The School of Greatness - 58 Virtual Freedom and the International Outsourcing Rock Star, Chris Ducker

Episode Date: April 1, 2014

Chris Ducker is the go to guy for anyone seeking to grow their business with the power of outsourcing. In this episode of the School of Greatness podcast Chris and Lewis discuss the power of building a team and how it can allow you more freedom and abundance in your life.

This is episode number 58 with Chris Ducker. Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin. What is up, greats?

Thanks so much for tuning in today on the School of Greatness podcast. I'm super excited about this episode, as I am, I guess, every episode, because I wouldn't be breaking out these guests if I wasn't excited. But this one is with my good friend, Chris Ducker. And it's all about creating virtual freedom. And have you ever had a business that you've been trying to grow that seemed a little overwhelming at times because there's all these different tasks to do? You had the social media that you wanted to create and grow and build. You have content that you were creating, videos. You wanted to build a website. You wanted to do design. You had slideshow presentations. You were guest writing. You were doing interviews. You were doing all these different things and you

were building your business, generating sales, doing marketing, lots of different pieces to the puzzle. As entrepreneurs, there's lots of different pieces. And if we try to take it all on ourselves, if we try to do it all, we're going to end up spending 10, 15, 20 hours a day working on all these tasks as opposed to living the life of our dreams and doing what we're actually great at. We all have talents. We all have gifts. And that's what we should be using each day and focusing on are those talents, not the things that are hard for us to do or the things that take time and energy and are challenging. There's going to be things in our business and our lives that will be challenging even with our

talents. So allow ourselves to focus on those things and get the most out of our talents and our gifts as opposed to working on the things that don't really serve us at all. So this interview is great because I got to sit down virtually with Chris because he's over in the Philippines and I'm in Los Angeles to talk about what it means to have virtual freedom and to have a business with assistance, virtual assistance and assistance and really how to manage it all without it managing you all this time and energy, but really navigating the entire process from hiring virtual assistants to giving them the right tasks, to learning how to train them without taking so much of your time, with making sure you're getting the most out of your team, and everything in between.

So it's all about having that vision for that lifestyle that you want, those dreams you want to achieve, the relationships you want, and having the time to fulfill that vision, the time to be around the people you care about the most, the people you love the most, the time to chase your dreams, to work out, to do what you want to do, to give back. And that's what this interview is all about. It's how to work with a virtual staff to buy more time, be productive, and build your dream business. So without further ado, I want to introduce you guys to the one and only Chris Ducker

on virtual freedom. And welcome back, everyone, to the school of greatness podcast i've got a good friend of mine on here today all the way from the philippines tuning in his name is mr chris ducker what is up chris what is up my man how you doing doing great and we're gonna have the little british accent on the whole whole episode because you're from i'm gonna i'm gonna screw it right up now on you're a Londoner originally, right? Or from England? I am.

I was actually born about 10 minutes away from Centre Court in Wimbledon. So there you go. Okay, cool. Someone just posted a picture on Instagram of them watching this podcast at the Wimbledon train stop or tube stop. Nice. What a coincidence. There you go. Awesome, man.

Well, we've been friends for what about two three years now maybe even more and luckily you've had the chance to connect in person a few times and you're just an amazing and incredible human being and i appreciate you for that so i'm excited to to talk about your expertise which is on virtual freedom and that's actually the title of your new book virtual freedom which is how to work with virtual staff to buy more time become more productive and build your dream business boom i'm excited about this man yeah me too brother and uh you know thanks for all the nice things you're yeah i gotta i gotta say i know that you you know, thanks for all the nice things. I got to say, I know that you have a legion of fan here at the School of Greatness. And I know that your listeners just absolutely love you.

But I, you know, as our friendship has unraveled over the last few years, I mean, it's hard not to fall more and more in love with you. It's hard. It's hard not to, man. You're doing great stuff. That's what it's all about. I appreciate man uh this isn't about me this is about you today so let's let's dive into some of this stuff and you've been uh you know you've got an interesting background and experience you actually used to be in a rock band isn't that right well it was a bit you know it sounds cooler when you say it was rock we did play some rock music

but it was mostly soul, blues, and funk. That was what we were mostly about. Gotcha. But you were like a rock star is what I would say then because you were like the lead singer. I was the lead singer. You used to have long hair, and now you're bald, right? It was just a wig. It was just a wig the whole time.

Yeah, no, it was fun. You know, I loved performing. And it was one of those things that, you know, regardless of what would happen during the week, you know, work-wise or anything like that, you know, Friday night, Saturday night, we would be there. We'd be on stage. I'd play the hard rock in Manila a whole bunch of times and a few other really nice locations all around the Philippines. other really nice locations all around the Philippines. And for me, it was just like that release of stress and energy and all the rest of it at the end of the week. I love performing, man.

I still get up and jam every now and then. I still get up and jam. I like it. Do you play the harmonica as well? I do, poorly. I'm definitely a frustrated harp player. Give me a little hoochie-coochie, man, and I can characterize myself with something like that. I like it, man.

That's awesome. Now, you started your virtual staff-finding business years ago, right? Yeah, it was. It was. It was middle of, where are we now? Middle of 2010. Okay, cool. And why did you start a virtual staff finding company? Well, actually, it came out of a blog comment.

And this is what I'm all about. This is why I love your stuff so much is because you are the epitome of listening to your audience. You produce what you know your audience is going to want to devour. And that's exactly what I did with Virtual Staff Finders. So I had, throughout the course of 2010, I was blogging my way out of my business. And I had set this goal in place that by the end of that year, I was going to be a full-time virtual CEO. I wasn't going to have to go to the office anymore. My $200 employees at that time were going to be

managed by other people, so on and so on and so on. And in the middle of that year, I really started blogging heavily about virtual teams, VAs, working with outsourced staff, because I've been doing it for years and years and years. Even before the four-hour work week had come out i was already working with vas either on a project or a task basis at least and what was that business that you were doing where you were doing this before well i mean i would utilize what i'm saying is i was utilizing the vas so i know i was hiring them for different projects and tasks everything from web design right the way through to you know data collation and all that sort of stuff. Was this for your company or a different company you were working for at the time?

Combo. Combo of the two. So I used to do a lot of consulting work when I first came to the Philippines. But then 2006 is when I started the Lift to Sell Group, which is now the umbrella company for my three businesses. which is now the umbrella company for my three businesses. And so I used to utilize these VAs for everything from research right the way down to location scouting, being here in the Philippines, it was handy having them over here, obviously. And so, yeah, it was nothing new to me. But then I got this blog comment that said, you know, I read the four-hour work week.

It was an amazing read. And I love what outsourcing can bring me. But I've had so many bad experiences with finding VAs. If only there was one spot, there was one source that I could go to that I trusted, I'd spend money on that. And it was like the entrepreneurial alarm bell started pinging in the background, and four weeks later I gave birth to the virtual star finder. And here we are now you know four years later and boom boom boom it is what it is this is the frustrating thing you know a lot of people

probably who are listening to this episode or who have listened to the show are aware of the four-hour work week and probably have read it and uh maybe even a bunch of people have tested out trying to find a virtual assistant i know i did when I first read the book back in, I think, 2008 or 2009. And it was extremely frustrating, like you said, just like the communicating back and forth, not knowing what to look for, not knowing, you know, what to give someone to do, like how to delegate specific things, how to like keep your assistants, you know, occupied creating for you as opposed to just sitting idle and really how to like find a, you know, figure out the time gap. You know, if you're hiring someone in a different country who's, you know, 10 hours behind you or ahead of

you, how do you navigate that? How do you facilitate that communication structure? And I found myself just getting frustrated and just kind of like giving up because i had no clue what i was doing um and so that's kind of what you talked about it's why you created this because a lot of people are having these huge problems and you decided to give them the solution with your staff and company so you're in the philippines you actually moved there was it for work or is it because of uh you met a girl i forget no it was it was work it for work or was it because you met a girl? I forget which one it was. It was work. It was work. Then you met a girl.

I met a few girls. And then I met the girl that I settled down with. Gotcha. Gotcha. I mean, yeah, no, it was 2000. It was originally for work. And, you know, everything sort of just grew over the first four years or so of me being here. And then I started to do some very, very high-level consulting work

for some big, mostly U.S. companies. And that was when I was setting up outsource facilities over here. And that was when I really started to get head deep into the outsourcing world. I touched on it for a while, but really it was 2003, 2004. That was when I really started to make some serious money from a consulting perspective where I was helping other people set up outsource facilities here. As small as 50 or 60 full-time employees right the way up to I think the largest project I worked on was about 3,000. Gotcha. So here's some questions I have here about the book and just about virtual assistants in general is when, when did you know that you need a virtual

assistant? It's a great question. Um, and it's different for everybody, obviously, right? Cause it's a very, this whole entrepreneurial journey is a very different one for all of us. But ultimately I believe that there will come a time in every entrepreneurial journey where you're going to hit a crossroads and you will have to make a choice. And at that point, the choice will be either to continue being the solopreneur that you are, working the 14, 15 hour days, six days a week, maybe even seven days a week, and kind of burning the candle at both ends and ultimately burning out and hitting a wall and being no good to anybody. Or the other option is to go in the other direction and it's truly to start building a team.

And that's, I think, you know, that's the easiest way to answer a question is when's the best time? You'll know. Overwhelm eventually will come to all of us. And it really comes down to whether you want to continue to handle it on your own or go find some help. I'll tell you what, man, it's interesting because when I was starting out, I did a lot of the work myself and I was working, you know, whatever, 10, 15 hours a day, just like learning because I wanted to know what I was doing and really become a master at it.

So for me, I enjoyed that first couple of years of doing it all myself and figuring it out and then hiring out the things that I couldn't do like design and the technical things online. But now it's so freeing when I want to create something and get something done. And I'm feeling like, gosh, am I going to do this myself and get it done maybe a little faster and have it the way I want it to be done? Or am I going to find someone who can do this for me? And I just did this yesterday. I'm working on a new slideshow presentation for a webinar. And I was like, again, I could do this myself.

And it'll take me a couple hours. And it'll be good. But I just passed over step-by-step details of exactly what I wanted with some creative flexibility to someone and said, here you go. And they're running with it and it's going to be done today. And it's going to be amazing. It's just like this freeing feeling

of letting go of control and allowing someone else to do the work for you. So you can create, or so that I can create, the big picture thinking and strategy and the development of the business. And that's what I think is invaluable about having a virtual assistant. Yeah.

I mean, you hit the nail on the head with that term letting go because that's where everybody fails in my book. Most entrepreneurs, they need to let go. I talk about in the book, I call it superhero syndrome, where they believe that they could and should be handling everything themselves. And the fact of the matter is, once you let go of that superhero syndrome, and you understand that there are tens of thousands of ridiculously talented people all around the world, that actually nine times out of ten can do this stuff better than you the slide deck is a perfect example you know um a logo design a website layout you know whatever the case may be we're all we can all hold our own with photoshop we can all hold our own you know with with installing a wordpress theme and playing around with some plugins we can all do this stuff right but it's not what we should be

doing as the business as as as the head honchos in in our lives it's not what we should be doing and the moment entrepreneurs start letting go that's when the when the real greatness is unleashed you know what i mean i feel you man i like that and it's true though i mean you know if i'm you know i'm charging three thousand dollars an hour for just consulting on online marketing and webinars and business stuff. So it's like, if I'm going to spend an hour of my time creating a slideshow or a logo, you know, I can't even, I can't even do Photoshop. So for me, it's more of like pick monkey or like, or something like that, you know, it's

something simpler because I'm just not that creative on the design side of things. But if I want to spend an hour of my time doing anything that's $3,000 lost or potentially leveraging that to even $20,000 an hour if I'm being honest with myself with what I'm able to create with that time. So it's just not worth it

and it just holds you back from not creating wealth, but trading your time for dollars if you're just doing all the work yourself. So I like that answer, man. But what do you tell someone who's like, you know what? I've tried virtual assistants. I've hired them. And it became more work for me than it was a relief. And it stressed me out. It actually wasted months of my time because we couldn't communicate, they weren't getting it. And I just ended up getting frustrated and saying, you know what, this is not for me and I'm never doing it again. What do you say

to someone like that? You know, there are going to be those people out there. I've come across a lot of them. And you know, one of the biggest things that I hear from people when they first get going with outsourcing is, well, why should I bother outsourcing this task, whatever the task may be, to someone else when I can do it just as quickly myself? Right? I hear that all the time. And let's take an example of, say, laying out a blog post. Now, this is after you've written the content, okay, because there are certain things that you shouldn't be outsourcing. The creation of your original content is one of them for sure. But everything else, I feel, can be outsourced, okay, for want of a better term, can be outsourced.

But let's look at that. Let's say you put together the blog content itself. Now you've got to lay it out on the page and make it look pretty or whatever. On average, I time myself five times doing this on five different blog posts, various lengths, embedding videos and podcasts and infographics and all the rest of it. On average, it was 45 minutes at a time. I asked three or four other people to do the same thing, and they all came in at around 45 minutes to an hour as well. So this is my reaction to that. Well, the next time you do that task that no one else can do better than you, in your mindset anyway, the next time you do that,

hit record on ScreenFlow or Camtasia or some other type of screen recording software and talk yourself through why you're putting that picture there, why you're using bold italics as the CTA, as a call to action in your last sentence, why you're including links to these particular blog posts on these particular anchor text or whatever the case may be. Talk it through. Spend 45 minutes creating that training video. Then dump it in the Dropbox. Give it to one of your VAs.

Have them watch it a few times and never do that task again. That's it. Yeah, and you can also use... Go on, go ahead. I was going to say, you know, if you don't know what ScreenFlow is, there's a free tool called Jing

that you could use as well. And i actually like that because it's only five minutes long right so you have to be like be concise with right i mean yeah your jing is great i've used jing a whole bunch of times but sometimes you do need more than five minutes to train somebody properly in a task and therefore you can't really use it but j Jing is great. I mean, there's a whole lot of other, I think there's another one, Screencast-O-Matic or something like that as well. There's a lot of different stuff out there. But that's just one example right there.

And nine times out of 10, nine times out of 10, when this whole outsourcing thing doesn't work out, it's usually the fault of the entrepreneur or the virtual boss rather than the VA. Because this is one of the biggest misconceptions a lot of people have when they get going with outsourcing is that one person can do everything for them. And it doesn't work like that. Outsourcing is not a magic pill, right? You want it to be like that.

Oh, yeah. I mean, we all want it to be like that. I mean, you know, but ultimately, it's not like that. I mean, you look at it in the concept of building a house you work with an architect to design it then you get a head contractor that head contractor will make sure that that house is built as it's been designed by your architect but they're not going to do the plumbing the electrical the roofing the brick i mean they're gonna they're gonna subcontract that work to people that do just that particular role on a day-to-day basis because they want it done properly and our sourcing should be the same way and here's the thing that general contractor could probably it's probably knows how to do it all like decently but it's yes he did it all he could do it all but it would take him longer it wouldn't be an excellence and you know, it just wouldn't be done as efficiently.

So that's, that's, I think the struggle, you know, I've done this in the past where I'm like, Oh, this guy can, can be,

can design. I wonder if he can code it up to, for my website. And I try to like have him do everything. And it's just like, there's bugs and, you know, you just can't do it.

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Nice man. Well, you talk about, you talk about creating your three lists to freedom now what are these three lists and why are they so important

yeah i mean this is something that i did myself so late 2009 i hit burnout and um i had been working those 15 16 hour days for a few years building my company we were actually doing really really well business-wise we were were very profitable financially. We were very, very comfortable, about 130-odd employees. But I did. I hit a brick wall. And between Christmas and New Year, myself and my wife went away for a few days. We had a little staycation here in Cebu. We went down to one of the islands. And we talked about the situation we're in and how to get out of it. And we, you know, we came to the very, very clear conclusion that I was no longer running the business. The business was running me and I couldn't have that anymore

because I knew I wasn't going to survive for much longer with it. Uh, you know, something was going to give and my health was already starting to give. And so what I did is I literally, I remember like it was yesterday, man, it was over breakfast. I grabbed one of the paper napkins and a pen, and I just drew two lines down on this thing. And I said, right, I'm going to write three lists out here. And I remember my wife saying, well, what list? What are you talking about? So I'm going to write down a list of all the things I don't like doing every day, all the things I'm struggling doing, or maybe I can't do, and then a list of all the things that I feel I shouldn't be doing. And I sat and I started that over breakfast. And five hours later, I had put it out into a huge

brain dump of tasks over about four or five different pages. You know, you get the free hotel paper if you want to make notes and things like that. You know, and so I put it all out there and there it was. So the first list was a list of all the things, all the tasks I hated doing day to day. And I would procrastinate all day long and then rush doing these tasks. I hated them so much, but I knew my business demanded them of me. So that was the first list. The second list was a list of all the things that I couldn't do, but I was trying to do because of my own superhero syndrome, right? So things like designing websites, designing logos, doing everything from decent competitive analysis.

Believe it or not, I'm a great entrepreneur, but I suck at certain things like looking through my competitors' websites and coming up with what's working for them and what's not. That's not what I'm about. I'm a starter. I start things and build things. That's what's not. That's not what I'm about. I'm a starter. I start things and build things. That's what I do. And so that was my second list, the list of all the things I felt I couldn't do, I was struggling to do. And then the third list was by far the most important thing. The whole afternoon was spent on this last list. And what I did is I wrote down a list of all the things that I felt I shouldn't be doing on a day-to-day basis. And the reason why this was so powerful was because, number one,

some of these tasks I liked doing, like training my staff. Number two, some of them I was really, really good at doing, like business development. But as the business owner, should I be doing those things? Or should I be spending more time on, you know, hanging out with my top 20% clientele or coming up with new products or services or going to networking events and, you know, that sort of type of thing. So those developed into those three lists of freedom. I didn't realize it at the time when I started at Breakfast, putting those together. But that exercise has now helped hundreds of, I mean, probably well over hundreds of

thousands of entrepreneurs around the world because I've done them on a whole bunch of podcasts and even live on stage at conferences and things like that as well. It's a game changer. Yeah. It's a game changer. And I consistently bring it up throughout the course of the book as well because it all kind of starts with that one initial brain dump. Yeah.

I think it's really getting clearer on what you want and what you don't want. And the tasks you don't want to do are extremely valuable because if you can free up all those things that you don't want to do, if you free that up, you're just creating this amazing energy and life for yourself that's allowing you to start doing what you do love and that's what it's all about when we create a virtual business and you have resistance it's freeing up the things that you aren't great at so that you can uh do the things you love to do that's it that's the way i look at and the things you should be doing you know what i mean that's the things you should be doing the things only you can do in your business exactly your talents yeah it's interesting you know i get a a few books a week that are sent to me for people that want to be on the show and uh i can't read three books a week it's like it's too much so what i end up doing is i'll i'll skim them and i'll kind of like

go through the the main points and just see what's bolding in the chapters and kind of what stands out and see if I, you know, what I can learn. And then what I do is I give it to my assistant. And it's interesting because she created a list of questions to ask. You know, and I already had a bunch of questions, but she just made it really nice for me. And she found other things that I probably wouldn't have found with just skimming. So she has a list of questions that she put in the book. It's on my desk, ready to go for the time of our interview. I look at it 10 minutes before.

I see all the questions. I kind of skim through the book again. And she tells me, like, when do you know you need a virtual assistant? And then she'll say, how important is creating the three lists of freedom? Page 20. So I go to page 20, and I'm like say, how important is creating the three list of freedom, page 20? So I go to page 20, and I'm like, okay. Love it. I'm like, all right. There you go.

Here's the three lists of freedom. I'm like skimming it. I'm like, okay, this is the most important things I need to know. And there's all these other notes here that I'm going over, you know. And then she gives a little sticky note in the book that says must read. And I open to that page, and it's a page that I didn't even know you did this, but it talks about me and her. It says, you know, you talk about how…

Have you got the book in front of you? Read it out. Yeah, yeah. I finally remember now where I put that in. This is an advanced review copy, so I don't know if it's the same page, but it's page 177 in this copy. And it says,

Lifestyle Entrepreneur Lewis Howes is an ex-pro athlete turned podcaster, speaker, business coach, coach and content creator he plays the delegation game perfectly except for his personal assistant who works physically with him he only hires on a project basis but it's using the right people for the right jobs that make what he does so effective uh so that part where it says his personal assistant works physically for him uh with him she like put must read with exclamation point i thought that was kind of funny love it i mean so she genuinely sat and read this book for you she read the whole thing otherwise how would she have seen this little sentence that and she's and she's now she's not concerned about losing her job exactly yeah right right because she knows that that's what's different about you and i mean you know that that is a very clear task right there as someone who you know who

talks to people on a regular basis for his quote-unquote job right that's one of your jobs is to interview people that are interesting and when you do get these books that are sent to you and you know that you're going to have to interview these authors or whatever the case may be, it takes hours and hours and hours of prep work for one of these interviews. I know I'm a podcaster myself. And, you know, my show is very, very conversational, but I still prep for each show in some way, shape, or form.

And a lot of the time I will also pass that to one of my VAs as well because I personally don't have the time to do it. So I'm excited to hear that you delegated the prep work for this conversation. It's good. Not that you really need it because we know each other pretty good anyway. Exactly. And she actually put – I'm looking at the back page of these notes now. She said – I didn't even see this until just now but she said c page 177 highlighted smiley face best part so interesting so what uh here

i've got a bunch of questions that she's written down for me so let me get through some of these what are some tips for balancing being a virtual micromanager and being completely hands-off? That's a good question. Because, you know, as a controlling individual, I want to have things look the right way. And I want them to be my way, or it's

the highway type of deal, you know? So it's like, how does someone manage, who is maybe controlling like that, how does someone manage that without being on top of them constantly but giving them – being completely hands off so you know the job is going to be done well? Yeah, I mean I always find that funny where people hire outsourced staff and then they kind of sit in front of their screens micromanaging like a virtual vulture. Right. And it just – it totally defeats the object of the entire game so i i don't get it myself but i know that it happens um and i mean really it comes down to one of the big misconceptions

that people have is that they believe that their vas are going to work perfectly right out of the box that they are they've got the skill set they've got the skill set, they've got the experience, therefore they should know exactly how you want things done. And this is where the importance of training your VA comes into play. I mean, when your PA started with you, you have to tell her how you like things done. Yeah, it's definitely a process. Right, and it's exactly the same with a virtual assistant. You've got to spend some time.

You've got to put these little Jing videos together and write some bullet point training and delegation task lists and things like that. Just because your VA has got the skill sets needed and has the relevant experience that you're required for that role to be hired for, that doesn't mean that they know exactly how you like things done. And it's very important to understand. I remember a story, I had a client a few years ago that called me up one day and he was freaking out saying that his VA let him down, but all this sort of stuff. And the task was basically to put together a list of Hannah Montana products for his daughter for a Christmas gift.

And she had put this list together of these toys or whatever, dolls, magazines, whatever it was, along with the price. And she had made it kind of – it was XL. It was some purples and pinks. It was Hannah Montana. You know what I mean? So she sends it all through to the guy, and he's totally freaking out. Why does she use purple and pinks and it was hannah montana you know what i mean so she sends it all through the guy and he's totally freaking out saying why she used purple and pink um my corporate colors are blue and green why is she not included a link to you know amazon so i can purchase these things directly why she used ariel 10 i'm a i'm a times 12 guy and all this and i said well you know did you tell

your va all of this This is how you want these things done. And he said, no, I just assumed that she would know. Says, ah, there you go. So the lesson there is to not assume and not to believe that your VA is going to work perfectly out of the box. The importance of training is very, very, very, very paramount in the success of any outsource program um obviously some vas are going to need more training than others but ultimately you do have to spend some time training and new hires this is where i got caught up at the beginning when i first started this because i just assumed that they would just read my mind kind of like a girlfriend you know

like a girlfriend which is the man would read her mind just know what to say and know what to do and know what she wants at all times. So, and that's why it was frustrating for me early on. It was just like, oh, why aren't they getting this? They should just know what I want by looking at my website and just understanding me. Right? But that's not the case. And I think to make anything easy for yourself and efficient and smooth, you're going to have to put in some hard work or just some time and energy in the beginning process to then ensure that it will be smooth for a long time coming. And like you said, my assistant, my physical assistant, it was probably a month of her understanding my patterns, what I liked, what I didn't like, what I needed, what she felt comfortable with, what I felt comfortable with. And it's just a process.

So as long as you're willing to go through the process and get a little dirty here and there, then the goal is it will be smooth for a long time coming, right? Yeah. I mean you're going to get a little dirty. Just expect it it's gonna happen it's a new process um and you know i always say that rome wasn't built in the day but it also took a lot more than just one person to build it yeah interesting that's true so some tips just to clarify there are some tips for for training a VA is really create these documents and these video kind of like modules showing step by step of what you want, how you want it, and being very clear. And then just giving them access and saying, hey, watch these videos.

So there'll be a training process. Are there any other parts when you're training a VA that we should focus on besides making sure that… Yeah, I mean, you've got to be very clear in regards to your expectations on delivery as well. So if you want a task done by 2 p.m. on Tuesday, say 2 p.m. on Tuesday. Don't say Tuesday. You know what I mean? Because it might come in at 6 p.m. on Tuesday. You know what I mean?

Because it might come in at 6 p.m. on Tuesday. You know, I have found over the course of the years that I've been working with not just physical staff or people within my facility but also virtual as well that the more direct that I get, not only in my training but also just within my day-to-day management and the expectation that I have of my staff, the more direct, the more blatant, the more brash, the more upfront that I am, the better the results. And I mean, I truly mean that. And people know now that when they have a meeting with me or if they want to knock on my door and come into my office, if I'm in the facility and talk to me and share a problem with me, they now know that they cannot walk into that office of mine with just the problem. They've got to have at least one idea for the solution. It doesn't need to be the right idea, but just give me something. You know what I mean? Don't just walk through the door and say, I've got a problem. Help me.

That's not what I'm paying you to do. I'm paying you to help me solve those problems, not the other way around. Do the research yourself, yeah. Yeah, exactly. And, you know, it was a long time coming to get all these processes in place. Another thing that I do, and this is also a little tip in regards to day-to-day management of your VAs, get a daily report put together. I don't care if they've been working with you for one week or one year. Always ask them to send you at least, and what I do is just a simple bullet-pointed email that comes through to me at the end of every day that I can read at my leisure at some point in

the evening because I work kind of kooky hours with all my clients being all around the world and usually in the evening I'll log on and I'll I have two full-time GVAs the rest of my staff are either part-time or you know on a project basis or task basis when it comes to my virtual staff that is and I'll get these two emails from both Marie and Michelle every single day. And they'll usually be a handful of bullet points of what they covered that day.

Plus, every single time they send me an email, they got to give me one suggestion. A suggestion on overcoming a problem they had that day or a suggestion for a new business model or a new product or a new FAq that we can

put on the website or something now a lot of the time a lot of the time those suggestions will be worthless right okay but every now and then they will be golden and they will make you hundreds of thousands of dollars and that has happened to me on several occasions in the last four or five years of working with these two particular ladies. And now, because they've been on board with me so long, they kind of understand what's going to be weak and what's going to be strong. So it is. It's a process, man.

You've got to build it up over a period of time, just like you do with any member of staff. Yeah, it's interesting. I had a, you know, not to go into too much detail, but I had an employee that was working, lived in LA, but was working here, then decided to work from home. I said, cool, here's what I need. I need to have an update at noon.

You know, just kind of the same thing, bullet points of what you've created by noon and then what you've created by five. Just so I can know that what, you know, I was paying a lot more than a virtual assistant payment. I was paying basically a full-time employee who was local in Los Angeles. So I was paying a lot for this position.

And, you know, I was like, I need an update to know that the money, the hundreds of dollars I'm spending every day is going towards making money and not just sitting idle or losing money. And it was like a challenge for him to update me. He was like, well, I'm not getting in the flow. When I do this, I have to stop. And I'm like, dude, it takes three minutes. And if it takes you a total of 10 minutes total, that's what I need to know that what you're doing is creating, building my business as opposed to just sitting idle. Because if you're not around, how do I know you're creating something? So I think that's extremely valuable and important

to have that update, whether it's twice a day or at the end of the day, just some update every day of what your money is going towards for your peace of mind because- Well, I mean, it's not just for the peace of mind and It is, absolutely so. But it's also to empower your staff. It's to empower your people to say, I am getting paid to do something to either run, support, or grow this business. And today I'm going to show boss what I did. And I love that. I eat that stuff up. I really do.

I'm all about empowering, and I know you are as well. Of course, of course. Yeah. Giving people an opportunity to see what they can create and step up. That's what it's all about. Nice, man. Well, what, you know, in the book, you have lists and lists of tasks that people can do. Because some people are like, well, what if I don't have the money or enough work to hire a part-time or full-time virtual assistant? And you've got, I mean, we can't even go over all this, but it's like tons of stuff that you have written down here of what people can do. And it's, again, it's hiring based on need and based on specific things, not just like

one person for everything. So you've got someone who can do all social media management. You've got someone who can do all content creation and writing, and you've got a video editing, and you have all the tasks written out for each one of these positions. You talk about all that stuff. So what if someone's like, well, I don't have enough work for someone,

and what do you tell them? Well, then you just hire for the tasks that you have it's as simple as that see generally there's two different types of outsourcing there's either task or project-based outsourcing and then there's team-related outsourcing i'm i'm a massive advocate of building the team right but that doesn't mean that if I don't have a need for somebody full-time, that I'm not going to go looking for someone to handle either that task or to manage your work on that project for me. Now, with a task-based outsourcing, it's just that. It's the task. Let's say an example is, a perfect example would be a logo design. You'd either go to Odesk or Elance or 99designs or a website of that nature. You'd post your job. You'd either go to Odesk or Elance or 99designs or a website of that nature.

You'd post your job. You'd tell them what you want your logo to look like. You'd maybe show them some examples of stuff that you like that you found elsewhere online. And then people would pitch you for the job. You hire them. They do the work. You tweak it. You get the final specs. Everything's happy. You pay them. Boom. You go your separate ways. That's task-based outsourcing right there. And that's the exact way that everybody can dip their toe in the outsourcing river, see what the water's like, and give it a go. And once they do that a whole bunch of times and they start sitting down and making those three lists of freedom for themselves, they'll understand that this is not necessarily a task-based situation anymore. Maybe I can do a project.

Maybe I got a new e-commerce website that I'm going to be launching. Well, this is more than just one person. I need a project manager. I need a web designer. I need a developer. Maybe someone that's good with back-end databases or whatever the case may be. Then I got to work on the promotion, the marketing this. I need a slide deck done for a webinar or this and the other. Before you know what's

happening, now you've got four or five people that's required. Well, you go out and you hire one person to be your project manager who's done something similar in the past and you let them handle the rest of it for you. It's kind of like a general contractor building a house. Yeah you call this your general va right the general va is the perfect role for every you know modern day entrepreneur i believe that every modern day entrepreneur doing business today should have a gva on board it. Yeah. And you talk about you've got a whole graphic here on page 161 that shows the virtual team interaction with the general VA. You got someone doing SEO and web marketing.

You've got another person doing content writing. You've got another person doing mobile app creation or developer, audio, video editors, graphic designers, web developers, anyone else. They're all going underneath basically or in around the general va and they're managing the team as opposed to you trying to manage six or seven people or one or two people even yeah uh it's a lot of energy trying to manage that so what will happen is you'll you'll start off with that gva and you'll have all the energy and everything cool then you might hire,

excuse me, that web developer or that SEO guy. But once you get to four or five people, now you're not running your business anymore. Now you're just managing people. And at that point, that's a great time to look at your GVA as a potential promotional situation and turn them into the project manager that you need. And then you can get back to running your business again and have them run the team. Right. I like it. And,

um, and you also have, you know, in the book, you've got a lot of different processes for like, okay, what do you do when you have a, an assignment and you talk to them,

you just have a step-by-step process of like, you know, uploading it to the Google drive and then here's what's next then here's what's next, and here's what's next. So I think that's amazing, and it's a great reason why people should read this. And there's a lot of stuff that – Yeah, you're talking about the last section of the book. I think, well, the second-to-last section of the book is where I'm talking about content and repurposing a lot of content and getting your team to do it. And here's a little caveat there for you.

That section of the book was the last section I wrote, and it's not because it's at the back of the book. It wasn't even in the book to begin with. And I had so, you know, I started asking people on my Facebook page, on my Google+, Twitter, blog, you name it, you know, what do you want to see in the book? You know, I'm kind of, I'm in the middle of it right now. What do you want to see? And they all started coming back to me, actual process flows. Show me how to create a new blog post. Show me how to conduct research properly. Show me how to

create and upload a video, create an e-book, put a product together, a Kindle book, or put a promotional plan in place, all these different little flow charts, so to speak, that people can physically follow. And I've even had people send me emails recently where they've taken photos of the book and they've copied me in to the emails that they're sending their VA saying, literally, do this. And I love that. I mean, that's a massive compliment, you know?

That's awesome. And I'm sure you get questions all the time about hiring locally and hiring overseas. So what do you recommend? Is it better to hire a virtual assistant, you know, in your country or in a different country? I think that, you know, and this is, you – and this is a debate that could go on for hours, and I talk about it obviously in the book, and I've discussed it on many, many occasions. But ultimately, man, it's not down the geographic location. It's really not. It really comes down to hiring the right person or the right people for that role or for those jobs.

If that person happens to be in your backyard and you can afford them, great. If they happen to be on the other side of the world and maybe you're bootstrapping a little and you need a little financial flexibility, then that's going to be a great model for you. But ultimately, it all comes down to hiring the right people for the right jobs. And if you keep that at the forefront of your mind when you are building a team, I believe you can't go wrong because we all need good people.

We all need good people. It just so happens that there are some unbelievably good people spread out around the entire globe now. And I think it's just an advantageous thing for business owners nowadays to not have to keep looking in their backyard, to have that open-mindedness to think to themselves, you know what? Maybe there's a really good developer in Switzerland, which is where one of my developers

is based, by the way. Or maybe there's a really good transcriptionist in LA, which is, again, where my transcriptionist lives. So I'm here in the Philippines, but I'm outsourcing out of the Philippines to people because they're the right people for those jobs. Right, right. Gotcha. Nice. And how much should we be paying for a virtual assistant? Well, it does depend on where they are. I mean, you know, if you're in the US or the UK, Australia, Western type world, you're going to be paying more.

I mean, that's a given. here in the Philippines working full-time for you 40 hours a week, you're looking at a starting salary of anything between $500 to $800 a month, US, depending on their experience level. That might sound really low to a lot of people, and I get it. It is over in the United States. But here, an $800 a month salary, I mean, there are doctors that are not making that much money. Right, exactly.

So it just goes to show you, these VAs are skilled workers. They know they're skilled workers as well. Four, five years ago, six years ago, when Tim's book came out for our work week at first, these guys were making, you know, the starting salary for somebody within this realm would have been 250 300 bucks right but it's doubled and then some because now they know that they're in demand they know that they're skilled workers they know that people need their talent and their experience on their team and therefore they've jacked up the prices but it's still ridiculously cheaper than working with somebody local right right yeah it's interesting what is the biggest gift virtual freedom has given

you being there that's it being there um you know i go back to 2009 i was working those ridiculously long hours. My son, my youngest son, turned one. And I realized that by the end of 2009, when he turned one, I hadn't spent a whole lot of time with him. And that made me very, very, very sad. And honestly speaking, I'm choking up a little bit right now just talking about it because I lost an entire year. Okay, fine. He wasn't running around and playing with Lego and shooting hoops with me like he is today. But it was still an entire year. And it was an entire year also and some that I wasn't spending time with my wife as much as I wanted to as well. So for me, virtual freedom has given me

the opportunity to just be there more. And a couple of years ago, I had back surgery, as you know. And one of the beautiful things about all the pain and the anguish and the recovery and everything that I went through with that back surgery was that I started practicing yoga. And my wife started practicing with me. She fell head over heels in love with yoga. She's now a yoga instructor, actually. She's done all her courses and all the rest of it. But you know what the really good thing about that was? We got to spend, because I was doing one hour a day, we got to spend an additional five hours a week together. And I wouldn't have been able to do all these different things if I'd have been shackled to my desk the way that I was before I discovered that virtual freedom

for myself. And that is the exact reason why I wrote the book, man. It was about telling people it doesn't need to be this way. Society has engulfed us with an incredible amount of BS when it comes to what success actually means. And success is not working 15 hours a day, six days a week, having our smartphones glued to our hands all the time. That is not success. You know what I mean? It might be deemed success by a lot of people within society, but that is just being more stressed, having less time with your family. And, you know, what are you going to do with your money if you're working 15 hours a day anyway? You're not going to spend it anywhere. You're too busy making more. So it really made me take stock

and boy, oh boy, I just, I love being in the situation where I am today. And that's honestly the reason why I wrote the book is to try and educate people. It doesn't need to be that way. There is another way to be able to do it. I love it, man. Well, I think everyone should definitely go check this book out, Virtual Freedom, How to Work with Virtual Staff to Buy More Time, Become More Productive, and Build Your Dream Business. I'm excited that you wrote this, man. I appreciate you for all the work that you've done over the years in developing this information so that the rest of the world can really utilize having virtual freedom for themselves. And I know you've supported me in finding a virtual assistance through your company and through your staff and company. And you've got great content, a great podcast.

And it's all over at chrisducker.com. Isn't that right? That is correct. That is right. Awesome, man. And final question of the interview. It's what is your definition of greatness? The final question of the interview is, what is your definition of greatness?

My definition of greatness is answering questions and providing solutions to problems. That's what I do day to day. That's what my role is as an entrepreneur is to do those two things is to provide answers to people's questions and to create solutions to their problems. Chris Ducker, the virtual freedom rock star. Thanks so much, my man, for coming on. Thank you, brother. I appreciate you, man. There you have it, greats. I hope you enjoyed this episode on the School of Greatness podcast.

And make sure to check out also another link, virtualfreedombook.com. Got some cool stuff there, some prizes if you want to get the book. He's got some gifts he's giving away over there as well for people who get the book over at virtualfreedombook.com we'll have all of this on the show notes of course back at the hub lewishouse.com or you can check out schoolofgreatness.com

as well but there's going to be lots of show notes there resources on finding virtual assistants, information about his book and Chris as well. You can connect with him and ask him questions over on Twitter

or Facebook or anywhere else. But I hope you guys enjoyed this episode. I know I enjoyed learning about how to maximize my time and my energy so that I can continue to live the life of my dreams. There's definitely some ups and downs here and there in the hiring process and the management process of having a team.

But it's worth it in the end if you know how to navigate it the right way. So pick up a copy of this book. Again, check out the show notes at lewishouse.com. Please share it with your friends over on Twitter and Facebook. And wherever you are in the world, I love getting pictures on Instagram of where you guys are listening to these shows, these episodes. Instagram, where you guys are listening to these shows, these episodes. So if you are listening to it somewhere right now, just go ahead and take a little selfie or anything of where you're at in the world and go ahead and tag me on Instagram at Lewis Howes. Would love to connect with you guys there and see what you guys are creating when you're listening to the podcast. With that, guys,

you know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great. Outro Music