I love the Swag industry! I’ve always been drawn to marketing in general. As I dove into all the different layers of marketing; I found that I was particularly interested in branding and positioning.
Promotional Products, Swag or whatever it is you want to call what we do is the perfect medium to position one’s brand in the marketplace. Not only that but there’s something about seeing beautifully designed artwork that comes alive in the form of a product that excites us… wouldn’t you agree?
We could go on and on about why our industry is so great, but here’s something that a lot of us have forgotten about our industry…
Why Entrepreneurship?
I’m specifically speaking to the distributor entrepreneurs in the Swag industry, but what we’re about to cover can be applied no matter you’re role or side of the fence.
Most of us decided to go into business for ourselves to have flexibility…
- The Choice of When We Want to Work
- The Choice of the Type of Work We Want to Do
- The Choice of Who We Want to Work With
Getting Caught in the Daily Grind
Well, if you’re like me - then you’ve likely got lost at some point and may have even forgotten your why.
It wasn’t that long ago that I spent countless hours on my business. I spent far too much time not selling to be honest. My sales were great yet I was still focused on doing certain tasks in the business myself rather than building my team.
I burned out.
You’ve likely been there as well.
The truth is we can’t do it all ourselves.
The challenge we’re faced before building out our team is a time, resource and money issue. You may not have the time to train and onboard someone new. Maybe you don’t have the resources and systems in place to scale your time… OR maybe you just can’t afford to bring on a new employee.
I get it. I had one full time employee and was training someone below my “right hand man” and then it all collapsed. I thought I was beginning to scale. I thought I was building a team and this was just the beginning. Although instead, I needed to make the tough decision to let a new hire go. I had spent countless months training this person and to come to terms with realizing I needed to cut our losses for the sake of the future of our business was not an easy decision to say the least.
Well, then it all collapsed when my “right hand man” gave his 2 week notice.
I didn’t know what to do at this point. But, as all great entrepreneurs do… you figure it out! I remember ordering a large pizza and getting a six pack of my favorite beer and saying to myself “you’re not going to bed until you figure this out”.
Enter Virtual Assistants (VA’s)
I switched my business model to have 0 employees and now I work with 100% virtual assistants. Fast forward over 2 years later of making the decision to have a “VA business model” and I now have 5 main VA’s on my team (over 10 total) all for less than the price (and headaches) than 2 full-time employees.
I now work less than 4 hours a day while increasing my sales year over year. The truth is the Swag industry is set-up perfectly for distributors to run a “VA based business model”. But, I don’t want to leave out the bigger distributors and our supplier friends in this equation…
Any business (in our industry or out) could be utilizing help from Virtual Assistants!
Example of How to Get VA’s on Your Team
I have a friend that owns a very popular Sushi restaurant in my area. They are crushing it with 2 main locations and 2 smaller satellite spots at the biggest sports arena and concert venues in the Bay Area.
Now, on the surface you may see a restaurant and think how could they ever work with VA’s? By definition, a virtual assistant doesn’t come into your office. Restaurants are similar to suppliers in our industry in that for the most part they need physical employees to run the day to day of their businesses.
- But, what about your marketing?
- What about your finances?
- How about customer service?
- These are just 3 example functions of a business to have success and none of these 3 require “butts in seats”.
- Let’s take marketing and break it down since we’re all marketers here…
The ROI of a VA
In this online calculator, you can find out the true return on investment for any virtual assistant. Here’s a quick example to illustrate a point…
Marketing is a broad term, so let’s take one aspect of marketing and dissect it. For this example, we’ll look at graphic designers. Now, I’m not talking about creating logo’s - let’s be clear on that. I’m talking about in house graphic designers that take your logo and brand guidelines that are already completed to create things like social media images, flyers, new designs on your website, and more. All of these type of tasks can be created in Canva. Canva is an online tool that helps non-graphic designers create beautiful designs. Canva levels the playing field so that any one can create amazing designs and oftentimes I see business owners spending their time on graphic design within Canva.
Let’s say you value your time at $100/hr and it takes you to 1 hour to design something in Canva. The average rate of a graphic design VA is around $30/hr and since VA’s are a specialist in one area I think it’s fair to say that a graphic designer VA can complete a design in half the time it would take you. So, for this example that same design you did would cost $15 for a VA to complete. In this example, if you were to do the design yourself it would have cost you $100 (of your time that could have been spent on selling or a number of areas that require your expertise) or you could pay a VA $15 and get that 60 minutes back.
Which would you prefer?
How VA’s Can Help You Grow
The “VA business model” of growing my team with VA’s instead of employees works for me, but it doesn’t work for everyone. Sometimes all you need is just a couple VA’s to compliment what you already have going on in your business. Maybe it’s a mindset shift of looking at your employees time and deciding if all their tasks are spent on profitable revenue driving work.
Maybe it’s a matter of exploring on giving your employees their time back and hiring VA’s to do the work that is keeping your team from doing profitable work.
Learn How to Work With VA’s
If you’re ready and want to learn how to work with VA’s, I have 3 options for you to get you up-and-running quickly with Virtual Assistants!
- Podcast: If you know me then you likely know I’m a podcast junkie. I just released my 5th podcast (9th that I’ve produced) but my personal 5th. This podcast called “Clone Yourself” is quick and simple. I’m leaving out all the fluff and giving you a blue print on how to hire and work with VA’s. You can learn more on this link here.
- Workshop Course: I have a brand new workshop that will teach you everything you need to know to get going with VA’s and you can learn more on the link here.
- PPAI Expo 2020: Join me on January 13th at the Expo for a workshop where we’ll roll up our sleeves to do the work to uncovering the tasks you can delegate to VA’s and learn how to hire your first (or next) VA.
That’s it my friends, these are your choices to get you on a path of working less and making more so you can play more! This is literally the roadmap that led me to working less than 4 hours a day.
I’m so passionate about teaching businesses how to utilize VA’s because in this age of constant distractions and connectedness we’re losing ourselves. I’m coining the term “SOUL / Life Balance”. I believe that the Work / Life Balance is broken because work is just a component of life. Times are changing; with the evolution of AI, the rise of the Gig Economy and the trend of working remote - learning to work with VA’s will be an integral part of your business for it to thrive in the coming years.
I’m here to guide you on your journey and give you my step-by-step process. As always, schedule some time on my calendar if you want to talk 1 on 1 :)
Sam Kabert is the creative director of SwagWorx and the creator and co-host of the podcast “WhatUp Silicon Valley!” A risk taker who embraces permanent beta, Sam is leading the transformation of his family-run office supplies business into a promotional products powerhouse. Sam can be reached at Sam@SwagWorx.com.