084: Hiring Virtual Assistants (& keeping them) with Bryan Miles of Belay Solutions

Background on Bryan Miles of Belay Solutions:

Bryan Miles is the CEO & Co-Founder of BELAY Solutions, a company whose mission is to provide solutions that equip their clients with the confidence to climb higher. In 2010, Bryan and his wife Shannon formed Miles Advisory Group (MAG) to provide virtual support to busy leaders. They eventually expanded their virtual assistant model to include bookkeeping, copywriting, and web support services. In January 2017, they combined all their services under one name – BELAY. This name is significant because of its meaning: To belay is to provide the support a climber needs to ascend. And that is precisely what they do for their clients.

BELAY is a leading US-based, virtual solutions company that has over six hundred team members—all working from home, remotely. Without an office, BELAY has graced the Inc. 5000 list three times and was awarded the number one spot in Entrepreneur Magazine’s Best Company Culture.

Bryan has a passion for coaching leaders on how to grow their business by trusting in virtual teams and enhancing company culture. When Bryan is not working, he has been known to find mountains to climb, with his last summit being Mount Rainier. You can also find the Miles family on the front porch of their home in Georgia, on the beach in the Panhandle of Florida, and Jackson Hole, Wyoming.

Time-Stamped Show Notes:

[3:26] Bryan Miles is from Atlanta and he is the co-founder of Belay, which offers virtual solutions to companies and businesses in any part of the US.
[4:55] Bryan is a mountain climber and he got the name of his company from a climbing term, which means helping a person climb higher.
[9:31] Bryan and his wife left their jobs to start their own company because they felt it was the right time to do it. They had a startup capital of $160,000.
[10:53] The first few months into their business was a constant grind for Bryan and his wife. He was able to sell all his deals during that period.
[14:30] One tweet from a client put Bryan’s business on the map. This particular incident gave them a lot of leads to work on.
[17:42] Bryan launched a book called Virtual Culture, which shows how his company grew without needing an office.
[18:44] Bryan doesn’t believe that you need to have an office to be considered as a legitimate business.
[20:05] He believes that going virtual and working from home is not just a fad, but this will be the norm for the next 20 years.
[27:03] One of the mistakes he made was assuming that the most talented people can be found outside the company.
[28:42] It was challenging for Bryan and his team to tackle the issues of growth and scaling up of the company.
[30:55] Bryan emphasizes on the importance of the WHY , and it will always be better than the WHAT, WHEN, and HOW. It is better to talk about the why behind the issues because it explains everything.
[37:16] According to Bryan, it is important to share to your employees the story of why you started the business and why you love this business.
[38:10] For entrepreneurs building a virtual team, using the webcam is very important. Bryan stresses on the significance of using a webcam in his business.
[41:05] Gossip has no place in Belay. Bryan has fired people in his company because of gossiping.
[48:34] Bryan advises leaders to treat their virtual assistants as their work-alongside partner, or an extension of themselves.
[55:02] As his last advice, Bryan encourages entrepreneurs to create businesses and produce meaningful jobs.
[56:43] Bryan recommends a book called Predictable Success, which talks about the stages of a business.
[58:01] Bryan’s wife, Shannon Miles, wrote a book entitled The Third Option.

Fabulous 4 Questions:

📖 📚 Favorite Book(s)? The Orange Code By Arkadi Kuhlmann
🙌😎 Favorite Amazon.com purchase? Foam Roller
🌱💸 Favorite Tool that's GROWN your Business? Klipfolio!
💭💡 BIGGEST Challenge keeping your Business from GROWING? Implementation of relevant technology & the ability to scale the client management side of our business.

Key Point from the Interview:

“An office in on itself is just a thing. Office is not culture, it’s a shared vision for what you need to do. That becomes a culture.”

Resources Mentioned:

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