For most of the history of my business, 
I’ve been my own worst enemy…

Maybe you’ve had this same experience.

I’ve relentlessly insisted on running my own shop.  Every little bit of it.

So yes, I’m widely known as a top copywriter and consultant for clients…

And for my daily Breakthrough Marketing Secrets plus my BTMSinsiders training.

Creating so much value for myself and others.

But along the way, I’ve also done so much behind the scenes.

For example, I haven’t just been responsible for creating my content…

I’ve also been the publisher (more like publishing assistant)…

And the webmaster and tech person…

And I’ve done all my own organization and coordination…

And a million little tasks required for my business to run.

And because I’ve chosen to be the only one doing all of this…

I’ve spent way too much time on things where I provide no additional value!

For example, while I am uniquely able to create my own content…

There’s ZERO reason I should also be the one making sure it gets distributed through 5+ channels, with all the tweaks and customizations to make it fit in each.

It takes a lot of time.

But it doesn’t create any unique additional value for me to do it.

Plus it’s not scalable at all and it forever limits my business to what can be directly created through my own time and effort.

In the words of my friend and client Perry Marshall, from his book 80/20 Sales and Marketing, I’m doing way too many $10/hour activities and way too few $1,000/hour activities.

(How many hours per week do you spend in $10/hour activities that prevent you from doing $1,000/hour work?!)

Every $10/hour activity we do has an OPPORTUNITY COST.

I recently heard this described as being like a full bookshelf…

Imagine you have a bookshelf that’s 100% full of all your favorite books.  Then you find a new favorite book you want to add.  You can’t magically make room.  You have to choose to give up one book, if you want to add the new one.

Our time is that full bookshelf.  We only have so much time in our day.  And for every task we choose to do, we are replacing another.

So in choosing to do a task where we add no value and that could be easily done by others…

We’re also choosing NOT to do a task where we add a ton of value, that we could do in a superior way that’s unique to us.

You give up more success and more positive impact by choosing to do everything, instead of only doing those things where you provide the most value.

This hit home when someone gifted me a copy of Dan Sullivan and Benjamin Hardy’s book Who Not How earlier this year…

Now I’ve tried to work with people off and on before.

I’ve hired copywriters.   I’ve actually tried hiring virtual assistants a couple times.  I’ve worked with a few contractors in specialized areas.

(Getting a really good accountant and bookkeeper who I trust relieved me of a massive burden in this regard years ago — and I’ve always wanted that in more areas of my business.)

I’d seen plenty of upsides of working with others before.

I’d also seen some downsides.

And I’d failed big time — twice — when I’d tried previously to hire a virtual assistant.

But reading Who Not How forced me to look in the mirror…

And to confront the fact that I was spending way too much time “majoring in minor things,” as described by Jim Rohn and Tony Robbins.

Maybe you know the feeling.   Maybe you can think over the last few days about all the minor things you’ve been majoring in — and the major things you’ve neglected as a result.  It can be frustrating!

I made the decision: I MUST figure out how to get some of this off my plate!

Long story short, it worked.

I now have a million things going on behind the scenes in my business that I’m no longer responsible for.

Which has allowed me to step back and start to focus on the $1,000/hour activities with much more of my time.

And while I’m not perfect in this regard…

And I sometimes find myself pulled into tasks I shouldn’t touch…

More and more of my business is starting to happen without me, thanks to my superstar virtual assistant Stephanie.

Now here’s the thing…

Knowing I’d failed before, I busted my butt to make sure I hired right this time…

I’ve been involved in hiring.

I’ve made plenty of mistakes.

But I didn’t want to waste my time making a hiring mistake here…

And even worse…

Working with a bad hire for who-knows-how-long before I fired them…

(And maybe even went back to being frustratingly solo again!)

So I decided to do more work up front…

AND make the potential virtual assistant do more work up front…

In order to find the right fit from the beginning.

Maybe you’ve heard of “hire slow, fire fast” — that was my goal, without the firing if possible.

I created a “hiring funnel” — similar to a sales process designed to only let the best leads through…

Think of it like high-ticket sales.

If you’re selling an item that has a high cost and high commitment, and your time is best spent talking to only the best prospects, you don’t just want to sort through a million leads.

You want only the best leads.

And I developed a hiring process that would only get me the best leads.

In fact, when I posted the description on a site that can often lead to dozens and dozens of underqualified applicants…

I managed to filter down to only getting 3 applicants, all of whom probably would’ve been qualified.

From there, I filtered down to 1 who was the best fit…

And now that I’m 6 months in, I’d 100% hire Stephanie again in a heartbeat.

I want to share this hiring process and thinking with you…

And while I’ll primarily be focusing this on my hiring of a virtual assistant, the reality is you can use this same process regardless of who you are hiring.

So no matter what you need to accomplish in your business…

And whoever you might hire (as a freelancer or staff member)…

This process — this hiring funnel — can be adapted to your use.

• First things first, we’ll make sure that hiring is actually the right decision (and defining the role in a way that makes sense for you).
• Then I’ll walk through the process — how to map it all out and every step in the hiring funnel.  
• You’ll also discover what to put in your job description (and how I broke the rules).
• I’ll share why you should never, ever interview someone early in the hiring process — and what to do instead.
• And importantly, I’ll share how the hiring process didn’t stop on Stephanie’s first day of work — and what that has meant over the last 6 months.

Listen: no hiring process is perfect.  I can’t guarantee you’ll get the #1 superstar virtual assistant that’s a perfect fit for you the first time through.  

But I can promise a proven process that can help you bring the best to the forefront…  That you can immediately go use to make better hires…

And importantly, this will help you spend more time focused on the big impact areas in your business.   Whatever those are for you.

Hiring a Superstar Virtual Assistant  was originally recorded as the August 2021 Monthly Insiders Call.

With a BTMSinsiders All-Access Pass, you get to attend these calls live plus get access to all past call recordings, including this one.  Plus you get unlimited streaming access to the entire BTMSinsiders training catalog.