Unleashing Potential: Virtual Assistants as the Secret Sauce to Success in Home Inspection

Do you ever wonder how three accomplished home inspection company owners transformed their operations by embracing the digital era's remote work culture? Ever thought about how you can harness the power of virtual assistants to not just keep your business afloat, but make it flourish? Join us on an exhilarating ride with Mike Love Lady, Jeremy Love Lady, and Ralph Gabay as they take us through the paces of managing remote teams, courtesy their brainchild - Myra Staffing. 

Born from an IAB community call, Myra Staffing is more than just another VA company – it's a testament to how businesses can evolve and thrive in today's remote work landscape. In our engaging chat, we unravel the nuances of training and screening processes, the importance of expanding the services offered by virtual assistants, and how these remote warriors can be your secret weapon in the home inspection industry. From social media management to explaining home inspections, VAs are the secret sauce that can help home inspection companies kick it up a notch.

But, managing remote workers goes beyond just task allocation. Our guests emphasize the importance of treating VAs as part of the team, building positive relationships, and creating an inclusive company culture. Then, we delve into the far-reaching impact of remote work, sharing success stories of those VAs who've become leaders within their organizations and even launched their own businesses. Packed with insights and sprinkled with success stories, this episode promises to leave you with a fresh perspective on how to leverage the global VA talent pool to propel your business to new heights. Tune in for a conversation that promises to revolutionize how you view and manage remote work.

Contact IEB -
- web: www.iebcoaching.com
- email: support@iebcoaching
- social: @iebcoaching


Contact Matt -
- email: matt@dciabq.com
- IG: @the.matthew.williams

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

Welcome to Empire State of Mind. On this episode we're going to be talking about how do you manage and work with remote employees on a remote team.

Speaker 2: 0:12

We believe the purpose of owning a business is funding your perfect life. Welcome to the next generation of growth and opportunity in the inspection industry. This is the Empire State of Mind. Empire State of Mind Building build companies with faster growth, higher profits and more time freedom. Finally, a podcast for the home inspection industry and beyond. This is the Empire State of Mind and this is your host, matt Williams.

Speaker 1: 0:47

Welcome to the show. Today we have a fantastic episode. I actually have a team of guys here. I've got myself plus three other gentlemen. All of us are home inspection company owners and on top of that, these three guys started something that is remote staffing. It's called Myra Staffing, and we have Mike Love Lady, jeremy Love Lady and Ralph Gabay, gabay Gabay.

Speaker 3: 1:12

All right guys.

Speaker 4: 1:13

How are you guys doing today? Doing great, doing great, thank you.

Speaker 1: 1:16

That's good, awesome. So it's interesting. I'm just starting to go pretty good from what I understand, but you're all home inspectors too. So, ralph, where are you located at?

Speaker 5: 1:29

I'm out of New York and we cover New York and Connecticut and got to meet these fine gentlemen through the IAB community.

Speaker 1: 1:37

That's fantastic. How long have you been part of the IAB community?

Speaker 5: 1:40

Just a little over three years.

Speaker 1: 1:41

Okay, so you started in 2020, then 2019?.

Speaker 5: 1:44

With IAB. Yes, the company's been around a little longer, but I got a bunch of guys and hopped on board.

Speaker 1: 1:49

That's fantastic. So, mike and Jeremy, are you guys own a company together for home inspections? Is that right? And what's it called and where are you guys at?

Speaker 4: 1:56

I know your home inspections Houston, Texas.

Speaker 1: 1:58

Houston Texas. Okay, and so New York and then Houston Texas. That's awesome. What else do you guys get into? You guys have a home inspection and anything else.

Speaker 4: 2:10

We also have a pest control company.

Speaker 1: 2:12

Okay.

Speaker 4: 2:14

And then we have Myra staffing.

Speaker 1: 2:15

Myra staffing. That's fantastic. So how did you guys come up with the idea of doing a staffing company?

Speaker 4: 2:23

So Myra Staffers has been an interesting journey. We were introduced with the idea of virtual assistance by attending a call and finding, you know, that world was introduced to the IAB community. We took and embraced that idea and hired our own. Going through that process we got to know our VAs and we saw, you know, how much they contributed internally to our companies. We also got to understand, you know, some of the conditions that they were experiencing at home. And then we realized, you know, there was some pay disparity on what was being paid out versus what the employees were receiving.

Speaker 4: 3:03

That journey continued and as our involvement or our placement in IAB evolved and created pods, at that point I was introduced to Ralph. Ralph and I started building a relationship over a year. I knew that there was something I wanted to do with our VAs, I just didn't know what it was. We went to Unite and Wally talked about the lamprithy and I knew at this point that we had an opportunity to make changes. So we pulled everybody over to my house. We started planning what that would look like. 90 days later, myra has rolled out and we are live at the first mastermind for IAB and in 90 days I think we're up to 44 VAs. We're profitable and growing and we're reaching across different markets across the US. We have some fairly large names in IAB community that are taking advantage and are growing and seeing what virtual assistance can do to help scale and grow their business and increase profitability.

Speaker 1: 4:06

That's incredible, wow. So you guys sat around literally 12 months from now, like we're at the IEB Unite Conference in 2023. So the Unite Conference in 2022 is in Houston. This is where you guys had the idea that you talked through it. Yeah, 90 days later, you have a company formed. Another 90 days, you're actually launching the product. That is unbelievably fast to go from idea to complete product launch in six months. What was your life look like during those six months? Yeah, it was a whirlwind.

Speaker 3: 4:37

So that, yeah, that mainly fell on my shoulders to put in the infrastructure, hire the employees, get them trained and develop our SOPs and work out the processes and, plus, do the incorporation of the business and all the contracts and things that we need in addition to that. So, wow, I was busy.

Speaker 5: 4:58

The beauty is that we knew what we wanted and we knew what worked for us, because we had experienced the value of working with virtual assistants for a couple of years, yeah, and being able to take that and shape it with a company started by home inspectors so that we knew exactly what our end user wanted and needed, right Ways to optimize it there, versus just throwing a body at them and saying use them as you need.

Speaker 5: 5:23

Really, really, we felt would have tremendous value, and so have our clients to this date, because that is one of the most popular feedback that we get is how life changing it is for their company as well as themselves personally Of about the amount of time, right, because that is our number one asset in this world yeah, and to get that back by a resource that's dedicated to you, that is highly affordable, highly effective. It was game changing for us because we felt it firsthand, yeah, and now we're getting to hear that feedback from our clients. That's just. It's a remarkable feeling to be able to make the impact to not only folks here but the folks that are working virtually, and the impact of their lives based on our mission that we, jeremy, came up with the slogan.

Speaker 3: 6:06

the company slogan is to thrive, not survive. I love that.

Speaker 1: 6:10

Yeah, that's the total focus of us and that's the passion motivating force behind it, and Jeremy give all credit to him because it was his passion that brought us all together and says let's do something that's pretty incredible, and what I think is interesting here is you have three guys that own home inspection businesses who've been working with virtual assistants and remote workers in the past, and you guys know, really. You guys know exactly what home inspection companies need in a remote worker, and so your training process for them has got to be like spot on for this industry.

Speaker 5: 6:45

I'm so glad you asked that, matthew, because it's something that we had challenges with, as we all know finding good employees and maintaining them so hard, so hard, so expensive, so time consuming Yep, that being able to put a process in place where there's such good filtration and training so that when, if we were to present a candidate to you, matt, you would know that this candidate has been thoroughly vetted, thoroughly trained, so they're not coming in green.

Speaker 5: 7:10

They're going to still need to know your company, they're still going to have to understand your specific processes, but they have a strong foundation. It's it's it's been so valuable and so time saving for the companies that have started to work with us.

Speaker 1: 7:21

Yeah, because if somebody asked him like, what do you look for in a roof? Or you know, because that kind of stuff happens, they probably have enough training. I would imagine to be able to explain what a home inspection is Right.

Speaker 4: 7:30

Yes, we trained, we created a module training system and we go through what a basic home inspection is.

Speaker 4: 7:36

We have testing and cognitive skills to make sure that they comprehend and understand what they're being taught. And then we go through some of the are not some of but the basic insul ancillary services that are popular in industry, whether it's sewer scope or rate on testing, elevation plots, septic and well, we go through all those different things. And then we took it a step further and we realized, because of the pest control drive that's happening in our company, we need to go ahead and teach them that. And then we needed to round that off with development on the softwares and systems that we use. So we on our past side, we decided to train on field routes. On the home inspection side, we decided to train on spectra and ISN and we're starting to get a little bit of development with back and stuff like that. So we're trying to train on the things that we use and others use in our business and get them ready, you know, at a faster pace for when they're handed off to a client.

Speaker 1: 8:28

So I used to have a VA. I was going down that training route with a different company a while back. You guys weren't around yet, but we had to like the training curve on explaining spectra and how that work, because I'm on a spectra platform and I think spectra and ISN are really the only two scheduling platforms, that these are the biggest two. There might be others that are out there, but those two are the dominant ones and and so with those two, like yeah, I had to like we had to do a lot of the training on spectra that, and so you guys were able to do some of that training. Now, is that right?

Speaker 1: 8:59

at a high level we know, of course every company is slightly different, right, yeah, we don't want to get into creating bad habits, because we know everybody operates differently.

Speaker 4: 9:07

So we need to give them this, enough information so that when you come on or you take them, you can start to build on that knowledge and not have to break habits, so that they learn things your way.

Speaker 1: 9:19

That makes sense, like with the VA that I brought on, they'd never seen spectra, so I had to go from the ground of like, here's how you log in, you know, here's where you find the calendar, you know, and little things that were like so you can do some of that high level stuff. I'm like, yeah, here's your dashboard, here's how you count when you're booking inspections. This is what the booking platform looks like, you know, and, and you know little bits, right.

Speaker 5: 9:39

So I'm not totally green, right, and a lot of it comes out of the questions we asked before we even start the search. So we're making sure that we have enough time with you to know what you need, oh wow, so that we're screening properly and we have the appropriate requirements in there. And even though you may have a core set of skills that you're looking for, one of the biggest values I got was over the time, as I needed more services done like social media. Even though I hired somebody originally to take calls, I said I need help in social media and she was like I'd love to try to do that and then all of a sudden she started building up our followers stuff that we weren't doing. She was posting consistently for us and then started to expand into other things.

Speaker 5: 10:17

Right now, one of my VAs is actually helping maintain my QuickBooks. So all my credit cards I send it to her, she tags all the assets in QuickBooks and now that's a whole huge amount of time that I've gotten back. That's incredible. So it's not just one skill set that you may feel like you're limited to when you, when you work with one of our resources, because some of the things that we're going to ask them is what do they want to do. We want to invest, not just handing off a resource to you. We want to know that their path is secure and that they're doing what they want to do. So one of the things we do is we have coaching with them, so every month we dedicate a certain amount of time with them to make sure that they're meeting their career goals and things they want to do, which just makes them support our clients even better.

Speaker 1: 10:59

So you're working with these guys on a level of like developing them as individuals and people.

Speaker 3: 11:06

Absolutely, and we're whoa. It's in the design phase now, but we have a program called lead to develop leaders out of our VAs, and this program of any leadership development program, first of all, it's not something to get a certificate on. You take six weeks of classes and you're done.

Speaker 1: 11:27

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 11:28

Leadership development is a lifelong journey and that's how we're designing this, and so the idea is 70% is empowerment, which would have to come from the client companies. 20% is experiential. So you're experiencing, through some type of work, being a leader, and what we're envisioning right now is you take on a project, either in the community create your own project, if you want to, working with a nonprofit business, leaders, bring pastors, bring them all together, find the project and you run that project, but you have to collaborate with other people to do that. And then the third level, the 10%, is the academic part. Most leadership development programs focus on the 10%, so we want to include that, but we want to help them grow by the experiential part.

Speaker 1: 12:21

So you guys are not. You guys are going on a level that I don't know if I've ever seen in any kind of virtual remote working organization Like this is three projects, yeah.

Speaker 3: 12:31

You become certified lead mentor. Wow, now you're mentoring other VAs to become leaders. So that's the design, that's the vision I have developing that program.

Speaker 1: 12:42

That is next level guys. Seriously, that is my mind is blown right now, thinking about how you guys are not just hiring remote work, you're actually developing people, and they're all in a different country, right Is it? Is it all Philippines?

Speaker 4: 12:55

Yes, they're all in the Philippines.

Speaker 1: 12:56

Okay, that's like a pretty common place for this to happen, and so you guys are developing something I bet you're doing that you're going to be able to recruit the top talent that's out there, because you're going to have a culture and environment of winning and leadership and success and development.

Speaker 4: 13:11

Well, and we're already starting to see that top talent is coming to us because of our mindset, our vision wanting people to thrive, you know, versus survive. And then you know the correct pay for the value of work being delivered is being a huge, you know promoter. For for myra, that's a small community, the Philippines, a lot of islands, big island, but something can happen in the north and the south knows in about 10 minutes what occurred. So word travels very quickly in the Philippines. That's some that's amazing.

Speaker 1: 13:44

So so I as a, as a company owner and like I know that we have audience members that are at different sizes of companies, right, you're a single man operator. You're doing everything yourself all the way up to having three, four, five you know inspectors. That the average inspection company in the United States is between one and five, right, that's, that's like the bulk of that's out there. Now some companies grow bigger than that. They want to maybe them different markets, whatever, my, my, you know, I think success is your business, doing for you what you wanted to do for you, what you wanted to do for you, right?

Speaker 1: 14:14

And so the size is not a comparison to the left and right, it's just what is it doing, what you want it to do. So if you're a company, a smaller company like one, two, three, four, five inspectors and and it's like man, the idea of working with having an employee essentially in your company that's on the other side of the planet, that's a little daunting, like, as like I'm driving around, how am I supposed to like have somebody on my team? That's like like they're working at night when I'm awake.

Speaker 5: 14:42

Yep, yep, and they're, and they're, and they're committed to it. It's a they adjust to your schedule. So the it's part of the requirements, that's part of our needs, is that they they feel that they are part of your team and they're there when you were there or when you want them to be. So if you want them to cover the weekend, you want them to cover late nights, whatever that section of hours are. I actually have my VA split up between certain hours on the weekends that she covers, as well as days during the week.

Speaker 5: 15:06

But a great point that you're bringing up is that transition, that growth phase, and the experience I had personally, as we had two inspectors it was me and my partner at the time and we're literally in a call crawl space and I'm taking an order for an inspection and it's just getting out of control and we had a call center that was dealing with some of the overflow, but we had such quality control issues as well as extended hold times, that we found less than 70% of our calls were either being answered or converting to a sale.

Speaker 5: 15:33

Wow. So after we heard from so many different IAB members the success they had of working with a virtual assistant, we said okay, let's give this a shot. The math, the numbers work, because after a certain threshold of working with a share call center, they usually has a monthly fee plus a per booking fee Somewhere. We found that between 30 and 40 inspections a month. When you're in that sweet spot now I can actually afford somebody that's dedicated to me, that will answer the phone on the first ring and be able to increase my close rate significantly because they're only working for me, wow, and that we saw the value immediately. And the thing that really, really impressed us is how much again that she wanted to do more with us because she became part of our culture. She wanted to see us succeed.

Speaker 1: 16:17

Wow.

Speaker 5: 16:17

And it's just so rewarding. I cannot say enough about the value.

Speaker 1: 16:23

And so as, being on the state side, managing somebody that's that far away, that can be a little intimidating. How do you, what tips would you guys give for maybe a guy in my position? I got an inspection company. I'm considering picking up this VA. What you're talking about sounds interesting. It sounds really great, but how would I, on my side, help make the situation or help make this successful for both parties?

Speaker 5: 16:48

Like, I just have more questions and I have answers right now, I would just say, and I'm sure they, my colleagues here, have many things to say about it, but the most important thing I find is just making them feel that they are with you as part of your team immediately from day one. Okay, they are at your team meetings. They are part of your, your, your, your calls. They're part of your, your goal setting. Having them ensconced in your culture with that and having them understand clearly what the goals of the company are. Treat them like any other employee that you have there and they will deliver as you expect.

Speaker 1: 17:21

So you just treat them like as if they're there in the office with you, so if you're out in the field. Just like I would like right now, like I'll be honest, like my operations I've I've gone down this journey, so I'm asking questions from this perspective of where I was a couple of years ago and this idea of of going with remote work right and so so but so. But this is like interesting. So you have to have a culture in your business and you have to help and develop them and put them into that culture and then, like they gotta be part of it, right it's it's, it's not just culture, you know it's.

Speaker 4: 17:50

It's whether you're hiring remote or you're hiring locally. You first you need to know what you want, mm hmm. And then you need to know what you want them to do. Okay, you need to know how you're going to train or get them to do that. And it doesn't, you know them. Being remote is just, you know, happens to be the happen sense. You, if you treat it as any other employee, you define the role, you define the training, you define what results you want out of that. Where the employee is at doesn't matter as much as who the employee is. And then, once you find the right employee, it's getting them in grain and in doctoring, and then what you're doing and what you're trying to do and what the mission and the value and the culture of the company is. Once, once they buy or they believe into that, then X you know, everything becomes a multiplier. Yeah.

Speaker 3: 18:36

And to me culture is about relationship.

Speaker 2: 18:40

Mm, hmm.

Speaker 3: 18:40

And if you develop a positive culture, you're developing positive relationships with your employees that are local, your VA's that remote, and you're building a culture to thrive and build stronger relationships so they accomplish more and more things.

Speaker 1: 18:58

Yeah, so this is so in full disclosure. I actually my operations manager does not live. I'm in New Mexico. My operations manager does not live in New Mexico. She lives in another part of the country and so she may or may not be listening to this podcast, I'm not really sure but she is phenomenal. I've never met her face to face. I have seen her two times on a video chat and we call in text all the time.

Speaker 1: 19:22

She manages my entire operations department and she's a constant communication with me and the guys in the field and helping with realtors and none of these people. And like she has, like she has actually gone, really invested into Albuquerque. She's never been here, but yet she's got a map up and she's figured out where the streets are and what part of town they're in and the zip codes and she's when people call in, they're like, oh yeah, you know, and and they're able to like talk about things that are happening in Albuquerque. And and because she's so invested in the, in the culture, I found, just for personal experience, that remote workers love the idea of this is like a really cool thing. And so when? When isn't it?

Speaker 4: 20:00

It really is. You know, and the the, it's not just the ownership that has to get them involved in the culture. It has to be your employees to having our home inspection company. You will see and hear from our home inspectors how valuable the people are that are doing our booking. They don't look at them as the call center in the Philippines. They don't look at them as our employees in the Philippines. They look at them as these are our client coordinators for Magnolia home inspections. You know they're a regular employee just like anybody else. They're at the company meetings, they're in our leadership development. We have leaders in our call center that run our. You know our, our, our, our, our, our, our scheduling teams that run different teams. Oh yeah, we're on. It runs our pest, you know it's, it's, they're integrated not just by the owners but by the corporation itself. Wow.

Speaker 1: 20:54

Okay.

Speaker 4: 20:54

So when the corporation sees them as an employee, so will your clients, whether they're the customer that you're doing inspection for or the realtor who is the one that pushes and drives their business.

Speaker 5: 21:06

And one thing I just want to add add to that is key words that I'm taking away from what he just said is leaders as well. Yeah, so, even though they may be called or branded as virtual assistants and it came out of the question that just came out of the presentation that was just done that you know what high level staff can you provide. Is it just low level? And no, just because they're called a virtual assistant? We have these remote workers working at high levels within our organizations and we're trusting them with that because they're capable and they're delivering on it. So it's a key thing to just keep in mind that, even though you may be hiring for specific role that opportunity for them to grow and develop, or even hire directly at that high manager role that is available out there to them, so just don't be pigeonholed into the virtual assistant type of Wow.

Speaker 1: 21:54

Okay, so right, because that's so true, I think. Oh, they can help me post on social media, oh, they can answer the phones, and those are important roles, but minds and operations managers. He actually oversees all of that and she does answer the phone a little bit, but she also oversees the people that answer the phones.

Speaker 4: 22:13

And we do the same thing. Our team lead is does answer phones, but she oversees them and you know most of these have our college or university graduates, whether they have English majors or architects or whatever. So when you start looking at their degrees, you start looking at what are? Those are the possibilities that you can utilize inside your company organization, is it? You know what? Could you have a virtual CPA? Would you have a virtual GM? Could you have a virtual CEO or vice president? Wow, the limiting facts are the things or the limitations that we put upon ourselves. Your big conversation in IB right now is how do you get that CEO that could run a 50 million dollar company like brought it up the other day.

Speaker 1: 22:53

Because you can't afford it. Like like, as in the States, if you want to hire that CEO in the US what if you could?

Speaker 4: 22:59

in going outsource, you know what if that CEO was 70 K a year in the Philippines or in another developing country, has that same knowledge, the same drive and the ability and background and experience of proven? Does that person have to be here?

Speaker 1: 23:14

Wow, you know yeah, that's a great. That's a great point. I mean with the technology of video calls and everything else like why, why, why couldn't it be somewhere?

Speaker 3: 23:22

else, yeah, and when you get to a point where you're at, where you're not in the daily operations, you have the opportunity to run your business anywhere in the world, and you can choose if. If you could choose, where in the world would you like to spend your life and still run your company? You have that option available to you.

Speaker 1: 23:43

Well, yeah, think about it, right, like, like. I mean, I can run my company. You know, now I'm faced, I see my guys. You know I have an office, you know. So I do see my guys all the time and my employees all the time again, gals, but I see my team all the time and but there's been times where, you know, I don't see them for a week or two and and it's just text message, email, phone call. But you're right, I could sit on a beach somewhere for two or three weeks at a time, no problem, and run the company and make it work.

Speaker 1: 24:10

So if I could do it from, if I could do it from another part of my own country, why couldn't I do it from the rest anywhere else? Which means why couldn't somebody else do it from somewhere else? Exactly?

Speaker 3: 24:19

And we use a lot of online meetings. We don't use Zoom, we use Google Meet. But just having those face-to-face phone instead of a phone call or text, just face-to-face meetings, just makes a total difference in building your culture and getting them assimilated into it.

Speaker 1: 24:36

We do a lot of that. Yeah, so when you have so, this is so. How do you answer? Well, okay, I have so many questions. Sorry, it's flying through my head like at light speed. So one of the things I'm thinking of is like those water cooler moments, right Like in the office. It's like you have a water cooler moment, people are just kind of hanging out chatting and you have that relationship thing. What are some things you can do with remote workers to help recreate some of that?

Speaker 5: 25:03

They have that right now. They have this virtual chat that they're on there. Sometimes they keep the monitor on where they're face. They're there. So it's like, even though you're, instead of a physical face, you're seeing a screen, but they're there, they're talking to each other, they're collaborating.

Speaker 1: 25:17

So you have like a Microsoft Teams meeting or a Google Chat meeting or whatever it is, and you have multiple videos on the screen and like if someone's going to take a phone call, they just mute their mic and just take the call and then when they're done with that call that client, they hang up the unmute their mic or whatever, and it also facilitates training.

Speaker 5: 25:32

So when you're onboarding somebody new, you can have the other virtual assistant if they're with them or on the same call, kind of like piggybacking, listening to them and then developing that skill set with them.

Speaker 3: 25:41

So interesting. I have a morning checking call every morning with my Myra staff in the Philippines and it's Google Meet, so it's all. We get to see each other and we talk, and their choice, they decided at the end of that we're going to play a worship video and prayer. Okay, and that's the culture they're wanting to develop, but but that is because they're all the same faith.

Speaker 1: 26:08

Is that like they happen to be okay? Yeah, are all of them, not only are just some of them all of them right now. Okay, there's happened to be only three, oh right.

Speaker 3: 26:16

Okay, as we grow in the corporation, as we grow, that'll obviously change, because right right. Philippines, I think is predominantly.

Speaker 4: 26:23

Muslim. Okay, so predominantly Catholic, and then Muslim would be the second.

Speaker 1: 26:28

Oh, okay, so there's a Catholic and so that is happening to be the same phase, so they feel comfortable enough to integrate that with their day.

Speaker 3: 26:33

Yeah, and they're doing the praying. I don't, I'm just watching, oh that's so interesting. But the idea is, whether you do the praying or not, is coming together in a video setting where you're talking and communicating to each other, sharing your, your wins and your struggles. And what areas are do we need to improve on? To improve our processes? And usually your processes are in place, they're just not being followed. So just reinforcing that.

Speaker 1: 27:05

So, just like leading any other employee, you just have some accountability and exactly so.

Speaker 4: 27:09

we also have the like, a group chat that we use in Google chat Work throughout the days. That helps with culture is celebrating wins. You know we have boom moments where people are celebrating in our either in our home inspection company or a pest control company, or what in our Myra. We're celebrating wins that are happening, you know, with VAs that are placed in other companies. You know we have a VA, or I think, two VAs, this week or this month. They're getting a $600 bonus for their cells that they've done in other home inspection companies and so we want to celebrate that and we, we we celebrate victories. And you know, by celebrating victories within Myra or within our own company, with the VAs that we utilize, you're you're tying them into the culture, especially when it's in a company wide.

Speaker 1: 27:50

Yeah.

Speaker 4: 27:51

Everybody is celebrating at the home inspector upsells in a an ancillary service. We celebrate that we have a VA that books a ultra package. We celebrate that we have a VA that sells a pest control package. We celebrate that celebrating wins on a company wide level brings everybody together and helps with that culture.

Speaker 1: 28:12

That is really cool. I like how you guys are doing. Those are some great tips and great ideas, and how to help will be keep your remote people feeling they're part of the team Connected.

Speaker 4: 28:22

Yeah Well, and our home inspector is a remote. They don't come to an office. You know we look at remote as maybe overseas and as definition, but our accountant, she, works from home in Houston. Our inspectors are spread out, they don't come to an office, so none of our employees are coming into a brick and mortar. We got rid of that two years ago. Three years ago we figured this is a way to save costs. But not only that, but why?

Speaker 1: 28:46

Right If nobody's utilizing it where is it adding value?

Speaker 4: 28:51

And we did the analysis and it wasn't adding value. Our clients didn't get a benefit out of it, Our realtors didn't get a benefit out of it and our employees weren't getting a benefit out of it. Why are we keeping it so? By dissolving the brick and mortar and focusing on relationships. That's where you build the value.

Speaker 1: 29:08

Wow, Wow. That is a I can really put it in that kind of framework. It's like, well, why wouldn't you? Why does it really matter where they're located? And what I think is cool too is like quality of life is gets better for everyone.

Speaker 4: 29:21

Yep, I was just out of country for five weeks. Mike was out with me for two weeks. I don't think I answered any company calls. I lost my phone and my computer went down, which was the greatest thing that could ever happen, but our VA's handled our scheduling and booking. Was there any issues that come up? Absolutely, but they come up with, whether you have local employees or you know whatever scheduling conflicts.

Speaker 4: 29:42

This realtor wants this this time and you, you're already booked up for that time. How do you manage a move? And so they figured it out by working together with the home inspectors to overcome the obstacles that were presented on a daily challenge, and it's you know. You build your teams, whether they're local, remote, whatever, but you build them where they work together and you know, as owners, we can step further and further away and do and chase the passions we want.

Speaker 1: 30:07

Yeah, that's a. That's incredible. And then the quality of life for the people on on the other side too, right this?

Speaker 2: 30:13

the employees right.

Speaker 1: 30:15

So because the cost of living in that, in the Philippines, is extremely low, and so, and that's what you're doing?

Speaker 4: 30:22

You're going to buy a house.

Speaker 1: 30:24

Yeah.

Speaker 4: 30:24

It's on. Depending where you're at. It could be on par to for here in the U S oh wow so you're in Baguio City, you do. If you're wanting a home ownership, it could be $350,000 on somebody on the average income is $5 a day. How is home ownership a possibility? Whoa you want to go buy a Toyota car $28,000, $5 a day how is that a possibility?

Speaker 1: 30:45

The average income is $5 a day.

Speaker 4: 30:47

It's $1.29 is, or $1.28 a day is minimum wage. Average income is $5 a day. So how are those become possibilities? They don't. It is a non-reality for a lot of people.

Speaker 1: 30:59

So when a, when, a, when a, if a Philippine VA is coming on board, I imagine they're making more than $5 a day through my restaffing.

Speaker 4: 31:09

So we pay our start at $6 an hour and then, when that's like, exponentially greater than the average income of the country.

Speaker 4: 31:16

So we have two things that we're holding our head on high this month and I'm going to celebrate these wins. One VA with Harmony Brown, who is able to open a coffee shop and when I saw Harmony at this Unite, that was one of the first things she come up and you could see the smile on her face that she goes. My VA is opening a company and her VA is still employed, but her husband's going to run it.

Speaker 4: 31:37

But wow create an opportunity for her. We have a VA personally for us who is opening up a print shop, and then we had a VA the other day by a car, and so there's been some big wins in the Myra family lately that are the reason that we created this industry. That generational impact is why this company exists that thrive, not survive.

Speaker 1: 32:00

Because you're those, the people that you're working with, you're talking you're literally talking about a generational impact. That's it, because if everybody's making five or six bucks a day and they're able to come and work and start making literally eight to 10 times more money than what they could in other places five, you know, that is a massive impact on their family. You're breaking a poverty cycle that that family was probably going to be subjected to, because they're able to find a job doing something like this. That's like legacy money. They're opening businesses, they're buying cars, they're, they're making enough. I mean, that is unbelievable. And so not only are we able to get, on the United States side, able to get high quality, highly trained, outstanding work for less money than we would locally. On top of that, you're actually helping other families. I mean we've I don't know if you guys have talked about this before, but like, so, like, if I have a, you know, if I have 10 employees, I have 11 or 12 right now, but in this, in my inspection business, and so if I have those, those 11 families depend on our company in order to eat and provide their family, right, like, like it's decisions that I'm making that are, whether or not huge responsibility is business owner.

Speaker 1: 33:06

Right, I have employees and so my there's some ownership there as an owner that you got to say, okay, I got to make good business decisions, not just for me but for everybody else that's connected to this company, putting their trust in me and putting our trust in this company that's going to provide for their family. Right, and there's there's things outside of our control, of course, but, but there's that responsibility as an owner. But here you are, we're turning around Now. Not only are you like putting food on the family for some in another country it's exponentially exponential growth. They're like able to invest in their family's future and legacy and maybe pull their entire family out of poverty.

Speaker 3: 33:38

Yeah, yeah. How many employees do you have in your home inspection company? 11., 11. Yeah, six months. We're at 44. That's unbelievable 44 lives, 44 families that we're having.

Speaker 1: 33:49

I have 35 employees across all my companies, but 11 in inspection. Business right but like yeah, 44. And that doesn't count, our staff.

Speaker 3: 33:56

That's just the VA's.

Speaker 1: 33:57

We have three staff from about to hire more staff but and that's only after six months of opening your doors. Yeah, that story is incredible Scalable growth and it happened right. And it happened in an IEB pod, where this conversation started. Through the relationship between you guys developed in the pod, it's a weird journey through IEB.

Speaker 4: 34:15

We weren't a member of IEB, this company wouldn't exist If we didn't hear or Mike, was it on the call where somebody mentioned VA's? This journey wouldn't exist. If we didn't join pods, this journey wouldn't exist If we didn't listen to Wally's speech on the Lampretty. This you know journey will exist. It is weird how the stars aligned to make what should become.

Speaker 1: 34:40

You know what we created a possibility and it's by all like measurements that I can see wildly successful. How many businesses open their doors and six months later are profitable and making money and doing like actually winning right and impacting lives and impacting lives, major impact on people's lives across the globe like opening businesses, buying vehicles, doing things that they could not have done otherwise.

Speaker 4: 35:04

That is oh, even if 44 was a stop, we don't know how far that's going to go deep when you're talking generational, yeah. So even if today we got no more, we still have no idea how far that ripple is going to affect just with 44.

Speaker 1: 35:21

Well, yeah, that employee, that the person that's working through my or staffing, is now. Now their kids might be able to get a better education, like they now can put their kids in a better, better school, maybe to get better education. Maybe they can give opportunities for their children to do things that they never had the opportunity to do. Home ownership.

Speaker 4: 35:38

Right If you're scheduling inspections all day and you're looking at these homes. They're 350, 450, 500,000, 1.2 million and all you're doing is looking at somebody else's dream becoming a reality. But it's never going to be a reality to you because of what you're being paid.

Speaker 1: 35:53

Wow.

Speaker 4: 35:54

What if that changed? Because you're being paid what you're worth.

Speaker 1: 35:57

Right.

Speaker 4: 35:58

I go. I looked at that as like, how do they cover or how do they do scheduling home inspections all day and they're looking them up on our MLS and they're seeing this beautiful home and they're seeing the costs are being spent and they're looking at it and they're going. This is never going to happen for me or my family.

Speaker 1: 36:15

Right.

Speaker 4: 36:16

That's why my race is.

Speaker 1: 36:19

Yeah, you've got something on. You guys have a passion too. That's the part that I love is is that when you, you guys, have a why that can to see it like the fire in your, all three of your eyes and like in your, the way you talk about this is how you're having such a massive impact in people's lives. Like that, I'm just you guys are going to. You guys are going to change the world, and maybe you're not going to change the entire world, but you're going to change some people's world and some people's kids down the road are going to have a better life because my staffing is helping other like and like. If I'm hiring a VA through my risk staffing, I know that I'm helping and impacting a whole family and another whole other culture.

Speaker 3: 36:53

That's really amazing. You bring up something, what is your sphere of influence? Right, and it's just one way away because our sphere of influence is exploded. It's huge. Now, I never planned for that, I never expected that, right, and what we're able to do by expanding that sphere of influence and making it bigger and bigger, and bigger and touch more, and more lives. It's going to be incredible.

Speaker 1: 37:20

Yeah, absolutely so. I actually. It's funny, I was a pastor of a church for a while. I actually my dad was a pastor. I don't talk about this much on the show. My dad was a pastor of a church for 25 years. So I grew up in ministry in a Christian church and then at some point I actually became a pastor of a church myself for about seven years and in that process I say it this way I had the privilege of doing people's funerals and because I counted it as a great privilege personally that I got to help people celebrate the lives of their loved ones and I can tell you, out of all the funerals that I ever did, I never once heard anybody talk about the vacation home, the trust fund.

Speaker 1: 38:10

I never heard them talk about any of that stuff. What they talk about is the lives that they impacted and the legacy that they leave behind isn't actually in the stuff, because we chase the stuff. It's in the people that we impact and leave behind and the generations that come after us that we've made impact on people's lives, and I think you talk about this as, like man, business ownership is making impact on people's lives, and this is no different, in fact, if anything, through doing remote staffing like this, you might be having even a greater impact in somebody's life in another country that you could never have here. And yes, you can have an impact here and yes, you can change people's lives here. I have guys that work for me that are making two to three times more money than they've ever made in their life and that's a big impact and I'm not discounting that. But when you can go 10x something, you're making a difference in a way that is unbelievable and the legacy you're leaving behind is pretty incredible.

Speaker 4: 39:02

So in you hit on a powerful point. We talked to a gentleman the other day. He goes you know, I want to hire a local because I want to impact people here and I go. That's awesome and I don't want to take away from that. But what if you were able to hire a broad somebody else to help you have rapid growth, so you could hire more local?

Speaker 4: 39:20

Yeah, but would that impact be Boom? Well, I didn't think about that. I go because you can afford this much for a person to answer phones and that would be it. But what if you could spend that same amount and you got a person to answer phones and do growth activities and now your company is multiplying, which means that now you're able to put more boots on ground locally because of that growth ascension. So I said, you know, there's different ways to look at how we can impact our communities here, locally, but also abroad, and we do do some local things. You know Myra donates to Feed America, stuff like that. So we want to make sure you know that we do recognize we are a US based company. Our employees happen to be overseas, but we are a US based company and we do want to make sure that we are, you know, participating in our local communities as well.

Speaker 1: 40:06

Well, yeah, but that, but the remote.

Speaker 1: 40:08

The remote people enable you to have more boots on the ground locally. I love that idea because it's true, you know, and because you can't have a VA that actually inspects the house, you know you could. There's got to be local people who go out and actually do that kind of work, you know, and your growth people. You need somebody locally who's out shaking hands physically, and so there's more of that. But if you can leverage the power of the VA to be able to the virtual worker, to be able to empower those people to have more impact, yeah, you're right, it's leveraging your resources to have a greater impact, but not only locally, even just around the world. I mean, I tell you what business is about people and I think, as a business owners, we're impacting people and having massive impact in people's families and lives, and this is unbelievable how much impact you can have in somebody's life when they're working from the other side of the globe for you. Absolutely Wow, guys, I really liked this has been a great episode. I've really enjoyed this.

Speaker 4: 40:58

Thank you, thank you, yeah thank you guys, so much, thank you.

Speaker 1: 41:00

Yeah, so if you guys are going to, if somebody has more information, wants more information, or they have more questions, what's the best way for someone to get ahold of you at Myra Then?

Speaker 3: 41:11

go to Myra and if they're interested in VA's, just click on hire VA and we will set up a session to talk to them about their business and how we can help them.

Speaker 2: 42:04

And we will see you next time.