Building a Winning Company Culture with Outsourcing Experts

Curious about transforming your business operations through outsourcing? Join us as we explore this game-changing strategy with lifelong entrepreneur, Nathan Hirsch. Learn how Nathan turned his overwhelming college experience running an Amazon business into a streamlined success by leveraging the power of virtual assistants (VAs). Discover the critical steps in hiring the right talent, whether local or international, and how this can not only boost your business growth but potentially lead to more U.S. hires.

Tune in to uncover Nathan's best practices for managing VAs, including maintaining control and security through company accounts. We'll reveal the importance of transparent communication and clear job descriptions to set expectations from the get-go. Nathan also shares the significance of an effective onboarding meeting to align schedules, address potential issues, and integrate communication and company culture. Plus, you'll gain insights into performance tracking strategies that emphasize management and accountability over constant monitoring.

Finally, we dive into the intricacies of building a strong company culture through trust and effective management. Nathan discusses promoting from within, understanding individual strengths, and the necessity of clear communication. Hear his advice on handling employee terminations while maintaining team morale, and learn creative ways to protect your business. Nathan also introduces Outsource School and his monthly bookkeeping service, AccountsBalanced.com, offering invaluable resources to elevate your business operations. Don't miss Nathan's expert tips and inspiring journey to revolutionize your approach to hiring and outsourcing.

Chapters

• 0:00 Outsourcing Success With Nathan Hirsch
• 10:16 Best Practices for Hiring Virtual Assistants
• 15:58 Effective Management Communication and Decision-Making
• 21:23 Effective Hiring and Team Management
• 30:48 Maximizing Outsourcing and Hiring Success

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome to the Elevate Media Podcast with your host, chris Anderson. In this show, chris and his guests will share their knowledge and experience on how to go from zero to successful entrepreneur. They have built their businesses from scratch and are now ready to give back to those who are just starting. Let's get ready to learn, grow and elevate our businesses. And now your host, chris Anderson.

Speaker 2: 0:24

Welcome back to another recording of the Elevate Media Podcast. I'm Chris Anderson, your host, and today we're going to be diving into outsourcing, so how you can outsource things within your business to get some of your time back to improve your systems and processes so you can actually get things done for your clients at a higher level, at a quicker level, at a more efficient and productive level. So we're excited to be chatting about that. So, if you're looking to outsource, if you're thinking about outsourcing or wondering what that looks like this episode for you, bring on an expert in this. This is what one of his businesses is all about.

Speaker 2: 1:02

Got Nathan Hirsch on the show today. He's a lifelong entrepreneur. He just wants to make things simpler for us out here in the entrepreneurship world. So he's had businesses that have started from basically nothing very low investment that's been sold. You know he basically went from making nothing to, you know, thousands and thousands of million dollars in yearly revenue for selling it, and now he has a portfolio of different businesses with his partner. We're going to be diving into his business called Outsource School today. So, nathan, welcome to the Elevate Media podcast today.

Speaker 3: 1:39

Yeah, thanks so much for having me. I'm always down to talk about delegating and hiring and you know I really build businesses by hiring really good people and it's the key to everything.

Speaker 2: 1:49

Yeah, so where did you kind of get started within, like figuring this out, as far as like hiring and outsourcing, like what kind of? Was there a moment that just kind of clicked like this is what we need to do and this works?

Speaker 3: 2:01

Yeah, I had this Amazon business when I was in college. I started in 2008, 2009. It was my first real business. It was exciting, it was fun, but I got overwhelmed pretty quickly. I was doing everything myself, working seven days a week. It was stressing me out, it was hurting my grades, hurting my social life, and I finally hired a college student and that went okay.

Speaker 3: 2:23

I learned a lot about hiring and delegating and taking things off my plate. But I quickly realized that college kids were not reliable and had their own issues. So a buddy of mine introduced me to my first virtual assistant and that really changed my life. I built this VA army to run my Amazon business, then opened up a freelance marketplace offering all these VAs that I had and knew two of these different sellers. And now I just build businesses completely remote, no office, very few US employees if any, and I'm able to kind of run all parts of the business with VAs. It all goes back to me being a college kid that had no idea how to hire or who to hire or what to do, and kind of figure it out on the fly.

Speaker 2: 3:05

No, I love that and I think you know from a business perspective, especially those listening early on, this could be a great step into getting help you know to, to having that team. How do you kind of combat people who are like, oh why are we hiring foreign people, like why not just hire in the U S, like how, how do you kind of navigate those conversations with those people?

Speaker 3: 3:25

Yeah, I mean I really don't like, if you want to hire in the U? S, hire in the U? S like I have teams that are hybrid U S hired to that hybrid internationally. I mean, if you're only limiting yourself to hiring people in the U? S, you're at a huge disadvantage from all your competitors. So I there's lots of situations where you can hire someone in the US for $100,000 a year but if they're spending a lot of their time on $5 an hour tasks, you're not really getting the most out of them.

Speaker 3: 3:51

So I've seen people go throughout for school, hire a bunch of VAs and it actually leads to their business growing and it leads to them hiring more US staff and increasing jobs that way. So there's no right or wrong. Every business is at a different stage. I've run businesses where hiring US wasn't really an option. It was a small business, the margins were small and VAs were the only way. And I've run businesses that are more hybrid and as you hire more VAs to get you off the ground, that leads to US hires down the line. So there's lots of different ways to build a business. I would just say don't cut yourself off and limit yourself to your town and people around you. Open yourself to remote and open yourself to people all around the world.

Speaker 2: 4:31

Yeah, and I agree, I think you know it is a business as a game and you find the right people for the right positions, wherever they are, if they're good at that spot. And so, with that, you know thinking of outsourcing, you know bringing in these VAs I know you've mentioned VAs, virtual assistants. Are those the only kind of people? There you go, mike. We'll try that again. Are those the only kind of people that you can hire remotely or that you're focusing on helping as virtual assistants?

Speaker 3: 5:00

I mean my hiring process that we use on Outsource School or that we teach at Outsource School works on any kind of hire. I mean, I hire a lot of VAs from the Philippines, but there's people that will hire VAs from South America or Pakistan or India using our process. We use the same process for hiring US employees. We use the same process for hiring the operators that we use to be CEOs of our different companies. So there's tweaks and small stuff you change along the way, but the mentality that hey, you're going to hire people for skill, attitude, communication, you're going to set really good expectation, you're going to motivate them the right way and handle issues the right way and have really good SOPs whether you build them or they build them, that mentality across the board is all the same. So I believe in my hiring process to hire whatever role whether it's a PPC agency, a US coach, a US employee, a VA in the Philippines or India the same hiring process works.

Speaker 2: 5:55

Perfect. No, and that's good. Excuse me, that's good to have that system in place that you can kind of just, like you said, make little tweaks to. Now you did mention the Philippines and you hire a lot from there. Is there a reason you settled in and like hiring a lot of virtual assistants from the Philippines? Yeah, I mean at this point.

Speaker 3: 6:13

I've just built a lot of great relationships with people in the Philippines. So I get a lot of referrals and I have a big network. But to me like there's great VAs all over the place. But as an entrepreneur, if you've never done a lot of hiring, you don't want to go out and hire one person from India, one person from Pakistan, one person from the Philippines. You're just creating a lot of potential issues.

Speaker 3: 6:32

There's going to be a lot of learning curves, different cultures, different communication styles, different time zones. So you want to start with one place and when you really master hiring then you can expand out. And if you're going to start with one place, in my opinion the Philippines has the least learning curve. They're used to working US hours. They speak English at a high level. For someone like me that's not great at accents, it makes it a little easier there. They consume a lot of the same media, the same TV, the same products, stuff like that. So there's no right or wrong there. But I try to just give people the easy end and give them some confidence and get them better and better hiring and then you can expand from wherever.

Speaker 2: 7:11

Yeah, and what does it look like? Hiring from the Philippines? We'll just stick with that location for a VA. As far as like the investment, obviously it can probably range, but what's kind of a good average people? Can you know, hear and think about what we're talking about? Hiring a VA from the Philippines?

Speaker 3: 7:26

Yeah, we have this VA calculator. If you go to OutsourceSchoolcom slash VA calculator, the normal VA is in that $5 to $8 an hour range. The better you are at hiring and the more flexibility you can give and the more perks you have, usually the less you have to pay. But I mean, I've hired great VAs at $12 an hour. I've hired great VAs at $12 an hour. I've hired great VAs at $3 an hour. But for the average entrepreneur that five to eight per hour is a normal range and you don't have to hire a full-time exclusive, although that's my preference. You can start with five hours a week, two hours a week or whatever you need.

Speaker 2: 7:56

Okay, awesome. So what is it? $5 an hour, 40 hours a week, $200 a week on average. Looking at for someone there and for them that's a livable wage. That's pretty good right.

Speaker 3: 8:10

Yeah, the cost of living in different places in the world is way lower than the US.

Speaker 2: 8:15

So with that, you know if someone is thinking about you know, coming to you for the outsource school or just hiring VA in general. What are some things like? When do they know, like, hey, ok, maybe it's time to actually delegate or bring someone in to do certain tasks, and how do they know it's time and even what tasks they should delegate?

Speaker 3: 8:35

So I think this is where a lot of entrepreneurs go wrong. They try to hit that perfect time of when to hire and the truth is you're probably not going to find it. You're going to hire either too early or too late. And the entrepreneurs that hire too late run into a lot of issues because their business is running and because they don't hire, things break. They get stressed out, they get burnt out, they're not able to focus on customer service, whatever it is, and the people that hire too early.

Speaker 3: 9:00

You're really risking money and maybe there's a chance you hire too early if the business doesn't do that well and you have to let people go. But usually when you're hiring too early is the way to go Hire before you need it. That's what I try to do in all my businesses. You eventually build up to that point and you're going to learn a lot about what your business needs and what that ideal person looks for when you're doing it. So, instead of trying to find the perfect time, try to say, hey, how do I get in a little early? Hire before I really need someone, because if you hire too late, you're probably going to rush the process because you need someone so bad you can't wait any longer, and that's going to lead to you potentially not finding the best applicant. So something to keep in mind there.

Speaker 3: 9:40

And then, in terms of what tasks, create a list of everything you do on a day-to-day basis and try to prioritize it from easiest to hardest. Start with the easy stuff. Start with things that are not going to blow up your business if it goes wrong, like doing some kind of lead generation or podcast outreach or partner outreach Stuff like that's a good testing ground because it'll give you some confidence. You'll learn a lot. You'll see if someone's good at following directions, all of that. But if it goes poorly and you don't get any podcasts, you don't get any leads. It's really not that big of a deal. You'll probably take something out of it and it'll be worth it. And then you can kind of expand on and on to harder tasks.

Speaker 2: 10:16

No, I like that, yeah, and I agree for sure, as we're kind of in that stage. Like you know, we have here people locally in the States, but my first, you know, team member was from Ghana and you know, for me it was a big learning curve and he's still with us, you know, helping out and it's great. I've been super blessed with the team I have because they've you know, they've weathered some of the sores with us and they've been super loyal and so I'm grateful for that. But, you know, now having the growth come like thinking about delegating or bringing other people on for certain tasks, my thought goes to, you know, the lead generation. You know, maybe social media posting things like that Is the best practice. To let them just use their own social media accounts and emails. Do you, should you have a specific account that they log into to do things like email or social media? What's kind of your best practice with that?

Speaker 3: 11:08

So usually they're going to have company emails that they log into. I try not to have them use their own email, but I almost never have them use their own social media accounts. When I used to run FreeUp before we sold it, that was a rule. You couldn't hire a VA to use their own social media accounts. When I used to run FreeUp before we sold it, that was a rule. You couldn't hire a VA to use their own social media accounts, and maybe there are good reasons to do that. I don't really know what they are, but usually if people are having a VA use their own Instagram or their own Twitter. It's usually something sketchy that you don't want them to do. So keep it on your own social medias. Give them admin access. There's creative ways as well. Can have like a backup laptop and have them remote control in or something like that. But, um, like the more stuff that's under your company name that they're accessing that you can quickly take away if you let go of them.

Speaker 2: 11:49

Uh the better. Perfect, yeah, and that's kind of like my thought behind it too. And you know, like for social media, like we'll create like an account, um, that has access to admin rights that they have. They can log into it. It's not necessarily theirs, but it's like a company kind of I don't know a ghost account or whatever you want to call it so they can control through there. And then we have access and control, full control, so we can, you know, take people off there or whatever for them to reach out and post.

Speaker 3: 12:16

Yeah, I mean, that's the way you go about it. Keep yourself safe and all of that. But yeah, don't go crazy with trying to get VAs to use their own stuff a little more technical skills to figure out what to go with first.

Speaker 3: 12:45

What are some common mistakes you've seen when people are hiring a VA from the Philippines or America, just in general hiring, yeah, so I mean you want to let people know what they're getting into upfront. I've seen this with, let's say, time Doctor or screen recording software. I've seen someone hire a VA, train a VA and then say, by the way, we're going to start using screen recording software and the VA is like wait a second, you never mentioned this, this wasn't on the job posting. And then both sides are kind of in a bad position. So, whatever it is whether it's schedule, whether it's screen recording, whether they have to have two monitors make sure all of that is in the job description up front and make sure they have that during the interview up front and make sure they have that during the interview. And then the second, which is the biggest one, and if you take anything away from this podcast, it's this have a meeting after the interview but before their day, one where you onboard them.

Speaker 3: 13:30

We call it our sick method, which we teach at afterschool schedule, issues, communication, culture, and we go through all the common stuff that people have with VX, whether it's the schedule that they can work. Have they done it before? Are there going to be any issues? Do they need a long lunch break? Whatever that is, to really get on the same page the common issues people have with VAs, whether it's computer issues or internet or power issues or personal issues.

Speaker 3: 13:54

You're going to go through that. Make sure you understand their complete situation, what their backups are. Can they go someplace to work? Are they 10 miles away from anywhere if they lose internet? So make sure you know the situation and give them a chance to back out once you've gone through all this, because you don't want someone to work with you and then, six weeks later, realize that it's not a good fit and your expectations are too high, or whatever it is. I want people to know my expectations are high, I want them to know that I'm holding them accountable to what they tell me and I only want the person to take the job if that's what they're looking for. So spend that extra time up front. It's going to save you tons of time and money down the line.

Speaker 2: 14:31

Yeah, that's great. And again, communication just the more you can communicate, the more clear you can lay things out for them so they understand, the better, uh, in the long run for sure. When you kind of mentioned some things, um to track like, because that could be an, you know, something that makes business owners a little bit leery or uncomfortable is how do I know they're actually working? How do I obviously have metrics, but what are ways we can make sure we're, you know, tracking or measuring, uh, the va's that theseires are doing what they need to do and even the time amount so they're actually getting stuff done the right way.

Speaker 3: 15:11

Yeah, so the better you are at this, the less you need to use the screen shares and the time doctors of the world.

Speaker 3: 15:18

I mean those are kind of a backup for people that are not great at managing people or trust issues or just make a lot of bad hires over and over. My goal is to create systems where people trust me and I trust them and where I'm going to know pretty quickly if they're not doing what they should do. If I have good team leaders that are monitoring and managing people well, they're going to know pretty quick whether Bob's doing the job or not, and they're not going to have time to go through all their screens every single month. So create systems where your VAs are sending you daily updates, weekly updates, where you're giving them goals, where they're hitting goals. That's what you want to do, more than hey. I'm going to record everything you do and at the end of every day I'm going to watch it and look for any possible thing you did wrong. To me, that gets old and that's really hard to build trust and actually build a good culture when you do that Gotcha.

Speaker 2: 16:04

That makes sense and I think that's yeah, I think that's crucial. You almost are just building a solid foundation where you know you have more success without having to kind of micromanage or not have that trust. And what you mentioned right there, that kind of sparked thought in my head, was you talked about having the manager managing the people. So obviously that way you're not having to go check in with everyone at the same time. Are these managers also kind of virtual assistants from the Philippines or these local people? How do you build out the manager to worker role?

Speaker 3: 16:38

Yeah, we like to promote from within. We have this whole playbook in Outdoor School where we teach you like to promote from within. We have this whole playbook in outdoor school where we teach you how to promote team leaders. And you want to like anything else. You want to give people test projects. You want them to prove themselves over time, but they also have to want that. There's really talented people out there that don't want to manage other people. It stresses them out. They're not good at it. They're good at projects, they're good at like growing and there might be other roles in the company.

Speaker 3: 17:01

I had this sorry about bookkeeping business it counts for how much a shirt I'm wearing and we had this great bookkeeper tons of experience, great attitude and year one we kept trying to make her manage people and she just wasn't good at it. She didn't like it. It wasn't her style. But we kind of struggled and we took a step back and we just made her like a normal bookkeeper and she was too good for that. And it wasn't until year two.

Speaker 3: 17:22

We're like let's have this person actually review books before they go out, and that was a role that she thrived in. She didn't have to manage other people. She wasn't responsible for other people, but she could prove and give feedback and communicate and that was a great role for her. So when you find someone really good, that's an A player that's going to be with your company for a long time. That's the million dollar question Are they good at managing people? Have they done it before? Do they want to do that? And then deciding, hey, if they, if they can, then put them in that manager role and get yourself out of it. If they can't, what other high level roles can you put?

Speaker 2: 17:55

them in? Sure no, and I think that's crucial. You's kind of like we have someone on our team that we're working on that, like kind of giving them chances on that, but also trying to see their full potential, because I think they have a lot that they could do, and just trying to navigate that as we're still growing. So I think we're in a good spot for that, because we don't necessarily have to rush into promoting anyone right now, but we're kind of on the who's skills are where? Where are their strengths? Where will they sit best? So as we continue to build out, hopefully, you know, people can lean into those strengths and be happy and thrive kind of in those situations, instead of like not liking that position, kind of thing.

Speaker 3: 18:35

So yeah, I mean all that's important. Whenever you're making a change or you're thinking about promoting someone or moving them to a different role, have a one-on-one conversation with them, see what they want, see what they like. What is their experience? What are they good at? What's their attitude towards whatever you're trying to do, and make sure they're 100% bought in before you put it on their plate and again go back to communication.

Speaker 2: 18:59

Like that communication piece is so crucial in so many different aspects of, you know, building your business whether it be hiring a VA, promoting what's within or whatever and I think we can't hit on that enough. Just having that clear, concise communication is going to really benefit you in the now and the long run.

Speaker 3: 19:19

Yeah, and we did this. Recently. We had a VA who was part-time and I know she had a set of kids, so her time was good for her and I want her to move full-time. But I didn't just go to her and say we're moving you full-time. I talked to her like, hey, I know you like to set up now, like, do you want to work full-time, like I, it's not, I have other options if you don't. But I don't want you to accept it. And then a month later tell me, hey, it doesn't work. You can only work 30 hours a week. And luckily she was all in and that's what you wanted and it's been going great. But you got to have those conversations with people. Everyone wants different things, everyone has stuff going on in their life. Everyone has a past experience with different companies that you might not know about. That went good or bad. So you want to have those conversations before you make any moves.

Speaker 2: 20:00

Absolutely. Yeah, I think that's super critical. Now, on that note of communication, of having those conversations, nothing's ever perfect. So you're going to hire people that they do great and maybe they move on eventually or they start great, and then something happens what they're doing is just not up to par anymore. How do you have those conversations of you know? Hey, it's time, time for you to kind of move on when you have to let someone go.

Speaker 3: 20:29

Yeah, they're usually quick and direct and I don't give too much information. I mean, usually if I'm letting someone go, they've had chances. They should, if they're a rational human being, understand that it's coming or they're not doing a good job or it's not a good fit one way or another. And for that you hop on a Zoom, you let them know the situation, you wish them the best, you tell them you'll help them in some other way if they need it, whether it's a reference or whatever, if that's applicable, and you move on. You remove their access and you just try to end on good terms to the best you can. And 99% of their access, and you just try to end on good terms to the best you can, and 99 of the time it's fine. They'll get another job, they'll move on. Other times I've had people go crazy and be irrational and whatever, and you kind of deal with it. But after that you inform your team. You say hey, if anyone wants more information, I want to chat about it, message me privately. Uh, we wish her the best and again, just trying to end up really good terms and everyone's watching.

Speaker 3: 21:23

If you fire someone and you go to your team and you're like this person sucked. They did all these things wrong. Blah, blah, blah. That's not going to make other people want to work for you. It's going to scare other people and you probably also need to just let people know, assuming this is true, that their jobs are secure. People are always thinking, hey, am I next? And unless I'm planning on letting other people go, I'll tell people like hey, like right now, dead serious, there, there's no one else that we think is going to be. There's no, there's no one else that we're moving on from. This is a one-time thing, that we tried to make the decision that was best for the company. We just don't think it's a fit and we're moving on from here. So short, quick to the point. Don't share too much information. Inform the team, have private conversations if you need to.

Speaker 2: 22:09

Make sure that you don't crush morale and move on with your day and your business. Yeah, so if you do have that you know you said like 99% are good or whatnot, or close to it If you have those ones that kind of go berserk in the moment, how do you approach those?

Speaker 3: 22:21

Like, how do you mitigate that blow up? Yeah, so one creative thing that I've done this is this has worked decently well. If I know someone is like off the hook, crazy, or they're not going to handle it well, or I think they're going to reach out to clients or talk to team members or whatever it is, I'm just going to be like hey, I'm going to give you X amount of money let's say it's $600, but I'm going to pay you $50 a month for the next 12 months. But the second you reach out to my client or my team or do anything to hurt my business, those payments just stop. So from their side they're not going to turn.

Speaker 3: 22:54

Most usually they're not turning down the money to hurt me. They'd rather just take the money and if six months goes by, or whatever that time period is, they've probably gotten another job and forgotten about me and moved on. So there's other ways to do it. We're not talking a large amount of money there it can be 200 bucks or something but some little extra incentive to put the percentages in your favor and there's nothing you can do to make it 100%. They won't hurt you or reach out to your clients or whatever. But if you could protect your business for 500 bucks like, why wouldn't you do it?

Speaker 2: 23:25

Yeah, no, that is very creative and yeah, I just, you know, always curious on that because you never know, and I think that's again why it's important as a business owner to have good relations with the client themselves. So if something does happen, it's kind of hopefully less effective once they hear it because, like dude nathan, like this guy said this and like we don't believe it, kind of thing, because you have that good relationship and good communication with them, or at least you know they've had good interactions with you up to that point. So, right, well, so like I, you know what are some when you're doing this process? I know Outsource School probably has this laid out and things like that what are some key indicators you look for when you're hiring someone that's going to be like, okay, this person is going to be, you know, possibly a, you know a, a plus player for us.

Speaker 3: 24:18

So we want someone with a great attitude. We like people that have the entrepreneurial spirit. They like building, they like growing, they like self-improvement. They want to be part of something that's big for us. And we look for people who have been there and done it before. People have worked for similar companies, who've been in that role. It's kind of not every position, but a lot of times we found that it's just better to find someone who's done it before. You don't want to train every single person from scratch there's a time and a place for it but we want someone that has that experience and brings something to the table that maybe that I don't have experience with. And then, lastly, just communication. Somebody can talk quickly, get on the same page. We're not going in circles. There's no miscommunication. I speak English to the high level. We're really looking for that trifecta of skill, attitude and communication.

Speaker 2: 25:04

I love that. I'm curious. I don't know if you know who Andy Elliott is. Yeah, the name sounds familiar. He does a lot on social media for selling how to improve being a better salesperson is the Elliott Army. His big thing that I've seen a lot of is he'll bring people on stage some of his guys and like take your shirt off, take your shirt off, uh, and if they don't have a six pack, you know, maybe they got the dad quote-unquote dad bod going on. He'll kind of like rip into a little bit as like accountability for taking care of yourself. Does that seeing someone who is maybe not in shape or things like that is that a deterrent in hiring for you or do you think that's something that you know? Take a little weight and no pun intended based on the individuals.

Speaker 3: 25:51

That that is not a factor for me at all. I've had plenty of people that are incredibly hard workers, that are smart, that love being behind a computer, and that's just their personality. That are smart, that love being behind the computer, and that's just their personality. Now my mentality as an entrepreneur is like, yeah, take care of your health, Take care of your body. I do one hour air workouts once a day. I eat healthy. I don't eat processed food, I don't drink alcohol.

Speaker 3: 26:12

I think that helps me be a better entrepreneur and I think if you're only focused on money and you're ignoring everything else whether it's health or family or friends or whatever like that's not great and long-term that's not going to work out well for you. But it's also not my place to judge other people. Everyone comes from a different place than I do and and there's plenty of really hard workers that are not in shape that gym and exercise are just not a part of their routine. Now, if they ever want to come to me and talk about self-improvement, I have some people on my internal team for EB that right now are all about like I want to get in shape and all that, and I'll share everything I know, everything I believe in if you want it, but it's not usually my place to push my beliefs on other people like that.

Speaker 2: 26:58

Same. Yeah, I agree, I think it's unique. What he's doing and I understand what he's doing is like keeping them accountable to themselves, especially in sales roles, because I think, you know, I think the stats, something with the stats on, like, if you're in shape you have a higher percentage of closing, but again, at the end of the day, it doesn't necessarily come down to that. But so I see the like, the big picture he's thinking and I think he I mean it obviously gets him attention on social media as well for, like, attention wise and that. So I get what he's saying. But yeah, I don't necessarily see pushing, pushing those things on people to be good. Just try to motivate them and, you know, help them If, like you said, if they they ask for it and they want it to improve themselves and that's ultimately, I mean it has to be their decision, right, so we can't push. But I was just curious if you'd seen that or what your thoughts were on hiring rat. Uh, hopefully, you know, in shape people versus not.

Speaker 3: 27:53

So yeah, I mean, it's funny too, like each business is different, like hiring bookkeepers, bookkeepers I love bookkeepers. They're very unique human beings. I don't know if there's how many bookkeepers that have six packs maybe there are but every every kind of role is a little bit different. Sales people might be different than bookkeepers, that are different than customer service reps or whatever, but I don't have the stats on that right, yeah, so that's awesome.

Speaker 2: 28:15

But uh, yeah, so you know people, people starting out in their business, listen to this. Like you got to, even if you're not ready to hire a VA, like kind of build with that thought in mind. So, like, what processes and systems can you start implementing that you're doing? That'll be easy transition bringing someone on. So if someone is doing that they're not ready for a VA, what can they do to prep? You know, for that moment, when they are, is there a certain way to build their systems and processes? Is doing that they're not ready?

Speaker 3: 28:45

for VA. What can they do to prep for that moment when they are? Is there a certain way to build their systems and processes? Yeah, build SOPs, standard operating procedures, things you do every single day. Even if you have it in your head, get it down on paper. Start with the why. Why are you doing this task? What does success and failure look like, what are the steps to go through to do the task and what are the important reminders or the do not do's for any reason?

Speaker 3: 29:03

This is how we teach you to create SOPs in outdoor school. And just remember hiring is the best skill you can have as an entrepreneur. If you're bad at sales, you're bad at marketing, you're bad at whatever. Hiring makes everything easier because if you're good at hiring, you can always hire eight players and plug them into places that you need it. So, whether you're hiring in a year or two years, learn how to hire now. Learn how to build SOPs now. Learn how to delegate all the stuff that goes with it, and it's only going to help you as you get bigger and bigger.

Speaker 2: 29:31

Yeah, I love that. And that made me mentioning hiring salespeople. For you, if you hire a salesperson someone to close a deal, you know, and get that process, do you hire them based on an hourly wage or is it commission or is it a mix?

Speaker 3: 29:48

Never commission only. If it's a salesperson. It's an hourly rate or a monthly fixed price plus commission. Hiring people commission only? Sure, there are very select examples of that working out well, usually with a business that's already very successful, that has a proven process that works. But the majority of the time it's just entrepreneurs that don't have enough to pay people and nothing's proven, and they're just trying to get people commission only, and that's not going to work out. So how about fixed price plus commission? That's the way to go.

Speaker 2: 30:18

Okay, and do you have salespeople from the Philippines, or are those like US based? Like, does that matter? Yeah, no, we have salespeople from the Philippines.

Speaker 3: 30:26

We have a whole playbook in Outsource School on how to hire sales reps from the Philippines Awesome.

Speaker 2: 30:30

And you don't see any barrier with, like them being from the Philippines, talking to people in US or in other countries at all.

Speaker 3: 30:36

No, I mean you or anyone else. Go to Outsource School book a call. You'll talk to a salesperson in the Philippines. They're great. I'd put them against any US salesperson.

Speaker 2: 30:44

That's awesome. I love that. That's cool man. Nathan, this has been a fantastic conversation. I think it's really given a lot of value to people listening who are not ready to hire, but how to prep for those who are ready to outsource and then those who are in the hiring process right now trying to figure out how to do it correctly. So thanks so much for sharing all your knowledge today or you know some of it. I know you know a lot more and have a lot more in your schools and your programs. So with that, where can people go? I know you mentioned a couple of different things. Where's the best place people can go to learn more from you and find out more about Outsource School?

Speaker 3: 31:26

Yeah, follow me, nathan Hirsch, on any social media platform. Go to OutsourceSchoolcom if you're interested in the program. And one thing we didn't talk about is my monthly bookkeeping service at CountsBalancedcom. Feel free to check that out as well.

Speaker 2: 31:34

Awesome, yeah, so everybody, make sure you connect with Nathan. That's what got this started, I think, one of the things I just kept seeing all his content on social media and it's a lot of grateful information. So, nathan, again thanks for being on the Elevate Media podcast today. Thanks for having me.

Speaker 1: 31:51

Welcome to the Elevate Media podcast with your host, Chris Anderson. In this show, Chris and his guests will share their knowledge and experience on how to go from zero to successful entrepreneur. They have built their businesses from scratch and are now ready to give back to those who are just starting. Let's get ready to learn, grow and elevate our businesses. And now your host, Chris Anderson, you.