118. The Power of Delegation: How Virtual Assistants Can Skyrocket Your Growth with John T. Meyer

“I just need to clone myself.”

Have you ever had that thought while running your solo business? Us too.

What if we told you you could actually have more time to focus on what you love or actually have to do while a skilled professional handles the nitty-gritty details? Oh, and what if we told you it doesn’t have to break the bank?

Well, we invited John Meyer on our show to share insider tips, proven strategies, and real-life success stories of life with a virtual assistant that will actually have you rethink how you’re running your business.

We discuss things like:

• How solopreneurs can achieve a four-day workweek
• Effective strategies for finding and vetting virtual assistants
• How a solopreneur should train their virtual assistant
• How solopreneurs can ensure their virtual assistant understands their business and goals
• Common challenges solopreneurs face when working with virtual assistants, and how they can overcome them

Plus so much more. So be sure to tune in!

To access John's VA course for just $29 (90% off) visit howtova.com and use promo code "solo."

Being a solopreneur is awesome but it’s not easy. It's hard to get noticed. Most business advice is for bigger companies, and you're all alone...until now. LifeStarr's SoloSuite Intro gives you free education, community, and tools to build a thriving one-person business.  So, if you are lacking direction, having a hard time generating leads, or are having trouble keeping up with everything you have to do, or even just lonely running a company of one, be sure to check out SoloSuite Intro!

Access SoloSuite Intro

What is The Aspiring Solopreneur?

*Formerly known as Solopreneur: The One-Person Business Podcast*

Welcome to The Aspiring Solopreneur, the weekly podcast that dives deep into the world of solopreneurship. Join us as we bring you insightful interviews with industry experts and successful solopreneurs who have mastered the art of running their own businesses.

Are you a solopreneur looking for guidance on how to attract clients? Or maybe you're searching for ways to stay motivated and overcome the challenges of working alone. Perhaps you're even struggling with the intricacies of taxes and financial management. No matter what obstacles you face, The Aspiring Solopreneur Podcast is here to provide you with the knowledge, inspiration, and practical advice you need.

In each episode, our hosts, Joe Rando and Carly Ries, sit down with a diverse range of guests, including seasoned solopreneurs, marketing gurus, financial experts, and productivity specialists. Together, they unpack the secrets to solo success, sharing their personal stories, strategies, and actionable tips.

Learn from those who have paved the way before you, as they reveal their tried-and-true methods for growing their company of one.

Subscribe now and join our community of solopreneurs who are committed to achieving their goals, mastering their craft, and creating a fulfilling and prosperous business on their own terms. Get ready to unlock the secrets to solo success and become the best version of yourself as a one-person business owner.

Want to learn from and grow with other solopreneurs? Join our movement for FREE at https://www.lifestarr.com/solosuite-intro-for-solopreneurs

Carly Ries: 00:00

I just need to clone myself. Have you ever had that thought while running your solo business? Me too. What if I told you you could actually have more time to focus on what you love or actually have to do yourself while a skilled professional handles the nitty gritty details? Or what if I also told you it didn't have to break the bank?

Carly Ries: 00:18

Well, we invited John Meyer on our show to share insider tips, proven strategies, and real life success stories of life with a virtual assistant that will actually have you rethink how you're running your business. We discussed things like how solopreneurs can achieve a 4 day work week. Yes, please. Effective strategies for finding and vetting virtual assistants, how solopreneurs should train their virtual assistant, how solopreneurs can ensure their virtual assistant understands their business and goals, as well as common challenges solopreneurs face when working with virtual assistants and how you can overcome them. We discussed this plus so much more, so be sure to tune in.

Carly Ries: 00:57

You're listening to the aspiring solopreneur, the podcast for those just taking the bold step or even just thinking about taking that step into the world of solo entrepreneurship. My name is Carly Rees, and my co host Joe Rando and I are your guides to navigating this crazy, but awesome journey as a company of 1. We take pride in being part of Lifestar, a digital hub dedicated to all aspects of solopreneurship that has empowered and educated countless solopreneurs looking to build a business that resonates with their life's ambitions. We help people work to live, not live to work. And if you're looking for a get rich quick scheme, this is not the show for you.

Carly Ries: 01:36

So if you're eager to gain valuable insights from industry experts on running a business the right way the first time around, or want to learn from the missteps of solopreneurs who've paved the way before you, then stick around. We've got your back because flying solo in business doesn't mean you're alone. Okay. So before we jump into this episode, I just have to share this new free offer we have called the solo suite starter. Being a solopreneur is awesome, but it's not easy.

Carly Ries: 02:01

It's hard to get noticed, and most business advice is for bigger companies, and you're all alone until now. LifeStar's solo suite gives you free education, community, and tools to build a thriving one person business. So if you're lacking direction, having a hard time generating leads, having trouble keeping up with everything you have to do, or even if you're just lonely running a company of 1, be sure to check out solo suite starter at lifestarwith2r's.com and click on products and pricing at the top menu. It's the first one in the drop down. Again, it's totally free, so check it out at lifestar with 2 hours.com.

Carly Ries: 02:37

Click on products and pricing, and it's the first one in the menu. Hope to see you there. Okay. So, John, we are so happy that you're here today. You're gonna guide us through this whole thing that so many solopreneurs don't even think about, and I cannot wait to get to it.

Carly Ries: 02:49

But before I do, I just wanna clarify for this episode, but for all of our episodes. When we talk about solopreneurs, we are all for hiring contractors, working with contractors, partnering with other solopreneurs. Our biggest saying that we put in all of our emails and everything is going solo in business doesn't mean you're alone. And we mean that so, so sincerely. And so we're gonna get to a lot of that today, and we're gonna go through it.

Carly Ries: 03:17

John, thank you so much for coming on the show. We so appreciate it.

John T. Meyer: 03:21

Yeah. Thanks for having me, Carly. I appreciate it. I love that, idea of not being alone because as a business coach, that is sort of I kind of become like the the fake co founder when I'm working with these people. Right?

John T. Meyer: 03:31

Just so that they feel like they don't have to be alone. Like, they wanna vent, if they wanna rant, if they, you know, had a bad day. Sometimes our spouses get sick of us talking about our businesses. So you need somebody else to do it.

Carly Ries: 03:41

Really? Gosh. It's so true. Well, let's before we dive into all of it, people are probably like, oh, well, so why is this guy gonna help me figure out how to increase my or decrease my workload and and hire virtual assistants and everything. What is your background, and how did you get into a career of coaching people how to be more efficient with their time and, get away from work so they can enjoy life?

John T. Meyer: 04:07

Yeah. Good question. So it's mainly probably serving the person that I once was. Right? So I've started, and scaled and sold 2 different creative agencies.

John T. Meyer: 04:16

I was a communication major in college, which I think is always short for, I don't know what the heck I wanna do with my life. You know, in high school, I was on the debate team and I did theater. I like to talk to people, I like to work in groups of people, and then I joke that as a communication major in college, I wrote a lot of papers and worked with a lot of groups of people. So, like, actually maybe did serve me okay. So I started the company in 2009.

John T. Meyer: 04:39

I moved back home to the state of South Dakota, and we had gotten a grant. This economic development grant is a $15,000 grant to start our business. And to timestamp this in 2009, our idea was, let's teach South Dakota businesses how to use this whole Web 2 point o, like social media. There's all these tools they don't know about. Like, Facebook had just gotten off of college campuses.

John T. Meyer: 05:00

Twitter was a brand new thing. And, hey, YouTube is the search, like, you should create content on YouTube. And so we were teaching people how to do that. The problem was we were terrible entrepreneurs. We didn't know what the heck we were doing.

John T. Meyer: 05:10

We we'd go to church basements and rotary clubs and just talk to whoever we could whoever would listen. So kinda like brute force manually built that first agency. And and ironically, we started a little idea underneath it. We said, what if we just do one thing really well instead of trying to do all these digital things? And our first hire was a graphic designer and she and I started, making infographics, which if that was about 2011.

John T. Meyer: 05:34

And at that time, it was like everybody wanted an infographic, just didn't even care just that word. And so we got lucky. We started right at the, kind of, the the Google search trend when it started the hockey stick up and that became a company called Lemonly. So for about a decade, I ran Lemonly, which we were a visual storytelling company. So we told the stories of the world's best come best brands, Google and Netflix and Major League Baseball and the Green Bay Packers.

John T. Meyer: 05:59

And to get back to your so built that company, sold that in 2021. And in both cases, both with 9clouds and with Lemonly, I thought as an entrepreneur, it's my job to wear all of the hats. And I would just hire create, you know, creatives to do the work. And then I did every all the business stuff. And so I think what I learned, by eventually having my own coach and then becoming a coach is, how do we spend time in, like, our zone of genius?

John T. Meyer: 06:23

Right? How do we do the things we love to do? I call it an energy audit. So you draw a line down the sheet of paper. On the plus side, what are all the things you do that give you energy?

John T. Meyer: 06:32

And on the minus side, what are all the things that drain your energy? And how do we get rid of those minus things? And that's kind of where a VA came in as as an example.

Carly Ries: 06:40

Okay. So I wanna get to the VA thing, but I'm also so curious. So we've all heard of the 4 hour work week. Thank you, Tim Ferris for that. You're talking about the 4 day work week, which I feel like for most of us is much more realistic.

Carly Ries: 06:53

How See. Yeah. Achieve this 4 day work week?

John T. Meyer: 06:58

Yeah. So I believe that you could probably work 4 days a week right now if you, managed a better calendar and was a little batch your processes and tasks and was a little bit more efficient. I love this idea of theming your days. So, like, for me, a Monday is like a team day. So I check-in with my VA or my old Lemonly days, I had my 1 on 1 meetings.

John T. Meyer: 07:17

Tuesday, I always do sales. Wednesday, I create content. Like, so I think theming your days, batching your your stuff, so they kind of fall on similar. We don't realize how much time we waste when we switch tasks. Mhmm.

John T. Meyer: 07:28

Cost switching and mental the mental load and, you know, I'm in a put in the Sioux Falls, I'll drive downtown to have a coffee meeting with somebody, come back to my office, like, just all that stuff. And so my theory is give yourself 4 days to work in your business. And I'm not saying that maybe you're gonna spend every Friday by the beach, but on Fridays try to work on your business. Right? Really elevate.

John T. Meyer: 07:50

Think of strategy. Go for a walk, like, grab a notebook and think about what what you want 12 months from now, 5 years from now. And I think if you make that couple tactical switches, VA being 1, you can get it down to that 4 day work week. Make the same, I would argue, possibly even more revenue because of that efficiency.

Carly Ries: 08:09

How do you hold yourself accountable to those days? Because my days are all always different. They they have Yeah. Ones, and so I'm running around all over the place. And I like to say Mondays are early.

Carly Ries: 08:19

We have meetings spread out throughout the week. We have interviews spread out throughout the weekend. So in theory, Joe, maybe we should be like, Mondays are our interview days, and we'll clear the calendar and take us. I love that concept, but as a solopreneur, we're also like ding ding ding ding ding and all over the place. So how do you hold yourself accountable to those things?

John T. Meyer: 08:36

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I'd say 2 parts. 1 is is really, giving yourself the permission, you know, to build the business your way.

John T. Meyer: 08:44

Right? I remember the first time I got, like, an out of office reply from somebody. And I I live here in South Dakota or, you know, or Midwest. Nice. We we we're friendly with everybody, at least to their face.

John T. Meyer: 08:53

And and I remember getting out of office response, and I was my first reaction was like it was like, you know, I only check emails on Tuesdays Thursdays from 10 to 12. And I was, like, what a jerk. Like, you don't have time for my and then I thought, wait a minute. Like, our email inboxes have just become a dumping ground for everybody else's to do's. Right?

John T. Meyer: 09:11

You let work at a corporate, you get cc'd on emails, copied on things. And so I was, like, oh, like, second thought when I pause, I was like, this is brilliant. I love that you only just checks emails twice a week for 2 hours. I wish I could do that. But, so giving yourself permission, and then honestly, this goes to the VA thing.

John T. Meyer: 09:29

Sometimes taking the emotion out, like, we've all been there as a solopreneur. It might be time to send that invoice or that follow-up from a meeting or maybe send that hard email, and we're just kinda not doing it yet because we just don't want to or, like, maybe we thought that, well, we were a little bit late on that invoice last month, so maybe I'll wait a couple of what I what I find as a VA, someone to delegate, it just takes the emotion out of these tasks. And so when you would email me and say, like, well, I could podcast any day of the week. My VA would say, well, John is available on Tuesdays at 9, 10, or 11 to you know, that's when he does podcast. And at first, you're kinda like, well, jeez, you must be really busy and important.

John T. Meyer: 10:06

But then you're kinda like, well, that's pretty smart. Like, that seems pretty efficient. So yeah. Exactly.

Carly Ries: 10:12

Well, okay. You keep saying the magic word. I alluded to it at the beginning of this interview, but you talk about cloning yourself, which essentially is just hiring a VA. Why? How?

Carly Ries: 10:24

I wanna know, like, how did this clear up your calendar for you, clear up your schedule, and just change your life, because solopreneurs, we so recommend this.

John T. Meyer: 10:34

Yes. And I think we probably as solopreneurs maybe take too much pride in, like, wearing all the hats. Like, I can be a marketer. I can write copy. I can do the thing.

John T. Meyer: 10:43

I can it's like you don't have to. Right? Not only maybe do you not want to but, you probably should. And so, I like to start pretty simple by like, almost every job has what I call 10 dollar, $100, and $1,000 tasks. So I'll go back to my life at Lemonly as a CEO of a 20 person agency.

John T. Meyer: 11:00

It was a $10 task was, like, taking checks to the bank. I did love doing that in the early days because I knew, like, hey, we're making money. Right? I'm putting checks in the bank. But I don't really need to do that.

John T. Meyer: 11:10

I don't I'm not uniquely qualified to take checks to the bank. And we were actually paying our office manager, like, you know, $20 an hour, but let's just call it a $10 task to take the checks to the bank. A $100 task might be our our inbox. Right? Like, triaging a lot of emails, maybe responding.

John T. Meyer: 11:26

We probably write a lot of the same emails over and over. And so valuable, but maybe not most valuable. And so at Lemonly as CEO for me, a $1,000 task was, taking sales calls, maybe being on a stage at a conference or a networking event. I would even argue a $1,000 task would be, like, leading a team meeting internally. We're not making money, but, like, I always say, you build the company and the com and you build the people and people build the company.

John T. Meyer: 11:53

And so, so that's the premise of the VA is, like, let's think about our task and see if you can mentally put them in buckets of 10 dollar, 100 dollar, $1,000 tasks. And we're gonna start by wiping out those $10 tasks. That's, you know, taking a check to the bank, that's scheduling meetings in your calendar. That's repeat, you know, client follow-up emails, sending invoices. I love to create content, but guess what?

John T. Meyer: 12:15

I hate posting content. So I don't schedule any content. My VA schedules all of our content and buffer fills up the content calendar. You know, so it's starting to think, like, kind of freeing up that load of what are the little itty bitty things that you bounce around from thing to thing. And that's where that's where I encourage you to start.

John T. Meyer: 12:34

So that energy audit, it's that minus side, those things that drain your energy, let's start there and find opportunities. And I like to say, you can D E and A. So when you look at that minus list, you can delegate a task like a BA, you can eliminate a task, or you can automate. So automate is interesting in this AI world, but actually eliminates my favorite, like, when sometimes we just stop doing things and you realize, maybe I didn't need to do that. Right?

John T. Meyer: 13:00

Like, let's just go 2 weeks without doing that thing and does it really move your needle? And as a solopreneur, we have to be really smart with our time.

Carly Ries: 13:08

So I so you're talking about, like, getting rid of the $10 things, $100. When you mentioned the calendar, the inbox, those are could be really personal things that this

John T. Meyer: 13:21

Yeah.

Carly Ries: 13:22

VA could be seeing. So I have 2 a twofold question. 1 is, how do you find a trustworthy VA and, like, what kind of, like, like, what kind of process you put them through to make sure that they're trustworthy? But, also, how do you get, like, where do you how do you train them? Like, what how do you get them to think like you know that this part of the inbox can be ignored, know that you can move this counter thing.

Carly Ries: 13:44

Let's start with the trustworthy side and how you can go about vetting VAs.

John T. Meyer: 13:51

Yeah. I I do think the inbox is the key to really unlocking a VA relationship, and that does take trust. You're a 100% right. And there are things you can do, like Google, if you have if you're a Google user, there's, like, can't remember what they call it, like, viewing access or like there's different level assistant access. I just my person has my password.

John T. Meyer: 14:09

There's a lot of trust. We use 1 password as sort of like the key to the world of of of my business. And so if anything ever changes or if she were to leave, I can turn all that off pretty quickly and easily. I love the idea of, like, a test project. So through an interview, we did a test project with Joanne, my virtual assistant.

John T. Meyer: 14:26

She's in the Philippines. I have a course that we'll talk about later, but, like, there's a gap there's a large spectrum of you can do the part time domestic, maybe someone in your community. If you're thinking about your solo if your if your business involves maybe, like, see like going to customers or physical tasks, I would find a local person. And maybe you have to kind of throttle your way up. It could be 5 hours a week and then 10 hours a week.

John T. Meyer: 14:48

And, you know, I have a 40 hour work, 40 hour a week person, but different cost structure. I mean, you're going abroad. Right? So there's there's that. There's sort of part time.

John T. Meyer: 14:57

There's a great site that hires military spouses to be virtual assistants domestically here in the in the US. You can go abroad, the Philippines, or in Indonesia. So large get spectrum. But, yes, trust matters a ton. And so I think you do the security measures of technology, and then really, like, get to know them.

John T. Meyer: 15:16

And and this this will also answer your second question, I think, through the trust. I've spent about 8 years building this. I call it the JTM playbook. That's those are my initials. But, it's a Google Doc on how I like to work.

John T. Meyer: 15:29

And in there I have, like, travel preferences. Like, here's my TSA pre check number and I typically like to fly at this time and this this seat. And then I have, here's my email template of how I onboard new coaching clients and how I off board coaching clients. And after I finish up a after I finish up a call, I do Zoom calls and take notes on my iPad, like, then we're gonna grab those notes from the cloud. We're gonna send this recap email.

John T. Meyer: 15:53

We're gonna give them their homework for next month. Like, that's all an email template. And so, this this Google Doc, this John Playbook just keeps building. It's a living, breathing document, and it's just a lot of things about me. I have a wife.

John T. Meyer: 16:06

I have 2 kids. I'm from South Dakota, you know, like, really try to download your brain into a document is the goal there. And so I think to get to answer your question, kind of bring that all together, Carly, would be, like, start small, kinda work your way up. But you do have to trust. You're taking a a degree of risk, but knowing that it kinda comes down to that, like, people will often say, well, doing this task myself will take me, like, 2 or 3 minutes.

John T. Meyer: 16:32

So it's gonna take me 10 minutes to train you. Like, I'll just do it myself. And then I ask, how often do you do that thing? Oh, every day I do that. Yeah.

John T. Meyer: 16:41

So maybe spend the 10 minutes to train them because over the next month, you're gonna spend save 300 minutes. Right?

Carly Ries: 16:48

I'm curious. So you think I have a friend of mine that hires a bunch of virtual assistants, and she has them do, like, the Myers Briggs and other personality tests as Sure. Yeah. Vetting because she's like, well, I need to make sure that we're compatible, and this test will be the one of the closest things. Have you ever done that or had success with it?

John T. Meyer: 17:03

I haven't done an assessment, but, I feel like I'm pretty decent at, like, inter having hired a lot of people in my previous life, like, doing interviews. What I love about a test project is try to see how someone thinks. So, like, take an example of your it's like, so for me, I I made a fake scenario of, like, plan a a 2 day workshop where I'm gonna bring a bunch of my coaching clients together in Fargo. That's not where I live. But I said, plan that 2 day workshop, and I'm gonna give you a week to do that.

John T. Meyer: 17:32

And by Wednesday next week, I'd love you to send me, like, a game plan. Just create a Google Doc, kind of an open ended, like, free flowing type of task to see how somebody thinks. But I also wanna know, can they work on a deadline? Like, do they get it done by the time I asked them to do it? And then you just get to see how they process that information.

John T. Meyer: 17:50

And so those are things I would potentially ask her to do, which is, like, logistical planning, potentially find us a restaurant, book a book a reservation, invite these other coaching people. And so I love that idea. And I'll pay for that. Right? I'll pay you for this task.

John T. Meyer: 18:05

It's sort of a contractor relationship. And if that goes well, then maybe here we go. You can start it 10 hours and scale your way up.

Carly Ries: 18:13

Yeah. Also, gosh. I I feel like I have a million questions going through my my mind right now, But you say like booking restaurants, planning a workshop. Sometimes people are really good at one area like QuickBooks. You said that one of the first things you were like I Yeah.

Carly Ries: 18:27

QuickBooks. Does it make sense to hire multiple virtual assistants? Or are you do you need to find somebody that can be good at social media, be good at QuickBooks, be good at making quick

John T. Meyer: 18:37

integrations?

Carly Ries: 18:39

How do you Yeah.

John T. Meyer: 18:39

It's a great question. I think you didn't have, like, the more generalist type of folks. I found my person on a website, called somewheredot com. And somewhere dot com, I, you know, I'm paying mine per full time. Let's see what it $1200 a month for 40 hours a week.

John T. Meyer: 18:54

So that's about 7:7:50 an hour. And what somewhere.com charges is, like, 30% of our annual salary. So let's just take easy math, if you're paying someone a $1,000, you know, 12 k, you you gotta spend about 4 k. So that's almost like a talent agency. But there are also there's a site called, get landed.com.

John T. Meyer: 19:12

It's a newer site and they have more tactical subject matter experts. If you want a copywriter, if you want a social media person, if you want a graphic designer. Right? So, like, I would even encourage these solopreneurs that who your audience to think beyond virtual assistant kinda has a connotation probably calendar, inbox, scheduling, logistics. But you can also you we're just talking about creating leverage.

John T. Meyer: 19:34

Right? We're talking about buying back your time, doing the things you don't wanna do, and maybe even finding people that are that are better at how you do it. Right? I think that's a huge unlock. Because, like, I'm always pretty quick to dismiss the the upper like, a person's in the Philippines, I can guarantee you her grammatically, she writes better emails than I do.

John T. Meyer: 19:52

Right? She's been learning English since she was in 1st grade. She's it's we do a daily stand up on Zoom to plan our day. She's great. Like, I'm not worried about her her English or or or talking to folks.

John T. Meyer: 20:03

So

Carly Ries: 20:04

Well, so coming off is you, like like, in terms of the, training process and everything, do you have them kind of practice taking on your personal? Like, how do you get them to mimic you if they're doing something?

John T. Meyer: 20:16

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You bet. So that playbook is a is a big one.

John T. Meyer: 20:21

Email templates, I try to give some context over the relationships of some of the people in my inbox. But I I did decide my time, running an agency too. I always say use the capital e word which is experiment. So in this case, in a VA, I just say, let's draft everything. Like, don't send the email yet.

John T. Meyer: 20:39

Just when that email comes in, why don't you draft it? A big tool I love, I love Voxer, so I'm kind of a verbal processor. As a solopreneur, you might be a person who's on the go a lot. You're going to a conference. You're going to visit a client.

John T. Meyer: 20:52

So Voxer is like a walkie talkie app. So I'll send Joanne, like, hey, I saw this email in my inbox. It's a little bit different than what we typically get, like, could you reply to him, draft an email that says this and this, and here's what I would add. And so I give her a little bit of context. She can audibly kinda download that.

John T. Meyer: 21:09

And then I'll have her sometimes Slack me or just leave it in my Google drafts, and then I'll go in and just maybe do the final 10%. So I'll call that like a 10 80 10. Right? Like, I give the first 10%. I give her some direction and ideas.

John T. Meyer: 21:22

She takes 80% of the work and then I come back for, say, that final 10 to just tweak it. And so then what I tell her is, like, hey, let's take that template. That was a really good email. Let's add that to the playbook. And next time that that email comes back, let's use that one again.

Carly Ries: 21:36

So I have a question for you just for emails because we are guilty of using this as, like, part of our, brainstorming. And we didn't talk about this in our, pre interview prep. So I apologize if I catch you off guard, but

John T. Meyer: 21:48

Let's do it.

Carly Ries: 21:51

For us, we were we use chat gbt quite a bit now just for brainstorming

John T. Meyer: 21:54

purposes. Okay.

Carly Ries: 21:55

Still us writing the emails. It's still us, like, writing the content, but just if we're to a rut, like, why would people now want to choose, like, VA to spin this stuff versus AI?

John T. Meyer: 22:07

It's a great question. I'm kind of I'm pretty casual in my dabbling of chat g p t so far as well, so I wouldn't kill him to know it to to the insides and outs very well. I probably think of I may use the analogy of thinking of as, like, playing offense versus defense. Like, I think what I like is the feeling of going to a coffee meeting or being on a sales call with the client or maybe coaching a client that, like, those are my $1,000 tasks. And knowing that there are emails that were triage that I never even saw.

John T. Meyer: 22:34

Right? Like, they were they were task or to do's that, like, both came in during that call and went out and I never saw them. We have a little bit of an end of day download process where she kinda tells me gives me a rundown of what she accomplished. I'm at least, like, aware that it happened. But I guess my answer would be, like, you still have you still have to have the mental load of triaging that with chat g p t.

John T. Meyer: 22:56

Like, until it's all all connected where, like, you know, I joke sometimes when Gmail's like, do you want me to summarize this email? And I'm like, it's 2 sentences long. Thanks. Thanks, AI. But, like, I kinda have a gist.

John T. Meyer: 23:08

Right?

Carly Ries: 23:08

Yeah. And

Joe Rando: 23:09

so, like Got this one.

John T. Meyer: 23:11

Is AI, awesome? Yeah. It's it's awesome. But some parts of it just aren't there yet. And so that would probably be my answer is, like, I just love to be I love feeling like I mean, am I actually clothing myself?

John T. Meyer: 23:24

No. This virtual assistant is not the same version as me, and she has strengths and I have strengths. And but I feel like I sometimes feel like I'm cheating because I get these extra, like, 40 hours a week for $300 a week type of thing.

Carly Ries: 23:39

You guys, I feel like we're talking Jetson's code or something. Like, we're sitting here, you're saying that your VA is in the Philippines, but you can also use a robot to help you do it's, like, what are we talking about right now? This is all it's so wild. Sorry. Sorry.

Carly Ries: 23:51

Go ahead.

John T. Meyer: 23:52

Well, I think let me say this because, like, you work with solopreneur or, like, your audience is solopreneurs. I've built 2 agencies, and they were agencies are very, like, people intensive businesses. You know, a couple million in revenue, and we create, you know, a lot of efficiencies as we grew. We worked with some of the world's best brands. But almost as as we grew, we always grew in revenue.

John T. Meyer: 24:11

We always grew in expenses as well. Right? There's a little bit of economies of scale, but, like, it's a very people heavy business. And if I were to build Lemonly in 2024 versus how I did it in 2011, it would not look the same. And I just think there is, there are new tools to solopreneur's tool belt, chat gpt being one one of them, a VA being another, that the businesses are just are gonna look very different.

Carly Ries: 24:37

Sorry, Joe. What were you gonna say?

Joe Rando: 24:40

Besides the fact that my dog is visiting us now. Yeah. I gotta fix my door. I was gonna ask, what do you do about the time zone issue for the Philippines? How do you how do you deal with that?

John T. Meyer: 24:53

Yeah. This was a fascinating one for me because we had some remote employees at Lemonly, and I thought that I always subscribe to that as long as we overlap for a couple hours. Like, we had from Vancouver to we had one in the sir in Serbia. And so she would work a couple hours, adjust her time zone. So at least we had, like, the morning, her end of day.

John T. Meyer: 25:10

So I I was ready prepared to do that with Joanne, my virtual assistant. Like, as long as we can have an hour or 2 or in the morning. And she was like, no, actually, my body clock is on, like, US Central Time. Like, my last CEO I supported was Eastern Time, but, like, she's, like, I prefer to I've been doing this job for 5, 6 years. I prefer to work at night.

John T. Meyer: 25:29

And so that kind of blew my mind a little bit too because I was like, oh, really? And so that's how she likes to work. And culturally, there are lots of folks who have a similar career in the Philippines. And so even her friend, like, they hang out, you know, I guess during the nighttime because she or, like yeah. Like, her morning type of thing.

John T. Meyer: 25:51

Yeah. I don't even remember the exact time zone, but, like, their their life is, like, inverted from probably the our schedule, and and she's great with that. So

Carly Ries: 25:59

Interesting. Well, so let's say people want their like, because this is I I just think this all makes so much sense. Do you recommend that people's, like because our our audience is primarily with made up of aspiring solopreneurs. So people that are thinking about it or have gotten started and are just trying to navigate this journey right now. Do you recommend that people get their feet wet first and figure out what they need to be delegating and where they're struggling?

Carly Ries: 26:23

Or are you like, okay, you're flying solo, get a VA right now and figure this out together so you don't get overwhelmed from the get go.

John T. Meyer: 26:32

Yeah. So, like, in my course, the first module I just say is like, we gotta figure out what we even would wanna hand off to somebody before we start. I think that a lot of people maybe have poor virtual assistant experiences because they just weren't set up on what to give them. And they think, take over, and it just doesn't go well, and they don't know who to email or how to email. So I would say there is some when I talk about a playbook, when I talk about, creating, like, your $10 task, like, there's some prep work that you deserve, and that they deserve from you.

John T. Meyer: 27:01

And so, yeah. I would say that energy audit is a great one. There's an awesome framework, a friend of mine, Dan Martell, created called the DRIP Matrix. So it has it's it's in my course. It's like 4 quadrant where you talk about, like, what are the types of tech?

John T. Meyer: 27:14

Where should I be spending my time? Obviously, we wanna do the things that both light you up and make you money. Right? So if you think about, I love doing it and they drive revenue, I wanna do those types of tasks. Some of the production tasks around those or the the fulfillment or the invoicing the details, like, meh, they're important, but maybe they don't drive you they don't light you up.

John T. Meyer: 27:35

So there a lot of that prep work, I would say. Anybody can be building a a Carly playbook or a Joe playbook. Right? Like, just think about things your preferences really start building that Google doc of of things that, that really help you, reusable things. Right?

John T. Meyer: 27:52

There really is no reason in today's world we should be crafting the same email over and over and over. So a great way to start doing this would be, I love loom.com. Loom.com is an amazing tool, and I call this the camcorder method. It's like, when you're doing things, just open up Loom and record yourself doing and just dictate, talk about it while you're doing it. So like when I finish my podcast, I upload it here, take it from Riverside and then I bring it over here, and then I have to upload it here because it goes to Spotify and it goes to Apple.

John T. Meyer: 28:21

And and so, Loom will then actually, not only is that a recorded video that you can then have your VA someday rewatch if he or she gets stuck. But also Loom has a pretty good AI teach feature that will take that audio and turn it into an SOP. And so you actually can almost kind of build your playbook while you do the task that you do every day. So I would just record that camcorder method.

Carly Ries: 28:45

It's so funny you say that. We're working on our SOPs with LifeStar right now, and I do one on the podcast. And I I was like, I have to wait until Monday because that's my pod like, the show notes day and all that stuff. And I was like, well, I'm doing it. I just I and I used Sloom and it was great.

Carly Ries: 29:02

That's such a good idea.

John T. Meyer: 29:04

Well, one thing I found so funny is, like, as I described my coaching program or this VA course that I do, like, people will say, like, oh, so you're like a systems operations guy, and I'm always, like, taken back by that, because I know, like, I hate that stuff. Like, I was the communication major who wanted to just go out and I would if I could just have coffee meetings with people all day long, that would how do I get paid to do that? But, what I found is I have a high value for systems, because I've learned that what they allow you to do if you have them. Right? Like what I'm able to be kind of in my zone of genius coaching, helping, speaking, consulting, thanks to this stuff.

John T. Meyer: 29:41

So even though it's not my natural tendency, building this infrastructure is worth it.

Joe Rando: 29:46

I just wanna say, John, I'm the same way. I, I'm not great at building out procedures, but I have so much respect for the power. And, I actually got people to help me with it that were good at it.

John T. Meyer: 29:59

Yeah. And then you and you realize that they love systems. Right? Like, letting someone else do the things they love. We often think that everybody probably thinks like we do, and that's just obviously not the case.

Joe Rando: 30:09

Yeah. There's a book I read a few years ago. The guy's name is, Les McKeown, and it's called Predictable Success. And in this book, he talks about, I guess, there's I think it's 4 different kinds of people. And he has an actual online test you can take to see what kind you are, but there are these there are, visionaries, operators, and processors are the the 3 kind of main ones.

Joe Rando: 30:40

And then there's another one called the Synergist, I think, which is kind of what you strive for. But anyway, but the but the the idea is that the the operators get it done, but it's not pretty. It's not systematized. The visionaries are always doing something new, so they're never doing anything twice because they don't it's boring. So they're always causing trouble.

John T. Meyer: 31:00

Yep. Yep.

Joe Rando: 31:00

And the processors are the ones that basically say, okay, now we're gonna put this together and make this, you know, step by step. This is how it's going to be done every time. And when things don't go that way, they get very uncomfortable and they kind of push back. And it's it's a really good model. And it's, you know, you get that processor in your life.

Joe Rando: 31:19

You might get annoyed by them if you're a visionary or an operator, but they will help you.

John T. Meyer: 31:24

Yeah. Find that person and never let go. Right?

Carly Ries: 31:27

Well, speaking of which, Joanne sounds like a lifesaver for you. What I'm curious. In In what ways have your has your life changed for the better since hiring a trustworthy VA? What impact has it had?

John T. Meyer: 31:40

Yeah. I think it's almost like, an identity shift. Right? Like, because I am probably a, a like, if you think about a disc, like, I'm a high eye or my, in my strengths finder, like, positivity and communication are my tops, like, top strengths. Like, because I I think we often, like sometimes we too closely hang on to our weaknesses.

John T. Meyer: 32:02

Right? We're, like, well, I'm I'm terrible at names, or I'm terrible at details. We just accepted these things that we will always be this way, and I just really think, you have to be careful with the words that you use. Right? The tongue is the rudder that'll steer your life.

John T. Meyer: 32:15

And so don't claim these. Like, we can build things that fix our weaknesses. And so how is Joanne changing my life? It's, like, now I wanna be a person who doesn't drop an email, who, like, does what he says he does when I when I in a coffee meeting and I say, you know what, Joe? I really need to introduce you to Carly.

John T. Meyer: 32:33

I do it. I don't just say it. Go back to my life and then, like, crap. 6 days later, I finally introduce Joe to Carly. I'll usually boxer, Joanne on my way home and say, send the intro template, from Joe, but I just had coffee with to Carly Reese and, like, it's done before I get home.

John T. Meyer: 32:49

Right? It's, like, there's just, like, a there's that's an impact. Right? You all of a sudden, you become the type of person who does what they say will do, and then people say, John adds value so quickly, and he he you know, it's like, wow. We had coffee, and he's introduced me to 3 people, or he gave me this book I need to read or this link.

John T. Meyer: 33:05

Because I guess what? We have a notion template full of all my favorite books and blog blog articles that I send to people, you know. So

Carly Ries: 33:13

It's okay because we talked about, like, the questions we always ask people and you were saying you always ask what people's superpower is. And I feel like Yeah. He has given you superpowers that sounds like you can just like like boom, done, boom, done.

John T. Meyer: 33:26

Yes. Yeah. And especially superpowers in the space that I would generally say I'm not good at. So that that feels that feels good.

Carly Ries: 33:33

That is so cool. Well, with that question, I didn't mean to segue into that, but you help people find success by freeing up their time and working with VAs. Where what is your favorite quote about success?

John T. Meyer: 33:45

Yeah. It doesn't directly, use the word success, but I think my favorite quote and I would say it's about people who are successful is the Maya Angelou quote that people won't remember what you said, people won't remember what you did, but they'll remember how you made them feel. Right? And I think any solopreneur listening to this podcast, especially I I coach a lot of services entrepreneurs, but I think they're surprised to products too. But, like, what's the transfer the transformation?

John T. Meyer: 34:10

Right? People were never buying infographics at Lemonly. They were buying clarity. This JPEG told a story so that created understanding. Right?

John T. Meyer: 34:18

And so it's like, at the end of the day, people buy with their heart. And so it's like, how do you make someone feel? And those are the things you wanna be remembered by. So I I always love that Maya quote.

Carly Ries: 34:27

No. I think that is great. Well, let's now pivot to you. You have a wonderful course. I wanna hear more about that, where people can find it, and then just where can people find you in general?

John T. Meyer: 34:38

Yeah. Cool. Thank you. Yes. I coach entrepreneurs who are on this sort of journey maybe beyond the solo phase.

John T. Meyer: 34:45

So that's all at johntmayer.com. But what I found is that that customer can really really really benefit from this VA from this VA kind of unlock. So I created a course. It's a series of Loom videos as well as, like, I have a job description on a Google Doc. I have, all the links of all the websites, the pros and cons, and the cost to these different platforms where you can go find your virtual assistant and hire.

John T. Meyer: 35:09

I have my a template to my playbook that I mentioned redacted, some of my own personal information. So that's all in there. So it's kinda like swipe files as well as videos and anybody listening can go to how to va.com. So virtuals at how to va.com. And I wanna use if you guys use the, promo code solo, and you could put this in the notes, it's normally a $297 course.

John T. Meyer: 35:31

It's just gonna be $29. So 90% off. I want I I just so believe in the power of this that I wanna make sure your audience can can take advantage.

Carly Ries: 35:40

So if you yeah. Again, doing the math, that's kind of a good deal listeners.

John T. Meyer: 35:45

If you're talking about hourly rate, you'll probably get it back pretty quickly. Yeah.

Carly Ries: 35:49

Yeah. Exactly. Well, we so appreciate that. That is so nice of you. You bet.

Carly Ries: 35:53

And that all sounds great. John, we just can't thank you enough for coming on the show today.

John T. Meyer: 35:57

Thanks, Carly. It was fun. Great questions.

Carly Ries: 35:59

This is really, really fun. And listeners, thank you so much for tuning in as always. You know, we have to make the ask. Please leave that 5 star review. Subscribe to our show.

Carly Ries: 36:09

Subscribe on YouTube. You get it. Please, please do it. We would so appreciate it. And after you you do that, just hold tight because we will be back next week for another episode of the aspiring solopreneur.

Carly Ries: 36:19

Bye.

Joe Rando: 36:20

Bye bye.

Carly Ries: 36:23

You may be going solo in business, but that doesn't mean you're alone. In fact, millions of people are in your shoes, running a one person business and figuring it out as they go. So why not connect with them and learn from each other's successes and failures? At Lifestar, we're creating a one person business community where you can go to meet and get advice from other solopreneurs. Be sure to join in on the conversations at community.lifestar.com.

Carly Ries: 36:46

That's community.lifestar star with 2 r's.com.