3: So You Think You’re Ready To Hire? Here’s How To Make It Simple, With Jaime Jay.
Today we are talking about one of the biggest challenges entrepreneurs face as they try to shift from having a job-of-their-own-making into building a business that can support their dreams, serve more people, and create lasting success.
My guest, Jaime Jay, is the owner of a few really cool businesses that I love, including a one called Bottleneck Virtual Assistants. Jaime is here to talk about getting ready to hire, and how to do it effectively. He also shares his motto of “do something as if it’s the last time you’re gonna do it” which is a great tip, but it’s also the mindset of a leader. And I think this is really valuable no matter where you are in your business growth.
In this episode, you’ll hear…
Why your previous hires didn’t work out, and how to fix it for the future.
An easy way to turn your everyday tasks into recorded processes.
How to decide if and when you’ll be ready to hire.
Episode Links:
Transcript
Linsi: Hi, everyone! I am really excited to be talking today with my friend Jaime Jay, who I met several years ago on his awesome entrepreneurial podcast called “Stop Riding the Pine”, where I was a guest over there. And that’s about to hit 250 episodes, so congrats on that. That’s amazing.
Jaime: Yeah, four years.
Linsi: Wow. Wow. Incredible and it’s so much good content in that time. But, I want to talk to you today because you have a few really cool businesses that I love, but one in particular, is kind of the newer gig, called Bottleneck Virtual Assistants. So, tell us about what that is and why it’s so awesome.
Jaime: Thank you so much for having me on, and it was February 11, 2015. I did want to make sure I told you that because you were one of the first to come on my podcast, and I greatly appreciated that. That was exciting. I was very nervous at the time, I remember, but it’s been an incredible journey. And so, to answer your question, Bottleneck, a Virtual Assistant, is where we help source virtual assistance.
We called it Bottleneck because oftentimes you need, us, business owners, we get in our own ways so much, and we are a little bit late to recognize when we need help. That may be us just bearing down and saying, “Yes, I need help.” ‘Cause we’re usually the type to figure everything out and wanna do everything ourselves. So, we called it Bottleneck Virtual Assistance to help stop the bottlenecking of your business by providing you with the support you need via a remote worker or a virtual assistant.
Linsi: That’s so awesome. The thing I love so much, and obviously I’m in this place right now, so it really speaks to me. But part of growing a sustainable business is starting to figure out where and how to replace yourself. It can be a scary thing for small business owners because they don’t know where to start hiring, they don’t know exactly …
They can begin to identify where maybe they don’t want to do as much stuff anymore, but they don’t necessarily know what’s the best way to start building a team. So, you take all that fear and frustration away.
Jaime: Yeah, it’s a real problem right now. It’s a real challenge. A lot of what you and I are doing, we’re pioneering our own paths, right? We want to do something, and we’re doing it. We’re really good at it. E-myths, there’s technician. You’re working away. You love baking muffins, but all of a sudden, now you gotta do invoice and all this other stuff, and you’re just like, ugh, you may get lost in that path.
We kind of help put you back. And the best way, number one, people, like you said, they don’t know when they can hire somebody. They’ve never done it before. They think it’s gonna be super expensive. There’s no way and basically no one else is gonna be able to replace us.
Well, we put an end to that myth, and we start off with a delegation road map. It’s very simple. You list down every single thing you do in a day and you assign two values to it. Number one, you assign whether or not this gives you energy or not, and whether or not it’s something you can delegate or not. So for you, doing this podcast, hopefully gives you energy. And this is something that you cannot delegate, it’s gotta be you. But, maybe the production of it or the marketing of it, that maybe drains you of energy. It is indeed something you can delegate, so that’s the first place you start.
By drafting this delegation road map, you get a list of things that you like to do and things that you don’t like to do, and whether you can or cannot delegate them. All of a sudden, the things that you can delegate, you have a job roll off. So now you know, what the next best step is for you.
Linsi: Awesome. All right. I love it. We were talking right before we jumped on here about entrepreneurs having this assumption that if they don’t like doing something or if they’re not particularly good at doing something, it’s probably what everybody else feels too. Like we get stuck in this idea that only I can do it because who’s gonna want to manage spreadsheets and look over timelines and all that kind of stuff, or manage finances.
But, people love doing that, and that’s what your service really provides, is connecting people with the ones who are really rockstars in that particular area. The virtual assistant way to go is such a good beginning place to start to really build an amazing team.
Jaime: It really is. You said something earlier too about like ‘is it better to have a big team? Is it better to have maybe one person?’ The answer to that, it depends. For me, when I first started, I had one person that helped me out because I was starting to get so busy. I was building my websites, I was marketing, I was selling, and then I hired a web developer.
All of a sudden, it opened up all this time and I didn’t have to build websites anymore. And then pretty soon he started getting too busy, so we had to hire another web developer. And then we had to start marketing more ’cause I didn’t have enough time to catch up with everybody, so we hired a social media manager. So, it totally depends on what it is that you wanna do, how big you want to grow your business, but we can help with all of that.
Linsi: I love that, and that’s the organic way to grow your business too. This is another component that it really helps you leverage the other people in your team to exactly the place where you need them. So, if where you start is one person that helps offload one thing that really frees you up and gives you more capacity, then that just takes you to a whole other level and then you keep going. Again, I just think it’s so great ’cause you really break down a true need and a fear and a problem entrepreneurs have and you fix it.
Jaime: Yeah, and you said it best. It’s that whole path of business. When you start out, there’s not a lot going on, but then as you get busier, you start building a business. It’s amazing, but how do you get there? And I can say probably one of the easiest ways to get there to find out what it is that you’re doing … One of my favorite mantras. Do something as if it’s the last time you’re gonna do it. If you’re sending out an email, record your process.
If you are building a social media campaign, record the steps that you do to build that because no one’s ever gonna replace you and me. They’re just not gonna do that. But, what you can do is, what’s the best way to get what’s in your head, out of your head, record the process. So, that if someone does come and take that over, they’re gonna maintain your brand integrity, your tone, your voice, as much as possible, that will be as close to what you wanted to have them do. So, I always say, “Do something as if it’s the last time you’re gonna do it, and record your processes.”
Linsi: I love it. So often the idea of creating systems around something feels really daunting and this is just the … what’s in front of you. You do what’s in front of you. Do the task, record it, and then you can decide where to have people step in, and you’ve got it all set. You don’t have to sit down and spend an entire week mapping out systems.
Jaime: That’s right. And if you’ve ever heard anybody say this, “I’m so busy now. I need to hire somebody, but I don’t have the time to train them.” Well, this is that lead indicator that you probably need to think about right now. So, if you’re not in a position to hire right now, start recording, doing something as if it’s the last time you’re gonna do it, because who knows where you’re gonna be in two, three, four, six months, a year down the road. When you’re ready to bring them on, your systems are in place.
Linsi: Right. So good. Okay. That’s a ton of stuff. Tell me about what you find most inspiring about this work that you do?
Jaime: Thank you. I find it most inspiring to help … I got an email today actually, about 10 minutes ago, and it said, “Thank you so much for helping me free up my time. I cannot thank you enough for what you and your team have done.” That’s it. That is the ultimate goal. And I can empathize with that person because I’m in same spot. If it wasn’t for my personal assistant, Raina, Lord knows where I’d be. If it wasn’t for the writers and the developers and the team, I could not do this without them. As a matter of fact, they do it way better than I ever do, and they give me incredible ideas.
So, what is my inspiration? My inspiration is to help provide that for others and to hear those testimonials or the feedbacks or the simple emails that say, “Thank you for giving me back my freedom.” I got a testimonial video from another friend that sent to me and he goes, “This is totally unsolicited.” And he goes, “I don’t hardly ever do this, but I just wanted to thank you. I’m right now sitting in my veranda, not doing anything, where normally I would be working because of what you did for us.” And that’s it. That’s the inspiration.
Linsi: Yes, because is that not the reason that we start business to give ourselves freedom to have this lifestyle? Yes, that’s possible-
Jaime: Yep. I don’t want to start something that is my job.
Linsi: Yes. Exactly. Awesome. Thank you, Jaime, so much. Thank you for sharing this with us. I can’t wait to show other people. I think this is gonna help so many entrepreneurs. It already is, but hopefully we can spread even more of this message around. So, tell us where everybody can find you?
Jaime: It’s easy. Bottleneck.online
Linsi: All right. Thank you so much, Jaime Jay.