Welcome to Elevate with Elsner. Join us for inspiring conversations with individuals who have transformed their lives and are making a difference through the work that they do. And now What's going on, everybody? Welcome back to another episode of Elevate with Elsner. where we talk about the mindset systems and real-world moves that Elevate your business, your wealth, and your life. Today's guest is a guy who understands that leadership isn't about doing everything. It's about doing the right things and empowering others to do the rest. Philip Sessions is the founder of Refined VA, a company that helps entrepreneurs and business leaders scale their operations through world-class virtual assistants. He's also a father, husband, and a man of faith, someone who's passionate about helping high achievers find freedom through structure. Philip believes delegation is not just a tactic, it's a spiritual and strategic shift. It's about leading with purpose, protecting your energy, and creating the space for real growth. So if you've ever felt like your business owns you instead of the other way around, this episode might be the mindset reset you've been waiting for. So without further I'm having a technical difficulty. One second. I got to plug the laptop in. That's the best thing about it is We're Notification finally worked for once, but anyways, we're good now. So yeah, man, thanks for having me on the show. So excited to be here. Clearly not always at a hundred percent, but we're rocking and rolling as we go through this thing called life in business. And yeah, this happened as well. I know we've had a couple of back and forth to make all this actually happen for today, I know, right? Yeah, we got kids, sick kids and, you know, life gets in the way. And it's I always say it's it's a little easier than getting out playing golf. You know, this is this we can do a little faster than 18 holes or even nine holes. Right. So, yeah. And it's a little more informative. So. Give us a little backstory about, um, who you are and, and kind of how you ended up, you know, dishing out VAs to Yeah. So my background completely out of left field compared to helping people with VAs and even being a business owner. And it really goes back to being born and raised in Texas. I grew up out in the country. So out in a small town, about an hour outside of Houston, and then Fast forward to college i got a degree in electrical engineering so what that engineering route and everything programming control systems doing all this fancy stuff to automate building cars with bmw manufacturing. I got married and now we've got two little girls so that's why we're talking about the sick kids and everything like that. So two little girls. But then about a year ago, a little over a year ago, I had been using virtual assistants for about three years now. And a year ago, I had some friends reach out wanting help with getting a virtual assistant. They're my friends. So I just said, Hey, you know, I'll just help you out. No big deal. And they're like, well, no, we want to pay you. How do we get paid? And it was two different friends and basically the same conversation. And so I was like, okay, well, so I whipped up some numbers together that would kind of make sense that I could still make some money off of it, but it wasn't costing them too much and everything. And then one of them referred me to a, another person. And so within three weeks, I had four VAs placed in three clients. And so I was kind of like the light bulb that, okay, maybe this is the business I should be in because I was trying to build up this whole speaking coaching thing that was just not taking off. And it had been about two years and just like no traction at all. Kind of felt like I was an idiot running my head up against the wall and just, you know, it just, It was just not good on that side. And then this came up. And so that was like the catalyst for me to do that and just how much value they felt and were excited about to be able to grow their businesses. And so now a little over a year into it, we've got 5 people on the team. We've got a handful of clients currently. And we've recently launched into... So we were sourcing out of the Philippines. And then now we've just recently launched into Latin America and a couple other cool things that we're Yeah, that's really neat. You know, I it makes me think about this appraiser that I know he he does so much with houses and appraisals. He gets all this information and then he just kind of hands it to his VA. And, you know, she's over in the Philippines, I believe. And the amount of time that's bought back, it's like he's got all the facts, like he does all the work. She just puts it together. And that like buys back hours of time. So I can see why, you know, why it's so, you know, why people started coming to you for this because of, you know, how much time you can gain back and and have still talent working Yeah, man. And that time back is so important. And it seems so silly, even as little as just doing a calendar invite or a back and forth to figure out what time works best. There's people, you're probably the same way that sometimes you'll send a calendar link because y'all aren't really buddies and you're just trying to figure out a time. Or like for us on the podcast, you probably have certain times. So okay, here's the calendar link, figure out a time. But there's other times where you got a buddy and say, Does Friday work better? Does next Monday like and you're kind of manually doing that. But having somebody else take that on, it just frees up so much bandwidth for you and that whole back and forth. You don't realize how much brain power that takes. And really, to me, at the end of the day, we only have so much capability and so many decisions that we can make. And especially as entrepreneurs or even salespeople, We're having to constantly think about the next conversation. What do we need to do here? What string should we pull to make this happen, this lever go? And when you're doing all those things and all those things are in your head, but now you've got to also send a calendar link, send an email, all of that stuff. Those are just decisions that are going to fatigue you and not allow you to be able to work on other things. And so while it seems kind of silly, some of these things that you probably would think that aren't really that value-add to get rid of, they actually are a ton of value-add for Yeah, they definitely are. Cause just knowing by experience, like you're saying the back and forth of just trying to figure out to get, you know, somebody on a podcast, like you're saying, when somebody sick, that's a lot of brain power, it's a lot of time. You got a thing you got to pull up. I mean, like you said, that that's a pain in the butt to do it. Um, one and to have somebody take that off your plate, it's just going to have you improve other aspects of your business to where then you can dive in deeper in that area. Exactly. So what would you say in terms of like, uh, I guess, like, it's not necessarily a staffing company, right? Because I don't think you like to like to really say that you like to more call it like an ecosystem of, Yeah, you could say we're on the recruiting agency side. So a lot of what we handle is... I guess I'll explain the process of how it works. So essentially, you could come to me and say, hey... And I like to make more of a consult on it. Typically, people will be like, hey, I'm struggling with social media or I need help with sales calls, cold call, whatever that is. Or they have a certain thing that they come to us for. And so we'll get on a call and figure out, okay, What are you all struggling to get done? What things do you feel like you're missing or do you not like? And we really try to figure out what's going to be the best bang for your buck in order to get that time back for you, but also move your business forward. So sometimes you may think that getting video editing taken off your hands is the best thing. But when in reality, it's actually getting somebody to manage your calendar, manage your emails, Maybe doing all the documentation that admin work that takes up a lot of time for you even though it's a little bit. little less value add, let's say, it's something that's actually going to be more beneficial for you. So we take a consult, and then we figure out what is going to be the best package for you. And can we bring all these things into one? So somebody that's going to do your bookkeeping is not going to also do your video editing, all that stuff. But how can we try and get it consolidated into one person, unless you just want to hire three or four VAs, then Okay, we can do that too. But most people aren't ready to hire a full-time VA or multiple VAs. So we figure out what's gonna be the best thing, and then try and go for like 20 hours a week that you can buy back or use that virtual assistant for. And then we go and source them. So we do pre-screening, and we do initial interviews, and we'll do a final interview with the client to make sure it's a good fit. We're doing tests in there if the client has ideas of what they want to test for and stuff like that will also throw those tests in there and then essentially replacing after that we figure start date we do an onboarding for the virtual system we do on boarding and expectations with the client as well as say here's what it is and then you're in direct contact with that virtual assistant from there. We handle payroll. We provide insurance. We do ongoing trainings for the virtual assistants as well. So it's not like we're just setting it, forgetting it kind of thing. We're there to really support and be proactive. So we're checking in with you on a biweekly or monthly basis. And we're also checking in weekly with the virtual assistants to make sure that everything's going well and really trying to be proactive in that communication, especially with the Philippines culture. We've seen that. Where this it's a cultural thing where they really respect authority and their people pleaser, so they don't want to say, hey, I need some more information from you or they don't want to say, oh, I can't. I don't know what you're talking about. So they kind of just say, OK, it's noted. And then you're like, okay, I think they got it, but they really didn't. And then a week later you're figuring out, oh, they didn't get it. So that's why we're constantly checking in because there's less of that intimidation that goes with it and less of the, oh, the boss, I can't just talk to the boss directly kind of thing. And it's just a huge culture thing that we're trying to constantly educate the VA, but also the business owner on. Went a little bit long winded there, but in a nutshell, yeah, we're really kind of like a recruiting agency, but we're also there to support the Yeah, that's an interesting part about that. You do the payroll and the insurance part, because I feel like that takes away, like when I think of VA, I'm like, like you said, like, oh, you're going to, here's a VA. I'm going to have to pay them. I'm going to have to, you know, do the insurance. I'm going to have to do all this with the VA, but you're the whole company that almost grooms the VA Yeah, I mean, technically, we don't have to give insurance because they are just an independent contractor. But that's one of the things we try to do in order to keep that retention from the VA side is otherwise. And because, you know, they're kind of like an hourly employee like anybody else, any other hourly associate. They're just going to go to the next person that's going to pay them 50 cents or an hour more. So how do we keep them? It's through insurance. And we do a paid time off after a certain amount of time and paid holidays that are all included in the packages for So how many VAs do you have right now like that work, I guess, under you for other businesses? So internal, we've got five currently, and then we've got four placed right now. Okay. So you have four, okay, cool. So you have four place being all in different, those four all do different So that's pretty, I mean, it's pretty neat. I guess. Can you talk about, um, these roles that these, these ones feel like just real Yeah, for sure. So just to kind of give a backstory, my very first virtual assistant was for video editing, and then I hired another one for social media management. And so I still, they're not the same ones, but I still have the social media manager who helps create content, creates captions and posts for me. I've got the virtual, or sorry, virtual assistant. They're all virtual assistants. But I've got the video editor who actually, we focus in on our podcast as well as YouTube content. So they're creating scripts for me. They are doing all the editing. They're posting on my behalf and everything like that, creating the thumbnails. And so those are the social media video editors. I have a recruiter that does all that recruiting. So once I've had the sales conversation, you want to move forward on getting a VA, then I hand it over to her. And she's corresponding with you. She's going out and finding the client. She's doing the pre-screening and she's doing the final interviews with you. And then she's handling the contracts as well. So the contracts back and forth. And then we're... I'm almost there. I'm not quite ready to hand off to her yet. But handling all of the payment plan, like, hey, how do we charge you? Where do we charge you at? Stuff like that. I've actually got somebody else that does that now, which we just recently handed that off, which is my operations manager. So she's overseeing everybody on the team. Of course i am as well but she's really kind of that day to day on the ground working with them but then she's my right hand person as well where she she now has my credit card available so as we need to make minor purchases she's doing that she's checking with me first. But still she's making those minor purchases she handles all the onboarding with the HR slash recruiter but she will go in and make sure that if we have a new person coming in that they have all the licenses for Google Business Suite, Asana, you name it all that stuff and get them set up. there and everything and then we have a email marketing specialist so this is something i wanted to really push for so we got an email marketing specialist and so she's doing our email campaign she's sending text blasts out and email blast as well doing workflows within go high level and she's also doing a little bit we're working on a new initiative within job tread Or the construction home remodeling space to do project management and so we're getting ready to launch that with somebody kind of a trial thing that we're doing with them to be able to learn job trade so we can start placing people. Remote project coordinator roles helping out with estimates keeping up with documentation following up with your contractors and all that stuff so. That's quick and dirty about all the things that I've delegated personally. That's, I know that's, it's powerful. It shows that obviously it works. Um, so what, how do you find, like when you say you have a recruiter for businesses or recruiter for VAs, like how do you find a VA in the Philippines? Yeah, so she does the recruiting for me, not for VAs, not for business owners. So I'm the one still handling the sales side of that. Funny fact, actually, we just launched where I had somebody on the team taking the initial calls. So if it's somebody that I don't know, and they want to get on a discovery call, she's actually taking those as well. She actually just did her first this week. which is really cool so she was able to take that call figure out what their need was and figure out where they were in the process and then we move forward from there a lot of times the sales process i'm i've been finding out that people wanna know what is the b.a. like that's a waste of my time to take that initial call i'll take the call where it's like okay I know what a VA is. I know what I want. Okay, let's actually have that conversation and then move forward to get a VA. But going back to the recruiting. So yeah, she handles that. How I first did it, there's a platform called onlinejobs.ph, which is a great platform. The only downside is that every time you put a job posting up, you get over 200 applicants. You gotta go through all of them and figure out what's a good rate for that, who actually makes sense, who actually has the right experience. And then you gotta go through and try and call on them or find some way to do that pre-screening. But that's a way you can do it on your own, just go into onlinejobs.ph. But she handles all that, we use that, we use LinkedIn as well as I can't there's some other sources actually I don't really know what other sources she uses like indeed for the So that's how, so she bring and then finds VAs to come and staff on your, uh, on Yeah. Yeah. We've got a training Academy. We do as well for that ongoing training. And so that's part of us creating a VA talent pool also. So we're going to have a more trained up than just like, Hey, we're finding Joe off the street. We're pulling them in, look at his experience, saying he's good enough. I know we're bringing them into the talent pool. And as that grows enough. Our plan is to really like you have to come through our talent pool in our training program before we'll even place you somewhere. So we're not quite there yet because the talent pool is not big enough, but that's our plan so we can place even faster. That's pretty, yeah, that's pretty interesting how that, I always kind of wondered because, you know, it's a country of a lot of people. Yeah. So I'm like, how, you know, how do you find that, you know, you have what, almost like three sections of a ginormous country separated by what, two different seas, three different seas, something like that. Um, it really blows my mind and, you know, prayers out to the Philippines. Cause I realized there just had a couple of typhoons go through there. Uh, yeah, literally two in one week is crazy. Yeah. And I noticed they don't, I don't really, they're pretty much like category fours that came through pretty much. They just calm, strong, strong I forgot she, yeah. Um, my one VA said some word and that's something we do too. Like, Hey, because I mean, you're not watching the news in the Philippines. So we send out emails, Hey, by the way, This is coming. So if you see any interruption or you don't get something, and we tell the VA is like, make sure you're saying something also that a typhoon is coming. I may lose reception or whatever. I may be MIA for a day or two, but I'll get back as soon as I can. But we also send out that email to our clients as well. So you're not just sitting there wondering, well, what just happened to my VA? They just dropped off the face of the earth. And then you maybe you think about searching. OK, was there a typhoon over there? So that's a lot of what we're trying to do as well within our Yeah, no, I, it does sound like silly and like stupid, right? Like the, like, like, why do I need a VA? But then you like, the more you sit in, the more you think about it and it makes just like ultra sense. Like, I mean, there's, there's not a lot of reasons why it wouldn't make sense unless it was just a bad fit. person. But I feel like if you have a business and you're trying to get things done and you're not delegating and you're trying to figure out how to do it on a reasonable scale, on a way where you can still profit, where you can still teach, where you can educate, I Yeah, for sure, man. I mean, if you have the money to pay for somebody in person, I'll tell you, hands down, it's a ton easier because you can see what that person is doing. You can see when they're working or not working, and you don't necessarily have to micromanage. And then obviously there's a cultural fit. So if you can afford somebody in-house, by all means, definitely do that. But if you can't, yeah, virtual assistant is a great way for you to be able to cut your teeth on having somebody come in. Now, the hard part about it is, is that they're remote, and they're technically a contractor, so you can't tell them what to do or be here at a certain time. You can set those expectations, but at the end of the day, it's up to them if they want to come or not and do that. And so you're trusting them to be able to do that work and say that they actually have that skill set. And it's just a muscle at the end of the day, delegating stuff. As a good example, when I first handed off payroll, I was like, okay, I'm going to hold it all internal. Every individual VA knows what their pay is, but obviously not everybody knows. And I also... So I was like, okay. But it started being so much. And so I decided to hand it off to my HR person at the time, who's now my ops manager. But i handed off to her and it was such a relief i mean such a silly thing is well i had a handful of days i had to do payroll for but it still is the fact that i had to make sure that money was in this account i had to check and see what their hours were and then i had to go and pay that out to each individual one and make sure the amount was right because nobody likes to not have the right amount of money it paid for their paycheck and What I gave that to her, even though I did the final check, I didn't, she put it all in and we use wise to make the payments to the virtual assistants in the Philippines. Uh, but when she just put that in, it was such a game changer for me and such a huge mental relief that I didn't even realize was such a burden for me. And so that's just one of those things like kind of scary to let go. But she was really cool about it. And there was no issue. She didn't like go and blab to everybody that, you know, she's making this, they're making that. And she wasn't making the most either. So she easily could have been like, well, why are they making a couple of dollars more than me? But she did it. She was very professional Wow. You know, that's got to feel like taking a rock out of your backpack, because like you said, you don't really notice until I'm sure it's done, you go. Oh crap, like I don't have to do that now. Like that's one less thing I have, you know, what can I put there now? Like, you know, it's one less thing I don't have to do. Um, so yeah, this, uh, it's obviously very powerful. It really, it really is. Like, uh, I feel at a stepping stone, maybe like, Hey, if your goal is to have somebody work in house, right. This is a perfect, I guess, stepping stone. Cause the only way to grow is that you're going to need to delegate. You're going to need help. Right. So this is a perfect stepping stone, hire a VA or two to get you to that next level. So that way you can go ahead and go find somebody to Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And to me, it's a low cost way to figure out your systems as well. So you don't have to have everything perfect. but you delegate this to somebody, let them kind of figure it out and come back to you and say, Hey, I need this, this, this information. And now you've kind of got it all in one spot. So when you're ready to maybe now hire that in house, it's all ready to go. And so now you're not going to pay somebody $20, $30 an hour to kind of figure things out and keep asking you for information. Maybe you paid six to ten dollars an hour for somebody in the philippines to go through that same process but then it also builds that delegation muscle which to me starts become like almost a game like hey i wonder if i could delegate this. Which is actually what I end up doing. I mentioned that sales call where we set up the process where I had one of the virtual assistants take on the discovery call. This lead actually came in from me being on a podcast somewhere and she went to my website and she booked a call. And I was like, you know what, this is good. Let me try this. I want to not touch this lead if possible. So I actually had my ops manager take the secondary call. And so now we're kind of in the follow up phase right now. So hopefully I can come back later and be like, hey, we closed her and I didn't have to touch the lead at all. But that was just my thought. I'm like, let's try it. Why not? And that's what you'll start to do as you get into this delegation game. As you'll see, what else Yeah, it makes sense. Like, I mean, you know, to, to dive in and to know that like things are taken care of and you know, like you're saying, like these, like these discovery calls, like people want to know what a VA is or what a VA does. So the fact of the matter is like, I bet just somebody listening to this podcast might go, well, I I kind of want to know a little bit more and honestly, it might be better to hear from her over you. Right. Cause she's actually, you know, she's over there and she's the one that's, you know, going to be hand in hand with this, uh, VA and handing it off. Obviously you're there at the top as the leader, but I think it's, it's almost more hearing from the horse's mouth. So, um, I think that's actually another great delegation of, uh, of, of a job by yourself. Yeah, I appreciate that. And it's been funny because, yeah, it's almost been like proof in the pudding, right? It's not, oh, I'm doing all this stuff. But yeah, delegation is great. You should get a B.A. They're great. But you're only talking to me ever. It's like, really? But now there's proof in the pudding because here I am having my team do all this, do all these touch points. And it's not me. And at first I thought like, no, I'm the value. I'm the value there. The client wants me to talk to them. But i realized it was kinda like hypocritical because i'm like we'll get a delegate stuff but that i'm still doing everything but secondly that was my ego talking because the value is the people we provide the service behind our business not me being the one doing that work. And I think that's another big thing that a lot of business owners, they have that ego problem. They think that they have to be involved somewhere. If I go to BMW or Mercedes or you name the big company, I'm not talking to the CEO trying to get service or buy a product. I'm talking to somebody way down the food chain. So why can't that be the same thing even if it's only one or two rungs down with True. And, uh, you know, obviously you won't even get to the CEO and And you never would expect that, but we placed this and there are some people that are just like that. I want to talk to you. I don't want to talk to somebody on your team because maybe they have that relationship or maybe they're just weird like that. But most people I've found really respect that, uh, even with my virtual assistants and. Unfortunately, it's this thing like, oh, they're a virtual assistant. They're beneath us in a way. Some people treat them that way. But even with the virtual assistants, people are still like, oh, this is a professional service. It just makes you look like a more professional company when it's not you as the one-man show. That Like I said, I think that is another tremendous delegation, delegated tasks, however you phrase that. But yeah, no, I think anybody that, you know, is listening is just learn about it. I think that's, you know, even myself, you know, I think I need to do a discovery call, you know, with your with your lady just to understand like, Hey, what, what can I take off my plate? Like, you know, do I have, I do a lot of social media, a lot of, you know, video editing, a lot of, like you're saying certain stuff like that, emails, um, all that certain, all that stuff is just tedious and it's Now I get on there, I'm like, dude, this has changed completely. I feel like I'm out of the loop what happens when they make an update. I'm like, what happened here? Because I've not been doing it for so long. I mean, I'm still on there obviously, but not near as much as I was. Yeah. It's like Instagram. They keep changing. I'm like, where, where's the post button now? They got the post button is now the message button down at the bottom of the middle of the screen. I'm like, what in the, what's going on here? Like, yeah, it's just, yeah. And then Facebook's got, you know, we're, we're no longer tagged. It's a plus sign. Like, you know, you're just like, what's going on? Yeah. It's like certain things rolling out, but, um, Yeah, that's why, you know, and that's another reason why you have a VA, like they keep up with that stuff. They keep up being educated. They know what software or what, you know, versions rolling out. And that makes a big difference. So I really appreciate you coming on here and, you know, talking about Refined VA because it really is, I think, a big part that people kind of just overlook. And I think that, you know, maybe stop and listen and see, you know, that this might be just a part of, you know, your, your home run. Here's your bloop single, your, your, your line drive to get to the home run. Um, so I, I think it's a, it's a good, good parking spot to, uh, go ahead and get on discovery call. And we'll put that, we'll put that in the show notes. So that way, uh, anybody wants to connect with Yeah. And happy to get on a call, you know, depends on the situation there. Definitely with you, man, we can, you and I can hop on a call, but if you want to talk to the VA to see that experience too, you know, we can do that as well. But for anybody that wants to definitely get with my, my VA, go to our website, RefinedVA, VA is in virtualassistant.com, and you'll be able to see more about what a virtual assistant is, what our services are, Yeah, that's big. No, I joke. I think I'm going to, I'd rather talk to her than talk to Yeah, that's right. That's right. Well, brothers, it was a pleasure having you on here. And, uh, like I said, all that stuff will be in the notes. If anybody wants to connect with Philip, um, or obviously his VA's in the discovery call, he's always lurking up top though. So if you need them, he's there. So. Other than that, any last things? Obviously, if you're stretched thin, we know your business feels heavier than it should. It's Yeah. I'll give one last example here because a lot of times, again, people say like, oh, I just don't have everything set up. I can't get a VA. Well here's the best example i can give you because it literally just happened for us a couple weeks ago i made the statement that we were gonna go and start sourcing in latin america and i gave it to my operations manager said figure it out. And now we have placed two people from their internal to us but we got two people now from latin america from nicaragua specifically with on our team. All because I told her, hey, let's figure out how to get in Latin America. We're having demand over there. Let's figure that out. And I just told her I had no clue how to do it myself. I haven't been involved in the process of doing interviews, anything like that. And so far, these two VAs have been really awesome for us on the team. So I say, I'd say that a virtual assistant, whether you have it figured out, uh, or you know what you even really want, getting a virtual assistant, they can figure it out for you and help you along the way. So even if you go a long way, maybe you were like, Hey, I want video editing, but then there's other stuff you might want done. You can just tell them, Hey, can we do this? and let them figure it out. That's the beauty of really an employee in general, but a virtual assistant is that they will go figure Yeah, that's a big thing. And we know me and you have mutual connections and we know people that have VA's like yourself that have multiple VA's in Nicaragua. That's another country. It's like I feel like Philippines, Nicaragua are the two that I know personally that people are, you know, really running a business through and learning and teaching and pouring into those people for their brand. Oh, yeah. So, yeah, that's awesome. I really appreciate it. Again, you can find Philip at RefindVA.com. You can follow him on Instagram at Philip Sessions. Once again, we'll have all this in the show notes in a way for you to book a discovery call. Brother, thank you for being here. Yeah, man. Glad to be here. Thanks for having me. Absolutely. Until next time, build, scale, and Elevate. One love. Thanks so much for tuning into this episode. We sure do appreciate it. If you haven't done so already, make sure you're subscribed to the show wherever you consume podcasts. This way you'll get updates as new episodes become available. And if you feel so inclined, please leave us a review and tell your