Exploring the Best Outsourcing Platform For You! with Deanna Portes

Deanna Portes Podcast Transcription

[00:00:00] Kris Ward: Hey everyone. Welcome to another episode of Win The Hour, Win The Day, and I am your host, Kris Ward. And today we’ve got a really interesting guest. We are going to go behind the scenes and we’re going to look at outsourcing exposed; the hidden limitations of popular platforms and where do you go to get outsourcers and all the questions that you know you want answered and we’re going to bring somebody that really has a lot of experience and I’ve learned a lot from and is really going to teach us what’s happening out there and what it looks like frankly from the other side.

[00:00:31] So we’re bringing in a very experienced. I don’t love the word outsourcer because she’s a vital part of my WIN team, but the industry calls them outsourcers. So welcome to the show, Deanna Portes.

[00:00:46] Deanna: Thank you, Kris. It’s good to be back.

[00:00:48] Kris Ward: Okay. Excellent, Deanna. Okay. Deanna, you’ve worked with me for some time now, but you were in the field a number of years before we worked together.

[00:00:56] And I had learned an incredible amount from you in the last little while, as we dived into deeper and deeper services that we’re offering our clients and their WIN team. And then I’m really finding out things that I think, Oh, let’s do this for them. I think this will be helpful. And then I find out what’s really happening out there and I find it quite shocking.

[00:01:16] So I thought this would be a really great opportunity for us to really just pull back the curtains and talk about everything. Sound fair.

[00:01:25] Deanna: Yes. Yes. That sounds great.

[00:01:26] Kris Ward: Okay. So first things first is I would… explain to me, let’s talk about the difference between a VA agency and when you’re hired directly. So VA agencies you tell me, how does the pay structure work?

[00:01:42] Deanna: So the big difference with the VA agencies is they like cut your our salary by half or almost half. For example a client wants to pay us like for $8, they for me, I think the client really thinks that we’re getting the 8 because the agency doesn’t disclose that we’re only getting like 4. When when I first started in the agency, when I will, when I had the orientation, it was like the number one rule that we don’t discuss any like about salary or things with the clients.

[00:02:18] Kris Ward: I didn’t know that till this very moment. Okay. So what you’re saying is… the agency is telling this small business owner, you’re paying them $8 now, which there are a lot of outsourcers out there hired for $5, $6 US dollars now, or we talk about how incredibly affordable outsourcing is for small businesses, right?

[00:02:35] Cause then, you’re not worried about every little assignment you give them because you can afford the hours. So then you go in and you say, okay, I’m going to outsource as a small business owner, as an entrepreneur. And you think, oh, it’s eight bucks an hour. That’s more than I thought. And then I would think you’re getting that, but no, the agency, that’s their profit.

[00:02:52] They’re paying you four, they’re charging them eight. And also then I’m thinking, Oh I’m paying her more. This is great or it’s worth it, but they’re not disclosing that. Okay. So that’s really vital. So the client is really paying more than they need to in this current market and you’re making less. So that’s a problem.

[00:03:10] Deanna: Yes, that’s a problem. And for example, even if like bonuses, since we’re already talking about like salary, we don’t get like bonuses from the clients, or it really just depends on the agency. For example, I had a client that was willing to, for example, this particular client of mine before, he was willing to pay like an additional $10 per lead.

[00:03:36] So what happened is I only got half again, even if it’s just like a bonus thing. It’s not part of a salary. So every time the client sends money, the agency always has a part for them, even if it’s already a bonus, it’s not really part of the contract or anything.

[00:03:55] Kris Ward: Okay. So it’s a little bit like the mafia. They’re going to take their thing off the top regardless. And here’s the other thing. You’re not, again, not allowed to talk to the client and say, thank you so much for the $10, but I’m only getting five. So then they think, oh, you should be really appreciative. I’m going to give you bonuses for every lead you bring to me in this particular job.

[00:04:14] And now you’re not as appreciative as they think, cause you’re not getting it.

[00:04:19] Deanna: Yes. And then..

[00:04:20] Kris Ward: My God.

[00:04:20] Deanna: We can’t disclose that just because there was an instance that like, a colleague of mine from that particular agency his, her client and discuss oh, are you getting the like the bonus that I was giving?

[00:04:35] And then the and then my colleague mentioned that, oh, I’m not getting that particular amount of credit.. So what happened is the small business owner left the agency because he he didn’t like the way that we were treated or how we were getting the money because for him it was like a bonus thing. It’s not part of the contract or what he signed up for. So yeah.

[00:04:57] Kris Ward: So then he leaves cause he’s upset. Then you lose your client, like either you’re reassigned and you get in trouble. So it’s a little bit like a… I don’t even know I don’t want to say communist country, but it’s a little bit, it’s a little bit militant.

[00:05:10] You’re hidden behind a wall, which is unfortunate, right? Okay. Wow. Every time I talk to you, I learned something new. I did not know that. No wonder you guys like working with me. Okay. All right. That makes sense. Okay. So I have long said that the agencies are not the best route. And also that’s where they make.

[00:05:29] So that’s their business. That’s where they make their money is that bandwidth between, taking the skimming off the percentages off you. But more importantly than that, I also find to that you could give somebody a VA. It’s okay, Deanna, we’ve got a new client for you. And then what happens is the agency does not help that entrepreneur be set up.

[00:05:48] Or support them or streamline their services. So you can just be thrown in to any random person that’s in chaos and thinks that you’re going to fix everything. So they also don’t support the entrepreneur to make sure that if we give you somebody amazing, that you can keep them and make this a really productive, effective workflow or relationship, right? There’s none of that going on.

[00:06:12] Deanna: Okay. That’s correct. And then also sometimes even the agency doesn’t know like the background or anything. They don’t give us like, for example, super… like what we have here on the view. The agency or the client, just for example, the client is in chaos.

[00:06:30] The agency doesn’t help us to ease the chaos or make the small business owners life easier. They just throw us in there because like for me I experienced that there was a ton of emails that was missed and then like invoices and everything. The agency didn’t help me even if I was working like for them as well, because usually some agencies give you support, but like for my agency, they don’t care like you have a client here, fix what… fix their problem get in contact with the client.

[00:07:04] And so me and the client are me and the small business owner are both in chaos and the agency is just like getting money from us.

[00:07:12] Kris Ward: Okay. Just good luck with that. And that’s why in the Winners Circle, I’m so passionate about the fact that first of all, we work with our clients who are what we call team leaders, cause I don’t like the word boss.

[00:07:22] So we work with our clients and then we get them all set up and ready and say, okay, so this is some of the work you can give the VA and this is how you streamline the process as, and then we have it ready. So we’re not throwing, not just even for the outsourcer that they’re being thrown into this chaotic situation, which is stressful.

[00:07:37] Like adding more people to chaos does not calm anything. And then if the entrepreneur is all stressed out and now they’re your new boss, for lack of better words, it’s a horrible place to start working and everybody’s just running around like their hair’s on fire. And that doesn’t work. That doesn’t get stuff done.

[00:07:53] So we work with the clients to make sure that they know exactly what to give the person the first week. And this is where their business has the biggest choking point and pain point. Let’s get them on this. And so it gives them relief right from the beginning. And then we can dive deeper and deeper.

[00:08:07] Okay. So we do that. As well as in the WIN team, we offer the the outsourcers. We offer them the WIN team. We have a group session every month that we offer them leadership skills. We have a discord community. They’ve got the learning center with all kinds of resources there. So we’re supporting both sides.

[00:08:25] And that’s why I do it because I just think it should be easier and should be fun. Okay. Yes. So the agency I have long thought since I’ve heard of them, their biggest downfall was that they weren’t setting up the entrepreneur for a seamless transition with bringing on new help. They don’t do that at all.

[00:08:46] But what I’m learning from you too is. Not only is it secret sinker swim and all the pressures on your back, but if they throw you to the wolves and you’re dealing with somebody who’s in utter and complete chaos, and what happens next to is these people that are utter and complete chaos, then look at you and go, oh, I thought you’d come with your systems.

[00:09:03] How can you manage somebody that’s your boss per se, you can’t say them. Look, I’ve already told you twice not to do this. So then, and you don’t know their business, so you can’t fix everything week one. So then they get frustrated with you by week three and you could get fired because they’re like she’s not fixing any of my problems and that makes you look bad. But you’re like, this nut is completely out of control and doesn’t even know which day of the week it is.

[00:09:30] Deanna: Yes, that’s correct. And then sometimes the agency blames us if the client is like unhappy with like my performance and everything. But the, like the most for example, are the difference between the agency and what we’re doing Kris is for example, my clients with the agency, they don’t know how to use their calendar.

[00:09:52] So both me and her are like an utter mess just because we don’t know how to schedule or prioritize our tasks. You what we’re doing right now for example, with the with the WIN team, you’re teaching us how to do like calendars and everything, how to really use our calendar.

[00:10:10] So we can be more productive since our since our clients already know that it’s a big help for the virtual assistants as well because the clients are already productive and then it helps us do our tasks more productive as well. So it’s like a team

[00:10:26] Kris Ward: I’m working on both sides. I’m teaching their clients how to use their calendars, a time bank account, instead of running in random directions, like a firefighter firefighters, pretty organized, sorry, I shouldn’t pick on firefighters, but running in chaos and random directions with the to do list. So I’m teaching the clients how to use their calendars, a time bank account, which they find immensely helpful.

[00:10:47] They all tell me in the Winners Circle that they get 25 hours back a week within the first month of working with us. So they get that. But then I’m also training the VA, the outsourcer, what I’m training that my client, I’m training them like, look, this is what your client’s going to be doing.

[00:11:00] And here’s why we’re going to do it. And here’s how you find time and get time back. And so I’m training them both. And it really does. You’re right. They meet in the middle and they become a team, like they’re getting the same playbook. They’re getting the same playbook. Oh my gosh. I never said it that way before.

[00:11:14] I should write that down. They’re getting the same playbook. Okay. All right. So not a fan of agencies for that because I think it’s. It’s they just collect the money and they offer nobody support. They don’t offer their client support. They don’t offer you support. In the past, I been doing this a very long time.

[00:11:33] So I started with ODesk, which then became Upwork. So Upwork, when I started outsourcing, my first hire was through Upwork. Upwork now, they were really the first mainstream platform. Previous to that, I had heard about outsourcing and I’m going back like 10, 12 years ago now, but previous to that, you had to know what agency in the Philippines, and it was all sketchy and you’re talking, it just seemed so far away.

[00:12:00] And I don’t even know, God help me. I sound like I’m 105 years old, but I don’t even think, I think Skype was just invented. I used Upwork right from the beginning. And in the beginning, I quite liked it. And there was a lot of features to it. What I found with them again, though, is first of all they’ve gotten more and more structured.

[00:12:18] I think they do this to protect and think that they’ve got all these policies in place, but it’s very rigid. And I think militant, like everything’s very dramatic. Like I just popped into Upwork last week and I hadn’t been on there for two or three years. And there was this big thing all over my account that I’d been suspended.

[00:12:38] I’m thinking, Oh my Lord, what the heck is going on? It’s so dramatic. What did I do? My credit card had expired. That’s all like everything is. Yeah. And then it’s hard to get ahold of somebody to find out why what’s going on with my account. It’s Oh yeah, you just, could you give us the credit card yours is expired.

[00:12:52] That is not needing suspended all of, and then people users would see that my account was suspended. Like what? Anyways, it’s just crazy. So I find them a bit dramatic, but the other thing I found is I hired a VA. One of the first ones I hired, like an assistant and she was with me for seven years.

[00:13:10] And I had to pay, first you start off 20% and then you pay 10%. I had to pay 10% of her fee forever. If she stayed with me another 10 years, it’d be forever. You can’t even buy people out. You can’t say, okay, look, thank you so much. I understand they have to make money. Thank you so much. I’ve been paying for her for 2 years.

[00:13:28] Can I now pay like a bio on a lease? Can I give you a couple hundred dollars and keep her forever? There’s no… yes they’d get some money up front. There’d be some incentive there. So I find them incredibly expensive. Have you or any of your friends ever used Upwork?

[00:13:46] Deanna: I actually tried Upwork and what you mentioned is they do get a a certain percentage. For me, if I want to bill the client 8, I can only get 6. That’s like for every hour.

[00:14:00] Kris Ward: Oh, I didn’t know that either. Okay, so hold on. They’re dinging you and they’re dinging me. So I know that it doesn’t cost you anything to post, like to apply to jobs. So if they’re taking the percentage off me, I thought it was only off me.

[00:14:15] Deanna: Right now, I don’t know about like the changes, but right now Kris, we have to have what they call connects so we can apply for jobs. If we don’t have connects, we can either buy them or just wait for the next month.

[00:14:29] Kris Ward: What’s a connect?

[00:14:29] Deanna: That’s what that’s what we pay Upwork. So we can apply for a job post. So I’m not sure if like when you were using Upwork, it already has that feature. But like when I tried it we get deductions by 20%. And then we also have to pay for connects. If we don’t have connects, we cannot apply for any jobs. And right now… sorry.

[00:14:53] Kris Ward: No, go ahead.

[00:14:54] Deanna: And then right now, in order for me to, in order for the client to see my proposal, I have to spend like hundreds of connects because some people are spending like 200 Connects. So that’s like the top one application. But if I want to be like in the top two, I have to be like 100. I have to pay 100 connects.

[00:15:15] Kris Ward: Okay, hold on. Let’s break this down. So first of all, I understand they have to make money. So what I thought was, let’s say you had to pay to have a membership. You want to look for a job. We’ve got jobs. Hey, you got to pay whatever 25, 50 bucks a month. And that’s how we’re going to make money off you.

[00:15:29] And then even if they charge me, cause I’m on platforms where I do pay, I’m not looking to not pay, but I’m looking for it to be reasonable and not forever. Like again, skimming off like the mafia. So then I’m like, okay, I thought maybe you might guys might have to pay 25, 50 bucks to have an account.

[00:15:45] And then it would be, and then what I find too is what I find is Upwork has so many hidden fees now. I think every time I post a new job, it’s like a 1. 27 and then there’s something fee, like it’s just, I can’t even follow the fees, right? And then there’s a percentage off the pay. So what I find makes me really nervous is when people have all these little fees.

[00:16:06] And so if you’ve got all these minor fees and I can’t keep track of it on the credit card… oh, did you pay charge me a dollar 27, 10 times? Cause I put 10 jobs I don’t even know, I can’t follow it. So then what you’re saying is these connects. I don’t still understand that. So every time you want to apply to a job, you, I don’t get it.

[00:16:25] Deanna: Yeah. It’s they’re like tokens, Kris. So in order for you to apply for a job, you have to pay for example, five tokens or if you like that. So there are, for example, I’m not sure how many connects are free for months, but for example…

[00:16:42] Kris Ward: Hold on, let me jump in. Okay. So hold on. So what you’re saying is you have to buy points and then you might need to get 25 points.

[00:16:50] And then you don’t realize that this job that looks good might be five points. And now you’ve spent five connect points, right? That also leans into what I’m saying earlier is that they have all this micro mini annoying nuances like nuisances or noise of penalties really and payments and you can’t keep track of it and all of a sudden you don’t even know okay, gee, I need a job. So all of a sudden you’re like I’ll just pay, I’ll buy more connects. And then you don’t have any control over at the end of the month. You’re like, Oh, I spent more than I expected to like, instead of just having a membership.

[00:17:23] Deanna: Yes. Yes. That’s right. Okay. The only good thing about Upwork is on an outsourcers end is they build the client first.

[00:17:33] So it means that even if the client doesn’t want to how are you anymore? You still get paid for the hours that you logged.

[00:17:41] Kris Ward: Yeah, I’ve always paid everybody, whether they did a good job or not. Yeah. Okay. But I guess that is scary too, when you’re somewhere, that is the reality of life anywhere.

[00:17:51] It could be happening in an office job as well, but mind you, when somebody’s sitting in an office and looking you in the eye, it’s a little harder not to pay them, but that is the thing is when you have a new employer and then you’re hoping when they’re new at the end of the week that you’re going to get paid.

[00:18:04] But okay, so Upwork has been the longest going one. Now, OnlineJobs, they are, I think, primarily for VAs. We have definitely used them as well. They have a premium membership and it does get more expensive. Where they are good at though is you can I’ll pay for a month and then just, they’re totally fine with you cancelling and then coming back two months later, a year later, three months later when you need more.

[00:18:29] But depending what you’re doing, you’re looking at anywhere from 60 to a hundred us dollars. So that’s a lot. So when you’re just looking for one person and you’re shopping for humans, you’re looking for people to work with. So sometimes it may take four to six weeks for you to find somebody and it’s the same job post and yet you have to pay a hundred dollars two months in.

[00:18:50] Sometimes you get lucky. You can just find somebody in a week, right? Cause if, if you’ve got standards and know what you’re looking for and you’re just not hiring the first person. And I guess for me, I, we have a very thorough hiring process. We have a really high success rate, like 95% retention rate for all my clients.

[00:19:06] So what we do is we will find and hire and then introduce them to the client. Say you get final approval. Do you want this person? They say yes. And then we help them on board it and we train them and we do all this other stuff and make it really easy. So I’m the one doing all the interviews, so I will say to be fair, I’m really particular because we look for amazing talent, not obedient task takers that are just going to be over there doing busy work.

[00:19:33] We’re looking for people that are leaders and confident like yourself, all my clients are so thrilled about. The leadership skills that we have found and developed with these people. And so we’re not just looking for someone just to dump tasks on. So I guess it does take me longer because we have that thorough process, but still you’re then you’re paying for the monthly fees. So that’s the problem there. Do you guys pay to go on online jobs when you’re on the other end?

[00:19:56] Deanna: Yeah, that’s the good thing about OnlineJobs. It’s free for us outsourcers, but we only have a maximum of 10 job applications per day.

[00:20:07] Kris Ward: Oh, okay. Book per day. That’s not bad. Cause they just don’t want you to spam and stuff. Cause that is a thing. You can put a job up in online jobs and you could have 300 people apply in a day. And some of them, they just not even going to bother reading it.

[00:20:19] They just, they’re just spamming, which we have ways to get around that. So we’re fine with that. We’re not going to read 300 job posts, but there are people that you could put up, I’ll hear we need a VA with five years experience and somebody could apply to you and say I’m a, whatever I want to be a VA right now.

[00:20:35] I work in a factory. It’s that’s not what the job description said, right? Yeah. So you do have to weed through that, but we have ways to cut that down, that we talked about in other episodes. Okay. So that works. It’s a premium price and also be mindful just cause we’re talking about what we do in the… yeah with the Winners Circle and the Winners Circle, when you’re part of the Winner Circle that all this stuff is included. And so when we find somebody like, for 1 of our clients, then our clients pay them, it’s direct. It’s $5, $6 US dollars an hour. We show them how to set up international payments really easy.

[00:21:07] We don’t get any off that. That’s not our thing. It’s just not what we do. So it just frees you without all these pensive penalties that I thought were heavy on my end, but I’m learning from you that there’s more and more. Oh my gosh. So those are the big ones. Fiverr, I think is a bit of a, Fiverr is not $5 anymore.

[00:21:29] I don’t care what you.. Fiverr is complicated and heavy. It’s also heavily legislated, but I don’t think, I think it’s more for little graphic design stuff. I don’t think it’s a great place to get VAs or anything like that.

[00:21:42] Deanna: Yeah, that’s correct. Fiverr is like mostly used for like quick jobs, not really for someone you want to hire for long term.

[00:21:51] So that’s just for example, if you want to hire like someone for a website, then they can do it for maybe 10 or 20 hours. And then that’s it. It’s not really. But if you’re looking for someone who can really help with your small business, it’s not really the place to look for.

[00:22:07] Kris Ward: What I’ve noticed is there’s a lot of agencies popping up more and more. I’m surprised that there’s not more platforms popping up. I did. I was looking for other platforms last week and Me and Criz, who’s on our team, Deana, and I’m telling them, not you, you know who Criz is, so we were looking for other sites, and I’m surprised there really wasn’t a lot of reputable sites, and one we looked at, and then we were trying to go through and check out the payment process, because you want to be mindful of that before, of course, you give out your credit card.

[00:22:36] And so funny, I hit the terms of agreement. Like they’re saying, agree to the terms of whatever and terms and conditions. And then they looked in, it was all dummy font and silliness. I’m like, Oh, let’s get out of here. So there’s surprising as long as we’ve been doing this, there’s not a huge amount of platforms out there, but there are a lot of agencies popping up everywhere.

[00:22:55] Oh yeah, let’s, we can help you do this. But I do find, like you said earlier, the agencies. Are just like a bridge between two people, but they offer nobody and any support education. And then if that, if, like you said, if the client leaves and that’s it, they don’t get to take their VA.

[00:23:11] So if I’m with this agency, ABC, and I have you, and I think you’re great. And then I’m like I’ve been paying this agency for two years now. If I leave, I lose you. That’s it.

[00:23:22] Deanna: Yeah. It’s it’s sad just because for example, you really had like a connection with your with your client, or if you had a really good connection with your VA and then the two of you are like really get together the teamwork and everything.

[00:23:36] It’s sad because for us, VAs, and I believe the clients also, they they make you sign like an NDA, which means even if you stop the service of the agency, I can’t contact you directly for a year, so they can sue you or something, which is really…

[00:23:55] Kris Ward: Nobody needs that. Like your God. Yeah. Oh my Lord. That’s all you need is the agency suing you. Oh my gosh.

[00:24:01] And then also too. And most of these we’re talking about, we’re talking about working the grave shift, graveyard shift, right? Which I do not believe in at all, not even a little bit. So the way we have it, you’re full time with me and you’re around in my mornings.

[00:24:15] And so that when we need to have our little meetings and work on stuff and collaborate, that’s fine. And then the other work you do at your convenience, which is usually when I’m sleeping, which is great. Cause then I come in and the work is done. Everything’s fantastic. But you’re just working to like midnight where you have a lot of friends and colleagues that are doing the graveyard shift forever.

[00:24:34] Deanna: Yes. And then it’s also we’re already working in the graveyard. So it’s like really hard on our end. And then the agency..

[00:24:42] Kris Ward: Hold on, let me correct your English. In the graveyard is a place you’re working in the graveyard shift. Okay. Sorry. Go ahead.

[00:24:49] Deanna: Yeah. Like for example, working in the graveyard shift and then we have to be mindful of the time trackers that the agency has, which is like really apart.

[00:25:01] It keeps our focus from our work just cause I have to be mindful. For example, if I’m reading an article that my client wants or if I’m like watching a, like a training video, and what if I’m like really focused on watching or reading and then I forget to click a few on the keyboard.

[00:25:20] So that’s we’re going, we’re gonna get in trouble because the agency will ask why is there like an idle time? Are you not working or anything?

[00:25:28] Kris Ward: So what you’re talking about is being monitored again, like Big Brother. So you have time trackers and they have activities monitored on your computer.

[00:25:35] So that if I ask you to watch a training, it’s really important. Please watch as it’s 20 minutes. 20 minutes you haven’t been typing on your keyboard and then they’re alerted like you’re billing me for this, but you weren’t on the keyboard, but you were probably taking notes and doing really important stuff and studying it.

[00:25:49] Oh my gosh. So again, we don’t buy into any of that. Cause I argue that, sometimes people would say to me when outsourcing first started, like I, they’ll say, Oh my gosh, how do you trust them that they’ll do the work? And I’m like, but you see the work come through, like somebody sitting in a desk across the room from you.

[00:26:06] You don’t know that they’re working. They could be shopping on Amazon just because they’re banging on a keyboard. Don’t think we haven’t all bought something at work or buy. One time many years ago I was at work a really long time ago. And I was only one time in my life, I had an office job, all my other jobs

[00:26:22] I was out in the field doing different things. And I was in office job and Lion King tickets, which was a huge deal, hard to get. And I was going to take my, my, my sister and I keyed in, I went into the Lion King during work hours and I hit the keyboard and went to the website. And as soon as you open the website, the music started blaring and it was like the loudest song.

[00:26:44] I was like, Oh my gosh. So clearly I was only going to take two minutes to buy these tickets, but I got caught. So that’s heavily monitored. Also one thing that you mentioned to me recently, which was shocking again, I guess what it sounds like is these positions are very temporary, heavily policed and not ever relaxing for you because you said you talked about, you just recently had pneumonia and you said, what did you say to me about that about losing your job?

[00:27:13] Deanna: Yeah, so if I was working in like an agency, either the first or second day that I’m out of like I’m out sick, I will, I won’t be coming to my job the next day, I will be like fired automatically, just because for example when I got when I got pneumonia three weeks ago, I thought it was just like a simple cold, a simple fever.

[00:27:38] I didn’t go to the doctor or the hospital just because I thought that I was gonna get better with rest and everything. But for example, with the agency, you cannot be absent for one day and then… you have to show up with a medical certificate the next day. So imagine if I’m only getting paid like four dollars per hour, then I have to spend ten dollars for a medical certificate just so I can get back to work even for a minor flu or like a minor cold.

[00:28:07] Kris Ward: Yeah. And not only that, the last thing you feel like doing when, let’s say you had something really minor, like a cold, I’ve had them where I, this happened last month. I got up, I got dressed. I thought I had a cold. I’m like, okay, I won’t have a long day. And by the time I showered hair and makeup, I was like, I’m exhausted.

[00:28:23] Okay. I’m done. It’s 10 o’clock in the morning. I thought I had a minor cold, but I had no energy and I was like, I’m out of here. So a minor cold, even then I crawled into bed, soft pajamas. I wouldn’t want to be out sitting somewhere waiting in line to get a medical certificate. I just want to lay down. I don’t feel well.

[00:28:41] And in that case, you had pneumonia for a couple of days. You weren’t feeling well. I was like, you don’t look so good. You’re like, I think I just have a cold. Then we found out you had pneumonia. And so you’re off for almost a week, which is fine. Cause we have these super tool kits and other people took over your responsibilities.

[00:28:53] We were not stressed. It was not a big deal. And then there was one day you’re like I’m feeling better and I can edit because Deanna does my TikTok videos. She’s my social media manager. So then she’s I can do this laying down as long. I just can’t breathe sitting up. I’m like, don’t be insane.

[00:29:09] That’s not resting. Don’t be crazy. And as much as I love being consistent, I’m like, you know what somebody else can do them or guess what? I don’t have videos for a couple of days. Get over it. Then you got medication. And then it really made you groggy. And I was like, then rest, Deanna, rest. Cause you come back to work when you’re strong and rested, you’ll, even if I wasn’t a caring person, you’re just going to be more productive, strong and rested.

[00:29:32] But you’re saying, you said to me, Oh my gosh, Kris, I would have lost that job two weeks ago. There wouldn’t have been a hope in hell for me to keep that job.

[00:29:38] Yeah.

[00:29:39] Deanna: Yeah, and also I had experience, Kris, like for example, I was like sick. Not really sick. But you know that if you’re sick, you’re tired, you’re groggy.

[00:29:50] During my work at the agency, I would rather just work rather than get a medical certificate. So I was working while I have a fever, just because I don’t want to get go to the doctor’s just because it’s going to be…

[00:30:03] Kris Ward: sitting in the chair working is less work than being sick and having to go get a medical certificate?

[00:30:09] Yes, and as you point out, sorry to passionately jump over your speech here but and you pointed out that these are midnight hours, too. So that’s the thing. I keep telling you guys It was fine that morning when I didn’t feel well by 10 o’clock in the morning, I’d been up two hours. I’m like, I feel awful. I couldn’t breathe.

[00:30:24] I got to go back to bed. You, by the time I see you, when it’s 10 o’clock, my morning, it’s 10 o’clock at night for you. So you’ve been up all day, now in my case, you’re not working overnight. You’re only working to midnight, but even we all know what it’s like when you’re not feeling well, it doesn’t get better as a day goes on.

[00:30:41] You have less and less energy. Oh, don’t get me wrong. Okay. Yeah. Now you’ve been so helpful. I think stuff like this really matters because this is why I’m so passionate about what I do. And this is why I love, I thought at first, a lot of my clients say, Oh my, they’re so generous.

[00:30:57] They take Kris, you changed my life. And they got their life back. They got their life back. They fell back in love with their business. They had a business that supported their life instead of consuming it. But then I’m learning that I didn’t understand. I was changing the lives of outsourcers because they’re not working for crazy people.

[00:31:14] We have reasonable expectations and we’re not skimming, when everything’s up and up, we’re not skimming off you and then not telling the client, we’re not doing any of that. And so all the, I’ve had a couple other VAs from the clients on the show and Rica kept saying, Oh no, who was it?

[00:31:30] It was Fel who works with Kim. She’s I love this job so much. I sure hope I get to keep it. I’m like, no Fel. You’re going to keep the job. And this is the best job they’ve ever had. And it’s just because some really, I don’t think it’s because how great we are. I think it’s because how bad the rest of them are, like, we’re just doing basic stuff, but the rest of them are doing crazy.

[00:31:48] Crazy ass stuff. So I was like, I just need to keep this job. I love it so much. Oh my gosh. Whatever. Anyhow. Yeah. Okay. Go ahead.

[00:31:56] Deanna: Yeah. I just want to mention like when I was working graveyard, I cannot spend time with my friends because during the daytime I had to sleep or I even, I couldn’t even go to the gym because the gym is closed when I wake up or something.

[00:32:11] So yeah, it’s you’re not just changing like for the client, for your clients, but also, like virtual assistants that, we can, even if we want to work for international clients, we can still have like our life here in the Philippines, even if regarding the like time difference.

[00:32:26] Kris Ward: Yeah. And who the hell feels like going to the gym when you’ve been doing overnight, they just try not to throw up. Is what you try not to do. Oh my gosh. Okay. You’ve been a treat Deanna. Thank you so much. That was really helpful. I learned a lot. Gosh almighty. And I thought I was, I learned from you every day.

[00:32:40] I was shocking. It is, I just take some of this stuff we do for granted because ultimately all I’m about is having fun and having a great, effective, productive business. And in order to do that, you need everybody to be happy and healthy. So I just thought it was common sense, but you keep enlightening me.

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