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Do I Need a Virtual Assistant?”– a conversation with Rachael Davila
1 Playsin 9 hours
Recruiting and managing a virtual assistant is more complex than you expect.
Michael Millward chats with Rachael Davila– founder of Extra Hands Virtual Assistants, VA mentor, and author of Do I Need a VA? – for a conversation that goes far deeper than the usual “hire a helper” advice. Drawing on more than 20 years in the virtual assistant industry, Rachael explains how small business owners can work out whether they truly need a VA, what kind of support will actually help them, and how to build a relationship that unlocks time, creativity, and strategic focus.
Across the episode, Rachael shares her accidental entry into the VA world, how she built a long‑running business, and why the biggest barrier for overwhelmed entrepreneurs isn’t delegation—it’s mindset. She breaks down the two core VA types (“doers” and “collaborators”), the internal identity shift required to hand off work, and the surprising ways a VA can become a sounding board, operational partner, and catalyst for growth.
Listeners will hear real examples of clients who transformed their businesses, learn why processes matter, and discover how to assess their own readiness – including the simple pre‑work that makes hiring support far less daunting.
If you’ve ever wondered whether a virtual assistant could help you reclaim time, reduce stress, or finally move those big ideas forward, this episode will make you think.
Discover more about Kate Hendrickson and Michael at Abeceder.co.uk
Audience Offers
Rachael mentions the book: The Hero's Journey: Joseph Campbell on His Life and Work, which is available from Amazon.
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Transcript
Introduction to Zencastr and Podcast Overview
00:00:05
Speaker
Made on Zencastr. Because Zencastr is the all-in-one podcasting platform that really does make making podcasts so easy. There is a link with all the details in the description.
00:00:18
Speaker
Hello and welcome to Rest and Recreation, the work-life balance podcast from Abysida, where we don't tell you what to think, but we are hoping to make you think.
00:00:30
Speaker
I am your host, Michael Millward.
Guest Introduction: Rachel Davila
00:00:33
Speaker
Today i am talking to Rachel Davila who is going to be explaining how to work out if I need a virtual assistant or not and if I do, how to work successfully with that virtual assistant because if you've got a busy life and you want to increase the amount of rest and recreation time that you have it might be worth thinking about having a virtual assistant.
00:00:58
Speaker
Rachel is based in Santee which is a town in California near to San Diego. I've never been, but if I do get the opportunity to go, I will use my membership of the Ultimate Travel Club to access trade prices on flights, hotels, trains, holidays, and all sorts of other travel-related purchases.
00:01:19
Speaker
You can also access those same trade prices on travel by becoming a member of the Ultimate Travel Club. And to make that easy, I have added a link to the description with a built-in discount on subscription fees.
00:01:33
Speaker
Now that I have paid some bills, it is time to make an episode of Rest and Recreation that will be well worth listening to, liking, downloading and subscribing to, and also well worth telling your friends, family and work colleagues about as well.
Rachel's Journey into Virtual Assistance
00:01:48
Speaker
But now it's time to say hello, Rachel. Hi, Michael. Thanks for having me. I'm really looking forward to this and I'm sure there are lots of other people who are thinking, wow, I'm so busy. Maybe I could do with a virtual assistant. so we need to find out or the the best way to go about it. But could we start, please, by you giving me a little bit of a background as to your career and how you got involved in the virtual assistance world?
00:02:14
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To be honest, I found it on accident. A happy accident, it seems, though. It was a magical accident. I was being let go from my corporate job and I wanted to find something that would allow me flexibility to be home with my young family. But that was also something that could utilize the skills that I'd acquired over 10 years of working.
00:02:42
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I was looking up the name for my professional organizing business and I came across a virtual assistant and I read through their entire website and had an hour long conversation with her. And she told me all about it because I'd never heard of virtual assistants.
00:03:02
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It was literally exactly what I was looking to do. i signed up for the virtual training program and I've never looked back.
00:03:14
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I put the shingle out on the door June of 2005 when no one knew what a virtual assistant was and proceeded to educate every client that I ever had what a VA was and what we could do for them since then. You've been going more than 20 years then. Yes. Congratulations.
00:03:35
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Thank you you. must be doing something right. Feels like it. What is it about your business then that has kept it going for over 20 years? What does your business do?
00:03:45
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I provide administrative and operational support for small business owners. When I first started, i had a very specific niche. I worked for promotional products, traveling sales reps, because that's what my dad did. And I worked with him and a number of people from his team and circle.
Pivoting and Growing the VA Business
00:04:10
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and because I was virtual, I could work with reps all over the country.
00:04:16
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About eight years in, the industry kind of imploded and most of my clients retired. And so I had to pivot and figure out how do I market this? How do i continue doing this business? And do the skills that I used for this niche clientele, does it translate into other industries?
00:04:41
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It did. And I primarily work with coaches and consultants now to manage their backstage client journeys, the scheduling and follow ups, a lot of the same tasks and skills that I had already been doing just in a different way and for different types of clients.
00:05:05
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About four years ago, I got so successful that I realized I couldn't do it on my own. And I hired my own virtual assistant to help me with my business side of things.
00:05:20
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And I realized how different virtual assistants show up. with clients. I thought I was getting a me for me and I got a high school senior who liked to do graphic design work and didn't really think about working for me as a business to business relationship. So I stepped into VA a mentorship supporting my VA to create and build a business. But I also learned how scary it is from the client side of the VA client relationship and why so many came to me in trepidation because they had hired support before and it wasn't, it didn't go well. They weren't sure why and even if virtual assistants were sustainable for their business. I can imagine that if you are a small business person and you are taking on a virtual assistant, that person, that virtual assistant is likely to be your first ever, what might be termed an employee, although it's business to business relationship rather than an employer to employee relationship.
00:06:37
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It is a huge commitment to go from being the sole operator to then having someone else who is involved in
Understanding Virtual Assistants' Roles and Types
00:06:47
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your business. It's a huge leap forward.
00:06:50
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That is absolutely true. And i had never set out to be a leader or a manager. In fact, I worked really hard not to be one. When I hired my VA, I realized I was stepping into leadership and manage and and I had to learn my managing style and what that looked like.
00:07:14
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For the first few months of working together, i was the bottleneck of the relationship because I would hoard tasks. i would ah i would go behind my VA and tweak little things, basically just keep doing what I was already doing, even though they were there to help me. yeah i was the problem.
00:07:36
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I see you mean. What is the name of your business? My business is Extra Hands Virtual Assistants. Now I offer support to small business owners and overwhelmed entrepreneurs and people to figure out what working with a virtual assistant or support looks like.
00:07:57
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what their delegation style is, what they want to hand off and do all the pre-work that I didn't do so that they can find the right fit for what they need going forward. So you're helping the client to understand whether they need or just want a virtual assistant and also mentoring virtual assistants to be better at providing that service. so You're supporting both sides of that transaction and introducing virtual assistants to their clients as well. Yes. After I work with the client to figure out what they're looking for, i have a referral program where I can then share with the client referrals for people who can do the tasks that they're looking for and who I feel the personalities would mesh with and then I connect them.
00:08:57
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Are there different types of VAs in terms of the way in which they work or does everyone do exactly the same thing in the same way? That is probably the thing that I stress the most is on paper So many of us do the same kinds of tasks. We can work in the same programs, but the vibe of the person, the qualities in the person is something that I encourage clients to look at.
00:09:29
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because we're not all the same. We all show up differently into the
Strategic Hiring and Working with VAs
00:09:35
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relationship. Within the industry, there are two types of VAs, and these are my terms.
00:09:42
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People call them other names, but I call them doers and collaborators. A doer is someone who is task oriented.
00:09:53
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They tend to be more transactional. Tell me what to do and I'll do it. right Collaborators are more solution-oriented and relational. So they wanna know what is your vision? What are your goals? How do these tasks fit into the big picture?
00:10:14
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and you'll hear them say, here's what we can do. Here's how I can help. What I've found when clients come to me, a lot of times they've started off with a doer and they needed a collaborator.
00:10:30
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of course then when you're recruiting a doer, that's almost a little bit easier than a collaborator because I'm going, it's command and control. So task and finish.
00:10:41
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I want you to do this. You do it by the time I say, in the way that I say, we're happy. A collaborator I suspect is someone like you say, who's what's your vision? How do we need to get there?
00:10:52
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How do I come collaborate and contribute? That's someone that is a person who is essentially getting your first per other person into your organization. That's a much more difficult hiring decision to make. I do. I think because so many so many people start thinking about hiring support because they're overwhelmed. They have so much on their plate that they just want somebody to do the tasks. They don't think about, do I have this clearly outlined? Do I have a clear process and procedure that someone could step in and follow my steps and do it the way that I would want them to do it? many people, especially if they're just starting out or they're doing it all, they have those processes and procedures, but it's all in their head. They don't have it documented. They don't have it outlined.
00:11:52
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And they may or may not know how to clearly explain it to someone else. Yes. So when they do hire a doer to do the work and they don't have any of that in place, then the doer is left basically waiting for the client to say,
00:12:11
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do this task like this so it looks like that. If the client isn't clear enough on that to be able to clearly communicate it, then the doer can't do the work. If they don't have those things in place, they need a collaborator more because they ask more questions. They pull the information out of the client and they build out those systems, they put those processes into the place, documentation, into a system that a doer could then step into and take over.
00:12:47
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You see, that's not what I was expecting. i was expecting that you'd say, oh yeah, well, you have to do a first and then you can develop into having a collaborator. But what you've just said makes a huge amount of sense.
00:13:00
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because there are an awful lot of self-employed people entrepreneurs people running small businesses and the vast majority of how that business operates is in the head of the person who runs that business who owns that business and so getting all of that information down into a format that other people can do things with is a major major task it sounds almost as if It's not just a practical thing that be the hirer of the virtual assistant needs to go through. There is a whole mind shift that they have to make as well. Yes, I liken it to Joseph Campbell's hero's journey.
00:13:43
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There's a an external journey we go on when we hire support. What are the tasks? What's my handoff list? What's my budget? Those kinds of things that you can see and are easier to answer.
00:13:57
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But there's the internal journey that someone goes on because so much of being a small business owner, the things that we're doing are tied to our identity.
00:14:12
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If I don't do it who am i What is my role in my business, right? If I'm not the one doing it And so there is this shift that needs to happen that is It's not going to look like you think it looks, but it's still going to be done and it's still going to be done well. So can you put perfectionism aside?
00:14:39
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If you're handing something off, can you release it from being tied to your identity and keep it just, this is a task that is holding me back from doing something I can do better in my business.
00:14:55
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There's also that receiving of help. That is super hard if you've always been the one to do it and you're capable of doing it. But now, You also have to make that shift from, I'm just doing the thing, the busy work in my business, and now I have to become the captain of my ship and think longer term, more visionary. What are my goals and where do I want to go so that these things that I'm getting help with, I can
00:15:27
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see that they're working as I'm going down the journey.
Benefits of Delegation and Creativity Boost
00:15:31
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And I will tell you, Michael, the universe loves to fill a void when you start. nice Seriously, when you start handing those administrative tasks off your plate and you're able to really focus on the things that are yours to do and only yours to do.
00:15:52
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Right. The reason you got into your business in the first place yeah you're creating new and amazing things because you're releasing control over the things that don't need your time and attention and you're focusing on the things that are stirring and the universe just fills that void with creativity and new things i've seen clients create programs.
00:16:17
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I started a podcast and wrote a book because i hid I hired somebody and gave over so much of my of my like social media and stuff. Just in handing that off, it created that space for me to think longer term and bigger for my own business. So what you're saying then is that it's not a whim, a decision that you make on a whim.
00:16:41
Speaker
You need to have some sort of strategic review about where you are with your business and working out what it is that you need to do and what and when i say what it is that you need to do it's like what is it that only you can do that's what you need to do and spend more time on that and developing the business so someone else can work in your business you're going to be working on your business, they're going to be working in the business.
00:17:11
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And there's a clear distinction between the two. But this is very much a very strategic decision that someone needs to make. a name And they suspect the most successful people who have virtual assistants are ones that have a strategy for how they're going to work with that virtual assistant. What sort
Successful VA Relationships and Client Stories
00:17:31
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of things have you seen people doing to make sure that the relationship is a success?
00:17:36
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I encourage people to look at their gaps within themselves. A lot of my clients were ADHD, which means they have amazing ideas, but the follow through, the execution of them falls short. So they needed somebody to provide accountability to help them take that big vision and break it down into the tasks and say, this is mine to do, this is yours to do. People get so focused on their task list, they don't think about what are the qualities within themselves.
00:18:16
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and what the counterpart of that would look like in someone else. Opposites attract. So if you're this big visionary and you need somebody who can keep the train on the rails, then you're looking for someone with good organization, attention to detail, can keep you accountable to the things you say.
00:18:40
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I always think about the well-known entrepreneurs, the people that big names in the media, the people are like Bill Gates, Richard Branson. When you look at how their businesses are run, those people are the face, the public side of the business.
00:18:57
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They've got someone who's equally involved in the business, but is in the background making sure that everything works. Everything is happening. It's like the difference between the chief executive and the chief operating officer.
00:19:11
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And you can when you're a small business. I'm getting very enthusiastic about this now and then Rachel. It seems to me that from what you're saying, you can have that virtual assistant who helps you with the similar sorts of activities to a chief operating officer and also a chief doer, don't you think? Because you're not limited to just one, are you? you can it As your business grows, you can have more than one. Yeah.
00:19:36
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and then that enables you to be the figurehead, the visionary, the person who's thinking, okay, this is where we are at the moment. What is it we need to do going further forward and how is it we can make that happen?
00:19:51
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And also involving your virtual assistants in putting the meat on the bones of your ideas, I think, is the Conversely, like some people do have that vision. They can communicate clearly. They have the things in place. A doer may be what they're looking for, but it's it's definitely something that you have to know yourself and what you need, because if you know you can manage an employee-minded person and give them all that clear direction,
00:20:28
Speaker
then a doer might work perfectly well for you. You may not need that sounding board or that collaborator, but it' it's knowing that distinction and what the client actually needs.
00:20:42
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You must have seen clients that have been very successful at it and other clients that have wished that they'd done things slightly differently. Can you share some of those case studies with me? Yes.
00:20:53
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One of my clients, he is an anomaly in my business. He came to me with clear processes and procedures. He had everything documented and outlined, and he said, how can you help me? I went through his systems and I pulled out all the things that I could do, the things we could make templates for, the things that were his.
00:21:13
Speaker
About six months into working with me, he said, i was going to hire a business coach after we got in the flow of working together, but I don't need to because I have you.
00:21:28
Speaker
And you can provide that support because you've been in business for 20 years, because you've seen how other businesses work. A really good VA and a lot of the ones in my directory They have decades of being executive level support for CEOs and and corporate leaders. All those skills are transferable to small business owners and we're not afraid to share them. You're reminding me of one of the television, American television programs that I've seen, which I think was one of the law type programs where the solicitors, what we would call a solicitor, what Americans call lawyer.
00:22:11
Speaker
And the lawyer is recruiting a new personal assistant and he recruits middle aged lady. The story goes so he doesn't get into trouble with the younger virtual assistant. But that's the part that.
00:22:25
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It's then the conversation that was that was had between his real world assistant and him about what her role would be and how he was surprised that she could preempt what he needed to do because of her years of experience.
00:22:42
Speaker
This piece of information coupled with this piece of information coupled with a little bit of doubtful information means that this could be a potential route or something that is going to happen next.
Beyond Admin: Strategic Role of VAs
00:22:52
Speaker
You're talking about people who are years of experience, who've worked in lots of different types of organisations, can see how things work across different types of businesses with different types of entrepreneurs business managers and can actually help you improve the way in which you actually work but also improve the decisions that you're making as well this is a lot more than simply doing the filing or typing up a few emails and that sort of thing this is real proper business support
00:23:31
Speaker
Yeah. One of my clients uses me as a sounding board. yeah And I do some administrative support for her But just having somebody to listen and brainstorm and say, we can do that, makes it so much easier to think about those scary goals that you have.
00:23:56
Speaker
If you've never done a virtual workshop and you want to do one, you may not feel confident. But if someone is, you know, we could do this, this, this and this, and you just show up on the day and know that your slides are created and there's somebody to make sure that people get into the Zoom room and the day of things as well as the list of things to do you just show up as your best self knowing that your team has your back and is doing all the things behind the scenes to make it run smoothly yeah i know what you mean it is a major decision for many small business people to take on that employee to bring in someone who's a virtual assistant who they may never actually physically meet
00:24:49
Speaker
but to bring someone in to their organization. There's so many other things that we could talk about around this topic. you the The things that are in your book, we could talk more about your podcast
Considering a VA: Readiness and Needs
00:25:00
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as well. So the book is, do I need a virtual assistant? Do I need a VA? a But is there something that someone who's thinking at you basically just that question, do I need a VA?
00:25:15
Speaker
Is there something that people can do to try and go through their own decision-making process about whether it would be the right time, the right opportunity for them and actually structure what they would do, get that person to do Yes.
00:25:30
Speaker
Oh, good. If you're thinking, hey, do I need a VA? You're already on the journey. Whether you decide to to do it or not, that's kind of irrelevant, but Taking some time to do the pre-work.
00:25:45
Speaker
So on my website, I have a VA readiness quiz. It's seven simple questions that will tell you if you're ready, almost ready, or not ready.
00:25:57
Speaker
It will give you next steps for leveling up wherever you are. And if you're not ready, you just may not be ready yet. If you're almost ready, it might just be feeling the fear and doing it anyway and stepping in.
00:26:13
Speaker
And if you are ready, it could be having a conversation with me to get referrals. So the gift is you don't have to do it alone.
00:26:23
Speaker
they I've created all these resources so that if you're not ready, it could be as simple as recording a video of you doing your process so that a VA could watch the video and create it for you.
00:26:40
Speaker
There are lots of ways that we can take the fear out of many of the what-ifs. Now, it's still going to be scary.
00:26:50
Speaker
Trust is risky. It doesn't matter if you do it or you have someone else do it. But in doing some of the pre-work, in seeing how it plays out for you and your business, can lessen the fear that you're going to do it wrong.
00:27:08
Speaker
Because even if you hire a virtual assistant and it doesn't go well, we all have to kiss a few frogs, right? Not every relationship is meant to last forever. And so being able to look at it with some curiosity and not judgment or it's never going to work with anybody else, it might be i hired the wrong kind or I need to do some thought first.
00:27:36
Speaker
I
Podcast Wrap-up and Resources
00:27:37
Speaker
had a client who wanted to hire VA to do social media for him. We talked about what that would look like. And then as he gave it more thought, he realized his business was going in a different direction.
00:27:50
Speaker
and he didn't know what his social media messaging was. So he wasn't actually ready to hire somebody. Yeah, I can see that that makes an awful lot of sense. So he has to go through a different sort of process in order to move his business forward he mustn't make any assumptions I suppose it's the best thing it's an investigation isn't it it's a learning process an investigation but it's worth starting that process brilliant you Rachel I have really enjoyed our conversation today I've learned a lot really do thank you it's been very interesting i do appreciate your time thank you thank you for having me Michael this was a great conversation
00:28:30
Speaker
Thank you. I am Michael Millward, the Managing Director of Abbasida, and in this episode of Rest and Recreation, I have been having a conversation with Rachel Davila, founder of Extra Hands Virtual Assistance and author of Do I Need a VA and host of the podcast Hey, Do I Need a VA? You can find out more about both of us by using the links in the description.
00:28:55
Speaker
The Zencastr system has worked really well for us to today. As usual, But if your enjoyment of this episode of rest and recreation has been less than ideal because of buffering, you will want to know that 3.0 has the UK's fastest 5G network with unlimited data.
00:29:12
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So listening on 3.0 means you can wave goodbye to buffering. There is a link in the description that will take you to more information about business and personal telecom solutions from 3.0 and the special offers available when you quote my referral code.
00:29:27
Speaker
I'm sure you will have enjoyed listening to this episode of Rest and Recreation as much as Rachel and I have enjoyed making it. So please give it a like and download it so you can listen anytime, anywhere.
00:29:38
Speaker
To make sure you don't miss out on future episodes, please subscribe. Remember, the aim of all the podcasts produced by Abbasida is not to tell you what to think, but we do hope to have made you think.
00:29:51
Speaker
Until the next episode of Rest and Recreation, thank you for listening and goodbye.