How Zhao Liu Went From Solo Hustle To Scalable Team

What if one smart hire could flip your business from constant scramble to controlled scale? That’s the spark behind our conversation with Zhao Liu, the operator-turned-founder of ZL Workforce, who transformed an eight-year solo grind into a data-driven, delegation-first machine after hiring a single virtual assistant.

We walk through the pivotal moves: quitting corporate while running a growing product company, joining Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses, and confronting the limit of doing everything alone. Zhao shares how he trained his first VA live over Zoom, then had her write the SOPs as she learned, turning messy reality into usable playbooks. From there, he explains the systems that make offshoring work for small business: rigorous vetting, background checks, role-matched evaluations, and productivity tracking that respects privacy while revealing patterns across video editors, recruiters, and client-facing roles.

Culture matters just as much as process. Zhao outlines weekly optional huddles that keep distributed assistants connected, rotating prompts that build relationships, and a biannual Manila retreat that makes remote teams feel real. We also get tactical about what to delegate first—calendar, email, research, light design—and how to prevent underperformance by setting clear channels, goals, and definitions of success on day one. If letting go is hard, Zhao offers a roadmap: grant access in stages, measure outcomes, and expand trust as competence compounds.

For the metrics-minded, Zhao contrasts key KPIs for B2C and B2B. Profit margin beats vanity revenue in product businesses, while capacity and productivity rule in services. His “power of one” play—raise price 1 percent, grow volume 1 percent, trim overhead 1 percent—shows how small moves compound into meaningful cash flow. Whether you’re considering your first VA or retooling a growing team, this candid guide blends real-world delegation, remote culture, and performance data you can use today.

If this conversation helps you think differently about scaling with virtual assistants, subscribe, share with a founder friend, and leave a quick review to tell us what you’ll delegate first.

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Transcript

From Side Hustle To First VA

SPEAKER_01 0:00

I start telling my friends and part uh business partners and things about about my virtual assistant from Philippines. And they're all like, hey, oh, that sounds great. Can you find me one too? Uh-huh. And that's how the virtual assistant business really started, right? So because there's I just I was getting inquiries left and right. And uh, you know, before before you know it, I have a virtual assistant company.

SPEAKER_00 0:32

Today's guest didn't just build a business, he reverse engineered one. And whether it's creating SOPs, managing thousands in ad spend, or building a virtual team that actually sticks, Zhao doesn't just talk about efficiency, he lives it. So today I am excited to talk to Zhao Lee, who's the founder of ZL Workforce and some other companies. So, Zhao, thank you for coming to the podcast today.

SPEAKER_01 0:52

No, you're welcome. So thank you for inviting me.

SPEAKER_00 0:55

Absolutely. Can you tell the audience a little about your entrepreneurial journey and your current endeavor with ZL Workforce and some of the other things that you've been up to?

Building A Product Business Solo

SPEAKER_01 1:02

Yeah, so um I'm very fortunate to have graduated uh from the University of Akron uh here in 2013. And uh I shortly after that, I got my MBA degree. I again I was very fortunate because my mom worked for uh the university, so I got a free free ride for the whole way. And it was very convenient for me uh as I was going to my corporate job. I had a job at Lincoln Electric and uh as an engineer. And shortly after that, a year into it, I started my business. Uh, my business is my product business, which I'm still running today. It's an 11-year-old business now, and uh we design niche products, uh, electronics, outdoor products, all kinds of different products, and we'll market them. We do everything except manufacturing. So we'll outsource manufacturing to China, but everything else, uh, whereas when it's design, when it comes to marketing, when it comes to brands, we do it ourselves. But three years ago though, um, I actually um started my new business called the Virtual ZR Workforce uh virtual assistant business, and where we hire a bunch of different kinds of virtual assistants from different um from overseas and we'll place them in US companies.

SPEAKER_00 2:12

Nice. So, how has being an operator first, not just a recruiter for the organization that you have, changed the way you train and place virtual assistants? And what made you want to start a virtual assistant company?

Quitting Corporate And 10KSB Lessons

SPEAKER_01 2:25

Yeah, it it was uh I ran my product business since 2014-ish, and uh I ran that probably for approximately eight years while having a corporate job and running it all by myself. I have I had no employees, uh, had probably maybe one or two contractors, but very, very on a temporary basis that helps me, you know, do shipments and things like that. Very temporary basis. So really I had absolutely no help. Uh, but I got into uh in 2022 is when I actually quit my uh corporate job and uh really focused in on the on my product business full time. And it's right around that time I also found out about Goldman Sachs Tanzown Small Businesses. And so I joined it uh very shortly after I left my uh corporate job. And this is where I learned I couldn't develop my business on my own, right? I can only do so far. Now, to be honest, by that time, I was actually my business was already uh at a pretty good uh capacity um as far as revenue goes. So it's already qualifying for the 10KSB requirements, technically also qualified for the EO accelerator uh by then. So it was a good size business, but I was running it all by myself. Uh what 10KSB did tell me teach me though is that I can't run a business by my own by myself. And if I do decide to run the business by myself, all by myself, there's a limit on where I can achieve as far as the size of business. Okay. Right. And I I'm kind of that kind of person where I will always think, hey, I can do everything by myself. You know, I can I can do this, you know, I can do the marketing, I can do the accounting, I can do the bookkeeping, I can do the product design, I can do the sourcing, everything. I'll just be able to manage it myself. But soon I realized I was like, you know what? Yes, I could, but I'm not gonna be able to as the business gets bigger and bigger. And that's where I hired my first virtual assistant, actually. Uh after shortly after the 10,000 small business uh graduating from there. And I hired the first one, it went so well. Um, my most of my product business is basically on autopilot now. Wow. Um, just because that one kickstart off everything. Uh so my only role on that business now is new product development. Uh, and if I'm not trying to actively design new products and come out with new products, I don't really have to deal with that business that much anymore. Uh and then also because of my my own course story about my product business being autopilot, uh, I was able to, you know, I start telling my friends and partner uh business partners and things about about my virtual assistant from Philippines. And they're all like, oh, oh, that sounds great. Can you find me one too? Uh-huh. And that's how the virtual assistant business really started, right? So because there's I just I was getting inquiries left and right. And uh, you know, before I before you know it, I have a virtual assistant company.

SPEAKER_00 5:26

That's impressive. So, you know, you made a good point about, you know, a lot of founder small business leaders feel like they have to have the perfect systems. They feel like they can't delegate. I have to do everything myself. Um, but clearly you've talked about how finding the right person can totally transform your business. I mean, you're not even in the day-to-day anymore of the one business that you founded. So, what's your take on systems before people? And when is when is good enough? And how do you know when to delegate effectively? What's what's your your learning from that?

SPEAKER_01 5:56

Yeah, so um I think not everybody, especially small business owners, have the perfect system set. No, there are some people that they do, right? But uh it's great when you do, uh, but it's definitely not the minimum criteria or minimum requirement for hiring uh some help. Um so for me, I when I fired hired the first person, I barely had any process in place. Um, I remember I basically, hands to hands, just kind of showed the person, the VA, everything. We hopped up on a Zoom call probably um two hours a day, and I just walked through every single step of what I do and have her take notes, have her ask questions during the process. Uh, and then eventually she's able to uh do everything on her own. And then one after once I I'm once I'm confident that she could do everything, I actually asked her to start writing out the process. So I don't have to actually write the process myself. So we actually have a lot of processes now documented, including some of the new product research part of it. So I can ask her to say, hey, you know, we we are short on the product pipeline right now. Can you go research some product? And we have an exact process that she could follow.

Hiring The First VA And Autopilot

SPEAKER_00 7:15

Wow. So I see the value in in virtual assistants and offshoring. Clearly, you do too. But there are still some stigmas around VAs, especially as it relates to small business owners. So, what do you do differently with your organization with ZL Workforce to build trust and performance in your VA placements?

Systems Versus People In Practice

SPEAKER_01 7:34

Yeah. So uh we do some a lot of stuff different. Uh, but just going back a little bit, the reason I was so um I wasn't hesitant in jumping into the VA business as well, hiring VA myself is because I'm a never stay never kind of guy. Okay. Right. So uh I would never knock it. So my my statement is always that don't knock it until you tried it. Right. So um, so that's so so that was easy for me to get into. Um and then going back to your question is what are things that we do differently? I think one of the biggest things that people, uh business or small business owners, uh, when they think about an overseas employee, they're, I think a lot of them are afraid of, first of all, they're afraid of getting scammed. Right. And and uh one thing that we do at ZR Workforce that we do differently is first of all, we vet, we have a specific process with vet people. We do some background checks on them before we even interview them ourselves. And once all these things pass, once we do the interview and and then the hiring, once they're hired, we actually install a software on every single one of their computers when they are working, because they're remote employees. The software doesn't only track their hours, they also uh do screenshots as well as uh they don't do keylogging, but they do they do track how often they type on the keyboard, how many keystrokes they have, how many mouse clicks movement, and mouse clicks they have. Uh so that gives us a productivity number on every single VA. And over time, uh now we have 20 VAs on under our thing and uh under our uh ZR workforce, and we now know kind of the typical productivity level uh by looking at these data of a certain uh kind of role. Because not all roles are created equal. Um so some roles, for example, video editors, uh, they are usually more product uh they price the keyboards more, they price the mouse clicks more, right? So we know if you're a video editor, what kind of number you should be sitting to be a productive video editor. Uh and on the other hand, uh people who are maybe a um a hiring manager or recruiter who's always on Zoom calls or doing a client relations kind of thing, their numbers will be a lot uh a lot less, right? So uh so and which is fine. So we we monitor everybody so to make sure that you know whoever we hire is doing the work that uh that the business owner wants them to do, right? And they're being productive on it.

SPEAKER_00 10:02

How do you build alignment within your organization? I mean, you've got a lot of different VAs working for a lot of different people, but at the same time, how do you main cult maintain culture within your organization that is supporting other organizations and an extension of their team as well?

SPEAKER_01 10:17

Yeah, so uh being a remote team, um, you know, everybody's kind of working their silos uh a lot of times, right? So um VA number one will be working for business, uh, you know, one business, and VA number two will be working for another business. They'll probably never talk to each other, uh, really, you know, because they're completing separate businesses. Now, one thing what we did uh is for every Monday we had a weekly huddle. So it doesn't matter who you're working for or which business you're working for, there's an option that you join this weekly huddle just of a ZR Workforce uh virtual assistant. Uh and then in our ZR Workforce virtual assistant, we get it's it's it's an optional meeting, but we highly encourage them to attend. Uh and then in this meeting, the content of the meeting is we have usually four topics. Uh the four topics consist of uh three are just kind of the same every single time. And then the one is a fun topic that we rotate through the VAs to make sure that they can uh uh they can each VA is have an opportunity to kind of ask the whole group something. So this way, this way we'll actually develop kind of a relationship between the VAs so they don't feel as alone as if they were just working for the business, right? We're working for their clients' business. So that way they'll see, hey, there's others out there, and I can, you know, uh communicate with everybody. Uh, we also have a retreat every other year where we get everybody together, uh, and then the company will pay for the whole retreat. Uh, it's a three-day, two uh two nights retreat in Manila, and everybody gets together. People who are not in Manila gets flown in just to make sure that everybody, you know, has a chance to meet everybody, and it's not just a remote, right? It's everybody actually has a everybody's a real person. And uh, you know, this is a great event. I think, you know, if uh Chrissy, if you want to join me in uh one one uh one year, yeah.

De-risking VAs With Vetting And Metrics

SPEAKER_00 12:11

I might. Um, what are, and you talked about video editors, you've talked about customer service and recruiting. What are some common positions that you recruit for within your organization that you support?

SPEAKER_01 12:23

Yeah, there's a lot of um for small businesses, a lot of admin assistants or executive assistants, right? So I think that's in general one of the first things that people can come up with. It's usually the small business owner who's just too busy, who's working in their business, not on their business, right? And that's one of the first things. And now, those small business owners, a lot of times though, they don't have exact uh things planned out. So they are usually looking for a generalist, not a specialist, somebody who can check their emails, um, maybe manage their calendars, uh, do some quick data entry work, as well as maybe a little bit of Canva uh or photo editing work. Right. So um I think that's by far the most common.

SPEAKER_00 13:07

Yeah, I know when I started, we we have several virtual assistants that we work with on our team. And my assistant, the first thing that I thought of was calendar management. She can help with my calendar, but she does so much more at this point in time. She helps with with meeting preparation. She really does, she's an extension of me. And so I can appreciate some of the things that you're saying and talking about, you know, building your culture, making sure that they feel cohesive. If there was one piece of advice that you would give a small business owner who's thinking about hiring a virtual assistant, other than yes, you have to try it. Don't, don't knock it till you try it. What would you tell them about um success? If they want to be successful in having a virtual assistant, what's something that they should always make sure they're doing?

Culture For A Distributed VA Team

SPEAKER_01 13:51

Yeah, align the expectations from the beginning. Um so one thing we actually, I personally help a lot of VA, uh a lot of small businesses do is I will jump on the onboarding meeting, the very first onboarding meeting when they when they hire a VA. I will say, hey, you know, what is your communication channels? Right. That's something as basic as communication channels. Sometimes people miss, right? It's like, okay, email is a primary. Do we use uh what's the secondary in case email somehow gets blocked or doesn't work, right? We make sure there's two communication channels open. Uh and then on the business owner side, I think I usually ask them to, hey, tell, make sure you set expectations and set goals for your VA as much as you could, right? Give a little bit more details on that and track on that. Um, because uh one of the examples I I always give is during our EO accelerator days, um we um uh one of the instructors came to the class and said, Hey, this is a classroom of full of business owners. Like, hey, point north, and we're in the think big space, and everybody like pointed all over the direction because people aren't really familiar. Not oriented with where they are. Exactly. Don't doesn't know, right? You should know, and and I don't know if I got it right either. And everybody's just all over the place, right? And and then the instructor said, Okay, guys, north is that way, right? He's saying he pointed to the actual which direction was he actually to ask somebody in the class because he's he's not local. So he was like, I actually what's what's north? That's what he I think somebody pulled off phone and did it did a navigation GPS, like, oh, that's north. Okay, it's like that's north. And then he has to go to the classroom again right after. He's like, all right, everybody, now play a point north. And then this time everybody got it right. So I think a lot of times um VAs underperform. It's just because you didn't set expectations, so uh, you know, you didn't tell them which which way north is.

SPEAKER_00 15:43

Yeah. Well, and you make a good point. You talk about how VAs can underperform because they're not given expectations. I think that that qualifies for anyone that you're working with within your organization, whether they're they're in the office and you're seeing them all the time or they're they're working from across an ocean. I mean, we can build a thick culture, it doesn't matter where we are geographically, but clarifying expectations are what really sets a good organization apart from an elite organization. So you make a really good point there. What's one of the KPIs or business numbers that you know that you see most small business owners ignore that um they absolutely shouldn't? I know you've built a pretty data-driven metrics company culture of your own. So what's a KPI that you would say? Don't overlook it?

SPEAKER_01 16:24

Yeah, um, so so it's there's two KPIs. I think uh it depends on what type of business you are. Um, you know, we I have a product-based business, uh, which is mostly B2C. And then then the virtual assistant business is mostly B2B. Uh so if you talk about a B2C business, uh product-based, I think the profit margin is the biggest number that I think a lot of small business owners overlook. Uh partially because everybody is so focused on revenue these days. Um, all different kinds of programs, they're like, oh, hey, if you're this kind of revenue, you know, then you qualify, right? It doesn't matter if it's a loan or an education program. I think the profit margin, so everybody's kind of focused on, hey, how do I bump the revenue up? Right. But then they they're not really watching uh what they are losing and how much did it cost them to bump that revenue up. Um so that I think for for small business, it's very important to keep a close eye on for a B2C product. Now, for a uh B2B, especially for my virtual assistant um produ uh services, we I think we what we focus on more than others is the efficiency and productivity of of your people, right? Because if you can't, if your overhead is overblown and um again, it goes back to the the profit. If you are if you are if you have too much overhead and people aren't productive, then uh then you're not gonna get wrong of very successful or profitable business.

Roles Small Businesses Hire First

SPEAKER_00 17:50

I totally agree. It's it's not just how much money you make, it's how much money you keep. Yes. Yes, and then adding capacity into your teams and the volume of capacity because when you're growing quickly, if your revenue is increasing, your volume of work oftentimes is increasing too. And how fast can you continue to add to your team or are you going to burn them out? So very good advice. Um so another question, and then we're gonna wrap it up pretty quickly. We've got like two more questions left. But you know, most business owners we've talked about hiring help and delegating, but there's this fine line, I think, between leaders who struggle to let go. It's like they still want to hold on. What advice do you give your business owners who are hiring virtual assistants in you know how to let go?

SPEAKER_01 18:34

Um, I had that problem big time for like eight years, right? So I was literally holding holding on to my business. I was growing it, um, but it I held on to it for um eight years. And until then, I did not let go at all. I did every single thing, right? Um, I think the best advice I could give to people is just to um slowly learn to trust, uh, you know, do it and then slowly learn to trust. Because I I know trust doesn't come from day one, right? But if you don't try, if you don't just let a tiny bit go, it you'll never get there. So for me, especially, I when I hired my first VA, I did not like unload everything to them at all. I like literally like piece fat, uh, you know, spoon fat them a little by a little and then give them permissions, you know, in a lot of accounts, I give them a tiny bit of permission one at a time. And eventually I realized I'm like, oh yeah, I can completely trust this person. And I basically opened up the all the permissions of like, all right, you can have adamant access to this and that and this and that, right? I was like, okay, open it up, right? You guys not gonna mess anything up. So I think just to slowly uh get yourself to um open up a tiny bit, tiny bit at a time, and over time, I think you'll learn to trust the people. Uh and most people are good, right? They're you know, there are bad ads out there, but 99% of the time, people is not gonna uh intentionally mess up your business.

Onboarding And Setting Expectations

SPEAKER_00 19:58

No, you're right. And I mean, as we continue to clarify expectations, we give good standard operating procedures, we train and teach individuals how to do the work, it makes sense. And you you make a very good point of, you know, we're taking that incremental one step at a time. You don't have to give them access to everything all at once. But over time, as trust builds, it's really okay to start loosening the grip so that you can enjoy. I mean, right now you're able to run another business and not necessarily worry about all of the day-to-day to think, day-to-day things. So good job and like getting to that point. So I want to thank you for your time. As we're wrapping up, we ask every guest this question. Cause I mean, how do we get 1% better in our business? So, what's one way that you can tell the listeners to get 1% better in their business today?

SPEAKER_01 20:44

Yeah. I love this 1% question because there's this concept called the power of one. Uh, and and and this is another EO thing, I think, or maybe EO got it from somewhere else. It's one plus one plus one equals 17. You know, some something, some I don't know if it's 17 or 19, some some big number that's not three. Uh, and the the reasoning behind that is uh the one percent, you can increase one percent pricing, you can increase one percent on your uh volume, like you know, just the overall quantity of of product or service you sell, or you can reduce one percent in um overhead. So anywhere if you can do all three, then your cash flow, uh it's cash flow or profit mark profit, it will literally increase by 17%, uh depending on you know the whether the profit margin is. But I I I love I love that concept of you know, just that 1% change could do so many. So I guess my suggestion for the 1% is hey, look at your volume. If if you can increase your price by a tiny bit, that will that would be to go, and uh people probably won't even realize it. And then if you can increase your quantity of volume of sales by just 1%, that would be the way to go. If you can increase the efficiency or productivity of your existing people by one. That's another great thing to do. And if you can do all three, that's the best.

SPEAKER_00 22:04

It'll change your business completely.

SPEAKER_01 22:05

Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_00 22:06

Sal, thank you for your time today. How can people connect with you, connect with your businesses?

SPEAKER_01 22:10

Yeah. So we're on we are in Ziaworkforce. Uh Zia Workforce is my company, Ziaworkforce.com. Uh, and you can also reach me at contact at zworkforce.com.

SPEAKER_00 22:20

All right. Thank you so much for your time today. And if anybody has questions about how to find a good virtual assistant, now you know where to go.

unknown 22:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:26

Thank you.