October 7, 2024 • 38 mins
Ever wondered how an automotive engineer transitions into a successful real estate mogul? Join us as we chat with Dave Homjak, who traded his tools for property deeds and built a thriving real estate investment portfolio in the Smoky Mountains. Dave shares his meticulous approach, shaped by years at Rolls-Royce and General Motors, to achieving financial freedom in just 11 months. Learn how his engineering acumen paved the way for strategic short-term rental investments, enabling him to replace his engineering income at the age of 53.
Discover the transformative power of virtual assistants (VAs) as Dave explains how delegating tasks to skilled VAs, particularly from the Philippines, can revolutionize your business efficiency. With tips on hiring, training, and managing VAs, Dave breaks down how these virtual team members can handle everything from social media management to financial tasks, freeing up your time for high-value activities. Get practical advice on using tools such as Loom for training and learn about the importance of detailed screening processes to find the perfect fit for your business needs.
In the final segment, we delve into the importance of building trust with VAs and the incredible synergy between AI and human assistants. Hear from special guest Dave from Rockstar VAs as he unveils how combining these elements can turbocharge productivity. This episode is packed with actionable insights and expert advice to help you streamline your operations and maximize your business potential. Don't miss out on the opportunity to transform your approach with the wisdom shared in this inspiring conversation.
To learn more about Tony Johnson and Timeless visit us at:
https://timelessci.com/
https://timelessco.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/tonytimeless/
If you would like to discuss investing in Commercial Properties create a profile and schedule a call:
https://timelessci.investnext.com/
Reach out to us directly at:
info@timelessci.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to another episode of Carolina Commercial
Real Estate Connection.
Today we have Dave Homjak.
Dave was a longtime engineerand now has a VA placement
company and also invests in realestate.
Dave, thank you so much forjoining us.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Thank you for having me on, Tony.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
Yes, sir.
So I know we briefly discussedquickly your background story,
so if we could go over that alittle bit.
You are an engineer by trade.
Where did you start yourengineering career?
Speaker 2 (00:37):
I started my engineering career at Allison
Engine which got purchased byRolls-Royce, so it was
helicopter engines, largeindustrial gas turbine engines
in Indianapolis, and I've alwayshad a fascination with engines
so I basically jumped.
I worked at Chrysler, detroitDiesel and most recently General
Motors, along with Rolls-Royceto and all engine engine quality
(00:59):
, engine calibration stuff.
So that's fascinating to me,which most people would bore to
tears, but it's like it's socool when it runs great yeah, so
the the funny thing aboutengineering.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
My father's an engineer and my brother
brother-in-law's engineer.
They're typically the oneswhere you write the contract.
I know my father.
He reads the entire contract,so whenever he buys a car he
reads the entire contract.
Everybody else is just signingthe contract and going.
You guys read everything andnegotiate it to death.
Very difficult to deal withwhen you're negotiating.
(01:32):
Hard to win when you guys areso detail-oriented.
So what's right behind Dave youprobably can't see if you're
just listening to us.
He has the Rockstar VAs.
So, dave, tell us a bit abouthow you journeyed into this,
from being the engineer andworking on automobiles,
automobile engines.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
Exactly yeah, so I was.
I would say.
A more accurate description ofme other than automotive
engineer is anxious automotiveengineer.
I had been fascinated by realestate.
I'd read my first book at 16.
I'd had a couple places undercontract and I chickened out and
backed out.
So, at 53, the only thing thatI had bought is primary
(02:14):
residences and I decided that Iwanted to leave my job, and the
way I would feel mostcomfortable doing that is if I
replaced my engineering incomewith real estate.
I jumped on BiggerPockets, whichis a real estate investment
forum, and it looked like thetwo easiest ways at the time, in
2018, were apartment buildingsand short-term rentals.
(02:35):
And equally important withreplacing my engineering income
with real estate is I wanted todo it in two years or less.
So I thought I did like heavyresearch for a month on
apartments.
First.
I'm like I know I can do it.
I just don't know if I can doit in two years or less.
Looking back on it, I couldhave easily done it now that I
know what I know, but I didn'tknow that.
(02:56):
And then I started to researchshort-term rentals and that was
like slam dunk very easy in mymind A lot of people pouring
into the space because there wasa lot of really easy money.
So it's significantly morechallenging to make money in
short-term rentals now.
But at the time you go toSmokey's, you know their second
(03:16):
home, so they're sold turnkey.
You know the plates are there,the TVs are there.
I'd close on a Tuesday,wednesday, thursday.
I'd have it rented out thatweekend.
Throw it on Airbnb.
It was amazing.
And then the crazy thing iswhen you're getting like 50 to
60% cash on cash, the only thingthat's guaranteed to happen is
things appreciate like crazy.
So a couple of the places Ibought there ended up tripling
(03:39):
in value between 2018 and now,which is nice.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
Yeah, absolutely yeah .
You sounds like you got in atthe exact right time.
I remember in 2018, it wasstill it had been a very slow
run up.
So you know, pretty flat from2012 to 2018 and 19 is where it
really started to kind of turnup the notch a little bit.
So that was fantastic insightand so, yeah, it takes a lot to
(04:07):
get going from zero to 100.
And, first of all, I commendyou for doing this at 53.
A lot of people are like, ifthey don't take action, they
feel time has passed them by,they don't go ahead and take it
and have a lot of regret.
Really, it doesn't make anydifference when you get started,
as long as you can go all in,spend the time to learn, you
(04:28):
know, listen to as many podcastsas you can, read books and just
get invested into the process.
Anybody can start at any ageand I commend you for doing that
.
That's awesome, and so you did.
You fulfill that and getcompletely out in the two years
that you projected for yourself.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
I was fully out 11 months after I made the decision
, nine months after I purchasedmy first property.
So I bought one in May of 18,another one in August of 18,
another one in November of 18.
In December they offered abuyout.
I signed up for it.
In January, February 5th, Ileft the building and I got paid
like I was in the buildingthrough July, which was pretty
cool, oh that's awesome.
(05:08):
I was going to say.
And what happened after that is, some podcasters thought that
was pretty cool, that I was ableto do that in under a year.
So I got on some podcasts and abunch of people reached out to
me and said hey, can you help mefind the best stuff in the
Smokies?
Which I did, and that involvesmath.
And then I decided I didn'twant to do math.
I'm also a big believer inbusiness coaches, and a business
(05:29):
coach said well, you do realizeyou don't have to do the math.
I'm like what do you mean?
And they're like oh, you couldget somebody else to do the math
.
It's, you know, it's not rocketscience, is it?
And I said well, no, it isn't.
So that's where I ended upgetting my first virtual
assistant, who was absolutelyincredible.
She had 13 years experience atthe time.
Our first interaction was youknow what time zone are you in?
(05:50):
I said Eastern.
She said I'm planning onworking for you from 9 am to 6
pm, unless you can think I canbe more effective by shifting my
hours.
And the second conversation waswhat do you need help with?
I said I need help with myemail.
She said what specifically?
I said I need these three thingsdone, and she's very gentle
(06:10):
with me, right.
So she's like, well, we coulddo those three things or we
could do these other five things, but if you want to do those
three things, I'm like, no, Idon't want to do those three
things, I want to do what 13years experience tells you, and
that, I think, is the differencebetween the stereotype of most
virtual assistants of yourtraining really hard, they're
going to walk away eventuallyversus somebody that is a bunch
(06:33):
of experience that's going togive you feedback on.
This is an easier, softer wayto do this and help you grow
your business and even run ateam, which right now I have a
team of seven, and she runs thatteam, she manages it, she
checks the quality, which is theother thing that I really
didn't want to get into ischecking the quality of those
seven people, or six people,right, so you're saying she's
(06:55):
running a team of seven othervirtual assistants?
six other virtual assistants inherself.
Okay.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
So what specifically are these virtual assistants
doing for you?
That's a lot of virtualassistants in ourselves, okay.
So what specifically are thesevirtual assistants doing for you
?
Speaker 2 (07:08):
That's a lot of virtual assistants.
It is.
So two are doing the, basicallytalking to clients, helping
them optimize the virtualassistants that they've already
placed.
Optimize the virtual assistantsthat they've already placed.
(07:28):
We asked questions of thebusiness owners.
One of our biggest successstories somebody got a virtual
assistant and they werefull-time in a couple of weeks
and they're like I can't usethem full-time.
So just talk to Norman.
He's amazing.
He has 15 years experience andNorman asked enough questions
and teased enough informationout about the business that in
the end the guy ended up havingto hire a second virtual
(07:49):
assistant to take care ofeverything.
So there's a lot of things thatyou know.
Basically, people aren'texperts on virtual assistants.
We are.
We're going to help you figureout exactly what you can
delegate and get you in the highdollar, high value stuff or get
you in the getting time backwith your family stuff, versus
(08:09):
in the weeds trying to.
You know, figure out how to runall these.
You know I need to look up theelectric bill to put in my, you
know my my Quicken spreadsheet,whatever.
So so bottom line is the personthat runs, everybody and two
other people work there.
I have a head cold caller froma cold calling company.
(08:31):
I have with a partner and wehave two other cold callers
under there, and then the otherperson is doing a lot of
analytics on different marketsthe Smokies and other markets.
Basically, I build aspreadsheet that you put in
numbers and it does the math foryou, and then there's a thing
(08:51):
called conditional formatting,which just means if a number is
low which is good it turns green.
If a number is high, it's bad,it turns red.
So 5% of the properties in theSmokies turn green.
Those are the best propertiesto buy, I see.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
Perfect, all right, so you have when you're placing
virtual assistants, in otherwords, you're not placing this
quantity You're typically givingsomeone one VA right, exactly,
or maybe?
Speaker 2 (09:22):
two.
We typically start with one ortwo.
The biggest success stories,though, are people that have the
vision and have the idea togrow, and normally the first
person we place is actually amanager, and they're super
experienced and they've managedother people, and then, as
people add on to the team, thatperson basically coaches,
(09:45):
encourages the team and can fillin if any other team members
aren't there.
So Jess can fill in for anybody, and she's like this person,
you know, basically, the workslowing down on, let's just say
there's not as many listingscoming out in the Smokies.
That math doesn't need to bedone.
For two hours a day, we need toshift her over to analyzing
more virtual assistance.
(10:05):
So for the company, so she'sthe one doing.
You know, this is productive,this isn't productive.
And moving people around whichI just love, because I would
lose track of that I wouldprobably just not even notice it
Right.
So, two hours a day, whatever.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
So so who?
Who is the ideal client forthis?
Is this someone for youtypically working with people
that are doing short-termrentals?
Is it just short-term rentalsin the Smokies that you're
helping?
Well, who is your ideal client?
Speaker 2 (10:43):
college educated, very experienced and dedicated,
and pay them under minimum wage.
So I mean, these are the bestof the best.
You know, we're actually havinga onboarding call.
Today Somebody's calling in toget two more.
They've already got, I think,three from us and they're
actually they're replacing someVAs that they acquired in a
different fashion because wehave some really tight processes
(11:06):
.
One of the things we do is wegive every virtual assistant an
intermetrics test and thatcombines three of the world's
best profile tools.
And actually, Tony, in the shownotes, you can put in the
referral link and the first 100of your guests that sign up will
get a free Intermetrics test.
(11:27):
That would normally cost them$295 if they were gonna take it
online Super detailed test.
That's one of the tools we useto screen the virtual assistants
and it normally starts out withone virtual assistant and then
it goes from there.
We've placed 140 some, Ibelieve, right now, and we
haven't advertised at all.
It's all word of mouth.
(11:48):
Everybody's like you can't youknow you need somebody to answer
the phone, that people aren'tanswering the phone and they're
answering it poorly, wrong,whatever, not following the
script, we can get you people toanswer the phone and then they
can help with emails, they helpwith accounting, they help with
social media.
You know they can run a team orthey can just be, you know,
managing your calendar, stufflike that, so pretty much any.
There's multiple differentbusinesses that we're helping.
(12:11):
We started, I would say themajority of the people are in
real estate, whether that's realestate agents or people that
are managing real estate, butanything and here's the tip
whether you use my company,whether you get the virtual
assistant on your own, basicallyanything you're doing on a
computer.
(12:31):
You can get a subscription toLoom, l-o-o-m and anything
you're doing on a computer.
You hit the Loom record button.
Your face is in the corner andyou say this is exactly what I'm
doing.
This is where I find the waterbill, this is where I find the
electric bill.
This is where I put it in Excelor, excuse me, in Quicken.
This is how I like to gothrough my emails.
All your training is nowrecorded.
(12:51):
One month from now, you canhave everything documented and
recorded to hand off to whoeveryou hire.
You know whether you use mycompany, whether you find them
on your own doesn't matter to me.
I just think this is amazing,to get really dedicated people
to work and they don't charge.
You know they're quite happy,due to the economics of the
Philippines, to work for whatwould be considered a lower wage
(13:14):
than anybody in the UnitedStates is willing to work for,
especially at that caliber ofquality.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
Sure, absolutely, dave.
Thank you.
So one I don't want to forget.
So you just promised now areferral link.
We didn't get that referrallink, so let me get that, so
those that are listening cantake notes on that referral link
.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
Okay, my virtual assistant claimed that she sent
it to you.
We will have to resend it.
Speaker 1 (13:38):
Okay, yeah, once I have the link I'll place it on
there and so it'll be in theshow notes, that link.
Okay.
Sounds good, I'll place it onthere and so it'll be in the
show notes.
That link, okay, sounds good.
Second thing I wanted to run on.
I think that that's great whatyou're doing.
So when we're talking aboutemails, accounting, social media
, managing calendars exactlybasically what an executive
assistant would do for anyone,is the roles and
(14:01):
responsibilities that this VA istaking over.
So anybody.
It's all the day-to-day normaltasks that business owners when
they're starting to scale theirbusinesses and doing everything.
Still, it's a great easy way tooffload everything and buy back
time and buy back your time andother books I've written about
(14:23):
yeah, you can do, can do it onZoom Loom any of them recording
what you're doing, which I thinkis fantastic.
We do it with my company.
We have playbooks with foldersof everything.
It's half the way we traineverybody going through
everything.
We either do videos like thator screenshots with details,
screenshots with details.
But once you do that, it'samazing how much of the
(14:46):
day-to-day work you can offloadto someone who is somewhat
intelligent.
Obviously, this metrics toolthat you have.
We use Culture Index.
That's a great tool too, and sothis sounds like it's kind of
similar to that Once youunderstand, you know where your
needs are in life, what yourstrengths are, what your
(15:08):
weaknesses are, you know offloadthose things that strain and
drain that energy from you, soyou can, you know, produce at a
higher level.
And yeah, that sounds great.
So, dave, let me ask you youknow we're talking.
You're saying, well, maybe yougo on your own, maybe you can
reach out to me.
I'm assuming that the reasonthat someone would reach out to
(15:30):
you, as opposed to just doing iton their own One the
Philippines is a great place toget virtual assistants One
because they are very loyal andyou know they also don't like to
own their own company.
A lot of times, from what Iunderstand, they just like to be
a lot of worker.
Bees is kind of myunderstanding of the culture.
(15:50):
But if, if someone goes ontheir own compared to you, is
there a cost savings?
Or I'm assuming maybe you'venegotiated where it doesn't even
save them much money if they goon their own compared to you?
Speaker 2 (16:04):
They, they can save a little bit of money, but here's
, here's, here's the choice,right?
So when we do individualizedjob descriptions depending on
exactly what our client wants,and then, quite honestly, we
overpay a little bit to thevirtual assistant.
So here's the problem thatsomebody doing it on their own
is going to have.
If you want somebody highquality, you're trying to
(16:25):
compete with us.
On average, we get 140applicants per job description.
It's whittling those down tothe five best candidates.
So if you have, quite honestly,if you can figure that out,
then start a VA company andlet's compete.
Man, that's the problem, thoughNot you particularly, but for
(16:47):
anybody considering it.
That was the thing.
I originally tried to get myvirtual assistant from
onlinejobsph and I was payingless than I pay now and I still
had 40 people apply and I'mtrying to get through those 40.
I'm like, oh, this is horrible.
And then the way the companystarted was a friend of mine
posted on Facebook.
(17:08):
I have an absolute rock star.
My business model is changing.
Can somebody use her?
I have two, I'm going down toone and that's how I hired her
and I'm like, can you go throughthese others, because I want
you to do certain things andthese other people to do other
things.
So she whittled the list of 40down to the one for me, and that
was through testing, but yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:26):
Well, that's great.
Tell me a little bit forsomeone to understand a little
bit more.
What were some of the strugglesyou were having when you got
your first VA and what were youhanding off?
What was driving you crazy thatsomeone was able to take away
from you that freed up some ofyour time?
Speaker 2 (17:42):
My yeah, no great question.
My biggest thing was I'll justtell the story I did.
I'll just tell the story I did.
I had a client and I'm still.
I'm still.
It still bugs me a little bit,just a little bit.
I had a client that needed a1031 and he had already burned
(18:03):
through the first 15 days.
And for those that don't know,that just means it's a tax
deferred exchange.
You have 45 days to identify,six months to close from the
date of closing.
So we had closed.
He's two weeks in.
He can't find anything.
A guy sends him over to me.
I'm like absolutely, I can helpyou.
And I do a little bit more thanfour hours of math and I come up
(18:24):
with the most killer propertyof all time ever, like without a
doubt, like guaranteed, likejust buy this thing, you don't
even have to look at it.
And I call the guy and I say Ifound it.
And he's like let me thinkabout it.
And I'm like what's there to?
This thing's going to be gone,it's smoking.
And a day later he's like yeah,I'm not buying that.
(18:46):
And I'm like why?
And he goes well, it doesn'thave a front porch.
And I'm like this thing makesmoney.
You can buy a front porch ifyou want With the money, this
thing's going to throw up.
And he didn't buy it.
And I was so mad.
But what I ended up doing is Iactually.
I floated it to another guy and45 minutes later that guy's
like oh, this is full priceoffer, this is an amazing deal.
(19:09):
But I was so mad that I hadspent four hours and the guy
said no, I was like I almostwell, I talked to my business
coach.
I'm like I'm never doing themath again.
These guys da, da, da.
So he's like you know, calmdown, it's okay, you know.
So this is where you knowhaving other people around you.
And he's like okay, how muchyou know?
(19:33):
Basically, if the first guywould have bought it, how much
would you have made per hour?
And it was.
You know, I was getting a decentreal estate commission saying,
oh, it's in the thousands perhour.
And then he's like okay, so ittook an extra 45 minutes for the
second guy.
How much did you make per hour?
I'm like kind of about the same.
So he said, oh, and, by the theway, this isn't rocket science,
(19:55):
you could probably hiresomebody to do all that math.
And I'm like ding, okay.
So that was when I started downthe I need somebody else to do
this math and and that that wasthe inspiration for me to do it
was I was so frustrated.
But if I didn't have the codeI'd be like just I'm out, I'm
not this frustrated me.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
I'm throwing away, you know, and I'm helping people
too, so it's just right, youwere trying to eliminate the
hours running, all the calcsthat you're figuring does this
deal work?
Does this deal work?
You're saying you're spendingfour hours running numbers on
one short-term rental.
Is that what?
(20:30):
Am I understanding you right?
Are you running it on multipleproperties?
Speaker 2 (20:32):
no, no, I wanted him to have the best one and bottom
line is his price point was like1 to 1.3 million and so I ran
everything in the mls that wasbetween 1 and 1.3, so there was
probably 30 or 40 properties andone just stuck out like, stood
out like a sore thumb.
I it was so like and I justtalked to a typical engineer,
(20:54):
dave.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
Typically, this guy ran the number on every single
solitary house.
Yes, why wouldn't you?
Speaker 2 (21:01):
that's.
I mean, I'm like that to me.
That's where you find the lowhanging fruit.
You do a little, you front loadthe work a little bit and boom
I, this thing was just it, oh it, I just I still, I still can't
believe it.
I'm like I wish there was threeof them.
I could have sold three of them.
Boom Like that.
They were amazing.
Speaker 1 (21:17):
So one thing I want to bring up we're talking about
1031s, and this the only reasonI'm bringing it up is this
happened to me right.
So when you've running out oftime but you're not positive,
and so you know you, let's sayyou're don't rush and just grab
three properties at the end ofyour timeframe, because then
your money is stuck for sixmonths.
(21:39):
So if you decide not to buy oneof those three that you
identify after your timeframe,that money is locked up for six
months.
You can't get it back.
So, if you don't, if you're notsure or really not a hundred
percent sold on a property,don't identify any at the end of
your time and you can get yourmoney back.
Very critical lesson learnedfrom me that I did not know the
(22:02):
first time, so I would like toshare that.
Speaker 2 (22:05):
No, absolutely.
And I'll throw out another 1031tip.
If you're closing betweenNovember 15th and December 31st
and you are making pretty goodmoney this year and you want to
kick the tax scan to next year,sign up for 1031.
The qualified intermediaryholds that you don't identify.
You get a check January 1through February 1.
(22:27):
And guess what?
It's now taxable in the nextyear's income.
So you get to play with thatmoney another 15 months instead
of having to pay the tax man inthree months.
So in a lot of that you know ifyou had a great year, kick it
down the road.
If you didn't have a good yeartake it.
Speaker 1 (22:41):
Yeah, Bunch of great strategy.
So tell me, okay, so now let'sgo a little bit more down this
road.
So now you've gotten your first, you got the referral from the
friend.
So was it just so eyeopeninghow much everything opened for
you that pushed you into kind ofpursuing helping others get VAs
?
It was just such a eyeopenerfor you and time saver.
(23:04):
Is that what you identified?
Speaker 2 (23:06):
how life-changing it was.
No, I'm completely clueless.
That's a much better story thanwhat actually happened.
So what happened was I havelunch with a group of friends
once a month I live in Ann Arbor, michigan and I was like she's
the most amazing VA.
Oh my God, you can't believe it.
She's telling me this, she'stelling me that I thought I'd
have to tell her everything.
(23:27):
And three different guys saidhey, she sounds really amazing.
Do you think she could find meone like that?
And I'm like I don't know.
Let me ask her.
So I asked she found three guysVAs.
The story, you know the samestory.
At the end, here's the VA hey,dave, what do I owe you?
Nothing, don't worry about it.
Another guy goes you do realizeyou have a virtual assistant
(23:50):
placement company and you shouldbe charging a fee for this.
And I'm like I had no idea.
Brent, thank you very much forpointing that out, right?
So I'm like holy cow.
So he points it out.
And then I started to charge aone-time fee.
But what we found is a lot ofpeople like our current model,
which is just you pay two weeksupfront.
That goes for the first twoweeks.
The VA works, we have qualitymaximization and we're getting
(24:15):
them optimized as quickly aspossible.
Asking you questions about yourbusiness?
You're getting way more out ofthe VA than if you.
Here's the placement VA.
Good luck, you figure it out.
Speaker 1 (24:26):
Tell me a bit about that.
So you're you're basicallybringing the VAs in, you guys
are recruiting the VAs, you'reonboarding the VAs for specific
tasks, or are you basicallyunderstanding what their
strengths are and then kind ofpocketing these and waiting for
clients that need those type ofpeople?
How are you doing it?
Speaker 2 (24:49):
It's kind of two ways .
The first thing is, let's sayyou deal with Quicken a lot.
I'm like I need a Quickenexpert.
We're going to put in fiveyears Quicken experience minimum
.
We've gotten people that haveleft businesses, companies in
the Philippines because they sawour ad said I can work from
home and make an extra couple ofbucks an hour.
I would rather work and dobookkeeping that way.
(25:12):
But whatever, whatever toolyou're using um, you know, ring
central, uh, different crms,whatever it is we can find
somebody that's an expert inthat hubspot, multiple experts
in hubspot.
We're actually generating somepretty interesting stuff for
chat, gpt, uh, virtualassistants that are that have
ramped up quickly with thatinformation.
(25:33):
So it's whatever you're lookingfor.
We're going to find that foryou and, like I said, we
typically whittle down from 140people.
Five business days later you'represented with the top five.
The other tip that I will giveto absolutely everybody out
there is do not go on resume Ifyou have five absolute killer,
(25:54):
rockstar virtual assistants.
This is going to be like amarriage.
You want somebody that you getalong with well, that there's
good chemistry there.
The the resume doesn't matternearly as much as having that
really good rapport.
So, like Jess and I have anamazing rapport she makes calls
when I'm busy and I'd say 90,95% of the time it's exactly
(26:18):
what I would have done in thatsituation and every once in a
while it's like let's try not todo that.
But I mean it's amazing, whenyou get in sync with somebody,
what happens.
Speaker 1 (26:26):
Yeah, I love that idea.
One thing that I would bring upis a question that would come
to my mind is you're givingsomeone access to your books
that's in the Philippines.
Are you guys doing some type ofa vetting process or anything?
Because once you're givingsomeone access to your books, a
lot of times they have access toyour accounts because your
(26:49):
accounts are linked into thosebooks.
How is that?
How is that vetted by you guys?
Speaker 2 (26:55):
So we can run background checks if requested a
lot of time for sensitive stufflike that, it absolutely that's
the case.
It's like any other company.
So let's say, you work for areally, really, really big
company in the United States.
The way that's going to work issomebody's going to say today's
the day we move all the moneyover for the payroll and then,
(27:16):
boom, the payroll goes out,right.
So?
So I'll just tell you what mycomfort level was and how things
happened for me, as I had myvirtual assistant for three
months and I was having her dostuff, but I was still
controlling all the money, allthe credit cards.
And three months in, I'm like Ineed this thing.
And she's like, okay, and I'mlike here's the credit card,
(27:37):
right.
So it took me three months toget comfortable with her.
She's had a credit card for thelast two years and then she now
has bank account access.
She moves money, she's doing alot of the payment for the other
virtual assistants, right.
She's doing a lot of thepayment for the other virtual
assistants, right.
So you know she's running thepayroll.
So there's a very high level oftrust.
(27:58):
I know that she's super solidand if she ever, you know it
would be easy for her to do that, but her integrity would not
allow her to do that.
So I think it's kind of likeworking with a person in person.
Would you give a credit card toa person that you hire the
first day, maybe if they have agood reputation, but if they're
(28:18):
brand new, you're going to haveto vet them in.
Speaker 1 (28:20):
However, you do as well, so Well that's a good
thing about credit cards, right.
If it's a credit card,obviously you can dispute a
transaction and they'll catch itrelatively early.
If it's somebody who's runninga bunch of stuff outside the
country, I mean, my cardsconstantly get hit and I don't
have a VA overseas.
Speaker 2 (28:41):
You're doing it made in America, baby.
Speaker 1 (28:43):
That's right.
I'm getting hit right from inthe country here.
Speaker 2 (28:46):
So, let's.
Speaker 1 (28:47):
Let's hit on a couple other things that you brought
up.
One I'm just trying to bring upa lot of things that I hear
about issues with VA.
So another issue that I hearyou brought up social media.
I hear a lot of.
You know they just do a bunchof cut and paste, don't actually
do real posts, you know, justduplicate other posts, posts.
(29:08):
How are they doing the socialmedia management?
Where are they getting thedirection?
No-transcript.
Speaker 2 (29:21):
And so it's kind of like anything else, like if you
tell me I need you to fly, youknow well, I need you to drive a
train or something, I'll throwit out.
You know our VAs do our stuff.
(29:47):
You go to the Rockstar VAs onFacebook or on Instagram and
basically what we ended up doingis we had a guy coming up with
his own and what we noticed isthere were some nuances in
English that were not the way wewould say it.
I'll just put it that way, right?
So guess what?
(30:08):
Let's get a US citizen to gothrough and bottom line is
there's I'm giving away all thesecrets, but that's okay there's
73 different phrases and poststhat we have that we kind of
rotate through differentbackgrounds.
What have you?
The bottom line is those weregone through with a fine-tooth
(30:28):
comb by a trusted fellowentrepreneur owner.
You know, I'm like I.
That looks painful to me, I'mnot going to do it, but I'm
happy to pay somebody else to doit.
So I paid somebody else.
They went through, did it.
Speaker 1 (30:40):
It's working great now, but I agree, yeah what I'm
prying out of Dave is that thereis value that you bring.
It's not just a pricecomparison when we talk about
where you have already anunderstanding of the social
media.
So when I'm saying that theissue that people have with VAs
when they get them overseas soif someone just goes, like me,
(31:01):
if I go hire my own VA to fillthese I haven't gone and dealt
with a 50 or a hundred VAs.
Gone and dealt with the 50 anda hundred different problems,
how the posts aren't going towork out, why they don't work
out.
What do I have to do to fixthese people to make the post do
right?
So whether the your price is alittle higher I mean it would
have to be, even if it's, evenif it's substantially higher
(31:23):
what I'm saving is all of thistrial and error and figuring out
how to compute all thesedifferent processes to get
something to work with a VA.
And that's where the frustrationis going to build up, where you
can get someone like you that'salready gone through all of
those issues, no matter whatrealm if it's the QuickBooks and
worrying about the finances, ifit's social media, worrying
(31:44):
about the posts.
So that's the value you bringis you're vetting these people.
You know how to vet them.
Then you're understanding whereare these people's strengths,
how do I make sure that they'reas productive as possible?
What system do I use?
That is the value Dave is goingto bring if you're looking for
a VA.
So you're a much better offgoing with someone that's got
(32:06):
all that experience than tryingto go to Upwork and do it
yourself and save $3 an hour.
Maybe, you know, $150 a monthor whatever you would save.
Speaker 2 (32:17):
It doesn't seem worth it.
And I have to tell you, tony,my favorite conversation of all
time ever with a potentialclient is this guy said I've had
five VAs.
I've had to fire them all.
Why should I get one from you?
And I said oh, how much timedid you spend training five VAs
(32:39):
that you've had?
How much time do you?
You know, this is crazy.
Like you just answered your ownquestion.
You just don't know it, right?
Yeah, yeah, I mean, you can.
You can hire a proven person oryou can train them and you can
easily train them.
Just, it's going to take a lotof time.
So, if you, if you got, ifyou're busy making money, you
know using your talents to thehighest and best use, training a
(33:02):
virtual assistant and havingthe, you know watching all the
YouTube videos of how to hireand then how to train and best
practice, it's like, oh, youdon't want to do that.
You want to.
You just want to set up a Zoomcall with Norman Norman.
What did you tell me last week?
I forgot half of it.
Okay, I got.
You know he'll walk you througheverything.
He meets with you, weekly,meets with you.
The rest of you know, as longas the virtual assistant is
(33:24):
employed, he's going to behelping you every moment of the
way.
Do this, don't do this.
This will work.
Actually, you can get thisother thing done that you didn't
even think of.
So, yeah, it's.
If you're really young, goahead and watch the YouTube
videos, give it a shot.
I mean, I don't.
You know, I don't want anybodyto do anything.
They don't want.
But if you're more establishedit's just so much easier to not
(33:47):
have to learn that stuff.
My goodness.
Speaker 1 (33:52):
Yeah, well, that's what you're trying to do is save
your time.
So when you're trying to getyour time, training someone
through all that and startingfrom scratch is definitely not
the best use of your time.
What I always recommend forpeople is to understand what
(34:13):
those draining activities areand even what you're doing,
because a lot of business ownerswere running all around to even
know what we're doing.
So just take two weeks and tryand jot down every 30 minutes
what I do.
This last 30 minutes Jot downwhat.
I do this last 30 minutes.
Then try and look at that.
Even if you only get a week in,you'll be able to see real
quick how much time you'rewasting on very low dollar jobs.
How many times are you checkingyour email a day?
(34:34):
How many things are you gettingsidetracked?
Who are you letting to come inand bother you about
insignificant questions aboutyour business or getting you off
track, and how much time to getback going?
If you could just eliminatesome of those things you off
track and how much time to getback going, if you could just
eliminate some of those things,you would be shocked how much
more you could produce and thenhow much more money you could
make to pay for that.
I think it's great.
Speaker 2 (34:55):
Yeah, no, and that's a great way to do it is document
every half hour for a week ortwo.
The other objection that I'dlike to address is a lot of
people say I don't have enoughfor a full-time VA or maybe even
a halftime VA, and my responseto that would be let's say, your
time's worth $50 an hour.
You can get a halftime VA forfrom us, for under that.
(35:20):
And if they do, if they takeone hour of work off your play
today, guess what.
You're now broken even, and ifthey do any more, they take one
hour of work off your plate aday.
Guess what.
You're now broken even.
And if they do any more than anhour, you're now money ahead.
So this is all the whole, and Iwas part of that and that's why
I bring that up.
On the objections is I was onethat I can't use.
I can't use this person eighthours and my business coach is
(35:41):
like, well, that's fine, youonly need to use her two, two
and a half hours and you'rebroken even, and the rest of
it's just gravy.
And then, yeah, and then itjust kind of grows and you get
ideas and it just allows you toexplore a lot more things, which
that was the creativity was themost unexpected part of it for
me, when I got to cut down toworking, you know, four or five
(36:02):
hours a day, or got toconcentrate on the stuff that
made the most money at the time.
Speaker 1 (36:07):
Yeah, and really what ends up happening, whether you
realize it or not, once you getsome of these mundane tasks out
of your daily schedule andyou're able to kind of breathe
and think how can I grow mycompany, how can I do this, how
can I do that?
Start working on your businessinstead of in your business.
That's how you're going toscale you.
(36:28):
When you're constantly stuckworking in your business, you
hit a glass ceiling.
You don't grow.
You can only grow so much.
You have to start delegatingthose things out and getting to
your.
You know high value that youcan bring to the company and
your vision for the future andwhat you guys can do and where
you want to go and plan out howto get there.
(36:48):
Those are the high value thingsto do for your company, not
check your email and respond tothis client in five minutes.
So anyway, Dave, thank you somuch for coming on.
So if people want to learn more, what's the best way to reach
you?
Speaker 2 (37:08):
uh, what's the best way to reach you?
There's multiple ways.
There's the rockstar vas oninstagram.
There's the rockstar vas on uhfacebook.
Our website is therockstarvascom.
If you wanta question for mepersonally, uh, dave homiak, on
facebook, I'm standing on thetop of a building with a sunset
behind me.
Feel free to message me onthere.
I'll be happy to message peopleback.
(37:29):
Yeah, I just.
I really think there's a.
You know very briefly, tell aquick Chrysler story.
So Chrysler now has a thingthat says there's LCC across the
top of everything.
Lowest cost country.
Where can we get thisengineered?
Where can we get thismanufactured?
(37:50):
Where can we get this assembled?
And we can get it engineered inMexico or Poland and we can
assemble it in wherever.
This is the future, it iscoming.
You can either start now orstart in five years, when your
competitor already has thishigher quality, less expensive
labor.
That's loyal.
Speaker 1 (38:11):
Absolutely.
Yeah, I agree a hundred percent.
Yeah, this this day and age,you have to be able to be as
productive as humanly possible,because you're.
I mean, it's so difficult rightnow to compete.
You have AI and yet virtualassistants everywhere, so it's
whoever is learning to maximizethese things, and if you can get
a VA that can work with the AIoh my goodness, you can really
(38:34):
start to compound the situation.
Speaker 2 (38:36):
Oh, it's amazing, it's amazing.
Speaker 1 (38:39):
Dave, thanks again so much for being on with us today
.
Please reach out to Dave again.
It's the rockstarvascom andwe'll get his links all onto the
show notes.
Dave, thanks again for joiningus today, sir.
Speaker 2 (38:52):
Thanks for having me, tony, appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (38:54):
Yes, sir, have a great day.
Speaker 2 (38:56):
You too.
Welcome to another episode of Carolina Commercial
Real Estate Connection.
Today we have Dave Homjak.
Dave was a longtime engineerand now has a VA placement
company and also invests in realestate.
Dave, thank you so much forjoining us.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Thank you for having me on, Tony.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
Yes, sir.
So I know we briefly discussedquickly your background story,
so if we could go over that alittle bit.
You are an engineer by trade.
Where did you start yourengineering career?
Speaker 2 (00:37):
I started my engineering career at Allison
Engine which got purchased byRolls-Royce, so it was
helicopter engines, largeindustrial gas turbine engines
in Indianapolis, and I've alwayshad a fascination with engines
so I basically jumped.
I worked at Chrysler, detroitDiesel and most recently General
Motors, along with Rolls-Royceto and all engine engine quality
(00:59):
, engine calibration stuff.
So that's fascinating to me,which most people would bore to
tears, but it's like it's socool when it runs great yeah, so
the the funny thing aboutengineering.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
My father's an engineer and my brother
brother-in-law's engineer.
They're typically the oneswhere you write the contract.
I know my father.
He reads the entire contract,so whenever he buys a car he
reads the entire contract.
Everybody else is just signingthe contract and going.
You guys read everything andnegotiate it to death.
Very difficult to deal withwhen you're negotiating.
(01:32):
Hard to win when you guys areso detail-oriented.
So what's right behind Dave youprobably can't see if you're
just listening to us.
He has the Rockstar VAs.
So, dave, tell us a bit abouthow you journeyed into this,
from being the engineer andworking on automobiles,
automobile engines.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
Exactly yeah, so I was.
I would say.
A more accurate description ofme other than automotive
engineer is anxious automotiveengineer.
I had been fascinated by realestate.
I'd read my first book at 16.
I'd had a couple places undercontract and I chickened out and
backed out.
So, at 53, the only thing thatI had bought is primary
(02:14):
residences and I decided that Iwanted to leave my job, and the
way I would feel mostcomfortable doing that is if I
replaced my engineering incomewith real estate.
I jumped on BiggerPockets, whichis a real estate investment
forum, and it looked like thetwo easiest ways at the time, in
2018, were apartment buildingsand short-term rentals.
(02:35):
And equally important withreplacing my engineering income
with real estate is I wanted todo it in two years or less.
So I thought I did like heavyresearch for a month on
apartments.
First.
I'm like I know I can do it.
I just don't know if I can doit in two years or less.
Looking back on it, I couldhave easily done it now that I
know what I know, but I didn'tknow that.
(02:56):
And then I started to researchshort-term rentals and that was
like slam dunk very easy in mymind A lot of people pouring
into the space because there wasa lot of really easy money.
So it's significantly morechallenging to make money in
short-term rentals now.
But at the time you go toSmokey's, you know their second
(03:16):
home, so they're sold turnkey.
You know the plates are there,the TVs are there.
I'd close on a Tuesday,wednesday, thursday.
I'd have it rented out thatweekend.
Throw it on Airbnb.
It was amazing.
And then the crazy thing iswhen you're getting like 50 to
60% cash on cash, the only thingthat's guaranteed to happen is
things appreciate like crazy.
So a couple of the places Ibought there ended up tripling
(03:39):
in value between 2018 and now,which is nice.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
Yeah, absolutely yeah .
You sounds like you got in atthe exact right time.
I remember in 2018, it wasstill it had been a very slow
run up.
So you know, pretty flat from2012 to 2018 and 19 is where it
really started to kind of turnup the notch a little bit.
So that was fantastic insightand so, yeah, it takes a lot to
(04:07):
get going from zero to 100.
And, first of all, I commendyou for doing this at 53.
A lot of people are like, ifthey don't take action, they
feel time has passed them by,they don't go ahead and take it
and have a lot of regret.
Really, it doesn't make anydifference when you get started,
as long as you can go all in,spend the time to learn, you
(04:28):
know, listen to as many podcastsas you can, read books and just
get invested into the process.
Anybody can start at any ageand I commend you for doing that
.
That's awesome, and so you did.
You fulfill that and getcompletely out in the two years
that you projected for yourself.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
I was fully out 11 months after I made the decision
, nine months after I purchasedmy first property.
So I bought one in May of 18,another one in August of 18,
another one in November of 18.
In December they offered abuyout.
I signed up for it.
In January, February 5th, Ileft the building and I got paid
like I was in the buildingthrough July, which was pretty
cool, oh that's awesome.
(05:08):
I was going to say.
And what happened after that is, some podcasters thought that
was pretty cool, that I was ableto do that in under a year.
So I got on some podcasts and abunch of people reached out to
me and said hey, can you help mefind the best stuff in the
Smokies?
Which I did, and that involvesmath.
And then I decided I didn'twant to do math.
I'm also a big believer inbusiness coaches, and a business
(05:29):
coach said well, you do realizeyou don't have to do the math.
I'm like what do you mean?
And they're like oh, you couldget somebody else to do the math
.
It's, you know, it's not rocketscience, is it?
And I said well, no, it isn't.
So that's where I ended upgetting my first virtual
assistant, who was absolutelyincredible.
She had 13 years experience atthe time.
Our first interaction was youknow what time zone are you in?
(05:50):
I said Eastern.
She said I'm planning onworking for you from 9 am to 6
pm, unless you can think I canbe more effective by shifting my
hours.
And the second conversation waswhat do you need help with?
I said I need help with myemail.
She said what specifically?
I said I need these three thingsdone, and she's very gentle
(06:10):
with me, right.
So she's like, well, we coulddo those three things or we
could do these other five things, but if you want to do those
three things, I'm like, no, Idon't want to do those three
things, I want to do what 13years experience tells you, and
that, I think, is the differencebetween the stereotype of most
virtual assistants of yourtraining really hard, they're
going to walk away eventuallyversus somebody that is a bunch
(06:33):
of experience that's going togive you feedback on.
This is an easier, softer wayto do this and help you grow
your business and even run ateam, which right now I have a
team of seven, and she runs thatteam, she manages it, she
checks the quality, which is theother thing that I really
didn't want to get into ischecking the quality of those
seven people, or six people,right, so you're saying she's
(06:55):
running a team of seven othervirtual assistants?
six other virtual assistants inherself.
Okay.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
So what specifically are these virtual assistants
doing for you?
That's a lot of virtualassistants in ourselves, okay.
So what specifically are thesevirtual assistants doing for you
?
Speaker 2 (07:08):
That's a lot of virtual assistants.
It is.
So two are doing the, basicallytalking to clients, helping
them optimize the virtualassistants that they've already
placed.
Optimize the virtual assistantsthat they've already placed.
(07:28):
We asked questions of thebusiness owners.
One of our biggest successstories somebody got a virtual
assistant and they werefull-time in a couple of weeks
and they're like I can't usethem full-time.
So just talk to Norman.
He's amazing.
He has 15 years experience andNorman asked enough questions
and teased enough informationout about the business that in
the end the guy ended up havingto hire a second virtual
(07:49):
assistant to take care ofeverything.
So there's a lot of things thatyou know.
Basically, people aren'texperts on virtual assistants.
We are.
We're going to help you figureout exactly what you can
delegate and get you in the highdollar, high value stuff or get
you in the getting time backwith your family stuff, versus
(08:09):
in the weeds trying to.
You know, figure out how to runall these.
You know I need to look up theelectric bill to put in my, you
know my my Quicken spreadsheet,whatever.
So so bottom line is the personthat runs, everybody and two
other people work there.
I have a head cold caller froma cold calling company.
(08:31):
I have with a partner and wehave two other cold callers
under there, and then the otherperson is doing a lot of
analytics on different marketsthe Smokies and other markets.
Basically, I build aspreadsheet that you put in
numbers and it does the math foryou, and then there's a thing
(08:51):
called conditional formatting,which just means if a number is
low which is good it turns green.
If a number is high, it's bad,it turns red.
So 5% of the properties in theSmokies turn green.
Those are the best propertiesto buy, I see.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
Perfect, all right, so you have when you're placing
virtual assistants, in otherwords, you're not placing this
quantity You're typically givingsomeone one VA right, exactly,
or maybe?
Speaker 2 (09:22):
two.
We typically start with one ortwo.
The biggest success stories,though, are people that have the
vision and have the idea togrow, and normally the first
person we place is actually amanager, and they're super
experienced and they've managedother people, and then, as
people add on to the team, thatperson basically coaches,
(09:45):
encourages the team and can fillin if any other team members
aren't there.
So Jess can fill in for anybody, and she's like this person,
you know, basically, the workslowing down on, let's just say
there's not as many listingscoming out in the Smokies.
That math doesn't need to bedone.
For two hours a day, we need toshift her over to analyzing
more virtual assistance.
(10:05):
So for the company, so she'sthe one doing.
You know, this is productive,this isn't productive.
And moving people around whichI just love, because I would
lose track of that I wouldprobably just not even notice it
Right.
So, two hours a day, whatever.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
So so who?
Who is the ideal client forthis?
Is this someone for youtypically working with people
that are doing short-termrentals?
Is it just short-term rentalsin the Smokies that you're
helping?
Well, who is your ideal client?
Speaker 2 (10:43):
college educated, very experienced and dedicated,
and pay them under minimum wage.
So I mean, these are the bestof the best.
You know, we're actually havinga onboarding call.
Today Somebody's calling in toget two more.
They've already got, I think,three from us and they're
actually they're replacing someVAs that they acquired in a
different fashion because wehave some really tight processes
(11:06):
.
One of the things we do is wegive every virtual assistant an
intermetrics test and thatcombines three of the world's
best profile tools.
And actually, Tony, in the shownotes, you can put in the
referral link and the first 100of your guests that sign up will
get a free Intermetrics test.
(11:27):
That would normally cost them$295 if they were gonna take it
online Super detailed test.
That's one of the tools we useto screen the virtual assistants
and it normally starts out withone virtual assistant and then
it goes from there.
We've placed 140 some, Ibelieve, right now, and we
haven't advertised at all.
It's all word of mouth.
(11:48):
Everybody's like you can't youknow you need somebody to answer
the phone, that people aren'tanswering the phone and they're
answering it poorly, wrong,whatever, not following the
script, we can get you people toanswer the phone and then they
can help with emails, they helpwith accounting, they help with
social media.
You know they can run a team orthey can just be, you know,
managing your calendar, stufflike that, so pretty much any.
There's multiple differentbusinesses that we're helping.
(12:11):
We started, I would say themajority of the people are in
real estate, whether that's realestate agents or people that
are managing real estate, butanything and here's the tip
whether you use my company,whether you get the virtual
assistant on your own, basicallyanything you're doing on a
computer.
(12:31):
You can get a subscription toLoom, l-o-o-m and anything
you're doing on a computer.
You hit the Loom record button.
Your face is in the corner andyou say this is exactly what I'm
doing.
This is where I find the waterbill, this is where I find the
electric bill.
This is where I put it in Excelor, excuse me, in Quicken.
This is how I like to gothrough my emails.
All your training is nowrecorded.
(12:51):
One month from now, you canhave everything documented and
recorded to hand off to whoeveryou hire.
You know whether you use mycompany, whether you find them
on your own doesn't matter to me.
I just think this is amazing,to get really dedicated people
to work and they don't charge.
You know they're quite happy,due to the economics of the
Philippines, to work for whatwould be considered a lower wage
(13:14):
than anybody in the UnitedStates is willing to work for,
especially at that caliber ofquality.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
Sure, absolutely, dave.
Thank you.
So one I don't want to forget.
So you just promised now areferral link.
We didn't get that referrallink, so let me get that, so
those that are listening cantake notes on that referral link
.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
Okay, my virtual assistant claimed that she sent
it to you.
We will have to resend it.
Speaker 1 (13:38):
Okay, yeah, once I have the link I'll place it on
there and so it'll be in theshow notes, that link.
Okay.
Sounds good, I'll place it onthere and so it'll be in the
show notes.
That link, okay, sounds good.
Second thing I wanted to run on.
I think that that's great whatyou're doing.
So when we're talking aboutemails, accounting, social media
, managing calendars exactlybasically what an executive
assistant would do for anyone,is the roles and
(14:01):
responsibilities that this VA istaking over.
So anybody.
It's all the day-to-day normaltasks that business owners when
they're starting to scale theirbusinesses and doing everything.
Still, it's a great easy way tooffload everything and buy back
time and buy back your time andother books I've written about
(14:23):
yeah, you can do, can do it onZoom Loom any of them recording
what you're doing, which I thinkis fantastic.
We do it with my company.
We have playbooks with foldersof everything.
It's half the way we traineverybody going through
everything.
We either do videos like thator screenshots with details,
screenshots with details.
But once you do that, it'samazing how much of the
(14:46):
day-to-day work you can offloadto someone who is somewhat
intelligent.
Obviously, this metrics toolthat you have.
We use Culture Index.
That's a great tool too, and sothis sounds like it's kind of
similar to that Once youunderstand, you know where your
needs are in life, what yourstrengths are, what your
(15:08):
weaknesses are, you know offloadthose things that strain and
drain that energy from you, soyou can, you know, produce at a
higher level.
And yeah, that sounds great.
So, dave, let me ask you youknow we're talking.
You're saying, well, maybe yougo on your own, maybe you can
reach out to me.
I'm assuming that the reasonthat someone would reach out to
(15:30):
you, as opposed to just doing iton their own One the
Philippines is a great place toget virtual assistants One
because they are very loyal andyou know they also don't like to
own their own company.
A lot of times, from what Iunderstand, they just like to be
a lot of worker.
Bees is kind of myunderstanding of the culture.
(15:50):
But if, if someone goes ontheir own compared to you, is
there a cost savings?
Or I'm assuming maybe you'venegotiated where it doesn't even
save them much money if they goon their own compared to you?
Speaker 2 (16:04):
They, they can save a little bit of money, but here's
, here's, here's the choice,right?
So when we do individualizedjob descriptions depending on
exactly what our client wants,and then, quite honestly, we
overpay a little bit to thevirtual assistant.
So here's the problem thatsomebody doing it on their own
is going to have.
If you want somebody highquality, you're trying to
(16:25):
compete with us.
On average, we get 140applicants per job description.
It's whittling those down tothe five best candidates.
So if you have, quite honestly,if you can figure that out,
then start a VA company andlet's compete.
Man, that's the problem, thoughNot you particularly, but for
(16:47):
anybody considering it.
That was the thing.
I originally tried to get myvirtual assistant from
onlinejobsph and I was payingless than I pay now and I still
had 40 people apply and I'mtrying to get through those 40.
I'm like, oh, this is horrible.
And then the way the companystarted was a friend of mine
posted on Facebook.
(17:08):
I have an absolute rock star.
My business model is changing.
Can somebody use her?
I have two, I'm going down toone and that's how I hired her
and I'm like, can you go throughthese others, because I want
you to do certain things andthese other people to do other
things.
So she whittled the list of 40down to the one for me, and that
was through testing, but yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:26):
Well, that's great.
Tell me a little bit forsomeone to understand a little
bit more.
What were some of the strugglesyou were having when you got
your first VA and what were youhanding off?
What was driving you crazy thatsomeone was able to take away
from you that freed up some ofyour time?
Speaker 2 (17:42):
My yeah, no great question.
My biggest thing was I'll justtell the story I did.
I'll just tell the story I did.
I had a client and I'm still.
I'm still.
It still bugs me a little bit,just a little bit.
I had a client that needed a1031 and he had already burned
(18:03):
through the first 15 days.
And for those that don't know,that just means it's a tax
deferred exchange.
You have 45 days to identify,six months to close from the
date of closing.
So we had closed.
He's two weeks in.
He can't find anything.
A guy sends him over to me.
I'm like absolutely, I can helpyou.
And I do a little bit more thanfour hours of math and I come up
(18:24):
with the most killer propertyof all time ever, like without a
doubt, like guaranteed, likejust buy this thing, you don't
even have to look at it.
And I call the guy and I say Ifound it.
And he's like let me thinkabout it.
And I'm like what's there to?
This thing's going to be gone,it's smoking.
And a day later he's like yeah,I'm not buying that.
(18:46):
And I'm like why?
And he goes well, it doesn'thave a front porch.
And I'm like this thing makesmoney.
You can buy a front porch ifyou want With the money, this
thing's going to throw up.
And he didn't buy it.
And I was so mad.
But what I ended up doing is Iactually.
I floated it to another guy and45 minutes later that guy's
like oh, this is full priceoffer, this is an amazing deal.
(19:09):
But I was so mad that I hadspent four hours and the guy
said no, I was like I almostwell, I talked to my business
coach.
I'm like I'm never doing themath again.
These guys da, da, da.
So he's like you know, calmdown, it's okay, you know.
So this is where you knowhaving other people around you.
And he's like okay, how muchyou know?
(19:33):
Basically, if the first guywould have bought it, how much
would you have made per hour?
And it was.
You know, I was getting a decentreal estate commission saying,
oh, it's in the thousands perhour.
And then he's like okay, so ittook an extra 45 minutes for the
second guy.
How much did you make per hour?
I'm like kind of about the same.
So he said, oh, and, by the theway, this isn't rocket science,
(19:55):
you could probably hiresomebody to do all that math.
And I'm like ding, okay.
So that was when I started downthe I need somebody else to do
this math and and that that wasthe inspiration for me to do it
was I was so frustrated.
But if I didn't have the codeI'd be like just I'm out, I'm
not this frustrated me.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
I'm throwing away, you know, and I'm helping people
too, so it's just right, youwere trying to eliminate the
hours running, all the calcsthat you're figuring does this
deal work?
Does this deal work?
You're saying you're spendingfour hours running numbers on
one short-term rental.
Is that what?
(20:30):
Am I understanding you right?
Are you running it on multipleproperties?
Speaker 2 (20:32):
no, no, I wanted him to have the best one and bottom
line is his price point was like1 to 1.3 million and so I ran
everything in the mls that wasbetween 1 and 1.3, so there was
probably 30 or 40 properties andone just stuck out like, stood
out like a sore thumb.
I it was so like and I justtalked to a typical engineer,
(20:54):
dave.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
Typically, this guy ran the number on every single
solitary house.
Yes, why wouldn't you?
Speaker 2 (21:01):
that's.
I mean, I'm like that to me.
That's where you find the lowhanging fruit.
You do a little, you front loadthe work a little bit and boom
I, this thing was just it, oh it, I just I still, I still can't
believe it.
I'm like I wish there was threeof them.
I could have sold three of them.
Boom Like that.
They were amazing.
Speaker 1 (21:17):
So one thing I want to bring up we're talking about
1031s, and this the only reasonI'm bringing it up is this
happened to me right.
So when you've running out oftime but you're not positive,
and so you know you, let's sayyou're don't rush and just grab
three properties at the end ofyour timeframe, because then
your money is stuck for sixmonths.
(21:39):
So if you decide not to buy oneof those three that you
identify after your timeframe,that money is locked up for six
months.
You can't get it back.
So, if you don't, if you're notsure or really not a hundred
percent sold on a property,don't identify any at the end of
your time and you can get yourmoney back.
Very critical lesson learnedfrom me that I did not know the
(22:02):
first time, so I would like toshare that.
Speaker 2 (22:05):
No, absolutely.
And I'll throw out another 1031tip.
If you're closing betweenNovember 15th and December 31st
and you are making pretty goodmoney this year and you want to
kick the tax scan to next year,sign up for 1031.
The qualified intermediaryholds that you don't identify.
You get a check January 1through February 1.
(22:27):
And guess what?
It's now taxable in the nextyear's income.
So you get to play with thatmoney another 15 months instead
of having to pay the tax man inthree months.
So in a lot of that you know ifyou had a great year, kick it
down the road.
If you didn't have a good yeartake it.
Speaker 1 (22:41):
Yeah, Bunch of great strategy.
So tell me, okay, so now let'sgo a little bit more down this
road.
So now you've gotten your first, you got the referral from the
friend.
So was it just so eyeopeninghow much everything opened for
you that pushed you into kind ofpursuing helping others get VAs
?
It was just such a eyeopenerfor you and time saver.
(23:04):
Is that what you identified?
Speaker 2 (23:06):
how life-changing it was.
No, I'm completely clueless.
That's a much better story thanwhat actually happened.
So what happened was I havelunch with a group of friends
once a month I live in Ann Arbor, michigan and I was like she's
the most amazing VA.
Oh my God, you can't believe it.
She's telling me this, she'stelling me that I thought I'd
have to tell her everything.
(23:27):
And three different guys saidhey, she sounds really amazing.
Do you think she could find meone like that?
And I'm like I don't know.
Let me ask her.
So I asked she found three guysVAs.
The story, you know the samestory.
At the end, here's the VA hey,dave, what do I owe you?
Nothing, don't worry about it.
Another guy goes you do realizeyou have a virtual assistant
(23:50):
placement company and you shouldbe charging a fee for this.
And I'm like I had no idea.
Brent, thank you very much forpointing that out, right?
So I'm like holy cow.
So he points it out.
And then I started to charge aone-time fee.
But what we found is a lot ofpeople like our current model,
which is just you pay two weeksupfront.
That goes for the first twoweeks.
The VA works, we have qualitymaximization and we're getting
(24:15):
them optimized as quickly aspossible.
Asking you questions about yourbusiness?
You're getting way more out ofthe VA than if you.
Here's the placement VA.
Good luck, you figure it out.
Speaker 1 (24:26):
Tell me a bit about that.
So you're you're basicallybringing the VAs in, you guys
are recruiting the VAs, you'reonboarding the VAs for specific
tasks, or are you basicallyunderstanding what their
strengths are and then kind ofpocketing these and waiting for
clients that need those type ofpeople?
How are you doing it?
Speaker 2 (24:49):
It's kind of two ways .
The first thing is, let's sayyou deal with Quicken a lot.
I'm like I need a Quickenexpert.
We're going to put in fiveyears Quicken experience minimum
.
We've gotten people that haveleft businesses, companies in
the Philippines because they sawour ad said I can work from
home and make an extra couple ofbucks an hour.
I would rather work and dobookkeeping that way.
(25:12):
But whatever, whatever toolyou're using um, you know, ring
central, uh, different crms,whatever it is we can find
somebody that's an expert inthat hubspot, multiple experts
in hubspot.
We're actually generating somepretty interesting stuff for
chat, gpt, uh, virtualassistants that are that have
ramped up quickly with thatinformation.
(25:33):
So it's whatever you're lookingfor.
We're going to find that foryou and, like I said, we
typically whittle down from 140people.
Five business days later you'represented with the top five.
The other tip that I will giveto absolutely everybody out
there is do not go on resume Ifyou have five absolute killer,
(25:54):
rockstar virtual assistants.
This is going to be like amarriage.
You want somebody that you getalong with well, that there's
good chemistry there.
The the resume doesn't matternearly as much as having that
really good rapport.
So, like Jess and I have anamazing rapport she makes calls
when I'm busy and I'd say 90,95% of the time it's exactly
(26:18):
what I would have done in thatsituation and every once in a
while it's like let's try not todo that.
But I mean it's amazing, whenyou get in sync with somebody,
what happens.
Speaker 1 (26:26):
Yeah, I love that idea.
One thing that I would bring upis a question that would come
to my mind is you're givingsomeone access to your books
that's in the Philippines.
Are you guys doing some type ofa vetting process or anything?
Because once you're givingsomeone access to your books, a
lot of times they have access toyour accounts because your
(26:49):
accounts are linked into thosebooks.
How is that?
How is that vetted by you guys?
Speaker 2 (26:55):
So we can run background checks if requested a
lot of time for sensitive stufflike that, it absolutely that's
the case.
It's like any other company.
So let's say, you work for areally, really, really big
company in the United States.
The way that's going to work issomebody's going to say today's
the day we move all the moneyover for the payroll and then,
(27:16):
boom, the payroll goes out,right.
So?
So I'll just tell you what mycomfort level was and how things
happened for me, as I had myvirtual assistant for three
months and I was having her dostuff, but I was still
controlling all the money, allthe credit cards.
And three months in, I'm like Ineed this thing.
And she's like, okay, and I'mlike here's the credit card,
(27:37):
right.
So it took me three months toget comfortable with her.
She's had a credit card for thelast two years and then she now
has bank account access.
She moves money, she's doing alot of the payment for the other
virtual assistants, right.
She's doing a lot of thepayment for the other virtual
assistants, right.
So you know she's running thepayroll.
So there's a very high level oftrust.
(27:58):
I know that she's super solidand if she ever, you know it
would be easy for her to do that, but her integrity would not
allow her to do that.
So I think it's kind of likeworking with a person in person.
Would you give a credit card toa person that you hire the
first day, maybe if they have agood reputation, but if they're
(28:18):
brand new, you're going to haveto vet them in.
Speaker 1 (28:20):
However, you do as well, so Well that's a good
thing about credit cards, right.
If it's a credit card,obviously you can dispute a
transaction and they'll catch itrelatively early.
If it's somebody who's runninga bunch of stuff outside the
country, I mean, my cardsconstantly get hit and I don't
have a VA overseas.
Speaker 2 (28:41):
You're doing it made in America, baby.
Speaker 1 (28:43):
That's right.
I'm getting hit right from inthe country here.
Speaker 2 (28:46):
So, let's.
Speaker 1 (28:47):
Let's hit on a couple other things that you brought
up.
One I'm just trying to bring upa lot of things that I hear
about issues with VA.
So another issue that I hearyou brought up social media.
I hear a lot of.
You know they just do a bunchof cut and paste, don't actually
do real posts, you know, justduplicate other posts, posts.
(29:08):
How are they doing the socialmedia management?
Where are they getting thedirection?
No-transcript.
Speaker 2 (29:21):
And so it's kind of like anything else, like if you
tell me I need you to fly, youknow well, I need you to drive a
train or something, I'll throwit out.
You know our VAs do our stuff.
(29:47):
You go to the Rockstar VAs onFacebook or on Instagram and
basically what we ended up doingis we had a guy coming up with
his own and what we noticed isthere were some nuances in
English that were not the way wewould say it.
I'll just put it that way, right?
So guess what?
(30:08):
Let's get a US citizen to gothrough and bottom line is
there's I'm giving away all thesecrets, but that's okay there's
73 different phrases and poststhat we have that we kind of
rotate through differentbackgrounds.
What have you?
The bottom line is those weregone through with a fine-tooth
(30:28):
comb by a trusted fellowentrepreneur owner.
You know, I'm like I.
That looks painful to me, I'mnot going to do it, but I'm
happy to pay somebody else to doit.
So I paid somebody else.
They went through, did it.
Speaker 1 (30:40):
It's working great now, but I agree, yeah what I'm
prying out of Dave is that thereis value that you bring.
It's not just a pricecomparison when we talk about
where you have already anunderstanding of the social
media.
So when I'm saying that theissue that people have with VAs
when they get them overseas soif someone just goes, like me,
(31:01):
if I go hire my own VA to fillthese I haven't gone and dealt
with a 50 or a hundred VAs.
Gone and dealt with the 50 anda hundred different problems,
how the posts aren't going towork out, why they don't work
out.
What do I have to do to fixthese people to make the post do
right?
So whether the your price is alittle higher I mean it would
have to be, even if it's, evenif it's substantially higher
(31:23):
what I'm saving is all of thistrial and error and figuring out
how to compute all thesedifferent processes to get
something to work with a VA.
And that's where the frustrationis going to build up, where you
can get someone like you that'salready gone through all of
those issues, no matter whatrealm if it's the QuickBooks and
worrying about the finances, ifit's social media, worrying
(31:44):
about the posts.
So that's the value you bringis you're vetting these people.
You know how to vet them.
Then you're understanding whereare these people's strengths,
how do I make sure that they'reas productive as possible?
What system do I use?
That is the value Dave is goingto bring if you're looking for
a VA.
So you're a much better offgoing with someone that's got
(32:06):
all that experience than tryingto go to Upwork and do it
yourself and save $3 an hour.
Maybe, you know, $150 a monthor whatever you would save.
Speaker 2 (32:17):
It doesn't seem worth it.
And I have to tell you, tony,my favorite conversation of all
time ever with a potentialclient is this guy said I've had
five VAs.
I've had to fire them all.
Why should I get one from you?
And I said oh, how much timedid you spend training five VAs
(32:39):
that you've had?
How much time do you?
You know, this is crazy.
Like you just answered your ownquestion.
You just don't know it, right?
Yeah, yeah, I mean, you can.
You can hire a proven person oryou can train them and you can
easily train them.
Just, it's going to take a lotof time.
So, if you, if you got, ifyou're busy making money, you
know using your talents to thehighest and best use, training a
(33:02):
virtual assistant and havingthe, you know watching all the
YouTube videos of how to hireand then how to train and best
practice, it's like, oh, youdon't want to do that.
You want to.
You just want to set up a Zoomcall with Norman Norman.
What did you tell me last week?
I forgot half of it.
Okay, I got.
You know he'll walk you througheverything.
He meets with you, weekly,meets with you.
The rest of you know, as longas the virtual assistant is
(33:24):
employed, he's going to behelping you every moment of the
way.
Do this, don't do this.
This will work.
Actually, you can get thisother thing done that you didn't
even think of.
So, yeah, it's.
If you're really young, goahead and watch the YouTube
videos, give it a shot.
I mean, I don't.
You know, I don't want anybodyto do anything.
They don't want.
But if you're more establishedit's just so much easier to not
(33:47):
have to learn that stuff.
My goodness.
Speaker 1 (33:52):
Yeah, well, that's what you're trying to do is save
your time.
So when you're trying to getyour time, training someone
through all that and startingfrom scratch is definitely not
the best use of your time.
What I always recommend forpeople is to understand what
(34:13):
those draining activities areand even what you're doing,
because a lot of business ownerswere running all around to even
know what we're doing.
So just take two weeks and tryand jot down every 30 minutes
what I do.
This last 30 minutes Jot downwhat.
I do this last 30 minutes.
Then try and look at that.
Even if you only get a week in,you'll be able to see real
quick how much time you'rewasting on very low dollar jobs.
How many times are you checkingyour email a day?
(34:34):
How many things are you gettingsidetracked?
Who are you letting to come inand bother you about
insignificant questions aboutyour business or getting you off
track, and how much time to getback going?
If you could just eliminatesome of those things you off
track and how much time to getback going, if you could just
eliminate some of those things,you would be shocked how much
more you could produce and thenhow much more money you could
make to pay for that.
I think it's great.
Speaker 2 (34:55):
Yeah, no, and that's a great way to do it is document
every half hour for a week ortwo.
The other objection that I'dlike to address is a lot of
people say I don't have enoughfor a full-time VA or maybe even
a halftime VA, and my responseto that would be let's say, your
time's worth $50 an hour.
You can get a halftime VA forfrom us, for under that.
(35:20):
And if they do, if they takeone hour of work off your play
today, guess what.
You're now broken even, and ifthey do any more, they take one
hour of work off your plate aday.
Guess what.
You're now broken even.
And if they do any more than anhour, you're now money ahead.
So this is all the whole, and Iwas part of that and that's why
I bring that up.
On the objections is I was onethat I can't use.
I can't use this person eighthours and my business coach is
(35:41):
like, well, that's fine, youonly need to use her two, two
and a half hours and you'rebroken even, and the rest of
it's just gravy.
And then, yeah, and then itjust kind of grows and you get
ideas and it just allows you toexplore a lot more things, which
that was the creativity was themost unexpected part of it for
me, when I got to cut down toworking, you know, four or five
(36:02):
hours a day, or got toconcentrate on the stuff that
made the most money at the time.
Speaker 1 (36:07):
Yeah, and really what ends up happening, whether you
realize it or not, once you getsome of these mundane tasks out
of your daily schedule andyou're able to kind of breathe
and think how can I grow mycompany, how can I do this, how
can I do that?
Start working on your businessinstead of in your business.
That's how you're going toscale you.
(36:28):
When you're constantly stuckworking in your business, you
hit a glass ceiling.
You don't grow.
You can only grow so much.
You have to start delegatingthose things out and getting to
your.
You know high value that youcan bring to the company and
your vision for the future andwhat you guys can do and where
you want to go and plan out howto get there.
(36:48):
Those are the high value thingsto do for your company, not
check your email and respond tothis client in five minutes.
So anyway, Dave, thank you somuch for coming on.
So if people want to learn more, what's the best way to reach
you?
Speaker 2 (37:08):
uh, what's the best way to reach you?
There's multiple ways.
There's the rockstar vas oninstagram.
There's the rockstar vas on uhfacebook.
Our website is therockstarvascom.
If you wanta question for mepersonally, uh, dave homiak, on
facebook, I'm standing on thetop of a building with a sunset
behind me.
Feel free to message me onthere.
I'll be happy to message peopleback.
(37:29):
Yeah, I just.
I really think there's a.
You know very briefly, tell aquick Chrysler story.
So Chrysler now has a thingthat says there's LCC across the
top of everything.
Lowest cost country.
Where can we get thisengineered?
Where can we get thismanufactured?
(37:50):
Where can we get this assembled?
And we can get it engineered inMexico or Poland and we can
assemble it in wherever.
This is the future, it iscoming.
You can either start now orstart in five years, when your
competitor already has thishigher quality, less expensive
labor.
That's loyal.
Speaker 1 (38:11):
Absolutely.
Yeah, I agree a hundred percent.
Yeah, this this day and age,you have to be able to be as
productive as humanly possible,because you're.
I mean, it's so difficult rightnow to compete.
You have AI and yet virtualassistants everywhere, so it's
whoever is learning to maximizethese things, and if you can get
a VA that can work with the AIoh my goodness, you can really
(38:34):
start to compound the situation.
Speaker 2 (38:36):
Oh, it's amazing, it's amazing.
Speaker 1 (38:39):
Dave, thanks again so much for being on with us today
.
Please reach out to Dave again.
It's the rockstarvascom andwe'll get his links all onto the
show notes.
Dave, thanks again for joiningus today, sir.
Speaker 2 (38:52):
Thanks for having me, tony, appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (38:54):
Yes, sir, have a great day.
Speaker 2 (38:56):
You too.
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I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com