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From Engineering to Empowerment: Dave Homjak's Path to Real Estate Wealth and VA Excellence

• Tony Johnson

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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.

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Speaker 1:

Welcome to another episode of Carolina Commercial Real Estate Connection. Today we have Dave Homjak. Dave was a longtime engineer and now has a VA placement company and also invests in real estate. Dave, thank you so much for joining us.

Speaker 2:

Thank you for having me on, Tony.

Speaker 1:

Yes, sir. So I know we briefly discussed quickly your background story, so if we could go over that a little bit. You are an engineer by trade. Where did you start your engineering career?

Speaker 2:

I started my engineering career at Allison Engine which got purchased by Rolls-Royce, so it was helicopter engines, large industrial gas turbine engines in Indianapolis, and I've always had a fascination with engines so I basically jumped. I worked at Chrysler, detroit Diesel and most recently General Motors, along with Rolls-Royce to and all engine engine quality, engine calibration stuff. So that's fascinating to me, which most people would bore to tears, but it's like it's so cool when it runs great yeah, so the the funny thing about engineering.

Speaker 1:

My father's an engineer and my brother brother-in-law's engineer. They're typically the ones where you write the contract. I know my father. He reads the entire contract, so whenever he buys a car he reads the entire contract.

Speaker 1:

Everybody else is just signing the contract and going. You guys read everything and negotiate it to death. Very difficult to deal with when you're negotiating. Hard to win when you guys are so detail-oriented. So what's right behind Dave you probably can't see if you're just listening to us. He has the Rockstar VAs. So, dave, tell us a bit about how you journeyed into this, from being the engineer and working on automobiles, automobile engines.

Speaker 2:

Exactly yeah, so I was. I would say. A more accurate description of me other than automotive engineer is anxious automotive engineer. I had been fascinated by real estate. I'd read my first book at 16. I'd had a couple places under contract and I chickened out and backed out. So, at 53, the only thing that I had bought is primary residences and I decided that I wanted to leave my job, and the way I would feel most comfortable doing that is if I replaced my engineering income with real estate.

Speaker 2:

I jumped on BiggerPockets, which is a real estate investment forum, and it looked like the two easiest ways at the time, in 2018, were apartment buildings and short-term rentals. And equally important with replacing my engineering income with real estate is I wanted to do it in two years or less. So I thought I did like heavy research for a month on apartments. First. I'm like I know I can do it. I just don't know if I can do it in two years or less. Looking back on it, I could have easily done it now that I know what I know, but I didn't know that. And then I started to research short-term rentals and that was like slam dunk very easy in my mind A lot of people pouring into the space because there was a lot of really easy money. So it's significantly more challenging to make money in short-term rentals now.

Speaker 2:

But at the time you go to Smokey's, you know their second 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 that weekend. Throw it on Airbnb. It was amazing. And then the crazy thing is when you're getting like 50 to 60% cash on cash, the only thing that's guaranteed to happen is things appreciate like crazy. So a couple of the places I bought there ended up tripling in value between 2018 and now, which is nice.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, absolutely yeah. You sounds like you got in at the exact right time. I remember in 2018, it was still it had been a very slow run up. So you know, pretty flat from 2012 to 2018 and 19 is where it really started to kind of turn up the notch a little bit. So that was fantastic insight and so, yeah, it takes a lot to get going from zero to 100. And, first of all, I commend you for doing this at 53. A lot of people are like, if they 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 any difference when you get started, as long as you can go all in, spend the time to learn, you know, listen to as many podcasts as you can, read books and just get invested into the process. Anybody can start at any age and I commend you for doing that. That's awesome, and so you did. You fulfill that and get completely out in the two years that you projected for yourself.

Speaker 2:

I was fully out 11 months after I made the decision, nine months after I purchased my 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 a buyout. I signed up for it. In January, February 5th, I left the building and I got paid like I was in the building through July, which was pretty cool, oh that's awesome.

Speaker 2:

I was going to say. And what happened after that is, some podcasters thought that was pretty cool, that I was able to do that in under a year. So I got on some podcasts and a bunch of people reached out to me and said hey, can you help me find the best stuff in the Smokies? Which I did, and that involves math. And then I decided I didn't want to do math. I'm also a big believer in business coaches, and a business coach said well, you do realize you don't have to do the math. I'm like what do you mean? And they're like oh, you could get somebody else to do the math. It's, you know, it's not rocket science, is it? And I said well, no, it isn't. So that's where I ended up getting my first virtual assistant, who was absolutely incredible. She had 13 years experience at the time.

Speaker 2:

Our first interaction was you know what time zone are you in? I said Eastern. She said I'm planning on working for you from 9 am to 6 pm, unless you can think I can be more effective by shifting my hours. And the second conversation was what do you need help with? I said I need help with my email. She said what specifically?

Speaker 2:

I said I need these three things done, and she's very gentle with me, right. So she's like, well, we could do those three things or we could do these other five things, but if you want to do those three things, I'm like, no, I don't want to do those three things, I want to do what 13 years experience tells you, and that, I think, is the difference between the stereotype of most virtual assistants of your training really hard, they're going to walk away eventually versus somebody that is a bunch of experience that's going to give you feedback on. This is an easier, softer way to do this and help you grow your business and even run a team, which right now I have a team of seven, and she runs that team, she manages it, she checks the quality, which is the other thing that I really didn't want to get into is checking the quality of those seven people, or six people, right, so you're saying she's running a team of seven other virtual assistants?

Speaker 2:

six other virtual assistants in herself. Okay.

Speaker 1:

So what specifically are these virtual assistants doing for you? That's a lot of virtual assistants in ourselves, okay. So what specifically are these virtual assistants doing for you?

Speaker 2:

That's a lot of virtual assistants.

Speaker 2:

It is. So two are doing the, basically talking to clients, helping them optimize the virtual assistants that they've already placed. Optimize the virtual assistants that they've already placed. We asked questions of the business owners. One of our biggest success stories somebody got a virtual assistant and they were full-time in a couple of weeks and they're like I can't use them full-time. So just talk to Norman. He's amazing. He has 15 years experience and Norman asked enough questions and teased enough information out about the business that in the end the guy ended up having to hire a second virtual assistant to take care of everything.

Speaker 2:

So there's a lot of things that you know. Basically, people aren't experts on virtual assistants. We are. We're going to help you figure out exactly what you can delegate and get you in the high dollar, high value stuff or get you in the getting time back with your family stuff, versus in the weeds trying to. You know, figure out how to run all these. You know I need to look up the electric bill to put in my, you know my my Quicken spreadsheet, whatever.

Speaker 2:

So so bottom line is the person that runs, everybody and two other people work there. I have a head cold caller from a cold calling company. I have with a partner and we have two other cold callers under there, and then the other person is doing a lot of analytics on different markets the Smokies and other markets. Basically, I build a spreadsheet that you put in numbers and it does the math for you, and then there's a thing 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 the Smokies turn green. Those are the best properties to buy, I see.

Speaker 1:

Perfect, all right, so you have when you're placing virtual assistants, in other words, you're not placing this quantity You're typically giving someone one VA right, exactly, or maybe?

Speaker 2:

two. We typically start with one or two. The biggest success stories, though, are people that have the vision and have the idea to grow, and normally the first person we place is actually a manager, and they're super experienced and they've managed other people, and then, as people add on to the team, that person basically coaches, encourages the team and can fill in 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 work slowing down on, let's just say there's not as many listings coming out in the Smokies. That math doesn't need to be done. For two hours a day, we need to shift her over to analyzing more virtual assistance. So for the company, so she's the one doing. You know, this is productive, this isn't productive. And moving people around which I just love, because I would lose track of that I would probably just not even notice it Right. So, two hours a day, whatever.

Speaker 1:

So so who? Who is the ideal client for this? Is this someone for you typically working with people that are doing short-term rentals? Is it just short-term rentals in the Smokies that you're helping? Well, who is your ideal client?

Speaker 2:

college educated, very experienced and dedicated, and pay them under minimum wage. So I mean, these are the best of the best. You know, we're actually having a onboarding call. Today Somebody's calling in to get two more. They've already got, I think, three from us and they're actually they're replacing some VAs that they acquired in a different fashion because we have some really tight processes.

Speaker 2:

One of the things we do is we give every virtual assistant an intermetrics test and that combines three of the world's best profile tools. And actually, Tony, in the show notes, you can put in the referral link and the first 100 of your guests that sign up will get a free Intermetrics test. That would normally cost them $295 if they were gonna take it online Super detailed test. That's one of the tools we use to screen the virtual assistants and it normally starts out with one virtual assistant and then it goes from there. We've placed 140 some, I believe, right now, and we haven't advertised at all.

Speaker 2:

It's all word of mouth. Everybody's like you can't you know you need somebody to answer the phone, that people aren't answering the phone and they're answering it poorly, wrong, whatever, not following the script, we can get you people to answer the phone and then they can help with emails, they help with accounting, they help with social media. You know they can run a team or they can just be, you know, managing your calendar, stuff like that, so pretty much any. There's multiple different businesses that we're helping. We started, I would say the majority of the people are in real estate, whether that's real estate agents or people that are managing real estate, but anything and here's the tip whether you use my company, whether you get the virtual assistant on your own, basically anything you're doing on a computer. You can get a subscription to Loom, l-o-o-m and anything you're doing on a computer.

Speaker 2:

You hit the Loom record button. Your face is in the corner and you say this is exactly what I'm doing. This is where I find the water bill, this is where I find the electric bill. This is where I put it in Excel or, excuse me, in Quicken. This is how I like to go through my emails. All your training is now recorded. One month from now, you can have everything documented and recorded to hand off to whoever you hire. You know whether you use my company, 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 what would be considered a lower wage than anybody in the United States is willing to work for, especially at that caliber of quality.

Speaker 1:

Sure, absolutely, dave. Thank you. So one I don't want to forget. So you just promised now a referral link. We didn't get that referral link, so let me get that, so those that are listening can take notes on that referral link.

Speaker 2:

Okay, my virtual assistant claimed that she sent it to you. We will have to resend it.

Speaker 1:

Okay, yeah, once I have the link I'll place it on there and so it'll be in the show notes, that link. Okay.

Speaker 1:

Sounds good, I'll place it on there 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 what you're doing. So when we're talking about emails, accounting, social media, managing calendars exactly basically what an executive assistant would do for anyone, is the roles and responsibilities that this VA is taking over. So anybody. It's all the day-to-day normal tasks that business owners when they're starting to scale their businesses and doing everything. Still, it's a great easy way to offload everything and buy back time and buy back your time and other books I've written about yeah, you can do, can do it on Zoom Loom any of them recording what you're doing, which I think is fantastic.

Speaker 1:

We do it with my company. We have playbooks with folders of everything. It's half the way we train everybody going through everything. We either do videos like that or screenshots with details, screenshots with details. But once you do that, it's amazing how much of the day-to-day work you can offload to someone who is somewhat intelligent. Obviously, this metrics tool that you have. We use Culture Index.

Speaker 1:

That's a great tool too, and so this sounds like it's kind of similar to that Once you understand, you know where your needs are in life, what your strengths are, what your weaknesses are, you know offload those things that strain and drain that energy from you, so you can, you know, produce at a higher level. And yeah, that sounds great. So, dave, let me ask you you know we're talking. You're saying, well, maybe you go on your own, maybe you can reach out to me.

Speaker 1:

I'm assuming that the reason that someone would reach out to you, as opposed to just doing it on their own One the Philippines is a great place to get virtual assistants One because they are very loyal and you know they also don't like to own their own company. A lot of times, from what I understand, they just like to be a lot of worker. Bees is kind of my understanding of the culture. But if, if someone goes on their own compared to you, is there a cost savings? Or I'm assuming maybe you've negotiated where it doesn't even save them much money if they go on their own compared to you?

Speaker 2:

They, they can save a little bit of money, but here's, here's, here's the choice, right? So when we do individualized job descriptions depending on exactly what our client wants, and then, quite honestly, we overpay a little bit to the virtual assistant. So here's the problem that somebody doing it on their own is going to have. If you want somebody high quality, you're trying to compete with us. On average, we get 140 applicants per job description. It's whittling those down to the five best candidates. So if you have, quite honestly, if you can figure that out, then start a VA company and let's compete. Man, that's the problem, though Not you particularly, but for anybody considering it. That was the thing.

Speaker 2:

I originally tried to get my virtual assistant from onlinejobsph and I was paying less than I pay now and I still had 40 people apply and I'm trying to get through those 40. I'm like, oh, this is horrible. And then the way the company started was a friend of mine posted on Facebook. I have an absolute rock star. My business model is changing. Can somebody use her? I have two, I'm going down to one and that's how I hired her and I'm like, can you go through these others, because I want you to do certain things and these other people to do other things. So she whittled the list of 40 down to the one for me, and that was through testing, but yeah.

Speaker 1:

Well, that's great. Tell me a little bit for someone to understand a little bit more. What were some of the struggles you were having when you got your first VA and what were you handing off? What was driving you crazy that someone was able to take away from you that freed up some of your time?

Speaker 2:

My yeah, no great question. My biggest thing was I'll just tell 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 a 1031 and he had already burned 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 help you.

Speaker 2:

And I do a little bit more than four hours of math and I come up with the most killer property of all time ever, like without a doubt, like guaranteed, like just buy this thing, you don't even have to look at it. And I call the guy and I say I found it. And he's like let me think about 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. And I'm like why? And he goes well, it doesn't have a front porch. And I'm like this thing makes money. You can buy a front porch if you 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 I actually. I floated it to another guy and 45 minutes later that guy's like oh, this is full price offer, this is an amazing deal.

Speaker 2:

But I was so mad that I had spent four hours and the guy said no, I was like I almost well, I talked to my business coach. I'm like I'm never doing the math again. These guys da, da, da. So he's like you know, calm down, it's okay, you know. So this is where you know having other people around you. And he's like okay, how much you know? Basically, if the first guy would have bought it, how much would you have made per hour? And it was.

Speaker 2:

You know, I was getting a decent real estate commission saying, oh, it's in the thousands per hour. And then he's like okay, so it took 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 the way, this isn't rocket science, you could probably hire somebody to do all that math. And I'm like ding, okay. So that was when I started down the I need somebody else to do this math and and that that was the inspiration for me to do it was I was so frustrated. But if I didn't have the code I'd be like just I'm out, I'm not this frustrated me.

Speaker 1:

I'm throwing away, you know, and I'm helping people too, so it's just right, you were trying to eliminate the hours running, all the calcs that you're figuring does this deal work? Does this deal work? You're saying you're spending four hours running numbers on one short-term rental. Is that what? Am I understanding you right? Are you running it on multiple properties?

Speaker 2:

no, no, I wanted him to have the best one and bottom line is his price point was like 1 to 1.3 million and so I ran everything in the mls that was between 1 and 1.3, so there was probably 30 or 40 properties and one just stuck out like, stood out like a sore thumb. I it was so like and I just talked to a typical engineer, dave.

Speaker 1:

Typically, this guy ran the number on every single solitary house. Yes, why wouldn't you?

Speaker 2:

that's. I mean, I'm like that to me. That's where you find the low hanging fruit. You do a little, you front load the 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 three of them. I could have sold three of them. Boom Like that. They were amazing.

Speaker 1:

So one thing I want to bring up we're talking about 1031s, and this the only reason I'm bringing it up is this happened to me right. So when you've running out of time but you're not positive, and so you know you, let's say you're don't rush and just grab three properties at the end of your timeframe, because then your money is stuck for six months. So if you decide not to buy one of those three that you identify after your timeframe, that money is locked up for six months. You can't get it back.

Speaker 1:

So, if you don't, if you're not sure or really not a hundred percent sold on a property, don't identify any at the end of your time and you can get your money back. Very critical lesson learned from me that I did not know the first time, so I would like to share that.

Speaker 2:

No, absolutely. And I'll throw out another 1031 tip. If you're closing between November 15th and December 31st and you are making pretty good money this year and you want to kick the tax scan to next year, sign up for 1031. The qualified intermediary holds that you don't identify. You get a check January 1 through February 1. And guess what? It's now taxable in the next year's income. So you get to play with that money another 15 months instead of having to pay the tax man in three months. So in a lot of that you know if you had a great year, kick it down the road. If you didn't have a good year take it.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, Bunch of great strategy. So tell me, okay, so now let's go 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 eyeopening how much everything opened for you that pushed you into kind of pursuing helping others get VAs? It was just such a eyeopener for you and time saver. Is that what you identified?

Speaker 2:

how life-changing it was. No, I'm completely clueless. That's a much better story than what actually happened. So what happened was I have lunch 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's telling me that I thought I'd have to tell her everything. And three different guys said hey, she sounds really amazing. Do you think she could find me one like that? And I'm like I don't know. Let me ask her. So I asked she found three guys VAs. The story, you know the same story.

Speaker 2:

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 realize you have a virtual assistant placement company and you should be charging a fee for this. And I'm like I had no idea. Brent, thank you very much for pointing that out, right? So I'm like holy cow. So he points it out. And then I started to charge a one-time fee. But what we found is a lot of people like our current model, which is just you pay two weeks upfront. That goes for the first two weeks. The VA works, we have quality maximization and we're getting them optimized as quickly as possible. Asking you questions about your business? You're getting way more out of the VA than if you. Here's the placement VA. Good luck, you figure it out.

Speaker 1:

Tell me a bit about that. So you're you're basically bringing the VAs in, you guys are recruiting the VAs, you're onboarding the VAs for specific tasks, or are you basically understanding what their strengths are and then kind of pocketing these and waiting for clients that need those type of people? How are you doing it?

Speaker 2:

It's kind of two ways. The first thing is, let's say you deal with Quicken a lot. I'm like I need a Quicken expert. We're going to put in five years Quicken experience minimum. We've gotten people that have left businesses, companies in the Philippines because they saw our ad said I can work from home and make an extra couple of bucks an hour. I would rather work and do bookkeeping that way.

Speaker 2:

But whatever, whatever tool you're using um, you know, ring central, uh, different crms, whatever it is we can find somebody that's an expert in that hubspot, multiple experts in hubspot. We're actually generating some pretty interesting stuff for chat, gpt, uh, virtual assistants that are that have ramped up quickly with that information. So it's whatever you're looking for. We're going to find that for you and, like I said, we typically whittle down from 140 people. Five business days later you're presented with the top five.

Speaker 2:

The other tip that I will give to absolutely everybody out there is do not go on resume If you have five absolute killer, rockstar virtual assistants. This is going to be like a marriage. You want somebody that you get along with well, that there's good chemistry there. The the resume doesn't matter nearly as much as having that really good rapport. So, like Jess and I have an amazing rapport she makes calls when I'm busy and I'd say 90, 95% of the time it's exactly what I would have done in that situation and every once in a while it's like let's try not to do that. But I mean it's amazing, when you get in sync with somebody, what happens.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I love that idea. One thing that I would bring up is a question that would come to my mind is you're giving someone access to your books that's in the Philippines. Are you guys doing some type of a vetting process or anything? Because once you're giving someone access to your books, a lot of times they have access to your accounts because your accounts are linked into those books. How is that? How is that vetted by you guys?

Speaker 2:

So we can run background checks if requested a lot of time for sensitive stuff like that, it absolutely that's the case. It's like any other company. So let's say, you work for a really, really, really big company in the United States. The way that's going to work is somebody's going to say today's the day we move all the money over for the payroll and then, boom, the payroll goes out, right. So? So I'll just tell you what my comfort level was and how things happened for me, as I had my virtual assistant for three months and I was having her do stuff, but I was still controlling all the money, all the credit cards. And three months in, I'm like I need this thing. And she's like, okay, and I'm like here's the credit card, right. So it took me three months to get comfortable with her.

Speaker 2:

She's had a credit card for the last two years and then she now has bank account access. She moves money, she's doing a lot of the payment for the other virtual assistants, right. She's doing a lot of the payment for the other virtual assistants, right. So you know she's running the payroll. So there's a very high level of trust. I know that she's super solid and 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 like working with a person in person. Would you give a credit card to a person that you hire the first day, maybe if they have a good reputation, but if they're brand new, you're going to have to vet them in.

Speaker 1:

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 it relatively early. If it's somebody who's running a bunch of stuff outside the country, I mean, my cards constantly get hit and I don't have a VA overseas.

Speaker 2:

You're doing it made in America, baby.

Speaker 1:

That's right. I'm getting hit right from in the country here.

Speaker 2:

So, let's.

Speaker 1:

Let's hit on a couple other things that you brought up. One I'm just trying to bring up a lot of things that I hear about issues with VA. So another issue that I hear you brought up social media. I hear a lot of. You know they just do a bunch of cut and paste, don't actually do real posts, you know, just duplicate other posts, posts. How are they doing the social media management? Where are they getting the direction? No-transcript.

Speaker 2:

And so it's kind of like anything else, like if you tell me I need you to fly, you know well, I need you to drive a train or something, I'll throw it out. You know our VAs do our stuff. You go to the Rockstar VAs on Facebook or on Instagram and basically what we ended up doing is we had a guy coming up with his own and what we noticed is there were some nuances in English that were not the way we would say it.

Speaker 2:

I'll just put it that way, right? So guess what? Let's get a US citizen to go through and bottom line is there's I'm giving away all the secrets, but that's okay there's 73 different phrases and posts that we have that we kind of rotate through different backgrounds. What have you? The bottom line is those were gone through with a fine-tooth comb by a trusted fellow entrepreneur owner. You know, I'm like I. That looks painful to me, I'm not going to do it, but I'm happy to pay somebody else to do it. So I paid somebody else. They went through, did it.

Speaker 1:

It's working great now, but I agree, yeah what I'm prying out of Dave is that there is value that you bring. It's not just a price comparison when we talk about where you have already an understanding of the social media. So when I'm saying that the issue that people have with VAs when they get them overseas so if someone just goes, like me, if I go hire my own VA to fill these I haven't gone and dealt with a 50 or a hundred VAs. Gone and dealt with the 50 and a hundred different problems, how the posts aren't going to work out, why they don't work out. What do I have to do to fix these people to make the post do right? So whether the your price is a little higher I mean it would have to be, even if it's, even if it's substantially higher what I'm saving is all of this trial and error and figuring out how to compute all these different processes to get something to work with a VA.

Speaker 1:

And that's where the frustration is going to build up, where you can get someone like you that's already gone through all of those issues, no matter what realm if it's the QuickBooks and worrying about the finances, if it's social media, worrying about the posts. So that's the value you bring is you're vetting these people. You know how to vet them. Then you're understanding where are these people's strengths, how do I make sure that they're as productive as possible? What system do I use? That is the value Dave is going to bring if you're looking for a VA. So you're a much better off going with someone that's got all that experience than trying to go to Upwork and do it yourself and save $3 an hour. Maybe, you know, $150 a month or whatever you would save.

Speaker 2:

It doesn't seem worth it. And I have to tell you, tony, my favorite conversation of all time ever with a potential client 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 time did you spend training five VAs that you've had? How much time do you? You know, this is crazy.

Speaker 2:

Like you just answered your own question. You just don't know it, right? Yeah, yeah, I mean, you can. You can hire a proven person or you can train them and you can easily train them. Just, it's going to take a lot of time.

Speaker 2:

So, if you, if you got, if you're busy making money, you know using your talents to the highest and best use, training a virtual assistant and having the, you know watching all the YouTube videos of how to hire and then how to train and best practice, it's like, oh, you don't want to do that. You want to. You just want to set up a Zoom call with Norman Norman. What did you tell me last week? I forgot half of it. Okay, I got. You know he'll walk you through everything. He meets with you, weekly, meets with you. The rest of you know, as long as the virtual assistant is employed, he's going to be helping you every moment of the way.

Speaker 2:

Do this, don't do this. This will work. Actually, you can get this other thing done that you didn't even think of. So, yeah, it's. If you're really young, go ahead and watch the YouTube videos, give it a shot. I mean, I don't. You know, I don't want anybody to do anything. They don't want. But if you're more established it's just so much easier to not have to learn that stuff. My goodness.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, well, that's what you're trying to do is save your time. So when you're trying to get your time, training someone through all that and starting from scratch is definitely not the best use of your time. What I always recommend for people is to understand what those draining activities are and even what you're doing, because a lot of business owners were running all around to even know what we're doing. So just take two weeks and try and jot down every 30 minutes what I do. This last 30 minutes Jot down what.

Speaker 1:

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're wasting on very low dollar jobs. How many times are you checking your email a day? How many things are you getting sidetracked? Who are you letting to come in and bother you about insignificant questions about your business or getting you off track, and how much time to get back going? If you could just eliminate some of those things you off track and how much time to get back going, if you could just eliminate some of those things, you would be shocked how much more you could produce and then how much more money you could make to pay for that. I think it's great.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, no, and that's a great way to do it is document every half hour for a week or two. The other objection that I'd like to address is a lot of people say I don't have enough for a full-time VA or maybe even a halftime VA, and my response to that would be let's say, your time's worth $50 an hour. You can get a halftime VA for from us, for under that. And if they do, if they take one hour of work off your play today, guess what. You're now broken even, and if they do any more, they take one hour of work off your plate a day. Guess what. You're now broken even. And if they do any more than an hour, you're now money ahead.

Speaker 2:

So this is all the whole, and I was part of that and that's why I bring that up. On the objections is I was one that I can't use. I can't use this person eight hours and my business coach is like, well, that's fine, you only need to use her two, two and a half hours and you're broken even, and the rest of it's just gravy. And then, yeah, and then it just kind of grows and you get ideas and it just allows you to explore a lot more things, which that was the creativity was the most unexpected part of it for me, when I got to cut down to working, you know, four or five hours a day, or got to concentrate on the stuff that made the most money at the time.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and really what ends up happening, whether you realize it or not, once you get some of these mundane tasks out of your daily schedule and you're able to kind of breathe and think how can I grow my company, how can I do this, how can I do that? Start working on your business instead of in your business. That's how you're going to scale you. When you're constantly stuck working in your business, you hit a glass ceiling. You don't grow. You can only grow so much. You have to start delegating those things out and getting to your. You know high value that you can bring to the company and your vision for the future and what you guys can do and where you want to go and plan out how to get there. Those are the high value things to do for your company, not check your email and respond to this client in five minutes. So anyway, Dave, thank you so much for coming on. So if people want to learn more, what's the best way to reach you?

Speaker 2:

uh, what's the best way to reach you? There's multiple ways. There's the rockstar vas on instagram. There's the rockstar vas on uh facebook. Our website is the rockstarvascom. If you wanta question for me personally, uh, dave homiak, on facebook, I'm standing on the top of a building with a sunset behind me. Feel free to message me on there. I'll be happy to message people back. Yeah, I just. I really think there's a. You know very briefly, tell a quick Chrysler story. So Chrysler now has a thing that says there's LCC across the top of everything. Lowest cost country. Where can we get this engineered? Where can we get this manufactured? Where can we get this assembled? And we can get it engineered in Mexico or Poland and we can assemble it in wherever. This is the future, it is coming. You can either start now or start in five years, when your competitor already has this higher quality, less expensive labor. That's loyal.

Speaker 1:

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 right now to compete. You have AI and yet virtual assistants everywhere, so it's whoever is learning to maximize these things, and if you can get a VA that can work with the AI oh my goodness, you can really start to compound the situation.

Speaker 2:

Oh, it's amazing, it's amazing.

Speaker 1:

Dave, thanks again so much for being on with us today. Please reach out to Dave again. It's the rockstarvascom and we'll get his links all onto the show notes. Dave, thanks again for joining us today, sir.

Speaker 2:

Thanks for having me, tony, appreciate it.

Speaker 1:

Yes, sir, have a great day.

Speaker 2:

You too.