From Chaos to Clarity: The Katuva Success Model | LAYC 102

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Welcome to the Lift As You Climb podcast, where it's all about the

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journey and the joy of discovering who you are now, deciding who you want

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to become, and embracing your genuine identity, influence, and impact.

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In each episode, we'll explore how life's experiences have prepared us for what

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we choose to do next and how to create our Encore, write our own script, and

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star in the next stage of our lives.

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I'm your host, your Encore strategist, and transformation catalyst, Isabel Alexander.

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Hey there, everyone out in virtual land and those of you that are

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contemplating virtual assistants, I'm so glad to welcome you back today.

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This is the second in our series of interviews with Tobe Brockner,

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the founder of Katuva and we are exploring the different aspects of

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working with a virtual assistant.

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I'm so happy that I have this opportunity to have a conversation

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with him and really uniquely examine the do's, don'ts, the why's, and why

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nots of having a virtual assistant.

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We're coming up with conversations that you may not even have thought of yet.

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So I welcome you to stay tuned.

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If you haven't already.

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Episode 101 kicks us off and we'll explain a lot more about

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how I come to be in Tobe's orbit.

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Today, I hope that we will share with you some new insights and new perspectives.

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Specifically, we're going to talk about the process of finding, recruiting

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virtual assistants, not just any.

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What the right ones and how we transition from finding the right people to

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matching them up with the right clients.

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Enjoy.

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And at the end, make sure you stay tuned because Tobe's sharing some great stuff,

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and I welcome you to share this episode with everybody in your orbit that maybe

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needs to know a little bit more about how life is better with virtual assistants.

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That's one of the things I promised everybody that I would have

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you on a couple of episodes of this.

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We're creating a series here right now.

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What are the different aspects of working with a virtual assistant that have not

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yet even been thought of or discussed?

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And I think today I may invent a few of those.

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We'll rewind a little bit,

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Tobe.

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I want to start with how you find and recruit the VAs, but

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that will be a lead into how do you match them with the clients?

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Yeah, so we use various job boards and there are.

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Specific job boards for remote workers and actually the biggest one is probably

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it's a site called "Onlinejobs.ph."

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Think of it as like a "Monster.com" or "Indeed" or something like that where

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you post a job and you have applicants come in and a lot of people will

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say hey, Tobe, why are you telling everybody where you get your VAs from?

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I'm like because that's just step one of 80, of how you attract and

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vet the right type of candidates.

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I

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can answer that question by sharing a brief story.

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My first experience in hiring a VA, because I had been told about that

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website, and I dove in as the quick start to that I am and went, Oh, I can do this.

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And I contracted with somebody.

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In fact, I think I tried it three times, to be honest.

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I'm trying to forget it because it was a terrible disaster, because

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I didn't know what I didn't know.

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I didn't know how to screen, how to match the right personality

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and the right skill set.

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It wasn't anything wrong with them; the hires.

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I just wasn't equipped and I didn't have the processes that you have to

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make sure that the right people get matched, and what I love, and we'll

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talk more about your Empower Plus model later, how you create the ongoing

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support for the clients and the VA.

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it's tempting to go, oh, it's because I learned these techniques

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in school or, I read this management book and I became this genius.

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It wasn't any of that.

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It was just me being dumb for long enough to become smart about it.

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Quick anecdote, there's a guy that was doing a presentation once that I

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was watching and he was talking about How he finally came upon success and

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he was talking about all the failures that he had in the past and he was

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showing examples of all of the things that he had tried and he had failed.

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He just failed so many times that he ran out of things to fail on, and

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it, and the last thing that he hit.

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was the right thing, but it wasn't because he found that, it was because

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he found all the other things first and just ran out of stuff to fail.

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And so that's how I feel I stumbled on this process.

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It wasn't any real, genius on my part, it was more just the grit

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and determination and ambition to figure it out until, until I did.

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For those who know me, they know one of my mantras is

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you're not starting from scratch.

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You're starting from experience.

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Each of those iterations of ideas, businesses, processes that don't

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work are contributing to what I call the our lifetime vault

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of tacit knowledge and skill.

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The failure that you have today is the building block upon

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which success is built in the future.

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And if you build enough of those failures and you get enough bricks so

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you can build anything, you can build a pyramid, you can build whatever you want.

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And so I'm a firm believer in that, but that's, that's really the secret

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sauce of how we made that happen.

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But the process; essentially do two things in the initial interview with the client.

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We try to figure out what skills do you need, what tasks do you need done,

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what are you trying to accomplish?

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And that sort of works backward from that bigger question of what

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kind of life do you want to live?

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What kind of business do you want to build here?

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Once we figured that out, we have the client take a DISC assessment.

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We have all of our VA candidates take a DISC assessment.

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And we match them up based on not only skills, but also personality and it

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doesn't have to necessarily have to be a match for the personality but you do

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need to be aware of what you're getting yourself into with a different person.

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So if I'm a high D dominance, which I am, I'm high D it would behoove me to

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look for VAs who score higher in S or C, which is steadiness and compliance;

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conscientiousness, if you want to call it that, but it's people who are

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more analytical, more detail oriented.

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Because I'm more of a big picture, think of chaos, and then I'm looking

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for order, I'm looking for that yin and yang, I'm looking for somebody to come

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in and tame my chaos, and so that's what we try to do in order to match them.

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So for context, we run an ad, we might get 30, 40, 60, we've gotten upwards of

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90 to 100 applications for one position.

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We're actually releasing some ads pretty soon.

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As I've been driving around town, I've every time I notice a Help Wanted sign

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or a We're Hiring sign, I take a picture of it and we're doing a collage of all of

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these Help Wanted ads all over the place.

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People are desperate to find workers and they can't find anybody to work.

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Our problem is we get way too many applications and we have to then sort

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through all of them, which takes hours and hours of time to go through those

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properly and arrange pre interviews and do all of the vetting that we do.

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So that's step one behind the scenes of how we do it.

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I I really was impressed with the opportunity you gave me with

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my first VA with you to interview multiple candidates that had been

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pre screened and pre qualified.

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Because there's nothing I liked least or less in my business life before, and that

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was weeding through applicants, screening out and reading between the lines of

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a creatively crafted resume, right?

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So I love the fact that you interviewed me first and found out what I thought I

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wanted to use a VA for in my life, then you opened up my aperture even more by

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providing me your handy dandy, I don't know, 300 plus suggestions for what a VA

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could do, and I went circle, circle, oh!

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So that opened it up even more for me.

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But then the icing on the cake was after you had screened the applicants

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against my personality, my DISC, my, what I thought I needed somebody to do

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for me, then you gave me the opportunity to have an intimate virtual meeting

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with each of them and get to know their personalities a little bit.

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I love the fact that I could see their face and feel like

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I could have a conversation.

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I could hear their voice and go, yes, this is compatible.

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I'm a little hearing impaired, so I had to be conscious of somebody's dictation.

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And as we know, the ending of that story is pretty happy because that

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VA has been with me now coming up to a year and it's been a good match.

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Yeah,

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That's a big piece of it, that whole vetting process, because when we

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do the interviews, as we cull from that initial big list, we cull the top three.

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And so you're really getting the cream of the crop of the people

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who came down that vetting process.

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And one of the things that I'm big on in the vetting process, this is a

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kind of a pro tip for your listeners.

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If they are trying to hire someone one of the things that you definitely

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should do is give them a sample task to work on based on those skills

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that you're trying to test for.

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And so we do that internally.

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All the candidates, we have pre interviews with them because we want

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to hear their English and we want to make sure that they show up on

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time and that they 'll keep their commitments and those type of things.

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Then we give them a sample task and actually pay them, out of my own

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pocket for that sample task to do.

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We give them all a sample task and I know that the client is ultimately only

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going to choose one, but I pay all three of them because it's very important

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to me that we start the relationship with the VAs on the right foot.

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Where it's, we're not here to take advantage of you, I don't view you as

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just a cheap source of labor, that's a commodity that's expendable, I value

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your time I want you to be happy and fulfilled and work in a place that's going

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to treat you with dignity and respect.

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When you think about, you've got these people are coming in, they've got families

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and they've got rent due and they got to put groceries on the table and all

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the same things that we're battling.

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The fact that they're 8, 500 miles away sometimes makes it easy to disconnect

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from the human element of that, which is another reason why we do Zoom calls

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in person on video, because we want you to be able to connect on a human level.

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So those things are very important to us.

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Thanks for reminding me of that, because if you're not familiar with

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this process, or you've had unsuccessful experience with VAs, the way that you've

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structured this puts the humanity back in the human relationship with this.

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It's really important.

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You're right.

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This is not about hiring the cheapest person that you can.

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This is not about displacing someone in your own country or state who

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would have naturally because of the economy have a higher wage.

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It's about matching The right individuals and the right skill sets and then setting

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them up for success with the training and the technology to ensure that goes on.

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And I think that's the big eye opener for me.

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And I'm very happy to have this opportunity to share this with my

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listeners so that they understand.

Tobe: 00:13:02

As business owners, we have enough to worry about without worrying about

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staff and are they going to show up on time today and are they going to

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do what they say they're going to do and are they going to, put forth more

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effort than I'm expecting or hoping for.

Isabel: 00:13:16

And not that, they're required to do that, but as we know, success

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in life dictates that you provide more value than what you're getting in return.

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That's how you climb the ladder of success in life, is by providing that

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value whether it's to your employer or to your customers or whoever it may be.

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That's something internally that we're constantly trying to do is figure

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out how do we add more value to our client base and give them more tools

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and more resources to make their lives easier, to give them more freedom

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to help them institute systems and processes that will allow that sort

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of disconnect of the working in the business and versus working on it.

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I hope you thought that was another great and resourceful interview with Tobe

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and that you're already thinking about how this information is transforming

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your life and business for the better.

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I'd also like to say thank you so much to the VAs on Tobe's team and mine,

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and all the others out there waiting to help you have one great whole life.

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So stay tuned for upcoming episodes and more information, and of course,

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be sure to subscribe so you don't miss any episodes, and to like,

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follow, and share with everyone else.

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Thank you for spending this time with me.

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I hope our conversation added value to your day and expanded your

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vision for your legacy and impact.

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Please join me in increasing my impact and expanding my reach to even more

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people by sharing this episode on social media, with friends, and leaving a review

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on Apple iTunes, Spotify, Or channel of choice to catch all the latest from me.

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Subscribe on your favorite podcast platform.

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Connect with me and others in our community Facebook group, the Lift

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As You Climb Movement, where you can engage, be inspired by and grow

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with a tribe of like-minded people.

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As I evolve as a podcaster and spokeswoman for collaboration and

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economic empowerment, your input and feedback are especially important.

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To me, I welcome your suggestions and questions to hello@theencorecatalyst.com.

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Until we meet again, please remember your success may be the foundation

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for someone else's to together we can raise success ladders around the world.