Scaling Your Business, Freeing Your Time

Sergio Patterson: Yeah, excited to bring that on. I think he’s got a really good presence on LinkedIn, also just valuable content. And as we think about this new post COVID world, the idea of being able to scale and pivot and know how to kind of work through these storms. I think he’s someone who’s been through so many different life experiences across a number of businesses, but I’m just excited to talk to him and pick his brain. 

Lee Michael Murphy: Yeah, no, man stoked, you know, we talk about money. But we’ve said many times on this show that time is your most valuable asset. It’s eroding each and every day. And we all need to start looking at it. Like it’s our most valuable asset. I think when you look at what Matt’s done, he has been able to create not just a successful business, but a successful life by managing his time. And for a lot of us, I know you’re thinking, you know, well, maybe I’m not an entrepreneur. Obviously, if you are an entrepreneur, you’re interested in business, you definitely need to turn to this episode. But maybe you’re not. Maybe you’re working a nine to five, and you’re just overworked and your company is just putting so much on you. This is also going to be a great episode for you to get that mindset of how you can start leveraging your time better and how maybe your company can start leveraging time. Right so before we go to the break, make sure you like our show share us. You got a question for Matt, Sergio, myself or attorney Matt McIlroy. Make sure you send them to ask at the free retiree.com We’re gonna take a quick break. We’re back we’re going to be with Matthew Yahes.

Lee Michael Murphy: Welcome back in The Free Retiree show. We’re sitting down with Matthew Yays. Matthew, how’re you doing today, man? 

Matthew Yahes: Greatly, how are you doing today?

Lee Michael Murphy: We are so stoked to have you man, we know you got the tips, the tricks the magic to create a better life. So we’re both equally stoked to have you on and I know gave the listeners a intro of what you do. Why don’t you tell us? What is it that you do and give us a little background experience? I’d love to hear from you. 

Matthew Yahes: Sure. So my company extend your team. We are a virtual assistant agency. But we’re focused on high performers. So mid-career professionals that help entrepreneurs and business owners get out of the day to day then scale their team, make sure that they don’t have to work 14 hours a day, they can work three and focus on growth, which is what every entrepreneur should be focused on. My story is look, I was not a born entrepreneur, middle class operating from New York, I ended up working for some consulting companies, went to business school work for more consulting companies. And then along the way, I actually met someone who changed my life. In the 2008. I got laid off. He was my client at the time. He said, Forget your company. Come work for me on the Chicago 2016 Olympic bid. And from there, I started my entrepreneurial journey. But you know, it started with a little chaos. Right and I think my current company started with a little chaos. Through the years. I’ve done a number of different businesses from a restaurant been to an E commerce business to now the virtual assistant agency, and it’s been the typical entrepreneurial rollercoaster. 

Lee Michael Murphy: Did you say you had a hand in the 2016? 

Matthew Yahes: Olympic bid for Chicago? 26. 

Lee Michael Murphy: Chicago? 

Matthew Yahes: Yeah, we were not successful. 

Lee Michael Murphy: How did that even come about? What were you doing? Were we really focused on? 

Matthew Yahes: Yeah, I was assistant to the Vice Chair, just helping the vice chairman with special projects, kind of like his own private consultants. But it was a massive effort. It was really fun, though. I mean, you get to work on something really meaningful. The Olympics, right? You think that it’s like this thing on TV, right? But when you’re actually trying to bring it together, and you understand who these people are, what they do, who isn’t Olympian? I never met any Olympians. It was just a really incredible, impactful experience. 

Lee: So restaurant, ecommerce, virtual assistants. I mean, I’m really trying to find a pattern here, Matt, but I mean, I don’t know you’re throwing me for many loops here. A lot of curveballs. So how did you go from a e to z? 

Matthew: So it’s a little more lights. I’m a glutton for punishment. That’s the thread. I like, putting paint on myself. No. So here’s the pattern. So the guy who I met at the Chicago 2016 Olympic bid was a very, very senior executive or former senior executive in the restaurant business. We lost the bid, I went back to consulting, he tapped me on the shoulder said, Hey, this guy’s pitching me on a big idea. I want you to come in and give me your opinion. And so I did that. And through that, he asked me to come on board. I had zero restaurant experience, but he needed someone who can get stuff done. So he tapped me. It a guy like that says you want to start a restaurant business. I had no concerns, you just say yes. And then I just jumped in. Right. So I did that for four years scouted for 14 locations, six states. Then I left did some short stints in Silicon Valley. And through that, I ended up working in a company that was a virtual assistant company in the United States. So it’s outsourced executive assistants, I was there for a hot minute, was there at the tail end before they ran out of money. And in the meantime, I bought an E commerce business because I just believed in myself probably more than I should have. And I said, I like ecommerce. It’s interesting. I was selling on eBay, with E commerce business jumped in burn the boat. That’s it took mass alone just did it did that for a bunch of years. And through that I started was a fully onshore team, then through attrition or otherwise, became an offshore team. But I started with really low level entry level people out of the Philippines, which is what is typically done. It culminated with me hiring someone to run the entire business out of the Philippines that didn’t know anyone that has done this before. And I just said, I’m gonna go hire someone amazing. Get an executive asked me an executive. I was very lucky spent like two months, I was very lucky. But within six weeks, I went from 14 hours a day to three. Now I work mainly, maybe I work two hours a week on the business. That’s it a week. You say a week? Yeah, I don’t want the business. She wants it. For me. That’s it.  What do I have to do? 

Lee: So it’d be this right now? 

Matthew: What? Okay… 

What am I actually, my job is not to do work. So if she’s doing all the work, my job is just to tell him what to do. Right. 

Lee: So My mind is blown right now. 

Sergio: Yeah, Lee, you need you need to sign up with Matt, you can sign up with him today. 

Matthew: She was chief of staff to a 100 person company in the Philippines. I hired her to run a six person company. That’s a little time to a client, maybe 17 an hour, something like that. 17 to 18.

Lee: Very good, and you’re getting quality work. 

Matthew: So good. That in the pandemic. So we said that the business was making 5 million a year was doing great, right? Ecommerce is awesome. Except if you’re in one district right now. That would be the wedding industry. Yeah. I mean, freight train, just,

there’s nothing I can do. Right? It’s just it is what it is. And after kind of right sizing and doing all these things I said to her I said hey, can we get find more people like you everyone was amazed. So she said yes. I said, All right, great. I tapped my network, always entrepreneurs, validate your concept with people, you know, number one rule, if they’re not gonna buy no as Liam Sergio, you know, this, right? I tap my network. My first customer was my accountant. I found a great bookkeeper. And I just went from there and like, now we’re at 50 people. I started this in May in the pandemic. My goal is 100 people by September one and grow to 1000. Wow. I don’t see why not. I mean, why not? And the whole focus is, I don’t go for low level people. It’s only people who add value. If they don’t add value. We do not even entertain them. That was my journey. That’s the very long story. Thread, but for the listeners, this wasn’t a straight shot. Like a Mark Zuckerberg looking at me.

My business exploded

you know, I just decided I just, I just I’m like, Alright, I’m just you know, this day.

 Lee: but that’s like it’s a realistic journey. 

Sergio: Yeah, it’s not because the outlier. He’s definitely an outlier. Yeah. You can’t look at Zach and be like, Oh, that’s the to pursue a journey that’s a real, but your I love it. 

Matthew: But isn’t that what people tell you? Well, Mark Zuckerberg and he just did this. And he’s now he did. And he’s one person and he’s one of the richest people on the planet. You’re not him and either my…

Lee: exact one out of a trillion people. 

Matthew: That’s okay. You can still make plenty of money. Yeah, there’s plenty of money out there. 

Lee: Yeah, exactly. But one thing I want to ask Matt is you had this journey, and you tapped into this another realm of talent that people aren’t accustomed to. And you worked in the Silicon Valley, you know that the Silicon Valley has some of the brightest, smartest people right in just a geographical area. There’s just some really intelligent people in the city. How does your level of talent or the people that you know that you’re working with how does it compare to that?

Matthew: It’s I would say it’s different. First of all, I work with operations people, people will be a chief of staff help you run your business project managers can be bookkeepers, telemarketers, not engineers. Yeah, right away. That’s not me. I think my people are phenomenal. But are they going to run Cisco, or Salesforce, and that could be CEOs of Salesforce. That’s a different skill set for most businesses, to help offload tasks and help you run the day to day. You don’t need a CFO or CEO or CFO of salesforce.com. Yeah, they are excellent at what they do. But they’re excellent at what they do for the appropriate level of business. But the truth is, I just play someone who ran a 2000 person division 2000, people reported this guy, and he’s to a client for $25 an hour. 

Lee: Wow!

Matthew: think about that. 

Lee: So you can’t get just phenomenal talent. 

Matthew: Phenomenal. The guy had 2000 people reporting to him, more people than I’ve ever had report to me. I was never that senior. So you start thinking about that for 16 to 18 us to a client, they’re gonna get someone who can just take over most of the day to day tactical tasks. Strategic, that’s not their job. Tactical is their job. 

Sergio: Yeah, every day, I’m thinking like customer support. I know myself working in Silicon Valley, a lot of companies, including Facebook, we have presence in Philippines all over the place. So you’d be surprised a lot of these day to day tasks are handled by people in those countries and outsourced. 

Matthew: 100% says, yeah, they have massive towers, and all the biggest companies in the world are in the Philippines, running 24 hours, three shifts today. All I’m saying is do what they do for your small business. Just think like that. They’re successful, more successful than all of us do what they do on a smaller scale. 

Lee: Yeah. So on your business, how have you used in leverage outsourcing to grow your business just just to give you an idea of the different people and talent that you used? 

Matthew: Sure. So I do not have one person in the United States who works for me. I have 10 people on my econ business, six internal for my VA business. Everyone’s out in the Philippines. That’s customer service, bookkeeping, inventory management. My web developers in the Ukraine, one person on the Philippines, my chief of staff who runs operations for me, I have said my bookkeeper recruiting my client service manager all my customer service my econ my client executive for my VA business is in the Philippines. So she talks to all my clients and they love her. I think that is it I’ve also placed for clients telemarketers 

Sergio: we you love telemarketers? Oh,

Matthew: yeah, right telemarketers 

Lee: on previous podcasts, I said, I wanted to send them all to a deserted island, have them fight each other. That was a controversial issue. So I won’t bring it up anymore. 

Matthew: But think of it differently. So this is a Midwestern manufacturer hired one person and was so successful, they went to three within three months why these people are calling existing clients setting appointments for their salespeople, and they’re cranking out the calls and killing it. Wow, they never had the time to do it. They always want it to it would be too expensive. Like in the United States, you know, labor laws vote if it’s not successful, they just eliminate the people, they just end the contract with us. So all of a sudden, you can do all these test projects you never could.

Sergio: So you mentioned most of your people are in the Philippines. Yeah. If someone in Ukraine, how do you think about the team culture? The people that are in the Philippines? What do they feel in terms of I work for this company? Like how do you maintain that given that you’re in the States COVID All the things? 

Matthew: Yeah. So actually, Sergio the interesting problem for the VA business I’m actually working on E commerce missus I’ve had for years. So it’s more developed. Yeah. So the first thing you need to do is you need to have video calls. And so I was doing this before COVID You have to talk to people at least once a week. You do not do phone calls at all. You don’t send emails, you want to talk to someone you sit there for every team call. You have nothing to say Hi. Nice to see her face. Right? When I was managing the team, I would also have individual one on ones either once a week or once every other week. See your face. I don’t care if we have anything. It’s all about how your kids how’s your dog

Hey, what’s going on? Got it. So you develop this report, when I want to ask someone something, I just, I just hit him up on Skype. That’s it, we use Slack very heavily just to talk to each other. And the Filipinos will also talk to each other on Slack channels that I don’t have access to. Right? I don’t care. But then talking Tagalog, it’s fine. So you do that this year are supposed to go there. 2020 I’m supposed to go to Philippines obviously didn’t do that. Hopefully, I’m gonna do in 2021. But the bigger challenge is now I have a very fast growing agency. I’ve never met anyone. I started with someone I never met. I never met any my internal hires except for video. And I never met in person, any of the people I’ve hired stuff. Yeah, what we’re trying to figure out is slack is a big component because they can talk to each other Tagalog without the boss, and it’s part of the culture there. So the employees can just talk, we did a Christmas for a virtual, we were on the phone for a couple hours. And we’re going to start to do monthly events online, like virtual just play a game, things like that to prizes, just engagement. I mean, everyone’s in the same situation. And then once COVID lifts, I will go to the Philippines few times here. 

Lee: We have some great, yeah, I love how you’re taking the approach of making those zoom calls a regular thing. So it makes you feel like you’re part of a legitimate company. Even though we’re not 20 miles away from each other in Silicon Valley. We’re still having these regular calls, we’re going to make a professional structures. I think that’s interesting. I haven’t heard anyone that was an outsourcing. Yeah, take it to that level. But I think that’s important. 

Matthew: What happens is, especially with virtual assistants, and I don’t want to knock competition, but one of the reasons I started the businesses, because Filipino virtual assistants, and the ones that get better people is they’re treated poorly, I came in and said, I’m gonna give you health care, make sure you get vacation, I’m going to pay for your internet, I’ll make sure you get days off, nobody gives them these things. So all of a sudden, it’s business, right? I get better people because they want to work for us. And I treat them with respect. I don’t like clients, treat them poorly, there is the client will be gone, I will fire a client, if they treat my people poorly. It’s just not acceptable to me. 

Sergio: That’s amazing. I mean, if you’re an entrepreneur or a business owner, just take that approach, man. It’s respect, I think especially in the work that your people are doing, you know, a lot of the time, it’s not fun work. So all those little things that you’re doing that it’s gonna go a long way. And you’re probably already saying that now. 

Matthew: I hope a typical virtual assistant will leave people three months to a year. I haven’t had anyone quit in four years. 

Sergio: Phenomenal mic drop right there. 

Matthew: But you know, listen, have had to fire people. Yes, I had to fire people. But they’re not quitting because I keep on upping the game and just treating them as if they were next door. I mean, in this world, who isn’t a virtual assistant, essentially, what’s the difference between Manhattan and Manila? When SR is in Boston? What’s the difference? Nothing, no one’s going to an office.

There’s no difference. If you wrap your head around like small SMBs. You know, solopreneurs, up to yeah, my largest client is 50 people. But if you wrap your head around, I just am gonna get better people. That’s it. I don’t care where they are. And you free your mind from the office. And you institute a structure where I talked to them as if they’re in the office, no difference. And then go meet them. You know, you can have them come here you go there, whatever, when everything gets back to normal. But think of it like that. 

Lee: So let’s think back to your beginning at a point where you were maybe stuck or you were struggling to grow? How did you solve it? What strategies did you take to get past those growth hurdles? 

Matthew: So from an E commerce business, it was more than this, because this is so new. You go from zero to 50. You just you grow. I mean, of course, there’s been a week or two where we’re like stuck or four weeks, but you’re you’re growing right before an E commerce business that’s happened like it was, you know, I guess the audience can’t see me do like when the up and down line with my hands. But it was, you know, two steps forward, three steps back four steps forward, one step back, or just no steps forward. Look what happened with the wedding business. Now it gets snapped COVID. Yeah, I think what you do honestly, if you’re stuck with growth, talk to other experts. The thing is, most businesses, right, even my new business, I’m hiring different people, but staffing business has been around forever, right? There are billion dollar companies built in staffing, talk to someone who knows more than you more experienced maybe even smarter, maybe they’re not smarter, but they have more experience. Just got to talk to people get out there be open, any entrepreneur has failed, maybe their business and failed, but they failed at projects wasted money been stuck at some point in their career, every entrepreneur, just talk to these people and be open and honest. It’s not embarrassing of your stock. It’s not embarrassing if you’re having a hard time. This is just the deal. This is just part of the gig. I’ve read something recently. That’s and I really liked this quote. So I’ve been using it. Everyone needs to pay tuition. You don’t just come in learning this stuff. Right? Knowing it. You have to pay tuition. You have to make your mistakes. I’ve made a ton. I mean, I’ve lost a ton of money making. There’s nothing I can do. 

Sergio: So you’ve had a lot of mistakes. You’ve lost a ton of money. It seems like you have the right mentality for it to you. You seem like very positive. Talk to us about where that comes from. Is it your upbringing is it being from I know you mentioned New York or West Coast guys. And on the East Coast, you guys are harder than us, right? You just grind you hustle. Right? So where does that come from? 

Matthew: I think part of it is growing up in New York, like, just go forward. But I didn’t grew up with a silver spoon. So that also helps, you know, if you want something had to go on it. But I think the New York attitude, definitely the hustle, go forward, just keep on doing it. Like if they can do it, you can do it. Some of that is cultural. But it’s in a lot of places in the United States as well. Besides in New York, maybe it manifests differently. But that’s all it is. Right? I mean, you can say the same thing about people in Chicago, Detroit. I mean, a lot of cities around the country are just like that, heck, even if you know you grew up in a farming community, think about how tough that is for you just to keep on going. For me, it was just growing up in New York, and just having to work your ass off and hustle. 

Lee: So now let’s talk about the people that aren’t the entrepreneurs. But maybe their lives are impacted by said business owner. From my own personal experience. I came from a firm that I was out for about seven years, and I loved it. It was amazing experience amazing people. But one thing that really kind of irritated was people the top didn’t know how to manage the company. They had people like myself, the assistants doing a lot of tasks that were inexpensive. It’s like, Oh, you want to fill out a sheet that kindergartener could do. All right, go ahead, we’re all going to do this. And we were a successful company, like we did a good job. But like, there was no concept of how to outsource and effectively get tasks done. So I know that people that work with me, my assistants, that were basically irritated all the time that they were having to do these low value activities, it was getting the burnt out, how could they have put the idea in the manager’s head or the owners head and said there’s a different way? 

Matthew: I think number one thing and I’ve learned this from running companies, and as also a management consultant is we don’t have enough money for our to hire the person we need. That’s where a lot of this is coming from luck. You have bad bosses, right? We’ve all had that. But when you ask for help, there’s no budget. Why is there no budget? Well, because the person is going to cost $90,000 Plus Benefits Plus health care. Plus all this, I think people need to realize, let’s say you make $65,000. That’s not what it costs the company. That’s what you get paid. The company has health care, and benefits, vacation taxes, companies pay taxes, right? So now it’s really like an $80,000 high that’s come from somewhere, what I would say to the people who are in those kinds of positions, if you talk to your boss about the possibilities that have opened up during COVID, and say, Well, I know we can’t afford someone in the same city, I totally understand. But I know there are a lot of people doing things with freelancers overseas, why couldn’t we get a freelancer overseas to help us offload some of this busy work? And instead of paying me 40 bucks an hour to do something low level? Why don’t you pay someone 16 An hour who could do the same task, it saves the company money, and then I can focus on something higher value? 

Sergio: Yeah, right. 

Sergio: That last piece is important, right? Otherwise, you’re gonna work yourself out of a job, you got to make sure you have that strategic component otherwise, but I’m assuming Lee in your situation, people needed to spend more time on those strategic things versus the tactical things. 

Lee: Well, yeah, I mean, on a management level, like we were in a little bit of a disarray, I would say, and it just didn’t make sense. You know, you had me filling out silly forms, you had assistants even doing things the assistants really should have been doing. But the whole concept of what Matt was talking about, like that $80,000 Hire, that’s the only thing they could grasp. It was like, Oh, if we bring on any person, it’s gonna be 80,000. You want another system? It’s gotta be $80,000. They couldn’t get beyond that. They didn’t realize that there was another way. 

Matthew: Some of that comes from, I think in the US, and this is just everything’s like we’re special. And we have the best people know, and there’s no one else in the world that has good people. It’s not true. It’s just not true.

Sergio: data that tells us that

Lee: You could make an argument right now, US is very stupid people.

Matthew: Always say is what the data supports is that in other countries, there are brilliant people. And for reasons that have to do with the way the financial systems were, that our currency is worth more than theirs. You really are paying their currency. You’re paying like, what their rate is in their country, not what the rate would be in our country. And so you’re basically doing some arbitrage. It’s not that the people I hire aren’t well compensated. They are. But everything in the Philippines is inexpensive. You think that the person I referenced earlier he ran a 2000 person division? Do you think he’s not compensated for his country? Of course he is. But when you start paying in US dollars and comparing it to like, oh, wait a second, the value is just

Matic it’s not oppression, people have said, well, you’re oppressing them. No, I’m not oppressing anyone, 

Lee: you’re helping them. 

Matthew: Right? Yeah. Listen, I firmly believe, especially given what goes on in the market, I am doing right by my people, right? i No one can convince me otherwise. I think a lot of managers need to open their minds. And it’s happening. And it’s happening, but opening their minds that there’s another way I’m not saying fire every US person. But when you need help, and you can’t afford it, or you want really high quality hope you can’t afford the level you need. Well, you can just think differently. 

Sergio: Yeah, 100%. Matt, earlier in the conversation, you talked about scale, and the importance of scaling a business. It’s a word that gets tossed around a lot in Silicon Valley, right? Like, how do we scale this project? How do we scale this product? How do we scale this team? When you think about scale? And like, what are the some of the key factors and components that have allowed you to scale all these different businesses? It’s something that I struggle with, I might have one random idea, but it’s not going to scale to the millions of customers that work at Facebook, right? So anytime we have a product, it’s like, how do you kind of juggle and balance your ideas and teams and just the thought and idea of scaling? 

Matthew: So I think one of the challenges that maybe you’ve run into, and I know I have, especially when you start talking when you start your run your own business, right? Only I can do it? Well, no, that’s not true. Yeah. So I think at every point, so like, for me that I’m literally doing this right now with my virtual assistant business I had to go through because all of a sudden, it’s a high class problem. We’ve gotten a lot of close deals in the past 10 days, way more than I anticipated. So I’m getting bogged into stuff I shouldn’t be. And so I have to have to take a hard look at, okay, what should I be doing? What should I be doing? And then I need to hire someone to do what I shouldn’t be doing. It’s not just one thing, right? Let’s look at LinkedIn. I do a lot of LinkedIn. I cannot manage my LinkedIn. Right. I can create content. I can’t answer everything. So I need to have a manager to do that. Look, Gary Vaynerchuk raises. He’s like the most famous social media, you actually think when he answers people on? Maybe he does, because he’s crazy. Seven normal humans, but even, it’s not possible, right? I guarantee if you get an answer from Gary Vaynerchuk, on LinkedIn, it’s not Gary Vee. But that’s okay. They can represent Gary Vee as Gary Vee, and it’s fine, right? But I need to fire myself from that and give it to someone else. Sales. I’m doing sales now. But there comes a certain point in time when me doing sales is a bad thing. And that time is actually very soon. And it’s not that I don’t want to help people. I have to fire myself from sales. Let someone else do it. So I’m going through that right now and firing myself from all the things and then you need to hire people. And then the next question people say, but what if they don’t have enough to do? They will if they have 25 hours a week of work right now? Guess what? You’re freed up to grow the business? They’re gonna have 40 Within two months, you’re gonna figure stuff out, right? So Sergio, like, you say, like, oh, I have all this work. But all this work, you’re doing 80% of it. You should give to someone else. Because tactical, not strategic. Yeah, right. And then I’ll have more recruiters, right. It’s like, okay, well, what should the recruiters be doing? Recruiters should not be connecting with candidates, they should be interviewed, scrapes, and I have to set up a resume screening team. So you constantly think like that, and make the people more efficient. Do what I’m doing for myself. You do if my Chief of Staff, I’m firing her from my ecommerce business, she was running two businesses, for me. Not a good idea. Another way to say is elevate yourself, right? I like saying firing because it’s more like, Okay, you got to really do elevate yourself above that, and give the lower level work to someone else. 

Sergio: Yeah. I love that. And I think get really good at letting go. And it sounds like delegating is huge. 

Matthew:It’s hard. 

Sergio: Yeah,

Matthew: I don’t I don’t mind. Especially great at it. And it’s hard. 

Lee: So Matt, before you got to this point, you already had a successful company. I mean, it’s great that you figured out how to scale and I think that’s phenomenal, idolizing right now your life and your business. So kudos to you on that man.

I’m in the trenches, bro. I am in the trenches. But I want to get I want to be like you someday. But before that, before you got to where you’re at? What was it that got you to the next level? What do you think in the way you ran a business helped you become to that level of success where you could say, Yeah, I got a successful company before the scaling part. 

Matthew: What I would say is I got a piece of advice once this was for my uncle, who was very successful Chief Operating Officer and president. He said to me when I did my first one that this the business he goes, You don’t learn how to run a business until you run a business. And what that means is, I went to a very good graduate school for business and they did not teach me the stuff I need to run my business.

Lee: Was at Michigan State.

Matthew:University of Michigan. 

Lee: Oh, he’s unfortunately a Michigan State.

Yeah.

Matthew: Haaayy… I like you…

Lee: Yeah alright, I’ll  say that okay. 

Sergio: Michigan is much better Michigan State from an academic standpoint and an athletic standpoint? Not anymore. Not anymore.

Matthew: But no, at the end of the day, right? How did I learn how to do all this stuff? By doing it? And by failing? That’s it, you know, try to succeed more than you fail and have the successes, impact more than your failures. And that’s how you learn. Look, there are times when I thought I was gonna go out of business. I mean, I just use the example of COVID. My industry was made illegal. That’s it, you can’t have parties. That’s just the law. Right? You face what you learn what by stuff like that. And then you say, Okay, well, what did I learn from this? How do I make it? So a never happens again, I’m protected and be how do I apply in the future to become more successful? And in my case, my VA business will be more successful than the ecommerce business hands down. In my case, I said, Okay, well, what did I learn from this business, and then I just applied it to something else. And that’s how you learn how to scale. That’s how you learn how to survive and be successful. It’s not a rosy path. One of my friends said to me, he goes, Oh, you thought your first business was going to knock it out of the park? It was gonna be easy. Because what are you talking about? Like, he’s been an entrepreneur for 20 years. He looked at me like I was like, at seven heads. 

Lee: People said, it’s like businesses and a bed of roses. I would disagree with that. I think it is a bed of roses, because you jump in there. And all the thorns tear you up after the fact. 

Matthew: Yeah, you get punched in the face a bunch of times. I mean, gosh, we could talk about that all day. I mean, I have some friends who are insanely successful. And even you talk to them, or their fourth company. This is when it took off. First three years, no one, we give them the time of day. It’s not like this magical thing. It’s the 10 year overnight success. I think it was a quote from Steve Jobs. And it’s, you’ll find that most overnight successes took a really long time. And it’s true, right? And this was a guy who was is still one of the greatest technologists we’ve ever had in bazillionaire. And he’s telling you this, 

Sergio: yeah, 

Matthew: Amazon’s gonna go out of business. Look at Amazon, they were done.

Lee: There’s one thing that Steve Jobs also said that really resonated with me is that your business isn’t going to be successful because of you. It’s going to be successful, because the people you hire when he said that I was like, Holy crap. Yeah, he’s right. You’re only as successful as the team that you have. 

Matthew: And it’s impossible to do it on your it’s just you have to have a team. If you’re a solopreneur, there’s no way you can get more, I just want to be a solopreneur. I want to easy, that’s fine. You still need someone to offload all the stuff to make your life better. Like I have 20 placements we’re placing right now. There’s no way I could do this right now. And we’re hiring two more recruiters. So now I have my chief of staff looking for this happen on pass that is my chief of staff looking for it. I have my recruiter looking for it. I’m gonna have my client service executive right now, just to get out of this because we weren’t staffed up. And then I may even have to, like start recruiting like, which is fine, right? I have to do what I have to do. But I’ll be successful when we hire three, four recruiters boom, yeah, like, I agree recruiters, they’ll do their job. I’ll over hire in this case, because I learned my lesson not scamming. 

Sergio: Matt, it seems like the extended team business is huge opportunity, right? But what’s the end game here? What does success look like for you in 2, 3, 4? Or five years? 

Matthew: Like, what does that look like? So I’d say I’ve really bucketed into two things. One is September one, I publicly said this on LinkedIn, I want to have 100 people. So it would be 15 months after launch. I want to have a 100 person company, I think we’ll get we’ll see, listen, this all could disappear. Like it’s not stable yet. In my opinion. I want more customers. And then I think in three to four years, I’d like to have 1000 people. So let’s go the 1000 person company, I think the opportunity is that big. I think that businesses in the United States and really across the world have opened their eyes to talented remote workforce. And I think it’s going to change the way business is done. And I just want to be a part of it. I think the opportunity is massive. The most fun thing to be honest, is I get to help my clients and just hear stories about literally the same thing. I was getting killed. I was working 11 hours a day. Oh my God, I didn’t know what to do with my time now helping my clients be more successful. But I want to help people halfway across the world live better lives. And I love it. 

Lee: It’s amazing. How can people find out more about your company and get in contact with you.

Matthew: Go to extend your team.com/freedom if you’re interested in outsourcing, that’s an outsourcing assessment to see where you are in the journey. And that’s really about delegation. At the end of it. You can book a meeting with me or you can go to the contact page at extend your team.com and book a meeting with me directly or reach out on LinkedIn. You can find me on LinkedIn. 

Lee: Alright man, thank you so much for coming on our show today. Man. We love to having you. You threw me for a little loop on that great graduate education from Michigan University. Besides that, your interview was phenomenal man. Great job.

Matthew: Great, sir. Jeremy. Thank you. I appreciate it. 

Lee: All right, guys. You got

Have you listened to the free retiree show so I’m for now

Securities offered through securities America incorporated Member

FINRA, ww.finra.org. SIPC, Debby debby.sipc.org, a separate entity. We Michael Murphy is licensed with the California Department of Insurance license zero h 18660. Michael Murphy is a investment advisor representative with securities America advisors a registered investment advisor for pre retiree securities America advisors and securities American corporate are separate entities. career advisors Sergio Patterson attorney Matt ago and I are not affiliated with securities America advisors or securities America incorporated securities America advisors securities American corporate and its representatives do not provide tax or legal advice. Therefore, it’s important to coordinate with your tax or legal adviser regarding your specific situation. The content here in this podcast is not intended to be tax investment or legal advice and is intended as general guidance only. You should contact your own tax advisor, financial advisor or attorney to answer questions about your specific situation or needs before acting upon this information. third party source information or comments are not verified may not be accurate and are not necessarily representative of all client or audience experience. A portion of this event was paid by a third party. The opinions of career advisors surger Patterson do not reflect the opinions of Facebook Inc. The opinions of attorney Matt McCoy do not reflect the opinions of Castaneda and company