Case Study: Organizing and Assigning Tasks for VAs – Matt Leitz on VAs for Technology-Based Companies and Services

“We absolutely love your company. We truly do. It’s been good to us. I can say that it’s not only given me some of the best team members that I’ve ever had, but dear friends and I would go so far as to say practically family.”

Matt Leitz (founder and CEO of BotBuilders) is a serial entrepreneur who specializes in business automation. He works as a leader in the chat marketing industry, helping thousands of business owners across the world increase their sales, marketing, & support through the use of automated chatbots.

What does your business do?

• “We build bots!” Chatbots are a way companies can communicate with their potential customers using automation. If you’ve ever been chatting with customer service online, “we do that, but we do it in really awesome ways.’

• BotBuilders creates great experiences for the company and for the user and ultimately gets everyone what they want in a faster, easier, fun way.

• The majority of their business revolves around high-end clients that they’ve created and customized bots for. 

• Their business also includes an educational company that provides training on how people can utilize bots in their business AND provides them with pre-built bots that they can customize and use in their own businesses.

• How can the entrepreneurs watching this utilize bots in their own businesses?
  • Bots help generate leads
  • They help make sales
  • They automate customer support

• “There’s a bot for everything and you can design them literally however you can imagine.” Chatbots can be used on a company’s website, FB messenger, and even Instagram.

• At bot builders, AI doesn’t stand for “artificial intelligence,” it means “awesome interactions”

• Bots are commonly known to take care of FAQs and tire-kickers, but they can also address other needs in just about any industry. Matt has helped customize bots for various businesses from ecommerce to flipping houses to high-end coaching and fulfillment. One of their favorite students is a dating coach who uses bots for different processes and to answer questions on his site.

How did you get started?

• Matt describes his entrepreneurial experience as the classic pattern, “do one thing and go to another;” making mistakes and learning from them.

• He started out in multi-level marketing then moved on to create a t-shirt company that ultimately failed. 

• Eventually, Matt decided to follow a passion and created Boardgames.com. He “lost his shirt” in the process, but the experience opened the door to a major opportunity: bots. He’d created a bot for Boardgames.com that would eventually morph into the success he enjoys today with BotBuilders.com. 

• Since then, his team has created a phenomenal community where they can help businesses of all kinds and all sizes.

Give us your take on Automation:

• As a business owner, you’re always making investments and there’s a lot of work to be done. Automation can’t replace humans for everything, but you can put a lot of time and money into automation and get a lot more time and money in return.

• For example, Matt uses automated email sequences that he wrote ten years ago that still generate thousands of dollars every week. He believes that you might as well put your time and energy into something that’s going to continue to generate income no matter what’s happening.

How did Covid and 2020 affect business?

• Covid hit and BotBuilders didn’t skip a beat because their teams were already established and working safely from home. In fact, their business doubled during 2020.

Outsourcing is not always about saving money – sometimes it’s about expanding your hiring selection by looking outside of the limited local talent pool.

• “Everyone always thinks that if you outsource labor it’s all about saving money but I’m pretty sure we pay our people a multiple of the standard payment.” Sometimes it’s just about hiring quality employees.

• Describing his team from the Philippines, Matt says, “I have world-class people–I mean the best team, the BEST team in the world [of 6-7 people from OnlineJobs.ph]. We have such an amazing relationship.” 

Planning a company retreat as a bonus

• If they meet their goal this year, they’re going to meet up in Hawaii for their first company retreat! 

• When BotBuilders performs well, they make sure that their VAs also do well with increased salary and bonuses.

How did you get started outsourcing? 

• Matt first heard about outsourcing in internet marketing circles.

• He used the alternatives to OnlineJobs.ph for many years – odesk, elance…

• Their first hire from the Philippines continues to be one of the best hires they’ve ever made. “When you find the right people, there’s no substitute for that.”

Matt’s secret for a great hire from OnlineJobs.ph

• “We always look for the most expensive people on OnlineJobs.ph because it usually means they’re the most experienced.” So far, that strategy hasn’t let him down.

• You can find higher quality workers with more experience and more skill in the Philippines for the same salary that you’d pay someone locally with less skill/experience. It’s a no-brainer.

• When BotBuilders made their second big hire, both of the final candidates were so qualified that Matt couldn’t decide which Filipino specialist to hire. So they hired both, which they never could’ve done if they had to pay both a state-side salary.

• “I’m a huge proponent… has changed our business on so many levels.”

OnlineJobs.ph has helped grow BotBuilders in an unconventional way

• One of their clients is best-selling author and speaker Grant Cardone. Grant needed someone to tend to charge backs and manage the comments on his webinars, Facebook, and other various places. Grant took notice of Matt’s team and their flexibility and efficiency. Matt offered to hire Grant two VAs off of OnlineJobs.ph and help manage them, and the arrangement is working great so far.

Great advice: outline your expectations for your VA before you hire them

• Before Matt makes a new hire, he creates a spreadsheet and defines the job’s role, lists and prioritizes daily/weekly/monthly tasks, and outlines his expectations for the new remote worker. Matt uses the spreadsheet to help him search for someone with exactly the right skills. 

• He then systematically creates SOP trainings by referencing the same spreadsheet. When he completes a training, he links to it in a company-wide google doc. By keeping everything organized and online, he creates a living SOP manual for running the entire business. Then everyone is crystal clear on who’s in charge of what, and it simplifies future hiring/training.

What exactly do your Online Filipino Specialists do?

• “The talent we’ve hired has been very organized, very structured, very consistent, very reliable.” BotBuilder’s online Filipino specialists run ManyChat, their CRM, build funnels, run ads, manage customer support, manage email marking and chargebacks, develop websites and more. 

How do you find your outstanding VAs?

• Matt uses both the “Post a job” and “Search for qualified candidates” features on OnlineJobs.ph.

• Tips for posting a job:
  • Start by writing a blurb to describe the position.

• Relate something exciting about your company, something that would make them enthusiastic about working for you. 

• Ask them to answer the following three job-related questions in 200 words or less. You’ll learn who wants the job the most and you’ll get a feel for their English proficiency.

• Three questions to answer in 200 words or less:
  • What’s your experience?
  • How would you handle this situation [relate a job-specific challenge]?
  • What makes you excited about working with our company?

• Also, ask them to include the word “unicorn” or something unconventional somewhere in their response so you can identify the candidates who exercise attention to detail.

Great Hiring Tips:

**Be careful if you do a face-to-face interview – just because someone may have a heavy speaking accent doesn’t mean they can’t write English very well and clearly. Don’t pass judgement too harshly.

• If you are hiring for a writing position, do a live chat interview with them where they have to type all of their responses. When Matt does this, he knows he’s getting their raw, unfiltered answers so he can really evaluate their English writing skills.

• One week paid trials work great. During those paid trials, Matt’s probably had 2-3 hires from OJ that he’s let go of in less than a week because they didn’t turn out to be a great fit. He notes that you have to be upfront with people about the trial and let them know they’ll be paid.

How do you train your Filipino workers?

• Matt says that Loom.com literally changed his life. Before Loom, to provide instruction he had to either type out a long detailed list or he had to create a video and upload it which is a long process. Loom changed that.

Tip for training on a new task/procedure:

•  “Do the process once.” If you don’t, how will you know how to help them? In other words, go through the actual motions of the task you’re trying to teach so you know what you’re talking about. Then you can bring value to the process. The exception here may be if you hired someone to do something specialized that you don’t know how to do (programming, graphic design…).

• When your Filipino specialist performs a task for the first time, ask them to document it step-by-step using screenshots and google docs. 
  • Then not only can you review their process to make sure they’re doing the task right, you can add their documentation to your google doc library of SOPs. 
  • From then on, anyone in your company can search “SOP” and tons of training will come up. So at any given moment, anyone can find directions on any process they need to do. They just have to search for it!

“I love this company, I love this service… I just want to say thank you for not only helping me to build an amazing business, a profitable business…lifelong friends is by far the biggest benefit that I can really imagine taking away from your service. So thank you.”

And if you want to see more videos, check out our YouTube channel or our Facebook page for more outsourcing tips. You can also check out how to get started on hiring Rockstar Virtual Assistants.

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