Shownotes
In this episode, Tobe Brockner, founder of Katuva, shares valuable insights on building a successful virtual team for entrepreneurs. Topics covered include:
1. Managing Differences: Tobe discusses how Katuva addresses timezone, cultural, and currency differences, emphasizing the importance of minimizing fees and optimizing payment platforms.
2. Cultural Nuances: Insights into cultural aspects, including the significance of birthdays, the 13th month, and the strong religious influence in the Philippines.
3. Living Wages: Tobe sheds light on the misconception about VA wages, highlighting how Katuva ensures VAs receive a substantial living wage, significantly impacting their quality of life.
4. Infrastructure Challenges: Tobe explains how Katuva helps VAs overcome challenges like typhoons, power outages, and internet connectivity in the Philippines, showcasing the resilience of the team.
5. Strategic Outsourcing:The episode explores how entrepreneurs can leverage VAs to handle tasks they shouldn't be doing themselves, allowing them to focus on strategic initiatives and business growth.
6. Flexibility and Support: Tobe emphasizes the flexibility of VAs in handling emergencies, providing a valuable resource for businesses during unexpected events like sick leave or family emergencies.
7. Transitioning Tasks: Tobe shares examples of tasks successfully transitioned to VAs, illustrating the efficiency and support they can provide in critical areas like website migration.
8. Creating Time Freedom: The discussion concludes with Tobe expressing the joy of helping entrepreneurs free up time and live more intentionally, highlighting the positive impact of successful outsourcing.
https://learn.katuva.com/300-tasks-ebook?am_id=isabel425
https://learn.katuva.com/exploratory-call?am_id=isabel243
Transcripts
Welcome to the Lift As You Climb podcast, where it's all about the
Speaker:journey and the joy of discovering who you are now, deciding who you want
Speaker:to become, and embracing your genuine identity, influence, and impact.
Speaker:In each episode, we'll explore how life's experiences have prepared us for what
Speaker:we choose to do next and how to create our Encore, write our own script, and
Speaker:star in the next stage of our lives.
Speaker:I'm your host, your Encore strategist, and transformation catalyst, Isabel Alexander.
Speaker:Hello, here we are.
Speaker:The 5th in the series of 5 interviews with Tobe Brockner, the founder
Speaker:of Katuva we have covered a lot.
Speaker:We've talked about the transformative power of having a virtual assistant on
Speaker:your success team and building ladders.
Speaker:with them.
Speaker:Today, we're going to dive into a couple of very fascinating specifics
Speaker:on working successfully with a virtual assistant, and that's managing
Speaker:cultural and currency differences.
Speaker:On a previous episode, we talked about managing time differences.
Speaker:So if you haven't listened to the first 4 episodes, check them out.
Speaker:Make sure you put a pin in that to go back and do and share it, of course, with
Speaker:all your friends, because there's a lot of stuff that we covered here to make
Speaker:your experience, whether it's a first time or a retry, much more successful.
Speaker:I also want to just take a moment to reflect on the overall.
Speaker:impact that the series has had for me and for others in my audience, just
Speaker:reflecting on how much freedom and fun and financial certainty and fulfillment
Speaker:can come from a successfully organized relationship and building your virtual
Speaker:team with a company like Katuva who's got a system, got a process.
Speaker:has hired, retained the right people, and facilitates a lot of the day to
Speaker:day stuff that you don't have to do.
Speaker:They can do that.
Speaker:Stay tuned, as I like to say, buckle up, we're going on an exciting
Speaker:ride, and I look forward to talking to you at the end of this episode.
Speaker:See you soon.
Isabel:And we're learning more and by example from you how to even expand that,
Isabel:because why wouldn't I as an entrepreneur, as a business owner, and as a woman with
Isabel:a whole lot of epic living left to do, Why wouldn't I want to create more time
Isabel:for myself to do things that are fun, and new, and exciting, and expansive?
Isabel:And the only way I can do that is by having a success team and I just, I love
Isabel:this opportunity to have diverse skill sets come and diverse perspectives, which
Isabel:is a segue into one of the other questions that I was going to ask you and that is,
Isabel:so what are some of the things that you've learned along the journey in building
Isabel:Katuva about managing, we've talked about managing timezone differences,
Isabel:but what about cultural differences and currency differences and payments?
Tobe:Yeah, like many countries in the world, the U.
Tobe:S.
Tobe:dollar still carries a bit of cache.
Tobe:I pay all of our VAs in U.
Tobe:S.
Tobe:dollars.
Tobe:We use PayPal.
Tobe:We're looking at moving over to a platform called Wise.
Tobe:I'm looking at the fees and the differences and what those are costing
Tobe:us because as we get, and this is another thing, I'm trying to think in the future.
Tobe:We are the size we are right now, and the fees hurt, but they don't cripple.
Tobe:When we get bigger, two, three, four, five years from now, the fees
Tobe:that we're paying on transferring money are going to be substantial,
Tobe:purchasing a home substantial.
Tobe:And so, I'm trying to head that off and figure out, how do we minimize
Tobe:the amount of fees that we're paying?
Tobe:I actually had one of my VA's, Mylene, had her do the initial preliminary
Tobe:research on different payment platforms to see what those fees are going to be.
Tobe:And we can make a decision on that later.
Tobe:But U.
Tobe:S.
Tobe:dollars, we generally pay there.
Tobe:In the Philippines, that's the Filipino peso.
Tobe:You can pay them that way in pesos as well.
Tobe:The exchange rate that they get it through PayPal or something is generally
Tobe:worse than what they get at their bank.
Tobe:So we send them dollars and they convert them to pesos there.
Tobe:A lot of people talk about the amount you're paying and it works even though
Tobe:we don't charge per hour It works out to be about 8 an hour and we generally pay
Tobe:our VA's a little bit more than market average as a general rule Comparing
Tobe:to other VA agencies and other people that are paying rates, we pay a little
Tobe:bit more, but a lot of people are like how's that even a living wage?
Tobe:And the difference in living wage in the U.
Tobe:S.
Tobe:versus the Philippines is drastic.
Tobe:The amount of money they make here with Katuva is equivalent to making,
Tobe:60, 65, 000 a year in the Philippines.
Tobe:And so the lifestyle is much better.
Tobe:Gellie messaged me the other day, I said, have a good
Tobe:weekend, you have any big plans?
Tobe:And she's oh, I'm getting a massage.
Tobe:And I said, how much does a massage cost in the Philippines, just out of curiosity.
Tobe:And she said, 500 pesos.
Tobe:Doesn't mean anything to me, so I converted it on Google.
Tobe:It was 8.
Tobe:56 for an hour of massage.
Tobe:The difference in pricing and everything over there is just so much
Tobe:different, and so they're getting a very good, solid living wage.
Tobe:That was one of the more surprising cultural things.
Tobe:I was also surprised by how important they take birthdays.
Tobe:Generally, they'll ask for the day off for their birthday,
Tobe:which was surprising to me.
Tobe:I'm 46 now and I'm, stopped caring about birthdays when I was 17.
Tobe:So that they ask for that day off and celebrate it.
Tobe:It's surprising and humorous to me, but that's a cultural
Tobe:thing over there as well.
Tobe:They're very religious may not be the right word, although there's a very
Tobe:religious undertone to their thinking and behavior and moral compass.
Tobe:Large portion of the country is Catholic, so there's that piece of it.
Tobe:Other cultural things were like the 13th month that you
Tobe:just experienced in December.
Tobe:That's actually one of the things that's a big differentiator between Katuva and
Tobe:somebody trying to hire them as well.
Tobe:Not only do we know what the 13th month is, but we honor it.
Tobe:We attract them from the other people who don't even know what it is.
Tobe:Just for your listeners, the kind of thumbnail version of that
Tobe:is you pay the equivalent of a month's salary in early December.
Tobe:It's not necessarily a bonus, it's more of a part of their compensation package.
Tobe:They use that money to budget for the next year.
Tobe:They'll make large purchases, if they need to get appliances fixed or purchase things
Tobe:to send their kids to school, buy school clothes, they use that money for that.
Tobe:So they build that into their budget and it's important to them and so
Tobe:we try to make sure they get that.
Tobe:We make that optional for clients, but we only had one client opt
Tobe:out this year, which made me sad that he opted out, but it made me
Tobe:happy that all the other clients that we had said, yeah, absolutely.
Tobe:That was good.
Tobe:There's still a third world country.
Tobe:The Philippines is made up of something like 7, 800 islands; an archipelago.
Tobe:There's still typhoons, and there are still hurricanes, and there
Tobe:are still power outages, and we try to mitigate that as best we can.
Tobe:Most of the VAs have generators, backup, power backups.
Tobe:They have multiple data cards where if their one internet service provider
Tobe:goes down, they have another one.
Tobe:The government's actually invested quite a bit in the infrastructure for the
Tobe:power grid, but also for the internet.
Tobe:One of my internal VAs, her name is Faith, she lives literally
Tobe:in the middle of nowhere.
Tobe:Think of the most rural place you could think of in the
Tobe:Philippines, that's where she lives.
Tobe:It's called Lingundan.
Tobe:It's about four hours north of Davao City.
Tobe:She's in Southern Philippines.
Tobe:Davao's a big, very advanced city.
Tobe:It's one of the largest cities in the Philippines, but she is
Tobe:four hours removed, and it might as well be four million miles.
Tobe:It is just remote.
Tobe:The idea that Faith has a reliable power source, internet, speaks English,
Tobe:is Mind boggling that, this person who would otherwise literally be picking
Tobe:up rice out of fields for a job, making a dollar a day or two dollars a day
Tobe:or whatever it is, can be a virtual assistant for a company in the United
Tobe:States and making a wage that is far surpassed what she could make anywhere
Tobe:else is just unbelievable to me, still.
Tobe:I'm still in awe!
Tobe:Like Warren Buffett, I tap dance to work every day.
Tobe:That's how I feel.
Isabel:I share your enthusiasm and your rhythm!
Isabel:I think this is something that perhaps people are curious about.
Isabel:I'm a pretty well traveled person.
Isabel:I had an international business and I still do.
Isabel:In fact, it's a different business now.
Isabel:I sold the chemical company.
Isabel:So, I'm more fluent, shall we say, in different cultural practices
Isabel:and standards, but I know there are many people who are not as familiar
Isabel:with foreign markets and foreign cultures, and one of the questions
Isabel:has been how's their English?
Isabel:It makes me a little bit sad that people don't have a more global
Isabel:perspective but fair enough.
Isabel:The answer to anybody wondering that, who's listening, Impeccable.
Isabel:These are very educated people with a very strong desire to have a good job,
Isabel:to provide for their family, and to really be a valuable member of your team.
Isabel:It's it's been wonderful to have that affirmation of, okay, wow, in
Isabel:fact, my grammar could use a little brushing up from time to time.
Isabel:And because there is also that I think at least in my experience, the
Isabel:prevailing desire to do really well.
Isabel:They use tools and resources like Grammarly, etc.
Isabel:to vet, to check things
Isabel:chatGPT.
Isabel:. ChatGPT, absolutely.
Isabel:And anybody who says AI is going to replace employees, give me a break,
Isabel:but what it can do is argument.
Isabel:I have an internal joke with Cherry that ChatGPT is just another member
Isabel:of The Encore Catalyst success team.
Isabel:And we call her Chatty Cathy.
Isabel:It helps to support us to, get us started with some ideas, but then we make it
Isabel:our own and really give our voice to it.
Isabel:And the other thing I'm glad that you mentioned, because faith is a
Isabel:big part of it, celebrating family is a tremendous part of the culture.
Isabel:And I like being able to make that happen as the employer that I can
Isabel:recognize anniversaries and birthdays.
Isabel:And in fact, my VA was evacuated about two weeks ago during
Isabel:some heavy rain in her area.
Isabel:So we just flexed our work schedule and that was fine too.
Isabel:What was more important to me was that she was safe, and that,
Isabel:she had a home to go back to
Isabel:All right, I feel that there is a lot more that we can talk about and expand
Isabel:other people's perceptions of working with a VA and open up the creative thinking
Isabel:around what could a VA do to help me have more time, more freedom, create
Isabel:more financial certainty in my business.
Isabel:I'm really thrilled, Tobe, that you've given us so much time, and
Isabel:there's probably going to have to be a future series of interviews
Isabel:once we get some feedback,
Isabel:but for today, I have one more set of questions that I would like to ask you,
Isabel:and this is particularly about people who have established businesses, as many of
Isabel:my clients do, and have the conventional idea of staff or employees and utilize
Isabel:contractors on a more local basis.
Isabel:Are, what are the ways that they potentially might also take
Isabel:advantage of a VA supporting them?
Tobe:Yeah.
Tobe:There's really two things that we ask clients to look at when
Tobe:they're deciding on whether or not they need to hire a new VA.
Tobe:One are the things that you're already doing that you
Tobe:shouldn't probably be doing.
Tobe:You probably shouldn't be doing it yourself.
Tobe:You should be outsourcing that.
Tobe:Editing this podcast would fall under that category.
Tobe:You shouldn't be editing this podcast.
Tobe:That should be something that you outsource.
Tobe:You may have somebody internally, locally, that can do that.
Tobe:Most likely, if you do have someone internally, they are already full.
Tobe:Their bandwidth is stretched thin.
Tobe:A lot of times, I used to fear, when we were going into a business
Tobe:and they had a staff already, are we going to upset these people?
Tobe:Are they going to feel threatened?
Tobe:They welcome us.
Tobe:They're like, Oh my gosh, thank you so much!
Tobe:I have all this other crap I'm doing.
Tobe:I don't need to do, I don't want to do, I don't have time to do.
Tobe:We just placed two VAs in an engineering company, analyzing data for some process
Tobe:that I don't even know what it is.
Tobe:These VAs did though.
Tobe:This particular client, her boss is actually our client.
Tobe:He's the business owner, but she initiated the whole thing because she
Tobe:was like, they want me to do this.
Tobe:There's no way I have time.
Tobe:I need help.
Tobe:And so we hired her two VAs and she loves us.
Tobe:So that's one, number one: things you're already doing that you probably shouldn't
Tobe:be doing and you can't necessarily offload to a current staff member.
Tobe:So you could offload that to a VA.
Tobe:Number two; this falls into the Stephen Covey quadrant.
Tobe:Most of the things that we work on when we said we work in the business,
Tobe:that's the urgent, not important, or the urgent, important things.
Tobe:Those are the things that we spend a lot of our time on.
Tobe:Things that are on fire, customer service, selling, all those types of things.
Tobe:But where the real magic sort of happens is in the not urgent, but important.
Tobe:It's the more strategic things.
Tobe:So these are the things that you could be doing that you're not
Tobe:doing that would move the needle.
Tobe:And those could be like putting together strategic initiatives, putting together
Tobe:new marketing campaigns developing out your sales process, building out
Tobe:those automations for follow up, all of those things that you need to do
Tobe:that you never quite have time or the bandwidth or the resources to get to.
Tobe:Those are two great areas to start in.
Isabel:You inspired me also to, to think about the opportunity to leverage
Isabel:filling a sick leave position or an emergency leave, like God forbid that
Isabel:one of your staff is in a accident or, suddenly has an extended illness.
Isabel:or a maternity leave where, the position responsibilities don't go
Isabel:away while you're birthing that baby.
Isabel:So I think having a VA to come in as a placeholder.
Isabel:And the company can continue on until such time as, maybe the individual
Isabel:comes back or you have time to recruit and hire another full time person.
Isabel:And it's not just the staff member, it could be you.
Isabel:Something could happen to you or you fall ill or you have something happen.
Isabel:We have a client who had someone in her family very close to her pass
Isabel:away, and it was a very hard time, very dark period in her life, and she
Isabel:came back to me later when it settled down and was like, my VA saved my life.
Isabel:She saved my business.
Isabel:I would have gone out of business had my VA not been there to pick up slack
Isabel:because I was just not in a place, where I could even think straight, much less
Isabel:do the things that needed to be done and she was so great about coming in and
Isabel:being proactive and, following up with clients and staying in touch with people.
Isabel:The staff is one thing, but we're not bulletproof either as much as we.
Isabel:Pretend we are and things could happen to us as well that, a VA can come
Isabel:in and take the reins, if need be.
Isabel:Thank you for reminding because in fact, that's one of my specialties.
Isabel:I work with my clients to help them take themselves out of being the
Isabel:primary asset in the company, and fire themselves from the hands on daily
Isabel:management so they can promote themselves upstairs to be the chief investor.
Isabel:So you're right.
Isabel:We shouldn't be indispensable.
Isabel:We should be looking for every opportunity to have somebody else, become us and
Isabel:fulfilling all of that and executing our vision for how the company will be.
Isabel:I also was thinking, as in my case, there's the one time, the specialty tasks.
Isabel:As in my case, where I need to transition from a platform, not to be named.
Isabel:My website and my programs, my online resources were with a company that
Isabel:I just wasn't gelling with but I continued my subscription with them
Isabel:for years and it was really, truly more of a hate than a love relationship.
Isabel:One of the first tasks that Cherry did when you introduced her to me and she
Isabel:joined my team, was to take all of that very valuable information, my assets, and
Isabel:move them over to GoHighLevel, so that there was no interruption in my business.
Isabel:My clients didn't know she did that all behind the scenes and
Isabel:one night, we turned the switch.
Isabel:And we were there.
Isabel:So that is something else that I thank you and I know other clients thank you for.
Isabel:Because you have an agency for HighLevel, you provide that
Isabel:opportunity for us and bonus!
Isabel:You train our VAs on how to be fluent in that area.
Isabel:So yay!
Isabel:Again, the ideas keep coming to me, so there's definitely
Isabel:an opportunity for the future.
Isabel:I am so happy to be a client of Katuva, and I haven't mentioned it yet, but
Isabel:of course, we're going to reward our listeners, our audience, not only with
Isabel:the richness of what we share today, the wisdom that we're sharing, but I know that
Isabel:you've got some free resources that they can access and that information will be
Isabel:provided in each of the episodes, show notes, both on podcast and on YouTube.
Isabel:Additionally, because I am a raving fan of Katuva, I'm gonna
Isabel:be offering an affiliate link.
Isabel:Because I do believe in the company and I'd like to share that with
Isabel:as many other people as I can.
Tobe:We're just as thrilled to have you as a client as you are to be a client.
Tobe:There's nothing that makes me happier than helping entrepreneurs free up their
Tobe:time and live life more intentionally.
Tobe:So thank you!
Isabel:Cheers to you.
Isabel:Talk to you soon, Tobe.
Isabel:How was that?
Isabel:I don't know about you, but I found it so thought provoking and inspiring
Isabel:and empowering because now we know what to look for in establishing a
Isabel:successful virtual assistant relationship and building out our team so that
Isabel:we can do more of the things that.
Isabel:We do best and more of the things that give us a happy,
Isabel:fulfilled life and business.
Isabel:We've talked about the transformation that is possible when you embrace the
Isabel:idea of having a remote team and set them up for success as well and really
Isabel:change some of the way you think break out of some old patterns and paradigms
Isabel:about working hours and the things.
Isabel:only you can do.
Isabel:So I'm so very grateful to our guest, Tobe Brockner of Katuva for sharing
Isabel:his very personal experience, his journey to the successful business now
Isabel:providing virtual assistance for clients.
Isabel:from all around the world, and how he's offered to share so many resources
Isabel:with us, from his book recommendations to great quotes, personal anecdotes,
Isabel:and stories that, you know, that I think as entrepreneurs, we all
Isabel:can relate to and are inspiring.
Isabel:Additionally, his Providing that great PDF, that thought starter
Isabel:about the 300 plus or more things a virtual assistant could do for you.
Isabel:Some that you may not even have thought of, for sure, I hadn't.
Isabel:Also, because I love Lifting and Climbing.
Isabel:I'm sharing an affiliate link for a very special rate to explore,
Isabel:investigate working with Katuva.
Isabel:And after you have a conversation with Tobe, you will know.
Isabel:If that's what's right for you at this time.
Isabel:So cheers to you, to building your success teams, creating more freedom in your
Isabel:life to do what you want to, getting rid of the albatrosses, as Tobe did.
Isabel:Let us know.
Isabel:What else?
Isabel:What other questions came up for you about working with VAs?
Isabel:Because we'll be here to answer those for you.
Isabel:Reach out to me, hello@theencorecatalyst.com
Isabel:or comment in the episodes on YouTube or on your podcast channel, or reach
Isabel:out to Tobe at Katuva, be sure to follow him on his social media because
Isabel:they've got some great inspiring content that'll make your day better.
Isabel:All right, see you soon.
Isabel:Thank you for spending this time with me.
Isabel:I hope our conversation added value to your day and expanded your
Isabel:vision for your legacy and impact.
Isabel:Please join me in increasing my impact and expanding my reach to even more
Isabel:people by sharing this episode on social media, with friends, and leaving a review
Isabel:on Apple iTunes, Spotify, Or channel of choice to catch all the latest from me.
Isabel:Subscribe on your favorite podcast platform.
Isabel:Connect with me and others in our community Facebook group, the Lift
Isabel:As You Climb Movement, where you can engage, be inspired by and grow
Isabel:with a tribe of like-minded people.
Isabel:As I evolve as a podcaster and spokeswoman for collaboration and
Isabel:economic empowerment, your input and feedback are especially important.
Isabel:To me, I welcome your suggestions and questions to hello@theencorecatalyst.com.
Isabel:Until we meet again, please remember your success may be the foundation
Isabel:for someone else's to together we can raise success ladders around the world.
