Ep #317: How I Solved…Hiring Virtual Help

Stacey Brown Randall: The summer series is coming to an end, but we still have two more awesome episodes to go, including this one. So let’s listen in as Mike Kim answers the “How I Solved” question.

Hey there, and welcome to episode 317 of the Roadmap to Referrals podcast, a show about helping you build a referable business. I’m your host, Stacey Brown Randall. My journey from a business failure to a successful business now 10 years in, I know generating referrals naturally and consistently has made all the difference. Working with clients around the world, we leverage the science of referrals, protect relationships above all else, and help you build a referral business.

I am excited to welcome my good friend Mike Kim to my podcast for the very first time. And I love the topic he and I are going to dive into. Mike is going to talk about how he solved the nagging problem of needing to hire virtual help. Of course, the nagging problem being that there was work that he needed someone else to help him do.

So I’m excited for him to share kind of his process of how he worked through deciding that it was time to do that. Now, here’s the thing about Mike. He’s going to do things most of the time faster than the average business owner.

So when he says this was a problem, and then he talks about how it was a problem for like six months, it’s a little bit different than some of us who’ve been talking about on this series where, oh, this thing festered for six years. It’s a little different. Mike moves at a little different speed, which is a good thing.

He can be encouraging for all of us. But he’s going to talk about how he realized and the exact process he used to decide that he was ready to hire and then, of course, what it was going to look like to find the person to hire and him hiring virtual help. He’s going to talk about this really cool four box or four quad strategy.

I’m going to highly encourage you guys take some time, maybe even re-listen to him explain it. He’s going to explain it when he’s talking about how he solved the problem. And then at the very end, he’s going to come back and talk about how important it is. His four-box strategy of like where you put the things you do in your business based on how you categorize them. So make sure you catch that.

But before we dive into the episode, I also just want to give Mike a quick shout out. Mike is the author of the book, You Are the Brand. He also has a podcast by the same name, and he is great at helping business owners brand themselves and do the branding. You are the brand, branding your business.

I have been in Mike’s mastermind for a couple of years now. He’s also great, you’ll hear him talk about this. He’s great at marketing. He’s great at copywriting. He’s great at words. Like that’s what this man is great at. In addition, of course, to some other things, too.

But he really does help business owners understand that marketing aspect and what that looks like and doing it from you being the brand of your business, which I think is a great way to look at it.

So, of course, we’re going to link to where you can find Mike Kim when he’s doing his day job of helping people with marketing and branding. And that, of course, will be in the show notes page for this episode, StaceyBrownRandall.com/317.

But right now, what we need to dive into is Mike sharing with you how he made the decision to solve the problem and then how he solved the problem of hiring virtual help.

Stacey Brown Randall: Mike, I am very excited to have you on the podcast today. It feels like a long time coming, considering the fact that we’ve known each other for a number of years. I’ve been on your podcast once, maybe twice, I don’t know. It’s probably about time that I had you on my podcast, so welcome.

Mike Kim: Thank you for having me back. You’ve been on more than twice. ‘Cause I take your speaking sessions from our events and put them on there too. So, you know, I try not to bother you and, but get more juice out of the work that you’ve already done.

We all love repurposing things and all of us business owners enjoy maximizing the time that we put in and technology like this, that allows us to share content. Like, you know, we, I’m all for that.

So, um, but no, really thanks for having me back. I’m excited to kind of talk about something I don’t normally talk about. And just be real practical among all us business owners today.

Stacey Brown Randall: Yeah, I think it’s something we all need to hear is like, how do other people solve problems that they don’t know how to really solve in the beginning. So I think it’s definitely valuable.

Okay, so before we dive into the nagging problem that you solved, why don’t you first tell my audience a little bit about yourself, you know, just specifically so they know what you actually do for work.

Mike Kim: Yeah, so I get this question a lot. So if you ask 10 different people, they’ll probably say 10 different things. But in all actuality, essentially, I run a marketing agency, a boutique marketing agency, where we are responsible for designing good creative, like websites, landing pages, and running ads on Facebook, Instagram, and Google to help business owners get leads.

Outside of that, I’m probably what most people would say is some sort of a marketing coach or advisor teacher. And so I will do that around marketing. I’ll teach solopreneurs and or service-based professionals how to market themselves using the power of their personal brand.

And then under that, I’ll facilitate some groups like professional groups, networking groups, stuff like that. So essentially, I do marketing and I teach marketing. And I love it. I think marketing is still really cool and it allows me to meet a lot of different people from a lot of different walks of life, which is super exciting for me.

And it makes it really hard to systemize sometimes a lot of the things that I have to do and or certain projects that I’m involved in. And so that was one of the big pain points. So we’ll talk a little bit about that, but yeah, basically I market people and I teach people how to market.

Stacey Brown Randall: Yeah, I mean, so of course I know you because I’m in your mastermind. I’ve been in it for a couple of years. We met, I think it was back in 2016. I may have the year wrong. As we get old, things start bleeding together.

Mike always makes me feel better about myself because we’re the same age. So yeah, he’s not younger than me. He looks younger than me, but he’s not younger than me. So that makes me feel better about myself.

But yeah, so I know a little bit about some of the problems that we solve as business owners because we’re in a group talking about them. So I’m excited to have you talk about this one. Okay. So tell us a little bit about the problem that you were dealing with in your business and what you ultimately wanted to solve.

Mike Kim: Essentially, the business had grown bigger than my two hands can hold. And that’s a good thing in a lot of ways, like to get more leads, to get more business, to get more opportunities. And then concurrently going along with that, you have to do more to keep the thing moving.

I don’t have a location-based business. So I have been locationally independent since I started my business full-time in 2016. So for about eight years, I’ve been locationally independent. And before that, I was side hustling. So I’ve never had a physical location and I’ve never had employees as a result in a physical location.

So I also found that the things that I needed help with in my business, none of them really warranted a full-time position. because all of the needs that I had were so different. And so initially, of course, I wanted help because I was, you know, split chicken wings like five different ways.

But I was like, how do I get somebody who can book my flights, take care of my hotels, do my bookkeeping, write copy for my marketing stuff, get me on other podcasts and, you know, just generally make my life easier?

And of course, that person doesn’t exist. That’s a unicorn. And that’s what my friends would tell me who specialized in helping people find help around this. And so that was really the big problem I wanted to solve.

I also did this little exercise, you and I have done this many times where you write, you just create a four-box grid, you know, on the upper left box, you write the things you love doing in your great at. In the upper right, you write things you like doing and you’re good at.

In the lower left, you write things you don’t like doing and you’re not good at. In the lower right, you go things I hate doing and I suck at. All so all the things that I hate doing and suck at in my business were like booking travel, admin, customer service, all that sort of stuff.

Stacey Brown Randall: Answering emails.

Mike Kim: Like budgeting. Yeah. That’s, I just hated it. Right? Like I was okay with emails if they were about like work related things, but customer service stuff, like kill me now. Right?

And so I just had so much stuff in that lower right quadrant, the stuff I hate doing and I suck at. And I figured if I just get some help with that, that will make my life a little bit better. And that’s, that’s really what I needed help with.

Stacey Brown Randall: So I think it’s really interesting. I’ve heard people talk about like, how do you know you’re ready to hire, right? How do you know you’re ready to bring in help?

And in a business like yours or mine, it’s always more than likely going to be virtual. And I think that is for a lot of the listeners to this podcast, you know, as well. They may feel like they’re more of a traditional business being an attorney, or a marketing consultant, or a business coach, or a bookkeeper, they may have more of a physical location.

But the reality is we’re all hiring virtual help on some level or eventually will or have done it for a really long time. And so I think that that idea of what it looks like, I think it’s one thing to hire help you can see. Like, I feel like people are like, I get that.

The idea of hiring someone who’s going to be virtual, I think sometimes brings up a lot of concerns and issues for folks to do it or do it well or, you know, make sure they can train that person.

But I love the idea of starting with the box of stuff you hate doing because you are more willing just to be like, just, let’s make sure we have the right person, but let’s just give it to them as fast as possible, versus getting yourself at a place where you’re overthinking am I’m making the right choice and should I be doing this.

I think the other thing that kind of forces us to make a decision and pull the trigger is how long you’re hanging around in that bottom quadrant of the place where you hate and suck at doing the work. How long were you hanging out there before you were like, okay, enough is enough. I need help.

Stacey Brown Randall: Hey there, pardon the interruption. I hope that you’re enjoying our business series this summer focused on having extraordinary business owners talk about how they solved problems in their business that they didn’t know how to solve because it was out of their zone of genius. Don’t worry, we’ll be back on our topic of referrals when we wrap up this summer series.

Speaking of referrals, though, it is crazy to think that you could be just 90 days away from starting to double, triple, or quadruple your referrals. The roadmap and the support plus the accountability that you need, it’s just waiting on you. It’s all inside my coaching program, Building a Referable Business, which we call BRB for short.

Just go to StaceyBrownRandall.com/referable to learn about the program. And then if you’re interested, click on the link to submit your application. I personally review all applications and I’ll let you know if you’re a fit for the program. Then you can learn more and make your decision. Alright. Now back to the episode.

Mike Kim: After I started my business, it was probably six or seven months. But the reality is, I mentioned before, I was side hustling. So I was side hustling to get out of my full time job. I was the CMO of a company here in the New York City, New Jersey area. So my life was very busy.

And so when I started my side hustle, all of the side hustle stuff, Stace, was like related to marketing. It was all related to content creation. I got in in the early days like you did, right? I was blogging almost every week. I was starting to podcast every week.

And I was doing a couple of freelance projects outside of my already busy like C-suite job, which now that I look at, that sounds just crazy. Like, why would I, how did I do that? How did I find time to do that? Well, I had no kids. So that, that there’s a lot there, right?

Stacey Brown Randall: That helps. Yeah, no children. That helps.

Mike Kim: Yeah, it really does. And I was married at the time. And my wife at the time was super supportive in the sense that she just left me alone. She just let me do my thing. She was like, all right, I don’t understand what you’re building, but go for it.

And so I was overwhelmed when I was working my full-time job trying to side hustle, but I was doing all these marketing related things, right? Writing, podcasting, setting up web pages for myself, trying to do webinars, and then taking freelance clients.

When I went full-time in the business, I had more time freed up. But then that dumped a ton of new opportunities because I was like, oh, I have more time. Let me start a membership academy.

So for those of you not in the online world, think of it like Netflix. You pay a fee to join a coaching program with me every month. And I’ve got two live calls a month and a bunch of videos that you can access. And I was like, great, I have more time to do something like this. I’ll launch it.

I had people buy. And you know what happened? I had so many fricking customer service requests. I lost my password. Can I change my credit card? This credit card didn’t go through. I did not see that coming.

So I’m like, okay, great. I have more time. I launched a membership and now I’m dealing with customer service, people losing their login and the credit card’s not running.

And it was like, what, wait, what the heck? So now I’m spending a couple of hours a week doing that. I have more time on my hands. So I’m like, okay, let me go to that conference or this conference. I’m starting to get invites to some workshops or conferences to speak like from friends of mine, some people I know.

Now, next thing I know, I’m booking airline tickets and I’m booking hotels and I’m looking at the, you know, do I rent a car or not? And, oh, I’ve got to get them my press kit and my bio and the slides to the presentation three weeks ahead of time, right? And I’ve just added all this other admin stuff that I just did not see coming.

So I reached out to my friend Trivinia Barber of PriorityVA.com, and she and I were in a mastermind together at the time. And this is what she does. She helps match people with remote help, with virtual help.

And she’s like, your life’s going crazy right now. You need some help. Let me try to find some people for you. And so I looked on two fronts because she’s the one who told me unicorns don’t exist in this realm.

I was like, I need all this. And she’s like, yeah, well, one person can do that. So let me find you two. Let me find you one on the marketing side and one on the more like, operations side, if you will.

And so that felt good. And I ended up going with the operations gal. Her name was Chelsea. And then we ended up working together for like nine years. I knew that we were on the right track because it had been like weeks from me logging into Google Flights or Expedia.com, which meant I wasn’t booking my travel.

It had been weeks since I’d ever logged in to [email protected], that email address. I just hate that email address. So that’s when I started to realize like, okay, this is actually working.

And you know, I’ll be the first to admit, if I start booking travel, I’m an idiot. I just start daydreaming. I’m like, wait, how much would it cost to fly to Hawaii? And you’re like, what are you doing? Go back to work. I’m like, you just need to book a flight to Dallas, not Hawaii.

Stacey Brown Randall: You’re not going to Hawaii. Right.

Mike Kim: Yeah. And I’m like on that mode of like, let me just see how much this costs. I wonder if I can make a trip out of it. And I start daydreaming. It’s like really unproductive. And then I’m working until one in the morning trying to catch up on all the marketing stuff I needed to do.

So yeah, that was about six months. And that was because I just added so much to my plate once I went full time because I had more time. So I’m really good at filling my hands with stuff to do. And that, that was probably the breaking point.

Stacey Brown Randall: Yeah, I mean, I think people get to breaking points in kind of different ways for this. I think sometimes it’s the, I cannot keep living like this, so I need to bring somebody in to help me.

Other people, like I can remember back in the day, like so long ago when I used to be like a one-to-one business coach, I remember having somebody that I was coaching and he was like, I need to bring on a full-time person. And he was making very good money.

And I was like, great, this should not be a problem. Hire somebody. And he was like, I’m scared. I’m like, why are you scared? And he goes, because what if I bring them on, what if they leave a job, and I bring them on, and then all of a sudden, six months from now, the business shifts? Which is a legit fear I think entrepreneurs have, no matter how successful we ultimately get if we’re not working on our mindset.

He was like, what if the business shifts, and then all of a sudden, I can’t pay this person, and I’ve taken them away from a full-time job, and now I can’t pay them, and I have to lay them off?

And I was like, then how much do you need in a bank account that you would feel confident that you’d be able to pay them for X many months after that happened, where you could keep them on your payroll and feel good about yourself?

And I will never forget, he was like, $20,000. I was like, great. As soon as you have $20,000 in a savings account, go hire the person. It was like four months. He was like, I’m hiring this person. And it completely changed the game for his business.

And you know, like they say, bring in help and you get to free up time to do other things. Hopefully you’re going to focus on revenue-producing things. I mean, I think it’s the same thing in all of our businesses.

For some of us, it’s like, we’re drowning to the point where like, I don’t care what it costs, I’m gonna make it work. And other points it’s, we have to figure out what it would get us to a place of being comfortable to making that hire.

Which is why I think starting out with virtual help is so much easier because you don’t have to bring somebody on to help you virtually full-time. Particularly in your world and my world, it’s not full-time work. It’s part-time work, but it’s not full-time work.

Mike Kim: Yeah. And it’s those small things that someone else is happily willing to do because they just might be in that season in life. I totally resonate with what that guy was saying because I really love the people I work with, and I want to dignify them. I want this to feel like this is getting them closer to where they want to go in life ultimately.

That was one of the first questions I asked Chelsea when we started working together, before we started, like on our interview. I was like, hey, what’s the dream look like? And she’s like, it looks like me moving, with my family, starting a family. We want to be more in nature and working whenever I want and being able to go out and spend time with family.

I said, great, that’s awesome. As soon as working with me gets in the way of that, I’m just going to let you go. Like, I really wanted to help her like attain the dream. And she did. And then she kept working for me because I think I helped her attain the dream.

Stacey Brown Randall: Right. And she definitely is in nature because you see pictures of her on Instagram and she’s like holding an axe in her hand.

Mike Kim: Yeah, she’s now in Colorado in the mountains. But then she had her first baby, now the second is here. And her life, just like you said, in the life of a business, her personal life shifted. So she doesn’t have the energy and the bandwidth to push things forward in her own business like she might have when she had no kids.

So there are people in our world that want that just stability and the easy work and they’re happy to do it. And maybe after a season, they can get back to the main thing that they want to do. So it’s just kind of understanding the ebb and flow of life.

I sort of look, Stace, at like, if I’m working with somebody, if I’m hiring somebody, they either have to bring in customers and revenue that I would not have been able to on my own, or they need to remove calls and time commitments from my calendar. That’s it. I put them in those two buckets.

So if I hire someone to take care of my social media or run ads or set up my webpages and stuff like that for webinars, that’s great. They’re going to help me bring leads in because I don’t need to be spending 10 hours a month trying to figure all that stuff out. So I’m good spending money there. Or if they can take calls and emails off of my calendar, then that’s worth it.

Now, how much money you pay for those two things is up to you, right? It’s up to your business and it’s up to your situation. But if I look at my calendar and I’m like, why is this call on my calendar? Why is that call on my calendar? Then I realize I’m overextending myself. And I’ve got to find someone or some sort of help to take it off my calendar.

And I really started by looking at the things I had to do every week that I realized, this is going to happen no matter what, every single week. Like a podcast, like recording it, producing it. That was one of the smarter hires I made, you know, I outsourced to a team.

And I’m like, I record a podcast. So that took an hour. Then I’d edit it for two hours, ‘cause I’m an idiot. Then I design everything. And then I’d write the show notes. So the one-hour interview that I did ended up being a six-hour per week production, times four, is 24 hours a month. That’s stupid. That’s half a work week.

So I was like, all right, I just need to get these hours off of my plate. And you know, I hired a team to do that. So it’s just, that’s the way my mind works in particular. I could be more systemized around it.

I feel comfortable giving those kinds of tasks away because my business was built on my writing and it was built on my, like my content creation. I’ve admittedly had a harder time outsourcing that to people because I think I’m a perfectionist when it comes to that stuff. So it is what it is.

Stacey Brown Randall: Well, I mean, that’s where I am. Like for me, it’s like people will join my coaching program and they’ll be like, do I talk to you? And I’m like, I always laugh because I’m like, yes, you talk to me. Your emails are answered by me. I’m the one who’s running the Q&A calls. I’m the one getting on your milestone call with you, your one-on-one calls with me. I was like, they’re all with me.

And I forget how much that would be normal, like a decade ago. And now you don’t know, so you got to ask. When people say, Stacey, your business seems to be like, it seems to be run very tight. Like it’s like a tight ship and the onboarding process is smooth. And like, how big is your team? And I always laugh and I’m like, it’s me and an army of contractors and virtual help.

But I always knew when I was deciding who I was going to entrust with parts of my business, that it wouldn’t be the things that were client facing. Those are just the things I happen to enjoy and the stuff I’m good at, but I don’t need to do any of the other stuff and kind of look at it that way.

I found that when I was ready to bring on somebody to help me on a more permanent basis, like part-time permanent basis, I found myself with a task list and it would be really long of all the things I had to do. And I just started writing, you know, somebody else’s name next to them.

Wouldn’t it be great if Kathy could do this and Kathy could do that and Kathy could do that, and everything can just be done. And that’s how, for me, it’s like, okay. Because I’ve had part-time assistance in the past. Then after COVID, I went through a few years of not. I brought on social media virtual help last year. I think Kathy started with me.

And finally, this year, I was just like, you’re great, and I need more of you. So what can you rejigger in your life to give me more time? This is what I would like to offer you. And, you know, like I told her, I was like, she’s a single mom. And I was like, I don’t know how valuable stability is for you, but it’s really valuable for me and people who help me.

Like I have, I have contractors I’ve been working with since like 2016, 2018. Like, if it works, I work it and I’m loyal, and so it worked out, that it worked out for her. So that’s going to, you know, when you think about bringing on help, you just got to be prepared for them too, I think when you bring them on.

Mike Kim: Yeah. And I hear a lot of, like different kinds of stories and experiences that people have because of the coaching part of what I do. And some people were, I can’t find a contractor. Like, they just churn. And I’m like, well, if everybody churns, you might be the problem. Like, honestly, like, so you sometimes I have to look at that piece too.

And then, you know, it’s amazing how, as soon as you start spending money on help, you start rethinking why you’re doing the thing that you needed help for. And sometimes that’s a good thing.

So it’s like, if I’m investing, let’s say a thousand dollars a month in someone booking my flights and hotels and taking care of customer service. But then I stopped traveling for a while, like during COVID. And then you’re like, wait, if I stopped traveling, my income didn’t really take a hit. I didn’t need this person for all of those hours. Cause I was no longer traveling.

I’m like, wait, maybe I don’t need to travel so much to keep this business running. And I had experiences like that too, where spending money on help would actually illuminate whether it was a good idea to keep doing this or not. So it goes both ways.

And sometimes you don’t see it until you do it. But like to your point, I just love the stuff like, I don’t want to process a replay on a call. It just eats up another half hour. I could just go do something more productive or just rest, you know? And so, yeah, we all create more work than we could probably ever get around to doing.

Stacey Brown Randall: I always find, when you hire help, it’s also the number one way to figure out the software that you’re paying for that you don’t use because you can’t even train the person on how to use it because you bought it and then you never actually started using it.

Like, and I’m not saying that’s not good software, but software isn’t good if you’re not going to use it, no matter how amazing it is. And so I remember having software and being like, oh, I have this, I pay for it. I don’t know how to use it. I guess I could pay you to figure it out or I could just cancel it and you could go do something else for me. And that helps me make a lot of decisions too.

Mike Kim: Yeah, it’s the tech stack. It’s all the things that we chase, like shiny objects. And then, of course, you don’t know how to run it, so you have to find help. And then you’re sinking more money into it, and you’re like, is this really moving the needle? Is this really moving things forward?

I think one of the other things that’s really important is to understand that not everything is going to have a direct impact on the revenue or the income right away. Because I look at my business overall like just one giant organism.

Like I can’t expect like, in just the way our bodies are like, you can’t expect, you know, your foot to do the same job that your hand does or your hand to do the same job that your eye does.

Like if you’ve ever walked into a dark room and can’t find the switch and try to see with your hand, you know how ridiculous that is. And it’s like, that’s not its main job, right? So sometimes I’ll spend money on admin or travel or ads or these kinds of things. And I’ll say, okay, like I do want this to make a return or I do want to buy time back.

But this year in particular, I spent almost every spare waking moment writing books. So this so far is going to be the lowest income year that I’ve ever had. But next year, it’s probably going to blow up because I’ll have two or three books out.

Stacey Brown Randall: Right.

Mike Kim: So like, I’ve had to learn to go with the ebb and flow and I’ve learned to say to my team, I don’t need you for a lot of things for the first six months. Do you want to restructure? Like, can we restructure? So I’m not shelling out this money when I don’t really need it.

And I think, you know, we have to understand, even though we’re loyal to our people, you have a business to run too. And to be responsible for, and then for us as solopreneurs, we’re sweating for every dollar we make.

Like we don’t have that much that’s on passive rotations. We don’t have employees running the shop for us. Like, when I look at my tax bill, I’m like, yo, this is messed up. I actually really worked for this. Like, you know, so it makes you think about things in a certain way, in a good way.

Stacey Brown Randall: Yeah. I mean, and I think that you just don’t think about things until you decide to run a business. Like you don’t think about things in that way until you’re like, let me be a business owner. And then it’s all the other things you have to start paying attention to.

Well, okay, so if you were to give one piece of advice to somebody who is listening right now to our conversation, and they haven’t ever brought on any type of virtual help, and they are that solopreneur, that soloist sitting out there doing it all, and they could potentially bring somebody on.

What’s the one piece of first baby step that they should take to get them to a place that would move them in the direction of saying yes to hiring some virtual help?

Mike Kim: I think it’s that grid that I shared before, like just a four-quadrant grid. What you love doing and what you’re great at, what you like doing and you’re good at, what you don’t like doing and you’re not good at, and what you hate doing and you suck at. And I always hear this, well, I’m good at some things, but I don’t like them. Well, put it in the lowest denominator then. Like whatever’s worse, give that precedence.

So if I’m good at speaking, but don’t like doing it, I put it in the not good at and don’t like doing quadrant. Because as a solopreneur, you asked about solopreneurs, we all have to do things in business that we don’t love doing and we don’t like doing and we’re not even good at doing. But one day we could become good at it. Right?

So it doesn’t mean that just because you don’t like doing it or not good at it, you should outsource right away, especially if it’s a skill that will help you grow your business. But anything that’s in the, I hate doing and I suck at but the business needs that to survive, like bookkeeping, taxes, customer service. You need to get help around that.

So just draw out the things, everything that you do in a given two-week period and put it into that little box and see what’s there and at least start with there. I will bet most people will put non-client facing things in that, I hate doing and I suck at thing.

And you get that taken care of, and then if you’re like, well, I’m good at selling, but I don’t like doing it. But if you have the revenue, that’s when you can look at getting some help for sales, or that’s when you can get some help for writing.

But I always look at what’s non-client facing first. And then I look at, I’m very slow to hire client-facing, because one screw up there could really jack up your reputation. So that’s what I look at. I hire kind of in those tiers through those boxes, if that makes sense.

Stacey Brown Randall: And I think sometimes the best way to do that is to look at something in that bottom box that you hate doing and you suck at. And is there something in that box that you would just hand off to one company versus a whole bunch of tasks you would give to an assistant?

I think about bookkeeping. You mentioned doing the bookkeeping and the taxes. I’ve had a bookkeeper for as long as I feel like I’ve had a business. And it was a really easy hire because I was just giving them that piece versus bringing in virtual help that’s going to help me with like 14 different categories.

That’s a little bit longer to hire to get comfortable, but being able to find one thing and then there’s a company out there that can fulfill that for you and you’re just going to pay them a monthly basis like that’s a great way to do it.

Okay, so we have had a great conversation talking about virtual help, but you’re really a master at marketing and so I want to make sure that my listeners know where to learn more about you if they want to go learn more about you and to learn about the things that you’re actually a genius at.

Mike Kim: Thanks. Just go to www.mikekim.com. Everything’s there. The agency, the coaching, the programs, book, all that stuff is there. And on Instagram I’m @mikekim. People always ask me how I got that name. Yeah, it’s a story. I’ll share that the next time I come back.

Stacey Brown Randall: Okay, well, now I got to have you back because I don’t even know if I know that story. Alright. We of course will link to everything that the links that Mike gave us in the show notes page for this episode so you guys can check it out there. But Mike, thank you for joining me today on the podcast. I really appreciate it.

Mike Kim: My pleasure. Awesome to be here. Happy to come anytime.

Stacey Brown Randall: Thanks.

Stacey Brown Randall: Well, I loved this conversation with Mike, and I love always being reminded of that four-box strategy. I think you can actually apply that to a lot of different areas in your business, but specifically for what Mike was sharing about really looking at the things that you’re not great at and you don’t even enjoy and putting the things in that box and then deciding that maybe you can find some help.

And again, as Mike said, I never started out by hiring somebody full-time. Start part-time. Start less than part-time. I remember the very first virtual assistant I had, I’m pretty sure they worked like 10 hours a week, maybe. Maybe, and that may be stretching it. And so you grow into things, right? You kind of figure out what you need. So keep that in mind.

Definitely take his four-box strategy to heart. Do it. If you do do it, I would love for you to take a picture of that four-box strategy. You can post it on social media. You can tag myself @StaceyBrownRandall and tag Mike Kim @MikeKim. You can tag both of us. We’re on Instagram and LinkedIn and Facebook in that way. So definitely tag us if you do the box strategy and you want to post it on social media.

But if you don’t want to share it on social media, just send it to me in an email and I’ll make sure to share it with Mike as well. Okay, remember the show notes page for this episode and of course how you can connect with Mike Kim too can be found on the show notes page at StaceyBrownRandall.com/317.

We are back with another great episode next week, the final one in our summer series talking to business owners about how they solved business problems that were out of their zone of genius. So until then, you know what to do, my friend. Take control of your referrals and build a referable business. Bye for now.