ASHISH NATHU
February 8, 2022
1:11 pm
On this episode of The Rich Equation Podcast, Ashish is joined by guest Daniel Ramsey. Daniel is CEO and founder of My Out Desk and he talks us through the inspiration behind the business. Ashish and Daniel speak about how he keeps the culture within his organization and being titled as the No.1 virtual assistant company both this year and last year. Daniel shares some of the pivotal moments he faced when scaling the business and talks about how important it is to understand the four stages of a business. Daniel mentions how he sees a lot of people struggling to make the first step of becoming an entrepreneur and shares why people need to understand what they’re sacrificing before they decide to leave their W2 to be an entrepreneur. Ashish and Daniel speak about how revenue for a business is like oxygen to a business and Daniel emphasizes the impact time management and prioritizing your time correctly can have on your business. Daniel states that money serves a purpose but it’s not the purpose!
0:00 – Ashish shares a brief introduction to his guest Daniel Ramsey 3:27 – Daniel mentions how sharing what he does and how he impacts their world is his favorite thing to do 3:45 – Daniel provides us with an insight into his business; My Out Desk 5:05 – Daniel shares how My Out Desk has 2,000 virtual professionals 9:20 – Ashish asks Daniel what were some of the milestones of challenge/pivotal moments he faced when he was scaling the business 9:42 – Daniel encourages you to grab a copy of his book that outlines the four stages of business through his website; https://www.myoutdesk.com/scale/ 15:23: Daniel mentions how a lot of people struggle with the first step; should I take this risk? Should I transition from my W2 to an entrepreneur? 15:37 – Daniel states that people need to know what they’re sacrificing to make that decision 16:46 – Daniel speaks about revenue and explains how revenue to businesses is like air to humans 18:16 – Daniel mentions how if you looked at his calendar for the last decade you would see what he has done every single day 24:37– Ashish asks Daniel what is the process an entrepreneur should use to have a successful virtual assistant and where do people fail 27:47 – Daniel states that people go wrong with virtual assistants when they don’t treat them like regular team members 30:14 – Ashish asks Daniel what is his why and what does he hope to leave behind 31:31 – Daniel speaks about what keeps him up at night 35:40 – Daniel shares how something he has learned over the years is that money serves a purpose but it’s not the purpose 36:05 – Daniel shares what living a true life of richness means for him 38:24 – Daniel states that you can as an entrepreneur have it all 39:51 – You can request a consultation through the website; https://www.myoutdesk.com/ Links:
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Guest Website: https://www.myoutdesk.com/
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FULL TRANSCRIPTION:
Ashish Nathu Welcome back to the Rich Equation podcast, where we help you live your richest life. Today, I am joined by Daniel Ramsey, CEO and founder of my Outdesk rated the number one virtual assistant service by tech radar with over , clients and verified five-star reviews. He helps businesses gain indispensable leverage with virtual professionals. Back in , he was inspired by his own time management struggles to help find a better way for businesses to leverage their time and energy and created my Outdesk to provide a trusted and reliable solution to the office administration, marketing and prospecting tasks that every business has. But most lack the time to focus on on this episode, we discuss how creating clear goals and objectives within the team can help the organization grow. Daniel shares how his organization stays focused on revenue as a critical KPI and cultural driver. He discusses the different phases and mind shifts entrepreneurs go through over the course of building a large enterprise, and he explains exactly what it takes to be successful.
Ashish Nathu And the common traps of scaling your business with outsource labor. This is a great episode and something that inspires me to keep driving really hard. I know you can get juice from this to here. He is Daniel Ramsey. And remember if you enjoy this podcast or find it valuable in any way, you have a duty to share with someone else who may need to hear this message or can get value from this content and remember to subscribe to the podcast and leave a review so we can continue to bring massive value to you and go to our website, the rich equation, podcast.com to be added to our main list for special access and content. Now here’s the episode.
Narrator Welcome to the rich equation podcast. Are you ready to discover how to live rich today and not wait for retirement? If you’re tired of struggling and want to live your best life now, your in the right place, outdated and principles will no longer work in today’s environment. It’s time for a new approach. Your host will help you discover methods to live the new American dream. It’s time to start living the good life on your own terms and experience a new way to live rich read. Now here’s your host Ashish Nathu
Ashish Nathu Mr. Daniel Ramsey. Welcome to the podcast.
Daniel Ramsay Thanks for having me, man. I’m excited to Chat today.
Ashish Nathu Yeah, I really am excited. I think this is going to be a really fun conversation. It’s the first time we’ve actually met. I think we’ve had a couple of conversations before we actually do work together and have had I’m a client of yours, but I’ve had success with your process in your business. And, you know, I have an employee that works with, for me, that is part of your business. So I’m really excited to talk about your company and your business and your story, and really talk about the whole world, the virtual professionals, and unpack that today. But even more importantly, you know, talk about your entrepreneurial journey and some of the biggest lessons that you can share with the audience. So I’m, I’m really excited for this.
Daniel Ramsey Yeah, man, let’s do this. It’s exciting when a client actually has an audience and a podcast and we get it, come on. I mean, it’s just, for me, it’s a pleasure because I’m sharing what we do and how we impact the world is just always, it’s my favorite thing to do in the day.
Ashish Nathu I love it. I love it. So I guess just for the audience really quick, like give us a little bit of introduction about you, the business model and tell us about what you guys are all about.
Daniel Ramsay Yeah, sure. So again, my name is Daniel Ramsey and I own a company called MyOutDesk. So it’s M Y O U T D E S K. And I spell that because we get called out desk and my desk and like all kinds of crazy stuff. But what we do is we help instantly scale growing companies with virtual assistants. So we will help anybody out there who can recognize that their time is valuable and that they should be focused on, you know, dollar productive activities, the things that really drive revenue for a business or, and, or, you know, create impact in the world and everything else should be delegated down. It, you know, maybe to a us employee and maybe to a virtual assistant. And what we do specifically for our customers is we create blended models where, you know, your, your folks in the U S are licensed and, or the project manager and, or the, you know, very detailed expert in their industry. And then all the doing happens for us with our virtual professionals.
Ashish Nathu And just to give the audience some scale, how many employees, where are they? I mean, I know they’re all around the world, but like give us some context from that perspective.
Daniel Ramsay We, we just crossed virtual professionals. We’re in the U S we serve customers and in Canada and the U S and primarily we’re in the Philippines. So a hundred percent of our folks over there, two things, I I’m a, I’m a real estate guy in my heart. Like, that’s what I do. I develop or flip or own real estate. And I hired my first virtual assistant in because I needed leverage in that real estate related business. And, you know, today, the F the Philippines is just such a great match for virtual assistants. Ethics wise, they’re very Catholic, so right and wrong is equal. And in Asia, that’s a big deal for us. And American culture is very tied and very close to the Filipino culture. And, you know, we call ourselves the mod family. So, you know, it’s exciting, we’ve crossed a massive threshold of virtual assistants. And we were named the number one virtual assistant company last year. And we, we were just named it again this year. So it’s called to be recognized in our industry as well as, you know, have so much birth and size. Yeah,
Ashish Nathu It’s amazing. I mean, yeah. Congratulations. Cause it is virtual assistants is quite scale. And what I, what I did definitely want to get in today is, you know, managing a company and especially right now with remote work and, and the COVID situation people are thinking about, well, how do I, you know, how do I get a hybrid in my office and all that? And you have employees on the other side of the world, all working remotely for companies on the other side of the world. So I’d love to get your, you know, get your thoughts about how you make that happen, how you engage culture, how you keep people really engaged. Actually just answer that. Tell me, tell me what you think about how you, how you do the,
Daniel Ramsay Well, I mean, first, it always starts with a vision, right? If you’re listening to this, you have to have a very clear vision. And from the beginning, our vision is, is creating virtual assistants that are indispensable for their clients. Meaning you can’t imagine running your business without our virtual assistants, right? That’s our mission. That’s our purpose. That’s why we’re here. And it’s a guiding light for not only the client, right. They can kind of understand what the goal is as well as the virtual professionals. So we want our people to be indispensable. So that’s number one is, is to have a clear goal posts, like how do we know we won, right? And then, you know, operationally, it’s just to organize around that. Like, you know, how do we find the best people? How do we match the best people? How do we create impact? So that, and this is fun. Our, our goal is to create impact in the world, right? So we have people on average, a person in the Philippines has five family members that may means , people are kind of getting a paycheck. They have healthcare, we have vacation time. You know, we do events, virtual events. I’m, I’m, I’m about to do a tick tock contest. Like I’ve just doing in the Philippines. So fun stuff.
Ashish Nathu Yeah, exactly. So
Daniel Ramsay It’s about, you know, creating a clear vision, executing around that vision and then really, you know, making sure as you’re on as an entrepreneur, that you’re not losing sight of the people who matter, like, you know, our customers, they come to us because we, they have a need, right? Our virtual professionals come to us because they have a need. We need to make sure and be present that we’re, we’re matching those needs and really serving the people being human. Right. And so it goes back to where what’s your vision. And then our core value, our number one core value is a servant’s heart. My job is to serve you as a customer. You are my customer, my job is to serve you. AIJ your virtual professional. Her job is to serve you. Your dog is to grow your business, right? Like grow your impact, right? Add more virtual professionals. And it’s just symbiotic. So to answer your question lightly, make sure your core values are lined up, make sure your vision is lined up and then support the people inside your business, you know, to,
Ashish Nathu As you were scaling your business, what are some of the major milestones of challenge? Some of the things that you really ran up against that were pivotal moments in your maybe, maybe journey of scale or, or big decisions you had to make to take it to the next level, what, or maybe you can highlight one or two major pivotal moments. Yup.
Daniel Ramsay If you’re, if you’re listening right now, I encourage you to jump on our website, my autodesk.com forward slash scale. We’ll throw that in the notes. So you guys can throw it in your stuff, but you can grab a copy of our book there. You can buy it on Amazon. You can get a PDF, you can download, it’s an audio book. So you can grab a copy of the book. I I’ve outlined really there’s, there’s four stages in a business, right. Brand new startup. So I have a dream and I want to get going, right? No, nobody’s on my team. It’s just my dream. And in that space, you’re like in an ideal world, right? Where you you’re, you’re wearing all the hats. You’re the salesperson, you’re the marketing person. You’re the operations person. You’re delivering the service. Like I do it, everything in the business, right?
Daniel Ramsay Most businesses stay in that, in that world. Right? So most businesses, % of businesses never cross a million dollar threshold. They never get revenue above a million dollars. And that’s kind of where they stay. And you know, there’s nothing wrong with those size businesses. I actually, there’s a lot of freedom in them. You know, Ash, nobody owns your calendar. You get to do whatever you want. You know, you get to pick and choose your clients. You’re highly compensated. You know, got a lot of freedom and choice. I love the idea at this stage. So in my, in my world, I do at stage, I was learning a lot. I got to learn, I got to learn who my customers were. You know, what I liked doing what I was really good at, what I needed support in and what I needed to get off my plate.
Daniel Ramsay So, you know, the first step is just have a dream. Second step is you start executing and you’re in the, I do it world. And then at some point you maybe think I can’t do everything. I need some help. Right. And you transition to the, we do it. So we call it the, we do it stage. And, and that’s when you start building a team. And here’s the thing. As soon as you move away from the I, to the, we, it’s like going to school and getting a master’s degree and a doctorate and a bachelor’s all at once, right? Because now you’re not just worried about executing on business, like driving revenue right now. You’ve got people in the, and they need support and you’ve got to help them win. And it’s a whole new world to, to run into that. We do it. So in that stage, you know, systems and processes really become important.
Daniel Ramsay Training team members are selecting and hiring team members. And those are skills that you didn’t need to win in the, I do it stage, you know? And so you get, you know, I hired my friend. It turns out he’s a druggie that happened to me. You know, I literally, I had a partner in a construction business and turns out he, you know, was addicted to pills and I had no idea and he hid it from me for two years. And, you know, so you get to learn people and leadership and building a team and building systems and process and, you know, giving up parts of your day. Like, it’s really difficult to choose. Like, Hey, I hate doing this, but then you have to kind of decide like, is this important to the business? And if I stopped doing this and it doesn’t work out for this person that I delegate it to, will the business, you know, have a challenge or fail or go sideways, you know?
Daniel Ramsay And so in the, we do it, you’re, you’re just, you’re in a massive development stage and you’re learning how to be a leader. And then we get to the, they do it, which is the third stage. And really it’s a place where, you know, scale is developed. Your team matters what the vision is for your business matters like an I and the, we, you can pretty much say, Hey, I want to be rich and I’m gonna make a lot of money. And, you know, people, aren’t going to love that, but you know, you can get away with it right in the day portion. It really, you can’t go to your team of, you know, in our case, a couple thousand people and say, let’s, let’s get Daniel and Ash let’s, let’s make them into billionaires. You know, like, that’s the goal, that’s the goal. Yeah.
Daniel Ramsay That would be the goal. Right? You can’t exactly do that. So, you know, you’ve got to set a vision that other people would be willing to sacrifice their careers and their time and their money and their energy around. And, and if you can do that, right, man, you’re, you’re, you’re winning in life. And there’s a lot of self-discipline in that. There’s a lot of, you know, documentation on a lot of systems that stuff. And, and, you know, so we, in the book, we talk about the, I, we, they, the different stages of each of those kind of areas. And, you know, I’ve gone through this, I’ve gone through, I’ve had to, I’ve hired leaders. And then I’ve had to fire leaders, I’ve, you know, delegated something the wrong way and messed it up and then had to go back and redo it and do the job myself. And I’ve had sleepless nights. And then I’m on Hawaii for days. And going, this is amazing.
Ashish Nathu Do you had mentioned, you had mentioned the revenue, is there a fourth step? I don’t want to interrupt you
Daniel Ramsay Just having a dream. Right. Step one is having a dream. And in the book, it’s, I, we, they, there’s really three stages of growing a business, but the, the first step, which a lot of people struggle with is like, you know, should I take the risks? Should I share position from a W to an entrepreneur? And I, I mentioned that stage. It’s not in the book, but I think it’s important because people need to know what they’re sacrificing to choose to be an entrepreneur, you know?
Ashish Nathu Yeah. There’s a meme online. And I had a guy in my lobby asked me this question. He’s like, Hey, she’s, you know, I know you’re an entrepreneur. And I saw this meme on TOK about why I left my job a nine to five job to be an entrepreneur. Now I work . So it’s a, it’s a really different lifestyle, right?
Daniel Ramsay Yeah. The thing is you have to get juiced around solving problems. You’ve gotta be, you’ve gotta be, if you’re in that they do it. And you have a team and you want, wanna, you know, make big impact in the world. You have to really have a passion for serving others and solving business business problems that you’re, you’re going to, if you don’t love that, then you really should get a job.
Ashish Nathu One of the things we were talking about right before we started recording was, you know, you had mentioned how important revenue was and revenue. Yeah. So talk to us a little bit about why that’s such an important metric or a goal for you, or what, what, how do you incorporate that into your, your strategy?
Daniel Ramsay Well, there’s a couple of things I like to tell people, revenue is like air, right? You and I like to breathe. Well, businesses love revenue. Yes. And great businesses always are consistently focused on driving revenue, right? Like, how do I grow it? What do I need to do? How do I maximize? What is it look like? We, one of our core values is we are a sales organization. So that, that’s what we are. So everybody is selling every stage of the way. Even the person who’s calling to get a, a new credit card to collect on an invoice. They’re entails, they’re talking to a customer. And so for us, revenue is really always been a focus from day one to today. And I tell our sales team all the time, they are lucky and also burdened with the responsibility of driving growth for the company.
Daniel Ramsay Right? You don’t ha I, I’m not going to ask you to pick up trash. I’m not gonna ask you to file bills. And I’m not going to ask you to, you know, I’m not going to ask you to do anything, but hyper focus on serving our customers and driving revenue. But with that comes a massive amount of responsibility because you, you will either be successful in doing it or not. And that narrow focus is what a lot of people miss in business. If you, one thing about me that’s that I think would be valuable for your audiences. If you look at my calendar for the last decade, you can literally see what I did every single day. When I start, when I stopped, how many of these, you know, dollar productive activities I’m doing? Like you will see my routine in my calendar. And I think many people fail to recognize what’s in their bank account and equate that to their time.
Ashish Nathu What does that mean? What do you mean?
Daniel Ramsay Oh, I, you know, so one of my, we do a consultation every time we ha we have somebody hire a virtual assistant. So I’ve gotten an opportunity to talk to more entrepreneurs than most people that I know. Like I’ve never met somebody. Who’s done more conversations with entrepreneurs, honestly. And you know, every month we do four to face to face zoom conversations with entrepreneurs. I mean, think about that. Think of those numbers, you know, we’re years old, right. So we’ve done thousands of these conversations and every time somebody is unsatisfied or isn’t, isn’t clear about, well, I’m not, I’m not happy with how much we’re growing revenue or what’s in my bank account. You know, I almost always can ask them, pull up your calendar. Let’s go over the last couple of months and let’s look and see, where
Ashish Nathu Are you spending time basically is what you mean. Yeah.
Daniel Ramsay what’s your time? What are you doing with yourself? You know, are you, you know, how much are you on Facebook or Tik TOK, or, you know, like how many coffees are you having with friends? Like, I love my friends, but, you know, I do friend things on non-business hours, you know? And, and so you have to really,
Ashish Nathu How much of that is how much of that is discipline and how much of that is just innate nature of drive.
Daniel Ramsay People are like, would help Me. So, I mean, I mean, I think it, like, I get it intellectually, right? That revenue is the lifeblood of the business. And if, and if you had the choice to be able to focus everybody within the company, culturally to revenue, focusing on serving the customer, but then like having the discipline of, you know, I’m going to prioritize customer focus meetings, or sales generation focused activities within my day versus, you know, maybe an accounting function or maybe coffee with my friend or whatever. Do you think that some that’s a discipline thing or do you think it’s like, well, you know, I’m not, I’m just not driven to keep growing revenue. I’m not driven. Like, it’ll come Daniel. Like, it’ll just show up. If I keep serving my three customers, they’ll refer me to one, you know, it is it, is it a laziness issue? Do you think that most entrepreneurs fall into a trap of, is it, I, they just don’t have the drive to get to a hundred million and they’re not willing to do whatever it takes and sacrifice that coffee with their friend. Like, what do you think’s really going on with those guys? Where, and I don’t think we’re talking about the, I do it stage, I think it’s, we’re talking about like the, we do it to the day, do it stage where it’s like, in order to really take this thing to the next level, you gotta make some serious intention change. What do you think the obstacle of that
Daniel Ramsay There’s a lot of obstacles. One is, you know, knowledge and an understanding. You mentioned that you’re invested, I’m also in a group called GoBundance. And then I also have another peer group called fierce that I’m a part of. And you know, so some of it is simply knowledge and who you’re surrounding yourself with, you know, if you’re, if you’re the average of the five people that you spend the most time with. Right? So if, if you’re not with the right people doing the right things, I mean, I’ll give you an example. Cause I, I do think it’s multiple things, right? You’re, you’re spot on to not, it’s never one thing, right? So one is knowledge or an understanding of how to do it, right? And then two is, you know, maybe a desire or discipline around making, setting a goal and really hitting it, you know?
Daniel Ramsay And, and why it matters is I think that the stats are pretty simple. The average family brings in , $, in the U S and most people aren’t willing to sacrifice what it would take to cross that next threshold, which is a hundred thousand dollars, right. Because they’re happy they’re there, they’re fed they’re in a home that their kids are happy. And so, you know, some people just aren’t willing to do that extra amount of work or discipline to, to make that sacrifice, but then another piece of it, and it’s really important is like, what your model looks like, you know, like, you know, our, and I’m sure you have some insurance brokers who are out here listening to this or lenders, you know, those models are dying where an individual serves an individual, you know, and those models are, are, are getting harder and harder to win.
Daniel Ramsay And, you know, so, so knowing your model, the industry that you’re in innovating through and having a solid, you know, thing that you’re, that you’re building, I would say it’s probably a combination, those three to some degree, just like when you get into an accident, the insurance adjuster like % is Daniel’s fault. % is the, the road was slippery and % was the other guy. Cause he rear ended him, you know, insurance companies, they like segment the reason why the accident occurred by percentages and then pay their percentage. It’s wild, how they do that. And so I think it’s the same in this scenario.
Ashish Nathu When I talk to people about my virtual assistant and you know, out out, or outsourcing these resources, it’s still as many people that actually do this work and have virtual assistants. And you could probably attest this. There’s still a huge ecosystem. People that don’t even know where to get started. Right? Like there are still a lot of companies out there who were like, wait, how did you hire somebody on the other side of the world? And like, how did you interview them and who did it and how do you pay them and blah, blah, blah, I guess, you know, in your experience, you’re meeting four or different entrepreneurs a month and you’re creating this funnel and you’re seeing what, what works, what doesn’t work in your, in your expertise? Like what, what is key to having a successful process for an entrepreneur to have a successful virtual assistant and where do people fail? Like, is it that we’re not specific enough? Is it that we don’t know what we want? Is it that we’re a bad manager? Is it that we abused those people? Like what, what is really key to be successful? And what do you know specifically that will cause us to fail?
Daniel Ramsay Okay, great question. And I don’t, I, I’m going to just speak to how we do it. And if you’re listening to this will just, you know, it’s fun about me being on podcasts and stuff is like, I don’t make anything up. I’m just like, here, here’s how I did it. And this is what you should do.
Ashish Nathu And that’s what it’s all about.
Daniel Ramsay Yeah. And I think there’s some, a good nugget there for you. Wisdom unearned is very dangerous, very dangerous. If you go to a coach and you’re like, Hey, I need help building a business model. You better, you better hope or pray or vet that, that coach has successfully helped hundreds. If not thousands of people build a business model, you know, because if you’re asking a guy to give you his experience and he has no experience, then what you’re getting is two people, unexperienced, pretending to build a strategy. And that is just really scary. So my first step is, you know, one, if you’re, if you’ve never done this before, it’s really good to partner with a company like ours because we’ve done this literally thousands of times. And that’s, and that’s really that, that muscle memory, it’s just like everything working out, playing a sport, being parents, staying married, like, you know, the more you do it, the better you get at it. Right? So number one is partner with a great company that knows what they’re doing. There’s a lot of pretenders out there. Right. You know, and then number two, it would be clear, be clear about what it is that you need. Right. And so in our world, there are three outcomes that we focus on growing revenue. My favorite, right? I’m, I’m crazy. I like revenue. And it really, really matters to us as a business, as, as an entrepreneur saving me some time. So, you know, how can it help you
Ashish Nathu Grow revenue and how can it save you time?
Daniel Ramsay Yup. And then the third is like, okay, M can I do this for less money? Because let’s be clear outsourcing the idea is, you know, my, my cup of coffee in the U S is for five bucks, that same coffee, Philippines is a dollar. So there’s a mass of savings. If you get a really good PR, we call ourselves virtual professionals like Aja, she’s a professional. She does this for full time. She’s not playing around. Like, she’s not sidecar ING. You know, it doesn’t have, you know, like she’s a professional, right. So as long as you hire the right person, there’s also tremendous savings. Usually it’s , , % of the time.
Ashish Nathu Yeah. And then what are the biggest failures?
Daniel Ramsay Okay. So number one, not treating them like regular team members. So, you know, w I wasn’t, I didn’t understand this early on probably the first five years of our business, but our customers who embrace the virtual professionals and give them internet, not internet, but an email address. That’s, company-based a phone that’s, company-based, you know, sends them a cup, a sh a shirt I’m wearing a mod shirt right now, you know, like little things, right. Just adding them into the culture, getting them clear about what you’re building, who you are, all the different team members, their part. So just really treating them like you would any other human being, right. That’s a huge, that’s a huge failure point. And then the other piece, and probably this is the biggest challenge that we have as a business. If I’m, if I’m being honest, is helping entrepreneurs and the I, and the, we do it stage, learn how to onboard somebody virtually so training because becomes a really big deal. Documenting your systems and process becomes a really big deal. It’s a big deal because it feels like a waste as an entrepreneur when you’re in the we’d do it stage like you’re, you’re in the, we do it stage and you’re like, I need, I need more profits. I need more revenue. And you’re like, no, no, no. Can you just give me a bullet list of all the things that you’re supposed to do every day? Like you want me to slow down and make a list? I’m like, yeah, you gotta
Ashish Nathu Slow down to speed up
Daniel Ramsay Yeah. You gotta slow down to speed up. And so I love that. I think, I think those are the, the, the key things. If you do those, those couple things, you know, partner with a great company, treat them as part of your team, get really clear about documentation and training. Get the tech piece really dialed in and then hire a, a professional. Somebody who like, this is what they’re up to. This is who they are. This is what they do. They’re defined by it. You do those things. You’re going to be your be integrated.
Ashish Nathu So you’re a, you know, you’re a successful entrepreneur. You run multiple businesses, you know, you’re in different peer groups to help you continue to stay focused and continue to grow mentally and emotionally. And even in
Daniel Ramsay Your business, hold me, can
Ashish Nathu Hold you accountable. Exactly. Very, very important. Right. I mean, that’s why we do those things. You have a real estate business you’re growing that. What, what do you hope to leave behind? What is your Y?
Daniel Ramsay Yeah, it’s good. We, we, we have a charity called the Mon movement and I, when I was brand new in, in like building a team and getting to the, they do it stage, I, I really spent a lot of time thinking about like, okay, how can we impact the world? What can we do? What, what are some of the things that we could really push? You know, our team, our employees and our customers. And so I’m really proud. We have over, I think it’s close to of our clients actually contributing to our charitable cause right now. And we’ve done things like build orphanages, old folks’ homes. We put kids through school and just really great work fed the homeless. I mean, just a bunch of stuff. That’s, that’s good. So, you know, my world is, I just want to continue to grow that piece of our, of, of the ability to give back and impact the world. And, you know, we just keep kind of plowing through doing more the more,
Ashish Nathu What keeps you up at night.
Daniel Ramsay Oh, okay. We didn’t get to this, but it’s really important. We talked a little bit about it. Most % of businesses stick under a million dollars, and that means % of businesses get over a million. Right. And so that’s a cool number, but it’s like, okay, well, what does that mean for your audience? And what does that mean for me? Well, the next threshold is that one to $ million threshold and then to million, like, right. So you’ve got these three different stages, and this is by the way, this is not in any business book. Like they don’t teach it in business school. I have a business degree maybe at Harvard, but I, I didn’t have the pedigree to go to Harvard. You know? So, you know, it’s, I, wasn’t the guy that got educated, but there’s no books that explains this, this, this comes directly from IRS tax data.
Daniel Ramsay So I’m curious, this is all in our book, by the way. But I’m curious, like, okay, what are the different stages of businesses? Like, you know, who gets over a million dollars in revenue? And I was really, really curious because a lot of our customers in that space trying to grow their revenue from half a million to a million or a million to . Right. And so I’m wondering how many people, right? Well, only , businesses ever get above $ million, , out of million. So there are million businesses, % get over a million, right. And ., get over million and then only , ever get above $ million. So I’m like, okay, well, what does that mean for us? And then you ask the question, what keeps me up at night is, you know, how I crossed that $ million and be one of the ., zero, % to, to get to $ million.
Daniel Ramsay And what kind of impact can I make when we do that? When you know, and what does that look like? What, what, what characteristics have to exist? Who has to be on my team, you know, whether they need to be focused on. And I think that those are the questions that should keep all of your audience up at night, who do I have on my team? You know, what do they need to be focused on? You know, how do I get them all aligned around the vision? How do I, how do I drive revenue without being the one that’s on the calls? You know? So that is what keeps me up at night. And, and
Ashish Nathu I love it. I mean, you’re, you’re so driven and I can tell how passionate you are about your mission and it’s incredibly contagious, but like, it’s really, it’s really amazing when an entrepreneur has all of that in alignment, like has the drive, has the mindset, has the resources, has the platform, and then has the runway and says like, go baby goes hard. And as fast as you can. And, and the why is really important. I really love how you talked about it. And we have a similar Y of impact. And it is really about impacting the people that we work with, whether it’s our customers, our employees, but like that. And it’s a little broad stroke people, you know, you could, you could judge that, however you wish. But for me, it’s the same thing. It’s, you know, the reason why we have this podcast, the reason why we’re an employers, because we have the ability to impact people’s lives one nugget at a time. And, and, you know, the fact that you’re so driven with that is pretty amazing, really fun, really, really fun
Daniel Ramsay When you remove revenue, like I just on revenue, not because I’m money driven, but because it’s the scoreboard in a basketball game, right. Or in any, or anywhere, it’s the, it’s the thing that tells you, you’re doing something right. You know? And so as you’re doing that, what happens to entrepreneurs is they, money stops becoming, I mean, factor. And so you have to have something, some other, Y you know, you talk to a lot of people who become millionaires cause won the right, and they’re unhappy and, you know, money serves a purpose, but it’s not the purpose. And that’s, you know, that, that’s what I’ve learned over the years that, you know, I gotta be here for something other than just what’s in the bank account.
Ashish Nathu Well, you kind of just said it, but let me ask you more clearly in, this is kind of a, as we wrap up here, I want to ask you for you. What does it mean to live a rich life?
Daniel Ramsay Oh man. Got it. Okay. So I love that you’re asking this question because I think a lot of people need this one message. I w I clearly work a hour week, right. So I work hours a week, and sometimes that’s , sometimes it’s , but it’s tipping never force, unless there’s some, like COVID hit and I was working a lot, but that was that’s rare. Right. So I don’t, I don’t, I think it’s really important. There’s a lot of people out there that think you have to sacrifice in order to grow a business and grow something. And I hate that concept. So a rich life to me is life, right? I’m defined love of business. It’s part of it’s, I’m passionate about it. I love it, but I really am a wrestling coach. So I, I spend three hours a day with a high school and I’m, I give back in that manner.
Daniel Ramsay Right. And then I like to play soccer and, and I like to work out. So, you know, I do that. I have three little girls, three girls, they demand my time. Right. And, you know, I see a therapist twice, and then I have a coach. So every week I’m working on my heart or my head, right. Am I in the right mindset? What’s going on in my world? I’m, I’m, I’m in two different peer groups. It gives me accountability at all. The other one gives me strategy at a high, high level. You know, you know, we have a great team here, but we meet every and review the numbers. And so I’m never, and, and I got a very clear understanding of what my financials are personally and professionally. So, you know, we go on vacation. So when you ask what’s a rich life, it’s like how much, you know, like I have a date night with my wife tomorrow where we’re going through a three-week exercise together where we’re seeing if we’re just on the same page, like about life and kids and like, you know, all that, all that craziness.
Daniel Ramsay So, you know, a rich life is like, you know, how much music and dance are you in? Like, yeah, when’s the last time you’re, I’m not a, I’m a, I’m an okay dancer, but, you know, and I think it’s important to, to know you can, as an entrepreneur, have it all my, I follow him. He, I meet my father-in-law. He’s a funny guy. I love the man. He, had a high level, of success in his career. And I think a lot of people live like this, but he thought he had a Sacra to, to have that high-level success. And I kept my world really small when I was a new entrepreneur focused on business. I did the health thing. I didn’t have a lot of serious girlfriends early on because I was focused over here in this other area. But I still like, I, I wasn’t giving up who I was in order for the business. And so, you know, you can have it all. You can have a great family, you can be in good health, you can travel, you can have a great team. You can still have challenges in business. I mean, I w I solved the big one yesterday with my team and you can still have challenges and it’s okay. So I dunno. That’s all
Ashish Nathu Love it. No, that was an amazing answer. I really love it. Well, look, I appreciate your time, brother. Thank you so much for sharing all your knowledge. I’m really inspired. And if people want to get in touch with you, or they want to find you what’s the best. I mean, we’ll put all the contact information in the show notes, but what’s the best way to get ahold of you.
Daniel Ramsay Yeah. The thing is just a jump on our website and request a consultation like we’re, I’m, I’m still intimately involved with who our customers are and still, I mean, I’m crazy in the fact that I just love helping others. If you’re thinking about, you know, maybe I need a virtual assistant, or maybe I need some help in some area I’m on our website request some time you can get to my calendar and we’d love to serve you and, and help you really scale and grow your company. And let me get you some leverage.
Ashish Nathu Love it. Thanks so much, brother. Have a great day.
Daniel Ramsay Right, brother. Thank you.
Narrator Thank you for listening to the rich equation podcast with Ashish Nathu. Do you want more ideas on how to live rich? Go to richequationpodcast.com for show notes and resources. Then take one minute to leave Ashish a five-star review on apple podcasts and we’ll see you.
