Outsourcing Success: Building a High-Performing Team Beyond Borders | LAYC 105
In this episode, Tobe Brockner, founder of Katuva, shares valuable insights on building a successful virtual team for entrepreneurs. Topics covered include:
1. Managing Differences: Tobe discusses how Katuva addresses timezone, cultural, and currency differences, emphasizing the importance of minimizing fees and optimizing payment platforms.
2. Cultural Nuances: Insights into cultural aspects, including the significance of birthdays, the 13th month, and the strong religious influence in the Philippines.
3. Living Wages: Tobe sheds light on the misconception about VA wages, highlighting how Katuva ensures VAs receive a substantial living wage, significantly impacting their quality of life.
4. Infrastructure Challenges: Tobe explains how Katuva helps VAs overcome challenges like typhoons, power outages, and internet connectivity in the Philippines, showcasing the resilience of the team.
5. Strategic Outsourcing:The episode explores how entrepreneurs can leverage VAs to handle tasks they shouldn't be doing themselves, allowing them to focus on strategic initiatives and business growth.
6. Flexibility and Support: Tobe emphasizes the flexibility of VAs in handling emergencies, providing a valuable resource for businesses during unexpected events like sick leave or family emergencies.
7. Transitioning Tasks: Tobe shares examples of tasks successfully transitioned to VAs, illustrating the efficiency and support they can provide in critical areas like website migration.
8. Creating Time Freedom: The discussion concludes with Tobe expressing the joy of helping entrepreneurs free up time and live more intentionally, highlighting the positive impact of successful outsourcing.
https://learn.katuva.com/300-tasks-ebook?am_id=isabel425
https://learn.katuva.com/exploratory-call?am_id=isabel243
Welcome to the Lift As You Climb podcast, where it's all about the
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journey and the joy of discovering who you are now, deciding who you want
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to become, and embracing your genuine identity, influence, and impact.
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In each episode, we'll explore how life's experiences have prepared us for what
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we choose to do next and how to create our Encore, write our own script, and
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star in the next stage of our lives.
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I'm your host, your Encore strategist, and transformation catalyst, Isabel Alexander.
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Hello, here we are.
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The 5th in the series of 5 interviews with Tobe Brockner, the founder
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of Katuva we have covered a lot.
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We've talked about the transformative power of having a virtual assistant on
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your success team and building ladders.
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with them.
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Today, we're going to dive into a couple of very fascinating specifics
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on working successfully with a virtual assistant, and that's managing
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cultural and currency differences.
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On a previous episode, we talked about managing time differences.
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So if you haven't listened to the first 4 episodes, check them out.
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Make sure you put a pin in that to go back and do and share it, of course, with
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all your friends, because there's a lot of stuff that we covered here to make
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your experience, whether it's a first time or a retry, much more successful.
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I also want to just take a moment to reflect on the overall.
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impact that the series has had for me and for others in my audience, just
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reflecting on how much freedom and fun and financial certainty and fulfillment
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can come from a successfully organized relationship and building your virtual
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team with a company like Katuva who's got a system, got a process.
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has hired, retained the right people, and facilitates a lot of the day to
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day stuff that you don't have to do.
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They can do that.
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Stay tuned, as I like to say, buckle up, we're going on an exciting
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ride, and I look forward to talking to you at the end of this episode.
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See you soon.
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And we're learning more and by example from you how to even expand that,
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because why wouldn't I as an entrepreneur, as a business owner, and as a woman with
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a whole lot of epic living left to do, Why wouldn't I want to create more time
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for myself to do things that are fun, and new, and exciting, and expansive?
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And the only way I can do that is by having a success team and I just, I love
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this opportunity to have diverse skill sets come and diverse perspectives, which
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is a segue into one of the other questions that I was going to ask you and that is,
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so what are some of the things that you've learned along the journey in building
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Katuva about managing, we've talked about managing timezone differences,
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but what about cultural differences and currency differences and payments?
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Yeah, like many countries in the world, the U.
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S.
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dollar still carries a bit of cache.
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I pay all of our VAs in U.
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S.
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dollars.
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We use PayPal.
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We're looking at moving over to a platform called Wise.
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I'm looking at the fees and the differences and what those are costing
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us because as we get, and this is another thing, I'm trying to think in the future.
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We are the size we are right now, and the fees hurt, but they don't cripple.
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When we get bigger, two, three, four, five years from now, the fees
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that we're paying on transferring money are going to be substantial,
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purchasing a home substantial.
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And so, I'm trying to head that off and figure out, how do we minimize
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the amount of fees that we're paying?
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I actually had one of my VA's, Mylene, had her do the initial preliminary
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research on different payment platforms to see what those fees are going to be.
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And we can make a decision on that later.
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But U.
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S.
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dollars, we generally pay there.
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In the Philippines, that's the Filipino peso.
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You can pay them that way in pesos as well.
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The exchange rate that they get it through PayPal or something is generally
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worse than what they get at their bank.
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So we send them dollars and they convert them to pesos there.
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A lot of people talk about the amount you're paying and it works even though
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we don't charge per hour It works out to be about 8 an hour and we generally pay
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our VA's a little bit more than market average as a general rule Comparing
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to other VA agencies and other people that are paying rates, we pay a little
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bit more, but a lot of people are like how's that even a living wage?
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And the difference in living wage in the U.
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S.
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versus the Philippines is drastic.
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The amount of money they make here with Katuva is equivalent to making,
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60, 65, 000 a year in the Philippines.
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And so the lifestyle is much better.
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Gellie messaged me the other day, I said, have a good
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weekend, you have any big plans?
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And she's oh, I'm getting a massage.
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And I said, how much does a massage cost in the Philippines, just out of curiosity.
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And she said, 500 pesos.
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Doesn't mean anything to me, so I converted it on Google.
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It was 8.
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56 for an hour of massage.
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The difference in pricing and everything over there is just so much
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different, and so they're getting a very good, solid living wage.
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That was one of the more surprising cultural things.
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I was also surprised by how important they take birthdays.
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Generally, they'll ask for the day off for their birthday,
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which was surprising to me.
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I'm 46 now and I'm, stopped caring about birthdays when I was 17.
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So that they ask for that day off and celebrate it.
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It's surprising and humorous to me, but that's a cultural
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thing over there as well.
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They're very religious may not be the right word, although there's a very
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religious undertone to their thinking and behavior and moral compass.
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Large portion of the country is Catholic, so there's that piece of it.
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Other cultural things were like the 13th month that you
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just experienced in December.
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That's actually one of the things that's a big differentiator between Katuva and
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somebody trying to hire them as well.
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Not only do we know what the 13th month is, but we honor it.
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We attract them from the other people who don't even know what it is.
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Just for your listeners, the kind of thumbnail version of that
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is you pay the equivalent of a month's salary in early December.
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It's not necessarily a bonus, it's more of a part of their compensation package.
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They use that money to budget for the next year.
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They'll make large purchases, if they need to get appliances fixed or purchase things
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to send their kids to school, buy school clothes, they use that money for that.
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So they build that into their budget and it's important to them and so
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we try to make sure they get that.
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We make that optional for clients, but we only had one client opt
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out this year, which made me sad that he opted out, but it made me
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happy that all the other clients that we had said, yeah, absolutely.
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That was good.
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There's still a third world country.
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The Philippines is made up of something like 7, 800 islands; an archipelago.
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There's still typhoons, and there are still hurricanes, and there
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are still power outages, and we try to mitigate that as best we can.
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Most of the VAs have generators, backup, power backups.
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They have multiple data cards where if their one internet service provider
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goes down, they have another one.
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The government's actually invested quite a bit in the infrastructure for the
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power grid, but also for the internet.
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One of my internal VAs, her name is Faith, she lives literally
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in the middle of nowhere.
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Think of the most rural place you could think of in the
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Philippines, that's where she lives.
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It's called Lingundan.
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It's about four hours north of Davao City.
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She's in Southern Philippines.
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Davao's a big, very advanced city.
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It's one of the largest cities in the Philippines, but she is
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four hours removed, and it might as well be four million miles.
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It is just remote.
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The idea that Faith has a reliable power source, internet, speaks English,
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is Mind boggling that, this person who would otherwise literally be picking
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up rice out of fields for a job, making a dollar a day or two dollars a day
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or whatever it is, can be a virtual assistant for a company in the United
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States and making a wage that is far surpassed what she could make anywhere
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else is just unbelievable to me, still.
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I'm still in awe!
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Like Warren Buffett, I tap dance to work every day.
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That's how I feel.
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I share your enthusiasm and your rhythm!
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I think this is something that perhaps people are curious about.
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I'm a pretty well traveled person.
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I had an international business and I still do.
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In fact, it's a different business now.
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I sold the chemical company.
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So, I'm more fluent, shall we say, in different cultural practices
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and standards, but I know there are many people who are not as familiar
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with foreign markets and foreign cultures, and one of the questions
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has been how's their English?
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It makes me a little bit sad that people don't have a more global
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perspective but fair enough.
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The answer to anybody wondering that, who's listening, Impeccable.
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These are very educated people with a very strong desire to have a good job,
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to provide for their family, and to really be a valuable member of your team.
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It's it's been wonderful to have that affirmation of, okay, wow, in
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fact, my grammar could use a little brushing up from time to time.
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And because there is also that I think at least in my experience, the
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prevailing desire to do really well.
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They use tools and resources like Grammarly, etc.
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to vet, to check things
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chatGPT.
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. ChatGPT, absolutely.
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And anybody who says AI is going to replace employees, give me a break,
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but what it can do is argument.
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I have an internal joke with Cherry that ChatGPT is just another member
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of The Encore Catalyst success team.
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And we call her Chatty Cathy.
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It helps to support us to, get us started with some ideas, but then we make it
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our own and really give our voice to it.
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And the other thing I'm glad that you mentioned, because faith is a
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big part of it, celebrating family is a tremendous part of the culture.
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And I like being able to make that happen as the employer that I can
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recognize anniversaries and birthdays.
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And in fact, my VA was evacuated about two weeks ago during
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some heavy rain in her area.
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So we just flexed our work schedule and that was fine too.
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What was more important to me was that she was safe, and that,
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she had a home to go back to
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All right, I feel that there is a lot more that we can talk about and expand
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other people's perceptions of working with a VA and open up the creative thinking
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around what could a VA do to help me have more time, more freedom, create
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more financial certainty in my business.
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I'm really thrilled, Tobe, that you've given us so much time, and
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there's probably going to have to be a future series of interviews
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once we get some feedback,
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but for today, I have one more set of questions that I would like to ask you,
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and this is particularly about people who have established businesses, as many of
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my clients do, and have the conventional idea of staff or employees and utilize
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contractors on a more local basis.
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Are, what are the ways that they potentially might also take
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advantage of a VA supporting them?
Tobe:
Yeah.
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There's really two things that we ask clients to look at when
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they're deciding on whether or not they need to hire a new VA.
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One are the things that you're already doing that you
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shouldn't probably be doing.
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You probably shouldn't be doing it yourself.
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You should be outsourcing that.
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Editing this podcast would fall under that category.
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You shouldn't be editing this podcast.
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That should be something that you outsource.
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You may have somebody internally, locally, that can do that.
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Most likely, if you do have someone internally, they are already full.
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Their bandwidth is stretched thin.
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A lot of times, I used to fear, when we were going into a business
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and they had a staff already, are we going to upset these people?
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Are they going to feel threatened?
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They welcome us.
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They're like, Oh my gosh, thank you so much!
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I have all this other crap I'm doing.
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I don't need to do, I don't want to do, I don't have time to do.
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We just placed two VAs in an engineering company, analyzing data for some process
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that I don't even know what it is.
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These VAs did though.
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This particular client, her boss is actually our client.
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He's the business owner, but she initiated the whole thing because she
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was like, they want me to do this.
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There's no way I have time.
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I need help.
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And so we hired her two VAs and she loves us.
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So that's one, number one: things you're already doing that you probably shouldn't
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be doing and you can't necessarily offload to a current staff member.
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So you could offload that to a VA.
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Number two; this falls into the Stephen Covey quadrant.
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Most of the things that we work on when we said we work in the business,
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that's the urgent, not important, or the urgent, important things.
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Those are the things that we spend a lot of our time on.
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Things that are on fire, customer service, selling, all those types of things.
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But where the real magic sort of happens is in the not urgent, but important.
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It's the more strategic things.
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So these are the things that you could be doing that you're not
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doing that would move the needle.
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And those could be like putting together strategic initiatives, putting together
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new marketing campaigns developing out your sales process, building out
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those automations for follow up, all of those things that you need to do
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that you never quite have time or the bandwidth or the resources to get to.
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Those are two great areas to start in.
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You inspired me also to, to think about the opportunity to leverage
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filling a sick leave position or an emergency leave, like God forbid that
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one of your staff is in a accident or, suddenly has an extended illness.
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or a maternity leave where, the position responsibilities don't go
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away while you're birthing that baby.
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So I think having a VA to come in as a placeholder.
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And the company can continue on until such time as, maybe the individual
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comes back or you have time to recruit and hire another full time person.
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And it's not just the staff member, it could be you.
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Something could happen to you or you fall ill or you have something happen.
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We have a client who had someone in her family very close to her pass
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away, and it was a very hard time, very dark period in her life, and she
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came back to me later when it settled down and was like, my VA saved my life.
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She saved my business.
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I would have gone out of business had my VA not been there to pick up slack
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because I was just not in a place, where I could even think straight, much less
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do the things that needed to be done and she was so great about coming in and
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being proactive and, following up with clients and staying in touch with people.
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The staff is one thing, but we're not bulletproof either as much as we.
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Pretend we are and things could happen to us as well that, a VA can come
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in and take the reins, if need be.
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Thank you for reminding because in fact, that's one of my specialties.
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I work with my clients to help them take themselves out of being the
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primary asset in the company, and fire themselves from the hands on daily
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management so they can promote themselves upstairs to be the chief investor.
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So you're right.
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We shouldn't be indispensable.
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We should be looking for every opportunity to have somebody else, become us and
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fulfilling all of that and executing our vision for how the company will be.
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I also was thinking, as in my case, there's the one time, the specialty tasks.
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As in my case, where I need to transition from a platform, not to be named.
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My website and my programs, my online resources were with a company that
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I just wasn't gelling with but I continued my subscription with them
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for years and it was really, truly more of a hate than a love relationship.
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One of the first tasks that Cherry did when you introduced her to me and she
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joined my team, was to take all of that very valuable information, my assets, and
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move them over to GoHighLevel, so that there was no interruption in my business.
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My clients didn't know she did that all behind the scenes and
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one night, we turned the switch.
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And we were there.
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So that is something else that I thank you and I know other clients thank you for.
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Because you have an agency for HighLevel, you provide that
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opportunity for us and bonus!
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You train our VAs on how to be fluent in that area.
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So yay!
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Again, the ideas keep coming to me, so there's definitely
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an opportunity for the future.
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I am so happy to be a client of Katuva, and I haven't mentioned it yet, but
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of course, we're going to reward our listeners, our audience, not only with
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the richness of what we share today, the wisdom that we're sharing, but I know that
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you've got some free resources that they can access and that information will be
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provided in each of the episodes, show notes, both on podcast and on YouTube.
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Additionally, because I am a raving fan of Katuva, I'm gonna
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be offering an affiliate link.
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Because I do believe in the company and I'd like to share that with
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as many other people as I can.
Tobe:
We're just as thrilled to have you as a client as you are to be a client.
Tobe:
There's nothing that makes me happier than helping entrepreneurs free up their
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time and live life more intentionally.
Tobe:
So thank you!
Isabel:
Cheers to you.
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Talk to you soon, Tobe.
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How was that?
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I don't know about you, but I found it so thought provoking and inspiring
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and empowering because now we know what to look for in establishing a
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successful virtual assistant relationship and building out our team so that
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we can do more of the things that.
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We do best and more of the things that give us a happy,
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fulfilled life and business.
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We've talked about the transformation that is possible when you embrace the
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idea of having a remote team and set them up for success as well and really
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change some of the way you think break out of some old patterns and paradigms
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about working hours and the things.
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only you can do.
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So I'm so very grateful to our guest, Tobe Brockner of Katuva for sharing
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his very personal experience, his journey to the successful business now
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providing virtual assistance for clients.
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from all around the world, and how he's offered to share so many resources
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with us, from his book recommendations to great quotes, personal anecdotes,
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and stories that, you know, that I think as entrepreneurs, we all
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can relate to and are inspiring.
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Additionally, his Providing that great PDF, that thought starter
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about the 300 plus or more things a virtual assistant could do for you.
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Some that you may not even have thought of, for sure, I hadn't.
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Also, because I love Lifting and Climbing.
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I'm sharing an affiliate link for a very special rate to explore,
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investigate working with Katuva.
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And after you have a conversation with Tobe, you will know.
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If that's what's right for you at this time.
Isabel:
So cheers to you, to building your success teams, creating more freedom in your
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life to do what you want to, getting rid of the albatrosses, as Tobe did.
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Let us know.
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What else?
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What other questions came up for you about working with VAs?
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Because we'll be here to answer those for you.
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Reach out to me, hello@theencorecatalyst.com
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or comment in the episodes on YouTube or on your podcast channel, or reach
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out to Tobe at Katuva, be sure to follow him on his social media because
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they've got some great inspiring content that'll make your day better.
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All right, see you soon.
Isabel:
Thank you for spending this time with me.
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I hope our conversation added value to your day and expanded your
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vision for your legacy and impact.
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Please join me in increasing my impact and expanding my reach to even more
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people by sharing this episode on social media, with friends, and leaving a review
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on Apple iTunes, Spotify, Or channel of choice to catch all the latest from me.
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Subscribe on your favorite podcast platform.
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Connect with me and others in our community Facebook group, the Lift
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As You Climb Movement, where you can engage, be inspired by and grow
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with a tribe of like-minded people.
Isabel:
As I evolve as a podcaster and spokeswoman for collaboration and
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economic empowerment, your input and feedback are especially important.
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To me, I welcome your suggestions and questions to hello@theencorecatalyst.com.
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Until we meet again, please remember your success may be the foundation
Isabel:
for someone else's to together we can raise success ladders around the world.
