Everyone knows an Emma.
Emma, the founder drowning in to-dos.
Emma, who swore this month she’d finally get help.
Emma, who spent three hours on Fiverr trying to find “a VA who can do everything.” I call them unicorns.
I’ve met many Emmas, and here’s what I’ve observed: Emma isn’t the problem. The hiring process is.
When her inbox hit 1,200 unread messages, Emma went to Fiverr. She typed “virtual assistant, reliable, proactive, English fluent” and hired someone in 48 hours. For two weeks, things looked fine. Then tasks slipped, instructions were repeated, and eventually, the VA disappeared mid-project.
So Emma said what many founders say in this situation:
“I guess I’m just bad at delegating.”
or
“There are no good people out there.”
But here’s what really happened:
• Nobody helped Emma define what she actually needed.
• Nobody asked, “What will success look like 90 days from now?”
• Nobody said, “You don’t need a VA, you need a project coordinator.”
Marketplaces can’t ask those questions. They just match keywords. They don’t challenge business owners on what they think they need. Marketplaces are built for transactions, not transformations.
Good agencies are different. They sit with the messy notes from founders, the voice messages, the vague frustration of “I just need help,” and turn that into a clear process. They design a role before the hire.
That invisible work — the questioning, the clarifying, the diagnosing — is what turns a two-week freelancer into a two-year team member.
So stop the cycle of hiring before understanding.
Before hiring, take the time to:
1- Get help defining what you truly need.
2- Map the skills to your real priorities.
3- Make sure your new hire has the context to succeed.
The goal isn’t to fill a seat fast. It’s to know when Fiverr fits, and when it doesn’t.
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The Sweet Side of Leadership
Ice Cream with My Mom 🥰
📍 Tampa, Florida, Monday, October 13This isn’t a “look at me, I can take Mondays off” post.
It’s simply a reminder that our time with the people we love is finite, especially our parents.
If our businesses aren’t designed to make space for moments like this, then what’s the point of it all?
I’m deeply grateful for a team that allows not only me, but everyone on the team, to enjoy these moments.
Every person at Staff4Half has the same freedom and flexibility to design their work around what matters most in life, and that could very well be an ice cream on a Monday afternoon with mom and the nieces.
Three things that help us:
1️⃣ Design for redundancy. Cross-training and clear SOPs ensure that no single person becomes a bottleneck, myself included.
2️⃣ Protect moments that matter. We encourage teammates to block time for important family moments, no questions asked.
3️⃣ Lead with trust and clarity. When I take time off for moments like these, it sends a message that everyone can too.
Business is a vehicle, but the destination is a life you’re proud to live with the people you love. ❤️
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Delegation Done Right: Ethical Outsourcing That Changes Lives
Kande used to work late nights folding jeans. Now she manages vendor emails for a U.S.-based client, and I’m not sure who’s happier—her or me. It’s stories like these that remind me every day that this isn’t just staffing:
It’s giving people a life they deserve.
I started outsourcing to Argentina to find more reliable help without breaking the bank. I needed support for my U.S. business, and Argentina offered:
- Bilingual talent
- Time-zone alignment
- Cultural proximity
At the time, I only saw these three benefits. What I didn’t realize was the positive impact we could have on a hire in Argentina, and that’s what turned this into something bigger for me. Because what keeps me going isn’t the cost savings—it’s watching lives shift on both sides of the hire.
The story of Kande stands out to me. Before we worked together, she was in retail, working late shifts, enduring long commutes, and earning a paycheck that barely covered her bills. There were nights she even skipped meals just to save a few pesos. Then we placed her with a U.S.-based client: a remote role, an aligned time zone, and triple the pay. Everything changed.
She’s still working hard, but now she’s home when her kids are. She’s saving money for the first time and building confidence. She’s showing up energized and being seen for what she can do. That’s the part that never gets old for me.
I believe that when delegation is done right, everyone wins. This is ethical business.
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The Art (and Science) of Hiring in 2025
Over the past 24 years, I’ve read thousands of resumes, interviewed hundreds of people, and hired across multiple companies. I thought I had a ton of experience — until I met Cecilia and Victoria. I’m in awe.
Why? Because Cecilia and Victoria are true experts at sourcing new team members. The other day, I did a quick calculation: between them, it’s easily over 40,000 interviews throughout their careers. That’s an incredible amount of experience.
And I’m not saying this because they are part of my team, but because I’ve seen firsthand how much hiring has changed over the past 24 months — more than it did in the previous 24 years. Hiring hasn’t gotten easier. Quite the opposite.
I think this is one of the biggest challenges small companies face today: finding the right people in a sea of opportunities. Getting hiring right determines the success of any business. Get it right, and the business grows. Get it wrong, and it stagnates.
Here are three timeless techniques Cecilia and Victoria use when interviewing candidates after scanning thousands of applications:
1. Details that hurt
Anyone can talk about wins. The real test is whether they can tell the story behind them in vivid detail — what really happened, who was involved, and what the friction was. They even ask small things like what the weather was like during a specific event to test authenticity.2. Process over polish
They ask candidates to walk through how they did something, step by step. Real experience is a little messy. Made-up experience sounds like bullet points. They look for the small missteps and corrections that prove genuine experience.3. The pause
Real memory makes people stop and think. Over-rehearsed answers don’t. When on a video interview, do the eyes move slightly as they recall, or do they stay fixed? That’s a subtle but powerful signal.These are fundamentals in a hiring process that has only gotten more complex in recent months. But they remain the foundation — even in a world of a thousand resumes and AI-polished applications.
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