Boosting Your Business by Hiring Virtual Assistants

Mike DeHaan: [0:02] On Air Brands.

Dan Austin: [0:04] As an entrepreneur, it doesn't matter if you're in a real estate business or not. Like, if there's an option for you to have some of your work done at a low wage, be okay with sending some of this offshore. This isn't like the American made versus, like, offshore, you know, imported stuff. This is, like, logical business stuff that Americans most likely aren't going to do for you anyways. Yeah. Honestly, at at the pace you need and at the quality you need.

Speaker 3: [0:26] Welcome to the collecting keys real estate investing podcast with your host, Mike DeHaan and Dan Austin. From wins, losses, horror stories, and tactics for optimizing your business, Mike and Dan take a real uncensored deep dive into the ins and outs of running a full time real estate investment and wholesaling business.

Mike DeHaan: [0:50] What's going on, everybody? Welcome to episode 39 of the collecting keys real estate investing podcast.

Dan Austin: [0:57] Oh, 30... Did we skip an episode 39? That sounds like a lot.

Mike DeHaan: [1:00] I'm pretty sure we're 39. Like, like, we were literally just debating about the numbers. Don't be screwing with me. I'm just messing with just messing the right one. The wrong one, critical

Dan Austin: [1:10] part of everything you prepare for is at least remembering the episode number.

Mike DeHaan: [1:13] Yeah. I... Well, I mean, because the problem is is because we record ahead. So I go and see which ones are posted. But once we're, like, in our little streaming thing, I can't see which ones we already have. And because we send it all off to our our producers or whatever that put put all of them together. And then

Dan Austin: [1:28] I'm like team.

Mike DeHaan: [1:28] We have a production team. We had a production team. We're so we're so big. You know? It's such a huge podcast. We have we have we have literally in, like, the low triple digits of listeners. That's how big we are.

Dan Austin: [1:39] We're... That's pretty big, Doug.

Mike DeHaan: [1:41] I mean, honestly, like, if you think about it... Like, like, think about if you were in a... Like, you go to an event and you're gonna speak in front of, like, a 100 people. Mhmm. That's a lot. Right? Yeah. Like, that's a that's, a big, big thing to go do. So that's that's an interesting thing about podcasting, though, is that's basically what it is, but it's on, you know, an infinitely larger scale because you can reach a lot of people with, like, long form content. I think that's why it's so powerful for people that really capitalize on it and start to do well with whatever their their marketing

Dan Austin: [2:08] and everything. Bet by the end of the year, part of the, you know, q one twenty twenty three, we'll be in the top 100 of of real estate business podcasts.

Mike DeHaan: [2:16] You you know what's shocking, though, is, like, how few downloads that actually is. You know? I I know.

Dan Austin: [2:22] Don't say that. We're trying to pump it up, dog. We're trying

Mike DeHaan: [2:25] to pump it up. But but... No. So... But that's, like, such a vanity metric. Like, you'll you'll hear... If anybody listens to any other podcast, you'll have these people say, like, we're a top 1% podcast in our category. Like, I I know I know people that have... You know, they've had their podcast a little bit, and they'll have, like, 25,000 listens total, period. And whatever the category is, they'll be, like, a top 1.5% podcast.

Dan Austin: [2:48] It's like it's like being an Amazon bestseller in the category of small cats with the dyslexia learning disabilities for for the

Mike DeHaan: [2:56] human Yeah. Well, you're kinda right though. Right? Because there's all these, like, specific niches that people do, and people have these podcasts that are, like, you know, have such a small general audience anyway, so the listenership isn't big. So it's kinda easy that... But it's it's such a vanity metric. I don't know. Like, it... It's much the same as when you have, like, someone that says, like, oh, I own, I don't know, 5,000 doors in real estate. And it's like, well, you come from money and you own a bunch of LP. You're in a bunch of limited partnerships. So you own

Dan Austin: [3:26] 1% you own 1% of 5,000 doors. Yeah.

Mike DeHaan: [3:30] Yeah. Exactly. So I was like, sure. It's a good metric, but you're not given the whole story there.

Dan Austin: [3:34] Yeah. There's a lot of that just in general with people and descriptions in it, it's can be very, very misleading. And then as you get to know a situation or a person or whatever, then you kind of dig deeper, you're like, okay. So maybe it's not what I thought it was. Like, we always, the grass is greener you're, when you're looking at things or you're hearing things. Yeah. And so I always have to, like, just make sure to kind of set my expectations on those sorts of things, like level set it, so that when I'm building what I wanna do, it's not that I'm chasing somebody else, but it's like, I kinda know now not to believe everything people say. Oh, dude. Totally. And especially as we don't either way to say it.

Mike DeHaan: [4:14] Yeah. I mean, well, that... That's that's a great way to say it, especially as we've gotten more and more involved in, like, the entrepreneurial circles. Because there... There's kind of an interesting thing about, you know, being in GoBundance and these other sort of groups that we're in. Sure. There's a lot of real estate people, but there's also people that are, like, in other businesses and and and stuff like that. Mhmm. But there's, like, this certain relationship that is built in the entrepreneurship community of, like, if you have the hustle, you kinda, like, respect that. Right? Like, regardless of what it is, it's like, you know, someone can have a painting company. Someone can have a tech company. If you're connected with entrepreneurs and you respect these person as hustle, you can, like, bond on that. Right?

Dan Austin: [4:53] Yes.

Mike DeHaan: [4:53] And one of the biggest ways you know... And everyone that has the hustle, which I put both into this, the biggest ways that you know that someone doesn't have that is when they show up to these events and they have these vanity metrics that they tout. Right? They come in, they're talking about, you know, I have x amount of doors. Like, I've done x number of deals. And my... And that's, like, how they make their introduction. Like, if that comes up when you're asking about their business, whatever, that's one thing because I could be real. Right? Yeah. But when, like, that's their identity, that's how you know they're full of shit. Right? It's just Yeah.

Dan Austin: [5:23] Or they... And they don't have a lot of, funny, great stories Right. Of the hustle. Yeah. But when you're building a business and the things you go through to do that, like, they don't have that same, I know, because all they're talking about is their metrics and their vanity stuff, because that's what they think it's about. But in reality, it's really not about any of that at the end of the day.

Mike DeHaan: [5:39] No. Like not.

Dan Austin: [5:40] So the actions you're taking, right? Like you could sell you could sell your business and make a pile of money and you'd probably go back and do it again. Yeah.

Mike DeHaan: [5:46] For sure.

Dan Austin: [5:46] You know what I mean? Yeah. But Just in a different way.

Mike DeHaan: [5:48] Yeah. Exactly. But I know it's it's always funny. You notice that. And then the other thing I always pick up too is the people that are kinda full of it. They will have, like, three stories that they always tell, and that's literally all they got. Like... And then you try to, like, expand on anything else and they don't have anything. You know? And, like, even in those couple stories... I mean, we... I know people that have their own podcasts that are like this. They always go back. They'll have their... I've had their podcasts for years, and they always just sell the same, like, three things on there. And and usually a lot of it was something that happened, like, six years ago that was, like, a big moment, and they've done nothing since then. And 100%.

Dan Austin: [6:24] Yeah. I agree. Yeah. It's like for me, being a veteran coming out of the military, you know, that was eight years of my life, but I'm much older than eight. Yeah. But you see a lot of folks that they continue to live through that part of their life. And for a lot of people, right, because they're beyond it, and then they don't think that they've done anything else impressive or they actually haven't done anything else impressive. And so they just kinda keep going back to that small segment in time.

Mike DeHaan: [6:49] Yeah. I think it's like, you know, it's kinda like the definition of, let me say, someone peaked in high school, they're still stuck in that. People do that with other parts of their life. It's actually, kinda sad, honestly, because it usually occurs pretty early on. But I think that's a big, like, mental health thing. That's why people are all depressed. But doesn't need to be that way if you can go out and, you know, make some of yourself, you know, pull yourself up by your bootstraps as like the Right. Boomers would say. But, you know, you kinda have to be intentional about what that is, whether that's, you know, something business related, that's something personal that's... You know, even if you find that in a, I don't know, sport, fitness, art Yep. Like, anything. You know? But a

Dan Austin: [7:26] lot people find exciting? Yeah. I get excited about, like, fighting these challenges, that we deal with every day. So for for our loyal listeners, we are, I don't know, month five now of our Airbnb Oh, yeah. Our... What what do you call that? Like, a... An envy... Our environmental disaster. Disaster.

Mike DeHaan: [7:48] And we're officially starting litigation season with all this. That's actually what we're gonna start off with before we're done. Other tangent.

Dan Austin: [7:53] Yeah. So so we we have this company that is... I'm not gonna name the company, but it rhymes with Smurf Pro. They're they're they're a mitigation company. They're they're franchise.

Mike DeHaan: [8:05] They're nationwide. Absolutely do not use them. If they wanna pursue me for libel, they can go fuck themselves.

Dan Austin: [8:10] Yeah. I don't... Yeah. They're such a bad company, and and, dishonest. Any... Anyhow, then the insurance company didn't do us any justice. But whatever, we're there. Finally, like, they're gone, and now we have this house that is not put back together. We're kind of just, everybody's just like, well, you guys figure it out. It's your house. And I'm like, yeah, but I want money from the insurance company to do this. And then Servpro, because I was like, I'm not paying them for what they did, have sent us to collections. So now we're in, we're in collections for, $22,500 for work they didn't do. And, we have kind of a lawsuit, you know, a potential litigation where they did more damage. Right? So they, they did more damage than they did good. They damaged other parts of the home. And then also the... A breach of contract potentially. And I talked to some lawyers about it. They're like, yeah, you could probably sue them for that. They're like, but it's gonna cost you this much. And I was like, what about if we sue people just to be assholes? And the one guy's like, yeah. But my hourly rate goes up by a $100 an hour if that's why you wanna do it. Yeah. Right. It's like, well, kind of. Yeah. Yeah.

Dan Austin: [9:20] You know, like... But anyhow, so I talked to the collection guy today, and I finally got ahold of him. He's like, Yeah, so here's blah blah blah. Tell me the situation. So I told him the situation, and he was actually a nice guy, asking a lot of good questions. And I was telling him what happened. I was starting to think for a minute, I

Mike DeHaan: [9:38] was like, does this guy work for like Serve Pros? Is he

Dan Austin: [9:40] like in their corporate franchise or what? Like, who is this guy? Right? He's like, well, tell me why, this and that and the other. And I basically got down to the point. I was like, well, here's, here's my two options. You guys either settle with me for $11,000 or I'm going to sue them and here's why I'm going to sue them. Yeah. And he's like, well, yeah, that seems pretty reasonable. I don't have any notes on that. And I'm like, yeah, you probably don't, but I do. I have all the emails, you know, like, and so he kind of was a little bit stunned. And then, yeah. So we're negotiating with him. He's like, well, I'll come back to you tomorrow. We'll see what he says.

Mike DeHaan: [10:13] Yeah. Yeah. And he'll come back. He'll ask for more. You gotta... You guys hold the line, man. I mean, just like we say to our sales guys, when the seller comes back and ask for more money, make them come to you. You just gotta sit there. Right? And, like, this is what we're gonna do. It's like, if you wanna make this an expensive lawsuit, I'm happy to. Mhmm. Like like Absolutely. I I got tons of properties. I'm just like... In fact, I would say I've been itching for something like this. I got my lawyer all primed up and ready to go. Yeah.

Dan Austin: [10:37] And we are I'm waiting to tell my friends this story when I'm at the social club.

Mike DeHaan: [10:40] Yeah. Right. That's the... That's why

Dan Austin: [10:42] I'm suing you. That's why I wanna do it. Yeah. Yeah. So that, I mean, it's kind of fun though, because it's like, at the end of the day, this is a principal thing. You know, the insurance is paying us to pay them. Like you said, it's kind of like,

Mike DeHaan: [10:54] this is like the kind of thing that people like, like go see therapists about. Like, they get so stupid. Well, yeah. I I know.

Dan Austin: [11:01] But then like, here's the thing. It's like, okay. So we we dealt with this loss. Yeah. So now from an investment and a business standpoint, if I don't have to pay them the full price, why would I? Yeah. Because additional damage. I do believe that, they didn't do what they're going to say they're they're gonna... We're gonna recover from it. We're gonna be made whole financially from the physical repair cost Yeah. Of this thing. But, like, at at some point there's principle with it. And then it's like, how do I how do I optimize this financial situation now? Yeah. Well, I don't pay them 22. I pay them 11. Mhmm. And then I find my contractors to do the work cheaper than the insurance company said they could. And then we have that difference, which would be not necessarily a profit margin, but, you know, our spread on this, hazardous, chaotic, shitty situation.

Mike DeHaan: [11:45] Yeah. Right.

Dan Austin: [11:46] Well, that's how I'm looking at it. What's the spread on this claim?

Mike DeHaan: [11:49] Yeah. Right. That's how you know you're an investor when you have a spread on an insurance claim. What... What's crazy is this is this whole freaking fiasco. I mean I mean, the insurance company was just so unhelpful, but... So I I own these four properties out in Minnesota. There was a hailstorm out there. Did, like, you know, some damage to the roof and siding of all of these houses. Right? Hit the whole area. And, like, realistically, it's not the house would be fine with. Like, you know, it's like the kind of things that we see here in house that has been been existing damage for years. Right? You go in there, it's fine. But, you know, our, product manager went out, sent someone out, sent some photos, and they're like, yeah. Do you want, like, new roofs and siding on your house... All your houses? I was like, yeah. It's like, cool. Just go and file... Send these to your insurance company, file the claim. There was, a recorded natural disaster here. Just go do that. And I'm getting all new all new roofs, all new siding, and all the houses. I just gotta pay my deductibles and all of them, which, $2,500. So, basically, getting four new roofs, new siding, four properties for $10.

Dan Austin: [12:49] That's such a great deal. That is such a good deal.

Mike DeHaan: [12:52] You know? And they were... And then and the thing is two of the roofs are gonna need to be done in the next couple years. I was actually kinda stressing that a little bit. Right. Yeah. But I'm like, cool. Now it's gonna be done. But, like, no questions. Like, literally, I've had a total of, I would say, eight minutes of conversations with the insurance company. And they're just like, dude, that's great. We'll just... You know, they sent someone up from Texas. You know? They just went and, like, looked at all things, and they're like, alright. Sounds cool. And they and they sent me money. Already got money for two of them.

Dan Austin: [13:16] Dang. Yeah. Let's go to casino. Yeah. Right. See if we could double it, then you'll profit off this claim. Yeah. What's your what's your spread on this thing?

Mike DeHaan: [13:23] That makes sense. Actually, now I'm just not gonna fix them. You know? Just

Dan Austin: [13:27] gonna delete them.

Mike DeHaan: [13:28] It's not it's not what the real scummy people are supposed to do.

Dan Austin: [13:30] That's what a real landlord would do.

Mike DeHaan: [13:32] I know. Right?

Dan Austin: [13:32] I mean, come on, bro.

Mike DeHaan: [13:33] Yeah. Yeah.

Dan Austin: [13:34] And then sell it to some some wholesaler that wants to buy it at a discount.

Mike DeHaan: [13:37] Yeah. I mean, man, sometimes I think it would be so great to

Dan Austin: [13:41] be a dirtbag. Like, honestly, because It'd be so easy.

Mike DeHaan: [13:44] You'd be... I mean, yeah, would be easy to do. But, like, you can make you can make good money if you're willing to

Dan Austin: [13:49] have So, I mean, it's easy... That's what I mean. It's easy money, dude.

Mike DeHaan: [13:51] Yeah. I mean, that's why people do it.

Dan Austin: [13:53] That's why people are dirtbags.

Mike DeHaan: [13:54] I know.

Dan Austin: [13:54] It doesn't last very long, though.

Mike DeHaan: [13:56] I know. It's out of principle. I can't do that. I can't be having tenants that are like that. I mean, there's a reason we fix, like, even minor dumb stuff at our properties. Like, that

Dan Austin: [14:03] I know.

Mike DeHaan: [14:03] We don't... We don't... Things that I personally live in... Live with in my own house that are, like, broken, where we fix another property. It's like, dude, when I went out... When we were filming YouTube at your house not

Dan Austin: [14:13] too long ago, you didn't

Mike DeHaan: [14:14] even have, like, a functioning toilet in your basement, dude. Because you didn't have

Dan Austin: [14:17] the handle the handle broke

Mike DeHaan: [14:18] on it. Yeah. I just You're pulling the chain like you were a

Dan Austin: [14:22] At a

Mike DeHaan: [14:23] 15 year old. I have I have

Dan Austin: [14:24] four other bathrooms I could use.

Mike DeHaan: [14:26] But the thing is if you had a tenant that complained about that, you would have to come

Dan Austin: [14:30] there then. I'd be fixing it. Yeah. I'd I'd pay our handyman $75 to go do it. Yeah. Don't even think about it. Yeah. You're absolutely right. It's funny.

Mike DeHaan: [14:38] Whatever. But, anyway Yeah. But, yeah, so stuff's been going pretty good, though. We're finally getting some some good systems. I kind of are... With all these markets we've been doing, been working on bringing on more admins and that sort of stuff. We got some Mhmm. Two new guys calling them the the ACE team, and they're basically doing the lead management for us since now we have so many leads coming in. And they're virtual employees. You've had a handful of virtual employees, but they're just freaking rock stars right now, dude.

Dan Austin: [15:04] They're They're killing it. They're, yeah, they're really good. I just appreciate how on it they are. Lead comes in. Everybody knows. Yeah. You know, they're really good about it.

Mike DeHaan: [15:12] In fact, I almost feel bad for our sales guys because they're not allowed to miss anything anymore because they're Exactly. Those dudes will kick

Dan Austin: [15:19] their ass, man.

Mike DeHaan: [15:19] Yeah. They're they're on it, like, right away. A lot of the times, like, I'll see a lead come in. I'll go in, like, I'll check-in. I'll like, oh, Mark already already hit someone up about it, so I guess we're good.

Dan Austin: [15:28] There you go, dude. Doing your job for you, man.

Mike DeHaan: [15:32] Yeah. Exactly. So we've been we've been getting that figured out. And then

Dan Austin: [15:35] Yeah.

Mike DeHaan: [15:35] We got our our other... One of our other VAs doing our our marketing stuff, turning all all that together and trying to systematize things. It's funny with, like, one market, I know a lot people try to do that. Now with, like, nine markets, it's the same general processes, but just more. Mhmm. And just with more, it always gets more convoluted, so it's have to be slightly more organized. It's been an interesting thing to figure out. And it's kinda funny too because there's something about, I think, the the way that these people that are professional VAs and, like, the repetitive nature of a lot of tasks that they get through their careers, they just, like, pick up these patterns and, like, learn how to do stuff quickly because I've tried to explain similar stuff to, like, Americans. Like, even when we've had people internally that are doing stuff or, like, even trying to explain some of the things to our act managers, and they just don't get it. Like, they're like, I don't understand, like, how these things get all tied together. But you bring in an overseas VA, you know, all of ours are from The Philippines, and you just film, like, a little Loom video to show what you need to do. And then they're like, got it. And then they'll just, like, crush it. Like, the next day they're pros Or so great.

Dan Austin: [16:38] It's funny because like, it gets to the point to where I've done this a couple of times where I'm like, okay, do you get it? And I'm like expecting them to come back with some sort of response because that's what you're like, right. With like a US based employees. Yeah. Not all of them, but many of them. You're expecting some questions or like not understanding what you're trying to say. And they'll be like, yeah, I got it. I'm like, are you sure you got it? Yeah. Do you have it? Like, I don't believe them. And then you're right. The next day they're like doing it. They're like, oh, I'm good. Yeah. I'm like, oh shit, you were good. Okay, cool. Yeah, they're pretty snappy with that and picking it up and doing a good job and being pretty diligent about it. Yeah. And of course they all, it matters. It's definitely with the virtuals too. It kind of matters what region you're hiring them from. The Philippines are obviously probably the... One of the biggest areas. You know, we could talk about why that is, but where they come out of a, they're... It's a pretty cost effective region for you to have a staff of VAs out of The Philippines.

Mike DeHaan: [17:26] Yeah. Exactly. So You know? Before we dive in that too much, though, that was going to be our our educational topic for today. Because something in our... People in our instant investor group have started asking us pretty regularly is, finding VAs for some of these repetitive tasks, and what does that look like, you know, virtual assistants. So really quick, a... Gonna do our little ad here for the instant investor program. And after that, we're gonna dive into how we find VAs, the kind of stuff that we have them do, how to prescreen them, and how to manage them. And it's all a lot simpler than you think despite what people, tell you. So cool. Really quick. Some notes about the instant investor program. I'll be right back. The instant investor program is our twelve week group coaching program, which includes a self driven course and access to our private investor community. We will take you through the full process of how we find our leads, how we market, how we do our sales and follow-up, and how we determine the best strategy for every opportunity that comes our way. On top of that, you will also join a community of other like minded investors nationwide that are all marching towards the same goals, and you'll have direct access to Dan and myself so you can continue learning and growing with us as we continue to adapt and grow our business. Whether you're a new investor or already established, our systems can help take you to the next level. So if you think you might be a good fit, go to the instantinvestorprogram.com and schedule a call, and we can have you talking to motivated leads in as little as two weeks. Alright.

Mike DeHaan: [18:43] Virtual assistance. One of the easiest ways to start scaling your business and start basically taking tasks off your plate, especially if you have things that are repetitive and that you hate to do, is to bring on virtual assistance. And it's something that people have done for a long time. I mean, I remember learning about VAs way back when I started, like, you know, learning about business and passive income, and I read the four hour work week. And that's a big thing that Tim Ferriss, who wrote that book, talks about is using virtual employees. And, one of the biggest things that I always think is fascinating when it comes to virtual employees is there's a preconceived notion with American people, especially, about what a VA is capable of, you know, like, what they're... You know, what they can and should be doing, like like, their English level, like, their trustworthiness levels, all these things. People basically have this view that when you say a virtual employee, they think of, like, an Indian scammer, you know, that's, like, on the phone. Like, yeah. You get, like, like, the the telemarketing marketing calls that you get where there's, an Indian person that's, like, trying to convince you to buy something that nobody wants.

Mike DeHaan: [19:54] Right? That's what they think a VA is, right, a virtual assistant. But, really, it's such an industry now that there are places in the world where people go and get a degree to be a virtual assistant,

Dan Austin: [20:04] to become a professional. Well... Right? And you could be a you could be a a US based virtual assistant. They have those too. You can't. It doesn't necessarily... Like, it doesn't mean offshore. It could mean onshore too. It could mean on many different things.

Mike DeHaan: [20:16] That's true. I guess for the sake of this, we're talking about overseas ones. Overseas. Particularly because they're gonna be a lot more cost efficient than hiring American ones. Vastly more cost efficient. And from our experience work harder. Yeah. They work harder. They're easier to find. So, you know, the bulk of ours are from The Philippines. So we have virtual employees now in Romania, from India. We have one that was working with us on a contract basis from Russia. You know, we have had quite a few from The Philippines. And so many people, they're so afraid of starting to engage with these people or the whole process. The biggest mistake they make is they will go and they will find these different staffing companies or these different agencies that promise to bring them VAs. But they don't understand that those people, right, they're gonna charge you more money. They don't actually have your best interest at heart about what you need your VA to do. And they're literally just gonna go and do whatever they can to squeeze money out of you. And then if that VA fails or you fail to utilize them correctly, they're just gonna, like, let you go. Right? It doesn't matter because it's such an easy sell for them.

Dan Austin: [21:16] Mhmm.

Mike DeHaan: [21:16] And, you know, I I I talked to this VA staffing agency recently just like a referral from somebody, and I was like, sure. I'll entertain the sales call, whatever. They were charging $2,500 to go find an admin VA.

Dan Austin: [21:29] Oh my god.

Mike DeHaan: [21:30] And I was like, what? I was like, if I need to go find an admin VA, there's websites all over the place that you can go find them. So we've used Upwork Yep. Which is, you know, just like a freelancer platform. It's a great place

Dan Austin: [21:40] to find them. Yep. It's great. It's easy to find. There's tons. I mean, just go there and search for some. Whatever job, search a task and see what pops up. Just look at it.

Mike DeHaan: [21:47] Exactly. Right? And so Upwork, online jobs at PH, another one to find Filipinos. And you can just go find, like, anyone. It doesn't cost you anything. Yeah. And you can negotiate your price through there. It's all secured because you do your payments to the platform if you're worried about that. And as you said, Dan, you can find them for literally any repetitive task. No. It can be something as simple as you need to update a spreadsheet. Like, you have Yep. Let's say you have a bunch of columns that are merged, and you need them, like, be split up in some way, but it's in a way that, like, the formula... You can't really make a formula for it because it's just complicated enough, whatever.

Dan Austin: [22:21] Yep.

Mike DeHaan: [22:21] You can go and find someone to do it, and it'll cost you, like, $15.

Dan Austin: [22:25] You know? Here... Here's funny. Here's a couple of things I'll just use as examples. Like... Because you don't always necessarily need to hire a VA to work for you, like, rep... Like, weekly. Correct. Sometimes it's just... It is a task. Right? And so I've gone out there. I had a guy from, I think he was from Russia. This was about a year ago, build some Excel spreadsheets for me that had some logic built into them, right? For, for like Gantt charts or project management charts for some of our projects. I had to build those for me easy. Think I paid him $50.60 bucks. Yeah. And he did it really fast. Way faster than I could have done it. Right? It would have taken me several days fully engaged to get this thing to work properly. And I knew that people do this out there, but I, a, wasn't gonna go pay hundreds of dollars a month for a project management software. And I wasn't be going to do it myself. Yeah. Another one I actually hired was to put a presentation together for me for a w two job. I was like, hey, here's what I need. Can you make all these graphics really nice and pretty? Yeah. Twenty four hours and $30 later. And somebody somebody commented like, dude, that's a good presentation. How did you how did you do all that? I was like, I paid somebody in The Philippines. Yeah. I mean, it seems like...

Mike DeHaan: [23:31] And it's exactly anything like that. Right? From data to past

Dan Austin: [23:33] Simple task.

Mike DeHaan: [23:34] We've had them create logos for us. We've had them create basic websites. We use them for... I mean, we have VAs that do, like, our our videos for this podcast. Right? Like, you know, they have a basic template, and then we just say, you know, here are the notes that you need to go and turn that into a video. They go and they do it. You know, if we're gonna hire, like, an American editor to do that, it would be costing us significantly more than we pay for it. You know? So, I mean, they they have skill. Right? A lot of them do, and a lot people don't realize that. And Very

Dan Austin: [24:01] good skill. High is a better skill. And, like, that's the thing too is a lot of times I know when I'm handing it over to any of our staff, they're probably gonna do a better job than me. Mhmm.

Mike DeHaan: [24:09] Honestly. And and and that's the key is, you know, when you are being... When you're an entrepreneur, you're a business owner, you have to be spending your time doing the highest... The the tasks that are the... Have the highest likelihood of generating revenue, of making money, the highest value tasks. But when you're a new entrepreneur, so many people get caught up in doing these little things because it feels busy. They're still in the w two mindset where your job as a w two employee is to be busy or to appear busy. Mhmm. Right? And they're doing those because they they... Now I say, not... They don't seem easier. They are easier than doing the revenue generating tasks are generally harder. But, honestly, what you can do is you can spend a couple bucks. It didn't need to be very much at all. I mean, all of our Filipino VAs, we pay $5 an hour. For them, that's a good wage. You know? It's kind of a standard wage. Exactly. And then they go and they do basically all the the groundwork for us. Right? Know, You like like the little things. Like, I mean, even for our instant investor program, we had our copywriter go and create a bunch of, descriptions for all of our videos just making it... Just putting together a little bit better.

Mike DeHaan: [25:08] And I went and I, like, went to look and start uploading, like, all the things. I was gonna copy and paste them in format. And I was like, this is a giant waste of my time. It's gonna take me, like, three hours, and it makes no sense. So I just pinged... We have a full time admin VA. His name's Harvey. He's awesome. We just go and I pinged him and I said, hey. Can you upload all these for me? He's like, yeah. Absolutely. Went and did them. Spent the morning doing it. Looks great. It's done. And I was able to go and manage our team, underwrite deals. Like, you know, we got... Know, I think we got a contract that morning because I was able be present to do that and not copying and pasting stuff into Kajabi. You know, like like, there's so many little tasks like that that you can outsource. And people... I mean, a, they worry about the money aspect of it when you're... If you're new new, I can understand that. But b Yep. I think people have this trust issue with having these overseas employees.

Dan Austin: [25:53] Mhmm.

Mike DeHaan: [25:54] But the funny thing is so many of these employees, they're typically skeptical when you first start working with them because they've been taken advantage of by other American employers. Other people. Right? Or they'll have people that don't pay them on time or, like, kinda jerk them around or whatever.

Dan Austin: [26:10] They have to beg for their

Mike DeHaan: [26:11] money type thing. Exactly. Tell you what. If you if you bring in these employees or, like, you know, even if it's, on a on a task basis, you're clear what you want. And the second they're done and they do a good job, you pay them, they will be the best people that ever worked for you.

Dan Austin: [26:24] Oh, absolutely. And they'll, yeah, they'll they'll go above and beyond.

Mike DeHaan: [26:27] Mhmm. All the time. You know? And and so

Dan Austin: [26:29] the question I have too is like, so you're saying people are are fearful. Like, I've never had a trust issue. I guess I'm a trusting person. I... You are very trusting person. I've I've I've always like viewed like, especially our virtual team is like, they're just working. Like, why would they wanna rip me off? Like, I've just never, probably it could happen pretty easily, I don't know, but I've just never thought that. But I also have looked at the system we're using. It's like, well, if they don't produce work, I'm not gonna pay them. And I'm not gonna give them my credit card number. I'm gonna usually pay them through some service Mhmm. That has, you know, secure... That's secured that will pay me back. Right? If if I get ripped off. Yeah. So I guess that's why I've trusted it. But anyway, you're saying people have trust issues. I think another issue on top of that is if I'm running a... If I'm... If Sam a wholesaler, I'm starting out, and I I know I need a VA, but I'm worried I don't have enough work for them.

Mike DeHaan: [27:16] Mhmm.

Dan Austin: [27:17] So that... That's another issue. That's another concern, which I would say, well, you don't have to necessarily hire forty hours a week. You could start by doing part time, But also, it's not that much money. And also, if they're not fully... If if they're not busy with the full forty hours, that's okay. You... Some weeks are gonna be fifty hours. Some weeks are gonna be twenty hours. Like, that's okay. It's just like any other employee. Exactly. And I think I think that's okay.

Mike DeHaan: [27:38] Yeah. I mean, you're completely right. Is is every employee in an an office working WT busy forty hours a week? Hell no.

Dan Austin: [27:44] No. I know. Know. Eighteen hours a week.

Mike DeHaan: [27:45] I was like four hours a week when I worked at WT.

Dan Austin: [27:47] Right. You really took that four hour work week to heart.

Mike DeHaan: [27:51] Yeah. You know? Yeah. But but you're right. But it's funny. It's okay. Yeah. And and people always stress about that too. I mean, even in GoBundance, I know people that will be like, so I I have a VA. Technically, working forty hours a week. I realized that she's only working thirty two hours a week productively for me. She's $5 an hour. Does anyone want these other eight hours? It's like, just leave her alone. Just leave her alone. It's like $35. You have you have you have a

Dan Austin: [28:15] net worth of $4,500,000. You made $800,000 last and you're worried about eight hours in I your know. Yeah, people get really skittish because they're like, they'll do screen tracking with their VA, which you can do too, but yeah, you're right. They're like, well, they weren't fully busy the whole time, or I think I can get more efficiency out of It's like, why don't you focus on getting more efficiency out of your onshore employees before you beat up the virtual employees for for what you're perceiving as efficiency losses?

Mike DeHaan: [28:39] Yeah. I know. Yeah.

Dan Austin: [28:40] It That's just my personal opinion.

Mike DeHaan: [28:42] For sure. And and it and it's really fascinating. And, I mean, really what... To manage these employees, here's what, you know, here's what what it should look like. You have the task. If that task is done to your expectation, pay them the money. You know? Like like, it... It's it's really simple. You know? Even if it's like... Even if you were... They quoted you forty hours, they turn it to you in thirty hours. Or, like, you just let them know, like, I'm gonna pay you $50 to do this, and they turn it around and they do it in, like, two hours. And you're like, damn. I could have paid $50 an hour. It could have been 10. Who cares? It's done. Yeah. Like like, ask for what that task is worth to you and make that the the goal. And then if it's if it's good quality, then just pay them for it.

Dan Austin: [29:18] You know?

Mike DeHaan: [29:19] And tell you what, you do that, like, you will have, you know, the best employees. They will be super loyal to you. And, I mean, ours, like, they never really miss a day unless it was something extreme. RV, like, his whole area that he lives got hit by, like, a typhoon, and his, like, house got destroyed, and it was, like, a crazy thing.

Dan Austin: [29:36] Crazy flooding and everything. Yeah.

Mike DeHaan: [29:38] And he was he was working the next day. And he he, like, rode in to apologize because he wasn't gonna be able to be as efficient because he was working on his cousin's old laptop. I was like, he... If that happens to an American employee, they're gone for months. You know? Right? Like, there's an extreme

Dan Austin: [29:55] Living in their FEMA trailer. Yeah.

Mike DeHaan: [29:57] Right. It's crazy.

Dan Austin: [29:59] So so it sounds like we've got some pretty good virtuals that work for us. And you kind of... You brought up, like, where you would typically go. So you said Upwork. There's Fiverr for, like, the creatives. Like, if you need some of that stuff.

Mike DeHaan: [30:11] Yeah. Online jobs at ph is a good one.

Dan Austin: [30:13] Online.jobs@ph is a good one. You found someone read it before. So basically you can Google like where to find these folks. You can find them. Yeah. But, you know, up... Upwork's probably the most commonly used one just because they have like all of the things you would want to hire virtual. They kind of have that management system, but doesn't necessarily mean it's the only or the best platform to find the best people, but those are the platforms. So then when you have, when you, when you've, you've gone out there and maybe you've put a job posting or you just searched, say you needed a bookkeeper, so you just search for a bookkeeper or whatever. How do you get the right person? And what do you do? How do you set it all up? How does it go from, okay, I'm going to pick a person and this is how I'm going to employ them and manage them? What are those steps those first steps required?

Mike DeHaan: [30:56] Just like every other employee. Right? So, you know, you always have some interview questions. You ask about their background. Mhmm. What I've always done in my questions is I'll have something in there that's kinda, like, silly. I don't know. That's like that's like, I don't know, a dumb question that doesn't really make sense. Like, you know, send me a voice recording telling me, you know, your favorite food or, like... Just so I know that they read the description, they know what they're doing, and then I ask for the voice recording just so that they... I know they speak English well. Right? Or I'll say, like, you know, send me, like, an introduction. But I I I I try to work in something there that... So I know that it's custom. So they're not just sending me, like, a bunch of boilerplate stuff or, you know, or they Right. Or or they have a staffing company that's just going and blasting things out. Because you... It can get a little bit hairy. Like, I remember a while back, I was looking to hire a cold caller. I went on Upwork, and I had a bunch of guys. They were from Pakistan. All of them were... Did this. And they all applied for the job, and they all sent me literally the exact same recording.

Mike DeHaan: [31:58] Not the same script, but, like, literally the same recording of the same two guys talking. Right? So it's obviously not Oh,

Dan Austin: [32:04] that's funny. You know?

Mike DeHaan: [32:05] So you gotta use a little bit due diligence and try to get things to make make sure, you know, that they actually know what they're signing up for. And then, you know, go through the interview process, explain, you know, what you need, set clear expectations just like you do with every other employee. Mhmm. And then from there, it's really pretty simple. You know, you get them plugged into your system, you create a username if they need it, you share the full... The documents, whatever that is. And then for paying them

Dan Austin: [32:29] We we use some we use some just like... I wanna slow down here for a second. We generally use... Well, we use Slack Mhmm. For communicating with them as like a... Is free. Yep. You can obviously use email as well. Or you

Mike DeHaan: [32:40] can use Google Drive. You can use WhatsApp. You can use whatever.

Dan Austin: [32:44] Yeah. They'll typically for, like, cell phone, yeah, communication, you'll have to do something that you can do on Wi Fi calling, all that sort of stuff. Right?

Mike DeHaan: [32:49] Or if you're doing what... Upwork, you can communicate through Upwork. Same with Fiverr. Yeah.

Dan Austin: [32:53] Which is why, yeah, Upwork and Fiverr are great for those two reasons. Mhmm. Which, you know, I I I personally prefer not to pay on Upwork because they lose some of the money because they have they have to pay to be part of the system. But, you know, once you get past the trust, if you have a trust issues, then you can pull them off Upwork and pay them. We use Wise a lot of times to pay or PayPal.

Mike DeHaan: [33:12] Yep. Yep. Yeah. Exactly. And and those are secure systems that, you know, verify their bank information. They are who they are and all that sort of stuff. It's not like you're just sending money out into whatever. Especially Wise, like, they actually have to verify themselves with their bank so they are who they are. And, you know, it keeps Yeah.

Dan Austin: [33:28] It's pretty arduous process with Wise. It is. Wise is like... It's like legit. And then once you've... Once they're all secured in there, then you can send them money pretty easily, pretty quickly within, like, a few hours, which is kinda dope.

Mike DeHaan: [33:38] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So so that mean that... That's the way we do it. And then from there, you know, the checkup process is just like everything else. If you wanna do time tracking, we've used a system called Hubstaff. You're paying them hourly. We've always... It's funny. We've used Hubstaff for employees. We make them, like, sign in with it and do all of it. I can't tell you if I've ever actually checked it before. Again, just... You know, it it sets the precedence that they need to be working full time, and then I don't necessarily verify it. But if the work gets done, then I just pay them anyway.

Dan Austin: [34:07] Got

Mike DeHaan: [34:07] it. You know? So you can be as detailed with that as you want. Mhmm. If you are using... Doing things that are, I guess, of, like, a a sensitive nature, you know, you can do screen sharing and things like that to make sure you're not doing anything malicious. But, I mean, I don't know. I've never been too concerned about that. It's kinda micromanaging. It's like if I had if I had an employee that was sitting right here next to me, I'm not gonna sit there and watch their screen the whole time to make sure they're not dicking around. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly.

Dan Austin: [34:32] It's it's just like any other employee. Yeah. Honestly. Yeah. In that in that case. So, as far as like expectations and getting them started, because I think this is where people can fail too, they can be like, oh, I hired a VA and they sucked. And they very well might have. Right? We've hired VAs that just don't work out. Right? But what does that expectation look like? How do you keep them engaged and busy and doing the work and knowing? You know, because like Filipinos, for example, even though they are really good at learning and doing things, they're also a pretty, I don't know what you call them, amiable culture. They're very nice culture, so they won't say or do anything. They're always like, yep. Sure sure thing, sir Dan. Sir Dan. Sure thing. We can do that for you, sir Dan. Like, very formal, very nice, and they they won't give you necessary feedback.

Mike DeHaan: [35:16] Mhmm. I mean, so I I explicitly asked for it, you know, just just like I do with all the rest of my employees. I was like, you have any problems? You have any questions? Please tell me. And I I always emphasize with, there's no dumb questions, and you're not gonna hurt my feelings. Right. So just like, let me know if you have any problems with whatever that might be.

Dan Austin: [35:32] But being very clear upfront with that, but also being very clear with, like, here's what I need you to do and when I need you to do it and how I need you to do it. Like, whatever those details are, I think are really important. I have found personally are very important because then if they can't follow those, that's when you need to start thinking about pivoting. Because it is a virtual employee. You do need them to be productive and to follow through on tasks because you aren't there to stare at their screen and watch them. Right. So that's just for me personally, what I found. And as the relationship evolves and they know what you want, then you can just throw things over the fence a lot easier. But when they're first learning, you know, you might like for our bookkeeper, we just started a new virtual bookkeeper. I shot, like, a dozen five minute Loom videos showing her kind of our system and setting the expectation. Like, this is exactly how you do these things. Done. I haven't had to think about it too much

Mike DeHaan: [36:20] after that. Yep. Yeah. For sure. And, you know, just like any other employee, set the expectation. They don't meet it. Gotta let them go. And then, you know, if it becomes a reoccurring problem, if you have several people come into the same role, it's not working, it's probably not a them problem. It's probably a you problem. It's a you.

Dan Austin: [36:35] It's a you problem. Totally. Yep. Absolutely. You're maybe asking too much or you're not being clear or whatever reason. It's it's definitely a a you problem.

Mike DeHaan: [36:44] Yep. So... Yeah. Cool. So I guess to go full circle, you know, honestly treat them like every other employee. You can find them on Upwork, online jobs at PH, Reddit. You really don't need to go to these staffing companies. They're gonna charge you an arm and a leg for it. Are they gonna charge you $9 an hour? I'm telling you, it's so much simpler than you think if you treat them like human beings with families and, you know, ambitions, which they are. Like, honestly. Mhmm. So Yeah. They're normal people. They're normal people. Right? So if you go into with that mindset, it's quite easy to find them. Setting clear expectations, set, as you're creating processes for things, you know, be explicitly clear about what the expectations are and what you need to be done, what the alchemy's look like. If they're not doing that, then, you know, you can pivot and move on from there. Mhmm. So, you know, ultimately, it can be something that really helps escalate your business. All those repetitive tasks, those anything that you're like, man, I hate doing this. This is so boring. You can probably find a VA to do it for a lot more than you think. And if you're... If you are serious about growing a business, it's definitely a must, especially if you're trying to make a... You know, keep a kind of a lean in house operation.

Dan Austin: [37:52] You're not trying to It's it's critical. And and if you wanna run us... And as an entrepreneur, it doesn't matter if you're in a real estate business or not. Like, if there's an option for you to have some of your work done at a low wage, be okay with sending some of this offshore. This isn't like the American made versus like offshore, you know, imported stuff. This is like logical business stuff that Americans most likely aren't going to do for you anyways.

Mike DeHaan: [38:14] Yeah.

Dan Austin: [38:15] Exactly. Honestly, at at the pace you need and at the quality you

Mike DeHaan: [38:18] need. And I think that's such a key that's such a key point is in order to find someone to do a lot of this stuff, you can pay them $5 an hour. They'll be happy to do it. You have to find an American employee. You're probably gonna pay them $45,000 a year. They're gonna be pissed off and be looking at other jobs the whole time. It's gonna be so bored.

Dan Austin: [38:32] Yeah. Because they're gonna be dissatisfied with their work because it's... Sometimes it's not fun work. You know? Repetitive doing RTS, for example, as a VA. Our VAs don't love doing that, but they do it.

Mike DeHaan: [38:41] Return to sender. Right? So basically meaning they go, they, verify addresses on letters that we get back. They're literally manually looking at the envelope, going to the county records, making sure that the name and the mailing address are correct, and they're doing that line by line for thousands and thousands of Excel sheets.

Dan Austin: [38:58] Yes.

Mike DeHaan: [38:58] Lines.

Dan Austin: [38:58] Yep.

Mike DeHaan: [38:59] I I... You cannot pay an American employee enough to do that. You can pay a VA Well, you could.

Dan Austin: [39:03] You you could pay them $200 a year, right, to do it. Alright. But we're gonna pay a VA the equivalent of that, but in Filipino pesos. Yeah. Yeah. Let's be honest. They are making a $5.06, $7 an hour US. They're making a lot of money.

Mike DeHaan: [39:17] Yeah. I think that they're doing pretty well. That's like that's like a stable w two job in The United States for sure. Yep. So... Yeah. Sorry. Yeah. Alright. Right on. Well, if you have any... Has any questions about VAs, I love virtual employees. They're one of my, like, I'm I'm the quickest person to offload everything virtual employees whenever I can. So feel free to hit me up on, my Instagram at Mike underscore Invest if you have any questions about that. You can hit up Dan at investor man, Dan. If you wanna learn how to find off market leads and become a wholesaler flipper investor that buys massively discounted properties, you can still do it in this market. In fact, we've started to tick up. We did an episode a couple weeks ago about how things were going kind of sideways. Now all of a sudden, they're going awesome. Like, I don't know. People kind of went over the climb, and we're... We got three contracts today. So go to... Check out the instantinvestorprogram.com, and you can learn from us. We'll teach you exactly how our business runs and how you can run a business exactly the same. Besides that, go download, like, and share our podcast with many people as you can. We're looking to grow this past the three figures to 4 figures on weekly listeners. That's the goal.

Dan Austin: [40:22] Yeah. 4 figures, baby. 4 figures. Yeah. Get it.

Mike DeHaan: [40:26] Yeah. And then, if anyone wants a shirt, this would be the third time I'm gonna say this on episodes that are coming out. But the first five people to send me a DM for a shirt, I'll send you one. If you send me one

Dan Austin: [40:37] Bro, I didn't... I still didn't get mine.

Mike DeHaan: [40:39] I know. You're right. Shay, I even came and saw you yesterday. Anyway, first five people to send me a DM. Maybe send me a DM, Daniel. It'll be one of the one of the first ones. I'll send you a Nike shirt, which are pretty sweet. You can check them out on our YouTube. We've worn them a couple of them. And then that's all we got. So cool. Send us away, Dan. Alright. Investor man

Dan Austin: [40:57] Dan with Mike Invest, signing off for another week.

Mike DeHaan: [41:00] That's all you got. You don't, you don't got any.

Dan Austin: [41:01] I was

Mike DeHaan: [41:01] trying to, was trying

Dan Austin: [41:02] to, that was, that was like my serenaded voice, like, Delilah on the radio. I thought that's what I was going to sound like that. Work.

Mike DeHaan: [41:08] Didn't work at all. No. And more like stalker vibes. Oh shit.

Dan Austin: [41:12] Alright. Next next time.

Mike DeHaan: [41:13] Alright. Thanks, guys. Talk to you next week.

Speaker 3: [41:15] Thanks for listening. Please leave us a review on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts, and check us out at collectingkeyspodcast.com for tips and guides on starting your own real estate investment and wholesaling business.