How long, do you think, it would take you to grow your business?
Like between hiring your first employee to your 10th employee, how big does your business need to be? Will it take months for you to get there? Years?
Drew Peterson
Drew from ZP reviews posted his job post on Onlinejobs.ph on June 2018. By the time he posted this video, which is less than a year later (March 2019), he had over 30 remote Filipino workers. He hired one Filipino virtual assistant to work on his Amazon business. Now he has 2 businesses and is looking for opportunities to do more.
How did Drew do it? It’s about leverage. He talks about:
- understanding what leverage fail and why small businesses fail when they don’t take advantage of it
- using your money to buy back what’s more important to you: time and profit
- leveraging on the skills and knowledge of your Filipino workers to build something so much bigger than what you can do yourself.
Drew’s virtual assistant, Jemmanuel Jade Bono
Like Drew, you can outsource better with our training guides and be success stories like Bodie and Travis. And these training guides are free when you sign up for an Onlinejobs.ph account. Unlike other platforms, we provide better value because we don’t take commissions and you can cancel your account anytime, as soon as you’ve hired someone.
So what are you waiting for? Sign up for an employer account, check out our employer exclusive features like EasyPay and TimeProof, and discover why businesses that succeed come to us for their outsourcing needs.
You can also read the full video transcript below:
Hey guys this is Drew from ZP reviews. It’s a long time no see.
Sorry I’ve been very, very busy. I’ve been working on my agency and working with my clients. It’s been a whirlwind. I’ve definitely had a lot of fun. I’ve learned a lot and I wanted to update the channel and give you guys another video that I thought would be valuable to you. It’s kind of a continuation of a previous video that I did last year, I think, you guys will really appreciate. And let’s just get it right into it.
So I wanted to talk about one of the key concepts that separates business owners and workers. And something that you guys have to think about. Because I have a couple people that are constantly talking to me and I’m giving advice to. And I’ve noticed, you know, this is a common trend and it’s one of the hardest things to get yourself out of: worker mentality. And what it is is understanding LEVERAGE.
Now, when most people think leverage you think, “oh well I’ll get a loan from the bank”. You know, it’s like, you have money and you can do a lot of things in mind, right? Obviously, it’s great. But what do we know about why many small businesses fail, they start with this grandiose idea right that costs a lot of money.
They go to the bank they say, “Oh I need a hundred thousand, eighty two hundred thousand”. And then they misappropriate the money. And then they get nothing out of it.
Now, why we like Amazon was, low budget, you can learn. Even if you’re not gonna be a 7-figure seller, you’re not gonna do big things with it, you can learn with Amazon. These are simpler businesses that don’t require any money.
But let’s talk about leverage and why, you know, people misunderstand it.
So, firstly let’s break it out into separate things. So obviously we know about money leverage right? You can take someone else’s money and do something with it. And then pay them back with interest, you know, or an equity, you know, there’s other ways right that’s a simple one.
Another one is system leverage, right? I talked about using things like Feedbackwhiz so you can automate your reviews or Helium 10 so that you can give yourself assistance product research. You can easily do it yourself. You utilize the system, you leverage the system because you want to work smarter not harder.
Now, what’s next, we’ll say marketing leverage right? So, YouTube. I’m using YouTube right now. It’s a form of marketing leverage by putting my video out here. I’m getting my message to more people all the time with only doing one video, right? So, that’s the beauty of it. Same thing, I’m gonna say, a Facebook ad. You can make one ad and it can be seen by thousands.
So let’s get to the last one and the most important one, and why you guys need to start thinking about this is time leverage. Now, why am I saying that this is the most important one? Why’d you get into business? Was it just for money? Because if that’s it you probably are doing it wrong. But if you got in for the right reason which I think most people do is freedom. Personal freedom, the ability to be with one’s family, do what you want, that involves freeing up your time.
So, how can you do this with small business, any business, and that’s taking your money and then paying for someone else’s time. Now, most people won’t even broach this early on because it’s expensive. When you think of paying someone, you think, and you know if most of my viewers, I want to say, here from the United States, United Kingdom, it’s expensive to hire people.
So, you just don’t even think about it. You just, you go and you watch a video like mine. And you watch another guy. And they tell you, okay though this is how you do it, and this is how you do this, and this is how you do that. And what you’re gonna find out really fast is that you traded one job for another.
And that, that sucks. No one wants that, you shouldn’t want that. I don’t like it. That’s ultimately, like [Cauna] only exists is because I learned how to leverage other people’s time for, you know, benefit.
And you know it boils down to, can you look at your business and ask yourself, “am I really the best one to do X Y or Z? You might be really good at one thing but you might realize early on that, hey it takes a lot of time, energy, resources to just get proficient at some of these tasks.
So, what I wanted to share with you guys, and I share with you earlier, is how we first started leveraging time. And it was through VA’s. Remote workers. People that can handle some of these tasks that either we are not competent in or we just don’t even have time for. And you can’t look at it as a dirty thing coz it goes back to, like, first principles issue, right?
The lemonade stand. Everyone knows, ok, that’s one of the easiest ways that you can explain capitalism to a kid. What if I were to create a new story, right? Imagine this new story. You have Susie and you have Josie, right? So Susie, she doesn’t, like, she has 20 bucks. And she’s got you know lemons, water, cups you know, sugar and she starts her stand. She makes, she sells, she can make a hundred cups and she sells over $2 a pop. She makes 200.
Josie, she does something a little different. She gets the same $20 investment but maybe she spends she knows that she has to be out there for four hours to sell the 200 or the hundred cups. She says, well I’m gonna, I’m gonna talk to my friend Beth and pay her $10 an hour right. So now she’s been 60 and she ends up with $140 profit.
But what’s the difference between these two scenarios? What happens when they come back the next day?
Susie has to be there, Josie doesn’t. Josie can go and build another lemonade stand and another one and another one by taking less profits and freeing up her time.
The true value isn’t in exchanging the money or doing the tasks. It’s in having the idea to begin with. They come to the market to begin with. Like, most people, like, I see in my Amazon groups I’m a part of, they complain all day about Chinese sellers. They do this, and they do that do.
You know what the one thing they do better than anyone else is they don’t waste time. They leverage whatever they need to get to the market as quickly as they can and they seize the opportunity even if it’s good or bad. And then they’ll find out, oh if it’s salable then they learn something and then they move to the next one. They’re not even thinking about it.
And I just feel like there’s so many, you know, people, maybe it’s my audience, maybe it’s anyone that comes across this, you’re gonna realize like it’s frustrating when you’re doing all yourself. And you just get burned out. And then you end up with emotional problems that you still had while you’re working and they’ve just, they’ve just you know migrated over. It’s, like, the shadow over your back. I got to do the best job.
And it’s even worse because you’re, you know, whatever you’re selling whether it’s Amazon or anything else you’re watching, you know, and if you’re not doing a good job. Say, you didn’t do the best job explaining your product and then you end up with one-star reviews because you just didn’t explain it well.
Well, someone who does it for a living, that you could pay, might cover that for you. And you buy to take less money, But you would have made more money in the long run. Spend more time on what’s important which is the ideation, creating these systems, creating these processes. And then leveraging your money, leveraging other people’s time, leveraging systems, leveraging marketing to make it run.
So I needed to go ahead and tell you that. And I just want to show you one of the little secrets that I found because I think a lot of people have used things like Upwork and Fiverr. And you know it’s hit or miss and it’s different. Like, you know people talk about the gig economy. I never liked the idea of just hiring one contractor and then you know with it.
I really wanted to just have people that answer to me. And then I could train and build within my own system that I was creating. And I want to show that to you today.
Well again, so let’s switch to it and it is OnlineJobs.ph. And you might be wondering, “ what? wait, what? Filipino?” Well, let me tell you why. And I’m sure many of you, your emails are getting just blown up.
Many foreign countries, many of them, they know English. But the Philippines has been a territory or a Commonwealth like the United States or Spain for a very long time in their culture, in their culture that’s why it’s critical, they learn English like in kindergarten. They speak it fluently and, even more so, they can write it fluently. They can program. They can do so many things that you have to jump through hoops with other foreign countries.
And why is the Philippines, like, amazing? Especially for Amazon or, say, your affiliate marketing or maybe you’re like me, move to agency services as well, is that they are learning these skills in school now. And you can get a hold of them and they’re, the rates that you pay range anywhere from two dollars an hour to maybe six.
And I’ll tell you for some of the things, like, you know, it was hard. Last year, is, I wanted to learn how to build websites before the agency. And I ended up hiring somebody using OnlineJobs.ph that not only helped me build the site but was really the catalyst for teaching me everything I needed to know, you know, within the space. And it honestly gave me the opportunity to do the agency. Because had I not made this jump I wouldn’t.
You know, originally I just had him running our Facebook ads and creating, you know, offers and funnels, some of the things I’ve talked about, other videos. It allowed me to work, you know, I was still at work but still get the value of you know my money.
I had a person and he ended up, ended up going to another company. You know, obviously, he moved up. He’s trying to learn. And that’s, that’s the thing with hiring.
But instead of having, you know, somebody that just one job I had someone that grew with me for months. And it was one of the best experiences and it was surreal. Because I never had communication issues and this was something that I wasn’t even expecting. And I just took a chance.
So let me just show you the site because it’s very simple, it’s really awesome. Obviously, you know everyone on the other side we’re not gonna be posting a job. But there’s literally VA’s for almost everything.
And I’ve actually spoken to a couple people in the local area here at North Carolina that are actually coming onto this. I had coffee and she was, like, “I’m going to hire like 50 because I can create a business out of just this,” and frankly that is what they’re doing.
And look, say, what’s the most common problems with Amazon, my PPC stinks (by the way, tries all tools). Let’s just say “Amazon PPC”, let’s just see what they got.
You will find people. And this is one of the neat things about this profile is that they’re going to rate them based on how well they speak English. Their back story, you know, we’ve got this job. A government ID, right? So if you’re one of those people, you’re not trustworthy, right. They’ve taken a test. They’re doing the work for you to that the people who come up. So it’s like a Zip Recruiter but in the Philippines. And when you look at how much it cost for talking 679 a month, 485 a month.
Some of you guys, like, I talked to one guy he’s got, like, 10,000 a month in PPC spending. You’re telling me that you couldn’t spend that to take it completely off your deck? Crazy! And you literally can send, you know, put a job listing outright. And they’ll come to you or you could just reach out this way and it’s amazing.
Because, you know, when we first went in, we were just saying, “well, what do I gotta learn?” You know, let me go down all the little video list that I need to learn clickfunnels. I need to learn how to do with PPC myself. I need it. I need to learn everything.
Why do that? Why not hire someone?
Say, you know, like, I have my board in the background, right? I always say, write down what you need. Draw boxes, you know, it’s says, okay, so this is, say, we’ll use Amazon. You’re going to be, you’re gonna be sourcing. You’re going to spend time researching on Alibaba or wherever you’re sourcing products from. You’re gonna be, you’re going to be spending time there, you could have a person just do that. Say you’re at that level, you can do anything you want. And once you look at your boxes and you say ,okay well I’m good at this, I’m gonna do that, I’m good at this. Maybe you’re not. Maybe you’re only really good one of these things. And the other two are actually holding you back.
And what I say to you is consider it. Because we had such an amazing experience with this site and I can’t be happier. I still talk with my first worker. I now have, I’m gonna say, that, we’re up to, like, 30 remote workers but I’ve got a whole team. All it took was just take the chance. I mean, I did it at work, you know.
I know there was one guy on my list, he’s an engineer. You work with managers of specialists and the operators, listen, it’s no different. You just have to be mature enough to guide everyone and trust them to do a good job. But, once you start leveraging time, leveraging money, systems, your business runs on its own.
This cannot happen if you’re the one with all the hats. So I encourage you guys to really consider this, you know.
So, like, I think I still have my first, let me see if I can find it without like giving away like everything about me. But I had a…, yeah ,here we go, this was my original application. And I took the heat pick, two hundred a month. Two hundred a month, it’s absurd!
He took it. And I ended up, you know, once, I was, you know, really confident. He started picking things up and it was worth our money and our time to train him, give him more money. He just started picking it up and he was a young guy. I did up getting the guy that was like nineteen but he was witty. He was quick and it was as simple as putting out a job description. I ended up getting, I think back, then this would have been last year. Forgive me, it’s a long time. As I said, June 7, 2018.
But, I tell you what, I ended up having I think we had like six interviews but weren’t bad. I mean, there’s a couple where they weren’t really, you know, the English wasn’t as good. But nowhere else, like, if I go to Fiverr you’re not gonna get anything like that. Not at all. You’re gonna, it’s all contract basis. You know, maybe that’s right. You know, if it’s just, you know, you’re getting just graphics or something or you’re doing a one-time thing that maybe Fiverr, right?
But I’ll tell you, if you’re in an ongoing business this is a key thing.
If you’re an ongoing business but you’re finding yourself you do everything and this is what one of my peers does. And I finally convinced them to leverage, you know, just getting VA’s, just do it. Take the jump. Because you cannot be a business owner and not hire anyone. I mean there’s many automations and trust me, I swear by them. But there is a certain satisfaction that you’ll get when you take something that you hate and take off your plate and pay someone to do it and it gets done.
It’s just one of the best feelings in the world. And honestly like because of the systems that I put together right? We’re able to have, I’m able to run Amazon. I’m able to run even this, right, this whole thing this affiliate marketing. I’m able to because I’ve leveraged systems, money, time, marketing. I’m hitting them all.
And if you’re not hitting all of them consider it. Maybe instead of learning how to do everything yourself, you need to learn more about leverage. And learn how to get more done with less by using your money. Because that’s what it is: capitalism. Capitalism don’t forget it.
That said, I just wanted to show you this because this is my favorite. Now there are other sites out there that do similar things but this one I prefer the best. Because one of the other neat things that they have and not others will is they’ll actually guide you on how to be a better manager and boss. And because you get some of these things, right, you get these easy guides. I think this isn’t super expensive, honestly. And the best part is you can turn this on, hire who you want, and then turn it off. It works almost exactly the same as if you’re in it and it’s great.
And I’ll tell you, I just spent some time reading, learning and then when I, you know, proposed my position I was able to kind of, to do it without a hitch. And you know if you’re wondering about like legal, technically, I, I just did my taxes. I wrote this off as contractors and it totally flies.
I think once you get to, certain amounts, of money you start having to explain exactly what it is but my partner be better, but he’s not, he’s not here right now, he’s busy.
So, but yeah, I just wanted to show you this because this is one of the few, one of the few platforms that I feel does an absolutely amazing job. Just what they’re doing and you’ll really get, they’ll hold your hand.
And one of the neat things is now, I didn’t necessarily do this, but maybe you guys will find it valuable. But they will do when you pay for their premium service.They’ll do background checks on your behalf and then they’ll actually get middleman coaches for you. So, say, you’re not able to really stay on top of the workers and, you know, make sure things are moving, you can actually get them to be your checkups for you, freeing up even more time.
So it’s,, and honestly for me, that I have to do that now. So like, on what,you know, with my guys I have a guy over the guys, you know. I mean I just talk with them and then, maybe, monthly? And that’s not even monthly. I’ll talk with you know people on the lower level but that’s, what it is, I’m the executive. I’m not, you as an owner, you’re not a worker, you’re not even the manager. Managers are overseers, right? Leaders are your executives and that’s how you guys got to look at your business.
So I just wanted to show this to you. And you know I got it, so, I’m so sorry that I haven’t been here more often. I just, I though., trust me when I say this I’ve just been very busy. I’m definitely going to try to do some more videos because there’s definitely some topics that I’d like to approach. And I want to, kind of, get ZP reviews away from just being only Amazon because I’ve learned so much in business.
Now don’t get me wrong, Amazon is still killing it. You can definitely make great money there and it’s wonderful. But honestly, after the clickfunnels experiment, when I first got into that, I just started seeing all the things I could do. And I know so many owners, other owners now, that there’s just opportunities just everywhere.
So, yeah, definitely start think about leverage. If you’re in the boat where you know that you have a job that you could, off, that you could pass off, definitely go check out OnlineJobs.ph.
I’ll leave a link in the description but yeah so…, thank you for your time guys.
Once again this is Drew from ZP reviews. And if you haven’t already make sure you like and subscribe. And if there’s questions that you have that you that weren’t answered in this video be sure to comment below and I’ll see you guys later.
About Julia Jasmine M. Sta Romana
Julia has been working for OnlineJobs.ph since 2012, first as a writer and now as its social media manager and content development specialist. She also founded the Davao Virtual Assistants Association, the biggest VA association in Davao City.
She’s a full-time wife and mom and volunteers her time as an internet rights advocate.
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