In this episode, I will share three major advantages you can get by hiring virtual assistants and how you can use their talents to seize some massive success for your business.
Now, things are going nuts with the economy as of this recording. The situation will only get worse by the time this episode gets published, in my opinion. But economic cycles, like this, happen recurringly. So I find it funny how people act so surprised when things go down-turning and slowing down.
This is why I do what I do best at Pro Sulum. So join me and check out this episode to learn more!
Overview & Episode Content
- What Does Hiring Local Employees Look Like for Small Businesses?
- Finding Business Success in a City that Works Against You
- Leveraging Virtual Assistants Outside the USA is Much Easier
- The Cost of Leveraging Virtual Assistants
- The Perks You Get for Hiring Virtual Assistants from Overseas and The Value That You Bless Them With
- Diversification of Risk in Your Workforce Increases Your Company’s Sustainability
- Leverage Virtual Assistants Who Genuinely Care About Your Business
- Incentives Create a Positive Driving Force for Your People to Go the Extra Mile for You and Your Business
What Does Hiring Local Employees Look Like for Small Businesses?
I have lived in California most of my life. There is one thing about this state that has rung true ever since. California does not like Californians and the California Government does not like Americans, in general.
I hate to say it that way but it is what it is. When you’re playing chess, you can’t complain about the rules and wish pawns can move four squares backwards. You have to play with the cards you are dealt and play according to the rules. It is no different when it comes to politics and where you live.
The reason I say this is because back when I first started my business in 2007, I could not understand why having a company focused on operating remotely would mean hiring people locally.
Yes, you can see them or walk down the hall and ask people to do things like get coffee, check calendars, etc… But if tasks can be done remotely, why can’t you just hire people from overseas?
Back in 2007, I could not even afford to hire virtual assistants in the United States. This was back 2 decades ago now.
I was thinking, “How the heck can people start a business here in California when the minimum wage is so high without the guarantee of hiring a great assistant?”
What happens if you hire a W-2 employee here in California? You have to pay for workmen’s compensation and insurance, and payroll taxes. On top of that, the risk of getting sued is HUGE with US employees. I know several people who have let go of people and got sued for wrongful termination. Those businesses lost millions of dollars!
Finding Business Success in a City that Works Against You
I look at the area I live and see it as a chessboard where the odds are stacked against its own people! I wonder how others cannot see this!.
It wasn’t until 2020 — during forced lockdowns — that people started to see the many tasks that can be done remotely. People started to realize that they can outsource support from overseas by hiring virtual assistants. That was when I finally felt vindicated and started seeing the benefits.
Now, the USA is experiencing an economic downturn, as of recording — another thing to consider when hiring people in the USA. During economic downturns, business owners become more vulnerable. It is unbelievably crazy how a lot of businesses still refuse to hire people overseas despite the bad economy.
That said, I wanted to do this podcast to share my take on how to achieve massive success with the support of people overseas. Like our Virtual Systems Architects at ProSulum.com — essentially virtual assistants with superpowers. They will document everything you are doing in your business and perform those tasks.
Not only can you find people who are talented virtual assistants who are less than minimum wage in California or New York; you can be working with people who are actively scaling your business at the same time.
I wanted to do this episode so I can give hope to businesses who may be struggling with hiring their first V.A. This episode is for folks who are not aware of the benefits of working with people overseas and leveraging virtual assistants.
But what is a virtual assistant?
These are people who are working remotely. They could be people in the United States but most are overseas. But the unfortunate fact is that a lot of business owners are scared of hiring overseas.
Leveraging Virtual Assistants Outside the USA is Much Easier
A major advantage when working with Pro Sulum’s VSAs is no longer worrying about tax issues. In fact, we handle all the accounting and government-related stuff in-house. In reality, not much needs to be done and it’s not as hard as people think.
Of course, if you sign up with platforms like Pro Sulum, you will pay a bit of premium but at the same time, you get to work with amazing assistants. You are at a huge advantage when you save time and energy from worrying about a massive hiring process like what we have in place.
Virtual assistants are essentially anybody working for you remotely — whether from the US or overseas. It’s not that difficult. You’re simply giving people the ability to work on your stuff whether that’s Google Business Suite or other remote-capabilities to get files and such. Your VAs are simply performing tasks at home!
The thing is, when you leverage virtual assistants from overseas, a lot of benefits start to show. We, Americans, tend to think that we are the smartest, the most hard-working, that we have the best ideas and nobody can do the type of work we do.
Well, people from overseas can prove people wrong!
There are people outside the USA who can do a better job and are much capable. And yet, their rates are much less expensive. In the United States, the government is working against you, as a business owner. As soon as you build a team or hire an assistant outside of the US, it becomes so much easier.
The Cost of Leveraging Virtual Assistants
Now, what are the major advantages of working remotely with VAs? Before we discuss that, please note that this is not meant to be financial advice as I am not a CPA. We are only discussing the benefits of a remote-based staff to support your small business.
Benefit #1 is obviously the cost. Leveraging virtual assistants is far less than with a W-2 employee in the USA. You don’t have to pay any payroll taxes nor insurance. On top of that, is the added flexibility as a business owner. This becomes handy in case you need to let go of a VA.
I’ve been telling this story to a lot of people. I was sitting at a Panda Express with my wife when I noticed a hiring ad on one of the screens. Everyone was hiring at $17.50/hour minimum.
Now, that $17.50 is for the bottom most employee in the organization. Now, I’m not saying that in a disparaging way. This is simply the bottom of the barrell for someone who is just out of highschool. Of course these types of people have very little experience and are never there to be with you in the long run — they would not be looking at the work as their life-long career.
And that $17.50 does not include all of the accounting costs and insurances. So, these bottom of the barrel employees actually cost about $20 an hour— even more. And that is crazy!
With the way the economy is right now in California, people can’t pay rent with $23.50 an hour working for Panda Express. Despite earning that rate, some employees would still be living below the poverty line.
The Perks You Get for Hiring Virtual Assistants from Overseas and The Value That You Bless Them With
Now for $10 an hour, you can find someone overseas who is more educated and sees the work as their life career — a golden opportunity. They are dedicated to achieving your goals in business and much more involved in your success! All that for a fraction of the minimum wage here in California.
By choosing workers overseas, you are able to bring a tremendous amount of value to them and their families by blessing them with growth, careerwise. You have the power to create a massively positive change on people and yet you are paying for far less.
One thing I like to do here at Pro Sulum is paying staff a really good wage. And people who are really involved with the business get commissions and bonuses. So, if they reach a certain amount of views on Youtube or if they hit a certain amount of sales, they actually benefit from what we are doing.
A few guys in our core team at Pro Sulum make a great amount of money because they are constantly bringing in new clients into our fold. And these members of the organization get a piece of the pie.
Not only are they secured by a great salary, they also get to enjoy nice commissions or bonuses. In fact, they make much better money than any of their peers in their country. We give them the opportunity to earn better.
The great thing about this is they take a lot of ownership regarding how the company succeeds. When they do get these bonuses, they are automatically thinking of new ways to increase their capabilities.
Diversification of Risk in Your Workforce Increases Your Company’s Sustainability
Now, not all virtual assistants appreciate this structure. I have tried this with a few and it just did not work for those few VAs and we simply parted ways — especially on the core team.
But this is how you can really give most of your VAs a huge advantage over their peers — paying them a fantastic wage and giving them bonuses based on performance and how much profit they are bringing into your business.
A great example is with our Virtual Systems Architects. They document everything the clients are doing and they can perform the tasks as well. If you have a lead generation system, you literally just show them how that system works. The VSAs will document your process. And othen, they start doing the tasks. And later on, you can give them bonuses for every new client they sign up. That way, your staff gets to benefit from your success.
So, the first good thing about this is that you have a cost advantage. The second good thing about this is that VAs overseas are not affected by your natural disasters and politics.
Now, don’t get me wrong. Natural disasters will occur and the political scene will be major effectors no matter where a person lives. But by working with people from different countries, you become unreliant on the politics of a specific country.
An extreme example is how hundreds of businesses shut down in the USA during the pandemic. We are starting to see that again now because of the high inflation. There is a tremendous change in the way businesses react to inflation and the lack of workforce. Lots of businesses are going under again because of it.
Leverage Virtual Assistants Who Genuinely Care About Your Business
The good thing about diversifying your workforce from multiple countries is that you are not beholden to one place. When the Philippines locked down, we had prepared everybody — for years — so they can work from home. No call centers, or anything like that.
Other massive outsourcing companies in the Philippines shut down because most of their workforce could not report on site — the offices. Because of that one single thing, we have a lot of people in the states left high and dry as well.
The third valuable thing I realized is that there are many employees overseas who are much harder working than many Americans. Now, this is not always the case but the countries we choose to hire our VSAs have very good work ethic. Most of the time they even outdo American candidates.
This is something I never really thought was a big deal but the more clients we get, the more amazed I am at the amount of work they take out of the business owner’s hand. I am in awe at how the VSAs at Pro Sulum love and care for the client’s business. And that amount of care is actually very hard to find in the United States.
Of course, you can find Americans like that but again, you’d be paying a lot more. There are professionals overseas who cost a fraction of that and love being a part of your business — who really wants to drive your business forward. And if you incentivise them enough, you are going to discover an employee who will bring in client after client.
Incentives Create a Positive Driving Force for Your People to Go the Extra Mile for You and Your Business
Like I said, I love giving as much incentive as possible so they are driven to do even more things for your business.
So having amazing people who truly want to see your business succeed is something that is a huge advantage I never thought would be the case because here in America, we’ve been taught that we are the hardest workers. But really, there are a lot of talented people all over the world.
These are some of the big advantages of working with a virtual assistant and how you can use them to seize some massive success.
For me, if you can have a bonus structure on top of an amazing salary then that’s a fantastic way to motivate them to do more for your business. Like I said, I have people in my core team who are making quadruple of what the average VA makes in their country because they are actively bringing in people and growing the business — they have already created such a big pipeline that it almost seems nonstop.
You can incentivize your staff like that but for us, it is still very cost effective to be able to bless them whenever they bring in new clients or develop new initiatives that succeed. That’s one of the best ways to grow your business — by utilizing the Virtual Systems Architect or virtual assistant to grow your business but save cost and expense in the long run especially a bad economy like today.
Resources and Links
This has been Dean Soto. Go check out ProSulum.com. Watch a few minutes of that video on the website and I promise you will be amazed at the possibilities. I appreciate you and am very excited that you are listening to this podcast.
Be on the lookout for more exciting things to come and I will see you in the next episode.