Ep #229 Expand Your Capacity: How to Work with a Virtual Assistant with Tal Garden creator of The Fun Hub

The path to success in the CPG world is paved with tons of boring administrative work that I know you never imagined when you started a business!

In today's podcast episode I talk with Tal Garden, founder of Tal’s Mediterranean who solved her own problem of delegating the paperwork, phone calls and other things she didn't like to a virtual assistant (VA). 

After creating a foundation for her VA to help her scale the biz, Tal started helping others delegate effectively and ended up creating a business to support food founders in retail with a team of virtual assistants called The Fun Hub.  

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Transcript

Sari  0:00  
You finally get your product into those retail stores, and what you didn't realize is that you're going to be inundated with paperwork, with forms, with phone calls, with emails. The administrative lift of working in wholesale is incredible. And so what do you do as a solopreneur or co founder team when you start drowning in admin work? Well, today's podcast is going to help answer that question and give you some strategies on how you start outsourcing effectively. 

Sari  0:36  
Welcome to your Food Business Success. This podcast is for early stage entrepreneurs in the packaged food industry ready to finally turn that delicious idea into reality. I'm your host, Sari Kimbell. I have guided hundreds of food brand founders to success as an industry expert and business coach, and it's got to be fun in this podcast I share with you mindset tools to become a true entrepreneur and run your business like a boss, interviews with industry experts to help you understand the business you are actually in, and food founder journey so you can learn what worked and didn't work, and not feel so alone in your own journey. Now let's jump in. 

Sari  1:24  
Welcome to the podcast. It's going to be a really great episode, especially if you are a founder and you are starting to scale and grow. This is probably a 201 or 301 podcast, depending on where you're at in your journey. But I'm really excited to welcome Tal Garden, and she is a seasoned entrepreneur with a decade of experience in the food industry. She has multiple she's done multiple businesses in CPG, and she has her own CPG brand, but we're actually going to be talking even more about how she went on to solve a problem for herself by training her own VA virtual assistant, and now she has a whole separate business where she provides VAs in, specifically the CPG industry, and it's called The Fun Hub, and it's about creating a supportive community to support brand founders so that you can thrive. So welcome Tal, excited to have you here.

Tal  2:27  
Thank you. Thank you very much, Sari, yes, it's so nice to be here, and I've been a big fan of your other podcast. I actually see them on YouTube. 

Sari  2:42  
I love this that you saw a need as a brand founder, and that's what we do as entrepreneurs, right? We're just like solving problems.

Tal  2:53  
All the time. Yeah.

Sari  2:57  
And so why don't you tell us a little bit about your current brand, just so we can understand, like, your industry experience, because I think that's so important that you, you know, you started the VA services as a founder. So tell us a little bit about that journey for Tals, for your current product. 

Tal  3:18  
Yeah, it's all tied in together, right? You can't talk about one without talking about the other. And I've loved the food industry. I've actually not coming from that space. I've learned psychology and criminology, and was an officer in the IDF, and after that, I came to the US, and, you know, as an alien almost 12 years ago, you see things differently, right? And then I started my journey in food industry, because food was one of the things that you just like miss so much, and want to have something that is similar to home. And I've had that. I've started this in with the smoothie company, like you mentioned, and then had my third child took a little bit of Pog, but knew that I want to come back. So right now I'm running Tals Mediterranean, which is a line of dips and threads, very like my own family recipe from grandma. And it's like tahini, baba ganoush and toums. And the idea is to bring something healthier on a daily basis. Like I do, I love condiments. I can have a beautiful sandwich just with layers of condiments. Yes, I'll switch it out. You know, tahini, baba ganoush, tomato, olives, you name it. So that's, really is what I do and part of me, and I'm enjoying it very much, and I'm enjoying the journey of doing it, and as I found myself really deep into that, since it's my second time around doing it, you know, you just know what to do. You understand the language of kegi and unify, or the language of filling up forms that are not necessarily explanatory of what is an NIF or what is ROI and what is promo category on myself. Helping other founders, just it's Google, like, I don't know, category review, even it should be explanatory, you'll find some or UDR, you find so many options. But I feel like founders, if they haven't touched it, even in like, a little bit they can't tell what the hell it means. So it was really important for me to just be available for others and to just say, hey, whatever you need, anything. And I managed to help few founders here and there, just a matter. Oh, they lost my palette. What should I do, right?

Sari  6:02  
I got all these charge bags. 

Tal  6:04  
Yeah, like, the answer is, fight, but how do you fight? And so all those yes chargebacks and stuff, and I wanted to have founders have this knowledge and being able to navigate through and I got to a point where I needed some assistant with my own business. And I, you know, I'm privileged to find this amazing woman, and she's in the Philippine and she's been working hard, know the US industry before, English phenomenal, very service oriented. I've learned a lot from her, and I'm slowly teaching her, okay, this is a meeting. This is Kegi. This is DC, you know, teaching her what I know. Just when I need a PO, she can help me to submit those POS, and just when I need deduction, she can help you submit these deductions. Or just when at CSM, someone you know, like from a distributor, is asking me, what's your UPC, she can just do it without me going and looking, copy paste and investing time in that, or when I need a meeting. And slowly, you know, accumulating more and more knowledge within this realm of CPG, which applies not only for food, right, like there are cosmetics and so many other thing, and, then I thought, then I helped another friend who actually came from a whole different business of cars, and he had this amazing product, gluten free breadcrumbs, really, like, really legit, something good. But he's okay, what do I do places, right? Like, sounds. So other hand, it's, it is a problem, like, it's the big retailers also helped him a little bit, just, you know, to submit forums and to submit for submit promos. And slowly, he needed more help. So maybe I found a girl that she's very much familiar with who sat next to her and helped her to submit the forms that she needs or to create meetings that he needs, because he was on the road all the time, similar to me, traveling, you know, between stores and between meetings, and we end up to have the other girl really like serving him full time, and then just a matter of word of mouth, you know, he was telling another person that he has help from someone who's trained and he's not coming from the industry. So like, don't worry if you don't coming from the industry. Tal, you know, can teach her about the submission forms and the deductions and the category reviews and all the little things, because at the end of the day, like we said, if you know them, you can help other brands. It's kind of like this same, you know, like route and with other brands for the most part.

Sari  9:07  
Well, I must stop you there and just say, like, I think that, you know, when brand founders imagine themselves on the shelves of Whole Foods or Wegmans or any other grocery store, they don't ever imagine themselves filling out massive amounts of paperwork, hunting through invoices, trying to find deductions. You know the sheer amount of emails and paperwork and like that's not fun, it's not sexy, it's definitely no way anybody imagine that they will be doing or calling stores, you know, checking in on orders. Like, I mean, maybe there's, like, a vague sense of that, but like, the reality of it, I think, can be quite jarring. And most people, I would say, at least, certainly people I work with have no industry experience, and so it certainly this can steer people away from Wholesale. But I think a lot of people have the dream of being on the store shelves, and see that as their path right their sales channel, but the reality of what you have to do, and, and, yeah, it's like a whole other language. I mean, I have a course, like a video in Food Business Success, that's just like explaining all the acronyms.

Tal  10:32  
Wow. 

Sari  10:35  
That's probably not comprehensive, but at least it gives them an overview, right? Because it's like its own universe, its own language.

Sari  10:47  
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Tal  11:44  
It is. And just you know, one example of how sexy it is to be on the shelf, think of one store, and all of a sudden, your tag that says tahini $6.99 fell down because of whatever reason and you're sold through. Do you really think that the store will end up putting and going to print a new one and make sure that they restock you? For the most part, the answer is no. So you need boots on the ground, or you need someone like you said to call the stores and say, hey, we noticed you are not ordering us anymore. Can we help you? Is there something and oops, yeah, the tag fell off. You know what? Let me go and print another tab, right? It can be as simple as that, but multiply it in even 30, it's a constant being on top of it and it's not a smooth machine. It's just not. 

Sari  12:42  
Really not because you're dealing with human capital on the ground that are typically not high, you know, wage and we often we put ourselves at the center of the universe, like we're amazing and our product, but like, it's one of 1000s and 1000s of products. And these buyers are, like going through, I mean, I used to order for Whole Foods. So these, you're on a deadline. You're moving fast. Signs come down. Sale signs fail to get up. It's a whole thing. 

Tal  13:18  
A little, yeah, a little day to day thing that you need to do. And I feel like one founder don't have the, unfortunately, the knowledge of knowing, okay, you got into gel sons, it doesn't mean anything unless you maintain it and put it, you know, make sure that you're on the shelf. And the maintenance is the one thing that I feel like FDA is something that can be very helpful. It's not necessarily being a broker and winning the stores for you, but it's more of okay. I have this 20 something store. I want to succeed in it. I want to have like, you know, coming up slowly, and supporting them and supporting my own brand with that win. 

Sari  14:00  
Because what happens, I think, is, you know, a lot of folks are solopreneurs or maybe a partner, and you get really overwhelmed really fast. And I mean, if you're trying to figure all this out on your own, come and get support. Like this is just crazy to try to figure out on your own. And clearly, people were like, like, this industry is small, and people talk, and you were getting a great reputation, which is amazing, but people drown in this, and this is actually how people go out of business, because they didn't expect all of the charge backs from Unify, or, you know, the the lost signs and now things aren't selling through. Or, you know, these little ad like you didn't fill out this one form, and now your product's not going out like you thought it was. I mean, the list just goes on and on, and people get really, they get so overwhelmed. And they're entrepreneurs, right? They're visionaries. They imagine themselves in the kitchen creating more products, and that's just not the reality at the beginning when you're getting this off the ground. And so, yeah, finding that there's like, that moment, and usually people wait too long, I think to get support. They need to, I almost think about, like, doing a pre mortem on, like, okay, I got into a couple stores. What is the point of like, when I'm going to pull the trigger, and it should be a little bit sooner than when you think, because once you're buried, it's so hard to then take on another person and train them and things like that. So I'm a bigger fan of like leap before you feel quite ready, you know. But when do you think is like the right time for a founder to bring on support from a virtual assistant? And I love that you've like, trained them up in this industry. 

Tal  15:48  
That's a good question because I feel like, similarly to you, when you feel like you're smooth, but you can grow right like you're you got your day, you understand what's up, but you want to have a sleep of pushing forward with another account or another DC. I would like to say that, but to be more specific, is when you find yourself putting more of your time in something that someone else can do for you with like, you know, not a season sales person or a season marketing agency, but yourself, you find yourself, gosh, putting four hours a day on tracking orders, on submitting forms, on creating these POS on approving meetings, etc, etc. So I feel like that's when you should know someone else should do it for you, and you should do one, what you love doing, which is probably not that, and two, grow your business. Like really go out there and grow your business. And I got to say, it's not a matter of store count. That's like, it's important for me to say that it's not because from 100 now you have 200 because 100 stores can be so, like, you can drown in even 20 or 30 stores, right? So when you feel these accounts are taking your time in things that someone else who understand the CPG industry, similar to what we're doing, can do it, can call the stores, can track the orders, can call us a new store, and say, hey, thank you for having us. We are a woman owned we'd love for you to try the product. Here is a coupon, or here, or please try our product, and we'll Venmo you. And here are some attributes about our product. These things that you should do, right because you win a new store, even if it's a local store. But if you don't have the time to do that. You have someone to do it for your coming in. You post on it on Instagram, you put it on your website, you call the store, you offer the store manager, the store app, to try your product, and voila. Okay, you've done like a first step within one store. But then you multiply it, and you find yourself having someone to help you to do the same thing times 30 in each day or in each month, that's like, you know, it's a game changer. So if you do something that someone else who has a good amount of CPG knowledge that can do it out of outseas, right? Like you don't need boots on the ground, just have yourself a help, a VA, have yourself dealing with things like more strategic, making sure that your product, maybe COGs are going down, work on that in a way. That's how you should invest your time better.

Sari  18:58  
I totally agree. I mean, anytime you have a repeatable task. Yes, it's something that you know, okay. You go learn for yourself. You get support. People like myself or you, or you know, other founders. But you kind of figure out, okay, this is what I need to do. But when you realize, like, this is not using my unique ability, my zone of genius, like this is exhausting. Like, does it drain you and are, you know, if you're not enjoying it, like, it's pretty likely that we can find a way to set a standard, create a result, like, but you got to get out of your head, right? It can't just all be in your head. But like, creating systems that you can then pass on and, I'm all you know, people will hire VAs from around the world, but what I love that you did is, like, they specifically know this industry. So you don't have to go and train somebody on the whole industry. And I love the way you have set up The Fun Hub. Could you speak a little bit about like, as you you're like, oh, there's something here. People keep asking me, I trained one for me. You know, we have a great partnership. And then I trained somebody else. When were you like, now we have a business doing this, and I feel like you created a really intentional type of business. So do you want to speak to that a little bit? 

Tal  20:28  
It's such a funny question, like, funny because I didn't realize that thing. Because until then, it felt to me, oh, I'm helping a friend to find help, you know. And let me teach this guy to help this friend, really like the founders that we have in the hub, founders that really need help, genuine, humble people like I love and know each one of them. The idea is to have a service that it's kind of like a limo service. It helps founders and CEOs, it's not another person in your operation, 20 people, I don't know, operation to just fill one form. It's a help for the founder that needs and like a good CPG founder, you do marketing, you do social, you do operations, you do deductions, you do all of the above. So these VAs are familiar with all of the above, and they're familiar with different type of platforms, like monday.com, like SBS, like gorgeous, like so many different things. And have a business, I think, Well, right now, we are serving almost 13 brand, different brands, and each brand has their own virtual assistant that service them. And this beautiful team sits together, one next to each other in two offices that we built. And then each one has two screens, fast internet, which is not obvious. When you're looking for someone in overseas, you want to see their capabilities of internet, of screens, or power outage, things like, you know, I don't know, floods or stuff like that. You want to consider all that, because it's not just a person with a computer, it's much more than that. And they also have a non spam us slime that helps them to call and people answer because it doesn't say, I don't know, Philippines, like, there are little things that I think that can be very helpful, and I'm willing to, you know, dive into more of that. But the idea of me understanding there is a business here took me a while, because in the beginning I was like, okay, let's find another and another person is coming in. So these VAs are going through between six to eight weeks of training in which they're supporting, like another VA. They're shadowing, they're helping. So to my point, there is always two, one or two more people to help with the different tasks. They stick to each other. So for instance, if I'm a founder, I know I nothing about a I don't know airtable or faire.com and I want to have my product being set up with them, and have a promo for the Black Friday. So your VA maybe know a little like, should know a little bit about that, because they know those platforms. But then she goes to the VA next to her to make sure that she's submitting everything. And then she does that through me that I monitor and mentor her about. No, you want to have these type of pictures ask them from your founders, or you want to have this type of length of promotions during a, I don't know, like Black Friday. And you want to have a blog on your website that to help the SEOs and to link it to the Faire store. Our idea is to have a community and understanding that it's one plus one equal more than two. So if I have some sources for Faire like, for instance, whoever joined, I'm just using that as an example, but whoever joined the hub is okay to share his Faire contact, but on the same time he received so if I come over with 200 Faire contact, now I get 1000 because everyone are sharing, and we are not like competing with each other. So I would not bring two kombuchas, you know, or very specific niche. But there are different type of like beverages in, example, in our hub. So the whole idea here is to make it more of a community than a business. But it also happened, you know, we're a good community that happened to have a VA service that's kind of like my goal around that and other thing is that the the the hub founders, get a weekly update about what's going on. And they always see seeing each other. So they're like, they have their own circle of, hey, I just managed to give this to my VA, here is like, like, you know, they are sharing with each other's experience about the things related to the hub itself. 

Sari  22:39  
They're leveling up and continuing to grow in their knowledge, which, yes, makes them so much more valuable. Yeah. I mean, I've had a VA from the Philippines for three years. And, I mean, I had to train her from scratch. But she's like, she'll be editing or doing the transcript of this podcast, but she'll read this. But, I mean, yeah, lifesaver for me, right? Like, and she just does this stuff now, but it took time to set up the systems. But what I'm hearing you say, is, like, you're doing so much of the the heavy lift up front of training them, and because they have also had the community, and you're overseeing it as well. It's like such a benefit to the founder. You just, you know, yes, you can go hire your own, but you have to do all that training. So it just really like, leaps, frogs. You don't know yourself, right? You're like, I don't know how to do that, but my VA does. 

Tal  26:17  
Yep, your VA does and and you should not spend time to explain to her, oh, these are the DCS around the US within Kegi. No, she knows them already. She knows which anchor account is which in each DC, etc. So she can, of course, tap onto what you already have, if you have it all, or if you don't have time, like you might have the knowledge of not time, or you might not have either of them, or you might have both of them. And she's tapping on with more knowledge and more information. And then, of course, I'm there to make sure that we are supporting like a one brand, believe it or not, lost their palette. Which is happening unfortunately, more than you think. Yes, exactly. And okay, now what? And then. So my goal, you know, my act, is not only to be the liaison between the VA and the founder, if there's there are any issues, but on the same time, to teach the VA what to do with the specific things related, like, example, for this pilot being lost, but also have the founder, no, this is what's going on. Like, this is what she's going to do. She's going to cover it, look for all the paperwork, and make sure that to dispute and all that. But FYI, that's what she'll end up doing, and this how you're going to win, or find your palate in a case that they can.

Sari  27:48  
Yeah, I mean, I think the worst mistake a founder can make is, like, falling on that trap. We've all been there, but like, well, I can just do it myself, and I'll just be faster than you, and I can figure it out. And what you know, why would I pay somebody when I can just do it myself, but you get buried in the under the little stuff and all the admin and all of that stuff. Sure, you can learn it. Yeah, of course, you could do it. But we need you as a founder to be, like leveraging your best skills and like selling the company and growing it and all of that. Now it is an investment, right? And the beauty of this, I think this model is made for like a solopreneur, small founder group that isn't necessarily ready to bring on a whole team, but finding those places like this is such a great when you're in wholesale like, let me go outsource this piece, and, you know, these things are always going to be investments, and you got to be sure, like, you're working the system and you're, you know, taking full advantage of it. So I'm curious, what do you see are some of the ways that, like, people make the investment, but then they don't, maybe utilize it as well as they could, or like, what are some of the mistakes founders make when they hire, outsource these kind of things?

Tal  29:05  
So I love that you like how you how you explain that, because when you're a founder, you have the playbook in your head. You're like, saying, okay, call the stores. Let's take example of calling the stores, seeing that the stores are doing okay, and if they need help, and then get feedback from them, right? Some will tell you, it's flying off the shelf. Some will tell you, we need some demos. Some will tell you what product you're talking about. We don't have it in the last five months, right? So you get different feedback. So not only knowing that, but as a founder, you think you have everything in your head, but you need to create a playbook. You need to create protocols. In the hub, we have a lot of protocols, like protocol of a new store Protocol, or store status protocol or a deductions protocol. Like, we have everything that we want it like, you know, we change it a little bit. Depends if you're a beverage. Depend if you're perishable, depending if you're I don't know lotions and etc. So it's often that I found that founders like know exactly what they end up disappointed. And the reason for being disappointed is because not being investing a little time like, you know, I want to say 10% of the time that you need in a regular VA that you're spending with us, really, that's how much. It's not half, it's 10% but on the same time you need to invest these 10%. You need to say, these are our skills that we have. This is what I want you to push more. This is what I want you to push less. This is important. This is urgent. This is important and urgent, right? So prioritizing, and if you don't have time to tell your VA what you want to prioritize, or if you don't have time to tell your VA how you would like her to approach the stores, or if you want her to approach the stores at all. Or what is it that you would like to do? You can say, please have forms telling one one forms, one paper, to tell everyone about our product for, you know, for PR purposes, you need to explain, to be more explanatory about how this should look like, give her a reference from another brand, or tell her what's the highlights that you want her to have in this. So yeah, it's true that she understand PR. It's true that she understand, I don't know, Canva or Word or Excel, like they come and they learn all that, and Google Analytics and Open AI and all that, but knowing, okay, now I have the tools. I know how to run this car, but you need to tell me how fast I want to go and which direction you want me to So it's important that the founder will invest the time in that. I often tell founders to do two really important things. One is to have a schedule meeting every week, like the minimum is one, so it can be Monday, about what's going on, like, how's your week is going to look like? And Friday, about how was your week? And let's spend the week ahead, or it can be just one of them. And the second thing is to have her be with you in meetings, even, you know, just to listen in the first month, just to listen to how you speak, how you convey your message, what type of language you have within your own brand. You know, some brands will be the cool and the hippie, and some brands will be very like black tie, organize and explain what they're offering in that way. So just have her be, you know, fly on the wall during any meeting that you have, really, any meeting that you have in the next month, and then learning about the different skills that you have, the different offerings that you have attributes, etc, because you're already doing it. You don't need to spend time, you're already having those meetings to just have her. 

Sari  
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Because, I mean, it's just like your brand identity, right? Like you have a certain tone and the way you engage with customers and buyers and all the people in your business, like you want this person as a representative of you, and so yeah, I can see that as a huge mistake, that if people just think, like, well, I don't have to invest anything. I just cool, FBA, like, here you go. And what I see, and we talk a lot about this in Master Your Business, which is my next level program, it's about like, you got to create the standards for yourself first. Like, get it out of your head. You know, we talk about like people can't read your mind unless you write it down, unless you document it. And it's your responsibility as the CEO, as the founder of the company, to say, what are the standards? How do I talk to like it's you doing it. And then it's also you kind of stepping outside of yourself and saying, how did I just do that? What did I do there? Like, what was my tone? What language do we use? You know, what are some of the key messages that I use and if I were to, you know, train, and I love it when people can think about this before they even get a VA. But like, start creating your playbook now, of like, what the results are that you want? I think for me, if I were to say what one big like thing, way that people go wrong is they don't get it, you know, they either just kind of hands off and like, well, they should figure it out. Like, I just give them a task and then I don't break it down for them. But it's also, I really encourage people to explain things in terms of results. So it's not just find my palette. I want you to, you know, to do everything, you know, the end result is that we are not charged for this loss palette, right? It's either found or it's, you know, rectified through the invoicing system, whatever that is. I mean, that's a little minor one, like you said, the Black Friday sale, like, the result that I want is, you know, a discount through Faire for Black Friday. That is this, and customers are able to, you know, you got to like, give the end result. And I found that with my VA, it's on you. When she doesn't quite like, she'll give me something back. And I'm like, whoa, that was way off the mark. And then I go back to what I wrote, and I'm like, yeah. 

Tal  
She interprets it like that, yes, yes, yes, yes. And I'm telling you, the people that we're hiring are high level educator like people who work for JP Morgan, people who work for Uber Eats, like people that understand the US company, like, you know, etiquettes and stuff. But still, I think, like, imagine yourself as a founder goes to a, I don't know, to a car business and people will tell you, fix this car, right? You need to understand where even to look for or to look and what to do in that so, yeah, the results are written, I would say there is like a synthesis I love using. Tell me how you measure it, and I'll tell you how I react, right? So what are the measurements that you really want from them on a weekly basis, on a task basis? I want you to all the new stores, to get a call from you, to reach out to them, to mention them on Instagram. I want my stories on Instagram to be five stories a day on Instagram, two of them of recipes, three of them of where to find us and link to those stores, right? And it should be simple, right? It should be something like that and then. She'll feel it like she'll put the stories any way she wants. She'll do a zoom in, or she do the front of the store, or whatever. But this is what I want from the stories in each day, just as an example. Or like you now, like you mentioned, the subtitles, I want the subtitles to be, you know, in red. I want them to be like a hand, like a writing machine, that you'll see each letter. Or I want them to be bold. I want it's simple. You already probably have it in your head. VA, should learn and see what you love, right? And I think that comes to me, and I speak with them on a daily basis, and they'll tell me what they're working on, right? And sometimes I I tell them, okay, go back to your founder and tell him, okay, you're looking for a manufacturer. But what capabilities do you need from this manufacturer? When are you looking to start? So I'm trying to suck a little bit more from the founders to make sure that when they give it like, you know, they can launch and forget, they can give an assignment to the VA and forget about it, and because she's working on it, and it's going to be done. And another thing is that, at the end of the day, you know, it's a human resource. It's true that there is an ocean away, but it's still a person. And I think one of the things that I'd love doing, is just two weeks ago, there was, like, a huge storm in the Philippine Area, and it caused a lot of flood. And unfortunately, a few of the VAs had issues in their own house. You know, the roof has just flown away. So it's also understanding those like we want them to understand the etiquettes of the US and how you approach and say it was lovely to meet you at the end of the you know, of the conversation and stuff. So you want to also understand them that if there is a drought, their well might be within the water, or if there is a rain, their wood fire might be wet. So there are a lot of things to understand, much more than oh, I need you to have a fast internet. Please make sure you have it. In the hub, we're also helping them, like the recent disaster that they had, we have, we made sure that each one has like a disaster fund, so they are able to go back home and not to think about the roof and rebuild it if necessary, because these are like roof. It's not like their beach house, porch. You know, these are really like things that at the end of the day, when we are talking about the VA, yes, it's more accessible for founders, for small founders, but it comes with the notion of, okay, these people are in places that might not be Manila, like the big city, that everything is accessible for them, but we want them to have, not just the fast internet for myself, but we want them to have continuously and not to worry home you're not 100% at work. So there are things like social security that we are covering for them, like health benefit that we're covering for them. Like they have a voucher for gym, so they can go to the gym as much as they want, and we cover it for them. We have two hours a week every Friday in which we go over a specific topic. It can be Instacart. It can be kind of, it can be Google Analytic. It can be like the Swat, right, like method of important, urgent, important and urgent. Not important, not urgent. So for them to know how to manage their day and how to manage their task, push and pull, right, if you are in part of a conversation, how are you as a VA, being push and pull? So we work with them on a constant skills. Of course, if you have your own VA, if you're not part of the hub, you should do that too, because it's your age. You know? It's human research. It's a person that you don't. You want him to have, and they don't do just that's how I when we are interviewing people for the hub we want them to have, like a growth mindset. We're telling them you're not going to do like, like, like engagement all day long in the Instagram, you're going to do maybe that, but so many other things. So we need you to be open minded. And we test. We have few tests to see how they go about, you know, skill sets of, we give them a task and how they Google it and how they find it, and we look at their way of learning and and trying to convey information from the internet versus just what they bring from their own previous experience. 

Sari  
Well, I love that you've created a real human-centered side business that's now you were saying that the volume's been getting turned up on this side of the business because there's a real need for it, and I'm a huge advocate for you. Finally, I've heard about you for a while. And finally, Jordan, I was like, Jordan, you got it. Jordan Buckner, you got to introduce us. So I'm so glad we connected. And I because I think so many people do get into the natural products industry because they want to change. I mean, they want to change the way we eat, but they also want to change business and culture and have things that are more sustainable and human focused, and so I love that you integrated that into your VA company. It's not, you know, it's not going to be the least expensive overseas VA service by any means, but you get what you pay for, and you're getting so much more like you don't have to do all of that back end training and the heavier lift so you get so much more of your time back going with us. You know, industry specific service. And I love that you're taking care of your people. Yeah, my VA also was out for a few days with that flood. And, you know, of course, it's just like, you know, reminds you. Was like, we have so much in the US. And of course, you know, floods and droughts and things happen here too. But, I mean, it's different, right? And it's like, she's like, my house is like, yeah, like, things are destroyed and lost, you know, lost things in our home because of that flood. And so, yeah, having a lot of compassion, and how can I help? And working with a VA service that is, yeah, treats people with human dignity. Yeah,

Tal  
I believe in that. I really, you know, again, it was not much of a business. Rather than helping friends and slowly understanding, oh, there is a whole community out there in the Philippines that is very talented, people with Master Degrees, people with amazing English, better than myself, and they want to service, and they want to support, and their options are essentially in that specific area, or a teacher or a police officers. So a VA is so like needed, because they can support their family, they can come home and, you know, provide to their families, and they can still be like, almost, you know, not a blue collar like, be someone that can think for the brand and help. And I would say something that you know, we didn't mention, but you mentioned a lot in the sub. You have a friend, you have someone as a founder, you have VA. You have someone that you speak with, I speak with my VAs, many like, you know, and my family members celebrate. Wow, this buy, right? Dudes, right? So yeah, like, you know, you have someone to that worked with you so far to get this store to follow up, set samples and to help you to manage your sending your samples. And now you're like, you have this person next to you working hard with you that you are celebrating with. So that's another thing you know. You have someone that is joining you, and like you mentioned Sari before, you have someone also to teach you on how to teach others, God willing, that you'll, you know, you'll grow. Okay, so the next step after VA is to have maybe another VA, or to have someone in house. But this is a good first step that you can learn from about yourself and about how to explain yourself, and what's happening here, and what's your vision to others. 

Sari  
It's like a soft landing for founders to, yeah, to like, practice and learn, and have you to help guide them and, like, check in and they have the industry foundation already. So you get to practice getting things out of your head, explaining it, learning where, like, oh yeah, I can see how that was not very clear, because what happens usually, what, you know, this is like the E Myth model, but like you are, like, I'm totally tapped out. I have no more bandwidth. Let me go hire somebody, and then I don't give them the tools and the information and the results and the things that I need. Then they don't do it the way I want them to do it, and then you fire them because you're like, well, I'll just do it myself. And then you're like, now you have a really bad taste in your mouth for hiring a team, because you didn't learn how to do it. You just made assumptions and had expectations that went unsaid. You didn't put in the energy and the effort to make it the right thing. So this is, like, such a great way to, like, baby step into how do you then start hiring an outside team, or, like, a team that's internal for you. You have to get out of your brain and communicate for people to be successful. 

Tal  
Yep, yep. And that's also, like, I'll say that's why I'm here for not just, okay, this constant communication about what's going on in your brand, without you or with you, or both, right? So help you learn about how to donate that help. So I'm helping, she's like, probably their founder is early, and explaining them about what is exposed, and, you know, all the leads and stuff like that. So I'm hoping you know to have that hat as well. And I'm, I'm grateful that founders are, you know, using that for learning from me, or for having their VA becoming more knowledgeable without them needing to spend the time, but taking advantage of, like, my experience with that. Yes. 

Sari  
So cool. I love that you started that and you're just like, Okay, let's keep going. Keep going. Yes, bring on more people. So how do people get in touch with you? As we wrap up here. 

Tal  
I have either LinkedIn, LinkedIn is fantastic. Tal Garden at LinkedIn, I'm available there, no problem. And we also have to schedule an appointment, like to schedule a time to talk on the website, which is one, the number one, then funhub.com, and which tells you, you know, vague about what we're talking about. And word of mouth, you know, it's mostly how we got in. But please, by all mean, reach out via LinkedIn, or reach out via the website, just schedule something, throw something on my calendar, and I'm available. And we would love to offer whoever comes from Sari's, whether you know the leads that you provide me so far or from this beautiful podcast, two weeks for free so you can, you know, hit the ground running in safe and be part of this community. Hopefully soon. 

Sari  
I love that. We'll put all the links in the in the show notes, too for you. So what a great conversation. Thank you, Tal, for your time today. 

Tal  
Thanks for putting it out there. Your content is phenomenal. I think it's a must for whoever is starting, growing or wants to think ahead. You know, even your COO that you spoke with just recently, so I think it's something that we want to educate ourselves and having them learn also from you. So that's another, you know, explore, not just yourself.

Sari  
All right. Well, have an amazing rest of your day. Thanks. 

Tal  
Thank you so much. Have a wonderful day. 

Sari  
Thank you, Tal, for coming on and sharing your wisdom and your insights. And I so appreciate your willingness to create this whole solution and focus on a whole second business in addition to your CPG brand. It's incredible. It's a real testament, I think to how much a VA can support you as a brand founder, and I will just say that for all of you listening, if you are in wholesale or you're starting to get in stores, I really want you to think about taking the leap sooner than you think you need it. If you wait until you are drowning oftentimes, what I see is founders hit a point of no return, it's just too hard to dig out. And so, yes, it's scary to make an investment like this, but it's less than you might be thinking, and it is going to give you back so much more time and energy that you can go focus on really growing and scaling your business. All right, that's what I have for you today. Until next time, have an amazing week. 

Sari  
The smartest thing you can do as an entrepreneur is to invest in a who to help you with the how to speed up your journey and help you skip the line. When you are ready for more support and accountability to finally get this thing done, you can work with me in two ways. Get me all to yourself with one on one business coaching, or join Food Business Success, which includes membership inside Fuel, our community of food business founders that includes monthly live group coaching calls and so much more. It's one of my favorite places to hang out, and I would love to see you there. Go to foodbizsuccess.com to start your journey towards your own food business success.