Like most real estate appraisers, Jimmy Roberts started out by doing things alone. He worked 40 to 60 hours a week and had a steady stream of clients. Compared to his colleagues, he was doing well. But Jimmy understood that if he wanted to grow his business, he needed employees.
But as a small business owner, he can’t afford to pay for a full-time employee. And he needed people with skills specific to the real estate industry. He didn’t have the time to train and he needed people to deliver results consistently.
Then his friend and mentor, Roy Meyer ,suggested he try outsourcing with Onlinejobs.ph. Roy showed that he didn’t have to work on his business like everybody else. He can be a business owner, with employees doing most of the work and with Jimmy focused on growing his business.
Read the full transcript of the video below:
Hey there! This is Jimmy Roberts with Renaissance Appraisal here in the United States.
Over the next few minutes, I’m gonna….hopefully enters a few questions about why I choose to use onlinejobs.ph? OK, just to give you a quick overview, I’m gonna tell you about, again why I choose onlinejobs? What I’ve learned from using onlinejobs, and working with the Filipino work force? Some of the things that I’ve learned about giving the most out of my remote team members and finally I end up with some opportunities that I found, some opportunities that I learned about when working with Filipino workforce.
OK. So first off, again my name is Jimmy Roberts. I am the founding members of Renaissance Appraisal here in United States in Michigan in particular. And I was initially introduced to onlinejobs by my friend and mentor Mr. Roy Myre who’s also appraiser and marketing master, four legged needed for lack of a better word. He is currently engage of a lot of different businesses, like I said I learned first through him.
The first thing he taught me about was the idea that as an appraiser, I can actually have a reasonable work schedule and not be tied to my appraisal office. Now if you know anything about real estate appraising that is not a traditional way of how the businesses run, this is not. This is a very tight, can be in a very time intensive and until I met Roy.
To be honest with you, I was proudly working 60 days 3 hours a week instantly and very little time for me, company was lucrative but like i said very little time and just drainy. Roy showed me a better way, he showed me how the benefits of using of what we called virtual assistant, how using virtual assistant in your business could really help basically generate time or create time for you.
I admit, he initially told me about working with virtual assistants probably 18 months before I actually did anything about it because the costs that I just wasn’t really ready to get my head around. I understood intellectually but the actual practice was just too far from where I was mentally. And since that time, I’ve sense changed my mind and I only do believe the idea of using remote employees whether they be in the Philippines, Costa Rica, India, or here in the US. I move forward for a lot of different reasons and will talk about some of those and little bit. But I will say this, working with a virtual assistant or team member or remote team member is I like to call has its challenges, and it’s not always been easy. It requires a level of preparation, organization and frankly trust. Many people I found don’t really have at least not at my level.
Again like I said, I work as a real estate appraiser, I own real estate appraiser firm and now I can honestly say that I’m moving more toward the owner role. But the reality is the most real estate appraisal are most people for my industry are one are two persons shops where the owner operator role and everything is done by them, and it’s very little trust or expectation that they could even trust anybody else to do the job to their standards or whatever. And I know that sounds really bad but you know that’s the truth.
Most people don’t believe that they can find anybody else to do the job as well as they do it, let alone find a Filipino citizen to do it. That’s just not a cause at the many people are willing to accept, and you know to be honest best their sure full and they’re short-sightedness. The reality pf situation is you and I both know that many of the functions that happen in the business, you don’t actually need to know their business process, what you trained on what to do at with everything. When you trained what to do, you can do it whether you are in the Philippines, Costa Rica or here in United States. So, that’s kind of how I got into the whole idea of using virtual assistant workforce to improve my business.
Now I will say this, having a virtual team member at least my first few, was a bit challenging and it was challenging for all the main reason that in business hiring anybody is challenging. Their question is whether or not the person that I hired was actually doing the work ‘cause you know again halfway around the world how would i know, I wouldn’t. I don’t know if you’re doing the work. I don’t know what they’re doing anything for that matter, and from the trusting point I had to get over that.
Fortunately for me, it was easy to do; it is not the case for many people who are not working us. So, that is one of the things I have to do and then you compound that with the fact that my first two hired was not good hires. They came with good recommendations but the reality is, but even if they came with good recommendations, the people themselves were actually not very good and they actually did tried to take advantages of me and especially one gentleman in particular.
As lenient as I tried to be, especially knowing that he was recommended from someone I trusted. You know, he just clearly was trying to take advantage, and I have had enough. Of course, as with every employee ‘round the world regardless of whether they are virtual or not. Of course when they realized that the end or the road had come and gone, now all of a sudden he wanted to change his ways.
But you know what, from that experience the one thing that I learned is that he was no different than any other employee that I hired in the past 10, 15 years. And I may not to say that for the past 10, 15 years, I have the opportunity to work with people from around the world as well as here in United States. And all of them, whenever it was the end of our working relationship, the one thing that is pretty consistent, is when they realized that i have had enough that the end of the road had come, everybody always want to clean up and do those things that I had been asking to do it along.
So, what they taught me was that there employees around the world, there are good employees, and there are some… I’m not gonna say bad employees but that’s was I am thinking, that’s a terminal thinking. There are people who do what they say and there are people who will try to abuse your trust. As a business owner, as a professional it’s up to me to figure out who’s who and do them accordingly. But again that’s not specific to the Philippines that is a worldwide epidemic. Sometimes you come across Yorkers regardless of the nationality. So, that’s what I learned. Alright, so the question may be:
What are Some of the Benefits of Hiring a Virtual Assistant Workforce?
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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