How To Hire True Virtual Professionals with Greg Brooks from Rocket Station Virtual Staffing

Greg Brooks: [0:00] That's why like, even even our company, we're RocketStation Virtual Staffing. Because virtual assistant, both on the hiring side in The Philippines as well as here in The States, it kinda brings that connotation of, oh, they can just do, like, admin tasks, like manage my calendar, clean up my like, no. Like, they, you know, they can do data analysis, run transactions for you, do acquisitions, cold calling. Right? So it's really a more of a virtual professional.

Mike DeHaan: [0:23] 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. What's going on, guys? In this episode of the collecting keys real estate investing podcast, we have Greg Brooks. And a slight tangent from the real estate focused content was because he is a light real estate investor, but more importantly, he runs a VA staffing firm called Rocket Station. And I love the content that he brought Dan. It's awesome. It's super great because not only does this guy run a VA staffing firm, he actually runs a good one.

Greg Brooks: [1:13] Yeah.

Mike DeHaan: [1:13] And not like a lot of the bullshit ones that you've probably seen out there where they're like

Dan Austin: [1:17] We've tried some of them.

Mike DeHaan: [1:18] We've tried a lot of them. There's there's an abundance of ones that are terrible where their whole business model is to get you to pay $10 an hour for the $3 an hour VA. Then you fire them, and they say, oh my god. We're sorry. They were terrible. We'll get you a new one. And they try to keep you on the hook. You don't actually get results.

Dan Austin: [1:32] They keep that $3 an hour VA for someone else.

Mike DeHaan: [1:35] Exactly. But they actually even go the extra mile where not only do they provide you the VA, but they help you build out your internal systems and processes to more effectively utilize that VA.

Dan Austin: [1:46] Well, you and I know as well, like, from all the VAs we've had, that's the point where VA succeeds or fails, is if you, as the business owner, actually provide them the systems and processes to do their job.

Mike DeHaan: [1:58] Yeah. With anything. With anything. Yeah, for sure. And they help you overcome that gap by coming in, you know, they charge a cost like $2, not even that much, to literally come in and do that for you. Even if you're a small business owner, I guarantee you have these processes that you know you need to do, and you've been pushing off for months, for Dan and I, freaking three years. You will come and that makes you don't have to do that for $2,000 and give you a VA that will do that task that he just helped you build. And you can just have a much more robust business without having to deal with, like, the gray area by trying to figure out how to manage these people.

Dan Austin: [2:32] And I love, just lastly here, how aligned he was with how how we treat VAs. Like, he's like, oh, he said it multiplies their people, And they train them and develop them, and they internally promote and increase pay. That doesn't affect you. They do that on their end, just like you would in The US with an employee. They really try to develop them into awesome people for you, because that's how you're successful. I just think that that's so valuable, because so many people hiring VAs, or staffing with VAs, just treat them like, I don't know, like a peg that you're supposed to put in a round hole, and every once in a while it's in the wrong square hole, or whatever.

Mike DeHaan: [3:06] Yeah, exactly. I get what you're saying. I think you missed the metaphor there, but I think I got it.

Dan Austin: [3:10] You know what I mean? I don't have my calculator with me. Sorry.

Mike DeHaan: [3:14] Totally valid, you know, and just a good holistic view about it too. Yeah. Mean, ultimately, business is about helping people. And his his way this business that he runs with his VA staffing firm, it's not just about helping the business owners, even though we are the main characters. We're Americans. Right?

Dan Austin: [3:27] Yep.

Mike DeHaan: [3:28] That's how it rolls. But he, you know, he's actually making sure that the VAs are able to grow and progress in their careers as well. And that is, you know, that's very, very important for longevity with

Dan Austin: [3:39] these folks. For sure.

Mike DeHaan: [3:40] Anyways, guys, reach out to Greg. He offers a super awesome service. We had a good conversation with him afterwards. We're probably gonna explore working with him a little bit. And we're also gonna have him come and do a talk for our instant investor program. So if you're curious about joining that, you should come and and check out the instant investor program because then you can get some private q and a session with people like Greg.

Dan Austin: [4:01] Yep.

Mike DeHaan: [4:01] So, anyways, guys, share this podcast with anyone who might find it interesting. All of your business friends, this is a great business related episode that's outside of real estate a little bit. Besides that, go to collectingkeyspodcast.com/free to get our free five step guide to start generating off market leads. And, again, I'm gonna put this out there because I put it out there before. First first, you get a collecting keys tattoo. I will write you a check for $1,000. Oh

Greg Brooks: [4:23] my god.

Dan Austin: [4:23] So much money. $1,000.

Mike DeHaan: [4:26] I mean, a tattoo will probably cost more than that, but

Dan Austin: [4:29] it's not gonna cost You gotta help it.

Mike DeHaan: [4:32] So, anyways, guys, enjoy the show with Greg Brooks. Tons of great stuff in here. And if you don't enjoy it, I don't tell you because there is nothing but knowledge in here. Enjoy. Alright. Greg Brooks, VA extraordinaire here with us today from Rocket Station. So appreciate you coming on, Greg. For those who don't know what you do or what Rocket Station is, maybe give us, like, a 50 foot view, and we will dive into how you have mastered the virtual assistant game.

Greg Brooks: [5:00] Yeah. That's awesome. Mike, Dan, thanks for having us on. So Rocket Station's sort real estate specific, some call us boutique specialized virtual staffing and placement company. And really, like, what is unique about what we do, there's lots of VA companies out there. I'm sure lots of your listeners leverage VAs. Know we were talking, you guys do as well. What we do is on top of the hiring, the recruiting, the training that we do of thousands of Filipino based virtual assistants overseas, We also we're real estate investors ourselves, and we realize having a VA is one thing. Knowing what to do with that VA and how to set them up for success is a totally different thing, and especially for real estate investors. Usually when you're trying to hire VAs, you don't usually have a lot of time, right? There's either big market opportunity, you're trying to move into a new market, you've just bought a list and spent money, and you've got to convert that into deals. So having the background in real estate that we do, what we do is we help our clients document the systems and processes that they want their VAs to carry out. So build custom training, step by step SOP guides, manuals, recording scripting, so that when we place them with an expert trained real estate virtual assistant, the VA is empowered, and they know what it is they need to do, what the expectations are, and it just helps them onboard, and it really helps the investor leverage the true talents of that virtual assistant. Awesome.

Mike DeHaan: [6:19] I love that you start off with emphasizing that point because anybody who's listening to this, if you've ever worked with a VA staffing company before, pretty sure this is your experience. Was you go, they say it's gonna be, you know, this much per month, this much per hour, and then they bring you someone who, like, kinda, like, speaks English, kinda gets it, but they're not really aware about what you're hiring them for. Yeah. And even though the staffing company was like, no. We have people that are legit. They went and they found, like, a three

Dan Austin: [6:43] We have real estate transaction coordinators.

Mike DeHaan: [6:45] Yeah. But this is the recent experience we had. They went and they found like a $3 an hour VA that they're now billing you $10 an hour for. They have margin on it, and they're just hoping that you keep them around long enough for them to get paid. And then, you know, you fire the VA, they hit them back, and they just put them with somebody else. Yep. And that's the same with these staffing companies, with these cold calling companies, with so many of these lead gen companies where they give you overseas cold callers. It's all bullshit if you don't have a system and process. But, Greg, that's what you guys specialize in is making sure that you're not getting the shitty VA, but you're actually giving someone's educated and helping the company itself build out the system, right?

Greg Brooks: [7:21] Exactly. So we view it kind of in two lenses. It's, hey, we need to set the VA up to be successful. Yeah. Right? So, and say, we know a lot of them, but like a lot of those other, these fly by night VA companies, like, Oh yeah, we have real estate trained VAs. Well, that means that they maybe are a real estate investor themselves. They may be leveraged VAs. And then they started this little side hustle business where they get their VA's friends jobs, but the training might be a twenty minute conversation before they assign them to you as the client, right? So we're all about, we have a six week curriculum that every VA goes through. So it's about setting the person up for success. But the second part of that is setting the company up for success. We have a big feeling that even when you're hiring locally, like a lot of investors, a lot of REI companies, they kind of bottleneck themselves because they rely on internal team members. I mean, for a lot them out there, usually have a small team if you have a team at all. And a lot of real estate investors probably wouldn't list training and management as a top five personal skill that they have in their business, right? Like getting deals, negotiations, yeah, those are the skills. But in order to set people up for success, that's just not a lot of investors strong suit. So we really help, you know, make, help the VA be successful, but also help the client be successful so that they can leverage the individual. Right.

Dan Austin: [8:36] Yeah. Fascinating.

Mike DeHaan: [8:36] I appreciate, dude, just from, like, a human standpoint because that's something else that I find, especially with American entrepreneurs, is they always look at it like, man, these VAs are like, they suck. Like, you know, whatever. But they're human beings. Yeah. They're not throwaway. Yeah. As the staffing company, you want them to be help like, successful in their careers, the VAs. It's not just about the American company.

Dan Austin: [8:57] And they like to learn.

Mike DeHaan: [8:58] They wanna be trained. Right? That's exactly the point, Dan, is so many of them are driven. They just don't have the, support system or things like that to get where exactly they wanna go.

Dan Austin: [9:08] Yeah. I'll talk about that for a second, maybe, if you could, Greg, because it sounds like you definitely specialize in The Philippines. You could get a VA, we're using that word pretty broadly, you get a VA from anywhere. You get a VA from The US, right? It's just a virtual assistant, virtual employee, whatever you wanna call it. In The Philippines, what's the culture around this? Because it's a huge industry in The Philippines in particular. I would just love to understand from your perspective and your experience, what does that culture look like? What type of people are you drawing into this business? What type of people come to this business from The Philippines?

Greg Brooks: [9:38] Yeah, no, definitely. So kind of the long and the short of it, I mean, last twenty, twenty five years, really, since the internet started to stabilize, most of the Fortune 500, all of the major financial institutions in The US, virtual assistants, or really just outsourced team members, have been pivotal in them making their stock price number every single Interesting. That's how they leverage a lot of the back office operational work. So the type of person that you're talking about, and you're right, right? Lot of new investors are gonna fall on the sword and be like, Oh, I didn't do a good enough job. The good ones will, but most of them it's, Oh, my VA sucked. They didn't know how

Dan Austin: [10:10] to cold call

Greg Brooks: [10:10] it, which sometimes is fair, most of the time isn't. The types of people that we're recruiting, mean, have college educations. The Philippines is known around the world. I mean, it is a third world country by comparison, but they have the highest education rates of any third world country anywhere in the world. Wow. Even though it's in Southeast Asia, English is a very primary language there. Most of my team members, they're by tribe, tons of different linguistic talents. Most of them speak four or five different tongues. English being the primary, that's what all the schooling systems are in. And the types of people we're recruiting, like, I have many team members on my team and in the business development side of our business who have worked five, ten, fifteen years at JPMorgan, Citigroup, AT and T, Verizon. So when you talk about cultural assimilation from a professional standpoint, they're very used to working in the Western world because they've worked in this remote setup for some of the largest US companies. And especially during COVID, we've been able to unlock better, more qualified talent because the same way nobody in The US wants to go back into the office, it's the exact same in The Philippines, right?

Dan Austin: [11:16] And it

Greg Brooks: [11:16] was kind of prior to COVID, everything, both here in The States as well as in The Philippines, had this virtual assistant tag to it, which that just doesn't do justice for what the capabilities of that individual are. Yeah. Right? So that's why, like even our company, we're Rocket Station Virtual Staffing, because virtual assistant, both on the hiring side in The Philippines as well as here in The States, it kind of brings that connotation of, oh, they can just do admin tasks, like manage my calendar, clean up my No, they can do data analysis, run transactions for you, do acquisitions, cold calling, right? So it's really more of a virtual professional, and through our platform, we were helping our team members pre COVID make that transition, being like, Hey, you can get all the same better pay, better benefits than working at a JPMorgan or at a Convergys, which handles AT and T and Verizon, American Express, and work remote from the safety of your home, and you can still have a very professionalized position, right, that's driving a lot of value for your clients. So we really like I said, the talent base that we're seeing and unlocking, because just the employment demands or wants of a Filipino are really not that different than what you see here in The States now with people wanting to work, either fully or at least hybrid, you know, remote.

Mike DeHaan: [12:35] Right? Yeah. I love it. That's cool. I mean, makes perfect sense, and I've always found that as well. Even when we are, you know, we've interviewed VAs to come work for us, and, you know, one type of them that have worked for us, we've had so now I think I was looking at our Slack channel, the people that have come and gone. We have 25 different members that have come and gone from the company over three years, which is crazy for various roles. And more often than not, a lot of the VAs, not only are they educated like in the bigger picture stuff, right, but even the microsystems that we have a lot of time training up American staff how to appropriately use. Things that are super basic, like Google Drive, Excel, Slack.

Greg Brooks: [13:16] Basic functions of your CRM, like Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. When you're working with someone overseas, like, they've had to use these tools because

Mike DeHaan: [13:23] They totally get it.

Greg Brooks: [13:24] Work remote their entire life, absolutely.

Mike DeHaan: [13:27] Exactly. And so you don't have to time on those things. And it's more just around education on the nuances of your business and, like, the specifics of whatever your business model is. Right? Which is great because, like, on the other side with American staff, we we've had great American staff that have come in and had potential, but they're just like, I can't figure out the CRM, they quit. Yeah. And you're like, come on. Really? Really? It doesn't make any sense. It's like the simplest thing too.

Dan Austin: [13:53] How do you not know technology Yeah. In this world? Yeah.

Greg Brooks: [13:57] Most of the I mean, all the CRMs that we deal with, it's like, the CRM is designed to be a tool that anyone could pick up and learn. So, it's like, you're just not trying. You don't really care, right?

Mike DeHaan: [14:07] Yeah, yeah. But the point is the culture there is that they understand that, and they are, you know, coming in with that sort of base skill set already in mind, which I think is super, super valuable, something that's regularly overlooked. So you mentioned all the different roles that VAs can be, you know, brought on for. You know, everyone knows about the admin sort of roles. You hear about people having these VA, you know, even transaction corners, those sort of things. Something that's always fascinated me was people that use virtuals for sales roles. I'd love to have you dive into that. A selfishly, because I'm super interested in that. But also too, I've had several people ask me about, have you ever used virtuals to do actual hard closing sales? We've used virtuals for, like, lead management and cold follow-up. But actual hard sales, the main issues we've always had have been, a, the accent that many of them have. It just reeks telemarketer. Right? And, like, really damages credibility sort of early on. And that's market dependent too. Like, if you're in a rural market, it's a little bit tougher than if you're in, like, Seattle. And also too, just the the confidence around closing. We found that more often than not, they have trouble, from our experience, pushing for the close, and they default to being an information gatherer, and then they need to go and talk to the back office to make a decision when really you need a closer if they're doing true acquisition. So I'd love to just hear how you guys coach that, your thoughts on all that.

Greg Brooks: [15:31] Yeah. Definitely. So, I mean, for us, I think the confidence piece of it, which it's it's it's very valid point, but for us, confidence comes with knowledge. Mhmm. So what I tell people I mean, even thinking like local, like US based, I mean, finding really good closers is just tough to begin with. That's true. I mean, I just got back from a conference, you know, this week, and it's like, I don't know if it's people being locked up for two years or three years, whatever, wherever you were, but like, even just getting people to talk to you to be like, Hey, we're at this event, let's interact and network, is like pulling teeth these days, right? So I feel like salespeople are just in general kind of this unicorn, this whimsical, If I can just find someone who can do it, my business will 10x, right? But what I say to that is having a process and having education is what's gonna build that confidence, right? So often, especially in the investor VA relationship, VAs, whether it's because of that client they're working for now or because of past experiences, they're used to no results, you get chopped, right? Because a lot of investors out there, they don't wanna invest the time. A lot of them don't even view the virtual team member as a member of their team, which we feel like is the biggest mistake, right? Even if you're hiring this person just for ten hours a week, five hours a week, put them into your Slack channels, communicate with them, give some process, give them some training, so they can really feel like they're a part of the team. I know we have clients, it's definitely not something that I say, Hey, we have a whole team of closers that just hire us right now, and for $10 an hour, we'll get it for you. It's definitely one of those skills that we find virtual assistants mature into.

Greg Brooks: [17:02] So one of the most common roles that we leverage and plug into is like a virtual lead manager. So it's kind of that hybrid between information gatherer, lead qualifier, cold call or text, whatever, but it's also the person making additional callbacks for additions. You know, sending out kind of the soft offers, getting a feel for, Hey, this is what we could do. And we find that role works very well to mature the VA along, and to give them that confidence, and to give them that knowledge to be able to help convert more. And then for, say, whether you're the business owner and you're the one converting, having to act as the acquisitions person, or if you have an acquisitions person as well, so often we see our clients are just missing out on tens of thousands of dollars simply because they touch a lead less than three times. So from their initial interaction, to getting them in the CRM, to following up with them, there's usually less than three touchpoints. And in sales, for some of our top clients, their magic number is eleven, twelve, 13 touchpoints between texts and follow-up and calls and emails. So that lead manager role, we find it to be super valuable for our clients because, a, it creates a platform where the VA has a little bit more control and a little bit more skin in the game to push that negotiation along, which in six months, a year, a year and a half, gives them the confidence where you can transition them into a full acquisitions role, right? Sure. Where they can be pushier because they've been in more of these situations.

Greg Brooks: [18:27] But it also has an immediate impact on the client's business, because most leads, we get the two or three that are actually motivated, and the rest sit in the CRM for six months, a year, until we're like, Hey, we have a lot of data here. Let's try to get something going. Let's run a new call campaign or run a text campaign. So you win on both sides. You keep your current acquisition people happy, because they're working warm, hot, motivated leads constantly. You're also building the confidence and building the training through practical execution of your virtual assistant, knowing you can level them up, but then you're also not having data that goes to die that you've paid for. So like I said, I think the closer role and and and, you know, there's a little bit of a cultural difference with The Philippines as well. Mhmm. I mean, I tell people this. I mean, they're just the nicest, hardest working culture of people that you'll ever come across in your life, and they want to do well, right? So part of it with being in the VA space, and maybe being working, used to working for clients where it's like, Oh, you didn't find me six warm leads today. You're fired on your second day. You know what I mean? Like that creates a certain angst. So giving them the confidence to understand really what you're doing, the disposition strategy you utilize, all that stuff, but then also just building that trust as the team, letting them know it's okay to fail.

Greg Brooks: [19:40] Like listening to their calls, investing a little bit of time on the front end, whether that's through documented process or just time with them to set that contextual understanding. I mean, pays 10, a 100, a thousand X on the back end, but it does take a little bit of time.

Mike DeHaan: [19:55] Yeah. So I guess the short version being, treat them like human beings.

Dan Austin: [19:59] Yeah. That's helpful, Or, yeah, I have a follow-up to that too, and I think I know what the answer is gonna be, and you just started touching on it, but do you have any recommendations for folks that have VAs and they want to move them along in the growth of their business? Because all too often what I've seen happen is, you hire somebody, and then you do want them to move up into that, maybe that act manager role, or whatever that next level is, but they are so built into, or so used to running that system, that it's like, I always say that it's like they run into a closed door, and then they don't know what to do, so they have to ask you, what do I do next? And it's like, open the door. How do you bridge that, so that you're not building a person that just pushes buttons? Because that's so easy to do, honestly, on both sides of the relationship.

Mike DeHaan: [20:43] That was just such a funny comment, Dan. It's so true. We always joke about that with our guys. They're like, k, now go fill out this spreadsheet, and they're like, k, cool, I'm done. They're like, where is it? Like, oh, it's on my computer. It's like, no, put it back on the drive, they have to be super specific. Right.

Dan Austin: [20:57] Yeah, it's

Greg Brooks: [20:57] like, how

Dan Austin: [20:58] do you get beyond that? Because you do need to start there with any employee of like, step by step, but how do we grow past that? Because I'd love to know.

Greg Brooks: [21:04] Yeah. No, definitely. So this is where the process piece of our business really comes in play. For a lot of our clients, to just keep using acquisitions, what we do is we feel like just a lot of companies, they don't really run a process driven company. And if they do have some processes, it's usually the six inches between their ears. Right? So I think initially, and whether it's a new hire, whether it's someone who you wanna mature through the company and promote, I mean, I've never hired someone who in the first week didn't want to impress. Right?

Dan Austin: [21:30] Sure.

Greg Brooks: [21:30] It doesn't happen very often, but we hear these nightmare stories of people who are even looking into our services. We're like, Oh, I had a VA, they sucked, and I fired them three days later. I'm like, No, you suck. Yeah. Right? You know what I mean? Right. Yeah. So I feel like having the process, right? Running a process driven sales team, and what I mean, that can be documentation, that can be standard templates and scripting, that can be even just having KPIs and metrics, right? Communicating clearly like, Hey, your job now is not to follow-up with a 100 leads per week. Your job is now I'm scoring you against this much capital, or whatever the outcome is, and creating those very clear metrics. Our sweet spot is like three to five. We feel like whether it's a local team member or a VA, if you're trying to have somebody control more than three to five key KPIs for that role, you probably need more people, or you've got somebody doing something that they're not the greatest at. But I think that's the biggest thing, anytime you're trying to mature somebody through. And then the second part of that is let them fail. You know what I mean? Don't so often, just with employees that we're trying to mature and run through, we're like, We as business owners, it's, Well, just let me do it for you. It's like, no, take the time, understand that maybe the Excel sheet, maybe it's gonna take an extra three hours. Maybe it's column isn't gonna be where you would do it, right?

Greg Brooks: [22:49] But I always go back to the Rockefeller quote, I'd rather make 1% off 100 people's work than 100 off of just my work, right? It's having that expectation and creating the feedback loop, right? Knowing they're not gonna be perfect, encouraging them to fail, and then picking them up and coaching them through it, while backing that up with documented processes and systems. It will help them, say, either run through that door or at least open it up and not hurt themselves all the

Mike DeHaan: [23:14] Yeah. Way Yeah. I think a big part of that too comes down to that VAs are kind of sold to inexperienced entrepreneurs and business owners. Mhmm. And so they aren't in a place that they can understand or they they comprehend as, like, the business owner. But if something internal, like an administrative task gets messed up and it takes, like, you know, two days longer, that's not the end of the world. Like, if you have or if you're approaching your business on such a short timeline, you kinda need to reassess something because you're not gonna be successful.

Greg Brooks: [23:45] Well, and and then what I would say to that as well and and I'll say this is partly because of the virtual assistant industry and the staffing industry as well. There's a lot of companies, and and we've been guilty of it as well, where they sell VA services like a remember the Staples commercial that that was easy button?

Dan Austin: [24:02] Yeah. Right?

Greg Brooks: [24:03] They sell the services where it's like, hey, just hire this person, and magically, they're gonna fix your business or know exactly what you want. Yeah. I mean, like I said, VAs can be the most valuable, the best people to leverage in any business, especially in real estate. But thinking you're not gonna have to invest some time into it to set it up for success. It's why we structure our experience the way we do, where, you know, it takes about ten days to two weeks for us to walk through with the business owner, we call it the download, to get the processes out of your head, formalize the documentation, put the structure in place. Yeah. I mean, the VA industry is just guilty of selling VA services as, oh, yeah. Everybody needs a VA. Well, yes, everybody needs a VA, but they also need to have some clear outcomes and expectations and some process in place so that VA can be the VA that that they're being advertised as. For sure.

Mike DeHaan: [24:52] Yeah. Yeah. I mean, ultimately, anything that sounds like it's too good to be true probably is. It's just a general rule for life. And here's how I know you're not full of it, Greg, is the fact that you expressed that at the start. Anyone that goes and tells you that I can solve your problem instantly, I can do this so easy if you just like give me this money, they're always they're not always not telling you the full truth.

Dan Austin: [25:13] Absolutely. No. The systems and planning seem to be the massive key that you and that's what I've experienced. You have to have a system, you have to plan for them, otherwise you get them to show up, and you're like, I don't have time to teach you. I mean, is a big problem, and what would you say the number one thing you'd recommend? Say you've got a solopreneur, and they're gonna hire their VA, first VA, first ever employee of their business, what would you recommend they do before that person starts?

Greg Brooks: [25:39] Oh, the very basics of it. Loom or the Zoom record feature should be your number one favorite thing that you do, Even if it's as simple as, hey, I'm gonna hire a freelance VA for a few hours a week to clean up my inbox for me. Go throw on a Zoom, or throw on a Zoom, or throw on a Loom, and for anybody who doesn't know, Google it. It's a video recording platform. You just make a video of yourself doing that task first. Right? And I'd say that's the very basic, but you have to give some kind of structure. You have to give some type of expectations. And don't get me wrong, there are jobs out there, we were talking about technical development, website coding, that type of stuff, you're probably looking for a different type of service provider or a different type of VA.

Mike DeHaan: [26:21] Mhmm.

Greg Brooks: [26:22] But for most of what people are hiring VAs for, cold calling, acquisitions, general admin, transaction coordination, go do it yourself. Or have the person on your team who's currently doing it, who you're trying to get some bandwidth back out of them say, hey, I'm gonna get you the VA that you need. Go make a twenty minute recording to show me how you do this so that I can hand it off that way. There you go.

Dan Austin: [26:41] That's a great

Mike DeHaan: [26:42] hack right there. That's something we've been doing recently as well, has been having internal members do that. Or something else we'll do too is if we need a step by step, we will record it, and then we'll give it to the VA and say, hey. Take this video and turn it into, a Word document. Exactly. And they do a great job with that. So So good at that.

Dan Austin: [26:58] They're way better at than I am. Honestly. Honestly, yeah. They, like, highlight things.

Greg Brooks: [27:02] Team we call them our process engineers. We've So got a team of about 60 now, it's 95% based in The Philippines, where they work with, like I said, up and coming startup investors all the way up to some of the biggest names in the industry, and that's all they're doing. That's definitely not my character suit, right? We were talking about the visionary real estate investor. Not a lot of real estate investors wanna sit and document, step one, log into CRM. Step one, you need that level of documentation. So whether it's hiring a VA, leveraging a service like ours, there are people out there that love that, I'll call it, nerdiness of the process and who can make very credible training and process docs that your team can leverage and that your team will really value.

Mike DeHaan: [27:42] Mhmm. Yeah. That's awesome. So that was that was a great question, Dan, about the the new business owner, new investor. You mentioned at the start, Greg, you guys help build SOPs and all these sort of things for VAs to be successful. So imagine that is working specifically with the business owners as well. Could you talk about kinda what that looks like? So, like, looking at Dan and I, our background, we've been at this for, you know, over three years. We've done several 100 deals. Like, we have a established routine and business procedures that are half of in our head, half documented. If we were to work with you, what would that look like for you to insert your VAs and your system in our business to help us be successful on both sides?

Greg Brooks: [28:21] Definitely. So where we always want to hone in on for the first hire is like, what's the immediate need? Anybody coming looking for a VA, there's something that's on fire, or there's some opportunity they need somebody for. So we always start with the job specific function, and really it's either sitting with you or saying, Hey, send us those Loom recordings. Or for a lot of our clients, they like the accountability of having a meeting with our process engineers where they're like, Hey, I know I can time block the next hour, and we can go through how I do my lead management, my acquisitions, right? Like almost for real estate investors, it's nice having that accountability of like, I know I'm gonna shut the world off for this hour and go through it. So you know, whatever way is easiest for the client to get it to us, but it's really just diving into that process. And the thing that's nice with our teams is we've got eight and a half years in this industry. We've worked with whether you're just trying to get to one deal consistently per month, or you're like you guys and you've done over 150 transactions. We work with clients who do 20 transactions a month. We also can help whether it's the technology question, whether it's best practices, whether it's, hey, what functions of this job is a VA gonna be best suited for? We help not only get the information out of you, but you're also leveraging literally hundreds of other clients who maybe are at the size you are now, but are trying, but have gotten to a bigger level, who could help make sure those processes aren't just set up to immediately hand the work off, but they're also set up for your six month goal, your year long goal, for what you think your business is gonna look like in three years. So I tell people it's just it's great having that resource there, and then for the longevity of our relationship, we're working with you to continue to update, refine, add to those process docs. Because we genuinely feel like most investors, I mean, average what? The average real estate investor lasts less than two years in the industry, and most of them flame out because they become the center of that spider web, right, where they have to do everything.

Greg Brooks: [30:14] They've gotta buy the list. They gotta make the call, and it doesn't ever unlock the freedom that we hear so much about with real estate, right? So we work on that partnership to help the entrepreneur and just continue to grow and continue to add on. Through good times in the businesses, I mean, we've all just come through a little bit of a market reset, right? So we're actively working with our clients to refine those processes to make sure that your team is set up correctly, that you've got the right number of people, and that they have clarity in what they're doing and how they're doing it.

Mike DeHaan: [30:46] Awesome, that's good stuff. And what's the typical cost, I guess, for you to work with as a consultant at that point as well as for the VA on a regular reoccurring basis? Because something else that always gets me to is you always hear these people that are on social media, they're like, yeah, have like a $3 an hour VA that does this, and they crush it. I know you're a liar, because no $3 an hour VAs are that good at what

Dan Austin: [31:05] they're Yeah, that's not the going rate.

Greg Brooks: [31:06] I was like, don't even hire a $3 an hour VA.

Mike DeHaan: [31:08] Yeah, right. So what's a realistic expectation for all that?

Greg Brooks: [31:12] Yeah, so for the actual VA services, we do part time or full time. For our business model, for the caliber of individual, we're trying to help entrepreneurs grow a company. We're helping them, even if your goal is, Hey, I just wanna consistently do two deals a month, we're trying to get you team members who are number one team members. They feel like members of your team, but who have longevity within your company. Whereas going back to what you said about a lot of the VA companies out there, it's, Hey, we'll place you with somebody, and then we have manager support. Well, that manager support is really just there waiting for you to say, Hey, my VA sucks, they go get you a new VA, right? That's their support. So we're in it for the longevity. So how we how we structure it, so for the VAs themselves, we have a part time or a full time option, fully dedicated. So they only work for you. Hours, custom, you know, all all that. We figure all that as we go through the process development. Full time's $10 flat rate per hour, and then part time is $12 flat rate per hour. And a part of that, obviously, VA's wages, they make anywhere from 40 to 60% of that number, depending on how experienced they are, depending how long they've been a part of our platform, depending on how they scored through the six weeks of training we put them through. But then every six months, we're doing performance evaluations, and they're making more of that $10 So for you as the business owner, you have a very modelable, flat rate that you can expect that VA at, but the VA has a pathway to to to more money as well, which once again, they're people.

Greg Brooks: [32:32] Doesn't matter where you live. Everybody wants a little more money.

Dan Austin: [32:34] Right.

Greg Brooks: [32:34] And then for all of the process mapping, the process development, both in the beginning as well as the ongoing, we do a one time implementation of 1995 on the front end, but that's good for the lifetime of the account. So even if you end up hiring 10 VAs with us, you're never paying for additional hires. If we ever do have to replace someone, obviously you're not paying for that, but then you also get all of that process development support. And where a lot of our clients will leverage that is they'll not just start mapping for their VAs, but their VAs become so intertwined with their teams that we'll do mapping for their US teams as well, so that there is that clear, concise handoff. So we keep it really simple. There's a lot of companies out there that there's like management fees, or there's additional placement fees, none of that. At the end of the day, for us, what we really wanna do, our VAs commit almost two months just to go through our training, to get to the point where we place them with a client. And really, like I said, we've got 2,000 people over there. So really our whole purpose is to provide incredible opportunity to our Filipino team members, but we wanna make sure that's done correctly. So say for $19.95 one time, and then 10 or $12 an hour hourly for their wages, you get all the support of what we offer.

Dan Austin: [33:41] That process mapping up front, as Mike and I know right now, that is very valuable, and probably worth every penny of it, because we're doing that in our business right now, and just trying to get everything out of our brains, and map it out, and then build how to's, and documentation, and SOPs, KPIs. That's a lot. That's a lot of effort to do.

Greg Brooks: [33:58] It's real time, right? I mean, there's, number one, there's lots of consultants, and anyone who's gone through an EOS or attraction course, there's consultants out there that they're not charging 2,000. They're charging a lot more.

Dan Austin: [34:07] They're not cheap, yeah, they're not cheap.

Greg Brooks: [34:09] But then even just your guys' time, right? I know in the real estate world, everyone's like, Well, I'm a $5,000 an hour person. It's like, Okay, cool, sure you are, whatever. But really, if you're having to spend twenty hours, thirty hours, if it takes six months to get at one process, like how is that really helping the business? So we try to 10x our clients' time. Typically in that two weeks, we need anywhere from three to five hours of your time, but our teams are spending anywhere from forty to sixty hours documenting and building everything to where you have these beautiful SOPs and playbooks, and you just have to go in and say, Yep, approved. This is what Let's we move to the next step.

Mike DeHaan: [34:44] Yeah, I was gonna say, if I'm $2, we should talk after this. I'm like,

Dan Austin: [34:48] show up, man. I'm looking

Mike DeHaan: [34:50] at my quality of life over the next six months and what we're expecting. I'm like, we should seriously have a conversation because we are in the midst of that right now. We are we are starting to scale pretty big here. Awesome, man. No. It's super, super good stuff, Greg. I love everything that you have going on, and I love the refreshing take that you have on the, you know, the VA staffing situation and training situation because, you know, it's the reality of it. And then we've had several people reach out with VA companies or different, like, cold calling companies that wanna come on the show. And I usually turn them down because I do a little bit of research. I'm like, this company is trash. Like, I don't want them on So but, no, so lots of good stuff. So I guess last question that I have for you regarding the the services and stuff that you provide, who would you say is, like, your ideal person that should come in and work with you? You know, so if someone's sitting here and they're going, I'm not sure if this is for me. I don't know if I'm quite ready for this or, like, I'm too big for this. Who's your ideal target client?

Greg Brooks: [35:49] Yeah, definitely. So what I'll lead with is anybody listening who's been interested in any of this, we have tons of free resources on our website. So rocketstation.com. We have everything from hiring guides, example job descriptions. We even have a master document that's kind of our business model in a box. So for anyone where it's like, hey, I wanna do this myself, go ahead. There's tons of resources, blog content. So so we can kinda help anybody at any size. What I would say where our our system is perfect, if you're kinda stuck at that one to two deals per month, right, and you're trying to balance, like, you almost have enough work to hire someone, but you don't, but you're working too much, that's really, like, where we can help you put some gasoline on the fire and get you the team that you need at at a really good price to help get you to three, four, five deals consistently per month. And then obviously, any operators out there that are, you know, consistently doing the two, three, four, we can just help you build a better business. Right? And and help you really build a team, both stateside as well as with our with our virtual team members that's very process driven, to where you can start unlocking new markets, new strategies. Be an actual CEO, right? Get out of being the guy that's gotta work in it, and start being the guy or girl that can work on it, and really drive the strategy while knowing the execution is taken care of. But like I said, anyone out there kinda just hustling, getting going, maybe you've done your first deal, done your first contract, rocketstation.com, we've got tons and tons of resources to kinda show people how VAs can be best used.

Greg Brooks: [37:13] Because with our pricing, it might not be the fit for someone who's only done one deal. Mhmm. But like I said, there are tons of great resources. We were talking about the podcast you guys did, the three places you hire your VAs, where there are tons and tons of talented people. Well, one thing that I will say is like, as a real estate investor, don't burn yourself out thinking you all have to be the guy or girl that does everything. Because at really any price point, if you put the right structure in place, you can, you know, you can find somebody who can help you double your business in the next six months. And even if doubling is just getting to that second deal, like, that's a good place to be in.

Mike DeHaan: [37:45] Yeah. Exactly. I always tell people that there's kinda two places where our our business changed. First, when we hired our first acquisition manager that was doing sales full time, that was an American based employee. The second one was when we hired our first lead manager Mhmm. Who was a virtual based out of Central America. And that was, like, literally changed the trajectory of our business. It's crazy. So, you know, if you're in that one to two deal place, Greg can definitely help you out and make it a little bit simpler than having to go and post on Reddit and Upwork and all the other sort of things that we've done in the past.

Dan Austin: [38:14] And filter through and try to hire and do it all yourself. It's hard.

Mike DeHaan: [38:18] Exactly. Or, like, you know, you go through and you post the this happened to me. It's just a funny story. But I've gone and posted on Upwork before, and I'll always have people say, send me, like, a voice recording, things like that. One of the first times I did that, I got all of these applications from these guys throughout, like, The Middle East, you know, Pakistan, those sort of things. And they all sent me the exact same recording. Not like the same script.

Dan Austin: [38:40] Yeah. The same old call recording. Yeah.

Mike DeHaan: [38:42] It was like a recording with a seller. You know, there was the one guy that had a killer call, and he gave it to all of his friends. They all sent me the exact

Dan Austin: [38:51] same And they all sent

Greg Brooks: [38:52] it out like it is.

Mike DeHaan: [38:54] So now I have it where they have to give me a recording, and they have to, like, tell me about their favorite meal or something that's completely irrelevant.

Greg Brooks: [38:59] So that

Mike DeHaan: [38:59] way it has to be custom. That's funny. But, you know, you can avoid that here working with Greg. Awesome, man. So good stuff. We're gonna dive into the end of show questions here. We have the same three questions that we ask everybody who comes on this show. First question, we might change a little bit for you because I know that real estate isn't your full time gig. Our typical first question is, what is your craziest real estate investing story? If you don't have one, let's talk about what your craziest business related story is. And this can be a big win, a crazy thing, maybe when you had to go and, you know, one of your Filipino centers had a hurricane and something, whatever you got.

Greg Brooks: [39:33] Yeah. So I say I've got I'll I'll give you kind of a good one and then one that kinda does touch a little bit closer home. So so the good one is we were just like everybody else during COVID. Right? March hits March 2020, and it's kinda what's gonna happen. Right? Where's real estate going? Where's this all going? So really the craziest thing is really the trajectory of our business and how we've been able to expand. I mean, I've got some great partners. We have incredible team members that work for Rocket Station that are based both here in The States and in The Philippines. And being able to go from a company of about 500 people to about 2,000 people in about two years is, you know, we look back now and I look at myself in the mirror and see these bags under my eyes, I'm like, wow, that's crazy. Like not a lot of companies can do that. And like I said, it's all a testament just to the incredible teams that we have and kind of the unique culture that that we've created being this blended organization between both The US and and overseas in in The Philippines. On on a little bit more serious note, one of the craziest things that I've ever experienced, and for you guys, you've used VAs in The Philippines.

Greg Brooks: [40:32] The Philippines, number one, is the most beautiful place in the world. So anybody yeah. I know this isn't a travel show, but anybody wants a free travel tidbit. You wanna go to the nicest beaches in the world, go to The Philippines. Mhmm. But we so the tail end of last year over Christmas, they had a once in a generation typhoon hit an area called Cebu. It's in like the the central part of the of the country. Google has a big investment there. We're moving a lot of our recruitment to that area. And they had a typhoon that came out of nowhere that left almost a quarter of the city, you know, completely just shut down. And seeing what our people were able to do ahead of the storm, getting people out, getting them to other islands, or getting them further north where it wasn't going to affect, literally, we're fully work remote. We have a small office in Manila, but we have 2,000 people everywhere.

Mike DeHaan: [41:20] And

Greg Brooks: [41:21] seeing, you know, work colleagues, right, but just pretty much kind of strangers welcome families, full families into their houses for Christmas is just amazing. It's one of the craziest, most incredible, inspiring things I've ever been a part of, ever seen, and just, like I said, really is a testament to just how incredible our people are over there. That's amazing.

Mike DeHaan: [41:42] Yeah. That's cool. It's a huge cultural thing too, think. You know, like, that sort of thing happens here, and then everyone's like, shotgun's ready. No one's coming to my house.

Greg Brooks: [41:51] Hey, we're in Texas, man. There's some truth to that, I'll tell you.

Dan Austin: [41:55] Christmas is a big event there in general. I mean, this year they had all the our VAs were showing us all the lights, and all the lighting shows that they have over there. It's really cool.

Greg Brooks: [42:03] It literally starts the end of September. It's amazing. Is lot. Anyone who wants to check out our LinkedIn, we did a cool kind of, you know, we're all about like making the VA a person, kind of like So we've talked about, we had a bunch of our VAs just give tours of their towns. And yeah, it's like these buildings, they look like little Lego castles that are just all lit up with Christmas lights. That's so cool. It looks like the most fun time of the year, it literally starts the end of September.

Mike DeHaan: [42:25] That's wild. That's funny. That's crazy. That is a cool story. I remember we've had several storms, and was that this past year, or was that a year ago?

Greg Brooks: [42:33] Yeah, it made landfall, I think, Christmas Eve, and then the storm went right through to the twenty sixth, it was it was serious. It was insane.

Mike DeHaan: [42:42] Yeah. Yeah. We we had one of our guys kinda go off grid. He it wasn't that storm. It was a different one, but he messaged me one morning. He's like he's like, Mike, I'm on the roof of my house. Like, there's a lot of waters. Like, we're trying to get evacuated. Like, I don't know what I'm gonna do. I'm like, okay, man. Like, let me know if you make it out. And then he was gone for, like, two days, and he came back, and he's like, alright. I'm ready to work. I was like, I'm sorry. I I had to be out for a

Greg Brooks: [43:05] couple days. It's crazy, and it's and part of it's like different you kinda know what you know, right? So it's different parts of the world. I kinda joke now having a more worldly view. Like, in America, we are very fortunate and very spoiled, right, for what we deal with. Same thing, had leaving that storm, we had our he was actually our head of IT for the entire company. And he's like how we described it, he was like had found one of the one of the mountains that's about 20 miles outside the city. He was at like a campground in the parking lot on his hotspot, like clocks in for his shift the next day.

Dan Austin: [43:40] Oh my god. That's awesome.

Greg Brooks: [43:41] And he's got like a three year old kid, like three year old son, and we're like, dude, go handle your stuff. Like, you're good. We can and every single day he's trying to log in, we're like, No, get out of here. Go handle your business. Wow.

Mike DeHaan: [43:52] The three year old son's clocking in too. He's got a data entry job somewhere.

Greg Brooks: [43:56] No, no, hey, we don't say that. Jeez. Hey,

Mike DeHaan: [44:00] hey, hey, what you don't know, dude. No, I'm kidding. Alright, that's cool. That's a cool story. Alright, second question. What is the number one tip you would give to a new investor looking to get started, or to a small time investor looking to take their business to the next level?

Greg Brooks: [44:15] Process. Document. Document. Document. Doesn't matter if it's the first learning course you've taken. Doesn't matter if it's the hundredth transaction you've done. You do not wanna create a job for yourself. No one gets into real estate because they want another job. Right? So all the I know you guys have a great coaching program. All the coaches, all the mastermind groups out there, you do not want to jump into real estate to create the most high risk job out there, where all of it's on you. So I would encourage everyone, do it do it in little increments as you go, as you grow, whether it's coming from a coaching class or whether it's a transaction you've done. Document, record, take notes, get as much of what you found to make you successful out of your head as possible as early as possible because you have to prepare whether you're hiring VAs or hiring people locally. It's the only way you can scale in in this industry, and it's gonna make it a heck of a lot easier down the road.

Mike DeHaan: [45:10] Alright. Great advice. Great tip for any business owner out there. Awesome. Alright. Last question. Where can people find you, follow you, and reach out to you if you'd like them to do so?

Greg Brooks: [45:18] Definitely. So rocketstation.com, like I said, tons of great information, tidbits there. Anybody who say maybe you're looking to hire a VA, maybe you're like, hey, this process thing, I think, say, Mike, I think we're gonna have a conversation here in a little for the process piece, but head over to our calendar, discovery.rocketstation.com. Say we do little fifteen minute consultations. Even if you just want some clarity, like, am I at the spot to hire a VA? Or here's kind of my pencil to paper process doc. How does this look? Is this gonna help? Whatever your questions are, I'd love for our team to be a resource for any of your listeners, so just head over to discovery.rocketstation.com to check us out.

Mike DeHaan: [45:59] Perfect. And if you guys have any interest in VAs, you would be foolish not to do that. They literally just said they have a free discovery consultation. You can get all of your questions answered there for free. Perfect. As you can tell, Greg is a wealth of knowledge, and I'm sure everyone at his team is as well. So awesome, Greg. Appreciate you coming on the show, Tons of great information here. Really, really excited to have had you on and had someone that is actually an authority in the VA space and didn't default to it because their other business sucked, but they figured out how to hire people on You

Greg Brooks: [46:27] said it's not me. Yes. No. Thanks for having

Dan Austin: [46:30] Thanks, Greg.

Greg Brooks: [46:30] It's been a pleasure.

Mike DeHaan: [46:31] Yeah. Awesome. So anyways, guys, reach out to Greg@rocketstation.com. Is that right?

Greg Brooks: [46:38] Yep. Cool. Yep. Discovery dot rocket station dot com.

Mike DeHaan: [46:40] Discovery.rocketstation.com. Definitely take him up on that. And if you enjoyed this show, please go and share it with anybody who might find this interesting, who has any interest in VAs. This is a great show, not only for real estate investors, but for business owners of all types. You should share it with all of your entrepreneurial friends. Get them in the collecting keys hook with this show, and then they'll stick around for the Mike and Dan show where, you know, people just listen to me and Dan talk BS on Wednesdays. So this is a great one to expand your podcast interests outside of your real estate, typical niche that you probably listen to. So share share this everyone, guys. Really appreciate it. Aside from that, please go to collectingkeyspodcast.com/free. Get a free five step guide to start generating off market leads. So that way, all of the VAs you go and you hire from Greg can follow-up with all the leads you're going to generate with our methods, and you can close some sick deals and make some real money next year. So and this year. It's only March. So, anyways, check that out, guys. Click thesepodcast.com forward slash free, and thanks so much for listening. We'll talk to y'all next week. See you all. 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.