My Top 3 Ways To Find Virtual Staff

Mike DeHaan: [0:01] Welcome to the collecting keys Friday focus. What's going on, guys? On this episode of the collecting keys Friday focus, I am going to talk about my top three places that I like to find virtual staff. So I am building off of the episode that we had on Wednesday where we talked about going from being a solopreneur to more of an actual entrepreneur and bringing on a team. And this was one of the common questions that we got after that episode was where exactly do I find these people? So I'm gonna dive into my top three places to do that today. If you are new here, my name is Mike DeHaan. I'm one of the hosts of the collecting keys podcast. And every Friday, Dan and I, my cohost Dan or I, we do a single show where we focus on a specific question that either came from our Wednesday episode or is something that comes from our group coaching program, the instant investor program. So if you're interested in that, you can go to collectingkeyspodcast.com, click on become an instant investor in the top right, and that would get you into our group coaching program where we focus on how exactly we have built an off market real estate investment business. And the people that are in that group, they get full access to do things like ask us to do a show on a certain topic, and this is one of the things that came up. So go and check that out. Click and keyspodcast.com and click on top right, become an instant investor, and it will have all the offerings there. Anyways, back on topic. So going from a solopreneur to an entrepreneur with staff, virtual staff is something that is super, super relevant in the modern world of, you know, the Internet and especially in, like, a data heavy business such as real estate, a lot of the work there, I mean, it's heavily repeatable.

Mike DeHaan: [1:45] It's generally a low skill, and you can find, you know, virtual staff to do things at a much cheaper rate than an American staff member. And I would say that's kinda like the first phase that people start out with virtual staff is bring on admins at, like, low cost to do a lot of these repetitive tasks. But the next stage and what we do very heavily is we actually have high skill virtual staff. So, you know, we have, like, copywriters. We've had web developers, you know, graphic designers, you know, digital managers, like, all sorts of things that are far beyond just like a general admin. And we hire them on as virtual employees, you know, very high skill just in general. We pay them a wage that is very good for where they live, but is very cheap for us in The United States. So it's kind of a win win situation. And we leverage that extremely heavily as well on top of just the traditional VAs. And when I tell people this, first off, the question that always comes up is, well, where exactly did you find them? And so I found all of my virtual staff from three specific places. I've tried other places, but I found these three to be the most successful. I'll just go right down the list. So the first one is the tried and true Upwork. That is what most people are familiar with.

Mike DeHaan: [2:58] It is a freelancer platform where you can go on, you can post a job listing, you will get absolutely slammed with different potential candidates that, you know, some of them will be dishonest. Some of them will, like, put their best foot forward. That is a completely for exaggeration of their abilities. But if you learn to go through there, you can actually find a ton of potential. It just takes a lot of work. But I have I have found the bulk of my virtual staff from Upwork. So even though you can go on there and it can be daunting when you get slammed by all these potential candidates, it is a tried and true method. So that's number one is Upwork. The other two are much less common, and I will say that these are my favorite even though they do take a little bit more work and a little more creativity to find them, and I guess a little bit more of outside the box thinking. So outside of Upwork, the second one that I found most of my staff is through Reddit of all places. Whenever I say people say that to people, they always give me a funny look, they're like, really? How does that work? Because it's an anonymous chat platform, if you're not familiar with Reddit, where, you know, most people go on there to look at things like, I don't know, cat videos or porn or just like, you know, whatever other garbage is out there on the Internet. But there actually is a very big community there that, you know, is active strictly on Reddit and not really anywhere else. And they do have a lot of different subreddits to focus on things that are actually productive.

Mike DeHaan: [4:24] So, you know, there's, like, new stuff. There's stuff about, like, you know, woodworking. There's several different real estate subreddits. And mixed in there is a subreddit that is called for hire and is meant for job listings and hunting for employees. Right? And I originally had this thought of posting on there. So I guess, like, going back years, I used to look on the for hire subreddit for different online jobs when I was kind of between my engineering job and wasn't full time in real estate yet. And, you know, opportunities would come up there that I would regularly engage in. And then as I got into this, I thought, like, why don't I try to post positions on there as well? So I started posting different job positions on this for hire subreddit, and I was absolutely blown away not only by the response that I got, but by, like, kind of in the openness that people had there compared to things like Upwork where it's a professional hiring platform, so people sort of have their persona. With Reddit, I found that I think it's because people are completely anonymous. They are very open to having, like, more of a casual conversation. You can get a better feeling for them as a person. You know, you still get their resume, and you still let you go through the full process of seeing their work experience and everything. But I feel like it was just a more organic conversation in terms of hiring as opposed to Upwork, which is like a it's a hiring platform.

Mike DeHaan: [5:46] People are you know, what like, whether advertising isn't necessarily what you're gonna get because they wanna be portrayed a certain way. And the thing with Reddit too that I really like is you have someone that seems good. They're talking a good game. They have a good resume. You can click on their profile, and you can see all of the things that their anonymous selves interact with, which may or may not be good, but will be a reflection of who they are. Right? So, for example, at one point, was hiring for a position, and they seemed like they were super good. And then I clicked on their profile, and I noticed that the main platform that they were active in was like a anarchist slash incel sort of subreddit. Right? I'm like, okay. I probably don't want that person working at, you know, in my company. So I decided to not move forward with them. But, you know, when it comes to more professional, you know, screenings and things like that, like a more typical hiring, sure, you can look people up on social media and that sort of stuff, but you don't actually get to see the the deep, dark secrets of their Internet history quite like you do with Reddit. And, sure, they can have, like, a fake profile or all those sort of things, but, realistically, most people don't. And as a result, I found Reddit to be a very, very good hiring platform.

Mike DeHaan: [6:55] And as of right now, I think we have three people on our staff that came from Reddit. So it's been very effective for us. That's my second one is the Reddit for hire page. The third one is as simple as it sounds, asking the people that work for you, especially the virtuals, if they have any referrals. We found this especially to be true with Filipinos where they have, like, such a common culture of being virtual assistants. You know, such a large part of their workforce is virtual assistants for American companies. A lot of them have people that they know that are looking for work, that are interested in doing a different kind of work. And we have had really good luck asking other Filipinos. I guess I say I say Filipinos. This could probably work with any sort of virtual assistant or virtual employee. We've mostly done it with Filipinos if they have someone that could be a good fit for a new role. And, you know, just sort of, like, have them bring their friends, bring their family, whatever, interviewing them, going through the full process like you normally would. But, typically, not only do they wanna bring someone forward that's that's a good employee because it's gonna make them look good, you know, the person in your team if they bring someone good. But it also makes them, like, a little bit stickier. Right?

Mike DeHaan: [8:06] Because they're now gonna be that much more loyal if their friend, family member, whatever works with your company. And, also, too, if you have problems with one of them, you can ask the other one what's going on. And, you know, you'd be surprised at how much more information you can get when there's people, you know, with this virtual team. There's people that are in that person's physical environment that can sort of poke and see what's going on. They're gonna get information you're never gonna be able to get from a distance. So that's my third one is asking your virtual staff or referrals. Anyways, just to do a quick recap. Upwork has been my tried and true. I have hired and gone through a bunch of different virtual employees on there. I also find Upwork to be great for one time tasks. That's mostly what I use it for. Second off is the Reddit for hire subreddit. Most of our our longest running staff at this point have come from Reddit. And the third is to ask your current staff for referrals, and we primarily do that through Filipinos. There are Filipino staff, and it has gone very, very well. So, anyways, guys, that is where I find my virtual staff, those three sources. I recommend you give all of those a look and a try yourself if you're looking at bringing on virtual staff. And if you guys have any questions about that or any sort of thoughts on the process or anything or if you have another place that you find virtual staff that you think I would like to hear about, please send me a message on Instagram at Mike underscore Invest. I love to engage with people, and I would love to hear about, you know, your success with any of these methods or other places you like to look. So on Instagram at Mike underscore invest, give me a follow there, and let me know what you think about that.

Mike DeHaan: [9:37] So perfect. On top of that, guys, go to collectingkeyspodcast.com/free. You'll get our free five step guide that are generating off market leads. And then if you get a little taste of that or you're like, I don't really want the guide. I just wanna start, you know, getting deals and building an awesome business where I can make real legitimate money. Go to collectingkeyspodcast.com and click the become an instant investor button in the top right, and you can learn more about Dan and I's group coaching program or the other offerings that we have with that. We also have a pro program where we run the marketing and sales for you, as well as a partnership program where we will literally run the entire sales process for you on top of, you know, everything else. So tons of different offerings there. So go to claytonhughespodcast.com. Click become an instant investor in the top right. And, yeah, we have a bunch of different ways we'd love to work with you. So, anyways, guys, thanks for listening. Please share this podcast with anyone who might find interesting, and talk to you next week. Thanks for listening to this collecting keys Friday focus. Be sure to subscribe wherever you listen to your podcasts.