Latest / The Perfect RIA / The Right Hire. Right Now: How BELAY Ensures You Get the Right Team Member with Guest Lisa Zeeveld [Episode 262]

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The Right Hire. Right Now: How BELAY Ensures You Get the Right Team Member with Guest Lisa Zeeveld [Episode 262] · The Perfect RIA

0:33
Matthew Jarvis: Today's episode is brought to you by our friends
0:35
at Belay. For the last several years, Micah and myself have
0:38
been using virtual assistants from Belay to take over
0:41
delegation of all sorts of tasks, from clearing out email
0:44
to scheduling travel to following up with people to
0:47
booking a car-racing trip that Micah and I are going on
0:49
shortly. All of this is handled by our virtual assistants at
0:52
Belay. Now if you're thinking hey, I'm not quite ready for a
0:55
virtual assistant, well, you already delegate 98% of your
0:59
life. In other words, you did not build the device upon which
1:02
you're listening to this podcast. So text the letters RIA
1:05
to 55123. That's 55123 to get a free copy of Belay's ebook on
1:11
delegation, and then you're given the opportunity to talk to
1:14
my good friend Theresa, who will help you find a virtual
1:17
assistant that is perfectly suited for you. All right, back
1:20
to the show. Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode
1:22
of The Perfect RIA podcast. I'm your host Matthew Jarvis with me
1:26
today returning to the podcast once again and you may remember
1:29
her from the RTS tax summit last year of course, we will be
1:33
attending the RTS tax summit again this year, September 25th
1:37
to 27th in beautiful Phoenix, Arizona - Lisa Zeeveld. Lisa,
1:41
welcome back.
1:42
Lisa Zeeveld: Well, thank you for having me. I love being a
1:45
guest on your podcast. I cannot wait to hang with you guys in
1:48
Arizona.
1:49
Matthew Jarvis: It's gonna be a lot of fun. For those of you
1:51
that are loyal listeners, which should be everyone you'll know
1:53
that Belay has been a longtime strategic partner of The Perfect
1:56
RIA, provided virtual assistants for Micah, myself and now for
2:00
Steven, has been a sponsor at our events. And I love Lisa
2:03
having you on the show. One because we appreciate your
2:05
support of the show. But more importantly because I view iyou
2:08
like the Oracle of delegation when I'm thinking like how do I
2:12
get better delegation, it's like what would Lisa do and even Lisa
2:15
before we hit record here, you were already blowing my mind
2:18
again. I was like Lisa, we should talk about more things we
2:21
can delegate. You're like wait a second let's talk about the
2:24
peace of mind that this creates. Yeah, in your wallet. I was
2:26
almost hesitant. So I mean, honestly, like, we can't talk
2:28
about peace of mind. There's no ROI there. But like your studies
2:32
are showing that's like literally one of the highest
2:33
benefits of delegation. So Lisa, let's jump right in.
2:36
Lisa Zeeveld: Yeah, I know we were just sitting here having
2:38
just a great conversation and I was like, you know every year we
2:41
do a client survey, because ultimately we are here to make
2:45
your life better, right? And so we want to know, like, Where can
2:48
we improve? What can we do? And you know, from the beginning,
2:51
what we kept hearing was, oh my gosh, when I use your virtual
2:55
assistant, or when I hired your bookkeeper, I had just such
2:58
incredible peace of mind. Right? Like peace of mind, I could go
3:02
out and do the things that I valued the most. And it's sort
3:06
of funny, because here we are 14 years later. We try to talk
3:10
ourselves out of that every single year. Well, I don't know.
3:14
You know, that we have other great staffing firms out there
3:17
and they'll tell you... We have a calculator that will tell you
3:20
what the ROI is. If you delegate this, you can focus on the
3:24
things that only you can do when your billable time is this much.
3:27
Oh, that's fantastic. But the crazy thing is every single time
3:31
we do the client satisfaction survey, the number one thing
3:36
that our clients say, is the best thing they get out of
3:39
hiring one of our team members is peace of mind, and that they
3:44
can do the things that they love to do. And right before you hit
3:47
record, I said Yeah, because let's think about it. If you
3:49
started a business, you started a business to enhance your life.
3:53
You didn't start a business so only you would sit there and
3:56
focus on your business right and you wanted freedom. You probably
3:59
had a higher earning potential. You were thinking about all the
4:02
money that you know when you're ready for to retire that you
4:05
could do with that , right?. So you're building something. You
4:08
weren't thinking, oh yeah, I can't work 80 hours a week. No,
4:12
you don't want that. And so we hear it's like, hey, I can make
4:15
it to my son's baseball game now. Or I love adventure sports.
4:19
And so I could train a little bit harder now than I was
4:21
before. I can leave for two weeks and go on a sabbatical. We
4:25
have we have leaders who leave for months and go on sabbatical
4:28
and know that their assistant and our team has it covered.
4:32
That right there's really hard to measure because it's a
4:35
feeling but still today, the number one thing that matters
4:39
the most.
4:40
Matthew Jarvis: That's so fascinating. And for our
4:42
listeners who aren't super familiar with Belay, which if
4:44
you're not you can get Belay's great guide to delegation text
4:47
letters RIA to 55123. But Belay's is not just like working
4:51
like 10 or 12 people you guys have like an entire like a huge
4:54
number of assistants you have a huge number of people
4:56
entrepreneurs you work with like just give us a little bit on
4:58
scale. So when do you say the number one survey response we
5:01
get is peace of mind. This isn't like 12 people you asked outside
5:05
of the back door?
5:06
Lisa Zeeveld: No, no, no, this thousands. You know, we serve
5:10
thousands of clients each and every year and over our 14 years
5:13
of being in business tens of thousands of people that we have
5:17
served and again across all demographics across all areas.
5:21
So we are you know, East Coast or West Coast, we're serving it
5:24
all. And so when you think about just culture differences between
5:29
our beautiful country, and areas that might be important to one
5:33
person versus another and that's still the number one thing that
5:36
they walk away with and are grateful for Belay is that peace
5:40
of mind of knowing that we've vetted everybody for them. We've
5:42
done all the hard work, that we are a managed service. So hey,
5:46
we're people and we're hiring people, sometimes things don't
5:49
work out, but you have someone to call, the client success
5:52
consultant who's like your account manager and he's gonna
5:55
help you work through it. You have someone that's taking care
5:58
of billing on your behalf like we're trying to make this all
6:01
super simple for you so that you do have peace of mind to
6:05
continue to work on your business if that's what your
6:07
passion is, but also do things outside of that. So you can be a
6:09
great whole person. We want to be whole people. And that means
6:13
you got to be willing to let some things go.
6:14
Matthew Jarvis: I love that. You know, an example I always like
6:16
to bring bring these two real specifics, right because
6:19
sometimes I think oh yeah, peace of mind. Yeah, of course I have
6:22
that. I want that. But a real specific example came to mind I
6:24
was I was coaching a group of advisors just a few weeks ago.
6:27
And a gal there said he said I can't turn off my email alerts
6:31
because what if a client emails me with an important item? Now
6:36
we can have a discussion, and you and I have had that
6:38
discussion. Wait a second, there's probably nothing that
6:40
important that you need an alert. But I don't even need to
6:43
argue that point. Right? That's where we can say great if your
6:45
clients are so reactive that you need to be watching constantly
6:48
great news. Hire a VA, if you want to pay them to watch your
6:52
email 24/7. That's certainly possible but the peace of mind
6:55
back to your point Lisa, are I can go into a meeting I can go
6:58
to focus time I can go to my kids' sporting event, I can go
7:01
rock climbing, whatever my thing is and I don't need to even have
7:04
my phone with me. Not that I'm ignoring clients. I've given
7:08
that task to someone who's actually far better at it than I
7:11
am and that's that's really the beauty of this high level
7:14
delegation is like I'm not like just ignoring it. Right? This is
7:18
where a lot this worry comes from Hey, there's all these
7:20
things I know I need to get to but if I'm being honest I'm
7:22
getting to, I'm just hoping they're not going to bite me.
7:26
And Lisa what you're saying is let's bring someone in who is
7:28
trained who is managed let them take care of that thing. So you
7:31
can not worry about it and it actually gets done.
7:34
Lisa Zeeveld: Sometimes we're our own worst enemies. I mean, I
7:37
was sitting here right you know, and saying that without my
7:40
assistant, I would work way too much. I would be way too
7:44
reactive. And so I wouldn't show up as my best self. So what my
7:48
assistant is doing is she's protecting me. Like in your
7:51
example you use like, Hey, I can't lay my phone down because
7:53
I'm worried I'm gonna have a client who's going to need me. I
7:55
love that, we want to provide exceptional client service like
7:58
yeah, amen to that. But, if you're doing that all the time,
8:03
your level of exceptional service like on a scale of one
8:07
to 100, right, you might be an 80, because you just can't
8:10
continue to react like that all the time. But if there's some
8:14
lower level, exceptional things that your assistant could handle
8:18
for you, right, because, you know, there's going to be a
8:20
certain handful of things that they can't do on your behalf of
8:23
course. They're responding to things like hey, can I see a
8:26
statement or Oh, I got a question about this, like, hey,
8:29
they're handling all that so that when you are needed, you
8:33
come out of the gate and you have the best solutions for them
8:36
the best reactions and you're able to offer that exceptional
8:40
service at a 100. Or let's go beyond let's go to 110. Because
8:45
you have the energy to do that. When you're spreading yourself
8:48
too thin, you're not acting at your best and you're not giving
8:51
your clients the best either.
8:53
Matthew Jarvis: Yeah, and we can even look at this from a risk
8:56
management perspective. I love looking at the abundance
8:58
mindset. You and I are on the same page, the piece mind, the
9:00
time, the quality declines, but let's look at it from a risk
9:03
management side. I know Belay does a lot in bookkeeping. I was
9:06
actually recently working with Stephen of course you know from
9:08
Retirement Tax Services, stressing again the importance
9:11
to advisors that every business owner has to, non-negotiable,
9:15
has to have a bookkeeper if your CPA does it, great, if not,
9:18
you've got to bring one in. Because from a compliance
9:20
standpoint, we say well, I'll get to that bookkeeping and then
9:23
you miss a quarterly tax payment to the IRS or your payroll
9:26
doesn't get reported correctly or you get audited and the IRS
9:29
says hey, substantiate all those deductions. And you're like,
9:31
Well, I have them somewhere. These aren't just for fun things
9:35
right? These are things that if someone's not doing them, and
9:38
you shouldn't be doing that. But if someone's not doing them,
9:40
you're gonna have a big problem. So talk to us about a little,
9:42
about this peace of mind being more than just a mental
9:45
headspace. Like it's legitimate, like you can in fact, have peace
9:48
of mind because these things are getting done.
9:49
Lisa Zeeveld: For me, I mean, it's it's risk managing it,
9:52
right so what I'm thinking here is that, gosh, there's a lot of
9:56
risks. And me not having an expert who's going to take care
10:00
of my books for me, you know? Sure. I mean, you're going to be
10:03
gifted in the area of numbers. You should be in this business,
10:08
right? But the idea of you sitting here and you making sure
10:11
your bills are paid and you reviewing things, that's fine.
10:14
You know, some of our best writers, right? They're going to
10:17
have somebody who's going to be an editor or who's going to come
10:19
behind them, read things. Second look at everything. And that's
10:22
what your bookkeeper is doing. If you're the only one who's
10:24
doing your finances, you're gonna miss the details. You're
10:28
going to take some shortcuts because again, it's not your
10:30
gifting. You want to get through it, but your bookkeeper loves
10:33
this. This is what they are paid to do. So when you get your set
10:36
of financials, you're gonna know things are gonna jump off the
10:38
page that probably would not have if you were doing it
10:42
yourself when I was at RTS last year, one of my favorite events
10:47
all year, I offered a free consultation.
10:50
Matthew Jarvis: That's right. Yeah, that was hugely valuable.
10:52
Yeah.
10:53
Lisa Zeeveld: And I say anybody in the room if you want me, I'm
10:56
the CFO of Belay. If you want me to take a look at your
10:58
financials, just go up and see me this is all confidential and
11:02
let me look through them. You know, some people didn't realize
11:04
how much they might be spending on gifting. Right? I mean,
11:07
gifting is a big thing, we want you to give, but it's an in
11:10
proportion is it in the right way. They didn't think of it any
11:14
different. Like this is what I'm supposed to be doing. But for
11:16
me, because by the end of that few days, I had seen a lot of
11:21
different financials, and I could all of a sudden start
11:23
seeing trends. So I wasn't giving away confidential
11:26
information. But I was able to say, Gosh, looks like you're
11:29
gifting is a little bit high. Have you thought of other ways
11:33
for you to show your exceptional service? So but if you're the
11:37
one who's doing it, I mean, you're right there you're like
11:39
two inches away from the information. Step back. Have a
11:44
bookkeeper do that for you. You can still leverage your CPA
11:47
that's great, but then you're getting a different perspective
11:50
of it. You're having an expert who's taking care of it and
11:53
you're also protecting yourself goes back to risk management.
11:56
That if you do get called up for an audit, you know that you have
11:59
everything in line and it's a lot cheaper to go through that
12:04
when you have all your information ready to hand over,
12:06
than if you're digging for it and you've got to hire a
12:08
specialist.
12:09
Matthew Jarvis: Yeah, it's it's both a lot cheaper and in the
12:12
audit or we're focused on risk for a second but the audit is
12:14
much smoother. So I've been through I want to say more than
12:17
my share of audits. But everyone has been audited feels that way
12:19
from various different organizations from the IRS to
12:22
the SEC. And when you hand an auditor a clean set of books,
12:25
right there, it says that you're a professional and the audit,
12:29
the scrutiny goes way down. But if I just have one line item,
12:33
right, it's like expenses. Oh man, this thing is going to go
12:35
forever. I even specifically had an audit one time Lisa. And they
12:39
were asking about something really specific and they were
12:40
getting ready to drill in on this thing. And I said you know
12:42
what, great news. We have a service we use that takes care
12:45
of that. And the whole discussion stopped right there
12:47
.They said, Oh, okay, done. Whereas they were getting ready
12:50
when they had like their papers there. They were ready to go
12:52
deep on this thing, and as soon as I said no, I have someone
12:54
that takes care of it. Done, wasn't a problem. Lisa I would
12:58
love for you to speak to, and you highlighted this just
13:00
briefly, both the skill set but also the mindset sometimes we
13:04
have this head trash around delegation, especially about
13:06
something as tedious as bookkeeping can really apply to
13:08
everything. And we think wow, I hate doing this. Therefore
13:12
everyone must hate doing this. And I would feel like a bad
13:14
person. If I handed this dirty work like my dirty laundry to
13:18
someone. And Lisa that's not in fact the case.
13:21
Lisa Zeeveld: No, these people love it. You know, when we think
13:24
about people in my family who are engineers. Right. Why did
13:28
you pick an engineer out? All you have to say is the word
13:31
Lego. Lego? Immediately. You know, it's as an engineer or an
13:38
architect. It's somebody who loves to build. The same thing
13:42
happens for teachers. When you were a kid, right? You're all
13:46
well, we would play school all the time. This is what we love
13:49
to do. The same thing happens for people like me who love
13:52
numbers, and who want to actually have them service and
13:55
bookkeeping and finance. Like we just love numbers. And so it's
13:59
not that you're handing over something yucky. It's not an
14:01
episode of dirty jobs. These are people who thrive in this
14:09
environment and not only because it's their natural gifts, you
14:13
know, their gifting that something actually was gifted to
14:16
them. That's to say this is where you are going to excel at.
14:19
But they also love helping small businesses. They know that there
14:23
is an entrepreneur, a business owner out there who has really
14:26
struggled to be able to do the financials, the struggle to be
14:30
able to see where their expenses are at. And so when you think
14:34
about giving this up to somebody, it really is somebody
14:37
who is leveraging the skill set and elevating your business
14:42
because they enjoy it so much. So yeah, get rid of that head
14:46
trash throw it away. It's not something that's important.
14:49
Matthew Jarvis: I love it. I love it. Lisa, let's talk about
14:51
this from one other angle, which is this sort of myth that like
14:55
hey, I'll hire an executive assistant. I'll hire a
14:58
bookkeeper. I'll hire whomever when. So like this idea of like
15:01
when I get to x, then I'll do it. But it sort of creates I'd
15:05
be curious, have you seen this differently? I want to do this
15:07
crazy. You never end up getting to x or x is always moving. And
15:11
so you say as a small business owner, hey, listen, when I get
15:13
to a half million of revenue or three quarters of a million or a
15:16
million then I'll hire a personal assistant. But either
15:18
you never get to that point, because you're doing minimum
15:21
wage work, or you keep moving it like Well, when I get to a
15:24
million to 1.5 million 2 million, 3 million, 4 million,
15:27
and then your life just gets more and more frantic. So speak
15:29
to as Lisa from your experience again, having worked with
15:32
hundreds thousands of people now. Is there a spot where it's
15:35
too soon to get an executive assistant or a virtual
15:37
assistant?
15:38
Lisa Zeeveld: I mean, obviously, you have to have a little bit of
15:40
money in the business, right? Right. Yeah, you got to be able
15:45
to write the check. But I really think of it like if you talk to
15:47
some real estate investors, they'll always tell you what
15:50
when you make money in real estate and it's when you buy the
15:52
property. Sure, right. It's, you know, because you've got to get
15:56
it for a good deal. The same thing happens when you start to
15:59
think about delegation. People wait, well, I'm gonna wait until
16:02
I have more things to delegate. I'm gonna wait until I get a
16:05
revenue number, right? It's really not about that. It's
16:08
starting to train yourself especially if you've never
16:11
leveraged an assistant before you're not very good at
16:14
delegating. I start with people and how they run their home. Do
16:19
they still do their own log work? Or have they hired
16:22
somebody to come in clean their home? Do they take this is
16:24
really silly, but you want imagine like how many people
16:27
kind of look at me. Are you okay to take your car and get it
16:31
detailed, are you the person, are you the guy that actually
16:34
has to drive through the carwash and you sit there and you vacuum
16:38
your own carpets, right? It starts out with those little
16:40
things because it tells me where your heart is and what that
16:44
muscle is like. And if you're like well, I can just do it
16:47
because it's cheaper when I do it, you're gonna have a harder
16:49
time. So the quicker you learn to delegate, start with those
16:53
smaller tasks and grow. And that's what's great about Belay
16:56
is we have all different types of packages. So you can start
16:59
out at an entry level and grow over time. The more you get into
17:04
that business and the more that you're used to doing your own
17:07
books, and booking your own travel and doing your own
17:10
calendar, the harder it's going to be to let go of that tight
17:14
fist and say it is worth to give it up to somebody so I say the
17:17
sooner the better as long as you can afford it, you know, you got
17:19
to look at your bills, but But yeah, sooner rather than later.
17:23
Matthew Jarvis: I was just as you were explaining that the
17:24
ability to get a fractional virtual assist our fractional
17:27
bookkeeper, I won't speak to how long you've been in industry I
17:30
probably just a week or two right because you've been
17:33
industry a long time right? Having fractional people that
17:36
was not an option. I think the beginning of my career, and
17:38
maybe yours. It was like if you wanted an assistant you had to
17:41
find them yourself. You had to hire them you to train them, you
17:43
had to work them full time pay and benefits. You were worried
17:45
they were gonna leave. They had to keys to the kingdom. And so
17:48
it was a huge right you're talking about in today's
17:50
dollars, I don't know 50, 60, $80,000 $100,000 with taxes and
17:54
benefits versus be able to hire a trained fractional person who
17:59
actually knows what they're doing. And so I mentioned that
18:01
because I think at this point, if you don't have a fractional
18:04
virtual assistant, it's like not having an iPhone or a
18:07
smartphone. Like listen, I just I'm not gonna do this thing. I
18:10
gotta I'm gonna make my own phone or I'm gonna make landline
18:12
calls. This technology available to us. It's foolish to not take
18:16
advantage of it.
18:18
Lisa Zeeveld: 100% Yeah, I mean, gosh, I can remember and this
18:21
goes on to the service provider side, that after I started
18:25
growing my family, I wanted to work part time and there was a
18:29
lot of compliance around me not even being able to work part
18:32
time in the industry. And I was told no, no, no, no, no we're
18:36
here was somebody. I mean, I had years of experience that I
18:41
could, you know, give and partake in a business, but I
18:45
couldn't because as you mentioned, a long time ago, that
18:49
wasn't allowed. And so now you have you're able to access that
18:52
skill set in a fractional basis, not having that overhead burden
18:57
cost of any of that and this person wants to work that much.
19:01
So really is a win win. You talked about the bookkeeper and
19:03
like feel bad cuz you're gonna give them something you don't
19:05
want to do. Remember they love to do it. Your assistant as
19:09
well. And they want to be able to do it within a certain amount
19:12
of hours that they have, let us know here in Belay and so we're
19:16
finding clients that fit where they are in their life. So it's
19:20
a win win for everybody. And then if you want to grow a lot
19:23
of our assistants can grow with you over time. We do actually
19:26
even have assistants who are working nearly full time with
19:32
other business owners because they were able to scale up with
19:34
them. And then sometimes, hey, it's a lean season, they can
19:38
scale down to you can't do that with a full time w2 employee.
19:42
Matthew Jarvis: No, you can't and there's sort of this myth
19:45
that like, hey, I'll find someone who lives in my town or
19:48
lives next door to me that wants to do this part time that that
19:51
doesn't work. Like that's so rare, like maybe that's one in
19:54
1000 or one in 5000 versus a proven commodity. Lisa I want to
19:58
share a delegation success story I would love to hear you always
20:01
have really great ones. I love like you I love connecting with
20:04
you like that's why you and I had so much fun at the RTS seven
20:06
we love connecting we love meeting with people, something I
20:08
had previously been poor about when I meet someone like
20:10
yourself at a conference I think that Lisa was she was really
20:13
sharp. I want to connect with her again but then life would
20:16
get busy and nothing would ever happen right and then those
20:18
connections would be lost it would be a wasted opportunity.
20:21
What my assistant now does is every time I come back from an
20:23
event she asked me hey, who did you connect with at the event? I
20:27
Geez I met this Lisa gal from Belay. She's incredible. Cool.
20:30
What book would you like me to send Lisa as a follow up? So now
20:34
Reina my assistant every time I come back from event. Now who
20:37
did you meet? I write down three or four people, what book would
20:39
be most impactful for that person? stops by my house. But
20:43
luckily my assistant is local. But this works whether they're
20:45
lccal or not, has me write a card and then puts it with the
20:48
book puts it in cool wrapping paper things that my mind
20:50
doesn't work on and takes it to the post office and mails it.
20:53
And so I just the other day got an email from a very important
20:56
strategic partner saying I can't believe you thought of me enough
20:59
to send me this book. I love this book. This was so
21:02
incredible. And in my mind, at least I was a tiny bit guilty of
21:05
like, actually, that took zero effort for me in that one
21:09
moment, but it did take effott, I'm gonna hire an assistant and
21:12
I'm gonna give that assistant a priority of making these
21:14
connections. So this is now like 10x in my life. Because I
21:17
delegated something that I previously just wasn't even even
21:21
doing which I think is the like the the pinnacle everything you
21:23
and I chat about.
21:24
Lisa Zeeveld: Oh, absolutely. I mean I say all the time that my
21:27
assistant is amazing at gift giving. I want to be amazing.
21:32
I'm giving away my secrets here. I want to be great at gift
21:36
giving, but I just don't have that talent. I mean, I think
21:39
there's some people who really just have that amazing talent.
21:43
So their love language if you will. Yeah, exactly that love
21:46
language but she is and so all of a sudden right like something
21:50
I'm not good at she's able to come out of the gate and I love
21:53
that you're leveraging Reina to do that because that is where
21:57
the deep connections are made. Very few people send a gift.
22:01
Very few people do a handwritten card, all of those things. And
22:05
our assistants are thinking of that and they're saying, Hey, I
22:08
know this is what's going to make a difference and it wasn't
22:10
relationships. I'm going to get out ahead of it. I mean, even my
22:14
assistant you know, we talked about having a family. She helps
22:17
me make my family's doctor's appointment. She's keeping my
22:19
family healthy. She's keeping me healthy. You know, she's making
22:22
sure I don't forget my mom's birthday. Like those may seem
22:26
like really little things but they just help you come across
22:29
as a person of integrity and character, but things that are
22:33
in there but that you're just focused on elsewhere and really
22:36
amplifies them
22:37
Matthew Jarvis: Lisa as you're going through that list. I felt
22:39
like you were reading like my lists because those are
22:41
definitely things that I've had assistants do like hey, it's
22:43
Mother's Day coming up. You know what flowers would you like me
22:45
to send you anything specific or I'll take care of that and
22:48
sometimes we get stuck we should be curious your thoughts I know
22:51
I do. Sometimes we get stuck on this like Hey, I should I should
22:54
be the one that remembers this. I should be the one that
22:56
schedules my kids doctor. I should be the one. But to your
22:59
point Lisa, you mentioned like with the gift. That's that's
23:02
just not my area of genius and so me like staying out of my
23:05
area of genius is not helping anyone if I can find someone for
23:08
whom that is an area of genius, and I spend more time in my area
23:11
of genius, then the entire world is a better place. And so I
23:14
think we've got to get out of our own head trash our own way
23:17
of like somehow I'm doing a bad thing by delegating I'm really
23:20
doing the best possible thing I can by delegating.
23:24
Lisa Zeeveld: 100%. Yeah. And then like you said, it's a
23:26
muscle once you start to utilize it, it just continues to grow
23:31
and it gets so much easier. And then you start looking for
23:33
things. I do this with my assistant on a quarterly basis.
23:36
I asked, you know, because our assistants also want to grow.
23:39
Yeah, but there's not necessarily like a lateral
23:42
moves. Like, oh, I'm gonna go from here and I'm gonna run an
23:44
office. Like when we were in the office, we're back in the day
23:46
again, I'm aging myself, but you all want to be this. I'm gonna
23:49
go here. And that's really not a thing, right? And so but there's
23:53
tasks and there's skill sets that they want to grow in or
23:56
things that they just love to do. And so by sitting down with
23:59
my assistant on a quarterly basis, I can say hey, of this
24:02
past three months, what did you love doing and what do you want
24:05
more of. Okay, and all of a sudden, I happen to know that my
24:10
assistant love puzzles. She likes figuring things out,
24:14
right? So like, a good research, you know, tasks. She's like,
24:17
just give it to me. I want to get in there and I'm gonna dig
24:19
into it. I love that stuff. She also loves to plan events. So if
24:23
we're doing a team meeting, she wants to handle it all. Well I
24:26
think events are fun too. So it's really easy for me to veer
24:30
off and get like really distracted, but I know that she
24:34
loves it. And so it's being a great leader, that's what I do.
24:37
So I did. I give her more of that. And then job satisfaction
24:41
starts to go through the roof because she loves it. And so
24:45
having those conversations about the areas that they're really
24:48
good at and the areas that they really love to do help you
24:51
develop that muscle and so you start doing it more and more and
24:54
more as you get more creative, too. All of a sudden, she's
24:56
like, Hey, I'm gonna do this and you're like, No, you have the
24:59
skill set to do that. But it's having that open dialogue will
25:03
help you additionally delegate more.
25:05
Matthew Jarvis: I love that. So that's that's a check and you do
25:07
on a quarterly basis since we're on that topic, Lisa, tell us a
25:10
bit more about the cadence you use and you recommend with
25:13
assistants, right. So as far as check ins or communication back
25:17
and forth, what have you sort of found to be the best for that?
25:20
So you've got this quarterly check in, I obviously check in
25:22
more often than that. Could you give us some insights there.
25:25
Lisa Zeeveld: Yeah, I mean, I do a weekly zoom call with my
25:28
assistant. So just get on a quick zoom call. I have a full
25:31
entire virtual company. So people out there listening,
25:35
you're thinking I don't know if this whole virtual thing is for
25:37
me this remote work. We've done it for 14 years. We're not a
25:40
brick and mortar, we're even me as a CFO. I don't have an office
25:45
I'm right here in my home today. And so I love to see people's
25:49
facial expressions, their body language, so we're going to do
25:52
zoom. On occasion we might jump on the phone, but mostly it's
25:55
zoom we're going to do that every week via zoom. Okay, and
25:58
what and if you don't have an hour, that's fine to give it 30
26:01
minutes sometimes it might just be a 15 minute check in, but
26:04
you're really going to see like what's happening during the next
26:07
week, next seven to 10 days, where are you thriving? Where's
26:11
he or she? Is there anything else that they can take off your
26:15
plate, things of that nature. So that's like the weekly check in,
26:18
that you're just gonna do I also have a task list that keeps
26:21
rolling. I happen to use Google Suite and so it's super easy for
26:24
me to have tasks. When she's on my email, she can have tasks for
26:28
me as well. But then those quarterlies are really tied with
26:31
what we want to call like a planning meeting, when we're
26:33
going to give just a little bit of extra time if we have it in
26:36
the calendar, or we're not going to talk about the routine things
26:40
and we're just only going to spend an hour talking about
26:43
planning because again, time is of the essence here. But this is
26:46
where we are going to do a good check in and say I call it you
26:51
know, promises and expectations. And we started this from the
26:54
beginning like I promise to always give you as much
26:58
information as I have. I expect you if it's not enough to ask
27:03
the questions back to me. And so we sit down for these quarterly
27:07
so what we're going to do is we're going to go through that
27:09
list of promises and expectations and she has them
27:11
for me to, or vice versa. And then we're going to find out
27:15
what's working what's not working and are there any things
27:18
that both of us need to delegate sometimes she has to delegate to
27:21
other people on the team, you know, because her role is
27:23
growing. There's things that maybe I need to delegate but she
27:26
doesn't have the skill set to do where can I put those things,
27:29
but it just helps us grow our relationship helps grow trust,
27:32
which you need to have because I would say she's an extension of
27:36
me. Those quarterlies helped to build that trust and to grow her
27:40
skill set, while giving me additional peace of mind because
27:45
as soon as you gain a little bit of extra space in your day 100%
27:50
Something else is going to try to fill it's not a one and done.
27:53
It's not a delegate and be done like that. So it's going to be
27:57
more things that I can delegate to her when certain things are
28:00
just antiquated and old and you don't need to do them anymore.
28:03
Maybe there's no ROI. I used to delegate that to you. There's no
28:06
ROI on it. Let's stop doing it all together. So for the
28:09
quarterly do for us.
28:11
Matthew Jarvis: I really appreciate that you share that
28:12
something that's really helped and and I think all of the
28:15
platforms now have it Google meet or zoom, all of them have
28:19
these little AI notetaker things which are sort of mixed like I
28:22
don't like them enough to send them to a client like they're
28:24
not a good recap for client, but they're a really good recap for
28:27
those assistant meetings. So I have my assistant I do the same
28:29
weekly check in and then I've asked Reina to go back and say
28:32
just look at the summary and make sure that everything we
28:34
discussed got onto your list. Because Lisa like you I like to
28:37
talk fast. We go through a million different things. But I
28:40
want to make sure I'm setting my assistant up for success, not
28:43
failure. So there's ever a time where like, Hey, I told my
28:45
assistant to do x and it didn't get done. That's where I always
28:48
wanna take a step back I'm like, Alright, Did I did I set
28:49
them up for success? Or was that like a passing comment mid three
28:53
other thoughts that of course they of course they missed so
28:55
that that's a tool I highly recommend for everybody.
28:57
Lisa Zeeveld: And speaking of you know, AI right. We're
29:01
starting to hear more and more about it. The great thing about
29:04
our assistants and our bookkeepers here at Belay as
29:07
we're leveraging the latest technology, we also know is that
29:11
it takes a human to make that technology work at its best. And
29:16
so if you're thinking of like, well, I don't know I've got this
29:18
automation that runs in the background and you know, it
29:21
works just fine. No, this is taking it to a different level.
29:25
And your assistant is going to use a technology to get more
29:27
hours out of his or her day. But it's just a tool in their
29:32
toolbox like you said, and those promises and expectations help
29:36
with that too. Because you're gonna see. Being a leader is
29:39
like a mirror. You're gonna see really quickly you know, if you
29:44
have any faults or areas that you need to improve on and
29:47
allowing your assistant to kind of give you feedback in those
29:50
weekly meetings or quarterly or however you do it is only going
29:53
to set you up for success.
29:55
Matthew Jarvis: Well Lisa we could go on this for hours. In
29:57
fact we have at the at the Tech Summit last year. Again this
30:00
year the tax summit, but what are some specific action items
30:03
that come to mind that our listeners could take action on
30:06
right away? Anything that comes to mind for you, Lisa?
30:08
Lisa Zeeveld: Absolutely email, calendaring. Those are super
30:10
easy. Travel arrangements, those are difficult. Especially if you
30:15
are budget conscious and you're looking for the right price and
30:17
the right time like just hand that over. That's super easy to
30:21
do. You know, if you're following search, you got to get
30:24
them in your calendar, right? They need to be able to know how
30:28
to do that. And as you and I talked about any of those
30:30
personal appointments, easy stuff to start to get rid of
30:34
dentists, doctors, you know taking a look at gym memberships
30:38
and things like that, they can schedule it, handle it all for
30:41
you. You're gonna see immediate ROI there. Number one in the
30:45
form of dollars. Yes, we got a calculator for that but also the
30:49
thing that is harder to really put $1 in and that's your peace
30:52
of mind.
30:53
Matthew Jarvis: It really is. The other action I would get
30:54
everybody I mentioned this a little bit earlier texts the
30:56
letters RIA to 55123. You'll get Belay's ebook on delegation,
31:01
which Lisa and I were talking before we hit record. This is
31:04
really like the checklist of the bare minimums like everything
31:06
that comes on this list. You almost need to take this
31:09
download this and use it as a self assessment. Because if
31:12
every single thing on that list isn't delegating, you've got a
31:14
problem. Like you need to call Billy today like not tomorrow
31:17
today and get this in motion. So Lisa, so much appreciate your
31:20
time. Thank you so much for the insights. I love this checking
31:23
in quarterly one of the things that you love doing promises and
31:25
expectations. Always a pleasure to talk to you and we'll be
31:28
really excited to see you again in September 25th to 27th at the
31:32
Tax Summit, and for all our listeners until next time, happy
31:35
planning. Before you leave a quick word from our sponsors.
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