Ok, so today I want to go over how to hire your first virtual assistant the right way. Not the "post on a freelancer site and pray" way. The structured way. The way that actually gives you your life back. I'm writing this because our team gets some version of this question almost every week. "I know I need help, but I don't even know where to start." And what I've realized is that it's not really a question about hiring. It's a question about letting go. Most people know they're drowning. Know they need help. They're answering emails at 11 PM. Scheduling their own appointments. Following up on leads while also trying to close deals. Etc. Etc. Etc. They know it's not working. They just don't have a framework / mindset to get out of it. If your business cannot function without you touching every single thing, you don't have a business. You have a job. And it's a job with a terrible boss. I've placed hundreds of VAs with over 650 companies. (Feels crazy to say that… Proud nonetheless.) The owners who figured out how to let go are the ones who scaled. The ones who couldn't? They're still stuck doing $15/hour tasks while their $500/hour opportunities pass them by. Think about it this way. If you're spending 15 hours a week on tasks a $8/hour VA could handle, that's over $30,000 a year in opportunity cost. That's time you could be closing deals, building relationships, or just being present with your family. The math is not complicated. This guide walks you through the whole thing. From figuring out what to hand off, to building trust, to actually training someone to run your operations. Link to Substack: https://open.substack.com/pub/matthewmetros/p/scaling-your-freedom-the-structured?r=4e36e&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

Ok, so today I want to go over something that I think about a lot. And it's something that most business owners are dealing with whether they realize it or not. You're working 40, 50, 60 hours a week. You're answering emails at dinner. You're skipping the gym. You feel like you're carrying the entire business on your back. And the worst part? Most of what you're doing all day isn't even the stuff that makes you money!!!! I've been there. I pushed myself so hard that my health failed and I made some terrible business & life decisions that I can never go back on. And when I look back it is because I was pushing myself to the edge every single day. Never finding even a second to breathe. Not even a second to reflect on the days, weeks, and months to learn and grow. So I'm writing this because I don't want that for you. This guide is about going from being the bottleneck (the person everything gets stuck behind) to being the person who watches the game and calls the plays. If you keep doing the $20-an-hour work, you'll never have space to do the $500-an-hour work that actually changes your life. That's the difference between a business that owns you and a business you actually own. Link to Substack: https://open.substack.com/pub/matthewmetros/p/how-to-buy-back-20-hours-a-week-with?r=4e36e&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

Ok, so today I want to walk you through how I use AI to write cold emails that don't sound like AI. I'm writing this because our team gets asked about cold email all the time. And when I actually look at what people are sending out, it's rough. Either they spent 45 minutes writing one email that still gets ignored, or they blasted out some generic template to 500 people and can't figure out why nobody replied. I've seen both scenarios play out over and over again across hundreds of businesses. Cold email works. It works really well when it's done right. But the bar is higher now because everyone and their mother is using AI to write outreach. That means the inbox is flooded with emails that all sound the same. Same structure. Same buzzwords. Same "I hope this finds you well." If your email sounds like every other AI-generated message, you're invisible. This guide shows you how to use AI for what it's good at (speed and volume) while keeping the output human enough that nobody can tell a machine wrote it. And I'm going to be honest, this is one of the best workflows to hand to a trained VA once you understand it. I'll explain how throughout. The process is five steps. Research, write, personalize, clean up, send. Let me walk you through each one. Link to Substack: https://open.substack.com/pub/matthewmetros/p/how-to-write-10-cold-emails-in-12?r=4e36e&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

Ok, so I'm writing this because I keep having the same conversation with business owners. They feel guilty when they're not busy. They feel like if they step back from the day-to-day, things will fall apart. And I get it. You started your business with your own two hands. You were the one on the mower, answering the phone at dinner, staying up until midnight to send invoices. But the reality is that there are only a few things each day that are genuinely high priority. Everything else? Someone else should be doing it. And when you start handing those things off, something interesting happens. You actually have space to explore new ideas. You start seeing opportunities you were too buried to notice. The busy work wasn't keeping the business alive. It was holding you back. I talk to hundreds of business owners (property managers, cleaners, landscapers, HVAC, etc.) and the ones who figure this out are the ones who grow. The ones who don't stay stuck doing $25/hour work forever. You need to mentally, emotionally, and spiritually shift from "Operator Mode" to "Captain Mode." It takes time. And when it finally clicks, your life changes... Link to Substack: https://open.substack.com/pub/matthewmetros/p/the-operator-trap-why-your-hustle?r=4e36e&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

Ok, so today I want to go over something that I think about constantly. And it's going to be uncomfortable for some of you to hear. Most of us suck at being managers. Including myself. When a VA messes up, most of us react over EMOTIONALLY. We jump down their throat. Fire off frustrated messages. Knowing we know should have never sent it. The irritation bleeds through everything - the tone of the message, the shortness of the reply, the way they word things. Then the next day or the next week when it happens again, they repeat the exact same cycle. Jump down their throat. Tell them how they messed up. Tell them to do better… This is the management style of about 90% of leaders. They wait for the next mistake and then they pounce. They spend their time frustrated and grumpy with their teams. They tell their VAs the same things 10 times and it still doesn't stick. And the VAs don't actually get any better. In fact, they get worse. Why? Because this style of management makes people incredibly uncomfortable. Literally Scared. Insecure in their job. Confused. It makes them numb to your coaching and feedback. They get offended. They get stressed. Then their performance falls off even further because now they're walking on eggshells trying not to mess up again. Instead of doing their job with confidence, they end up playing defense too. Overthinking everything. Trying to avoid mistakes instead of trying to win. Instead of being shown how and why to improve and what it will do for them, they are constantly told what NOT to do. And what makes this even harder with remote VAs is that they can't see your face. They can't read your body language. All they have are your words on a screen. So when you send a blunt message because you're busy and frustrated, they don't read it as "my boss is in a rush." They read it as "my boss is FURIOUS at me." Text-based communication gets misread constantly. A message you thought was direct, your VA read as hostile. That gap causes more damage than most people realize. And they quit.