As an entrepreneur coach and advisor, one of the biggest questions I get is “How can I hire a virtual assistant to help grow my online business?” It’s great when you are in a position to run a successful business and become your own boss, however, you will reach a point where you won’t be able to do it alone.
A business will always need to get a steady flow of prospects and leads, and this is where having a virtual assistant is mandatory. Here to help us out is my friend Daven Michaels, CEO of 123Employee, a highly successful global virtual assistant company.
Daven has been self-employed for over 40 years and has taught countless small businesses and entrepreneurs on the importance of outsourcing. We discuss why a virtual assistant should be the first investment you make when growing your business, what are the essential tasks you should outsource, and how best to manage your VA (virtual assistant). In fact, there was so much to go over in the call, one episode wouldn’t cover it. So we made an exclusive announcement on a special 3 Day training to show you a step-by-step process on building your own successful online business. And as part of the BootstrapMD network, I’m buying your ticket!
FREE LIVE ONLINE BUSINESS 3 DAY TRAINING:
Starting on September 28th Daven Michaels and his team have a mission to help 10,000 future entrepreneurs start their own online businesses LIVE on a 3-day virtual Master Class.
AND because BootstrapMD is a sponsor… you get to attend the online Master Class for free!
TRANSCRIPT
Hey guys, this is Dr. Mike Woo-Ming. Welcome to another edition of BootstrapMD. I am super excited because I’ve got a good friend of mine on the call. You may not be familiar with him in let’s say the medical space, but in the other world that I live in, which is the entrepreneur internet marketing online business world, Daven is a big deal. So I’m so excited to have him on.
Daven Michaels is a bestselling author. He speaks around the world speaking about entrepreneurship. He is the CEO of 123Employee, which is a giant virtual assistant company because I know a lot of you have been asking about that. So I wanted to get him on the show. He’s spoken on stage at many events, some of which that I’ve had the opportunity to also share with. But he’s also shared with some other guys you may have heard of like Les Brown, Mark Victor Hansen, Bill Clinton. Some of those names you may have been familiar with. And Mike Woo-Ming, of course. But without further ado, I know he doesn’t have a lot of time so I want to just bring him onto the call. Daven, how are you doing today, my friend?
It’s great to be here with you, brother. It’s always cool when we get together because you have a very fond place in my heart. Because when I first, first, first got into the marketing space… You and I have been self-employed forever. I’ve been self-employed for almost 40 years. I don’t like to tell people that because I’m old. But when I first got into the marketing space you were one of the first people I met, literally. You and I were in a MasterMind with Larry and that was one of the first things I really did in the marketing space. So, it’s always good to have a reunion with you and hang out with you and your tribe. So thanks for having me.
Well, you look great. You look great for just 40. I know you started your first business when you were one, but for me I had to take antiaging clinics for a personal reason…
So Daven, let’s get into it. Like I said, my audience may not be familiar with… So let’s talk about how you got started. Like you said, you’ve been self-employed for 40 years. Many of our audience are just looking into starting a side gig or a side hustle. Tell us how that started for you.
Yeah. I started my business actually at 15. Don’t do the math. And what really happened for me was I was an only child, and so there was no playbook for my parents and nobody told me I couldn’t do it. And so my parents really encouraged me to do whatever the heck I wanted to do. All my stupid harebrained ideas they said, “Go for it, go for it, go for it.” I fell on my butt many times, but eventually I figured it out.
And mine’s an entrepreneur story like so many others. And I have the privilege of speaking on stages all over the globe to young, bright entrepreneurs all over the planet. And what I’ve learned is that my story might be a little unique, but everybody’s got one. Every entrepreneur has an incredible story. They really do. Because it requires a lot of tenacity and perseverance to really make it happen.
But for me, I was designing clothing for bands in the early eighties. And quite frankly, my bands didn’t really have anything going on. Most of them were playing in their garage and they really had no clue. I had no clue. But an amazing thing happened. MTV came on the air and changed the face of music and changed my life. So I was working with these bands that had nothing going on and within about 90 days most of my bands had record deals.
Wow!
And within about a year, yeah, there were selling millions of albums. And I rode that wave. Especially at such a young age, it was really quite incredible. These bands were basically playing in their garage and then all of a sudden we were playing these small venues, like 600 people and then 1,000 people, and then 2,000, 10,000, and then 20,000, and then 50,000. We were playing stadiums and it was unbelievable.
Any you want to name drop here or…
Yeah, sure. I was working with all the biggest fans of the eighties and nineties. Prince, Madonna, Cindy Lauper, Thompson Twins, Duran Duran. And it was fun. And that was really the beginning of my career. And most of my businesses have been in entertainment and communications.
From there I had a telecommunications company. I had a really nice exit to a public company which turned out to really change my life really. That was cool. And then I became the biggest electronic music event producer in the U.S. That was awesome. And I really wanted to become a recording artist. And because I had that built-in fan base I was able to throw my own concerts and have 25,000 people at them. So I was able to get distribution.
I went on tour for a while and then I became a producer. Had a really good run. I wrote and produced for some very big bands. Black Eyed Peas, Coolio, Samantha Mumba. A really good run there. And I’d still be in that business today really, but Napster came out and 50 million people were downloading free music. And I really thought that was the end of the music business. So I started producing television and that was at the very beginning of reality television. And I didn’t really have any big hits there because I didn’t really have enough time there. I was just there for a few years.
And then my outsourcing business took off. And today we have hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of employees at 123Employee on three continents. And we work with entrepreneurs all over the globe and we do all the busy stuff for their business. BS, busy stuff. Things like internet marketing, social media, telemarketing, back office tasks, inbound and outbound voice. Basically, for entrepreneurs we do virtual assistant stuff. And for larger companies we do customer service, inbound, outbound voice. And our mission at 123Employee is to rescue lifestyle starved entrepreneurs, give them their time back and their lives back. And we love doing it. We’ve been doing it now for well over a decade.
That’s amazing here. So, many of my listeners, like I said, are healthcare professionals. They’re busy. They make a good living, but for whatever reason they’re seeing, just even with stuff like with COVID coming on, we’re hearing stories like anesthesiologists who are losing 50% of their income because they closed the hospitals.
So there’s a lot of people who have been interested in entrepreneurship for various reasons. And when they try to do a side business, so they’ll look at something online saying, oh, make money online. We all know that there are scams. There are a lot of people peddling stuff, but of course, there’s also people who are actually really making it. But then they say, “Well, I need to start a business but I don’t know how to do it. I don’t have time but I don’t want to hire somebody.” And that’s where they hear about virtual assistants. So I know you’ve got a lot of big, different entrepreneurs, I’m sure big 10 figure businesses and up. Is there an opportunity for somebody to start small in your organization, in your industry, in your company?
There is. Yeah. So we run what’s called a managed facility. So there’s two types of outsourcing at least in my world. So there are freelancers and there’s a managed facility. So freelancers are where you hire somebody, they’re working from home. You can find those people on sites like Upwork. And then there’s managed facilities like 123Employee. And there’s pros and cons to both. You can find freelancers that tend to be specialists. Sometimes you pay a little less for them. In my opinion, and what I’ve really learned, I think to actually being fact, you’re better off with a managed facility.
Every day we have people that come to 123 that have maybe worked with a freelancer. They’ve had some success or not, or maybe they’ve had success, they’ve invested time, worked with that person, maybe six, seven, eight, nine months, and then the person disappears. Or they’ve had a hardship, or an act of God or the power is going out, or the internet is going down or there’s issues with phone. Or you name it.
In a managed facility you have accountability. You can pay with your credit card. The power is redundant. The building can handle hurricanes and earthquakes. It’s just a much better situation. And so we highly recommend working with a managed facility, whether it’s 123Employee or not. It’s very inexpensive with a company like us at 123 you can hire a full-time or a part-time employee.
We find that entrepreneurs, the most successful entrepreneurs that outsource are the ones that know what they need done. So it’s always a good idea to sit down, make a list of what you want to do. And usually I see lots of mentors, gurus, what have you, they always say, “Hey, get the busy stuff off your plate.” So make a list of all the busy work and outsource all that. And I agree. That’s something you definitely want to outsource. But I actually recommend doing it a little bit differently.
So as you would agree, Mike, I’m sure, there’s a thousand tasks everyday in your business, right? But there’s probably just a small handful of tasks that create immediate bottom line results in your business. I call those IGAs, or income generating activities. So what I always tell people is make that list. So maybe take a sheet of paper, draw a line down the middle. On the left make a list of your IGAs, your income generating activities. And then on the right make a list of everything else. All the stuff that’s eating up your day.
So on the left hand side take that list and circle everything that you feel could be outsourced or delegated to somebody else. And then on that list there are going to be some things that you feel like, oh, there’s no way that that could be outsourced. But then step back for a second and say, “Hey, if I had maybe a month to do a brain dump, what other things could be outsourced?” Circle those as well on the left hand side.
Then what you’re going to do is what I would suggest doing is attack the stuff on the left hand side. The stuff that actually moves the needle in your business, that actually generate income in your business. Because at the end of the day, when you hire an outsource team or outsource contractors, it’s not very expensive because it’s overseas, but it’s still a liability on your balance sheet. So why not make that income generating? Once you do that now your team overseas is generating revenue for you. It’s income generating. It’s no longer a liability. You’ll probably hire more people, you’ll scale faster. And then you can start getting the busy stuff off your plate. The busy stuff is still going to equal more time and more money to you in the long run, but at least your income generating in the beginning. So that’s the way I suggest tackling working with virtual assistants.
I love that. And there’s a lot to take in here, because I have worked with virtual assistants, I have regular flesh and blood assistants. Not that they’re not flesh and blood, but in front of me assistants. But also with what you mentioned and like I said before, Upwork… What was it called before Upwork?
It was not oDesk, right?
Oh yeah, oDesk. It was oDesk.
Was it?
Yeah. And then I think RentACoder, I think was another one of those types. But it’s good for ones and twos, but bear in mind that they probably have other different clients that are going on. Not saying they’re not here, but when you have a managed company you’re their priority. You’re their priority.
Also, yeah, when you’re using freelancers you don’t know how many other clients they have. And also one of the biggest challenges that our clients have had before they’ve come to us is if you’re in the U.S., which my guess is most of your viewers are in the U.S.
Yes.
You’re going to be very hard pressed to get them to work during your day. So for example, now 123Employee about 65% of our workforce comes in at midnight and works till 9:30 in the morning. That’s our day. Because 65% of our clients are in the U.S. You would be very hard pressed to get a freelancer to work through the night. They just don’t want to do it. And I get it because who wants to work alone at night in your house? It’s just very lonely and it’s boring and it’s hard to stay awake. Whereas at our center it’s lively, everybody’s running around and it’s a campus and it’s kind of a party. Everyone’s busy because that’s our day.
Right, right, right. I love that thing about the IGA. Actually, I call it the RGA, but same thing, revenue generating activities, income generating activities. What would you recommend as one of the first things, I know you said busy work. Where do you find that entrepreneurs, they really scale their business when they start outsourcing blank? What do you usually see?
Yeah. That’s a really good one. I’m going to say lead gen. I think it’s all about the lead gen. I’m always focused a hundred percent on lead gen in every business that I’m involved in. So if I’m ever looking at starting something new, I… Sorry, that’s my little alarm there. Sorry about that. Anytime I’m starting anything new the first thing I’m looking at is what’s the lead gen? How are we going to generate revenue for the business? How are we generating leads? How is that scalable? Is it scalable? What’s the game plan? How does it scale financially, as well? Can we continue to bring in leads at the same price as we scale it? So I’m always looking at lead gen when I’m looking at the first thing to outsource. So that’s what I do. [inaudible 00:13:33] businesses.
Right, right. And for me, since social media’s come in, lead generation used to be easy. Oh, we’ll do you some mailings. Hey, let’s do some… We need to get something online. We’ll do some paper click advertising. Oh, let’s do some Facebook ads. Now with social media, we’ve got so many different ways. And I know that, and this is a good segue to what we’re talking about, I know you’re coming up with something that’s really cool, and a training. I believe a three day training that’s coming out that I’d like you to talk more about it. So feel free, Daven, tell me what’s going on.
Yeah, absolutely. So earlier this year I partnered up with an old friend of mine, Chad Nicely, and we are actually going to be hosting a three day masterclass. Now it’s not all day long, it’s just in the evenings, where we’re actually… Well, actually let me back up a second. So I’m sure that all of you that are listening and/or watching this before, have attended a webinar before. And usually on a webinar you’re learning something great.
But Chad and I have created a new process. Well, we’ve been doing it for quite some time with our own tribes. But now we’re taking it out into the world. And it’s our three day masterclass model where you’re not just learning, you’re actually doing. It’s experiential. And we are doing a live three day masterclass, September 28th, 29th and 30th.
And on this three day masterclass, it’ll take place in the evenings, we’re actually going to be working with everybody live. We’re going to show you how to create a brand new business. We’re going to show you how to generate leads in real time and attract your very first customers online. Every single person is actually going to do it in real time. We have timers. We have badges. We have rewards. The whole thing. When we do it we celebrate your success. It’s super cool and it’s free to attend.
And I believe we have a link for it. I think it’s a… We set one up. It’s bootstrapmd.com/3day. And because Mike, you’re a sponsor, you can all come for free. It’s bootstrapmd.com/3day And it’s super fun. Not only will you learn a lot, you’ll do it, which is so cool. You’ll actually make it happen. So if you’ve ever had challenges generating leads online, you’re going to do it. By the end of three days you will have generated leads online.
Daven, I know you’re an outstanding businessman, but I just want to correct, you said it was free.
It is free, only for our sponsors though, because [crosstalk 00:16:08], exactly.
That’s awesome. And what I love about it is we all have been on webinars and maybe we’ll put it on and we’ll turn it on. And then the kids are running around, the dog’s barking, and we’re on our texting phone. This is not that type of webinar. This is we’re going to be in there. We need to be paying a hundred percent attention. We need to be working.
Yeah, exactly. You have to roll up your sleeves and pay attention because you’re going to be doing not just watching. So yeah, but it’s going to be so cool. We’re actually going to be generating leads. It’s going to be on LinkedIn. So, if you don’t have a LinkedIn account we’re going to walk you through getting all that set up in advance. So when you register there’s a whole process and we’ll walk you through all the steps so that you’re ready when the masterclass goes live.
But it will be a game changer for you. And there have been hundreds and hundreds of people that have already gone through the three day masterclass in our own tribe, but there will be over 10,000 people on this live event. So we plan to break the internet with this three day live masterclass. It’s going to be intense. It’s going to be fun. It’s going to be a party. But it’ll be a game changer for a lot of people.
Mike Woo-Ming:
This is great too, because for my audience most of them have LinkedIn accounts. As you know, it’s more of the business to business type of lead generation, but we don’t know how to generate leads or at least I don’t know how to generate leads. So I think first off a good idea, guys, make sure you got your LinkedIn account ready for this, and the link that we have for you for this three day masterclass. Can you repeat the dates again?
Yeah. So it’s September 28th, 29th and 30th. And the link again is bootstrapmd.com/3day. And also, I want to clarify some things too. So you made a really good point. I have the privilege of speaking on stages all over the globe. And I always ask entrepreneurs. I say, “Hey, how many of you are on LinkedIn?” I’ll ask the audience and everybody raises their hand. And then I always say, “How many of you feel like you’re under utilizing LinkedIn?” Everybody raises their hand.
I raise my hand too.
Absolutely. And so when we’re talking about generating leads on LinkedIn, there are several ways you can generate leads on LinkedIn. You can buy advertising on LinkedIn. You can pay for advertising and it’s so cost prohibitive. You know this, Mike, it’s so expensive, good luck ever monetizing out on it. Big companies do, that have crazy sales cycles that sell incredibly extensive equipment and services, big consulting firms and what have you. But good luck being an entrepreneur and doing it on your own. But what we’re talking about is how to do it organically. We’re going to show you exactly how to do it. And before you leave the masterclass you will have people raising their hand saying, “Hey, I want to do business with you.” It’s that cool.
Awesome. Awesome. And the thing is about LinkedIn is I’m on it but I’m getting all of these requests and you can tell that some of these are either automated. I’ve seen the same email again and again. This is not what we’re talking about. Correct?
No, it’s not. And on top of that we’re going to show you how to break through that noise with what we call our foot in the door approach. So, because there is a lot of noise on LinkedIn with what we call spam. That’s what that is, it’s LinkedIn spam. So we’re going to show you how to break through that. And I think that’s on day two. So yeah.
Oh, awesome, awesome. So do you know the time period or how long each will last?
Yeah, so we’ll go live at 5:00 PM. Pacific, 8:00 PM EST, and we’ll go a couple of hours each night.
Okay, great. Great, great.
Yeah.
Most of my, obviously are working, but that seems like an ideal time to help people who have to do the 9:00 to 5:00 job but want to get out of that. Sign up for this, guys. It’s completely free. I don’t know why Daven is doing this, but I’m thanking him as a friend lending you access to this. I’m sure there might be some limited, I don’t know if there’s a limit to when you could get in.
Yeah, so we have 10K is the max and it’s filling up fast. So jump on board.
Wow! Awesome. Awesome. Okay. Okay guys, the link again, bootstrapmd.com/3day. We’ll put it in the show notes as well. And then for those who want virtual assistants, please check out Daven’s company, 123employee.com. Is that right?
You got it. Exactly.
Okay. And how does that process work real quickly? Do you know ahead of time before they hire you? What’s the process when you [crosstalk 00:20:40].
Yeah. So you give us your list, your laundry list of the stuff you want to do. And then we will match you up with somebody that meets your list, if you will. And then we give you a project manager and you’ll work with that project manager. So you actually get a VA and a project manager for the price of a virtual assistant. And 85% of the time we get it right. We’re just really good at placing you with a good person. 15% of the time we get it wrong. If we do, you let us know and we’ll replace that person for you no questions asked. And then you’re up and running right away. We generally have a pretty full pool, so we can usually get you up and running right away.
And is there a minimum amount of hours that you need or how does that work?
Minimum hours are 40. We have really just three packages, 40, 80, and full time, 160 hours a month.
Awesome. Awesome. Daven, I know you’re busy. I know you’re going to be jet setting around the world when you can.
When I can, yes.
But thank you again. I appreciate it. Guys, again, sign up for the three day masterclass if you’re looking to get leads because every business needs leads. Sign up today, bootstrapmd.com/3day. Once he’s full Daven will let me know and that’ll be closed, so you need to get in now. Daven, thanks again for joining me. I really appreciate it and all the best of success to you.
Thanks, buddy. I appreciate it. Thanks everybody. Bye-bye.
Thanks everybody. And as always, don’t be stagnant. If you feel that your business is not going start outsourcing it, guys. Hire a virtual assistant company like Daven’s or whoever you choose. You need to generate leads. Sign up for that class. But don’t stay stagnant, keep moving forward.