If you’re running any type of firm that offers professional services, like a CPA or a law firm, or even a marketing or web development agency, this article will help you stop chasing growth and turn the tables around!

I’m not kidding. I’m about to share with you one of the secrets of how I managed to build one of the most successful and fastest-growing advisory firms in the last decade. Eventually, you’ll try to shift into creating some “predictive” growth, but for now, let's start with getting you on the right track.

First, I’m pretty sure that by now you clearly understand that growth is incredibly cash-sucking and that you probably need to optimize your business expenses to make room for reinvestments and expansion. There are all sorts of things that you need to do in order to grow, but there’s one resource that professional service firms cannot replace and should always be your number one priority. Yes, you guessed it: the people!

So, how can a professional service firm allocate money towards R&D and many other projects and ideas that are on your mind already when you need to keep up with increasing wages, insurance, workers comp, benefits, and liabilities, just to name a few of the challenges associated with the people component?

One thing that my firm and many other industry leaders have successfully done is to leverage global talent by creating teams outside of the US (where labor is less expensive) that can handle basic tasks. Go ahead and take a deep dive into your time tracking system (if there is one) and look at how much time (read money) your team spends on things like data entry, spreadsheets, creating reports, working on templates, admin tasks, and much more. I'm guessing it's probably a lot and even more than you originally thought…

Now think of a scenario where you can have all the same work done for 50 to 70% less money, plus additional savings related to eliminating infrastructure needs, reduced liabilities, growing a diversified team, and other indirect benefits. Too good to be true? It’s not.

You can do this with the help of a Virtual Assistance company such as Cápita Works, which specializes in hiring top-notch professionals right across the border (called nearshoring…yeah, it’s a thing) and acting as the local employer of record.

WHAT IS IT LIKE TO WORK WITH VIRTUAL ASSISTANTS?

Basically, like working with any other professional but the only difference is that they're based in a different city than yours. There’s no significant difference if any. You will be able to hire professionally educated people that are fully bilingual to be part of your team like anyone else you would normally hire. Some of our clients started requesting entry-level employees for basic functions, and now they’ve escalated to hiring middle management and leadership level roles using this model.

When hiring a VA through a company like Cápita Works, you will have direct communication with your employee (remember once we legally hire them, they answer to you). You can meet in person with them (which is way better than having a VA on the other side of the world!) and send any type of specialized equipment they will need by shipping it to our office in San Diego, and we will happily take it across the border. It’s extremely simple and convenient!

So, while many firms struggle to grow because of how expensive, and sometimes unavailable local talent is, others have seen the big picture in a globally competitive and integrated market and have started to take advantage of it.

Remember, there’s no need for you to go to India or the Philippines to hire remote virtual assistants and deal with working on opposite time zones, different cultures, infrastructure limitations, and other issues when you can nearshore your next superstar just a couple of miles south of the border! If this article got you thinking…reach out to Cápita Works, let us meet you and answer all your questions. You’ll thank me later!

Keep growing,

Adrian