How to Hire the Perfect Virtual Assistant for Your Business (Episode 189)

Jeff Bullas

00:00:09 - 00:01:26

Hi everyone and welcome to Jeff Bullas Show. Today I have with me, Chris McShanag. Now Chris, even though he's got a name that sounds Scottish. He's actually an Australian and Chris is the BizVA president, Chief Operating Officer and a transformational leader who brings extensive experience in delivering successful business solutions through innovative and scalable solutions. An entrepreneur at heart, Chris has successfully led many organizations and startups in many various industries including healthcare, mining, utilities and consulting. At BizVA, he oversees the company's strategic direction and day-to-day operations about virtual hires. He says they pride themselves on finding well educated, dedicated and charismatic employees to integrate in a full array of businesses. Often a client of a customer's most critical impression of a company is their initial contact. So Chris works in the world of virtual VAs for both business as well as a specific niche medical. So welcome to the show, Chris, it's an absolute pleasure to have you here.

Chris McShanag

00:01:27 - 00:01:35

You too, Jeff. Pleasure to meet you. It's always nice to have a couple of Australians to get to have a chat.

Jeff Bullas

00:01:35 - 00:01:41

Yeah. Well, we could call this the Aussie show. So, there you go.

Chris McShanag

00:01:41 - 00:01:42

There you go. Sounds good.

Jeff Bullas

00:01:42 - 00:01:50

So, Chris, what made an Aussie move to the USA? What happened there?

Chris McShanag

00:01:52 - 00:02:57

It's a great story and probably my mum's not the best fan of it, but back in 2000, I was working with IBM and in Sydney and I was moved over here as an expat to work on a project for a couple of years. Met a lovely young lady, fell in love and fell in love with the country of the United States and just the opportunity that are presented to grow business and make a difference. Through that journey, I've been able to successfully grow and sell a few companies. But also one of the things I really identified is the healthcare system over here has a unique opportunity. And as part of getting involved with the wrong don house charities, I was on the board there and see how, you know, folks struggle with the healthcare system and how there's inefficiencies. And that's really what led me to the MedVA business and ultimately the BizVA business to provide staffing as it was one of those key areas that folks were struggling with and even more so as we've come through the pandemic, how we can get strong staff that are performing reliable and in a cost effective manner. And by, you know, being open to remote staffing, it really led me to this path and I'm super excited at the opportunity and the growth we've had so far.

Jeff Bullas

00:02:58 - 00:03:16

So let's go to the beginning. What was the inspiration to get into the VA, the virtual assistant business? Tell us, where did that inspiration come from? Was it in conversations with friends or business colleagues? Where did the inspiration come from to start BizVA and MedVA?

Chris McShanag

00:03:16 - 00:04:38

Really, it came from our two key founders, Doctor Coffman and Doctor Shay. Doctor Coffman's an oral maxillofacial surgeon and Doctor Shay is a gastroenterologist and they were just struggling through the pandemic and even before the pandemic to have enough time to take care of their patients to really work with their patients and had to have to deal with the administrative burden of the practice and insurance and things of that nature. And then on the business side, just talking to my business colleagues and entrepreneurs and their biggest struggle being, how can I find the right folks? How do I lower turnover and get really people that really want to work and really want to come to work in a cost effective manner? And so it led me down the path to say there's got to be a better model, particularly with the remote staffing revolution that's taking place. And folks being more comfortable working remotely kind of opened up a door I think to really help clients and doctors and dentists and in veterinary, really reduce that burden of employee and take away that burnout that a lot of entrepreneurs are experiencing as they're growing a business to find the right folks to really support them. And the mantra I use is let us take care of the eating while you can take care of the dreaming. And a lot of businesses today, whether it be on the medical side of the business, are held back from really taking that next step and growing and focusing on what's more important because they're being held back by not being able to find good administry staff to take care of their day-to-day needs.

Jeff Bullas

00:04:39 - 00:04:44

So, is it more administrative staff you're focusing on in the VA business?

Chris McShanag

00:04:44 - 00:05:48

Certainly it's anything that doesn't require kind of a human touch on the medical side. So it's handling phone calls, insurance, verification, eligibility, billing, accounts, receivable and scribing and medical record updates. And then on the business side, it's really things like bookkeeping, answering the phones, inside, outside sales, social media, multimedia marketing and things of that. You know, on the legal side, we do a lot of work on legal forms on the real estate property management. Think of those things that you can do remotely at the comfort of your home, can quite easily be delivered and developed remotely. And we have a fantastic team in the Philippines. As your listeners probably know, the Philippines is the third largest English speaking country in the world, even more than Australia. We have more English speaking than Australia. And then we have teams in Latin America and across the globe to support bilingual where they are really dedicated. They work the business hours of our clients and love the opportunity to kind of give back. And for us, the passion is being able to support clients globally, but also be able to invest back into these countries like the Philippines and Latin America to help those economies grow as well.

Jeff Bullas

00:05:49 - 00:05:57

Yeah, it's fascinating, isn't it? So the English speaking, a lot of [inaudible] university trained as well in the Philippines.

Chris McShanag

00:05:57 - 00:06:25

About 80-90% of our team members are higher education and almost 70% of them are nurses on the or 80% on the medical side. And then we have, you know, I've actually got some doctors and dentists that work for me. I've got a number of folks that are MBA trained that work for us and love the opportunity to provide and give back and it gives them a great opportunity to be at home with their families, but still be able to provide and do interesting work.

Jeff Bullas

00:06:26 - 00:07:03

So let's look at how the process looks like for you to and a lot of us, you know, I have some couple of VAs that work for me. One works more on the publishing side of the business. The other works a bit more on the ad, some works more on the research. So how do you engage? And then the other thing I want to ask too after that is how you enable it with technology. So talk about, let's talk about the process of finding the right virtual assistant for a business. How does it, what's the process look like?

Chris McShanag

00:07:04 - 00:08:56

A great question, Jeff. And so the process is very simple. What we ask is, let's have a conversation. We'd love to learn and hear a little bit about your pain points and your needs. You schedule a call from our website at bizva.com. Understand a little bit about your pain points, whether it be in handling phone communications with your clients, whether it be on the social media, like you mentioned publishing, what is the pain or what's the greatest thing that's holding your business back from growing today? And then we really go to work, you know, at any point in time, we have 300 or so VAs in our pool that we're leveraging from. And so we go to work either looking into our pool of existing folks that meet the needs that you have or will we have a very robust recruiting engine. And what we do is we put out, we recruit our VAs, then we put them through dedicated compliance and skills training. And before they really enter our organization, they go through a skills assessment, both a disscoring and IQ testing and then they do a language and comprehension testing. So they have four really key pieces of data that we're able to collect and really form what we call the ideal VA profile. It's a high quality VA. They go through training and then they enter into our pool. And at that point, they get a dedicated VA manager that works with them on a day-to-day basis. We've built a university called MedVA and BizVA University where folks can get ongoing training. And then we make that connection between those that are in their pool or in the recruitment and then the client need that's coming in. And then we nurture that by, we provide you an onboarding specialist that will help you get that VA on boarding. And then ultimately, you'll have an account manager that will work with you on a day-to-day or weekly basis to ensure you're getting the most value out of your VAs. And then if there's any concerns or any issues, we're more than happy to replace that VA in a 24-48 hour period. And that's really how the process works. We just want to understand where your pain point is. And then we go to work to handle that heavy lifting and get you the right administrative and the person to do the work for you.

Jeff Bullas

00:08:57 - 00:09:01

Right. Okay. So it's a very rigorous process by the sounds of it.

Chris McShanag

00:09:02 - 00:09:57

Yeah. So it's not just like recruitment where we find something, we place them and then we step away. We're very intentional to provide virtual assistance and people and remote staffing as a managed service versus just a placement. And then we handle the billing and all the invoicing and then we handle all the payroll on the back end. So you, as an entrepreneur or as a client of ours, you just have to worry about, you know, driving your business and then we set up a flat rate biweekly billing cycle for the services. And then we go to work, and handle the payroll and all the back office. There's no taxes, there's no payroll taxes or any benefits that you need to provide those VAs. We take care of that by we actually one of the things that differentiates is because we want to invest not only in the long term relationship with our clients, but with our VAs, we provide medical and retirement benefits to our virtual assistants and team members. So that drives longevity and tenure with their clients and with them and our organization.

Jeff Bullas

00:09:58 - 00:10:20

So, what I'm curious about is the business, the actual pricing model in terms of how it works. Obviously you're managing the client. There's also the hiring. So how, what's the pricing model look like for your business if someone's going to use your services?

Chris McShanag

00:10:21 - 00:11:12

It's a great, you know, that's really, it varies a little bit, you know, based on the skill set, I mean, so it kind of starts at $800 every two weeks, at the US, for a full time VA. So that's really somebody who's dedicated to you full time for two weeks or in a part time at 600 every two weeks and that those folks have provided about 50 hours over the two week period to really be dedicated to work with you. Now, I say it kind of starts there because we have some highly skilled VAs that are a little more expensive. I think as I mentioned before, we go online, I have some folks that are doctors and MBAs and dentists and highly skilled entrepreneurs that, you know, really want to work in a remote model and we can provide that. But it kind of starts at like I said 800 but some we have lower if you want like a junior person, we can definitely work collaboratively to get it at a lower fee. But that's really where the pricing model works. And we set that up on a biweekly schedule.

Jeff Bullas

00:11:12 - 00:11:16

Right. Okay. So, in terms of management.

Chris McShanag

00:11:16 - 00:11:22

Which translates to about $10 an hour, roughly on a full time and $12.50 on a part time.

Jeff Bullas

00:11:22 - 00:11:27

Right. So, is the management of that build into the pricing model, is it?

Chris McShanag

00:11:28 - 00:11:47

Yep. That's a, it's a flat rate of $800 every two weeks so that there's no taxes or on boarding or any management fee on top of that, it's a flat rate. And so what our clients have found that to appreciate is really the consistency and predictability of those fees. So you don't have to worry about flexibility or any changes in, in models.

Jeff Bullas

00:11:48 - 00:11:54

Right. So if there's an issue with the VA it's, or it's not a good match. What, how do you manage that?

Chris McShanag

00:11:55 - 00:12:31

Well, through your account manager, if you inform them, there's a concern and we do one of two things, right? We can replace them if it's a concern that we can't work through or if it's something that needs some additional training or tweaking. As I said, we have VA managers that we can work with and they provide ongoing coaching to our VAs. They can access our university for additional training and education. And then we also have a team building model whereby we can provide additional resources to help support that VA, maybe through a specific project, be able to ramp up and that's really what our clients have seen, the ability to ramp up and ramp down their services to meet, you know, ongoing demands.

Jeff Bullas

00:12:32 - 00:12:52

Right. Okay. So the next question I have which I'm curious about and most terms in a digital technology driven world. What sort of tech, you know, what sort of technology do you have to develop that enables the support management of the VA business?

Chris McShanag

00:12:53 - 00:14:53

Yeah. So we leverage kind of voice over IP to handle a lot of the communication. So if you have a VA who works for you or a person who works for you remotely and somebody calls your office, it goes directly to the team in the Philippines, the gentleman or lady that's dedicated, they answer the phone as if it's coming through your line also if they return a call or come through on your line. So a very seamless process from a phone and communication perspective on the virtual communication, we leverage voice over IP. And so we have a voice over IP connection between us and our clients to ensure security of the data and information, but all the information continues to live on your servers, teams just remotely in and then we leverage, you know, Slack and Zoom for a lot of technology to really build that overall what I call collaborative model, comprehensive communication model. And that's where the three mains and then in the back end, we leverage a time recording system that allows security for our clients to understand that their VAs are actually working. And so it tracks their time. If there's no activity, it stops their time clock. And so we can see if they're not working as well as it determines where they go and can't go. So if they go to certain websites or perform certain activities that will reduce their clock and stop the timing. So there's an assurance that the VA are actually working for you. In addition to that, we have a VA portal which our VAs are loaded into, they provide an end of day report for our clients. And so you can see, okay, here's what we worked on today, here's what we're targeting tomorrow, here's some of the biggest wins we've had, here's some opportunities and obstacles that we would appreciate some feedback on. On the flip side, we have a client portal whereby the client can log in, see the VAs they have today, what the productivity they're working on. And then also if they would like to get an additional VA, they could go in there and search a pool of VAs by criteria or filters and identify a key resource and then they could, you know, could either choose to interview them or hire them and get them on board it immediately.

Jeff Bullas

00:14:53 - 00:15:18

Right. Okay. And what about so we use Slack and we use Zoom obviously in the business, but most people do Google Docs and so on. How do you manage projects? So for example, we use Trello as more a project tool. In other words, you can have all the activity regarding a specific campaign or project, you know, on a card on Trello. Do you, have you developed your own tool for that or do you use other tools?

Chris McShanag

00:15:19 - 00:15:32

We leverage Monday.com on a lot of those things from a workflow management perspective and then we leverage from a HubSpot from a CRM sequencing marketing and sales perspective.

Jeff Bullas

00:15:33 - 00:15:46

Right. Okay. That's cool. So you basically, you've created some of your own core proprietary technology that's fed by other tools that are available in the public domain. Is that correct?

Chris McShanag

00:15:46 - 00:16:27

Correct. And you know, we also encourage our VAs and our team members to work with their client system. So for example, if somebody is leveraging Trello, then you know, we encourage them to leverage your technology, whether it be Slack or Teams. And so it's not like you, if you work with that service, you have to use this technology, we have that available and the team trained on it, we really encourage our VAs and our clients to leverage the tools they have because it doesn't make sense to mix up tools. You know, if they're a Google platform, then they'll leverage a Google Workflow that you have internally as you as a client or if it's a Microsoft. And so our team is well trained. And so that's why we have the university where we ensure that our VA are well trained in all technology so they can really hit the ground running.

Jeff Bullas

00:16:27 - 00:16:59

Right. Okay. So giving the right tools. Now, the other thing that's really important in the remote work environment is, I suppose it is maintaining motivation and building some form of team culture, which we do know that the perfect, it is a better world to do face-to-face. But that's not in a world of remote work, which we now have a hybrid version of that. How do you nurture team building and culture with your platform and approach?

Chris McShanag

00:17:00 - 00:18:35

But it's a great question. One, we've spent a lot of time kind of really thinking about how do you drive a cohesive culture? Because folks, you know, all of our team members work from home. And so folks will ask me how many officers do you have? And I'll say, well, I have over 2000 officers because we have over 2000 VAs. And so what we do is we really be intentional to gamify a lot of these things and provide opportunities on a quarterly, biannual and annual process to do team building events and we work with our clients to kind of incorporate them into those type of events so that it feels like part of a team and that the virtual assistants and the in-house staff are a combined team and we do things like, you know, we'll have shared games or shared competitions between clients or between VA groups on the most client satisfaction scores or client surveys and also the results. Because what we've seen in a kind of a broad spectrum across our clients is when you move from leveraging an in-house to a remote staff member, you're saving about $80,000 a year just in pure employment costs. So when you think about the payroll side of things as well as taxes, real estate communications, but on top of that, we're experiencing a 40% productivity bump and a 50% revenue bump because you're able to take care of more work more efficiently and be able to generate more revenue, whether it be on the, you know, sales side, marketing side, social media. And so we really gamify the process and we provide those tools to see the results and the productivity your VAs driving. So you as a team can obviously celebrate those wins.

Jeff Bullas

00:18:36 - 00:19:23

Right. Okay. So sometimes, okay. So using a tool, so to monitor work and hours. The challenge I find regarding remote work technology to monitor it can get to the point of being creepy and surveillance. What's your approach to, what I call surveillance technology for employees? Personally, I'm not that comfortable with it. So what's your approach to using technology to monitor and manage time and productivity of course, what's your approach to a surveillance technology for employees?

Chris McShanag

00:19:24 - 00:21:02

Yeah, it's a fine line of balance, right? I mean, if you're working with somebody who's 6000 miles away as a client, you're like, are they really working? Right? If you're paying for that service, because you can't physically see them, tap them on the shoulder at the same time, you want to make sure they're productive and you're respecting their privacy. And so what we've done is we leverage technology that's in the background that really doesn't screen view anything on your computer, but it makes sure you're not going to things like. So we make sure folks aren't going to Facebook or sitting on Instagram or others all day and you're not getting that productivity. And so we have that technology and it's not invasive, it's just making sure that the activity is happening. And then on the flip side, what we've done is we've had technology that says, how many phone calls did you handle? How many emails? How many Slack messages? How many communications so that it's a fine balance that, you know, did you, you worked eight hours, you got this productivity, we can give a good sense of the folks who are actually working. It's not intrusive that it's not necessarily recording your screen cam or what's going on on your computer, but it's making sure you're active and you're not visiting or going to stuff that's inappropriate no different than if you're in the office and making sure that folks aren't, you know, accessing inappropriate information. And then it provides some protection, particularly on our medical side because of the importance of patient communication and patient information. But also on the business, you have a lot of financials and stuff that information that team members may be working on from a bookkeeping perspective or on a legal matter that you wanna make sure are secure and comfortable for leveraging across, you know, across borders because the tech, the software is living there or that the data is living on your servers but being accessed remotely.

Jeff Bullas

00:21:02 - 00:21:20

Right. So the other, you know, thing's been raised in this discussion is, and the question I have is what are the metrics you use to measure productivity for remote work for VAs?

Chris McShanag

00:21:21 - 00:22:28

So depending on the work, so let's say, for example, you have a virtual assistant that's handling your phone communication. And so it really looks at phone calls, how many calls are happening? What's the length of the phone calls? What's the pick up time and how many rings before it's picked up? Those are the kind of things or if it's on the administrative side, how many administrative tasks, whether it be social media posts or on the legal side, number of forms or on the property management, real estate, how many property management views taken place or research is done? And it's really basic. And one of the first things we do when we meet with our clients is talk to them about what's the most important number, what's what determines success in your business and how a virtual assistant can come alongside. And I think I shared with you Jeff, you know, the 100 tasks the VA on the medical side can do and the 250 tasks a business VA can do. And so we kind of work with our clients as part of that ongoing to define what does success look like. What are the key metrics you track on your business and how VA can obviously align with those. And as I mentioned, we provide end of day reports. So here's what we achieved today, here's what we're targeting tomorrow. Here's our biggest wins and here's where the areas of opportunity for improvement.

Jeff Bullas

00:22:28 - 00:22:44

Right. Okay. And so that you would basically have a defined process for measuring productivity and data points. Alright. So the challenge for any startup and you started, how long ago was it? A couple of years ago?

Chris McShanag

00:22:45 - 00:22:46

Yeah, 18 months ago. Yeah.

Jeff Bullas

00:22:46 - 00:23:03

Okay. Right. We're driven by the pandemic, obviously and pandemics actually revised business models. So what are your challenges being and business model for growth? In other words, what's your marketing and sales strategy to grow your market share? What does that look like?

Chris McShanag

00:23:04 - 00:24:36

So from a marketing perspective, we leverage a lot of digital marketing. And so, you know, paid ads, online collaboration, networks, but really the biggest part, about 60% of our business is through referrals. And our goal is and my intentionality is to how can I always continually improve the experience of a VA working for us as well as the experience of a client working with us? And so that's really driven our business to the point that we're adding almost 100 clients a month and about 100 team members a month. And so we're on a very aggressive trajectory from a growth model, leveraging kind of traditional digital media, marketing as well as in person network marketing that we leverage through events and key speaking opportunities like today leveraging podcasts and webinars has really been the growth model that we've leveraged. And it's paid very good dividends for us today. My goal is I take care of my clients and then they got to take care of us and referrals and we have an ambassador program where our clients are really ambassadors on our behalf. And we put together models where we share and some revenue sharing and things of that nature that's really grown our business because it's a clear need. It's a clear value proposition and there's value creation, leveraging the one thing that's, I think, held a little bit of it back. If you could say that is just the comfort level of remote working and through the pandemic and other things, I think people have got more comfortable that as long as the productivity there and we know that folks are working and the cost model makes sense. It's really a no brainer.

Jeff Bullas

00:24:37 - 00:25:24

Yeah, it's, we're moved into a hybrid world I think, which is for a lot of organizations. And the model seems to be working out as a three, two model almost like Mondays and Fridays are working from home, Tuesday, Wednesdays and Thursday, which is affecting things like the energy of cities, remote work, it's affected the shops in regional areas, for example, that's there's a coffee shop in the in, you know, up the street versus the one that used to be in the city. So I've got, there's a lot of changes happening. It's affecting property values. So, and you know, I think the number of people doing remote work was 4% before the pandemic. And now I think it's up to, I think 42% or something. So I read recently.

Chris McShanag

00:25:25 - 00:26:47

Yeah. And then the other thing is a lot of folks, you know, went away, when I would say went away, work remotely and businesses realized I don't need that real estate. I don't need those costs. But then also they realized, hang on a second, if somebody who I'm paying under $200,000 is can able to perform this task remotely. Is there a more cost effective and economical model that I can perform the same work at a lower cost or two folks doing that one job at a less cost and drive more productivity? And so that's the other thing that I think we've seen because to your point, a lot of folks are resistant to the hybrid model, they haven't wanted to come back. And so it's driven a lot of business elsewhere. It's like, you know, people moved from major cities like I know you're in Sydney, major tropical cities to out in the country, whether it be in the northern New South Wales or down south and then their employers are asking them to come back to work and they're like, you know, I sold my property in Sydney and I moved back to work at home or in a different environment. It's just not cost effective for me to come back and that's driving definitely the need of finding folks and the beauty of virtual assistance and remote staffing is I have access to a global workforce. So I'm not limited by a metropolitan area to perform a lot of the work that necessarily needs to be done. Therefore allowing those folks that are in the office or that are local to focus on the more strategic areas and ideas and concepts that you need.

Jeff Bullas

00:26:48 - 00:27:55

Yeah, it certainly has created quite, it's had so many impacts in so many ways that people didn't predict. And that's, and with two trying to work out, you know, and then the other thing too is what does the future look like? And quite often we don't know until we get there. And in the meantime, we've got these a lot of people escaped to the regions. Now they're told to go back, interest rates have gone up. So the price of living in regions has become because they've put taken up big loans to buy a regional property. So there's and, you know, there's some price movements in Australia, for example, that prices have dropped 30% in some regional areas as they went up 100%. Now they're dropping back. So there's a lot of factors at play. Now, the question I want to ask you as well is how do you, are you working totally remotely like just you and your home office or do you have an office itself? How does your remote work, hybrid model work for you and your business?

Chris McShanag

00:27:56 - 00:28:39

For me personally, yeah. I mean, I have a home office that I work from but I also spend some time. I, basically in the US and in Phoenix, Arizona, I spent some time meeting with a number of our clients around the US, you know, we leverage remote work offices, right? So we'll go to a city and have an opportunity to meet with a client, whether it be a dare facility or we'll leverage remote office space or rent space for that period of time. And so that's really how we leverage the model today. Because it's very cost effective and efficient for us. Most of my time is spent just as we are today, Jeff, having conversations via

technology. But I still, I intentional to get out and meet our clients so I can better understand their pain points and needs and help drive the business forward.

Jeff Bullas

00:28:39 - 00:28:44

Right. Okay. So you don't have a physical office as such, you just basically have a home office.

Chris McShanag

00:28:45 - 00:29:21

I don't, no. So, no, I'm part. Yeah, like I tell you, we have a little over 2000 VAs supporting 600, I think 600 almost 700 clients right now. And like I said, they're all work from home, which is fantastic because what we do is we intentionally ensure they have the right technology and the right security and compliance to be able to perform this work. And particularly that allows us to attract the best and the brightest because now they can work from home, they have to deal with the commute that a lot of obviously employees have to deal with. And so now I can attract folks that are comfortable to work in that kind of environment.

Jeff Bullas

00:29:22 - 00:29:41

So in terms of you operate in a two sided market, supply the VAs, the businesses which are the consumers. So how did you source good quality VAs, how did you go about that?

Chris McShanag

00:29:42 - 00:31:04

So similar model, we leverage social media in that we, you know, to attract track folks, we obviously done a lot of work recruiting through the universities and colleges in the Philippines and in Latin America. But once again, our referral network is huge because one of the things we've done is we've intentionally invested back into these communities by providing retirement and medical benefits, which is really uncommon for a lot of businesses like ourselves that are hiring folks in these regions. And so it definitely attracts folks to come work with us and you know, we pay about 40% of the market rate. So, you know, we're also paying top dollar, we're providing dedicated training, retirement benefits, medical benefits and opportunities to get them connected with clients. And so that's really been huge for us and we have a strong referral network of VAs that are working for us or virtual systems, I should say, that are working for us that really pulls in and we do a lot of marketing, you know, online through whether it be, you know, your Facebook, your TikTok, Instagram to attract folks. And it's a merging industry in the Philippines and Latin America to support that. And so that's really been our focus on how we attract the best and brightest. And then on how we go through the scaling, as I mentioned earlier, you know, we have some skills testing, IQ testing and then a language testing just so we can clearly profile our VAs and we provide opportunities for ongoing growth and success.

Jeff Bullas

00:31:04 - 00:31:35

Right. So it sounds like there's a fair bit of onboarding cost for you guys in terms of, you know, the training, the testing and so on. Then there's the ongoing management of course, which you talked about. So when you built the product, was it a minimal viable product to test the concept? First, in terms of I think the market needs this product and service or did you go Big Bang theory, we built everything from day one?

Chris McShanag

00:31:35 - 00:32:57

We kind of used the, more the minimum viable product we develop what we call use cases. So what is the use case? What's the pain point? And so, you know, we've seen, you know, communications with patients and with clients, right? How do I get communications? How do I ensure when a client calls me or a particular client or customer calls me that I have somebody who can answer it and give them the necessary information. Now, the first thing, so in then the outbound is how do I get that brand and awareness out to the business in a consistent manner? And so that's leveraging, you know, social media, multimedia VAs to do that, just like you do yourself and then think about what is the items in the back office that can be done remotely. And now what I'd like to refer to is consistent process oriented things, bookkeeping, research, analysis in the legal space, legal forms and the real estate, property management, research and investigation. What are those things that we can that are really pain point today? And what I intend to do is went out and interviewed people, help me understand what's your biggest pain point, what's limiting your business and then we built use cases around that and then just top use cases under use cases, under use cases. So then we can go to the market and say we can fix these types of problems. And so I've intention to build a solution based business that's tackling the problems of today as it relates to staffing and administry of support.

Jeff Bullas

00:32:58 - 00:33:33

Right. So the other thing that I would like to know is you've targeted the medical VA area, MedVA which is a niche and that obviously comes from your background working in the medical industry, obviously, you sort of need there, then you have the more generic BizVA, business virtual staffing. What's the future look like for you guys? Are you going to just stick with the more generic BizVa and more niche MedVA business model or are you going to double down and just do some other niches?

Chris McShanag

00:33:33 - 00:34:38

You know, my goal ultimately, Jeff, is to be the technology enabled platform for remote staffing. And so whether it be in the medical space and the business space and retail real estate legal, really my focus is to be that solution that you come to vine remote staffing and work for you that are dedicated. I mean, obviously there's competitors out there today that will do one off projects. But I think we have a unique model where we can provide dedicated team members to work with you and really grow and expand your team. You know, excuse me, you know, healthcare is just a burdening need here in the US. And we targeted that additionally. And then we're now, we're growing into Australia and in Canada and to other areas on the medical side. The business side, we've always been open to working with kind of global customers. And my focus has always been, how can I be the best solution and provide the best virtual experience for our, not only our VAs, but for our clients to solve their business needs. And as I mentioned earlier, to help them dream and we take care of the eating and so they can be successful.

Jeff Bullas

00:34:39 - 00:34:52

So in terms of growth, are you still seeing a growth trajectory because you started only 18 months ago. So how's that looking?

Chris McShanag

00:34:53 - 00:36:09

But it's really, you know, tough to keep up with right now. As I said, we're getting on average two to 3000 VAs applying wanting to come work for us, which is fantastic. So that's on the supply side. On the demand side, I'm getting anywhere from 10 to 20 client requests a day for virtual assistance, support and needs. And I'm adding about 100 to 150 clients a month and two to 300 VAs a month to my team. And so we're on a very aggressive trajectory, you know, as we built the foundation in the engine last year and we grew that this year, we actually [inaudible] our business and I don't see anything that's slowing us down because the demand continues to be in there. And as you mentioned, higher interest rates, you've got now higher costs for business owners where are the areas where they can optimize if I can come to you and say, look, I'll save you $80,000 on each of your employees. Not only that, I'll increase your productivity by 40% and increase your revenue potential by 50%. Now, it essentially I'm coming to you saying it cost you $10,000 every month. Not to have a VA just, it's an amazing business model and we've got the technology and we've got the support model in place to really grow. And so I don't see there's any limitation when you think about the addressable market for these kind of needs.

Jeff Bullas

00:36:09 - 00:36:19

Right. Okay. So the future is so bright, you need to wear shades as a, basically a song I remember. Is that correct?

Chris McShanag

00:36:19 - 00:36:56

Well, I think that, yeah, I think that the future is bright because the need is there, I mean businesses today, if you ask businesses today, the big struggles are how can I prevent employee turnover? How do I adapt technology and how can I drive more out of lair? And we really fit two if not all three of those as a solution model for whether it be on the healthcare side or on the business side. I think we have solutions and as I mentioned, I've got clients that have one or two VAs, I've also got clients that have 70-80, hundred of VAs and so it's really how you embrace that model to really go after it and be aggressive to make a difference in the market.

Jeff Bullas

00:36:57 - 00:37:07

Right. So you just mentioned sort of number of VAs being used by some businesses. So what's your target market? Is it small, medium large or all of the above?

Chris McShanag

00:37:08 - 00:37:49

It's kind of all of the above. But where we found the most success is in that mid, high growth, mid size businesses that are, you know, they can't afford to have a full back office staff, but they're growing so quickly that they need back office support and ability to grow and move forward. So it's really that midsize a lot of these larger companies are already established. But to your point is they go for attrition and roll off of folks, they're coming in and replacing them with virtual assistance because they realize that model works. And so they've had those folks in the past that have worked remotely. Now it's the next step. How can I work remotely, a little more cost effectively and more efficiently.

Jeff Bullas

00:37:49 - 00:37:54

Okay. So basically you can help people make more money with less.

Chris McShanag

00:37:55 - 00:38:22

That's the goal. Yeah, I mean, I drive productivity at a lower cost point and then give you an opportunity to accelerate, right? Because I can provide VAs for you to ramp up and the good times maybe ramp down if you have a delay and then ramp back up and then you don't have to deal with the onboarding offboarding employee laws and requirements. I, you know, I take that heavy lifting and burden on and I provide the team members at a repeat, at a predictable cost and value creation model.

Jeff Bullas

00:38:22 - 00:38:27

Right. Cool. So what's the size of your virtual dedicated team?

Chris McShanag

00:38:28 - 00:39:28

Oh, so my administry of back office folks, I think we have about 25 folks that really run our back office functions and they're super efficient and productive. And you think about we're essentially running, you know, two full businesses over, you know, 2000 VAs and like I said, in excess of 600 clients, we are very efficient and I'm very proud of the team we have in the Philippines and they do a fantastic job making sure that we take care of our clients because, you know, my focus, the first part of this year is all about how can I ensure my current clients and my current VAs’ experience is exceptional. Now, I'm moving my focus on as new clients coming in. Like I said, growing at the rate we are, how do I ensure that that experience is seamless and develop some stickiness and ability to be part of that because it's a change, right? I mean, folks are so used to even to today, being able to touch their employees now being remote and now going to that next step of being maybe not so much near shore but offshore. I think it definitely want to do as much care and feeding and provide a concierge service for them on that transition.

Jeff Bullas

00:39:28 - 00:40:13

Oh, it's, I think you're in business with some research, I mean, mentioned this for another podcast. But in startups, the biggest factor for success is timing is everything. So it sounds like you've nailed that which is fantastic and set yourself up for success and succeeding. Now, just for the last question which I ask every guest. And I'm curious about it and what brings Chris real deep joy and happiness? And I'm not talking about just fun, frivolous fun. What brings Chris real joy and happiness both either in personal life or business life or is it a combination?

Chris McShanag

00:40:14 - 00:42:11

I, well, let's personally what brings me joy and happiness is really seeing my family grow and expand. And the thing as I mentioned, Jeff, I just recently became a grandparent and just the ability to ensure that I leave a strong legacy that provides people that are entrepreneurs and my father was an entrepreneur and I'm aspiring to be an entrepreneur like him, that you can go in and make a difference and that we can come alongside and support some of those folks that are trying to make a difference whether it be in the staffing space or in a certain piece of technology or in retail and providing a service that's a value added.

And I remember very early on my dad asked me, what do you do when I was working in the mining industry? And it was hard to explain to him because I was doing a lot of consulting. This gives me passion because I know I'm making a difference. On the business side, it's really about how do I come alongside some of these folks that are struggling and really help them be successful and seeing them grow, not only leveraging our services but seeing the success and the difference they can make. That brings me joy and ultimately making sure that I'm leading a legacy that leaves this world a better place than I found it. Not only for my family, but for your family as well. And I think this a business as well as what I'm trying to do, bring the world closer together, being an Australian living in the US and being able to cross borders seamlessly like we are today and to be able to support clients, not just in the US and not just in Australia, but Canada and Europe just really brings me joy and happiness and the other thing that brings me joy and happiness. And it's interesting, we're talking today, I came out of retirement this weekend and played in a rugby match. It's been 25 years since I've played and I'm happy to say I gotta try. I did get six penalties. One for over aggressiveness, which I'm not sure how that works. So you can be overly aggressive in rugby. But the beauty of it is no broken bones and I'm still surviving. So that brings me joy as well to stay healthy.

Jeff Bullas

00:42:11 - 00:42:24

That's fantastic. Now, quick question on that. Was it touch football or was it full body contact? Okay. With no padding which the Americans get amazed at.

Chris McShanag

00:42:24 - 00:42:45

Yeah. No padding. And so, but here's the thing, I was clearing a rock and the guy was over the ball and I cleared the rock and the referee pulled the flag on me and gave me a yellow card for excessive aggression. I'm like, I've never heard of anything in rugby. I guess the rules are a little different over here. So, but it was fun. Hopefully a little better than our wallaby colleagues are doing.

Jeff Bullas

00:42:46 - 00:43:04

Yeah. Well, I think the strategy in the World Cup with the wallabies by the coach, who shall remain nameless. Basically to blood new people at the top competition in the world in the name of team building was, I think a shit strategy really. But that's okay.

Chris McShanag

00:43:05 - 00:43:20

Yeah. Eddie didn't do the best. He'd have a lot to work with, but you're right. He's, there's a lot of opportunity. We never, I have copped a lot of slack over here over that. So there was some interesting comments on the rugby field as I was playing this weekend. So that was fun.

Jeff Bullas

00:43:20 - 00:43:54

Okay. Cool. Well, Chris, it's been an absolute pleasure. We've covered a lot of topics. I've learned a lot and that's the joy I connecting with people, building and nurturing great relationships brings me joy. I think one of the things too is you, what you mentioned was what brings you joy, really, was leaving a long lasting legacy that makes a difference in people's lives. And I think that's awesome. So, I look forward to seeing the continued growth of MedVA and BizVA. Thank you very much for being on The Jeff Bullas Show. Thank you.

Chris McShanag

00:43:54 - 00:44:01

You're welcome Jeff and feel free to reach out any time if we can help you or any of your listeners, we'd love to come alongside and support them.

Jeff Bullas

00:44:01 - 00:44:04

Right. Awesome. Thanks, Chris. Have a great evening.

Chris McShanag

00:44:04 - 00:44:06

You too. Thanks, mate. Bye bye.