In this episode of the Clone Yourself PODCAST we’re going to talk some numbers! I know everyone’s favorite thing… but seriously, this is important and I know you want to know the actual return on investment. So, with that in mind… check out this “ROI Calculator”. This tool will show you the actual savings behind hiring a VA. No fluff, actual numbers. VA’s can (and will) save you dollars!

Let’s begin by talking about the concept of “letting go”.

Letting Go

I was recently at a conference and heard the speaker said, “You need to LET GO, so that You can GET GOING”.

WOW, did this speak to me!

Think about it, you can take this motto to your relationships just as much as your business. But, we’re here to talk about business so with that in mind let’s talk some biz….

How much time are you actually spending on these tedious tasks? You know the ones I’m talking about. The rekeying of...

I KNOW WHAT YOU’RE THINKING…

Where do I even start?

It’s totally overwhelming to even think about hiring, training and managing a VA when you’re already buried in your to-do list… Hey, I get it. 

But, that’s why you’re here to learn and why I’m here to guide you through this journey!

SO, in this fourth podcast of Clone Yourself, we’re going to address some of the most COMMON CONCERNS about Virtual Assistants…

TRUST.

You know, it really all boils down to trust.

I’m going to fire off a few things I hear all the time…

• Can I trust them with my passwords?
• How do I know they’re legit?
• I don’t know what I can outsource
• I don’t have time to recruit them
• I don’t have time to train them
• I don’t have time to manage them
• Language barrier
• Fear of poor quality of work 

All of these thoughts are totally normal! First, let’s talk about passwords…

PASSWORDS.

...

I’ve wanted to crack the code on how to work with VA’s since reading the book “4 Hour Work Week” by Tim Ferris. At the time of reading the book I was in my first couple years of working professionally as I had just graduated from Chico State. At the time, I wasn’t making any money at all. I was in sales and I was building my book of business. The last thing I could do was hire a VA.

But, then something happened… I had an epiphany. I realized what the meaning behind the saying “you have to spend money to make money”.

Leap of Faith

The leap of faith is something all entrepreneurs are familiar with. At some point in your career you had to take a leap of faith and usually it happens far more often than just once. Hiring your first employee is a perfect example of taking a leap of faith.

If a new hire doesn’t work out for a small business owner it could sink your business. The time, resources, money AND mental strain of a new hire...

In episode 3 of Clone Yourself, we’re focusing on visualizing our lives with Virtual Assistants because the truth is … VA’s will not only free up your time but also help you to increase your revenue!
See, the thing is when you free up your time you can now focus on the actions that directly relate to bringing in revenue as opposed to time-sucking tedious tasks.

With that, let’s go ahead and first talk about the types of Virtual Assistants.

Types of VA’s

There are 2 main categories of VA’s and I like to think of it as the “workers” and the “visionaries”.

1. General VA (LowLevel) 

They take on the daily tasks and processes that are important for running your business but not necessarily focused on growing it. The tasks that you would delegate to a General VA tend to be technical and repetitive in nature, such as managing your emails or travel schedule, scheduling your appointments, data entry, research,...

In this second episode of the Clone Yourself Podcast, my aim is to open your eyes to who  a VA is as I walk you through how they can help you in your business. 

First of all, it’s who is a VA and not what is a VA.

Remember, virtual assistants are people that we need to build relationships with… 

We need to make a mindset shift… to trust and the understanding of needing to be okay with letting go. After all, we’re only going to be able to GROW OUR BUSINESS after we let go of the tasks that are just straight up wasting our time!

A virtual assistant is someone who works as a freelancer remotely to assist in growing your business. The skills of VA’s are as creative as you can imagine. If you can dream up a task, you’ll be able to find a VA to help!

Patience is Key!
You need to be patient, expect some mistakes as you get used to working together and you need to onboard them properly. Remember, you’re in this...

Welcome to Clone Yourself. This is the podcast to learn how to scale your business with virtual assistants. You’re in the right place because you’re tired of feeling overwhelmed by the number of projects you take on and realizing it’s midnight … and work still needs to get done. 

As business owners we chose to go into business for ourselves so that we can work ON our business and NOT IN OUR BUSINESS. It’s time to get back on track so that we can WORK LESS & MAKE MORE while we play more!

In this pod, I’m delivering actionable tips so that you can CLONE YOURSELF. Okay, not physically clone yourself, but the next best thing!

Tune and you’ll learn things like:

• What is a Virtual Assistant and why you need one?
• How to identify tasks that you can give to a VA.
• Hiring your very first VA and where to find one.
• Creating performance measures that are suitable for VA’s work
• How to Manage Virtual Assistants, including training
• ...

What is a “Lead Magnet” Anyway?

A lead magnet is just a piece of content that you give to your audience for FREE in exchange for their name and email.

Gone are the days that we can simply just put a form on our websites that say “Sign-up for my Newsletter”. No one really wants a newsletter - actually no one really wants another email.

We’re bombarded with messages everywhere we go. We need to do better. We need to give first.

Welcome to The Give First Economy

The give first economy is all about establishing trust and we can do this by giving first.

Rather than just asking for someone’s email with nothing to exchange in return, we need to be offering something of value. Something that is so amazing that our target demographic is floored by the gift they received from you.

I’m Excited, But Where Do I Start?

First, we need to know your Ideal Customer Avatar (ICA). Who is your one perfect customer?

Seriously, what’s their name? (Don’t...

I’m a visual person (and a marketer) and that’s exactly why I LOVE graphic designers!

Unfortunately, graphic design is expensive … and yes, there are great online tools like Canva that can help you build your designs easily. I don’t know about you — but, I don’t want to spend my time creating graphics on Canva or anywhere else. Truthfully, my biggest strengths are in writing, speaking (podcasting), creating videos, building my business… building businesses in general (and brands).

Honestly, I look for weaknesses of mine and you should too! The truth is when hiring VA’s, we need to be hiring for our weaknesses so that our weaknesses become our biggest strength!

Steve Jobs said it best, “It doesn’t make sense to hire smart people and tell them what to do; we hire smart people so they can tell us what to do”. I hire Virtual Assistants to turn my Biggest Weaknesses into my Biggest Strengths!

For...

Recently I was named to the Silicon Valley Business Journal’s 40 Under 40 list (article here). I don’t write this to brag; as a matter of fact, I always try not to come across “braggadocious” … so, if I ever sound like I’m bragging please just STOP ME right there! 

The reason why I’m writing about this is to help you with your personal brand! 

See, the truth is I only received the 40 Under 40 award because I “Cloned” myself. Well, not exactly… I’m calling my new online course Clone Yourself because I work with Virtual Assistants so much and it might as well be the case that I cloned myself. 

Here’s the thing… I'm a pretty simple man. I sell Swag (promotional products) for my own company (in partnership with my family’s office supply company - Value Business Products). I also Chair’d a Young Professionals group in Silicon Valley for a number of years, and have gone through some...

What is a VA?

Well, first off - we should be saying "who" is a VA, not "what"...
By definition, a Virtual Assistant is someone who works with you virtually. Virtual Assistants (VA’s) are not employees. I like to say, think of VA’s as specialists.

I love VA's!
What an amazing time to be alive. Email has us connected like never before - we can work literally anywhere in the world (depending on your actual job function of course). These days no matter what industry you are in, you’re employees can support you virtually. See, here’s the thing - employees can do financing, marketing, customer service, and sales (just to name a few roles) virtually from anywhere in the world.

In a sense, it's just outsourcing any specific task to a freelancer. No matter why you’re looking to extend your team and what roles you’re looking to fill; VA’s can help!

VA's work remotely and you'll surely be able to find a VA that can help you!

Here’s What I...