I'm Kirsten and this is Jeannie, my business partner, and this is Kiva.

And we're super excited to have you here today.

We've got some fantastic guests.

That we're, so I think you guys are gonna love hearing their story.

So Jeannie, do you wanna introduce our guests?

, I do With us.

We're so excited to have Phyllis and Mark

. And they're full-time cruisers.

How cool is that?

They, over one and a half years ago, they sold their house

and moved onto cruise ships.

So they cruise and travel year round and, , they have an amazing YouTube

channel, which you're going to hear about.

And, we just think you're going to love them.

So welcome Phyllis and Margo.

Thanks for having us.

We're so excited to be here.

So the house that you guys sold was in Florida because I know you

guys were introduced to us by Kim.

Cause you used to be in an organization called Sassy Sisters, which I'm in now.

And it's such a fun group.

And you got referred to us because you and Mark were kind of thinking about

having a YouTube channel to talk about what it's like to live on a cruise ship.

Do you want to talk a little bit more about that?

Sure.

So when we sold our house a year and a half ago, and by the way, we had a

great big old house, a beautiful house.

And when we downsized to nothing, that was quite the chore.

But, when we did this, friends were very interested in what

in the world we're doing.

How do you just move onto a cruise ship and you should start a YouTube

channel and, vlog your way through life.

And to be honest, neither one of us wanted to feel like we

were, we wanted to go to work.

Neither one of us did not yet.

And we didn't know much about YouTube other than pushing

play and watching YouTube.

I guess it was a couple of months ago.

Mark was watching.

There's one YouTuber he follows like crazy.

He's a poker player.

His name is Daniel Negreanu.

And every day during the summertime in the World Series of Poker, Mark couldn't

wait for his next YouTube to go up.

And boy, he would just push that button.

And I'm like, okay, maybe we should do that because maybe people would

want to, follow us like that.

But we had no clue on how to do a Did you?

We knew two things.

We knew how to watch him.

And we knew how to video off of our phone.

And that's it.

That's the two things.

Kirsten mentioned earlier, a friend of mine, a mutual friend, I called

her and I said, Hey, do you know anybody that can put us in the

direction of somebody to help us?

Edit and make a YouTube channel.

And that's when we met Pearson and Jean.

Yeah.

It has been amazing.

So not all, I think from the time we spoke from the initial time to the time

our channel started was what two weeks.

Yeah, and it's interesting for us because most of our clients are business owners.

we work with a lot of, local businesses, moving companies, real

estate agents, but we work with a lot of online coaches and consultants.

So for us, most of our clients are building their channel because

they want to take advantage of search engine optimization.

They want to build brand awareness and know, and trust.

So I know when I first spoke with you guys, it was like, hey, they just want to

build a YouTube channel for monetization.

So that was really the 1st time I've worked with someone who was just all out

about ,let's get our channel monetized and let's start making money from YouTube.

Most of our clients, because they have businesses when they get

monetized, it's just a bonus.

It's not the reason they start their channel.

So I was thrilled to get to work with you guys, because it's just a

different kind of adventure for us.

I can totally see how if we, cause we did have business in times past,

had we still owned a business, I can absolutely see how boy, we missed this

opportunity because just not understand we are not techie people at all.

So just you connecting us with techie people has made all the difference.

Yeah.

If we were still business owners, we would like this route.

The advertising is awesome.

it's such I'm going to say little work compared to what used to be

the way that you had to advertise.

Now, if we own your own business now, you can do a little bit of work and just, it

just, you can reach so many more people.

Ears and eyes through YouTube.

And it's not just YouTube, Instagram, all the platforms.

That's right.

So it's not even fair owning a business anymore.

It's so interesting because I think people don't really think about

when you build a YouTube channel, you're creating evergreen content.

Looking something up in the video that popped up was 10 years old.

You think about it, that video had been working for that business

owner, 24 hours a day, seven days a week for a decade, right?

Yep.

10 years.

Yeah.

Amazing.

Yeah.

And then you take that video, like you said, and you repurpose it for

all of your social media platforms.

So you've done something once.

But you're getting a traction everywhere with that one piece of content.

So that's, we like simple and, uh, we're a little bit lazy, so to speak.

that's pretty one thing I use a lot of times.

It's efficient.

It's efficient.

I like that.

Yep.

Efficient.

Yes.

So that time you started with us, I'll never forget our conversation because,

again, I wasn't nervous to speak with you, but again, it was something different

because you were going for monetization.

what all do they know about YouTube?

And it was just so awesome having the conversation with you guys.

you knew exactly what most business owners know, how to film a video

on your phone and you know how to watch videos, but like that whole

concept of SEO or collaborations, or I think on our checklist for YouTube,

it's 52 steps, 52 things that have to be checked off by your virtual

assistant before that video goes live.

And so none of us really had any idea what it takes to really build a

channel when you first get started.

So what was the biggest eye opener for you when it came to actually.

Deciding to do this and realizing what it took.

we literally still don't know what she does.

So we have, I have no idea what she does and there's no way in the world

that I would even try to replicate what she does for me, it's like.

I send her virtually the information and she miraculously puts it

together and makes an amazing video.

Now what she does for us, I don't know how other people do their channels.

Our internet is very wonky on the ships so we can only upload in like little

mini five minute segments and it's really incredible what she does because I make,

I watch these five minute segments.

And I tell her exactly like where I might want one to start or speed

this up or whatnot, because we're still working on our relationship.

, we're less than 2 months old.

So we're working on our relationship.

In the meantime, I'm holding her hand as to what we want.

But so what is it?

What it is is we upload.

20 30 40 50 videos and she somehow puts it into one in no time.

When I get all of them done and I, and we use the Trello system and once

I get it all done, I'll tag her and.

I swear it's not much later that she's , okay, done what

tasks do you want me to do next?

, give me another day or two to put something together.

Yeah.

But isn't it beautiful?

Because I know, when we paired you with your virtual assistant, I know

that there was two people that you both really liked and you picked, you

always, I always say go with your gut.

So when you pick your virtual assistant, you're picking somebody who, again, you

feel some connection to because they're all trained and they all love video

editing and social media graphic design.

So they're all capable of doing the task, but having someone that you

really feel like gets you as important.

And I know that for you guys, there are a lot of Filipinos on the cruise ship.

So when I told you that we would be hired from the Philippines,

that made you really happy.

And so has that relationship really turned out the way you expected it to?

I know she's fast.

She gets to do what she loves.

You guys get to do what you love, but do you see this

being a long term relationship?

Very much . And so what we didn't talk about yet was.

When we decided to do YouTube to make the channel, I had gotten into

Facebook groups to try to find a virtual assistant and I specifically was looking

for somebody from the Philippines.

Specifically, and I was not going anywhere else.

So when you told me that you train people in the Philippines, I was

like, Oh, that is we were meant to be partners in business together.

So it was just, it made it so much easier because our search was not going well.

We didn't know what in the world we were doing.

We did.

And we didn't know, okay, is this a scam or is this person real?

You never know what in the world you're getting.

And whoever we were getting wasn't going to be really trained into what

Like what the way that you train them.

So we probably if we hadn't found you, we probably we would

still be just talking about it.

Exactly.

For real.

So it made all the difference in the world.

And you asked, how's our relationship?

How it's better than what we thought it was going to be.

She's we love her.

We absolutely love her.

Go to sleep.

Go to sleep.

We end up on a cruise to the Philippines and we could actually meet her in person.

And that is.

I would love for that to come to fruition and it might.

we do one vacation a year because, as I always say to people, the Caribbean,

which where our cruise ships are always out of, that's our backyard.

That is where we live.

We live in the Caribbean, but we want to do one big trip a year.

Because of her, the Philippines is totally in our realm and in our radar.

That would probably make a good YouTube.

It's so fun because you get to travel to all of these great destinations and

showcase the places that you're visiting.

And you guys do all kinds of interesting content about what

it's like to live on a cruise ship.

So give everyone the name of your channel.

I don't think we brought that up yet.

Full time cruisers.

I love it.

Well, Mark, when you were talking about how your search wasn't going well,

we can relate to that because when Jeannie and I first started looking

for virtual people overseas about 15 years ago, we like to joke that if it

could be done wrong, we did it wrong.

We've been in 6 different countries.

We have been taking advantage of we have probably been the worst bosses

on the planet, because we didn't have all the standard operating

procedures and everything in place and great onboarding structure.

So I think it's really hard.

That's 1 thing.

We talk a lot to our clients about is yes, we're providing a

virtual assistant for you that.

They get to do what they love graphic design and video editing and social

media, and we do train them to make sure that they're really proficient.

They can stay on brand.

They meet deadlines.

They're great at communicating, but we also work with our clients like

you to understand cultural differences and to understand how to manage your

virtual assistant through workflows.

Did that surprise you having workflows and a way to manage the process?

Was that something you were expecting?

Yeah.

And that worked that whole Trello system scared the heck out of me.

So it, we actually didn't use it for quite some time.

We finally started using it a couple of weeks ago.

We were doing everything through WhatsApp cause I was

just scared to death to try it.

And she kept saying, no, I'll teach you.

Really.

I'll teach you.

And.

So she went in there and set up everything we needed and then

she, she taught me how to do it.

And now I'm so thankful that it's there because it is much easier.

Mark doesn't know it yet.

I have to teach him how to do it.

I promise you it's so funny because when we have the graduations for the

interns, because we actually do have a graduation, from our paid internships.

So they, they graduate before they get to go to work for clients like you guys.

And I always ask them three questions.

And the first one is.

What did you like about our internship?

And they will all say the structure and the training and the team, they love it.

When I usually ask them, what can we improve on?

It's usually our team getting back to them faster because we've

been a little bit short staffed.

We, they're often waiting a couple of days for our team to sign off on the content

that they're doing or give them edits.

But I always say, the 3rd thing is, I always ask them.

When you first went through our training portal, and you saw all of

our SOPs and the Trello process, I always joke, and I said, did your

old eyes roll back in your head?

And did you think, oh, my gosh, what have I got myself into?

And they all start laughing, like, you're laughing, right?

So they felt the same way you guys feel when you first see it.

And so I'd like to remind them when they go to work for you

that they've worked through that process, and then they love it.

That's what the structure is.

That's the organization.

But it's overwhelming and that's what we encourage them to always encourage them

that they can coach you through it because they've used it multiple times already.

So I love that she helped you learn it.

She really did.

It's an awful like, like drinking out of a fire hose.

I mean, it's just blast you all at one time.

So, yeah, it's it's really interesting because, you know, it's so detailed

and that's why, but at the end of the day, when you're working with someone

who's in another country to different time zones, you know, knowing exactly

what's been done and what hasn't been done and who's responsible for the

next step, I think is invaluable.

I agree and using WhatsApp.

I was always so afraid I was going to wake her up or because you know that

little ping or vibration or whatever.

So we didn't really want to go down that rabbit hole and stayed out

while we did go down the rabbit hole.

We didn't want to stay down there.

We wanted to make it better.

So, so we weren't interrupting her sleeper.

She wasn't interrupting our sleep.

So using Trello when you're in different time zones is definitely the way to go.

I know that yeah.

We're even going to get better at Trello.

We've only been doing it for two weeks now.

And I know there's more for the, for us to learn.

Even if you're not in two time zones, it's going to, because it's a domino effect.

Yeah.

You, you do your part and then it, it, it follows.

So yeah.

It's there for a purpose.

Yeah.

And Jenny, it's really funny because with we originally were hiring for

people for her marketing agency.

So these workflows and things were created and were created over time.

And it's funny.

You don't just sit down and write down a 52 list of items to get checked off.

As you're working through the process where someone you're like,

oh, we need to add that step.

Oh, this change.

Let's correct him at that step.

But when you realize that all it really is, is a detailed checklist of

everything that gets done in light order.

And then the process allows each person to see.

Oh, well, is this.

Is this video on my court or is this video in your court?

Like who's working on this video right now?

And I love it that there's an app for it too.

So if I have my phone and I think about it, boom, my app, because

I'm, I like to do things off my laptop, I'm a laptop person.

But when I'm just walking around, if I think of something, boom, I can

use my phone to just make notes also.

And just as a sidebar, the ball is usually on our court.

Yes.

They're really fast at turning things around.

You started, let's see, you started your channel about two weeks after we started

working with you and I met you actually hired your virtual assistant in two

weeks, really with them working with us.

You're probably, you're right up there with the fastest people.

Like generally people will come in and they'll spend, it usually takes a month

to six weeks before they're really ready to get their video production going.

But you guys were ready to just rock and roll with your videos and made

hiring really easy really close to being monetized already, aren't you?

I'm going to say we are, it'll be within seven days.

We are 600 watch hours away, but I, we have a lot of

videos getting ready to go up.

I'm, I'm working on so many at the same time.

I wish, I just wish there was more hours in a day for me to just get

it done because I have so much in drive right now and I'm trying.

I have to learn how to do one, get it out, do another, instead of

working on four at the same time.

I can be the same way.

Sometimes I have multiple things in process.

So I get it.

You're looking at the queen of squirrels because I'm like all over the place.

But I think she's putting up with me, but it must be so fun to enjoy the cruises.

But then to be able to share that with other people, and all of

your, the knowledge that you've learned from, I have a, so kind

of a fun story and it is amazing.

It's so much fun that we can still have fun.

and put out content at the same time.

We're figuring how to make it all work together, um, without it being

any kind of stress level whatsoever.

Um, because we really do want to share the experience with people

and we want to share knowledge and information to make cruising easy

for others, easier for others.

But this past YouTube.

It was incredible.

It was really weird.

Celebrities.

How cool.

We were doing a video, um, out in the, there's an area called

central park and here comes a woman.

She's probably 30 something years old.

And she was just slowing down, slowly walking by.

And then she sat down right where we were and we kept on going.

But in my mind, I was like, it's kind of weird.

Well, after we stopped and we weren't doing anything long, we were just kind

of doing our intro segments and our ending segments, so once we stopped,

she says, it's, I'm so glad to see you.

My name is, uh, Jenny.

Her name was Jenny and she was watching us on YouTube.

And then there we were.

It was so cool.

So far, you have to think about it because I know I watch a ton of YouTube videos and

I feel like there's a lot of people that I follow and have been following for years.

I feel like I know them.

I mean, if I saw them out in public, I would definitely want to say,

hey, like, I follow your channel.

Don't want to interrupt you, but hey, like, you have great content.

But it's so interesting because if you think about it, if you're educating

people on different aspects of cruising and helping them either plan their

trip or pack for their trip or help them get comfortable with something,

maybe they were uncomfortable with, they feel like they know you because

video really builds know, and trust.

Think about how cool that was for us to actually meet you.

I think that's really awesome.

And I love the fact that we must come across as approachable

because we're, they're not having a problem with approaching us.

Absolutely do.

You absolutely do.

It's fabulous.

Our biggest problem right now, and we've even talked about this, we've

got to make sure that we start cutting our conversations down.

Those conversations down because we like to talk, we get back, we

wanna go, they wanna talk, and we've got stuff that we've gotta do.

And when they start running closer and closer together, it is gonna be

a 24 hour deal if we don't, yeah.

Bottom line is I can't believe that things have evolved so quickly.

I did not expect, 'cause when we started doing this, my frame of

mind, my frame of mind was my target was six months to be monetized.

I can't even believe how quickly it's all happening and without Ali

and we just adore her without her.

There was no way in the world that we could have gotten it out.

So quickly.

So it's going to be our 1st.

Our 1st watch hour was actually August the 15th.

So it's going to be within.

Now we still have to get approved where we're learning how to do that.

So we've got to get them to give us a thumbs up.

But at least we've hit our requirements as far as what they've told us that we've had

to do and we should have 600 more, right?

But we've got in order to do it within two months, we have two weeks to do that.

That's crazy.

That will be monetized within two months.

And from the time we did our first video or just our welcome to the

time we actually did our first video.

Was probably a three week gap.

Wow.

Because it takes a little time, doesn't it?

Yeah.

Easy.

That was less than a five minute intro, but then we were

like, okay, now what do we do?

I know when you, whenever we talk, because you, I think we all get excited and I'm

like, well, did you think about this idea?

You're like, yeah, it's on the list.

Did you think about this?

No, I'll add it to the list.

The list is really getting longer and longer.

So.

I think a lot of times people, even business owners, worry

that they'll run out of content.

And I just don't think that's the case.

I mean, for most business owners, they, you know, they have so much

information and just like for you guys, you guys get to do fun stuff because

it's excursions and things like that.

But even just the basic things that you can educate people on is vast.

And that is a really good point because at first I was, I kept thinking, Oh my gosh,

Where are we going to come up with ideas, content, how is it just going to flow,

like one day it's going to stop and you, it's not, there is so much from just the

smallest things on daily life on a ship, or just because we're, I mean, your day

on a cruise ship is the same as our day.

It's just that we do it every day, so all those things, even from a lot of people.

Don't know how to tell when they're, when the, when you're in the public

restroom, how to tell what's locked, what's occupied and not occupied.

Small things like that.

I teach people all the time.

That one's not occupied.

Go ahead because it's white.

They don't know how to look for the white and or green or red.

They're all different colors, but little things like that.

That's a video.

Yes.

As men, we don't care.

We just knock on the door.

And you probably don't worry about locking it either.

Someone comes in and says, Oh, excuse me.

I'll come back later.

We're not going to run out of content any time soon.

That's awesome.

We just have an overflow of content right now.

Love it.

I love it.

Yes.

So if you were going to talk to someone who's thinking about Starting

a YouTube channel, whether it's just for monetization or for their business,

because like you said, you've owned lots of businesses in the past.

What would your advice for them be?

Oh, definitely don't do your editing by yourself because I can say, I

have actually spoken to a couple of people, their crew members that have a

YouTube channel and they tell me that.

So one of them, remember Taylor, we just met him this

week that he only does shorts.

And he says, I can handle editing shorts.

He said, I would love to be able to do longs like you're doing, but the

thought of me sitting down to edit that video would take him hours and hours

and hours, and there's just not enough time in the day to go to work, do the

video, edit the video, so you just.

My advice would be find somebody to edit and just take that off your

plate so you can go and like in our case, we can go and have fun.

But if we were business owners, I can go and make money.

Editing a video is not making money.

My, I'm sure if I owned a business, I'm going to make more money.

You have to compare.

I'm going to make so much more money than okay, What I'm going to

pay somebody to edit, I think so.

Yeah.

And that guy has been doing it for a long time.

It's not like he just started also.

He's been doing it several years.

He's a cool guy.

Now, I would also think that probably being consistent and you posting, you

don't want to post on the 1st of October and then the next one be the January,

the 31st or let your people get used to.

It's like when we were growing up and watching TV, we knew every Tuesday

night, happy days is going to be on or you, it was, it was like clockwork

and you sort of built your schedule around what you wanted to watch on TV.

And I think if you're consistent with your YouTube, so I think a lot of people

would be much more successful that way.

Yeah, I think our, , For somebody like us who wants to be monetized

just in, in daily life kind of thing, , remembering to carry your stick,

we have a big sign on our door now, stick because I'll be like, did you

remember the, the selfie stick thing?

So remembering the stick is important, remember your tools of the trade, because

we're not used to that and then we like see stuff going on and we're like.

Ah, we didn't bring the

stick.

That's stick holster or something.

But, I was going to say, when we think about editing, I think a lot of people

would think from what you've said, it's just editing the pieces together.

But it's also like adding transitions and b roll and, maybe putting text on the

screen or, there's just so many things.

Flowing now, I heard there was 52 steps to this.

And editing is really one of them.

And within editing, there's multiple steps.

Yeah, it's yeah.

I feel like we, I joke every day, like you guys, we love what we do.

Like we love working with the virtual assistants in the Philippines.

We love that they enjoy our team and they learn so much and we are

always learning from them as well.

And then the excitement of getting to pair them with someone like you guys who

really values them and appreciates them , and it's happy that they're doing things

that you don't know how to do, or don't want to do, or don't have time to do, or

no, it's not the best use of your time.

I think that for me, it's like.

It's why I get up every day, because we get to make this,

these incredible matches.

And what's going to happen is your success is really gonna, she's

really gonna be a part of your success today, tomorrow, future.

And that's so amazing to have someone who gets to do what they

love and be a part of the journey.

So everyone is happy with what they're doing.

. She gets very excited when we put something out there that gets.

A lot of views.

We talk about it with her.

We're like, Oh, did you see this one hit 4, 000 views?

Or like we had a short that we put up yesterday that

hit 2, 600 views in no time.

And we were all so excited about that.

She tells us about it.

She, yeah.

She sees the first show message us.

And if we see it, we'll message her.

And it is, it's like, it's a partnership and she really, really cares about us.

Doing well, obviously she wants to keep her job.

You know, she wants to continue working with us.

We want her to continue working with us.

So we also want them to be successful so that we can all do well together.

So it is, it's just another team member.

It's a partner.

So we do love that.

Yeah.

So if you want to catch up with Mark and Phyllis full time perusers on YouTube

and do you guys, so go watch their videos, comment that maybe you saw them.

On our channel or on the podcast.

And if you're interested in, possibly starting a YouTube channel and getting

a fabulous marketing virtual assistant,

Check out the marketing VA advantage.

com.

We would love to help you start a channel and hire the perfect virtual

assistant to help you grow it.

So Mark and Phyllis, thank you so much for being here.

This has been so fun.

Thank you for having us.

We can't wait to come and cruise with you.

I was just going to say the same thing.

There's rooms all over the place.

So let's just, we really need to do that.

That would be awesome.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you for joining us.

Mark and Phyllis.

We had a great time and we are so looking forward to watching more of your videos

and cruising with you at some point.

Thank you.

Bon Voyage.