The Assistant Revolution: How to Reclaim Your Time and Multiply Your Impact with Tim Francis

Dustin: [00:00:00] Welcome back to the seven figure lead podcast. Uh, today's guest is a, is a really special connection. And the way I know that is, uh, I had three people from my mastermind group who met Tim Francis, our special guest today, and within a few days after meeting him and a live event in Austin, Texas, I got three different messages saying, you really got to meet Tim.
And so Tim and I connected immediately. It felt like kindred spirits felt like old friends. Uh, he actually called me. From, uh, the rehearsal dinner at his brother's wedding in Canada, which I felt honored, uh, that he carved out a little time for me and the, the discussion got deep quick, but it also got very practical.
And so I said, Hey, I would love to keep talking to you. I'd love for you to go, you know, do the toast for your, your brother. Uh, and then let's record this as a podcast, cause I know my audience is really going to benefit from everything you're sharing with me one on one. So. Tim Francis, welcome to the podcast.
I'd love to just turn it over to you. Let you introduce yourself, tell a little bit about your backstory and why you do the work that you do at great assistant today.
Tim: I know time is [00:01:00] valuable. So I'd like to actually start with three real quick strategies that anyone can use right away.
Dustin: Let's pop in. Yeah, let's do it.
Tim: So everyone wants to know what should I pay an assistant, and there's a huge market out there, $4 an hour to $40 an hour. Really, the sweet spot is 22 to 25 US dollars, 400 domestic assistant.
Later in our conversation, I can get into how I arrived at that and why that's true. Secondly. Everyone thinks so much about SOPs, should I use them, should I not, typically. It doesn't make a lot of sense to put a ton of effort into them until we're past seven figures. Instead, an assistant supporting you and you just shoot and loom videos for them goes a very, very, very long way to right size the solution of teaching them how to do what you need them to do.
Um, and thirdly, and this is maybe one of the biggest of all, is please, please do not communicate with your assistant over [00:02:00] email. Email is just such a
wasteland of distraction for you, but it's also a wasteland of distraction for them. We want to get you over into a DM tool like a Slack or something like that.
And even if it's just the two of you and it feels a little silly to have some fancy DM tool for just two people, what it will do for your focus and productivity is absolutely amazing. So three quick strategies right off the top. You said, I like practicality. There it is.
Dustin: I love it. And, and, and as I, uh, as we, uh, we'll get into your story a little bit too. I have to say, I feel very affirmed in this moment because I actually hired my first grade assistant, uh, without the TM earlier this year is before I met Tim. Uh, I definitely would now fully endorsed Tim's process. And when the good news is he had not shared these three strategies with me, but I've actually checked all three boxes.
So, uh, my, my rate is right there, uh, with what I'm, what I'm paying Tiffany, my awesome assistant. And we are just starting to get into some SOP things as we're crossing the seven figure mark. But [00:03:00] yeah, a lot of our. Legacy
sort of things. I want to, I want to convey that need to stick happen on loom videos.
And I created a Slack channel just for her. So I guess I'm doing things okay to get us out of the gate. So Tim, thanks for opening up with the firepower here, giving people some answers to questions that are, I'm sure on their mind. A lot of our audience, as I shared with you before we started recording.
Or in this kind of early scale mode, six figure looking to seven, wanting to hire like a really amazing assistant. Maybe you've had some false starts. I know you have your own story about false starts, so I'd love to turn it back to you and just give us, give us like, how do you get to this pretty niche service?
Like, what does great assistant do? And why do you do it?
Tim: Yeah, when I was born in Canada, I didn't think I'd have an assistant company, right? I thought I'd be a pro hockey player. You know, I'm in the back of the classroom and in third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth grade practicing my autograph for when I was going to be famous. Right? So, yeah, um, you betcha.
[00:04:00] So I, uh, I failed, uh, five times in a row at getting an assistant. Uh, I'd gone overseas. I had paid 4 an hour. I had paid 20 an hour. I'd hired agencies. I had tried maybe not every possible variation, but I tried so many different
variations and nothing seemed to work. So I'm gonna take it back just a few years.
In 2008, I thought I was on this awesome, awesome trajectory. I'd just been named one of my city's top 20 under 30. I'd raised a few hundred thousand dollars to invest in real estate. I was actually a touring drummer. My band had been asked to play at the Western Canadian Music Awards. Everything was looking awesome.
I actually had four houses because of, you know, what I'd purchased and invested in. And then there was this 18 month window where it was nosedive after nosedive. So the real estate market crashed, fell [00:05:00] big time financially. I was actually a quarter million dollars in debt before I knew it. Secondly, 20 minutes before my band goes on stage at the Western Canadian Music Awards, We break up in the band van.
True story.
Dustin: my gosh. I don't think I caught that part of the story. That's uh, that's crazy.
Tim: We still played the show, but man, I'm up there behind the drums looking out at the audience. The lights are beaming and the crowd screaming and there's agents and publishers and every, everyone you wanted to be there was there, but
I knew it was over. So I'm scanning the room playing in this kind of like slow motion in an aquarium.
Kind of feeling, you know, and my eyes fall to stage, right. And I could see my mom, my dad, my brother, my sister, my girlfriend, they're all there supporting us. We've got the most special spot up front and to know that it was over and to have them there meant a lot to me. [00:06:00] So the next day I had a tough
choice to make.
Um, do I continue in the music industry or do I pivot? And the cool answer would have been, let's get, yeah. And I did get messaged by a few different bands like, Hey, we heard you guys split up. Do you want to join us? I think
actually they didn't think I was a great drummer. They just knew I was like very entrepreneurial and I would do all the hard work we had
Dustin: You'll get us gigs and sponsors and agents.
Tim: it's exactly an airplane, all the rest.
So, um, so at any rate, I, the cool answer was, yeah, keep going with music. But what was in my heart was entrepreneurship. So I knew that if I was a top 1 percent drummer, I may still not make six figures yet. If I was a top 1 percent entrepreneur. I would definitely be at seven figures and above, right? So it was a real gut check.
And right there at my dining room table, I decided to move on from music after playing for, I think like 15 years and playing professionally for six. So [00:07:00] in that moment, I'm like, okay, all right. Entrepreneurship. It is double down, get going even harder into real estate. Then the next big hammer falls. And that's the real estate crash. Um, lost all the money, lost the band. And it turns out in all this, that one of my, well, I guess my main mentor at the time, it turned out he was the lead promoter of a 12 million Ponzi scheme.
Dustin: Holy crap.
Tim: Yeah. And so, and so his, his business partner on that ended up getting convicted in court, given a 225, 000 fine, barred from holding securities for 25 years and left the country.
Like, you can't make this stuff up, right? So at that point, I'm like, yo, it can't get any worse than this, right? Like what else could possibly happen? Lost the band, lost the houses, lost my, you know, reputation and investing. And, you know, thankfully my investors were very understanding. We worked things out. Oh, but it got worse. So [00:08:00] on December, the 20. 6, 2010. So boxing day up in Canada, I go to pick up my fit, up my family and I'm going to be the good son. I'm going to take them to West Edmonton mall, which is even bigger than the mall of America, right? Huge 800 stores. Plus it is battle Royale to get parking spots.
So I'm thinking for boxing day, I'm going to take my family. I'll drop them off the door and I'll drive around for an hour and a half trying to find the golden ticket, a parking spot. And, uh, I have a bit of a limp as I'm walking into my mom's home. I didn't know why she says, honey, pull up your pant leg.
Like what's going on here. And so I slowly roll up the cuff of my jeans. And she and I both were shocked is what we saw. It looked like I'd rolled my ankle playing basketball or something. It was like this puffy kind of grandma cankle. and, and so then I look at the other leg, we roll up the other pant leg [00:09:00] and it's the same thing.
She looks at me. She's like, there's no way you're going to walk around for seven hours at West Edmonton mall in this condition. So I stayed home. At mom's house and uh little did I know five days later at my own new year's eve party I would not be able to even stand. I literally sat in a rolling office chair as my girlfriend danced and everyone had a great time counting down to midnight.
Went to see three doctors. They all independent of each other came to the same conclusion. They said, you have a very rare illness called erythema nodosum. When I asked how this happens, they said, it's typically stress related. And I went, Oh yeah. Yeah. I could, I can see the clear connection, the band, the Ponzi scheme, the money, all of it, [00:10:00] I asked them how long the timeframe would be.
They said, we have no timeline for you. This could be days, this could be weeks, this could be months, we don't know. So I moved back in with my parents for full time care. And I had to choose between my mom putting a little bench inside the shower for me to sit down and bathe myself, or At 20 years old, having my mother give me a sponge bath in bed. Wow. To go from touring drummer, four houses, top 20 under 30. I was actually also a college varsity athlete. Like, so to go from all of that to having the mobility of a 98 year old was unbelievably upsetting. So I laid in bed day after day, week after week, wondering what I had done to put myself in this situation. And I'll tell you, some days I felt supremely [00:11:00] depressed, other days I felt angry, other days I just felt flat out humiliated. In February of 2011, so the second month of my recovery, I'm laying in bed asking this question, why, why, why? And all of a sudden I feel this warmth in my body. And I feel a tingling that comes through and I hear this voice and the voice says, is this what you want? And I, my brain went back to being at my dining room table, deciding on entrepreneurship and saying, yeah, I'm going to do this. Right. And I don't know if a second went by or a minute went by or an hour went by time. Stood still. And that's when I heard a second voice. It was small. [00:12:00] It was quiet. It was distant, way deep down inside of me. And it just said, yes. And in that moment, I felt this cascade of just realizations flood through me. One of the biggest ones was that I'd been chasing fame and fortune through rock and roll and real estate, when what I needed to be chasing was truth and mastery. Yeah. And even if I was never rich, never famous, if all I got to do for the rest of my life is get 1 percent better at entrepreneurship with every week that goes by, that that would be a life well lived
Dustin: a
Tim: that time.
That I saw a quote that chilled me to the bone that I would remember forever. And that quote is hell is meeting the man I could have been[00:13:00]
Dustin: Um,
Tim: that day. I, I deep in my heart believe that was the day I started to heal. That was the day that I was finally aligned with call it divine truth or the spirit of service, you know, the Dharma of the human soul. And that was the day that I think candidly. You know, Dustin, I think my head finally got screwed on straight.
Dustin: Silence.
Tim: inconveniences. Number one, I couldn't walk. And number two is a quarter million bucks in debt. And I had no way to make money.
Dustin: I was going to say this isn't like, and then I walked out of bed and I had this new company and I live in Austin, Texas, and it wasn't quite that simple, but this was truly like the rock bottom moment, the transformational, I mean, you know, just moment, I guess, in, in, in your, in your whole career, but also in your, I mean, more importantly, in your life, both spiritually, physically, uh, emotionally, um, [00:14:00] Yeah, so like I just I do want to move on to the story.
One thing I'm very curious about is as you reflect on this is obviously a very pivotal moment. I'm sure you thought a lot about it and probably talked a lot about it. What do you attribute those two voices? Was the first voice God and the second voice yours when you answered? Yes. Was that just you, but not even a conscious you, it was a, from deep within sort of like the real essence of you, your spirit, in a sense, we don't need to get into theology here, but I'm curious what you attribute those two voices to, because that's a really interesting part of your journey.
Tim: I guess it would depend on a person's spirituality. It could be one in the same. If we are all the same source, if we are the divine breath of God, the way that I personified it, I would say, yes, it was God, and then it was the true me deep down inside under all the masks of wanting to be rich and famous and all the rest, the true me was there, so.
You know, and, and after seeing that quote. That hell is meeting the man I could have been. I had some important decisions to make, like what business I'm going to go into. So I [00:15:00] started a marketing, marketing agency because
my friend had a really successful supplement company online. And I'm like, where do all these strangers come from that just give you their credit card on the internet? So he said, Oh yeah, uh, this thing called Google AdWords. Um, I was so broke. I couldn't afford to buy Perry Marshall's 97 ebook. So I stole it slash pirated it slash got the login from my buddy, Mark. And I've since actually spoken with Perry on the stage and I've apologized many times and I I've given him money, much bigger dollars for other programs.
So, you know, Perry and I are all cool. Um, but yeah, you know, I, I now had to decide like, Am I going to keep trying to hire overseas? Am I going to keep trying in the few years after my recovery? Am I going to keep trying this overseas thing? And he just kept failing. So I'm there with a quarter million dollars debt and only 20, 000 of revenue before hiring my [00:16:00] first ever North American assistant thinking, can I possibly afford this? And then the second kind of like perspective crashed in, which was, can I afford not to hire North American? And. I had this shower thought i'm standing in the shower. This is a writer downer for anyone who's uh listening but not driving if you're driving just Pull over, think about it later. Yeah. Mental dope. I'm standing in the shower after I fell over and over with an assistant. And I don't know why this floats into my brain, Dustin, but maybe it's the hot water, my neck or something, just divining the muse. And the question was, the question is absurd, but productive. The question was, if I was legally bound to staying with my next assistant for What would I do differently? And all of a sudden I was like, well, if I was stuck with my next assistant for three years, I would not [00:17:00] hire overseas. Cause. I don't know what the politics and civil uprisings and electricity and all the instabilities of overseas might be like in the next three years. I probably wouldn't hire the first person who applies.
I probably would generate more than two or three candidates. I do like 50 to 200. I would start making this list, right? Long list of what I would do if I was stuck with an assistant for three years. Then I felt a little guilty. I'm like, ah, that's a little negative. What if I flip that around? What if I flip it around to, what if I get to be.
With my next assistant for three years and as I answering that question, the list is like, Oh, well, I would never miss a weekly alignment meeting with them. You know, maybe reschedule if needed, but never miss it. I would design a real great onboarding process, you know, so they felt a real warm welcome.
Like they'd arrived at a professional company, not some chaotic mess. I would want to know about them personally. You know, in the name of their dogs and kids and personal goals and all the rest, I didn't, I didn't [00:18:00] invest into
them. Right. And, and, you know, there's another list of maybe 20 items and I, I pushed myself back from my, from my desk dozen and I'm looking at these two lists and I burst out laughing because you want to know what I didn't do a damn thing from either of these two lists.
With my previous five failed hires, Eureka, no wonder it didn't work out. And that's when I learned that a long term approach to say, I don't want to hire an assistant for two to three months. I want to hire them specifically for two to three years or longer. So off I go, I, I put together a. Uh, let's say a more enlightened hiring process.
Keep in mind still 28 K of revenue and a quarter million dollars in debt. And I put up my first ever job posting for an American assistant for American wages. I had 200 candidates apply of the [00:19:00] 200 candidates apply a former paralegal from Kokomo, Indiana.
Dustin: Love
Tim: sarah is the top candidate and I hire her now It's a little strange because she had never been an assistant before She had never worked in a marketing company before which is what I had And she'd never worked online before and i'm like, how could she possibly be the top result of 200?
Candidates, how can this be by any measure? She's unqualified. And then I had this little voice in my head say, well, Tim, your hiring instincts, haven't been particularly sharp so
Dustin: Yeah. Let's just go with it. Right.
Tim: let's try something different. Right. Dustin, what I didn't realize that I'd done, which I don't know if it's dumb luck or what. I had designed a hiring process. That that addressed exactly the custom needs of getting an assistant [00:20:00] that are completely unique to an assistant compared to hiring pretty much anyone else, the way I would describe it is shallow and broad versus narrow and deep. Okay. So if I'm hiring a salesperson, I definitely want them to have previous experience as a salesperson. I want them to know some kind of a pipeline software, whether it's pipe drive or, you know, something else. I want them to know my industry. I, and, and are they a hunter or are they a farmer? Like they need to, there's a real narrow and I couldn't give two hoots if they don't know how to process payroll or send an invoice, right.
Narrow and deep is the name of the game. And assistant is the only role I can really think of where that that's actually the polar opposite of what matters most because of how I define this. Okay. So as I was laying in bed sick, all those years ago, I realized every single one of my worst fears had come [00:21:00] true.
I'd lost the money. I'd lost the prestige. I'd lost the reputation. I'd lost the houses. I hadn't lost my family, thankfully, and I hadn't lost my girlfriend. God bless her for, for sticking with me. So those are blessings. I mean, for a young man at 20 years old, all the things that he's striving for. Evaporate. But then I, I, my hands touched my face and my chest in, in, in my thighs and my arms, and I realized, but I'm still here, I'm, I'm still here. I'm not dead. I'm still sound of mind. I can still think. This game isn't over. Maybe this is just the beginning of the next chapter. And I realized that I'd lost every single one of these so called assets that you would see on a balance sheet or what the bank would call an asset, yet I hadn't died.
So what was the [00:22:00] number one asset after all? That's when I realized the number one asset was me. As long as I was in the game, I had a say in the matter. And, and I was also the person Who had the most access to money and decision making and people and networks and software I probably even had a
better laptop than whoever I might work with like now, let's be clear I had a lot of access to money and people it wasn't very much money and not a lot of people But it was it was more than anyone I could hire
Dustin: Right.
Tim: and so I said what would it look like?
What would it look like if I optimized my day? Around how the number one asset can go and be in his zone of genius as much as freaking humanly possible And well, okay, if that's the case, it's kind [00:23:00] of like I want to be the surgeon in the room How can I arrive at the surgery room and everything's already ready for me?
I could come in do my thing And then leave the room and someone else can clean it up while I go to the next surgery room, and the next one, and the next one, and the next one. That sounds like a pretty kick ass day. Like, let's go do, let's, how do we make that happen? And, and, for, for everyone who's taking notes, I define surgeon in the room tasks as anything that is strategy, high level skill, or high level access. For, for the surgeon. Obviously the high level skill is them doing the procedure. Strategy is going to be what procedure are we going
to do given the injury or the illness, right? Also after the surgery, there's some strategy. Is the recovery going well? Do we need to change the medication or do something different, right?
The less obvious is high level access. So the surgeon has high level access to their [00:24:00] medical license, so they can sign off on documents. They have high level access to other surgeons, so they can Ask for a second opinion. If the MRI or the X ray looks a little funky, right? As entrepreneurs, we got that exact same three buckets, strategy, high level skill, high level access.
And if you do a, if you were to do a time study on your day and you circle anything that is not strategy, high level skill, or high level access, we've got to figure out how to get that off your plate ASAP. Now it may not be tomorrow. You know, it might be progressive one task here, one task there over time.
But, you know, that kind of mindset for, say, three months, six months, 12 months, you would be astonished at how much picking up 15 minutes here and 10 minutes there and 20 minutes over here adds up.
Dustin: I actually, I actually like to key on that just a little bit because I was sort of nodding along. You're like, Strategy, high level skills, like, yeah, yeah, yeah, everyone talks about that. And then you said high [00:25:00] level access. And that really got my antenna up, um, in part because I would say in my own journey, that's been so key and I haven't always named it well, right?
Like I might say, um, network or relationships, but actually I really like the word access. Could you dive in a little bit more for now? You know, we're talking just to entrepreneurs, many of which are coaches, consultants, some
agency owners, like you are at this time. Um, What are some ways we can think about, I guess, valuing the access we have, but also like improving access?
Because I think access is maybe the, uh, it's the real differentiator out of those three. It's the thing you said is kind of a little more subtle. And to me, it's the most powerful. I think when we talk about making the seven figure leap or a 10 X leap, it's always about people. And you know, that's how we met is through this like proximity principle, uh, and access in a sense.
So, you know, I'd love to just camp out here just for a minute and talk about what you mean by high level access, and maybe some more creative ways we could think about that. If we had, if we did have this freed up time, what could we be [00:26:00] leveraging it against when it comes to high level access?
Tim: so I was in one of Perry Marshall's workshops. Long after, uh, Dustin: The piracy?
Tim: I was paying for his programs. Yeah. Yeah. It's in Chicago, Oak park, actually, I think. And, um, and I'm looking around the room and I'm like, Oh my word. Uh, I am the dumbest guy on any possible topic here. Like I'm a good all around.
You know, marketing guy. I, I, I know at AdWords, at least at a basic level, I know landing pages. I know opt ins. I know email marketing. I know, like, I'm a good all around athlete, but in the room is like a guy who beat, uh, eHarmony, you know, as his solo PPC guy, he smashed eHarmony a team of like 25 people, you know, and then I looked to my left and there's literally one of the most iconic copywriters.
If I said his name, you'd be like, Oh my word. He was in the room. [00:27:00] And then I'm. Looking in front of me, and it's literally the guy who taught Perry AdWords, I'm like, I am, I am walking around like a one eyed guy in the land of the seeing here. So the lunchtime comes and I notice that across the hallway, I don't remember exactly who was there, but it was like the insurance adjusters of America or something, you know, because we're in this hotel conference room across the hallway, different, you know, different ballroom. And it dawns on me. It dawns on me I could walk into that room. These people don't have a damn idea First idea how to install wordpress, you know what I mean? And that's an it's me that in the land of the blind The one eyed man is king and so paris room is wonderful for friendship and you know pure support and you know trading Ideas and talk and shop pretty bad place for a guy Who's in the bottom [00:28:00] quartile on any given skill to try and find clients. So I'm thinking to myself, okay, one, how can I be the one eyed man in the land of the blind into what is the most expensive room I can afford in three, in industry that I understand. Now, here I'd gone through the ringer with real estate investing and, and, and there was this, this one particular investing club, Dustin, 300 per meeting. It was an annual membership of 3, 500. They did have a couple of kind of like weekend workshops, but to me, it sure felt like 300 bucks for a whatever, four hour meeting once a month. And I stride in there and I'm telling you within minutes, they think I'm a genius. So, you know, and I had some good skills [00:29:00] and I knew the industry and I had some track record. And of course it made a lot of sense for them to feel inspired and motivated and helped, you know, just from at the water stand at the back or on lunch break, you know, just talking about what it is each other does. By the end of the very first meeting, The president of the whole club says, we got to talk and I'm thinking, Oh my
word. Like if he decides to have me speak to his group or something, now I have like hundreds of potential customers immediately. And by the third meeting, there was someone who owns some apartment buildings that said, Hey, you know, I've got a project in mind.
It's going to need some marketing. Would you be interested in having a chat about that? Well, it turns out, it turns out that I landed my first ever 28, 000 marketing contract. Right. So I would have never had [00:30:00] that kind of access
Dustin: a list of things
Tim: had I not had the time
Dustin: what's going on.
Tim: to shake the hands, learn the skills, make the money to be able to afford a 300 per meeting kind of club. And I've just repeated that over and over again. You know, when I first moved to Austin, Texas, I knew three people in Austin. I started hosting private dinners. I had, uh, eight new entrepreneurs and investors every other week for two and a half years,
Dustin: Wow, that's awesome.
Tim: ended up having dinner with 400 different entrepreneurs and investors, pandemic hit that shut that down.
When pandemic started to lift my business partner on that, his name's tan, amazing guy over to asianefficiency. com. Um, we decided to start hosting larger format socials. So we started hosting these larger format socials. You know 400 people 500 [00:31:00] people 800 people start coming to these things we get a dm After one of the parties and they always had a theme, right?
So the one party was Uh, like, like a Miami style white party, everyone's dressing in all white. And one of them was called fire and ice boys and blue girls in red. And this is all online. I mean, you can go to instagram. com forward slash, uh, T and T present. You can watch the videos
Dustin: Love it. Of
Tim: and we get this DM from one of our attendees.
She says, Hey, you guys don't really know me, but I was at your fire and ice party. I've lived in Austin my whole life. It was the best party I've ever been to. I'm doing an event. Related to the United Nations. I need someone to design the VIP social. Could you guys help me with that? I look at Dan. I'm like, yeah.
Dustin: course.
Tim: And in the, in the, in the room at that VIP social was like, Billionaire families, like it was unbelievable. Right. And as we're [00:32:00] getting ready for that event, uh, one of Gary Vaynerchuk's business partners moves to Austin and he's asking around, who should I know downtown, right. And here's about these dinners that this Tim and tan guys are doing.
And he hears about these socials and there's this white party and this fire and ice. And so, so he comes to one of our events, approaches us, shakes our hand and just says like, Hey, can we, can we talk? And I'm like, So we have coffee
with them a few days later. I actually don't drink coffee. I had a, had a fruit juice. I'm not Mormon. I've just never needed it. Clearly. I've got enough energy, you know?
Dustin: That's awesome.
Tim: Um, and, and basically he says, you know, I want to bring Gary to town. I am, you know, new to town myself. So I just don't know, like, what should I do with him throughout the day? This isn't a media tour. This isn't a book tour.
This isn't a speaking tour. This is a quiet. Networking opportunity for him to get to know more people in the city. Could you help me? [00:33:00] And at one point I looked at him and I just said do you want us to just plan the whole thing for you? He's like, I would really like that So he basically just gave us gary for the day.
He said i'll give you gary from something like 10 a. m Until 10 p. m. You can do anything you want anywhere you want with anyone you want So tan and I we end up uh getting gary Lunch with the ceo of whole foods 91, 000 employees, 17 billion in revenue on one side of the table. His name's Jason on the other side of the table is Gary.
And then Tan and I were just sitting there having lunch with them. Incredible, right? Incredible. By the, by the end of the night, uh, we, you know, done a handful of different events and whatnot. The night that the final event was a 60 person hand selected invitation only, uh, group dinner. And at one point I look
at Tan and I'm just like, Dude, if a bomb fell on this room, [00:34:00] I mean like the asset center management had to be well beyond 50 billion dollars, maybe a hundred.
I don't know, but I'm telling you Dustin had a bomb fall in that room. Like literally the stock market would have had a little like blip in it, you know? So, um, You know, that high level access is just such a rapid accelerator. And my assistant has just been so key at every single step along the way. Um, because she's in North America, she has the cultural intuition.
There's no issues with language. She can easily talk to high level people. Um, she's the one. Every time I'm interviewed for different platforms or whatnot, you know, she'll oftentimes work with the show producer or whatnot to get everything fully prepared. So guess what? I can be the surgeon in the room.
Dustin: Absolutely.
Tim: And in the meantime, you know, you Dustin and me, Tim, we have high level access to each other. We are the surgeons. You can text me like, Hey man, what do you think about this? Or, Hey, I'm coming to town. Who should I meet? Like, and the speed with which [00:35:00] things can happen is just remarkable. So I think, I think for, so just the other day I had a client, um, ask me, um, you know, should I hand off my bank account?
Should I hand off my email inbox? Should I hand off my passport? I think it's a very personal question. I, I actually answered. It's on our great assistant YouTube channel. Uh, it's called get a great assistant is the YouTube channel. And, and there's, there's. There's, I think a lot of fear for entrepreneurs, my former self included around topics like inbox calendar and giving access to our system, to all of that. And I think, Hey, if we're going to, if we're going to look at looking at the downside of what happens, what could happen if we hand off our, uh, You know, bank account. Let's say if we're going to take stock of the downsides, we also have to look at what are the downsides. If I don't hand off my inbox, I don't hand off my bank account, my passport.
And that's another form of access, right? If my [00:36:00] assistant doesn't have my passport, she can't book flights or check me in. If my assistant can't get. Limited access. I'll be clear about that. It's not black and white. There's shades of gray, you know limited access to my bank accounts She can't download bank statements and send to the bookkeeper She can't set up ach transfers and other wires on my behalf and i'm stuck doing all that stuff So there's there is a trade off and everyone's going to make their own decision on what that looks like
Between the access we give our assistant and the freedom that we can have Okay.
So I just, I just, uh, I think also the last thing I'll just share on this is that I think every choice in business. Involves risk management. Who do I hire? What, you know, what clients do I take on? What do I offer in the marketplace? And so there's no such thing as zero risk, you know, uh, sitting at home, doing nothing carries a risk of atrophying muscles and no physical activity.
And we get sick, right? [00:37:00] So, so it's about risk management and I oftentimes think about what would have to be true for me to take this from feeling terrifying, like I'm going to jump the Grand Canyon to how can I reduce that down to feeling like I'm just jumping over a pool, but then how can I reduce that down even more?
So it feels like stepping over a sidewalk crack. Maybe I might stub my toe, but if I do and I fall, I might skin a knee, but it's not going to be fatal per se. Right. And so when I asked myself that question, what would have to be true? Such that this feels digestible. I went once again, well, if I'm thinking about a credit card and a passport and a bank account.
I don't know that someone from Pakistan, uh, uh, Venezuela, Philippines, India, you know, is who I wanna be working with on this part. Not because of them.
Dustin: exactly. Yeah.
Tim: Not because of
Dustin: Yeah, that's an important thing. It's not a value judgment against the people born in other countries. It's [00:38:00] that, that, that you're sure you're going to enumerate. It's, it's literally a risk. It's a, it's a risk mitigation consideration and who you entrust.
Tim: it's the environment they're in.
Dustin: Exactly.
Tim: My first, my first ever assistant who I failed with was in India. Unbelievable person. Like college educated, that spectacular British English accent, uh, um, totally dedicated and committed to me. We're still friends on Facebook to this day. We still wish each other happy birthday, amazing human being.
And then one day she disappeared and I'm like, what happened? Like it went from full blast to zero goes by. I don't know if she's quit or died. Literally. And then I get this flurry of apologetic messages on Skype that tells you how long ago this was right. And via email. And she's just like, I'm so sorry.
I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm like, Oh, what happened? You okay? And she's like, yeah, well, there was a corrupt politician that had the electricity turned off to my neighborhood. He was trying to strong arm us [00:39:00] into voting our representative out or something like that. And, and that's when it dawned on me. I could absolutely trust her, but neither her nor I could trust, could trust the environment she was in. I don't know how to navigate bribes and you know, what not to be able to get things done in third world countries or developing nations. I'm not sure the proper way is to say that these days. Um, what I do know is I sure know how to navigate the U. S. of A. I know how to navigate Canada. Um, it's one flight for me to get to wherever I need to go.
Maybe two and that kind of structural safety really allows me to relax my brain on sharing the more sensitive parts of my life for my assistant to help me with.
Dustin: That's great. Yeah. And that was, you preemptively answered a question I was going to ask, which is. Why domestic if you're, you know, I guess if you're listening and if you're listening in India, this isn't domestic, but why North America for a North American based entrepreneur? And I think you hit a lot of those key points.
Um, I do want to give a little time [00:40:00] here, um, before we, before we run out of time to talk more high level about what you actually do at great assistance. So people can have an appreciation for that, but I, I just, I felt compelled. I wrote it down, underlined it four times and circled it. I love this analogy.
I feel like if an insight I've definitely gained from this conversation, Tim, Is the value of access and in specifically in light of freeding up your time, like your time and your attention, right? If you're constantly on your own hamster wheel of tasks, even if they're in the other two, even if you're able to think very strategically, even if you're very skilled at what you do, uh, if you're not employing that third leg of the stool, which is high level access, like what a loss of opportunity, what an opportunity cost in doing that.
Yeah. And so the thing I wrote down was like, be a one eyed man in the land of the blind, when you talked about being in that initial room and you're like, it's like having one eye on this, you know, all these people that can see 20, 20, I
was like, I don't really get that. But then you're like, but then I looked across the hall and even with my one eye, [00:41:00] meaning I'm not the most skilled person in this original room, if I simply put myself in a different room, all of a sudden I can actually thrive.
I can get clients. Uh, I can actually be seen as effectively, you know, a genius in this area that in just across the hall. I was kind of a dunce. I think that's super powerful. If people think about where to spend their time and attention, if you're thinking about even something that's practical is like, which room should I be in, which conferences should I attend?
I think a lot of us, not everyone listening is a marketer, but a lot of us are, we tend to think I need to go to the marketing conference, need to learn the latest skill, right? I need to learn some more strategy. And there is the value of some access in that room. But what if you took that same two days and you went to this other forum where you're like the marketer in the room and you could really serve people?
And I did not do this intentionally, but I was reflecting back at some places I've spoken, I was like, man, I spoke at story brand summit and very smart people, way more skilled than me at things like copywriting, website design. Um, even storytelling, [00:42:00] but I got to speak there about the power of podcasting as a channel.
And I got like so many clients because this whole podcasting thing was completely foreign to them. Uh, and it was like, Wow, you're a genius. You know how to like, you know, do podcast guesting. Uh, and like, this is actually pretty simple. And in a different room, I would look like, you know, a, uh, a beginner.
And then even I went, I'm thinking about, I was in pod fest, which, you know, is a podcasting conference yet. I spoke about monetization, which was something no one was talking about. Right. I'm like, Hey, you know, podcasting is great. You know, there's a cool community that it can be a great hobby. That's what a lot of people there are kind of.
Experts in quote unquote, but I'm like, you should actually make money with this effort. And here's how to grow a business with your podcast or by being a podcast guest. And I got a bunch of clients and it was like, it's even in a room of people that are actually way better than me at podcasting. Uh, because I talked about the thing that is my surgical.
Expertise like, you know, marketing monetization, depending on which room you're in, the thing that you, you focus on wanting access to super, super [00:43:00] powerful concept. You really got my wheels turning with that. Um, so I just, I hope people don't, don't miss that. I think the one eyed man in the land of the blind is an extremely powerful.
Um, framework for thinking about how to spend your time and attention, especially if you're in a growth mode and you're looking to get clients, like that, that's really, really a fresh way to think about access. It's not just about how can I get access to the person who's better than to the next level surgeon?
That's cool. But what if you're the only surgeon in a room of wounded people who really need your help? Like how, how, how much better is that? Um, so that's, that's an awesome analogy. So Tim, we got, you know, maybe a, Nine
minutes here. So I just want to kind of hand it back to you. Uh, you've told us a lot about why, and you've given us right out of the bat, some great strategies, answer some of these questions that a lot of people have about like how to get started, why hire domestically, but like, what do you do at great assistant?
I don't want to miss the opportunity to kind of showcase the work that you do. And what's the actual service you provide?
Tim: Yeah. Well, I'm, I, [00:44:00] uh, uh, out of a, Desired to be responsible how I show up here. Um, I'll just add that I don't actually think a us or Canada assistant is the right answer for all entrepreneurs. I think every entrepreneur though, should hire someone from a similar, same time zone, language, and business culture, because it solves so many misunderstandings, miscommunications, reliability issues, et cetera, et cetera.
When it's similar, same. Time zone, language and business culture. So if you are in, I don't know, Australia or New Zealand, don't hire the U S or Canada, hire Australia, New Zealand. If you're in us and Canada, don't hire Australia, New Zealand, hire us or Canada. You know, if you're in England, do it, you know, whatever the corollary is of that, right?
So, so I think that was such a huge breakthrough for me. I also think in terms of odds. You know, like, how can I stack the best odds of the right assistant with the best odds of onboarding with the best odds of hiring with the best odds of how I delegate, et cetera, et cetera. And [00:45:00] so, you know, I think that I think that this is a very doable.
Endeavor, challenge is oftentimes you just don't have the time to devise the right hiring funnel. Like I had done, you know, we don't have the time to look at 50 to 200 candidates. We don't have the time to figure out what to delegate in what order and all the rest. So after I'd filled with so many assistants, I decided that I'm going to start doing this for other people. And. Part of that came because all my friends saw my income go from 20 in the first five years. I had my assistant. I went from 20, 000 to I think it was like 637, 000 in revenue in five years. I'm telling you if someone's a good marketer, which I'm not. Um, they'd go a lot even faster than that, but that was life changing, you know, false start, false start, false start, false start, false start, flip [00:46:00] my mindset, Bing, bang, boom, 20x income or whatever, 30x, whatever that number is.
And, uh, my friends noticed, they're like, Hey man, you seem to be like traveling to some fancier places and you're going to like expensive conferences now where it's like 10 grand for the weekend and 30, 000 a year and all the rest like, oh, I changed. You're a little less pale, you know, like you're getting some sun, you know. And I was like, Oh, well, Sarah, Sarah happened. They're like, okay, tell us more about Sarah. So I tell them more. They're like, well, do you think you could do it for me? I'm like, uh, sure. So, so I, I ended up doing this cohort of 10 entrepreneurs. I'm like pilot program. Let's see if we can get you a great assistant.
Let's see if my systems I used for me or would work for you. Sure enough. Totally works. Every single one of them gets a great assistant. In fact, uh, one of them Adrian just messaged me the other day nine years later still has that same assistant which Talk about like a [00:47:00] testimony for uh long term such a great hack is go for long term and um and and pretty soon it's like Wow.
I have more people asking me about getting them an assistant and helping them with marketing services. I'm not one to fight a paycheck. So I, so I just, I faded out Tim Francis marketing and I just did more and more of great assistant. com.
And you know, here I stand today, shocked that we've now helped hire over seven 15.
In fact, I think we may have just crossed 800 hires. Our long term stick rate is an astonishing 96%. Um, so that's like, how long does an assistant stick with an entrepreneur for like, like more than a year, not just a month. Um, we've looked at 50, 000 candidates. It's been an unbelievable ride. And I've been so humbled to also look at like Pete Vargas has set a seven assistants from us.
Russ Rufino, seven assistants from us. There's one of the coaches at strategic coach has an assistant [00:48:00] with us. Who's been with her for five years.
It's just been super humbling. I didn't set out to do all of this. I lived by. A decision making guideline, I call it a DMG, uh, that I heard that I invented many years.
Another famous shower thought was let demand drive decision making. Dustin: Yes.
Tim: And I've just come from this, this new place. Ever since I talked to God, this new place of like, how can I pursue truth and mastery? How can I be of service where I'm called? And I've just been put one foot in front of the other for, I don't know what it's been, I guess, since 2011 was when I recovered.
And I guess to, to put everyone's mind at ease. I did regain the ability to walk. It was three months of not being able to walk. There's been some low lows and some high highs along the way, but I do love the expression. I love the expression that a skilled sailor is not made in safe harbors. We say we want to be good at all these different things.
It's like, Okay, then we [00:49:00] got to put in the reps and develop the resilience around that. So, you know, ultimately, I don't think it's about getting an assistant as much as that may sound strange and I actually don't even think it's about getting our time back. I think it's about fulfilling our potential in this lifetime. And that's never going to happen if we're spending all day in our email inbox. Or buried in other minutiae, let's call it.
Dustin: Yes. Beautifully said. I love that. Um, yeah. So, so to close up, I think we've got a good feel for who you are and what you do and, and, you know, basically great assistant helps you acquire or places you with an amazing assistant. That's, that's awesome. Custom tailored to the needs of your business. So what are the first steps?
If someone's like, man, this is awesome. I like Tim. I love this story. He has really shown me the light that in this, this three legged stool of strategy, skill and access, like there's a lot more work I could be doing. If I was just freed up, if I just had this right hand [00:50:00] person as a great assistant, what is the next step for someone, Tim, to take on that journey?
Tim: So if you head over to greatassistant. com, um, you're welcome to book a discovery call. There is such thing as getting an assistant too soon. Um, we're happy to talk to you to figure out if it's too soon. Um. And we're happy to talk about, you know, what makes sense to delegate first Versus what should wait a
little bit longer um, I think that I think that entrepreneurs are some of the most fantastic people and Sometimes our eyes get a little bigger than our stomach and sometimes we just don't know because no one ever taught me No one taught me how to delegate right?
And so, uh head over to greatassistant. com book a discovery call I soon have a book coming out You So opt in for a tool or two off our website. We can keep you up to speed on when that's coming out. It'd be probably an early 2025 [00:51:00] release. And, uh, and, and furthermore, if a person already has an assistant and you're like, am I the issue?
Is it the assistant? You're also open to book a call. I'm happy to do a little bit of a diagnostic conversation with you to see where you might be able to uplevel your leadership. Or if in fact it is a, it's you, not me kind of a kind of conversation. If you know what I mean.
Dustin: Awesome. But you know, you're going to get the real deal. You're going to get the, uh, the honest assessment from Tim and his team at great assistant. So yeah, go to great assistant. com book a call out of at the very least, go get on their email list. So, you know, when Tim's book drops, uh, I'm sure you can tell from the stories he shared here and some of these, uh, just great insights.
I think that's, that's really the big takeaway I have today is just like full of insights. I knew a lot, I knew Tim a bit and I knew a lot of his story. I knew what they do at great assistant. I've been through this process myself and. Gosh, I wish I would have known Tim, you know, six months ago, I ended up in a great place, but it was a very painful, expensive process to do on my own.
I did not know there was this who, [00:52:00] uh, that I was going to meet only a few months later. So if I had to rewind the clock a little bit, I would definitely be using Tim over a great assistant. And, you know, there may be future assistants coming. I, I don't know. You know, it was encouraging to hear some of these guys and gals have seven assistants, you know, that there's different roles that they're filling.
Um, so I, I may be back for this, this, the same, uh, strategy call myself, Tim. So Tim Francis, you're amazing, man. Look forward to continuing our conversation, getting to know you in a deeper way. Uh, in the meantime, anyone listening, go to great assistant. com, book a call, get on the email list, and we'll see you back here next time on the seven figure lead podcast.