Quit Your Job, Build Your Empire: Freedom Hacking with Dave Homyak

Feeling like your legal career is on autopilot, yearning for more control and financial security? You might be surprised to know you have something in common with Dave Homyak. While Dave started as an engineer at General Motors, his story resonates deeply with lawyers seeking a path to escape the cycle of long hours and limited flexibility.

This episode of Life Beyond the Briefs is your roadmap to breaking free. Dave shares his unconventional journey from cautious real estate investor to building a thriving empire through strategic property choices and a game-changing virtual assistant (VA) company called Rockstar VAs.

Get ready to explore unconventional paths to success, and learn:

• Real Estate Revelation: Dave overcame his fear and found a property that replaced his income in just 11 months! Learn his secrets to finding hidden gems, using smart pricing, and turning properties into cash cows – from single-family homes to Smoky Mountain escapes or Ocean City beach rentals.
• Podcast Power: See how Dave leveraged his expertise on podcasts to attract clients seeking high-performing properties. Imagine turning your legal knowledge into a profitable side hustle!
• The VA Advantage: Discover how hiring a Rockstar VA (trained by Dave!) freed up his time and sparked a revolution. Rockstar VAs go beyond basic outsourcing – their intensive training ensures exceptional service, giving you back your time and a more balanced life.
• Beyond the Billable Hour: Hear Dave's inspiring story of escaping the grind, building a successful business, and giving back through charity. You too can find purpose beyond the courtroom!

Ready to trade long hours for financial freedom and building an empire? Hit play and let Dave Homyak be your guide. This episode is packed with actionable insights, a healthy dose of inspiration, and a free gift for the first 100 listeners!

Bonus! As a special thank you to our listeners, Rockstar VAs is offering a FREE Innermetrics test that unlocks your unique strengths and communication styles. It's a powerful tool used by Rockstar VAs to build dream teams, and it's yours for free! (Limited to the first 100 listeners, claim yours here: https://referral.therockstarvas.com/brian-glass/freegift) 

Want to learn even more? Check out Rockstar VAs at https://therockstarvas.com/

Don't just dream of escape, make it happen! Grab your headphones and get ready to take notes.

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Brian Glass is a nationally recognized personal injury lawyer. He is passionate about living a life of his own design and looking for answers to solutions outside of the legal field. This podcast is his effort to share that passion with others.

Want to connect with Brian?

Follow Brian on Instagram: @thebrianglass
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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

When you're considering doing a real estate deal, you have to look at the downside. And the property I was buying was a $320,000 cabin, great views, and basically I'm like if I never rent this out another night, ever, I completely screw it up. What happens? I throw it on the market, I lose $30,000. Real estate commissions transfer taxes, whatever. What's the upside? Thousand dollars, real estate commissions, transfer taxes, whatever. What's the upside? The upside is it works and I get to have financial independence and get to leave General Motors, which is where I was working at the time.

Speaker 2: 0:32

What's going on, friends? It's Brian, and welcome back to Life Beyond the Briefs. Today's episode is all about ditching the grind and building your freedom empire. Listen, are you tired of trading dollars for hours, feeling like a hamster on a wheel? Do you dream of designing the life that you love, one that doesn't revolve around billing more hours and endlessly meeting deadlines? If so, then buckle up, because my guest today, Dave Humyak, is here to share his journey of how he went from traditional W-2 worker to real estate investing to owning a booming virtual assistant company.

Speaker 2: 1:05

Dave's going to spill the tea on how he went from clocking in and clocking out to building that real estate portfolio and, finally, how he developed a team of virtual assistants to free up his own time and how he leveraged that into a business that frees up other people's time. We're talking about short-term rentals with high cash flow, secrets to managing virtual assistants and the freedom that comes with building a business on your own terms. So, if you are ready to quit your job, build your empire and finally say goodbye to I'm busy, but it's better than the alternative then stick with us and get ready to take some serious notes. Let's dive in what's going on, guys, and welcome back to the show. Today's guest is Dave Homiak. Dave owns a company called Rockstar VAs. He sources VAs from the Philippines and we're going to get to how to hire, manage, train and work with your first VA if you've never had an assistant before. But before we get there, Dave has an amazing story about how he left a regular job and ended up where he is. Dave, welcome to the show.

Speaker 1: 2:07

Thanks for having me, Brian. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 2:10

So, Dave, I've heard your story on a couple of other podcasts and you were somebody who got deep, deep, deep into a W-2 career and then, in 2018, discovered real estate investing.

Speaker 1: 2:24

So actually I discovered real estate investing when I was like 16 years old. I just was too afraid to pull the trigger. So I was the typical engineer. I have anxiety, I don't want to make mistakes. I had actually written a couple offers and had some things under contract and walked away. So the first time I ever bought anything I was 52 years old other than a primary residence.

Speaker 2: 2:54

And the way that I understood the story is, you got to a point in your career where you were like what would it take for me to replace my income inside of a year? And so you just did the engineer thing and started doing the math and figuring out okay, where's the best place to go, what's the best asset class? So this is in 2018. 2018. How did you reverse engineer that?

Speaker 1: 3:18

Very poorly. I look back on it I mean, yeah, and my goal was to replace my engineering income in two years, not one, so I had a little bit longer runway. I spent a lot of time on BiggerPockets, which is a real estate investing forum for those listeners that don't know and basically I ended up toying with buying an apartment but I really hadn't heard of any of the courses and people that would walk you through it and I said I know I can do this. I'm not sure I can do it in two years. And then I came across short-term rentals and basically there was a couple and you know, at the time the three kind of hot ish places uh were Scottsdale, arizona, uh, destin, florida, or Panama city beach and the Smokies, and the numbers were very weird because nobody was running them properly. It was horrible. And so my very bizarre sorting of which place made the most sense is I called the Panama City Beach Destin lady. She never called me back, so they were out obviously.

Speaker 1: 4:24

I called the Scottsdale guy and I said how long have you been helping short-term rental people? And he said two years. And I said how many clients have you helped? And he said 13. And then I called the agent in the Smokies and I said how long have you been helping short-term rental people? And they said two years. And I said how many people have you helped? And they said 77. And I said, well, there's 77 other people that have done, hopefully, a decent amount of due diligence. And all of these people were all. Three of these agents were fairly active on the BiggerPockets forum.

Speaker 1: 4:57

So I'm like when somebody's doing the math, if 77 people do this and bottom line is like the first cabin I bought it was that you had no idea like apartments. It's like oh, this many you know. This is how much you charge for rent, this is how many apartments there are and this is your vacancy rate really simple. And this cabin was they had weekday pricing and weekend pricing. So I still remember it was $2.25 a night weekdays and $2.75 a night Friday and Saturday night, year round. Had nobody there in the winter whatsoever. They were giving it away in the summer and in the spring and fall they were kind of spotty. And I still remember being like what numbers will this generate? And the answer was well, a lot more than they're doing, because they're not moving the prices. There's no dynamic pricing at all.

Speaker 1: 5:48

And then I went to something that I really want to point out to your listeners. When you're considering doing a real estate deal, you have to look at the downside and the property I was buying was a $320,000 cabin, great views, and basically I'm like, if I never rent this out another night, ever, I completely screw it up. What happens? I throw it on the market, I lose $30,000. Real estate commissions transfer taxes, whatever. What's the upside? The upside is it works and I get to have financial independence and get to leave General Motors, which is where I was working at the time.

Speaker 2: 6:27

So you did that first deal and was that when you were looking at the 225, 255, was that being run by a brick and mortar company or was that like an Airbnb listing that you were looking at?

Speaker 1: 6:40

That was. So it was a mom and pop deal, and I want to say they were I want to say their calendar was on Airbnb, but basically they were doing their own cleaning and they lived like an hour and a half away, so they really didn't mind it not being full in the winter because they might have to drive and it might be snowy. So it worked great for them. But I'm like, oh my gosh, you're leaving a ton on there. Why don't I get local cleaners? And that's the other thing I like to fix things. Fixing things makes me feel good, and so I absolutely have to invest like eight hours away, because otherwise I can fix that. No, I don't want to fix it. I want to get other people in. I can fix that. No, I don't want to fix it. I want to get other people in take care of all that.

Speaker 2: 7:27

So that worked as well. My wife and I bought a beach house in Ocean City, maryland, in 2021. And I kind of did the same thing. I looked at the listing, said, oh, this generates either $45,000 or $50,000 in gross revenue over the course of the summer. So I just went to Airbnb and I found all of these similar listings and I'm like man. These places are renting for $700 to $800 a night and I'm doing the math going if you just don't have it with. I think it was Long and Foster Realty was renting this out as like a vacation summer home. And it's like man. This looks like it's 70 or 80 in gross revenue and not the 45 that these people have been getting for the last year.

Speaker 2: 8:07

And the first year that we rented it out we did 103,000 in gross revenue. Oh my gosh, that's incredible. But the people before us had owned it for, I think, 20 years and probably didn't care right. Their price basis was so low and they had been using it as a family unit for a long time. I think probably also. But just that information gap in the market where, if you do a little bit of your own due diligence to the point where you have to figure out, like, am I the one who can't figure this out, or is this actually completely inaccurately priced? So you were doing this deal, but all the way from Michigan, right, right? I mean, talk about had you even seen this place in person when you wrote the offer?

Speaker 1: 9:50

So the first place I saw, or the very first time I bought which was this time I actually showed up and went through six cabins and then picked this one, went with it, and my story is very similar to you. The best year that the mom and pop had, with their horrible pricing, was $42,000 for the year, and the first year I got it it did a little bit over $60,000. So it was amazing swing for the value and basically it was all of a sudden I'm making 55, 60% cash on cash and if I would have just tied what they did I would have broken. Even so, I'm like I'm pretty sure it was going to be safe, but you never know.

Speaker 2: 10:33

And then the exercise becomes how do I do this four more times? Right? And so when you went to look for the second and the third, what were your criteria? Is it like I want to get the same thing, or I want to have something that's a little bit nicer, or a little bit maybe not so nice, so that you have different asset subclasses across your portfolio? What was the thinking there?

Speaker 1: 10:54

Yeah, so my criteria continue to iterate. And right now, if anybody's going into the Smokies and I have a development with a partner. If anybody's going into the Smokies and I have a development with a partner. But if anybody's going into the Smokies, basically, right now single two, three, four bedrooms are a commodity. At five and up it used to be easier, but then they're the least expensive. And right now in my mind, if you're going to go in and you want to be easier, but then they're the least expensive. And right now in my mind, if you're going to go in and you want to be separated from a lot of cabins, you have to go. Six bedroom there just aren't that many.

Speaker 1: 11:31

But at the beginning it was really weird. So it had a great view when I saw it. And then in the summer the trees started to fill in and the view was okay and I'm like. And then in the summer the trees started to fill in and the view was okay and I'm like. So my next one was I want an incredible view. That was my only criteria and, like I said, it's iterated quite a bit. So I bought one that had an amazing view, amazing like, just stellar.

Speaker 1: 12:00

It was a little bit further outside of town than I probably should have bought. In my opinion, now the thing is, because you could make so much money, everything was going up so fast. I've always made more money in appreciation than I ever have from Airbnb. So even though I'm getting 60% cash on cash, the things growing, the stuff I bought in 18 is roughly triple in value. Wow, what I paid in 18 and some of it peaked at probably about 4x during covid and it's on its way back down because everybody and their brothers but it's cheaper, it it's. It was cheaper to build there than to buy and now the prices have come up. But yeah.

Speaker 2: 12:39

Do you think, if you were trying to do the same exit from the W-2 job today, that you would be able to do that in any real estate asset class in America? Or has the market and real estate interest rates changed so much that it makes it really difficult right now?

Speaker 1: 12:59

Okay, your listeners are going to hear the two different asset classes. They can do it in relatively easily, to easily, so short-term rental is completely out, everything else much harder. One of the things that we did we did a development right. So you get raw land, you entitle it, which just means what can you do with this land? Can you put eight cabins on it, six cabins, 10 cabins, and it takes a couple of years. But guess what? The value of the land goes up significantly because you put in that effort, in my mind, getting land entitled, buying it properly to begin with. Obviously you can make a lot of money and there's a lot less headaches than the washer and dryer went out, the septic system broke all that other stuff. Then the washer and dryer went out, the septic system broke all that other stuff. The other thing that is really fascinating to me, and I'll just throw out markets include Bethesda, maryland, san Diego, la. A bunch of stuff in Florida is ADUs. Or we have a housing shortage is ADUs or we have a housing shortage.

Speaker 1: 14:07

I'll just throw out a very specific example. I'm not going to give the city because I still need to get it under contract, but basically there's a house that's converted to commercial and it was being used as a real estate office. And right now, as it sits, they're asking $600,000 and nobody's buying it. And the interesting thing is, because of the way it's zoned, it can be torn down in. An 11-unit place can be put up there, so the dirt itself is worth $500,000. So you're paying $500,000 for dirt. They happen to throw on a house for $100,000. And then, once you get it entitled, the land is now worth $800,000. So it's like, oh okay, so can you do it like boom, I buy the thing in May. The other thing about the Smokies that's amazing is they come fully furnished because they're second homes.

Speaker 2: 14:59

Because nobody wants to move the furniture out of there with it.

Speaker 1: 15:01

Nobody wants to move that furniture out. So, yeah, so I would close on a Tuesday, wednesday, thursday, literally have it rented out that weekend, and I did that over and over.

Speaker 2: 15:10

So the thing is you can get it.

Speaker 1: 15:13

And bottom line is my goal was to leave. So my goal was actually to leave the following I made the decision in March. My goal was to leave a year after July, so it was going to be like a year and a half. And then General Motors offered a buyout so I actually got to walk February 5th and they paid me. Like I was in the building until July, but I already had the numbers coming in and the confidence that everything was going to work out just fine. And that's the thing with the entitlement and on raw land or ADUs on stuff that's already built it. Just it's a longer timeline. So I absolutely think you can do it. I have a friend and again I'm not going to name his area, but basically he's buying houses for a million, he's knocking them down, he's putting up triplexes. Cost him about a million to put up the triplex and when he's done it's worth $3 million.

Speaker 2: 16:03

So you're making a million for everyone.

Speaker 1: 16:05

It's not rocket science.

Speaker 2: 16:08

It's an entirely different business model, though than, okay, my risk of loss is the $30,000 that I'm putting into the house. That's eight hours away, right. It seems to me to be much more time intensive to do the entitlement and tearing the thing down and developing something else. So that's a very it's a very different, because you're not. You know, when you talk about entitlements, you're not just talking about buying the land and converting the legal zoning use of it. You're also talking about then coming in and building something else on top of it, right.

Speaker 1: 16:40

Not necessarily you can make. There's, you know, I know multiple examples where people just got the land entitled and I know like at least five people come to mind that come in, get the land shovel ready and say, here you go, and people 3X to 6X and sometimes more than that, that is very common to get land shovel ready and just get all the permits.

Speaker 2: 17:07

And that really is just figuring out where the puck is going and skating there right. Exactly Somebody else is going to want this piece of land and we could just convert the zoning uses of it Right.

Speaker 1: 17:17

And the guys that absolutely hammer it get it under contract and say we need to get these permits, we'll buy it from you when we get the permits. So if it takes three or five years or they run into some problem, they don't have to buy it but they'll kind of quote overpay. They could get a good deal on it but they don't want to be stuck with it. So they'd rather say we'll throw stupid money at it when we get it all entitled. Okay, that's fine. So I love attaching the entitlement to it. If the owner is willing to play that game, you put forth the effort and maybe you try something. And the other thing I've seen happen is people try to get stuff entitled for what they want and it doesn't work. So I mean they're out, you're stuck. Yeah, I mean, but you're out. $ know, 10, 15, 25, 000, I mean it. You need a little bit of money to play with.

Speaker 2: 18:12

You can't just say I'm, you know, I, I had, I, I'm gonna bet the, the ranch on this thing and up, it didn't work, sorry all right and then, as as you're sort of developing this portfolio of short-term rentals and real estate properties, you did what has become now the fashionable thing for many professionals Like you found a VA in the Philippines or maybe she wasn't in the Philippines at the time, but you found a VA who started working your deals and running your numbers for you. So how did you find that initial person?

Speaker 1: 18:42

So I actually I did it. I was dual sourcing, so to speak. I actually I put an ad on onlinejobsph and the first thing that happened is like 40 some people applied. I'm like, how am I ever going to sort through these 40 people? This is not. I don't. I could watch a bunch of YouTube videos. I'll probably mess it up anyway, I don't know.

Speaker 1: 19:06

So what actually ended up happening is a friend of mine posted on Facebook I have two virtual assistants with over 10 years experience. They're absolute rock stars. My business model is changing. Can somebody use one? I'm like I could use one. So I actually. That was when I hired Jess, and that's how I found her no-transcript really sink. And then I started to brag to other people or tell other people how amazing she was, and basically they're like do you think she can get me one like that? I, I don't know. And then bottom line is I got three friends. I placed three vas with friends. Conversation was the same at the end what do I owe you? I'm like nothing, don't worry about it. And another friend pointed out uh, you do realize you have a virtual assistant placement company and you need to start charging.

Speaker 1: 20:21

So and a company was born and a company was born and we're 130 or 140 placements a year and a half later. We've never advertised, but everybody, the word of mouth is just incredible because people are blown away. They have this stereotype and they don't realize you can get this high of a quality of person.

Speaker 2: 20:40

So, before we get to your company, I'm just curious personally what your rhythm is with Jess in terms of meeting and going over. Here's the things that need to get done this week or today, maybe Because the first couple of times that I had EAs and VAs, nobody ever taught me how to use them, and I think the great benefit of yours was that she had 10 plus years of experience before you ever interacted with her. And so what is your? What are your kind of best practices, tips for how you manage a VA or let yourself be managed by a VA?

Speaker 1: 21:14

The biggest thing is how are you going to educate yourself about what a VA can do? So you can watch a bunch of YouTube videos, and there's plenty out there. You can absolutely do that. The other thing is to get a really experienced VA to give you the feedback. And in my mind, you know, one of the biggest mistakes I see people see is oh, I got the VA, they're just going to know what to do, I don't need to do any training. And that is not the case. You are going to have to walk through everything with them, you are going to have to double check, you're going to have to do a ton of quality control at the beginning, and then your life gets so much easier after two weeks or a month. So the VA itself does not solve the problem, it's putting forth the effort afterwards. That's where the real magic occurs. So right now I have seven VAs that work for me. Jess runs that entire team. Jess runs the other six VAs. She's their supervisor. I have a team meeting.

Speaker 1: 22:10

I have three companies that involve VAs, so I have a team meeting Monday mornings, several VAs show up and I talk to Jess, probably sometimes every other day, sometimes multiple times a day. Just, I need this, I need that. I called her right before here. Hey, this other thing happened. I need you to take care of this.

Speaker 1: 22:29

So a lot of it is you have to preload what you're doing and then you have to figure out what a VA can do for your company. One of our biggest success stories was we had a client that got a VA full-time, couldn't figure out how to use her, and our company has a performance maximization which gets the VA optimized. One, as quickly as possible. And two, we start asking you a bunch of questions about your company and we start to let you know exactly how you can use the VA and bottom line is he's like I don't need full-time, I'm like I'll just talk to Norman. Norman also has 15 years experience and Norman started asking this gentleman questions and in the end he had to hire a second. I used to work for Chrysler as well, and Chrysler now, when they're doing anything engineering, manufacturing they have LCC, lcc least cost country. Can I get this head engineered in Mexico or Poland cheaper, you know? So this is where everything's headed right.

Speaker 2: 23:47

I've said a couple of times on this show man, it is a bad time to be a low or a no-skill American.

Speaker 1: 23:53

It really is.

Speaker 2: 23:54

Because the geographic arbitrage I mean, you were telling me what a Filipino nurse makes in the Philippines and you can pay them more to do essentially clerical work, right, and so I don't know what the macroeconomic implications are like for the Philippine-based job market. That is not servicing VAs. But, man, if you can chop your personnel costs by a third or by 50% just by going overseas, you can oftentimes get a higher skilled employee at the same time. And so what's the best practice for kind of figuring out what's the scope of what this person can do for me? Are there tests? Are there skill sets? How do you figure that out and maximize your employees?

Speaker 1: 24:49

Well, one of the things that we do is we offer or we have all the virtual assistants that apply with us. Take an intermetrics test, which is basically a combination of three of the world's best profile tools, and that's going to let you. Are they attention to detail person? Are they a jack of all trades person? Do they love learning new things? Do they like repetitive things? And then you tailor the correct individual to the correct client.

Speaker 1: 25:16

Now, some of the you know we found for one of my Tampa developer friends we found an architect that he was paying $125 an hour. He's now getting 85% off. For a licensed architect to draw his stuff. He's paying under $20 an hour. So how do you? Basically, the sky's the limit and that's why this whole area is so exciting. I'm not here's the commodity of somebody that got you know that we trained for a couple of weeks and we're praying that they work out. I'm like I want the experienced person. You pay an extra, maybe $2 an hour. We provide them the best healthcare. We tip. We provide them holidays. There's no FICA, no unemployment for the U? S people, and you know, if they have to go on maternity leave, we've just provide you another one. So the hiring headaches are gone, the healthcare headaches are gone, the unemployment, and there's so many advantages. That's why this is such an exciting topic for me that I need to tell my friends.

Speaker 2: 26:17

What? What software are you using to kind of capture? Okay, here's all the ways that Brian does things, so that if my VA goes on maternity leave, somebody else can be subbed in and then I don't have to retrain somebody. Do you have a system for that?

Speaker 1: 26:31

Yeah, absolutely. And if everybody on this call should do this right away, get Loom L-O-O-M. It's $12.95 a month and anytime you're on the computer doing something repetitive, turn on the video and just say in the corner, this is where I find the electric bill. Now, this is the login for the water bill. This is the login for the natural gas bill. This is how I put it in my QuickBooks or whatever you're using.

Speaker 1: 26:57

People are like I don't have time to train the VA. I'm like you're already doing the work. All you got to do is hit record 30 seconds, talk for 15 minutes, shut it off and say I want you to watch this video. Here's how I price my Airbnbs. Here's how I answer my messages. Here's my frequently asked questions. I want you to answer the phone. I don't want to answer the phone. I want you to respond to the Airbnb request. I don't want to respond. So I mean, there's so many things you know I've had. I had a loved one that needed a dermatology appointment. It was six months out and I asked is there any way to get a cancellation? And they said well, we don't have a list, you have to call. So I told the VA I want you to call first thing in the morning and at lunch, and I want you to keep calling until you, until the appointment's in 72 hours.

Speaker 1: 27:46

And they called twice a day for a month. They had to be on hold 10, 15 minutes sometime to get through, but in the end the appointment got moved up five months. So I personally I don't wait on hold. I say, jess, either you call or get somebody to call. When the call comes through, patch me in. So it's just amazing the amount of time you get back. And then it's are you going to spend it with your family? Are you just going to be able to think creatively? Because you haven't had the ability for your mind to decompress because you've been doing so much work. So there's multiple yeah.

Speaker 2: 28:16

So when I started with my EA about four months ago. The first thing that he said is like the goal, primary goal, is to find 10 to 15 hours a week where we don't have anything on your calendar, like we're going to group everything else here, so that you can have that focus time and that thinking time, cause there's so much mental switching that goes on, like in the law firm, between doing client work and talking to clients and talking to adjusters and doing some marketing and you know, and paying the bills. And having those free blocks on your calendar where you can not do nothing right but where you can sit and actually think it gives you back so much more mental power.

Speaker 1: 28:59

It really does. The other two objections that people have is I think the English is going to be poor. Our company does an incredible job of making sure the English is amazing. And then the other. The other objection I hear that I want to kind of just throw something out there is I don't have enough work for a full-time person. Well, first of all, our company does halftime as well, which is somewhat rare in this space, but even at a full-time person, if you're paying a person somewhat rare in this space, but even at a full-time person if you're paying a person let's just say $12 an hour, so it's 96 a day and your time's worth $100 an hour. Let's just say 50 bucks an hour.

Speaker 1: 29:36

If they do two hours worth of stuff that you were going to do, you've broken. Even If they do two and a half hours worth of stuff, you're now time ahead. So I don't view it as that. I'm quite happy with the amount of time I got back and eventually you will get to eight hours. You just will. There's stuff, you'll add stuff, you'll think of research, you'll have them do. It's just amazing.

Speaker 2: 30:00

Yeah, so here's actually. It's funny the research thing because that's been a frustration of mine is that it has required me to speed up the velocity with which I make decisions Because, for instance, like I might have an idea on Monday and I offload the idea and I say go run down some options for this, and Wednesday morning I have four options for this Right, whereas and then and then by Friday, if I haven't made a decision, my EA is mad at me.

Speaker 1: 30:30

Right, let's go.

Speaker 2: 30:31

This whole thing might've taken me three weeks before, right Cause I would be researching as I'm waiting on hold and forgetting some of the things that I'd looked at and putting the note in the wrong place, so it sped up the time with which I've had to make decisions.

Speaker 2: 30:47

And then the other thing is I think people assume it's going to free up more of your time and for the most part that's not actually true, because you're going to be spending some time communicating with the VA, but then, if done right, you're going to spend more time doing high value stuff. Your calendar will be full of stuff that can make you more money or is more high leverage that you have been spending so much time trying to coordinate right, because you've been the one trying to calendar it and doing the follow-up emails and all of that stuff. So, yeah, the EA is a real unlock. I mean, you mentioned having seven VAs. I'm curious whether they're truly assistants or if you I mean you must think of them kind of like. These are the seven employees of my companies. They just happen to be virtual and in the Philippines.

Speaker 1: 31:33

Right. So, yeah, so they're remote workers, right. So I mean I have somebody that trained other cold callers. I'm partnered with a guy and basically we doubled the amount of leads that are coming in by switching to somebody that's a trainer. It's amazing, night and day, her demeanor, the way she can handle objections, and when she gets an objection she can't handle, brings it to us and what do I say, you know? So I mean I have her. I have another guy named Norman, also with 15 years, so I don't yeah, they're not assistants. I don't consider them assistants. I consider them really valuable team members that are, you know several or more in management roles, and they'll be talking to other VAs that are more executive assistants.

Speaker 2: 32:22

Well, that's the real unlock you can start using them as managers and you can stop being the bottleneck for all of the decision making. I think that's an incredible thing. So we mentioned that you kind of tripped into not only having a VA but then having a VA company. I'm curious now, as that has evolved, what your goal is for the company.

Speaker 1: 32:42

My goal is to place 100 more VAs in the next year and the fact that we've placed 130 in like a year and a half. I think that's a very reasonable goal and basically it's just to get the word out replaced 130 in like a year and a half. I think that's a very reasonable goal and basically it's just to get the word out, the goal of the company. There are a lot of things that people ask me to do. I used to sell a lot of cabins in the Smokies because I was on some podcasts and people heard I replaced my engineering income in 11 months and they thought that was pretty cool and they're like can I help them? And I said yeah, and then interest rates started to go up and I'm like this is too hard, I'm not going to.

Speaker 1: 33:14

People would say should I do it? I'm like no, you shouldn't. I mean I could have made commissions, but I'm like this is not. You know, the easier, softer way, so to speak. But I'm really excited about the virtual assistants. If you don't have one, you're going to. You're going to get the word out about how amazing your life can be, whether you do the higher value add stuff, the high dollar earning things, or whether you choose to back off a little bit and spend more time with the family. Either way is amazing, especially for the small amount that you pay versus what your time's actually worth. So it's mainly to get the word out. The other thing is I have some pretty big charitable goals and half the profit from the company goes to charity. Oh, that's awesome, that's awesome.

Speaker 2: 34:02

Yeah, I mean, I think the real differentiator between VA companies that are thriving now and the ones that were thriving two, three, four years ago are that two, three, four years ago, if you hired somebody, they just sourced the VA and they gave them to you, right?

Speaker 2: 34:16

It was like okay, now here's your marketing assistant, like have fun. And now there seems to be a much more intensive training and even sometimes a coaching component for the executive assistant partner in their own home country, right, and for the person who's hiring an EA for the first time. I mean, I was 16 years into my legal career and I'd had paralegals and I'd had legal assistants, but I never had anybody managing my email or managing my travel. And now you look back and it's like man, the only thing I have to do is look at the folder of my email that says reply this week and reply today. I can ignore everything else. What was I doing with all those hours? Yeah, it's amazing, dave. Where can people find more about your company?

Speaker 1: 35:04

So my company is the Rockstar VAs, so you can go to the rockstarvascom. I'd actually encourage them to go through the link that you'll have in the show notes. If they go through that link, we'll know that they heard about us through you and also everybody that goes through that. Well, the first 100 people that go through that link will actually get a free intermetrics test, which is combines three of the world's best profile tools, and it's $295 if you were going to buy it online, but we're willing to offer it for free for the first 100 people from your podcast that want to sign up for it.

Speaker 2: 35:42

Awesome, I appreciate it. I'm going to be number one to take the Intermetrics test.

Speaker 1: 35:45

There you go, so use the link.

Speaker 2: 35:47

All right, so all those links will be in the show description. It's the rockstarvascom Get matched with a top five virtual assistant with no less than five years of experience in their field. Dave man, thank you so much for your time today no-transcript.