1621 – 2xYou: Ultimate VA Agency for Business Success with Le-An Lai Lacaba

Josh (00:00:05) - Hey there, thoughtful listener. Would you like consistent and predictable sales activity with no spam and no ads? I'll teach you step by step how to do this, particularly if you're an agency owner, consultant, coach or B2B service provider. What I teach has worked for me for more than 15 years and has helped me create more than $10 million in revenue. Just head to up my influence and watch my free class on how to create endless high ticket sales appointments. You can even chat with me live and I'll see and reply to your messages. Also, don't forget the thoughtful entrepreneur is always looking for guests. Go to up my influence and click on podcast. We'd love to have you. With us right now. Le-an Lai Lacaba. Le-an, you are the co-founder of 2XYou, which is an AI enabled VA agency. Okay, you've got my attention. Your website is two x you dot com. So it's two x, Y O U dot com. And then of course, your personal website. Le-an Lai. Le-an L A I for our friend or conversation.

Josh (00:01:23) - Just click around in your podcast app. You'll find where we've got the show notes. We've got direct links. Le- an to your website. Thank you so much for being here.

Le-an (00:01:30) - Yeah, super happy to be here.

Josh (00:01:32) - Well, this is interesting. So because I think I've seen in terms of trends, you know, it was so wonderful to connect with a great VA agency because it just enables us to do tasks, you know, more efficiently, more cost effectively, you know, because we're dealing with kind of international exchange rates and everything, which so it's fantastic. But then, you know, now it's like, you know, folks or at least business leaders I'm talking with are so enthusiastic about, you know, the quality of AI tools that are available. Why not merge the two? And it looks like that's what you've done.

Le-an (00:02:11) - Yeah, it was kind of basically the moment that came out for a lot of people, including virtual, were like, Oh crap I still have the job? And I'm like, Yes, yes you do by being an expert in being in AI.

Le-an (00:02:23) - So that's basically what we did.

Josh (00:02:26) - Heck yeah. So take me through the services. Like when you say we are, you know, we're providing expertise in AI, what does that look like?

Le-an (00:02:36) - So for now, just because, again, everything is still new and there's a bajillion I think there's like 100 apps every hour that's being produced with AI. For now, we've kind of just deep dived into just how to use ChatGPT because once you learn how to use prompts there, you can use it with Bard, you can use it with all of the other AI tools coming out. And then for a lot of our other EA's, they're integrating AI tools with their clients depending on what they're focused on. So like of course Midjourney for like creating images or there's so much AI tools out there right now, but mostly for content related because data stuff, it's not that quite there yet. But then for the EA, they're automating how they're sending emails, how they're replying to emails, how they're generating a ton of content for their clients, so on and so forth.

Le-an (00:03:22) - So that part has just become so much easier for them.

Josh (00:03:25) - Why does this why might this be a better option than just maybe doing I don't know. You know, I guess let me ask it this way. You know, why are there advantages to working with 2XYou as opposed to maybe if they're European, Canadian, US and hiring domestically when they're working with 2XYou? What is that like?

Le-an (00:03:51) - Yeah. So first part of it is that on the hiring side, you don't to have to worry. You only see like the top candidates that we screened, we've already gone through them, the customized for the business, for the culture, all of that good stuff. And then once the is in, we've trained them full out from day one of like, hey, this is how to do email management, color management now how to do it with ChatGPT. So we take care of all of that and the management side. And the biggest part of what we do in two weeks is you focus a lot on the system.

Le-an (00:04:18) - So usually when you hire an assistant on your own, you kind of like, okay, what do I do now? That's kind of day one of hiring an assistant is the work. But for us we have like a 90 day program to get you in. We have something that we call the two business operating systems, which is like 75 assets. There's like your content strategy, your content calendar, your customer relations database, basically all of that stuff. We help build that with your So then you have some structure to your business and a lot of the time the goals for the clients who come into our business is they're seeing they're looking to sell their business in 2 to 3 years. So we help build that structure as a company who's been trying to be acquired a couple of times, we're like, okay, not yet. But then we now see like what these companies who are looking to acquire are looking for, and we build that structure behind the scenes with their executive assistant.

Josh (00:05:09) - Yeah.

Josh (00:05:10) - So let's go through maybe a couple of examples of, you know, tasks that two weeks you will do for clients. One in particular I was interested in because I know that sometimes it can feel overwhelming is social media. So what would, what would be some examples of client work that you're doing in around for social and how are you making that better for them?

Le-an (00:05:37) - So the main one is that the is only working with you. They're not working with. They're not worried about other clients. They're not worrying about other parts of of working with anyone else. So then when it comes to tasks like social media, which is perfect example, is they get to know you, your business, your voice, your how you write to the point where right now on my Instagram, most of my posts sound like me but are not written by me. My assistant takes care of all of that. Aside from the creation of the posting, they also are in charge with engagement, replying to comments, replying to visitors, and also then generating ideas forward.

Le-an (00:06:11) - Never, never. Especially with ChatGPT. But it's that almost like off loading. You've created the first part of your business which should create a copy of Create Your Sales, but you've done a lot of the hard work and now you're gets to like automate and then co-create that content with you if you're a content creator yourself. So then it's a little bit easier in the back end, you know, it's just we call it a content machine in the background.

Josh (00:06:34) - Yeah. What are some of your I don't know if you have any favorite tips or like just things that you've discovered lately that you're excited about when it comes to AI tools, particularly ChatGPT.

Le-an (00:06:49) - Well, one that I've been teaching everyone who would ask basically is I've been calling it The Wall method. So usually when people jump into chat, they ask you for the output, like, Hey, write me X, Y and Z. But when you use when you prime basically ChatGPT before you do the ask, it gives you so much more specific output.

Le-an (00:07:07) - So the wall method is W is who you are and what you do. The O is the outcome you're asking from ChatGPT like, Hey, I want you to be my social media writing expert. I need you to be some someone, but I need you to be my business coach so I can do X, Y, and Z and then A is just asking it, Are you ready to make sure that understands what you're asking? And then the H is the how do you want this to be short and funny? Do you want to add emojis to this? Do you want this to be spreadsheet ready? So then anytime, any time that you go back to that ChatGPT and asking that question, it already has the expertise you need. And that has given people so many better results rather than just asking, Hey, can you do this for me without giving context?

Josh (00:07:48) - Yeah, yeah. You know, I love that. And that's one thing that I've learned is kind of those pre prompts or priming ChatGPT is, I mean, you know, once you've given it enough context and, you know, I was watching one instance where, you know, it was a pretty lengthy conversation back and forth about understanding, hey, before you actually produce as let's talk about this for a little while, which is kind of like exactly what you would want to do with a human right rather than just like, you know, go do my social media.

Josh (00:08:21) - It's like, okay. You know, instead it's like, hey, let's have a conversation about what our goals are, what we want to do, what our intentions are, You know, what we hope to, you know, we can create here and you can have all of that same conversation with ChatGPT. And then finally, we you know, and it's kind of funny because I've seen where you say, okay, we're going to talk about this. Don't do it yet, but just let me know. You understand?

Le-an (00:08:49) - Yep, yep. Just that ask. Yep.

Josh (00:08:53) - That's terrific. What would be maybe another task that you think two is quite popular for that, that that clients, maybe someone that's listening to us, they're like, Oh, really? You can do that?

Le-an (00:09:08) - Suits wider range, but they are. Bread and butter are usually like operations slash project manager, executive assistance. So they look at the same kind of, you know, how the entrepreneurs always take the bigger view, bigger vision.

Le-an (00:09:20) - And there's the employees who work on the task bill, the EA's kind of the good in between. They see the vision, they see where we're heading towards, and they're making sure everyone is in line to go to where they need to go. So it doesn't have to be where they're following everyone, but they're keeping everyone on task, checking on the results, checking how things are being that project manager to get to the next goal, whatever that looks like for the company.

Josh (00:09:44) - And tell me about the your company itself like and it's not you got a decent team here.

Le-an (00:09:53) - Yeah well I've kept it pretty lean the way that we've kind of built it. And it's like for every executive assistant you have, they have a mini team also behind them. So they have their operations systems manager who takes care of like checking those systems with the clients, like do they have these assets, so forth, their pod manager in charge of their training. So you really have like you're not just getting one person, you're getting like a whole team behind them.

Le-an (00:10:17) - Aside from that, all of the EA's are all interconnected. So let's say one project manager needs help, like, Hey, we're going into marketing. I have no idea what this looks like. We have marketing ideas who can then they can tap as a resource. So it's a good kind of a little communication community that we've kind of built. So there's that expertise always going around.

Josh (00:10:35) - Yeah. And then what is the process like when someone's like, okay, you know, I could use some help with my social probably, you know, my blog. And I suspect that there's other things like how do you kind of get together? Like how do you figure out what that's going to look like and kind of the onboarding and discovery process?

Le-an (00:10:57) - So it starts with we have a pretty amazing scorecard. So that literally called the two minute readiness scorecard. If you're ready to have a virtual assistant in the first place. So it goes through like what task you're struggling with right now, what systems you have in place, and at the very end, like which side would you would be the best for someone else to take over? And then it's booked with a call with our two AQ assessors, basically.

Le-an (00:11:19) - So we go through a process of like grabbing everything in your head that could be delegated to an assistant making a system out of that, looking at the assets that you might have. And in the very end, I asked the beautiful question of what's a perfect existence for you, like your personality types, characteristics, what works well with someone else when you're working with someone else? And then from there we kind of then go into the whole onboarding process of creating like the onboarding kit for the assistant so they know everything about you right off the bat, building their objectives and key results so they know what's supposed to be focusing on the first 90 days. It's a whole process afterwards, but it does start with that scorecard because it gives us so much information about where the business is at that moment.

Josh (00:12:00) - Yeah. And then give me an idea for budget that someone should have if they want to engage a VA through. Maybe historically they've done some hiring on, you know, Upwork and how would you be different from an investment standpoint?

Le-an (00:12:18) - So for us we do have only just have the one offer.

Le-an (00:12:20) - It is 3000 a month, us for a month for a full-time executive assistant plus two services. The biggest thing is you're not hiring, just another cheap virtual assistant that you found on the internet because someone else recommended them. You're getting someone who's highly trained, who's constantly being trained afterwards, as well as like all of the other two excuse business operating systems, like everything else within that. So again, it's not just the one person you're getting. You're getting a team behind them as well.

Josh (00:12:46) - Now. And what is that process now? Let's say they've listened to our conversation and like, okay, I want to learn more.

Le-an (00:12:55) - Yep. So again, starting with that scorecard, so filling out that scorecard, it's just to compare card. Super easy to remember. Then we hop on a call and then once we've kind of set you up, you need lead this kind of an assistant. Then we go through the onboarding that creating the onboarding for the assistant. Then we start the hiring process. Sometimes it'll be faster because we already have an applicant who's really close to who you need.

Le-an (00:13:18) - Once we've done the final interview, then we can jump start the through the whole process. We have an onboarding process where in every single week we add in like, Hey, this is all your task management system, this is your delegation system. So we make sure we take you by the hand the whole way to make sure by the end of that 90 days you and the assistant are fully equipped to keep going. And then, of course, then the ongoing support, the systems in the training in the background as well.

Josh (00:13:44) - When you've worked with clients, where are the like? Where have you seen like if it ever goes south or if it ever doesn't work out, like what's usually going on? Because again, I think this is really helpful to for someone to have realistic expectations when they begin this engagement. And obviously we don't want to make nobody wants to make mistakes here. Yeah.

Le-an (00:14:06) - So the biggest one is just expectation mismatch. Like there's always things where we caught it in the beginning, like, hey, the biggest fire that's burning in the building right now is marketing.

Le-an (00:14:16) - But then once we actually hire marketing assistant like, Oh, it's actually admin. So it's usually those mismatches because we do try as much as possible to hire the assistant you said that you needed it for, but those usually other times it's, it's when you actually start working with the you get inspired like, oh they're amazing. If they did this, if they do this thinking there's a unicorn. But that's usually like one of the biggest pitfalls. So it's important that as you start working with whether it's you or a virtual assistant, that you have, like, okay, these are their three focus basically for, you know, while working with me. And then if you want to grow into maybe then consider hiring another because then your business is just growing at that point as your grows.

Josh (00:14:57) - Yeah, your website 2XYOU two x you. When somebody goes there, what would you recommend they do?

Le-an (00:15:05) - Le-an Right off the bat you'll se the invite to the scorecard. So that's the first thing right off the bat.

Josh (00:15:12) - Yeah. And one more time on the scorecard. What? What? Why? That's important.

Le-an (00:15:16) - So that assesses if you are ready for an assessment because some people, they just need a freelancer, they just need someone part-time. But that fully goes through like, oh, you need. Yeah, you need a full-time person.

Josh (00:15:27) - Yeah. Sounds great. Again 2xyou.com. Le-an Lai Lacaba. It's been great having you as a guest. Thank you so much for joining us.

Le-an (00:15:36) - Thanks, Josh, this is fun.

Josh (00:15:42) - Thanks for listening to the Thoughtful Entrepreneur Show. If you are a thoughtful business owner or professional who would like to be on this daily program, please visit up My Influence slash guest. If you're a listener, I'd love to shout out your business to our whole audience for free. You can do that by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts or join our listener Facebook group. Just search for the thoughtful entrepreneur and Facebook. I'd love even if you just stopped by to say hi, I'd love to meet you.

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