The E-commerce Leader

[00:00:00] Jason: is an executive assistant really? A productivity hack. Is it actually beneficial or is it like, just gone the way of the dinosaur or whatever
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[00:01:09] Jason: I’m part of one of those expensive masterminds and all the people in it make more money than I do.
[00:01:15] And one of the things I was surprised about was the fact that they all talk about the role of their executive assistant and their life and how they work together with that person. And it’s a central part of how they operate. I was sorta surprised by. And so in today’s conversation, we are going to have a deep dive into the issues of, hiring an executive assistant, working with an executive assistant, the wisdom of it, and how to use it to defend your time and expand your productivity.
[00:01:43] So, Michael, are you ready to jump into this?
[00:01:46] Michael: Yeah, we’ve not talked about this before though. Actually I’ve had a VA have some kinds of, kind of partly executive assistant for about two and a half, three years now. So this is something I can speak to you too, to a certain degree from experience. Although there’ll be incent nuances to talk about what is an executive assistant.
[00:02:01] But you know, why is this a focus for you now apart from do, you’ve seen a bunch of people making one, anything you do, and they all doing something that’s a very powerful sort of peer pressure kind of thing, isn’t it? But is there a more particular reason why you’re focused on this? Well, w
[00:02:13] Jason: yeah, I guess it was not so much peer pressure in my mind is that modeling, you know, and they, they always say, you know, if you’re the smartest guy in the room, you’re in, you’re in the wrong room.
[00:02:23] And part of joining that mastermind group is last year. It’s, it’s a strategic coach. It’s. Dan Sullivan is the, the guy behind it, great program. Many top internet entrepreneurs are a part of it and it was fun to join and it’s been interesting to be a part of it. And, so I, you know, I’m trying to understand how other people.
[00:02:42] I have scaled and done successful, you know, growth or their businesses. And so I’m listening for the cues and the topics now that this hasn’t been a topic in that group, you know, formally it hasn’t been an agenda item of the presentations or conversations. I’ve just heard people making reference to.
[00:03:00] The use of their executive assistants and it did peak my interest. So as I went into 2022, I thought to myself, what can I do to change the game? We’ve seen tremendous growth in our business this last year and in our charity. And, we, you know, that. It’s awesome to see that happening, but I’m stretched for time and I’m trying to figure out how do I get better at time management?
[00:03:24] How do I get better at, being more productive and to make sure that I don’t start to miss things. And so for both the business and for the charity, I think it’s wise for me to find and work with an executive assistant, which is something I’ve never done before. It’s always to be honest, felt like a lucky.
[00:03:43] Maybe something like a little bit of, you know, the executives have the executive assistant and they do all the traveling and speaking and who am I to have such a, a helper, in my life. And so it’s felt a little bit, I guess maybe I have issues there. I don’t know, but it felt a little bit like a luxury or something.
[00:04:00] And so never gone down that path before. And so there you have it, that’s kind of the thinking of. Yeah. Interesting.
[00:04:07] Michael: I guess it sounds like, this is about the fact that it’s a subset of time management, first of all. So you said productivity and not missing things. So there’s sort of carrot and stick reasons for it.
[00:04:16] Right? Productivity increased more output, feel good, missing stuff. Feel bad, get good reasons to get one as well. So I guess there’s kind of a subset of what we were discussing last time. Wasn’t it? Because we were talking about time management. Protecting your time. And I guess this comes in and focus on the system, which is one of the things we talked about is in a growing a system so that we can take ourselves out of the day to day operations.
[00:04:36] And also maybe a little bit, depending on how the quality of the person you hire eliminating involvement in decisions. And I certainly that’s something I’m busy trying to work on with my system right now to get myself out of day-to-day micro decisions. So. Let’s, let’s plug into this. I mean, the first thing I guess we got to do is define our terms.
[00:04:52] What, what do you mean by executive assistant? Is that the same as virtual assistant? Is that different from personal assistant? How are you seeing that?
[00:04:59] Jason: Yeah, it’s a great question. I think, thinking through the specific duties, I guess, whether it would be called a personal assistant or an executive assistant, I guess is debatable, The question about whether they’re local or, you know, abroad, I guess, was the first thing I started to think about.
[00:05:15] And, so I I’d be interested in your point of view on the difference if there is one between personal assistant and executive assistant or is it just semantics? And, but I guess we could talk through kind of the duties and responsibilities, and then I’d also be interested in your point of view on virtual, you know, kind of remote international versus local.
[00:05:32] My thinking is, I’m going to be looking for someone who’s, based in the Philippines. And we’ll be working obviously remotely or virtually in essence. What’s your take on it? How do you define those terms?
[00:05:42] Michael: Well, so first of all, I think as you were saying, I need to define specific duties.
[00:05:45] And I think that’s one of the keys as we’ve talked about this before, when hiring, but this is quite specific, isn’t it often people think of an executive assistant as your first hire, because they’re gonna help you personally. And if you’re a solopreneur, that kind of makes sense. And obviously that’s not your situation because you have some quite big teams in place already, but I would say it’s good to differentiate, not so much between locations.
[00:06:05] Versus the role, because I think the role itself is the one that people mess up the most. I’m not, I can certainly talk about location and I’ve got executive, well sort of virtual assistant who does some executive type stuff in the Philippines. So that’s the only thing I’m familiar with. I haven’t had a VA or a PA or an executive assistant in the, in the UK, I guess an ideal world I would do.
[00:06:25] But that’s probably not affordable for me. I would say the most important thing is to define the fact that executive assistant or personal assistant I think is similar, except executive sounds grander because it implies that you’re the executive. Right. But apart from that semantics, I do think there’s a difference between that and a general virtual assistant, a general virtual assistant for me is somebody who plugged into my business and may or may not help me with my personal tasks, which is more or less what I have with my guy who does.
[00:06:52] Some, some marketing stuff and some general stuff, including a little bit of person assistance stuff. Whereas I think a personal or executive assistant is there to help you personally manage your diary and in short, not miss things and be more productive to your points. So I think there’s a bit of a subtle difference between, a PA or MBA, sorry, executive assistant versus a general versus if
[00:07:11] Jason: in my opinion, Yeah.
[00:07:13] I mean, I guess I see it as if you’re a kitchen table, entrepreneur e-commerce operator or whatever, and you hire someone for the first time, you would call them your virtual assistant and they, maybe they do their Jack of all trades master of none. They do anything you can hand off to them, elegantly.
[00:07:28] So that’s, I guess that’s the difference between the role I’m in, where I have executive teams actually, and senior partners in both a corporation and in a charity and. So I I’m, I’m not in a situation where I’m I’m solo preneur. So I guess it would be more of a personal assistant or an executive assistant.
[00:07:46] Yeah, I think that’s the demarcation. That makes sense. Yeah.
[00:07:49] Michael: Yeah. So let me ask you about your plan and, and what, what do you hope to be the outcome? I mean, first of all, what do you hope to be the outcome? Let’s define that a bit more. You were saying more productivity, less missing things, but let’s dig into.
[00:08:01] Jason: Yeah, thanks. Like a therapy session. I love it. You’re being my executive coach right now. It’s so great. It’s awesome.
[00:08:09] Michael: That’s exactly. I was just asking really? What is it you’re trying to achieve?
[00:08:14] Jason: Yeah. Well, so I think there’s, there’s, two or three top of mind tasks that came to my mind when I started to think about.
[00:08:21] The first one is, is inbox. You know, I currently have at the moment, I’ll tell you the exact number. 78,528 messages in my, one email inbox. My second email inbox, I have seventy five hundred and sixty nine emails. So, so that one’s not as bad as all at all. And those are just my two primary emails that I use.
[00:08:41] So that’s one thing. The other thing is calendaring and scheduling. And. Making sure that I’m optimized in terms of my, my calendar. The third thing would be travel, endeavor, growing slate of trips scheduled for 20, 22 as we come out of COVID and we think we have opportunity to travel both domestically and abroad.
[00:08:59] I want that to be a primary focus. And then I would say the, the fourth thing is sort of, a nuance thing, but it’s sort of unique to our business, I guess, but. I guess business owners would have the situation, and that is, relationships, cultivate cultivating relationships and, staying in touch with clients and former clients, prospective clients, that whole type of thing.
[00:09:21] So in essence, because of the consultancy that we run as part of our business, making sure that people feel connected and that, reminded of who we are, what we do, what we can do for them. And we’re blessing them with, you know, gifts and, you know, books that might make sense, that kind of thing, you know, and I, you know what I mean?
[00:09:37] So that kind of outreach program to, to prospective or former clients that, that type of work, I think I’ve just felt like, there’s value there that I’m not. I just don’t have the time to do it, but I know it’s nice. It’s nice. When that happens to me, when my CPA sends me something, or when, you know, I get another box of books from strategic coach, that kind of thing.
[00:09:57] I see those models. And I say to myself, you know, that’s, there’s wisdom there. It just takes time and effort to sort out.
[00:10:05] Michael: Yeah, that makes sense. Well, I can speak to a couple of those. My I’ve got a, I would guess, in amazing FBA. So I guess I’m basically enough businesses, solar prenatal to have sort of halo of people around it.
[00:10:13] But, full-time got a general virtual assistant slash a content marketing assistant, but actually he does perform a couple of those roles. I can tell you that the inbox management, it’s something I’ve been really pushing him hard on recently. And, there there’s some. So two thirds are messages that can be dealt with by him.
[00:10:28] The inbox three hours thing is really big.
[00:10:30] Cause I find emails soak up a lot of my time and just kind of annoy me and, and sort of very distracting because they don’t relate to particular topics. So they come to my least favorite task. And so I’m really pushing my VA at the moment to get them off my plate. And it’s quite tricky because it depends on the nature of your bit, your business or charity in your case.
[00:10:47] But actually you can find there are like 30 different subtypes of tasks or 40 or 50, and I’ve really tried to chunk it into bits and gradually train him sort of going through it week by week by. With, with him to sort of tease those into categories, to come up with recipes and also to try and develop his common sense, which is a way I think an executive assistant needs to have more.
[00:11:06] Now it’s more understanding than Amelia a VA and that develops over time. So I’m saying to him, look, I want us to get to the point in two months time where you make the decisions and they’re going to be some mistakes made, but that saves me enough time for me to be able to help, you know, put up with that.
[00:11:19] So that’s really worthwhile, I think. And I’ve already seen the benefit of that. So it’s definitely worthwhile.
[00:11:24] Jason: No, I think that’s a huge one for me, you know? This last year, I would say that was one of my weaknesses. You know, I’ve had important emails go against. Yeah. And then I’ve seen a ton of junk.
[00:11:36] Yeah. I’m seeing the wrong thing and not seeing the important. And you said that
[00:11:42] Michael: number. I mean, wow. I, I definitely think you need to hire somebody and, and focusing on your inbox for a while. So yeah, that’s, that’s quite a scary number. I, the other thing I would say is that. Unique to you cultivating relationships.
[00:11:54] I mean, it’s not quite the same thing as client relationships, which I, again, I keep intending to send out books to my best clients and I don’t get round to it. So I hear you on that one, but also, we do have a pretty good way now of keeping in touch with guests, for the podcasts and prospective guests, which is a similar task.
[00:12:09] So I would also say that’s a great value in that because it does save a lot of time and there’s nothing you can’t outsource about most of that stuff. So, okay. That’s what you wanted to achieve. What’s your actual plan to actually, you know, get this wonderful person that’s going to sort through 78,000 emails.
[00:12:23] Jason: Yeah. Right, exactly. So I’ve already started to look on online jobs dot P H. I have a team leader for our, our Philippines based team, and that, she’s amazing. And she’s. Do the recruiting process, previously for team members that we’ve added, through, you know, kind of managing that process of online jobs, pH the, the job posting the, you know, screening of resumes and then the setup of the, interview.
[00:12:46] So she sort of asked her if, as a recruiter, in that role, if you will. And so I’m going to kick things off with her. I already started to just look, and of course there are just tons and tons of tons of, of, people with great backgrounds ready, willing, and able to work in an executive assistant.
[00:13:01] Personal assistant role on online jobs.ph. I think it’s the go-to place if that’s going to be the approach. And it just, you know, at first glance I’m like, okay, there’s obviously just, you know, a huge number of perspective candidates here. And I, I think we’ll kick that off. Our process generally has been that we kick it off.
[00:13:19] She reviews all the resumes and narrows it down to like three people for interviews. Then she does a first pass interview and then I would write. You know, the interview is second, second pass of the interview. And, and then we make the final decision. So that’s, that’s the one part, I’m, I’m also just researching how best to do this.
[00:13:37] You picked my interest. When you just said that you have sort of a 30 types of emails in your inbox that could be triaged by, you know, a personal assistant. I’m going to have to ask you to leave. XL charter, whatever you have, and, tap the wisdom of the crowd here in terms of how best to do this, you know, you can, you can Google around and see what executive assistants or, you know, their top roles and duties are.
[00:14:01] And I, you know, we’ve got that. We’ve also also looked at a Harvard business review article, just asking the question is, is an executive assistant really? A productivity hack. Is it actually beneficial or is it like, you know, just gone the way of the dinosaur or whatever, because it’s not really beneficial as it happens.
[00:14:18] It hasn’t gone the way of the, the dinosaur, because it actually does. Provide tremendous value in terms of productivity and, optimizing your, your time and energy. And so, you know, those are the initial steps I’ve taken so far. And I don’t think it will be very long before we have this sorted out.
[00:14:37] Yeah.
[00:14:37] Michael: Yeah. I, I, a couple of reflections. I mean, first of all, the idea of executive assistant, maybe being an indulgence as if, if you think of it like Madmen, where basically. Getting their secretary to carry a message to somebody else. The secretary a bit like with pop stars would get my people to speak to your people.
[00:14:51] But you know, maybe that’s an exercise in vanity and kind of playing games. I would say, though, and this sounds like an exercise in managing games, or maybe it is, but a necessary one. It’s a positioning tool. Having somebody, able to speak to you directly, or rather you reply to them, you know, four months late with apologies, rather than speak to your assistant, he will then set up a time for you just comes across as more professional and puts a value on your time to people that approach you and.
[00:15:13] Partly about appearance in your case. And I guess I would argue in my case, it’s no longer about appearance. It’s really actually necessary because otherwise we just can’t look at 20 hours a day. And so that’s one thing about the recruitment process, just a few thoughts and responses. What I’ve actually found in practices is a couple of things.
[00:15:30] First of all, the best people have come from recommendations from other people. Sometimes people they’ve used. People they’ve recruited, but had kind of spare, for that e-commerce entrepreneurs actually had a referral from a clients. They actually used professional HR recruiter. And I think that can be useful.
[00:15:45] I think the best people to know, you know, how to hire a virtual assistant, whether they’re going to be an executive assistant, whatever else in the Philippines, our VA’s in the Philippines, especially they have a PA background. So my best hires have been by a Filipino lady, herself who was in my original assistant, passed on by.
[00:16:01] Clients, who’d hired through a professional process and then she’s recommending a couple of people since,
[00:16:05] Jason: totally, totally agree with that. That’s been our situation as well. So you know that I probably should have mentioned that my first step might be to ask the team if they know anybody. Yeah.
[00:16:14] Because you’re right. That has been the most productive way to find great team members.
[00:16:18] Michael: It’s good to have a plan B, but I’d imagine, you know, based on what I’ve seen and what I’ve experienced personally, and what I’ve seen with my friends, you’re more likely to get somebody from that process, light duty.
[00:16:27] The other thing I would say is that what I did for the latest recruitments have the outgoing, personally. The Filipino lady on the interview panel, as you pointed out some really great things that I would have missed. So I found that very, very helpful. So having existing Filipino team members on the panel, they know the nuances or that you don’t necessarily know in it, in the Filipino culture or the sort of work habits and stuff.
[00:16:47] So that was really helpful. So that’s the recruitment side. What about that small thing of onboarding people? Because obviously you get somebody, even if they’re well qualified and experienced and bright and got a great work ethic and all the things we’re looking for, they’ve still got to get their heads around, you know, your 78,000 email inbox and, and everything else about your business life.
[00:17:04] So how are you planning to go about
[00:17:06] Jason: that? Well, they might break. Carefully not to scare them off immediately quit it. No, I, I think probably my hope is that hiring someone with good solid experience will allow them to speak into the process a bit in terms of how best. To, to approach the work, you know, sort of that, who not how a thing where I don’t have to onboard them to something I haven’t done before they onboard me to something they’ve done before.
[00:17:32] And so I think there’s some wisdom there. And then, you know, the other reality is, we have, I have a team leader. You know, the Philippines for the team there that does in essence handle the, the things like time off requests and, you know, 13th month and pay, pay issues, all that kind of stuff.
[00:17:48] And so that would continue to be the case. They’d be a part of our team that’s based in the Philippines, so that, Team leader would be in essence, the point person, I’m going to help with a lot of onboarding and orientation in terms of our, our corporate, you know, style and approach and all that. So that’ll be helpful in that regard.
[00:18:04] And then beyond that, I guess I’ll be learning as I go, tapping the wisdom of the crowd and asking, you know, people like you and other people who I partner with, how best do you approach this topic and, you know, pro tips, that kind of thing.
[00:18:17] Michael: Yeah, that sounds good. I mean, the only thing I would say is.
[00:18:20] And I’m not a person. Who’s a great example of this because I’ve made this mistake so I can feed back my mistake of going with a similar thought to you in that way. If you’ve got some people you can onboard them onto your, sort of the, their business in general and the culture that’s going to really, really accelerate things.
[00:18:33] But nevertheless, I think going in hoping the VA’s going to define the job. Personally anyway, not to have worked so well for me. And I’ve actually realized that it’s my job to define the job. Now it does depend on who you hire and how organized your business is your business. Probably way more organized with your team leader in place that then the, my activities have been.
[00:18:52] So in this case, it’s easier for them to figure out what they should do, but my, my thought would be, go and talk to these guys in your expensive mastermind. That’s kind of the point of being in one, isn’t it to go and tap them and just say, right, get, get a bit of a survey of what are you guys use your virtual system for?
[00:19:05] And I, I would differentiate also between, and this is kind of teaching my grandmother took soak ads, but, it strikes me that the outcomes you want are not the same as the tasks you want them to do. And that’s not the same as how they perform the tasks. I think if you get real goal clarity, then to some extent it will become obvious what tasks are really worth doing.
[00:19:22] And I agree with the inbox thing, no question, but it can be that you can artificially limit yourself by thinking in an overly granularly way. You know, rather than saying, I want this outcome. In order to achieve that. What are the tasks I need to get and then go talk to your executive friends and see what they’re
[00:19:38] Jason: doing, you know?
[00:19:39] Yeah. To ride on that. I think they even have resources, trainings and tips and that kind of thing already documented and well put together. I just haven’t tapped into them, but I think they’re actually, they’re inside the strategic coach community.
[00:19:51] Michael: I’d imagine they would be, I mean, I guess that’s the kind of, of having, having something like that.
[00:19:55] Yeah. So I’d imagine that starting with this sort of almost a cookie cutter template and then tweaking it to suit your, the outcomes you want rather than getting obsessed with particularly tasks, I think is, is a great idea because having not done it that way, I can tell you it’s a bit messy. So there you
[00:20:10] Jason: go.
[00:20:12] Yeah. All right, man. A great conversation today. Shall we, put a bow on it and and summarize here and then, and, and wrap.
[00:20:20] Michael: Yeah. Sure. Do you want to go over any of the other sort of activities that you, you think a VA that can be assessed? Exactly. See, we got a bit of a list here, which looks like good ones for,
[00:20:32] Jason: you know, I mean, I think if you, if you search around, you’ll see the top activities for executive systems managing the executive schedule representing.
[00:20:40] Executive when they can’t be there. Now, that would be interesting. I don’t know that that would be a situation in my case, but whatever, preparing and just managing documents, data, that kind of thing. Dealing with confidential issues and. And situations, producing reports and presentations, really being the, you know, and this is sort of old school like, oh, can the boss do the PowerPoint presentations or not that kind of stuff.
[00:21:03] I know, you know, it was like, okay, that’s sort of ridiculous. But you know, somebody who could. Polish up reports and kind of weed through them, data analysis, that kind of thing. And, or keep something like, a data studio or a dashboard, for the business update. It might be an interesting angle.
[00:21:18] And, and then the things I mentioned, aren’t even on this list that I, you know, that I’ve found, but the things like the inbox, the, the, travel, you know, details and, and, and, follow up with clients. Hmm. And, you know, acknowledging people and that kind of thing. So there you have it, that’s the list.
[00:21:34] By the way,
[00:21:34] Michael: I find producing presentations, like trust me, cause I, you know what I’m like, I’ve done presentations for your, your groups. I think I generally in the end do a good presentation, but it’s not the last minute. And I’ve used my VA’s more than once to, to help me, you know, fill in presentations.
[00:21:48] I basically gone to bed and said, right, I’ve got 40 blank slides playing, please go and pick the bait, choose some suitable images. And upload them so they can be, you know, presentations, things like that. Access can be a great use of an assistant actually. Yeah. One thing we haven’t really dealt with is the whole thing of international versus local.
[00:22:04] We haven’t really sort of delved into that. So is it worth talking about that? You, you mentioned the Philippines, so you’ve made a decision that you want them to be international, not local, even though, you know, possibly. Is it an affordability thing? Is it, what is what’s behind
[00:22:15] Jason: that? You know, it’s a great question.
[00:22:17] I think it’s a situation, a small. An office building that we’re remodeling that we’re not in yet. And I don’t see us being in it soon. Once we’re there, we’ll hire local, you know, receptionists lashed, assistant role, and we’ll be back in the sort of traditional office, you know, kind of environment.
[00:22:35] But we’re not there right now, or it’s all the whole team is virtual everywhere. And so the question is if you’re going to have virtual executive assistant, what benefit or value is there in them being local, or even in the United States. And so then it turns into sort of a question of cost and, you know, the, the availability of folks to work with.
[00:22:55] And, the Philippines has a. You know, a fantastic, you know, kind of a set of benefits there in terms of finding the right person. So that was sort of the logic. If we were in our building today, it might very well just be a local person who, you know, comes in to the office and works in sort of a traditional role, but we’re, we’re just not there right now.
[00:23:16] So, you know, that was sort of the thinking.
[00:23:19] Michael: Yeah, that does make sense. I’m going to guess that, you’re going to get more of a spread of available people in the Philippines who are used to that kind of role. I mean, there are certainly obviously in the UK or U S people are used to that kind of role, but you can certainly multiply the figure that you need to pay them by five or six times.
[00:23:33] And then the job market’s so tight in the U S and UK right now. I don’t know how it is in the Philippines. I haven’t experienced that. It’s been particularly difficult to
[00:23:39] Jason: hire. No, and I think that’s a key consideration. Obviously, the financial differences as strike. You know, I mean, if you [email protected], you see that there are people who are ready, willing, and able to work for 30 to 40 hours a week for, let’s say between 500 and a thousand dollars a month.
[00:23:54] And that is their stated wage that they’re excited about. They put those numbers out there. That’s not something that we’re imposing on them. That’s their stated, wage that they’re interested in earning. And, you know, for a lot of us who are international, we see that as just, incredible, cost savings and the competency level and quality of the work is fantastic.
[00:24:17] With many, many, people that we’ve worked with and, and, and work with right now work with in the past as well, from the Philippines. And so the question is what, why would you. You know, go down that path and there’s really no reason not to, if you have super competent people and a wage scales, make it much more affordable to you.
[00:24:37] There’s a lot of wisdom there. It’s really an internationalization of it’s globalization of work. And so then the question is, is it logical? Does it make sense? Is it ethical? All of those considerations go into it. And, and I think there is, there’s a lot of wisdom and thinking through that, for, for cost saving issues.
[00:24:55] And, and, and the like, so there you have it. Yeah. That’s my kind of sentiment. Yeah,
[00:24:59] Michael: I would say a couple of things. First of all, if as you’ve expressed and this I’m sure you’re not going to be the only person out there filling this, a slight sort of guilt or order who am I to hire an executive assistant or some feeling like that it’s not hard to get, you know, work that’s worth more than $4 an hour.
[00:25:14] If you’re not doing something completely foolish like on Facebook or something. You know, that puts the barrier to how can I justify it? It really makes it a very low barrier to jump. Doesn’t it. Where’s your home? Somebody for $40 an hour or something, or 50 good executive assistants quite expensive in the UK.
[00:25:28] I’ve I’ve had quotes for 30, 40 pounds an hour. So 50 60, then it’s harder to justify Callum, make, you know, a hundred dollars an hour. So, you know, that’s the first thing in essence. Yeah, sure. Yeah. And the other thing that I’ve found that I have to say I’m in London, which is a very international city, which ironically means you’ve got very full employment, even before the pandemic sort of post pandemic era.
[00:25:47] We’ll see what happens next, but the quality of people that you can get to work in things I’ve never really tried to hire in London, but the quality of service you get pretty much anywhere. From British people can be pretty low. And that doesn’t mean that the quality of service you get from really great British people.
[00:26:01] Isn’t good, but you have to pay a lot of money for that, whereas culture in the Philippines that gear to service and they can understand American culture. So that’s interesting that marketing’s kind of Americanized anyway. It really helps, that from, from the very first hire, you have a good attitude and a willingness I think is harder to find important.
[00:26:18] And I don’t know how it is in America. That’s just different again.
[00:26:20] Jason: No. And the, in the labor market, in the U S. Mainly challenging right now. I mean, you know, there are many, many businesses who are struggling to find people to work at any price points almost. It’s like, you know, they just keep escalating the, the hourly rate because they’re not finding people willing to jump in and do the, do the work.
[00:26:39] And, and to the extent that that’s a local job that requires, you know, like. Physically present in the location, then that’s the constraint that business operator has to S to, to suffer through and sort out. For many of us, our businesses are, virtual in anyway, we’re just on zoom and email and Skype and WhatsApp and whatever, you know, virtual tools with our team members.
[00:27:02] So in essence, it removes that localness requirement and therefore makes the recruiting. Global and there you have it. I mean, it’s an opportunity for us to do well. And you know, I, I tried for 3, 4, 5 years to work with the folks in the Philippines and could never figure. Because it just didn’t, I didn’t recruit, well, I didn’t manage well, I didn’t sort it well.
[00:27:24] And then finally, in 2017, really in essence, hired a team, because I bought a company and that team was a team of rockstars and they showed me the ropes and they showed me how to work with. You know, people in the Philippines effectively, and that has made all the difference in my thinking about this.
[00:27:41] And so, you know, that it’s been very, very eyeopening and, and fun and interesting to learn how to work with a global team of people who are, High quality heightened, a skillset, high talent folks who are ready, willing, and able to help you grow the biz. And, it’s just been an honor to do that and to work in that way since 2017.
[00:28:02] And so I’m looking forward to, adding a team member in this regard, you know, sort of in that. Yeah,
[00:28:07] Michael: nice. Well, this is an exciting moment. I I’m really glad that you feel, you know, you’re worth it as long. Be able to say I I’m sure you are. I think you’re going to find that after the teething troubles, that inbox alone, man, I’m worried now 37, 70 8,000 emails that they might just
[00:28:23] Jason: email me anything.
[00:28:27] Michael: I never do, which is why we can be poked by a messenger. Now I get it. So, yeah, joking apart. I think that a lot of people are in that situation. And then how it, how can you even manage the inbox there? I mean, my inbox has got 40 emails in that. I’m worried about that. So, you know, I guess, that’s. You know, definitely something you should do.
[00:28:44] And I think a lot of people listening and watching should be really strongly considering it as well. So if you’ve inspired them to get over the hump as it were, and actually do this, then that’s a great thing. Do you want to just quickly summarize the points we’ve gone over today? Your, your thoughts on the wisdom of having an executive assistant to defend you?
[00:29:00] Yeah,
[00:29:00] Jason: absolutely. Well, there you have it. The topic for the day is the wisdom of having an executive, an assistant to defend your time, help you organize your life and increase productivity. The opportunity to do it is fairly straightforward and well. And even documented by organizations like Harvard business review, we’ll drop an article in the show notes and the process by which you can do this.
[00:29:21] If you want to hire abroad, includes [email protected]. The roles and duties are pretty straightforward and have been tested and tried over the years by many, many people. And so you can create your own short list of activities, but I think it’s something to look into learning from the wisdom of other business executives and giving yourself the right or permission to work with a high quality high caliber executive assistant.
[00:29:50] I think. Potentially a next step for, for you. If you’re not doing that right now, I know that’s the situation I’m in. So there you have it. That’s the recap, Michael, as always, it’s an honor to collaborate together. We are having a good time on Spotify lately in terms of listenership and subscribership. I noticed on Spotify, by the way, as we wrap up here that there is now a ratings or a, a review function and I.
[00:30:15] It didn’t use to be there or it’s back on, or I don’t know, but, but it is there. And if you’re listening on Spotify, we would love to have you, review the show and rate it. And, you can do that by looking at the e-commerce leader show, right at the top of the show. The badge, there’s a little review tool.
[00:30:33] And then of course the call an app is hopping for us or show on the call, an app, airs every Tuesday. And we are the number seven show in the education category. The number 15 show. Business category. And, it’s really just exciting to see that come together. So if you haven’t checked out our episodes in the Collin app, we’d love to have you do that as well.
[00:30:55] Any final thoughts, Michael, before we wrap up? Well,
[00:30:57] Michael: that was great. I frankly had missed that, Spotify was doing rating now, so that’s very exciting cause we seem to be doing particularly well on Spotify. So yeah, it’d be great. If you can give us a bit of a love where we’re giving you the best we can give you for free and don’t forget, Jason’s a person that’s.
[00:31:12] Goodness that has how much money charged money for you to meet courses books. And indeed one-to-one and I do charge money. Obviously you do charge money, so we’re getting it for free. So all we’re asking for is stars, or really, you know, it’ll take 30 seconds on an app. So that would be really fantastic.
[00:31:28] And yeah, the call-in show very excited. We’ve we sort of jumped about 10 X, the number of people, dining and loading each show recently. So come and join that. Be on the cutting edge. When it’s taking off an experience on for yourself.
[00:31:39] Jason: Yeah, absolutely. Right. If people aren’t familiar with that and we haven’t heard us talk about it before, it is an app that runs on your phone and it’s basically a combo of podcasting and social where you can have people join your shows.
[00:31:51] You can listen, live the whole nine yards. It’s sort of an integration of a social media app and a, and the podcasting app. So go check that out and then look for the e-commerce leader. Call-in show we do that with. Kyle hammer and then Michael and I, and. Fast format. Usually the episodes are 15 to 20 minutes and we just give you our hot takes on specific e-commerce topics and, get it funded and get people’s perspective are fast and we move on and go from there.
[00:32:21] There, we have it, Michael, as always, it’s an honor. Appreciate the chance to hang out with you and learn from you in this case to pick your brain on how best to do this. You’ve coached me today. And I really, really appreciate that. So thanks, man. My
[00:32:33] Michael: pleasure. It’s always a pleasure to talk to you as well.
[00:32:35] Lots and lots of learning
[00:32:36]