Today I spoke with Nathan Hirsch, an expert in remote hiring and eCommerce and an inspiring serial entrepreneur. Nathan co-founded FreeUp.net and Outsource School because he believes that hiring an A team and delegating some of your work to them will help you get more time back, allowing you to focus more on growing your business. At present, Nathan helps other entrepreneurs hire A+ team members, build business SOPs, culture, and a lot of other things that will help them find their ultimate success.
Let’s dive into this episode and find out how to use the BARF method to help you hire rockstar team players.
[00:01 – 04:59] Opening Segment
Having great team members who are the best in what they do is undoubtedly one of the things that will help you grow and succeed in your business. In today’s episode, Nathan Hirsch tells us all about how they teach entrepreneurs to hire A+ Virtual Assistants (VAs) and how to hire them quickly. He gives us a glimpse of what they’ve learned over the past 10 years so other entrepreneurs who are listening to this will no longer have to go through the trial and error process that they did. He also shares with us an overview of their strategies and tactics that they teach in Outsource School to help entrepreneurs avoid turnover in their team and avoid spending time time re-placing and re-hiring people which they could instead spend doing other things for their business.
[05:50 – 11:40] Hiring the A+ Players
It’s one thing to hire someone and another to keep them in your team. In this episode, Nathan not only tells us what kind of people we should hire, he also tells us how to keep them engaged and encourage them stay on our team.
Nathan’s hiring process usually consist of four steps—interviewing, onboarding, training, and managing—where they not just focus on the skills but also look for good communication skills, attitude, red flags, and experience. Once they’ve found their A+ players, they then strive to build a culture to keep them on the team with the BARF method or Buy-in, Appreciation, Relationship, and Family.
B is for Buy-in where Nathan shows his team members the bigger picture in the company and allow them to take ownership of the SOPs. A is for appreciation where he appreciates good performance by giving feedback during one-on-one performance review meetings and where he rewards them with bonuses. R is for Relationship where they connect with their VAs to know more about their personal lives and families, and not just know them on a transactional level. And lastly, F is for family where they really treat each other as family inside their company, and which is also Nathan’s key to reducing turnover. After sharing how he formed his A+ team, he will next share with us the processes and systems that he established that helped him grow his businesses so keep on listening!
[11:41- 16:59] The Trial and Error Process in Building His Company
If you’re wondering when did Nathan start learning all about hiring the right people, he shares with us that it all started with his first entrepreneurial venture—his dropshipping business that he created because of Amazon. Since it was his first time to hire people, the first few ones he hired turned out to be super unreliable. The next batch he then hired did not take him seriously because he was too young and he ended up wasting a lot of money. However, after that, he finally learned from one of his friends about hiring Virtual Assistants and that’s when everything started to change.
The first ever Virtual Assistant that Nathan hired was from the Philippines. She turned out to be an absolute rockstar since day 1 and ended up working with Nathan for 8 years. In addition to his first VA, Nathan was also able to scale his company to 8 figures—completely run by VAs—until it was acquired at the end of last year. So if you’re planning to hire VAs in the near future, Nathan has a few pieces of valuable advice for you:
- You can either hire VAs to help you get your time back or to scale your business. Don’t think of hiring people as an expense because this will give you more time for tasks that you really need to focus on.
- As you transition from being doing all that needs to be done to delegating tasks to your VA, have him/her work part time first. Five hours a week, for example. Then add more hours as you establish SOPs and other systems. Doing this will help you not miss out on opportunities, and you’ll get to make more money to further grow your company and your team.
[17:00- 24:59] The Limiting Beliefs That You Have to Get Over to Reach Success
If you’re still having doubts at this point about whether you should start delegating your tasks to other people in your team, Nathan would like to share with you this quote from Alex Sharpen: “If you think that you’re the only one that can do what you do in your business, I have news for you. You’re not that special.” It is super understandable when entrepreneurs refuse to relinquish some control over their business to their team members. After all, a lot of us do think of our business as our baby. But keep in mind that doing so will actually give you more time to do a lot of other things.
After scaling his business, Nathan also talks about the next part which is a more painful process—the merger and acquisition of FreeUp, the company that he built with his VAs. To some entrepreneurs, having their company acquired may just be a tough decision, but to Nathan, it was also almost like a break up of a family. However, he shares he knows he made the right decision when he sees that the new arrangement was a win for everyone. By doing the merger, he was able to share $500k in bonuses to his internal team and they still continue to receive bonuses to this day. This helped them to have more financial security, especially during the pandemic.
At present, Nathan is focused on Outsource School where they help both entrepreneurs and Virtual Assistants, on building their software called Simply SOP, and on building a marketplace and community where entrepreneurs can buy and sell their business SOPs. If you’re currently looking for VAs you’re currently working on your business SOPs, visit Outsource School’s website (link below) to know more about how Nathan’s products can help your business.
[25:15 – 29:08] The FOCUS FIVE Segment
The FOCUS FIVE are five questions I ask every guest on my show. Keep on listening to find out what book Nathan gifts most often; who would he talk to if he can get an hour of any person living or dead, from the past or the present, and why; that one thing he believes but most people will disagree with; his morning routine; and lastly, where are the best places we can connect with him online. (See the links below for Nathan’s social media links!)
Tweetable Quotes:
“To hire an A+ rockstar VA, you have to focus a lot on attitude and communication skills, not just on their main skills.” – Nathan Hirsch
“The better the SOP and people that you are hiring, the better opportunities that are coming to you.” – Nathan Hirsch
“Alex Sharpen says if you think that you’re the only one that can do what you do in your business, I have news for you. You’re not that special.” – Nathan Hirsch
Resources mentioned in the episode:
- The Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki
- Russell Brunson
- FreeUp.com
- Outsource School
- Schedule a call with Hans
You can connect with Nathan on Instagram, Linkedin, Twitter, and Facebook or visit his website at www.outsourceschool.com/.
Get a special 15% off coupon to enroll at Outsource school by visiting www.outsourceschool.com/enroll and use the coupon code AWTP.
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