1220: Why Every Restaurant Needs a VA with Rashmi Bhat

Summary

Podcast Summary: Restaurant Unstoppable with Eric Cacciatore

Episode 1220: Why Every Restaurant Needs a VA with Rashmi Bhat
Date: September 18, 2025

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Episode Overview

This episode explores the transformative potential of Virtual Assistants (VAs) in the restaurant industry. Host Eric Cacciatore welcomes Rashmi Bhat—co-owner of Seven Monks Cafe, Lazy H Retreats, and Reso Hospitality—to demystify how leveraging VAs allows restaurant operators to save time, scale operations, and build world-class teams. Rashmi and guest co-contributor Anna Goodkind dive deeply into practical steps, hiring strategies, training, and the major pros and cons between VAs based in the Philippines versus Latin America.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Why VAs are Changing the Restaurant World

[14:32–19:45]

• The 4-Hour Workweek Spark: Rashmi was inspired by the 4-Hour Workweek's potential for leveraging VAs but adapted it to the on-the-ground needs of restaurants and hospitality.
• Fractional Labor Advantages: VAs enable access to global talent at a fraction of the cost, yielding higher quality output and the ability for smaller operators to “do more with less.”
• Real Examples: Rashmi delegates tasks like graphic design, payroll, email management, vendor issue resolution, and customer communication, freeing up her core team to focus on in-person hospitality.

"For me, like one thing we have is every Monday we run payroll...that's a priority and that's basically mandatory."
—Rashmi Bhat [18:13]

• Immediate Impact for Small Operators: Even very small operations can benefit—especially with the rising burden of digital tasks such as social media, admin, and order management.

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2. Where to Hire – The Philippines vs. Latin America

[29:42–35:06]

• Philippines:

  • Traditionally the VA hotspot due to high English proficiency and strong remote work culture.
  • Potential downsides: Time zone misalignment and occasional language/cultural barriers with U.S. operators.

• Latin America:

  • Increasingly popular due to time zone overlap, strong cultural alignment, and language fluency in English/Spanish.
  • Many VAs in Latin America have U.S. education or experience.
  • Enhanced support via agencies like Purple (contact: Alex) who assist with job posting, vetting, and onboarding.

"Culture. I think Latin America picks up our culture a lot, lot quicker than maybe the Philippines."
—Rashmi Bhat [30:40]

"I can't overemphasize the cultural alignment more...a lot of these folks...did a stage in America and then went back to their home country of Bolivia."
—Anna Goodkind [32:28]

Payment Platforms:

• Philippines: Wise.com
• Latin America: Wise, Payoneer, Deel, AirTM

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3. What VAs Can Do for Your Restaurant

[35:29–46:53]

• Delegable Tasks:

  • Graphics & Marketing (social media, Canva)
  • Bookkeeping (POS data entry, Quickbooks, reporting)
  • Payroll & Scheduling
  • Customer service (DoorDash, online orders)
  • Vendor communication & basic HR/admin
  • SOP documentation (using walkthrough videos sent to VAs for SOP creation)
  • Invoicing, guest review responses, and inventory data management

• Tools Used:

  • Video Training: Loom, phone video recordings
  • Project Management: Asana, Monday, Trello (varies by team preference)
  • Communication: Slack for centralized updates and community-building

"Anything you can do on a computer that can be taught, they can probably take on...don't confuse your VA, hire people specialized in what they do."
—Rashmi Bhat [36:59, 46:39]

"We do videos just on my phone...and then sent that off to our virtual assistant and say, write me an SOP that I can post...for exactly what to do to close down."
—Anna Goodkind [39:34]

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4. How to Hire, Train, and Keep VAs for the Long Term

[47:27–52:04]

• Hiring Process:
  • Start with crystal-clear job descriptions, including priorities and budget.
  • Use job boards (OnlineJobs.ph, Fiverr, Upwork for part-time; agencies for full-time).
  • Pro-tip: Insert a test (e.g., a required phrase in the subject line) to filter attention-to-detail in applicants.
  • Agencies (like Purple for Latin America) offer extended onboarding support.

"Have a very clear job description—what it is that you need done and what's your budget."
—Rashmi Bhat [49:01]

• Training Strategies:

  • Develop video walkthroughs for routine processes
  • Start VAs with low-risk, well-defined tasks and gradually expand their responsibilities as trust and proficiency grow.
  • Use project management systems to assign, track, and review work.

• Building Culture:

  • Foster connection with virtual team channels (memes, celebrations, sharing about personal lives on Slack).
  • Set up semi-annual one-on-one check-ins to learn about VA aspirations and challenges.
  • Encourage “dream boards” and mark special dates/occasions (birthdays, anniversaries).
  • Recognize achievements—both professional and personal.

"The team just drops funny memes, things that are happening in their life. Their daughter had a birthday party...Having the fun team culture moments."
—Rashmi Bhat [47:27]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the Value of Delegation:
  "I did a time study three, four years ago, and I found I was spending six hours a week on Canva designing graphics and I was like, what am I doing?"
  —Rashmi Bhat [12:00]

• On Effective Communication & Culture:
  "They're people. Like, having the grace, take time to understand their culture, how they've been operating, and, and be kind, right?"
  —Rashmi Bhat [13:30]

• On Global Impact & Ethics:
  "This is how you keep your money closed. This is how we pay our team better...But now we're also paying on a bigger scale, like, how can we help connect the world?"
  —Rashmi Bhat [53:30]

• On Mental Health & Presence:
  "We didn't get into the restaurant industry to sit on a computer all day. The more of this we can get off our plate so we can have FaceTime with the most important people, our frontline staff...we can have a better impact."
  —Eric Cacciatore [55:27]

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• [04:51] Rashmi Bhat introduction & success mantra
• [07:17] Rashmi's entrepreneurial journey
• [10:00] The critical role of VAs in scaling multiple businesses
• [13:11] Tips on VA onboarding, patience, and integration
• [14:32] Why VAs are changing the restaurant world
• [18:13] Systematizing task prioritization with VAs
• [22:05] How to pay VAs (Wise, Payoneer, etc.)
• [29:42] Philippines vs. Latin America: Key differences
• [35:29] Full rundown of VA-appropriate tasks in restaurants
• [39:34] SOP creation and training via video delegation
• [44:41] Advanced admin, HR, and customer service tasks
• [47:27] Building VA culture, team communication strategies
• [49:01] Step-by-step hiring process & job posting tips
• [53:30] Ethics of remote work and local vs. global impact
• [58:08] Mental health considerations in remote work
• [61:01] Rashmi's call-out for future podcast guest

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Resources & Contacts

• Rashmi Bhat:
  Instagram/YouTube/TikTok/Facebook: @toastyindian
  LinkedIn

• Anna Goodkind:
  AnnaGoodkindConsulting.com
  Email: [e-mail]

• Key Platforms & Tools:

  • Hiring: Onlinejobs.ph (with affiliate link in show notes)
  • Payment: Wise.com, Payoneer, AirTM, Deel
  • Project Management: Asana, Monday, Trello, Slack
  • Video Training: Loom

• Agency (Latin America VA):
  Alex from Purple (contact info via Rashmi)

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Takeaways

• Virtual Assistants are not just a cost-saving tool—they empower restaurateurs to reclaim their time, improve team focus, and tap into world-class talent.
• Whether for marketing, operations, admin, or bookkeeping, almost any computer-based process can be offloaded to qualified VAs.
• The options between the Philippines and Latin America each offer distinct advantages in cost, culture, language, and time zone.
• Building team culture, offering clear training, and aligning values are essential for long-term VA success.
• Thoughtful use of global talent can actually enhance local teams and enable greater investment in the in-person culture that defines hospitality.

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For more resources and the full show notes (including job post templates and referrals), visit Restaurant Unstoppable's official episode page.

Transcript

[Eric Cacciatore]

What up unstoppables? If you've been enjoying Restaurant Unstoppable podcasts and you want to take your learning to the next level, come join us in Restaurant Unstoppable Network. You are the average of the people you surround yourself with in that Restaurant Unstoppable network. We are getting you access to the best you can be a part of creating the content here at Restaurant Unstoppable. Literally. I'm going to work getting you access to the people you need to get access to. I'm listening. I'm going to work for you. I can't wait to serve you. Head over to restaurantsoppable.com live and join us today so this week in Restaurant Unstoppable now network. If you're listening to this on Thursday, early morning Thursday at 11:00am, Sean Finter is joining us for a power hour, a bar power hour. He is the founder of Bar Metrics. He came up working for Hard Rock Cafe and now he is the head of Finter Group where he teaches bar operators across the country how to be profitable. He's gonna be making himself available once a month to mentor like these are some A listers I'm getting you access to. Monday the 22nd, we have coffee with Eric at 11am we have a profit first Power hour with the author, profit first for restaurants Casey Anton at 10am Eastern on Tuesday the 23rd. And if you have not checked out her book, you must check out her book. If you have any questions about profit first, she's a lady you want to talk to. And then lastly, we have a part two of our three part series with Rudy Mick, who is a badass when it comes to restaurant culture and you don't want to miss that three part series. So we'd love to have you join these conversations. Join us live, get access to the unstoppable, do all that cool stuff over at Restaurant Unstoppable Network. We're waiting for you. Get over there. Welcome to restaurant unstoppable. For 10 years and over 1,000 episodes, I've been traveling the country chasing word of mouth leads and having in person only long form discussions with the industry's finest owners and operators. Our mission is to inspire, empower and transform the restaurant industry by bridging the gap between this generation's leaders and the next. Listen to today's guest and so many others and get one step closer to becoming unstoppable. Do you wish you could have all of your restaurant needs and solutions under one roof? Well, you can. It's called Restaurant Systems Pro. And with Restaurant Systems Pro, you get accounting systems, budgeting systems, costing systems, purchasing systems, inventory management systems, labor management systems, training systems, and systems to create and implement checklists. And on top of all this, Restaurant Assistance Pro has their own native general ledger and they're in the process of launching their own pos, which they are so appropriately naming serve because that's exactly what they do. To learn more, head over to restaurantunstoppable.com RSP where you can schedule your own demo, watch a demo that I did with Restaurant Systems Pro CEO Fred Langley, or catch every and all testimonial we've ever recorded on the show. That's Restaurant Unstoppable.com RSP this episode is made possible by me is a digital recipe platform that helps you stay creative, build profitable menus, and nail food execution at scale. We know to scale you need consistency because consistency builds trust with your guests and your staff. We all want to know what the job done right looks like. And when you have systems, your systems are a picture of perfection of what that job done right is. And that puts us to peace. We are so happy when we know we're doing a good job. ME will be the one source of truth for your entire team. It's time to take control of your profitability. Learn more at www.getmes.com unstoppable that's www.g e t m e z.com unstoppable. This episode is made possible by US Foods. And did you know US Foods is hosting the Food Fanatics 2025 event at the Mandalay Bay Resort in Las Vegas, Nevada. It's all going down between August 19th and 20th. This is going to be one you do not want to miss. I'm going to be there. I want you to be there. Here's what you got to do. And the clock is ticking, so do not delay. Register now at www.usfoods.com foodfanatics2025 or just go to usfoods.com and look for the banner with excitement. Allow me to introduce to you today's guest, co owner of Seven Monks Cafe as well as Lazy H Retreats and Reso Hospitality. Rashmi Bot my lady, are you feeling unstoppable today?

[Rashmi Bot]

I am and I'm so excited to be here. Thank you.

[Eric Cacciatore]

I'm psyched to have you here and you know this is the kind of content that I love to create when I find somebody organically. You came into Restaurant Stoppable Network. I knew out of the gates that you were pretty impressive in what you're pulling off Anna Tossen, somebody who I have an amazing amount of respect. Respect for. I introduced you to her. She. You guys got close, I'm assuming, or you communicated. She learned a lot from you. And then she came to me. She's like that rash me lady, man. She is impressive. She taught me about all these things she's doing with vas. And I'm doing it now in my business. And I was like, well, now I want to learn more. So here you are, you're going to kind of share everything you've learned about how to leverage VAs. Today's subject is why every restaurant needs a VA. How to save time, scale smarter, and build a world class team. I cannot wait to get into that. But before we do, let's get that motivational inspirational ball rolling with a success quote or mantra. What do you got for us?

[Rashmi Bot]

So one of my favorite ones, and this is on my phone screensaver, is be the change you wish to see.

[Eric Cacciatore]

Yes. I love me some Gandhis. It Gandhi. Is it that? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Why did you choose that one today?

[Rashmi Bot]

So I think we're in the hospitality space and I'm in a bunch of hospitality. You know, we have hotels, we have restaurants, and so I'm in hospitality day in, day out. And it's an amazing business to be in. But things get rough, man. Your cook could not show up, your guest could be rude to you. And in those moments, how do you show kindness to somebody and how do you be that person you want to see when maybe you have a bad day when things don't go your way and constantly being kind and generous to people, even when, like, things are not going your way. So I love that quote all the time. And it actually inspired me to start my social media channel and share my story. And I just want to see more women do cool, man.

[Eric Cacciatore]

I love that. Be the change you want to see in the world. That. That echoes in my head. And you know, when I hear that, to me, it's like I want to see more owners in the world. I want to see less. Less restaurants, more owners. And I think that if we can empower independent restaurant owners, give them the knowledge, give them the inspiration, can help them connect with the right people to get there. Decentralized, democratized knowledge. We will have more owners and less restaurants. But those restaurants are going to be so much better.

[Rashmi Bot]

So true. And people have that work life balance, which is so hard in our business.

[Eric Cacciatore]

Yeah, absolutely. So I kind of just gave a real quick introduction before we dive into today's subject and learn more how you're leveraging VAs in your business. Like tell us more about your. Your businesses.

[Rashmi Bot]

Yeah. So I started when I was 21. I graduated college, turned on three job offers to open my first restaurant, Bonjour Texas, which was a sandwich shop. Grew that for a couple years. And part of Bour Texas is we have a wholesale company so we sell to other coffee shops, airports, like prepackaged sandwiches and salads. And all along my delivery route. I would listen to your podcast for years on how I could, you know, learn more, be a better restauranter or do all the things. In 2019, we opened our now Indian restaurant called Seven Monks Cafe. We're located in New Braunfels which is in between Austin and San Antonio.

[Eric Cacciatore]

Beautiful community.

[Rashmi Bot]

Oh, it's so fun. I love it here. And then 2020, we all know what happens with COVID It's I can't believe it's been five years ago. It feels like yesterday some days. And I was always interested in real estate. Couldn't quite figure out how to make real estate happen. And I had an issue at my Bonjour Texas location where we had a non compete. No other sandwich shop would go in. Long story short, somebody else ended up going in there. And I was like, I want to own our building. Like I want to figure out real estate because I never want to be kicked out of a spot ever again if things don't work out. And so that got me into kind of the real estate. We started acquiring short term rentals. We opened a short term rental management company. Short term rentals are great if you understand hospitality, but want to be in real estate. It's kind of blends the two worlds together. We grew that company Lazy H Retreats. We have close to about 80 properties under management now. And then two years ago we opened what we call Reso Hospitality, which is we focus on boutique hotels and then implementing the same hospitality technology sectors. And then I'll go back a little bit backtrack when we start talking about VAs. And if anyone doesn't know VAs are virtual assistants. I get that question a lot. Like what is a va?

[Eric Cacciatore]

Right. I think there's multiple acronyms that use that or multiple, I guess full out spelled out words used the acronym va. Yeah. However you would say that. So wait, all, all in. You have seven monks cafe one location or two? How many locations there? One location, one location. How many rental properties?

[Rashmi Bot]

So we manage around 880 80.

[Eric Cacciatore]

And how many boutique hotels are you working with?

[Rashmi Bot]

Right now, we manage eight boutique hotels currently, so hopefully 10 by the time this airs.

[Eric Cacciatore]

All in like 90 units, approximately.

[Rashmi Bot]

Yeah.

[Eric Cacciatore]

Am I right there?

[Rashmi Bot]

Yeah. We have over 200 doors under management.

[Eric Cacciatore]

Yeah, yeah. And this project started how long ago?

[Rashmi Bot]

Yeah, it's been about five years in the making. Four or five years.

[Eric Cacciatore]

That's impressive.

[Rashmi Bot]

Oh, thank you.

[Eric Cacciatore]

Now, if you're asking yourself, how the heck is Rashmi doing all this, how much of this output would you attribute to leveraging VAs?

[Rashmi Bot]

All of it. I don't think I could do it without it.

[Eric Cacciatore]

I don't know how you could either. I mean, it's crazy. So like, Aside from your VAs, how many people are on your team?

[Rashmi Bot]

So we have a boots on the ground team for mostly all of our companies. Obviously the restaurant has people on site, so does our management company. Like we have cleaners, handyman, operations manager, guest communication, liaisons. But then there's an entire other part that happens halfway across the world and most people never know about. But they've empowered us to hire faster in our restaurants and in our property management company and then scale our company a lot quicker because we're able to find extremely talented people who do some fantastic work. And that just helps us grow our company and pay our people better here, in my opinion.

[Eric Cacciatore]

So, I mean, I got all these questions. We haven't even got into the actual workshop yet. But I'm trying to paint my. My, my or just wrap my mind around exactly how this exists within your organization. If we're talking like PNLs prime costs, would you classify, like what percentage of your. Would you call it? OPEX would be your. Because you're outsour this. Right. This isn't your labor. Right. So what percentage of your OP X would you attribute to virtual assistants?

[Rashmi Bot]

Yeah, so let me backtrack a little bit over here. So instead of going with like an OP X budget, because these are direct hires within our company, but we don't have the same labor laws we have with somebody that we hire in the United States. Right. Whether it's contractor, whether it's, you know, a W2 hire. So the way I look at it is I have a graphic designer and an executive assistant who work for my companies, but they help out with a lot of my restaurant stuff. So their handling stuff like payroll, they're handling email management, they're handling online orders. If there's any issues, they're handling. If you guys are on door dash, kind of anything that can be done on a computer is stuff they're handling. And their cost is So, I mean, most of these guys work, I don't know, seven, eight thousand dollars a month full time for 40, 50 hours a week.

[Eric Cacciatore]

Wow.

[Rashmi Bot]

And so the cost is so cheap. I mean, it's, it's negligible in my mind for like what we need relative.

[Eric Cacciatore]

To what you would spend.

[Rashmi Bot]

Right, exactly. Because, I mean, hiring a graphic designer is a great example. A lot of people love canva. I love canva. I did a time study three, four years ago, and I found I was spending six hours a week on canva designing graphics, and I was like, what am I doing?

[Eric Cacciatore]

Yeah, is that your week? The best use of your time?

[Rashmi Bot]

Exactly. It's not the best use. I'm not good at it. Like, color, like, it's not my joy. It's not my passion. I'm not a graphic designer. And as a restaurant, I need a ton of graphics. Like, we have an event every single week, event promotion, whatever you want to call it. And I was like, this is a great thing. I can outsource to somebody in the Philippines, in Latin America, in India, wherever you have your VAs at, they can design some killer graphics for you, post it on social media, email it to my customers. They even go so far as they just met, Email it to the manager on site. He prints it out, puts the poster up.

[Eric Cacciatore]

Okay, so real quick, before we move on, we have some, you know, core focuses we're gonna dial in on today, and I'm gonna share those shortly. But like, how does this manifest, like, on your P and L, like as a line item? Is it a contracted service?

[Rashmi Bot]

Like, yep, I just have it under a marketing budget. They're just under my marketing.

[Eric Cacciatore]

Okay, so it's all under marketing. Got it.

[Rashmi Bot]

Got it.

[Eric Cacciatore]

Anything else we need to know before we start to dive into these core focal points that you're going to share with us today?

[Rashmi Bot]

Two things. One is half patience. It's. It takes a while to get everybody dialed in. It's just like training a new team member. They're not going to know how to make your, you know, your best of an Indian restaurant. They're not going to know how to make your best curry right off the bat. It's going to take two, three months of dialed in training, feedback, the whole nine years.

[Eric Cacciatore]

People, they might be coming at you through a computer, but they're people.

[Rashmi Bot]

Correct. Like, having the grace, take time to understand their culture, how they've been operating, and, and be kind, right? Like, we go back to be the change you want to see. Like, a lot of these people, they really Value the job. They're terrified you're going to fire them, so they might not speak up when they need to. So a lot of it has been team building on a virtual level. But how do we make them feel like they're part of our team even though they're halfway across the world?

[Eric Cacciatore]

Got it. Got it. So today, again, the core focus, why every restaurant needs a va. How to save time, scale smarter, and build a world class team. We're going to be focusing on four major focal points. Why VAs are changing the restaurant world. Where to hire. This is part two. Core focus number two, where to hire. The Philippines versus Latin America. Core focus number three, what VAs can do for your restaurant. And core focus number four, how to hire, train, and keep them long term. So let's get into that. First, core focus, why VAs are changing the restaurant world? Why are they changing the restaurant world?

[Rashmi Bot]

So a couple of years ago, this is actually 10 years ago now, I read the 4 hour workweek and I was like, I fell in love with the concept. Now having a restaurant, that's a very hard concept to dial in when you're so heavy on kind of all fronts.

[Anna Goodkind]

Right.

[Rashmi Bot]

And so in 2021, I kind of got the idea. I was like, what if we hire a VA that could work for a restaurant? Like, what could they do for me? And I started noticing everything I was doing sitting down on my computer and it started jotting it down. That's how I figured out the canva kind of situation I was in. And I literally just went to a job site called Online Jobs Ph and I'll talk about that in detail. And I made a job post. I was like, my budget is $100 a month. Like, nothing crazy. I don't have full time work. I was very open. But I'm looking for a graphic designer to help me with my restaurant. Can someone help me? I think the way VAs are gonna change what we do is you're gonna be able to leverage world class expertise at a fraction of the cost. Your output's gonna be a lot stronger and you could do a lot more things because you have this fractional labor at your service. And then you can groom them into being full time for you. They can start off as part time. Income is full time. And if anyone's in the labor business like we are, labor is the toughest part about any business, especially our restaurant business. And so VAs have helped us kind of scale that, if that makes sense.

[Eric Cacciatore]

Yeah, absolutely. So for a hundred dollars, this is going back Four years ago. What was the output for that? What were you getting in return? What did that look like?

[Rashmi Bot]

Yeah, so what I asked and this is actually something they came up with. And I was like, listen, it's my first time hiring VAs. I literally watched three one hour long YouTube videos. I'm sure they're still up. And it literally was how to hire your first va. Like how do you do the job post? How do you find them, how do you tell them? And so that V at that time gave me, she actually ended up working with me for four years. She actually left this year and she was like, hey, your budget's $100. She's like, I charge. I think back then it was like three or $4 an hour. So you'll get this many hours. Tell me your tasks, I'll prior or you can tell me what's prior, which is priority tasks. And these are the most important ones. These are not so important. And I'll tell you what I can get done. And we just work together on a contract basis and I'm happy to share like how I paid her and that kind of stuff because that gets a little more technical. And so she was producing at that time a bunch of social media graphics for me, a bunch of the Canva graphics and I bought all the tools. So like I paid for Canva and added her as a team member. I paid for any like tech stack that she needed and then she would like design the work and then if I had any comments and the way I had her working and she would work overnight. So I would drop everything throughout the day. And in my restaurant, three to six is kind of like the dead period. And so I would like get online at 3pm, drop all the tasks. We have a project management board called Asana. It's free to use.

[Eric Cacciatore]

Asana. Is that the same as I would call it Asana? Is that we're talking about the same thing?

[Rashmi Bot]

Yeah, it's the same. Yeah, yeah. I never had to pronounce any of these tech companies. No one's ever told me.

[Eric Cacciatore]

So I'm like, Tom's, Tom's here and he still calls Anna Anna. So you know, we all, we all struggle. You gone. Oh, I'm getting a look from Tom now. Sorry Tom. It's all good, it's all fun.

[Rashmi Bot]

I love it, I love it. And I would put that in there. And you know, I had put in my job post. You can work anytime you want if you want to work my overnight. So their daytime, that's fine by me. I would make videos for them, being like, here are my design inspirations, here's what I'm thinking. Can you put this. But do it for me. And they're like, sure. And then they would knock out some killer graphic work for me and then I'll just give them feedback. And we kind of got the process dialed in.

[Eric Cacciatore]

I mean, can you go a little bit deeper, deeper into how to prioritize tasks? Like, is there a system, a school of thought, a way to create lists and to delegate? Like get into that a little bit more just in case people might be lacking knowledge in that front?

[Rashmi Bot]

Yeah, it's really up to you. So for me, like one thing we have is every Monday we run payroll, right? Like that's a non negotiable. If you log in on Monday morning at 9 o', clock, the first thing you need to do is do payroll. I don't care if there's a marketing deadline that's happening. Like you've got to run payroll so the team can get paid on Friday. So that's a, that's a priority and that's, that's basically mandatory. Like it doesn't matter what happens. Like we gotta get that done. Marketing plan. Sometimes it's, you know, me having a crazy idea and they're like, watch me. This is a cool idea, but like we don't have time to implement it yet. But it's, you know, it's September, it's Labor Day weekend. Our graphics should have been out two weeks. Currently we're working on Halloween stuff, right? So they know that there's a two week deadline to get all of the Halloween marketing material, email marketing, any social media campaigns we're gonna run, any videos I need to shoot here for them to edit. They know all of that's on the plan. But if it's Monday at 9 o', clock, they know, hey, I have got to run payroll for the restaurant and run it by Rushman to make sure it looks good.

[Eric Cacciatore]

Got it, got it. And I realize I'm getting ahead of ourselves, so I apologize. I'm just so curious. Questions come into my head and I want to start asking. So a hundred dollars a month was your, your starting budget? Where are you at now? I'm just curious.

[Rashmi Bot]

Yeah, now I have mostly everybody on full time. I just couldn't do part time anymore. And again, like as you grow, your businesses grow, you realize, hey, I wouldn't do that overnight shift anymore. I need somebody in the US time zone.

[Eric Cacciatore]

Okay.

[Rashmi Bot]

And I just started putting that in my job posts.

[Eric Cacciatore]

Got It. So you said that you were paying anywhere from like 7 to $8,000 a month full time VA help that I'm not.

[Rashmi Bot]

Thousand.

[Eric Cacciatore]

100, 800, 700. 800amonth. Wow. And how many total VAs you have.

[Rashmi Bot]

Across our entire portfolio? Yeah, probably like 15.

[Eric Cacciatore]

Okay. Wow. So behind every great restaurant is a great person. The key to being great is to be of service to others. And this holds true for all organizations, not just restaurants. After spend a month in Phoenix, Arizona, being hosted by Restaurant Systems Pro CEO Fred Langley, I got to experience firsthand Fred's desire to serve. It all started when I got there. Fred gave me the keys to his house and to his office building. When Fred leaves work every day, I witnessed him go coach one of his two sons baseball teams. And when Fred's neighbor lost power when they were hosting their son's birthday party, Fred offered to host the party at his house. Eric, why are you sharing this? Because how you do one thing is how you do everything. And believe me when I say that the desire to serve extends to Fred's restaurant clients. There are no secrets or shortcuts to life or restaurant success. There's only discipline, hard work, and the desire to do the right thing. Fred and his team at Restaurant Systems Pro are here to serve you with the systems and resources to be more disciplined so you can do the hard thing, which nine times out of 10, is the right thing. With Restaurant Systems Pro, you get accounting systems, budgeting systems, costing systems, purchasing systems, inventory management systems, labor management systems, training systems, and the systems to create and implement checklists. On top of all this, Restaurant Systems Pro also has their own native general ledger, and they're in the process of launching their own pos, which they are so appropriately naming serve. And you know what? If you don't want to change your pos, that's absolutely fine, because Restaurant Systems Pro integrates with all major POS providers. To learn more, head over to Restaurant Unstoppable.com RSP and you will find a link to schedule a demo with their sales team. A demo I personally did with Restaurant Systems Pro CEO Fred Langley and all 18 of our testimonials that we've recorded since the beginning of Restaurant Unstoppable. Again, that's Restaurant Unstoppable.com RSP. You mentioned how to pay. Should we save that for later?

[Rashmi Bot]

Yeah, happy to pay.

[Eric Cacciatore]

Okay. I'm saying, like, does it make sense to pull that to the surface now, or do you want to shelf that for later in the conversation?

[Rashmi Bot]

Either way, I mean, it's really simple. We use something called wise.com for the Philippines.

[Eric Cacciatore]

Okay.

[Rashmi Bot]

It's. It's really easy. You go in there, you set it up, you set up your business bank account, and then they do all the conversions. I just set it up on weekly auto pay at this point. Again, my team's a little bit more dialed in when you're new, you know, make sure they do the work, then you pay them.

[Eric Cacciatore]

Got it. And is. Is that W I S E dot com?

[Rashmi Bot]

Yeah.

[Eric Cacciatore]

And what exactly is that? Is that just a way to dive deeper into what that means?

[Rashmi Bot]

Yeah, yeah. It's just a payment software. And so it converts from US Dollars into Filipino pesos, I think, is what they have. Some people prefer to be paid in US Dollars, so it helps you keep it in US Dollars. And they can get it paid into their bank account or they can get it paid into their Wise account.

[Eric Cacciatore]

Got it.

[Rashmi Bot]

So think of it. It's similar to kind of PayPal, but without the, like PayPal. I don't know if PayPal has conversion or not, but Wise definitely has the conversion feature, and it's the most sort of trusted payment method that's out there for vas. There's a couple of other ones people use, like remitly people. I mean, there's a bunch of others. I've always just used wise. I don't overthink it.

[Eric Cacciatore]

And do you use WISE for the Latin American outsourced workers too?

[Rashmi Bot]

So I'm glad Anna's here. I actually don't have Latin American team members on my team, but I've referred Anna to a couple and I'd love for her to join.

[Eric Cacciatore]

Anna did join the conversation. So Anna is. I mean, I was aware of Rashmi before Anna said. Said, you need to talk to Rashmi because she's a boss. So Anna has stepped up her VA game in the time that I've introduced it to you. So, Anna, the context is out there now. Tell us, what are you looking into and how to pay your Latin American VAs.

[Anna Goodkind]

So we use WISE as well. Honestly, it's. It's the easiest way. I think there's like several different version or things that you could do. I'm trying to pull up the latest contract that I signed, actually, so I could tell you, because there's like three that were mentioned. Let's see here. It says LA LA. So Payoneer, Deal Finance or Air AirTM are the. The four preferred ones for Latin America. You can use Wise too. But like, those are the other four that they prefer. And we did Hire virtual assistants for. From the Philippines. At first didn't have the best experience. Rashmi is like, she's got the. She. She found all the good ones.

[Rashmi Bot]

Yeah.

[Anna Goodkind]

I don't know what happened.

[Eric Cacciatore]

She's not.

[Anna Goodkind]

You've got a lot of. And then we now have two virtual assistants, one in Peru and one in Bolivia.

[Eric Cacciatore]

Yeah. And we're going to get into the Philippine versus Latin American, you know, VAs and what to consider and compare and contrast before we move to that core focus, that second core focus. Back to this idea of, you know, why VAs are changing the restaurant world. And you know, I would think that most people that are hearing this might. Their first instinct might be like, oh, that's probably for bigger organizations that have a bunch of other things. But I would say it's. It's more significant for. For smaller operators right now because of all the additional things we have to be responsible for that are all digital facing that is just like overwhelming at the end of the day. Like, you are in person or like operation. If you're a restaurant owner, first and foremost, the most impactful social platform is your dining room floor. The relationships with the people that are closest to you. I would say like, like this is like the. The primary, like for independent, small independent operators can. Now you can get access to the help you need. So, like, get more into like the type of work beyond marketing. I'm thinking like accounting and stuff like this and just data entry and like, if you're using an enterprise solution. But I'm not here to talk. You're here to talk. Rashmi, what are you thinking?

[Rashmi Bot]

Yeah, I love it. I mean, so we use square POS for our restaurant. And so my bookkeeping VA again, she's out in the Philippines. She, you know, pulls daily transactions from square, puts it into QuickBooks, does all of the backend work. I get weekly reports the way I like them for my restaurant, and then I get monthly reports. And then we also run a wholesale company. So there's like a bunch of things that are happening. She does all of that. And then if I have any questions, I'm like, hey, what about this? What was my prime cost? Why did this go up? She'll go deep dive. She'll log into, you know, us food.com and she'll like, hey, your butter price went up from this to this. That could I go do all of that? Yeah, but like, is it worth my time to like, go in there? And then I get so annoyed. I should probably not say this on a podcast, but I get so annoyed when like DoorDash is like, what problem do you have? I'm like, I don't know. Nothing's working. Like I don't know, help me. But my VA has now a phone line, so she'll. And she's an authorized user on my DoorDash account. So she'll call and be like, rashmi, let me talk to the manager. We'll figure this out. You don't need to get involved in our DoorDash situation. The team will dial this in and I'm like, great. Because if I get on a call with them, I will scream at them.

[Eric Cacciatore]

So these aren't just VAs, they're void E. All of it.

[Anna Goodkind]

Yeah.

[Eric Cacciatore]

They're virtual executive assistants, you know, and it's not just like having them like create assets for you for social media, but like you are delegating manager level mid level management tasks that come with close to six figure salaries in today's age.

[Rashmi Bot]

Correct. And I want my on site to just do on site stuff. Like I want them to focus on the guests. Don't worry that DoorDash is freaking out about this. Like, let the virtual team handle this.

[Eric Cacciatore]

Got it.

[Rashmi Bot]

Don't worry about payroll. We'll figure that out.

[Eric Cacciatore]

Yeah. So anything worth mentioning before we move on to the second bullet you have here for us focusing on the Philippines.

[Rashmi Bot]

Versus Latin America and anything you want to add, I'd love to hear about a little bit about your experience. Kind of like I tell everybody about VAs and you're like one of the first people that like took action. You're like, I love it. Let's do this.

[Anna Goodkind]

As soon as Rashmi like told me like, you know, you can get additional support through VAs, I was like, okay, introduce me to your people. And she did. And like introduced.

[Eric Cacciatore]

It's.

[Anna Goodkind]

It's been really, really good knock wood so far. I actually, we've been working with a virtual assistant in Peru, although she is, she's in Italy right now. She's like in Italy long term, which is like wonderful. I love the idea of employing people so they can work wherever they want to work, which is amazing. It leads to really happy people, you know, working virtually because sometimes it can get a little lonely. But you know, they're over there working virtually for Italy for a bakery was not bad. So she, she does a lot for us. She does all of our social media management, which is really helpful. Um, I will say it's, it's. There's a big learning curve right there. There is a bit of a learning curve. When it comes to that. And I. Have you talked about training yet, Rashmi? No, because. Okay, I'll hold off on that.

[Eric Cacciatore]

That's. That's number four. So we will be talking.

[Anna Goodkind]

Okay, I'll hold off. Um, but it's. I mean, I've been really happy. I mean, she's. She's doing that. She does a lot of our SOPs, which. I'll talk about how that works in a little bit. Um, and then I just hired because I, you know, I started my own marketing agency of which Tom is a client. Uh, and because he was making me so busy, I was like, okay, I need some help. I know you are. Uh, so I actually just hired someone else. Who? He is a chief marketing officer down in Bolivia. And he and I just gelled immediately. And we were like. I was like, I need help with this and this and this. And he was like, okay, great, let's do it. Let's do it. So he comes on board not this coming Monday, but the Monday after. And so I'm.

[Rashmi Bot]

I'm stoked.

[Eric Cacciatore]

Yeah. This is one of the things I love about the world we live in now is the. The democratization and decentralization of knowledge and learning. And no matter where you are in the world, you don't have to go to America to get, like, the best education like you did 50 years ago. You know, like, you can literally go anywhere and be anywhere and have access to the same knowledge that everyone has access to. And I think this is transformative. Like, we live in a special time. It's exciting. So, okay, let's move to core focus number two. Where to hire the Philippines versus Latin America. America.

[Rashmi Bot]

Yeah, I can take that first. So I started out in the Philippines. Latin America wasn't really on my radar when I got started, like five years, four years ago doing this. And I've built an entire team in the Philippines. We recruit internally now. So, like, we don't really do any job posts and stuff just because my team is big enough. But one of the things I started noticing was I think the Philippines just started getting bigger and bigger. So more people got into this. They weren't trained for it. And then the other thing I get usually hit with is like the time zone difference. Like we're are the opposite of the Philippines on time zone. And if you don't hire the best on sometimes there's a little bit of a language barrier. So I met a friend who introduced me to Latin America work pool, which is who I referred Anna to. And I'm happy to share that contact with anyone in this group. Absolutely. Love. Her name's Alex with purple. She's amazing. And I think. I think the key. There's a bunch of key differences. One is culture. I think Latin America picks up our culture a lot, lot quicker than maybe the Philippines.

[Eric Cacciatore]

It is Western culture. You know, we. We share that. Yeah.

[Rashmi Bot]

They're in the same time zone as us. Their English is great. In our business, where some people, like, we have housekeepers that don't speak any English at our hotels. And so having somebody in Latin America who's able to speak in Spanish, understand even with guests, like, there's, I think, a language proponent that makes it really comfortable here. For me, the Philippines has been great. Like, I'm not gonna lie. We continue to grow there. We continue to hire out of Philippines, and they have their own internal language that they're able to communicate with. And they've been like, rashmi, you can bring somebody outside. But, like, we have a really cool culture here. And so we would like for you to keep recruiting from here. And I was like, that's pretty fair. Like, I like it.

[Eric Cacciatore]

Got it. In terms of time zone, Latin America, and the majority of Latin America falls in Eastern and Central time. Is that correct?

[Rashmi Bot]

Correct.

[Anna Goodkind]

And some mountain time as well.

[Eric Cacciatore]

Some mountain time. Okay, That's Central, right? Or Central America.

[Rashmi Bot]

I think it's like an hour. Yeah, it's like an hour difference behind me.

[Eric Cacciatore]

Central time, Mountain time is Central American time is what I was trying to say before. It was a little word fumble there. So time zones we covered. Customer facing, support, cultural alignment. Anything else? Anna, did anything come to your mind that Rashmi missed?

[Anna Goodkind]

I. I can't overemphasize the cultural alignment more. I. I think that. That the. The issue I had when I first started with virtual assistants, I was hiring from the Philippines, and I was not able to communicate effectively with them on what I needed. And I think it's because there's just so much unsaid in the hospitality industry. And Rashmi is really good at explaining exactly what she means and exactly what she wants. And I don't have as much patience for that, because I'm just like, you either get it or you don't. And I'm moving on. And she's a better person than I am. And so we've had.

[Eric Cacciatore]

What was the opening quote?

[Rashmi Bot]

Rash.

[Eric Cacciatore]

But me.

[Rashmi Bot]

There we go.

[Anna Goodkind]

Than I am.

[Eric Cacciatore]

Be the change you want to see in the world. Sorry.

[Anna Goodkind]

Exactly. But she. So. But we've had really good luck. We work with Alex from Purple to find These. These lace to let us to people. And it was really great. And I feel like, because a lot of these folks that we're working with, they were educated in America or they spent time in America working for American agencies, you know, did a stage in America and then went back to their home country of Bolivia. Like, that has really made it a lot easier because they've spent time here, they understand our custom and our culture a little bit more, which is really great. But I also think it's really important to also observe their customs and culture as well. And so I was educated by Alex on certain holidays that are really important to Bolivian culture and making sure that, like, they have those days off and that time off is really important. They, it turns out in Bolivia, like, they make just as big of a deal about birthdays as we do in America. And so that was really helpful because my bakery focuses a lot on birthday cakes and wedding cakes. And so it was nice to have that cultural connection too.

[Eric Cacciatore]

Are you shipping birthday cake?

[Anna Goodkind]

That's really important. It's like, to make sure you understand your employees, not them under just understanding you.

[Eric Cacciatore]

You're gonna pull a P. Terry's and ship birthday cakes to all of your employees?

[Anna Goodkind]

All.

[Eric Cacciatore]

Well, it would be hard logistically. That would be hard.

[Anna Goodkind]

It's butter. It melts.

[Eric Cacciatore]

Cool.

[Rashmi Bot]

The other thing. Can I just add one more thing? If it's your first time hiring a VA, having somebody like Alex on the back end is a huge help. And I'm sure you went through this. I went through this. You know, onlinejobs, PH is amazing, but, like, there's. There's an entire process because you have to, you know, have your job post. Then, like, Alex helps you dial in your job post. She was like, rashman, this is unclear. Or, you know, you can do this better. She'll help filter out applicants for you. So you're only seeing, like, the top three, and then you can pick the top one that you like. There's like, I think three months additional support with Alex where you can be like, how this is not working out, or maybe I'm doing something wrong. Like, there's a lot more backend handholding training. And, like, none of that was available when, like, I got started, like, four or five years ago. So again, going back to Latin America versus Philippines, like, working with an agency does help initially, and then you can start working on your own.

[Eric Cacciatore]

Got it. What about siestas? Is that a thing that you guys have to consider?

[Rashmi Bot]

Not for me. I'm a workhorse. Like, everyone better.

[Eric Cacciatore]

Well, I Mean, let's be honest, like, in Central America, like, when you're on the equator, like, it's hard to exist, you know, like, without having to get away from. I mean, I guess we're getting really pretty good at air conditioning, so that's probably not as much of an issue today. But I don't know. Know, I'm.

[Rashmi Bot]

No, I don't have to worry about.

[Eric Cacciatore]

I'm from New Hampshire. Give me a break. I don't know what's going on down there.

[Rashmi Bot]

Closer to the UK we have had initially, when I hired first VAs, you know, people, like, falling asleep on ships. Like, I mean, we've gone through all of it. It's gotten more d. I'm all for.

[Eric Cacciatore]

Css, for the record. I support it. So. All right. I think we unpacked. Unpackaged. Core folks. Number two, where to hire the Philippines versus Latin America. We talked about how to pay these. These folks. So moving on to core focus number three, what VAs can do for your restaurant. We kind of started to get into this, and I backpedaled out of it, but go. Go all in.

[Rashmi Bot]

Yeah. I think anything you can do, do on a computer that can be talked to somebody else, a VA can pretty much handle as long as they have to login access and they know what to do. So the first thing is, I always say, delegate out very easy tasks that you could make very easy videos for. So Canva is a very great example. There's really not much they can mess up in my Canva account. I can just go delete whatever it is they messed up. But you kind of get to see, like, you know, are they creative? Are they designing what you want? Are you communicating effectively? Do not give them general, vague, big idea, visionary tasks, because that's hard for anyone to really execute on. So go very baby steps. And, of course, don't give access to everything right off the go. Canva, like, doesn't really have my credit card. Like, they can't really do much with. With. With little tools like that.

[Eric Cacciatore]

Right. Just, like, hiring somebody off the street. Like, you're not gonna have them run the line on day one. You're gonna have them put the cheese on the burger and then slide it down, you know, and, like, as they learn and develop new skills, you can.

[Rashmi Bot]

Add more on, or you're probably not gonna scream at them because you're, you know, your ops budget went through the roof because they're gonna be like, what are you talking about? They're gonna have, like, no idea. And then the VAs are gonna feel terrible, right? They're like, this person's so mean. I have no idea what's happening. But they'll stick with you because they want the job. And you're like, like, this is an unhealthy work culture. Like, let's go baby step and let's build you up to do bigger things.

[Eric Cacciatore]

Got it. So easy task. Can you share some tools you're using to create these videos? I mean, I'm thinking one just using your phone, right? If you're doing like. I mean, that's like, in person. I know there's apps you can use to do screen capture and stuff like that. Which ones do you prefer?

[Rashmi Bot]

Yeah, I use Loom. I used to have the free account and like, maxed it out to the T. Really? I ended up having to go paid cause I use so many. I make so many looms rooms. And then I always recommend on the back end having a project management software. Everyone hates me for saying that, but it really helps you, Dalin, especially as you scale your companies. Yeah, we use Monday for our, like, our properties and our hotels. And then we use Asana for all of the restaurant stuff, social media, and we have different boards.

[Eric Cacciatore]

Anything to consider. So Monday for restaurants, Asana for the property management.

[Rashmi Bot]

The other way around.

[Eric Cacciatore]

The other way around. Why that switcher? Did you just start with one? You want to try another one out or do you prefer one over the other? Would you go all in on one if you had prior information?

[Rashmi Bot]

So I am a big believer in writing on what it is you want every year. Like, I'm big on goal setting, and so I realized one of the things I didn't want to do was be in Asana or Monday babysitting. So I asked my va. I'm like, what software do you like? And they're like, like, we love a Santa. And I was like, we'll go with a Santa. I asked.

[Eric Cacciatore]

You don't have to train them how to use it.

[Rashmi Bot]

Exactly. Because I'm like, you picked it like you figured. And not that, but also like, I don't want to be in there micromanaging. I personally, I'm still not a fan of Monday. And I've used it for like three years now. But my team loves it and they're like, hey, we want to be in here and we'll do everything. And we use Slack for internal team communication. And I get all my updates on Slack. I don't really have to do much on Monday. And I'm like, this is great. Like, in my life I'm trying to do less so I can have more time to do things I want. And so this works out great for me. I know you were like. When I said Monday, you were like.

[Anna Goodkind]

I hate, I hate Monday. We're Trello people.

[Eric Cacciatore]

Everyone hates Mondays. Friday's where it's at. Sorry, I had to.

[Anna Goodkind]

Yeah. Someone should come up with a project management tool called Friday and solve all of Monday's issues. That would be fantastic.

[Eric Cacciatore]

It wouldn't be very productive app. I mean, it would be kind of a half ass app, but would be a lot of fun to use. User experience.

[Anna Goodkind]

It would be. It's just memes. So I wanted to share a little bit about what we use the virtual assistants for. Um, we. After Rashmi told me. See, like I said, she told me everything. Um, we do a lot of videos. I do videos just on my phone, frankly. So I walk around like, we just opened the trailer for the bakery. So another location for the bakery last weekend. And I walked around after the third day when I figured out the closing procedures, I just walked around and videoed like, do this, do this, do this, do this. And then sent that off to our virtual assistant and say, write me an SOP that I can post on the inside door of the trailer for exactly like what to do to close down down. Because I don't think about, like if I had to sit and think about it, I don't know. But if I'm in the moment and I'm just taking a video of what I'm doing walking around like, that's super easy.

[Eric Cacciatore]

Yeah. Full transparency. If you don't mind me sharing this. And you purchased a organized you. You know, Sweet Treats is your. Your bakery. It was well established and you purchased it. So you didn't have like the. The boots on the ground developing, building this thing over time where you know every intricate part of it so you know you weren't as close to it as, say, somebody who literally birthed it, you know, so like, being able to delegate, that is probably easier.

[Anna Goodkind]

Yeah. I am a stepmom in more ways than one. Yes, that is absolutely true.

[Eric Cacciatore]

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[Anna Goodkind]

But it's, it's helped me a lot when it comes to like learning because then I can say, okay, yeah, all right, what does this look like? What you know, what have I learned here? And we've also created a lot of efficiencies that way too. Customer service is a big one for us. You know, we are training our virtual, our first virtual assistant right now on how to quote cakes, which can be a very time consuming thing because unless you know this industry, you really don't know like how to quote them. So we're training her up on how to do that so she can be our customer service person, like the first person to respond. And I think especially when it comes to catering. So, like, restaurants that do catering, Rashmi, you know this because you have catering company too. The first person to respond is often the group that gets the business. So, like, I need her to respond very quickly. Think of cakes are just another form of catering. Right. So, like, the first person respond on catering request is. Is really great. And then when we do that. Oh, I said customer service invoicing. So we do a lot of invoicing as well. Again, cakes, very customer service focused. So processing all of those invoices, copying over all that information, making sure we have the correct name, email address, phone number so that we can set up those marketing campaigns in the future, like, that's a really big thing. But it's very tedious. So we. We outsource that too.

[Eric Cacciatore]

Yeah. What's going through my mind right now, is there a Latin American or Filipino VA organization that has specialists who understand the world of restaurants? Because if somebody were to build that, if anybody's listening, I don't have the bandwidth. Yeah, like, that is. That would be amazing. Because of the uniqueness of the restaurant industry and it's the software associated with the restaurant industry. If you become experts, like, everyone knows how to use Canva, but, like, how many people know how to use an enterprise solution or toast or like, yeah.

[Anna Goodkind]

That would be great. Tom, tell Henry. Let's make that company.

[Eric Cacciatore]

That's fewer distractions over there. So, okay, what next? So many things unpackage. We talked about payroll, bookkeeping, scheduling, vendor coordination, hr, admin, anything we. We did not touch on that's worth bringing to the service before we go to the. The fourth and final.

[Rashmi Bot]

So one thing my VA does, and I'm happy to share this, is anytime we have a new hire, they'll send out all the new hire paperwork. But then they'll also send out all the training manuals, make sure they get signed. They'll make sure TABC certifications uploaded. They also have expiry dates for them. So we know two months before is their TBC expiring. Is their food certificate expiring. We'll follow up on it. You know, come tax season in January 1st, people are like, I can't find my W2 10, 99 or whatever form. Like, I used to get all, all these emails with people I haven't seen in, like, you know, eight months. And I'm like, oh, you're alive. Good to see you. But my, my VA will, you know, go through, find Their paperwork, get it mailed, you know, email it to them. So all these little tasks that just kind of add up inbox. You know, my VA, of course goes through response to every, you know, guest review that we get. It gets sent to the, to our team members on site. We also do the invoicing. We also do even customer relation. Like for our wholesale business business. They process all of our from initial to the end, like they handle all of it and then they coordinate with on site staff for like whatever is needed. But really anything you do on a computer that can be taught, like, they're very good and they can probably take on. And now it's gone to the point where they're giving us feedback. They're like, rashmi, your menu doesn't quite read well, do you mind if I redo it? And I'm like, please, because I haven't updated in five years. Yes.

[Eric Cacciatore]

I mean, I'm thinking about like Restaurant Systems Pro right now, which is the platform I'm most familiar with because of my partnership with Fred Langley and Restaurant Assistance Pro. Like, like purchasing, budgeting, costing, inventory. Like all these things that like or now those things weren't always digital, you know, but now they are all moved to a digital place. You can't manually do the inventory, but you can do, you can to your point, you can keep your finger on the data and you can, and you can know when things are out of whack and you can highlight like, and bring attention to things that are important, especially with HR tools like gusto, you know, like, like it's more and more possible today than ever before and it's only moving more in that direction. So so far we've only thing, the.

[Rashmi Bot]

Only thing I'll add to that is don't confuse your va because I see a lot of people hire a marketing VA and then give them accounting tasks, right? And it's like they're not going to be good at it. Like, and, and they might do an okay job because they're like trying to please you and make you happy. But like hire people are specialized in what they do.

[Eric Cacciatore]

Yeah. Yeah. Great advice, Anna. Any last thoughts before we move on to the last, the fourth and final bullet? Here, here.

[Anna Goodkind]

No, That's a good roundup.

[Eric Cacciatore]

So we have covered why VAs are changing the restaurant world. We talk about where to get your VA from pros and cons versus the Philippines and Filipinos and Latin America. I said it right the first time. Philippines in Latin America, what VAs can do for your restaurant. We're going to wrap it up with how to hire, train and keep them long terms. I think we kind of already touched on some of these subjects too. But what hasn't been mentioned.

[Rashmi Bot]

Yeah, team culture has been big for me this year of kind of coming on like the four year of having VAs and like we're in growth mode and we're always in growth mode and I think building a team culture. So one very small change that we made, so we use Slack for internal team communication. We used to be on WhatsApp and things just got messy in WhatsApp and our Slack's connected to our Monday board. So again we're like pushing stuff into Monday but on our Slack channel we created it's called random spaces basis. And the team just drops funny memes, things that are happening in their life. Their daughter had a birthday party like whatever that is. And like having the fun team culture moments. Because all I ever deal with is like all the problems that are happening in any business and I'm like, let's fix this. We don't really celebrate all the joy and the good times and like being involved in their personal life. We also have implemented a skip level meeting. So every six months I get on a call with all of our team members and I'm just like, how are things going? This is not a performance review. I just want to get to new as a person. What are your goals?

[Eric Cacciatore]

Do you do that once a month?

[Rashmi Bot]

No, once every six months. So twice a year.

[Eric Cacciatore]

So it's a virtual party of like, let's just communicate.

[Rashmi Bot]

Yeah, yeah. And I just want to be honest, like what are you working on? What are your goals? You know, with team members who. We have a Monday, it's called a dream board and they just put like things that like, you know, a lot of them wanted to buy houses, they wanted to go to Disneyland. They like to do a retreat every quarter and so they put these tasks on there. And then I'm like, okay, well how can we work towards your dreams and your goals and how can I help? And so I know we talked about that.

[Eric Cacciatore]

Beautiful. So you, you have some steps here, like step one for hiring. What is step one?

[Rashmi Bot]

Have a very clear job description. Like what it is that you need done and what's your budget.

[Eric Cacciatore]

And you're, you're posting this job description to where?

[Rashmi Bot]

Yep. So you can post it to onlinejobs. Ph, that's how I started it. You can post it to Fiverr, you can post it to Upwork. Like if you're looking for more fractional Those three are great if you're looking for more full time help and people underestimate, like more people need full time help than they realize. I always push for full time help because if you hire part time, they're going to have other jobs they're going to do. So just just kind of be aware of that. And if you're looking for full time online jobs, PH is great. Or I'm happy to drop Alex's contact information in here.

[Eric Cacciatore]

Yeah. And you do have an affiliate link for online jobs. Ph so if you are interested, please help Rash me out. Head over to the show notes, click that sucker and say thank you for all this amazing advice and recommendations. So. So once you go over here, you create the job post, do you? I mean this would be really cool. I'm putting on the spot now. Like if you have any assets that you're willing to share in terms of like templates and what you've created to kind of get people going to prime that engine. Now I feel like I'm giving you homework and I feel like a jerk for even asking. I should have probably thought this one out. But if you're willing, absolutely.

[Rashmi Bot]

I'm happy to give you guys like the first job post I made and one thing I snuck in there was like midway through I was like, if you're interested in applying for this job, like put the subject line of like Houston's baseball team so like they have to go do a research and I know who's paying attention and actually reading this versus mass applying to things.

[Eric Cacciatore]

Got it.

[Rashmi Bot]

And so start getting crafty about like how you do these things because if not, you'll be in your. In my inbox the whole day. I love that kind of going through it. So kind of pre vetting people and so anyone who didn't follow that, I was like automatically delay.

[Eric Cacciatore]

Got it. We talked about building culture. Anna, anything that you're doing in terms of how to build culture or rash me. Did you not get anything out yet?

[Anna Goodkind]

No, honestly, like it has. This sounds terrible but like we are so much in the, the part of just like doing, doing, doing, doing that. Like I haven't had time really to think about how do we build that culture with rva. And then I really need to think about it because I'm bringing on someone who, who's much more at my level, you know, and how to do that. So I, I don't really know. Maybe it'll be like, like Rashby said, like have people contribute to a dream board or tell me a little Bit more about yourself or something like that. But honestly like right now it's just about doing, you know.

[Eric Cacciatore]

Yeah, no, I don't like, like anything. Like just start with something and it's. It's Kaizen Constant never ending improvement. Tweak it, tweak it, tweak it. Let them make it better or listen to their feedback and how they think it could be better.

[Rashmi Bot]

And I have a little link that everyone that joins our team has to fill out. My, my EA help build it. But it's got like their name, their favorite animal, when is their birthday, when is their wedding anniversary. Like any dates? Do you like coffee or tea? And then it automatically gets put on my calendar by my EA once they fill it out. And so I know everyone's work anniversary, any important things they want me to remember and then I make a point to shout out when I'm like hey. So very simple. I don't really deal with it until I see it on my calendar. But like the back end is help. I think it just shows people we care.

[Anna Goodkind]

Yeah, that's really helpful. I'll definitely do that.

[Eric Cacciatore]

Got it. So I think we've gotten to the point of the conversation where we can open this up for Q and A. Before we do that, real quick, tell us one more time, how do we connect? Rashmi.

[Rashmi Bot]

So I hang out on Toasty Indian. I'm on Instagram, YouTube, tick tock, Facebook, whatever you, you, whatever you guys want. I'm. I'm around.

[Eric Cacciatore]

Anna, do you want to share your contact information too in case folks want to tap. Tap into that knowledge resource?

[Anna Goodkind]

Sure.

[Rashmi Bot]

So.

[Anna Goodkind]

You can find me@anna goodkind consulting.com. that's probably the easiest way to get a hold of me right now.

[Eric Cacciatore]

Okay. And this is episode1220 I believe. So if you head over to the show notes, look at it up. If you can't remember the episode title, just remember that number 1220. We'll have a summary as well as links to connect with these ladies. And I'm actually going to ask a question before we wrap it up and bring it to our community for Q and A. One thing I'm really interested in and this is kind of like on a. More like like ethics based like you. If you asked 12 year ago, 15 year ago Eric, like should you use VAS? Part of me would be like well what about keeping your money in your community? Like what about like, you know, how is this any different from like outsourcing to like, you know, different farms or different purveyors or like, why don't we want to keep our money close? What is the counter argument to that?

[Rashmi Bot]

I think this is how you keep your money closed. This is how we pay our team better in a. In a market where the tariffs are. Food costs are rising, tariffs on the rise, labor is expensive. And if you want to be top of the market for good labor, you better figure out some way to save money, because it's not like your landlord's going to go, go, oh, like your taxes went up. No, I'm not going to increase your rent. Your triple net's going to go up. Like, everything goes up every single year. So the other part of it is we keep our community well, but also how do we be the change we want to be in this world? It's not just my community, how to make a difference. So even in the Philippines, like, you know, yeah, we started at 7, 800. We're now over $1,000 for most of our team members. They don't make that kind of money in their communities. So I've helped people buy homes for them that's beyond their pay. I've helped them, them put their kids in better schools. We've helped make their dreams come true. So doing that on a broader level as well as a local level, I think there's two parts that we play. And sometimes we. All we think about is this community, which, this is how we help our community. I'm like, hey, I have a little cost savings now. We can do cooler stuff for our team members, our restaurant, and our community. But now we're also paying on a bigger scale, like, how can we help connect the world?

[Eric Cacciatore]

Yeah. Anna, do you want to add anything to that?

[Anna Goodkind]

I mean, that was perfectly said, Rashmi. That's exactly the way we see it, too. I mean, I honestly had, like, a really hard time with it.

[Rashmi Bot]

I.

[Anna Goodkind]

At first, because I was like, I don't know.

[Rashmi Bot]

I don't know.

[Anna Goodkind]

I feel like I should hire someone else and like, give them a chance straight out of college, like, learn stuff and move on. But frankly, I just. There's no way we could afford it. There's. There's no way we could do it. Like, unless I was getting paid to host an intern. Nope, can't do it. Can't do it. And so having. And I do really see ourselves as part of a global community. You know, it's not just right here in our backyard. I mean, I have marketing clients right in Boston, Tom, the best. And then Nashville, second best, you know, and then tell Sean and you know, and we're already doing things globally, we're already think doing things around the world. So why can't we have other people from around the world help us do that as well? I think it just makes sense.

[Eric Cacciatore]

It's a part of the whole economy on a small scale, you know.

[Anna Goodkind]

Exactly.

[Eric Cacciatore]

And you know, part of the thoughts that were going through my head, you know, we. I feel like over the past 10 years, we've really lost ourselves to this digital presence. We didn't get into the restaurant industry to sit on a computer roll all day. You know, like generally we don't gravitate towards that world. We graduate, we gravitate towards human connectivity. And the more of this we can get off our plate so we can have FaceTime with the most important people, our frontline staff, the people who are literally in our four walls every day. Not to say the VAs aren't important, they're people too. But like, we need to have like that impact on the people who live in our neighborhoods and who live in our community. And we can have a better impact when we can give FaceTime to these individuals and listen to them and empower them and lift them up. And the best way to do that is in person. So now we have all this extra bandwidth to be present and I think that we got very unpresent for a long time. The other thought too, like, back to this idea of like globalization. 150 years ago. I live in New Hampshire. It would take me a day to get to Boston. That's 60 miles. You know, it takes that same amount of time to get to the other side of the planet where you're getting these people to, to, you know, and we live. The idea of nationalism. This might raise some alarms, I think is very antiquated. You know, like we live in a global world, whether you want to accept it or not. And I think that when you get out of this country, if you travel, if you get to go to other places and you see the inequity and the despair in different places, I think that if we are truly trying to live a democratic world and be the. The example, it's about sharing, it's about creating opportunity for others, for not just those closest to us, but for everyone. And I think that this is a vehicle, a growth tool to do that. Any thoughts on that comment?

[Rashmi Bot]

Yeah, I mean, I think the restaurant industry is just now catching up to VA's. Techs found this, you know, decades ago and now they're all on the AI craze. And I think we'll probably be there in like another five years. I don't think the AI is there yet. But now with AI, like everybody's on their toes, right? Like whether it's local, global, whatever you want to call it, it. So what is AI going to do to kind of all of this is kind of where my, my mind goes, right?

[Eric Cacciatore]

Yeah, I think it's a good, it's a good advocate for capitalism. You know, a lot of people are anti capitalism. I think I'm anti consumerism, if I'm being honest sometimes. But I think conscious capitalism and being able to lift. Let all ships rise with a ship and do good. Like this is an advocation for that. So I think those are my big. Actually one more question. What about mental health? Like, so I think that we are literally engineered over thousands of years of evolution, hundreds of thousands of years of evolution to be in the same space as people. I think we need it as human beings. Like, do you weigh that at all?

[Rashmi Bot]

Yeah, that's actually one of the main reasons I've stayed and continued hiring in the Philippines as opposed to moving to Latin America. And so my team and my lead is just really good about this. She organizes like a quarterly retreat. And again, like, I love people. I also don't need to see them every single day for. No. I think a lot of people go to their office, they'll sit in their cubicle and then just be like heads down and not actually interact with anyone. Right. So they could really work from home. So putting that time and effort to build a global company, but also being having the space for these team members to have their own time. We do FaceTimes. You know, we, we're pretty connected honestly. But also like having. Letting them have those interactive in person moments. 3, 4 of my team members kind of of live close to each other and others are kind of spread out throughout the Philippines. So the three to four that are pretty close, they. They meet like once a week and they'll. They actually don't even talk about work, which I'm glad you know, they're, they're having fun. They got to new restaurants and they'll drop me like their restaurant review and stuff. So really building that and then even I think going in daily. Right. Like there's. And with COVID that's really helped. I think the tech tools have gone a lot better now than they were like even back then. But even when, when you meet people in person, even here, sometimes they may not be fully present. Right. So how do you help them through that mental health and this is going to sound really interesting, but mental health is, for me, sometimes such an American concept. Like, I'm an immigrant, I'm Indian. We don't grow up talking about mental health. And then that's the whole thing about that. Like, I'm not saying it's right or wrong. I'm saying it's a thing.

[Eric Cacciatore]

But I think it's a. It's a new thing in. In America too. I think this is an emerging thing.

[Rashmi Bot]

But a lot of times in the Philippines, like, these guys are like, rushing. Like, I'm just so grateful I get a paycheck. Like, that's not a commodity I have have in my country and I'm willing to work and like, that's. And I come from India. Like, I understand that. And so to be able to help people like that while paying people here, like, like, we have a job post out right now. And I'm like, I'd love to have somebody who just loves to work and wants to show up and do this. And we pay well and we're doing all the right things. And I want to worry about your mental health. But, like, at the end of the day, like, I'll seem to worry about my mental health and, like, I got bills to pay, man. Like, my triple N doesn't get any cheaper.

[Eric Cacciatore]

Yeah.

[Rashmi Bot]

Every month.

[Eric Cacciatore]

You know, you're. I'm tempting not to. I'm tempted to go down some rabbit holes right now.

[Anna Goodkind]

Do not.

[Eric Cacciatore]

I'm gonna.

[Anna Goodkind]

Do not. You just drop some breadcrumbs. Rashmi, you're trying to get restraints.

[Eric Cacciatore]

Great points, Rashmi. And I think we can remind the folks at home. Unless. Anna, did you have anything you want to say?

[Rashmi Bot]

No.

[Anna Goodkind]

I mean, I do it whenever I talk to the VAs. Like, I check in, like, how are you doing? They're like, great. They would like to move on and I would like to move on. Frankly, I don't really want to know.

[Eric Cacciatore]

So hit us one more time with your contact information for the folks if they want to follow up with you.

[Anna Goodkind]

Sure. So I'm [e-mail] rash me toasty Indian.

[Rashmi Bot]

You can find me on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, TikTok, whatever, whichever. LinkedIn. Even though I don't really like LinkedIn, but you can't find me there.

[Eric Cacciatore]

You. You listen to the show so you know, I can't say goodbye without having you call somebody out who is somebody that you just are like, I just want to learn more. I want to hear this person's story. I want to get into their head. Who is that for you? Who? Can I go. Go get on the show for you?

[Rashmi Bot]

I've mentioned her before, so I'm going to mention again, Alexandra Lords. Anna's got a connection, so I'm really going to call it out. I'd love to hear in her podcast.

[Eric Cacciatore]

Looks like I'm going back to Las Vegas.

[Anna Goodkind]

You should go back to Las Vegas. She's amazing. Her husband's amazing. I know her husband, Michael. He's. He's fantastic, too. They run and operate restaurants in Las Vegas, and they're. They're wonderful.

[Eric Cacciatore]

I'd love to make that happen. And now it's where I say thank you so much for sharing your. Your knowledge, your perspective, your insights, all of it. There is no questioning Rashmi and Anna. You two are unstoppable.