Beejel Parmar: Skyrocket Productivity With AI

Michael Whitehouse: 00:00:00

Welcome back to the guy who knows a guy podcast. We're so excited to be back with you. And this season we are counting down to J V connect the first of its kind, December 12th to 14th, 2023. This is going to be an incredible dedicated networking event, and you are going to want to be part of it. And this podcast here to help prepare you to get the most out of this incredible event. I'm Michael Whitehouse, the guy who knows a guy. And over the next few weeks, you're going to get to hear from some of the best people in the industry about networking. As well as some solo training from me. So be sure to join us on December 12th to 14th for JV Connect. And now, let's get to the interview. Welcome once again to the guy who knows a guy podcast. I'm your host Michael Whitehouse. The guy who knows a guy himself and the guy we are meeting today is Beejel Parmar. After reading the book The 4 Hour Workweek, Beejel hired three virtual assistants and started his first VA business. Several weeks later, he started working with a call center and over the next 10 years helped grow that business from 100 to over 500 VAs. In 2019, he started his third VA business, this time pioneering a unique home based VA model. Today, clients around the world delegate their busy work to his team of VAs. Fast forward, today, time challenged professionals and entrepreneurs look To Beejel's unique AI trained VA human services supported by virtual AI advisors and his vital action priority planning audience productivity program to boost efficiency, productivity and profits. Audiences globally have been entertained by his costume presentations and inspired by his story of how Bejal and his family. Had to leave the U S in 2010 and how they embarked on a five year travel work, global schooling adventure. To date, Bajal has spoken on stage in eight countries and has asked to speak at workshops, masterminds, networking groups, and at least once on the guy who knows the guy podcast. Welcome. Bajal. Well, thank you so much for having me. So tell us a bit about this. So that also had a very futuristic and techno Babley AI trained VA human services supported by virtual AI advisors.

Beejel Parmar: 00:02:04

Yeah. Great. Well, thank you. First of all, thank you so much for having me on the show. So up until. several months ago, right? I mean, up until really January of 2023, it was virtual assistant services. That's pretty much what we did. But then came along chat GPT and all, you know, the other 1 billion AI programs out there now that's what it seems like anyway every single day you wake up, there's something else out there. So we knew we had to start to kind of jump into this. Now what's interesting though, Michael was in the 10 years leading up to that. That momentous occasion when chat GPT hit the scene, every time I spoke, at least one person would say, Hey, no, this virtual assistant stuff is good. I'm talking about the human stuff. Right. I said, but at some point, you know, AI is going to come along and it's going to, you're going to be probably going to, you know, lose your business. I said, yeah. But not today. Right. So but you know, today has come around. Right. And so when AI kind of started coming out and we started to see what AI could do, it was like, the first thing it was like, Holy moly, you know, is this the end of our industry, but the one thing. You know, you can probably count on is that when people resist doing things, they resist doing things, right? And AI in, in many ways is another form of technology, right? There's been plenty of productivity technologies around before AI. Let's just take your classic sales funnel, right? Whether you click funnels or use go high level or whatever software you use. There are still a high number of entrepreneurs, business owners who have resisted using technology, such as a sales CRM to do the work. So that allowed us to leave. Hang on a second, just because AI has come along, it doesn't mean that they're going to terminate. We're just going to find another way for VAs and for the human kind of VAs to work with the AI type of virtual assistants, what we call virtual advisors, because they, you know, those of you listening, you can use AI, let's just call it chat, GBT or Claude to create knowledge bases about your business. And then we can train VAs, or you can guide your VA of how to use the knowledge base about your business to then create copy to create. Thank you. Email responses to create social media posts and et cetera. So by taking virtual assistants, the human kind of virtual assistants that we actually call vital assistants, right? Training them to work with AI. Now you've got more bang for your buck. You can take a 5, 6 per hour VA. They can start leveraging technology and the value. They can put back into your business. It's far greater than what they could ever do up until recently. So that's how we end up with basically VA trained. Assistance.

Michael Whitehouse: 00:04:45

That's powerful. And I, I like the concept there. Cause I think we often think that, well, you know, if I need a hundred hours of work done and it costs me 5 an hour offshore and it can be done in 10 hours now, well, now I'm only going to spend 50. Whereas instead, I think a lot of business owners think, well, if I'm willing to spend 500. and it can be done for 50, what can I do with the other 450 to get 10 times the results? Because why would you say, Oh, look, I can make all the money I need till I'm done. That's not how business works.

Beejel Parmar: 00:05:17

Yeah. And it's not just the quantity of work. It's the quality of work. But before, like, you know, I had my VAs would write, you know, manage my emails you know, to clients. So that has to kind of, I'd have to write templates and spend hours writing templates and often have to write the messages for the VAs. So the English quality was better. Now they just take what they want to reply. They run it through chat GPT and say, Hey, chat GPT, please improve the quality of this email, blah, blah. And they, they, they send now responses, which are, you know, better than what they could have done without the technology.

Michael Whitehouse: 00:05:47

Yeah. And, and still the entrepreneur is better off not touching it because as soon as you have to touch it, now you're engaging your brain to it. And it's one more tab open in your head, whether chat, GPT can do it in two minutes or it takes 20 minutes. It's still an action that you need to take. So that's, that's very powerful. So this is of course the guy knows the guy podcast where we talk about networking this particular season here in season six. So tell me about how networking has helped you grow this business. Yeah.

Beejel Parmar: 00:06:15

Well up until really recently, I mean, 95 percent of my client base came from referrals and that referral network came from networking and building relationships. So, you know, I don't think I'd be here if it wasn't for the networking part of what we've been doing, but it's not just the networking part is what happens. After you've gone to a networking event or whether it be online or offline, and that's really where the VA's come in helpful, right? Well, most people kind of go home. I would say most people, I don't assume that anyone listening falls into most people, but from my experience, most people spend a lot of time. Those who are the professional networkers, they go network events. They, they exchange business cards. They collect business cards. What happens next is where it gets interesting, right? So one of three scenarios, one, they're using their valuable time doing the followup. Right. So they, they go home, then to the cards, into a database, they do some follow up, usually once or twice. Number two, they don't do anything. They're resisting doing any post networking things, and maybe living in the hope that somebody is going to pick up their business card and call them back and, you know, they're going to, that's, what's going to, that's going to be helpful. So these two scenarios exist, right? So one is what are we spending our time on post? Networking or two, what are we not doing? What are we resisting doing post networking? Now with these two sets of ideas, you can now say, wait, well, how could a virtual human assistant help me with this? Right? So one way is you can be out there networking. Someone gives you a business card or you take that information down, take a scan of that card or take a photograph and it goes straight to your VA. They enter it onto a database. They trigger the first email to go out. They. Look for that person on social media and make the connections. And if you, if you set up correctly, they can pretty much do everything that, you know, to get them now onto a phone call with you, to, to book a call with you, whatever, whatever that, you know, whatever your follow up is now, what everybody should be doing, you know is. Using a sales CRM with multiple stages of the follow up process, right? So turning how to turn from a, from a lead or a connection to a prospect, to a phone call. To an opportunity to a referral partner or whatever happens. Right. So obviously that, that, that sequence of events is very unique to each business, but it also is kind of the hustle, right? It's kind of like, you've got to log into your, to your sales CRM. You've got to do all this work. You've got to track these people. You've got to show that could literally be done by a VA. Right now we know, well, the experts tell us the fortune is in the follow up. Right. Every networking event I've been to, there's some form of that phrase. The fortune is in the followup. And I'm not speaking for anybody who's watching, but I'm speaking for myself. I suck at followup. I suck at followup. My VA on the other hand, pretty damn good, right? Because they don't have any resistance to doing it. That's their job. So they do the followup and they remind me, Hey, you have to call Michael, right? Michael, reach out to you. Michael opted in to your two thing. Have you followed up with him? And I can say, Hey, what was the last message I sent to Michael? Here's what you wrote to my Michael last. So here's what Michael wrote to you last. Okay, great. Hey, Michael, I just want to chat with you the last time he spoke or last time you emailed me, right? I'm not having to log into five different platforms to see where you are. My VA is managing the communication, right? They're just telling me, Hey, follow up with Michael. Here's what he sent to you last time. Now you just make a phone call to send the text or whatever you have to do. So that, that resistance taken away by my VA, taking care of the hustle.

Michael Whitehouse: 00:10:02

So, so this isn't your VA reaching out to them. This is your VA augmenting you to it.

Beejel Parmar: 00:10:09

It's a, every combination of right. Because remember it's, it's. You gotta be, you know, you gotta, you gotta make your way through the noise. I've got my VA reaching out, I've got my chatbot reaching out. I've got me reaching out, right? Like, like, so whatever it takes, Michael, right? If, if you want money in your bank account, you gotta, you gotta find a way to follow up that's gonna work for your client, right? So, so there's, you know, multiple different ways that we, that we, that we're leveraging technology, vass, and sometimes I've gotta pick up the phone too and, and, and do the work. Yeah.

Michael Whitehouse: 00:10:43

Yeah. So this is more for the sales process then. Networking and building partnerships and collaborations.

Beejel Parmar: 00:10:50

Correct. Yeah. I mean, to me, it's, it's all, you know, why network if you're not going to have a follow up sales process, right? Like it's, it's now what my VA is doing on the front end of networking is basically they're finding places for me to network. So they basically manage my networking calendar, right? So they basically manage, they look for local events, they look for online events that I might want to speak to. I've actually even sent my VAs to network for me. Just to put it in perspective, right? There's no, there's no rule that says they can't, they represent your company. Right. So, you know, larger companies don't, the CEO doesn't go to networking events. They send reps to go to networking events. Many, many BNI chapters are full of employees that go to networking events. Right. So why can't I send an employee of mine to an online networking event? They know how to rep my company. Right. So there is the pre networking research. Building up a database or when, you know, what, what events are coming up, who the who the the host of the event is going to want to make a point of, to get to know the host, what, what can they tell me about the host of the event? There is the actual networking one or two ways, you know, so during networking event, I, they can, if I, collect business cards. I can be sending the business cards to my, to my VA. I actually have my VAs go to networking events on my behalf as well. And then there's the most crucial part, in my opinion, is the post networking, right? To me is before you go to your next, one of the tips I used to give is before you go to network, your next networking event, have you dialed in your follow up process? Because to me, everything's about the value of time. If I'm willing to go to a networking event, And given that, you know, you take out, okay, the social component of it. A lot of time people go networking grants because it's also a social thing for them. But if the, you know, but if, if it's, if it's part of your business strategy to go network, do you have a good follow up strategy? If you don't, you have to really ask yourself that question. Why not? Why haven't you dialed in a follow up process? Because you're spending your time, effort and money, right? Because if you're out there networking, you're spending, you know, you're not making money doing something else. So to me, that has to be an ROI. Every time we, we, we choose to go to a networking event. And again, if we follow the rule that it's not the networking event is what happens after the networking event, that, that the rubber meets the road that, you know, that's where you want to start to integrate VA technology, AI into the process.

Michael Whitehouse: 00:13:11

Yeah, no, that sounds very powerful. And whether or not they go down the path of being a prospect or being a partner. Which, depending on the person, though, they can self identify in that, I can hear how this can be valuable. Because, you know, the thing I'm always, I'm always on the lookout for, and aware, beware of is any kind of automation that just streamlines people right into your sales funnel. And so people who meet and say, Hey, I thought we're in networking. Now you're sending me demos. You're sending me pricing. You're like, what's going on here?

Beejel Parmar: 00:13:42

I never, I never, I, so I use the permission based approach and what we do. So everything's me. Hey, can I send you, Hey, Michael, great meeting you. Can I send you more information? Right. Would you be open to me sending you more information, right? Whether it's, whether it's me, whether it's the you know, the, the VA, that's the methodology we use, right? Everything's permission based versus, Hey, Michael, great meeting you. Here's all my, all my, all my links for everything I've ever done in my whole life. Right. But yeah, it doesn't work. Right. So, so, you know, we, we just, but again, using a permission based approach, training your team to use a permission based approach. You know, if you, you, you self elect Michael, if I send you, Hey, Michael, great. It was great meeting you on the networking events, right? Hey, may I send you some more information on what I do? I believe it might be a good match for your, for your audience. You have a choice. Now you say, Hey, no, not interested. Hey, lovely to meet you, Michael. You know, if, if anything ever changes, let me know. Right.

Michael Whitehouse: 00:14:34

Yeah. That challenged a lot of network events too, is that people. People aren't thinking high enough. The letter. So I have this ninja rubric of networking. It's five levels of networking, and the first level is where you're Selling directly there. It's network prospecting. If you're looking for your customer right there in the room. The second level is you're looking for referrals to your customer one at a time. And the third level, which is non competitive partners. That's the second and a ninja is that's where you're finding people who might share your, you know, promote your master class, promote your podcast, speak on your summit. And that's where instead of trying to get a referral to a person, you're trying to get a referral to an audience, which is where the real value is. And so many people, they don't get that, you know, they, they think asking, selling through the room rather than to the room is the pinnacle of networking science, and then it realizes a whole exponential level beyond that, which is a similar sales process. You're still trying to fix established value and convince someone to buy into promoting you as opposed to buy into hiring you. But I, I can, I can hear how that. How the, the VA and the VA, and the other thing too, is it, is it frees you up to do your highest value activities, you logging into your CRM and be okay, where's that name. And, and, you know, Googling somebody before you meet them and whatnot, you could meet with twice as many people. If someone else just sent you, here's a two page summary of who you're about to meet with and everything you need to know and pictures of their dogs and their kids, and they're, they're, they're into boating, they hate golf. They like the Patriots and it's all right there. Instead of you having to go through and search at all.

Beejel Parmar: 00:16:07

Yeah, absolutely. You know, it's, it's, it's, it's the time value, right? So either you're getting, you're winning time back for your life or you're winning time back for the highest and best use of your time in the business.

Michael Whitehouse: 00:16:18

Yeah. Yeah. It sounds And, and yeah, I'm thinking too about like if you were to meet with some, you know, big CEO, big company or, or someone higher up in business, they'd have an assistant who is doing this research. And so you sit down with them and, and they're like, you know, how's your, how's your daughter doing in school? She's nine. Right. And you're like, wait, how'd you know that? I did research, but they didn't do research. They're too busy for that. They have an assistant who does that. But entrepreneurs traditionally can't afford a research assistant. Who's going to be able to do that stuff.

Beejel Parmar: 00:16:48

Yeah, and when we designed this the irony of this conversation, well, not the irony, but the coincidence of the conversation Michael was when I first set out to create this third business, I was actually only going to focus the services on the follow up because for me personally, I probably I've lost millions, probably not having a good follow up system, a post meeting someone system. Right. It wasn't always networking per se. Sometimes it was going to a workshop and you intended to follow up, had a great conversation with somebody. You know, and then you. Get back to life and you forget. Right. So the, the original name of the company was actually called follow upsters, right, where there was basically just based on following up from the moments, but because people kept coming to us with other tasks, but the one thing I didn't want to do was basically create a very different model for the industry, because I think, you know, a lot of people say, well, I can't afford a VA. Right. That's one of the big things. Well, I can't really afford a VA as well. Can you, can you afford a cup of coffee? Right. And I said, well, of course I can. No, six, five, six bucks. I mean, I want to pay five, six bucks for a cup of coffee, but I've done it. I was like, wait, what if we can make it possible that, you know, for around five or six bucks, you can have a VA, you know, and five, six bucks per day, you can have a VA. It's like, wait a second. How is it possible for a human being to work for me for the whole day? I said, no, no, they don't need to work for you for the whole day. Think of one or two things a VA could do for you on a daily basis that would move the needle in your business, right? Can you afford around a couple hundred bucks for somebody to do something that you are not doing, or that you hate doing, or it's not the best use of your time, is that time, you know, is it worth getting that time back from you? Or is it worth that person doing that thing? So since we're talking about networking, let's just use that example, right? If all of VA did. Let's check in daily and help you manage your follow up and your sales CRM. Like, you know, where your prospects are sitting in the sales cycle. Could it move the needle in your business? I'm going to say, based on my experience, 95 percent of the time, yes, it can. Right. So you've got somebody that only job. It's to basically help you manage your sales CRM system and do the follow up for you, right. Or hold you accountable to do the follow up, right. One of the two scenarios, it's going to be a game changer. Almost every single person is going to benefit. Now that's just one way, you know, you start thinking about using a VA differently, but specifically in, in context of thing. So how do we do that? Well, you know, we pioneered what we call a, a, a no markup fee. Direct pay no contract model, where if you wanted the VA, Michael, just kind of hypothetical example here, I'll say, great, Michael, we have a, you know, just a very nominal setup fee, but here's, what's going to work. You're going to pay me a membership fee. We've all paid membership fees for courses. Often causes we don't go through, but now I want you to pay a membership fee. We call it support fee, but you're going to have access to one VA. Now that one VA, you're going to pay directly. So however many hours that VA is going to do, whether it's one hour per day, two hours per day, you're going to pay that VA directly. The reason we do that is I don't want you to feel that we are doing a big markup on a VA. Also, it's very transparent. You know how much the VA is making and the VA doesn't feel that we're taking money out of their pocket. Right. So by keeping these payments separately, we've created a very different culture and approach to the industry, right? People said it can't be done that, you know, your, your clients will steal the VAs. I said, well, hang on a second. The clients don't need to steal the VAs. The VA, the paying the VA directly anyway, right? So why still the VA there's no benefit to that, but what the client and the VA needs is that ongoing support that we, that we provide and we provide ongoing training, but we, so much, we have a kind of a support training and coaching program for the VAs that coaches them on how to improve the relationship with the clients, communication, obviously got. The AI training that we've done recently. So this new culture or this new community based approach to running a VA business is what we pioneered. And the VA's happened to be one city in Davao in the Philippines. We're going to be building up more. So about every three, four months, I pay for them to get together. So they still feel that community based approach, even though individually they're working for different clients, they still feel part of something bigger that we call the happy hive. Yeah, that's great.

Michael Whitehouse: 00:21:03

And, and yeah, I've always had that, that concept of like, oh, they're, they're going to steal, like, you think a bunch of entrepreneurs who couldn't find their own VAs and didn't use them before are suddenly going to become VA managers. There's a reason they don't have VAs. The reason I don't have an offshore VA is I don't want to, I don't know where to find one. I don't know how to manage them. I have to tell them everything you need to do. I'd have set up all their systems. And if I could do all that, I wouldn't need a VA. So, yeah, it's fine. You know, one of the services I offer is a done for you email service. And you know, I don't do the rest of marketing, but my, I've had great success with email. And so now I'm offering to do that for clients. And I worked with one marketing agency. Who's like, okay, yes, you're not going to talk to my clients. I'll talk to my clients. Cause you know, you gotta sign this, this this non compete, you're not stealing. Like, what would I do with your client? What would I do with them? Like I'd get an extra 50 bucks or whatever your override is. And then what? I don't make websites. I don't do social media. I don't do any of the stuff you do. What would I do with your client? I don't want to steal them. I just want to offer the service I offer to them. And there's so much. Paranoia and scarcity out there in, in business, unfortunately. Yeah.

Beejel Parmar: 00:22:13

So yeah, to kind of circle back around. So, you know, for folks who are out there networking, you know, there's probably a lot of admin, you know, pre during post that have you can support a client with, right. And it's, again, it's just one. microcosm of a business that we can help with, but it's an important one, right? I mean, networking is, for many people, it's a lifeline of leads for them. But again, what we're talking about is how do we optimize that? How do we make the most of that and take the, the, the, give the, the, the hassle and the hustle. Of what, what, what is involved in networking to somebody else who can support you with that. And here's the thing when they can almost become your accountability partner, right? Because there are things we have to do post networking and, you know, your VA can meet with you daily and say, Hey, Michael you know, what's your post networking follow up? Who are you going to follow up with today? And you, it forces you to think about. Okay. What, who did I meet last night? Who do I want to follow up with? You know and, and, and give those answers to your VA. And they say, great, thanks for letting me know, Michael. Let me know if you get it done. Right. So you can turn a, you can turn a 5 per hour VA into an accountability partner. And I just used, I used networking example, but it could be for anything in business. Right. Then the answer to the question, Michael, what are the three critical things we call the vital, the three vital things that you are going to commit to doing for your business today? This is very different from your signing work. This is, this is a 5 Bravo VA asking you a question and you say, I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to do this, this, and this today. Great. The next day, they're gonna check in with you. Hey, Michael, did you get those three, those three things done? You'd have to say, no, I didn't. Now it's not really relevant to them if you did or not, but it is relevant to you. I would say it's irrelevant to future you, right? When you're out, when you're out networking today, the beneficiary of that is a future version of you. But if you don't do the real activity that follows networking, future version of you is like. What the hell, Michael, why did you go? Why did you spend three hours out there networking if you're not going to do the work to follow up with those folks?

Michael Whitehouse: 00:24:23

Yep. So, so if you had a, a, so one application I'm thinking of is sometimes I'll be, you know, out driving or something and this idea will pop in my head of like, oh, I should do this. And if I'm doing this, I should do this, this and this. And I can take a note, but then do I check the note? I do not. Because that's how it works. You take the note the next day, you're not excited anymore and you forget about it. Is, is an application of this, like you'd have your VA on Slack or WhatsApp or whatnot, and then you shoot the message, be like, make a note. I, you know, I, I had a crazy idea today and, you know, hashtag crazy idea. Maybe I'll do this. Maybe I won't, but it's this, it has these keys and these reactions apps. If I'm going to do it, check on me on Tuesday to see about it.

Beejel Parmar: 00:25:03

Yeah, exactly. Right. Cause the one thing that we typically are very comfortable using is some form of messaging app, whether it's WhatsApp or whatever it is. So you just, you just basically, you know, it's almost like a note to self, a note to VA, Hey, add this idea to my ideas list and let's, let's review it or, you know, make sure I review it, review it with the team tomorrow, whatever. And the VA puts it into your task management system or your project management system, or wherever you're managing your, what, what you're doing. And then now, now it's captured, right? Same, same for networking, right? You could just leave a voice note. Hey you know, Hey, Michelle got this quick idea. Want to blah, blah, blah, right? Now the voice note goes to your VA. They log it, they transcribe it. And now it's, you've, you've captured it.

Michael Whitehouse: 00:25:42

And so they work at like an ad from nine to 10 every day they work. They just check for all the notes from the last day, log them all, respond to them all.

Beejel Parmar: 00:25:51

Exactly. Yeah. My, my, most of my team work the same hours, same working hours as most of my most, most of the clients. They typically, that's kind of a, you know, somewhere between the hours of 7 AM and say, you know, 5 PM or some, some, somewhere in there, depending on the client, the client gets to pick. And you know, sometimes the VA's work. After our work hours, because that's when the clients want them to work. So just, it varies, but generally speaking, I encourage clients to have the VA's work in their time zone because I, you know, even though they're overseas workers, I want clients to think of them as team members. And as a team members, I want clients to meet with them for a five minute check in daily and, and ask them the three questions. Great VA. What did you get done last 24 hours? Right. What are you working on next 24 hours? Because even though we've assigned work, we often need the reminder of what is my VA doing? How is my VA benefiting my company? And the third question, which probably the most important question is what do you need from me to do your work better? And that's a really important question because sometimes the VAs do work. They, they need feedback from the client. If what they've done is correct is in alignment with the client's requirements. And that simple five minute meeting, 10 minute meeting can be a game changer for most people's businesses.

Michael Whitehouse: 00:27:05

Yeah. It sounds I'm, I'm having a lot of thoughts about, and the coolest thing I'm thinking about is, is that research assistant concept, because, you know, if you're a big shot, like I I'm just imagining. And I don't even know if it would have a practical effect. I'm just thinking about how cool it would be to have someone who checked my calendar every day and sent me a report that said, here's who you're meeting with today. Here's what you need to know about them. Here's, and then of course you tie it to a CRM. Here's what we know, you know, you last spoke to them 14 days ago. And this is what you talk to them about and a reminder that they, you know, they hate football. So never say the word football out loud. And you know, he loves yellow and bees, which I need to ask you about. And, you know, you know, all that stuff. So, so you're walking into the meeting. I mean, I use automation some degree when I do a networking call, they ask, they answer a number of questions. So I'm not going cold and people are like, wow, you're so organized. I'm like, no, I just made you answer questions before you booked a call. But this is like next level from that going to an actual potentially a short report on both in background information and then also objectives for the meeting. So. You're, you're not coming out of the meeting and be like, all right, well, that was great. Yeah. So yeah, thanks. Yes, this seems, this seems really powerful. And so, so what is it with the yellow and the bees that's realized that you're sure it has actually be on it.

Beejel Parmar: 00:28:28

Right, right. After my 50th birthday, I can't give my, my age away, away right now. But in 2019 I picked up a book on business management, how to actually run an organization, larger organizations based on the wisdom. Of what this person learned from studying bees and beehives. So I read through the book and said, this is, this is great. And at the time I had no connection to bees other than the fact that bee, the bee is in my name. I thought, wow, this is a great concept. So I started thinking more about this, this idea of bees. And I said, well, can I apply these same principles to helping entrepreneurs? Anyway. That led to a whole kind of journey of then adopting the bee as a symbol of productivity. A bee is a symbol of, you know, you're, you're the beekeeper in the protective suit. That protective white suit becomes your protection from busy work. The bees are out there doing all the busy work, getting things done. Right. And the bees organize themselves amazingly in the hive, right? Every bee has a unique purpose. Every bee contributes to the community, to the hive and bees ultimately serve humanity. So as I say, that in some ways we entrepreneurs need to be a bit more bee like we serve our unique purpose. We serve the hive, the community, and we serve humanity, but bees are efficient. They're super productive. They communicate well with each other. They are you know, they, they get up, they don't complain. They just get out there and do their work. So there's a many, there are many attributes to what the behavior of bees that entrepreneurs can actually learn from. And that's probably, you know, probably a subject of one of my books coming out, which is basically how we can learn to be productive and efficient based on nature and what we can learn from bees. Awesome.

Michael Whitehouse: 00:30:05

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I can see why you put the whole bee theme. That's pretty powerful what you do. And one thing some people may be, may be asking, so we're talking about, about you know, a cup of coffee worth of money is the hourly rate that we're, that, that these VA's are being paid. And so some people may, may think, well, is that fair for us rich Americans, Europeans to be taking advantage of people by only paying them 5 an hour? And so, so what would you say about that?

Beejel Parmar: 00:30:35

Well, first they need to go, go study what the out, what the average income is in those countries before making statements, right? For the, first of all, the VAs get to set their own rates actually. So I don't set the rates. I teach the VAs how to come up with a rate that they feel is fair for them. Now, most agencies have a two to five times markup. So many agencies and these agencies are supporting businesses that might be actually servicing your household right now. I'm talking about fortune 500 companies and talk about many of the technology companies that you interface with. They're probably going through an agency and those agencies are probably paying 1, 52 to VAs, those very same VAs come out of those agencies. They come to me and we show them how to make five, 6 per hour, three times what they were making before right now. So that's number one. So first of all, our VAs get set their own rate. So then because they set their own rate, I don't have to really worry about that question because that's the rate that they've set based on their economy, their services, their, to be able to be competitive. So that, that's the answer.

Michael Whitehouse: 00:31:40

Interesting. Yeah. So, so we're, we're leveraging the fact that they have a, and what countries are we talking about?

Beejel Parmar: 00:31:47

Well, my primary team is in the Philippines. I do have some team members who are a little bit higher skilled in South Africa. I have some tech tech people in, in India, but my primary business is basically VAs in the Philippines as of today.

Michael Whitehouse: 00:31:59

So, so we're leveraging the fact that the cost of living taxes, car insurance, food, rent, housing is that much lower in the Philippines and South Africa and India. And and so basically when we pay them, we're not paying American rents and American. Car taxes and American food prices to support them.

Beejel Parmar: 00:32:19

Exactly. Yeah. And, you know, and like again, some of the team members in South Africa that range from 15 to 20 per hour. Right. So it depends, you know, but the thing, the client has to come to me and say, Hey, here's my budget, here's what I'm willing to spend per hour for this type of task, it's a great, you know, let's, let's see what we can find for you. So we're, we're more like a matchmaker. We don't, we don't, you know, try and fit your round hole in the square peg. You say, Hey, this is what I need. I need a VA that can help me with this. This is what I'm comfortable paying per hour. Now, the minimum we allow is 5. Some VAs are six, some are seven with more experience. But if someone says, Hey, I need, I need a VA for this role. So yeah, that's typically a 5 per hour role, 6 per hour role. And then when you get to meet with the VA and interview them, you know, you let us know, are you comfortable paying that to the VA based on their experience? That makes sense.

Michael Whitehouse: 00:33:09

And what's the, the entry points? I'm sure some people are thinking, I've seen some VA services that start at 500, 1, 000 a month, 2, 000 a month. What's the entry point?

Beejel Parmar: 00:33:19

Yeah, good, great question, Michael. So we have a, we have a one time setup fee, which is 397. We do and from then they can have the VA as little as one hour per day. The average client has a VA between two to four hours per day. And some, some of them have even two, two, two, three VAs because the work is so varied. Right. But generally speaking, majority of the clients have a VA once, two hours per day. So that's about 10 bucks per day, 20, 20 days, 20 working days in a month. So you're about 200 for the VA. Our support fee for that is around 79 per month. That's, that's, you're at 279. So, you know, that's, you know, most people are paying for courses way more than that.

Michael Whitehouse: 00:34:00

Wow. That's, that's great. It's. It's a very accessible entry point to get a lot of value and then it sounds like the other value you provide and like where that's seventy nine dollars That's wondering how you made your money, but I assume it's seventy nine dollars Yeah that seems like a very very highly leveraged expenditure because if I just Went to the philippines and hired a va which I don't even know how I do But if I was to go find i'm sure I could find one I'm the guy who knows the guy I probably know someone can help me but if I just go hire one myself Now what like now I got a va awesome What do, boss?

Beejel Parmar: 00:34:32

Something useful, please. Yeah, exactly. You know, we, we, we have a whole management team in place. So basically, you know, the client has any, any issues. The VA doesn't, doesn't shop to report for work on time. You know, the VA is like, how do I create an invoice? How do I manage this? So we provide the ongoing support, you know, where the team's reachable as the management team, I'm usually reachable, you know as well, you know, we're still a boutique company. But more importantly, you know, that with that 79 per month that we get we are able to support the VAs, right. So we're able to provide support for them. Ongoing training. Like when chat GPT came out, we created a training program. If they, if they have an issue with the client, right. So if they have an issue with the client, they can come to us and say, the client spoke to me like this. They, they asked me to do this. I have no idea what they're talking about. So we can help, we can jump in and support. VA to client issues or client to VA issues. You know, so we're there as a support system. If the VA doesn't show up on time or they stop asking the phones, we can reach out to the VA via text locally. And you know, if we never had to do it, but you can even send somebody to go and check in on them in person. Right. So, you know, just, is it intangible? Is it, it's a nominal fee? That's why we designed like that. That allows us to provide this way higher level of support to the VAs.

Michael Whitehouse: 00:35:49

Yeah, that sounds really powerful. Well, this, this sounds, this is gonna be a lot to think about and possibly given the listeners a lot to think about as well. So if, if they are thinking about this saying, well, that seems really interesting. How would they get in touch with you?

Beejel Parmar: 00:36:02

Well, just, they just need to go to B B Epic outsourcing, right? So the, the, the B is the, the symbol of productivity. Epic means being efficient. Being productive, being intentional and being completional. And outsourcing is what we do. So BeEpicOutsourcing. com, there's a couple of videos there for you to watch that goes over our pricing, everything I talked about, and if we're a good match for you, then, you know, let's shake hands and do something together.

Michael Whitehouse: 00:36:28

Fantastic. And if you're typing that in and you're, if you're listening to this, there are three E's in a row. It is B E E E P I C outsourcing, Be Epic Outsourcing. Well, this has been. Fascinating. And and probably we talked about having you on the podcast, like, okay, well, this is more about networking. And you said, yeah, how about this, this, this, and this? I'm like, okay. Yeah. It's about networking. Let's get you on here. So and I'm glad I had John cause that's why I love, love hosting podcasts. Never know what I'm going to learn and what I'm going to discover and. So I'm glad I'm relaunching the season. So thank you so much for being on the show. Is there anything I didn't ask that I should have that you want to mention?

Beejel Parmar: 00:37:04

No, you asked me a great bunch of great questions. I really truly appreciate you having me on the show, Michael.

Michael Whitehouse: 00:37:08

All right, fantastic.

Beejel Parmar: 00:37:09

Thank you. All right. Bye for now.

Michael Whitehouse: 00:37:12

Thank you for joining us for the Guy Who Knows A Guy podcast. I'm Michael Whitehouse, the guy who knows the guy. And I hope you'll join us in December from the 12th to the 14th for JV Connect. Go to guywhoknowsaguy. com for more details. Now, if it's after December 2023 and you're listening to this. It's okay, because we're going to be doing this event every quarter. So go to GuyWhoKnowsAGuy. com, see what's new, see what's happening, and of course check the show notes to learn about our guests and how you can get in touch with them. Check out our next episode for more great training, information, and networking tips from Michael Whitehouse, the Guy Who Knows a Guy.