Transcript
Joe Troyer: What is your method to find and screen VAs? So guys, this is a great question and I’d love to deep dive on this one if that’s cool, go a little bit longer. I can share with you guys the hiring process that we’re using right now. The hiring process that quite literally we just ran and executed bringing on two content writers, two VAs, an AV guy. Is that? What was that? Five people, five or six people we just onboarded using this exact onboarding system for VAs. Does that sound like a good spend of our time for the next 15 minutes or so? Give me some feedback in the chat. Yeah, good stuff.
Joe Troyer: How many of you guys are in the position where you need to hire some VAs? You need to hire just an assistant. You need to hire somebody to maybe make some calls for you. You need to hire a salesperson. You need to hire somebody to do some SEO for you. How many of you guys are in a position where you know that you need to hire? Yes, one for an assistant. If so, just let me know what that position. Yeah, a good VA is hard to get. I only have one. Yeah, so you should always be running this hiring process if you’re looking at hiring another VA. So you said a good VA is hard to get. You only have one. So you want more, so that’s great. But you’ve got to keep running this hiring process.
Joe Troyer: So when we built out our process, we focused on being able to repeat it over and over and over and over. So this is something that we’re going to share with our mastermind members, this system, this process. And they’re going to get all the, like literally docs, the test projects, everything from A to Z done for them. So for those of you guys in the mastermind, surprise. There’s a little sneak peek at a project we’re working on for you guys. And we’ll let everybody else on the AMA kind of get a sneak peek at this too. Cool?
Joe Troyer: So I’m going to open up this Google sheet. How am I going to do this without sharing the URL though? Hang on one second.
Joe Troyer: All right. There we go, fixed. All right, so for those of you guys on GoToWebinar, you guys are going to be able to actually see the Google sheet, the Google Doc. I’m sorry, not the Google sheet. For those of you guys on YouTube, I’m sorry. I will read it to you, I’ll walk you guys through it, but you guys aren’t going to see the Google doc. If you guys want to see that right now, if I were you I would go to digitaltriggers.io/ama or that link that I put at the very top of the chat and go jump on GoToWebinar real quick. So I put it all the way at the top. It was like the third comment.
Joe Troyer: So I’ll walk you guys through this. I’ll read the doc, but I’ll also try to stop and give you guys some context if I think it’s not clear.
Joe Troyer: So complete online strategy, says sweer. I think they met sweet. Yeah sweet, lol. Don’t do it. Show them later. It’s all good. You guys got it here.
Joe Troyer: So we call this the Remote Hiring Blueprint. And so the idea is everything that we do at Digital Triggers, we’re going to test, we’re going to prove, we’re going to create a process. We’re actually going to do it. Humble, humble concept. We’re going to put it through its paces. We’re going to use it, we’re going to find the problems with the processes and systems that we build. We’re going to fix it. We’re going to take it through an alpha, we’re going to take it through a beta. We’re going to prove it with a small group of people. Very, very hands on is what I always do and our systems and processes.
Joe Troyer: And once it’s shown its colors, it’s made it through that alpha or beta and the previous steps, then and only then will we release it to the masses. Give a one or a yes or a thumbs up or something if that makes sense. If only more people took the time to actually do this for you guys, we’d have a whole lot better products out there on the market and we’d all be getting a whole lot better results. So that’s what kind of the context for this is.
Joe Troyer: So the goal of the Remote Hiring Blueprint is to give you guys quite literally a detailed, step by step process that you guys can follow to hire A players. And the goal is specifically for remote workers. You guys can take this though and take the same principles and strategies and just tweak it. That same context. The same outlook if you will, and tweak it and you guys could do this to hire in-person people. In fact, I’ve taken the same systems and processes and done this to hire in person people. Running group interviews that are highly leveraged and that’s what this thing is all about, having highly leveraged time so that literally a VA can go and run with this process and you’re just needed at the beginning to specify a couple of things. And then you get the best candidates out the back end of this process. And you’re able to say yes or no at the end, they’re hired or they’re not.
Joe Troyer: And I’ve done this, again, in person or one group interviews where I’ll have like 20 or 30 people live in an interview. I’m not going to run 30 or 20 of these one on one for 30 minutes each. That’s a fucking waste of time. We need leverage in our business. That’s how we scale our businesses. We create systems and processes that give us leverage. Amen?
Joe Troyer: So the way that this works is essentially around what we call our five building blocks. So this is all about the philosophies and how we sustain this blueprint. This is all the kind of metrics and fundamental understandings and perspectives that we have and that we agreed to going about this blueprint. We keep things uber organized as well. There’s no point in creating a system if it’s not organized. I have tried to create lots of systems over time and guess what? I’m not the most organized person. So I follow it the first time, but the second time the process doesn’t get followed because I skip a step because I’m lazy and I don’t follow the process.
Joe Troyer: So we got to ensure that this thing is uber, uber organized. And the way that we do this is we keep everything right inside of Google Drive. So we just copy a resource. So we make a job description, we have a template, we need to hire a VA for these five activities. We make a copy of that one job post, description template, we fill in the blank and it’s ready to go. We then take the scoring card that we have for that position and we make a copy and we name it for the position and we put in the date.Now everything’s in this new folder for this new position that we’re looking for this very month.
Joe Troyer: So you guys will see that there’s five building blocks. First and foremost is razor sharp clarity. Second is our working principles. So I’m a big, big believer in having the right type of people on your team. If you are somebody, you are something that is all about big picture, you need somebody that’s going to get the details worked out. And if you don’t, you’re going to have problems in your business. If you’re the visionary entrepreneur, you’re going to have a big problem if the systems and processes aren’t executed from A to Z and you don’t have somebody on your team that takes care of the details.
Joe Troyer: And the opposite is true, opposite is true. If you’re an introvert and you’re really good at creating systems and processes, guess what? You need to partner some people, bring on some people that will help you cover the areas that you aren’t so good at. Like sales, like creating videos, like creating content, like doing what I’m doing right now. Does that make sense?
Joe Troyer: But we also want to find people that are the right fit for our company. Meaning they are going to jive, they’re going to get along and they’re going to like working with the rest of the team. This is important all the time. If you don’t focus on this, you’re going to end up building a company that you don’t fucking like. You’re going to end up building a company that you don’t want to be a part of. You’re going to build a company that you don’t want to go into work, even if it’s virtually. Ask me how I know. Whether it’s successful or not, that will happen. So when you’re hiring, you got to make sure that you’re hiring based upon working principles as well.
Joe Troyer: So one of the big working principles for me is value and impact over hours worked. I don’t give a shit how many hours you worked. I care about the value and the impact that you brought to the company. If you took off a day and you still got everything done and you brought home the bacon, you crushed it, I’m going to pat you on the back. The guy that worked 40 hours and didn’t get it done? Sorry. And that’s just who I am. And so I know that hiring and looking for team members, I’m looking for people that align with our working principles.
Joe Troyer: For me as well, I’m super ADD. I’m always onto the next thing. I need to know that the details are being covered and somebody’s going to follow the system and process. I have no problem slowing down though as an entrepreneur to help onboard a new team member because they’re going to free me up tremendously. I have no problem answering a question for a team member. First time, second time, no problem. But I do expect that they’re going to go to Google and they’re going to do a search to try to answer their questions for themselves. Are they going to try to answer the question themselves then ask for verification if that’s right? That’s super important. You don’t want to be getting hit up 10, 15, 20 times in a day saying Joe, is this the right move? Joe, should I follow this instruction that’s on the process? Fuck. Yes, and trust me, if you’ve tried to hire and build a team, that will happen. You haven’t experienced that yet, it’s like oh, shit. That will happen all day long, every day.
Joe Troyer: Zap says, I need to come work for you. You do, man. We need you on the team. So really think about your working principles and what you believe on, what you believe in and what you want the people in your company to believe in. It’s kind of have some woo woo shit. But it’s really important. You can get away with building small teams without worrying about this. But I think that what’s at risk is your sanity. If you build a company that you hate, trust me, you will go insane.
Joe Troyer: So an attractive offer. Hiring a solid VA or a solid worker for any type of position, you got to have a solid offer. And you’ve got to stand out from the crowd. So the one of the ways that we stand out from the crowd is there’s a video of me quite literally just on my phone like this, talking about why somebody wouldn’t want to work with me. And we use that inside of our ads. That sets me apart from 99.9% of other people out there hiring for the same position, because I’m on video and I’m talking to them. And to be honest, what I’m talking to them mostly about is working principles, their pay, but then also as well, what are the added benefits that you guys could give somebody?
Joe Troyer: So even if you can’t afford to pay more than market rate, 10% or 20% more than market rate, let’s say you can’t even afford market rate, you guys have spent thousands of dollars in training and in courses. You can offer it to help give those people that training. So this year we invested in A, B, C and D training, and that’s going to be available to you. You’re going to help them up their skills, and that’s what they need. So don’t be afraid to flex that and to offer that as a position. Look, we’ve spent on a lot of fricking money on this training. And you’re going to get firsthand access to this and you’re going to help us execute this. That’s a big, big positive.
Joe Troyer: So a pool of candidates is next. Guys, we’ve got to have a big, big pool of candidates. If you don’t, how are you supposed to send them through a funnel and only end up with the best at the bottom? So no matter what platform you’re using, you should be pushing the envelope with your pool of candidates. So if they allow you to boost the post, promote the post, invite more people and they charge you $10 or whatever for it, do whatever you have to there.
Joe Troyer: I see a lot of people say like Joe, should I highlight or should I feature my job? I don’t know. You want to get the most attention? Of course you do. You don’t want to do this 10 times.
Joe Troyer: And the next thing is is we have a funnel approach. So everything on the front end is automated. We have canned responses, canned messages, canned emails and canned test projects for the entire thing. Somebody does a great job, it’s like, congratulations. Here’s what’s next. That message is predefined. They do a bad job, it’s like, thanks so much. We appreciate your help. We’ll consider you in the future for a test project or for another project.
Joe Troyer: Guys, we never give somebody a bad review. This is kind of contradictory. And for me, this rubbed me the wrong way for a really, really long time. But here’s the thing, you pay somebody $5 to do a test and to get a feel for their skillset and they screw it all up and you go on Upwork or whatever site or sites you’re hiring from and you leave them a review, like this guy’s the biggest dipshit since The Flintstones, what do you think he’s going to say about you? If you light him up, he’s going to light you up right back. So do yourself a favor and just drop it, man. Let it go. Thanks for your time. Thanks for your effort. We’ll consider you in the future. Just leave it neutral like that. Trust me, if you light him up he will light you up right back. It’s not worth it. So just keep it neutral and keep it moving. But everything in there should just be completely automated.
Joe Troyer: Then next up you guys will see, for those of you guys that actually see the Google doc, you guys see the crazy detail here? So then we get into kind of how we build out this entire process.
Joe Troyer: And so the next step is all about assembling kind of your architecture. So we have everything in very specific places inside of Google Drive folders. So step one, sign into your Google Drive, create a folder called this. Copy this, make this folder, move this from here to there. And so this whole thing is processed out from A to Z.
Joe Troyer: So you guys want to know how I hire? This is it guys. This is literally my step by step system. And then we pair this with checklists to ensure that it’s done correctly. Again, my goal is to spend 10 to 15 minutes to hire an A player. The only way that I’m able to do that is by having this thing systematized out from A to Z and just handing it to somebody on my team that I already hired using this process and say, get it done. Get it done or I’m going to have to let you go. Because at the end of the day, when you put that much sincerity, you put that much detail in a process and it’s just like do it or die, somebody’s going to figure out how to get the shit done.
Joe Troyer: How many of you guys hand project to a VA and you’re like yeah, my goals for this project are I’d like to get some Google rankings and I’d like to do this and here’s an eight hour training that you can watch about this and on Monday, I’d like to see how things are going. Guys, what do you think your results are going to be outsourcing like that? And unfortunately that’s how I see a lot of you guys trying to onboard and train and test your hires and virtual assistants. You’ve got to be specific. You’ve got to give step by step. You’ve got to define the results that you want and you’ve got to tell them exactly when it’s got to be done.
Joe Troyer: Zap says, stop laughing at me, Joe. All right, so you guys can see, I’ll scroll down through here a little bit more so that you guys can see some more of how we do our higher level hiring strategy, and the process here. But again, the principles and philosophies are simple. It’s that this thing’s got to be a system. It’s got to be a funnel. It’s got to be strategic. We got to be looking for the right characteristics and people. We don’t want to hire somebody just for today. We want to hire people from long term. I’ve had people working with me that had been with me for four, five, even six years. And I got to tell you guys, to replace that person will take a whole lot of training, would take two, three, four years to get them up to speed.
Joe Troyer: So think about that next time you’re hiring a person. Think about what can I do to automate this next time? What can I do to process this next time? Or just jump in the mastermind obviously and get our hiring process.
