don: 0:00

In this episode of the Growth Revealed Podcast, my very first episode of the Gross Revealed podcast will be just welcome in David Rush. He's the Chief Operating Officer at Access Virtual Staffing and the author of Remote Power. He helps founders and business leaders scale their operations by building world-class remote teams. And so with that, welcome to the show.

david: 0:23

Great to be here, Don. Thanks for having me. Good to be first too. That's exciting.

don: 0:27

Yeah, it was kind of funny'cause I, uh, whenever we were talking it was after other people were booking. So whenever I went into the booking tool and I saw, Hey, look who jumped ahead? You. So that was great. That's awesome. So, I mean, where I would really like to start off is where did you, you know, like as your career sort of progressed, um, and you become COO of, of Access virtual Staffing, could you share a little bit about, you know, what it is that, that excites you most and your current role? And tell us a little bit about, about you and your business.

david: 1:01

Yeah, it's been quite a meandering journey in terms of my career, and we can certainly go into more details there. But I, I started using virtual assistants when I got introduced to some of the platforms years ago just to build brand and do things that I didn't wanna do and didn't have time for. And then when I met the founder of, of Access virtual staffing. And saw that he had leveraged virtual assistance for his insurance business to the tune of 70 plus assistants and the impact it had, I was, you know. Already thinking it was on my heart because I had talked to somebody in the Philippines about her vision for the impact it has on the virtual assistants themselves. And so I said, man, if, if small business owners could leverage this and we're aware of it and we could be a, you know, seamless intermediary for both the people in the Philippines and um, the folks here that are growing and building and fulfilling on their missions, I said, I'd love to be a part of that. So that's how it, it all started.

don: 2:06

Yeah. And I mean, I guess in your day-to-day walk with your current role as COO, tell me a little bit more about what excites you most in your current role.

david: 2:16

I. I, I think I, on the inside, I love building and scaling business in general and leading teams and empowering others to step into what I'll call their potential and their greatness. And we get to do that in all different kinds of ways, whether it's internally, whether it's finding great talent and positioning them well to also guiding our clients in in ways. So I get fired up because I'm someone who loves to. Help people get to their destination, so to speak, and be part of them part, part of that journey with them. Yeah,

don: 2:57

absolutely. So let's talk a little bit more about your career. So I, I, what I saw in your career was you were in finance, risk management, executive coaching, and then now remote staffing. Um, what were some of the key moments and decisions that you feel really shaped your approach for leading and growing organizations?

david: 3:17

Yeah, well I thought, I thought the pathway to fame and fulfillment and wealth was Wall Street, and it can be, but it wasn't my path. And I was also someone who was a little shy, um, coming into the, the professional world and realized that was something I wanted to work on. And it became one of the things that I, I focused on working on my communication and helping other leaders work on, on their communication. and Initially I was at the corporate level. Then I got really into the, the entrepreneur space from both my, my personal interests in being an entrepreneur and also empowering and helping and supporting other entrepreneurs. And so as that, that progressed, it was just something that. Was an unexpected, but if I, if I really look back, it was an expected kind of pathway. It just took a little time to materialize and, and understand some of what resonates with me in the corporate space and a lot of what didn't. And now getting to, you know, I love creative and being creative and, um, exploring creativity. I think entrepreneurship from a business perspective that allows you to, to do that as you build and grow and scale businesses and help other people do the same thing.

don: 4:27

Yeah, I feel like, um, the interesting thing for me with regards to most ENT entrepreneurs is that at the end of the day, they're, they're at some level troubleshooters and they, they try and problem solve with whatever it is that they're, that they're creating. But, um, I've also run into a lot of entrepreneurs, they sort of get stuck in that first part of. Like, Hey look, I wanna create, or I wanna learn something, and then they just never move on. Um, have you seen that? And it just would be interesting to hear a little more of, you know, your experience, um, as well.

david: 5:01

I, it, it is funny, it came up yesterday as I was speaking with our, our founder and he's someone who. Is is like the kind of person who's always going to find a way, like, here's the target. We're gonna go right at it and we're gonna figure out how to do it. I think I've run into a lot of people with a, a diverse kind of call it, um, perspective on how they approach business, but there's some that just have that can-do. Like, we're gonna figure this outcome. Heck or high water and others who, when there, when there is resistance, it's like an uhoh. I don't know how to do this. And it causes resistance, it causes pausing, and that's where things usually don't work out well and. I think, I think you gotta be all in, in some ways and say like, I'm committed to this outcome. Obviously using good discernment and needing to adjust course, as you see the business need, may need to change direction a little bit, but sometimes it's that I'm gonna figure this out, burn the boat and let's, let's go, let's, let's do the thing and we'll figure it out along the way.

don: 6:09

Yeah, there's two levels of that that anybody that ran into me on my corporate past, um, they would, they would sort of, you know, say that this is a little bit of familiar ground for them as well. So my, my philosophy normally in business was, if we really wanna institute change, we have to burn the bridge behind us. So there is no path back. It's the, you know, we have no choice but to go forward. And it's funny because whenever I talk to entrepreneurs now. I have a lot of entrepreneurs that have really ambitious goals, and then they, they sort of get stuck in this cycle of, you know, I wanna learn another thing. I wanna perfect another thing. And I'm like, you know what? If you just take a little bit of imperfect action and then you go, you know what, I really hate that thing it, that it really didn't turn out the way that I want. I want it to be better the next time. And you make it better the next time you will actually make that forward progress versus staying stuck in this sort of cycle of, you know, just. I, I, I, I look at it as cycle of like, perfection. And for most of us that were with, you know, bigger companies, I feel like it's almost harder because you, you sort of, um, you look at where big companies are and it's like, Hey, look, they wanna flip a switch on and they got 50 people and they all go do their, their thing really well. And it sort of executes really nicely. But whenever you're a solo entrepreneur and you're counting on, you know, remote workers, I feel like in a lot of cases you've gotta be able to like communicate along the way and say, this is what imperfection looks like. This is how I want us to steer and get a little better as well.

david: 7:45

I think there's, um, it's like a comfort level with the imperfection and sometimes that's, that's where a lot of people get stalled or disrupted is like, oh, it's gotta be perfect before I take this step or that step. And I think planning and preparation's important, but also if that's stopping you from going out, taking a risk, making a mistake, and figuring it out. That's a problem too. Another thing that just came up recently, which I think is just worth mentioning is, you know, I, I tend to be somebody, I got a lot of ideas. I want to go in a lot of different directions and I was having a conversation with our founder yesterday and you know, it's like we need to dial in sometimes and say like, this is the thing, we're gonna figure this thing out. And if that's not the right thing. Okay, we'll pivot, but at the same time, like we gotta put a stake in the ground and, and go in one direction. And then I was, as you were, you were sharing, I was thinking speedboat versus like cruise ship. You know, speedboat is one that can go fast and then alter directions, but as you grow, it is hard to change the direction of the cruise ship too quickly. So that takes a lot more strategic planning and thoughtfulness as you're charting course.

don: 9:01

Yeah, whenever, uh, whenever I was a kid there, there was a show, and I, I know I'm not gonna get the full, um, the full name of the show, right? But it was hosted by a guy by the name of Frazier, Thomas. Thomas, and he took a look at like, nature and you, he had like these documentaries about different things, and I will never forget the, the video of the Albatross who like got three quarters of the way down and decided he wanted to go a different direction. You just see this. Giant bird go rolling across the field. And that's the way I kind of think about, you know, large companies, whenever they want to change direction, it means slowing almost to stop really plotting that direction, not making quick turns. But you know, the advantage of a smaller company is, Hey, look, when you wanna make that turn, it's, it's possible. So, yeah, I agree with you.

david: 9:53

And, you know, I, I had a, a small experience of that at the corporate level'cause I worked at Bear Stearns and then I worked at JP Morgan. And culturally, bear Stearns was a little bit more like scrappy and kind of like a different kind of investment bank. But then when. JP Morgan bought Bear Stearns and we got into the, the JP Morgan infrastructure. There was a lot more infrastructure and I, you know, call it red tape or call it, you know, things that you had to work through to get approvals and to do all these different things. And I think some, sometimes that's a good thing. It's good to have some, um, you know, checks and balances in place. And sometimes it can also be limiting and stymieing in terms of like speed at which you can. Pick something up and go.

don: 10:40

Yeah, absolutely. So access virtual staffing positions itself as helping businesses hire top tier virtual talent to streamline operations and reclaim time. What is it that sets your approach apart in such a crowded space with regards to, to hiring remote workers?

david: 11:00

I think some of it is, you know, past expertise from certainly our founder, myself, in terms of business acumen and how we will have a conversation and consult with clients to really understand what it is they're looking for, knowing they're getting some good guidance and support upfront to just dial into. This is actually your problem, versus maybe them just saying, I need something or I need somebody, and then you get somebody random thrown at you. So I think it's, it's dialing in on the front end of the process. And then our team in the, the Philippines is really good at discerning talent, quality talent, finding a bunch of great candidates for the client to then choose from and how, you know. Go through their own interview process. And then in addition to that, we support both on the front end and the back end in terms of guiding the client, guiding, onboarding, being there as a support system. And then on the back end, if the, the va, the virtual assistant, needs some support as well. We've got our, our team behind the scenes that supporting them as they are working with the client. So it's, it's kind of a. Yeah, I like to say white glove or concierge or just we're there every step of the way. And if I'm comparing it to other services I've either used or that I've heard about, sometimes it's. They throw you somebody and then you're kind of off to the, the races by yourself and you have to, to figure it out. So we try to really convey how to work with your virtual assistant, how to set yourself up for success, cultural nuances. Um, I think there's a lot more high touch and focus that we'll provide to anybody we work with.

don: 12:46

Yeah, I'll just, I mean, I, on that point, right? I'll just share my own experience, right? For anybody that's out there trying to, to self source people and things like that. I, I shared this with you as well. I mean, I look, I, it was like probably four or five years ago, I was on a walk, listened to a podcast, somebody mentioned online jobs, pH I subscribed, started writing my own job descriptions, hired my own people, and. Some of the experiences, frankly, were good. I mean, honestly, they were, they were fine, but I also had a few experiences. That sort of set me down a different path where I was like, look, I, I need somebody that has the experience in doing this. Where whenever I put a, I mean, just to kind of describe to somebody that might not understand this experience, so you put up a job post, it's almost like you just get spam 24 7 and it's, it's, um, it could become overwhelming for somebody like me where I've got a fair amount that I do every single day. I've got a very busy schedule and I have sort of set. Points in time where I wanna go, you know, check on it and go through the interview process and kind of move forward. And, um, I mean, I had people that would find my email address, they would, you know, look me up on Facebook or uh, LinkedIn and start messaging me there. And finally I started including that in the, in the job description saying, Hey, look, you know, if you, if you contact me through these other ways and you're not following this process, I, I, I won't. Talk to you as a candidate, so don't do it because I, you know, it'll quickly eliminate you. But to me, that's, that's the real value in a, in an agency, you know, I feel like, is that, you know, you guys can provide a little more guidance and buffer me from that experience as well. So that's, that's my, my side of it anyway.

david: 14:42

That's actually, I mean, great point because that's what we look to eliminate and someone just starting out and doesn't have that experience may not be aware that like that's what's gonna come their way. And I even just personal experience, which was funny when as we were starting to. To build this business. There was a role and I said, there's gotta be more talent out there. There's got like, so I, I kind of took it upon myself to do my own, uh, search just on the, on the side to see like what that was like. And I realized exactly what you're saying. It was a refresh.'cause I had done it years past and I said, wow, like I got 20, 30, 40, you know, people that said, Hey, yeah, like I'd love to work with you. And then it was combing through. People not showing up for meetings and appointments. So there is a whole, um, I'd say friction and frustration that can come with doing it yourself. I, I have a good tip, um, for anybody who is going to try to do it themselves. And it came from a friend of mine, he said. At the, the tail end of the job description have a very specific instruction. And if, if, if somebody actually read the full job description and was thoughtful about it, they would do that thing. And so only people who do the, and you say, only people who do this thing, I'm actually even gonna consider for the role. So that's a little bail safe that I thought was a good tip.

don: 16:08

It may, it would mean that they made it to the end. That would be awesome. And they didn't, didn't use some tool to, to help them, you know, sort of work through that. So, building a remote team at scale though, I feel like, just like we're talking about here, comes with its own challenges and trust. Um, how, how is it that you, you know, help your clients, um, maintain high engagement? Ensure that everybody's in aligned at the end of the day.

david: 16:37

I think one of the biggest things I see with either people new to leadership or new to staffing, virtual assistants and building teams is really being good at some kind of system, process, infrastructure. Call it a, a playbook for the individual and for the team. And when you have good systems, good say rules of the road or. Maps for how everybody's supposed to act and perform. Uh, I heard it from DM r tell one time. It doesn't have to be overly detailed, but it has to be something that we all know. This is the process. This is how we're gonna go, this is how it's gonna be. And um, for some it needs to be a little bit more dialed in. At the end of the day, Hey, how did you spend your time? What are the things you accomplished? Because sometimes. As leaders, we can be all over the place.'cause there's all kinds of things we need to manage through the day, and then the end of the day comes and we don't know what our team did. So if that ends up being something that that's causing problems, it's let's have an end of the day report. Let's have a way that we're, you know, managing, measuring, monitoring all the different pieces of the business and the performance. And I think that's where you. Can do more of the managing if you are monitoring and you have systems in place.

don: 18:05

Mm-hmm. Yeah. I mean, and um. Again, like having somebody with this, with this knowledge can be, can be helpful for anybody because the, the last thing most entrepreneurs, in my view anyway have are tons of SOPs. And, and so working in that, um, that space, you know, is, is something that, you know, you gotta just sort of know what is it that you want somebody to do. Was the output that you want and how do you just check in? Not even that you're like daily measuring exactly what they're doing, but at the end of the day, like how do you know that the ball actually moved further down the field versus, Hey, look, the person checked in and checked out.

david: 18:47

Yeah. Was that, was that a question or a comment?

don: 18:49

No, I agree. I, I, I, there was a comment. Yeah. Yeah. So, um, uh, attracting the right customers though is crucial for growth. What role does digital visibility, your website, your content, your online presence, you know, overall play in terms of generating leads and building trust for your access for virtual staffing?

david: 19:14

I think our, you know, initial core go to market strategy has been relationships, network. Um, you know, as clients have good experience expanding upon client relationships and then, you know, targeting certain areas where we're finding, oh, this is, this is a place where we, we seem to see a lot of appetite and have a good, good amount of interest and relationship and, and all that. We had a fun one. Recently because by, so we have, uh, a website developer who's, so we're building not only access virtual staffing, but access virtual jobs and access. Virtual jobs will be a platform where you can actually source talent yourself if you want to. So, um, but our SEO apparently is pretty good'cause uh, I had a meeting on my calendar. Two days ago, and it was a woman from North Carolina who had a candy business and she asked perplexity, ai, who should I talk to about virtual staffing? And somehow our name came up. So that means that in the AI world, and I, I, I heard this today too, like that's gonna be the new. Place that you need to get good at is not SEO, I think it's a EO, like the, the artificial, um, engine optimization because people are gonna start and significantly already going more towards a chat GPT than a a Google search. And so then when people are leveraging AI, that the game might change in terms of how the algorithms work and how people find your website. So. We're not relying heavily, I think at, at this point in time on the, the search engine or the artificial engine optimization. But if I think if you get that right and you figure it out, it could be a, an advantage, certainly earlier on in this, this transition period.

don: 21:11

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, AI a IO definitely is a, um. Is something that a lot of people have in mind. I mean, I, you know, it's funny to me because I've been asked, I don't know how many times recently, Hey, is SEO going away? And the reality is not really, um, there's a combination still of people. Some people are using Chat g, PT, perplexity, or Claude to try and figure out where to go for things. You certainly want your. Company name in there, right? You don't want to deny that, uh, uh, that route to come to you. But at the same time, um, it's gonna become a lot harder because AI is constantly thinking and changing and shifting and so, you know, how do you, how do you, you know, get your company's name out there and keep it there, I think is a big question that a lot of people have. And there are tools on the SEO side that, you know, help you. Sort of consider that as a part of the optimization that you're doing for clients. But you know, again, I I sort of, I mean, Google would make these changes almost on a quarterly basis. And my key question in the back of my mind is that if a, if, if AI now all of a sudden is changing, let's say weekly, uh, on the, on the short term, I mean, they could probably do something. You know, the, the people that are working on these algorithms inside of AI could make it daily probably if they wanted, um. I don't know if there's any way that a human could keep up. So all of a sudden you're saying, you know, okay, so I'm gonna let two robots go at it and we'll see which one, uh, which one makes it to the top overall. But, uh,

david: 22:49

yeah. Well, I think it, it's hard because. It's rare. I, I think when you, when you're really good at digital marketing and SEO, certainly as a, a business grows and, and scales, it becomes maybe more important to be good at the, the digital game. Certainly early on in the game. It's rare that I, I see an A solopreneur who's building out their business initially, at least anyway, where SEO and digital is really the driving force. Usually you start with preexisting relationships, your own network, and that leads you to. Either do business with your own network or have your network provide you other people to speak with and talk to, and, or you're building lists and you're figuring out how to generate, uh, warm leads from, from cold outreach. And that takes time. Like it's, it's, it's not a, you know, just push a button and all of a sudden it works. I, I, I often, I know this is kind of where you have some expertise, certainly much more than I do. I often find with, with early on entrepreneurs, they, they don't have a funnel system that operates in any kind of seamless manner, and that's not easy to put together. And a lot of times it's like, oh, I need this thing. And it's, it's a one piece of the puzzle that they pay thousands of dollars for. And it doesn't give them the, the aggregate. A aggregate, um, you know. Compilation of the full funnel structure, that's actually gonna probably move the needle a lot more than that one little component that they got sold.

don: 24:28

It's such an important point. It's'cause, I mean, the funny part is, so I lead a mastermind every Thursday. It's a part of my, my paid, um, digital community that I have. And we've been talking like piece by piece along the way. Like, here are the pieces that you should consider, right? I mean, if you, if you have a solid, uh, LinkedIn network that will help to get your. Your social media piece is shown then after that, now as you consider, like the fact that maybe on a weekly basis you're having some level of connections, right? So we're, we're talking now, we talked earlier this week and, and, um. With people that I connect with, essentially I have something that I call the Keep in Touch email sequence. And so it's like, you know, the whole idea is like, how do I stay engaged with you over time so that you and I, um, if I have a need, I know to come to you and that if you have a need, you know, to come to me. So essentially there's, there's sort of this bidirectional path that I'm trying to create through a lot of this, but the whole idea is like. This idea of going from cold to sold is not a fast process anymore for anybody. Most of us are evaluating lots of different things that lead us to different points. And I mean, I think what you're saying is, is really valid.'cause it, it ties to, um, you know, really this, um, this new world, more or less that all of us are in.

david: 25:56

Yeah, well, something that's, I mean, numbers wise, right? Like numbers are often telling of a lot of things, and even just simple math of how many reach outs does it take for somebody to know, like trust you even consider. That you're a credible person to do business with. And the numbers used to be like five or 10, five to 10 I think it was, and now I don't know. The number is probably staggering. Uh, a lot more than that for some people will say it's 1424, whatever the number is. It's, it's a lot of touch points, especially with all the digital stuff that people are exposed to these days. The other interesting, uh, component of that is. Most sales don't happen until all those different touchpoint and most salespeople give up after the first or second touchpoint. So if you are good at building these systems, touchpoint and continuous follow up, you actually give yourself a pretty good competitive advantage in comparison to, you know, who your competition might be or, or other peers.

don: 27:01

Yeah, I think my keep in my long-term, keep in touch emails. Right now, my, my own personal ones, I believe go more than 365 days. So once we're in touch, unless you opt out, you will be getting continual emails from me for at least 365 days. And I do give people ways to opt out. I mean, there's sort of, you know, like, look, you become a client. You tell me that you don't want my emails ever again. All those things. But like I was telling the group this morning, you know the number one thing that you kind of want and like if you grow a really big email list, you kind of want people to say, look, don't ever contact me again.'cause then that opting out is a solid no. Don't waste your time on them, move forward, keep, keep going forward and, um, your tribe will sort of sort itself out. I feel like, you know, as a part of this note, like, and trust, but you can't, you also can't spam people. I mean, if you, if you do repeatedly spam people, I'm talking about helpful things continually in your inbox. Or at least asking you for, you know, some sort of connection point, right? So it's, it, it's a, it's a helpful connection or a, uh, you know, meaningful email. Not one that's meant to be spam is really what, you know, what I'm referring to here. Not for somebody to walk away and think, Hey, look, Don Davis spams, everybody, don't contact them.

david: 28:27

Yeah. Well, and, and it's interesting because I had, um, so I, I have a morning community. I used to run it Monday through Friday called The Morning Rush. And it's an 8:00 AM to eight 30 entrepreneurship community where you can gather, you can meet people. I'll bring a topic forward. Um, there's an interesting phenomenon that was happening'cause I was individually texting people every day with the topic and all of this. Attendance is usually higher when they get that daily text message. If I put it in the group chat and didn't do the daily. People's attendance was significantly down as a result. And then recently I brought in a guest speaker to talk on a specific topic, which I shared, and a lot more people were, were interested in that than the regular routine. So there's all these different ways that we gotta continue to kind peak interest and have people want to come back maybe just for a touch to see like that things are going on, but. What is that thing that heightens the, the, the excitement to, to come back for more? Yeah.

don: 29:32

Tell me about systems and technology that you use on the, on the side of, um, you know, staffing or onboarding or any level of communications. Tell me about the, the things that you use to create a seamless experience for your clients or virtual staff.

david: 29:50

Well, internally or externally. You want me to kind of give a mix of, of both. Yeah. So. Internally, we, we use Slack to communicate. We have team meetings on Zoom. We've got emails. We've got different kinds of ways in which we communicate with our VAs that are part of our, our business. We'll, we'll check in with them individually. We have a group chat on WhatsApp'cause a lot of people are communicating in the Philippines on, on WhatsApp. Our system, our, our CRM system for our candidates is a system called Podio. Um, it's, it's something we operated in, but we're now. Also integrating, uh, a go high level platform and different components of that to integrate into some of our website and systems and CRM tracking and, and things like that. So it's kind of a, a work in, in progress and I think. Sometimes that's, that's a lot of the case is you're, you've got a lot of different things that need to work. If you can find that one stop solution that's valuable. But it seems like these days you gotta integrate a bunch of different things until you find your, your flow and your sweet spot. And as I, as I, I talk with clients, it's, it's wide range too. There is, there is no one size fits all. And it seems like people are using different technologies and why. Who knows why somebody got introduced to this CRM versus, you know, Salesforce versus uh, two, you know, all the different things that are, that are out there versus a go high level. It seems like it was just, you know, somebody shared it with them, they tried it out, and they figured it out, and to transition into another. Another one is more of a headache than anything else unless you have somebody actively helping and, and managing the process for you.

don: 31:34

Yeah, I, I mean, my own personal experience was I, I tried Zoho early on. I tried HubSpot early on. Um, Zoho was such a nightmare. I just, you know, essentially left it pretty quickly. HubSpot was fine other than the fact that I felt like they nickel and dimed you. Um, my personal feeling on, on, well, so I then I went to Pipedrive. I was with Pipedrive for a good number of years, and then I switched to go high level. It sort of, um, built. Every sort of system and process. I, you know, I tell people all the time, like, look, we've got, the reason why I have a digital marketing engine is because of the fact that, you know, the efficiency that we gained through high level where I wasn't having to worry about things anymore, um, was amazing. So, I mean, hopefully your experience turns out to be the same. And, you know, I, I certainly. You know, think that your texting story, a lot of that stuff can be done through there, even on the what, WhatsApp side. So that, that's really good.

david: 32:35

Yeah. Well, I, I think it's, it could be challenging for the person who's a solopreneur just trying to figure it out. Especially if you're not a technically savvy person. Like some people just wanna deliver value to their clients. That might be, I'm gonna coach and consult and I wanna have coaching and consulting sessions, but that requires you to. If you're building a business to have all these other things in place, which might not be your zone of genius. And that's part of, you know, our, our value proposition and I, I think is important for all of us to consider is, you know, what is your zone of genius and are you operating outside of it? And how can you leverage systems, technology, talent to, to, you know, get rid of some.

don: 33:16

Absolutely. So as you look ahead, uh, to next year, what's, what, uh, is next for Access Virtual Staffing, and are there new markets or services or innovations that you're excited to explore in the next year?

david: 33:31

Well, I think we're starting to really look at some of the niche markets in which we, we can play. We've seen some traction in the construction space, the legal space, and certainly we have a, a template for the, the insurance industry space. So I think, I think we'll see a lot more niching down and focus. Another exciting part is what I mentioned earlier, the access virtual jobs portal, which will have. Um, you know, a full suite of, of candidates that people can self source in some ways. And, um, we will add a lot more seamlessness to, to both our process and, um, the user experience as well. So I think, uh, that, and we're, we're integrating a little bit more of a, a tech stack solution so that not only can you. Source virtual assistance, but we'll have some technology solutions that people can integrate into their business that will come with the, the virtual assistance. So not only do you get the tech, you get somebody who can operate it and then you can do the stuff that you want to do. Awesome.

don: 34:37

Alright, so this is our speed round. So quick questions and fast answers here. Uh, what's one tool, system, or resource that's been game, a game changer for your business?

david: 34:48

Game changer. I think Slack. I think just getting good communication, learning how to do it, the integrations, it, it just causes a lot more seamless team communication and that can be invaluable. Awesome.

don: 35:00

What's the best piece of growth or leadership advice you've ever received?

david: 35:08

I heard it yesterday, flip it upside down in in terms of if, if you are the leader, empower the junior person to really like, see how valuable they are to the team and their growth potential. So I think as leaders, that's something we need to do is, is empower others to see their greatness and step into it.

don: 35:31

What's one simple habit or practice that keeps you focused on progress?

david: 35:38

Baby steps. Uh, like I, I think we talked about it earlier, like take an action and be willing to make a mistake and be resourceful to figure it out. But it's, it's like take, take a step forward and be willing to, to fall.

don: 35:57

If you could fix one growth bottleneck overnight, what would it be?

david: 36:05

Unlimited inbound leads. If there's, if there's a way to push a button and that's not a bottleneck or a deterrent, uh, where we can just really, I'd say as in, in essence to this conversation, be in our zone of genius, which is finding great talent and bringing it to, to entrepreneurs and businesses in need.

don: 36:26

What do you do? What do you want, VIR? What do you want? Access Virtual Staffing to be known for one year from now

david: 36:37

that we are a high quality, high integrity people serving. Business that it's not about the bottom line. That it's about the impact that we have both on the, the virtual assistant side'cause it's their lifestyle and they're putting food on the table to, um, people and businesses get to fulfill on the missions that are in their hearts and that they want to fulfill up.

don: 37:10

All right, David Rush. I'm gonna le leave it up to you for a second. Do you want to tell anybody about where they can find access, virtual staffing or, or, uh, any sort of news about your podcast, anything that, that you'd like to share before we wrap up?

david: 37:24

If you wanna find us, you could actually book a meeting with me right now@accessvirtualstaffing.com. It'll actually go to my calendar if you want to email me, David, at access virtual staffing.com. We also are just in the new, new launching stages of, of having a podcast ourselves. So if that's something that's of interest or appeal to you, uh, you can find that on YouTube and you can also be a guest. So reach out if, if the spirit moves you.

don: 37:54

All right, David Rush. Well, thank you so much for being a guest on The Growth Revealed. I really appreciate you being my first guest and, um, for being so, so charitable in terms of, uh, you know, sharing your time and, and all of your great knowledge with me. I appreciate it.

david: 38:09

Well, you certainly are a, uh, a gracious and, uh, great host and so it's been a pleasure and love breaking ground. So excited to, to be the first and looking forward to, to talking some more.

don: 38:22

Awesome. Thanks a lot.