58 Virtual Freedom and the International Outsourcing Rock Star, Chris Ducker

Chris Ducker is the go to guy for anyone seeking to grow their business with the power of outsourcing. In this episode of the School of Greatness podcast Chris and Lewis discuss the power of building a team and how it can allow you more freedom and abundance in your life. Get more from Lewis! Get my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy! Get The Greatness Mindset audiobook on SpotifyText Lewis AIYouTubeInstagramWebsiteTiktokFacebookX

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Lewis Howes?

  This is episode number 58 with Chris Ducker.

• 0:07Lewis Howes?

  Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week, we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin.

• 0:33Lewis Howes?

  What is upgrades? Thanks so much for tuning in today on the School of Greatness podcast. I'm super excited about this episode, as I am, I guess, every episode, because I wouldn't be breaking all these guests if I wasn't excited. But this one is with my good friend, Chris Ducker. And it's all about creating virtual freedom. And have you ever had, you know, a business that you've been trying to grow that seemed a little overwhelming at times? Because there's all these different tasks to do. You had the social media that you wanted to create and grow and build. You have content that you were creating, videos. You wanted to build a website. You wanted to do design. You had slideshow presentations.

• 1:15Lewis Howes?

  You were guest writing. You were doing interviews. You were doing all these different things. And you were building your business, generating sales, doing marketing, lots of different pieces to the puzzle. As entrepreneurs, there's lots of different pieces. And if we try to take it all on ourselves, if we try to do it all, we're going to be end up spending 10, 15, 20 hours a day working on all these tasks, as opposed to living the life of our dreams, and doing what we're actually great at. We all have talents. We all have gifts. And that's what we should be using each day and focusing on are those talents, not the things that are hard for us to do, or the things that take time and energy and are

• 1:59Lewis Howes?

  challenging. There's going to be things in our, in our business, in our lives, that will be challenging, even with our talents. So allow ourselves to focus on those things, and get the most out of our, our talents and our gifts, as opposed to working on the things that don't really serve us at all. So this interview is, is great, because I got to sit down with, I got to sit down virtually with Chris, because he's over in the Philippines, and I'm in Los Angeles. To talk about what it means to have virtual freedom and to have a business with assistance, virtual assistants and assistants and really how to manage it all without it managing you

• 2:41Lewis Howes?

  all this time and energy, but really navigating the entire process from hiring virtual assistants to giving them the right tasks, to learning how to train them without taking so much of your time with making sure you're getting the most out of your, your team and everything in between. So it's all about having that vision for that lifestyle that you want, those dreams you want to achieve, the, the relationships you want and having the time to fulfill that vision, the time to be around the people you care about the most, the people you love the most, the time to chase your dreams, to work out, to, to do what you want to do, to give back. And that's what this interview is all about. It's how to work with

• 3:26Lewis Howes?

  the virtual staff to buy more time, be productive and build your dream business. So without further ado, I want to introduce you guys to the one and only Chris Ducker on virtual freedom.

• 3:42Lewis Howes?

  And welcome back everyone to the School of Greatness podcast. I've got a good friend of mine on here today, all the way from the Philippines tuning in. His name is Mr. Chris Ducker. What is up, Chris? What is up, my man? How you doing? Doing great. And we're going to have the little British accent on the whole, whole episode because you're from- I'm gonna, I'm gonna screw it right up now, aren't I? You're, you're a Londoner originally, right? Or from England? I am. I was actually born about 10 minutes away from Centre Court in Wimbledon. So there you go. Okay, cool. Someone just posted a picture on Instagram of them watching this podcast at the Wimbledon, uh, train stop or tube stop. Nice. What a coincidence. There you go. Um, awesome, man. Well, we've been, uh, we've been friends

• 4:25Lewis Howes?

  for what about two, three years now, maybe even more. And luckily you've had the chance to connect in person a few times and you're just an amazing and incredible human being. And I appreciate you for that. So I'm excited to, to talk about your expertise, which is on virtual freedom. And that's actually the title of your new book, Virtual Freedom, which is how to work with virtual staff to buy more time, become more productive and build your dream business. Boom. I'm excited about this, man.

• 4:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, me too, brother. And you know, thanks for all the nice things you're... Yeah, I gotta, I gotta say, I know that you, you know, you have legion of fan here at the School of Greatness. And I know that your listeners just absolutely love you. But I, you know, as, as our friendship has unraveled over the last few years, I, I mean, it's hard not to fall more and more in love with you. It's hard, it's hard not to, man. You're doing great stuff. That's what it's all about.

• 5:25Lewis Howes?

  I appreciate it, man.

• 5:28Lewis Howes?

  This isn't about me, this is about you today. So let's, let's dive into some of this stuff. And you've been, you know, you've got an interesting background and experience. You actually used to be in a rock band, isn't that right?

• 5:39Speaker 01

  Well, it was a bit, you know, it sounds cooler when you say it was rock. We did play some rock music, but it was mostly soul, blues and funk. That was what we were mostly about, yeah.

• 5:48Lewis Howes?

  But you were like a rock star is what I would say then, because you were like the lead singer and...

• 5:52Speaker 01

  I was the lead singer.

• 5:54Lewis Howes?

  You used to have long hair and now you're bald, right?

• 5:57Speaker 01

  It was just a wig. It was just a wig. The whole, the whole, the whole time. Yeah, no, it was fun. You know, I, I always, I loved, I loved performing. And it was one of those things that, you know, regardless of what would happen during the week, you know, work wise or anything like that, that, you know, Friday night, Saturday night, we would be there, we'd be on stage. I'd play the hard rock in Manila a whole bunch of times and a few other really nice locations all around the Philippines. And for me, it, it, it was just like that release of stress and, and energy and all the rest of it at the end of the week. I, I loved performing, man. I still get up and jam every, every now and then. Still get up and jam.

• 6:37Lewis Howes?

  I like it. Do you play the harmonica as well?

• 6:40Speaker 01

  I do, poorly. I'm, I'm definitely a frustrated harp player. You know, give me, give me a little hoochie coochie, man, and I can, I can carry myself with something like that.

• 6:50Lewis Howes?

  I like it, man. That's awesome. Now, you started your virtual staff finding business years ago, right? In the Philippines?

• 7:00Speaker 01

  It was, it was middle of, where are we now? Middle of 2010.

• 7:04Lewis Howes?

  Okay, cool. And why did you start a, a virtual staff finding company?

• 7:10Speaker 01

  Well, actually...

• 7:13Speaker 01

  It came out of a blog comment and this is what I'm all about. And this is why I love your stuff so much is because you are the epitome of listening to your audience. You produce what you know your audience is going to want to devour. And that's exactly what I did with Virtual Starfinders. So I had throughout the course of 2010, I was blogging my way out of my business and I had set this goal in place that by the end of that year, I was going to be a full-time virtual CEO. I wasn't going to have to go to the office anymore. My 200 odd employees at that time were going to be managed by other people, so on and so on and so on.

• 7:53Speaker 01

  And in the middle of that year, I really started blogging heavily about virtual teams, VAs, working with outsourced staff, because I've been doing it for years and years and years, even before the four hour work week had come out, I was already working with VAs either on a project or a task basis at least.

• 8:11Lewis Howes?

  And what was that business that you were doing where you were doing this before?

• 8:15Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, I would utilize, what I'm saying is I was utilizing the VAs. So I was hiring them for different projects and tasks, everything from web design right the way through to, you know, data collation and all that sort of stuff.

• 8:27Lewis Howes?

  Was this for your company or a different company you were working for at the time?

• 8:30Speaker 01

  Combo, combo the two. So I used to do a lot of consulting work when I first came to the Philippines, but then 2006 is when I started the Lifted Cell Group, which is now the umbrella company for my three businesses. And so I used to utilize these VAs for everything from research right the way down to location scouting, being here in the Philippines, it was handy having them over here, obviously. And so, yeah, it was nothing new to me, but then I got this blog comment that said, you know, I read the four hour work week, it was an amazing read and I love what outsourcing can bring me, but I've had so many bad experiences with finding VAs. If only there was one spot, there was one source that I could go to that I trusted, I'd spend money on that.

• 9:14Speaker 01

  And it was like, you know, the entrepreneurial alarm bell started pinging in the background and four weeks later, I gave birth to the Virtual Starfinder and here we are now, you know, four years later and boom, boom, boom, it is what it is.

• 9:28Lewis Howes?

  This is the frustrating thing, you know. A lot of people probably who are listening to this episode or who have listened to the show are aware of the four hour work week and probably have read it. And maybe even a bunch of people have tested out trying to find a virtual assistant. I know I did when I first read the book back in, I think, two thousand eight or two thousand nine. And it was extremely frustrating, like you said, just like the communicating back and forth, not knowing what to look for, not knowing, you know, what to give someone to like, how to delegate specific things, how to like, keep your assistants, you know, occupied creating for you as opposed to just sitting idle and really how to like find a,

• 10:09Lewis Howes?

  you know, figure out the time gap, you know, if you're hiring someone in a different country who's, you know, ten hours behind you or ahead of you. How do you navigate that? How do you facilitate that communication, structure? And I found myself just getting frustrated and just kind of like giving up because I had no clue what I was doing. And so that's kind of what you talked about. It's why you created this because a lot of people are having these huge problems. And you decided to give them the solution with your staffing company. So you're in the Philippines. You actually moved there. Was it for work or is it because of you met a girl?

• 10:43Speaker 01

  No, it was, it was work. It was work.

• 10:46Lewis Howes?

  Then you met a girl.

• 10:47Speaker 01

  I met a few girls and then I, and then I met the girl that I settled down with. Yeah.

• 10:51Lewis Howes?

  Got you, got you.

• 10:52Speaker 01

  I mean, um, yeah, no, it was two thousand. It was originally for work and, um, you know, yeah, it just kind of, everything sort of just grew over the first four years or so of me being here. And then I started to do some very, very high level consulting work for some big, mostly US companies. And that was when I was setting up outsourced facilities over here. And that was when I, I really started to get, you know, head, head deep, you know, into the outsourcing world. I, I touched on it for a while, but really it was two thousand three, two thousand four, that was when I really started to, you know, make some serious money from a consulting perspective where I was helping other people set up outsourced facilities here, as small as fifty or sixty full-time employees,

• 11:37Speaker 01

  right the way up to, I think, the largest project I worked on was about three thousand.

• 11:41Lewis Howes?

  Gotcha. So here's some questions I have here about the book. And just about virtual assistants in general, is when, when does you know that you need a virtual assistant?

• 11:51Speaker 01

  It's a great question. And it's different for everybody, obviously, right? Because this whole entrepreneurial journey is a very different one for all of us. But ultimately, I believe that there will come a time in every entrepreneurial journey where you're going to hit a crossroads. And you will have to make a choice. And at that point, the choice will be either to continue being the solopreneur that you are, working the 14, 15 hour days, six days a week, maybe even seven days a week, and kind of burning the candle at both ends, and ultimately burning out and hitting a wall and being no good to anybody. Or the other option is to go in the other direction, and it's truly to start building a team.

• 12:34Speaker 01

  And that's, I think, you know, that's the easiest way to answer a question is when's the best time? You'll know. Overwhelm eventually will come to all of us. And it really comes down to whether you want to continue to handle it on your own or go find some help.

• 12:48Lewis Howes?

  I'll tell you why, man. It's interesting because when I was starting out, I did a lot of the work myself. And I was working, you know, whatever, 10, 15 hours a day, just like learning. Because I wanted to know what I was doing and really become a master at it. So for me, I enjoyed that first couple of years of doing it all myself and figuring it out. And then hiring out the things that I couldn't do, like design and the technical things online. But now it's so freeing when I want to create something and get something done. And I'm feeling like, gosh, am I going to do this myself? And, you know, get it done maybe a little faster and have it the way I want it to be done? Or am I going to find someone who can do this for me? And, you know, I just did this yesterday. I'm working on a new slideshow presentation for a webinar.

• 13:31Lewis Howes?

  And I was like, again, I could do this myself and it'll take me a couple of hours and it'll be good. But I just passed over step by step details of exactly what I wanted with some creative flexibility to someone and said, here you go. And they're running with it and it's going to be done today. And, you know, it's going to be amazing. Because it's just like this freeing feeling of letting go of control and allowing someone else to do the work for you. So you can create, or so that I can create, you know, the big picture thinking and strategy and the development of the business. And that's what I think is invaluable about having a virtual assistant.

• 14:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, you you hit the nail on the head with that term letting go. Because that's that's where everybody fails.

• 14:16Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 14:16Speaker 01

  In my in my book. You know, most entrepreneurs, they need to let go. I talk about in the book, I call it superhero syndrome. Where they believe that they could and should be handling everything themselves. The fact of the matter is, once you let go of that superhero syndrome. And you understand that there are tens of thousands of ridiculously talented people all around the world. That actually nine times out of ten can do this stuff better than you. The slide deck is a perfect example. You know, a logo designer, website layout, you know, whatever the case may be. We're all we can all hold our own with Photoshop. We can all hold our own, you know, with with

• 14:58Speaker 01

  installing a WordPress theme and playing around with some plugins. We can all do this stuff, right? But it's not what we should be doing as the business, as as as the head honchos in in our lives. It's not what we should be doing. And the moment entrepreneurs start letting go, that's when the when the real greatness is unleashed. You know what I mean?

• 15:18Lewis Howes?

  I feel you, man. I like that. And it's true. I mean, you know, if I'm, you know, I'm charging $3,000 an hour for just consulting on online marketing and webinars and business stuff. So it's like if I'm gonna spend an hour of my time creating a slideshow or a logo, you know, I can't even I can't even do Photoshop. So for me, it's more of like pick monkey. Or like, or something like that, you know, something simpler. Because I'm just not that creative on the design side of things. But if I want to spend an hour of my time doing anything, that's $3,000 lost. Or potentially leveraging that to even, you know, $20,000. An hour if I'm if I'm being honest with myself with what I'm able to create with that time. So

• 16:01Lewis Howes?

  it's it's just not worth it. And it just holds you back from not creating wealth. But trading your time for dollars if you're just doing all the work yourself. So I like that answer, man. But what do you tell someone who's like, you know what? I've tried virtual assistants. I've hired them and it became more work for me than it was a relief. And it stressed me out. It actually wasted months of my time. Because we couldn't communicate, they weren't getting it. And I just ended up getting frustrated and saying, you know what? This is not for me and I'm never doing it again. What do you say to someone like that?

• 16:36Speaker 01

  You know, there are going to be those people out there. I've come across a lot of them. And, you know, one of the biggest things that I hear from people when they first get going with outsourcing is, "Why should I bother outsourcing this task, whatever the task may be, to someone else when I can do it just as quickly myself?" Right? I hear that all the time. And let's take an example of, say, laying out a blog post. Now, this is after you've written the content, okay? Because there are certain things that you shouldn't be outsourcing. The creation of your original content is one of them, for sure. But everything else, I feel, can be outsourced. Okay, for want of a better term, can be outsourced. But let's look at that.

• 17:20Speaker 01

  Let's say you, let's say you put together the blog content itself. Now you've got to lay it out on the page and make it look pretty or whatever. On average, I time myself five times doing this on five different blog posts, various lengths, embedding videos and podcasts and infographics and all the rest of it. On average, it was 45 minutes at a time. I asked three or four other people to do the same thing, and they all came in at around 45 minutes to an hour as well. So this is my, this is my reaction to this. Well, the next time you do that task that no one else can do better than you, in your mindset anyway,

• 17:58Speaker 01

  the next time you do that, hit record on ScreenFlow or Camtasia or some other type of screen recording software, and talk yourself through why you're putting that picture there, why you're using bold italics as the CTA, as a call to action in your last sentence, why you're including links to these particular blog posts on these particular, you know, anchor text, or whatever the case may be. Talk it through. Spend 45 minutes creating that training video. Then dump it in the Dropbox, give it to one of your VAs, have them watch it a few times, and never do that task again. I like that.

• 18:37Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, and you can also use.

• 18:38Speaker 01

  These. Go on, go ahead.

• 18:40Lewis Howes?

  I was gonna say, you know, if you don't, if you don't know what ScreenFlow is, there's a free tool called Jing. That you could use as well, this little, and I actually like that because it's only five minutes long, right? So you have to be like, be concise with.

• 18:51Speaker 01

  Right, I mean, yeah, Jing is great. I've used Jing a whole bunch of times, but sometimes you do need more than five minutes to train somebody properly in a task. And therefore you can't really use it, but Jing is great. I mean, there's a whole lot of other, I think there's another one, Screencast-O-Matic or something like that as well. There's a lot of different stuff out there, but that's just one example right there. Um, and you know, nine times out of 10, nine times out of 10, when this whole outsourcing thing doesn't work out. It's usually the fault of the entrepreneur or the virtual boss rather than the VA. Because this is, this is one of the biggest misconceptions a lot of people have when they get going with outsourcing. Is that one person can do everything for them.

• 19:33Speaker 01

  And it doesn't work like that. Outsourcing is not a magic pill, right?

• 19:37Lewis Howes?

  You want it to be like that.

• 19:38Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. I mean, we all want it to be like that. I mean, you know, but ultimately it's not like that. I mean, you look at it in the concept of building a house. You work with an architect to design it, then you get a head contractor. That head contractor. Will make sure that that house is built as it's been designed by your architect, but they're not going to do the plumbing, the electrical. The roofing, the brick, I mean, they're gonna, they're gonna subcontract that work to people that do just that particular role on a day-to-day basis. Because they want it done properly. And outsourcing should be the same way.

• 20:11Lewis Howes?

  And here's the thing, that general contractor could probably, is probably knows how to do it all, like decently, but it's.

• 20:17Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 20:18Lewis Howes?

  If he did it all, he could do it all, but it would take him longer. It wouldn't be an excellence. And, uh, you know, it just wouldn't be done as efficiently. So that's, that's, I think, the struggle. You know, I've done this in the past where I'm like, oh, this guy can, uh, can be, can design. I wonder if he can code it up too for my website. And I try to like have him do everything and it's just like there's bugs and, you know, you just can't do it.

• 20:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, exactly.

• 20:42Lewis Howes?

  Nice, man. Well, you talk about, uh, you talk about creating your three lists of freedom. Now, what are these three lists and why are they so important?

• 20:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, this is something that I did myself. So late 2009, I hit burnout. And I had been working those fifteen, sixteen hour days for a few years, building my company. We were actually doing really, really well business-wise. We were very profitable financially. We were very, very comfortable. About a hundred and thirty odd employees, but I did, I hit a brick wall. And between Christmas and New Year, myself and my wife went away for a few days. We had a little staycation here in Cebu. We went down to one of the islands and we talked about the situation we were in and how to get out of it. And we, you know, we came to the very, very clear conclusion that I was no longer running the business. The business was running me.

• 21:35Speaker 01

  And I couldn't have that anymore because I knew I wasn't going to survive for much longer with it. Uh, you know, something was going to give and my health was already starting to give. And so what I did is I, I, I literally, I remember like it was yesterday, man. It was over breakfast. I grabbed one of the paper napkins and a pen. And I just drew two lines down on this thing. And I said, right, I'm going to write three lists out here. And I remember my wife saying, well, what do you, what list? What are you talking about? So I'm going to write it down a list of all the things I don't like doing every day. All the things I'm struggling doing, or maybe I can't do, and then a list of all the things that I feel I shouldn't be doing.

• 22:14Speaker 01

  And I sat and I started up over breakfast and five hours later, I had put it out into a huge brain dump of tasks. Over about four or five different pages. You know, you get the free hotel paper if you want to make notes and things like that. You know, and so, uh, I, I, I, I put it all out there and there it was. So the first list was a list of all the things, all the tasks I hated doing day to day. And I would procrastinate all day long and then rush doing these tasks. So hated them so much. But I knew my business demanded them of me.

• 22:51Speaker 01

  So that was the first list. The second list was a list of all the things that I couldn't do, but I was trying to do because of my own superhero syndrome, right? So things like designing websites, designing logos, doing, you know, everything from, you know, decent competitive analysis, believe it or not, you know, I'm a great entrepreneur, but I suck at certain things like, you know, you know, looking through my, my competitors' websites and coming up with what, what's working for them and what's not. That's not what I'm about. I'm, I'm a starter. I start things and build things. That's what I do. And so that was my second list, the list of all the things I felt I couldn't do, I was struggling to do. And then the third list was by far the most important thing. The

• 23:34Speaker 01

  whole afternoon was spent on this last list. And what I did is I wrote down a list of all the things that I felt I shouldn't be doing on a day-to-day basis. And the reason why this was so powerful was because number one, some of these tasks I liked doing, like training my staff, right? Number two, some of them I was really, really good at doing, like business development. But as the business owner, should I be doing those things? Or should I be spending more time on, you know, hanging out with my top 20% clientele, or coming up with new products or services, or going to networking events and, you know, that sort of type of thing? So those developed into those three lists of freedom. I didn't

• 24:19Speaker 01

  realize it at the time when I started at breakfast, putting those together, but that, that exercise has now helped hundreds of, I mean, probably well over hundreds of thousands of entrepreneurs around the world, because I've done them on a whole bunch of podcasts and even live on stage at conferences and things like that as well. It's a game changer.

• 24:37Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 24:38Speaker 01

  It's a game changer. And, and I consistently bring it up throughout the course of the book as well, because it all kind of starts with that one initial brain dump.

• 24:48Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, I think it's really getting clear on what you want and what you don't want. And The tasks you don't want to do are extremely valuable because if you can free up all those things that you don't want to do, if you free that up, you're just creating this amazing energy and life for yourself that's allowing you to start doing what you do love. And that's what it's all about when you create a virtual business and you have assistants. It's freeing up the things that you aren't great at so that you can do the things you love to do.

• 25:18Speaker 01

  That's it.

• 25:18Lewis Howes?

  That's the way I look at it.

• 25:19Speaker 01

  And the things you should be doing, you know what I mean? That's the thing, the things you should be doing, the things only you can do in your business.

• 25:27Lewis Howes?

  Exactly, your talents, yeah. It's interesting, you know, I get a few books a week that are sent to me for people that want to be on the show. And I can't read them three books a week. It's like, it's too much. So what I end up doing is I'll skim them and I'll kind of like go through the the main points and just see what's bolding in the chapters and kind of what stands out and see if I, you know, what I can learn. And then what I do is I give it to my assistant. And it's interesting because she, she created a list of questions to ask. You know, and I already had a bunch of questions, but she just made it really nice for me and she found other things that I probably wouldn't have found with just skimming. So she has a list of questions that she put in the book.

• 26:08Lewis Howes?

  It's on my desk, ready to go when my, for the time of our interview. I look at it, you know, 10 minutes before, I see all the questions, I kind of skim through the book again. And she tells me like, when do you know you need a virtual assistant? And then she'll say, how important is creating the three list of freedom, page 20? So I go to page 20 and I'm like, okay. I'm like, all right, here's the three list of freedom. I'm like skimming it, I'm like, okay, this is the most important things I need to know. And there's all these other notes here that I'm going over, you know? And then she gives a little sticky note in the book that says must read. And I opened to that page and it's a page that I didn't even know you did this, but it talks about me and her. It says, you know, you talked about how.

• 26:51Speaker 01

  Have you got the book in front of you? Read it out.

• 26:52Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah, it's a. This is an advanced review copy, so I don't know if it's the same page, but it's page 177 in this copy. And it says, it says, lifestyle entrepreneur Lewis Howes is an ex pro athlete turned podcaster, speaker, business coach, and content creator. He plays the delegation game perfectly, except. For his personal assistant who works physically with him, he only hires on a project basis. But it's using the right people for the right jobs that make what he does so effective. Uh, so that part where it says his personal assistant and works physically for him, uh, with him. She like put must read with exclamation point. I thought that was kind of funny.

• 27:29Speaker 01

  Love it. I mean, so she genuinely sat and read this book for you.

• 27:32Lewis Howes?

  She read the whole thing. She read the whole thing. Otherwise, how would she have seen this little sentence?

• 27:36Speaker 01

  And she's, and she's now, she's not concerned about losing her job.

• 27:40Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

• 27:41Speaker 01

  Right, right? Because she knows that that's what's different about you. And I mean, you know, that that is a very clear task right there. As someone who, you know, who talks to people on a regular basis for his quote unquote job, right? That's one of your jobs is to interview people that are interesting. And when you do get these books that are sent to you and you know that you're going to have to interview these authors or whatever the case may be, it takes hours and hours and hours of prep work for one of these interviews. I know I'm a podcaster myself. Um, and you know, my show is very, very conversational, but I still prep for each show in some way, shape or form. Um, and a lot of the time I will also pass that

• 28:26Speaker 01

  to one of my VAs as well, because I personally don't have the time to do it. So I'm, I'm excited to hear that you delegated the prep work for this conversation. It's good. Not that you really need, because we know each other pretty good anyway.

• 28:38Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, exactly. And she actually put, I'm looking at the back page of these notes now. She said, I didn't even see this until just now, but she said, see page 177, highlighted smiley face, best part. So interesting. So what, uh, here, I've got a bunch of questions that she's written down for me. So let me get through some of these. What are some tips for balancing being a virtual micromanager and, and being completely hands off?

• 29:07Speaker 01

  That's a, that's a good question.

• 29:09Lewis Howes?

  Because, because you know, you, you know, as a, as a controlling individual, I wanna have things look the right way. And I want them to be my way, or it's the highway type of deal, you know? So it's like, how does someone manage, who is maybe controlling like that? How does someone manage that without being like, on top of them constantly, but giving them, being completely hands off, so you know the job's gonna be done well?

• 29:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I, I always find that funny where people hire outsourced staff, and then they kind of sit in front of their screens, micromanaging like a virtual vulture.

• 29:40Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 29:41Speaker 01

  And it just, it, it totally defeats the object of the entire game. So I, I, I don't get it myself, but I know that it happens. Um, and I mean, really, it comes down to, one of the big misconceptions that people have is that they believe that their VAs are gonna work perfectly right out of the box. That they're, they've got the skillset, they've got the experience, therefore they should know exactly how you want things done. And this is where the importance of training, your VA comes in the play. I mean, when your PA started with you, you have to tell her how you like things done.

• 30:18Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, it's definitely a process.

• 30:20Speaker 01

  Right, and it's exactly the same with a virtual assistant. You've gotta spend some time, you've gotta put these little Jing videos together and write some bullet point training and delegation task lists and things like that. You can, just because, just because your VA has got the skillsets needed, and has the relevant experience that you're required for that role to be hired for, that doesn't mean that they know exactly how you like things done. Uh, and it's very important to understand, I remember a story, I had a client a few years ago that, uh, called me up one day and he was freaking out, saying that his VA had let him down, that, but all this sort of stuff. And the task was basically to put together a list of Hannah Montana products for his

• 31:05Speaker 01

  daughter, for a Christmas gift. And she had put this list together of these, these toys or whatever dolls, you know, magazines, whatever it was, um, along with the price and she had made it, you know, kind of put, you know, it was XL, it was some purples and pinks and. It was Hannah Montana, you know what I mean? Right. So she sends it all through to the guy and he's totally freaking out saying, why is she use purple and pink? Um, my corporate colors are blue and green. Why is she not included a link to, you know, Amazon so I can purchase these things directly? Uh, why is she used Ariel 10? I'm a, I'm a times 12 guy and all this. And I said, well, you know, did you tell your VA all of this? This is how you want these things done. And he said, no, I just assumed, assumed

• 31:49Speaker 01

  that she would know. Says, ah, there you go. So, you know, the lesson there is to not assume and not to believe that your VA is going to work perfectly out of the box. The importance of training is very, very, very, very paramount in the success of any outsourced program. Um, obviously some VAs are going to need more training than others, but ultimately you do have to spend some time training a new hires.

• 32:13Lewis Howes?

  This is where I got caught up at the beginning when I first started this because I just assumed that they would just read my mind, kind of like a girlfriend, you know, like a girlfriend, which is the man would read, uh, her mind, just know what to say and know what to do and know what she wants at all times. Um, so, and that's why it was frustrating for me early on. It was just like, oh, why aren't they getting this? They should just know what I want by looking at my website and just understanding me, right? But that's not the case. And I think, uh, to get, to make anything easy for yourself and efficient and smooth, you're going to have to put in some hard work or just some time and energy in the, in the beginning process to then ensure that it'll be smooth for a long time coming. And

• 32:57Lewis Howes?

  like you said, my, my assistant, my physical assistant, uh, you know, it was a, probably a month of her understanding my patterns, what I liked, what I didn't like, what I needed, what she, you know, what she felt comfortable with, what I felt comfortable with. And, uh, it's just a process. So as long as you're willing to go through the process and, you know, get a little dirty here and there, then, uh, the goal is it'll be smooth for a long time coming, right?

• 33:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, you're gonna get a little dirty. Just expect it. It's gonna happen. It's a new process. Um, and you know, I always say that Rome wasn't built in a day.

• 33:31Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 33:32Speaker 01

  But it also took a lot more than just one person to build it.

• 33:35Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, interesting. That's true. So some tips, just to clarify, there are some tips for for training a VA is really create these documents and these video kind of like modules showing step by step of what you want, how you want it, and being very clear. And then just giving them access and saying, hey, watch these videos. So there'd be a training process, but that's are there any other parts when you're when you hire, when you're training a VA that we can uh that we should focus on besides, you know, making sure.

• 34:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, you gotta, you you gotta be very clear in regards to your expectations on delivery as well. So, you know, if if you want a task done by two P M. On Tuesday, say two P M. On Tuesday, don't say Tuesday. You know what I mean? Because it might come in at six P M. On Tuesday.

• 34:22Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 34:23Speaker 01

  Um, you know, I I have found over the course of the years that I've been working with not just physical staff or people within my facility, but also virtual as well, that the more direct that I get, not only in my training, but also just within my day to day management and the expectation that I have of my staff, the more direct, the more blatant, the more brash, the more upfront that I am, the better the results.

• 34:52Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 34:53Speaker 01

  And I mean, I I truly mean that. And people, people know now that when they have a meeting with me, or if they want to knock on my door and come into my office, if I'm in the facility and talk to me and and share a problem with me, they now know that they cannot walk into that office of mine with just the problem. They've got to have at least one idea for the solution. It doesn't need to be the right idea, but just give me something, you know what I mean? Don't just, don't just walk through the door and say, I've got a problem, help me. That's not what I'm paying you to do. I'm, I'm paying you to help me solve those problems, not the other crap.

• 35:31Lewis Howes?

  Do the research yourself, yeah.

• 35:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. And, you know, it, it was a long time coming to get all these processes in place. Another thing that I do, um, and this is also a little tip in regards to day-to-day management of your VAs. Get a daily report put together. I don't care if they've been working with you for one week or one year. Always ask them to send you at least, and what I do is just a, a simple bullet pointed email that comes through to me at the end of every day that I can read at my leisure at some point in the evening, because I work kind of kooky hours with all my clients being all around the world. And usually in the evening, I'll, I'll log on and I'll, I'll, I'll, I have two full-time GVAs.

• 36:12Speaker 01

  The rest of my staff are either part-time or, uh, uh, you know, on a project basis or task basis. When it comes to my virtual staff, that is, um, and I'll get these two, uh, emails from both Marie and Michelle every single day, and there'll usually be a handful of the points of what they covered that day. Plus, every single time they send me an email, they gotta give me one suggestion. A suggestion on overcoming a problem they had that day. Or a suggestion for a new business model, or a new product, or a new FAQ that we can put on the website, or something. Now, a lot of the time, a lot of the time, those suggestions will be worthless.

• 36:53Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 36:54Speaker 01

  Okay, but every now and then, they will be golden. And they will make you hundreds of thousands of dollars. And that has happened to me on several occasions in the last four or five years of working with these two particular ladies. And now, because they've been on board with me so long, they kind of, they understand what's going to be weak and what's going to be strong. So it is, it's a process, man. You gotta build it up over a period of time, just like you do with any member of staff.

• 37:20Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, it's interesting. I had a, you know, not to go into too much detail, but I, I had a, an employee that... Was working, lived in LA but was working uh here, then decided to work from home. I said, cool. Here's what I need. I need to have an update at noon, you know, just kind of the same thing. Bullet points of what you've created by noon and then what you've created by by five. Just so I can know that what, you know, I was I was paying a lot more than a virtual assistant. Uh, payment. I was paying basically a full-time employee who was local in Los Angeles. So I was paying a lot, his position. And um, you know, I was like, I need an update to know that the money, the hundreds of dollars I'm spending every day is going towards making money and not just sitting idle or losing money.

• 38:05Lewis Howes?

  And uh, it was like a challenge for him to to update me. He was like, well, I'm not getting in the flow. When I do this, I have to stop. And I'm like, dude, it takes three minutes. And if it takes, if it takes you a total of 10 minutes total, that's what I need to to know that what you're doing is creating. You know, building my business as opposed to just sitting idle, because if you're not around, how do I know you're creating something? So uh, I think that's extremely valuable and important to have that update, whether it's twice a day or at the end of the day, you know, just some update every day of what your money is going towards for your peace of mind. Because.

• 38:39Speaker 01

  Well, it's, I mean, it's, it's not just for the peace of mind. And it is absolutely so, but it's also to empower your staff. It's to empower your people to say, I am getting paid to do something, to either run, support, or grow this business. And today I'm gonna show boss what I did. And I love that. I eat that stuff up. I really do. I I'm all about empowering and I know you are as well.

• 39:07Lewis Howes?

  Of course, of course, yeah. Giving people an opportunity to see what they can create and and and step up. That's what it's all about. Nice, man. Well, what, you know, in the book, you have. Lists and lists of tasks that people can do. Uh, cause some people are like, well, what if I don't have the money? Or enough work to hire a part-time or full-time virtual assistant? And you've got, I mean, we can't even go over all this, but it's like tons of stuff. That you have written down here of what people can do. And it's again, it's, it's hiring based on need and based on specific. Things, not just like one person for everything. So you've got someone who can do all. Social media management. You've got someone who can do all content creation and writing.

• 39:50Lewis Howes?

  And you've got a video editing and you have all the tasks written out for each one of these positions. And you talk about all that stuff. So what if, you know, what if someone's like, well, I don't have enough work for someone? And, uh, you know, what do you tell them?

• 40:05Speaker 01

  Well, then you just hire for the tasks that you have. It's as simple as that. See, generally there's two different types of outsourcing. There's either task or project-based outsourcing, and then there's team-related outsourcing. I'm, I'm a massive advocate of building the team, right? But that doesn't mean. That if I don't have a need to somebody full-time, that I'm not going to go looking for someone to handle. Either that task or to manage your work on that project for me. Now with a task-based outsourcing. It's just that, it's the task. Let's say an example is, a perfect example would be a logo design. You'd either go to odesk or elance or 99designs or a website of that nature. You'd post your job, you'd tell them what you, you know, what you want your logo to look like.

• 40:50Speaker 01

  You maybe show them some examples of stuff that you like, that you found elsewhere online. And then people would pitch you for the job, you hire them, they do the work. You tweak it, you get the final specs, everything's happy, you pay them, boom. You go your separate ways. That's task-based outsourcing right there. And that's the exact way that everybody can dip their toe in the outsourcing river. See what the water's like and give it a go. And once they do that a whole bunch of times and they start sitting down and making those three lists of freedom. For themselves, they'll understand that this is not necessarily a task-based situation anymore. Maybe I can do a project, maybe I. Got a a new e-commerce website that I'm going to be launching. Well, this is more than just one person. I need a project manager.

• 41:35Speaker 01

  I need a web designer. I need a developer. Maybe someone that's good with, you know, backend databases or whatever the case may be. Then I gotta, you know, work on the on the the promotion, the marketing this. I need a slide deck done for a webinar. All this and the other. Before you know what's happening, now you've got four or five people that's required. Well. You go out and you hire one person to be your project manager who's done something similar in the past. And you let them handle the rest of it for you.

• 42:02Lewis Howes?

  It's kind of like your, it's kind of like a general contractor building a house.

• 42:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly.

• 42:07Lewis Howes?

  And you call this your general VA, right?

• 42:09Speaker 01

  The general VA is the perfect role for every. You know, modern day entrepreneur. I believe that every modern day entrepreneur. Doing business today should have a GVA on board.

• 42:21Lewis Howes?

  It's great. Yeah. And you talk about, you've got a whole, you know. Graphic here on page one sixty one that. Shows the virtual team interaction with the general VA. You've got someone doing SEO and web marketing. You've got another person doing content writing. You've got another person doing, you know, mobile app creation or developer. Audio, video editors, graphic designers, web developers. Anyone else, they're all going underneath basically or. In and around the general VA and they're managing the team as opposed to you trying to manage six or seven people or one or two people even.

• 42:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:55Lewis Howes?

  Uh, it's just, it's a lot of energy trying to manage that. So.

• 42:58Speaker 01

  Well, what will happen is you'll you'll start off with that GVA. And you'll have all the energy and everything you need to call. Then you might hire, excuse me, that web developer or that SEO guy. But once you get to four or five people, now you're not running your business anymore. Now you're just managing people.

• 43:14Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm.

• 43:15Speaker 01

  And at that point, that's a great time to look at your GVA as a potential promotional. Situation and turn them into the project manager that you need. And then you can get back to running your business again and have them run the team.

• 43:28Lewis Howes?

  Right. No, I like it. And um, and you also have, you know, in the book, you've got a lot of different processes for like, okay, what do you do when you have? A an assignment. And you talk to them, you have a step by step process of like, you know, uploading it to the Google Drive and then. Here's what's next and here's what's next. So I think that's amazing. And it's a great reason why people should should read this. Uh, and there's a lot of stuff that.

• 43:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, you're talking about the last section of the book. I think, well, the second to last section of the book is where I'm talking about content and repurposing a lot of content and getting your team to do it. And here's a little caveat there for you. That section of the book was the last section I wrote, and it's not because it's at the back of the book. It wasn't even in the book to begin with. And I had so, you know, I started asking people on my Facebook page, on my Google Plus, Twitter blog, you name it, you know, what do you want to see in the book? You know, I'm kind of, I'm in the middle of it right now. What do you want to see? And they all started coming back to me, actual process flows. Show me how to create a new blog post. Show me how to

• 44:34Speaker 01

  conduct research properly. Show me how to create and upload a video, create an ebook, put a product together, you know, a Kindle book, or, you know, put a promotional plan in place, all these different little flow charts, so to speak, that people can physically follow. And I've even had people send me emails recently where they've taken photos of the book, and they've copied me in to the emails that they're sending their VA saying, literally, do this. And I love that. I mean, that's a massive compliment, you know?

• 45:07Lewis Howes?

  That's awesome. And I'm sure you get questions all the time about hiring locally and hiring overseas. So what, what do you recommend? Is it better to hire a virtual assistant, you know, in your country or in a different country?

• 45:23Speaker 01

  I think that, you know, and this is, you know, it's a debate that could go on for hours. And I talk about it, obviously, in the book, and I've discussed it on many, many occasions. But ultimately, it's not down the geographic location. It's really not. It really comes down to hiring the right person or the right people for that role, for those jobs. If that person happens to be in your backyard, and you can afford them, great. If they happen to be on the other side of the world, and maybe you're bootstrapping a little, and you need a little financial, you know, flexibility, then that's going to be a great model for you. But ultimately, it all comes down to hiring the right people for the right jobs. And if you keep that at the forefront of

• 46:05Speaker 01

  your mind when you are building a team, I believe you can't go wrong. Because we all need good people. We all need good people. It just so happens that there are some unbelievably good people spread out around the entire globe now. And I think it's just an advantageous thing for for business owners nowadays to not have to keep looking in their backyard, to have that that open mindedness to think to themselves, you know what, maybe there's a really good developer in Switzerland, which is where one of my developers is based, by the way, or maybe there's a really good transcriptionist in L A, which is again where where my transcriptionist

• 46:46Speaker 01

  lives. So I'm here in the Philippines, but I'm outsourcing out of the Philippines to people because they're the right people for those jobs.

• 46:56Lewis Howes?

  Right, right. Gotcha. Nice. And um.

• 47:02Lewis Howes?

  How much should we be paying for a virtual assistant?

• 47:06Speaker 01

  Well, that's depend on where they are.

• 47:07Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 47:08Speaker 01

  I mean, you know, if you're in the U S or the U K, Australia, Western type world, you're going to be paying more. I mean, that's a given. But I mean, you know, to give you a rough idea, a G V A with two to three years experience here in the Philippines, working full time for you forty hours a week, you're looking at a starting salary of anything between five to eight hundred dollars a month, U S, depending on their experience level. That might sound really low to a lot of people. And I get it. It is over in the United States. But here, an eight hundred dollar a month salary, I mean, there are, you know, there are doctors that are not making that much money.

• 47:48Lewis Howes?

  Right, exactly.

• 47:49Speaker 01

  So, you know, it just goes to show you, these V A's are skilled workers. They know they're skilled workers as well. Four, five years ago, six years ago, when Tim's book came out for our work week at first, these guys were making, you know, the starting salary for somebody within this realm would have been two fifty, three hundred bucks.

• 48:07Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 48:08Speaker 01

  But it's doubled and then some because now they know that they're in demand. They know that they're skilled workers. They know that people need their talent and their experience on their team. And therefore, they've jacked up the prices. But it's still ridiculously cheaper than working with somebody local.

• 48:26Lewis Howes?

  Right, right. Yeah, that's interesting. What is the biggest gift virtual freedom has given you?

• 48:34Speaker 01

  Being there. That's it, being there. You know, I go back to 2009, I was working those ridiculously long hours. My son, my youngest son, turned one. And I realized that by the end of 2009, when he turned one, I hadn't spent a whole lot of time with him. And that made me very, very, very sad. And I'm honestly speaking, I'm choking up a little bit right now just talking about it because I lost an entire year. Okay, fine, he wasn't running around and playing with Lego and shooting hoops with me like he is today. But it was still an entire year.

• 49:15Speaker 01

  And it was an entire year also that, you know, and some, that I wasn't spending time with my wife as much as I wanted to as well. So for me, virtual freedom has given me the opportunity to just be there more. And a couple of years ago, I had back surgery, as you know. And one of the beautiful things about all the pain and the anguish and the recovery and everything that I went through with that back surgery was that I started practicing yoga. And my wife started practicing with me. She fell head over heels in love with yoga. She's now a yoga instructor, actually. She's done all her courses and all the rest of it. But you know what the really good thing about that was?

• 50:01Speaker 01

  We got to spend, because I was doing one hour a day, we got to spend an additional five hours a week together. And I wouldn't have been able to do all these different things if I'd have been shackled to my desk the way that I was before I discovered that virtual freedom for myself. And that is the exact reason why I wrote the book, man. It was about telling people it doesn't need to be this way. Society has engulfed us with an incredible amount of BS when it comes to what success actually means. And success is not working. Fifteen hours a day, six days a week, having our smartphones, you know, glued to our

• 50:41Speaker 01

  hands all the time. That is not success. You know what I mean? It might be, it might be deemed success by a lot of people within society, but that is not, that, that is just being more stressed, having less time with your family. And, you know, what are you going to do with your money if you're working fifteen hours a day anyway? You're not going to spend it anywhere. You're too busy making more. So it, it really made me take stock and boy, oh, boy, I, I just, I love being in the situation where I am today. And that's, that's honestly the reason why I wrote the book is to try and educate people. It doesn't need to be that way. There is another way to be able to do it.

• 51:18Lewis Howes?

  I love it, man. Well, I think everyone should definitely go check this book out. Virtual Freedom: How to Work with Virtual Staff to Buy More Time, Become More Productive, and Build Your Dream Business. I'm excited that you wrote this, man. I appreciate you for all the work that you've done over the years in developing this information so that the rest of the world can really utilize having virtual freedom for themselves. And I know, uh, you've supported me in finding virtual assistants through your company and through your staffing company. And you've got great content, a great podcast, and it's all over at chrisducker.com. Isn't that right?

• 51:56Speaker 01

  That is correct. That is right.

• 51:58Lewis Howes?

  Awesome, man. And, uh, final question of the interview. It's what is your definition of greatness?

• 52:06Speaker 01

  My definition of greatness is answering questions and providing solutions to problems. That's what I do day to day. That's what my role is as an entrepreneur is to do those two things is to provide answers to people's questions and to create solutions to their problems.

• 52:28Lewis Howes?

  Chris Ducker, the virtual freedom rock star. Thanks so much, my man, for coming on.

• 52:33Speaker 01

  Thank you, brother. I appreciate you, man.

• 52:44Lewis Howes?

  There you have it, greats. I hope you enjoyed this episode on the School of Greatness podcast. And make sure to check out also another link, virtualfreedombook.com. Got some cool stuff there, some prizes if you want to get the book. He's got some gifts he's giving away over there as well for people who get the book over at virtualfreedombook.com. We'll have all of this on the show notes, of course. Back at the hub, lewishouse.com, or you can check out schoolofgreatness.com as well. But there's going to be lots of show notes there, resources on finding virtual assistants, information about his book, and Chris as well. You can connect with him and ask him questions over on Twitter or Facebook or anywhere else.

• 53:29Lewis Howes?

  But I hope you guys enjoyed this episode. I know I enjoyed learning about how to maximize my time and my energy so that I can continue to live the life of my dreams. There's definitely some ups and downs here and there in the hiring process and the management process of having a team, but it's worth it in the end if you know how to navigate it the right way. So pick up a copy of this book. Again, check out the show notes at lewishouse.com. Please share it with your friends over on Twitter and Facebook. And wherever you are in the world, I love getting pictures on Instagram of where you guys are listening to these shows, these episodes. So if you are listening to it somewhere right now, just go ahead and take a little selfie

• 54:10Lewis Howes?

  or anything of where you're at in the world and go ahead and tag me on Instagram, @lewishouse. Would love to connect with you guys there and see what you guys are creating when you're listening to the podcast. With that, guys, you know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great.