it's a nine-week program uh
where we have industry experts come in
to talk to our students about um you
know marketing, about structure, um
about building your business. Um and our
our focus is no more than 25 students
per cohort.
Um I think once you start getting over
25, it becomes a challenge to be able to
support everyone um and give everyone
the attention for their business that
they need.
Now, do you guys meet every week? You
said nine weeks. You like once each
week?
>> Uh, yes. So, we meet um once. So, we
meet once a week um on Thursdays and
then also they have individual sessions
with me. So, individual sessions with me
uh once a week and then the industry
expert comes in uh once a week as well.
Oh,
>> so your schedule's full. You're you're
not going to be able to to expand too
much more on that. There's only so much
of you to go around. Huh.
Now,
one of the things that um we sort of
talked about the once you get to a
certain point growth of of you know, now
you're you've like you've sort of you're
getting out of that like you said, so
you put a number that like making 10K a
month is you're sort of like working
your way up to that. But before even
that like what are some of the what are
some of the things that you see that is
that almost every entrepreneur you see a
lot with the entrepreneurs that if if
they just knew this in the first you
know three to six months that alone
would be a big help to them.
So uh so are you saying like within the
first three or four months of getting
started? Is that what you're saying?
>> Yes. Yep.
>> So I would say just you know starting
with laying the framework. Um you know I
I I have these three S's that I try to
teach everyone which is structure
systems and strategy right so structure
you know having the right mindset you
know putting the right system. I
consider system stands for savior self
time energy money. So putting the right
system in place and then the strategy um
you know just knowing uh and working on
the right things at the right time um
versus you know doing marketing now
versus doing marketing later doing
mindset now versus you know doing
mindset later. So just having the right
strategy in place uh at the right time
when you need it is very helpful.
Now you mentioned bringing in this is I
hate to jump back to this but I forgot I
wanted to talk about this a little more.
So you mentioned bringing your your VAS
in and make them a feel a part of the
company and things like that is that
they so they feel some ownership. Are
there any are there any things that you
do that to outside of like you've got a
you know you've got a really good
onboarding process of sort of how you uh
parcel out projects and and tasks but
are there any additional things that you
do that are part of what like make
people feel a part of your organization?
So, um, yes. So, a lot of times, um,
depending on what the VA, uh, specialty
is, I'll bring them into the meetings
that I have with, you know, different
clients to make them, you know, feel,
you know, comfortable. Um, when we
assign them a task, we don't micromanage
them. You know, they have that
ownership. And then as we continue to
grow, it's an incentive for the VA
because they'll, you know, obviously get
raises and things like that. So they
feel as they own a portion of the
company as well in this uh you know
theirs as well. So it's just about
bringing them in making them feel
comfortable showing them that we care
about you know them as well as
employees. Um so you know doing our you
know weekly meetings that we have you
know we talk to them like tell us one
excited thing that you've done you know
you know during your like one win that
you had during the week. It doesn't have
to be business related, but you know, we
give them opportunities to share and
it's not always just about, you know,
running a business.
>> So, how do you uh manage all these
multiple VAS? I know you mentioned ASA
and Monday, but do you pull them
together like weekly? Have like are you
doing like an agile shop where you have
your standups in the morning, talk to
everyone, get get them on task or
because they're so task focused, you
just drive everything through the tools.
>> Yeah. So, um I don't meet with every VA
um every day. I do meet with um my admin
assistant uh every day. Um and then the
other VAS I uh manage them and through a
operations manager. So the operation
manager is pretty the person pretty much
the person that's communicating with the
VAS every day and then I meet with them
every week once a week. Um I meet with
everyone once a week um is how we do it.
Like on Tuesday mornings we meet you
know uh with everyone and that's where
we go over our KPIs. We go over, you
know, different events coming up, how
many people that we have in the company,
how many clients issues um so we have a
good system in place um that really
helps us out.
>> So I love the structure. Interestingly
there you mentioned an operations op
officer to kind of help you manage that.
At what point did you realize that you
had scaled to the point that you needed
additional help to manage the VAS to
keep things growing and keep things
moving forward?
Um well uh it may not be a um a place in
your business. It's all about everyone's
personality. So sometimes you know
people don't like you know giving
instructions or people are not
listening. For me it was a little bit of
both. I just didn't have the time to
keep keep meeting with everyone every
day to just tell them what task or I
would assign a task and then I would
turn around and it would be a couple of
days and it may not be done. So I felt
for me and you know my experience being
in the leaders you know in the military
that that was valuable to have someone
that could oversee um you know different
uh tasks that we had and projects that
we had going on.
>> Excellent. No,
I'm kind of that way too. It's like I
struggle. It's like you kind of get in
that mindset where well I can do it
myself. Why hire someone? Then you hire
someone. It's like okay now I'm spending
time managing them. Why don't I just do
it? it it's kind of that feedback loop,
you know, it's like when do you let go
of the reins? And sometimes that's hard.
Um, but thank you so much. Is there
something you would like to part uh pass
on to our listeners
to help them uh or encourage them with
their businesses?
>> Yeah. So, I will say that one uh you
can't do it all on your own. Um, and
then you know getting in the mindset of
leveraging other people's knowledge. Um,
seek out you know different mentors um
that definitely can help you. It doesn't
have to be paid. There are people out
there that you can definitely research
and make connections with um that can
help you uh operate your business. Um,
you know, LinkedIn is a great source um
for, you know, different business owners
that are willing to help. Um, so, uh, a
lot of people are are are not using
LinkedIn, um, but they're, you know,
they're on Facebook or Instagram, but
LinkedIn is also a great tool to be able
to find clients and also, um, people
that can help you with your business.
>> Yeah, I love that is that that idea of,
you know, there's a lot of places you
can reach out. You can and honestly, you
can help others with that as well. I
think there's a lot of give and take
that you can get into these groups where
you know maybe you know how to solve a
sp a problem but somebody else knows how
to solve your problem and you know
that's what networking to me that's what
networking is all about is like finding
those people and being able to to grow
your uh for lack of a better term grow
your knowledge base through you know
getting a wider group of people that is
your your circle. I want to thank you so
much for your time. This has been as I
expected this has been great. Uh this
has been it's been really fun to to pick
your mind and and see where we've had
similar strugglers and see where you've
you've seen people with similar
struggles strugglers strugglers I'll say
struggles that we can uh you know work
our way through
especially because I think it it feels
like you sort of you're on your own
sometimes as an entrepreneur the solo
and soloreneur sometimes feels a little
bit strong and judgy almost you feel
like you're almost chained by that but
you're not. you can reach out to other
people. There's mentors, there's coaches
and things of that nature. If they've
heard people out here have heard some
good stuff from you, what is the best
way for them to get a hold of you and
and maybe talk further to you about this
stuff?
>> Yeah. So, there's a couple of different
ways. So, if you're interested in um
communicating with me, you can find me
on LinkedIn, uh Antoine Person. So,
that's a nt wo n last name person p r s
o n. And if you're interested in finding
more about our accelerator program, you
can go to skillfuladvisors.com
and you can find out more about our
program there.
And we will make sure that we get links
in the show notes for uh all of those
pieces.
And that means it's about time for us to
wrap this one up. So, thank you so much
for your time for hanging out with us.
Everybody is there's a standing ovation.
I'm trying to talk over all the loud
applause that's going on right now. It's
everybody hooting hollering back there
for you. uh appreciate so much your time
and your your energy in doing so and in
helping the the entrepreneur community
because I think that is one that uh it's
not completely overlooked but I think
definitely does not get the the help and
the assistance that sometimes it can.
That being said, I want to thank
everybody else out there. Thank you for
your time and your patience and hanging
out with us. Uh always uh you guys are
why we do it. Thank you so much and have
yourself a great day, a great week and
we will talk to you next time.
Now, a bonus that we do for the the
video side of it is uh we like to do,
you know, a couple different things. A
new one we're starting newish. By the
time we get this out, it'll actually be
not so much. We have a a weekly
challenge that we've we'll talk to
somebody like yourself. This ends up
split into two episodes. We get to end
the week and we say, "Well, hey, we
talked to Antoine this week and we've
got a challenge for you." Now, sometimes
we've made up our own, but I think this
is a perfect opportunity to you either
for you to either say, "Hey, here's
something that I think everybody can
benefit from." It's just some free
information to help the entrepreneurial
level get higher. Or if you've got
something be a good challenge to throw
out there to somebody that is an
entrepreneur, particularly a side
hustler that's in that, like, am I going
to side hustle? Am I going to work my
way up to entrepreneurs? Is there maybe
a challenge they could you could throw
at them this week for them to uh
accomplish that and get a little better?
>> Um,
so I would say a side hustle. Um, you
know, a lot of people are doing like
retail arbitrage where they're you know
finding uh you know different low ticket
items that they can sell online to
actually sell higher ticket items. So
you know digital products um is is a
good business that people are doing. I
will say, you know, people are still
selling on uh Amazon and different
things like that, doing retail
arbitrage, Walmart. So, all of those are
are good tools for individuals that are
trying to start business that may not
have a lot of money. Um, you know, right
now upfront.
>> I love that. I'm a huge fan of
bootstrapping your your way into your
business and finding way to you. If you
can't take the big bite right away,
maybe take a smaller bite and see if you
can get that. Yeah, because people love
I mean money isn't everything, but boy,
it feels nice when you've got a little
revenue stream coming along that you can
now say, "All right, I can invest in my
my business and in my future,
>> right?" And based on your your your
market or your industry, a lot of times
people focus on the high ticket u items,
but you know, focusing on the low ticket
items can drive other things. I.e., Hey,
you have a low ticket item that could
that make could fund your marketing
campaign or that they can fund another
campaign that you um you know need
funded to actually drive more traffic to
your high ticket items.
>> Uh boy, that's you're you're singing to
the the preacher in the choir right now.
I love that. And have have looked for
those options many times over the years
through the various businesses we've
been in. And it's like, how do we like,
okay, we can't get it all going today,
but how can we get something going
today? It's that kind of goes back to
that forward momentum and getting
unstuck and just getting something
going. Even if you're, you know, if
you're earning a dollar a day, that's
better than not earning a dollar a day.
And then you can take that dollar and
you can advertise with it or do
something to grow your business. So,
love that. Um, that is more than worth
the bonus time for anybody that has
shown up, stuck around for this and and
watched the show and looked at at our
mug, ugly mugs and your pretty mug. At
least they get a good-looking guest this
time instead of the the host they have
to deal with. So, I want to thank you so
much for your time. Appreciate you you
hanging out. Uh, this will be I think
we're about towards the end of March, I
think about is when this will go out at
this point. Somewhere where the the
pipeline is on such things. when it
does, as I mentioned before, it'll be in
two parts. Uh go out on a Tuesday and a
Thursday. At least that's our current
schedule. I think we'll keep to that. Um
and then we'll give you links as we get
closer to that time so that you'll be
able to, you know, feel free to share
that wherever you want. Uh if you have
any questions for us, uh between now and
then, just uh let me know, reach out. Uh
more than happy to help out. And then is
there anything that we can do for you
before we let you you go back off and
enjoy your day?
>> Hey, I just want to say thank you for
having me on your platform. Um, you
know, I'm doing more of these, so, you
know, it's been valuable. I know hosting
a a podcast is not easy. Um, so I know
you're always trying to provide valuable
content to your your your audience. So,
again, I just want to thank you for
having me.
>> Well, thanks so much. That's great.
That's awesome feedback. Everybody
listening, we love feedback. Even if
it's even if it's bad, we love feedback.
So, definitely just like Antoine did,
just let us know what you think and
where you'd like us to go next. And of
course, you know, we'll pass on all the
praise that you have for our guests this
week. All right, we're gonna let you get
to it. Thanks so much for your time.
Hope you have a great day. And like I
said, we'll talk to you in a few weeks
as some of these things go out and
between now and then, let us know if we
can do anything else for you.
>> All right. Thank you. Have a great day.
>> Thank you. Take care.