I’m literally excited over failure…I’ve never had a failure or a problem where it didn’t [eventually] turn into something better.”
JR Fisher will never forget the day that he opened his Ebay Seller Account to find that every last one of his listings (estimated around 300) had disappeared.
Poof. Hundreds of product listings that represented hours of work — gone. Hundreds of product listings that should’ve secured his income as a full-time, single dad — gone. All of his hard work had been erased. And to top things off, $20,000 had been withdrawn from his seller account without his notice or consent.
JR thought he had created a dream job – selling survival food and gear online from the comfort of his home. Just weeks before, JR had quit his day job in the automotive industry and rented a warehouse in anticipation of continued growth.Up to that point, business had been skyrocketing.
But — JR’s survival food supplier was struggling to keep up with his success. Their shipments fell further and further behind. And at some point, they stopped shipping products to JR’s clients all together.
That’s when his personal Ebay apocolypse hit.
But for JR, failure does not equal defeat. Instead of crawling into a corner and giving up, he diligently worked to create his own line of survival food, so he’d never have to deal with supply chain deficiencies again. And then he turned it into a thriving business: SurvivalCaveFood.com.
“My whole business was created from a bunch of mistakes” JR says with a smile during our interview. “Problems are awesome. Anytime there’s a problem, somewhere in there, there’s an opportunity.”
That’s the constructive philosophy that continues to drive JR and fuel his multiple ecommerce coaching websites, where he teaches thousands of aspiring entrepreneurs to learn from their own mistakes (and his). They include JRFisher.com, Digital Cash Academy, Facebook Ads University, Webcash Academy, eComroad, and Email Earning Systems. He also maintains a personal coaching program and regularly contributes quality content to his Youtube channel, JR Fisher Training.
So how does JR Fisher manage to run it all? You guessed it. He outsources.
“If you’re an entrepreneur, you should be creating!” JR is a major advocate of hiring help so that entrepreneurs can focus on the most important aspects of their business – creation and growth.
“If you just go out and hire people who are good at what they do and they free you up to actually run your business, it’s the best move in the world.” People will say about a certain task, “I can do it, [so] why would I outsource it?” But doesn’t it make sense to do it yourself when you can pay someone less than your hourly value (as long as you’re actually working during that time).
What does JR outsource?
Everything from social media management to video editing, content writing and technical things like creating websites and managing wordpress.
Where does he find his Filipino teammates?
“I’ve used OnlineJobs.ph for several years and I couldn’t have grown my business without it.”
JR’s tips for Hiring and Managing Filipino Team Members:
“You can’t manage what you don’t know.” Become familiar with the processes you’re outsourcing. You can’t create and communicate expectations for your workers and their performance if you’re not familiar with what you’re asking them to do.
Hiring:
- Make sure your job post is full of specifics so candidates know what’s expected of them
- Many workers don’t need a high level of English proficiency – so long as they can communicate clearly with you. Keep that in mind as you’re hiring.
- Have an in-depth interview when you’ve narrowed the field down to your favorite candidates.
- During the recruiting process, give them a small, fifteen minute task or ask them if they can provide examples of their work. Don’t ask them to do a big “test” task for you without paying them for it – they are wary of scammers and you may lose valuable candidates. Pay them if they do the work!
Managing:
- Create an atmosphere of equality in your business and treat your VAs like family. “I call them team members because we all work together – I don’t call them the employee and me the boss.”
- Let them work during the hours they choose – what’s most important is that the work gets done. Often they’ll do better work if they’re working during their day and sleeping during their night.
- For onscreen work like entering orders – make a video of the exact process to share with them; then they know exactly what to do. And if you do the process and record it yourself first, you’ll also have a good sense of how much time it should take them. Then write all of the steps out on a check-off sheet to give to your worker, so they can check the boxes as they go.
- JR recommends Kartra online marketing software. You can keep track of your courses and training videos on their membership site. You can see when your team logs in and how far into a video they watch, so you know if they did the training! Kartra is also an email provider, sales pages maker, it integrates with wordpress…it’s everything. “It’s better than anything else I’ve used.”
- “If they run into a problem…let them know you’re not perfect.” Reassure them that if they make a mistake, it’s not a big deal, it’s just something you can need to fix together. Remind them frequently that they can come to you with problems. You cannot emphasize that enough.
- Daily email – ask them for specifics and what they’ve completed that day.
- Take their holidays into consideration and be respectful of their culture.
- They’re going to need sick time off – don’t dock their pay.
- You’re getting a good deal already, so don’t be cheap. Pay on the higher end because it will build loyalty and it will attract better people.
- Be sure to give them raises – it helps them see a future. Have regular reviews and give them raises accordingly. Take care of them. If you change their duties and/or add to their tasks, give them a pay raise. And don’t forget the 13th month!
- Be gentle with the way you talk to your people – be positive and treat them like family.
- They’re very family oriented; let them spend time with their families.
- Don’t monitor someone’s life; they’re going to get their work done. They don’t need to be micromanaged.
- “You treat them really good and give them respect, you’re going to get great results.”
You can check out other stories from Amy regarding Management Tips & Jill with her Web Development Business by signing up for an Onlinejobs.ph account.
You can also learn more about how to get started on hiring Rockstar Virtual Assistants.
About Shelane Tuttle
Shelane Tuttle has worked in content development with John Jonas and the OnlineJobs.ph team since 2010. She’s a mother of four, book devourer, beach bum, wannabe music and art connoisseur and she thrives on learning/teaching others about new things, like outsourcing.
If you liked this you’ll probably also like reading
I hope I can work.
Salut lume.
Very inspiring, and the one that I like in this segment was when he says ïf there is failure there is an opportunity”.
very inspiring message. it gives hope to the hopeless job seeker
informative and inspiring.hope to learn more
Very inspiring and overwhelming indeed…