Start This Business With No Experience Transcript, AI Summary & Key Points

00:00 We launched March 1st and we have done 100K in  100 days. We live in a time where any idea that you've had for years is now possible. Even if you  don't have anything my whole tech stack to start lovable Wi-Fi and a computer. Okay, that's it.  That's all you have to do to start this. There are 330 million Americans and there are 33 million  business owners.

00:17 Therefore, 10% of all Americans are a business owner. Therefore, 10% of everyone  we know is a business owner, aka in this case, a potential customer to this business. Yep. I  didn't know that was a thing. Make 30 grand for each one of these. I had no idea. I think global  talent plus AI is the absolute sauce, the game changer. Yeah. It brings up the people that never  thought they could do anything.

00:37 Mhm. So, you take the people who were like, I'm stuck at $20 an  hour for my entire life. Age of Abundance. No, you're not. One of my biggest customers I got,  I faked a meeting because I couldn't get him to respond an email. It's a true story. And I  went in there and said to his assistant, "Hey, I'm here to see Jeremy." And she goes, "Is he  expecting you?"

00:55 I said yes. And he and he came out and we got a $30,000 a year contract. Oh my  gosh. So that's the literal epitome of fake it till you make it. Proactive over reactive. We  placed a single mom from Venezuela the other day. Mhm. And they just had a bad earthquake  yesterday and when we got her a job, you know, she cried on call. She's probably making multiples  of what she could make locally.

01:15 Yeah. It's like 5x is the dollar. The reason why your business  should be a focal point is for your family. Yeah. If you're working and building and doing  all these things for money, it will never be enough. It should be to buy back time and buy  back memories that you can go and do stuff with your family. Okay. So, if someone watching  this has no experience hiring global talent, no experience in business, money, anything, what's  step one for them at starting this business?

01:47 So, Alex has a very interesting story. living  in Columbia, South Carolina. He was a pastor, newly married, making about $30,000 a year  until he realized, "I am never going to reach my goal on this salary." And to make  matters worse, he was living in an attic apartment with two other couples. All three  couples were newly weds. And he's just like, "What am I doing?"

02:06 Until another pastor said,  "You should start mowing lawns." So he said, "Let's give it a shot." His wife told him, "Alex,  if you can make $10,000 in 45 days, I'll let you quit the pastor thing and start mowing lawns." And  he did. He did it. How did he get that $10,000 in 45 days? He just texted friends and family. Three  sentences. That's it. And he did a quart million dollars his first year.

02:27 And he turned it into  a $2 million business until he got to the point where he said, "I don't know if landscaping's for  me. This is a really hard business to grow." So then he started a marketing agency in 2023,  right when Chad GPT launched. Could not have been worse timing. He got the business to 20,000  a month just doing like social media posting, blog writing for small business owners.

02:46 And then Chad  GPT started to decimate his business until he went on a cruise and he met a bunch of awesome people  from around the world working on this cruise from Latin America and the Philippines, Indonesia,  Eastern Europe. And he realized, I need to hire some of these guys for this marketing business  cuz they're really hard workers and they probably don't cost as much as the people I'm hiring in  South Carolina.

03:05 So he did. He hired his first overseas employee. He paid them $1,600 a month  full-time and they did an amazing job. And his brain exploded and he thought, "I need to monetize  this. This should be my next business. I need to find these people and place them with bluecollar  small business owners for a fee." Because he was the type of guy in his church that would as a  favor connect people with jobs.

03:27 and he helped like 20 people find jobs until one of his friends  who worked in recruiting said, "Dude, you know you can make like 30% of the first year salary  if you place people in jobs." And he's like, "What? I was just doing this as a favor." So,  he took that data point and then the data point from his cruise where he met all these awesome  people and he hired his first person overseas and he thought, "I need to start an agency where  I find awesome people working overseas, place them with bluecollar small

03:56 business owners so they can  save more money." And the long and short of it is he did $100,000 of sales his first 100 days. Most  of that was profit. And he started this with about $200. So today's episode is very simple. Alex,  how can we do what you do? You don't need money to start. You don't need connections. You don't  need to be an influencer.

04:14 You just need to talk to people either in person or virtually. What is the  exact playbook to find your first person to place? Right? If someone's living in Argentina, how can I  find them? How can I vet them? How can I interview them? What questions do I ask? What do I look for?  So, we cover all of that. And we also cover how do you find your first customer or customers?

04:34 And how can I justify charging them $3 to $7,000 for placing them with an overseas employee.  So, today you get a little bit of the backstory, but 100% of the playbook. Techstack, tools,  scripts, everything you would ever need to make six to seven figures a year placing overseas  talent with people in your local country. So, let's meet Alex. Well, Alex, thanks for coming.

04:57 Yeah, man. I'm excited to be here. Thank you. Do you think we will have enough info by the end  of this episode so people can start their own staffing business? 100%. Okay. Not too hard. Not  hard at No, not hard. Okay. So, I went on a cruise with my wife. We We live pretty close to Florida.  And on the ship, all these amazing international people work, right?

05:19 I mean, the whole 95% Yep.  And I was sitting there and I was like, "Man, these people, you know, they're telling me about  how much it costs to live in Manila, Philippines, and um, you know, Argentina, Buenosares."  And they're like, "Yeah, we can, you know, we can make $2,000 a month on the boat, and that's  like $7,000 a month where we live." I'm like, "No way."

05:37 And again, I'm just a bluecollar guy.  And that's a very hard job, by the way. Yeah. Very tough. Always working. 12 hour shift, six days a  week, some seven. Like tough. And so I was like, I got off the boat and I told my wife, I was like,  "How do I find employees like that for my digital company?" Mhm. And so I looked up agencies, found  one, and hired my first person from Argentina in the spring of 24.

06:00 Okay. What did they do for  you, and what did you pay? So they were like an admin coordinator. So I replaced my assistant  that was working at my marketing company. She was part-time in my in my marketing company. hired  her full-time for $1,600 a month and she was incredible. Yeah. AI wizard, great English, great  English, four-year degree, eight years experience, just uh I was shocked.

06:22 I couldn't believe it.  What did you pay the agency to get them? This is where my idea for my company started. I The  original offer of the agency was $1,000 a month, the 12-month contract for up to six hires. Okay.  But the problem was I didn't need six people at the time and I didn't want to really commit to 12  months of something when I I'm a bluecollar as it gets.

06:41 My parents own a mechanic shop 40 years.  I own landscape company. Like I didn't know virtual assistants, global talent. I didn't know  what that was. I was just taking a risk, right? Yeah. Yeah. So that sound like I didn't love that  offer. So but it was it was a good experience. So a couple months in I'm like I'm really loving the  global talent. I'm mind blown.

06:56 You know it's like the first time you have you know you go to the  Bahamas you're like this is crazy. first time you used Chad GBT like what? Yeah. And so that's  how I felt about it and people were probably like you didn't know about virtual assistants. I really  didn't. I didn't have a single remote employee at my landscape company either. Yeah. So didn't  believe in it or you didn't think it applied to you.

07:16 Didn't think it applied. Yeah. Didn't I  was kind of stubborn to be honest. I was like, you know what, remote work, eh, you know, but  when I sold my company, the Lord told me, hey, I need you to be open-minded about new things. And  that was me trying to be open-minded to it. So, within like 90 days, I was like, "Oh my gosh, I  replaced all my American staff with V uh global talent in that first year."

07:37 Wow. How much did you  save, give or take? Oh my gosh. Uh 150,000. And productivity went up. Productivity went up. So,  24 that goes there. Beginning of 25, I'm like, you know what? This is not for me. I'm going to  sell this company. AI's going to AI's hurting me. And we stalled at the same revenue because that  was our offer. Mhm. And uh about the summer of 25, I've always helped people get jobs like through  church, you know, people like you're the business owner.

08:02 You're like a super connector. Yeah, I'm  a super connector type. Yeah. People at church, hey man, you know, you know this thing, blah  blah blah. Yeah, I'm sure it happens to you all the time. I need to work somewhere. And I've  always enjoyed it and I didn't realize it was like recruiting. I didn't know that was a thing. I  can make 30 grand for each one of these.

08:14 I had no idea. Then someone told me in the the May of 25,  hey, you've helped like 20 some I see you posting on Facebook all the time helping people get jobs.  You realize that's a 20% Yeah. uh average fee first year salary. Yeah. First year salary for  American companies. You'd be making 20 grand or something. Yeah. I said, "No, I just like helping  people do it."

08:32 Yeah. And so then it clicked on me. I was like, "I should do that for the global  talent that I love for bluecollar focused guys. That's just what I like. I love bluecollar.  They're in my blood." Hey, if you're liking this video, please hit subscribe. You probably think  you're subscribed cuz YouTube shows you my videos, but you haven't done it yet.

08:49 I just know it. So,  please check. Thank you. So sold the marketing company in no by November and then my baby when  last child was born in November and I started gearing up to to launch that. Okay. So December,  January, February of 26 I 90day plan it out and we launched March 1st and we have done 100K in 100  days. It's been pretty cool. Did and so you're likeund and something days into it now.

09:14 We're yeah  March 1st to you know here the end of June. So, when you made out when you wrote out that 90-day  plan, what did that look like? This is where the the idea came in for like what we're, you know,  talking about. I was so intimidated my whole life to be honest. I didn't I was blue collar. I  didn't understand software. You know, Jobber was a big reason why I could run my company, but like  that's it.

09:36 Like that and QuickBooks is like all software knowledge I understand. Yeah. So that's  why I always was nervous to start a company that wasn't bluecollar itself because I'm like I don't  know how I don't know python. My friend would talk about python. I'm like dude snake I'm like are  we at the zoo? I'm a big zoo fan. I'm like I don't know what you're talking about.

09:56 And then I'm  hearing 30 grand you know to oh yeah 30 grand fee to to create this idea in your head. So then I was  like wait a second there's got to be now with AI popping up. I'm like, I bet you I can build the  thing I've been thinking of, which is basically an operating system or database is what you need  for recruiting. Where can people apply?

10:11 How do you filter them? How do you send clients to to people?  All that. So, that's where I was on X one day and saw Lovable. I don't remember if someone tweeted  about it or if it was like an ad. And that's where I built my entire system. So, my whole recruiting  company, we use QuickBooks and Lovable. And that is all. Hm. And the 30,000 I mean you can't  really chase that in off global talent, right?

10:40 That's more of like a if you place someone here in  the US. What do your fees look like? We charge a onetime fee of 28% of your one salary or we lock  it in at roughly like 45 to 5,000 bucks. 4500 to 5200 is our average ticket. Okay. One time replace  someone. Yep. And who takes care of like all the payroll and all? They take care of it. Okay. So,  we didn't want to be an admin focused company, you know, and again, I want people to feel  like they're their team member.

11:05 Yeah. You're not contracting. They're not a temp. You're not  contracting us to have someone. We're not placers. We're partners. Yeah. Is what we like to say,  right? So, we like to help train, implement. We have a a channel where if you're we have a little  membership for 200 bucks a month where you get customer support. We train. We do like webinars.

11:25 I I talk through on AI or English or whatever. We really want to be a long-term partner for for  people. So, that's what we do. Those are our two offers because there's two business models here,  right? There's like a staffing agency where you place them, but you mark them up, right? Let's say  they cost you five bucks an hour, you're charging 9, 10 bucks an hour, and then you're in charge of  the payroll, all the compliance, hiring, firing, and you might make more money over the long run,  but it's a lot more

11:50 headache, more handholding. Y and then there's what you're doing which is like  we found this person, we vetted them, they're solid, we'll place them, we're going to make 28%  of what whatever they're worth for the first year. Yep. What kind of a like a guarantee? 100 day  replacement guarantee if you're not a member, 6 months if you are a member. Okay.

12:08 Okay. So  again, the other membership thing is every hire after your first one is uh 14%. Okay. So you get  basically half off your future talent. Okay. So that's the membership benefit as well. Where  did you get your very first client from? Man, that's a great question. Again, I did something  similar with a landscape company. I texted all my business owner friends.

12:30 Hey, in my town, I  texted all the people I met on Instagram and X and Facebook a video. Hey, I'm now going to  offer this as a service. You've met my team or you've seen me talk about it. You can have someone  like this now. Yeah. And I'm going to, you know, no one can vet them better than me. I know blue  collar. I know I have, you know, I'm the guy for that.

12:51 Yeah. And so that it just started going  pretty good there. And now we're probably like, you know, I think we've done a few insurance guys,  but it's 90% blue collar, 50% are green industry, 50% are not green industry, bluecollar, plumbers,  electricians, green like solar guys or No, no, like fertilization companies pre- removal. One guy  we're doing right now moves uh like land clearing.

13:15 Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So 100,000 in your first 100  days. How many clients does that represent? And how many placements does that represent?  It's about 30. It's about 27 or six clients. Okay. A few of them have hired two already.  Okay. Okay. So, it's we're about roughly 30 placements. You know, our we discounted a couple  early obviously to get the ball rolling.

13:31 And hey, you know, people, we'll give you one for half  price. Proof of concept. Yeah. And uh but now I mean I'm all in on this. Like I love it. It's you  know, you probably have the same feeling when you get to help. That's why you do the show. Like  I love helping people find jobs. I love people get jobs and find great people. So, for me, it's  like exactly what I like to do.

13:51 And, you know, it's fun building a business where you get to like  we placed a single mom from uh Venezuela the other day. Mhm. And and they just had a bad earthquake  yesterday. I don't know if you heard that, but single mom, husband walked out a couple  years ago, never heard from two little boys, and when we got her a job, you know, she cried  on call.

14:13 She's probably making multiples of what she could make locally. Yeah. It's like 5x is the  dollar there is what she says. So her mortgage was $320 a month. She's making between 12 and 1,400.  Yeah. She's doing really well. Working from home on the working from home. Currency hacking is  what I call it. I don't know what you call it, but you know, it's just currency hacking.

14:33 You're  you're taking the valuations and you're you're getting a win-win on both sides. Yeah. Well,  that's that's an interesting point to make because I've been hiring global talent since for  like 15 years, right? And I could not live without it. And I've gotten a lot of flack for it. It's  like, well, you're outsourcing jobs. It's like, no, like I'm giving a job to the best person for  the role.

14:50 100%. And today I have mostly domestic employees because by nature of these roles, like  it just works. And I've found domestic employees that are awesome. Y, you know, and I have maybe  a third global right now, but it's been switched. There's been other businesses and times where  80 90% global and 10 20% domestic. And it's just supply and demand.

15:11 It's a free market economy. And  I I'm in the business of helping improve lives. And I would love to help improve a Venezuelan's  life, just like I'd love to help improve an American's life. And you know, not every time,  but probably most of the time, net of net, if you have like two equally qualified people,  one domestic, one overseas, the one overseas is more reliable and harder working.

15:30 That might  be controversial, but that's just my personal experience. It's my experience. I I was struggling  with the talent on the marketing side. I you know just whether showing up late or whatever expensive  you know the demands of a college student is hey I deserve this right out of college. Yeah. And the  the attitude of global talent is I am humble I work hard and I'm hungry.

15:54 So I call it the three  H's. But like that's what they are. Yeah. That's what it matches your culture 100%. And like you  said it's not for every role. Like I'm sure I'm going to hire domestically here soon again. But  for admin and marketing and customer support, a lot of the roles we're filling, it's it's perfect  because in America, tell me if you think this, like what your opinion is on this, a 22 year old  girl answering the phones, like she might be there a few months before she figures out what else  she wants

16:18 to do. You're not going to get a mom, I mean, she can't do it. She's at her kids are  at school, she's moving around, or you're getting a 60-year-old lady who's like, "Hey, I want a  part-time job cuz I'm semi-retired." Yeah. So, you don't have a great pool of that. I have  the greatest pool ever for that from Global Talent. So, yeah, it's Yeah. supply and demand.

16:33 I don't People's values don't matter based on borders. That's that's one thing I say like I'm  all about America. I'm a huge pro America person, but it doesn't mean I'm anti something else.  Right. Right. You don't have to be. No. We're in the business of good people, good humans.  Exactly. Right. Okay. So, if someone watching this has no experience hiring global talent,  no experience in business, money, anything, what's step one for them?

16:58 Step one at hiring  a global talent at starting this business. Oh, starting this business. Mhm. So interesting is  we live in a time where any idea that you've had for years is now possible. So for me, I've had  this idea to like help like global talent for a few years and it didn't seem possible at first.  Mhm. Because I didn't understand AI software or whatever.

17:21 Within 3 days, I built my system. It  was like ready to roll. It wasn't perfect, but it was like, oh my gosh. Yeah. Now you can build  something like I built or something that's been in your head in three days, two days, you know. And  that's what I think is so amazing about this time and I hope the like listeners here is if you have  an idea, if you want to do a dog walking business, if you want to have a cleaning company and you're  like, I don't know where you can just do it.

17:44 Type the prompt, just do things. Yeah, you can just do  things. I didn't mean to do that. I promise. No, it works. You can literally do what's in your  head is now buildable. Yeah. And that's what's so exciting. First time in human history. First time  in human history. But it's going to take years for people to catch up to that. They'll hear it over  and over and over.

18:01 Then one day they're going to sit down at one of these vibe coding apps, type  in a prompt, see a website appear out of thin air, switch will flip in their brain and be like, "Oh  my gosh, what else I could do?" Y this idea I had seven years ago. I should try this. And then it  just becomes this age of abundance. And it like a true age of abundance starts on an individual  level first.

18:18 Yep. And then it it it grows to the collective. And I I truly believe that that's  what we're on the precipice of. I agree. I had a handyman come over the other day and do like  something with my well pump house and I was like, "Hey, uh, how's your business going?" He's like,  "I just started." So, you have a website? He goes, "No." I was like, "Let's go make one in 30  minutes."

18:36 You know, and he was like, "This is insane. How did you do this?" And now he's,  you know, he called me the other day. He's like, "Oh, I got customers all over the place." And  it's like, man, this is a 24 year old kid who doesn't didn't even know this existed. So, just  showing someone the opportunity. Yeah. It's amazing what what can happen. So for my business,  you can start any type of business like it.

18:53 Now, this is something I say a lot is it doesn't I  don't think AI has made business any easier. It just makes it simpler. Yeah. Like it's still hard.  It's still hard having employees. It's still hard having systems. It's hard getting sales. It's  still very very difficult. Yeah. I don't know your opinion on that. No, I agree. It's getting  customers is harder.

19:14 Yeah. Like because there's a trade-off to every action. There's an equal and  opposite reaction, right? So if building becomes easier, then it's not like we didn't give anything  for that, right? What do we trade off for that? Distribution and marketing. It's harder than it  was before because anyone can build whatever they want. So if 13 guys in Columbia, South Carolina  want to build a cleaning business, theoretically they could all get put in the same prompt and  have an equally beautiful website the same day, right?

19:39 But which of those 13 guys is going  to be willing to text 60 friends and family, right? Very few of them. like the person that's  like that's just as hard as it always was just as more critical than it's ever been because we have  to be willing to put ourselves out there either on Instagram or through text through call through  sitting down at Starbucks with a friend and say I started a thing I really believe in it can you  help me out by being a customer right and people want to help more than ever too I think like

20:03 one  of my biggest customers I got at my landscaping company I faked a meeting I dressed up I put my  laptop in briefcase and because I couldn't get them to respond on an email. This is a true story.  And I went in there and said to his assistant, "Hey, I'm here to see Jeremy." And she goes, "Is  he expecting you?" I said, "Yes." And he and he came out and we got a $30,000 a year contract.

20:23 Oh  my gosh. That's 100% true. So that's the literal epitome of fake it till you make it. Proactive  over reactive. You don't seem like a suit guy to me. I'm I am a car heart guy and pants guy. No,  but I I dressed up nice that day and acted like I was supposed to be there and people believed  I was. And that's sometimes you just have to put that out in the internet in the world.

20:44 Boots  on the ground is like something people don't do. Like going back to because it's hard. It's harder  than the alternative, but it's still easy. Like relative to other things, digging a ditch, it's  still easy. What you described showing up to that guy's office, I call that like the um the bathroom  pass. Yeah. Right. Like if you if you want to sneak by authorities, walk with confidence, walk  like you know where you're going, hold a sheet of paper, and people don't question you.

21:10 No, that  guy knows where he's going. He's probably got a bathroom pass. That's what the I used to do that  in high school. I just grab any sheet of paper and I would walk out the door. No one did, right? He  threw on a suit. Now, what about that guy or that meeting gave you the confidence to do that? Cuz  you could have done that with any meeting, but you probably didn't think it'd be worth it.

21:29 What  What signals did you get from that guy that said this is worth it? You know, he had responded once  or twice like, "Yeah, I'll get back with you." And stuff like that. And I knew that his industry,  he was a home building guy and I was trying to mow the grass of the homes that they were doing.  And so I kind of knew the language of like, "Hey, this is a problem for you.

21:47 I can take care of it.  I know you've been busy. I just want to come make it easier on you by showing up." Yeah. And he  was like, "Oh yeah." And then like he texted me a couple. You removed the friction. I removed  the friction. Guys, tkers.com. That's my community where people are building businesses. I do AMAs  Q&As's every week live. You can ask me anything you want.

22:06 You can have accountability partners.  It's about a thousand people in there building, starting, growing businesses. Check out TKO as  in the Ker office. TK owners.com. And again, I didn't no one taught me these things. Like  when you have this is I one thing I love to talk about is purpose. My purpose was to provide  for my family and let my wife stay home.

22:20 And so I'm going to figure out any direction to get to  that destination. Yeah. If there's a speed bump, there's an obstacle. You just have to figure out  a way around it. Yeah. And that's why I love your show because like that's what everyone that's what  people talk about. Friction is the key to life. Like when to remove it, when to add it. I I used  to weigh 260 pounds.

22:40 I lost it all. Right. What's one way of doing that? You throw away every single  bad food in your house. Right. It doesn't mean you're going to lose weight, but the chance of  me driving to McDonald's when I have a craving is very small to compared to downstairs. Exactly. If  I uh if I want to get into the habit of running, I need to remove the friction to run.

23:00 I need to go  to sleep in my running clothes and put my running shoes at the foot of my bed. So, I can't get out  of my bed without stepping into my running shoes, right? So, if I want to an opposite example is  let's say I I struggle to stop swiping reels, right? I need to add friction. I need to add  the time blocker or an app on my phone that will cut me off at 30 minutes, right?

23:19 So, adding and  removing friction at specific places in your life can change everything. It's alarms and reminders,  you know, it sets these off. I I totally agree. I just went running. I I used to be um in great  shape and I'm not in the best shape now. And I went running last week for the first time and I  hated it. Like good. Yeah. Like you should I was tired like you said like if you want something to  change, you have to put things in place for that to do so.

23:45 I love the proactive reactive discussion  because so many people I talk to are like, "Well, I'm waiting for customers." And I'm like, "That's  like fishing without bait, man. Like they're not going to bite. You got to go and do something to  get those customers." And most people aren't doing that part. A lot of people are waiting for people  to come.

23:59 So, you have a huge competitive advantage if you go and hunt people down. Yeah. You know,  Dave Ramsey says, you know, kill something and drag it home. Like, you got to leave the cave,  kill something, drag it home. I'm a big hunter in terms of that. Yeah. I like saying your customers  don't care about you. Yeah. We have a tendency as business owners to believe that we are much more  top of mind for our customers than we are.

24:18 Right. Right. Like, oh, I sent a reminder email, so  they'll show up. You have to send 13 reminder emails. They don't care about you. They don't.  It's nothing to be offended by that, but they are bombarded with reals, Tik Toks, ads, banner  ads, everything. People knocking at the door, soccer. You have to stay top of mind. They don't  They don't care as much about you or your thing as you would like to think.

24:41 Not even anywhere close.  Totally right. All right. So, you get your first customers by reaching out to friends and family.  Y if someone does not have an Instagram following, is it just a matter of texting business owner  friends that we have? I mean, walk in places, you know, go and go and ask uh you know, most  people have some nucleus of people.

24:55 So, this is like even if you don't have anything, you have a  church, you have an organization, maybe you're a baseball coach in little league, go and make that  your first nucleus. Does that make sense? And hey, can I have a meeting with you? You're an HVAC  guy and I I'm I have a new thing in beta. Can I talk to you about it? Just make connections with  whatever your central thing is.

25:16 Yeah. I go to a church of,200 people. So that is also a benefit.  I Anyone could do that. Anyone could do that. Anyone can do that. But like I'm from my town. I  know people because I grew up there. Take advant whatever your advant everyone has an advantage  is my opinion. I say that everyone has an unfair advantage. Even if you just play Legos all day.

25:37 Yep. You could monetize that. Yep. Figure out how to use your advantage. Whether it's connections  or people or chess club, whatever yours is, figure out a way to do it. Yeah. It's like, oh,  it must be nice for him. He goes to a,200 person church. Y you could. Yep. Go walk in. They'd  love to have you. Yeah. 100%. Alterior motives, whatever. You know, go network with people.

25:57 100%.  This is kind of a two-sided marketplace here. What about the sourcing side? How do you find talent?  How can the average individual that's never done it for their own business before find talent?  Yeah. I mean, so that's not rocket science, you know, like we do LinkedIn ads. We do Facebook and  social and meta ads. We do uh job boards. I mean, every recruiting people, I don't think there's  a sauce.

26:18 I mean, there might be one that I don't know about, but it's not crazy complex. You can  go and find people anywhere. I mean, online PH or online jobs.ph. Upwork. Yeah. We we focus only  Latin America, but that's a place like Upwork, Fiverr, whatever. Like, there's lots of places to  find it. The key thing moving forward I think and I'd love to hear your opinion is like there is a  difference between elite ones and like just people in in Latin America or overseas.

26:44 So we're trying  to find like the cream of the crop. That's my MMO. So that's a little more challenging cuz we're like  a little harder on it. You know, English and yeah, you know, skills and all that. Well, the  elite ones don't cost that much more. No, just harder to find. They're harder to find.  What are some signals you look for? So I look signals.

27:02 That's a great question. What I  look for in elite ones is are you is your English really really strong? To me, if you have  made a huge effort in making that a priority, you're a great you're going to be a good employee  because it's a signal that you know how you do one thing is how you do everything. How you do  one thing is how you do everything.

27:18 If you've put in the time there, you've put in the time  with the degree you have. I mean a lot of Latin Americans have a degrees like it's like in their  blood. uh they are forced to go to college and they're like it's very cheap to go to you know  Buenosares is my favorite place in Argentina. They're all educated from the University of  Buenosares and their English is insanely good, their AI, their marketing skills.

27:39 So people who  have a degree I love because that means they're dedicated to something that in America it's not as  I'm not as impressed with degrees here because and we're not too far in similar ages. Everyone went  to college the last 20 years. Mhm. Now it's not, you know, now it's okay not to go to college. But  when I was in high school in 2010, if you didn't go to college, you were looked at weird.

28:00 Yeah. You  remember those times? I don't I don't think it's that weird anymore. When a kid tells me he's going  to work as a welder in my church now, I'm like, great. Yeah. So, I'm not as impressed here as I  am over there. It's a It's a lot of commitment um to to get a degree. So, I love degrees. I love  English proficiency. And then anyone that is doing AI or marketing over there, I like a lot.

28:18 Okay.  Because you're curious. Yeah. Because marketing is not just it's a signal they're on the cutting  edge. Yes. On the cutting edge. I like the cur I love curious people. So anyone that's like I've  been taking certifications. Oh for what? I just want to get better. Those are some of my Perfect.  Yep. That's a signal for me. So if you're let's just say hypothetically you find a landscaping  business owner in Charleston, South Carolina that wants a customer support, someone to answer  the phone, call people,

28:44 reminders, whatever. Is it realistic to go to somewhere like Upwork, um, post  a job for exactly what you're looking to place and then say in the job description, send me an audio  message so you can hear because that's what I used to do. I want to know what they sound like before  I waste time on a call with them. Is that We don't even let people apply if they don't send the  two-minute video.

29:05 Okay. Yeah. So, you want a video and audio? I want video and audio. Okay.  Do you have any like in your interviews like any specific questions or kind of tricks to like get  a tell from them on their reliability or their, you know, work ethic? Yeah, you know, I because  I've interviewed so many, I don't have like a list that I ask, but but I do ask this.

29:24 Why should  I hire you over somebody else is one of my main questions. I want to see the confidence. I want to  see your answer. That's one of my tells. I don't know if that's confidence is important. confidence  because they're they might be like, I don't know, you know, I'm and it's like never mind. Yep. 100%.  One is why you not someone else. The second one is I want to hear you say what you're great at.

29:45 I  want to hear you say, I'm really great at this and this is where I can impact your company. I  don't like interviewing people when they're like, "Oh yeah, I've been doing this for this many  years and I'm good at it." Yeah. I want to hear you explain why you're amazing at something.  If you can convince me that you're great or con you've already convinced yourself is what I'm  trying to say.

30:05 Of the 30-ish people you've placed, how many have you had to replace? Because they won  so far. Okay. Yeah. I mean, ironically, the person we had to replace had been working at Microsoft  and her personality was not good. I'm not actually that surprised by that cuz she disappears in a sea  of a million other employees. Four days into it, the guy was like, "Her personality is not cut  out for customer support.

30:27 She's in her head." Um, so we that was it. How do you foresee your  business being impacted by AI? Because I think one potential criticism of this model is these  people are just going to be replaced by claude JBT. What's your rebuttal to that? I'm not as  bullish on AI um replacing humanity as I am it replacing mundainess. So that's that's my thing.

30:52 I  think that we're having this big spike similar to crypto to be honest with you like this arc where  I think that I mean AI is the best tool we've ever had in the close one's the iPhone right like in  the last 20 years I still think humanity plus AI is going to be the sauce I don't think people are  going to want to talk to eight bots you know they might like it for now and then like they're going  to realize oh cuz there's a human element in all of us you know we're both people of faith like  humanity is inside of

31:21 us he created us in his image, there's something of connectivity that  we saw with co like we were all stuck at home and like we don't this is terrible like and  everyone thought that would be great working from home. Oh my gosh. And it is great but not by  itself. Yeah. Right. And so I think global talent plus AI is the absolute sauce, the game changer.

31:41 I don't think that having AI do everything is is fulfilling. I don't think it Yeah. feels good.  So I just don't like it. I'm I'm trying to think of an analogy here. I think I've got one. I love  analogies. Me, too. So, 2023, 2024, the narrative was everyone's going to lose their jobs. Y, this  is groundbreaking. This is huge. And it is. It seems even more so now than, but it was everyone's  going to lose their jobs.

32:08 It's going to anything white collar, software, anything binary, anyone in  a spreadsheet, any creatives, they're not safe. No one's safe, right? The plumbers are safe for now,  right? That was the narrative. I think it's it's switching because we're seeing data. We're seeing  job loss data, but it's not jobs that are being stolen by AI. We're seeing jobs that are lost  because companies are just realizing we don't need as many people.

32:33 It's not that AI replaced  Mary's job. Less headcount. We just we can be more productive now, right? Hey, if you're  watching this on YouTube, believe it or not, we edit out a ton of this episode, a lot of the  backstory. If you want the full version of this, plus a ton of other exclusive videos only posted  to my members, you can join my private YouTube community.

32:52 It's all hosted right here on YouTube.  Five bucks a month. You get free business plans, which is a $300 a month value, and free exclusive  videos, one to two a week. So, here's my analogy. It might not be any good, but let's say we had  this new technological breakthrough that made all food in the world free or almost free. 20 bucks a  month. Right.

33:08 Right. And the narrative immediately is we are going to get so fat. We're going to get  so fat because now there's no friction between us and food, right? But what actually ends up  happening is we can afford better food. We can eat higher quality. Right? People in a lower income  bracket don't need to eat crap food. They can eat salads. They can eat grass-fed beef.

33:32 Right?  And so 10 years later, people are skinnier than ever because they're eating better food. We still  might choose to eat junk food every now and then, but if it does, if a salmon fillet costs the same  as, you know, a tortilla, we're more likely to eat a salmon, right? You could talk about the cultural  like that's not true because we're not used ignoring all that.

33:54 That's what I think's happening  here. Yeah, we're just doing more important things and so it's growing the pie, right? And that's  why I truly feel we're on the precipice of an age of abundance here. I agree with you. I mean, I the  things I've been able to do in the last 24 months, I didn't even think was really possible. And so,  I'm not a sharp guy.

34:12 I'm not the crazy sharp guy. So, imagine all the people that are doing that on  a sharp level. But also, it brings up the people that never thought they could do anything. So, you  take the people who were like, I'm stuck at $20 an hour for my entire life. Age of Abundance.  No, you're not. You can do a lot of other things. Yeah. You now have the ability if you so  choose.

34:31 I love that phrase. If you so choose to submit yourself to something and work hard and be  humble, you can do it. And that's that's like with lovable. Like that's again like I'm not sponsored  by them by the way. Not I have no never talked to them. I just love it. Yeah. Yeah. You can do  anything. You can do that with Replet. You can do it with all these other things.

34:53 And you just have  to make the effort. And that's what I like want people to hear. Yeah. Yeah. Is like I think people  are drowsy and and discouraged by AI, you know, like, oh man, it scares me. I think it's going to  replace people. I just decided it's the other side of the coin. It's the it's an opportunity to do  more. And so that's what I chose.

35:10 People that have that opinion are are going to find that, right?  Yeah. You find what you're looking for. We always do. Yep. So just choose to look for the good.  I love it. All right. So there are 330 million Americans and there are 33 million business  owners. Therefore, 10% of all Americans are a business owner. Therefore, 10% of everyone we know  is a business owner, aka in this case, a potential customer to this business.

35:34 So, the playbook is  reach out to them, three sentence text, really no different than your landscaping text. Just swap  out the industry and learn what their needs are. Try to get some sort of deposit. Yeah. Yeah. We do  half down and half at signing, but all and if it's your first client, maybe it's you just want 100  bucks. Just something to show that they're putting their money where their mouth is.

35:53 Y then you use  that as demand as proof of concept to go out and find someone and you don't outsource these calls.  You do it yourself. You need to learn, you know, what a good employee looks like. And then like  very tactically, let's say you find the perfect person. They have availability. You've got a guy  willing to pay. What then? How do you connect them?

36:15 How do you collect payment? Like as specific  as like do you use Stripe invoice, Stripe payment link? Quickbooks. Yeah. My whole tech stack to  start was a $100 a month lovable $100 a month QuickBooks Wi-Fi and a computer. Okay, that's it.  That's all you have to do to start this. You use QuickBooks both for your books and your payments?  Yep. That's what I do.

36:30 I send it to them. But yeah, the process is you get on a call, you hear  what their needs are. Hey, what are you what's the pain point here? What are you struggling with? I  can't answer the phone enough. I am missing eight calls a day. That's not allowed. That should not  happen. You're leaving $8,000 potentially a day on in revenue. Let's get you an admin.

36:50 Here's  Tell me what that type of person. What are the hours you want? Yeah. Okay. Find that person. Find  Well, we try to find four that we think are great. Okay. You pick the two that you like the best or  whatnot. And we You introduce them to all four. We send it through a portal that we created in  lovable. It's What if someone doesn't have this?

37:08 What's the more rudimentary way of doing this?  Just email introduction. Yeah, you can do an email intro to it. Hey, we found these people. Look at  the videos we recorded for you. Tell me what you think. Pick the two you like. We'll introduce,  we'll interview them with you, pick the winner, and then we'll help onboard and implement. We do  usually an hour and a half onboard implementation.

37:27 Here's the recommended tech stack. You know,  Slack, we love Slack, whatever it is. Um, Cap Cut, you know, Canva, whatever. Okay. Um, use this to  do this. Here's how to pay them. We have a pay paying platform. We have a partner uh to do that.  It's like super easy. Do you use like deal? We use the Is that like a deal competitor? Yeah, it's  like Vinmo for Oh, okay.

37:44 you know, Vinmo for it. They do compliance. You can use Gusto, too. Does  international gusto, but we like Sarah. They're pretty cool. So, whatever is easy. We pay once a  month. That's something interesting. Maybe people might not know. We like to do it once a month.  That way, the fees are only one time instead of paying them weekly or bi-weekly. So, you encourage  your customers to pay them once a month or what?

38:07 We we pay we encourage our customers and then  they're allowed to do whatever they want. It's their business. This is where we're not at. This  is part of your training. Part of my training is the fees eat up the well we we the fees the the  fees or who deal fees whatever. So we just say just pay them once a month. So it's a one one  time fee not paying them twice you got to do it twice.

38:25 Okay. So then you you hand them off and  then you basically say you collect your money, send a QuickBooks invoice. Good luck. See you  later. Let me know if you need anything. We're a little bit different but you can do that. We we  like to go hey um if you're a member this is our only other revenue stream. If you're a member,  we have, you know, line of communication for you to talk to us all the time.

38:43 Hey, what would you  suggest here? What would you do there to my team or my or me? We do two trainings a month. You  know, whether it be talking about how to use AI better, how to use how to how to hide your accent  better, how to, you know, be better at English. We do trainings with them. It's only 200 bucks a  month. We're building out a resource library right now of videos.

39:02 Here's how to do this, how to use  that, Canva Pro, whatever. You know, we want them to be best at what they do. So, we're going to put  tools out there uh to do so. So, resource library, if you will. You know, we want to partner like  I like the partnership thing. I am not like big into have a great try. Most of our customers, not  all, first- time hiring global talent.

39:17 I do not want to throw you out there. Yeah. And see you  choke when when you don't have to. If you were to take your 30 clients or whatever and make a  percentage split between people that hired someone to replace someone and people that hired someone  to add a new function. 90% 90% first time didn't replace anybody. Okay. Cuz that's the I think  that's the perception.

39:40 It is right. Like oh po poor Mary worked at the company for 30 years and  firing her for someone in Venezuela. No no it's like their business is growing. Y and they're  choosing to hire someone overseas to manage that growth. They're working 70 hours a week, 50  hours in the field, 20 hours at at night doing, we've all done this, invoicing and answering phone  calls and emails, and they're like, "This is not good.

40:04 I don't have time for my kids. I can't coach  soccer." Whatever the reason is. So, let's get an admin for you and fill that role and give you  20 hours your time back. Yeah. Hey, so we took everything we learned from Alex in this episode,  plus a ton of other case studies and data points and tips and tricks and all that, and we put it  in a 25page business plan.

40:18 You can grab that for 19 bucks at the link at the top of the description  below. Do you do much training for the employees or for the the VAS or are you trying to find  people that are already trained? Already trained. We don't do training on the front end. We're not  I'm not opposed to doing that in the future like having workshops that like if you're applying  with us and you want to be better qualified to try to get a position, but we don't like do the  the training beforehand.

40:42 No, we let the you tell us what you need cuz each each company's custom  to me, you know, like he had their own system, their own CRM. We get a lot of jobber requests. So  like specific companies want us them to be native to that. So we're going to do some people here's  people who are pre-approved by us that they know how to use this. Okay. So that's like a future  thing we're working on is like they're really good at QuickBooks approved by us.

41:07 We took them  through a process. Okay. Does that make sense? Yeah. How many of your clients are paying the $200  a month? Oh, 75%. Oh, wow. Yeah. Okay. So, that's sub that's substantial. Yeah. If you're planning  on hiring two people, it's a no-brainer to do for at least a year. The way we set it up, you know.  So, it's like four or 5,000 a month recurring, give or take.

41:27 Yep. That's beautiful. Yeah. And  how many calls do you do a month of the training calls for the talent? We do two. Okay. We do  two a month. Okay. We did one two weeks ago, we got one coming up. Okay. Do you think there's  a value to doing like staffing for this industry or staffing for you know Eastern Europeans both  on on both sides the supply side like if if I come from home health and hospice right it's like  we do staffing because that's what I know I speak the language that's what I like do you think

41:54 that  would something like that would be too niche or it's possible because you're doing like staffing  for landscaping yeah we're bluecollar focused now like at first I just a few days ago a guy was like  hey you're a guy was talking to me on X he's like you're the bluecollar like you know blue collar  really well. Why are you not just leaning into that?

42:12 And I'm like I've always been nervous cuz  I had an insurance guy reach out. He's like don't uh save your toe to not save your leg. Right. And  I'm like okay. So I'm like we're leaning into that and we'll take anybody. But I think it's smart to  be focused first and then if it demand grows then you can figure that out later. Yeah. But like  I'm not I'm just now committing to that.

42:29 So don't make me sound smarter than I am. Well, for  every insurance client that you potentially don't acquire, Yeah. you're going to be 100 times more  likely to acquire a blue collar client. Exactly. It's you'll net out ahead. You'll never really  know, right? But that specialization will cause you to net out ahead. And I just like like that  was the when I had the marketing company before, I never felt comp like super confident talking  about all these things.

42:51 I am as confident as anybody talking about bluecollar. I watched my  father grow a mechanic business. didn't barely graduate high school. I watched how he did and and  then I, you know, did that with the landscaping. So, that's what I it's in my blood and I I want  to lean into that. Yeah. You know, remind us what your business is called. What's your website?

43:12 Bridgewaystaffing.co. Bridgeway Staffing.com. It's called Bridgeway Global Staffing. And if  people want to find you, where can they find you? Yeah. Alex Kirby on Instagram, Twitter. That's  my name, the Alex Kirby. Alex Kirby. You can find me any any place. I'd love to help. Anything  else I missed? I mean, one thing we didn't talk a ton about is I family.

43:32 Like, the reason why you  should be doing, this is just opinion here. The reason why your business should be a focal point  is for your family. Yeah. If you're working and building and doing all these things for money,  it will never be enough. It should be to buy back time and buy back memories that you can go and do  stuff with your family. And so for me, like I work a nineto-5, but if my wife isn't feeling great,  I can cut out an hour.

43:55 I'm all about grind mode, but I I do think that, you know, a lot of people  like entrepreneur, I might have to work 80 hours. You might have a season of that. You might have a  90-day sprint, I call it. But you've got to That's why the staffing thing is so beautiful. I get to  get help guys get their time back. Yeah. And where they're like, "Man, I'm at I'm up at midnight  doing invoicing."

44:18 I'm like, "You don't have to do that." Yeah. I got a solution for that. Yeah.  Um you don't have to do all your marketing. Oh, I got a solution for that so that you can go be  a T-ball coach. Yeah. Like businesses should not be um swallowing people. I I say a phrase,  Chris, it's you shouldn't own You should own your business. It should not own you, right?

44:40 And so I would add that in. I love it. Thank you, Alex. Yeah. Thanks for having me, Chris.  Appreciate it. If you like this content, please share with a friend, hit a like or a comment  below, and we'll see you next time on the Kerner