← Fullerton Unfiltered
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- [00:00]
Podcast Announcer
Foreign.
- [00:06]
Brandon Lazar
You're now listening to the Fullerton Unfiltered Podcast. Straightforward, no nonsense business advice, completely on unfiltered. Grow your business, grow your life. Now here's your host, Brian Fullerton.
- [00:22]
Brian Fullerton
All right, guys, well, welcome back to another episode of the Fullerton Unfiltered Podcast. Super excited about joining with all of you guys today. We are doing a zoom webinar here with a a very special guest. Very excited about having Brandon jump in to the podcast with us and share his valuable knowledge, wisdom and insights. This is going to be a really fun conversation today. So Brandon Lazar, he is the founder of Ninja va. Welcome to the show this morning, brother. How you doing?
- [00:46]
Brandon Lazar
I'm doing great. Thank you so much for having me. I'm just humbled and blessed to be here.
- [00:50]
Brian Fullerton
Yeah, awesome. Well, really excited about having you on. This is a, a very timely conversation for so many of us in the, I would say the green industry space, but really the home service world. There's definitely this like transformation and revolution going on with folks looking to grow, folks looking to scale. There's a recipe out there that a lot of folks are following. And today I believe we're going to talk about one of the ingredients that is going to really help you with that scaling conversation, especially when it comes to the office admin backend side of the business, the back of the house, as some people would call it. Brandon over here has really helped many, many business owners facilitate that with a product and service that they have, which he's going to be talking about more today. So Brandon, again, super excited about having you on for, for anybody who doesn't know you, maybe in the long care landscaping niche, I know you're huge in the service business world. The pressure washing, exterior service business, you know, you're like a big name. You're a guest speaker, keynote speaker, you in that world. But for anybody who doesn't know you in the green industry or, you know, snow removal space, could you give these guys maybe like the 60 to 90 second background on your career and your history?
- [02:03]
Brandon Lazar
Yeah. So basically started out with humble beginnings and it was basically a borrowed mom's minivan and a ladder that we found strapped to the top. And we used our church's photocopier to get our first 250 flyers out the door. And just like that, we were college kids in business. We were doing exterior cleaning. So gutter cleaning, window cleaning, pressure washing. And I remember the benchmark for success that first summer was just save enough for tuition. We just needed 5,000 bucks right so it was kind of like 18, 19 years old. You can do no harm, you have no financial responsibility or obligations. And we just hit it running. And sometimes I'm thankful for those days because bliss is just such a beautiful thing at times. And come to find out that there's actually really quite a lot of opportunity in this home service industry space. And I feel like back then, that was 2008, we were just kind of getting to that professionalization of the industry. Fast forward 15 years after that. We had 15 trucks on the road. We were in three different locations. We do 2500 jobs a year and it was hyper seasonal. You know, we go from two staff in February all the way up to 32 staff by May every single year. So it was chaotic, it was awesome. And in 2023 I exited from that company.
- [03:28]
Brian Fullerton
There you go. Wow. So you're, you're one of us. You've been there, you've done that. I, I continuously, I'm always finding on my Instagram and TikTok feed pressure washer guys, power washer guys, my boy Keith Kelfus, you know window cleaning, there's a great actual service and parts and supply company in Wixom. My, my RA and I know Calpas visits there. I'm like, hey, get me the snow contract for that site, would you? So very familiar with that space. I don't personally operate in any of that just yet. We do more lawn and snow. But I know a lot of guys love power washing and pressure washing, gutter cleaning. Like those are big add on services especially for that residential market. And there's a couple big local companies near me as well. I know their brand and they love that, you know, it's a really cool part of the business. So one thing that is a really easy segue and I wanted to maybe press in a little bit more on that discussion about ramping up help. We all know in the service industry how hard it is not only for, you know, field staff but for the office side of things as well. So what, what were you noticing were some of the challenges as you continue to on ramp every spring? Of course you want to keep your folks on, but it's hard to keep people on if you have a, a seasonal 8, 9, 10 month business. So what were some of the wins, some, what were some of the lessons that you had experiencing that part of the growth part of your business?
- [04:49]
Brandon Lazar
Yeah, like to me now looking back on it, I feel like your ability to expand and contract with the seasonality is absolutely everything in a home service business. Doesn't matter if you're pushing a paintbrush, pushing a squeegee, or, you know, pushing a lawnmower, it just doesn't matter. It comes down to that. Right. You have to have enough technicians and enough capacity in order to maximize the opportunity when the busy season hits. But also you can go into the quiet months when you're not making any money with a huge amount of fixed expense. Right. So you have to really dial this stuff in. You need nimble systems and you again, you need to expand and contract as, as opportunity presents itself. And to your point, I feel like that pertains to both field technicians as well as office staff as well.
- [05:37]
Brian Fullerton
Yeah. Did you guys continue to expand and contract with office help or was it mostly field staff? Like production? Like how. What was the whole. I mean, that's a lot like to go from 2 to 35 or were they guys that were like seasonal and they knew they were getting laid off for three months at a time?
- [05:52]
Brandon Lazar
Yeah. So, like, I think there's a degree of you have to sell in an interview. You have to sell your opportunity, you have to sell the position. So we were never misleading, but also we were pretty upfront too, that like, at the end of the day, we're just not spraying homes in, you know, middle of January. Right. So, yeah, to your question there, absolutely. We had to contract our office as well, because again, the office by nature is a fixed expense that just comes out at the first of the month, kind of like your rent is due. So you have to cut some of that when you don't have the revenue to show for it. And really for all of this stuff, I feel like it just comes back to your systems, but also finding the leanest way to tick the box and really like what we'll get into, remote assistance or virtual assistance was a huge breakthrough for us. You know, not only did we save a ton of money, but we also got like a very high caliber individual who is keen, hungry, and even appreciative for the opportunity.
- [06:54]
Brian Fullerton
Yeah, that, that is something I have been witnessing and experiencing firsthand, you know, the last 12 or 18 months. We've always had, you know, a team member or two or, you know, employees along the way. Even from day one, folks are always asking like, hey, when did you hire your first employee? I'm like, kind of from day one, it was my little brother. We've always had two or three of us. And then it was my uncle, then a couple friends and a couple of buddies. And then things became a little bit more mature. And formalized as we continue to make, you know, more regular hires and how to process and all that fun stuff. But building a team, it's. It's not harder than most people think. It's not also as easy as some people think. I think the truth is kind of somewhere right there in the middle a word that I've been hearing a lot more the last, you know, probably maybe even 10 years as a contractor, you know, a VA something of that nature for many different reasons. I'm sure Brandon's got a way better per view than I do. You know, things like Uber driver, you know, and all that. Everybody's kind of like thrown entrepreneur these days. So tell me a little bit how the landscape has changed from just, you know, maybe employees only, you know, Brandon, to what you were talking about, this buzzword like contractor or fractional, you know, what does that even mean for anybody who doesn't know?
- [08:07]
Brandon Lazar
Yeah, like what a time to be alive, to be doing business where we have the, the tailwind of technology behind us, just making everything so much more accessible. Right. So, you know, back in the day, the only option was to have somebody report into your office. You know, you had to pay them 20, 25 bucks an hour plus government burdens on top is another 15, 20% on top. And you know, you were really reduced to your local market as far as who you could potentially have on your team. Going over things like the pandemic, it got really tough to try and get somebody when there's a labor shortage or they're getting paid to stay at home. And as far as I'm concerned, those days are behind us right now. We can open up this position that's still in your team, but we can open it up to anybody across the world. And that's what we do at Ninja va. We do remote assistant placements for home service and trades businesses. So we're niche specific on that and we do placements for people from the Philippines or Central America. We're opening it up to South Africa and Colombia. And really what we found is you can have this super high caliber individual who's just like rearing to go and potentially even ready to take on huge amounts of responsibility. And you can pay them just a fraction of what it would cost you traditionally.
- [09:32]
Brian Fullerton
That's awesome. Yeah, I think the, probably the easiest way for some of us to imagine this would be, you know, even your cpa, right. Like he's a hired professional and you pay him, you know, a thousand bucks to do your taxes, plus or minus, and he's got, you know, maybe 50 clients or 200 clients. And, you know, he's buried January 1st through April, you know, 14th or whatever it is. And then he takes a month off because he's almost dead, you know, And I think that's, like, probably the easiest way to look at maybe a hired service. And then, like, maybe a more modern take, right, would be like, the Uber driver or. I had some buddies that actually, I forget what it was. Maybe shipped, you know, with the biking. One of my students that worked for me, he was up at college, and he did shipped, and literally, he would get out of school, and when he wanted to make 2, 300 bucks that day, he would bike with a couple grocery backpacks, you know, on his back and do, like, the instacart deliveries.
- [10:28]
Podcast Announcer
And.
- [10:28]
Brian Fullerton
And, you know, this. This concept of being like, a remote worker or fractional worker is actually huge. I can only imagine, like, the real stats behind it. But the labor force is changing. What folks want is changing. Not everybody wants to grind 50, 60 hours a week, you know, in the field or behind a desk. The values, I think, in not only the world, but America as well, have changed dramatically. I'm sure Brandon could weigh in on his professional opinion on that. Like, crazy with the amount of data you get. But it's just. It's just a different marketplace, right, for labor and for help. And so that kind of tees up to this whole conversation, Brandon, about remote assistance and VAs. All the folks I've been privileged to network with and hear from, they're all like, oh, let me get my VA to book our flight or get my VA to get you to get out here. Or, you know, talk to Rebecca. Rebecca handles this. She can manage all that for you. And I'm like, you know, the whole have your people talk to my people. Well, you know, the funny story is it was just me until, like, 12 minutes ago. And I'm like, yeah, no, that's cool. Like. And I just kind of started to realize everybody has a virtual assistant. Everybody has an executive assistant. Everybody has help. And until about a year or two ago, I. I didn't. And I was like, what. What do these people know that I don't do or what that I don't know? And how are. You know, the other side of this coin is how are they getting so much done? And I realized, well, a lot of these folks have assistance for a reason. And Dan Martell talks a lot about, like, the first key hire would be a virtual assistant, executive assistant. So before we hear a little bit More about the, the Ninja Va conversation. Because I really am excited about opening up that, you know, a whole can of worms about what you guys are offering to the, to the world. Can you tell me a little bit more like, does that, does that whole story resonate to the service industry? Even your own personal journey about what you were struggling with in business and some of the breakthroughs that you found with being able to maximize production, hire some fractional help and really probably work in your zone of genius.
- [12:27]
Brandon Lazar
I would imagine, right, that that's exactly it. Like, I think at the end of the day, every task you decide to embark on throughout the day has a corresponding value associated with it. Right. So if you're going to, you know, sweep the floor. No, no shade to anyone sweeping the floor, the janitors. But like you are minimizing your contribution to the company, right. So if you're doing things that are ongoing, repetitive, monotonous, easy to systematize or hand off and delegate, then again, take the 10, $15 an hour that otherwise would have cost somebody to do those things and that is your contribution. Conversely, you know, if you're out networking or dealing, taking a prime contractor out to lunch or you know, submitting unsolicited bids, maybe your valuation on your time there is like 500 bucks an hour. Right. So it's a matter of kind of arbitraging your involvement with your company and being very intentional about what you decide to do and not do.
- [13:34]
Brian Fullerton
Is there like a certain revenue size or organization size when that becomes more prevalent based on your observation or even personal experience? Is it when you're trying to get out of the field and out of the truck, you know, from a technician, like where, where's the best spot for this next role or position kind of open up in a, in a service based industry? Any, any perspective or opinion there?
- [13:55]
Brandon Lazar
Yeah. So we've seen people do it all different ways, right. Where they had, you know, three partners and like 50 staff out in the field. It's actually another landscaping company there. And they were taking the first step to get, you know, basically just that scalability in mind with a remote assistant. I've also had other people where they're like, yep, I know that I got the same eight or ten hours a day as anybody else does. So based on that reality, you know, this is going to literally be day one of starting my company. I'm just going to go in with this like, new scaled version of how we approach this thing. Right. So I think at the end of the day, as humans, we have Finite time here, both on the daily basis and beyond. So I think coming to terms with that and trying to maximize your approach and be just as, as, you know, have as much force behind what you're choosing to do as possible only suggests that you want to consider not doing all things at all times.
- [14:56]
Brian Fullerton
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. It's, it's 100% the buy back your time principle, in my opinion. You know, if you guys missed that, you know, revolution about two years ago with Dan Martel who's just articulated what many folks have known for a very long time, that's, that's where the conversation of having not only just a Ninja va, if you will, but an executive assistant or really growing any organization in general. Right. You know, for example, today, literally real time, I was out visiting two different sites for bids and estimates and they were drop ins trying to land the plan and close those accounts. Well, both of them were five to eight grand lawn accounts and they're about you know, six to ten grand for snow accounts. And I could easily jump on a leaf blower or a mower and go out there and help the guys, or I can do what I'm supposed to do best and in that hour generate 5 to $10,000 of the revenue, you know, in sales and again, you know, with it, not even counting it getting produced. But like, if you think about it like my time in the field is worth thousand dollars, $5,000 an hour selling versus paying somebody 20, $30 an hour, whatever the number might be, to do some of the field production work. Right. And so it's a, it's a wild conversation. So it's a, it's an interesting thought. It makes sense, you know, from a very surface level. You know, I think the, the hard part is the rubber meets the road of like letting go and actually doing it. So I want to, I want to kind of dial into that for the next five or ten minutes here with your brain in, I want to be super respectful for your calendar as well. So if we go too long, just, just, you know, do a big pivot and we'll land the plane. But I want to, I want to talk about what you've came out with, with Ninja va. We'll get into that whole conversation here. Right now you've realized that a lot of folks are doing what we just discussed, but they need help. And let's just imagine you're convinced you're ready to go. You're like, man, I need to get out of my own way and I need to Hire some help. And, you know, you're a landscaper with you and two guys and you're busy and the phone's not stopping ringing. It's the spring rush, man. I don't have time to hire somebody. What do I do? So, Brandon, easy, easy. Fastball down the middle. But what does somebody do when they're stuck in that position? Do they reach out to Ninja Va?
- [17:08]
Brandon Lazar
Yeah. So first off, I'm here to support and serve, so I got all the time in the world for you.
- [17:13]
Brian Fullerton
Okay, cool.
- [17:14]
Brandon Lazar
Secondly, I would say this stuff is imperfect by nature, right? Like, sometimes you have the day all scoped out and then you get to the nighttime and you're like, what the heck even just happened? Like, it's just a blur, right? So don't go in with, like, such high expectations that you can't ever touch a leaf blower ever again. Because, like, we all know life happens and sometimes, you know, it just makes sense. I think the broader idea here is on like a macro basis, a zoomed out perspective, we want to try and gravitate to maximizing our value for the company. And I think sometimes people too, they have a little bit of a struggle with this concept because it feels very egotistical where that's not it at all, right? Like, we're not not doing these things because we're somehow better than them. We're doing it because it actually makes sense to the company. And part of, you know, the obligation as being an entrepreneur is you're here to provide opportunities to the people around you, to your family, to the people that have jumped on your team, and you're doing them a disservice every time you settle your contribution to something lower than the maximum potential.
- [18:25]
Brian Fullerton
Right?
- [18:26]
Brandon Lazar
So I think that's really where, where it comes down to I, I love the idea of just time journaling, right. Figure out where is your time going. We always feel like, you know, if we could only have that 8th day in a week or that 25th hour, things would suddenly open up and, you know, the clouds would, would go away. But the reality is your time is going somewhere and, and depending on what phase of business you're in, you know, that'll kind of largely dictate where, where your time is being sucked. I think it's also important to mention that time going away is one thing, but also energy is the other one. Because again, you're only human. You can usually only focus on one thing, especially us guys at a time. And if you're getting sucked into something that is robbing you emotionally or your drive or your excitement value. Like those are things that you also want to be very aware of too, because you know at the end of the day, you're steering the ship. And if you're not too excited to drive as fast as you can, then maybe that's a good task to get somebody else to be doing.
- [19:35]
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- [20:13]
Brian Fullerton
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- [20:18]
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- [20:35]
Brian Fullerton
a moment of realization that all lot of us have had and I hope more of us continue to do, is that, hey, there might even be somebody out there that can do a better job at this task or responsibility than ourselves, which that's a, that's a conversation about the ego all day long. Mark Bradley says we're all recovering control freaks, right? And one of the tenants of Lean, you know, I, I, I've got analogies for days, but one of the talent tenants of Lean is unrealized people talent. And I had realized, like, there's so many great people around me, I just got to let them, let them blossom and I got to let go just a little bit.
- [21:09]
Brandon Lazar
You know, you're kidding yourself if you think you doing one of eight things is as good as that person doing that one and only thing, right? And again, another Dan Martell. 80% done by somebody else is 100% awesome, right? So 100%, yeah.
- [21:27]
Brian Fullerton
The realization for me was very evident. I knew that I needed to make some pivots. A couple of years ago, ironically enough, I didn't have that much of an issue letting go. I was more of like a strategy guy. Like, well, sure, I'm ready to go. Like, what do I do next? And again, that's an easy transition to Ninja Va a couple of my peers turned me on to you guys. And folks, we've been running the NINJA VA program for, gosh, probably like eight or so months now. Realistically, it's crazy how time flies, but I wanted to give it a run on my own. No. No endorsement. We paid our own way the whole way through and just found a ton of fun and success with having our own virtual assistant. We've got a great gal. Her name is Marge. She was our VA that was offered to us and we got her assigned to us, which was awesome. We hired her and she's been a godsend for brands on maintenance. I've got a bunch of great stories that I can share with you guys here as we continue to go through it. But, Brandon, tell me a little bit more about, like, Ninja VA itself. So you made an exit in 23. Had Ninja VA been founded yet, or is this a brainchild that you were still ready to launch? Like, tell me how this actual business got started.
- [22:43]
Brandon Lazar
Yeah, so it had started. I just wasn't aware of it at the time. Take you back to a day in 2022. I was in an open concept office. And you know how you are as the owner. You're always just kind of listening to all the murmurings around. And I hear a very confused tone on a phone call coming in to one of our team members, which was an actual in person CSR at the time. And obviously then you know, kind of piques my interest. And I'm listening in, come to find out that we had a team on this caller's roof and we were cleaning it and they had no idea who we were. We were literally cleaning the wrong home. Not of a client, of just like a community member. So obviously that's like a little bit humiliating, a little bit frustrating from a business standpoint. But what made it worse is that was actually the second time that calendar week that we were cleaning the wrong home. So we were just getting so clunky in the office. And, you know, again, I'm paying labor, I'm pissing off people locally. We're risking ourselves in a safety manner, and we're never gonna make any sort of revenue, right? So it's kind of like, what are we even doing here? And that kind of emulated the whole office in general, I would say it just felt a little bit bloated, not very hungry and clunky is where I would go with it. So that was the beginning of NINJA va. I just didn't know it at the time. And ultimately we went through the process in My own home service business of transitioning all of our admin responsibilities from the phones, the calendars, the scheduling, the capacity management, the job costing all over, to remote assistance. And we had to really figure it out from an early stance of what works and what doesn't. And we inevitably built out a whole hiring funnel. Now fast forward to now. We have this elaborate assessment that new candidates go through. We have AI involved at every step of the journey to try and predict optimal placements. And ultimately we transitioned that home service business to from four in person CSRs at the desk to four remote assistants in the Philippines. And again, not only was it a higher caliber individual who wasn't making these careless and very expensive mistakes, but they were also like hungry and excited to be there. I think we all have those stories where it almost feels like we're expendable sometimes by the people on our team if it's not a good culture fit. But even in addition to all those benefits, we saved $70,000 that year in overhead that we otherwise would have been paying for. So for us, it was an aha moment. And it wasn't long until people started asking, you know, if they could embark on the same thing that, that we did for ourselves.
- [25:39]
Brian Fullerton
I love that. I love that story. The. And that's just the world today. Like, things are changing. I would almost say, like, whether you like it or not, even whether you believe it or not, or whether you want to like it or want to believe it or not, like it's just the reality of the world, you know, we, we all know things are changing. So trust me, like, there's a certain percentage of me that wants to be very like traditional and very rooted and foundational. But then there's also a part of us that has to be wise enough to realize we're running a business and we have to be competitive and that might evolve and change, sometimes for good, sometimes for, I don't say bad, just the way we didn't anticipate. And again, you know, let's say you wanted to have a, an office admin help. You know, that person's making $50,000 a year and perhaps you can have that same person overseas working for a fifth of the cost like you said, operated with that person being ambitious and accountable and hungry and ready to go. And over here you're pulling teeth for, you know, paying a position that you know is a pretty high paid, skilled position. And, you know, you're wondering if that person with maybe that kind of work ethic is even going to show up and Do a good job and trust me, I have partners in other businesses where we have made conscious decisions to only hire local, you know, you know, American based individuals and whatnot. And other companies of mine that I own, we have foreign overseas help, if you will. And again, it's just a value that certain people want to have and certain people want to adopt. There's no right or wrong answer. What I will say for the sustainability of the business, almost everything is on the table here at Brands on Maintenance. Like, we have to be practical, you know, and when you want to earn work and be competitive. And overhead is typically one of the more expensive parts of the business besides labor. Well, if you can find a way to trim 10, 20, 50% of your labor and overhead, to me it is a no brainer, you know, it is a very practical conversation, you know, so again, my beliefs are very rooted. I'm sure everybody has theirs as well. But at the end of the day, you know, it's not like you got two options, complain or beat them and join them kind of a deal. Right? So it is what it is. The exciting part though is I think it's the upside of what is actually on the other end of the call and the other end of the conversation, which is the folks that you guys are placing in these roles, the work ethic, the excitement, the passion that I think is really isn't totally communicated too well in this entire conversation. With remote VA help, broadly speaking, people are like, well, they're taking our jobs and things are going overseas for a fraction of the cost. I would love to have you, Brandon, if you don't mind, weigh in a little bit more on that. Because what I have noticed is that these folks are fired up, they're passionate, they're detail oriented. Not just with my personal experience. I mean with dozens and hundreds of folks that I've used with upwork and fiverr, I mean, these people want to work. We're talking same day revisions, hourly made revisions. We use a remote VA platform for our video editing for YouTube and our Instagram. Like, these people want to work. They're awesome. And again, at a fraction of the cost. So what's your thoughts to anybody who has any of the maybe hesitation or reservation of some of those things that I just talked about, I think it is a real practical conversation, but I want to get your perspective on it because you've been navigating this for way more than I have, obviously.
- [29:16]
Brandon Lazar
Yeah, 100%. So to your point, there's no right answer. And you can also do one that's like a blended approach, right. We have remote assistance placed with companies where they're facilitating the in house team, not even just the owner. Right. But again, it's back to that original premise that we want to, we want to multiply. We want everybody to be the best version of themselves, whether that's the founder, the owner, the operator or their in house team. Like it's all applicable. Right. The other thing I would say is I've actually backpacked through 25 different countries and I've come to find out that you can be very impactful even locally by adopting this sort of a strategy. And for me, I'm on a mission right now to help a thousand entrepreneurs in the trades and home service community to each save a thousand hours of time. So it's a million hours of give back is my big mission here. But to your point, if you can be more lean and more efficient in your profit and loss, that money goes right to the bottom. When you're more profitable as a business or a community member like you can, you can contribute in different ways around locally. Right. So what I was finding, it was like kind of like trying to pull teeth or roll a big rock up a hill. Like we would post these jobs and, and you know, not only would we not get many applicants, but it would have this kind of air around it of like they're doing me a favor by collecting a paycheck. And I think that's just like fun. Fundamentally wrong and flawed. And it was so refreshing when you have these people that show up that like they are hungry, they're motivated, they're keen, they're almost like militant in their approach of representing your team and your, your company. And that was just so refreshing because I think a lot of time as entrepreneurs we're the only source of that fire. And when you can have other people join your team who are ready to like wear your colors and represent really well, like that's just such a cool thing to tap into. Right. And the remote assistance can absolutely tick that box.
- [31:24]
Brian Fullerton
So. So tell me a little bit more about the Ninja VA process. I think that's the big question. Everybody's going to have, maybe even cost, you know, But I got linked up with you guys a little over a year ago, again, paid my own initiation fee, paid the monthly and glad to do it. It's been one of the biggest blessings for brands on maintenance. And again, you guys have been offering this service for quite a while now. So you have a lot of great things refined. But let's say Somebody's, they're convinced, they're ready to go or they, you know, are about to be convinced and they just want to demo or to learn a little bit more. What's the whole process with hiring a va, the, the NINJA VA way and maybe even some of the differences that you guys offer versus a couple other different maybe solutions in the marketplace because it is becoming a very mainstream thing to do is to have a fractional help and remote VAs a part of your business, your small business.
- [32:17]
Brandon Lazar
Yeah, 100%. So I think we approach things a little bit in like a unique way. Right. So number one, we're niche specific and we only do placements for home service and trades businesses because that's the space that I've been in, that's the trench that I represented and those are the shoes that I filled. So I fundamentally understand, you know, the people that are in our ecosystem as clients. Right. And I know conversely what they're needing in the way of help. So I think that's a really key indicator of something to consider strongly. You can absolutely go to something like Fiverr or Upwork, but it's going to be very generic in terms of what you're getting. And they might have worked for like a pharmaceutical, pharmaceutical company before or you know, maybe for like FedEx, like 1-800 number and there's just gonna be like, no, no lead into what you're already here doing. So I think that's number one. Number two is we are huge proponents of technology. We actually have four in house developers building out cool functionality on the back end of NINJA va. So on, on the face value, you get your remote assistant, they show up, they're keen, they do stuff that's all great. But we also have this undercurrent that's really pushing us forward. Even in terms of your relationship, your management of your virtual assistant, we have AI analyzing their involvement every single day to point out where maybe things are starting to stray in the wrong direction so that we can quickly identify, deal with it and get right back on track. And again, in an environment where, call it like it is, this individual might be working through the night, graveyard shift in a solo environment at home, you know, these types of things really matter and we've, I'd like to think we've, we've really circled in on trying to crack the code and figure things out and we're always improving. So if we haven't got 100% all the way there, we're always putting our head back into it, trying to figure out the better solution in, in terms of just deploying the most effective version of a remote assistant possible.
- [34:28]
Brian Fullerton
So you guys are finding the candidate, you guys are vetting, I guess, like a basic skill set, you know, and then based on what we have for need, and then we are getting, at least through the process, I went through a couple of candidates that were made available to us. But tell me a little bit more about the candidate selection process because I don't want folks to just think, hey, you guys put a job ad, you know, on whatever their version of Craigslist is, I guess. And it's, it's not like that. It's a very vetted. I know it is. I just don't know how to explain it as well.
- [34:59]
Brandon Lazar
Yeah, yeah.
- [35:00]
Brian Fullerton
The talent is remarkable, I'll tell you that.
- [35:03]
Brandon Lazar
Yeah. And, and now all of a sudden what we're finding is like our best, most productive VAs are referring other friends and family members and similar to like your technicians, you know, that birds of a feather flock together concept is also happening inside of our ecosystem. So we actually don't post a lot anymore. And we're still blessed to have this ecosystem of really high, high functional, high caliber individuals. But really at like the highest level, we have them go through an assessment. And what we're doing is we're putting the assessment results as well as an initial interview. So an interview that's recorded with one of our likely remote assistants in house. And we're assembling this beautiful profile where you can review this candidate so that you have a good understanding of, of their, you know, who they are as a person, but also where are they strong and what, what gap could they potentially fill for your company? But it's presented to you in a fashion that really preserves your time. You know, you can scan through, listen to the five minute recording of this person speak, and have like a really good gut understanding whether or not this person be a good fit in your company. And again, the whole concept of why you're getting a remote assistant is because we want to value your time, we want to put you at the precipice and we want you to really be almost like the surgeon in your own company, where surgeon doesn't even watch their own hands. Right. And the process of getting a remote assistant is also equally as efficient as actually getting one implemented. From there, you'll likely select two different candidates who both kind of get you excited, and then you'll be linked up with one of our stateside client managers. So this person's like a text message away they're there to support and serve you. So whether or not you maybe are even shaky conducting technician interviews, if you're shaky doing those, you might be really uncomfortable conducting admin interviews. But this person's job is to support you along the journey. And if you want them to conduct the interview and you just sit in on it, then that's good too, because, like, this is literally all we do is placements of remote assistance for home service and trades businesses. So we've gotten really good at it just by sheer volume and repetition. And then from there, you know, we're going to assist on the onboarding, trying to figure out what they should start with in terms of tasks and responsibility and delegation, and ultimately, we're holding your hand. You know, I like to think every
- [37:31]
Brian Fullerton
step of the way, that's awesome. I 100% would concur. That was exactly my onboarding process. Pretty flawless, pretty seamless. Again, I wasn't like one that had to be convinced. You know, I'm coaching with a couple of different individual individuals and they're like, hey, you need to get on, you know, this certain software CRM. I'm like, done. You know, it wasn't like, well, I don't know. It was like, okay. You know, I was like, okay. Another friend of mine, he's like, dude, you need a va. You need this and this that. I'm like, okay. Like, I'm just okay at that phase of my life right now because if I have it all figured out, I. I would probably have more people interviewing me, not the other way around. Right? So that's funny right there. So my process with Ninja VA was great and finding my candidate and our gal Marge, actually, she's been on a lot of zooms and a lot of meetings. I've done a lot of zoom clips and loom clips with her and send them to over to other folks even, who are all going through this whole process as well as folks are scaling their business, you know, past 3, 400 grand in the lawn care space, and you start realizing you need some office help for bids and estimates and submission forms and a thousand other things. One thing that I have found, maybe if you guys are listening in and going through this process or thinking about going through this process, I wanted to go back to something that I thought was super relevant and helpful. You talked about doing like a time audit and really just brain dump, you know, on a notepad, whether physical or on your phone, the things you're doing during the day that. I say this with love, but like the Things you know, you shouldn't be doing. You know, like answering emails about certain questions from even a customer or building an estimate, ordering an attentive takeoff, one of the measurement tools we use, or, oh, gosh, a hundred other requests that come into the day. And I don't know if you want to color code them or put a 1 to 5, you know, or weigh them on what you think is actually something that you should be doing versus is it really that important for, like, my two crew leads to be asking me this question? Or can the VA reschedule a job and keep the crews moving? Like, stuff like that? What I realized is I was doing that for about, I don't know, maybe about six months to a year, building a role that I knew I needed to get rid of. Some of mine were my invoicing, my. My estimates, my inbound submission form leads, newsletters, you know, for sure, little stuff like that, making sure payroll was ran. I know it sounds simple, but, like, actually taking the gusto alert serious and running payroll that day, you know. So when I was hiring my gal Marge, I was like, hey, like, there's macro stuff and then there's micro stuff. Here's my big. My big rocks. And at the time we're going into late fall, into winter, and. And I was like, look, there's a lot of stuff I need to do. But my number one thing at that time was newsletters and working with Mailchimp. And it wasn't but 10 or 20 hours, you know, an hour here a day, a couple hours here a day, a lot of academies. You know, through the softwares that I use, NINJA VA has a huge plethora of library of training videos for a bunch of different platforms like mailchimp and Canva. You know, folks, like, all those tools and resources are out there for you. I use branded, a platform called LMN for our business, and they have a giant academy. And I literally said, like, hey, I hate to do this, like you're, you know, second or third day, but you need to watch this video series. This video series, not the full 40 hours, but two hours here, two hours here. This module on invoicing, this module on scheduling, and, you know, come back next day. Give me your thoughts. And she would come back. And I mean, even really end of the day, you know, Filipino time. Thirteen hours later, I get an email in my inbox at, you know, 11pm and she's like, hey, completing this module, here's what I learned. This sounds great. And I'm like, damn, like, this girl's awesome, you know, and it was a really fun process. I've talked a lot about SOPs and other podcasts. Like we have a whole document and video library that I'm building for the green industry space. And so like my perfect storm here, as you guys can imagine, where this thing is going is we have the tools, the resources and the SOPs and the videos for a very niche space. Lawn and snow. And oh, by the way, you need a va. Well, like I'm telling you, just coincidence or right place, right time, or just God's plan, whatever you want to call it. Ninja VA came online to me, you know, a little over a little under a year ago. And I'm like, dude, this is exactly what I would say 8 out of 10, 9 out of 10 people need as they're looking to scale and grow past multiple crews and office help. And so I'm very, very excited about it. It's been a huge lifesaver for me. I've got one or two stories I could share for some practical other examples. But Brandon, I don't want to steamroll here. What's your thoughts on folks getting involved with Ninja va? The success they're finding? I love the idea of saving a thousand hours. That is two of the stories I was going to tell are time related stories. So I'm, I'm with you on that mission for sure. And again, it's one of those things like you don't know what you don't know until you see it happen. Replication and duplication in your business with your own eyes. But talk to me a little bit more. What's some of the success that you're finding when people do have a Ninja VA and they start getting them trained and teached up? What's that doing for people out there?
- [42:58]
Brandon Lazar
Yeah, so one thing that's interesting and by the way, I love the conversation, the grow and scale is interesting, right? Because it's like, yes, a remote assistant can absolutely assist you if that's where you're at. You want to grow, you want to scale, you want to take over the world, right? If you don't want to do that and you just want like, I don't know, a lifestyle business, it can also be applicable. Maybe your health has started to slide a little bit and you just need some time. You got to carve out some time for the gym or something, family time or time for faith. Like whatever it is, it can just free you up to maximize your presence and your ability to focus on those other things. So I just feel Very passionate, that it's fairly universally applicable. And it very quickly becomes almost like that floor level arrangement or framework where you get kind of on the other side of the onboarding. You're like, oh, yeah, like, I'll never do it the old way again.
- [43:57]
Brian Fullerton
Right.
- [43:58]
Brandon Lazar
Because that was just kind of silly. That's like a young man's way where it's just like, not very thoughtful. And yeah, you work hard and you feel like you're grinding, but you're not moving the needle. Right? Yeah. One thing that's got me really excited too is we have what are called Ninja VA Core. That's like the basic level, you know, admin and basically task doers.
- [44:21]
Brian Fullerton
And.
- [44:22]
Brandon Lazar
And now what we're actually starting to place is called Ninja VA Elite. So the concept here is it's predominantly more in Central America, in Colombia or South Africa. And these are more management level remote assistance. So instead of having to kind of allocate, delegate, and follow through with each of the tasks, this person signs on with, you know, more skills, more experience, more ability.
- [44:49]
Brian Fullerton
And.
- [44:50]
Brandon Lazar
And they're designed to take over entire departments inside of your company. So, you know, it's really interesting when you start to just dip your toe in the water how, how far you can actually go with this. And again, you know that that person, you're saving thousands and thousands of dollars by doing that, and you just don't have to be the driving force every
- [45:11]
Brian Fullerton
step of the way.
- [45:12]
Brandon Lazar
And there's just something so refreshing as an entrepreneur. I feel like, you know, the world owes us nothing as entrepreneurs, and some days are cold, hard reminders of that fact. And, you know, when you can almost find this, like, hack or breakthrough where, you know, this horsepower can suddenly be unleashed to propel you and your business forward, it's just. It's just such a cool thing to be a part of.
- [45:34]
Brian Fullerton
I love it. And I couldn't agree more. Whether you're growing or scale and lifestyle business, just getting time back in your day, you know, for, you know, 10, 11, 12, 15 bucks an hour, whatever the number might be, you know, it's very affordable. And, And I will be honest with you, it's very affordable, in my opinion, for any single person listening in to be able to do what Brandon's, you know, talking about and sharing about. It's not a pipe dream. It's. It's hard to be like, oh, I need an office va, you know, or executive assistant. Like, you're Elon Musk and you need, you know, somebody making $300,000 a year for A high end executive assistant. Like does that still exist for sure. Is that what we're talking about here today? No. And the landscape for that has changed. I, I think it'd be a disservice if I didn't share this quick story because I want to talk about personal. Personal like what used to be hell, you know, every spring is what I would call estimate renewal season. And it doesn't matter what service business you're in, everybody's got these kind of contracts that you got to renew year over year. We do a seven month lawn and a five month snow and our lawn care contracts, we have to renew all of our commercial sites. So there's 40 plus commercial sites. And what we did is we did so much work in our CRM to update our budget, our overhead, our pricing, our costs that almost every template that we had that we could simply just renew year over year, we got pretty forensic on it, I'm not going to lie. And we went through about 10 service line items per estimate times 40 estimates to make sure every single thing was as tight as possible and competitive on a pricing conversation as possible to not only renew work, but to make sure that our templates were effective moving forward with future bid work that we were trying to earn. Well in just a broad sense of renewing, let alone doing this massive like forensic undertaking. Marge, my VA with just going through one or two templates, building an sop, building a training video, I've got probably an hour, maybe two hours into that gave her the recipe of like what good looks like? And I said like, hey, do you, do you think you could do the rest that I'm looking to do. And without skipping a beat, she's like, for sure, like, no big deal. Long story short, I don't know if it was the next day or two days later, 40 frickin estimates were done. And I'm talking like this is 10 to 20 hours of detailed work. And just for the record, ain't no way Brian Fullerton. Brian's all maintenance is getting 10 hours a day of detailed work done. I've got three kids, I work from home, half dozen guys in the field, social media, Instagram. Oh hey, it's lunch. I gotta go get Jimmy John's. There's no way in hell. So as you can imagine, this isn't a one day, two day, five day. I'm thinking, holy Jesus, I've got three to four weeks of hell and this thousand pound gorilla monkey on my back. And again, like I can, I'm already a believer if you can't tell of assistants and VAs in general, but I literally don't think it was. But two days later, Marge said, hey, everything's done. I'm ready to review these granular with you line item by line item. We, we did a big sweep through everything. It was like 98 accuracy. I massaged a few things that I personally wanted to modify. She followed the roadmap and I'm like, I literally told my wife, I'm like, our estimates are done. She's like, they're done. She goes, you mean you're not going to complain for three more weeks? And so like it's not only like gainful employment for March. We're, we're helping the Philippines where we're helping brands on maintenance. We're reducing our overhead. I'm not bringing that stress and drama into my marriage and dinner time and late nights and early mornings and killing myself. Folks, that's like one example of dozens and dozens of more. We had about 30 to 40 snow newsletters go out this year through the winter season of a pre enduring snowstorm. Communication to our email list for all of our snow accounts. And that's something we wanted to get tremendously better at was communication. Because the two biggest complaints were hey, where are you guys at? And what the hell is going on around here for snow? And that's just the part of snow for anybody. And Marge was on it like I had. We created an SOP of true weather alerts with the weather app. We use chat GPT scripts about how to make it fun, including a joke at the end of the newsletter. And chat was great at these little jokes, which has kind of softened up the toughest part of the industry in the business and without clockwork like customer service through the roof. And that was because of things that Marge did for us. And we built an SOP that's part of our SOP bundle that we have. And it just like I'm so convinced those two things alone, time and money and customer service and retention like beyond paid for itself. 10x100x, maybe a thousand x more for the investment that I've made, you know, into a va. So I'm convinced. I'm a believer that's pretty much where I'll land the plane out here today. I brain I'll give you the final thought, brother. Thank you so much for the time. By the way. This is such a, a rich conversation, like you've been there, you've done that and I'm really, really grateful for the platform that you're building for so many of us out there with Ninja va. But I'll give you the final thought, brother.
- [51:04]
Brandon Lazar
Yeah, I mean, at the end of the day, the most valuable, precious asset that you have is time. And don't get lost into just thinking or assuming that you have to be the person doing all the things, hustling 12, 13, 15 hour days. Like at the end of the day, as an entrepreneur, you get to set the rules and implementing something like what we're talking about makes sense. If life is finite, it's time to enjoy it and rewrite some of them in your favor. And in the process of doing that too, one of our core policies is we want it to be win, win, win. We want it to be win for the virtual assistant so that they get like a very responsible, socially acceptable position. And we want it to be a win for the client and we want it to be a win for Ninja Va so that we're here long time sustainable and you can implement that same thing by virtue of getting a remote assistant going in your own community, in your own company. So what a time to be alive. And if you're interested, it's ninjava.comdemo.
- [52:06]
Brian Fullerton
there you go. Awesome. Well guys, that's where we're gonna land the plan today. No big pitch here. I'm telling you though, like check it out. If you have questions or whatnot, shoot me an email or a dm. Always happy to help. We do have a code. I think it's like Brian 100. We'll leave links in the description. If you guys are ready to sign up, let me know. We'll get you our code or whatever it might be. Or let the, you know, business development rep know that Brian Fullerton rides on maintenance sent ya. We really appreciate that. That's what keeps the lights on over here to make the podcast free and bring you guys the content on YouTube. So you guys already get all that? We can't thank you guys enough for the support, but I'm a believer. Like I said, all my friends are are doing it. I'm part of the cool kids club. And I'll tell you what, like it is actually making a huge difference at our company. So I couldn't be more thankful and more grateful for what you guys are doing over there at Ninja va. So Brandon, that's all I got for today, brother. Thank you so much for the time. Appreciate the conversation and we look forward to catching up with you on the next one.
- [53:01]
Brandon Lazar
Awesome. Thanks for having me, Brian.
- [53:03]
Brian Fullerton
You betcha.
- [53:04]
Sponsor/Advertisement Voice
And before we completely shut things down today. If you would like to learn more about today's discussion, just visit ninjava.com and if you'd like to sign up, you can use the code Brian100. That's Brian100. That will save you $100 there@ninjava.com the link is in the podcast Description
- [53:26]
Podcast Announcer
thanks for taking the time to listen to the Fullerton Unfiltered podcast with Bryan Fullerton. We hope you enjoyed this production. If so, please consider leaving us a five star review for the show. While the techniques and ideas presented here are designed to help you grow a more successful and profitable business, no one can guarantee these results for you. We want to emphasize that entrepreneurship is not easy and the ideas presented here are just the opinions of Brian Fullerton and his respective guests. No one can guarantee success for you. That being said, we hope the idea presented here help you and motivate you to go on out there and crush it with your own business.
- [54:00]
Brandon Lazar
Fullerton Unfiltered Podcast thanks for listening and
- [54:03]
Podcast Announcer
we hope to see you on the next episode.
- [54:06]
Sponsor/Advertisement Voice
This has been a Brian Fullerton and Mr. Producer Production.