Podcasts about great assistant

Are you the surgeon in your business, or are you stuck being the assistant prepping the tools and organizing the room? In this episode, Tim Francis, founder of GreatAssistant.com, breaks down the power of effective delegation and why a great assistant can transform your productivity. Tim shares the "365 Delegation" method—a structured way to delegate tasks that minimizes back-and-forth questions and maximizes efficiency. He explains how top professionals, like surgeons, focus only on the high-value work they are trained for, while their team prepares everything else. The same should apply to business owners! Plus, Tim provides two incredible resources to streamline delegation:

Damian DiGiulian is in his his 13th season as the men's ice hockey head coach at St Michaels College in Vermont. DiGiulian has also coached in the USA Hockey development system and at NCAA Division I and III as assistant coach at University of Vermont and Middlebury. John and Damian worked together at UVM from 1999-2003. DiGiulian has led the Purple Knights to a pair of Northeast-10 Conference regular-season co-championships and five league tournament title games during his tenure. Two of DiGiulian's student-athletes were honored as winners of the 2017 Hockey Humanitarian Award, with Danny Divis '17 and Justin McKenzie '17 earning the recognition for their work as creators of mental health awareness campaign Hope Happens Here.  In our conversation today, we discuss the current state of youth sports and how it impacts athletes on the collegiate level, head coaches dealing with incredibly difficult circumstances, and what it takes to be a great assistant coach. Damian discusses his new podcast The Assistant, lessons learned from some of his guests, and so much more.  Connect with Damian at ddigiulian@smcvt.edu PUT IN YOUR BULK BOOK ORDERS FOR OUR BESTSELLING BOOKS! Programs such as UNC soccer and lacrosse, Syracuse lacrosse, Stanford Lacrosse, Middlebury College, Colby College, Rutgers University, and many other champions are using THE CHAMPION TEAMMATE book with their athletes. Many of these coaches are also getting THE CHAMPION SPORTS PARENT so their team parents can be part of a successful culture. Schools and clubs are using EVERY MOMENT MATTERS for staff development and book clubs. Are you?  We have been fulfilling numerous bulk orders for some of the top high school and collegiate sports programs in the country, will your team be next? Click here to visit John's author page on Amazon Click here to visit Jerry's author page on Amazon Please email John@ChangingTheGameProject.com if you want discounted pricing on 10 or more books on any of our books. Thanks everyone. NEW WOC MASTERMIND AND CERTIFICATION PROGRAM IS SOLD OUT! Our 2025 Mastermind and Certification Program is sold out, but we do have a waitlist as well as a collection of coaches who are interested in being part of our next cohort. If you want to take a deeper dive then ever offered before into your coaching and personal development, or work within your school or club improving coaching or transforming the culture, or you want to hit the road as a speaker and presenter working with teams and youth sports organizations, we will give you the tools and support to do so. We are collecting names who are interested at this moment in joining the waitlist or being the first to know when we offer another program, you can do so by clicking here and adding your name and email to the list. This week's podcast is brought to you by our friends at Sprocket Sports.  Sprocket Sports is a new software platform for youth sports clubs.  Yeah, there are a lot of these systems out there, but Sprocket provides the full enchilada. They give you all the cool front-end stuff to make your club look good– like websites and marketing tools – AND all the back-end transactions and services to run your business better so you can focus on what really matters – your players and your teams. Sprocket is built for those clubs looking to thrive, not just survive, in the competitive world of youth sports clubs.  So if you've been looking for a true business partner – not just another app – check them out today at https://sprocketsports.me/CTG. Become a Podcast Champion! This weeks podcast is also sponsored by our Patreon Podcast Champions. Help Support the Podcast and get FREE access to our most popular online courses, a $300 value. If you love the podcast, we would love for you to become a Podcast Champion, (https://www.patreon.com/wayofchampions) for as little as a cup of coffee per month (OK, its a Venti Mocha), to help us up the ante and provide even better interviews, better sound, and an overall enhanced experience. Plus, as a $10 per month Podcast Super-Champion, you will have access to never before released and bonus material, including: Downloadable transcripts of our best podcasts, so you don't have to crash your car trying to take notes! A code to get free access to our online course called “Coaching Mastery,” usually a $97 course, plus four other courses worth over $100, all yours for free for becoming a patron. Other special bonus opportunities that come up time to time Access to an online community of coaches like you who are dedicated listeners of the podcast, and will be able to answer your questions and share their coaching experiences. Thank you for all your support these past four years, and a special big thank you to all of you who become part of our inner circle, our patrons, who will enable us to take our podcast to the next level. https://www.patreon.com/wayofchampions  

In this episode of ClickFunnels Radio, hosts Chris Cameron and Ben Harris welcome Tim Francis, CEO and founder of Great Assistant. Tim shares his inspiring journey into entrepreneurship, discussing his early struggles and the pivotal moment that sparked his entrepreneurial spirit. After failing five times to find the right assistant despite his attempts to apply the principles from "The 4-Hour Work Week," Tim reveals the extensive vetting process he undertook, interviewing over 50,000 candidates and investing more than $2 million. He highlights the unique niche he discovered in the assistant space and hints at an upcoming book that promises to share his insights and experiences. Tune in for an engaging conversation about the challenges and triumphs of entrepreneurship and how finding the right support can absolutely transform your business! greatassistant.com greatassistant.com/toolbox

In this episode, we connect with Tim Francis, a Canadian-based award-winning entrepreneur, and the Founder of Great Assistant and Profit Factory. With over 10 years of experience as a business owner, Tim is a knowledgeable consultant and speaker in entrepreneurship, marketing, and systems… With a recession on the horizon – or even already here – Tim offers valuable insight for business owners who may be facing economic uncertainty. Want to get familiar with Tim's distinct approach to dealing with tough times? Click play to see for yourself! Join us now to learn about: How to mitigate the effects of the recession on your business. The importance of learning from people who have experienced troubles themselves. The number 1 asset any entrepreneur has. How to become a great leader in your company, and how an assistant can help achieve this. The two factors that you can always negotiate with. To find out more about Tim and his work, visit https://greatassistant.com, https://profitfactory.com, and https://www.youtube.com/@realtimfrancis now! Episode also available on Apple Podcast: http://apple.co/30PvU9C

“As long as I am still here and I keep myself in the game, I can always build back. I am the number one asset, nothing else.”Are you stuck feeling uninterested, overwhelmed by daily tasks, and feel like you're missing out on reaching your full potential? What if the key to success isn't in the doing or the having, but in simply being? Could embracing this mindset transform your approach to life and business?Sometimes, life forces you to pause and reconsider everything you thought you knew about success. As entrepreneurs and thought leaders, we're often driven by the desire to achieve, to make our mark, and to succeed. But what if our relentless pursuit of success is actually holding us back from true fulfilment?A discussion about the concept of "Be, Do, Have", contrasting it with the traditional Western mindset that prioritizes doing and having over being and how aligning with ancient wisdom can lead to a more balanced and fulfilling life.Tim Francis is a Canadian entrepreneur who has emerged as a thought leader and started hiring personal assistants. His journey stands as an example of resilience, having overcome significant challenges, including financial loss, betrayal by a mentor, and a debilitating illness. These experiences led him to a realization about the importance of truth and mastery over fame and fortune. He has developed a method that has helped over 750 entrepreneurs find their perfect assistant, contributing to substantial growth in his own business and the businesses of many others.To learn more about Tim Francis and how his methods can revolutionize your approach to hiring and delegation, visit Great Assistant's website.Books mentioned:Cal Newport - So Good They Can't Ignore YouLouise Hay - You Can Heal Your LifeNicky Billou - Cathy Capitalist & Johnny JobmakerVisit eCircleAcademy.com and book a success call with Nicky to take your practice to the next level.

Show Title: The Principal's GREAT Assistant Principal with John Hinds Power Quote: “There's a system for that”  Description:You'll hear the word “systems” quite a bit in today's show. Today's guest will paraphrase a quote attributed to Edwards Deming, one of the titans of process improvement from the 20th Century. The quote goes "Every system is perfectly designed to get the result that it does." Today's show isn't about systems, but the things we discuss can't be achieved without systems. I'll be back at the end of the show to hit some key takeaways, but as you listen today, I would like you to think what systems need to be in place related to the different aspects of leadership we will talk about. SO, enjoy the discussion, but be mindful – what systems make it all possible? Guest Bio:John Hinds is a recently retired principal of 17 years. He was principal of three totally different types of schools and has mentored scores of assistant principals over his career. He now owns his own leadership consulting company where he works with campus leaders to implement systems, analyze data, and focuses on positive climate for the employees and students.  Warmup questions:·      We always like to start with a celebration. What are you celebrating today?·      Is there a story that will help listeners understand why you are doing what you do?  Questions/Topics/Prompts·      Is there a difference between being a ‘great AP' and a ‘great AP for your principal?'·      How does an AP take care of the managerial and disciplinary responsibilities but not lose sight of helping grow teachers?·      If being a great AP is, in part, about managing priorities, not managing time, what are some of the best strategies you've seen?·      How does an AP balance “staying in their lane” and be a force for a positive school culture? Closing questions:·      What part of your own leadership are you still trying to get better at?·      If listeners could take just one thing away from today's podcast, what would it be?·      Before we go, is there anything else that you'd like to share with our listeners?·      Where can people learn more about you and your work… Sponsorship:I want to thank IXL for sponsoring this podcast… Everyone talks about the power of data-driven instruction. But what does that actually look like? Look no further than IXL, the ultimate online learning and teaching platform for K to 12. IXL gives you meaningful insights that drive real progress, and research can prove it. Studies across 45 states show that schools who use IXL outperform other schools on state tests. Educators who use IXL love that they can easily see how their school is performing in real-time to make better instructional decisions.  And IXL doesn't stop at just data. IXL also brings an entire ecosystem of resources for your teachers, with a complete curriculum, personalized learning plans, and so much more. It's no wonder that IXL is used in 95 of the top 100 school districts. Ready to join them? Visit http://ixl.com/assistant to get started. Highlights:·      It really is about fit·      Establish a system for learning from each other·      You don't manage buses, you help students achieve more by making sure the bus system works well. Every system is an opportunity to make teaching and learning more or less problematic.·      You need a mentor. Actually, you need four things…·      How manage priorities instead of time – that's a system.·      Every day you have the opportunity to make a positive impact. Even on crappy days, you have an opportunity. Close·      Leadership is a journey and thank you for choosing to walk some of this magical path with me.·      You can find links to all sorts of stuff in the show notes, including my website https://www.frederickbuskey.com/·      I love hearing from you so consider email me at frederick@frederickbuskey.com or connecting with me on LinkedIn.·      My new book, A School Leader's Guide to Reclaiming Purpose, is now available on Amazon. You can find links to it, as well as free book study materials on my website at https://www.frederickbuskey.com/reclaiming-purpose.html·      Please remember to subscribe, rate, and review the podcast.·      Have a great rest of the week, be present for others and, more importantly, take time to reflect and recover so you can continue to live and lead better.·      Cheers!  Guest links:Website: https://www.jlhindsconsulting.comEmail: jlhindsconsulting@gmail.comLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/jlhindsconsulting/?viewAsMember=trueYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4CaU3hZgvP7JIAHJAzvbiwResources: https://www.jlhindsconsulting.com/freeresources Frederick's Links:Email: frederick@frederickbuskey.comWebsite: https://www.frederickbuskey.com/LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/strategicleadershipconsultingDaily Email subscribe: https://adept-experimenter-3588.ck.page/fdf37cbf3aThe Strategic Leader's Guide to Reclaiming Purpose: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CWRS2F6N?ref_=pe_93986420_774957520 

In this podcast today, I will discuss the company Great Assistant! Listen to the podcast for details! --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/thressa-sweat/support

There was a fundraiser for the Mark Rego Athletic Scholarship recently, so the sports enthusiasts thought this was a great time to remember Mark Rego and the value of assistant coaches in high school athletic programs, plus we talk pro sports, and a ghost story, too #ClarkCountyTodaySportsPodcast #Podcasts #PaulValencia #CalePiland #TonyLiberatore #HighSchoolFootball #MarkRego #AssistantCoaches #Scholarships #NationalFootballLeague #NFL #SportsGambling #MajorLeagueBaseball #MLB #NationalBasketballAssociation #NBA #DamianLillard #Ghosts #VancouverWa #ClarkCountyWa #EvergreenPublicSchools #VancouverPublicScools #ClarkCountyNews #ClarkCountyToday

In this podcast today, I will discuss the company Great Assistant! Listen to the podcast for details! --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/thressa-sweat/support

Welcome back to the Real Life Leadership Podcast! Today, we're releasing a special episode from the Grow & Scale Now summit with Tim Francis. He is an award-winning entrepreneur from Canada, and the founder of ProfitFactory.com and GreatAssistant.com.  He's a graduate of the University of Alberta, and a Certified Scrum Product Owner.   In 2010-2011 Tim was blindsided by a rare illness called Erythema Nodosum, leaving him unable to walk for 3 months.  Tim nearly went bankrupt and was forced to re-start.  He promised himself he'd “never be a burn-out entrepreneur again,” a driving motivation which led to the creation of Profit Factory.   Entrepreneurs chronically stuck working IN their business turn to Tim to achieve the Freedom and Control they've long sought.  Tim helps entrepreneurs transition from Business Operator to Business Owner, helping them successfully arrange, then delegate to a Production team around them.  Entrepreneurs appreciate their newfound freedom to work ON the business, take time off, travel, or start other ventures.  Employees appreciate how organized and clear the business is once Tim has intervened.   Tim's been a guest lecturer at NYU in New York City, at the University of Alberta in Canada, and has been a Masterclass teacher on Mixergy.  Sam Carpenter of Work the System says “One of the best, if not the best, is Tim Francis.  I support his work and coaching”, and past-client Ryan Levesque says: “Tim's help systemizing what we do across our company has set us up to go from seven to eight figures and beyond.”   Enjoy!   -   Connect with Tim:  Website: https://profitfactory.com/360delegation/      Order Chantel's Book, One Meal And A Tasting: https://chantelrayway.com/onemeal/    Join CanZell HERE: https://joincanzell.com/    Check out the CanZell Cloud HERE: https://canzellcloud.com/    Claim Your Free Ticket For The Grow And Scale Now Summit! https://growandscalenow.com/    Chantel: https://www.instagram.com/thechantelray/     For more resources, visit http://www.reallifeleaders.com/podcast    Have a leadership question you want answered? Email podcast@reallifeleaders.com and you might even be in an episode!  

In this episode, we connect with Tim Francis, a Canadian-based award-winning entrepreneur, and the Founder of Great Assistant and Profit Factory. With over 10 years of experience as a business owner, Tim is a knowledgeable consultant and speaker in entrepreneurship, marketing, and systems… With a recession on the horizon – or even already here – Tim offers valuable insight for business owners who may be facing economic uncertainty. Want to get familiar with Tim's distinct approach to dealing with tough times? Click play to see for yourself! Join us now to learn about: How to mitigate the effects of the recession on your business. The importance of learning from people who have experienced troubles themselves.  The number 1 asset any entrepreneur has.  How to become a great leader in your company, and how an assistant can help achieve this.  The two factors that you can always negotiate with.  To find out more about Tim and his work, visit https://greatassistant.com, https://profitfactory.com, and https://www.youtube.com/@realtimfrancis now! Episode also available on Apple Podcast: http://apple.co/30PvU9C

Welcome once again to The Million Dollar Relationships podcast. Today we are going to learn about the inspiring story of Tim Francis! Tim is the Founder of Great Assistant, which helps Entrepreneurs get an effective and affordable Assistant who takes over the minutiae he hate doing so they can get back to the work they love. For 6 straight years, he failed again and again with Assistants; then, 6 years again, he finally cracked the code.  Timothy's own Assistant, Denise, handles 98% of his email inbox and has allowed Timothy to focus on bigger opportunities. Timothy and his team have now placed over 250 Assistants. such as appearing on Inc.com, and Forbes.com, and appearing as a guest lecturer at NYU in New York City.   In this episode, Tim takes us on his journey from being a varsity athlete to struggling with an illness that prevented him from walking, only to find hope through personal development courses and the support of his community. With the help of mentors, Tim paid off $200,000 in debt, hired an assistant from North America, and tripled his income in one year. His experience shows that if you stay humble and help those around you, it can lead to incredible success. He also shares his business, Great Assistant, which has now helped over 500 clients across the continent.   Tune in to hear how Tim went from rock and roll dreams to finding truth and mastery in entrepreneurship.     [00:00 - 18:23] Tim's Journey: Learning from Life's Challenges ·         Tim started his financial journey by reading Rich Dad, Poor Dad and playing college indoor volleyball. ·         He entered the real estate market during a boom and acquired over a million dollars' worth of property in a year. ·         He lost hundreds of thousands of dollars and ended up with a net worth of negative $200,000 after the real estate collapse. ·         In 2010 he developed erythema and was unable to walk, stand, or work for 3 months ·         He won one of his city's top 20 under 30 awards but felt like a failure due to his recent losses. ·         He made significant changes to his lifestyle after the medical emergency, focusing on physical and mental health and setting clear goals for his future.   [18:23 - 33:23] The Power of Empathy ·         Empathy can be developed through shared experiences, especially challenging ones. ·         Entrepreneurs connect with each other through sharing war stories, and scars, and keeping it real. ·         The ability to connect through shared experiences can lead to stronger relationships and a deeper understanding of one another. · Tim shares why his first job experience had a profound impact on his life and business. ·         Tim honors the people that had a profound impact on his life. [33:23 - 40:08] Why Relationships are Essential in Our Lives ·         Tim finds it hard to say what wouldn't have happened if he didn't have those relationships. ·         He thinks he would still have become an entrepreneur but not at the same level of success or as soon. ·         Tim views relationships, environment, and people as accelerators of personal success. ·         Tim attributes his success to the environment of unconditional love and support he grew up with.    [40:08 - 43:13] Closing Statements ·         Follow Tim on Facebook and  LinkedIn and be sure to check out Tim's Great Assistant at https://www.greatassistant.com/kevinthompson. There is a great deal for MDR Listeners! ·         Final words   Thanks for tuning in!    If you liked my show, please LEAVE A 5-STAR REVIEW, like, and subscribe!    Find me on the following streaming platforms: Apple Spotify Google Podcasts IHeart Radio Stitcher     Tweetable Quotes   "Hard work is not enough. It's not about running faster but about the effort and character that you have.” – Tim Francis  

This episode is also available as a blog post: https://sriaurobindostudies.wordpress.com/2022/07/24/the-vital-nature-a-great-assistant-but-an-impossible-master/

You know you need help, but you're unsure of what type of help you need. Or worse, you've got an assistant you hired to increase your productivity but things aren't working out like you hoped. On today's episode of the podcast I'm sharing some tips on how to gain clarity about the tasks you need to offload and how a great assistant can help.

Mandi Ellefson's guest is Tim Francis, founder of ProfitFactory.com and Great Assistant, two organizations dedicated to making the entrepreneurial journey easier. After noticing that entrepreneurs desperately needed support in running a business, Tim started Great Assistant to help them hire an assistant, retain them for years, and make them really profitable.  You'll hear Mandi and Tim talk about: Tim shares three strategies for more effective delegation. “Do not use email when it comes to delegating to anybody in your internal team, including your assistant; email's a wasteland of distraction. Use Loom, a free tool you can use in your browser, to screen record and narrate what you want done. And finally, hire an assistant that fits you properly. ” [1:16] Tim and Mandi explore how teams can work effectively in different time zones. [9:29] “There's such a thing as being too early, the timing being wrong, and a lack of a path to profitability. Once those three things are in place, you should be going forward with getting an assistant.” Tim explains why you can't afford to not have an assistant, and when the right time is to hire one. [21:52] “It creates this open space for me to create, and that's when these amazing ideas come; you can't do that if you're so busy in the minutia.” Hiring an assistant not only saves you time, but it also saves you energy. Tim describes how. [32:17] “We're helping coach you and prepare your work, while finding assistance candidates and bringing you three finalists.” Tim talks about the services Great Assistance provides for its clients. [47:23] Resources Tim Francis on LinkedIn | Twitter Mandi Ellefson on LinkedIn | Twitter | Facebook Hands-Off CEO - Executive Briefing

Melissa Smith is the Founder & CEO of the Association of Virtual Assistants and The PVA, a firm that matches clients with the right virtual assistants. She is also the best-selling author of two books, Hire The Right Virtual Assistant and Become a Successful Virtual Assistant which is an integral part of the College of Western Idaho Administrative Specialist Program curriculum. Melissa talks about her journey to the world of virtual assistants, starting the AVA, the right way to hire assistants, and much more!

My guest today is Mitch Gray, who has combined over two decades of experience as a former pastor, life coach, entrepreneur, community developer, and creator to develop a brand of leadership that is at its deepest level... human. He is the creator and host of The Mitch Gray Show podcast, author of multiple inspirational books, and a highly regarded speaker.  Mitch has a new book coming out very soon, which is called How to Hire and Keep Great People. The book focuses on designing great culture, where to find great people, the art of interviewing, how to develop employees once they are hired, and how to invest in your employees so they are fulfilled and want to build your company with you. On this episode, Mitch does a coaching session with me about why I need an assistant and the process for hiring someone. You can connect with Mitch on LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, or through his website. *** Are you looking for a community of enthusiastic, generous writers to help you build better habits and grow your writing business? Check out our Daily Writer Community.  Check out our Daily Writing Prompts, which will help you break through creative blocks, brainstorm new ideas, and get back into a state of flow. Writing prompts are a fantastic creative tool for creative writing, journaling, teaching, social media posts, podcasting, and more! Connect with Kent:  https://DailyWriterLife.com  Facebook: https://facebook.com/kent.sanders  Instagram: https://instagram.com/kentsanders  LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/kent-sanders  Twitter: https://twitter.com/kentsanders  

My guest today is Mitch Gray, who has combined over two decades of experience as a former pastor, life coach, entrepreneur, community developer, and creator to develop a brand of leadership that is at its deepest level... human. He is the creator and host of The Mitch Gray Show podcast, author of multiple inspirational books, and a highly regarded speaker.   Mitch has a new book coming out very soon, which is called How to Hire and Keep Great People. The book focuses on designing great culture, where to find great people, the art of interviewing, how to develop employees once they are hired, and how to invest in your employees so they are fulfilled and want to build your company with you.   On this episode, Mitch does a coaching session with me about why I need an assistant and the process for hiring someone.   You can connect with Mitch on LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, or through his website.  ***    Are you looking for a community of enthusiastic, generous writers to help you build better habits and grow your writing business? Check out our Daily Writer Community.     Check out our Daily Writing Prompts, which will help you break through creative blocks, brainstorm new ideas, and get back into a state of flow. Writing prompts Writing prompts are a fantastic creative tool for creative writing, journaling, teaching, social media posts, podcasting, and more!    Connect with Kent:    https://DailyWriterLife.com    Facebook: https://facebook.com/kent.sanders    Instagram: https://instagram.com/kentsanders    LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/kent-sanders    Twitter: https://twitter.com/kentsanders   

Competition isn't bad, it's good! If you target a narrow market and tell your story, then people will buy your product just for that. This week, Christian figures out who to hire first and Chris preps for his CS masters to start. 00:00 Intro 03:13 Podcasts are cool 04:13 Next week: ADHD chat 06:28 Prepping for a CS masters 10:30 Teaching as you learn 16:38 Future Christian tells past Christian who to hire 26:36 Activation energy to hire someone 30:56 Choosing what you spend time on 36:00 Hot take: clips.marketing is B2-me 42:52 If you hit a wall, go for a walk 46:04 Competition is not what you think 48:50 Target a narrow market - pick your angle and tell your story Timestamps created with https://clips.marketing by @cgenco Delegate and Done: https://start.growthlab.com/delegate-and-done/ Your World Class Assistant: https://yourworldclassassistant.com/ Great Assistant: https://greatassistant.com/

On today's episode of Art of the Cut, Steve talks with Assistant Editor Ruth Antoine, whose work includes The King's Man, The Dig, Maleficent, and Pokémon Detective Pikachu. Ruth is the first recipient of the BFE Outstanding Assistant Editor award. It's exciting to see an award specifically for assistant editors, and hearing the story of her career and accomplishments make for one of the best interviews we've ever hosted. Thanks to Frame.io for their support of Art of the Cut and their pledge to keep this content coming your way. Read this interview and many others at blog.frame.io, where you'll also find expert guides, tutorials, and insights from veteran filmmakers across the film and TV industry.

This is a very inspiring episode. Our guest today shares about how he got a second chance at life and career, and how he used that opportunity to soar high in his business and attain massive success.  We have today, Timothy Francis, a super entrepreneur. He is a guest lecturer at NYU in New York City, has been featured on Forbes and Inc. Magazine websites, and has a powerful story to tell to inspire entrepreneurs. He owns two successful companies, Profit Factory, and My Great Assistant. He helps entrepreneurs understand their numbers to make clean, CEO-level decisions by the numbers and find options to amplify profitability.  In this episode, Tim will share his story that will bring aha moments to listeners, his challenges in life and business, and how he bounced back from the downfall that eventually led him to success. He will also share his perspective on entrepreneurship as well as real estate investors. Also, Tim will talk about entrepreneurial accounting and why it is essential to entrepreneurs. Lastly, he will talk about the right mindset to get assistants.  Get your share of Tim’s wealth of knowledge in this episode. Learn how he became a super entrepreneur. If you are looking for that aha moment in your career, then this is an episode for you.  Key Takeaways [02:08] Tim’s powerful story and how it led him to his success as an entrepreneur [17:38] His current biggest struggle as an entrepreneur [20:28] What real estate investors do and their responsibilities for Tim [27:28] What entrepreneurial accounting is and how it helps entrepreneurs [35:43] His advice on the right mindset to getting assistance for starters [49:43] Where to know more about Know Your Numbers Workshop or Great Assistant [50:23] Where to get free resources on managing, hiring, and delegating [51:03] What bundle he offers in his course Links Timothy Francis on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/timothyjfrancis/ Know Your Numbers Website - https://knowyournumbersworkshop.com/livingoffrentals Great Assistant Website - https://greatassistant.com/livingoffrentals Living Off Rentals YouTube Channel - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRpWXe2mWqBm5vvbO2R2AdA?sub_confirmation=1 Living Off Rentals Facebook Group - www.facebook.com/groups/livingoffrentals Living Off Rentals Website - www.livingoffrentals.com Living Off Rentals Instagram - www.instagram.com/livingoffrentals Book Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert T. Kiyosaki - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/69571.Rich_Dad_Poor_Dad So Good They Can’t Ignore you by Cal Newport - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13525945-so-good-they-can-t-ignore-you  

As a business owner do you know your numbers? In today's Better Wealth, I had the privilege of interviewing Tim Francis, CEO of the company called Profit Factory, a company dedicated to helping parents know their internals numbers. Tim shares his story of the humbling experience of being broke and unable to walk. Listen as his whole world changed to the idea of truth and mastery in the pursuit of entrepreneurship. Tim shares the difficulty of having a successful business that never kept any money, and his journey of discovering how to truly understand the numbers and keep his success.  Knowing numbers is not completely only about math and equations, but rather the ability really to make decisions. Being a business that doesn’t know your numbers is a dangerous place. Tim discusses the biggest problem for entrepreneurs is chasing the next shiny object yet not internally knowing what is going on with their business. Knowing your numbers is the process of prioritizing and making decisions. Listen as Tim shares authentically his passion behind developing truly successful companies that are making money, keeping money, prioritizing, and making good decisions! Check out more about https://knowyournumbersworkshop.com/betterwealth/ (Profit Factory: Know Your Number’s Workshop)! #BETTERWEALTH For more information on BetterWealth or the content you hear on the Podcast visit us at http://www.betterwealth.com/podcast (www.betterwealth.com/podcast). Guest Bio:  Tim Francis is the Founder of Profit Factory and is based in Austin, TX.  Tim teaches the Know Your Numbers workshop, which helps Entrepreneurs who hate Accounting to get their Financials under control. Tim draws from years of experience doing private consulting where he’s helped find millions in profit for clients, and also from his role participating in over 140 Board meetings. Tim is also the Founder of Great Assistant, a team which has helped hire over 300 Executive Assistants for Entrepreneurs across the US and Canada.   Tim’s been a guest lecturer at NYU in New York City, and has appeared on the websites of Forbes and Inc magazine.  Tim is the inventor of The 5 Levels of 80/20 and co-presented The 80/20 Summit with Perry Marshall in both 2016 and 2017. Guest Links:  https://knowyournumbersworkshop.com/betterwealth/ (Profit Factory: Know Your Number’s Workshop)

This week on the Way of Champions Podcast we welcome Ron Adams, Golden State Warriors Asst. Coach. Ron is in his second season as an assistant coach for the Golden State Warriors, his 21st season overall on the bench as an NBA assistant. In his first year with the Warriors, Ron helped the team finish first in defensive rating (98.2) en route to an NBA Championship. During our discussion, we dive into Ron's philosophy of being a great assistant coach, navigating hard conversations with players, and working on a staff where another assistant coach is trying to undermine the head coach. Highlights and great quotes from the this episode: Ron talks about his journey as a coach "A good coach is someone who has a job." "There is no formula for good coaching." How has social media changed the halftime locker room experience? Why does Steve Kerr call Ron the "truth-teller"? What makes an assistant coach effective? ...what are your "ego needs"? How do you handle disagreements with the Head Coach? Having hard conversations with players Ron talks about his relationship with Kevin Durant How do you know when it's time to move on as an assistant? More About Ron Adams Adams, 68, owns previous coaching experience with Boston Celtics (2013-14), Chicago Bulls (2003-08, 2010-13), Oklahoma City Thunder (2008-2010), Milwaukee Bucks (1998-2003), Philadelphia 76ers (1994-96) and San Antonio Spurs (1992-94). During his time as an assistant coach, Adams has made 14 appearances in the NBA Playoffs. In addition to his coaching roles, the Laton, CA, native also served as a player personnel scout for the Portland Trail Blazers from 1996-98. Adams joined the Warriors following a one-year stint (2013-14) with the Celtics. Prior to working in Boston, he had spent the previous three seasons on Tom Thibodeau’s staff in Chicago. The Bulls made the playoffs in each of those three campaigns, including a trip to the 2011 Eastern Conference Finals. During this most recent stint with the Bulls, the team ranked in the top-three in opponent scoring each season, leading the league in the category in 2011-12. Before joining the NBA, Adams coached collegiately for 20 years with head coaching stints at Fresno State (1986-90) and his alma mater, Fresno Pacific (1972-75). He also served as an assistant coach at U.S. International, UC Santa Barbara, UNLV and at both Fresno schools. Additionally, Adams has coached professionally in Belgium and Japan, as well as for the Canadian national team. Adams and his wife, Leah, have a daughter, Hayley, and a son, Jared The Way of Champions Podcast is brought to you by Sports Refund. When kids sign up to play youth sports there are always fees involved. And parents pay those fees so their child can be on the team, not the injury report. That’s why I love Sports Refund, and parents will too. Sports Refund is low-cost sports fee insurance – NOT health insurance, sports fee insurance. So if your child becomes injured or sick and can’t play, you get your fees reimbursed for that lost time, from one game to an entire season. It’s that simple. This product not only saves families wasted fees, it saves injured athletes the stress of feeling like they’re wasting their parents’ money. The fees come back until the player comes back. So they can focus on fully recovering and making a healthy return to the game. Sports Refund has options for individuals and organizations. Ask your club if they offer it, or visit SportsRefund.com/Game to learn more and sign up today. That’s SportsRefund.com/Game. Can’t Play? Don’t Pay. With Sports Refund. Help Support the Podcast! Become a Podcast Champion! …and get FREE access to ALL of our online courses. If you love the podcast, we would love for you to become a Podcast Champion, (https://www.patreon.com/wayofchampions) for as little as a cup of coffee per month (OK, its a Venti Mocha), to help us up the ante and provide even better interviews, better sound, and an overall enhanced experience. Plus, as a $10 per month Podcast Super-Champion, you will have access to never before released and bonus material, including: Downloadable transcripts of the podcasts, so you don't have to crash your car trying to take notes! A monthly discussion with John, James, Jerry, and other special guests talking about the previous month's episodes and answering some of the FAQs we received that month A code to get free access to our online course called "Coaching Mastery," usually a $97 course, but yours for free for becoming a patron. Access to an online community of coaches like you who are dedicated listeners of the podcast, and will be able to answer your questions and share their coaching experiences. Thank you for all your support these past two years, and a special big thank you to all of you who become part of our inner circle, our patrons, who will enable us to take our podcast to the next level. https://www.patreon.com/wayofchampions

We cover: * Why vanity does not equal success * How fame & fortune is like a cat * The Lamborghini & the bikini lie And much more Timothy Francis is an award-winning Entrepreneur originally from Edmonton, now living in Austin, TX. He's been a guest lecturer at NYU in New York City, and has appeared on the Forbes and Inc. Magazine websites. Tim's company, Profit Factory, teaches financial literacy for Entrepreneurs and Investors. After the 2009 crash, Tim's net worth plummeted to -$200,000. The stress and exhaustion of those losses led to Tim developing a stress-related illness called Erythema Nodosum. He couldn't walk for 3 months. After a divine encounter, Tim discovered his true purpose in life. As soon as he could walk again, he got back to work. It was a long journey to pay off all debts, but he did it, and learned priceless lessons about business, money, and life along the way. Today, Tim owns two companies, Profit Factory and Great Assistant. Stay connected with Tim Website: knowyournumbersworkshop.com Website: reatassistant.com/apply Catch up on past conversations as well as see the entire lineup of contributors at the "A Handful of Hope" website: https://jessebrisendine.lpages.co/a-handful-of-hope (https://jessebrisendine.lpages.co/a-handful-of-hope) Stay connected with Jesse: Website: https://jessebrisendine.com/ (https://jessebrisendine.com/) Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jessebrisendine (https://www.facebook.com/jessebrisendine) Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JesseBrisendineCoaching/ (https://www.facebook.com/JesseBrisendineCoaching/) Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jessebrisendine/ (https://www.instagram.com/jessebrisendine/) Twitter: https://twitter.com/jessebris (https://twitter.com/jessebris) Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/JesseBrisendine (https://www.youtube.com/user/JesseBrisendine) Grab Your Free Copy of The Happiness Guide:  https://jessebrisendine.leadpages.co/happiness-guide/ (https://jessebrisendine.leadpages.co/happiness-guide/)

Here are a few massive breakthroughs you'll get from this episode…Learn how to buy back your time so you can focus on doing high-level work that brought you success in the first place!Discover how to find an assistant who thinks about your business in the shower because their values align with your personal and business values, which means you'll have headspace and time to tackle that project that's been sitting on the back-burner for way too long!Grab 3 quick tips that will help you become a better leader that your assistant needs to massively improve productivity and efficiency immediately!Enjoy The Podcast, Coach!Lucas Rubix “I had been chasing fame and fortune when what I needed to be chasing was truth and mastery .”Timothy Francis FREE UP TO 10+ HOURS A WEEK WITH A GREAT ASSISTANTYou can work with Timothy's team inside the Great Assistant program helps find, onboard, and train an Executive Assistant for you and get the bottom 80% tasks off your place so you can get back to focusing on the big picture of your business. Click HERE to learn more!  Thanks For Listening!You'll want to stick around each week when we drop two value-packed episodes that will teach you everything you need to build a wildly successful money-making impact-creating freedom-filled online coaching business! Plus, you've got a chance to win $500 each month when you subscribe and leave a review (full details HERE)!Winners will be announced at the beginning of each month inside the free community. Join the Online Coaching Community and join over 6,000 committed coaches to build their perfect, passionate, and profitable online coaching business, one client at a time!Lucas Rubix is the intense-looking bearded dude (don't worry… he's actually harmless) behind the Coaches Corner, a corner of the internet completely committed to helping passionate coaches like YOU build, launch and grow a passion-fuelled, freedom-filled, money-making online coaching businesses (as long as you're not afraid of some work).Having built multiple coaching businesses (both offline and online) in a wide variety of niches, his primary focus these days (when he's not interviewing top coaches, influencers, and celebrities on the Coaches Corner Podcast) is helping coaches create a business that predictably generates leads, attracts new clients and, most importantly, creates true freedom (for both COACH and CLIENT)Visit www.LucasRubix.com and get full access into the 6 Figure Coach Academy, listen to a few episodes of the Coaches corner podcast while you're at it and feel free to connect with him on Instagram @LucasRubixAnd if you're a passionate coach who's looking for a helping hand in building, launching and growing your coaching business (and attracting all the perfect clients you've ever imagined) learn about the three ways you can work together HERE and see how Lucas can help you build the coaching business of your dreams!PS — Other recommended podcasts to help move your online coaching business forward are EVAN CARMICHAEL ON UNTAPPING HUMAN POTENTIAL AND SERVING THE WORLD, GRANT CARDONE ON HOW TO SURVIVE A RECESSION AND BECOME UNSTOPPABLE!, and FINDING YOUR SOUL'S PURPOSE WITH KEVIN CARTON  

There are plenty of great assistants out there in the world, but not all of them are great for you and your business. In this second of two installments of the Team Success podcast, Shannon Waller continues her interview with entrepreneur Tim Francis, the owner of Great Assistant, a thriving business that has helped hire[...] The post How To Find A Great Assistant Part 2 — With Guest Tim Francis appeared first on Your Team Success.

There are plenty of great assistants out there in the world, but not all of them are great for you and your business. In this first of two installments of the Team Success podcast, Shannon Waller interviews entrepreneur Tim Francis, the owner of Great Assistant, a thriving business that has helped hire over 300 great[...] The post How To Find A Great Assistant Part 1 — With Guest Tim Francis appeared first on Your Team Success.

Are you just operating your business, or are you an actual business owner? Today's guest is someone who can transform you from the former to the latter. John Livesay sits down with Tim Francis, founder of Profit Factory, where he helps entrepreneurs figure out what they are not doing correctly that's causing them to not be profitable. Reevaluating why you became an entrepreneur in the first place, Tim talks about the ways we have been misled to chase fame and fortune instead of truth and mastery. He explains why we should seek to improve our businesses and help everyone because that way, the fame and fortune naturally follows. Furthermore, Tim also discusses what it actually means for you to be a creator of content in comparison with someone who just consumes it. Learn how to become profitable and more as Tim shares with you his Know Your Numbers workshop and his other company, Great Assistant, where he highlights the importance of how virtual assistants help you save time.Wanna Host Your Own Podcast?Click here to see how my friends at Brandcasting You can helpGet your FREE Sneak Peek of John's new book Better Selling Through Storytellinghttp://sellingsecretsforfunding.us9.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=655c123123cd21ff7a24d914e&id=6f12bc74af John Livesay, The Pitch WhispererShare The ShowDid you enjoy the show? I'd love it if you subscribed today and left us a 5-star review!Click this linkClick on the ‘Subscribe' button below the artworkGo to the ‘Ratings and Reviews' sectionClick on ‘Write a Review'Love the show? Subscribe, rate, review, and share!Here's How »Join The Successful Pitch community today:JohnLivesay.comJohn Livesay FacebookJohn Livesay TwitterJohn Livesay LinkedInJohn Livesay YouTube

Are you just operating your business, or are you an actual business owner? Today's guest is someone who can transform you from the former to the latter. John Livesay sits down with Tim Francis, founder of Profit Factory, where he helps entrepreneurs figure out what they are not doing correctly that's causing them to not be profitable. Reevaluating why you became an entrepreneur in the first place, Tim talks about the ways we have been misled to chase fame and fortune instead of truth and mastery. He explains why we should seek to improve our businesses and help everyone because that way, the fame and fortune naturally follows. Furthermore, Tim also discusses what it actually means for you to be a creator of content in comparison with someone who just consumes it. Learn how to become profitable and more as Tim shares with you his Know Your Numbers workshop and his other company, Great Assistant, where he highlights the importance of how virtual assistants help you save time. Love the show? Subscribe, rate, review, and share! Here's How » Join The Successful Pitch community today: JohnLivesay.com John Livesay Facebook John Livesay Twitter John Livesay LinkedIn John Livesay YouTube

Are you a business owner who wants to get good at financial decision making and CEO-level accounting? How can you build a runway to opportunities? By navigating mindset, expenses, and cash.  Today’s guest is Tim Francis from Great Assistant and Profit Factory. Tim’s training, Know Your Numbers, shows how businesses can deal with cash crunch and cash flow. You’ll Learn... [02:48] Free Upcoming Event: Navigate the Cash Crunch. [03:20] Entrepreneurs: Like Indiana Jones, running as fast as possible from expenses. [06:00] Pre-built Spreadsheet: Adding and subtracting, red boxes and green boxes. [06:40] Beyond Profit First: In motion and cutting expenses when DoorGrow sales stop. [10:23] 3-Step Method: Navigating mindset, navigating expenses, and navigating cash. [11:29] Mistakes of sloth, and mistakes of ambition. [12:19] Step 1 - Navigating Mindset: Be good to your body, protect personal and professional relationships, and early action is crucial. [22:51] Step 2 - Navigating Expenses: Business's profit margin and bloat factor involves how many dollars to be sold at top line for $1 at bottom line to spend/buy something. [30:08] Survive and Thrive: When sales go down, create a situation where you don't have to sell as much. You can meet it at a lower sales level and still get by. [31:52] Step 3 - Navigating Cash: The Cash Flow Forecast figures out how much cash can you touch now? There's a big difference between cash and free cash. [45:38] Opportunities for Growth: If your business doesn't cash flow, it will fail. Cash flow first, then focus on growth. Cash comes from different places. Tweetables Entrepreneurs confuse revenue, sales, top line, or top of the P&L statement with cash. There's actually a way to navigate the cash crunch, even if revenue is going down. Property management industry has a massive opportunity due to big shift in the market. Panic isn't productive. It's important to be urgent, not anxious. There's a big difference between cash and free cash. Resources Navigate the Cash Crunch with Jason Hull and Timothy Francis Tim Francis on LinkedIn Great Assistant Profit Factory Know Your Numbers Keith Cunningham Verne Harnish DoorGrow on YouTube DoorGrowClub DoorGrowLive DoorGrow Website Score Quiz DoorGrow Cold Leads Calculator Transcript Jason: Welcome, DoorGrow Hackers, to the DoorGrow Show. If you are a property management entrepreneur that wants to add doors, make a difference, increase revenue, help others, impact lives, and you are interested in growing your business and life, and you are open to doing things a bit differently, then you are a DoorGrow Hacker. DoorGrow Hackers love the opportunities, daily variety, unique challenges, and freedom that property management brings. Many in real estate think you’re crazy for doing it, you think they’re crazy for not because you realize that property management is the ultimate high-trust gateway to real estate deals, relationships, and residual income. At DoorGrow, we are on a mission to transform property management businesses and their owners. We want to transform the industry, eliminate the BS, build awareness, change perception, expand the market, and help the best property management entrepreneurs win. I’m your host, property management growth expert, Jason Hull, the founder and CEO of DoorGrow. Now, let's get into the show. I am hanging out here with Tim Francis. Tim, welcome to the show again. Tim: Good to see you Jason, again. Jason: Tim and I just started trying to do this on Crowdcast the normal platform. It didn't work out. The internet gods were not kind to us for some reason so we're starting it over. I wanted to introduce Tim to this audience again. Tim has been on the show before because he was talking about his company, Great Assistant, a fantastic company. I've hired assistants through it for US based assistants. His parent corporation, or company, or whatever you want to call it is Profit Factory. I recently went through training with him called Know Your Numbers. One of my goals for this year was to get really good at this learning financial decision making, maybe more business owner, CEO level accounting. Tim is the go to guy for this. He has a program on this that I went through. He had a really cool thing that he showed us how to deal with cash crunch and cash flow. He reached out to me and is putting this out to audiences trying to help businesses out right now. I'm excited to expose my audience to this idea of how they can navigate the cash crunch. Tim, welcome. Tim: Thank you so much for having me. Jason: We're going to do an event here in about a week. I'll just plug that now up front, just get that out of the way. It's for free and we're going to go into greater detail about these things. You're going to be sharing your screen, showing spreadsheets, helping them figure this out. But let's start with talking about the problem. What's going on with the market right now, the cash crunch, and why is this relevant? Tim: Yeah, you bet. If you think of Indiana Jones in Raiders of the Lost Ark, there's this amazing boulder scene. Jason, I have to give you credit for giving me this visual of this boulder rolling behind us as entrepreneurs. We're running as fast as we possibly can, and that boulder, that's expenses. Jason, full credit to you, every time I use this analogy now I'm giving you credit. A bit of the secret here is that there's actually a simple three step method that we can actually turn this into a different Indiana Jones scene. In the Last Crusade, Indiana Jones, there's this like leap of faith scene where he's standing on the very edge and he's looking at this massive chasm between him and where he needs to go. It looks impossible, it looks impossible that he’ll possibly be able to cross this chasm, but then he gets this idea. He takes some sand, and he throws it out and it covers, and there's this hidden balance beam, it's invisible, this invisible balance beam to walk across. That's exactly the three step method that I teach as a passion to entrepreneurs. I think a lot of entrepreneurs confuse revenue, sales, top line, or just that top of the P&L statement with cash. The thing is that they’re two extremely different ideas. Yes, one can lead to the other, however they're not necessary. There's actually a way to navigate the cash crunch, even if revenue is going down. I've helped many, many companies, I think I’ve had 139 board meetings now. I've helped over 70 companies, and at least 7 of them I've helped to escape bankruptcy, including that with them following the exact process that I'm going to teach today. Whether someone despises accounting and numbers, feels pretty good about them but maybe not a pro, or even if someone's an absolute pro at numbers, I think the perspectives that we share today are going to be really, really powerful. Also just in case anyone's afraid of like oh, my god, here we go, numbers and accounting. I hate that topic. I avoid my accountant like the plague. I'll tell you what, I was rejected from Business School three times. I couldn't finish calculus. I don't know my brain wasn't wired that way, and the good news is you don't need any of that to be able to navigate the cash crunch. If you know how to add and subtract, in fact Jason, you don't even need to be able to add, subtract. If you know how to use a calculator to add, subtract, we can make this happen. The tool that I'll go more in depth with you on our webinar coming in about a week from now, everyone will actually get access to a prebuilt spreadsheet. All you got to do, it takes maybe 20 to 30 minutes to put your own info in. Literally where you see a red box is a crisis line, and where you see a green box, you're good to go. That's it. It's adding and subtracting, and red boxes and green boxes, that help you to navigate. To build your very own—personalized to your business—path to navigate the cash crunch. Jason: Before we get into this, I want to touch on and create a little transparency in this. A lot of entrepreneurs are fearful. There's a lot of shame around admitting that something doesn't look perfectly successful. There's a lot of shame around finances and money. Like oh, no, I've got debt or I've got this. I'm going to share what we're experiencing at DoorGrow. Leading up to this, one of my goals for this year was to get control of finances, really understand and get into financials, which is why I did a training with you, Tim, and I'm working with you on different things, because that's a step beyond the Profit First. I've got my Profit First coach and accountant that I work with as well. I've been doing lots of calls with her getting all these different loans that are coming out, getting everything going. I'm glad that I was already working on this stuff prior. We started cutting expenses dramatically, we started doing shifts. As I was getting control of things, I was like why are we paying for that? If we weren't in momentum already—you used the analogy of the airplane flying over the trees—we probably would have hit some trees. We probably would have crashed. We were already in motion. Sales, March just stopped. Property managers stopped buying products and services from DoorGrow because they were holding their wallets tight, they were scared, and that's about half of our revenue. We had to tighten our belt really quickly. We weren't really ready for that, we haven’t budgeted the beginning of our month to do that, so we had to get really creative. Using some of these strategies helped us to keep that plane above the tree level, navigating the cash crunch, or in my Indiana Jones analogy, outpaced the boulder so that we were able to make it through the end of the month. I'm really excited to share this property management. I'll point out that I believe the property management industry has a massive opportunity right now. There are property management companies, especially in California, Florida, and Hawaii, that they are growing. March was one of their biggest growth months in adding new doors, in acquisitions, period, simply because there is a whole big shift in the market. A lot of people are going to be needing property managers. We won't get really into that now but there's a lot of opportunity right now. Property management is a really safe place to be hedging against the market right now. Most property managers will probably have pretty good cash flow. It's only the third and we're already seeing most people are paying rent on single family residential. They're not noticing much of a difference. They've had a few people reach out for payment arrangements, but all things, I'm saying is that it's basically normal. They're a little concerned about May, so this May become even more hyper relevant in the next month or beyond. I want everyone to pay attention to this. Property managers, you guys are blessed right now, while a lot of businesses are just done. They're failing, their revenue is cut to zero, especially luxury markets, vacation markets, restaurants in a lot of situations. Businesses are closing, failing. This also is the perfect excuse for entrepreneurs that are not really committed to their business to get out, perfect excuse. A lot of people are going to take it. If you are not one of those people, and you're committed to making this work and you want to grow, reach out to DoorGrow, I want to make sure we help you capitalize on all this. Tim, let's get into these three things that we need to pay attention to. Tim: There are three things to navigate, navigating mindset, navigating expenses, and navigating cash. I don't normally share this piece, but because of what you just so wisely shared just around the shame that sometimes entrepreneurs feel around money or like oh, I'm a failure or whatnot. I'll tell you what. I think that being a leader is a lot of responsibility. Even if you're a leader of 1 or 100, it doesn't matter. It's that classic man in the arena story. It's not the critic who counts. I think that there's actually something incredibly skilled when an entrepreneur sees that things have changed, and they're ready to change with it. I think that that's actually a sign of prescience is the word, when we can see things that are coming and to act accordingly. I also think that Verne Harnish has a great expression, he says, "Growth sucks cash." If you've been spending a lot of money to grow your company, and that's why you don't have a lot of cash to show for it, there's no shame in being ambitious either. There are mistakes of sloths, and there are mistakes of ambition. Mistakes of sloths are when we make mistakes because we're sitting on the couch not going for it and life passes us by. Mistake of ambition is when we were really going for it and things didn't work out. Mistakes of ambition, it's even arguable to say that it's even a mistake at all. I just think if you're in a position where you’re a little tight on cash, or maybe a lot tight on cash, I get that the shame narrative is available and I don't know that I'd go there. First of all, it's not accurate, and secondly, it's not productive. This leads us into our whole first of our three steps mindset, navigating mindset. Before anyone decides to tune out and say mindset is going to be the secret or some law of attraction, maybe more airy type topic. I assure you, it is not. I assure you that it is not. In 2008 I had a real estate portfolio of my own, not a big portfolio, just four houses, but I ended up losing around $100,000 mostly of other people's money. Around that time, I also had a mentor who ended up being one of the two leaders of a $12 million Ponzi scheme. Didn't start as a Ponzi scheme but it became a Ponzi scheme, that's typically the way they go. His business partner is convicted in court, barred folding securities for 25 years, and ended up actually leaving the country. This is in Canada, where I'm from. It was extremely exhausting and stressful to go through all that and to see everything that was happening around me. It led to me developing an illness called Erythema nodosum. Erythema nodosum is something there's no real cure for. You just have to wait it out. It's just bed rest. Your body really swells up and becomes so painful to walk that you can't, then it becomes so painful that you stand that you can't, and you end up just lying in bed every single day. 50% of cases are stress related. There's no way to know for sure, but I'm pretty sure mine was stress related. If you think an economic collapse like 2008 is bad, or an economic collapse like 2020 is bad... I'll tell you what's even worse is having economic collapse and also having a health collapse, where you actually can't do anything about your situation because you're in bed. Thankfully, at the time, I had very, very, very few dependents, I had no teammates and so the impact, the blast radius was small, it was just on me. Had my mom not paid my mortgage for me for three months, I would have gone double bankrupt, my personal finance, my business finance. Talk about an eye opener, and I was only 28. I was only 28 at the time. When I talk about the importance of managing mindset, this is absolutely crucial that we manage stress. I'll tell you, I've been not just through economic collapse, economic plus physical collapse, and it is not a pretty situation. You do not want to go through that. Along the lines of how do we go about managing mindset, I think that there are a few important perspectives in addition to some of the obvious practices. I'll just start the obvious because it's pretty straightforward. Make sure you're getting some exercise even if it's just a walk on a treadmill, or a peloton bike, or something like that in your living room, whatever the case may be. Get some sunshine if you can, even though we're all locked indoors, that sunshine is super important. Diet, take care of that. Make sure you’re getting lots of water, maybe ease off on the booze a little bit too if you're someone who enjoys to imbibe a little bit. Be good to your body. Probably the biggest of all, for most people, is actually sleep. Sleep is something that we can lose very quickly in times of turmoil and stress. You might need to turn to things like small meditation, reading, journaling, or something before bed to help take your mind off of some of the challenges of the day. I'm telling you that it's absolutely crucial. When I look back at my sleep habits and actually have been keeping track of my sleep for years and years and years. Jason, I'd sleep for four hours and lay on the floor next to my computer, sleep. I'd work till 5:00 in the morning, I'd sleep four hours on the floor next to the computer and I would stand up, go pee, and go back to the computer and start working again. Desperate times sometimes call for desperate measures, but there is such a thing as too high a price to pay. Remember that this too shall pass. September 11th came, the world changed, and we got back to business in a new normal way. The housing crisis came, the world changed, and we got back to business in a new normal way. Jason: Tim, I'm going to touch on what you just said real quick, interject. These are really basic things but they're showing some significant correlations between COVID-19 and melatonin, and nitric oxide in your blood, vitamin D. These are the basic principles of health. I have training for our clients called health secrets and it's these basics. We talk about getting sleep, that's when melatonin starts to get produced in your brain. It's much higher in children, it gets less. You may want to supplement with that but getting good sleep, getting some sunlight, finding a way to get sunshine and sunlight on your body is going to be a big deal that releases nitric oxide from your skin into your blood, if vitamin D gets produced, these are basic. Sleep, nutrition, some physical activity, exercise, some sunshine, water and hydrate. This and all of that lowers your stress levels and it lowers our pressure and noise significantly. I love that you're sharing that. Keep your stress levels as low as possible and start physiologically. Tim: I think along with stress is this idea of engagement. I don't know if I need to share this part, but I'll say it just to be responsible. If someone is not engaged enough right now, you're not paying attention to what's going on in the world. If you're only at about a 6 or 7 out of 10 engagements, goodness gracious, it might be time to pick it up a bit. If you're also to 9 or 10 engagements it's probably too high, you're over stimulated, you're over engaged. We need that 8 out of 10 where we're focused, pupils dilated just a little bit. Eye on the prize. I always say that panic isn't productive. It's important to be urgent, not anxious, to be urgent, not anxious. Jason: I'm too Agilent right now. I'm excited and that's where I'm at. I love chaos, let's be honest. Maybe there are other entrepreneurs like that but when chaos happens, that's opportunity. That's where we get to be a light and we get to stand out, so I'm enjoying this even though it's uncomfortable. Tim: Very nice, very nice. I think that two other mindset pieces, one is that it's important to actually protect relationships. Yes, I mean the personal relationships that we have in our life because they can be such a source of security, joy, and comfort. I also mean business relationships. We're going to get to the other side of this, and unlike other past catastrophes that were measured in years, I think, yes, our economic catastrophe is going to be measured in years on this one for sure. I think that in terms of months, I think this pandemic is going to be measured in months, not years and years and years. One of my questions at each point is what is the state of the relationships of suppliers, vendors in the case of property managers, tenants, if you're managing on behalf of other people like your clients, your investors, and owners. What's the state of those relationships going to look like in three months from now, or six months from now when we're on the other side of this. You might make it through, but do you still have people that respect you? I heard a story the other day of an entrepreneur that just cancelled all their credit cards and said well, everything's just going to fail in terms of expenses and I'm going to add back one by one the few things that make sense. It's a shortcut to just cutting expenses. That's a way to go about it, but are you going to just supremely piss off everyone in the process? I think that protecting relationships is important to keep in mind. That doesn't mean that you're always bringing good news to everyone along the way, especially in the cutting expenses part of our presentation today. I think to be respected for being accountable, navigating agreements that you have with people rather than just abandoning them. My other mindset piece is that early action is crucial. If you discover that you need to get alone, act now before more businesses are closing, and possibly soaking up some lending capacity, or even just work capacity that bankers have to fill out applications and whatnot. If you discover you need to reduce a teammate's hours, tell them as early as possible so they can start making plans of their own personal and family finances. So that if a dip comes for them income-wise, they're prepared for it. If you can help them find a new opportunity elsewhere, do what you can to manage those relationships. I got an interesting perspective from someone who used to have a business helping individuals, not businesses, but individuals navigate bankruptcy. He said one of the most common patterns he saw with people going through bankruptcy is they didn't cut expenses deep enough or soon enough, deep enough or soon enough. I think that that's a very interesting perspective and maybe a usable guideline would be to say anything that's not going to help increase the profitability, and specifically cash coming into your business in the coming six months, I'd probably delay it. If you're thinking of a new website, if that's not going to immediately give you a bump in cash in the next six months, then let's put that on pause. We'll see if we can renegotiate it, put it on hold, delay it, or even cancel it. I think that's a really powerful way and maybe for you, the number isn't six months, maybe it's three months or eight months, whatever. But if we can keep an eye on what's going to bring cash in, in that timeframe, that really makes decision making a lot easier around what expenses you can continue with and which do not. This leads us to our second of the three steps of what we need to navigate and that is expenses. I think that something I'd say in my path of learning accounting and I even went and took night classes at the University of Alberta. I finally did go and take University accounting classes. It was not for credit though, they wouldn't let me into the for credit version, but they'd let me still sit in the classes and study. You know what, Jason, I got 100% of my midterm. I wanted to throw up my middle fingers as I walked into the room. I can't complete calculus, I can't get into business school, but here I'm getting 100% of my midterm. How about that? How do you like them apples? One of the big ahas that I had is that in my brain, because we all grow up thinking about personal finance. I think in personal finance, we think if I make $1, I can spend $1, and $1 in is $1 out. If I want to go buy a car, a pair of jeans, or a pair of shoes, I just need to get that amount of income to be able to pay for the shoes, the jeans, or the car. When it comes to business finance though it's a little bit different. To be able to buy $1 of expenses, we can't just make $1. It's because there's other expenses in the business. That's why we always talk about profit margin. If I have $100,000 in revenue, and I've got $50,000 in expenses, then I have $50,000 in profit. My profit margin is 50%. What that means is at the end of that year, or quarter, that month, for me to have an extra dollar to go buy something the next month, quarter or year, I don't need to make $1, I actually need to make $2 because my profit margin is only 50%. I have to make the $2 at the top, 50% gets stripped away by expenses. I'm left with $1 to now go and spend in the next month, quarter, or year. There's this idea, I invented it, it's called bloat factor. How many dollars do I have to sell at the top line to have $1 at the bottom line to be able to use and go and spend and buy something else in the coming month, quarter, or year? It's very simple math. If you're at 50% profit margin, which very few businesses are—very, very, very, very, very few businesses are—then you'd have to earn $2 to have $1 at the bottom to be able to go and spend in the coming period. If I've got a 25% profit margin, I have to make $4 at the top to have $1 to go and spend. If I'm at a 10% profit margin, which a lot of businesses around that 10% margin mark, I have to go make $10 to be able to have one at the bottom. Jason: This is super important for people to realize. A lot of us entrepreneurs, we look at our bank accounts and we think well, I've got $1 that we made. Now I can go buy this thing for $1. They think it's a one to one relationship. That's a huge mistake. Tim: Whatever your business's profit margin is, you got to figure out the bloat factor. Let's just say for example, you're at a 10% profit margin, that means you have to make $10 to keep $1, your bloat factor is 10X. If you cut $1 of expense, you now don't have to sell 10X that in revenue to be in the exact same place. For example, this is actually an extraordinary story Jason, this going to blow your mind. I talked to one of my private consulting clients here. He and I had like uh-oh, the crisis is coming call like three weeks ago. He cut $9,000 a month in recurring revenue. Does that mean that he doesn't need to sell $9,000 in the coming year? Well, of course not, because it's recurring expenses. Jason: I was going to say he lost them? Tim: No, no, no. He cut $9,000 per month of expenses. At his profit margin, his bloat factor is 8.7. $9,000 times 12 months in a year times 8.7, he does not have to sell $944,882 in the coming year. He cut the need to sell a million dollars just by cutting $9,000 a month in expenses. That is mind expanding. Jason: We have pretty healthy profit margins at DoorGrow, we’re pretty tight. We're a virtual team but we cut a ton of expenses. Maybe if we have time, I could list some of the crazy actions that we took to help make sure that we cash flowed. It makes a ton of sense to me. Tim: Big time. I'll just take a super simple example. I actually set up a calculator which we'll play with in the free webinar you and I will do. We'll play with the bloat calculator a little bit. If I have a profit margin of 10%—not uncommon for businesses—my bloat factor would be 10. If all I removed was $250 a month, that's it, $250 a month of recurring expenses, canceling subscriptions, canceling unused services, access to different websites and whatnot, I would not have to sell $30,000 in the coming year. $250 a month does not sound like that much to cut, and yet a 10X bloat factor, that's $30,000 you do not have to sell anymore. You tell me what's easier, finding $250 a month and cutting it, or going out and generating $30,000 in new revenue in the coming year? Jason: Especially right now for us. My accountant was really impressed with me. We cut $10,000 in monthly expenses, depending on what our profit margin is. That can be pretty significant for us as well in terms of how much sales we don't have to do to make it each month. That's made it breathable for us significantly. Tim: When you talk about being able to survive and thrive even when sales go down, you just created a situation for yourself where you don't have to sell as much. Even if sales go down, you can still meet it at a lower sales level and still get by which is really incredible. Jason: I met with my accountant last night and we mapped out the month with all the recurring revenue that we have coming in. If we do no sales this month, we will make it. Tim: I love that. Jason: We’ve pivoted quickly and reduced the expenses, but right now it’s a great opportunity for property managers to grow and we're offering some crazy deals. Hopefully, we'll also be doing some sales this month and making a big difference. Tim: I love that. I think you were sharing offline about how all these Airbnbs are now switching to long term rental. They got smoked out of the market and now they just want to go back to traditional long term rentals. So there's all this flood towards property managers. For a property manager that knows how to convert an Airbnb into a standard long term rental, ready to rock, and knows how to find those deals, goodness gracious, this could be a really revolutionary time. Jason: There are several channels right now for growth and each one is going to get bigger. Property managers right now, they can capitalize on it. We're pushing our clients aggressively to start taking action on these things right now. Tim: That's so exciting. There's another way that we can navigate the cash crunch even if sales go down. It's not just by managing expenses but it's also by navigating cash. Let's get into the third and final step in navigating the cash crunch. The free webinar that we're gonna do in approximately a week from now, we're actually going to do live exercises. We're actually going to share screens and you're actually going to see this spreadsheet in action. It's super simple. Anyone can do it. It can be a game changer. Of the multi-million dollar companies that I've helped save, some of them I didn't even do private consulting with. They just came, they know your numbers, or they heard me talk about just this one tool, The Cash Flow Forecast. They use it religiously when they're in a tough spot and it helps them get through. It's very exciting. There's actually two parts to this. The very first is actually understanding how much cash can I actually touch right now? There's a big difference between cash and free cash. Cash is the amount of money that's in the bank if you add up your checking and savings accounts. That's cash. Free cash on the other hand, we have to deduct some money out of that total cash to get the free cash to know what we can actually work with. From our total cash amount, we need to set aside committed costs. Committed cost is any amount of money you've promised that you're going to pay. Let's say for example a website, I've signed a legal agreement to get a new website done. If I don't manage that agreement to delay the project, I'm on the hook for it. If that's a $10,000 cash outflow that's coming up in two weeks from now, that is a committed cost. I haven't received the service yet but I've committed to receiving the service or the product for that matter. Jason: It's money that's earmarked. It's money that is going to disappear. If you can't pay it, it could cause some serious problems. Tim: Big time, getting all the way back to that whole topic about managing relationships even through the tough times. The second category that we need to earmark some cash is payables. Let's say that you already had the website built. It was finished last week. You've enjoyed the service. You've received the service or the product for that matter. You're on net 30 terms or net 60 terms and now you got to pay that person. That's a payable. Now, one of the biggest payables that is unavoidable is death is taxes. Thankfully, the payment deadline in the United States has been extended, which allows for some cash flow breathing room for entrepreneurs, which is very important right now. I would do my best to get clear and make sure that I've got a separate account for tax. I actually have a separate bank account. It's a little profit first esque or Richest Man in Babylon esque that there's a separate account for income tax and that's where I would hold my income tax. Jason: I have that too. The idea is to have it at a bank that is difficult to get into. That's completely a normal thing. Tim: You don't know the pin. You give it to someone else. Two keys to authenticate and turn to open the vault. Jason: The worst online bank ever or something like that. Tim: Or the brick and mortar bank that has no online, something like that. After committed costs and payables including income tax, we also need to remove or set aside any deposits that we've got. This is huge in property management because we have deposits from tenants. You can't really spend that money, it's not money that you've earned. It's just money that you're holding as a deposit so we got to park that on the sidelines. Then from there, whatever amount that you've got to pay in credit card debt or any other very short term, high interest debt. Most credit cards are 10% more. If you've got all kinds of rewards on your card, you probably are facing 19.99% or 21.95% interest. We really want to make sure that we're getting that paid off at the end of each month or else we're facing colossal interest rates. I would earmark that money to hold to the side as well. Then from there, there's two more. The next one is ultra-short term debt that you need to pay. Short term debt in accounting refers to any debt that's due this year. A Tim Francisism ultra-short term is in the next 30 days. If there's any portion of debt that you need to pay down in the next 30 days, I would earmark that cash as well because if you don't pay it, a lot of small business loans have liens or guarantees against your house. You might lose your house if you don't pay it, or you don't renegotiate that payment because there are some circumstances now where banks and different lenders are allowing you to skip the payment right now because of what's going on. Our last category where we need to earmark and subtract cash, I actually have a whole separate account in my bank for this particular category, is what's called Unearned Revenue. I don't think that's as big in property management candidly. For example, for someone who's offering other services, unearned revenue can be the difference between life and death to know what is earned and what's not. For example, if someone hires me for a year of consulting and they pay in a block amount of money at the start of the year, they pay the whole year in advance, I can only touch 1/12th of that with each month that goes by because it's unearned revenue until I've delivered that guidance for the year. Understanding our starting point of actual free cash is the first part of managing cash, and then the second part is to build out what we call a cash flow forecast. It's very simple. It's 13 weeks which is 90 days, just three months. We simply plot into the cash flow forecast where we've got cash coming in and cash going out. Jason, would it be appropriate for me to just show a screenshot of a cash flow forecast or should we wait until the webinar? Jason: The podcast listeners won't see it so let's get that, we’ll show it on the webinar. They'll just be listeners but it's pretty cool. I'll give you a testimonial related to this. I met with my accountant. We're mapping out all the recurring revenue that we have at DoorGrow and figuring out what expenses. We basically went through this. She started doing this manually in a spreadsheet real time, basically doing exactly what your spreadsheet does. She was figuring out which things are going to hit, what are the due dates for these. We're figuring it all out. I was like that's so funny because Tim has a thing that does this. She took me through it manually to make sure that our cash flow situation is going to be good because it's not just hey, this month we're going to make X number of dollars. We're going to have X number of expenses and we're okay. It's maybe at the beginning of the month, you have a whole bunch of things that are running and you're making that revenue later in the month or however it might work. You need to make sure it's all going to be timed perfectly. That's the brilliance of your cash flow thing because if it ever dips below zero, you're dead. It goes into the red, that's death. You have to make sure that you always know when things are going to hit and this is what your spreadsheet does, which is pretty brilliant. Tim: I agree. I totally agree. I'll tell you, when people are calling you every single day to collect money, 29 days is an extremely long time. It is an eternity. Being clear about when money is arriving, not just by the month to your point, but to the week. To be very clear about when cash is leaving to the week, and making sure that not you or anyone in your team is sending cash out the door too soon especially without other people like a bookkeeper helping or an executive assistant helping to pay different bills, if you don't direct your team on when to pay bills, people in your office or on your team, they might just pay the bills when they come in. They just might pay it exactly the same day that they open the envelope or they get the statement online. They're like oh, well, I was just doing my job. I was just paying this because it came in. You got to give your teammates leadership, guidance, vision, and direction on items like this especially in a cash crunch. People oftentimes ask me Tim, this tool is brilliant. How often should I be looking at it? I say that you look at the tool as often as you need to, relative to two factors. Number one, how low is your plane flying relative to the treetops? This is just the analogy we talked about earlier. If your wheels are clipping the tree tops and those trees might take your plane down, then you're looking at that cash flow forecast possibly every single week to make absolutely damn sure that you're getting the money in that you're expecting on that week, and you're not sending money out any earlier than you're supposed to on that week. Jason: Even daily. Tim: A hundred percent. The clients that I have that weren't had multimillion dollar businesses which can have a lot of complexity, moving parts, people, teammates, products, clients, and all the rest, they would literally have it open every single day just to make sure things were coming and going, that all the trains are running on time because there was no margin for error. The other reason why you'd want to have your cash flow forecast updated in front of mine regularly is if there's a lot of turbulence in the air. Whether you're flying close to the trees or not close to trees. If you got a lot of altitude, that's great. But if there's a lot of turbulence, that can do a lot of damage to your plane as well. Maybe you're not looking at it every single day, maybe not even every single week, but at least once a month. I hate making absolute statements because there's always an exception to the rule, but more or less 100% of entrepreneurs are in turbulence right now because of the climate that we're operating in. This is not a situation, it's limited to a city, a state, or even a country. This is worldwide. The cash flow forecast is how you make sure that you've got oxygen in your tank and that you can keep moving. Without that oxygen in the tank, doesn't matter how big and fast your flippers are to generate revenue. You got to have the cash in the oxygen tank. If you do hit any spots where you've got red on your cash flow forecast and you need to manage that crisis line, there are a lot of different strategies. Some of the more obvious strategies would be applying for some of the SBA loans. The only downside to that is we don't know when they're going to arrive. Secondly, bank lines of credit or if you've got access to them already and they're just sitting unused, that becomes an option. There's raising money from family and friends or an investor. If you wanted to, this is maybe less attractive for most entrepreneurs, we can actually sell shares in your company to raise money. There's also just the simple renegotiating if you need to pay something. Let's say it's $5,000, it's in three weeks from now, and that's when your first red square hits on the cash flow forecast, that's your crisis line. If you're going to be short just $1,000 or something, maybe you could call that person that you owe the money and say can I make it in two payments? I'll pay you in three weeks half, and then one week after that the other half. Lo and behold, just by splitting to 2 payments over 14 days instead of once, all of a sudden you've made up the difference and now all your squares are green. Now you've got not three weeks of safety, but five weeks of safety. Jason: The plane can fly through all of those and knock at the trees. Tim: Hundred percent. The thing is there's a lot of conversation out there about how we have to pivot our businesses and how we have to change our sales and our marketing. I think that is all extremely important conversation to have, absolutely crucial conversation to have. Inevitably, if we're going to pivot our offerings in any way, shape, or form, it's going to take time to roll them out. If it's going to take, say, four weeks to come up with a new offering of some special for an Airbnb owners that want to convert into long term rental, if you need to create a marketing campaign to identify those people, if you need to train up your staff to call certain Airbnb to see if they're distressed. Whether it's people, projects, processes, offers that you're rolling out, it's going to take some time. Even if you do it really quickly, it will probably still take at least a month, if not a few months, to be able to make that pivot and to make that implementation. It doesn't matter if you've got the best idea. It takes four weeks to roll out, but you only have two weeks of cash. That's like building a brand new airplane that's the world's fastest, sexiest, coolest, most comfortable, smoothest plane in the world, but if you only give it 100 yards of runway, it's not going to take off. It's just not. Jason: To boil this down real simple for those listening, all these opportunities for growth, it does not matter if your business doesn't cash flow. It's going to fail. Cash flow first and then let's get you focused on growth. Tim: Cash can come from different places. It can come from loans and other places, not just from revenue. To your point, Jason, I just think there are so many opportunities on the other side of this. We just have to make sure we have enough runway. Surprisingly, amidst this entire thing, I'd say the thesis of all of this is that the most important factors in navigating a cash crunch is actually not cash itself. It's actually time. Time is what we're playing for and cash gets us time. By getting time, we can now get out of panic. We can get back to being calm, clear because we've got a cash flow forecast. You can see what's coming down the pipe. We're confident because you know the exact steps you need to take and because we're clear, confident, and calm, now we can be creative to take advantage of the opportunities that are coming down the pipe. That is the name of the game. Those three steps, navigating mindset, navigating expenses, and navigating cash are how we build the runway that we then can launch off whatever the new opportunities are to take us into the new economy. Jason: I had Michael McCalla on the show. I've worked with Al Sharpton as a coach. One of the things Al would say is if you lower the pressure noise for an entrepreneur, that's where their brilliance and genius comes out. One of the things Michael Mccalla talked about is that when we have constraints or limitations which this market is creating, it's going to create innovation. If you give somebody the Pareto principle, if you give somebody an endless amount of time to do whatever, they don't have to innovate. We're innovating crazy inside DoorGrow. My team members are getting new ideas. We release some contractors. Our salaried staff are figuring out new ways of doing things, ways to save money, ways that are more efficient, ways that are faster. These are big opportunities right now for you and your team to give them some constraints, have them work with you on lowering expenses, solving the cash crunch crisis that you may be experiencing, and allowing innovation creativity to happen. If you can keep your presence calm, your team will be there as well. This is a step towards that. Tim: Did you want to share with folks maybe a little bit about our presentation we're doing next week? We're actually walking people through building a cash flow forecast. Jason: Yeah. Let's just touch on the details. It's going to be on Thursday, what day is that? Tim: April the 9th. Jason: It's going to be on April 9th. It's going to be 11:00. Our time, we're both in Austin, Central, which is 9:00 AM Pacific noon Eastern. What are we going to be sharing during this? What are you going to be sharing with everyone? Tim: You bet. First of all, folks, go to navigatethecashcrunch.com/doorgrow. I know podcast listeners won't be able to see this, but Jason, I'll just share my screen so you can see it. We've got Navigate the Cash Crunch with Tim Francis and Jason Hull. It's happening Thursday, April 9th, 2020 at 11:00 AM Central, which is Chicago time just like Jason just shared. In it, we'll be sharing the three step process we've talked about today. We're not going to go into as much detail into mindset because we talked about it here today already. We'll cover a few tools around expense management. The real star of the show is building your very own cash flow forecast. You can register for that webinar at navigatethecashcrunch.com/doorgrow. What you'll get is access to the training. You also get the cash flow forecast template as well, which you can just drop into your very own computer and get to work with seeing where your crisis line is. Hopefully, it's not too close and from there, seeing the exact path to navigating safely. If you happen to be listening to this podcast episode of the DoorGrow Show after the webinars already happened, so after April the 9th, 2020, no problem. You can still go back to the exact same URL. You can see the resources and the replays there so that you are not left in the dark. Jason: navigatethecashcrunch.com/doorgrow. Tim: Yes, indeed. Absolutely. Maybe you guys can throw that in the show notes or something like that for anyone listening to the podcast. Jason: Absolutely. Tim: That's that. I think that somewhat as a final thought on my end over here. It's just that deep down inside, we as entrepreneurs, we take on a lot to be great leaders. I do view property managers as entrepreneurs. I hope they do too, because they are there. They're doing the courageous things of entrepreneurs every single day. Sometimes leadership isn't easy. Sometimes it has uncomfortable conversations. Sometimes it has uncomfortable moments. I think that there's something really beautiful about getting clear on where we are. Oftentimes we talk about our goals and what's the most important to us, but we also have to be very clear about where we are. Getting to Austin, Texas is very different if you're starting in Chicago versus Waikiki. Knowing where we are right now with free cash, and then from there being able to map the path with our cash flow forecast, it really creates calm, it really creates clarity. Therefore, it really creates confidence which then creates creativity that we can now take on this new economy. Something I am very sure about is not anyone including myself could have specific data around this. I just know my gut, Jason, that the economy that we had two months ago, it's over. It's gone. I don't just mean bull versus bear. What I mean is the way we did business once upon a time is forever changed. I'm very nervous for what kind of discomfort is coming for anyone who thinks that how we used to do things is coming back to what it used to be. As we chart into these new territories, I think being able to be calm, clear, confident, and creative is the path. It takes courage and just a couple simple tools to be able to have that. I think that if we're operating from clear facts and confidence, we become lighthouses that can attract what we need to attract into our worlds, and also fend away what we need to fend away. We're not left making super emotional decisions. One of my mentors, his name is Keith Cunningham, he talks about emotion and intelligence often working inverse of one another. The more emotional we are, which is really saying the more that we're in our amygdala, the less that we're in the frontal lobe of our brain, the less our executive functioning is there and the less that we're able to make intelligent, clear, confident decisions. On the flip side, the more that we can make calm, clear, confident decisions, the less that we become really emotional about what's going on. That's not to say we're not passionate. We are so passionate about our businesses. Yes, emotion has its right place. We just don't want to get stuck making decisions or taking action that we may regret down the road. Jason: Absolutely. Tim, thanks for coming on the show. Everybody else, make sure you tune in when we do our presentation. For those listening, watch the replay. Until next time to our mutual growth. Bye, everyone. 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Is it worth getting an executive assistant and if so, which tasks should you delegate? What's the return? These are common questions entrepreneurs have about executive assistants and this episode with Tim Francis, we're going to answer them! Tim is an award-winning entrepreneur from Canada and the founder of ProfitFactory.com and GreatAssistant.com.  He’s a graduate of the University of Alberta, and a Certified Scrum Product Owner. Tim helps entrepreneurs transition from Business Operator to Business Owner, helping them successfully arrange, then delegate to a Production team around them.  Entrepreneurs appreciate their newfound freedom to work ON the business, take time off, travel, or start other venture Tim's websites: https://greatassistant.com/ https://www.profitfactory.com/ Claim Your Free Ticket For The Grow And Scale Now Summit! https://growandscalenow.com/ Register now for the Scale Now Retreat: http://chantelray.com/retreat Chantel: https://www.instagram.com/thechantelray/  This episode is brought to you by Simpronto! Get your podcast edited, launched, and produced SIMPLY PRONTO with their services: http://simpronto.com/ For more resources, visit http://www.reallifeleaders.com/podcast Have a leadership question you want answered? Email podcast@reallifeleaders.com and you might even be in an episode!

Tim Francis is the Founder of Great Assistant, which helps Entrepreneurs get an effective and affordable Assistant who takes over the minutiae you hate doing so you can get back to the work you love. Tim and his team have now placed over 200 Assistants. Tim's own Assistant, Sarah, has been with him for 5 years, handles 98% of his email inbox, and has allowed him to focus on bigger opportunities such as appearing on Inc.com, Forbes.com, and appearing as a guest lecturer at NYU in New York City. What you'll learn about in this episode: How getting started in real estate in 2006 and then losing $20,000 to a Ponzi scheme con artist in his 20s opened Tim's eyes to his own potential How finding his incredible assistant, Sarah, transformed Tim's business and allowed him to pursue new deals and opportunities Why Tim looks for fit, timing and profitability when evaluating potential clients of his services Why not all virtual assistants are created equal, and why a truly Great Assistant has the skills, experience, time and dedication that can transform your business Why hiring a Great Assistant can cost as little as $1,000 a month, and how Great Assistant manages to attract top talent inexpensively How the Great Assistant Inner Circle service provides ongoing professional development for Great Assistants How Tim learned to turn email control over to his Great Assistant, and how that allows him to be a Transaction Engineer Why distraction is the biggest productivity-killer, and why the more things you have to focus on the less attention you can give to each thing Why Tim recommends you read Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction by Philip E. Tetlock and Dan Gardner Why being on either side of a great mentoring relationship can be powerful and transformative, and why the wrong mentor can do incredible damage to your business Resources: Website: www.SmartRealEstateCoach.com/greatassistant Profit Factory Website: https://www.profitfactory.com/ LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/timothyjfrancis/ Additional resources: Superforecasting by Philip E. Tetlock and Dan Gardner: https://amzn.to/2J3CNtT

Timothy Francis from Great Assistant was Mandi’s guest on the podcast today. Through his work as a private consultant, Tim noticed that entrepreneurs desperately needed help with the minutiae involved with running a business - they needed to get those administrative and operational tasks off their plate. Tim started Great Assistant to help entrepreneurs hire an assistant, retain them for years, and make them really profitable.    Right out of the gate, Tim shared three amazing strategies to delegate better: Do not use email to delegate to anyone on your internal team - it’s a wasteland of distraction for both you and your assistant. Use Loom. It’s a free tool that you can use in your browser. It allows you to record your screen and narrate what you want done. We can delegate far more quickly, and be more clear about what we want done. Hire an assistant that fits you properly. Hands down, the best value for your dollar is to hire someone from the United States or Canada for $18-$22 per hour. The surgeon in the room    Entrepreneurs should only be doing three jobs, similar to a surgeon in an operating room:      strategy,  high-level skill, and   high-level access.     A surgeon doesn’t book the surgery date, prepare the patient, clean the room beforehand, or prepare the paperwork. You can’t be in the CEO seat doing the high-level things you need to be doing if you’re constantly in reactivity mode. Always remember that you are your business's most valuable resource.    When you hire a Great Assistant, you can see a ROI very quickly. There are people out there who can do what you’re doing better than you can. Administrative tasks require a very different skill set. Getting those tasks off your plate will not only free up time, but also mental and physical energy that you can use to meditate, exercise, innovate, strategize, and more. The quality triangle for hiring (aka #ShowerThoughts) We’ve all heard of the “quality triangle”. Good, fast, cheap….  You can only have two.  In hiring, there’s a similar two of three scenario. The three points of the triangle are talent, compensation, and working conditions.  Talent is non-negotiable, but working conditions is an area where you can be flexible.  Try and hire someone to work a traditional 9-5, and you’ll be competing with large corporations, government, and other top employers for the best talent. Offer flexible hours and remote work, and all of a sudden you can compete for the talent you need at the price point you want. Your new employee is also more likely to be loyal, and give you that continuity of employment you’re looking for. Hiring and risk The real work happens at computers. Not in boardrooms or offices. The more time goes by, the more work is done virtually. When you’re hiring someone to work virtually, it’s about reducing that risk, Tim says.  Big management mistakes   It’s tempting to manage by abdication and just say “Get it done. GO!” This never works!    Most people are terrible at delegating.    But it’s an easy skill to learn with the right approach.    Tim has this great free tool to show you how to do that. Download 360 Delegation for a 3 step process to delegatie the right way. Final thoughts Tim runs his business in the same way as we teach at Hands-Off CEO™. He has been able to scale his services profitably and sustainably because he sells only one thing, and he does that one thing really, REALLY well. The success rate of administrative assistants making an hourly wage is around 50%. Great Assistant has an 85% success rate at the 90 day mark, and 80% of assistants stay longer than a year. If you have an inbox full of opportunities, you really can’t wait. Book a Discovery Call with Great Assistant, and get yourself that person in place in the next 30 days. They’re so knowledgeable and confident in the service they offer that they will even tell you if you’re not ready for their services and offer you alternate options.    They also have free tools to support you, including the 360 Delegation tool, and a Facebook group specifically for the Executive Entrepreneur.    And, if you decide to use Tim’s services to find your Great Assistant, there’s a guarantee.  For any reason, if you or your assistant choose to end the relationship within 90 days, Great Assistant will find you a replacement at no extra charge. Leave a review If you’re finding a lot of value from this podcast, please leave a review on iTunes! Hire yourself a Great Assistant! Tim built his company, Great Assistant, in the exact way we teach our clients in Scale to Freedom™ to scale services. I wanted to introduce you to Tim, because there’s so much synergy with what we offer at Hands-Off CEO™. The truth is, some CEOs may not be ready to work with Hands-Off CEO until they’ve hired that Great Assistant.  The quality assistants they hire are the kinds of people we can develop into Operations Managers. If you don’t already have that person in place and need support finding them, Great Assistant is a fantastic option!  They can hire and train a Great Assistant in as little as 30 days, guaranteed! Download the 360 Delegation tool, greatassistant.com/handsoffceo.

Today Chris and Pat speak to one of the most important groups of people in the sports world... the assistant coach! There are many ways to be a great assistant coach, and there are things that can cause you to be a bad assistant coach. Whether you are involved with a college team or a 10U youth team, we hope this episode helps to strengthen your program as you seek to be a great assistant coach! ______________ Please reach out to us and let us know what kinds of topics you'd like for us to discuss on the show. Let's all work together! You can find us on Twitter @TheCoachingLife and you can also email us at TheCoachingLifePodcast@gmail.com. Thanks for sharing our podcast with your family members, friends, and fellow coaches. Be sure to remind them to SUBSCRIBE so that no one misses a single episode!

With 26 years of experience coaching at the collegiate level, Christian Ozolins has paid his dues as an assistant coach. Maryville College, Methodist University, Alfred University, and Hamilton College are some of the institutions that Coach Ozolins has worked at. After serving as the interim head coach for Buffalo State College last season, Coach Ozolins was officially named as the head coach for the Bengals and working on several coaching staffs has prepared him for this moment. Tune in as your host, Keith Grabowski, and Coach Ozolins discuss the keys to becoming a great assistant coach. 1:41 Intro 2:02 Coach Ozolins’ background 3:26 How to be a great assistant coach 5:45 Other tips on being a great assistant 8:00 Identifying your weaknesses 10:34 Recruiting 12:26 Being organized 13:22 Coaching attire 16:46 Keeping work and home separate 18:41 Put the cellphone down 19:34 Building relationships on campus 23:11 The winning edge Check out our systems for skill development in blocking, defeating blocks and tackling at footballdevelopment.com. Follow us daily on Twitter for content and interaction @FBDevCoach and be sure to check out X's and O's analysis at blogs.usafootball.com.

Tim Francis combines a level of genius with true Canadian kindness. One of his passions is helping entrepreneurs maximize their time by offloading the hundreds of time sucking, low level tasks. If you feel constantly overwhelmed with the myriad of low level tasks that continue to hold you back from your greatness, or, if you just want to know what freedom tastes like, go to Great Assistant and learn more about how Tim and his company can help give you freedom.   Resources from this episode: Tim Francis - Great Assistant Get a copy of Perry Marshall's excellent book 80/20 Sales and Marketing - The Ultimate Guide to Working Less and Making More for one penny plus shipping (we worked out a special deal for our listeners) Just click here If you like the show, tell your friends, and give us review. If you love it - share all over the place! Why? Because it will help someone improve their life and business. Thanks!  

My guest in this episode is Tim Francis. Tim is the Founder of Great Assistant, which helps Entrepreneurs get an effective and affordable Assistant who takes over the minutiae you hate doing so you can get back to the work you love.  Tim and his team have now placed over 200 Assistants.  Tim's own Assistant, Sarah, has been with Tim for 5 years, handles 98% of his email inbox and has allowed Tim to focus on bigger opportunities such as appearing on Inc.com, Forbes.com, and appearing as a guest lecturer at NYU in New York City. If you have not checked out my new podcast, Cashflow Investing Secrets, I would highly recommend it-  it is a shorter show, 10 minutes or less where I share one concept and or idea at a time what I have learned from interviewing over 500 Cashflow Ninjas. You can listen to the show on your favorite podcast, video and live streaming platforms.   We also have an investment group and community for accredited investors, if you are interested to join the group, please visit: cashflowninjainvestorsnetwork.com   You can also join the Cashflow Ninja Community on Facebook by searching Cashflow Ninja Community on Facebook. Interview Links: Great Assistant Website If you have enjoyed our podcast, please share with friends and family Please Subscribe, Rate, and Review on Itunes so more people can find us! Support Our Sponsors Producers Wealth, create, protect & multiply your wealth in ANY Economy. Asym Capital, achieve asymmetric returns through recession-resistant real estate.   The Real Asset Investor, alternative cash flow investments.   Masterworks, Invest In Fine Art Like The Ultra-Wealthy.   Audible, download any audiobook for FREE when you try Audible for 30 days.   Thanks so much for joining me again. Have some feedback you’d like to share? Leave a note in the comment section below! If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see at the bottom of the post!   Also, please leave an honest review for the Cashflow Ninja Podcast on iTunes. Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and greatly appreciated! They do matter in the rankings of the show, and I read each and every one of them.   And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes to get automatic updates, please follow me on twitter @mclaubscher and Instagram, @thecashflowninja.   Until next time! Live a life of passion and purpose on YOUR terms,   M.C. Laubscher

If you run a business, you know it's tough to get out of the weeds and find time to work on the stuff that really matters, especially if you're a solo entrepreneur who can't delegate to staff. These days, you can easily hire a virtual assistant off the internet. However, it can be difficult to find someone reliable and trustworthy enough to take care of personal tasks, like managing your inbox or booking travel on a credit card. My guest for this episode number 207 is Tim Francis.  Tim is someone who has thought a lot about assistance, delegating, and the most efficient way to run a business. After achieving success at a young age, Tim was hit with a rare illness which left him crippled for three months. The illness forced him to start again from scratch and rethink his entire approach to business. The result was two innovative new businesses, Great Assistant and Profit Factory. Tim is a master when it comes to hiring, managing, and delegating tasks to assistance.  So if you employ one or you're thinking of employing one, the knowledge he shares today will have a real impact on your business's bottom line. We'll also be discussing plenty of handy tools you can use to streamline the management of your team and your business. And Tim will reveal some powerful insights like why you should only hire assistance in your own time zone. There's plenty to dive into. So let's get started. Shall we?

Every entrepreneur wants to find an amazing virtual personal assistant who can give them their time (and life) back. You know, the legendary superstar team member who rides a unicorn, disperses magical fairy dust, and transforms problems into profit!  All joking aside, there are people out there who are not only qualified and capable of helping you maximize your business in this way, they will often work for what you can pay them just for the perk of working from home. This episode features Tim Francis, a guy who has been to a stress-induced state of poor health and back again - and was motivated by the experience to figure out the details of building a team that can support his business and move it forward. Listen to this one. It’s worth all the time you can give it. Your assistant will only provide the amount of value you pour into them There’s a myth out there in the entrepreneurial community: The right virtual assistant will take things on quickly and make a difference immediately. It’s simply not true. Your online personal assistant will only provide the amount of value that you put into them. That means training - clear direction - empowerment - and more. And all of that comes from you. Listen to hear how Tim likens the position you are in, to that of a Surgeon, a specialized position that requires help from other skilled individuals in order to make the “surgery” of what you do in your business a spectacular success. It’s a powerful image that can help you rethink your systems, understand what REAL delegation looks like, and build a team that sets you free from the worry, stress, and headache of running things all on your own. What does it take to delegate to an online personal assistant properly? After his health crisis, Tim took the time to understand what effective delegation looks like - and one of the most important things he discovered is that there are 4 levels - or 4 types of things - every entrepreneur can delegate. But it takes time and a systematic plan to enable you to get all four of them off your plate. Let’s walk through them... Simple tasks - these are the one-off items that anyone can do with a very small amount of instruction. As your virtual personal assistant does more of these, he/she will develop the capacity to handle more and figure things out on their own. Simple decisions - this category is not about tasks, but about making the call when a question or system-issue arises. As an entrepreneur, you want your assistant to be capable of handling these.  Hard decisions - as you can tell by the name, this one is a step or two up the responsibility ladder from the one before. It’s a skill that has to be developed over time, and with your help. Outcomes - this one is essentially the first 3 types of delegation rolled into one, except that it also includes responsibility for the entire result of a process, event, or plan. Listen to hear how Tim describes it and you’ll get an idea of the amazing things a virtual personal assistant can accomplish. 360 Delegation can help you train your virtual personal assistant properly and powerfully There are tons of things that you can and should pass off to an assistant, so having enough tasks for them to do is not the problem. Most entrepreneurs have issues when they don't properly train their assistant. That’s why Tim created his 360 Delegation framework. It involves 3 areas... Vision (show them a sample of success) Resources required (credentials, money, authority, etc.) Definition of “done” (how do we know it’s complete? - sign-offs? etc.) Every time you delegate something to your assistant, you MUST include all three of these aspects of the task or project for them to be the superstar team member you need. It’s up to you to empower and equip them for success. Listen to learn how to do it! Once you delegate to your virtual personal assistant the RIGHT way, what should YOU be doing? Hiring an assistant and training them well is not so that you can sit back on a beach somewhere, sipping drinks. Its purpose is so that you can be released to do the high-level things that make a multiplied difference to your business. What is it that you should be doing? Strategy - YOU are the one responsible for determining the direction and approach for your business. This can’t and shouldn’t be delegated. It involves high-level skill and requires high-level access to people and resources. It’s YOUR domain as the leader. When you can free up your time to do THIS, things move forward exponentially - and a virtual personal assistant is the key you're missing. Don’t miss this episode - it’s full of practical, powerful advice from a guy who has learned it the hard way - Tim Francis. Outline of This Episode [2:00] How Tim got started helping people optimize their time: he screwed up a lot [10:27] What does it mean to delegate things properly? Start simple and graduate up [17:43] How do you know if the time is right for an assistant? [24:01] Lessons learned from being burnt by hiring assistants the wrong way Resources & People Mentioned www.GreatAssistant.com/toolbox Tim’s 360 Delegation BOOK: The Four Hour Work Week TV Show: Suits Perry Marshall Ryan LaVesque Musicfor “Just The Tips” is titled, “Happy Happy Game Show” by Kevin MacLeod (http://incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License Connect With James and Dean James P. Friel: www.JamesPFriel.com  Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/autopilotentrepreneur Dean Holland: Blog: www.DeanHolland.com FB Page: https://www.facebook.com/DeanHollandHQ Digital Business Entrepreneurs: https://www.facebook.com/groups/DigitalBusinessEntrepreneurs/ Audio Production and Show notes by PODCAST FAST TRACK https://www.podcastfasttrack.com

Twitter: @CoachGlenney Coach Glenney talks about... His 2019 TABC Small College Assistant COY Award.. What Makes A Great Assistant Coach?.. Recruiting to Christian Private Schools.. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/tree-burks/support

We heard from Joe Fier (in depth) on episode 62, about Podcasting - but in this episode, Roland and Joe talk about his highly successful 12-year partnership with Matt Wolfe. Our host, Roland Frasier is a huge fan of Partnerships and doesn’t own 100% of any of the businesses he owns, so he frequently hones in on the insight and partnership advice his guests can share with our listeners.  Joe & Matt founded Evergreen Profits and host the successful podcast, “Hustle and Flow Chart”. Learn how you can set up and sustain a partnership in which both parties can thrive and operate in their strengths… and PROFIT.  Listen For Essential communication skills for partners looking for long term success Smart division of responsibility How hiring the right person (a strategic third party), can help resolve disagreements & propel you further The hiring resource that nailed it... and more.  Mentioned in this episode, GreatAssistant.com, and a custom offer from Joe and Matt for our listeners, here   Thanks so much for joining us this week. Want to subscribe to Business Lunch with Roland Frasier? Have some feedback you’d like to share? Connect with us on iTunes and leave us a review! iTunes Not your Thing? Visit us at BusinessLunchPodcast.com or find us on Spotify, or Stitcher Visit RolandFrasier.com, and follow @BizLunchPodcast on Twitter and Instagram

Tips on how to delegate to improve your bottom line with Tim Francis I didn't know how to delegate and I didn't know how to lead and manage. What I discovered after my first failure with an assistant was that at least 50% of the problem was not with the assistant, but was with me. At the very top, which is what the surgeon focuses on and what I encourage entrepreneurs to focus on, is strategy, high-level skill, and high-level access. Everything below that we draw a delegation line and everything below that should be done by everyone else. Sooner or later there is going to be those rinse, wash, and repeat tasks that come up. They seem innocuous, but they really add up. The number one of the big six concerns when it comes to hiring an assistant was actually, I don't know how to trust and let go of control. I mean I am super passionate about a few things. One of which is actually our dinner parties. A horrible idea is going on Facebook and posting up, "Hey, who knows someone?" That's bad advice number one. Bad advice number two is hiring the first person that you meet, irrespective of how you find them. I actually think it's a great idea to go overseas if you are going to be delegating work that happens every week or every month and is a simple task that doesn't require a lot of decision making. But, to have someone with those three attributes, the culture, time zone, and language, you immediately solve at least 40% of the misunderstandings, maybe 50% of the misunderstandings that are happening. I think the other thing that people don't realize is how affordable it can be. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ HOW TO DELEGATE TO IMPROVE YOUR BOTTOM LINE [just click to tweet] HOW TO DELEGATE TO IMPROVE YOUR BOTTOM LINE I didn't know how to delegate. What I discovered was that at least 50% of the problem was not with the assistant, but was with me. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Doug: Hey welcome back another episode of Real Marketing Real Fast. Today in the studio I've got joining me, Tim Francis. Now Tim is a fellow Canadian, but he's also an NYU guest lecturer, certified Scrum Product Owner and lecturer at the University of Alberta. He's an award-winning entrepreneur and the founder of Profit Factory.com and the greatassistant.com. He's a graduate of the University of Alberta and in 2010, 2011 Tim was blindsided and he had a rare illness that left him unable to walk for three months. He nearly went bankrupt as a result of this, and he was re-forced to restart his business, and at that point, he promised himself that he'd never be a burnt out entrepreneur again. So I had a great conversation with Tim and we talked about why more entrepreneurs don't have assistants. I think you're really going to enjoy this episode. You're going to want to make sure that you stick around to the very end as Tim rolls out and shares with you how he got his humble start and the challenges that he had to overcome to build his business to be successful and what it is today. Doug: So I'd like to welcome Tim Francis to the Real Marketing Real Podcast today. Hey Tim, super-excited to have you to join me as part of the Real Marketing Real Fast Podcast today, so welcome to the show. Tim: Thanks for having me, Doug. Doug: So we start talking a little bit before we started recording and I asked you what your superpower was and I'd just like you to recap that because I think it's so valuable. I mean, we have entrepreneurs and C-level business and executive guys on here and often they feel overwhelmed, there's lots of details and stuff to do. So do you want to take a minute and just give us a little bit of background on what you're doing and how you help your clients be more successful? Tim: So I own a company called Great Assistant, and we help entrepreneurs to get a great executive virtual assistant that's coming out of corporate America.

Being a Great Assistant

Brian Benator joins us to discuss what it takes to be a great assistant coach. Coach Benator has lots of great tips to help you get the most out of your time as an assistant as well as help you be the best assistant you can be.

Why Dave Decided to talk to Tim Francis: For entrepreneurs, time is often one of the most valuable things you have. The more time you have the more money you are able to make, and Tim is here to help you get more of both. Tim asserts that he is able to charge $1,000/hour because he learned how to delegate his time with an assistant and then make better use of the time and money he bought back. Listen in for helpful tips on who you should hire and when you should as well. Tips and Tricks for You and Your Business: (1:41) Do You Know Tim’s 3 Tips for Hiring Assistants? (5:23) Tim charges $1,000/hour because he hired an assistant, it’s not the other way around (7:38) This is When HIRING an Assistant Starts to Help You Make More Money (10:16) Dave Had His Assistant Free Up His Time Through Email (13:08) Being the Surgeon in the Room for Your Business (18:16) You Are In Fact Worth It, Invest In Your Business So it Will Work For You (20:26) Tim Has Had to Master Delegations, Let Him Tell You (22:59) Tim had to teach what’s known as a “Hiring Funnel” Quotable Moments: (4:52) “One of the biggest problems we find is that you end up doing things that are not worth your time now or most importantly it prevents you from getting closer to where your biggest ROI is.” (8:36) “I generated so much extra time and money that I could actually afford to take higher level classes which then allowed to charge more for my services.” (17:04) “The amount that you can decline that 80-20 curve and spend your time in the top 10% of highest value activities happens real quick and it’s very exciting.” (22:52) “One of the biggest blind spots that entrepreneurs have is around opportunity-cost.” Other Tidbits: Hire within your timezone, it’s worth the penny pinching. Use a “Hiring Funnel” Important Episode Links:  GreatAssistant.com/ToolBox FunnelHackingLive.com FunnelHackerRadio.com FunnelHackerRadio.com/freetrial FunnelHackerRadio.com/dreamcar ---Transcript--- Speaker 1: 00:00 Hey everybody, welcome back to funnelhacker radio. This is going to be a lot of fun today. Uh, this is a topic that's super near and dear to my heart and I wanted to bring on Tim Francis to introduce kind of how this is all gonna work. So first and foremost, the May introduce you to our friend Mr Tim Francis. Good day. Great to be here. Thanks for having me Dave. So one thing I'm really excited about is helping people understand the importance of scaling and how to grow and build their businesses, especially as a solopreneur or a small small to middle sized business. One of the things we find is that people get so hung up on trying to figure out exactly what to do and how to do it and they, they spend too much time on the how instead of. The one thing that you could find out about tim is Tim, a company called great assistant.com and whole focus behind his business is helping people actually hire their own virtual assistant. Speaker 1: 00:49 And most importantly though to make sure that virtual assistant is here in North America. A couple different things that we're going to talk about as far as how and why, but to give you a little background, timps hired over 200 assistants and first clients and things and really what I want to make sure you guys understand is this whole idea as far as who, not how I'm going to go through that and just a few minutes, but again, want to allow him to say a few words here. Introduce himself. Anything I did not mention that you want to add, Tim, but by all means, please speak to our audience and let him know. Yes, Speaker 2: 01:18 thanks for having me. So for a. So the very first thing is I have three super quick tips that will help anyone when it comes to delegating. A number one is don't write everything out. Instead use something like [inaudible], which is a great tool to be able to capture desktop and share a link. Secondly is a don't use email to communicate with your internal team. Huge productivity killer. Instead, using a communication tool like slack, I actually don't like slack. In fact, I despise slack. I prefer a convo. And thirdly is everyone asks me, hey tim, you know, you've hired around the world, including in North America, what's the best value and what should I paint assistant? And so hands down, the best value I've found around the world is to hire an assistant in a similar or same time zone, similar same culture and same first language. Speaker 2: 02:09 So if you're in the United States or Canada, hire somebody from the United States or Canada, if you're in Australia, New Zealand, hire someone in Australia, New Zealand and 17 to 20 US dollars an hour. It gets the job done. We've, we've found former project managers from Coca Cola, a former administrator who took care of all the private jet travel for Merrill Lynch Executives, uh, my own assistant as a former legal, as a paralegal at a busy law firm in Indiana and get, you can get that caliber talent for, for 17 to $20 an hour if you're willing to allow them to work from home. So Speaker 1: 02:42 that's, uh, that's, that's like three quick tips, quick strategies that even if someone, if their iphone died and they stopped hearing this podcast because the Internet broke down, you got value in the first one, hundred and 20 seconds. How about that? I love it. That's exactly the kind of stuff I liked providing to our audience. So I want to of help you guys understand this is probably to come out right close to funnel hacking live or right after funnel hacking live. What are the main topics Russell's going to be spending a whole bunch of time talking about onstage is this concept of stop worrying about how to do stuff and focus more on the WHO. Uh, I'm going to do a special podcast after this in more detail about who, not how, but I want to give you guys just a few couple things here to understand. Speaker 1: 03:24 The biggest problem and the biggest hurdle that most of us have is, especially when we first get going, is we always try to figure it out. I just need to figure out how to do this. I don't, I can't afford to hire someone else. I can't afford to do this. I've got to figure it all out on my own, and I think one of the biggest problems people run up against is this whole idea that too often people are trying to trade their money for dollars and I'm sorry their money for time. In other words, unfortunately too many people, they're not willing to to realize how valuable your time truly is and I want to make sure as you guys are listening to this, to understand your time is the only commodity you cannot get back. You will have money that comes in money that goes, realized the most important thing for you. Speaker 1: 04:06 I can say for myself, the very first hire I ever made was an assistant, and from that that literally is what blew my business. Help my business to grow and explode all because I was able to focus on the things I was good at and I know it's hard. It might be painful to people going, gosh, 17, 20 bucks an hour. Oh my gosh, you know, that's, you know, 20 hours a week, it's 400 bucks a week at 600 a month. I get that, I know those numbers. I've been there. I can tell you that is by far the greatest investment you will ever make because one of the biggest problems we find is you ended up doing things that are just not worth your time now or most importantly is it prevents you from getting to where your biggest roi is. A, I'm going to come back and talk more about that in a few minutes, but tim, I want to kind of bounce back over to you. Speaker 1: 04:50 So tell me as you start looking at it at hiring assistants, your system's a little different. So what are some of the tips you think of when a person wants to reach out and hire an assistant, what should they be looking for? A level that. So to touch on something you said a little bit earlier, certainly it's overwhelming to think about 20 bucks an hour times 20 hours a week or something like that. These days when I do private consulting, I charge a thousand dollars an hour and I get hired regularly at that rate and people will say, Oh tim, you know, you've, you know, you have an assistant because you charge a thousand dollars an hour and actually the truth is the exact opposite. I charge a thousand dollars an hour today because I got an assistant back when I was charging $40 an hour as a marketing consultant, managing adwords accounts and taking care of landing pages and making lead magnets and all that stuff. Right? And so there's this thing called the positive profit loop and, and so like the very first three things I ever delegated to Sarah and she worked for me for just five hours a week for just 15 bucks an hour. This is five and a half years ago. So the wages have gone up a little bit in the last half, Speaker 2: 05:58 but that was all I could afford and I'll tell you like I was terrified I couldn't afford it. Right. I didn't know what to delegate first and I was. And I was afraid to release control. That's actually the number one frustration or challenge that entrepreneurs have with delegating and getting great assistant is releasing control. So, so I just, I said, what is the smallest, simplest thing I could get off my plate that's taking up my time and it was these three things. It was invoicing clients, it was uploading podcast episodes and uploading blog posts and Sarah took those three things off my plate and I got like three or four hours of my life back because she was a little slower than me. I'll take her five hours to do it. Took me three. That's okay. And with those three hours I then went to my current marketing clients and I said, okay, I've been doing adwords for you. Speaker 2: 06:46 I know that if we have a custom landing page that the optin rates gonna go up, would you be cool if I took three hours? I built you a custom landing page. My rate is $40 an hour. So for you know what? One hundred 80 bucks right is around 200 bucks is what I'm going to charge you instead. Tim, you're a great guy. He'd been doing great work for us. You're effective. We'll go for it. You know, here's 200 bucks. Now what did I do? Those 200 bucks, I did not go and buy some new shoes. Instead I turned around and I gave it to Sarah, right? And at 15 bucks an hour now she was going from five hours a week to like seven hours a week for a few weeks in a row. And guess what I did with that extra time that I had is I went back to my current clients and said, hey, you know, we did. Speaker 2:                              07:28                           We're doing adwords. Now we've got that landing page thing on that landing page. If we set up a lead magnet, it's this pdf thing that I can create top seven tips kind of thing. Um, I really think we get a lot more options and it'd probably take me about 20 hours to create the content and put in a pdf form and set it all up. And at $40 an hour, that's like 800 bucks are you in? And they'll go a team. You're a great guy, you've been super effective. Let's give it a shot. So I took the $800 and guess what I did with Dave? I did not go to Disneyland. Okay. I gave it to Sarah and so Sarah was now working for me not seven hours a week. It was now like 11 hours a week and so then from there with what did I do at that time, I just kept following them and I'll fast forward the story here so that we can get through this quickly. Speaker 2:                              08:13                           Basically I generated so much extra time and money that I could now afford to go take higher level classes, which then allowed me to charge more for my services. So now I went from $40 an hour to 50 to $100 an hour and as I had more and more time and money from increase in my rates and hiring Sarah more and more, I can now afford to go to higher level masterminds and events. And so then I always remember I went to Perry. Marshall had a two day event in Chicago where he brought Richard Caution and the guy who wrote the 80 slash 20 principle and as a Canadian a, it costs more because the Canadian dollar was weak and so I ended up spending 10 grand for two days and I could. That was on the Speaker 1:                              08:56                           absolute edge of what I could and I own a house and I got to pay a mortgage and like I got responsibilities, right, and I just knew that if I went to the ruins, we loaded with people that would be candidates to potentially be my next client and no kidding, there's someone I met there who introduced me to someone else and that someone else hired me for 10 grand a month for three months. So I was able to put 10 grand into the event and I got 30 grand out and that was just the next step. And ever since then it's just been falling out. Positive profit loop of reinvesting, reinvesting, and it all started with the very, very humble act of delegating, invoicing, uploading a podcast and uploading blog posts. And that's that. I love it. I honestly, my bypass is pretty similar to yours as well at a podcasts has been a huge, just takes time and so I system handles all of that kind of stuff. Speaker 1:                              09:52                           One of the things for me actually that was probably the best thing I ever had or do and that was to take care of my email. Things that you struggle with all the time. My Gosh Dave, those are personal. I'm like, listen, I might. Email gets just blown up and at first I was really leery because of my position with the company. Everything else. I'm like, I've got to make sure that what she's saying is the right thing and it's coming across, right. I literally a part of the reason was I was trying to buy back time and then you're gonna hear me say this over and over again. There is the only thing that matters when you start making money. The very first investment you need to do is buy back your time. And I've done the same thing at my home as far as having some, uh, clean the house, take care of the yard, work, all that kind of stuff. Speaker 1:                              10:33                           You have to buy back your time. It frees up your mind and allows you to think more. And so for me, what I had the opportunity of doing with Chrissy, she's my sister, has the most amazing person in the world. I just love her to death. She's just helped me so much as far as even scaling my business here at Click funnels and that is uh, I, I need to get out of the office more. And I just had to clear my head because of all the stuff was going on. So I literally, I go on a walk every morning and she was literally just read through my emails and we record the call and I would just say, okay, I need you to say this and just verbatim almost word for word what I wanted. And she would respond. So it allowed me to clear my head, get some exercise. Speaker 1:                              11:12                           And at first it took a lot longer and you know, it was maybe 30, 40 minutes. We're down now to now, she's gotten to the point where she knows those emails that matter, those that don't, she can sort through it real quick. And then she goes, you know, Dave, I've got questions on these I need you. And I will literally dictate exactly how I would be saying it. So it's coming from me and my voice to, to clients and prospects. But most importantly, it's freed up so much of my time. Uh, I literally, I look at my email twice a day and the only, she set up two different categories as far as dave respond and Dave priority to respond. That was the only two things I look at. I don't pay any attention to the rest of my inbox. And there's nothing that has freed up my mind so much and I don't have to go into my. Speaker 1:                              11:54                           I know it's being taken care of because I get, I literally get hundreds and hundreds of emails every single day. Do that extremely well. I've got another assistant who manages all my social media type of staff and she takes care of all that kind of things, so realize there are so many things that you need to. You need to spend time going out and buying your time back. It allow you. Again, I loved him, what you said and that is you basically took that time and then got additional skills. You got additional education. You went to different masterminds. Realize that that's the type of stuff that a great assistant is able to do for you and I want to make sure that you guys are listening here. I'm hoping anybody's listening to this. The very first investment you will make in yourself is an assistant, and again, like you said, whether it's for five hours a week, I don't care those five hours, that's your little buying back five hours of time. It's 100 bucks. Everybody can afford 100 bucks and I just think it's an absolute necessity. Speaker 2:                              12:50                           I really want everyone to be the surgeon in the room of their business and so this is like a copyrighted concept. They talked, but all the time when people hear me speak, um, and uh, and so the surgeon in the room really focuses on only three things and it's exact same thing. Three things that I hope every entrepreneur can focus on more and more, and what that is, is strategy, high level skill and high level access. So I'm going to tell you a real cool story. It was a three or four weeks ago there. I was here, I mean here in Austin, Texas. And I'm getting on a plane that Sarah, she booked a flight for me to go speak at an event in Denver. So off I go, I land in Denver. I check in at the hotel that Sarah found for me that met all my specific criteria. Speaker 2:                              13:34                           I was very happy to be as very comfortable. So I check in there, go to bed, wake up in the morning. And uh, I look at my prep notes for the day, for the speech I'm going to go and give. And it listed who owns the mastermind, how many people are going to be there, what's the profile of the people there? Am I allowed to ask for a call to action to book a sales meeting with us for those that might be interesting getting a great assistant or not? Um, it's got all the prep information, so I'm going to roll up to the front, front of the stage and right then and there I'm going to know everything. I mean, I know everyone's names. I'm going to look like I'm everyone's best friend because I'm so prepared. Right. Then all the like real sexy stuff, like their clicker remote clicker, their laptop or my laptop, like all the tech stuff. Speaker 2:                              14:15                           Like that was awesome. The prep notes too. So I jumping in an uber, I arrive at the location. Sure enough, it's a great presentation. Great Group of people, awesome host. Some of them are interested in doing business. We changed them. Information. Sarah takes care of coordinating them, getting into my calendar for sales meetings. I go back to the airport, get on a plane that Sarah Book for me. I fly back to Austin, land at 5:45, arrive at my apartment, downtown Austin at 6:15. And guess what? In my apartment there was a dozen people because I had a dinner party that night. I was literally the last person to arrive at my own dinner party at my own apartment. And so 4:00 that day our host desk was booked by my assistant Sarah to come and flip the space. So Polish the silverware, use the laser level to straighten all the pictures on the wall, you know, like every detail. Speaker 2:                              15:06                           Um, at uh, at the next hour after that, the host cleaner came. And this is like while I'm in the air flying back, all this machinery is happening. So that basically at 6:00 when all our hosts or guests arrived, everything's already set. And I showed up and, and, and all of that. What is my Ra strategy? High level access, high level skill. So the strategy was I want to have dinner parties, I want it to be these kinds of people. What's the high level access? I texted these high level people to say, hey, come on down, right? Like you and I met because of David Gonzalez. So like texting a guy like that guy to come and have dinner with us, right. And then, and then for me to shake hands, like my assistant can't be Tim Francis to shake people's hands in network, but I can. And so that's inappropriate activity. Speaker 2:                              15:47                           So. So there I am shaking hands and having a glass of champagne on the balcony. I'm on the 15th floor overlooking the lake downtown. It's beautiful and it really wraps up at 10:30 at night. Then after that I go to bed, I wake up the next morning I go back to the airport, get on a flight that Sara booked for me. I'm going to New York City. I get to the airbnb that she booked for me. I open up, no kidding Dave, check, check this out. I open up the fridge and the groceries I want are already in the fridge, right? Because I want to have a healthy smoothie every single morning. Right. And and while I'm in the air to New York, I guess, guess what's happening back in my apartment is that same host as is back in my apartment, resetting the space so that when I returned from New York City, it's going to be ready for you to work again and do meetings and whatnot. So high level skill, high level access and strategy. Those are the three things for an entrepreneur focus on and if you don't have an assistant you can't, you can't just offload everything all at once. However, I'm telling you, give it like, you know, a few months of working with an assistant and just getting the next piece off your plate and the amount that you get declined that 80 20 curve and spend your time in the top 10 percent of highest value activities. It happens real quick and it's very, very exciting. Speaker 1:                              16:56                           Oh No, I totally, I love that you're making reference to, to Perry Marshall. I remember one of the things to listen to the same course you actually went to as far as the mastermind there with him and it was really the 20 percent of the 20 percent. Yeah, that's really where you need to spend most of your time and everyone talks about, you know, president principal as far as 80 slash 20. The real key is it's not just the 20 percent, it's 20 percent of that 20 percent other words really taught the four percent. That's where your greatest Roi is in your life, in every, every area of your life. Whether it's your relationships, your finances, your health, your fitness, your money, whatever it might be, and to try to get there. You can't get there by yourself. Everybody has to have a team. And it was funny. I was listened to podcasts from Rachel Hollis a while back and she was talking about how frustrated she is with those people who go on on shows and say they basically. They did it all themselves and she's like, listen, you can't do it all yourself. There's no all themselves. Speaker 2:                              17:50                           She goes, let me tell you all the different people who are involved in in running our business, and I think that's the part I want to make sure. Those of us who are listening to this right now realize, first of all, that you're worth it. There's nothing I run across all these solar printers. Just feel like, ah, I just, I'm not that point yet. I, I, I'm not worthy enough to have an assistant. I don't know how you ever got that in your head, but if you think that way, get rid of it. I remember my wife struggled with that at first when we got our first housekeeper 17 years ago, she was like, oh, I shouldn't be taking care of this. I'm like, no, that's not your best use of your time. Spend time with the kids. You don't need to be cleaning the house. Speaker 2:                              18:22                           So I think I love your idea as far as the whole surgeon approach to life and I think it expands beyond just your business. I would take a look at everything else in your life you mentioned as far as groceries and all these things. I would really hope those guys who are listening right now, I hope as soon as you get off your this call, this podcast, wherever you're at, the very first thing you do is get an assistant. And Tim, I know you've got a bunch of tools and resources you were talking to me about before we started. How do they, what are some of the tools, resources, how do they get them? Where do they go? Yeah, great. Assistant Dot com, forward slash toolbox. So it's great assistant.com, forward slash toolbox and there's a few different pdfs there and I think most if not all of it is actually no option. Speaker 2:                              19:03                           Like it's, it's like I'm like I just really want to help. So one of the tools there is called, it's a pdf, it's 104 tasks you can delegate. And so I asked my assistant Sarah to look at the first hundred tasks she ever took off my plate and just to make a list. I think she came up with like 75 or 80 and then I added in the other and I'm so. And a lot of them actually are from my business when it was, when I had a digital marketing company, so someone's listening to click funnels. This could be a perfect opportunity to go go really? I could never log into infusionsoft or convert kit or whatever again, like or, or only once a month or something like that. I never have to deal with webinar jam or go to meeting or anything like that. Speaker 2:                              19:42                           Like I mean there's a huge inventory of tasks that can be delegated and I think it's really inspiring when you go, wow, I can delegate all of this. So that's their greatest system.com forward slash toolbox as a few other tools there. One, which is again, something that I invented and I've now copyrighted and trademarked and all the rest is the tool called three 60 delegation. When when we get started as entrepreneurs, we oftentimes have to be very good at sales, marketing and product development or coming up with a product or delivering a service or whatever it is. And, and what's not included in that core set of competencies is management, leadership, delegation. And so it's very, very common for someone to get up to a couple hundred thousand dollars in sales and, and then they don't realize that there's a difference between management by delegation versus management by abdication, right? Management by abdication happens when you say, well, I'm only doing the top 20 percent screw everything else. Speaker 2:                              20:38                           I'm Outta here, right? You know, and, and, and, uh, an upgraded but still ineffective version of that is saying I'm going to do the top 20 percent in the bottom 80 percent. I'm going to make my system do it. I'm going to hire someone and we put it on facebook. Who knows, someone who can be my assistant. I'm just gonna throw it all at them. That is also a train wreck waiting to happen. There's actually an art and a science and a new skillset that as soon as you start managing an assistant and having an assistant, it's like we should probably have a weekly meeting with them to make sure that we're on the same page when we delegate. We really want to make sure that we use this tool called three 60 delegation and it's right there in the toolbox. I'm not being distracted. Speaker 2:                              21:16                           I want you to. I'm actually looking at the toolbox right now as you're talking and so, so yeah. Good. No, I think it's, I'm actually going through as far as, you know, death by a thousand paper cuts and uh, I think it's a, you know, some of the major crippling cost that people have and the ping pong of changeover, which is one of the main things I've seen happen a million times as far as. Anyways, keep going. I didn't mean to. I'm just, I'm impressed with what you have here. Well, thank you. Yeah, I love your enthusiasm. Anyone who's enthusiastic about being a great coach and leader. I'm, I'm, I'm down with that. So, so three 60 delegation just to give you a very quick taste. Instead of saying take over my click funnels account or set up my landing pages or whatever. It's actually pausing and saying, what is the vision of what I want done by when and what is a sample of success look like? Speaker 2:                              22:02                           What are the resources required sign-ins? Is there any training required? Is there any authority or some, you know, money that's required. And then the third section in a proper delegation is what's called definition of done and definition of done is helping someone understand what does success actually look like. So now to like to give you a sense when you do a proper job of getting a great assistant and you do a proper job of delegating to them, oftentimes we think, hey, I get my time back. That's really cool. I get to do less of what I hate. I get to do more of what I love. And that's all great. I just want to point out like one of the biggest blind spots I think entrepreneurs have is around opportunity cost. So I'll tell you a story about someone who came through our program, his name is Jenny and uh, and he had an online course and he has an online course and you know, for six years he had a new course he wanted to release, but he could never get around to releasing it because he was so stuck in the bottom 80 percent of his business. Speaker 2:                              22:58                           And he heard me give a live 45 minute presentation on how to get a great assistant. And I explained that pretty much one of the worst ways they were getting system as they go on facebook and say, Hey, who's got a brother in law, sister in law or something like that. The success rate is got to be somewhere north of 20 percent and 40 percent success rate. Right? And, and, uh, and so I explained, here's what a hiring funnel looks like, just like there's a marketing funnel. There's a same idea in hiring as a hiring funnel. And we're actually looking at 50 to 100 candidates to come with, with one winning assistant. And we're spending like 50 to 100 hours to find one winning assistant. So that's a vastly more thorough process in a search. Then just going on facebook and saying who's looking for a few hours? Speaker 2:                              23:43                           Right. And Jimmy saw how much work it goes into getting a great assistant knew not for me, I'm just going to skip that. I'm just gonna go on facebook. So he did that and you got someone in six weeks later it all flamed out and he got frustrated, went back and he did what most entrepreneurs cross their arms are just going to do it myself. Right. So for six months you continue to suffer and he came back to us after six months and said, you know what? Everything you said not to do, I did it. Everything you said was gonna happen, happened. I'm now ready and serious about getting a great assistant that's going to be like a right hand person for me. And we're going to evolve this business kind of once and for all. So it took about six months. Not, not. I mean, we can usually get an assistant for someone in 30 days, which is really exciting, and then that process of just doing what we're talking about here, three 63 60 delegation being the surgeon in the room, all the rest took them about six months to get all that off his plate and guess what, Dave, if freedom, but enough time and energy for him to launch that course. Speaker 2:                              24:43                           And after that, that new course generated a quarter million dollars in new revenue for him. Very, very high margin. So what was the cost of not getting an assistant? Was it, you know, that he was frustrated. He was the real costs that he couldn't do a little bit of like the stuff you love. Yeah, that's all in there, but actually there was a quarter million dollars waiting for him every single quarter for six years. And only once you've got an assistant and got himself out of the bottom 80 percent was he free to go actually pull the trigger and make that happen. Speaker 1:                              25:16                           I love it. What did I get? I appreciate your time. Most importantly, really share with people how to actually get an assistant where to go, so if they want to find out more from you, what's the best way of reaching out to you? Speaker 2:                              25:26                           Head over to our website, greatest system.com. We got tons of testimonials from lots of clients who've had great success. If you can just see their success stories, see my effect it, see if there's anyone from your industry that you recognize or anything like that. Um, grabbed the toolbox which is greatest isn't dotcom forward slash toolbox. And if someone wants to set up a 35 to 55 minute consultation of bus to see if they'd be a good fit for our program, we're happy to do that as well. And there's just a button right there to book an appointment. Speaker 1:                              25:53                           Awesome. Well, Tim, thanks again for your time. Highly recommend anybody who's listening to this. The very first hire you must make is a great assistance. So please, please make sure you have an assistant and if they're not doing everything that you want them to do, take a look@greatestsystem.com slash toolbox will give you a ton of other ideas of different ways that you can actually have. What are the things you can get off your plate, how to delegate A. I'm just such a huge, huge believer in this, and again, I want to make sure that Tim came on to help you guys understand the importance of focus again on who and not how. Let someone else take care of this. There's people actually love doing this stuff that you don't want to do in your life, the things that you don't enjoy, people actually do with love. We paid for doing that, so please take the time, make the time and go out and find yourself a great assistant. Kim, thanks again and we'll talk to you soon. Thank you.

Have you ever wanted to have an assistant help you with your work, but didn't know how to find and train one?  If this is you, then make sure to watch this interview.  Hiring a "great assistant" is critical for an entrepreneur to move to higher level tasks and skills, but most people go about finding this person in completely the wrong way.  If you're ready to take the next steps with Tim and his team over at www.greatassistant.com after listening to this interview, just book a call with them Right Here.

Today, Nicholas interviews Tim Francis, who is an award-winning entrepreneur from Canada, and the founder of Profit Factory and Great Assistant. Tim is a graduate of the University of Alberta, and a Certified Scrum Product Owner. In 2010, Tim was blindsided by a rare illness called Erythema Nodosum, leaving him crippled for three months. After nearly going bankrupt, Tim decided that he was never going to a burned-out entrepreneur again, which lead to the creation of his successful businesses.   Timestamped Show Notes: [02:35] Tim’s Journey [08:40] Painting Houses [11:50] Breaking it Down [17:00] ROI [21:35] Toolbox [29:50] Common Mistakes   Takeaways: “My dream and my goals are more important than my pride.” - Tim Francis Make a log of what you do every 15 minutes. If it’s something that you’re doing constantly, you dislike it, and it takes time away from actually profiting in your business, you can hand it off to someone else. Dramatically expand the amount of potential assistants that you’re looking at. Don’t hire the first person you meet. Show your assistant how you want things done instead of telling them what to do. Show them examples. Three major pitfalls that entrepreneurs often fall into when hiring and working with virtual assistants are: Hiring the wrong assistant, poor or non-existent on-board training, and poor or non-existent delegation   Mentions: www.greatassistant.com/toolbox Are you a part of the Billion Dollar Body Facebook group? Click here to join: https://www.facebook.com/billiondollarbrotherhood   You can find Nicholas on Instagram: @nicholasbayerle

How To Become The Surgeon In Your Business In a past life, Tim Francis was a touring rockstar and a budding real estate investor. Then, in what seemed like a matter of months, his band unexpectedly broke up and the real estate market plummeted. Already down on his luck, Tim started working 90-hour weeks and developed a rare illness that left him bedridden. It was in that moment Tim decided to get his professional life under control, which began an entrepreneurial evolution leading to the creation of Great Assistant. “I don’t know if a second, a minute, or an hour went by, but time stood still,” Tim recalled. “A voice inside me asked, ‘Tim, is this really what you want?’ And as I felt into that, it dawned on me that I really do want to be an entrepreneur.” Tim’s kinesiology degree from his college years didn’t lose its use either. As a leader of two companies, Profit Factory and Great Assistant, Tim has become expert at prioritizing momentum with the precision of a highly trained athlete. With his team all working remotely, Tim believes that delegation, acknowledging personal triumphs, and regularly scheduled check-in meetings are all instrumental to business success. In this episode of Voices of Impact, Tim talks about how to become the surgeon in your business. We discuss how to value your current time management system, feed the audience you already have and network in an authentic way. Tim also shares his advice for prioritizing momentum - the true difference-maker between a low and high level leader.

Why Every Entrepreneur Needs a Great Assistant As an entrepreneur, we need to make sure that everything we do has a positive return on investment and that includes getting a great assistant. On this episode, Steve’s special guest is Tim Francis. Tim is an award-winning entrepreneur from Canada and the founder of ProfitFactory.com and GreatAssistant.com. Here are more valuable information on this episode: The difference between hands and feet work and head and heart work. Coming up with Decision Making Guidelines (DMGs) so that employees can operate on their own. The difference between having a consumer mindset versus a producer mindset. And the real value of having a great assistant in an entrepreneur’s daily life. So, sit back and listen to today’s episode as Tim and Steve discuss how entrepreneurs can transition from business operators to business owners by having great people on their team. 1:53 (Steve introduces today’s guest, Tim Francis, founder of Great Assistant.) 4: 14 (Tim talks about what he does day to day.) 11:26 (Tim explains the difference between hands and feet versus head and heart work.) 13:56 (Decision Making Guidelines, a user-friendly term for operating principles.) 39:44 (Tim talks about the consumer mindset versus producer mindset.) 56:22 (Tim explains the value of a great assistant.) 1:13:26 (Tim imparts final words of wisdom to Awesomers.) Welcome to the Awesomers.com podcast. If you love to learn and if you're motivated to expand your mind and heck if you desire to break through those traditional paradigms and find your own version of success, you are in the right place. Awesomers around the world are on a journey to improve their lives and the lives of those around them. We believe in paying it forward and we fundamentally try to live up to the great Zig Ziglar quote where he said, "You can have everything in your life you want if you help enough other people get what they want." It doesn't matter where you came from. It only matters where you're going. My name is Steve Simonson and I hope you will join me on this Awesomer journey. SPONSOR ADVERTISEMENT If you're launching a new product manufactured in China, you will need professional high-resolution Amazon ready photographs. Because Symo Global has a team of professionals in China, you will oftentimes receive your listing photographs before your product even leaves the country. This streamlined process will save you the time, money and energy needed to concentrate on marketing and other creative content strategies before your item is in stock and ready for sale. Visit SymoGlobal.com to learn more. Because a picture should be worth one thousand keywords. You're listening to the Awesomers podcast. Steve: You're listening to the Awesomers.com podcast episode series and this is Episode number 54 and as always all you have to do is go on over to Awesomers.com/54 to find the relevant show notes, details and the links that we talked about throughout today's episode. By the way, don't hesitate to leave us a comment on that page or why not leave a review while you're online and go to iTunes or Google Play or wherever your favorite place is. Leave us a review and let us know how we're doing. We're trying our best, but we're 54 episodes into this baby. Now, we're dropping them daily so we hope were doing something that you find to be of value. 1:53 (Steve introduces today’s guest, Tim Francis, founder of Great Assistant.) Now today my special guest, you're going to love it, his name is Tim Francis and he has done a number of things in his time and we're going to talk about that in today's episode. But one of the things is he's the founder of Great Assistant, which helps entrepreneurs get – wait for it, a great assistant. What a clever and descriptive term right. Now, for five years he failed again and again with trying to hire assistants and he kind of talks about some of that journey with us today.

 Tim Francis ~ founder of GreatAssistant.com ~ Current Series ~ 100 Interviews with 100 Location-Independent Entrepreneurs that have over $1,000,000 in Annual Revenue Do you know that the majority of CEOs don't have an assistant? The main reason, they don't know how to properly train one and they would rather be doing other things. Finding a great assistant isn't easy, but today's guest explains how incredibly powerful it is to get a great assistant.   Tim Francis joins us today, and Tim is the founder of GreatAssistant.com. His agency has placed over 150 top-rate assistants and he explains how most entrepreneurs are missing out on massive opportunities because they don't have an assistant.  I really enjoyed this episode because Tim dives deep and shares about hiring and training assistants, and how his business has skyrocketed because he has such an incredible assistant.   “The #1 reason most CEOs don't have an assistant based on a survey we did is, they don't know how to trust an assistant and I they don't know how to let go of control.” Tim Francis     02:05: Why Most CEOs Don't Have an Assistant 05:52: Training Your Assistant 13:05: What to Look for When Choosing an Assistant? 20:43: Difference Between 6-Figure & 7-Figure Tactics Tim Uses Regarding his Assistant Honorable Mentions:   Babybathwater.com   Contact Info:   https://greatassistant.com/toolbox/  

Tim Francis ~ founder of GreatAssistant.com ~ Current Series ~ 100 Interviews with 100 Location-Independent Entrepreneurs that have over $1,000,000 in Annual Revenue Do you know that the majority of CEOs don't have an assistant? The main reason, they don't know how to properly train one and they would rather be doing other things. Finding a great assistant isn't easy, but today's guest explains how incredibly powerful it is to get a great assistant.   Tim Francis joins us today, and Tim is the founder of GreatAssistant.com. His agency has placed over 150 top-rate assistants and he explains how most entrepreneurs are missing out on massive opportunities because they don't have an assistant.  I really enjoyed this episode because Tim dives deep and shares about hiring and training assistants, and how his business has skyrocketed because he has such an incredible assistant.   02:28: What Do Old Rich Guys Do? 05:28: Tim Kisses a Grizzly Bear and Meets the Queen 06:28 Tim Francis and The Mastery of Entrepreneurship 16:07: Surrendering to the Path of Entrepreneurship   Honorable Mentions:   Babybathwater.com   Contact Info:   https://greatassistant.com/toolbox/

Dentistry, by nature, has an intense focus on the science and clinical aspect, with good reason. As professionals, we have to take care of our patients and provide the highest level of care that's in our capabilities. But, if you remove the clinical side from the discussion, you are still left with a relationship that needs attention, and is arguably just as important: the doctor/assistant relationship. As the saying goes: "if you love what you do, you will never work a day in your life." And the environment that you work in is a huge contributing factor to the level of happiness and satisfaction that should come with employment. On today's episode, we sat down with Anca Sexton RDA who is one of Big Joe's assistants. This interview really dives deep into what makes the doctor/assistant relationship tick. She shares some realistic struggles that no one wants to talk about and what each side can do to improve. This is a great look into dentistry, from the point of view of the dental assistant.  This was an awesome episode for us to record and packed full of knowledge if you're looking to learn the secret to successful career relationships within your office! Resources for Life and Dentistry: Don't forget if you haven't done so already, please leave us a review on iTunes lifeanddentistry.com Facebook Instagram Twitter Email us any questions you have to lifeanddentistry@gmail.com  Thank you all for supporting us on this journey! We couldn't do this without you all! Enjoy!

Are you stuck? The best way to get unstuck and grow your business is to talk to clients and customers. Today, I am talking to Chuck Hattemer, co-founder and CMO of Onerent, about systems and processes used to scale to 2,000 doors. While in college, Chuck had a horrible housing experience as a renter. An aspect that drew Chuck into real estate was that he could impact some of the most sensitive parts of people’s lives as renters. You'll Learn... [03:06] Chuck describes his company’s first platform, which was student housing with a few extra bells and whistles. [03:26] Onerent took that as a model to investors to raise seed capital. [04:14] Onerent pivoted to a full-service property management. Eventually, it scaled to managing 2,000 doors. [04:54] Having come from the renter’s perspective and a lack of experience, Chuck is still naive about some things. But that naivate lets him think out of the box for solutions. [05:20] Onerent identified problems people were facing, how to make the experience consistent, and how value translates to the investor. [07:33] The current trend is putting money into other things instead of buying a property. So, people, especially millennials, are renting. [07:50] Chuck expects a big move eventually by first-time investors that is fueled by technology. [08:25] Onerent hired staff new to the industry and with a different perspective to drive the company’s culture and mission regarding how to interact with renters and owners. [09:48] At Onerent, it is ok to fail and apply what you learned in the next initiative. It’s a sign that you are making progress toward being successful. [10:49] Create a culture where staff feels safe and comfortable to express problems. Support your team, and they will support you as an entrepreneur. [12:33] At Onerent, each part of the rental process is managed by its own team. This helps handle tasks and keeps tenants informed. This collaboration drives motivation, happiness, competition,and success. [14:59] Onerent follows a workflow business model where staff members specialize in one area. [15:55] Make changes. Onerent would not be where it is today and able to scale its business without having pivoted from software to full-service property management. [17:00] Onerent figured out how to grow its business - talk to customers and clients to identify its next move. [17:48] Companies often try to sell what they can sell instead of what their customers actually need. [18:15] Don’t change everything at the same time. Make iterative changes over time. [19:27] To grow your business, determine the scale. What’s the purpose of your property management business? What is your key output metric? What is the closest tie to revenue and customer satisfaction? [21:20] What are the inputs that go into that output? Consider the customer lifecycle. Determine where you will have the greatest impact to improve efficiency and operations. [22:40] Unlock growth by having a sales team and defined sales process. Develop credibility by aligning and partnering with large real estate brokerages. [24:15] Onerent’s key performance indicator is its time to lease. Chuck has to deal with various constraints, including listing exposure; qualified applications; and signed leases. [25:24] Utilize on-demand scheduling for showings. Onerent then dispatches a mobile manager who shows a property. [25:45] People usually have to pay application and documentation fees. However, Onerent offers a free application process. [27:10] How do you start a property at the right price? Educate property owners that if they list the property too high initially, their listing stays on the market too long. [28:35] In property management, how can you look at things with fresh eyes? Get out of your office and talk to customers. Make sure to have an open mind about all problems. [29:30] Think about your own problems as a property owner. The best way to start a new business is to solve your own problems. [30:30] Entrepreneurs love to solve problems. If you could solve a problem, what would it look like? Unpack a problem into small components. Don’t try to solve it all at once. Tweetables If you could solve a problem, what would it look like? Be open to feedback. Companies sell what they can instead of what their customers actually need. Create a culture where the staff feels safe to express when they are stuck. Resources Onerent Chuck Hattemer on LinkedIn Chuck Hattemer on Quora Jason Fried Slack National Association of Residential Property Managers DGS Episode 40 Level Up Your Property Management Business By Hiring a Great Assistant with Tim Francis DoorGrow Club 

Do you need someone to help you build your dream? Someone who can handle your scheduling, email, and other tasks while you focus on the big stuff? Someone with the same native language and same culture? The only thing worse than not having an assistant is having the wrong assistant. Today, I am talking to Tim Francis, founder of the Great Assistant Program. During downtime as a touring drummer and after overcoming an illness, Tim had an interest in property management. He realized a brute-force method was not a sustainable long-term strategy. He needed help. He tried assistants from all over the world, only to have disastrous results. So, he created the Great Assistant Program. You'll Learn... [08:02] Tim had the common problems of letting go of control, not trusting others, not wanting to take time to train or manage, not knowing where to find assistants, and not knowing what to delegate. [08:35] After about four years, Tim was willing to offer higher pay to find an assistant in the United States or Canada and make a long-term commitment to them. [09:02] Tim learned that paying the lowest dollar amount and making the smallest commitment to someone, always resulted in them being here today and gone tomorrow. [09:47] Tim started using various tools, such as the Kolbe Index, that focus on different personalities and management styles. [09:56] Tim has had negative experiences using Upwork, a Website for freelancers to connect with business owners and entrepreneurs about jobs. [11:15] Tim discovered which marketing and operations tasks he could delegate to his assistant. [11:29] By having the right assistant, you can go from working 80 hours a week to getting so much done quickly in half the time. [11:48] Tim started helping others get an assistant, and over time he realized that there was a business need to help clients and friends find great assistants. [12:05] Tim created a management team and hired a corporate trainer to train assistants to make sure they are ready. [12:30] The Great Assistant Program has an 85 percent stick rate. For the remaining 15 percent of assistants that don’t fit, there is a 90-day rematch guarantee. [14:10] What’s the dollar-per-hour cost in real terms? You can pay someone in the Philippines $4 or someone in the United States or Canada for $16-20. The Philippines is less expensive, but it takes hours to explain things repeatedly and fix mistakes later. How much have your really spent? [16:21] If you have an assistant from North America that is high-caliber, they will produce at least 2-3X the work and results. You can feel safe that they understand you and trust that they will treat your customers well. [18:28] Finding a great assistant can be an issue for entrepreneurs starting out to multi-millionaires. It doesn’t matter how big or small you are. [19:14] Time is your scarcest and most valuable resource. Give people money to get more time. [19:48] The Great Assistant Program takes care of what you need to find the right assistant. It takes everything off your plate - from posting jobs, figuring out what you need, to finding matches. [21:15] You are probably willing to pay thousands of dollars to undo what previous assistants had done. You don’t want to play Russian Roulette anymore. [22:40] Go to DoorGrow.com/greatassistant and fill out the form that determines if you need a great assistant. Plus you get a video gift! [24:01] What is your #1 frustration or challenge in getting a great assistant? The #1 response was control and trust. [24:33] Anytime in business, including property management, if you feel like you are taking a blind risk, that is a horrible feeling. Use the process provided by the Great Assistant Program to reduce the risk. It involves expanding your pool of talent, using the Kolbe Index, and trying work and cognitive tests. [26:23] How do you determine what you will have an assistant do? In property management, there is a lot of work to do. Have your assistant work on preparatory documents, lease renewals, pulling records, scheduling interviews, research, setting up events, posting rental ads, contract signing, scheduling move-in appointments, and tenant screening. [29:15] Just like with surgery, the surgeon does not prepare the patient and tools. The surgeon only does what is appropriate. This is not a form of superiority, it is about appropriateness, and everything done regarding the surgery is vital. [31:09] Critical decisions when it comes to anything that is strategy and high-level skill or high-level access is yours to handle and keep as the property manager. [33:28] Unpacking is the secret to delegating work. Categorize your email inbox for your assistant to tackle specific areas, then you do not need to worry about them accessing sensitive information. [34:53] As a business owner, you need to shift your focus away from tactical work and shift it toward strategic work that moves your business forward. [35:05] Develop standard operating procedures (SOPs) to teach your assistant how to do specific tasks and perform processes. If you can do it once, someone else can do it forever. [40:12] For example, if your assistant handles tasks related to an event, it gives you time to connect with people rather than running around performing tactical tasks. [41:41] Some fear having a virtual assistant rather than an in-office assistant. However, having a virtual assistant can be a competitive advantage. You are not bombarded with constant interruptions through questions and offerings to help, plus you cut your staffing costs. [44:05] For example, you are in a fender-bender and what to fix your car. You face a myriad of factors and a decision to make. If you want to fix your car good and fast, it’s not going to be cheap. If you want it to be fast and cheap, it’s not going to be very good. If you want it to be cheap and good, your going to have to call your uncle to work on it. So, it is not going to be done fast. Good, fast, cheap - usually, you can only pick two of the three. You can’t have it all! [45:08] In property management, the three pieces involved with hiring an assistant are talent, compensation, and working conditions. For a 9-to-5 traditional position that meets all three, you have to pay a ton. If you are more flexible on the work conditions, you can get someone at your preferred pay rate who is exceptionally talented. [46:45] What is more important than salary to these qualified applicants is being able to see their family more often and be a part of precious, once-in-a-lifetime moments. [47:41] What percentage of Americans want to work from home? About 67-68 Americans wish they could work full-time from home. [48:39] Various technology and tools, including videos and online project management software, allow more people to work from home. [51:08] You don’t need to feel like you are exploiting someone by paying them $16-20 per hour. The reality is that if you let someone work from home, they truly appreciate and value the time it gives them with their family, the ability to work in the comfort of their own home, and the money they save on not having to commute or on child care. Working conditions are part of the compensation. [53:40] When your relationship with an assistant does not work out, figure out why. Did you get an assistant too early? Don’t know what the high- and low-level tasks are yet? [57:00] If you are an entrepreneur who sees your team as some sort of servitude or slave to you, then you are not a good fit for the Great Assistant Program. You can’t treat someone terribly because you are the problem. Instead, how can you support your team? [59:00] As an entrepreneur, see the possibilities that come with getting the right person to support you and embracing the role of being a coach. [01:01:00] What is the order of what you are delegating? As an entrepreneur, rather than going off and doing something else once you hire an assistant, instead show them how to take over stuff that you are already doing. Also, pick the right tasks in the right order. [01:02:39] Record yourself performing a non-critical task that is easy to learn and teach, let your assistant watch it, then watch them perform the task. The training cycle is complete, and you are getting a pay off just a few days later. [01:03:48] Trough of Sorrow: The thought that once you hire an assistant, everything is going to be sunshine and rainbows. The reality is the opposite because you need to train, onboard, and manage them. The negative investment becomes less and turns into a positive ROI. [01:04:45] Investor Mindset: The assistant keeps getting better as you invest in them over time. [01:06:25] View every team member as an investment. The longer you have them, the better they get. Look for a relationship that will make a massive difference to your company. [01:07:45] Energy Management vs. Time Management: The biggest wins to when you onboard an assistant is to figure out what’s taking you time and what’s taking you time that you hate doing? The things you hate, are the things your assistant loves to do. Tweetables There is compound interest in the people you hire. Your very first hire should be an assistant. It’s a problem and a challenge knowing how to get an assistant. Resources Great Assistant; DoorGrow.com/greatassistant The E-Myth Work the System Kolbe Index Upwork Jason Fried The 4-Hour Workweek Loom Scaling Up DoorGrowClub DoorGrow on iTunes

If you’re a solo freelancer, it’s so easy to think that hiring an assistant is just plain out of reach and expensive. But that’s just not true. Hiring an assistant is one of the biggest wins that you can create for yourself. When an assistant does the low value work of billing, invoicing, emails, scheduling, etc., then your time is freed up to do the high value client work or getting new business or levelling up your skills. But it is important to find the right person, the kind of person that will take work off your plate instead of creating more of it. Tim Francis of Profit Factory and GreatAssistant.com has spent a lot of time working with entrepreneurs to match them to great assistant. Tim shares what makes a great assistant and his process for finding that one amazing one. https://freelancetransformation.com/episode122

Tim Francis is the Founder of Great Assistant, a done-for-you service that helps entrepreneurs get a great assistant. For years, Tim had a stubborn attitude that he could work 80 hours per week and do everything on his own. All that changed when a sudden stress-induced case of Erythema Nodosum literally stopped Tim in his tracks at age 28. For three months, he was unable to walk and asked himself, “What have I done to put myself in this situation?” Putting his ego aside, he got over himself, learned to be a solid team-builder and delegator, and cracked the code to find a great assistant. Combining new delegation skills with his US-based assistant Sarah, he finally got the bottom 80% off his task list and focused on the top 20%. This rapidly multiplied his consulting rate from $40/hour to $1,000/hour, while also reducing his overall workload. Today, Tim helps other entrepreneurs get great assistants so they can avoid all the pain and suffering he went through. Some Topics We Discussed Include: The frustrations of getting a great assistant When to delegate to an assistant The 360 Delegation Reasons why an assistant would fail Decision-making guidelines The definition of "done" and what it implies Useful hiring platform and tools The perfect job posting Tim's process of training assistants Learn more about Tim and get the full shownotes at https://baconwrappedbusiness.com/greatassistant/ Love the show? Subscribe, rate, review, and share! Here’s How » Join the Bacon Wrapped Business Community today: Bacon Wrapped Business on Facebook Brad Costanzo on Facebook Brad Costanzo on LinkedIn Brad Costanzo on YouTube Brad Costanzo on Twitter

On this episode of The Ladder, Fred Gehrisch, CGCS, of Highlands Falls Country Club (Highlands, NC) discusses with host John Reitman how he gets great results from his job listings and interview process when hiring an assistant superintendent. The Ladder podcast series on TurfNetRADIO is presented by Penn State World Campus.