How to Hire Virtual Business Professionals to Run Your Business

Matthew: Yeah, so this actually, so definitely not the restaurant business, which is the toughest business Oh, my God, that was crazy business. But the E commerce business in this have actually an outsourcing of a lot in common, because in E commerce, it’s very common to go outsourced to the Philippines or outsourced to other parts of the world. And you know, my engineers in the Ukraine, my ops people are the Philippines IP in South America. So while I while I was doing my ecommerce business over the past couple of years, what I realized is there’s a large pool of talent outside the United States that specifically in the Philippines, my case that people don’t tap, people go to the Philippines for low level talent. No one ever says I’m gonna go for high level talent to the Philippines. Not that it doesn’t exist, they just don’t do it. Right. So once I found someone who actually ran my entire ecommerce or runs my entire ecommerce business for me in the Philippines, I said, Wait a second, here’s an opportunity that no one’s going after, which is go find better people. Yes, they cost more money, but optimize for quality, over cost. And you’ll be able to help a lot of people. And time and time again, the entrepreneurs I talk to all are excited where they’re able to offload real work and not just say to someone, Hey, can you do my calendar?

Tyzer: Right? Yeah, that makes total sense. What, specifically about the Philippines versus other countries? Why does that make the most sense, as far as you know why you would want to start looking there?

Matthew: Yeah. So in the field, a couple of reasons. There are a lot of countries with a lot of talented people. So in the Philippines, one is the speak English, right? And so you have a common if that’s your primary language, well, you have a common way to communicate with someone, and they learn it from their very young. So it’s, you know, a lot of them are almost natively fluid. So a lot of the team members there, too. There’s a tradition of outsourcing already done by the big multinationals. So a lot of these companies like the banks, for example, have these big business process outsourcing centers. And those were 24 hours a day, and they’re training people up to international standards. There comes a point in time where people say, Wait a second, and this is especially true during the pandemic. I don’t want to commute for hours round trip, can I work remotely for a company, and this has been going on for years in the Philippines. And so then you start getting these higher quality people who are now going to say I want to work from home and your natural. It’s just a natural segue for working with companies in the United States.

Tyzer: Thanks makes total sense. Are there any other well, I may ask you this. I’m just kidding. Are there any particular verticals that you help your clients? So you’re basically trying to pair companies here in the States with, you know, high quality people that are particular in the Philippines to help outsource some of their work? And well, what’s, you know, think about that, because you mentioned that might be a little bit more expensive to find more high quality people, right. So I’m gonna, I’m assuming it’s still more advantageous than finding someone have the equal position here in the States, as far as a cost cost control measures is kind of what we’re looking at.

Matthew: Sure, so for somebody would be like, 125,000 to 150,000, you would get that person for roughly 20 bucks an hour. So CLI 2020, you know, 18 to 20. Right? So it’s, it’s like, you know, 70%, and savings, and it’s equal talent, equal skills, they just happen to live somewhere else. And I think we’re, you know, COVID Well, it’s absolutely terrible. Obviously, what’s happened, what it’s shown a lot of business owners is, wait a second, if no one is working from home, or I’m sorry, everyone’s working from home, and no one’s in the office. What is the difference between Manhattan and Manila? Sure, you have time zones, I get it, there really is no difference. So why now we are a global company. And we think globally, we have an advantage, right? Because all you’re doing is saying, I’m going to go pay an executive salary in another country, you’re not oppressing people, you’re actually giving people jobs. So it’s a very interesting time. 

Tyzer: Yeah, absolutely. Well, it’s great to make that correlation to I mean, globalization is something that’s, you know, been on the rise for 20 years, there’s no stopping it. So it’s my as might as well embrace it, especially if you can have get the same quality of people and have a bit more cost containment because of, you know, lots of different reasons why it’s more expensive to do business here in the States. Just curious, is it is it hard to find and vet people, though? Like, how do you go about that process?

Matthew: Yeah, so let’s so let’s just say when I did it myself, so the first person I did was my chief of staff, or head of operations for my ecommerce business, right? That took me personally two months, 500 resumes, 100 interviews, whittling it down to like 10 people and making a decision. Right. Now I have a team of five recruiters who are in the Philippines, you know, it’s not me doing it. And that, you know, they’re able to first vet for cultural cues that I wouldn’t get no different than they were interviewing people in the United States, they wouldn’t pick up the cultural cues, they can do for scale, obviously, cultural cues, talk about their jobs, and figure out if it’s a good match for our clients, right. And then so we’ll go through to interviews, I will, you know, if I need to review, I’ll check out the resume, I’ll review it, maybe I interview the person or I listen to their recorded interviews, and then we’ll pass it to a client. So it’s a multi step process that really vets out 90% of the people who couldn’t cut it. 

Tyzer: Yeah, that’s a great process. I’m curious, you know, the questions I was gonna ask, stop myself. Are there any type of particular verticals that this works better for than others that you found when working with your clients?

Matthew: Now, to be honest, not really. I have clients from manufacturers, bookkeepers, tech entrepreneurs, you know, real estate, it’s all over the place and marketing agency owners. The common theme, though, is they actually need real help, and they can’t can’t afford onshore help. Right. And, you know, the way I look at is like, if you’re an entrepreneur, and you’re struggling to grow, because you’re actually doing too much, you are inclined if your business is struggling to grow, because your team can’t just there’s bogged down and lower level tasks, your client, it really, it’s really doesn’t matter. It’s you know, psychographic more where you are in your stage of the business.

Tyzer: Right? Yeah, that makes total sense. Do you get any pushback ever from business owners or people who reach out to you they’re interested in it, but they’re like, you know, maybe the language barrier won’t fit, you know, are culturally, you know, because culture is huge part of a company, maybe they might not fit. Do you ever get that pushback? And if you do, how do you how do you deal with it to get them comfortable with it?

Matthew: Sure. So yes, I mean, yes, I get the pushback. Right. It’s not even it’s not pushback, I would say it’s questions. Right. If you’ve never outside there, there are two types of people you’ve either outsourced to the Philippines rehab, right. If you’ve outsourced source to the Philippines, you may have had a negative experience on on multiple vectors. Because once you say you hired a more entry level person for five bucks an hour, their English wasn’t great. They weren’t responsible, right? So I need to overcome those objections and talk people through Well, here’s what my quote unquote virtual assistant did. She runs a business doing 4000 orders a month she starts started a 70 person company with me. That’s not exactly the same person you hire. for five bucks an hour, right? And by the way, she has native level English, English, you couldn’t tell, right? So you overcome that. The cultural stuff like we listen, there are questions, I wanted to get some objections, it’s a lack of knowledge, right? And if you’ve never done it before, so then there are the people who’ve never done it. If you’ve never done it before, well, you just have questions you don’t know. And what we do is, one of the reasons I structure the business this way is I hired client managers whose sole job is to make sure our clients are successful. So the client managers will help you with all the cultural stuff, such as how do you give feedback? And if the client doesn’t want to give feedback, we’re happy to do it. How do you structure a task properly? Right? Because if you’ve never offshored Well, there’s ways to do things and ways not to do things. And then when there are their inevitable hiccups in the relationship with your remote worker, we’re there to kind of iron it out as well. But most of the objects, I just say most of the people, the questions people have are just really reasonable. No one’s like, You’re stealing jobs, or you know, they’re terrible, because we’re overseas. Well, if you felt like that, you wouldn’t come talk to me.

Tyzer: That’s a great point. That’s a great point. So I’m just curious, you know, how have you gone out and started to scale and find clients for your business?

Matthew: So the first 10 people, and I think this is true for any business, right? Even at the restaurant business, but any other business is get your friends, right? If you have an idea, right? And you can’t get 10 people, you know, friends, business associates, right to buy in? Well, you probably don’t have a business, right? Unless you’re doing something like I’m selling nuclear power plants are okay. Yeah. But then after that, a lot of just networking, joining different entrepreneur groups. LinkedIn, I can’t say enough good things about LinkedIn. Right, I have a full time person dedicated to posting and managing my LinkedIn. That’s all she does. Right. And that is the single biggest source of leads for me, where, you know, and then of course, referrals, right, but LinkedIn for everybody, just just really post content. And eventually people will come to you. And podcasts, podcasts are a great way to get your message out. 

Tyzer: Yeah, absolutely. Well, obviously, we’re connected on we connected on both those platforms, LinkedIn and and now doing the podcast. So yeah, yeah. LinkedIn is, I think, been a big Miss for a lot of people. You know, it’s definitely you’ve seen it kind of explode over the last 12 months, or I think the people that, you know, didn’t realize it, it’s kind of like the Facebook of 2012, as far as organic reach and touch points and how many people are adopting it. And that is a lot of people had their mind to just use it as like, kind of like a resume. platform, right? That kind of solves like indeed, or, you know, monster or whatever. I forget whatever ones that they have out there. Haven’t had very many jobs in the last 10 years, so– 

Matthew: I know exactly. I mean, like, I was one of those people, right? I thought LinkedIn was just like it how, like developing content. I’m not a social media guy. Right? developing content, forget that. But the truth is LinkedIn, like, if you post and develop your expertise, now, it’s just another form of advertising. And people are reading it, and many people are reading and eventually, wait a second, I have this problem. I should go to math to solve and I should have time to solve it. Like that’s really the way it works. But it is a lot of effort. Like when I was posting everything myself, it really was like, not like I’m posting three to four times a week, tagging people, friending people, and there’s some tools you can use to make it easier. But there’s no substitute for good old hard work.

Tyzer: Yeah, totally. Yeah, it is, the more you can automate, I’m a fan of but you know, until you get to the point where you learn the tools, or you find the right people to kind of help you out. Yeah, just staying consistent. And I felt I felt like I’ve gotten a pretty good following on Instagram and just showing up every single day. And it’s just like, all times, I’m like, what I’m going to talk about, I don’t I don’t feel like talking to anybody today, you know, I’m like, get my ass –

Matthew: You’re a person. You’re human. 

Tyzer: Yeah, exactly. So what are some of the like, when you’re setting these target goals, and you’re helping people, how do you kind of structure or think about goal setting as an entrepreneur?

Matthew: So for me, it’s let’s talk about what the goal is for the business this quarter. Right? So what are we trying to accomplish in the next three months? Right? And once I say, okay, you know, I want to grow by 25 people, I want to, I want to have a new website, I want to redo my outreach campaigns. From there, then you go to your different different people that work for you and say, Alright, well, in order for me to accomplish 25 More than 25 calls Next, what does my marketing person have to do? What are their metrics? And how do I know if they succeeded? And just go down the line with with everyone, right? You know, for my E commerce business, maybe it’s, I would like to reduce the number of tickets we get. Well, let’s look at the tickets, I want you to tell me what the tickets are. Give me suggestions. And let’s measure that I want to reduce it by 10%. Make up a number. And let’s measure how we can get there. And then just execute-.

Tyzer: What’s your E commerce business? Surrounded by? Can you talk about that a little bit?

Matthew: Maybe, from a people standpoint, what business? 

Tyzer: What kind of business is it?

Matthew: It’s, I’m in weddings. I know. I look like a wedding person. 

Tyzer: I know what in planner, man, I like it. 

Matthew: You know, so I have a large wedding favor sites. So you know, you go to wedding and all these things that are on the table that you’re like, who sells these, you know, all these things? That’s me. Right? Yeah, gotcha. Glasses and takeaways in this stuff. That’s what we do. We just saw a lot of them. But it has not been the greatest business during COVID. I can tell you that. Because there’s no WebEx. A lot of weddings. Yeah. It’s a it was a real lesson and planning for me. Because what I you know, I always thought it was a recession proof business. But it’s not pandemic proof. Right? If you can’t have like, you’re not allowed to have a party, you’re in trouble. And it was a real lesson for me in planning for a black swan. You really like I never would have even planned for like, what happens if you can’t have weddings? If I would have said this to you? Two years ago, you would have said, well, how is that even possible? Right? But what if weddings were illegal? How could weddings be illegal? Right, right. So as an entrepreneur, my failed, where I did not have a plan for that. And I don’t know, if you really cut up and you could have predicted It’s so crazy. It’s so outlandish. But I bet you on my current business, there are plenty of things I can do to plan. Like, what if all my clients left me in one day? It can happen, right? So you do need to plan a little bit more. It’s something I need to improve on as an entrepreneur.

Tyzer: Well, what I like what you just did there that everybody listening is that you just took accountability. You took ownership. Like you’re like it was my fault. I didn’t plan for it. Right? A lot of people would have been like, oh, well, I got fucked because of COVID. You know, as opposed to going like, No, I didn’t foresight, I didn’t think through my entire business for like the Black Swan. What what it? What if the world shuts down? I don’t know what to do.

Matthew: Yeah, I mean, you just, I guess, you know, one of the things you talked about differences in corporate America, and being on your own and a self funded entrepreneur. And in corporate America, I can say it’s cool, but there’s nothing we can do. Right? Like, honestly, Boss, how do we plan for this wedding business? Cool. Like it’s not even realistic? And your boss might say, yeah, yeah, it’s not realistic. As a cell phone that entrepreneur, guess what? I personally lost money. Right? boxtops Here, man, I don’t believe me. I wish I could pass the buck stops here. I screwed up. I didn’t plan. I don’t care how unreasonable it is. Right. It’s just something you have to realize it’s one of the and glorious parts of being an entrepreneur. No one talks about it. Accountability stinks. 

Tyzer: Yeah, no. Well, you know, it’s interesting. We you don’t know this, but one, my father in law owns a chain of restaurants. So I hear a lot about that bad business. And my wife’s an entrepreneur. And so you know, she started several businesses. And so it’s just always interesting to know, you said the buck stops with her, like, you know, she’s just got to eat it or own it. And there’s like, there’s no shuffling the blame over and the more that you can just accept that, the better off you are and move forward and learn quickly and move forward quickly. 

Matthew: Right, you know, the blame game doesn’t help. Okay, it is how do you learn? Interestingly enough, my wife is also my wife’s insurance. And so like, there’s some parallels with the entrepreneur, she’s like, you know, she like stops with the risk. And you’re like Polly, like, no risk. And she’s like, Go risk. Yeah, let’s do it. Entrepreneurship is actually about managing risk. It’s not about taking risk. It’s managing it to an acceptable level. And, you know, what I’ve learned is, over the past few years, that that is something I didn’t even realize, like you hear about it, but like you think entrepreneurs are risk taking and risk loving, to a point, but I really also see my job now as what is my risk level? How do I manage it to an acceptable level for me, and then move on? Right, which is really, I wouldn’t have thought I think that I would think this way, five years ago, six years ago, or actually when I started the restaurant 10 years ago, but it is now and managing risk is as cute as any other skill set.

Tyzer: Totally. I just read a really great book. by Patrick bet, David. Not sure if you’re familiar with–

Matthew: value tainment guy, 

Tyzer: You exactly Exactly, yeah, so the book was a little bit about value tainment, but a lot about how we started with PHP, his insurance agency. So it was relevant to me and in the books called your next five moves. And it’s all about, you know, being a grand chess master, is really how he explains it as an entrepreneur is like, you know, most people think one or two steps ahead. But they’re not thinking five steps ahead. He’s like, so everything I do, I strategize on five steps ahead and always stay ahead of my competition. And I’ve seen that, you know, with friends have started businesses, people I’ve done have started businesses, they aren’t necessarily focus. That’s why I want to bring a goal setting and talking about that, and how people strategize about that, and kind of get their take on how they’re forward thinking. So with that in mind, you know, where do you see yourself, Matt, going in the next five years? Where would you like to grow this to?

Matthew: I think in the next five years, this will be a 1000 person company. I actually, when I realized that, I just realized that I keep on saying we’re 70 person company, but actually I just hired 100 People in two weeks. So I guess we’re 170 person company. But really, it was the craziest thing I’ve ever done in my life. And we did it moderately successfully, right? The I think, honestly, 1000 people helping 1000 or less entrepreneurs grow their business. I love it, it’s fine. I really enjoy helping other people be successful.

Tyzer: That’s awesome. So that’s it, you can get a sense of that’s what fills you up. Right? Is that to help? 

Matthew: Yeah,it’s, it’s just a wake up in the morning. I’m like, Okay, wow, every time I talk to a client, like, you know, what, my life’s better. Right? You know, everyday is not perfect, right? So many people make mistakes, and you don’t have to deal with the consequences. But, you know, at the end of the day, like, overall, directly, I’m helping people get out of the grind, just free them up to be more successful, in financial, whatever they want. And that’s really nice when you get up in the morning, because you have a purpose that my team has a purpose, rather than, hey, by the way, have a VA, right? Like, we orange to making people successful. It’s just fun.

Tyzer: Ya know, I can imagine because you’re right. You know, it’s like, what 90% of businesses in America are like, under 10 employees, right? And so yeah, yeah, these entrepreneurs that are wearing several hats, like they’re saying, they’re the CEO, the CEO, the CFO, right? They’re like, they’re doing all these different things, and to be the cause, like, I can’t afford $200,000 to pay as CFO. But if I can pay 150, that’d be manageable. But how do I find someone? So this solves a lot of those types of problems that help you grow and scale because you got to hire my wife, we were just talking about that. You know, she just brought her first two employees. And we’re having this conversation. I was like, she’s like, why don’t know it, like it’ll cut into my margins I get, you’re gonna have to, you’re gonna scale like it over.

Matthew: We make you think I’m hiring process the hiring salesperson, right? Yes, it’s going to cut my margin, but the way to actually look as it’s a profit center, if this person she does her job, right? Guess what, I make more money. So, you know, just you can’t like there’s no way I think we have 10 people internally. So I couldn’t do a look maybe better than two people. Right? Heck, if I’m Superman, maybe 3000? It really not possible, not better than 10. Like, I mean, listen, I have a healthy ego. I don’t think I’m better than three people or maybe two. Certainly not just that it’s not possible. I could have started my business I couldn’t have grown if I was doing every task, right? It’s just I five recruiters, I can’t do the job of five recruiters. Nor do I want to rather be talking to you about this stuff than sitting there like hitting people up on LinkedIn and asking if they’re interested in a job.

Tyzer: Yeah, no. 100%. That’s it. That’s a great point. And I’m a firm believer in paying people for things that you don’t want to do, or you’re not good at it, you know, alleviate some stress and burden from your life. I was asked this question to everybody. Man. I’m curious, do you have any books that you have helped you become a more successful entrepreneur or anything that’s helped you with personal development that you would recommend people?

Matthew: Yeah, so Marshall, Goldsmith, famous coach has something called What Got You Here Won’t Get You There. That’s his book. And when I read it when I was as I was kind of actually, it was my first entrepreneurial gig was I was, we started the restaurant chain. And I was with a bunch of senior executives and I read the book, and it really resonated and the premise of what the book is, it’s pretty obvious is that all the skills that made you great and amazing, to this point, have nothing to do to get with what’s ahead of you. And to get to the next stage of wherever you are, you have to completely learn something new. Right? And you have to be ready for that. And it really was impactful because it really spoke to me about you know, I you know, I don’t know everything if you’re not sure you have a healthy ego, right? I don’t know where everything just stop thinking like that you have to learn and you know, anything you jump into, you really need to dive in and act as if you’re an entry level because you are.

Tyzer: Right now, I love that. I’ve had that book reference before I have not read it, but I definitely need to. And piggybacking off that, do you have any success habits that have helped you to start to kind of elevate your skill set when it comes to make it be anything that you think it just helps you?

Matthew: Meditation? Hands down, I’ll be honest with you, my mind is I like it goes crazy. And I noticed a difference in my performance when I meditate. And when I don’t, when I meditate, just very calm, I can clearly make I can make decisions very clearly, it’s very obvious to me what to do when I express myself clear. When I don’t meditate. It’s like, I’m a little all over the place. And I don’t think I’m as directionally succinct as I need to be. So I encourage everyone to do it. I never thought I’d be that guy. But I am.

Tyzer: No, it’s wonderful. To be honest with you, is a interest. So I grew up. I don’t know if because I grew up in Northern California, a bunch of hippies, you know, everybody thinks of us up there. But yeah, so I watched, I grew up watching my mom meditate, in a way before it was cool. Back in the 80s, and 90s, and stuff. And so that’s something that I’ve just, you know, it’s always been a lifelong habit of mine. And so, I’ve been dealing with my six year old and he’s, he’s challenging at times, and he’s super high energy, you know, it gets stopped napping at 18 months. And so finally the day and he isn’t, he’s a very gifted in school. But he tells me, he’s like schools too easy. It’s too easy. It’s too easy. You know, it’s just because his mind just was fire. And so I had to start meditating now at 6am. And it’s interesting. It’s actually the one thing that will calm him down, he does get a little bit of clarity for his little mind. He is breathing is great. I’m actually jealous, because I think he gets more tranquil than I do, you know, because he’s just able to, he’s not, he’s not holding on to a bunch of other shit throughout the day and stuff. But yeah, that was a I just wanted to share that with everybody. Because I was just gonna say, I wish I would have started earlier. Now that he’s young. But you know, like, start today if the episode a practice for you. And lastly,

Matthew: I was already I’m 45. I was 44 when he started. So number two

Tyzer: 100%. Yeah, it’s a great lifelong practice. Oh, Matt, where can people connect with you and your company? If they want to connect with you and use you and have you help them?

Matthew: Sure. If you have any questions, I’m on LinkedIn, you’ll see my name in the podcast, just search me I’m the only Matthew is there, or hit me up on a extend your team.com. And you know, there’s stuff about our company, you can connect with us, and get on the phone and just talk about your needs. It doesn’t matter if you’re a client. If you’re thinking about I tell everyone this all the time, very few people take me up on it, like just give me a call to have questions about outsourcing. Even if you’re not a fit, we only do full time people. Even if that’s not for you, I can probably help you avoid some of the nonsense and make a recommendation, like of who you should speak with happy to help just extend your gmail.com or on LinkedIn.

Tyzer: Awesome, thank you. I will post Matt’s LinkedIn in the show notes and his websites. Or if you’re watching this on YouTube, all you got to do is just scroll down and hit the link and you’ll go right to best LinkedIn page and to his website. Definitely, definitely, if you’re someone who’s trying to scale and do it the most cost effective way without sacrificing quality people. You got to reach out to him. I think it’s beautiful what you’re what you’re building that globalization’s inevitable people got to get on board or they’re gonna be left behind. It’s just it’s just the way it is. Gotta come to terms that

Matthew: absolutely 100 100% And this is the way companies are going to be built in the future.

Tyzer: Yeah, totally. Matt, thanks so much for your time. It’s been a pleasure speaking with you.

Matthew: Likewise, have a great one.