probably like two months together. Congratulations. Thanks, man. It was an amazing wedding. Like it was a great time. And yeah, we got our European honeymoon in Christmas. So then she's I'm like, honey, you need to buy some walking shoes. Good, good. No walking
shoes. So we went on all birds if you know all birds, right? No, they're the most comfortable shoes ever. Right? Like it's literally like putting on socks, because it's made out like there's different types as marina wool. And then I think there's one that's like, I
think it's bamboo or eucalyptus, like trees or whatever now. Right. And they're really good. Like they're the most comfortable shoe ever. And they got like these water, water resistant ones now and just heaps of different styles. And then like
we were all birds.
Yeah, we can end the show. You're already throwing down massive value. So I like taking care of my feet. You know, like that's a big deal.
We're on all day. We shoot ever right? Like you got to try a pair and like it's the best.
Most comfortable shoe ever. Let's put this out here. And Richard Fu and hopefully they'll just make you a sponsor. You know, that would be amazing.
All right, all birds to shoes. I love it. Thank you. I'm glad I asked. All right, cool, man. We're going to be diving into you call it the busyness cycle. He spelled business wrong. And then I was like, Oh, no, that was smart. So breaking the busy, the busyness cycle of tech automation and virtual teamwork and how you've been able to do that driving prosperity. Give me a big secret. What's your why behind all this?
Jackson, when I used to run businesses for myself and I used to go and be there and be like, Hey, how are you? How it's happening? And then everyone's carrying around that badge of busyness. I'm so busy Jackson. Right. And I'm like, good for you. Right. That you're really busy. But I realize it's just a facade. I think a lot of people carry it to just look at how busy I am. Right. But I'm like, well, what if we made business boring? Meaning it's predictable. It's a machine. That's what I want to create.
Where things go in and then the things that come out, I expect to come out. Right. And, you know, that's why I'm like, why are we rushing around trying to be busy all the time? Like, isn't it more fun where we don't talk and pretend we're busy? We just, you know, have that space. And especially when you own all the high up in the business, people get your team will be like, Oh, Jackson, I'm afraid to talk to you because I think you're busy. Right. I'm never busy. Right. Sorry, I am busy, but I'm never too busy for you.
Right. Right. And that's what I want to break through for a lot of people is, you know, everyone's just so precious about their time. But then it's like, if you're so precious about your time, sometimes like your time is actually not worth that much. Right. Because you just want to block it out doing all these other things. And, you know, there's a lot of important things that I think get left on the side because we're chasing that busyness.
Hey, my favorite, one of my favorite quotes is busy is broke. Busy is broke. It will leave you in the ditch. So there's a difference in productivity and busy work. There's a huge difference in being productive and profitable and being busy. So I don't know, you don't seem to like that quote too much. What do you think?
I think it's good. I think I'm still processing it's like busy is broken. It's very interesting. I think a lot more depth to it. Right. On there. And look, it's, it's especially true at the start when you're starting any business, right. It's like you just got to scrounge around. Right. And you got to figure a way through to make it happen. And then, yeah, it's just you get caught up. Right. As things get bigger, your team gets bigger, get caught up on things.
Well, I mean, let's look at this way. If you're just getting started, there's nothing to be broken. Right. So you still got to build something in order to get past the stage where you're going to find yourself broke. But again, I'd still say that's where the word choice is so important. And what we do, what's your favorite quote, Rich?
I have this. All right. Welcome in to Vision Pros Live with Jackson Calame. I'm your show host. We'll be doing interviews for visionary entrepreneurs and guest leaders who are building fantastic visions out there.
What's up, Vision Pros? Welcome into another episode of Vision Pros Live. I'm your host, Jackson Calame, founder and CEO of First Class, and I'm your host, Rich.
I'm your host, Jackson Calame, founder and CEO of First Class Business, and I'm excited to have Richard Phu on the show today. He's a managing director for Outsourcing Angels. They run a great virtual assistant platform. We're going to be looking at that in just a minute.
I do want to talk about some sponsors. I also want to own the fact that I kind of, I don't want to call it one of my cardinal sins, but you guys know how the show interruption process goes. You may not know behind the scenes of that.
The reason why we do the show the way that we do is so that there's no dead air on any of the platforms as they grab the live version, but we also eliminate our need to edit.
That also means we have to warn our guests in advance that we're going to be rudely cutting them off in the middle of one of their thoughts while we launch the intro.
And I have certainly made some guests very upset with that process by not actually telling them about that beforehand.
I was talking with Rich here, here we were talking, and we were in such a good conversation. I was like, this is all really valuable stuff. I can't interrupt him. I just want to hear what he has to say about this because we only got a limited amount of time with him.
So let's just keep going in this. And then I asked him for his favorite quote, and that's when I chose to cut him off. And I was like, wait, we're going to circle back around to this because this is his favorite quote. It's a big deal.
So without further ado, I will be letting him share his favorite quote in just a minute too. But normally we use that as an opportunity for you guys to also reach out to him and dive deeper down different paths.
So before I bring him on stage though, I want to give a quick shout out to the sponsors up here. ColdClick and Simply Fast websites. And I'm going to be fast about it for this time.
So ColdClick we use for LinkedIn automation. It allows us to distribute our voice and get in front of people who might be a really good fit for the show. In the case of Rich, I don't think we found him through that though, through our LinkedIn automation.
I think he's one of the people who came to us or that we found through matchmaker.fm or Podbooker or similar platform to connect podcast hosts and guests. They're awesome platforms either way.
And the more you can do to distribute your voice in a way that's effective and that helps people understand that as Rich was talking about, we're not just busy doing things just to them.
We're actually connecting with people with tremendous purpose, the more likely you are to have success with automation systems.
Now, Simply Fast websites for anybody who's just starting out on the entrepreneurial path or if you don't have a website, I highly recommend saving yourself the time, the frustration, the effort and launching a very imperfect product.
Now, I can't say that Simply Fast will create an imperfect product for you. I just know what to expect when I pay $179 for anything, let alone a website. I spent thousands on building my brands out and I spent
thousands of hours as well learning Wix, learning Squarespace, learning Weebly, learning Elementor and Divi and all these different things and talking to web designers and web developers and UX and UI specialists, etc.
There's a lot to learn. My greatest secret for any of you who's just starting out, don't become a master of the web.
Become a master of your craft and business and farm that out to somebody who can at least extract some of your vision and create yourself a very, very imperfect Nike.com.
When the web first came out, their website sucked too. Nobody expects your website to be great. We do expect you to show up, don't provide great value. Getting somebody like this, a website provider who can help you do that
without distracting you from the prize at hand, building productivity and building profitably is incredibly valuable and important. And Rich may be also one of those secret weapons as well as virtual assistants.
So we'll talk about that too in just a little bit. Before we do again, the water project. I am so lucky and fortunate as are all of the people who are listening right now to likely to have access to this clean drinking water.
I just get to go to my sink and I can drink that. I can put a filter on it too, which is nice. But there's people in the world who don't have access to clean drinking water. They have to go and search for water and they're often get desperate with whatever they can find and have to bring that home to their families.
We have an amazing responsibility, but also an opportunity to give back. We got 8 billion people in this world who need a lot of help. And while it would be easy to focus on my needs and you know what, what me and Richard Fu need to get out of this conversation today, I would be remiss to not take the time to, to hopefully inspire you to either share the word about the water project or drop a comment with one of your favorite charities or causes that need support because we can do more to help out in this world. When we do, we feel good. But when we do, we're also just doing the right thing.
The water project happens to show you when you put your dollars towards a specific community, you get to see the outcome on the other end of that community and see the borehole well that they created or the sand dam. I think it's amazing what they've done to create transparency around what they do and to create more awareness of how many people on Earth actually need help. And so anyway, all that said, we're going to dive right in. Rich, thank you so much for being on Vision Pros Live, dude. It is awesome to have you.
Oh, Jackson, good to be back, right? You put me in this little box, man. I thought it was like, you know, like the Oscars where they play music beforehand when they say, hey, wrap it up. It's like straight cut in, right?
No, man, we're kind of right today. I will throw the box a little bit to the side. Let me, let me do this too, though, because you have one of the coolest testimonials I've ever seen. So we're going to go over to this page, right? And so here you are. Not you. This isn't, she's prettier than you are.
You got the founder, Lynn Podetti. How do I say her name? Yep. Yep. Correct. How do you say her name? Yeah, Lynn Podetti. Oh, you did. Okay. Did it right. Lynn Podetti. And she's got this business that she's launched for Outsourcing Angel. And she gives you her timeline from 1992 and putting a bunch of money into it to try to figure out how it works. And then in her timeline, bam. I don't know many business owners who are willing to do this. The best decision I made was hiring an operations manager.
And she hired who? Richard Diffo. That is all sorts of mic drop, my friend. So we are so honored to have you on the show to talk to you about what the heck did you do to help this wonderful lady build out this virtual agency? And we just, we got a lot to learn today about tech automation and virtual teamwork. So
Thanks for sharing that, man. I didn't I remember approving that page, but I didn't know you're gonna pull it up, right? I was like, Oh, testimonial, man, I hope it's a good one, right? Hopefully not not too far back. Hopefully, it's not my dad, right? Or my mom. I'm excited to be here. Hopefully, I can bring some value to the listeners here. And so yeah, man, happy to jump straight in. Where shall we start, Jackson?
Awesome, man. Well, it's that's easy enough. The biggest question, I know this is hard for for the humble out there. But, you know, for leaders who don't want to admit it, but who should be listening? And why should they be listening to you?
Ah, I hate going down. I know. I know. I got myself sounds like an ego thing. It's not. Yeah, exactly. But I need your help. I love that at the same time, because, look, at the end, if you have a gift, you have to share it. Right. And so for me, like, that's right, people who should be listening here, you know, any business owners typically more the smaller ones, right? Who are or even team leaders who are finding themselves feeling like they're trapped, feeling like they're trapped in a room.
Feeling like their team is dependent on them, feeling like you're the bottleneck, whether it's in your team or in your business. And you just wonder what's wrong, right? Why? Why have I created this for myself? And maybe it's subconsciously done or you consciously do it. Right. And really, why should you listen here is because what I'm here to do is really to create that time freedom, right? That's what outsourcing angels about here, too. We want to create the time freedom with business of freedom.
And for that to happen, a lot of the times it's about letting go of, you know, one, your ego, right, which is what I have to do here in this moment right now. And on top of that, it's about building the right processes, the right technology and the right people around you so that then you can empower them in the right ways and support them. Right.
To get get the work done and get your business rolling and your team moving without you around, because that's one of the biggest things here that we want to unleash. It's breaking that bottleneck that you have right now. So absolutely. And and those bottlenecks say they come at every single level in different shapes, different sizes, sometimes multiple, depending on the scale of your brand, etc. And, and y'all are I like that you're in the business of freedom and in the business of bottleneck breaking.
Or extending. Let's go hand in hand. I do want to circle back. I promise the audience. What's your favorite quote?
Oh, man, I was like, this is really a good one, right? I could drop one into the box. But have this broken arrow. So if you Jackson, you ever been to like, you know, T. Harvick is I forget what it's called. Like, it was his first one of these first events is he's the guy who wrote secrets of the mind. Right.
So we ran the we ran T. Harvick or its video ads. When I was a video marketing, he came on board. But I've never been to one of his events. I've heard lots of great things about him though. And I can say they're fun to work with.
Yes, he had this free event that was a three day millionaire mind intensive. I think that's what it's called. Right. And in it, they get I don't know if they do it anymore today. Right.
But you get this arrow and you put it on your throat like right here. Right. And then the person's supposed to stand out with their palm like that. So that arrow like the end of the arrows that way to and you meant to like walk through that and then break the arrow. Right.
And you write something on the arrow. And I remember I wrote in the arrow. Hey, this is like, you know, sorry, you know, I am gonna never withhold myself from doing what I want anymore. Right. And I'm like, I'm not going to do that.
I'm not going to withhold myself from doing what I want anymore. Right. And I will never withhold myself from doing what I want. Yeah. And underneath, I framed it right. So the arrows looks like this now because broken and I framed it up.
And there's a his quote below that that says, how you do anything is how you do everything. Right. How you do anything is how you do everything. That's what I think about every day where there is something really small for myself or my family or all my business to the biggest things.
Right. And so that's it's my head all the time is, you know, and that's a huge part of my integrity here that I try to uphold is, you know, if I say I'm going to be on I'm going to be on right at that time or whatever it is. Right.
And so, you know, I apologize. Right. Jackson. I think I was like 30 seconds or a minute late on this one here. But that's pretty much the big quote for me in my life.
Hey, all good, man. I love the quote. How you do anything is how you do everything. Combine that with virtues and you can have a wonderful life. Thank you for sharing that.
So let's look at let's look at your vision for those of you serve you. You already you already covered it from a surface standpoint. Right. And I want to say surface. You covered the core fundamentals to that.
You know, we're striving to achieve freedom as entrepreneurs. Let's expand on that. What's the vision look like. Like, you know, outsourcing angel and I'll talk about the business right there.
Outsourcing angels started off as a virtual assistant company. It's still probably known as a virtual assistant company, but we're transforming it. We've gone from virtual assistants with doing systemization automation consulting.
Right. And, you know, the thing that I'm playing with now is expanding into this infinite vision. Right. It's based off like Simon Sinek's book, The Infinite Game, where it's about not having the end goal.
Let's be the best company of this. It's this is our vision. Our vision is to then be, you know, the thank God we updated the website literally like two days ago. Right.
And now it's really about building freedom, you know, and creating that freedom for business owners because you don't get into business to just be working in your business. Right. You created it because you wanted that time freedom.
You wanted to do more of, you know, what you want in your life where that's spend time with family, go traveling, or try new experiences. And that's that's where we want to take ourselves.
Whatever that looks like, whether that includes AI in the future, VR, virtual reality, right, whatever that looks like we were open to it to really expand that.
And it's not just for business owners here. Right. Because our business, the virtual assistant, there's no office. We have no office anywhere in the world.
Everyone that works in that sort of thing works from home, you know, or works where they want to. Right. That's awesome. That's the other freedom.
There's employees who can't create a business and that we want to create freedom for them. Right. In that space, too. So that's why our vision is very big on that side.
Oh, I love that. And that's, you know, it also gives you guys a degree of accountability, a greater measure of accountability, because if your product is something that you're not also consuming, then it makes it a little bit harder to empathize with the audience.
And no, am I I know a lot of agencies, for instance, that run campaigns northward of, you know, $10 million for their clients, but their agency doesn't have the capacity to take on that many more clients.
They can only run a couple hundred, a couple hundred bucks for themselves or a thousand bucks. There's nothing wrong with that.
But there's a tremendous advantage when you are very much living with your own product as well and developing and not just with that in consumer mind, but for for your own dynamic needs for what you want, what your team members want.
That's amazing. So what is your vision for you?
Oh, my vision and something I got to craft out more. Right. It's it is a weird thing. Jackson is what gravitated me towards outsourcing angel was this freedom thing. And it's how I create my life.
You know, it's how I invest right so that I can actually create that freedom financially for myself and my family. Right. It's really creating that space and time in my life.
That's my that's my whole vision is how do I create more time and space for me, my wife, my future kids come in. Right.
They're my friends. And it's really I used to chase all that dollar sign. Right. Like that's what I was brought into is even when you go through the whole personal development stuff and being an entrepreneur, it's chasing dollar signs.
But I have to go through multiple revisions of that dream and to realize my vision is I just want to create time to do what I want to do. And that means working in a remote company. Right.
That means having the house that I want and creating the right investments so that me, my wife and the family, future family is going to have is as that space to do what we want.
That's awesome. That's awesome. And it's refreshing to when somebody has, you know, has been able to work on learning those dynamics about themselves as young as you have. How old are you?
It's nice that you think I'm young man. I'm 37. Right. That's about what I thought. That's about what I thought.
Do you see the wrinkles yet, man? Like, no, not at all. You're going to age way better than me. It'll happen for decades. I'm going to look super old in like a decade from now. And you're still going to look the same age. And it's not fair.
But life's not fair. Anyway, no digressing to the thought when I say young, like I know some people are like, oh, man, he talks like like he's talking to a child.
But I'm older than me. And I appreciate what I've learned, too, in my life, you know, according to my time. And I grew up with the opposite paradigm, though, of wanting to make sure that I didn't think about the finances.
I thought about the purpose and I thought about the family planning aspect. And I became a dad by 22. And I decided from before that, that I was going to be a stay at home dad as best as possible. I worked from home.
I had three kiddos and I worked from home and we had all sorts of amazing balance in life. And I had to learn about the career ambition stuff on the opposite in that spectrum.
I shouldn't say I had to. Thanks to books like As a Man Thinketh and Rich Dad Poor Dad. They opened my paradigm to realizing, oh, there's virtues on all sides of the spectrum.
And if I just isolate on my current desires and current realities, I will miss out on so many opportunities. And I'll be that old guy who says, oh, man, I wish I had that. I didn't want any of those.
I wanted to just be happy with how I live my life and be centered on the journey. And so you've done that. I would say to you, you've proven that in many, many ways.
So along that path, Richard, what's been the worst leadership experience that you've ever seen?
Oh, this is a very good one. And it was when I was in the corporate world, right? And so I had a boss there. And she must have been like the most talky boss I've ever seen in my life, right?
Talksy in the sense where I joined in the team and there was a lot of things I think break down in leadership because there's unsaid expectations.
Right. Meaning you're like, you should know this. You should be that. Why do I have to tell you that? Right. But I don't know who you are. I don't know how you like to operate.
And I'm trying to extract that. And so she, you know, she would say things like where we had this like, you know, like a half public holiday type of thing on a day in Australia. And then she, you know, we're all drinking and stuff.
And she'd be like, telling me the thing you guys can all take the day off. And I'm like, what? What's why tomorrow? Like, you taking the day off? I would ask everyone in the team. Are you taking the day off? And then they're like, yeah, yeah, yeah.
I'm not. Right. I'm like, okay. She said it. So I guess it's okay. Next, the day after I come in, like, I just get the mad cold shoulder treatment. Right. And then my team members pull me up and go, hey, man, you probably shouldn't have taken that day off.
Like, why? But she said, oh, she said, it's okay. Right. And then like, oh, she's not happy about it. And then I'm like, what's wrong? She told me personally, she looked at me. Yeah. Right. And I don't know if it's a test or not. Maybe it is. Right.
And it's a very toxic test. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Because it's, it's like, I just want to see what you're going to do, which, you know, greater the wrong way. And then she started picking on all these other things. Right. So like, you know, I see the same person do the same thing, but she wouldn't pick them up on it.
You know, so I got, you could say almost it felt like I was getting bullied. Right. And, you know, I was there going, man, this is like first two, three months in the job. I'm like, what do I do? I can't quit. Right. I'm not a quitter type of person to quit so early. And I had to sit down with her and I took the initiative here.
And this is the biggest thing I learned, even though it's a worse experience going through it, I wouldn't wish it for anyone else. I had to sit her down, Jackson. I said, Hey, so look, I understand you haven't said this thing, but I get this feeling. You're not happy with me. Right. And that I'm not performing the way you want.
And so I want us to start fresh. I want us to work together. And because I really want to make sure I fulfill what you need here. Right. And so this is the third point plan I'm going to do. I can't remember what I said.
This, this, and this, is there anything else you need? Right. Me to be at so that then we can be in a good place. Yeah. Because I'm committed to staying here. Right. And this is, I don't even know why I did it, man. I should have actually put right. Most other people probably would have quit.
But that's been the biggest learning experience for me is one, I don't want to ever treat someone like that. Right. So that's why I tried to be super clear and we re re emphasize my expectations where I can with people. And, and, but yeah, after that she changed her tune, fully loved me.
Right. And it was like, Oh, everything's great now. Right. Because I took ownership of it, you know, and that's the thing I learned from my, I had to take ownership, even when it felt like it's not even my fault.
Right. To a degree because I got beat it or whatever it was, you know. Yeah. Oh my gosh. That's huge. And there's there's so many little less. Now one thing you said though, I'm going to find the one thing to argue with.
And that is that you said, you know, most people would have quit. I don't believe that. I see so many people who stay in those types of relationships for decades. You know, and I know a lot of people would hear your story and be like, like, that's all they did to you.
You know, like I went through this and this and there's this like combative desired almost like who can, who can have the work situation that sucks the most. Welcome to the office. I mean, I've seen half an episode, I think. I'm not a big fan at all.
I don't get those types of environments. What's cool is entrepreneurs don't use it either. That's usually why they're entrepreneurs. They don't, they don't want to be involved in something like that. So that's, that's neat that you took a stand.
But I also love that you saw the opportunity to, to be the diplomat, the leader who bridged the gap. And the way you went about that is so hard. It's so easy to point fingers back. Hey, look, I know you got it out for me.
And I know that you're the problem. I know that you this and you didn't do that. You want to see how you could, you could be better in the situation and didn't escalate a situation that would have been super, super easy to escalate.
And I think it's interesting Jackson. Are you like, no, I think a lot of people would not have quit. And so I think, yeah, I think about deeper and maybe I think quitting looks like different things. Right.
So quitting could be I actually resign or you know what? I resigned internally and I'm just going to shut up and do whatever you want, which is like the whole caving in and just like whatever walk all over me like a mouse.
Right. Or quiet quitting, which is where you totally, you know, set fire to their life without them really knowing it.
Yeah. Right. And you're probably right. There's different ways of quitting that maybe some people wouldn't have gone through. And I don't know, like if I go in deep as to why did I go through that whole diplomat route of not even saying it's your fault, your fault, your fault.
I know she was a very fiery type where it's like, you know, I saw it right where she would come back. We would do it. And she would go slam into like the IT team. Right. And I'm like, I don't think that's a really good play. If I try and do that, I think I'm going to get a grill.
I'm going to get fired on the spot. Right. And so that's why I had to learn how to be very, what is it? The word diplomatic, but also what's the word where it's like, you have to choose your words carefully. Right. And I know you're very big on language.
I mean, diplomatic is a big part. Being a diplomat is a part of that. I don't use very many big words. And if I do, it's because I got, sorry, tactful is a word. I have to be very tactful to word it in a way where I display that I take responsibility as well.
You know, versus you should have told me that and the blame game. Right. And I think it's very big on me, accountability. And it's very big when I work with other people too. I'm like, I don't have a problem, Jackson, if you know, you screwed up on something. Right. But as long as you take accountability, like, yeah, sorry, Richard. It's kind of like my fault that it led here. It's not completely my fault. But some part of it is my fault too. Because I didn't do that. Right.
Right. And so as a new guy, like taking the bait to go on, you know, take the day off while, you know, it's like, she's probably, you know, you also show your team and the brand how committed you are. Right. When you choose to make those decisions or not. I've been in that.
Now, in five to 10 years, you know, if you if you and your wife have kids, and then you've got the new battles of figuring out how to parent and all that, you'll both find yourselves in her shoes more often too. You'll probably be very grateful for the lesson that you got to learn.
Oh, I'll be like, oh, man, now I know how she feels. So this is really cool. That was a great as an excellent story for everybody who's listening. So what would you say your best leadership experience has been? Oh, geez.
So the boss that replaced that boss after right is probably the best leader I've ever seen and never had the chance of working under. And the reason what made him really good was he's very good at building relationships. Right. And negotiating.
But what was more important was when and it's so funny, like I went through some really big changes in my life. So I was engaged to a person. Right. And while working at that place. And then we we caught off that I caught up the engagement.
Right.
And then massive man. It was huge. Right. It was the biggest, like one of the biggest life decisions. Right. Because, you know, it's very hard. You've I've made it a commitment. And now I have to decommit from that commitment, which is like massive.
And then after based all the other ramifications of that meaning telling other people that, hey, we're no longer engaged. Right. To the point where I would rock up to work, and I'm like, not operating, you know, when things are just so off in your head.
Right. Because I read that night, I had to get kicked out of the apartment, I had to call on my sister because I didn't have a car. Right. We were sharing a car. And like, he picked me up and drive me to my parents place so we can sleep right there. And then rock up to work the next day.
I'm like, wow, what I need to do. And then, you know, just messaging saying, come back. Right. And I'm like, no, there's not the right thing. And I really I had to just tell my boss right there. And he goes, he was super supportive and listen to me like Richard, whatever you're working on.
If you need to hand it over to me, give it to me. Okay, they do. And look, if you need some time off, just take the rest of the week off. And this was this was not a tell you that right, because there's a different guy.
I really do need that time off because I need to process. What am I going to do now with my life? Right. Because it's a shake. And then I really I came back and he sent me down like, you know, I was in IT audit and he's like, do you want to stay in risk in government and audit?
Right. And, you know, I looked at him Jackson, I looked at him dead in the night. And, you know, in my head, I'm like, yeah, I do. Right. But that's the answer that I know he wants. Right. But in my heart, I'm like, I did this.
I don't want I don't think it's where I should be. Right. And he goes, Richard, if you're staying here, because you're worried about the team, because I was the only IT auditor in that team, right? He goes, then I'm going to tell you now, you're my permission to quit. And we'll be fine. We'll figure it out. Right. Because I want you to go do what you want to do. Right. And that, yeah, what a brilliant leader.
That permission, I wouldn't even give myself, helped me change my life so that I'm here, here today. Right. And that's something I carry on a lot with me is, I think, for myself, I didn't give myself permission to do a lot of things. But I'm trying to do that more in my team, because they don't give themselves permission internally in their own head.
And I think that's the biggest lesson for me. Yeah.
That's awesome that he had the, I mean, he has some serious vision to know any or he just, he had to follow a very strong intuition. But to know that when you have somebody who's operating, and they're not willing or able to operate it, keep at peak capacity.
Then you're placing a much stronger burden on everybody else that's in the team, and animosity is going to start setting in. There's this feeling that you just can't avoid that exists, especially like a champion level culture.
I guess it's different if everybody's just kind of showing up with mediocrity, but I don't know much about those types of scenarios. I'm not good at mediocrity. I'm an all in or nothing type of person. So it's important.
That's important. Now that's all right. So if you had one chance, I mean, you just did this like twice in a row is pretty awesome. But let's now knowing this is your last chance to share lesson with entrepreneurs with visionaries leaders from your own experience, what would the lesson be?
I think the powerful lesson if I was to share anything is to realize, really, where is your pure genius in? Yeah. And I'll share a story right is, I used to like I said run businesses on my own, right. And I'm like the founder going to chasing the spotlight.
And I interviewed this one guy, his name is Daniel priestly, right, he wrote key person of influence, you know, founder of dent, right. And I asked him, hey, on my podcast show back then I'm like, what makes an amazing entrepreneur.
And what he said next really redefined my life and where I wanted to play. And he said, Richard, an amazing entrepreneur is not the one that chases was in the spotlight.
He's in the control spotlight, and shines out on other people in their team. And in my heart in that exact moment, like, oh my god, that's me. Right. And I, in my head, I'm like, whoa, that's me.
And I had had something as profound as that when I realized, hey, and this is probably the most powerful lesson for people is realize what is your zone of genius and and play in it.
Right. And so I had the hard part of like figuring out how do I play in it now. I go out and shine that aside from doing a podcast and like, maybe I'm better as a number two number five number 50 in a company, then I am trying to be number one, right, or the founder of something.
And that's what I took out from there and then started applying and eventually found my way into like outsourcing angel, where, you know, because I knew what it kind of was like to be number one, I can, I can understand how Lynn wants it to be, even when she doesn't even know how to articulate it well.
Right. Exactly. And, you know, that I accidentally misquoted you here. I said, realize your zone of genius, you said realize your own genius and word choice is so important. And so I give you credit for both. You're welcome to take both quotes and run with them.
And I wrote down on the paper before I wrote down on there, find your own genius. So I changed it again. But when when we play with these types of words and journaling type capacities or workshops, it's amazing.
The profound change you can have on how you develop when you move from finding your own genius versus realizing your own genius has a different power to that. So I appreciate you sharing that dynamic as your as your power lesson.
Let's dive in with the last last while that we have on I'm breaking the busy cycle of tech automation, virtual teamwork. We know the goal of unlocking prosperity now. What, what is the busy cycle of tech automation and virtual teamwork and how do you break it?
There's different ways right I'm getting yourself caught in this cycle and cram these bottlenecks. Right. Like you can be caught up in hey I'm gonna try this new tool this new app this new thing right and it just reinvents the wheel kind of for you, your
your team, but then it exhausts your team because they're tired of new tech. Right. You could be shiny ball syndrome that happens, which exhausts the team and it also if you if you go through shiny ball too many times the same team and they've seen you
not hit the results that you projected each time.
They're not going to believe in the next one.
Correct. So, well said. What else. And then you have the other one which is more. It's kind of like a control mindset, like, situation where you're building a team you're giving them the processes right but at the same time you kind of like, become the
captain manager, right fly in and you like whoa what's happening and then you fly out and then you create this whole like mess around right and and it's an innate like feeling of need for control or significance.
Right, because you were the dude who used to do everything. Right, you were the lady that used to look after everything. And then now you have other people to try and do it but then you don't enable them that space.
And so, that would, it can be, it can be about the the innate control all that another paradigm though, you know, the, the nurture who does the same the helicoptering like one you don't want people to fall on their face.
You know, so you're nurturing you keep playing around it or you've had people in your past who did not perform the role, the way that you want to. And so instead of giving new people the benefit of the doubt, they'll be better at it.
And so you're now micromanaging the next person, and you're telling them what to do instead of allowing them to create the success that they could have if you just got out of the way.
Right, so, two sides of that helicoptering is huge. Yeah, I love that you bring it up because I tell this a lot to my team is something similar doesn't mean it's the same.
And that means right. Right. Right. Yeah. And so I use like this kettle example, your kid kettles on the stove. Sure one first time you touch it, bam, burnt, right.
But a ring around my hand from touching the stovetop and I was five rich. I know what you're saying.
Man right. I just wanted to see if the red light was like real you know like stupid, stupid, stupid.
And then I'm sure for a very long time afterwards every time you saw it right anyway. I'm not going to touch that. And that's what business owners have.
Right that trauma comes along but I'm like, there are times where the kettle is not on the stove is not on. Right. And you can touch it. And it's the same thing here is it's educating.
30 years later, not happening. Yeah. And that's one of the things right. I remember when I came in with Lynn and I was looking at the office and she would try to jump in and I said, I told her and it's also important to tell those leaders, hey, back off.
Give me a shot. Let me try this right this and communicating it along the way like one of the most powerful things we're trying to roll out now is this phrase called your communication is your performance. Right. Your community. Your communication is your performance. Meaning I don't care.
The best report to me. But if you along the way you didn't communicate to me how you're going. If you didn't tell me if you told me it's next week, you never told you it's delayed and all of that. I don't care. I don't want that. Right.
Because I don't like to go through that journey. You know, and so I would update regularly. This is what we're going to do with this. This is how we're going to handle this is how we're going to do this. Right. So that they're aware of how the journey ahead versus a trust me.
I don't nothing's worse than like Jackson just trust me. I got this. I'm like, how can I trust you when you don't tell me what's good. What's going on. What are you going to do. Right. You don't know what you're doing.
Yeah. Yeah. And it's like none of this. Trust me. Right. Trust me. It's fine. In order. We have this phrase called trust the verify. Right. So I can trust you. But tell me what your plan so that I can feel okay with it.
I had a wise old man. But my mom used this line. Actually, I mean, it worked. I was a teenager. One of the most manipulative kids in the world, by the way. Like I could get what I wanted and go where I wanted. But I was there was some party I wanted to go to or something like that.
And she said, she said, Jackson, there's a church leader who said his kids wanted to go somewhere too. And he said, it's not that. And they said, why don't you trust me. He said, it's not that I don't trust you said, I don't trust myself in the wrong circumstances.
And that that really hit me. And I was like, okay, I was like, what what are you saying is, if I put myself in a particular circumstance without preparation, without planning, without order, then I am putting myself at risk of failure for whatever that it could be a moral victory or moral problem, or that can be related to business as well.
So tech automation and virtual teams, what comes first, the chicken or the no the the tech automation or the virtual team?
I would say this, it depends on your situation. But in saying that most cases, you can look at automation to some degree, right? Like most business owners, I think, unfamiliar with automation on this are in the tech, you know, type of space, right?
And the next Wednesday, they can happen very quickly on a tight budget is implementing more automation to reduce, you know, like the the copper pasting type of things, activities happen. Right. And you can learn it yourself. It's not that hard, but it just takes time.
Right.
It takes a lot of time.
I like your pleasureful laugh on that.
It's so true.
Well, let's let's talk about that, Richard. So my my my answer without hearing your my unguided answer disagrees with you. But after hearing you say that, and then you do it, I'm like, man, I take for granted all of the automation I've been learning since we joined white Combinator, I was I was just 2009.
You know, and here we were we investors of Paul Bucay, the mentor of Gmail, Matt cuts the search director of Google, we were search engine optimization company, you know, like, we were automated all sorts of stuff. And so I spent the last 14 years, you know, automating is as much as as I can about what I do.
So therefore, if I were to tell somebody, don't worry about automation, but they've never paid attention to automation at all. I didn't do a good job of evaluating what their own personal circumstances may be and how much they could, they might still not even know how to create an email template.
Not their fault. They just didn't learn that yet. So I digress. You're right. What automations? What automations are being massively overlooked that that that could be taken advantage of, in your opinion?
I think one of the simplest things is, you know, most people might have a CRM, right, and then probably have sales team. And we all know sales people do not like to use a CRM, right? Why don't we go punch now?
But yet, we don't look at automations to simplify that for the salesperson, right? So one of the things I realized early on was, I can have HubSpot, right as a CRM, that's what we use. But if I'm asking my salesperson, hey, when you go to your sales call, please create a contact and create a company then create a deal, right?
For that person, they're like, right. So I'm like, how do we simplify that? You will only hire the worst of the worst salespeople by that. When I say worst of the worst, I'm not talking about the person. I'm talking about the process and the people that are designed to win in the process. Great sales reps are gone like that if you put them in front of a crappy CRM.
Yeah, because they're just like, I don't want to do that. I just want to be on the phone. I just want to talk to people, right? It's not sustainable.
Yeah, right. And so we automated. So when they book in, all that gets created, right? The deal sits there on the pipeline. So then they know they can click on that deal and then read up about that person. And then all I ask is, as much as I would love to, I love to automate and ensure there are AI tools to annotate and give summaries of course, at this point in time, I still don't completely trust.
That's a great idea.
Yeah, and there is, right? I personally just don't completely trust. I would gather all the important things that a salesperson will pick up on. Like, look, they were a bit tentative on this.
But they can focus on the important nuance now. So you bring up a great point because if they had an assistant to take advantage of the bulk of the notes, now the only things they have to annotate are the important nuances that can't be caught by an AI.
Yeah, yeah. And that's what we do. So we have now AI tools that sit on the meeting in Zoom, right? And it creates, it records it. Yeah, yeah, like that, right? We use another one called Fathom, right? Fathom.video. And they have a summary. And basically, they paste that in and then they just write bullet points of, hey, here's what this client really needs. So that when they hands over to our team, the onboarding team, we know what to do that way.
And so it's just simplifying. People think, oh, it only takes like five minutes to enter into this. Yeah, but did you know, then spending that five minutes there also takes them another 25 minutes to get back into whatever they were trying to do before, right? Whether that's writing that email, you know, doing follow ups or whatever. They just forget. And he's like, oh, man, what was I doing? Oh, yeah, I was writing this email. And oh, yeah, this is what I want to say now.
That's right. And you're, it's hard to get somebody who's not conscious of the, of the, like the subconscious processes to pay attention to that. But if you take five times eight appointments, that's 40 minutes. And one day times five, that's 200 minutes. That's more than, that's more than two hours, three hours of lost productivity time, which means three meetings. And so your closed ratio is 30%. You just lost one deal per week per rep.
I'm not so yeah, I'm with you. Well, I got a calculator, man. I just calculated for that. But my, my commitment to disciplines is right on par with yours in terms of like, no, every minute matters. And that's how you end up creating, you know, the space to have cool conversations like this and know that, hey, you know what, we're at 46 minutes instead of 45, but I enjoy it. And I don't have a pressing commitment right after I want to six. I've got Vince, he's gonna be fun to talk to. I'm going to be talking to him about this.
I'm going to be talking about this show in particular. But we get to use more of our time the right way and we get to exercise our freedom when we have systems like that in place that that liberate the task that something can do for us.
So what I want to create that time and space for Jackson and this blows like people's minds right I'm like, I want you, my people to not be busy. Right when I say busy I mean like they were running around like oh my god go do this this this this this I'm like, I want to create that space so that you have some downtime
one improves your morale because you're not feeling like you're smashed all the time in that space of downtime. I want them to be like, man, wouldn't it be cool if I could do this, or we had this. And that's what the innovation space comes in so then that we can work on that.
And then we can be like, hey, cool, cool point you bring up, let's try and put that in, you know, and that's how we can improve and do things better by being more efficient. Yeah, right. But also, I don't always measure productivity like how many calls are you on how long you
have to wait for calls for right it's, it's also like I focus a lot on team morale and how do you feel. Right, because I think long term wise, you know, it's very hard to have someone at full 100% productivity, and still want to like rock up the next day on a Monday.
Right. And you're smashing it and hauling us right.
Absolutely man. Well, this has been so fun and I'm glad that you talked about shining the light on others. It's a big principle of ours as well. I love to, I love the analogy was Eli wild, who shared it and talked about how we have the opportunity to be a lighthouse as
a lighthouse shine the light on others that exposes the good the bad and the ugly, oftentimes, of the entities that we may be working with but as a person behind that lighthouse or the team that you're going to work with, are they accepting of that they
want to help you bring forward the best out of your situations I see a lot of that in you Richard so thanks for being on our show. How can people reach out and get in touch with you what's the best way.
Thanks and thank you for having me on man I really appreciate that. And I hope I added some good value, best place to reach out right is probably going linkedin just to be my name Richard phu right, or hit up the web outsourcing angel website right outsourcing
angel website, and you know, that's probably the best way to reach out to me. Perfect, and definitely if you're interested in, and bringing on new team members or exploring the tech side or the automation side.
We're going to be doing an expansion to some of the South American, you know, countries I want to say continents, South American countries that we're already working with as well.
Vision pros if you have any comments any questions please drop those on the social media channel of your choice. Let us know what they are we'll make sure that Richard gets ahold of those as well.
We have all the links of course and the show notes on the landing page. And if you want to be on the show, don't hesitate to apply to tell us what your vision is as well. We have a whole world of people who would probably be blessed by it.
Everybody have a fantastic evening. We'll see on the next show. Thank you for being here today. I'm really happy that you tuned in to vision pros live, I'm looking forward to seeing your reactions as these episodes continue to move forward is going to get more
fun, more and more engagement as well one bite people to participate in the show, and thank you for giving.