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Speech Transcript

Unknown Speaker  0:00  

Hey everyone this is Daniel Ramsay with my out desk and if you really want to learn how to level up your life you should be listened to time to shine today podcast with my good friend Scott Ferguson

Unknown Speaker  0:10  

time to shine today pockets varsity squad it is Scott Ferguson and I have a super exciting interview for you today. It’s a company that I’ve used in the past and I’m actually going to start using them again. It’s my out desk and I tracked down and got the founder of it Daniel Ramsay who I immensely respect to come on and give me 30 minutes of his time. And he’s a company that likes to save people time. So for him to come on, and basically gift me time and you time. It’s just so exciting. I’m not going to really say too much you have to listen to the knowledge nuggets that Daniel drops, which will help you free up more time, get that time back so you can spend it on things that matter not just with work but with family and friends and community. So without further ado, sit back relax, break out your notebooks, because here comes my really good friend Daniel Ramsay from my out desk.

Unknown Speaker  1:13  

To shine today varsity squatted is Scott Ferguson and I’ve been kind of like lack of a better term waiting with bated breath for this interview because this guy helps you free up time and lets you lead Okay, people out there know I’m a real estate agent and we know that we should be prospecting, listing selling, negotiating and closing. We should not be writing, marketing we should not be answering phones we should not be doing all those menial tasks not to say that the people doing them are menial. But for you to grow your business you must have somebody like my good friend Daniel Ramsay from my out desk. Know Daniel Ramsay is the founder and CEO of my out desk, the highest rated virtual staffing company in the marketplace with over I believe it’s more like 605 star reviews, and over 13 years of experience serving more than 6000 clients across industries. And again, I’m super privy to get 1520 minutes of this man’s time because he’s busy helping others stay busy. So Daniel, welcome to time to shine today. Please introduce yourself to the time to shine today varsity squad. But first, what’s your favorite color? And why? Blue

Unknown Speaker  2:19  

and I’m wearing the color right now on your listening. You can’t see it but blue. You know why? I don’t know. It’s just I’ve always been attracted to it. And even as a small child, I was like blue, blue, blue. Yeah. And so I’m in. I’m not going to tell your audience my age, but I’m above 40 years old. And blue is still my my color. Yeah, it’s my color. It’s my color.

Unknown Speaker  2:42  

I love it, man. I love it. And it’s funny you say but I mean, it’s mine too. And I got the I’m literally looking at the Atlantic Ocean right now. And it’s got this nice shade of blue because it’s beautiful here. So yes, get the origins man like what was your fork in the road moment kind of thing to start something that has helped so many people free up time to really work on their craft.

Unknown Speaker  3:03  

Yeah, you know, it’s funny because I I always like to tell a story because I’m on my honeymoon. I’m in Guatemala. I’ve just married my wife. We’re, we’re expecting our third child right now. And so it’s worked out right. 10 years later, we’re still there. It’s worked out. But we’re in Guatemala, where to Francis Ford Coppola resort. Now. Francis Ford Coppola, he, you know, yeah, he’s a he’s a little bit of crazy guy. But he makes these amazing resorts. So we’re in bungalows, they’re in the trees. There’s monkeys everywhere. And it’s gorgeous. And I’m, I find myself at one in the morning, literally on a laptop at the bar working on my honeymoon. And what happened was the bartender actually who had gotten to know us, after a couple of days, started making fun of me in Spanish. He takes my phone snaps a photo of me with a beer, candles, I’m working by candle light, literally on my honeymoon. Earlier that day, we’d swam under ground through a cave and like hiked a mile into like, so we had this amazing, you know, breathtaking moment in the jungle. And there I was at one o’clock in the morning working. So that bartender starts making fun of me takes a picture. And I realized at that moment, I wanted to actually stay married. I wanted to one day have kids. And what I done like many entrepreneurs is I’ve I basically bought myself a job. And then I was helicopter delegating, and I hadn’t built the systems and processes that I now understand grow actual business. And so you know, in that moment, I knew something had to change.

Unknown Speaker  4:46  

What What was your profession if you don’t mind sharing at that time?

Unknown Speaker  4:48  

I’m a real estate guy. I like a developer contractor, mortgage licensed broker, I was building at that moment. I was building properties in California to to resell. And I was working on a deal. And it was just, you know, it was just a moment in my life where I was like, I can’t even have a vacation. Right? Right. What kind of a business is this? You know, like and that and what I’ve found now, after helping 6000 different businesses, is that a normal experience? Sure, you know, and so we rapidly built my out desk, I discovered the power of this virtual assistant thing. And basically, if you think about it like this, a can of soda in the US cost two bucks, if you go buy it at a restaurant, right? That same can of soda is 25 to 50 cents in the Philippines, which is where we operate. So you know, everything’s a quarter of the cost. So why wouldn’t you hire a smart, educated, you know, really wants it kind of person to help you build your business for a quarter of the cost. And that’s exactly what we did.

Unknown Speaker  5:56  

And I love that because I think when I got my first bill, or when I first when I was with my desk with full disclosure, I was the as before, I think it was like 18,000, pp, PHP, or something like that? Yeah, I’ve come to like 500 bucks a month. And they did like so much for me. So what you guys have is fantastic. So what do you think entrepreneurs biggest blind spots are?

Unknown Speaker  6:20  

Well, you know, whether they’re entrepreneurs or not, the biggest blind spots we have is, if you’re really passionate about growing a business, if you’re really passionate about, like helping clients, there’s some steps that you have to do that really matter. Number one is have a good vision for your life, like who I want to be. In that moment, as in in the bar, I knew I didn’t want to be this, right. So I had a pain situation. And then I created a vision for my future, I was like, I want to be able to take a vacation, I want to be not the only one, able and capable of doing this. So number one, really get clear about your vision, have passion around it and do it. Number two, is realize that time is our most valuable asset. So time is your most valuable asset. I can’t tell you how many people entrepreneurs who are worth millions of dollars, hundreds of millions, they all say the same thing. I didn’t understand the value of my time, right, early enough. And so I did a lot of things that I shouldn’t have done. And so in our world, if, you know, if it’s a $15 an hour task, and you’re a leader, CEO, a C suite, person, entrepreneur, guess what you’re worth hundreds, if not 1000s of dollars an hour stop doing those $15 an hour tasks. Absolutely. That that’s probably number two.

Unknown Speaker  7:39  

Awesome. And so what did your wife and family think about the choice are really kind of going all in on my out desk, while you were flipping or you know, rehab and flip or whatever you were doing in the real estate sale side, real estate side of things with your family think about really going in all in and my God.

Unknown Speaker  7:59  

It’s so interesting. I remember I’ve got to cool moments. I’m I’m at a family dinner, and my father in law is there, my whole family’s there. And I think it’s Easter and you know, I get a cell phone call. And I take a say excuse me guys, I take the call. I come back and my father in law is like, geez, Daniel, what are you doing? Why are you you know, and I was like, I looked at him and just straight face said, Look, if I don’t answer my phone, somebody else will. And that was my mindset back then. Right? That was my mindset. And I remember my wife coming home one day, and she’s like, Oh, my gosh, we got so much money in your in our bank account. I’m like, I know, right? I’m awesome. And she’s like, yeah, you’re awesome. And then the next day, she comes home, and she’s panicked. And she’s like, where’d all that money go?

Unknown Speaker  8:44  

And so it’s

Unknown Speaker  8:47  

these ebbs and flows of cash flow, you know, you you sell something and you get something and then you reinvest it back in your business. So, yeah, my family thinks I’m crazy. And I love it. And I love serving other people who are crazy. I mean, when entrepreneurs come and say, I have an idea, I have a barrier, I have a need. That’s when like, our entire business is focused around removing obstacles for entrepreneurs, and finding opportunity for them to get some of their time back.

Unknown Speaker  9:18  

Wow. So forgive me, I’m writing that down. So removing obstacles in getting that time back. Okay. Awesome. Awesome. So, what keeps you up at night then now that you’ve really built this into a platform that’s successful, and like what right now keeps Daniel up at night?

Unknown Speaker  9:36  

It’s interesting. I sleep really good. So not a lot. Yeah, not a lot. But I mean, if the question is what what concerns me so we’re in the process of scaling, you know, we’re, there’s, there’s multiple and I wrote a book and I’m gonna give it away to your audience, but there’s, they’re these three different kind of levels. Right? I do it. We do it. They do it. We cross the they do it several years ago. There’s these barriers and growing and scaling a business. I’m all focused on how do you grow and scale? And what does that look like? And how can you win as an entrepreneur? Right. And so, you know, when the first race is to get to a million dollars, the next race is to get to $10 million. Once you get to $10 million, you can afford higher level leadership, you can afford better tech stacks, you can afford better, you know, lead generation platforms. There’s some opportunities, once you pass that million dollar and $10 million. Well, the next barrier is 50 million. Once you get to 50 million, oh, my goodness, now you now you have the whole world. So we’re in that path of scaling to 50 million right now. And so what keeps me up is, how do I serve our clients at a higher level? How do I make more impact in their lives? How do we give back? How do we make our company the gold standard in the industry?

Unknown Speaker  10:52  

Gotcha, what are you doing to make that happened?

Unknown Speaker  10:55  

I love it. One of the things that we’re really, really focused on right now is how we serve our customers and what their experience is after and before the placement. So, for instance, I talked about, you know, when entrepreneurs come to us, we help them remove obstacles, and really figure out how to buy back there time, we have a consultation that our customers come to, and they and if you bring a couple of things, it really is impactful. So if you bring who’s on your team today, what are your systems? What’s your tech stack in your business? And where you want to go, we will actually build a custom plan to to figure out, hey, who do you need to hire? And what do you need to do to actually double and grow your business. And that service is something that’s ancillary to you know, staffing, because what we do is we help people get leverage in their in their world. But what it does is it sets you on a path to really growing and scaling. And that’s what the book is dedicated to. That’s what the company is dedicated to. It’s all focused around, you know, helping our customers grow.

Unknown Speaker  11:56  

So you’re talking about scaling the prices within my out desk, work with the scaling of your business, is there different tiers of price ranges and whatnot, that people can look into when they do this consultation with you?

Unknown Speaker  12:08  

Yeah, it’s interesting, because you’d mentioned you’d been a client, I don’t know, seven or eight years ago, and we had a part time option and a full time option back then, lots of changed within the business, what we found was our part time customers, they, they, they paid less, and they were less satisfied, and they stuck around for a shorter timeframe compared to our full time customers. And so we actually changed our model four years ago, to only offer full time employees full time, virtual professionals is what we call them in really four areas. So if you think about it, it’s admin. At that time, I don’t want to do my paperwork, that’s that it that kind of sums up admin, right? Then you have sales, so somebody to prospect and kind of call people for you. And then we have marketing. So we have marketing coordinators to help you kind of design or get your message out. And then we have customer service folks, you know, answering the phones and making making inroads. Those are the four services and we are a full time staffing company now serving, you know, insurance tech craziness with this whole COVID thing or we’ve been serving

Unknown Speaker  13:16  

them killing it.

Unknown Speaker  13:18  

Well, biotech, biotech biotech companies who are doing testing right now for COVID. They’re some of our largest, you know, clients right now, because there’s so much volume going on. But yeah, we’re just we’re, we’re highly focused right now on making sure the client is winning with us and crafting plans to help them get to their dreams.

Unknown Speaker  13:39  

I’ve always wanted to ask you this, Daniel, how do you how do you get around the the vet the people out for the language barrier? Because, you know, for me, I was actually born in the Philippines. I’m half Filipino, believe it or not, I’m Filipino. I was born in 1972, in the Philippines, right during the break, or got adopted into an American family. But like, you know, the last thing I want to do is when I’m talking to somebody is not being able to have that communication with you guys do to vet that language barrier, brother?

Unknown Speaker  14:04  

Yeah, it’s a great question. Every year, we have over 20,000 applicants that apply to a job for my out desk in the Philippines. It’s kind of nuts, actually how many people apply. But we go through a process man, and I keep hammering this process process is the thing that grows and scales of business. And when people are like, well, it’s not working. I’m like, well, what’s your process? Right? And so our process to get really good talent, you know, there’s 180 steps. I mean, it’s nuts really have to Oh, it is it is it’s crazy. People in the Philippines are like, I don’t want to do all that sound like I know. I don’t either, but that’s what we have to do. But you know, I mean, to answer your original question, I mean, we do to face to face interviews.

Unknown Speaker  14:47  

Got it. So,

Unknown Speaker  14:48  

I mean, like, you and I are right now on zoom. We conduct hundreds of those interviews every single day and and we just simply don’t hire people that don’t have great communication. Love that I

Unknown Speaker  15:00  

always wanted to ask you that man for the year, the person I had was awesome. I was wonder about other people, you know. So you saw Back to the Future, right? We’ve all thought from our generation. So yes, getting that DeLorean with Marty McFly. Let’s go back to the 22 year old Daniel, what kind of knowledge nuggets? That’s what we call him here. Time to shine today and what kind of knowledge nuggets you drop in on Daniel, to maybe help him level up last to shorten his learning curve.

Unknown Speaker  15:24  

Yeah, man, I wish I would have hired earlier. And that sounds weird coming from a staffing guy. I mean, I thought I would build talent rather than buy talent. And at 22. I thought, okay, I’ll just train them to do it. Like I’d want to. And I just work through a process with them. And, you know, I’ll hold their hand and I tried to take people who weren’t fit for the job with the right experience. And I tried to make them into something that they weren’t. And I probably spent the first 10 years as an entrepreneur in my 20s, pounding my head against the wall saying why can’t they get it? When it was me that was the problem. So number one, I would have hired earlier, I would have spent more money on the right. You know, person, there’s this revenue rollercoaster. In business, when you’re first when you’re growing to that first plot plateau, which is a million dollars, getting to that million dollars there, there are some systematic things that have to happen, you have to focus on sales, you have to focus on customer service. And really, it’s about documenting your systems and process. And as an entrepreneur, you can’t be the only one doing that and driving revenue. So I always kind of tried to bandaid it and like hire somebody who was the cheapest and you know, not pay for the system that would have helped do it. So right back man hire great people. And everybody says they hire great people, but really great people who have experience pay more than you thought it was gonna cost. And, and and get the talent that you need to get to that million dollars at, here’s, here’s the funny thing. And you’ll like this, every CEO that I’ve ever talked to, when you ask what’s their number one problem, they say, getting talent, oh, number two, number two, retaining talent. They’re not talking about getting more deals, or they’re finding more revenue or, or expansion or building a plant. Their concern is building the team think of as entrepreneur or CEO, or C suite or leader or whatever you are, your job is the coach. And it’s to get the team that’s going to take you to the Super Bowl, not the team that can play the game. Love it.

Unknown Speaker  17:38  

You know, what I love about my desk? Is that me being in my position is that, you know, I could you know, I’m afraid sometimes to hire that talent, because I’m afraid I’m going to be competing with my town. Without my out duster, you’re never really going to compete. And that’s right, the piggyback that is their strict non disclosure. So if they work for me as a real estate agent and another real estate, they don’t share my secrets or my systems with that other agent.

Unknown Speaker  18:01  

Yeah, we have. So the way our business is set up is we’re a Delaware LLC here in the US. And in the Philippines, we’re incorporated and our people all have non disclosures, non competes all that good stuff. And as well as our clients here in the US. Nobody wants to lose their most valuable processing system to the competitor. Right. But to your earlier point, which is great. You know, you hire a virtual assistant, they’re never going to compete directly with you in that market. Right?

Unknown Speaker  18:31  

Ever. Right? So

Unknown Speaker  18:33  

it’s kind of a cool, it’s kind of Yeah,

Unknown Speaker  18:36  

so how do you want your dash remembered Daniel, that little line between your incarnation date and your expiration date, your life and death date? How do you want Daniels dash remembered?

Unknown Speaker  18:46  

Well, something that we’ve we’ve done recently, and I say recently in like the last five years, right? The longer your company exists, the more recent and past is weird, but we we’ve always given back to our community, you know, in California, Sacramento, as well as in the Philippines. And so, you know, about five years ago, we started giving back in a real way. We’ve since created a charity where our customers and our virtual professionals are making impact so that that for me is easy. I’m in service of our clients, I’m in service our of our virtual professionals and through our charity, I help enable our clients and our virtual professionals to make impact in the world. And that is how I’ll be remembered.

Unknown Speaker  19:32  

I love that I love it. So what is Daniel’s definition of a life well lived?

Unknown Speaker  19:39  

You know, I’m not a balanced guy. I do I do things crazy. Like I’m a wrestling coach. I play soccer. I’ve got two little girls and a third girl on the way I’m surrounded by girls by the way at my home I think that’s probably in the plan right? Um, but yeah, I don’t do anything. You know, we’ve got we’ve got more than two months of occasion this year I have really big goals in terms of making passive income or making investments where those investments pay us back we have huge growth goals for the company as well as as so I’m a big you know, go all in play fun, do the things that matter and you know, maybe even going back to my earlier self I would have another nugget that I would have told myself because I feel like there’s another one in here is focus. You know, as an early entrepreneur I had like a lot of fires and a lot of irons everywhere and now we’re very clear like my one baby is my out test my one thing is loving on our people our clients and then you know, I have my life where my one thing is loving on my my family.

Unknown Speaker  20:45  

Yeah, no, I love that you You said that because your your prove it every day with what you’re doing to level up your company. So as we wind things down here just a little bit Daniel, I got a leveling up lightning round as five or six questions. Zero explanations. All right, my producer will ding you I’m just kidding. But no, just zero explanations. First thing a top stop. comes to your head and trust me, you can you can answer them all very quickly. You ready? Yeah. Let’s level up what is the best leveling up advice Daniels ever received?

Unknown Speaker  21:16  

Do do something in the morning to be active.

Unknown Speaker  21:19  

First thing you’re moving baby. Sure one of your personal habits that contributes to your success.

Unknown Speaker  21:24  

I meditate and read and journal every single morning.

Unknown Speaker  21:29  

Love it. Love it. You know, I’m a wrestler too in like meditating was the hardest thing for me. I know. I just broke my own rule. But it was the hardest thing for me to get done. Other than your own website, my out desk.com. And of course time to shine today.com I shameless plug. What other website? Do you like to go to level up?

Unknown Speaker  21:47  

A lot of Wall Street Journal. I do a lot of reading in the Wall Street Journal. Yep.

Unknown Speaker  21:52  

Okay. And so if I’m in my doldrums to stop feeling it like Fergie read this book. What’s that book, man?

Unknown Speaker  22:05  

I don’t know.

Unknown Speaker  22:06  

I know. You don’t have to. What do you What’s your most commonly used emoji when you text? I don’t do it, man.

Unknown Speaker  22:16  

nailing your last two questions.

Unknown Speaker  22:18  

You’re not failing. You’re being real. You’re busy man. Okay, your What’s your favorite charity and our organization like to give your time and or money to I know you kind of answered this. But what is that organization?

Unknown Speaker  22:26  

Yeah, it’s the we call it the mod movement man. And every year, you know, I’ve set a goal this year. I’ve set a goal this year to contribute over $300,000 I’m calling on my my customers, my virtual professionals to help me make that $300,000 really impactful. We we did a we did an orphanage a couple years ago, old folks home. We sponsored entrepreneur kids to a camp in Texas, you know, low income. We’re going to do some food bank stuff this year, because there’s a lot of stuff going on with COVID. And so yeah, making In fact,

Unknown Speaker  23:03  

the last question, you can elaborate on it just a little bit on this one. But what’s the best decade of music? 60s 70s 80s or 90s?

Unknown Speaker  23:11  

That’s interesting. Well, my dad would say the 70s I would say the 80s. I’m an

Unknown Speaker  23:16  

80s. Well, how old are you? You’re in your 40s

Unknown Speaker  23:19  

I’m 40. Yeah. 4343. I’m

Unknown Speaker  23:22  

48. So we’re kind of in that genre that at big hair don’t care? Yeah, the Yeah, you had wrap this started. Then you had the British invasion. You had, you know, Duran Duran and all of it. So that’s fantastic. So how can we find your brother?

Unknown Speaker  23:36  

Yeah, best place to go is just go to my odesk.com. For your audience, I did want to give away the book, it’s called scaling your business, you can actually get a copy by by texting 31996 that’s the phone number to text. And then the letters m od. So my out desk m od. If you text 31996 you’ll get a copy of the book. It’s a Kindle PDF. If you go to the website, you can actually listen to an audio book of the of the book, which is really cool. And if you’re thinking about hiring virtual assistants in the future, I mean, it’s it’s the Bible for that.

Unknown Speaker  24:13  

Love it. I love it. I cannot wait to read it myself. So leave us with one last Knowledge Nugget down. Daniel, you want us to take with us internalize and take action on brother.

Unknown Speaker  24:23  

Yeah, sure. You know, we talked a little bit about it. I we they right in the AI world you’re learning your business you’re trying to figure out how to make impact and sell and serve your customers in the we your you’re squarely going after systems and process right. And then in the day you’re you’re you’re now focused on people and legacy so I we they This is the path of getting to a million dollar business where you’re netting a million dollars in your in your pocket. And it’s not hard. It’s actually formulaic. Like I know that sounds crazy. I know listening right now. It’s formulaic. And if you wanted to have a console jump on our website, we’d walk you through, you know what you might be missing. We’ve we’ve been blessed to serve you know billion dollar companies all the way to a brand new startup who just decided to open last week

Unknown Speaker  25:16  

love it and squad you’ve just basically got a free masterclass from somebody that I immensely respect a man with no balance. And what I say about no balances, balances zero. He’s more of a harmonic guy. And what I mean by that is like, if you have a jazz band, man, you have the guitar, the horns, the drums, and one of them is out of tune, you’re out of harmony. So what my out desk can do is put that back into harmony. So you can play that beautiful music, if you’re passionate about what you’re doing, you have to have that vision. And time is your most valuable asset. You’ll focus focus around getting in the obstacles and getting that time back. And he brought up the I, we they the AI is where you’re learning it that way is where the systems and process and three is your people and legacy that’s the day, you know, he wants to improve how people serve in the experiences that they have, you know, they have admin, they’re all full time they have admin, sales, marketing, customer marketing, customer service, they have the whole gamut, and they’re very affordable, trust me. And he would have told him younger self to focus on what he his passion is and put his time there and also hire earlier invest in the right person, the systems and the talent. You know, he gives back to this community. He’s always leveling up his service to the clients. And then you know, if you want that free Kindle book, text 31996 to M od and put mo D in there, but text it to 31996 put mo D and I’ll put that right in the show notes man, Daniel, I am so blessed. so stoked. Thank you so so much for coming on man. you level up your health, you level up your wealth. Not only that, you’re leveling up everybody else’s as well. So I appreciate the time that you carved out and blessed. And thank you so much for you and your varsity letter today. Awesome. Thanks

Unknown Speaker  26:58  

for having me, Scott.

Unknown Speaker  26:59  

You bet. Thanks, Daniel. Hey, thanks so much for listening to this episode of time to shine today podcast. Proudly brought to you by southern New Jersey real estate real estate excellence, who can be reached at 561-249-7266 and online at www dot Sutter in nugent.com. If you’re a business owner or professional who would like to be interviewed on time to shine today, please visit time to shine today.com flash guest. If you liked this episode, please subscribe on Apple podcasts, Google podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, I Heart Radio or wherever you get your podcasts. There’s a link in the show notes to our website. Also there you will see our recommended resources. We hope that you will support our show by supporting them. If you like what you have been listening to, it’d be great if you could just give us a five star rating and tell your friends how to subscribe while you’re at it. I’m your host Scott Ferguson. And until next time, let’s level up. It’s our time to shine.

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