Stonewall Golf Club

Joe runs Stonewall Golf Club in Gainesville, Virginia, alongside several other businesses. His time is the scarcest resource in all of them, and for years a large share of it went to administration.

At one point he had four stateside assistants on payroll. He describes “spending hundreds of thousands of dollars” on that team, on top of the payroll providers and accounting systems it took to run them. Domestic HR, in his words, is “a nightmare”: documentation, paperwork, reporting, and the hours that come with all of it.

Finding replacements was just as costly. Joe puts a typical U.S. search at two to three months, often ending with only two or three candidates. “Chances are I would be settling for the best of the two or three,” he says, and many didn’t make it through his standard 90-day review.

He needed an executive assistant who could handle his whole world, including sensitive financial access, without adding another layer of HR to manage.

This was Joe’s first time hiring an assistant outside the U.S. He chose Remote Leverage for its all-in-one model: a vetted shortlist, direct interviews with every finalist, and ongoing management that handles payments, contracts, compliance, and confidentiality through one partner, backed by a Contractor of Record structure, so none of it lands back on his desk.

Remote Leverage recruited and vetted a shortlist of executive assistant candidates, then put its all-in-one management solution in place, covering contracts, payments, and compliance, so Joe could hand over sensitive work with confidence.

1. A shortlist built around his standards.

Joe asked for excellent communication, strong writing, and above all fluent English. Remote Leverage presented four or five qualified candidates, and he narrowed them to two or three.

2. One-on-one interviews with every finalist.

After a Remote Leverage introduction, Joe spoke with each candidate directly to share his expectations, goals, and vision. “The final process I absolutely loved,” he says.

3. Protections defined before access was granted.

Joe would be sharing “my whole world,” including bank account access. Remote Leverage’s management team documented his requirements and protections clearly, and he describes everything from day one as “extraordinarily smooth, simple, straightforward.”

4. Payments reduced to a single click.

“You folks send me a link to approve the pay period. I review it, I say okay, it gets deducted from my account.” No payroll department, no reporting, no paperwork on his end.

15–20% of his time, back. Joe’s “very numbers-oriented,” so he measured it. Without a dedicated department to handle HR, payments, and reporting for his assistant, he estimates Remote Leverage’s all-in-one management has returned 15–20% of his time to revenue-generating work.

50% more free time in total. Add his executive assistant’s output, which he compares favorably to the four stateside assistants he once managed, and Joe says the combination has generated 50% more free time. “Time is money,” he says, “and my hourly rate is quite high.”

A fraction of the old cost. Where four stateside assistants once cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, Joe now works with one executive assistant at a price he calls “significantly less than any of the old structures I utilized for stateside assistance.”

An assistant who raises his game. She joins him on podcasts, takes the notes, and critiques his performance afterward at his request. “The synergies that she and I have are truly amazing.”

Joe came in with hard questions, and he says so: “I was a little skeptical of the model.” Here’s what worried him and how each concern was resolved.

“Who is this company?” Joe wanted to know who Remote Leverage was, where it was based, and who he would be dealing with. He put tough questions to multiple people across the organization before he agreed to meet a single candidate.

“What skills do these candidates actually have?” Instead of a single resume, Remote Leverage presented four or five qualified candidates. Joe narrowed them to finalists and interviewed each one directly, asking “some very direct questions” of his own.

“Will their English hold up?” Fluent English was his biggest concern with an assistant overseas. His hire cleared that bar so completely that he says no one would guess she works from outside the U.S.

“The pricing sounds too good to be true.” Joe knew exactly what four stateside assistants cost him. His due diligence confirmed the model was real, and today he calls the return on it an easy yes.

“Can I trust someone abroad with my whole world?” Joe would be handing over bank account access. Remote Leverage documented confidentiality, non-disclosure, and his specific protections before any access was granted.

“Is the management fee worth it?” The management fee, which includes Contractor of Record protection, is an added line item, and Joe’s candid about that. His advice is to take it anyway: “It will protect you in the event that things do not go as well as things are going with my assistant.” He has watched business associates go through “nightmare experiences” with other providers. Asked whether he gets a good return on the investment, his answer is simple: “Absolutely.”

Joe isn’t stopping at one. His team is expanding its work in AI, and when his assistant says the team needs another skill set, he plans to hire it the same way. “That team will just get bigger and bigger.”

If your time’s going to paperwork instead of growth, book a call with Remote Leverage and see how fast a pre-vetted, English-fluent executive assistant can give it back.

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