Diana Alt [00:00:04]:
Hey, Diana Auld here. And this is Work Should Feel Good, the podcast where your career growth meets your real life. Each week I share stories, strategies and mindset shifts to help you build a work life that works for you on your terms. Hello there everybody, and welcome to Work Should Feel Good, the show where your career growth meets your real life. I'm your host, Diana Ault and today my guest Louise Sandoval and I are going to talk about how effectively delegating to the right outsourcing partner can help you scale up your business, whether it's a part time or a full time endeavor. So work should feel good. Louise is the founder of Virtual Stock Pro, an outsourcing agency based in the Philippines. Then she helps her clients scale their impact with the right systems and support.

Diana Alt [00:00:55]:
And I'll tell you right now that this podcast and probably my whole business would not even exist anymore if it was not for working with Louise. She's an expert in building digital ecosystems for coaches, creators, and other types of online businesses. And her teams work closely with clients to bring ideas to life in a way that lets them work in their zone of genius while her team handles the day to day. Welcome to the party.

Louise Sandoval [00:01:21]:
Thank you so much for having me. Wow, that was like the best intro

Diana Alt [00:01:25]:
of myself that it's on record so that you can.

Louise Sandoval [00:01:28]:
Yeah,

Diana Alt [00:01:31]:
I love when people like rewrite my bio because it's like I copy pasted out of a media kit. Here you go. Make it your own. But yeah, it's always fun to listen to somebody else introduce you.

Louise Sandoval [00:01:41]:
Yeah, I was just gonna say can I get a copy of that? Or I'm. Yeah, I'm just gonna get a copy of that.

Diana Alt [00:01:47]:
I literally have Lance get the run of show out episode directory. You probably have access to this in my Google Drive.

Louise Sandoval [00:01:56]:
I know.

Diana Alt [00:01:57]:
Okay, I'm gonna kick off with a random thing. So Louise, you're in the Philippines and I always ask like, is there anything else I should know whenever I'm taking all the intake and you said you like cold spaghetti and I didn't have that on my bingo card. So. Is spaghetti a common food that is eaten in the Philippines? Tell us about this.

Louise Sandoval [00:02:18]:
Well, it is like it's, it's the food that we have special occasions if it's your birthday, Christmas, if you feel sad. It's a staple, you know, in fast food chains here. And our spaghetti is different. It's sweet. It has hot dogs.

Diana Alt [00:02:36]:
You have hot dogs on your. What kind of sauce do you guys do sauce? Or is it just like here's some noodles and some hot dogs. What's the deal?

Louise Sandoval [00:02:44]:
Yeah, so it's pasta, the spaghetti pasta. And then if you're fancy, you get tomato sauce or the spaghetti sauce and then cheese. But hot dogs is a must. And then also when I. I grew up having it with banana ketchup. So banana ketchup plus tomato sauce plus hot dogs and then cheese.

Diana Alt [00:03:03]:
Banana ketchup?

Louise Sandoval [00:03:05]:
Yeah, we have banana ketchup.

Diana Alt [00:03:07]:
It's basically squashed bananas. Like ketchup?

Louise Sandoval [00:03:11]:
Yeah.

Diana Alt [00:03:14]:
I like bananas one way, like, fresh out the skin. I don't like banana stuff. I like bananas. So. But that's so interesting. I can't get behind cold spaghetti, though, because everybody knows, like, we eat spaghetti with meat sauce a lot in the US and that cold that's been in the fridge for, like, two days, that's the way to eat spaghetti. It's like, I want to go into the Italian restaurant and be like, do you have the leftovers in the back? Like, the stuff you made two days ago?

Louise Sandoval [00:03:46]:
Anyway, that is me. Like, I don't like it fresh, hot. I like it cold two days old. And, yeah, I could just eat it, like, you know, like my own dessert.

Diana Alt [00:03:56]:
Yeah. If you guys decide to follow Louise, she's constantly posting food, so. And then I'm like, well, I can't. That looks delicious. And I can't get that in the US So I want to talk a little bit about your career history, because you're now the CEO of Virtual Staff Pro. You also have your second thing of Bender Labs, which we'll get into later in the show. But you did not start in this systems and online business thing. You went to college for medical assistant, Is that right? Something in Denver.

Diana Alt [00:04:26]:
Tell us about how you decided to go into that and then what made you pivot out of medical into what you're doing? You know, the lane that you're in now.

Louise Sandoval [00:04:36]:
Yeah, it's. It's quite a story. I went to college, you know, graduated as a bachelor in medical laboratory science. So I'm a scientist by profession.

Diana Alt [00:04:48]:
Science, yeah.

Louise Sandoval [00:04:50]:
Like, I know all the parasites, the bacteria. I know the physiology and. And all that anatomy of each parasite. I know their life cycle. The plan was to be a doctor. Like, the plan was, yeah, to go to medical school, but, you know, money problems and financially, we cannot do it. And also, we were. I was having problems in terms of, like, you know, finances in school.

Louise Sandoval [00:05:15]:
So when I graduated, I went to work right away. I started in a contact center. I was making outbound calls, sales all day. And fun fact I was having a, I was doing a British accent for that because our account, our account was to call people in the UK and ask them about their credit insurance. And when I did that it was so tiring because I was, you know, we working all night and nonstop calls. It would be like 5 minutes interval and no rest actually you would only have one break and outbound calls is a lot. And after that I decided like I can't do this and it's not sustainable. So I was trying to find work and what I love was writing ever since I was, you know, I was a kid and I started applying for jobs, you know, on all job sites.

Louise Sandoval [00:06:08]:
I was looking for a job that I could just write for days. And then I applied at a website where a pastor was looking for a blog writer. So yeah, so I was writing for blogs and then I was managing his Kajabi account. So I, that's the first time I got, I handled Kajabi and it was, it was a, it's back then it was just like a, you know, a new platform.

Diana Alt [00:06:33]:
10 plus years. Was it 10 years ago?

Louise Sandoval [00:06:35]:
13 years ago. It was 13 years ago. And baby.

Diana Alt [00:06:39]:
13 years ago.

Louise Sandoval [00:06:41]:
Yes, it was a baby. Like I, I could remember so well, you know they have megaphone for the landing pages. It was different platforms to, to be in one platform. And then it evolved to what it is today. So and, and from then on when I worked as a Kajabi virtual assistant for that pastor, I got into one client from another. And then when I worked with my co founder then he said that oh my students because he has a mastermind. My students want to work with you, but I cannot work with so many clients. Like I can't, you know, I, I can't divide myself into 15 people.

Louise Sandoval [00:07:18]:
So. And I told him like, what if like I teach my, my cousin or my friend and how to do all of this stuff and then you know, we could work together. And it started there. The idea of the agency started there. We started with five people and now 10 years after that, you know, you know, this is what we have. We came up with, you know, this outsourcing model where it gives that.

Diana Alt [00:07:42]:
I'm going to get into that in one second. But I want to make sure a lot of the people that listen to the show are not as familiar like they've heard the term virtual assistant. Probably 90, 98% of them have never heard the word Kajabi. So I'm going to level set a couple things with you guys. Kajabi is an all in One platform that a lot of people with small online businesses use, there's some other similar ones if you've ever heard of Kartra or go high level. But the whole idea behind it is that you can put as much of your business as possible in there. So I can put digital courses. I could create like an online community.

Diana Alt [00:08:19]:
I haven't done that yet, but my email marketing is in there and whatever. And so Louise's team knows how to do all of that. And contrary to popular belief, you do not have to have your website in WordPress, you can have it in something else. My website is all in Kajabi, so that's a little bit of a level set. And so you basically went into the world of working with online businesses. I am curious, the first that pastor that you first worked with, what was the business that he was running?

Louise Sandoval [00:08:51]:
Yeah, so, yeah, so he was actually teaching other churches on how to use social media for their church. So, yeah, it was amazing. And he. Clients too. And that's what his course was about. So we were, you know, I was just on the background, like, managing things. I actually met him in person, I think, like four years ago. So, like, it was an amazing experience.

Louise Sandoval [00:09:14]:
And we still communicate until today, even if he's not my client anymore. Like, we would, you know, chat and he would, you know, check in with me from time to time.

Diana Alt [00:09:22]:
Yeah, if you like. There's a million different types of businesses you can have. There's a million kinds of coaches. But you were first working on a course. So fast forward. Okay, we're going to fast forward back. So you did this work and then you had somebody, one of your clients said, you know, the people in my mastermind, other business owners, want a va. And so then the agency was born, basically.

Diana Alt [00:09:46]:
How. So you started with five people. How many of those?

Louise Sandoval [00:09:49]:
Yeah. Oh, I think, you know, the guy Linden is with me still up to today. And my first project manager was actually Gerald, who is now my coo. Yeah. And then me. Oh, Mitch is. I'm not sure if you know Mitch Fernandez. Oh, she was one of.

Diana Alt [00:10:08]:
Mitch did your graphic for this.

Louise Sandoval [00:10:11]:
Yeah. Graphics. Yeah. So she's one of those graphic design people. The other one was actually my husband. So he was a podcast editor at that time.

Diana Alt [00:10:23]:
And they're still married, so.

Louise Sandoval [00:10:25]:
Yes, we're still married, so. Yeah. And who else was it? There's this one other person who helped us with, like, general stuff like Kajabi and all that. She, you know, she got married and I think went to, you know, to another country. So she migrated. So we weren't able to, you know, work with her for a long time. So, yeah, we started with those people. And then from then on, it grew to many departments.

Diana Alt [00:10:49]:
How many people are working with you now?

Louise Sandoval [00:10:53]:
Right now, for virtual staff, we have 45, along with intern. We have 17 interns as well.

Diana Alt [00:10:59]:
Oh, my. Oh, yeah. You told me that you were getting all these interns in. Yes, they're doing social media, right?

Louise Sandoval [00:11:05]:
Yeah, social media. And some graphic design as well, too, for design.

Diana Alt [00:11:10]:
And so then recently you started Bender Labs, which is the sister company. Okay. First off, my audience is mostly American. You must tell the people where Bender came from.

Louise Sandoval [00:11:22]:
Yeah, Bender came from our. Me and my husband's favorite cartoon show, which is Futurama. So the robot. The. The trash robot in Futurama. So we, you know, we love Futurama. And then because it's robot, it's automation. And that's where Bender came in.

Louise Sandoval [00:11:42]:
So we just.

Diana Alt [00:11:43]:
I think that's great. So how many people are working under the Bender umbrella?

Louise Sandoval [00:11:47]:
So the Bender umbrella right now, actually, this is quite an update, too. So we have the AI part today. AI part has around. There are seven of them right now. So we have AI team members, and also we have our marketing team. And then we also have. Another side of this business is our 3D printing business. So, yeah, so we print 3D stuff here at home.

Louise Sandoval [00:12:14]:
And there are about. There's still only three people on there. So we. We've combined automation and 3D printing because it's like a manufacturing for that side of the business.

Diana Alt [00:12:24]:
How wild that is. So crazy. So why do I feel like. Why do 3D printing? I did not have on my bingo card. You def. I definitely didn't know about that. So basically that you have almost 60 people working in your organization, which is a really different model than a lot of people think about. Because a lot of people, when they think about, I'm gonna hire a virtual assistant from the Philippines, they think that they're gonna go pay $3 an hour for somebody to work in their email, which is different than what your model is.

Diana Alt [00:12:57]:
So can you tell folks about how you run your agency? Like, what the business model for it is, how that looks to the client and kind of how the billing works. Just kind of go over all that stuff. I could do it because I'm a client, but I want to hear it from you. You'll say it better than I will.

Louise Sandoval [00:13:18]:
Yeah, so we have quite a, you know, different outsourcing model. So generally when people hear like, oh, you have a virtual assistant company. They would think that we're going to do the headhunting for them, we're going to do the recruitment, and then we give them the va. They pay us the amount, we pay the va. So that is quite far from, you know, what we do. Because we made our model very intentional that we're not just leaving you with the va. Like, we're here to help you manage how you work with a VA as well. And it's not just one person, because back in the day, people were marketed at, oh, you hire a va, and my VA does everything for me and all that.

Louise Sandoval [00:13:55]:
But, yeah, but one person can have very limited skillset. Yes. They can be taught all those. But imagine them doing, you know, videos, podcasts at the same time. Like, it's. It's impossible.

Diana Alt [00:14:08]:
Like, it's the classic problem of jack of all trades, master of none.

Louise Sandoval [00:14:14]:
Exactly.

Diana Alt [00:14:15]:
Like, what are you actually good at if you're trying to do all of it?

Louise Sandoval [00:14:19]:
Yeah.

Diana Alt [00:14:20]:
And so what you do is basically, you. I can tap into anything that's on your skill set as a client, I can say. Which I. I. The very first project we did was that initial website that, like, yeah, Roberto said, go talk to Louise website. Because I didn't have one at the time, and I felt weird about it. But I've been able to tap into admin last year. The biggest thing I use right now is actually podcast production.

Diana Alt [00:14:49]:
Yes. More hours on that than anything else lately.

Louise Sandoval [00:14:53]:
So.

Diana Alt [00:14:54]:
And you do this at a blended rate, basically?

Louise Sandoval [00:14:56]:
Yes, at a blended rate. So, yeah, I want to make it really simple and straightforward because I don't want to. I don't want to tell the client, like, oh, like, we charged this for the ad. Like, I want it to be just, you know, flexible and it. And the only thing that my client would think about is, like, oh, like, their vision and then their strategy and how, you know, how they could scale their business. With us and with us, like, you, you get to, like. Like you mentioned, you get to tap into different skill sets because we have different departments. Each one is an expert or they have their own strengths as well in that department.

Louise Sandoval [00:15:31]:
So we have our Kajabi team, who does everything with Kajabi. We have our graphic designers, video editors, podcasts, administrative va, our creative team members who does both graphics and video, our social media managers, and many more. We all and bender for our AI and automation. So that's how we, you know, because what I'm envisioning before was that our clients will have a team of, you know, These experts, but they don't have to be paying someone full time and, you know, not knowing what to give them because, you know, having someone as a video editor full time, you know, you, you'd be pressured to like, give them. Yeah.

Diana Alt [00:16:11]:
High quality video editor full time is expensive. And then to turn around and use them to manage your calendar or whatever is silly. No one wants to do that. So you know what I think is the truth? I love the blended rate approach because then I don't have to try to predict, oh, well, I'm doing this. And that's going to be the. Here's that.

Louise Sandoval [00:16:31]:
Yeah.

Diana Alt [00:16:31]:
I don't have to do anything other than say I'm going to invest in resources for whatever period of time. But you know your true secret sauce as far as people like me is concerned, don't you?

Louise Sandoval [00:16:43]:
Yeah.

Diana Alt [00:16:44]:
What is it I think is your secret sauce?

Louise Sandoval [00:16:48]:
Well, our secret sauce is our project managers.

Diana Alt [00:16:51]:
Yeah. Hi, Carol. Hi, Carol.

Louise Sandoval [00:16:56]:
You can work with VAs, but you still have to manage them. That's another add on work to you. Like people would say, like, oh, I hired a va, but it did not work out because I ended up managing them or I ended up trying to think what they need to do. And now I, when I think about it, like, I think I can do it faster. So having a project manager eliminates that feeling. So all you have to do is like, talk to your project manager as your contact person, explain them the vision, and then they already know, like, oh, yeah, we need, you know, we need a team. We need this type of team members. This is what we need from you.

Louise Sandoval [00:17:33]:
We already have a template for that or a checklist. And then, you know, it's, you know, just send it over to us because that is our secret sauce. Because I've been that for my clients. And yeah, I know, and I know that without, without the project manager, it's so hard to work with a whole team and, you know, and try to like, you know, piece them all together.

Diana Alt [00:17:54]:
Yeah. To give a little perspective on this. So I, I am not like, I don't have a huge business. Louise has worked with seven figure people. My business, like knocks on the door of six fig. Like, she has very different sizes. But I get to tap into all these experts. And so if I think about it, just in the last year or so, I've had Carol, who's my pm, I've been consulting with Lyndon because I want to do some video stuff.

Diana Alt [00:18:25]:
So we'll be working on stuff soon. I have Mitch for graphics. Yeah. I have Lance Doing podcast admin. I have Stephen doing the actual podcast editing, and I have. Let's see, Ray is working on my Kajabi stuff. Yeah, it's like the baseline of people. So I have six people, even though my business is pretty small because I might only need Lance for three hours this week.

Louise Sandoval [00:18:52]:
Yeah.

Diana Alt [00:18:52]:
Stephen for one hour or whatever. I don't have to worry about any of that. But let me tell you what, I do not want to do six people. So Carol does that for me, and I still have a good relationship where I get to. I can freely talk to any of these. Yeah, you can, but she's my point of contact. How do most. I know how I interact with the teams.

Diana Alt [00:19:13]:
How do most of your clients interact with the individual VAs and with their project managers? Are they usually, like doing zoom calls where then you're dealing with the time zone stuff? Do they do most of it on email? How does. How often are people live talking to their VAs?

Louise Sandoval [00:19:31]:
Yeah, so we encourage our clients. Yeah, we encourage our clients to have at least once a week call with their project manager, and if needed. So, like, for big projects or especially when it's launch season, we also, like, tell them that, yeah, you can have call with the rest of the team, but we need to facilitate that because I have my team work in flexible hours right now. So they pick their own schedule because I want it to, like, you know, very accommodating to them. So they plan the, you know, the project manager will plan the meetings and then that's it. But most of the time, our clients, if they've been with us for so long, like, they would just be talking to their project manager once a month or even. Or, you know, not even for like, once a month. Sometimes it says every six months, depends on the client, when they trust the team.

Louise Sandoval [00:20:18]:
Already it's just like a quick voice message or an email like, hey, I need this and that. Then that's done. Like, they don't really have to be on a zoom call every time. And we have our, you know, other channels, like emails, WhatsApp and Slack.

Diana Alt [00:20:33]:
That's okay. So this is really good stuff because it gets a little bit into the mindset of working with a va, which I want to dig into a little bit more. One thing I will say personally is that I've been working with Louise's team for six years, and I've had a lot of stability in the people that I've worked with. I'm only, like, I've had one project manager that moved on, and then I have Carol, who's my current project manager. I talk to them on Trello and email and that's it. Unless I'm doing a project. So when I said, oh, I want to explore some, you know, I want to put some AI agents and like, basically some automations for the podcast and some other things, we had a kickoff meeting for that. We'll probably have a few meetings as we're doing.

Diana Alt [00:21:18]:
Yeah, but it doesn't have to be that way. But here's the, here's the big thing that I want to talk about. Most of your clients aren't in the Philippines. They're in. You have a lot in the us?

Louise Sandoval [00:21:29]:
Yes.

Diana Alt [00:21:30]:
Europe, European clients.

Louise Sandoval [00:21:33]:
We do.

Diana Alt [00:21:34]:
And then Australia, where. Where are other major regions that you guys work with?

Louise Sandoval [00:21:39]:
I could see like 70 in the US and then there's about, you know, 20%, you know, in Australia. And also like Europe, we have. From France, we have, I think Netherlands and then also London, and we actually have a few in Dubai. I think we have two. Yeah, nice. Yeah, before.

Diana Alt [00:22:02]:
That's so exotic.

Louise Sandoval [00:22:04]:
We also have a client in Singapore and Hong Kong, so.

Diana Alt [00:22:08]:
So, okay, so you. The. The point with this. The point with this, you have even more than I realized. The point with this is that you're working with people offshore. You're dealing with 90% of the people are not in your time zone, if not more, I guess. Is there some overlap with Australia?

Louise Sandoval [00:22:25]:
Yeah, there is. They are just like two hours ahead of us.

Diana Alt [00:22:29]:
Okay, so that's reasonable. That's like a Kansas City person talking to California. A lot of people really suck at dealing with that relationship. Like, they don't understand how to make it work. So if someone is contemplating working with any outsourced person that is 12 hours away. 12. Is that how many we are?

Louise Sandoval [00:22:52]:
Yeah, for EST, we are 12, 12 hours ahead.

Diana Alt [00:22:56]:
You're 13 hours ahead of me because I'm in central. What are some of the things that people need to keep in mind whenever they're, say, in Kansas City, Missouri area and they're working with someone that's in the Philippines if they are not used to working with overseas outsourcing.

Louise Sandoval [00:23:15]:
Yeah. So number one would be to over communicate and also, like, understand that, you know, it's. It's on the other side of the world. So respecting, like, you know, the time zone and also setting expectations, like you can tell the, you know, the person that, oh, like, I want to be communicated the morning my time. I want to know what you're going to be working with or like, what's you know what if you have any problems and then I can meet you again after my work or like in the evening, which is morning for that person. So those type of expectations should be set in place. And that's what I talk as well in during the onboarding or kickoff calls with clients. Like, how do you want to be communicated? Do you want to be email in the morning or can we just like quick give you quick updates on WhatsApp? Are you mostly available in the evening for us, which is morning rn, because that's how we match.

Louise Sandoval [00:24:05]:
You know, project managers and the VA do so over communication means that, oh, like if, if you want to like, you know, do a project, then email everything to us. And then also some of my art clients would also send us a WhatsApp. Like, hey, guys, I emailed you something so that we know, like, oh, she's expecting us to respond to that email.

Diana Alt [00:24:26]:
What's funny about that is that, like, there's actually a lot of jokes in US corporate culture about do you really have to text me that? You just sent me an email. But you guys like it because you want to make sure that you can be responsive across all those time zones, right? Yes. Couple of other things that I think so. I, I had familiarity with working 10 time zones away with India for many years before I started working with you guys. And that was different because we were on synchronous calls regularly, I felt. So we were on synchronous calls regularly, but it was also a big Corporation. We had 30 people, like from India that were part of our team, which felt different. My biggest tips for anybody that is working with an overseas team is, number one, start your projects with them as early as you can.

Diana Alt [00:25:23]:
Like, one of the things I always try to do is not have emergencies. Yeah, there's an emergency. It's rare. I like to use this is urgent sparingly so that they don't. My vas don't hate me and think that I don't respect their time. Yeah, that's one thing that really helps. The other thing is holiday like understanding what's happening culturally in whatever country that you're working on. If you're working with people in India, there's a lot of holidays in like October and November that are before the U.S.

Diana Alt [00:25:58]:
you know, the Western Christian world, like Christmas season.

Louise Sandoval [00:26:04]:
So.

Diana Alt [00:26:05]:
Oh, you think, you think that you're going to be off and not doing stuff in December while you're also going to have trouble in November if you're not careful in planning. Yeah, that's been really interesting. One thing that you're really good about is actually in your own social media and your emails is telling people about some of the cultural aspects of the Philippines.

Louise Sandoval [00:26:29]:
Yeah.

Diana Alt [00:26:30]:
Also, like, I was just, I was looking at your LinkedIn this morning, and you talked about how a couple of weeks ago there was a power emergency. Yeah. Communicating to the clients, like, hey, this is what's happening. What are some things specific to Filipino culture that you want people to know about whenever they're going to be working with y'? All?

Louise Sandoval [00:26:53]:
Well, number one would be we would call you sir, ma', am, like, in the first round. Like when. When. When you're. When your VA is new. Like, they would say, like, mom, Diana, or sir. And it's very common of us because we, like, we always, like, you know, be, you know, respectful, and it's in the culture. But joke.

Louise Sandoval [00:27:15]:
Joking aside, you know, that's not a joke. That's actually real. We were just talking about that a while ago. But we have, like, you know, with, with our, you know, here in the Philippines, there's two seasons only. There's, you know, of course, it's. It's. It's. It's a tropical country.

Louise Sandoval [00:27:32]:
There's sunny, and then there's also, like, the rainy season, which, you know, turns into typhoons, flooding.

Diana Alt [00:27:38]:
Don't you.

Louise Sandoval [00:27:38]:
Yeah. Hot and flooding. And. And it turns into typhoons and all that. And we're also, we have really frequent earthquakes, so it's very common here. Like, I was just, like, with a. With a client in Cebu, like. Yes.

Louise Sandoval [00:27:54]:
Like, on Monday, and we. And. And we were just getting alarms on our phones that There was a 5.7 earthquake while we were there. So, like, I told him it's okay. It's very freaking. Like, unless it's a seven, we're going to freak out, but it's still a five. So. And that's what we're, you know, and it's.

Louise Sandoval [00:28:12]:
And it's, you know, it's. It's a country where, you know, like, like your basic stuff, like, you know, having trains and all that is a luxury to us. So, like, trans. Even transportation is, you know, is. It's a huge problem here. So that's why I love posting about the Philippines, because I have to tell you the story. When I was working as a virtual assistant, my client would say, like, you had.

Diana Alt [00:28:36]:
You.

Louise Sandoval [00:28:36]:
Why do you have earthquakes all the time? We don't even have that. He was like, I live in the Philippines. We have earthquakes all the time. So I have to explain it to him. And I even have to like, Google all the articles.

Diana Alt [00:28:47]:
It's like asking someone that lives in Los Angeles, why son all the time.

Louise Sandoval [00:28:53]:
Yeah, so like, tell him and. Because, you know, I, and also like to, you know, to know more about the Philippines and you know, know more about our culture, like why we're with this and why we're having that. And, and, and you know, sometimes like, you know, you may seem like, oh, like my VA is not responding to me. Maybe it's a power outage or, you know, the Internet is, you know, down. So we have those, you know, we have those problems occurring all the time. It's not just us making excuses, but it does happen. So like, when that happens, it's, it's also like we're getting anxious. Like, Filipinos are known to be hard working people.

Louise Sandoval [00:29:29]:
Like, we work really hard and if we, we can't, you know, if we cannot communicate with a client, we also get, you know, you know, you know, we also get frustrated with, you know, Internet power outage and all that. So we're experiencing all that here.

Diana Alt [00:29:44]:
There's a lot like, I remember you also talking, you know, I don't remember exactly when it was but about voting. So in the U.S. like, there are eight states in the U.S. right now that literally do not have go in to vote. Like, they do all of their voting by mail because it's like sparsely populated states in some cases and whatnot. And people in my town, if we go to vote even for president, it's like, oh, we're waiting in line for an hour or so on election day because you could vote by mail or vote in advance. And we have it all organized and everything. Y' all will spend literally the whole day trying to get the whole day.

Diana Alt [00:30:23]:
You'll spend the whole day, all day. And it's go to a polling place far away.

Louise Sandoval [00:30:30]:
Yeah, very far away. Where you were registered and all that. Like, I would be voting, like, I would have to travel an hour to, to go to the prison for me. And then also it's a scary time for us because like gunshots and all that, all this political stuff here in the Philippines, like, it's scary if it's election season. So like it's, it's, it's that fat,

Diana Alt [00:30:53]:
you know that it's pretty intense, basically.

Louise Sandoval [00:30:55]:
Yeah, pretty intense with, with that. So that's why I tell the client, like, oh, like, you know, you might hear back from us in the afternoon or in the evening because people are voting. We also can't do it in advance, so we have to do it in all the. In the same day, in the same.

Diana Alt [00:31:12]:
You need to get the memo. No, I mean, there are people in the US that think that everybody should have to go on the same day, too. I shake my head because I think people need to. I think we need to make it as easy as we can.

Louise Sandoval [00:31:29]:
Yeah.

Diana Alt [00:31:30]:
To vote legally. So let's talk a little bit about kind of standard of living and pay. Because one of the big things, like I mentioned earlier, that people will tell me I overpay because roughly, like, I will buy. I know I've worked with Louise's team for six years. I don't have anything. She has. Vendor labs has not automated any of my stuff yet. So, you know, I can spend a decent number of hours, especially just on the podcast.

Diana Alt [00:32:03]:
And people will tell me more like, you're an idiot. Because I'm paying roughly, like, I don't know, like $11 an hour, blended rates, something like that. And they'll be like, well, you could spend $3. And then there's, well, that are in the US very concerned about exploitation. Are like, well, yeah, if $40 for someone in Kansas City to do it, why is it fair to pay someone in the Philippines $10?

Louise Sandoval [00:32:29]:
Yeah.

Diana Alt [00:32:30]:
How. How does your team. How do your teams feel about the fact that they know you see our back end? Like, you see what we charge for stuff? Can you say that?

Louise Sandoval [00:32:39]:
Yeah.

Diana Alt [00:32:40]:
How does your teams feel about the pay that they receive compared to what we're charging for some of our sometimes very expensive programs that they're setting up?

Louise Sandoval [00:32:52]:
Yeah, actually, that is a hot topic. A very hot topic in this industry. And back in the day, actually, I myself started $1 an hour. Like, I would be paid like $1 an hour. And I was, you know, happy already about that because I have a job. But the thing is, I was. I didn't have any experience at that time, so I was okay with that. And here in the Philippines, the, you know, the, you know, the traditional job.

Louise Sandoval [00:33:20]:
Traditional jobs would pay us, like, around. I'm trying to convert it in my head, say, like $6 per day. So it's a whole day for eight hours. Sometimes you get a note, you have to do an overtime, so you spend like 10 to 12 hours in the job. If I worked in the hospital, I would be getting lesser than that as a, you know, medical laboratory scientist. So that's why a lot of people here became virtual assistants, because they get the per day pay they could get for an hour or maybe like, you know, twice as much. So when the Industry started, you know, way back. I could remember this, you know, in 2013, the marketing was that, oh, like, hire, you know, virtual assistants from the Philippines because, you know, it's.

Louise Sandoval [00:34:08]:
It's, you know, it's. It's lesser than what you would pay for someone in person. But the thing is, the marketing strategy of that was really, you know, frustrating because they would. A lot of people would expect, like, oh, can you do this strategy? And then the, you know, I need an expert. I need you to do all of this and that. And even like, up to a point where somebody's running their business already for like $3 an hour. And that is not fair because if your expectation is so high, like, they would be like this expert or this, like, really top professional in that, you know, in that department, then $3 would be, you know, expectation for that rate. But say, for example, if you're looking at someone who has the experience, the expertise and, you know, the, the strategy, and even with like, you know, the whole knowledge base of everything that you need, then more than $3, it should be more than, you know, the stat, even the standard right now is $5 an hour.

Louise Sandoval [00:35:08]:
So it, it. It's really based on how you're hiring and what you're hiring and who you're hiring. And at the same time, with us, it's a blended rate because not only that you're paying for our v. Our team. You're paying, number one for security. We have, you know, our hiring process, you know, like, how secure your systems are with us. Not only that you have access to our team, but you also have access to our templates, to our tools. We use our own canva, we use our own stock photos, our AI.

Diana Alt [00:35:43]:
I don't let you use your own canva. But that's just me like that. The line that I drew is like, you're creating assets for me, so I want you to use the things. So if we ever don't work together, it's not a big ordeal to try to get those assets. But to me, I think I don't think about paying for those things. I mean, I'm glad I have that. What I am paying for is three things. The reason I'm perfectly happy, the range of expertise.

Diana Alt [00:36:17]:
Of course, that actually goes without saying. You train the crap out of your people. Yes. Which is a thing that you should ask if you're going to hire any agency or even an individual va, Ask them what they're doing to stay up to date on the technologies that they're going to be working with because these, I mean, Kajabi is like every six weeks rolling out major new stuff. So high level. The other platform you work with the same thing. So part of what I feel like I'm paying for is to get access to trained consistently resources. Yeah.

Diana Alt [00:36:56]:
The name of my show is Work Should Feel Good. And I can tell that you've created a place that is good for people to work. So it's values aligned. You make sure you're not paying them the bottom of the barrel. You're not making a million dollars. You're not paying them at the bottom of the barrel. And then I've also loved that part of your mission has been to employ people with disabilities that might not otherwise get work.

Louise Sandoval [00:37:20]:
Yeah, that's number one.

Diana Alt [00:37:22]:
Yeah, that's that I said it number three. But that's number one for Louise. What, what actually motivated you to make that a key part of your mission for the company?

Louise Sandoval [00:37:31]:
Oh yeah, actually the, the. The. My inspiration with that was when I interviewed Mitch Fernandez. She was the first, you know, PWD hire. I was looking for a graphic designer. And then this group reached out to me because they train people with disabilities to be VAs. And then they reached out to me and say, like, oh, like can we, you know, have our graduates, you know, you know, apply for your openings? And I was like, okay, yeah. And then when I interviewed Mitch, she was telling me her story and you know, what she's experiencing and how that she, that's why she's looking for a job and all that.

Louise Sandoval [00:38:08]:
I was crying. I was crying when I was interviewing her. Like I was doing all the HR stuff for the. At that time because it was the, the business was just a baby. And I was like, I was calling my co founder after. I was like, I know now what I'm gonna. Why am I gonna be doing this for, you know, for the next five years? Like, I want to help these type of people. And he was like, oh yeah, that makes sense.

Louise Sandoval [00:38:31]:
Like, like they can actually work. Like as long as, you know, they can. They know like how to like, you know, follow instructions. They can, they have their own laptop and all that. Like, yeah, like, and I want to do more. And from then on, like, I was really inspired because these people, you know, like, even with, you know, their, what they, what they're experiencing, they are the most hard working people. Like, they would, you know, you know, they would always be up for like new tasks or even they also train with trainings as well. They would be very open to do the trainings and, and that got me inspired because, like, how beautiful is it, like, you know, to give opportunities to these people who thought that they wouldn't even get any.

Diana Alt [00:39:15]:
What is the unemployment rate for people with the types of disabilities that you commonly hire in the Philippines?

Louise Sandoval [00:39:21]:
Do you know, I actually don't have the number right now because the unemployment here is really, really huge as well. So, like, even with people with, you know, no disabilities, like, it's. It's hard to find a job here in the Philippines, like, a decent job.

Diana Alt [00:39:35]:
My little nugget for you, when you're talking to people about this piece of. Your mission is to help them understand what that is. I'm sure you can get stats.

Louise Sandoval [00:39:46]:
Yeah.

Diana Alt [00:39:46]:
Find out stats, and then, of course, compare it to what you get, because we have 4.4% unemployment or something like that in the US even if people aren't necessarily in their favorite job, they at least have jobs here. That could be really powerful for you to share, because for me, it's a. It's a big deal. I mean, there's a lot of people that. There aren't necessarily the same safety nets in the Philippines that there are in some of the other countries that you serve. And I don't know who has a disability and who doesn't. I just have to get my stuff done. You've done.

Diana Alt [00:40:20]:
I think another interesting thing that is part of this. It's kind of like off. Like, reason 3B, is that there are sometimes people that would give opportunities to folks with disabilities and they would lead with fear.

Louise Sandoval [00:40:37]:
Yeah.

Diana Alt [00:40:38]:
And instead of being like, okay, I'm gonna create an environment that engenders loyalty because of the people on my team. Carol's been there forever. Mitch has been there forever. Lyndon's been there forever. I don't know about Ray.

Louise Sandoval [00:40:56]:
Ray. Ray. I think Ray's going three years now. Lance is. I know Lance because Lance is two years. Like, two. Two and a half years now. Yeah, I think.

Diana Alt [00:41:07]:
Yeah. And then I'm forgetting Dina.

Louise Sandoval [00:41:11]:
Yeah. Dina has been with us for, I think, five years. Yeah, five years for Dina.

Diana Alt [00:41:15]:
So you've done a really good job of making a place that people want to stay, so I commend that.

Louise Sandoval [00:41:22]:
Thank you.

Diana Alt [00:41:23]:
Let's talk a little bit about what it's like to start with a va because we've talked about pricing. We've talked about, like, how to communicate with people. Do. How do you know. How does somebody know that it's time for their business to get a va?

Louise Sandoval [00:41:41]:
Number one is if you have a lot of things that you do for Your business that are repetitive. Like, you think that it's so easy. Like, it's so easy that, you know. You know, you could do it in, like, in a minute or two, but it's. You shouldn't be doing it. Like, I would always tell clients, like, you should outsource the easy task first because, you know, like, in your. Like, you know how. You know how you can do how you are going to do it.

Louise Sandoval [00:42:06]:
You can easily instruct someone how to do it. And then, you know, if that VA is not available, then you can do it on your own. But I would always recommend, like, if you have so many repetitive things in your business right now, like, like, you know, like, oh, I could create an SOP for this, then that is the first. That is a sign that you need someone to do it for you. And next thing would be second is if you have areas in your business that you are really good at. Like, you think that I'm not, you know, I can't spend my one hour or five hours with this. Like, it should be somebody else. And then third would be, like, if it's.

Louise Sandoval [00:42:43]:
If. If you're spending more time in your business than actually, you know, like. Like you are now working in your business rather than, you know, for your business. Like, you're.

Diana Alt [00:42:55]:
You're like, when you can't take on new clients because you have so much administrative, so much to do. Yeah.

Louise Sandoval [00:43:01]:
Yes. That's the sign. Those are the signs. So.

Diana Alt [00:43:05]:
So a lot of people, and you know me, you and I have had this conversation 500 times.

Louise Sandoval [00:43:11]:
Yeah.

Diana Alt [00:43:11]:
When people. A lot of people will feel like I'm bootstrapping this thing, so of course I should do all the things myself, but there comes a point when that's hindering growth.

Louise Sandoval [00:43:23]:
Exactly.

Diana Alt [00:43:24]:
So how does someone know not just what to give to a va? Because you've done a great job of explaining that, but also when they really need to do it, like, what kind of tension are they looking for? What are the. Damn it, I wish kind of statements that they might be making to themselves whenever that's showing that it's time for them to work with an outsourcing partner, AKA VA or whatever.

Louise Sandoval [00:43:53]:
Yeah. So that would be like, when. Instead of like, like I. I would tell this story because this came from a real client. Like, they would spend, like, five hours, like, on a Canva image, when, in fact they could have, you know, done a sales call with those five hours and earned themselves, like, you know, a thousand dollars. So that is the moment. It's like, oh, my God. I wish I could have someone do this for me instead of me now up online and, you know, and.

Louise Sandoval [00:44:20]:
And, you know, trying to do this on my own. And then also, like, when. When they always seem like, oh, they have this vision, but they really just can't launch it because they get stuck in the loop of, like, oh, I have this vision. I want to do this. I have so many things that I want to do, but I don't know the whole, like, you know, all your what, your why, your how, but you don't know who your who, your. Who can be you, because you're the missionary.

Diana Alt [00:44:49]:
So.

Louise Sandoval [00:44:50]:
And that's like, I just had that conversation recently, too, with a client. It's like you have, you know, you have this big why. You know, like, the strategy, you know, like, what to do, but you just can't start implementing. You're just stuck in a loop of.

Diana Alt [00:45:05]:
And I've been in that. Here's one of the things. This is a literal question that impacts Diana. So you're. One of the things that I've watched over the six years I've worked with your team is that basically the skills have leveled up. That's why I say. I feel like that's a major thing that I'm paying for. When I first started working with you guys, it was much more.

Diana Alt [00:45:30]:
Please give me exactly all the directions. And so when you hear SOPs and you're used to working with people that need really detailed directions, that. Yeah, just by itself, the act of making an SOP can feel too onerous to delegate. What do your people actually need? Because I know from Carol and Lance, they like my podcast sops, but it took me a long time to make them. Yeah, they're a different way that people like me should be thinking about even doing an SOP or pulling together things to delegate. Does that. Does that question make sense?

Louise Sandoval [00:46:08]:
Louise, I'm trying to, like, repeat it in my head.

Diana Alt [00:46:11]:
Okay. Like, I can say it another way if you want.

Louise Sandoval [00:46:15]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Diana Alt [00:46:16]:
First, I'm feeling like just getting the SOP put together is a lot of work. A drag. Like, a drag on them. Yeah. So that they can even delegate. Is there a different way that they need to think about it? Creating the sop? Is there more efficient ways to do that so it doesn't feel like, oh, my gosh, I have to. I spent a long time on my podcast SOPs, and they're really solid, but I dread updating them. So, you know, or I.

Diana Alt [00:46:47]:
Or I dread writing the next one. Is it possible that I'm over engineering it.

Louise Sandoval [00:46:53]:
Yeah. Because sometimes people try to overthink their SOPs, like, oh, do I really have to?

Diana Alt [00:46:59]:
I literally have a sash. I have a sash hanging behind me for all of you audio listeners that says Ms. Overthinker. So this question is for me. Okay, continue.

Louise Sandoval [00:47:14]:
When I do my kickoff calls with clients, I would ask them, do you have an SOP or doc? Have you documented this process before? And then they would say, like, oh, I don't. Do I need one? Like, do I need one for that right now? And I was like, no, you don't really have to. And that's the beauty of working with us, because we can create that for you along the way. Like, as we work together, we can create that one for you. And with the age of AI right now, it's so easy to create SOPs because you literally can just, like, talk to AI and then, you know, have that. You know, it could run down the sop. And a lot of our clients are doing that right now. So I don't think that there is an excuse now not to create one, but along the way.

Louise Sandoval [00:47:55]:
That's why, like, when you're working with the team, it's also important to document each process and have a project management system. But what we made it very easy for our clients, too, is that we also have our own already that we can share to them, and then they can tweak it a little so that, you know, it fits to their business.

Diana Alt [00:48:13]:
So basically, if I was. But if I was having trouble, I'm like, oh, I want to do an sop. A better SOP for onboarding.

Louise Sandoval [00:48:21]:
Yeah.

Diana Alt [00:48:21]:
I could just say, carol, what you got?

Louise Sandoval [00:48:24]:
Yep.

Diana Alt [00:48:25]:
Add to it. All right, I can.

Louise Sandoval [00:48:28]:
Yeah. So that's what we want our clients to feel, because that's also. That's a problem with people like, oh, you. You can. You. You need to hire a virtual assistant. And then what people would think, like, oh, I have to, like, you know, set up the project manager. How do I communicate with my virtual assistant? How do I manage? How do I know what they're working? Do I know that the hours that they're charging me are, you know, are correct or.

Louise Sandoval [00:48:51]:
And all that. So that's what our, you know, that's what our company solves.

Diana Alt [00:48:54]:
Yeah. The answer is Trello. I'm very high on Trello. We've done a really good. We've done a really good job of working together on it. So. And, you know, it can be whatever some agencies might prefer Asana or another tool.

Louise Sandoval [00:49:11]:
Click up.

Diana Alt [00:49:12]:
Yeah, I Hate ClickUp. I don't like or ClickUp.

Louise Sandoval [00:49:17]:
Yeah, we hate ClickUp Club.

Diana Alt [00:49:19]:
What?

Louise Sandoval [00:49:20]:
I have a we hate ClickUp club. I have clients who hate it too

Diana Alt [00:49:24]:
like ClickUp Club and I can't figure out notion because project management tool. But in any case you'll have one and that's really good. So let me ask you a flip side question. How do you know you're not ready to hire a va?

Louise Sandoval [00:49:43]:
Oh, I think I posted something about that before.

Diana Alt [00:49:47]:
You definitely sent an email in a few, a few weeks ago.

Louise Sandoval [00:49:50]:
Yeah, so yeah. So number one and I actually did this with clients who I do like have a discovery call with and, and I know that oh like this person's not ready yet. Like there was. Number one is like if you, if you're having a hard time letting go, like if you feel like, you know, like you should, you should always be in control. And also like second is like it's even making one decision is so hard for you like deciding what colors or deciding or deciding like oh, like oh, that's a, you know, I don't like that. Or and, and you don't have time to give feedback to your team and it's because it's so hard. Like if you're, if you're working with a va, they would always, you know, maybe moving, moving forward. Like if they're with you for five, seven years or eight years, they can decide for you.

Louise Sandoval [00:50:46]:
But right now if you're starting out, you should be the one to lead them. If you're not ready to lead a person or like be that leader for your VA team, then you know you can't be working with a virtual assistant if you can't be a leader of your business.

Diana Alt [00:51:00]:
Yeah, I think that that decisions thing is really interesting. And I also think that alongside that though, if you really do want to get things off your plate, finding a quality VA that has been around the block. So probably if you're on the fence about it, hiring a brand new to the business va, especially individual VA might be more difficult. But if you hire either an individual that is specializes on what you think you need the most first and has been doing it for a while, then you can ask them like if you're struggling with a decision these. If somebody's basically been project managing coaches in their business for five years, they're gonna have some thoughts to do things. And I try to do that regularly. I send a lot of emails. If you.

Diana Alt [00:51:55]:
Carol, how should I. Harold, should I think about this which is incredibly helpful because as a Solopreneur. The hardest thing in the world is not having a thought partner.

Louise Sandoval [00:52:04]:
Yeah, it's a thought partner. And that's what my client told me as well. Like, oh, Louise, I love your team. They organize my brain.

Diana Alt [00:52:13]:
It's messy in here. Let's talk about Bender for a minute before we wrap. So bender is your AI orchestration architecture. We can set the 3D printing aside. I don't 3D print. But what role is that taking in your business right now? Do you consider that to be the future of your business, or do you consider it to be kind of equally complementary to the VA side? How are you thinking about that?

Louise Sandoval [00:52:45]:
Yeah, how I see it is that, you know, it's a partnership. Like, it's equally complementary. Of course, because there are things that, yes, AI could do, or these platforms can automate, but there are stuff that we still need a human brain for it, like the decision, the approvals, the proofing and all that. And with Bender, what we want is as much as my thing is automate and then delegate, if there are things that we can automate, we automate it first to save on hours, to save on back and forth. But also when we delegate, there are things that can be delegated alongside with that, like the proofing, the, you know, the. The decision making, the making, you know, the double checking or triple checking. Because, like, AI cannot, you know. You know, logically decide for you, like, oh, this one's a better post.

Louise Sandoval [00:53:42]:
Or this one, you know.

Diana Alt [00:53:45]:
Yeah.

Louise Sandoval [00:53:45]:
Yes.

Diana Alt [00:53:46]:
So sorry, Opus, your viral score is not as good. I love you, but that's not good.

Louise Sandoval [00:53:54]:
Yeah, it's not 100%. And when people think that, oh, AI is going to replace virtual assistants, but actually, it's a blessing for us virtual assistants because it's making our work maybe timestamp productive. Back in the day in 2017, 2018, 2019, we would be manually transcribing videos.

Diana Alt [00:54:19]:
I can't believe it. Yeah. So unreal.

Louise Sandoval [00:54:22]:
When all this came out, we were like, okay, you know, the transcription is done in, like, in one minute or, like, you know, two. So it's making our life easier. And we can focus on, like, tasks that really matters most or the projects that really needs our, you know, our human brain.

Diana Alt [00:54:38]:
And I gotta tell you, y', all, Louise is not afraid to tell you you're not ready for automation, too. She and I had a conversation a few. A few months ago. I think it was just via email where I asked what was going on with. With the AI side and was talking about. It was either other Content or podcast and you were like, you want too much oversight over the output. Like you have too many places that you want to insert yourself. It's not going to work right now.

Diana Alt [00:55:12]:
And so now we're looking at what does make sense because I do still like to have some approval. But I real. My team had been creating high quality show notes and podcast promo assets and I hadn't, I haven't even looked at the show notes in like three months because I just trust that they're good and if they're not, I can fix it. If someone says you put the wrong link down or in the wrong Twitter handle or whatever, I can fix it. So when you think about. So I do think it is a big shift though, the whole idea of automate first. For so long the model for getting things off of people's plate has been delegate, delegate, automate, eliminate. And now I think it needs to be the exact opposite.

Diana Alt [00:56:01]:
Stop doing stupid stuff.

Louise Sandoval [00:56:03]:
Yeah, they're done.

Diana Alt [00:56:05]:
And then delegate. So I'm the weirdo. Am I weird in that? My. I've never had my admin vada work. My inbox, I've never had a va. My personal inbox is that unusual?

Louise Sandoval [00:56:24]:
Oh well I, I don't think that's unusual because I still have quite a few clients who, which their personal inbox, they still keep it themselves because there are a lot of personal stuff on it because they have different inboxes. So maybe only the support inbox is what we've managed the most. But for my.

Diana Alt [00:56:41]:
You are managing that for me, Lance and Dina sharing that.

Louise Sandoval [00:56:44]:
Yeah.

Diana Alt [00:56:44]:
Right.

Louise Sandoval [00:56:45]:
Yeah. Their personal, personal inbox is very like, you know, dear to them. Like all of their life is in there. So like we don't want, yeah, we don't want the personal stuff. The you know, the bill, the, the credit card bills or etc. So yeah, we, it. That's okay. And I might, I, I myself do my personal inbox.

Louise Sandoval [00:57:03]:
I still manage it. It's not a lot but my business inbox is what my, my, you know, my, my assistant manager. So different things.

Diana Alt [00:57:12]:
Like I have two email emails. I have Diana Diana dot com. I have hello Diana. Hello is. And most everything, even customer support because I just do one on one coaching mostly right now that most of the time that's coming through my Diana box. Although I just stood up slack for my clients to do asynchronous coaching and then whenever I have podcast related things or other admin things I work, I send the emails to the hello box for Lance, whoever it is. So. But I've had so many people.

Diana Alt [00:57:48]:
I think it's an interesting point though because when you think about taking something off your plate, whether it's automating or delegating, you don't have to listen to what everybody else says you should do first.

Louise Sandoval [00:58:00]:
Yeah.

Diana Alt [00:58:01]:
Because I've had, I don't know how many people say, we'll get stop managing your own calendar. I'm like, oh no, I have an autoimmune condition and energy is the top thing. And that's the hardest thing to explain to somebody. And when you all are working on hours that are friendlier for you than they are for me, sometimes, like I'm going to have to do it anyway half the time. So I didn't do that. And then I know other people that another common thing is to say, well, get, get bookkeeping off your plate.

Louise Sandoval [00:58:33]:
Yeah.

Diana Alt [00:58:33]:
And I know people that are like, I literally like that. It calms me. Like, you know, I'm not an, I'm not an accountant, I'm not a bookkeeper, but I actually like that part of my business that doesn't take me that much time. Yeah, I feel like your only options are whatever the talking heads say that you should delegate first. Yesterday I actually led an AI at work panel at a conference in Kansas City and there was a gentleman that came up to me after there were most of the people, like I was the moderator and then the people on the panel were all like corporate employees. So I would drop in something every once in a while and be like, if you're a solopreneur, if you're a small business owner, think about it this way. And I came up to me, he was like a non profit marketing strategist, storyteller guy. And he said, I just don't even know where I would start with AI.

Diana Alt [00:59:23]:
And I'm like, you are asking the wrong. Maybe he is asking the best girl. So what I said is one, keep track. Just keep a little notebook or whatever, Apple phone notes, whatever. Write down everything that annoys you that you have to do two weeks for trends. And then I said feed it into Chat GPT and ask Chat gbt. What are the trends you see here? What are the top three to five things that you think I could automate with an agent and then decide if you like that idea and then go ask Claude how to do it. What do you mean ask Claude? I mean, I mean ask the tool how to use the tool, because the tool.

Louise Sandoval [01:00:12]:
Yeah, the tool. Yeah.

Diana Alt [01:00:14]:
It's like. So that's what I told them. Well, I, this has been so much fun. I have one more question before we go.

Louise Sandoval [01:00:23]:
Yeah.

Diana Alt [01:00:24]:
And all, like, all of, all of Louise's. How to get a hold of her is going to be in the show notes. Go look at it. If you reach out to her about services, please tell her that, Please tell her. Yeah.

Louise Sandoval [01:00:36]:
About her on this podcast. Yeah.

Diana Alt [01:00:40]:
That she likes to know that it's worthwhile to go on a podcast. But my, my question I ask everybody is, what is the worst piece of career advice you've ever received?

Louise Sandoval [01:00:53]:
Worst career advice. Wow. That made me think maybe it was like, you know, to stop, like, you know, doing something that is because I, I'm someone who always, like, want to do outside of, like, what I was told to. Like, if you ask me to, like, write a blog, I would also ask you. I would also do, like, oh, I want to do the thumbnail for this. And then, you know, someone who would stop me, like, like, oh, you can only do that. But I know, okay, I can do more. And that was a.

Louise Sandoval [01:01:29]:
I, I, I, I, I had that conversation when I was working at the contact center because I was, I was having some suggestions, like, what if we do this and that? But I say, like, no, like, that's, this is just your role. Like, just focus on that.

Diana Alt [01:01:43]:
Just do just your job.

Louise Sandoval [01:01:44]:
What you're asked to.

Diana Alt [01:01:45]:
Yeah. In your lane, I guess, is what you're saying.

Louise Sandoval [01:01:47]:
Yeah, just stay in your lane.

Diana Alt [01:01:48]:
You would have stayed in your lane. You'd still be in that dam.

Louise Sandoval [01:01:52]:
Yeah.

Diana Alt [01:01:53]:
Supervisor now or something, but you'd still be in that contact center.

Louise Sandoval [01:01:56]:
Yeah.

Diana Alt [01:01:57]:
You wouldn't have taught yourself these skills. That's so cool. Well, like, I'm so glad you came on. You were one of the, like, when I first started the show, I brainstormed out, like, 40 or 50 people that I wanted to have on, like, that very first day. I just wrote it. It's in a Monday board. Am I good at Monday? No. But I have a board for my podcast and you were on it, so I'm really glad that we were able to do this today.

Louise Sandoval [01:02:23]:
Yeah, me too.

Diana Alt [01:02:24]:
I'm sure, like, someday when we automate some stuff, you'll have to come back and we'll talk about stuff more, what that experience was like to work on that project. Well, thank you to everybody and I hope you enjoyed this. Have a great day. Want some more career goodness? Between episodes, head on over to DianaAlt.com and smash the big green let's connect button to sign up for my newsletter. Let's make work feel good together. And that's it for this episode of Work should feel good. If something made you laugh, think, cry, or just want to yell yes at your phone, send it to a friend, hit follow, hit subscribe, do all the things, and even better, leave a review if you've got a sec. I'm not going to tell you to give it five stars.

Diana Alt [01:03:10]:
You get to decide if I earned them. Work should feel good. Let's make that your reality.