Unlocking Time Freedom with Virtual Assistants | LAYC 101

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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 out there in virtual land.

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I'm Isabel Alexander, and I'm very happy to have you here with me today

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on the Lift As You Climb podcast, because today we're beginning a brand

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new series on the fascinating world and opportunity of virtual assistants

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and how they will be virtually the best assistants you can imagine

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for your business, your leadership.

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You're just great.

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Full life.

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Thanks to my special guest and my copilot on this trip, I have the opportunity

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to go inside, behind the scenes and share how this evolved the industry of

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virtual assistants, how to use them.

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to your advantage and to have mutually beneficial

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relationships for maximum rewards.

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I like very much to be able to share what I feel is An improvement, an upgrade

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in everything I do in my life, and it's part of Lift As You Climb, right?

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I'm building my success ladder, and I want to share success with you.

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So, I'm delighted to share with you Toby Brockner, who is the founder of

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Katoova, a very valuable resource for me and my business, and that I also use.

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to help my clients.

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Now before we dive into the Virtual Assistant universe, let me give

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you a little bit of context.

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I've been working with Toby and his company for almost a year now and

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finally I found somebody who had the recipe for success on how to really

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make these relationships work together.

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And why?

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Because like us, Toby's an entrepreneur, a business owner, and

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he has struggled over decades trying to find the best way to do things.

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Based on his try, try again until he got it perfect, you and I now

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today will benefit from the fact that he doesn't know when to quit.

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He's always going to make it better for us.

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Now, I am As I've shared, a very satisfied client of Katuva, and I'm adding extra

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resources from that organization.

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What's important here for you when you listen to the series is understanding

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how this makes sense for us all today, why the circumstances like the pandemic

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have made it even more essential for us and our businesses, and some.

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Free resources that Toby is generously going to share with

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you that's going to help you make some decisions about is a VA.

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The next best thing that you can do for yourself.

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So stick around because we're going to talk about Toby's

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entrepreneurial journey today.

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How he perfected the methodology and the practices that Ketubah uses today.

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And.

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We're going to learn a few more of the highs, lows, secrets, and successes

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that both he and I have experienced.

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Stay to the end.

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There's going to be some resources for you.

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And remember, I only share with you what I believe is really good stuff.

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And so from me to you today, let's dive into virtual assistants

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and are they right for you?

Isabel: 00:04:52

All right, everybody, as I promised.

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We're going to take a deep dive into the reasons, the what to dos, and the what

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not to dos of having a virtual assistant or, as in my case, more than one.

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I've already Introduced you to my guest today, Tobe Brockner, who is the founder,

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the creative genius behind Katuva.

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And I am a very happy customer, a client of Katuva.

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And I only share with you, the things I really want to endorse, that I believe

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in, and that I have tried, and so that's why we're here today, because many of you

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have said to me, wow, you have a virtual assistant, wow, I tried that and it wasn't

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a good experience, oh wow, I wouldn't even know where to begin, and so that's why

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I've asked Tobe to join us here today so that we can talk about those things and I

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can respond or I can ask him some of the questions that you have been asking me.

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Tobe, let's jump right in here and talk about the mysterious

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world of virtual assistance.

Tobe: 00:06:12

Absolutely.

Tobe: 00:06:12

Thank you for having me.

Tobe: 00:06:13

I really appreciate the invite.

Isabel: 00:06:16

I am, I'm delighted and I'm very grateful for you sharing

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your time because I know you have a lot of things going on besides

Isabel: 00:06:24

running a very successful business.

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You have a lot, you have a big personal life as well, and I know because

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I've been in your orbit for a while that is only possible because you've

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successfully integrated VAs into your life and into your business.

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So you can do that.

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And you've got a fabulous team that I have enjoyed getting to know and working with.

Isabel: 00:06:50

I've already talked about the backstory of Katuva and your entrepreneurial journey.

Isabel: 00:06:56

I really would like to start with today is talking more about what makes the

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experience with Katuva's VAs different.

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And what is your process for matching, the wild horses like me, the

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entrepreneurs that are going in many directions and have a very, in demand

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life and a very demanding personality to the right VA and how you find

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them and recruit them and train them.

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So please.

Isabel: 00:07:34

Take it away, Tobe.

Tobe: 00:07:35

Yeah, that, that's a very oniony type of question or many layers.

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As you peel back one you expose more and more.

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And honestly, a lot of what we've done and what we've created is

Tobe: 00:07:49

based on two main components.

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One is, I am you and I am your audience.

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I am an entrepreneur.

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I'm a business owner.

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I've done that my entire career.

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I've never worked for anybody in my life except for a three week stint

Tobe: 00:08:03

at McDonald's when I was 16, and they fired me because I was asking them

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why we were doing it like a bunch of idiots, and I thought I knew more

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than they did, and I was promptly let go, but so I am that person.

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I am you and your audience, and so that's number one.

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And then number two, it was just built on old school trial and error.

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It was failing over and over and over again until we figured it out.

Tobe: 00:08:26

And that was a good four to five year journey that it took me because like

Tobe: 00:08:31

you said, that's probably the two most common things we hear from new

Tobe: 00:08:35

clients when they say, I need a VA is, I've been wanting to hire a VA,

Tobe: 00:08:39

I just never knew where to start.

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I don't even know what to do.

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And the others are, I'm just intimidated by the process and I don't understand it.

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And so I'm just not going to do it.

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I've got too many other things going on.

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And so they don't do it.

Tobe: 00:08:50

The turning point for me came pretty early in my career, even before I

Tobe: 00:08:54

knew what virtual assistants were.

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The mindset shift that took place was when I read a book by

Tobe: 00:08:58

Michael Gerber called The E-Myth.

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Lots of entrepreneurs have read this book.

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If you haven't, you absolutely should.

Tobe: 00:09:05

It's a game changer, but he talks about systemizing your company in

Tobe: 00:09:10

a way that allows you to work on your business instead of in it.

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And so many of us get caught up in the day to day, and we get buried

Tobe: 00:09:19

in the minutia that we don't have time to plan and to strategize and

Tobe: 00:09:24

to do the big picture thinking that is required to take your business to

Tobe: 00:09:30

that whatever next level is for you.

Tobe: 00:09:32

And for some people that's revenue.

Tobe: 00:09:34

For me, it's time freedom and autonomy.

Tobe: 00:09:37

That's much more important to me than money.

Tobe: 00:09:40

I've always found that I can make plenty of money, but if I don't have the time

Tobe: 00:09:43

to enjoy it, it doesn't really matter.

Tobe: 00:09:47

And so we start with that sort of basic premise of what sort of life do you want?

Tobe: 00:09:53

It's not even really about business.

Tobe: 00:09:56

The business has always been for me, not always, but recently as

Tobe: 00:09:59

I've made this mindset shift, it's always been a means to an end.

Tobe: 00:10:03

And for too long, it was the end itself.

Tobe: 00:10:05

It was, I want a business that does 10 million a year in revenue.

Tobe: 00:10:08

And I want, a big office and I want the big house and the

Tobe: 00:10:11

cars and all these things.

Tobe: 00:10:13

And I had all of those things.

Tobe: 00:10:14

I had the big eight figure business, and the Range Rovers, and the pool

Tobe: 00:10:18

in the backyard and I was miserable.

Tobe: 00:10:20

I remember one day, looking at my keyring, I had so many keys on my

Tobe: 00:10:24

keyring for cars and boats and rental properties and offices and just on and on.

Tobe: 00:10:31

And I went about systematically reducing the number of keys

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on my keyring by selling

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off assets and things that weren't serving me at the time that were

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just acting as an albatross around my neck and weighing me down.

Tobe: 00:10:42

As I let go of those things and the keyring got lighter and

Tobe: 00:10:45

lighter, my heart and my soul got lighter and lighter as well.

Tobe: 00:10:48

And all of that was possible because I was willing to say, okay, this

Tobe: 00:10:53

is the kind of life I want to live.

Tobe: 00:10:54

And now I need to figure out how to create it and just work

Tobe: 00:10:57

backwards and reverse engineered it.

Tobe: 00:10:59

And virtual assistants were a huge part of that because I had a staff

Tobe: 00:11:03

at one point, we had 150 employees.

Tobe: 00:11:06

We were, I think our payroll was around a little over 300, 000 a month.

Tobe: 00:11:14

which that'll keep you up at night staring at the ceiling.

Tobe: 00:11:17

If you've got a 300, 000 payroll every month, that's enough to do it.

Tobe: 00:11:21

So I started looking at ways to, how do I make the impact that I

Tobe: 00:11:27

want to make not only in my life, but in my clients lives and also

Tobe: 00:11:32

scale back the risk and the stress.

Tobe: 00:11:35

Virtual assistants were a natural answer, although I didn't know it at the time.

Tobe: 00:11:39

I read Tim Ferriss book, Four Hour Work Week, like a lot of us have.

Tobe: 00:11:43

He talks about virtual assistants in there.

Tobe: 00:11:45

That was, he wrote that way back in 2007.

Tobe: 00:11:47

That was probably really close to when I was first exposed to the idea, but

Tobe: 00:11:52

because like most of the clients I deal with, I wanted to hire a VA.

Tobe: 00:11:56

I just didn't know where to start.

Tobe: 00:11:58

I put it off for six years, seven years, and until 2014,

Tobe: 00:12:02

2015, I hired my very first VA.

Tobe: 00:12:05

It was an absolute disaster.

Tobe: 00:12:06

I had a second VA, absolute disaster, just on and on, until

Tobe: 00:12:11

we figured out the process for it.

Tobe: 00:12:13

And so we've taken a lot of pains to make sure that the initial hiring,

Tobe: 00:12:21

onboarding, training and management components are in place and they're

Tobe: 00:12:25

built on solid foundations using not just practical, in the trenches

Tobe: 00:12:31

experience, but also DISC assessment and Enneagram personality behavior

Tobe: 00:12:37

assessments and various things like that.

Tobe: 00:12:39

There, there's a lot of different things that we do to make that happen.

Isabel: 00:12:46

Wow, because I feel like you're telling my story here.

Isabel: 00:12:50

That is one of the reasons that I just connected so very quickly

Isabel: 00:12:54

with you and your concept, because I too had an eight figure business

Isabel: 00:12:59

and had staff, not 150, thank God.

Tobe: 00:13:03

That's a giant daycare, believe me.

Isabel: 00:13:06

Absolutely!

Isabel: 00:13:07

Every single business owner will say people is the hardest part, right?

Isabel: 00:13:12

And so that's why another reason why Katuva and understanding the success

Isabel: 00:13:19

model with virtual assistants is so critical because today, especially,

Isabel: 00:13:25

post the pandemic, everybody is saying:

Isabel: 00:13:29

"I can't find people.

Isabel: 00:13:30

I can't keep people.

Isabel: 00:13:32

I can't engage the people that I have."

Isabel: 00:13:34

Not to go down the HR rabbit hole just yet, but I want to, first of all, let

Isabel: 00:13:41

me say to everybody who's listening, if you're driving your car or on the

Isabel: 00:13:45

way to the gym We will, of course, include Tobe's book selections, his

Isabel: 00:13:51

recommendations in the show notes, because those are both excellent recommendations.

Isabel: 00:13:58

And I was I was thinking when did the term virtual assistant come

Isabel: 00:14:04

into our business vernacular?

Isabel: 00:14:07

Would you say that Tim Ferriss introduced us to this idea?

Isabel: 00:14:09

I think he introduced

Tobe: 00:14:13

it to the broader world of business, small business owners and entrepreneurs.

Tobe: 00:14:17

Big companies have been using that, although they probably wouldn't call

Tobe: 00:14:20

them virtual assistants and call them remote workers or customer service reps.

Tobe: 00:14:25

Big phone companies have been outsourcing their customer service to other countries

Tobe: 00:14:30

for decades going back to the seventies.

Tobe: 00:14:33

And so it's not a new concept among these bigger companies, but it's

Tobe: 00:14:36

all things that like that, they it trickles down from the top.

Tobe: 00:14:41

And so when a big company is doing different things, the smaller guys like

Tobe: 00:14:45

me and you and whoever else there, we think there's, we can't really do that

Tobe: 00:14:49

because we don't understand it or we don't have the tools and technology.

Tobe: 00:14:52

Even this business that we're running with Katuva, I don't know that it

Tobe: 00:14:56

could have existed even 10 years ago because of Zoom and Skype and WhatsApp

Tobe: 00:15:02

and the messaging, those just weren't as developed as they needed to be.

Tobe: 00:15:06

It was always a challenge to have reliable technology to build

Tobe: 00:15:12

these types of businesses on.

Tobe: 00:15:13

Really the pandemic, actually helped my business a lot,

Tobe: 00:15:16

because it did shrink the world.

Tobe: 00:15:17

A lot of people don't remember 2018, 2019, Zoom was pretty clunky, it

Tobe: 00:15:21

wasn't really what it is now, and they actually were forced to hire more

Tobe: 00:15:25

engineers and make the technology better, which benefited all of us, obviously.

Tobe: 00:15:29

And now it's a much different, much smaller world.

Tobe: 00:15:33

I always joke, I got a degree in international business in college,

Tobe: 00:15:36

but it was only because I'm fluent in Spanish, and I never used it until now.

Tobe: 00:15:41

We're an international business because we really are.

Tobe: 00:15:42

We have clients all over the world in different countries.

Tobe: 00:15:45

All of our VAs, obviously, are from the Philippines.

Tobe: 00:15:47

It's a different world right now and we have to embrace it for what it is

Tobe: 00:15:51

becoming, not what it was, or even what it is, because it's changing so fast.

Tobe: 00:15:55

Jay Paul Getty had a great quote.

Tobe: 00:15:57

He said, "In times of rapid change, experience could be your worst enemy."

Tobe: 00:16:02

. And I really believe that.

Tobe: 00:16:03

I think that the experiences that we've had in the past, while they

Tobe: 00:16:06

will serve us as a foundation, they have to be pivoted upon in order for

Tobe: 00:16:11

us to maintain success in business.

Isabel: 00:16:14

Yeah, I was thinking the old saying necessity

Isabel: 00:16:19

is the mother of invention.

Isabel: 00:16:21

If we weren't forced into the scramble of figuring out how to do business

Isabel: 00:16:27

virtually, and, force technology creators to be more innovative then, wow!

Isabel: 00:16:36

I can't imagine.

Isabel: 00:16:37

We would've all just had to take a very long nap.

Isabel: 00:16:40

So this is good.

Isabel: 00:16:41

It is really great to put this in perspective, Tobe, about how this had

Isabel: 00:16:48

to become more mainstream and how it was possible and how that you have

Isabel: 00:16:54

thoughtfully leveraged technology to create a service business, a very

Isabel: 00:17:00

much needed service for entrepreneurs like myself, business owners like

Isabel: 00:17:05

myself but also people with brick and mortar establishments as well, right?

Tobe: 00:17:11

Yeah, absolutely.

Tobe: 00:17:11

Essentially, anything that you don't have to do in person, a virtual

Tobe: 00:17:15

assistant can do for you, and even some things that you can do in person.

Tobe: 00:17:19

We're experimenting right now with having medical professionals who are doing

Tobe: 00:17:24

client or patient intake type things.

Tobe: 00:17:27

They have a tablet.

Tobe: 00:17:29

They're on Zoom.

Tobe: 00:17:30

VA is on Zoom with them, and they are taking notes as they're talking

Tobe: 00:17:34

to the patient in the same room, and the VA is basically another

Tobe: 00:17:38

set of eyes and ears taking notes.

Tobe: 00:17:40

We went in to the real estate niche for a little while, and I was joking

Tobe: 00:17:44

with one of the real estate agents about, I really want to see if we could

Tobe: 00:17:47

have a VA do an open house, on Zoom.

Tobe: 00:17:50

Just live on Zoom and as people come in, they can ask them questions.

Tobe: 00:17:55

I think there's some licensing issues with that but, you're limited

Tobe: 00:17:58

really only by your imagination at the end of the day with what virtual

Tobe: 00:18:02

assistants can do for your business.

Isabel: 00:18:05

Okay, so you just inspired me to open up my own aperture and thinking

Isabel: 00:18:12

about like, how could I create more products and services and diversify

Isabel: 00:18:20

and create more value for my clients by thinking, less linearly, is that a word?

Isabel: 00:18:30

Linearly?

Isabel: 00:18:31

Just throw out the rule book and say why not?

Isabel: 00:18:35

What if a virtual assistant could do that for me?

Isabel: 00:18:39

Then what does that allow me more time, more brain space to create?

Isabel: 00:18:46

So I I love that there's no limit.

Isabel: 00:18:49

There's no upper limit on this.

Isabel: 00:18:52

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

Isabel: 00:18:57

on a couple of episodes of this.

Isabel: 00:18:59

We're creating a series here right now.

Isabel: 00:19:03

Okay, so that's a wrap for Episode 101, the first leg of our fabulous tour

Isabel: 00:19:10

of the world of virtual assistance.

Isabel: 00:19:14

I want to thank our guest again, Toby Brockner, the founder and

Isabel: 00:19:21

thank him for sharing his years of experience as an entrepreneur and

Isabel: 00:19:27

lending all of that experience to us.

Isabel: 00:19:32

We've got four more episodes coming up in this series with Toby.

Isabel: 00:19:37

So if you liked what you heard today.

Isabel: 00:19:39

Wait till you know what we talk about tomorrow and the day after.

Isabel: 00:19:44

So subscribe, you know, do the thing, right?

Isabel: 00:19:47

Push the button, do this thing here, watch us on YouTube, listen to us on your

Isabel: 00:19:52

favorite podcast app, get the downloads, get Toby's book recommendations.

Isabel: 00:19:58

And you know what?

Isabel: 00:19:59

We're here, both of us, because we want to share with you what we

Isabel: 00:20:04

have learned through this great trip through entrepreneurship.

Isabel: 00:20:10

Come on back.

Isabel: 00:20:11

I'll see you in episode 102.

Isabel: 00:20:20

Thank you for spending this time with me.

Isabel: 00:20:23

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

Isabel: 00:20:27

vision for your legacy and impact.

Isabel: 00:20:30

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

Isabel: 00:20:35

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

Isabel: 00:20:42

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

Isabel: 00:20:48

Subscribe on your favorite podcast platform.

Isabel: 00:20:52

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

Isabel: 00:20:57

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

Isabel: 00:21:02

with a tribe of like-minded people.

Isabel: 00:21:04

As I evolve as a podcaster and spokeswoman for collaboration and

Isabel: 00:21:09

economic empowerment, your input and feedback are especially important.

Isabel: 00:21:14

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

Isabel: 00:21:23

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

Isabel: 00:21:29

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