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37. How the Right Virtual Assistant Lightens Your Load with Sara Wiles
9 Plays4 months ago
In this episode, we dive deep with Sara Wiles, a leading expert in the Virtual Assistant industry who built a VA business that gave her the freedom and flexibility to be both a dedicated mom and a thriving entrepreneur. "Without support, you can't have balance!"
From signing her first client within 8 days to making $100k in 16 months, Sara's story is filled with wild highs, anxiety-fueled lows, and broken business "rules." Tune in to learn how Sara transformed her chaotic hustle into a balanced, profitable business model that allows for a life-first approach.
In this episode, you’ll learn:
- What a VA is, what they do, and why you (probably) need one.
- How to "job shadow yourself" to onboard your VA for success.
- Strategies for delegating administrative, creative, and technical tasks.
- How to find and pay for a VA through her matchmaking services.
- Ways to create psychological safety and retain your VA long-term.
For more inspiration, subscribe to Unbound Turnarounds on Apple Podcasts or Spotify!
LINKS:
- Connect with Nicole
- Connect with Mallory
- Connect with Sara: https://startandgrowco.com/matchmaking/
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Podcast Focus
00:00:02
Speaker
Welcome to Unbound Turnarounds, a podcast all about the challenges women business owners think about constantly, but rarely voice. We're Nicole and Mallory, entrepreneurs, friends, and co-founders of Business Unbound. Our mission is simple, make business feel better. And that starts with honest conversations about the ups, downs, and turnarounds of entrepreneurship.
00:00:26
Speaker
So whether you're just starting out or you've been your own boss for years, tune in for stories, insights, and strategies that actually make work work for life.
Support Systems for Entrepreneurs
00:00:38
Speaker
Welcome back to Unbound Turnarounds, everyone. Thank you for being here. To remind our listeners, in this season, we are digging into all different aspects of support and systems that entrepreneurs can turn to while they are running their businesses. And I'm really excited for today's guest because we're going back to the world where I started as an entrepreneur when I first kind of went out on my own into this wild world. And that is, we're going to be talking all about virtual assistant support, VA support.
00:01:08
Speaker
So Nicole, let's get our guests welcomed.
The Role of Virtual Assistants (VAs)
00:01:10
Speaker
Yes. So today we are honored to have Sarah Wiles on the podcast. She is the founder of the Start and Grow Co and a leading business mentor. She actually made her first million dollars working an average of 20 hours or less per week while running a life first business as a mother, wife, and dog mama. So very impressive. Sarah, thank you for joining us. Thank you for having me.
00:01:34
Speaker
All right, so as I mentioned, I started as a VA when I first left my nine to five, but there probably are some listeners who might not be familiar with the concept. So let's just start at the basics. What is a VA and what kind of things do they do?
00:01:50
Speaker
So a virtual assistant is literally what it sounds like. It is somebody who does support work virtually from wherever they want. Some folks do that from their kitchen, from their couch. Some folks prefer to do it in a co-working space or a coffee shop. Some folks do it on the road while they're traveling. And just like the example I give is like there's no one right way to mom, right? Like mom is such an umbrella term. Like virtual assistant is also such an umbrella term because every person comes to the industry with their own
00:02:19
Speaker
past careers like we three have and experience and then also likes and dislikes.
Benefits of Hiring a VA
00:02:25
Speaker
But in general, to answer that question clearer, we generally see virtual assistants in one or more of the following categories, and those would be administrative support, creative and or social media support, and tech support. Now somebody might do all, somebody might do one, somebody might do a couple here or there. And that's the run of it.
00:02:45
Speaker
Yes. Okay, so I remember when I first hired Mallory years, years ago, and my dark world turned bright. I was like new to the VA concept. But when she explained it to me, I remember I was sitting in my room, she was explaining to me what a VA was and what they do. And I just remember thinking,
00:03:07
Speaker
Why have I not had this? Why have I been doing business without this? That was a complete mistake on my part. So from your perspective, what are some of the key benefits of hiring a VV? If you're someone like me who was kind of like a
00:03:23
Speaker
A bit of a tired, burned out doing all the things, wearing all the hats kind of business leader. What can I get from having a VA? The very funny thing on my end, because in my business, I support VAs or people who want to become VAs. And they always come to me and they're like, well, I don't think I'm qualified because all I can do is admin work. And I'm like, let me just tell you.
00:03:46
Speaker
Every business owner is going to first outsource the admin work because most people don't get into business. You didn't get into business to be your own administrative assistant. You got into business to make an impact and do great things, but then you get bogged down by the administrative piece.
00:04:02
Speaker
And so what we usually say is that's the first thing that people outsource is the admin piece. It's also the easiest thing to outsource. It's also in a lot of ways, the most low risk, right? Because if somebody's managing your inbox, okay, they make a mistake because we're all human and we all make mistakes, right? So what happens? We sent the email to the wrong person or we sent the wrong email or the subject line was a little off or the link wasn't clicked, right? It's such a low risk, low lift and generally inexpensive way to start to open up the door.
00:04:30
Speaker
I get it. Our businesses feel like our babies sometimes, right? We spend so much of our conscious and unconscious hours thinking about this business. And then for some people, it's really hard to trust a human, let alone somebody virtually who you might not even know is real, right? And to let them into your business. And so I think the administrative piece is really what gets easy there or is the easiest place to dip your toes into the
Delegating to VAs and Trust Building
00:04:56
Speaker
waters.
00:04:56
Speaker
And the goal would be, at least for me, it was freeing up time for me to do the things I was better at because I am not a good administrative assistant. I am not good at managing systems. I am good at creative, but I'm not good at social. These are the things that I'm not in business to do.
00:05:14
Speaker
And these are actually the things that, you know, we've had a whole wellness series, but like, that drain my energy. So it's not that you can't do it, right? It's that that's probably not the best use of your time. And there may be someone out there who loves doing it, they love organization, they, you know, and so it's like, sometimes I get stuck thinking, if I don't want to do this, nobody wants to do this.
00:05:39
Speaker
When really, that's just not the case because I do plenty of things that other people don't want to do, and I'm fine with it. Truly, truly, truly. Can I ask you a quick question, Nicole? Yes. What year did you hire Mallory? Oh, goodness. Was it six years ago? 2017. It was the very end of the year. Yeah, six or seven? 2017.
00:06:00
Speaker
Yeah, because I love that you said, why have I not heard of this? So I started my business in 2017 as well. And at that time, like the joke that I always say is I said to my friends and family, I'm starting a virtual assistant business and they all went a Harawara, like say it again into my good ear. I didn't hear you.
00:06:19
Speaker
Now, when I speak about it publicly, out and about, you know, whatever, everybody knows what it is. And so in 2017, it was like this sleeper thing that people really totally didn't get. And I think nowadays, every business owner knows whether they're online or not, like we even see it infiltrating into, you know, the brick and mortar more traditional space. So like, just wanted to validate that I think what is this thing?
00:06:42
Speaker
Thank you. Thank you. Because nobody knew. Right? Why was I missing it? Because as you're talking about it, like, I need it. And when can you start? Like, that's our conversation. I love that too, because that was my experience as well. People were so confused. Like, I had a family member. So are you going to like answer phones? It was like, no, no, I'm not going to be answering phones.
00:07:06
Speaker
So, I had that same experience when I first went out on my own. You're like, no, because Nicole doesn't allow phone calls. Right. That's true. No. Okay. But let's go back to what you said about how these are our babies, our business babies. And how do you think we can encourage people? Let's say they're buying in and they've been thinking about it, or they think the idea is great, like Nicole.
00:07:29
Speaker
How do you think we tell them that they can get past this idea of giving some responsibility to someone else when it comes to their brand and reputation? It doesn't have to be all or nothing. I think so often we think, and that's just how human brains work. That's just what our brains do. If you can baby step your way in and slowly build trust with somebody, especially if you're that type of person, it's going to work out so much better for you. You're going to feel more confident and the person on the other side, the virtual assistant supporting you is going to feel more confident as well.
00:07:57
Speaker
Yes. And I think, Mallory, did you find that with other clients too? Did you face a little bit of, not pushback, but just reluctance or concern from people about giving up tasks that they had been doing? Was that a conversation that you had a lot? I think there was that.
00:08:17
Speaker
But what tended to happen is once we were in and we got some of these admin things and they saw how responsive I was and how reliable and how they could give me something and they just knew it was taken care of, that it actually was super easy to give me more responsibility. So that happened. I think more often than not the conversation in the sales calls was like, well, what can I give you?
00:08:39
Speaker
And that probably segues into what our next question maybe then Sarah is like, what type of support, what do they need to do to prepare for a VA? How do they get ready to bring
Controversial VA Hiring Preparation
00:08:53
Speaker
someone on? Do they need to be thinking about those things or does that come later? Okay, this is a controversial answer. And I only say this because I think about this differently than a lot of other people do. So I'm going to give you my answer, but then I'm also going to tell you the answer that other people would give you and you pick what you want.
00:09:10
Speaker
In my experience, right? I started as a virtual assistant. Now I run a virtual assistant training company. So I've been on all the sides of the coins. There are two sides. I've been on both. When you are on the business owner side,
00:09:23
Speaker
99.99% of business owners don't have the time to prep, to have their SOPs perfect, to pause what they're doing, pause all their money-making activities that are keeping their business afloat, to prep, to properly onboard a virtual assistant. Let's just deal with reality and not a dream here, okay? Let's be real. You should not need to prep a ton to bring on a virtual assistant if you are being smart about it and if you are making a good hire.
00:09:53
Speaker
In my experience, we can, and I hate this term, but I don't have a better one, so we're gonna go with it. I teach the kill two birds with one stone approach. We don't have to kill any birds actually, but just- Yep, just theoretical birds. When you are yourself doing a task to get it done that you have not off boarded yet, loom yourself doing that task.
00:10:12
Speaker
verbalize out loud what it is that you are doing. Now you have a video SOP and you didn't actually have to take any more time to do that. You now have a living breathing video that a virtual assistant can watch 52 times if they need to in order to truly pick up all of the parts of it that you put together. And then if you decide that you want to have written SOPs in the future for any reason, they can now do that work for you.
00:10:36
Speaker
So I'm a really big fan of that process because that's always been how I function. I'm also a person with ADHD and a lot of the
00:10:45
Speaker
modern business teachings don't work for people with brains like mine. Like it's just not, again, like let's just be real. So I really love that approach. Now, if you are somebody who is more organized, you're not neurodivergent, you have more time, you really love prepping things, yeah, go to town, make those SOPs. I love that. I certainly think it's going to make your team member have an easier time onboarding. But I never want to tell somebody that they need to do all of this work in advance to get support because that doesn't make sense to me. It doesn't make sense to my brain. Gotcha.
Long-term VA Management and Relationship Building
00:11:15
Speaker
Mallory, I'm curious as she says that, do you remember anything that I did or didn't do that made it easier or harder for you to come on board? You know what? I think you were the latter because you had... This is not going to be a surprise to anyone who's listening to the podcast for a while. You had an entire deck for me. Okay, that feels right.
00:11:39
Speaker
Yeah. Look at you, Nicole. Here's the easy way. And I'm like, that doesn't sound familiar. No, but you know what that does sound like. It's literally what I do even to this day for you in this business. Oh, 1000%. Oh, no, she sends me videos about to do things. And I'm like, great, this is all I need.
00:11:59
Speaker
I mean, like, if I'm going to be out of town and she needs to load a podcast video, she gets a loom. I'm just like, please explain. Yes. OK, that is that is a great call out those two different paths.
00:12:10
Speaker
I'll add something really quickly, too. For the person listening, the nicoles of the world are amazing and incredible. That is amazing. And also, I think you're probably in the minority of business owners, which there's nothing wrong with. Listen, people would like to be on your team. Let's be real. What makes it easier, if you are the fly by the seat of your pants, I'm making you loom videos, I think what makes the transition so much easier is mutual trust, which is built over time, and also just an understanding that there's two human beings on either end.
00:12:40
Speaker
right? And the person that you've hired, the virtual assistant is going to make mistakes, not because they're bad, but because they're a human and they're learning new things, right? Like, let's all think about how many mistakes we made in the beginning of our businesses, right? Let's not think about it. And let's never think about it again. We're gonna move on from this topic, right? But like, if you go in with a very realistic expectation, going
00:13:02
Speaker
I'm going to do my best to help this person get up and running. And also, they're going to make mistakes. And actually, we're going to be a stronger team because we're going to talk about the mistakes, right? And we're going to create a two-way conversation. I think that's when you really get a lot of trust, and you get a team member that is going to be with you for the long term, which really, at the end of the day, that's what we're all looking for, right? So when you think about this, for me, at least, when I was making that deck, which is slowly coming back to my brainstem,
00:13:27
Speaker
I think I also used it. I want to see it. I think the whole process of making it is what helped me figure out what I wanted to delegate. So that I think was a piece of it. It wasn't just like,
00:13:44
Speaker
To me, if I were to make a video of one thing, then I'd be like, but what about these other seven things that I do? I needed to sit down and think about everything I did and then restructure it and be like, what do I feel comfortable giving away? What are some things that maybe I'm good at but are probably not the right use of time? I needed it to visually organize.
00:14:06
Speaker
all the things. I think so it may even be that people go more that direction if they don't have a really clear sense up front what tasks they want to hand off. And it may be that other people are like, it's three, three things like manage my inbox period. And I'm going to make you a live video about it, versus people who are like, I need to just really think through what all I might be able to give to someone.
00:14:31
Speaker
And I like what you said at the end, which is like that level of trust that builds over time. I feel like I had that immediately with Mallory, not because we had hung out a lot. Like we went on one trip together and then she called me one time, but like she had, she has a vibe, you know, you just know she's great when you meet her. So I had that inherently already.
00:14:52
Speaker
But I also am really big on like, I want people to stay for a long time. And so I'm willing to put in some extra effort upfront to be super methodical about explaining things or making sure that they feel confident about what they're doing. Because hopefully I'm only going to have to do that once in seven years. And if that's the case, well worth it.
00:15:14
Speaker
But I think it depends a bit on what kind of tasks you end up wanting someone's help with. So like you said, three buckets of admin, creative, social, and tech or systems, some of those may lend themselves more to a deep dive overview of your business versus this is a really specific task. I can just knock this out in one video, no problem.
00:15:36
Speaker
So that's that's how I remember it too. But yeah, yeah, there's some folks who like prep like that in advance, right? They're like, let me a brain dump. It's really great way to do that, right? Like throw throw a 15 minute Pomodoro timer on if you if you if you so choose and like, just think of all the things that happen in your business. Another really easy way to do that is to like look at your tech stack. And that'll kind of like
00:15:57
Speaker
you know, get your brain going. Another way to do that, if like that doesn't work for somebody's brain, or they're just their style, like following yourself for a week, right? And just like writing down on your tasks. If you already have a task management platform, like what are all the things that you checked off done last week? Great. How many of those things can we outsource? Another really easy way to do that. And then the last one is exactly what you said, which is like, start with one thing.
00:16:19
Speaker
Manage my inbox period. And then what usually happens is you hire somebody. They're very competent and capable. Mallory is a perfect example of that. And you're like, you know what?
00:16:34
Speaker
I really like you. How do you feel about taking on this other thing, right? That is usually what we see happening. If somebody hires a VA for a small number of hours, the likelihood is that's going to grow over time. Right. And I think that's also on the VA to be able to go to the business owner and say, here are other things that I can be doing because that's what we want.
Enhancing VA Value
00:16:55
Speaker
That doesn't feel salesy to me. If Mallory comes to me and she's like, here's this other thing I can be doing for you because it seems like you hate it.
00:17:03
Speaker
and I'm really good at it, then I'm like, oh, I didn't even think about that. I didn't even think about giving it to you. So yes, please do that. That's what people want. So if there are people listening who want to become a VA or already are, please do that when you have a client because you also see things differently than we do. And you may be like, this could be way more efficient. You don't need to be doing this.
00:17:29
Speaker
And honestly, as a VA, it's easier to upsell your current person for more hours or a higher retainer than to find a new person. Truly. I say this to people all the time, right? Like if we have someone in our community who's lost a client and they're like, I'm trying to fill 20 hours. I'm like, cool, go to your clients and see if they need more time. I promise you they need more of you. If they like you, they would... But again, we're not thinking. We're busy.
00:17:55
Speaker
We're running around, we're running our businesses. It is not in our brain every day to go, oh, I wonder what Mallory, what else could Mallory take on? Right? But if Mallory's like, hi, girl, I noticed this thing, like, do you need this? You're like, oh my God, please take it yesterday. I love you. Yes. Yes. I never want to do it again. I never see it.
00:18:13
Speaker
Let's talk about this topic we've inadvertently gone into. It's obviously an investment in time and money to get someone on board. Once you have them in place, if they're good,
00:18:26
Speaker
What do you do to keep them, Sarah?
Retaining Good VAs
00:18:30
Speaker
What do you tell people to do to keep them? Because Nicole is exceptional at showing love to her team. I could give examples. She goes above and beyond. But I want to know from you, how do you keep your support people happy and in place?
00:18:45
Speaker
Beautiful. This is the topic. This is like the hill I will die on is like when people, when business owners come to me and they're like, I've hired a VA and they're all awful. I'm like, okay, how many? And they're like five. I'm like, oh, you're the wrong. Yeah, it's me. I'm the problem. Right. A lot of us come with our own corporate baggage, right? Like we come from corporate America, Canada, wherever we live.
00:19:09
Speaker
And we only know how to do one of two things, treat people like they're employees, right? Or treat people like we have been treated as employees.
00:19:20
Speaker
And the reason that we leave is why? Because most of us were treated very poorly, but we just don't know. And when we're not intentional, and this applies to business and hiring and parenting and everything, when we're not intentional about our actions, we are only going to act the way that we have been treated. That's how human beings learn. We learn by watching how other people do things and then either consciously changing it or we just do the same thing.
00:19:46
Speaker
And so I find that sometimes people don't know how to keep team members because they just don't know how to treat them well. And they think they have this idea like, oh, nothing like gives me the ick more than this. Like my assistant will XYZ123. I'm like that person is an integral. I don't exist in business or life without my team. Like truly, truly, truly. I am not some all-knowing, incredible genius. I'm really good at a couple things and trash at a lot of other things in my business. And I
00:20:13
Speaker
don't function without my people, right? And if you treat your team well and see them and respect them, they're gonna wanna stay with you for the long term. Let's talk about specifically how to do that. Number one, and I love that you said this before, you tell Mallory all the time how much you love her, find out your client's love languages, truly. There are people on my team who gifts are their love language, so I gift the crap out of them. There are two people on my team specifically that words of affirmation are their,
00:20:42
Speaker
So I am so intentional that every time, every time they do something for me, I say thank you so much. Like, this is incredible. You're a genius. I appreciate that you took the time to think about this. Like, these are the small little things that also, over time, create big impacts, okay?
00:20:59
Speaker
Pay them well. Pay them well. Pay them better than your competitors are paying them, and I promise you they will stay. Period. End of story. And care and truly give a crap about them. I say this to our VA's all the time. How do they keep their clients for the long term? Do a great job and care about your clients. If your client's kid is in the hospital, don't pretend like that's not happening. If they're sick, ask them how they are.
00:21:23
Speaker
We want to treat our clients and we want to treat our team the way that we wish that we were treated. And just caring about the person on the other end of this transaction does it. And then you keep people long term. I've had my whole... I think the person who's been on my team the least amount of time came on board in 2021. Well, and that builds the trust. I think it's...
00:21:47
Speaker
On the business owner side, on the hiring side, it also helps to like, I mean, this sounds transactional, but like bank some goodwill because there are going to be weeks where I am a nightmare.
Positive Work Environment and Team Care
00:22:01
Speaker
Not to Mallory personally, hopefully, but just in general, like Nicole is not herself. And because I have known her for many, many moons, I'll just roll with it. You know, I'm a roll with it.
00:22:17
Speaker
And I can be like, dude, I'm a nightmare right now.
00:22:21
Speaker
And it's not like, it's not the, this draw that broke the camel's back because we've already built up that like, I care about her. And if I am not my best self, she knows probably I got stuff going on, you know? And, and that's just, yeah, it's not, it's not personal. And you know, so that, those are the kind of like long-term relationships that go both ways. Like if Mallory needs to go do something, like go do it. Like I'm not,
00:22:48
Speaker
I'm not checking on you to see if you're working. I don't care when you're working. I've never cared. I have to say though, I'm going to give Nicole some props. Really, I think this whole thing is talking about human first. We're talking humans first. I just wrote a newsletter about this for a week ago or two weeks ago.
00:23:09
Speaker
And that's how we should be running your companies. Regardless of keeping people, just to feel good at the end of the day, feel integrity for yourself, right? You should treat your clients that way, you should treat everyone that way. So human first. A couple of things Nicole has done too is, I mean, this goes
00:23:26
Speaker
I think exceeds. I don't know that people do this, but she had the other gal, Abby, and I out for a retreat a couple different times. We've met in Montana. We're in a colas, and we would have these working, fun retreats. And she would treat us like we would do fun things. She treats us at dinner and whatnot. That's glorious in itself. But she realized one of these times that both Abby and I had young kids, and we were just like,
00:23:53
Speaker
We didn't have time for ourselves. And so she implemented this program called the Be Well Bucks. And she gave us a set amount of money every month that we had to spend on ourselves. Do people do this? Smart people like Nicole do. Yeah. This is like above and beyond.
00:24:14
Speaker
I mean, she still does it. And it's like the biggest gift. So even during COVID where we couldn't go get massages or get facials or get pedicures, which is what the idea is like to go. We were buying things, we were buying essential oils or new, I don't know, I don't even remember, weights. I think I bought weights one month. Who did sweatshirts that were heated for Mallory in Canada?
00:24:37
Speaker
No, because no, I was in Phoenix. Oh, yeah. No, you were still in Phoenix. Air-conditioned sweatshirts. Yeah. Yeah. So that was one. I mean, if you want to go even like that's an exceptional thing. But I just have I think I have an entire folder of note cards.
00:24:56
Speaker
You know how you're supposed to save things when you're down so you can read them? I think I have an entire folder of just cards from you that you've sent in the mail and handwritten and just taking the time to send it in the mail. These are small. The other one's an investment, but that's easy. It costs you a stamp. Do you remember during COVID when I would make you
00:25:20
Speaker
I would make her hand-drawn watercolor pencil postcards that were themed for her business. I had a lot of time. I had a lot of time. Direct Mail died right then, so I had a minute. But those are pretty good. I got back to my artistic roots.
00:25:41
Speaker
I still have them. They're in the folder. So that's easy. These are just things to just show appreciation. So I do think there's ways to be creative to keep your people happy. I'm obsessed with this topic and I just want to take two more seconds to dive into it because what you're doing, Nicole, is genius and it's adding
00:26:01
Speaker
corporate type of incentives and not even that it right like you're not even going there and I'm using the term incentive because I don't have another one right but you're not like how do I incentivize Mallory you're like how do I treat her well because at the end of the day she deserves to be treated well and also like people who are treated well do do great at their job right like it doesn't have to be transactional but like if we need to tie it back to a result sure we can do it you as an individual small business owner correct me if I'm wrong but Mallory you're not an employee of Nicole's
00:26:31
Speaker
Is that correct? You contract with each other, right? But you are adding employment-style benefits to your contractual agreement. And I think, oh, I'm so happy we're talking about this. It's genius. So something that I did, we had a team member who got sick. She needed to go out on leave for like a month. And I was like, cool, I'm going to keep paying your retainer. And she was like, why would you do that?
00:26:53
Speaker
because you deserve to be paid. Period. And I have the money, right? I am lucky enough to run a business that's super profitable and I want to do that.
Psychological Safety and Trust
00:27:01
Speaker
I have somebody that comes to my house a couple days a week. Sometimes she's sick. I pay her on the days that she's sick, right? It's treating people well and then it's a no-brainer, right? And it's unfortunately so uncommon for people to do this that it stands out so deeply.
00:27:19
Speaker
because people don't do this, but this is it. Oh, be well box. Okay, be well box. But I have another thing just as you're talking, I'm just going to take even more two seconds on this topic because we are both obsessed with it. We're all obsessed with it. Psychological safety. Okay, here is what it's doing you guys.
00:27:35
Speaker
by Nicole investing in this and treating me like, you know, we hear about like customer happiness. Well, you want team member happiness, right? But when Nicole does these things and provides this trust and this human first experience, she's providing me with psychological safety, meaning I am actually going to make less mistakes and do better work because I'm not afraid of how she'll react if I make a mistake.
00:28:03
Speaker
It's the exact opposite of what you think. If you're harping and you're micromanaging and you're making that person feel nervous, oh my God, if I make a mistake, she's going to be so mad or she'll fire me or she'll reduce my hours, you are actually making them less secure and they will make more mistakes. You have to do the opposite.
00:28:20
Speaker
And I have learned this way of managing a contractual team from Nicole and then built my agency and took some of these practices. And so then by doing this, she's teaching me how to do it and I'm teaching them how to do it. And it's this beautiful ripple effect of just treating people as humans, right? So that sometimes you can treat everyone like nightmares and they still love you.
00:28:44
Speaker
Yes, I have. It's good for everybody. I don't have the stats, but Brene Brown does. She does some corporate consulting. And obviously, her body of work is on shame and vulnerability. And these aren't her exact words, so don't quote me on any of this. But essentially, creating psychological safety, because at the end of the day, it actually does make people more
00:29:07
Speaker
productive and make less mistakes. And so she's like, what we were saying before, like, it doesn't really actually have to tie back to a result, but whatever, if that's what it takes to sell it to corporate, like, and we're making the workplace a better place, like, that's great. But like, there are stats that back up everything that you guys are saying here. I don't have them, but they exist.
00:29:26
Speaker
Yeah, I believe it. I would say in the corporate world, there were people who did model this to me and there were many who did not, but there were definitely one boss in particular that I had near the end. I knew that he, whether I was in the room or not, he had my best interest at heart and I was so positive about that that I
00:29:49
Speaker
A, would do anything he wanted me to do. Give me that project over the weekend, that's fine. He doesn't expect me to do it, but I'm like, I'm happy to. You're my person. I love being needed.
00:30:04
Speaker
It's great, you know, and I would do better work because I liked who I was working for. I felt like he liked my work. That's the thing too, because Mallory, that's exactly right. Like I also write copy and it's like I cannot write copy to save my life.
00:30:21
Speaker
on a project where i'm like they're not gonna like it like whatever it is whatever words i use they're gonna change it versus clients where you're like whatever it is they're gonna love it they're gonna be like this is better than i would have written and then i'm like and then i do better stuff you know so it is very yeah that it's fun so it is very related to
00:30:44
Speaker
I think the results piece, but it's a byproduct of the trust. And I mean, Mallory, I know you've had clients like this too, where you just, you dread, you dread the interactions, you dread the calls. Like when an email comes in, you're like, you're like, I'm scared. I'm scared. What is it going to be? Are they going to be bad? Is it going to be a problem? Yeah. And then you do. No more. No more. I do not have them. That's right. Well, and that's another thing I'll say too. That's what we're talking about. Yeah. That was always a rule for me.
00:31:13
Speaker
personally was that if there are clients who don't treat my team well, we're not going to have them. There have been a few times where they would send me messages or whatever with how this person had treated them and I was like, we're not going to have that. I want to choose the team over the client all the time because that is safety also. I don't want you guys bending over backwards
00:31:42
Speaker
to a client that doesn't treat you well because you're afraid that you're going to lose them for me. Like that, we can't have that.
Resources for Entrepreneurs
00:32:00
Speaker
Or learn how to implement the insights from this show in your existing business with our complimentary guide, Five Ways to Make Business Feel Better. Packed with practical tools and solutions, these resources draw from our collective 15 plus years of entrepreneurship and work with more than 100 clients. Visit unboundboss.com to grab your freebies. It's time to make work work for life.
00:32:29
Speaker
Do either of you listen to Glenn and Doyle's podcast? I have, yep. Do you remember the podcast episode? I think the episode was called The Podcast That Wasn't. They never revealed who it was, but somebody came on. They have their team do a tech check before they start live recording. And whoever it was was so wildly rude to their team.
00:32:55
Speaker
And the team was texting them live. If I'm remembering the story correctly, the team was texting and doing the thing that we do as women where we're like, is it me? Am I reading this incorrectly? And then they came in and figured it out. And they, Glennon and Glennon's team went straight to them and said, no, we're not doing this. You don't get to come on our show and use our platform and treat our people like trash. And I think that that is freaking integrity and accountability at its finest.
00:33:25
Speaker
Yep, I agree. I just love that. I love that. I think that's it. I'm so glad that Mallory brought up the safety piece because I have always felt that way in working as well. And I think it's, I wanted to ask you, but I think it's one reason that I almost always work with friends. Like I only hire
00:33:44
Speaker
people that I know and I only usually work with clients that I already know or someone I know knows them. And some people are very the opposite. They don't want to work with friends, they want a hard line there and that's fine. I am fully the other way. And I wonder if you find that with VAs, some people
00:34:03
Speaker
fall on that side of the line where they're like, I really just want to hire someone I know, like maybe I could train someone I know to do this for me, even if that person doesn't come to me and they're like, I'm a VA. Like, you know, I think if Mallory hadn't had the idea, but I'd known Mallory's skill set by then I could have been like,
00:34:21
Speaker
Valerie, I think you could be my VA and here's what that means to me. But do you find that people more so want someone that they know or that's like in the sphere of someone they know, they want referrals of someone good? Or like how do you how do you match the people, right? So like you have this like matching background. So how do you how do you find the right matches?
00:34:45
Speaker
We should ask the right questions. At this point, we know what's the information that we need to know in order to send that out to our VAs for them to see if this is going to be a potential good match for them or not. I always joke that there's always people that fool you, right? You think you have, especially when we're talking about boundaries and kindness and human first and all of these conversations, right?
00:35:08
Speaker
We think that we have our onboarding processes and our discovery call processes so tight and then somebody fools you and they get on board and you're like, Holy crap, I didn't see any of those red flags. But yeah, we just kind of know the right questions to ask in a very quick and succinct way, you know, to try to get all the information that we need so that we can make hopefully a good match.
00:35:25
Speaker
give me like a Mallory has has used your service before, but give listeners like a quick overview of how how that work. How is that set up? Are you someone that business owners go to to find someone? Are you someone that VA is go to to find client or both? You match make both ways.
00:35:44
Speaker
I match with both, but primarily for your audience, we would be having a conversation for business owners because from the VA side of things, it comes from our base, right? Like our students and our members. So there's no way to opt in if you're not kind of already in our sphere.
00:35:58
Speaker
or want to become in our sphere. On the business owner side of things, it's simple. You can go to, you know, what's so funny is we just got a new website and I don't even know what the domain is. I got it now. It's startngroko.com slash matchmaking. And we have a really great in-depth form on there that's going to ask all the questions that we need in order to be able to make you a really great match.
00:36:20
Speaker
However, that form is going to take you no more than five minutes to fill out. Yes, it's in depth. Yes, it's specific, but we make it as simple as possible. There's drop downs. We don't need to take 20 minutes of your time. And that's it. You submit it. It's free. And that's it. And then the magical fairies in the back end do their fairy work. And that's what happens. And so do the business owners on this side, do you get to set your own budget?
Budgeting for VAs
00:36:44
Speaker
How do you go about budget? What do people even pay VA's? What is fair?
00:36:50
Speaker
What do we need to be doing? What should we plan for?
00:36:53
Speaker
It's a little hard because we exist in an industry that's unregulated, right? Like the coaching industry, the business industry, like this is unregulated, right? And so there are no hard and fast rules here. However, I can tell you what I see on my end. I can also tell you that for quality support, you're gonna pay a higher rate. That's just what it is. We have people all the time that are like, but I can hire a VA for $5 in the Philippines. And I'm like, that is awesome. And I'm sure that those people are incredible. And also, it's generally a different
00:37:21
Speaker
skill set, you're going to pay a different price to get a native English speaker. They're apples and oranges. We're not comparing apples and apples, right? In general, when we see entry-level VAs, right? So that's somebody who's coming into the space. They're brand new. They are greener than a Christmas tree. And they have transferable skills because we all have transferable skills, but they're not as tech savvy, right? So they're probably going to lean more towards the very basic admin side of work.
00:37:47
Speaker
We're going to see those folks in the very low end. We're going to see them in $25 to $30 an hour. And then we're going to see them through about $35-ish an hour. Then we've got folks who are coming in and we're going to call them a mid-level, or yeah, like a mid-level VA. They are coming in
00:38:03
Speaker
either with more skill sets. Maybe they were an admin assistant in their job. Maybe they were in marketing in their job. Maybe they have dealt with social media in a deeper way before. They're coming in with more transferable skills and potentially more tech knowledge, or they've been in it for a minute. They've been in this industry for a hot minute and they've figured a lot of this out. We're going to see those folks 35 to 45-ish dollars an hour.
00:38:27
Speaker
we've got our high-end days they've been here for a minute they have more advanced skill set they have more confidence they work with more clients which people don't realize that this is such a benefit if you're gonna pay more for it but i have a virtual assistant mallory is working on your business in my business and three other people's businesses guess what.
00:38:44
Speaker
she has vantage points into what works and what doesn't work and can bring ideas to the table for your business and you can't put a price tag on like she's gonna do it for her hourly rate or however she structures her business but there's a huge benefit to that my co brings to my team all the time stuff that she's done for other teams that have been that have worked.
00:39:04
Speaker
And I pay her an hourly rate for that. And anyway, so you're going to see those folks at, you know, 45 and up. And especially with inflation, we're seeing VA's, you know, 60 and up before they're specializing. Then, of course, there's a conversation about a specialized VA, right? You might get a tech VA, somebody who specializes in that. And then those rates all over the board. And then we have online business managers and all the things. But that's
00:39:26
Speaker
Generally. Mallory, do you have any updates, changes, things that you've seen different since you're it? I wanted to see what you were going to say. And in my head, I had numbers and you hit. They were exactly where it hit. But I was wondering because I had since transitioned to online business management. And now I think the new phase actually might be virtual COO. And so I was curious if those rates would have gotten higher since I was a VA because of the cost of living. It's just so much higher. And so
00:39:55
Speaker
You hit the nails, but I think even maybe like cutting $5 off the end and maybe going higher might be what we're seeing more often.
00:40:03
Speaker
And so I want to ask you, you mentioned hourly rates and people have, they have opinions on time tracking versus not. They have opinions. I have some opinions. I have opinions for Mallory that probably aren't Mallory's opinions. And that's okay. See, psychological safety. So she loves me anyway. And so for me, like for anyone on my team, like I don't have anyone tracking time.
00:40:31
Speaker
It just doesn't happen. I don't like the way it feels to me because I don't track time. So for me, I don't allow them to track time. I just can't have it. So for me as a business owner, you can go
00:40:49
Speaker
a retainer style monthly payment that's consistent. And that also helps you on the budgeting side not to be fearful of like, well, what if I gave her 20 hours of work and suddenly I'm paying for 40 hours of work next month. And that's a fear.
00:41:06
Speaker
But I think it depends because some people really love hourly. That's what they're used to. They could have worked in a job previously that had time tracking, and they don't attach all the fields to it that I do. And so that's fine. And I feel like in this industry, you may see more of the hourly type. Is that true? Or are you seeing that move in the direction of retainers?
00:41:33
Speaker
In the beginning, I'm always gonna teach somebody to do hourly and or hourly retainer, and I can talk about that. I have no problem, and first of all, it's your business, so you guys pick what you wanna do, but I think what you're doing makes a ton of sense, right? You trust Mallory, Mallory, you trust Nicole. Everybody has this, like, we treat each other with kindness and respect. If Mallory was ever in a situation where she was like, I feel like I'm doing more work than I'm being compensated for, we know that that would be an- And I will fire her. Right, immediately.
00:42:01
Speaker
We'll find someone else. No, just kidding. That would be an open cup, right? There's so much psychological safety there. In my heart of hearts, this is what I wish for every single VA that I ever get to support is for them to be on a team like yours or a team like mine. It's not as common. So I'm always going to teach to protect the tushy of my person. I also know that my people, my VAs, tend to be, not always, but they tend to be
00:42:30
Speaker
Any gram twos, not always. Sometimes ones, yeah, you're a two, of course. Am I a two, Mallory? Am I? I'm a two. Right? You're not a two. You're not. You're a four. You are not a two. I think you're a four. Ooh, that four is interesting. I thought, I can't remember what you are now. I feel like we were both twos. I've known you for two seconds and you're not a two.
00:42:52
Speaker
I'm also not a two, so I'm not judging you. Oh, maybe you're a six. Maybe you're a six. I'll look it up. I'll look it up. So they tend to be twos or ones or sixes, right? Like they tend to be these Enneagram types that like really want to over-deliver. They tend to be perfectionists. They tend to be people pleasers. And so they tend to give too much and not protect their boundaries.
00:43:12
Speaker
And so I teach to the boundary. I teach to, if I know this about you, if I know that you are likely this person, which like 99% of our students are, I'm going to teach you a pricing and business model that you can change over time, but is going to create the most financial safety and stability for you and the most energetic safety and stability for you in your business.
00:43:33
Speaker
Because again, we all come, usually, from really crappy corporate environments that didn't teach us how to prioritize ourselves at all. It taught us to self-sacrifice in order to gain success. So we gotta reset that. So that's why I don't teach that, but I'm also a person that I, even for my team members who do track their time, I don't care. I don't look. I pay the, I'm like, could you put me on auto pay? I don't care. I don't care what it is. I love you. And that's the end of the story.
00:43:59
Speaker
do what you need to do and I will pay you, but most unfortunately are not like that. I like that approach though and I'm glad you said that and I think I would have answered that the same way because especially in the beginning when you don't have the confidence or you don't know how long things tend to take, it would have been extremely difficult for me to be able to go to a retainer model.
00:44:19
Speaker
I would have had scope creep all over the place or I would have been feeling guilty that I was charging too much and barely doing anything. So I think that approach makes sense for the new people and for the audience since we're the entrepreneur side. I think that just starting, you know, maybe with that smaller set of skills and saying, okay, if you're hourly, I'm going to if you want to do the retainer model for budgeting.
00:44:41
Speaker
Just say, these are the five things that I want you to start with. These five tasks, only these five tasks, we think it's going to take you five hours and this is your rate, so this is now your retainer. And you could back into it that way and then even just as each month goes or every quarter, re-evaluate. Now, I'm going to add these in and go that way. It's like you have to grow and then eventually you can figure it out.
00:45:07
Speaker
from the VA side. Important update. I checked while you were talking. I am an Enneagram too. Thank you very much. But also a six and second place. So I got, I got vibes. I got vibes. You know, what can I tell you? The six makes sense when you tell me that you made a whole deck before Mallory came on board.
00:45:26
Speaker
But I think you were like, so they were super close, right? Also, did you do just an online test? I did a good one, though. I did a good one. It was given to me by my friend, Kier, who's very, very into it. But follow up question to what you were just talking about is, do you recommend that people do some kind of trial period? Is that something that you talk about for clients and BAs? Are we going on a first date before we decide if we're going steady on this?
00:45:56
Speaker
I think you can. I think if that feels like a safer thing to do, I think you can totally do that. For our folks, we generally recommend that there is a trial period inside of their agreement. So we're on a 30-day trial period, okay? And what that means is any time during this 30 days,
00:46:14
Speaker
me or you can go, you know what, we dated, we went on a couple dates, and then we realized like, we're not meant to date long term. And like, no harm, no foul. That's no problem. You chew with your mouth open and I can't even you eat with a fork like this. Have you ever seen? Why do you eat like a nightmare? Yeah.
00:46:29
Speaker
Anyway, and like it's just a no and that's no problem. Like beautiful. I love that. Go, you go find your next person and I'm going to find my next person and we can walk away after that 30 day period is up. Then we're on a 30 day cancellation. And the reason that we say that is for both sides, right? Like that protects you as a business owner. We would never want to walk away. I would never say somebody, yeah, just give them one day notice. Like that is, you can't leave a business owner high and dry like that. And on the other side of it, you can't leave a VA high and try like that. They need 30 days notice.
00:46:56
Speaker
So I do recommend that. Some folks will prefer to do before they get into that type of contractual agreement, even though there's a 30-day trial period.
00:47:05
Speaker
They would prefer to do like a test task or test series of tasks. I think that that is totally kosher. The thing that I have a problem with is when people think that that should be unpaid. I think that you should still be, oh, yes, it happens. Yes. That's not okay. That's just giving away for free. That's ridiculous. If you want to test somebody's abilities, I think that is totally, I get that totally, but they need to be paid the appropriate rate for them. The I roll, I am rolling.
00:47:35
Speaker
It's not okay, the size I am signing, I just... Okay, so people can use your matchmaking service if they don't know where to find VA, so that's a great place to start. But to wrap us up, what would you tell an entrepreneur who has not hired support yet, what piece of advice would you want to leave them with as we wrap up today's show?
00:48:02
Speaker
I would leave them with a piece of advice that if what I call having a life first business is a priority for you, meaning your business is a vehicle and a vessel to support your life and not the other way around, then you're going to need support at some point.
00:48:19
Speaker
And understanding that it is a process, that you're probably not going to get it 100% right out the gate. And if you can be as kind and caring to both yourself and the person that you hire as possible, you're going to end up with a much better result than expecting perfection. And or hoarding all the tasks because you're so freaking afraid to let anybody in.
00:48:38
Speaker
We've all been there. We've all been there. When you make a really great hire and listen, it's like a yoga teacher, right? Sometimes you go to a yoga studio and the way that they cue the pose, you're like, that makes no sense. And then you go to another studio and you're like, I got into crew for the first time because you said, pull your belly button in towards your spine. And that made that like a super niche example, right?
00:49:00
Speaker
Sometimes you don't click with the first person and that's okay. But just knowing that there's not a person who exists who has a work-life balance as a business owner who doesn't have a team and be kind and gentle with yourself. If people hear nothing else, I think it's you cannot have a work-life balance without support. Like that for me is
00:49:23
Speaker
the whole message of the episode because it's not about you need to spend a million dollars on team members and all that. It just means that whatever your support looks like, whether it's somebody paid for your business or you find friends that are entrepreneurs that you can talk with, whatever it looks like, you're not going to be able to do this without it because it's just too hard. It's just too hard.
00:49:48
Speaker
Okay, I love this conversation. I could do this forever, largely because, you know, it's worked out so well for me. And Mallory's just grown into like, just I can't even I can't even do anything that she does. Like, I don't even know how it happened before. How did it even get done? I don't know. It doesn't matter. But the point is, we've seen the light. And it definitely is something where it's worth every penny. And yeah, I just I
00:50:12
Speaker
I wouldn't be here without her. So thank you so much for helping make these kinds of matches for people. Sarah, it was just lovely to talk about you and hear your perspective and opinion and to get some of these red flag issues like don't work for free out there just so people hear that. Don't do that. Don't do that. That's a bad sign. So thank you for sharing your time and wisdom with us and we will talk to everyone next week.
00:50:40
Speaker
Thanks for listening. Visit UnboundBoss.com to download free resources, browse our courses, or leave us a voice memo for the podcast. And if you like the show, please subscribe, leave us an Apple review, and share your favorite episodes with other women entrepreneurs. Talk to you soon.