with a key on being profitable, which, believe it or not, can be easier said than done. As you said, I'm Jocelyn Mosek. I run a web design agency. I've been working with WordPress for over 10 years now. I spent the first five years as a freelancer, next five building my agency. And actually this year, I've just started doing coaching for other freelancers and agencies. So WordPress is pretty amazing for us professionals, where it can really take us. So I know I have no clue where I'll be in another five years.  And yeah, with that, OK, so most of the room. And how about agency? When I say agency, when you start having consultants working for you, and so you're not the one delivering everything. OK, just one or two. All right. So yeah, so today I want to kind of share with you, and obviously this is coming a lot from my own stories, of the fact that, as I said, building a profitable agency can be easier said than done.  And so today I'll kind of go through some quick definitions. We'll talk about why on earth you'd want to do this to yourself. Some of the ways you can set up your agency, because like most things, there is no one way to do this. Some of the growing gatchas, this is again where I'll give some nice stories of where I learned the hard way, and some of the clients I've coached have learned, give you some resources, and I'll open it up at the end to questions, which is usually a lot of fun. We can share more stories. So the more in word here is profitable. And the key with profitable is that obviously you are keeping more pennies. The pennies coming in don't all run out the other way. And profitability has degrees. It's great if you keep a penny that's profitable, but we'd like to aim to keep a few more than that. And the big difference between a freelancer and an agency is, at least as I'm going to define it, is a freelancer is someone who you're the person doing the work for the service you're giving your customer. You might have a bookkeeper. You might have a blogger. You may have support in your business. But what I'm really talking about the transition to an agency is when you go from being the one who is delivering all the services to where you become a little bit more of the manager. You may still do some of the tasks, but you're not responsible for everything. You're the interface to the client. You're delivering the final product. But who exactly does the stuff in the middle? Well, that starts to be someone besides you. So why would you want this? Why would you want to even go from your nice, simple life as a freelancer to growing an agency? Well, one of the reasons I did it was I wanted to be able to offer better services and better products to my customers. I myself, I'm an engineer by trade, which makes me a great developer. I love CSS. Like, that makes me happy. But I always found the graphics design was the part that I could kind of sort of do. But it really limited me. It limited me in what I felt I could charge. It limited me in what I felt I could do. I could design it. I could make it be life. But I couldn't necessarily create that amazing picture. And I certainly was not about to try to build a logo. And so one of the first people I brought onto my team was a graphics designer. Now, this graphics designer actually knew how to do some front end development. But equally for her, she was an amazing graphics designer. But she held herself back because she's like, I got to build this darn thing. I can make a great picture, but I don't know how to build it. And so one of the beauties of having an agency is you get to create a team of experts where she can shine in what she does. I can shine in what I do. Together we can start really up-leveling what we can do for our customer. And so an agency, a team of experts, because we can't be good at everything.   And as a freelancer, you do. But we all have our zone of genius. And the nice thing about creating a team of experts, which is what an agency is, is you can all start executing in that zone. And as a result, you can start aspiring. And ultimately, some of my later slides will be justifying this is why you get to charge more and why you need to charge more. Another beautiful thing about an agency is letting go of those tasks you don't enjoy. Did I mention the graphics design? Stress me out no end. That was always the part of the bill that made me nervous. Once I had the picture, I was good. And so it allows you to let go of those things that have you out of your zone of genius, the things that make you not show up and shine. And it's the things that you're not as good at. Plus, there are perks to being the boss. Some of those oh-so-glamorous rents and retreat tasks, like entering products into e-commerce, you can send that to your team because now they're the junior engineer. And so there's some joys to being the boss. You provide jobs. This one, yeah, this was five years ago when I had my first developer working for me. And I think I paid him $1,000, $1,500 that month. And he wrote me back. He was all excited. He had gone out and bought a mattress.  And it's incredible. My favorite day of the month is the end of the month when I pay my team. And some of my team is US based, so I'm buying the mattress. I'm not quite supporting the family yet. But some of my team is international. And I am supporting their family. I'm able to have my guy in the Philippines, his wife got sick. I was able to say, you take care of her. You are paid for this week. Do not worry about it. You take care of your wife, because that is my gift. I can afford to do that. My gift to you. Incredible, or at least I'm pretty humbled by it. You're lonely. This is very real. One thing I know I miss being a freelancer from working in corporate is that water cooler, right? It's me, myself, and I at home. And yeah, I can go to a co-working space. But I miss that camaraderie, that team, the working on stuff together. And having a team lets you do that. And when I get into later, the ways you can build a team, one of the nice things about having a team that is in your time zone-ish, meaning somewhere in the US, is we hop on Skype in the morning. And we chit, whoops, uh-oh, computer, wake up. We hop on Skype in the morning, and we chit chat. You get that little like, hey, I'm bored. Hi, I don't want to face my day. No, I don't want to face the day either.  You get that piece, and some of us need that. I wouldn't go back to corporate. I love what I do. But there are things that are challenging about being a solo business owner. And having a team can kind of help that piece. Going on vacation, this is important. You can actually have a life when you have a team. I have a project manager, and as I mentioned, my graphics designer can do some front end development, and I can kind of wing the graphics. This means I can go away at Christmas, and my customers are not like high and dry, right? If the sky falls, I've been here this weekend, and I've just taken some emails and shuffled them right on through. It's a beautiful thing.  And vacation is the planned time off. What about the unplanned time off? Again, you're taking better care of your customers in many ways by having that team, because you are not the end all in be all. And finally, having something to sell. And I know this was not on my radar until about a year ago when I read Built to Sell, which is a great book. And like I said, when I started 10 years ago, I never thought I'd be here. Five years ago, didn't know I'd have an agency five years later, and now as I slowly get older, I hate to break a few, but as freelancers, you're not selling your job. Nobody wants it. You don't want it some days. But as you create an agency, I have customers now where my project manager and my team, I used to be everything to these clients. Now I just send the invoice and go, wow, how did that happen? She's talking to this person and the client's taking care of. That's actually something I could sell. Someone would want to buy that. Someone would actually want to buy something where there's this system with documented, here's how we do things and the client is there and the worker bees are there. I can actually maybe cash out in some ways of all this work I've put into my business. You may not be there at this point, but it is a perk. Because yeah, as I said, no one, you can't sell your job. It's not gonna happen. So those are the reasons for why an agency is a great thing. Now there are pros and cons to both models. Don't get me wrong and there's definitely perks to being a freelancer and there are times where freelancer is the perfect solution for you. I'm just highlighting some of the ways that the agency model brings some stuff to the table. There's a lot of ways to create your agency. Everything from the highest investment, cost-wise and connectedestina-wise, which is in the US, you're W-2 employees, to having 1099s, which are your US contractors, which is where probably most of us start. Then you can move to overseas. You can use white label services and potentially strategic partners. And I'll dive into each of these, but these are getting a little bit further and further away as far as how connected they are to you. But I would argue these are all ways you can model your business. And my agency hasn't always looked the way it does today and I'll get to, at the end, how my model looks, but know that there's no one way to do this and the way it is today is not the way it's gonna be tomorrow, it's not the way it was yesterday. Okay, maybe not that tight, but you know a year ago, a year from now, this evolves, this morphs, this flows. So in all of this know that you can test, figure things out, experience some of the mess of growth, learn, you don't know what you don't know. And sometimes you need to just jump into it, figure things out, backpedal, come up with some new plans and move forward again. So just know that as I'm explaining all this and sharing all this, it is a never-ending learning opportunity. This is business, right? I like to joke, it's similar to parenting. We're just making it up, we're doing the best we can and we're finding our way. So employees is obviously in some ways the best, right? They're dedicated 100% to you. You get to call all the shots. You tell them where they need to be, when they need to be there, all of that stuff. And it's important if you have contractors, you don't treat them like employees. There's some very serious legal components of how you treat a contractor versus an employee. But obviously you've got the cost. And so most of us are not gonna start there. You've got the fixed cost, which is now, you need to, they kind of depend on you to pay them regularly. And you've got all the taxes and the insurance and stuff. So most of us aren't going to start with employees, or at least I haven't gotten there yet. Contractors is usually where a lot of us start our business. And there's sort of two models. There's the local and there's the overseas. And I'm gonna really dive into kind of the pros and cons of each because they both bring different strengths and challenges to the table. The nice thing with local is you've got a shared language, typically a shared time zone. So it's gonna make communication a lot easier. They're typically, when they're local, they can interface directly to your customers. They can essentially kind of move into replacing you. But obviously they're probably a little more expensive in comparison to an overseas team. And you do need to know with your contractors you can't dictate their schedule.  Usually there's kind of this healthy understanding. But you can't necessarily say you need to be at this place at this time. So that's just the trade off there. Overseas is nice and when I say overseas I'm starting to talk about emerging markets like India and the Philippines. The nice thing about there is you can forge yourself.  Cause all that happens is that check comes in and goes right on out and you're like what the heck. And I will tell you my first year moving into agency I definitely I had crossed six figures I was all excited and then I looked at how much I kept and I went hey how come I made less this year than last what the hell. And that can happen as you go into an agency you gotta be really careful. Cause you can find yourself being like what on earth just happened here. I could have sworn I touched more money. But overseas you can afford yourself because at least in my rough multiplier I found that there's about eight or so X difference. So for example if I'm paying my team like $10 an hour that's like them earning $80, $100 an hour here. So you can in some ways buy your level of expertise there. So it definitely is easier in that respect. However, and the other advantage is you can there's kinda no rules. So for example my guy in the Philippines I'm like yeah I want you checking in at three o'clock every day which is six a.m. your time. And that's what I want. And some people I know actually pay a differentiator instead of paying $10 an hour you pay like 12 which is 20% that's sizable and they work their nights so they work your days. So there's much more flexibility and freedom there but it's not free. Some of the challenges I've run into with overseas is the cultural, the language, communication, time zone you know with my team in India they're coming online like at nine o'clock at night and they're leaving line at like seven o'clock the next morning. Well if I'm under stress for a project it means I work all day I'm sitting there chomping at the bit till they come online and they very well wake up the next morning and go I had directions what happened and suddenly you know one of the challenges is that you can potentially miss a whole day. If you give directions and you think you're clear they come online you've gone to bed they can't ask clarifying questions it's now the next day. So overseas is cost effective but not cost free. I do find with overseas in my personal experience it is a little easier to maybe have lost that day or potentially if I'm not explicitly clear in my communications there can be challenges. But it's part of my solution and when I go into my team you'll see that I have a mix of all of them actually as part of my team because each of these parts has strengths and again I'm trying to stay profitable. Would it be great to have W2 employees? Sure but I would kind of like to keep some pennies at the end of the day. And so as a result I've had to kind of look at all these pieces and dynamically assemble what looks like a good team for me for where I'm at right now. Another solution you can do is white label services. So the advantage of the first three I mentioned is that they're all under your umbrella which means you set the systems, the processes this is how it's done here. When you start using other companies like white label services the great part is is you don't have to worry about the staff right? They're giving you a solution in a vacuum like you might need SEO services so they'll take care of it for you. The downside is you're trusting this company. It's their people, it's their systems, it's their process you get no say in that part. And so you know that's just a trade off a cost and a risk and it's a great solution but it's just again those pieces that you're always weighing as you figure out what are you gonna use for your solutions. And then finally another piece you can use is strategic partnerships. So this is where instead of like the SEO where you white label it so you sell the service but it's umbrella under your business no one needs to know that it's not necessarily an in-house solution.  And so obviously I'm not gonna necessarily profit as much off that I'm not marking it up but at the same time what strategic partnerships can do for you is there might be some unofficial referral credit of like hey thanks for the business here's a gift card from Amazon. Or the other great thing about strategic partnerships is my copywriter we're not in competition with each other so I send business to my copywriter my copywriter sends web business to me. So it kind of broadens your spectrum of people you're working with which is great. And that's actually another thing I'd say that's really nice about contractors. And especially even I don't know if I'd say US but that's been my experience. They're working with more than just you which means again they're not in a vacuum they may very well say you know what on this team we do it like this and you go wow that's a great idea. And so by having this kind of interconnectedness of people working with other people there's a lot of new ideas that can come into the table. And you know with all of these you need to remember you're creating your team your way.  In my case I have a really big value in my team of fun. When my team starts teasing me and giving me a hard time I consider it a good day. If you can rag on the boss I consider that a good team and a good day. And especially with overseas I've had to work really hard to make sure that I'm very clear in my communication and also very clear that I expect feedback. I do not want to be told yes.  Or I reward my team when they go and do things like okay you said to do it like this but I had this other idea so I made a sample page what do you think? And I reward that and I really pull from it. And with overseas teams you may need to extract a little bit more and it's really important that you're looking at personalities when you're hiring too because technical skill is important but that personality is important too. So as I kind of alluded to I've got a blend. This is my team at the moment subject to change. My project manager basically the way I've got it is that the tasks that are more sort of either interactive with my clients and or tasks where I personally am not as strong are the tasks that I've noticed I've chosen to keep US based which means lower margins, you know. But at the same time it's just necessary and easier for me. So my project manager is US based, graphics design, SEO, social media, things that are much more communicative. If it was something like SEO research that's fine. And so from my own findings I found things like front end development, back end development and again I'm a developer so this might be why I've kind of settled into this groove. I can very easily write systems and processes about this is what I expect, this is how it should look, this is how I can quality check it. So what's nice about this for me financially is I'm able to say okay the project budget is this. My US team is a little bit more expensive but it uses this amount. So let's say a project takes 60 hours. All right figure 10 hours or so for project management, 10, 15 hours project management, 10, 15 hours graphics design, you know 40 hours for build out but I use that overseas at a lower rate so I kind of get that chunk of time at a slightly lower cost point to me. And then kind of we go back to the project management of the training of the client and the overseas. So I've kind of, that's just how it's flowed and worked for me at this point. Everyone has very different experiences. The biggest thing I would tell you with your teams is just make sure you communicate and train. The most frustrating thing for me to see especially with overseas teams is people are like they did a horrible job. Well all the, all the business owner did was throw it over the fence and hope it landed. Of course they did a terrible job. They didn't know what the directions were. They didn't have clear expectations. They didn't know what success looked like. So as business owners, and I'll get to this, it's really important that there's some things you put into place before you grow. Or like me, and probably you will do this too, you sort of learn a few things the hard way. You find those yourself at the end of the first year are going, how come I lost money? And you go, oh yeah that's why. All right, I can fix that. And then so as I mentioned strategic partners, copywriting and SEO and AdWords, and then white label, I actually offer PSD to WordPress. So I don't use PSD to WordPress, I actually offer that service within my agency because that has to be something we're good at. So you can remember that not only is your team kind of partially using services, but you can provide services. You can be that white label service in your team's zone of excellence. So it goes both ways. All right, growing gutches. So I'm gonna try not to get on any soapboxes here, but it can happen, because this is the part I'm super passionate about. Systems and processes. You know, when I started as an engineer, processes and documentation was like a bad word to me. I'm like, I do math, I'm a calculus person, don't make me write. But what I've learned is they're so important, and they're so freeing. Even as a freelancer, they're important and freeing because we keep so much in our heads. And if you're gonna have a team, alas, I tell my team, they say, how can I do better? I say, mine read better. Right, not fair. And so, and we do it to ourselves. It's like you're like running through the checklist. Okay, when I launch, I should do this, this and this. And really you owe it to yourself and you owe it to your clients to have a consistent quality product. That's what being a professional is. And to have a consistent quality product as a freelancer, as an agency, you need to have a here's how it's done here. Here's our final checks. Here's the themes we use. Here's the plugins we use. And again, even if you're a freelancer and suddenly you're out down for the count and you don't know why someone else can step in and say, okay, this is how we finish this project. It's just something that you can do that's good for your customer. And so systems and processes are so important and it allows your team to come on. It allows your team to be successful. And it can be something as simple as screen recording what you do. As a matter of fact, one of the ways I started was I'd screen record a task and then I'd have my developer actually go through it taking screenshots, making like a real document for me. And in that process, while he was knocking out that real document so I had it, it was reinforcing those steps to him. So I did the easy part, did a five minute video, no skin off my back, used Lume, easy to do. And I let my team do the more kind of intensive let's document, document part. And again, it was a training at the same time. And systems and documentation can feel overwhelming. You can be like, oh my God, how do I do all of it? So how I approached it, could do it kind of two ways.  As you start to want to really say what are my company's systems and processes, what I did was I took a step back and I said, okay, what's the pipeline of a client for my business? Okay, there's intake, there's kind of intaking them, there's discovery, there's design, there's building, there's quality check, there's launch, there's afterwards. And then I kind of went through it again and I said, okay, intake. Well, when I intake, I put them in this system, this system, in this system. And so what I did was I went through kind of each of my big phases and each time I went through the cycle, I dug a little deeper. So I didn't try to take on the whole thing and go like super deep. I just did really high level and then I broke it down and then I broke it down. And one of the amazing things that happened when I was doing my systems that I kind of celebrate on a regular basis is I was trying to set up my intaking system for a VA to do and I'm like, okay, we put them in this tool and that tool in the next tool. And I had it all spelled out and I went Zapier. And I set up a zap. And now when I get a new client, I fell out of form and anyone who knows Zapier can have a geek moment with me here. And it automatically runs out and puts a Slack channel in a Dropbox folder and puts them in Harvest and puts them on a to-do list and it just runs around and does it for me. I don't even need a VA to do it. So sometimes when you flesh out like, what am I doing? You even save yourself time doing all those repetitive tasks because you go, there's a better way. All right, that was just point one. All right, I warned you about the soapbox. The next one, which is the one that really bit me was not having a handle on expenses, how long something really took. When I was a freelancer, if a project took 40 hours, 50 hours, 60 hours, I mean, it was my time, but it was just my time, right? So at the end of the month, if I had enough income and I had enough sleep, it obviously worked. But when you hire a team and you've got the project budget and you're paying people hourly, they actually care whether it's 40, 50, or 60, they wanna be paid accordingly.  I wanna keep some pennies. And so another thing to do either before you grow or trust me, when you grow, you're gonna figure out real fast how long things take, track your time. And I know it sucks, but if you don't know, you don't know. And it's even good for you to know, to even reevaluate your pricing, because I'll tell you, as someone who tends to feel bad about charging, I felt a lot more confident raising my prices when I went, okay, I'm putting in 60 hours, they are getting quality, no more this low price nonsense, okay? So it kind of almost reinforces to yourself, if you need that justification, which some of us do, it helps. You also need to realize that by building a team, there's gonna be some overhead that you may or may not see coming. You now have more children to feed, more marketing, marketing time, marketing budget, this is not billable time. As an agency, you really need to realize your costs are going up.  Theoretically, you're bringing in more work, but you are sharing some of that profit, and you're also gonna have expenses in the realm of software. You might have invoicing software, time tracking software, tasking, ticketing, list building, proposals, all these things that, you know, when it's one user, it's one price, and you got another user, the price just went up, and okay, we're gonna play to a slightly higher level audience, all right? I probably should put those proposals in a tool, and you know, all these little hidden expenses, this $10 here and $10 there, as we all know, always check for leaks. That's one other really good advice. Twice a year, check your statement and reevaluate your tools on a regular basis for those $10. Keep them in your bank account, as opposed to sending them out.  So this is, yeah, I guess this would be the official soapbox, not remembering your value. And so this is the justification and the reason that when you move up to agency, your old pricing probably isn't gonna work anymore.  And so I know I felt some discomfort raising my prices. I'm like, well then why isn't it fair to my client that used to be okay at this price, now it needs to cost that price? And what I had to really remember is exactly why I grew this agency in the first place. It's the value I'm bringing to my client. Remember how I said if I got sick, if I went on vacation, someone was still there? Remember how I said I've got a team of experts and it's not just me trying to fake it in the other areas? Those things are value, those things are important. And those things mean you can charge more. And so these are the systems, the processes, all the things that you've needed to put in place to grow that maybe you had as a freelancer, but I'll tell you I didn't. All this refinement, all of this, and also as you've moved into an agency, this is probably not your first year doing web development or whatever your field is. Your expertise, all of these things are why you should and need to raise your prices. Because when you grow, you do have this increased cost and if you wanna stay profitable and you wanna end the year having kept more pennies than the year before, you're gonna need to keep an eye on these things. But you also need to believe in knowing that it's okay that your price went up because now you are doing even better by your clients. Or at least you are offering something that is even more valuable. You're able to do those bigger projects, you're able to work with those bigger companies because they need the refinement, the systems, the processes, the pieces you now have in place because you've up-leveled your game. So I wanted to share with you just some of the resources. This is just a few that I have found helpful in my career as I've moved up from being a freelancer to an agency owner. One of the most important ones for me, and there's a couple other people in this room who have been in WP Elevation, is an online community started by Troy Dean. I'm not sure how many years ago at this point. But this is an important one. It's important for a lot of reasons. Not only is it a great resource for learning how to set up a freelance business and or agency business, basically a website design business that has good systems, processes, flows, and ways of handling your business in place. It's really cool because it provides an online community of about 700 now other consultants that are in WordPress. And what is so powerful about that is it gives me, and so this is also especially nice as freelancers where you don't have that team. It helps with the lonely issue.  And you've got a community of people that are similar, that are peers. And so that has been something, a resource that has been really valuable to me over the years is finding that. And so you guys have your meetups, but I would encourage you to explore finding ways to have those connections because it's so important for your professional knowledge base and your emotional support to have that network. That just happens to be one of mine. Jason Swank is another person who very much focuses on kind of up-leveling the agency almost to sales. So that's kind of more of his positioning where you've already got an agency and you're kind of trying to get to the next level and possibly ultimately sell and cash out. Jennifer Bourne is wonderful. You guys probably know of her also in the WordPress community. She's got a new program of profitable project plan which is talking about really how to systemize moving your clients through the process of working with your business. What I really like about her is in my personal opinion, WP elevation, Troy Dean has a much more, and so this is a little gender specific, but more masculine kind of assertive approach to how he suggests you position yourself and communicate with clients a little bit more of the, I am the professional in the room here. Whereas Jennifer Bourne for me personally resonates a little closer. She's a little more my own personality of like, this is a collaboration, we're gonna work together. I'm here for you, but here's my process. So it's kind of just a different feel. So these are at least two resources I know of where they're both helping you set up systems to really have clear flow of clients through your business but with different energies. And so find the one that works for you but it's really valuable to reach out. Reinventing the wheel is overrated. There's a lot of great people out there who have been ahead of us, learn from them or at least leverage them or listen to them and at least just take that in as information. The legal link is just that differentiator between employee and contractor, just that way you don't cross over any boundaries you shouldn't. And then just some books that I've enjoyed. This list could be a lot longer. E-Mess, probably most of us have read. That if not, if you're new to being a freelancer, read it. It's a really good one. Built to Sell is the one that really helped me think about the notion of you're not selling your job. What does building something that could actually eventually run without you that you could step away from look like? Starting with why Profit First is helping you with somewhat how you look at your numbers, traction, which is some of your systems, up-tape marketing, these are all great resources and there's more. And so I'm just really illustrating that there's a lot of great resources out there that as you think about your business, whether you stay a freelancer or if you choose to grow, that can really just help you think about how could I do this? Because we all started being really good at our craft but I don't know that many of us are business majors, marketing majors, a lot of things that we now fall under our umbrella. So these are ways we can keep growing and educating. Okay, I don't know how fast I talk. Oh, not too bad. Tend to talk quick. Any questions you guys might have? Yeah, I planted you. That's a great question. I would absolutely love to. She asked me, how did I go about, where did I find my overseas people? How did I figure out which one I was gonna hire? Like, what did that process look like? I'm guessing that's kind of, kind of have two stories on that. So my first person was a little bit more of random. I needed a small task done. I interviewed on Upwork. I hired someone. He did a great job. I was never intending to outsource overseas. It just kind of happened. Gave him a little more, kept doing a great job, ran with it. The guy's still with me. Three, four years later, he's still my go-to for backend development. My friend and developer was more intentional. I think, so this is where I may have gotten a little fuzzy on the line, so maybe it shouldn't be recorded. But I think I went on Upwork and it was either Upwork or something.ph. Anyways, they were all really good about kind of giving me their Skype information. We sort of went and had a side conversation. I think you're supposed to, if you started the conversation on Upwork, keep it there. Anyway, the more important part of this is how I went about it was, I came up with a job description of what I needed. So I knew I needed a friend and developer. I knew what the specifications were. I created the job description and then instead of just posting it where I would have gotten slammed with people, I instead looked and strategically said, countries I was interested, sort of their skill set I was looking at, price point I was looking at, and I specifically reached out to let's say 25 people or 20 people. Some of them contacted me back. I asked them some questions and kind of quickly got a feel for like if they were communicating well and just kind of followed my gut. Had it down to two or three people. So this is where it's nice with overseas. Then I made a test. So what I knew was, as a friend and developer, I would want them to be able to take a graphics design, a certain theme and build it. So with overseas and the fact that their hourly rate was $7 an hour, I could afford to do this. And so what I went and did was, I did a paid interview effectively, a paid test case, which they loved. They were so grateful. I'm like, hey, it's only fair. You're gonna do the work. And so what I did was I set up two test cases where I had the PSD. I gave them the development setup. I said, here's the installation. Here's the PSD. I want you to do at least the home page and this internal page. I want you to spend nine hours doing it. I don't expect you to do all of it. There's no way you're knocking out a site in nine hours. I want you to get as far as you get. Ask me any questions for issues or things you run into. And in the last hour, I want you to write down kind of like if I had more time, I would. And so it cost me 70 bucks for each of them. And what, it was so informational. Like one person did a great job just as a technician but visually couldn't connect the dots. Like I saw places where there was some like, it just, you could tell there wasn't that ability to just physically, to come up with like a graphical compliment to a design. Whereas the other person I noticed maybe wasn't as technically strong but I liked the way, one, he communicated with me and two, the way he kind of was able to graphically compliment. And I knew in my personal case, I was looking for that strength more than the other one. And so that's who I ultimately hired. I have been working for me 20 hours a week. But with overseas, you can kind of set the rules. You can sort of save the amount of time. So yes, I may have met them on UpWorks. I pay them through PayPal. La, la, la. It's a win-win situation. And so that's kind of how I did it. I basically made a test case.  We all do, right? And once you bring someone in, you're emotionally attached. And then the other thing is when someone comes in, you're gonna train them, all this other stuff. So it's worth considering that upfront investment of once you get it down to your one or two people, give them a mini test that really executes what it is you need them to do for you. That was my experience. Okay, I think he's got someone in the back but then there's some other hands. Thank you, Jess. This has been great. Cool. You're the center line. And I myself, as you used to identify the points and your probably where you are and... Yeah, so I use, and there's quite a few options out there, what I'm using right now that works for me is I use Teamwork PM, Teamwork Desk and Harvest. So Teamwork PM is kind of a to-do list. You can bring in and have sort of what the different, I kind of bring in like, okay, we've got a new build and it will auto-populate, all right, discovery and here are the sub things we do and graphics design and here are the sub points, build out, here are the subtasks, quality check, here are the subtasks, things of that nature. So I use that kind of for my builds and for that sort of internal team assignment, like, okay, graphics designer, you're working on your piece and it's due on this date and things like that. Tickets are a little bit different. I use Teamwork Desk, which they talk to each other, which is nice, it can automatically create a to-do. Teamwork Desk I use for tickets. So these are things like ongoing care clients who are like, can you update my phone number on the contact page? They just submit to, you know, support at Mozak Design, boom, it goes in. We know there's a ticket, we can assign it to somebody who's gonna do it and a date and they have it do as to when it's assigned to when it's due. And the ticketing system actually also does auto-email, so then I can reply and say, okay, we got your ticket, I can say, we've done the work, please let us know. You know, we did it, here's the page to check, let us know if we missed anything and if you need anything else at all, blah, blah, blah. And then I use Harvest for my time tracking in voicing. So all of my time my team spends goes in there because obviously when they wanna get paid too, I wanna know what a project is costing, right? So I have all these different staff members, my US team cost is not the same as my overseas team cost. So when I look at a project I put into there saying, okay, they came in at this cost, how many hours went to the project management, how many hours went to graphics design, how many hours went to build out, how many hours went to training. So I can really see over time where's the time going because that was the biggest thing that I think I messed up with when I started and again that's where I say growth is messy and sometimes you just have to be messy to know what on earth you need to worry about. And so I grew and I learned and I went, oh wow, I really should have thought about that. Backpedal, systems and processes. Okay, let's try again. So that's kind of what I use. What are some other popular ones out there? I wanna say Trello boards are pretty popular. Yeah, Trello people use, really just pick the system that works for you. In my case that works well because they all sort of play nice and meet my needs. Don't system hop. Again, we can easily fall into the shiny. It's much better to know your systems and processes and then pick the one that works. But that's what I use. Did that answer most of your question points? Okay. I saw, yeah. My question is about overseas help. Do you have to give them 10.99s? And if you don't- Well, at least I don't. If you're a started H.T.D. rather than getting a bookkeeper right in front. Okay, yes to the bookkeeper. You will love that person. Worth every penny. Let's see. I don't do 10.99s overseas. I don't know if I should. I haven't. Hasn't been an issue. I just write as a business expense. I suppose I could be wrong on this advice. I'm giving you, I'm just simply sharing what I've done. Good question for my accountant, huh? But that's what I've done. I've just written it as a business expense. And I guess it's never been questioned. I mean, it goes to a PayPal account. It's like any other service provider. Good, good point. But yeah, that's how I've done it. If anyone knows better than me. Uh-oh, I might get corrected. Okay, so it appears that I have some homework to do. So far so good. Oh, well there you go. Can you repeat with us? And I'll try to repeat it for the recording. W-H-B. B-E-N, okay. All right, and for corporations, I think 1120S? Cool. Yeah, I'll be doing that next tax season. I think I saw, yeah? Whoops, she has the mic. I didn't see, sorry. Yeah, so I guess I have two levels of documentation. One is kind of the processes and procedures, which is kind of like how we do things at a high level, like enter them into the invoicing software. And then I have more local to-dos, like put them in harvest, knowing that harvest could change in the future. I'm currently mostly using it internally. I don't have any really written documents that I give my clients. I probably could save myself some time doing that. But I don't, I'm a very video person, so I tend to make them like training videos. It's just kind of my thing. I'm a talker over a writer. But yes, I do know one of the nice things with Jennifer Bourne. One of the things with her class is that she's given out, or the one that you pay for, the Profitable Project Plan. She actually has some really great emails that she gives the clients, where it's like, and this is what I need for this, and this is what I need for that. And she even has like keeping the client busy emails. Like, while we're working, here's some stuff for you to go read. So leave me alone. And no, but it's great. It's kind of great. It's like she has this whole system, and that's what her program is, that she's starting up is like, how do you keep auto, by the way, communicating with your clients? So they feel cared for while you're like, I'm underground doing work. Just let me do my thing. So she does have that. I haven't rolled that into my business yet. My to-do list is long like everybody else's. So yeah, it's on my to-do list. But that's one thing I really like from her particular course. She has like, I think I've printed 200 pages. It's just wild, the amount. I'm like, girl, I don't know how much time you put into this, but it was a lot. So yes, you can certainly use the documentation to also offload that. But you know, most of my clients, I don't know, I'm very verbal in talking with them. And then the training, it's video as needed. And more and more, I'm moving into more and more of those clients where they're like, you know what, my job is to run my business, and your job is to support me. So it becomes a little bit more mutant in some ways as you get to the higher level. Been my experience for me. Yeah? One of my biggest things for an agency level. My question is, do you have residual clients that can keep you afloat for when you're finding, or when the marketing person is finding work for you, or how do you really, sort of change your position, and also handle the other expenses? Right, so it's called floley. You don't just necessarily go out and hire that full-time W-2 employee, like right? You do it slowly. And so in my case, I was more comfortable starting with a U.S. person, which was obviously more expensive, but he just started working for me. I told him, and I didn't even need to do this, but it's just two I am. I said, I want to guarantee you at least $1,000 a month, because I know that if I'm gonna ask you to jump and your answer is sure, the least I can do is help guarantee you can pay your bills. And so I took that on personally. I didn't have to do that. It was my own choice. But so I started having him do smaller tasks. So I would do something that was repetitive, that I could record how to do, and then move them in to doing it. I was chatting with another friend who she's just brought on someone overseas. So that's a lower price point. So she was able to bring them on at 40 hours instantly, and is instead going and just doing a similar thing where she's recording tasks. And she knows she may not always be able to fill the time. So she's asking her person, find some classes on Udemy, whatever.  You kind of have to transition. How much residual?  I probably, for my 20 hours a week, for my developer overseas, I think you're looking at under $600 a month. That's actually not huge. My developers in the US, I typically pay my US team personally around $40, $50 an hour. So that's obviously much higher. But I just start them at a slower, like okay, I'm willing to commit to 10 hours a week. So I would say you don't need to go like straight to like, I'm an agency. Just grow into it, find your way, feel your way. And you almost, as I said, don't know what you don't know. My first project boundary, it was messy. My second one's much better. Cause now I'm like, okay, this is my systems and processes. I know what I need. I didn't know what I needed. I'm like, help.  And of course she's like, well what do you want me to do with this? I'm like, I don't know. And so like over time you get better. And you do come up with these. So don't expect you to instantly know what to do. Just find your way and you'll get there. And just keep moving in the direction.  I'm going back to just meet myself and I, where I keep all the pennies, or even screw this, I'm going back to corporate, okay? We all have those days. But at the end of the day, I personally love being able to have a team for what I can do for them and what they can do for me and what it means for my clients. And so at the end of the day, it's why I'm doing what I'm doing. You talk about systems and processes. Where do you keep them? So we found that you could start and do it. What I've done for myself is those two levels. So I actually have a Google site, which I use internally for my sort of that top level process where it's just like new client comes on, put them in invoicing software, send welcome email. And then next to that, I actually have the Google doc, which is more of the living breathing. Like we'll touch this and it's like, okay, that means harvest and whatever. And really that sort of actionable stuff is more in teamwork desk, teamwork, PM where the twos are. So I kind of have separated it between the sort of top level visionary and the actual like here's the steps because you will always put them in your invoicing software. What your invoicing software is might change and it kind of allows you to keep those two pieces. That's at least how I've set up and the Google site for some reason was really quick and easy for me to do that. Now, I was able to keep it private. I'm pretty certain I'm not sharing that with the world. No Googling it. It's hidden. I have some one more question here. Okay. The conch chamber of commerce, I attended a seminar slash workshop. It was given by a company called Andre Hall. Okay. And it about five or 10 minutes into this presentation, I was getting really angry. Okay. This, the owner of this company was talking about how creative people all over the country are working for slave wages. And I don't want to do that. But they're out there, tons of them. His company vets these people and they're doing copywriting, illustrating videos. They're doing all types of work including bookkeeping, you name it, for very, very low wages.  They're all educated. And I'm not sure, but he said that they were vetted. I'm not sure all of them, but a large number are vetted. So I'm sitting here thinking, well, hey, if I want to migrate from being a freelancer to an agency, because I'm already making those plans now, I think that I would actually use them. Yeah. I would use that service. And I don't have just, I could make the choice to not stick with them. But I thought I'd put that name out there because you guys should really check out this company and I think the majority of the people who sign up are Americans. Yeah, and I will actually mention one thing I didn't say but a mistake I made in some ways is in my head, I went, okay, subcontractor, local, meaning like in my, where I lived, or overseas. One thing I forgot to consider was that living wage varies all over the United States. And I actually personally, and I really should update my slides to include that, is to remember and to think, like for example, if you're in New York City, yeah, the local person to work for you is probably maybe more than you can stomach. But you may be able to find somebody in the US in a different area where what you pay them isn't what you want to be paid, but make a great quality of life for where they live. And so yeah, there's a lot of options. This is not black or white, there's a lot of things. So yeah, it's great. That's something that, as I said, I didn't occur to me and is an important one. Yep, problem.


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Welcome to Psychic Medium, Tony Green. I am Tony Green and we are going to start the show. So I just want to say happy Halloween to those of you who celebrate it and tell me what's your favorite Halloween costume? I have a couple. I love dressing up. No, I really love dressing up. I mean, it goes beyond Halloween. Anyway, Halloween is absolutely one of my favorite holidays because it's so much fun. People get to dress up, they get to get out of character. I don't like all the scary stuff of Halloween. I really don't. I don't like being afraid on Halloween, but I absolutely love the dressing up and watching people just get to be silly like kids again. We don't get that very often, do we? Okay, so we're going to get right into the show today. I want to thank everybody online, joining me, Heather, Sal, Jenna Beve, Patrick, hey Patrick, hey Christine. Oh, Catwoman, yes. Okay, so Sal just said he saw somebody dressed up as Catwoman. I was thinking about that this year, Catwoman, but then I thought everything in my life now revolves around this. If I have to go to the bathroom, how long is that going to take and how many people am I going to need? I'm not even kidding. Like I'm not even joking. How do you get that up and down to go to the bathroom, especially if you've had an adult beverage or two? Am I wrong girls? Girls, am I wrong?   That's all I'm saying. That is all I'm saying. Okay, what else are your favorite costumes? What are the favorite costume you've ever worn, gotten the most compliments on? I mean, yes, Jenna Beve, absolutely. Whatever it is, please, if you're in the chat, tell me in the chat. If you're not in the chat. Oh, Kavita says Cleopatra. Yes. And Heather says a pirate 1 million percent. Oh, I think you have to be stunning. You have to have a certain look to pull off Cleopatra. I would love to be able to do it. I don't personally have that look. But I've seen a couple really beautiful Cleopatras. I really have. Yeah. When I was younger, much younger, my mom sent me to school in a baby costume.  I was pouting so badly because I was I was kind of young. I was probably in like, maybe fourth or fifth grade. And I wanted to go with something a little bit more sexy. Always. Right. And she sent me in this big old diaper with this big old hat. And everybody loved it except for me. And all day I bowed it like a baby.  All day. My mom loved Halloween. She would take my brother and dress up every year and made sure he went out and had my youngest brother, Stevie with downs major. He had the most perfect costume and he always would win costume contests wherever they would go. So yeah, I love Halloween too. So given the fact that it's Halloween, if you would like to connect with someone from the other side, please, you can put it in the post, put it in the chat if you're watching on YouTube. And or if you're on one of the podcasts listening in, the number is<PHONE_NUMBER>. You can call in, we will help you, I will help you connect, our spirit will help you connect with your loved ones on the other side. And also, excuse me, if you have questions about life, love, career, finances, be happy to answer those. If you're enjoying the show and you want a little good karma, you can hit that like button if you're on something that allows you to like it. If you want to know every time I'm coming on, you can subscribe. I will never reach out to anybody for a private session. You have to reach out to me, so please don't get scammed. Okay, Heather on the chat asked about her son and his illness. Heather, the first thing I get is this is really emotional, something that has been with him since he's been five or six. And it's just built since then. I'm going to do a few clearings right now. I actually started a bit ago, and he's having a heart issue. So we're going to go with he has a heart problem. We're going to start clearing that. And we're going to clear that. Okay, Heather, I hope these things are helpful. I really do. Please keep us posted on what they say about your son and his MRI. Oh, so Genevieve says she loves dressing up as a zombie bride, a masquerade evening dress. Oh, I love that. I love that Genevieve. Awesome. Yeah, and Cher, yes. Christine says she loves dressing up as Cher. Again, you have to have a certain look to pull those off. Okay, if you have a favorite costume that you wore or wear, please put it in the chat. I love hearing that. Okay. And Heather had asked in the chat prior, right before going live, she had stated that her son, who is now 17, is having some health issues in his heart and a few other areas. And then the first thing I picked up is it's emotional. And then as I started talking about it, I picked up that it happened. It started right around five or six. And Heather just said that's when her and his father got divorced. And Heather, I'm going to tell you, he thinks it was all his fault. He feels like his, his, his dad rejected him. And in some way this was his fault. So we're going to clear that. We're also going to clear that he feels this sense of abandonment and rejection, which I get a yes on. And we're going to start clearing that. And no matter how much you explain to children, it's not them. Children are innately built to believe everything is their fault. Hey, brown eyes, happy Halloween to you too. Okay, you guys, if you are in the chat, please, you can put a question in the chat. I would love to answer your question in the chat. And I'm going to do that little number right there, right there. And if you hi, Erin, Erin wants to know, do I see her in a relationship? Yep. Yep, Erin, I do. Erin, I feel like it's okay, it's always up to us. But this one is really up to you. I feel like I hear that song, I'm good, it's not a song, but they're just singing it like a song, I'm good if I do, I'm good if I don't, I'm good if I will, I'm good if I won't, like they're kind of putting those words to a beat. And that, like, you're not like you have some trepidation with a, you have some trepidation as to getting into a relationship, like, okay, everything is whatever, I don't know if I want to take that route. But I feel like here's what I feel like. I feel like somebody's coming in and I'm going to give you March. You might and probably will meet people prior to March, but somebody who's able to give you a more significant relationship will be coming in, in March. You don't know this person, you've never met this person before.  I don't even know what that is, but they're doing it. I feel like you're gonna like all the way around, not just like in the department, all the way around this person is gonna rock your world. They're going to, okay, they're gonna show you the side of a relationship you've not yet seen.  I do have callers that have been waiting for about, oh, let's see, a half hour or so now. So I'm gonna go to the callers. I'm gonna keep coming back between callers and answering on YouTube. I've got one hour to do this and I am going to do it.  I'm gonna try to be really fair about this. People don't drop off on me. I will be happy to get to everybody. 814, what's your name and where are you calling from? Hello, hi, my name is Amy and I'm calling from Pennsylvania. Hey Amy, how can I help you today? I'm calling to see. I have had two job interviews and I was wondering if you see me getting either of those. Yes, you are going to get an offer from one of them but I feel like there are two or three more interviews that are going to come in and I always say even if you, you know, until you're in the door and you love the job, you just keep looking. I feel like one of those is going to want to bring you on. I feel like there might be a question and I feel like this question is going to come from the HR department. It's something you're not really expecting. I don't know if it's HR but it's like after they hire you they send you some paperwork and some final forms or something along those lines and I haven't worked in a company since my 20s so when I worked at companies they really didn't have hold on HR departments. What I'm going to say is something in the final paperwork you're going to question, make sure you get it rectified before you sign on and do everything but there's going to be more interviews coming and I feel like in these interviews that are coming someone's going to call for an interview and I feel like it's going to be this week it might even be tomorrow and that's the job you're going to want and keep like that's it that's the one I want I want to get this one so keep a hold on that and don't stop applying and or looking until you get that one you want or until you're in the door and all the everything is dotted and eyed and teed and you're happy there okay love okay excellent thank you so much for calling in I'm so grateful we were able to answer the call for you today and I hope I hope this was helpful love and have thank you so much you are so so welcome okay now people on the call in if you do want to call in and ask a question the number is<PHONE_NUMBER> I'm here every single Monday and Wednesday and I take callers live and this does air on tv now I'm going to go to the next question um Christine considering surgery on my back do you think it's a good idea okay um here's what I'm getting and you have to make this choice on your own I'm I'm getting you're not going to get what you want out of this surgery um I know that surgeries have come a very long way and they're able to do a lot of very miraculous things with back surgery but I do feel like this surgery isn't going to be able to completely resolve the issue that you have and if you have this surgery whatever is left over is going to remain left over they won't be able to go in later and rectify anything they didn't get and that the problems will continue um I do feel like in a month and a half something's going to come in that's going to alleviate all of this whatever this is it's going to alleviate it I'm going to do just campaign yes clear that her back's in alignment no clear that she is okay clear that she's learned all the lessons she needs to learn okay I'm do it Christine I'm doing like this um these clearings on you for your back right now so everybody I'm sorry I just I'm going to dive deep into this um I hope this helps I'm going to tell you whatever this is I feel like in a month and a half something's going to come in that's going to help to alleviate it it might be something I don't know what's going to come in but a month and a half is not a long time to wait considering um something could come in that could completely help you out I hope that was helpful and I'm sorry it's probably not the answer you were looking for okay let's go over and I'm going to come back to more questions on the chat I'm going to go to the next caller though who is who 415 did I just do 415 415 what's your name where are you calling from hi this is Kate hey Kate how are you today it's kind of a funny one today um the place where I'm house-hitting there's a when I lay down in bed at night it feels like uh oh there's no cat in the house but I feel like a little spirit kitty jumps on my bed and walks along my bed and I feel there is a cat there is a cat in the house it's not scary I mean yeah yeah there is a little spirit and I talk to the cat and I I say you can stay here but just lay down stop walking up down my bed well the cat okay so one thing I'm going to do is I'm going to help this cat transition so that it can you know be where it's supposed to be and I'm not going to the angels are and I'm going to tell you there is a cat you're right it does uh kind of and it's a young kitty it's not an older kitty it's a very young kitty so that kitten I'm going to call it a baby the baby is on its way home Kate thank you so much for bringing that in um and helping that little bean transition um I do feel like that is a beautiful thing for hallows hallows eve to help a little baby kitty transition right yes yes yes okay thank you again for calling in I hope that this um helps you have some peace when you're sleeping yeah I hope this helps you have some peace while you're sleeping okay do you think the dog feels that too is the dog aware of that little kitty on the bed you know what animals are more aware of um yeah see they can see through the veil much better than we can they can completely see through the veil and understand and um um uh they can see things that we we cannot so yes I do believe that the dog is very well aware of the cat and uh yes absolutely love absolutely all right thank you so much for calling in love I am going to do a special clearing for this uh day for halloween hallows eve for everybody watching rewatching listening re listening let's clear our homes let's make sure there's no spooky icky mirrors in our homes so our homes are clear I get a no let's clear that no arms are unclear I get a yes let's clear that to a no you guys sometimes these clearings hit me so when I say clearing or healing we're just taking away all the old energy whether it's like if they're if we're in a home where there was a lot of fighting or arguing or going on um that energy sits and we have to get it out or if you know we have like little kitty visitors or little um little kitty visitors or little um you know whatever it is uh relatives uh we can help them be where they're supposed to be and I'm gonna say this now everybody's like don't take my mom don't take my dad don't take my my grandpa they bring me luck if they've already transitioned they can stay we're not working on people who have already gone to heaven and by the way everybody goes to heaven um we're not working on those people we're working on the people who are kind of lingering yeah that's what I'm talking about okay we're gonna go to the next person um the youtube chat and if you do have a question and you are on youtube and you want to put it in the chat please by all means post your question I'm happy to answer it if you want to call in the numbers eight four five two seven seven nine one three one okay Christine we did you Kavita I would love any additional info on this man you see coming into my life uh you started to speak about him last time I called in thank you and happy halloween happy halloween okay so Kavita would like to know more about any man coming into her life okay so one thing I noticed I came on sunday and I did a pop-up um show and one thing I noticed is that we went from like meeting people in four to six weeks to meeting people in january so there's been a significant time difference I don't know if that's going to be for everybody that that's happening but I'm going to tell you this man is um spontaneous he enjoys being out and having adventures um he doesn't like somebody who's sedentary I don't care what the ages he'll be like 105 then still be like let's go to the amusement park or you know whatever it is he needs a continual like I want to use the word stimulation but he likes to get up and go and live life he likes to be out and about and as a matter of fact if he can't be out and about he he tends to get a bit depressed he tends to get a bit um not not I don't want to say full on depressed but he tends to get a bit like it makes him he gets part of the spark of his life from doing things okay Kavita I hope that helps you brown eyes I'm going to answer your question next but I'm going to go to the call log and I'm going to take five one six next five one six what's your name and where are you calling from uh my name's Anna from New York um I also would love to know about love life I love me some love oh I love talking about love and new love coming in okay Anna from New York do you notice like you guys I can't even control that like when I start my my words start to get that let's just call it accent whatever that is totally spirit coming through somebody from the other side coming through um for you okay so okay Anna I feel like the person coming in for you is coming in January and if I'm going to be more exact and please be open to any other day during the month of January the 2nd and the 15th are going to be very good days and the 17th now whether this these are the days that you're going to meet somebody or not um I don't know what I can tell you is the 2nd and the 15th and the 17th and the 17th is circled on the 17th you are going to be um uh that's going to just be a good day all the way around okay January 17th now on the 2nd and the um 15th one of those days is a day you have the potential to either meet someone and or go do something with a group of people that will lead you to meeting somebody the person coming in is brand spanking new do not settle for someone for the past don't play with the plays from the past just like chug forward and even though this isn't coming in until January possibly January um I feel like you really need to like cut ties with everything that has been holding you back as far as um just everything and they're even saying work now here's the other thing I'm going to say if you are working at a good job and you're not planning on going any place I'm going to tell you it doesn't mean quit your job it means let go of any toxicity at your job or at your work folks we are going through a purge of negativity and toxicity if we're not letting them go you know our ancestors are like sweeping them out for us let them do their job and do not make it harder for them I feel like the person coming in is going to be a really good person for you they're going to have a lot of really good insights a more mature person um and you like to be a little bit fiery passionate a little verbose at time the person coming in is going to be very they're not going to put up with you abusing them they're going to like your passion and they're definitely absolutely 100 not going to go um like like if you're very passionate about something they're not going to like fight with you just uh to be right they're going to appreciate your passion like they're like somebody in their family was very passionate like maybe their grandma or something so they're used to that kind of fiery um type of passion um okay so that's what I have for you and I hope that that helps great thank you so much you are great you are so welcome I am going to go to the youtube chat now and take the next call the next question on youtube and then I will be back to 303 so 303 hold on Susie I hope all is well thank you Susie um Susie my question is about my grandma that passed I know she's with me she's always been my protector I love that um I never got to say goodbye to her did she have any anything any message I love her with all my heart okay Susie she did hear you say goodbye she was with you when you were um mourning her loss her her spirit or her um I can see her your your head is down and you're very upset and I can see her like over your it would have been over your left shoulder and holding you and saying it it's it's okay um the message that she would want to give to you is do everything she couldn't I know right I know hmm I really like that message do everything she couldn't um I hope you understand what she means by that you should you should you should understand what she means by that they usually when they give a message we get it like immediately um the other thing that I want to tell you is um her symbol for you outside is the cardinal and when you're and feathers any feathers that fall any feathers that you find that's those are signs that she's around you okay love Susie I hope that is helpful and she loves you and she loves you and she knows you think about her all the time okay I just I have to do this so quickly I love each and every one of you so much if you did not get through with your question or your call today I will be back on Wednesday come back with more questions more connections and I love each and every one of you have an absolutely amazing rest of the day


So it's Monday, which means it's the buddy mentoring international student scheme It's currently 6 a.m. Quarter past five I got up this morning to get ready because I have to be in there at 8 a.m. This morning Whatever done But you know what I've got a free t-shirt look There's your buddy. I had to adjust the sleeves So I've just I've sewn up my sleeves a little bit because they were really long it says it on the back as well How am I gonna do this? Hang on? Who's excited? So first things first. I am no longer a buddy. I am a co-captain So I put my name down to be either a captain or a co-captain and then the people that run it They pick who they want to be the captains and co-captains. So I am now the co-captain But I've swapped from yellow team to blue team I think I mentioned this in my last vlog So we've all been split into two separate teams yellow and blue and we're in competition with each other so I am now on the blue team and They are fantastic So we've had all of our international students come in today. We've met them all this morning I was on the welcome desk giving out the welcome bags to everybody So I was giving them all out welcoming people smiles. Hi. Welcome. Good morning for a good couple of hours after I handed out all of the packs and everyone's been assigned to students so far I It was then my turn so I was giving 20 students to sort of buddy for the morning and Basically, we had these packs that we had to go around with so we took them over to one of the buildings in the IT room got them to fill out their registration forms any Dietary requirements or allergies health problems anything like that and we had to get them to register online with the doctor We had to get them to update the UK details online We had like a bit of an icebreaker. So I introduced myself what course I was on and then we went around the room and they introduced themselves and What courses they were doing and then I gave everyone the Time table of events for the week. I told them we're in a competition So make sure they come to all the events because we need to win points for our blue team That was obviously top priority and we went on a big tour around the three campuses that we've got So there's cause I'm building there is Millennium Point and there's Parkside building massive buildings And can I just remind you I've only been to these buildings like once or twice before so for me touring people around I was just like But I winged it of course So I did have a step-by-step guide and it was sort of a rough. Okay. What's on each floor in each building? So I literally just went through that with them Then we headed back to our main room where the all the lunches were being served I helped hand out all of the lunches to people and then after that we had a little bit of a rest We had lunch and then Half past two So I was I don't know I think I was just in that the wrong place at the wrong time or even the right place at the right time I don't know which one it is yet, but I was in a place at a certain time and I was given the task of being in charge of This color hunt that we had to do I was the chief person for our blue team I had to organize everyone into seven separate teams So seven but seven buddies had a certain amount of students each and then they were all given a clue each to go and find a location in the building and Then once they've gone to the location There'll be a little ticket to bring back to me and that'll score them some points It's I think it's to sort of get them used to the building Get used to the surroundings of the building and where things are and where to find them So it was a really good task I think so there was bonus points as well so for their bonus points there to do things like take a selfie with the group They had to take a selfie with the bcu tiger to find out some information So they went off and did all of that And so the first people that come back I just gave them a bonus task to go and do and then the next people come back I gave them a bonus task to do and that's how I sort of ran it, but It was chaos. It was absolutely chaos and I've discovered that my delegating skills are absolutely Appalling I am terrible and I'm gonna write a reflection about this because it's really useful I think to reflect on learn from and Hopefully get more experience and grow because it's something you need as a nurse is to delicate tasks to your team So I wasn't very good and I wasn't very comfortable with telling people what to do. I was just sort of like, okay So now everybody we just need to get into teams and then there was a couple of people that were like, okay Let's do it this way. Let's do it this way. So I was like, okay, just do what you want. Let's get the teams together Let's get it sorted. We ended up with ten teams instead of seven. So I was like, oh Listen, just okay. You go there. You go there fine sorted. We've got 17 now Okay, everyone sorted good and then towards the end So people rushing back all at once and I was I was on the score sheet at the end So people were coming to give me their tokens when they found them and I was on the score sheet trying to score it But then everyone was coming at once everyone was speaking at once. I was like, okay. Wow Whoa, whoa, whoa. Chill out. I was getting really confused and then I missed some tokens People forgot to give me their tokens back. So at the end when I realized I was like, hang on I need some tokens. I'm missing two. So we got those token back in the end. Thank God and then at the end of it we had to The last thing we had to do was once we've got all of our points and everything we had to go into the graduate plus office all together I don't know if we were supposed to go in all together But I sort of went and everyone followed So we all went to the graduate plus and the graduate plus office was tiny. It's like probably a quarter of this room It's so small and we all went into there. We all piled in. It was filled and I saw one of the ladies in grad plus. I won't say a name because Confidentiality again. So the grad plus and I was like, yes, we're here. I've got my little flashy pen We've won.  So she did a whole talk about graduate plus and then I was like, let's get a photo So I may have stood on a table and health and safety went out the window. Don't tell anybody this. I Know just on this table and I was trying to get this photo And then I got up to take this photo of everyone and then everyone was cheering I was like, oh my god I've gone bright red because everyone's cheering because I've got up on a table to take a photo. I Was so I'm getting embarrassed thinking about it.  So then I got consent from everybody to take this video I'm about to show you so I was like, let's all get a video. Come on I'll put it on social media if you are already on the social media. You've already seen this video So I'm really sorry. I'm gonna play it for you. Anyway, so playing it now for you So there's quite a lot of us in that room as you can see and we were all like blue blue blue It was just a massive massive high to end the day and it proper it made my day And I was just like, yes, this is amazing. I've got people vlogging for me. Come on So I'm hoping they're gonna want some more videos so I can show you what we do through the week because this is just gonna be Amazing if we can get this get this going. Oh, I just I would love it So that and that was it really so that took us to half past three when my shift ended Didn't go and see Coco. I know I said that I was gonna um and are about it and I'm really excited for it But you know, I'm so tired and then my exams next Monday as well So I really want to make the most of this afternoon to just revise for the exam because I don't feel like I've revised enough So I'm gonna be doing that now after I finish this vlog And tomorrow I'm back in at nine o'clock nine till half four. I think or nine to half three I can't remember. I'm gonna have to look at the rotor to have a look at what I'm actually doing tomorrow So that's it. So I will see you all tomorrow bright and early and see what tomorrow brings Day two of the buddy mentoring scheme for the international students. Are you ready for this? I'm so excited. Let's go We finished for the day and what another amazing day So today we sat and we did activities with everybody played board games jenga and connect full bowling things like that It's been such a good day and then to end the day We all planned a flash mob a surprise flash mob for There during that one of their talks so whilst they were all in the lecture theater talking we all slowly sort of Creeped in and sat by all of the students in the airs And then we just started Katy Perry hot and cold Flash mob and you know what they all joined in it was amazing I didn't get a video because I was doing my dancing But I pray that someone's got a video that they're going to send me so I can post it So it was just a really good end to the day And really left the day on a high. It's been amazing I'm absolutely knackered. Who'd have thought having so much fun tires you out So I'm off to eat. I'm going to have a drink and go to bed That is my day and tomorrow it's the bond dance. So I'll see you all tomorrow for that All right