Ideal Practice
Ideal Practice
#75. Virtual Assistants: What They Do, How They Help, and Why You Should Hire One
Question or comment? 🙋♀️ Send me a text message!
Struggling with productivity? Tangled up in tech?
What if you didn’t have to handle it all by yourself?
Learn how a Virtual Assistant can help streamline your operations and free up time for you to focus on where you can do the most good: serving your clients.
Queenie Verhoeven has been a treasured member of my team for several years now: I could not imagine running my business without her. A proactive virtual assistant and now, strategic Project Integrator, she has a way of making things just work.
And that makes my life so much easier. 💗
Join us as we explore what a VA is (and is not!) and how the right one on your team can catapult your success.
In this episode, you’ll hear:
- What a virtual assistant is, and is not.
- The difference between hiring a VA and hiring an employee.
- Types of roles a VA can fill, and how they can contribute to your success.
- How to know what to hire for first.
And more.
Enjoy!
~Wendy
Xoxo
P.S. What was most helpful to you in this episode? What else would you like to know about working with VAs?
_______________
TODAY’S GUEST: QUEENIE VERHOEVEN, Founder of Your Business Ally
Queenie Verhoeven is a Proactive Virtual Assistant. She is a highly skilled and experienced VA specializing in administrative, marketing, and tech support. With over 15 years of experience serving small business owners and entrepreneurs, she isn't just a virtual assistant to her clients but a trusted partner on their path to success.
What she offers goes beyond her areas of expertise. She provides freedom from overwhelm - the freedom from those mundane yet crucial tasks that can drain your time and energy. Whether it's managing your administrative duties, implementing effective marketing strategies, or providing tech support to streamline your operations, Queenie ensures that you can focus on what truly matters - growing your business.
You can find her online at www.YourBusinessAlly.com.
_______________
THIS WEEK’S JOURNAL PROMPT:
What is the one thing you spend way too much time on each week in your business? If you could hand that off to a trusted team member, how would that help your business grow?
_______________
MENTIONED:
Fiverr
Upwork
Dropbox
Acuity Scheduling
Kajabi
_______________
COACHING: Need a Quick Start Consult? Got a problem in your practice that you can’t solve? Have an idea you want to try but don't know where to start? A Quick Start Consult gives you access to high quality coaching without the expense of a full blown coaching commitment. I'm serious about your success - so we don't just talk about your business. We work on it - together. Click here for details.
QUICK START CONSULT
Wendy Pitts Reeves, LCSW
Host, Ideal Practice
Private Practice Coach and Mentor
www.WendyPittsReeves.com
Wendy@WendyPittsReeves.com
You're listening to Ideal Practice, episode number 75. We are three quarters of the way to 100 folks. We are on a roll and we're gonna keep going. And today, guys, I have the best conversation for you. We're gonna dive into what it means to hire a VA, a virtual assistant for your team, and whether this is a brand new idea for you or a concept that you have experience with. I think you're gonna find something here that you can use, because we're covering a lot of ground and I am sharing with you my favorite VA, who is so much more than that in the whole wide world. So stay tuned.
Speaker 1:Hi, I'm Wendy Pitts Reeves and, with over two decades of experience in the private practice world, I've built my six-figure business while learning a lot of lessons the hard way. This is the first podcast that shows you how to apply the principles of energy alignment and strategy to build a practice that is profit-centered but people forward. This is the Ideal Practice Podcast. Hey guys, this is Wendy, your host here at Ideal Practice. Thank you so much for tuning in to another episode of this little podcast. I'm so glad you're here. I have been traveling for the last couple of weeks and I have so much I'm probably gonna share with you, I think, over the next few episodes. I spent a couple of weeks touring around the Pacific Northwest and I have not been there before. I made one quick trip there many, many years ago, but I've never really spent any time up there and oh my gosh, what an experience that was. So I'll be sharing a story or two from that, I think, over the next couple of weeks, just because I want to.
Speaker 1:But today I want to tell you about our guest today. Today you get to meet Queenie Verhoeven. Now Queenie is my personal executive assistant. She is the founder of your Business, ally, which is a VA services company. She has an entire team behind her as well. We've been working together for several years now and I've actually been honored and pleased to see her growth as a business owner. I think we help each other actually that way, and that's exactly why I wanted to bring this conversation to you Rather than a sort of traditional interview. I asked her just to join me and for the two of us to just process out loud for you what it means to hire a VA.
Speaker 1:So we're going to talk about all kinds of things like what a VA actually is, how they can help you in your practice, what that actually looks like, how to think about bringing someone like this onto your team, the difference between hiring a VA and hiring an employee. They are very different. These are two very different things, and I don't just mean from a legal or tax standpoint. It's a very different thing energetically as well. We're going to talk about all that. We're going to talk about different areas of specialty, how adding someone like this to your team can really boost your bottom line, and we're also going to talk about some things about what to expect in terms of how you might pay someone and how all of that works. Who to hire first, what would you hire them for? We're going to cover all of that and so much more. So I really think you're going to love this.
Speaker 1:Queenie is not used to being out in front. She is very comfortable with being the behind the scenes magician that makes things happen. But she was kind enough to do me the honor of joining me here and I think you're going to love her as much as I do, because I couldn't run my business without her. So Queenie is six hours ahead of me, she is in the Netherlands and there was a time back in the past, I've worked with several VAs. I used to think that I wanted someone in the same time zone as me. Turns out that doesn't matter at all, actually, and we talked about that too. So without further ado, let's get in to the interview. All right, hello everyone. Thank you so much for tuning in to another episode of the Ideal Practice Podcast. I am so excited. As you have already heard in the intro, it is my deepest pleasure and highest honor to introduce you today to one of my favorite people on the planet, and she knows I'm not just saying that you get to meet my right hand, queenie Verhoeven. Queenie, say hi.
Speaker 2:Hi everybody. Hi Wendy, you for hopping me Absolutely.
Speaker 1:It's such a treat to do this, finally, finally, finally, finally. We talk all the time, but not like this, so this is going to be great. So, queenie, I've already told people a little bit about you, but I'm trying not to tell them too much, because I want to hear it from you. Tell everybody where you are and a little bit about who you help and how you help them. What do you do?
Speaker 2:So right now I'm in the Netherlands, but I'm originally from the Philippines, but I've been here for 15 years already. And what do I do? I call myself a proactive virtual assistant, but also many of my clients they refer me as their project integrator or online business manager. So I excel. I say I excel in providing online or you can call it remote or virtual services to my clients, who are mostly solo entrepreneurs in running or starting their business, and I have three core services. It's administrative, marketing. And what's the other three? Oh, what is it? Admin, marketing and tech support. So those are the three services that I offer to my clients.
Speaker 1:So administrative, marketing and tech support, which is what brought me to you in the beginning was the tech support. Yeah, and I think when you and I first started working together, you called you online business manager was more the way we would have talked about it at the time, and we've used different language. So for those of you guys, I'll tell you so Queenie and I have been working together now for how long, Queenie, I want to say your son was seven when we started working.
Speaker 2:Yes, so I think that's how I'm going to keep score.
Speaker 1:So he's how old now 15?.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's crazy. So eight years, years, seven or eight years around that it's great.
Speaker 1:It's a great thing. Yeah, seven or eight years. A lot's happened in seven or eight years so we've been at this for a while and we've used different language over time, like sometimes with my clients. If you interact with my clients on my behalf, I will sometimes refer to you as my executive assistant. The concept of an online business manager when you start looking into VA's y'all, you'll see that that's a title that basically kind of means someone who handles your whole business in certain ways behind the scenes. Thank you, Right, Does it all?
Speaker 1:It's fairly recent that you started using the title Project Integrator, which I love, because I think one thing about the title of a VA and y'all we're going to get into exactly what a VA is. Sometimes I think that title doesn't even come close to doing justice to what this kind of role brings. So to fill you guys in, so what Queenie and I are going to do today, we're just going to have a conversation back and forth about what a virtual assistant is, how they can help you, all the different ways that this kind of person can support you in your practice. I'm going to share some of my own previous history and experience because I have worked with a lot of VA's over the years. Queenie has an entire team that she has built in her business, so she has even a whole different perspective on this and we just want to kind of share both of us kind of what we know about this world, because it's a little bit foreign, I think, to a lot of people in private practice and it can be a huge, huge, huge benefit for you in your business.
Speaker 1:So, queenie and I, if you get a little bit of a history Queenie is I've forgotten oh, I know the way I found you. Queenie was a mutual friend who is also a client of yours gave me your name right, and so the mastermind that I used to be in you guys have heard me talk about the coach I used to work with. In that mastermind people were always going I need a VA, do you know somebody? Do you know somebody, who do you know? And it ended up that there's like how many of us? I think four or five people that were in that mastermind now who work with you, I think. Is that true?
Speaker 1:Three three is three now. Okay, there's been others over time, I know so it was word of mouth that brought me to you to begin with, but before I got, before, I was with you. Back three or do you think of somebody else? Those Michelle Janet, me Can't remember.
Speaker 1:Yes, she was she was yes, yeah, that's a really great thing, yeah. So we were all like oh, do you know Queenie? You need to know Queenie, and y'all I have to say I used to didn't want to tell people about Queenie because I didn't want them to Find out about her, because I don't want to share her. But I'm okay now because she has her own team, so it's okay.
Speaker 1:But I want to feel you guys in. So in the past I hired my first VA Just in my counseling practice back in the early 2000s when I first wanted to start speaking, and I hired my very first coach this is way back To help me learn how to charge for speaking, because I had done a ton of free speaking I've been doing that for years and I wanted to start getting paid for and I had no idea how to do that. So I hired a coach to help me with that and With her recommendation I ended up hiring a virtual assistant who was here in the States at the time Whose job was to set up speaking engagement. So there was a whole sort of administrative process to that Reaching out to the venues, getting the contract signed, putting together the assets you would have, like any promotional materials, putting it back, then a checklist of literal, physical things that had to take with me to the talk, like that kind of stuff Mailing. She would mail Like brochures to them ahead of time, that kind of stuff. So that was my very first VA and that went well for a while and then somewhere along the way that ended I've forgotten why now it's been a while and then I didn't have anybody and then y'all know I was running secret adventures. Y'all remember that that was the, the business that I ran, where I was taking folks out on these experiential Adventures every month.
Speaker 1:That was an extremely time intensive business, took a lot of of energy from me and I loved it and I was having trouble keeping it going because it was really a lot and in that I thought I've got to hire some help. I gotta get somebody to help me that time. So the first person I hired was basically purely administrative. She was really good at emails, sending Documents, tracking processes, that kind of stuff. And then the second person I hired was a program, a computer programmer who used to work for IBM and had left that and had started. She called it a virtual assistance program, a business.
Speaker 1:But truth was she was Kind of like you Queenie, like a real expert in the tech side of stuff and it had a real systems Brain, like because she was in computers, right, I needed a system for planning those trips and getting all that parts of it, and she was. I paid a lot and it was quite expensive to work with her but she had a real high level of expertise, which is what I needed. She was also in the States and I worked with her for two of the three years. I was running secret adventures then. Then my life changed and I moved into a different direction and I closed that down. But golly, that was a huge help. So that's two people in the past. And then Queenie. Then I had a little time, then I started my coaching practice and then I brought you on board and what I remember I want to tell people about how I've the very first thing I did with you and this is a great way To think of and I'm gonna I'm promise, I'm gonna let you talk in a second.
Speaker 1:Queenie. I just wanted to kind of tell this background.
Speaker 2:I.
Speaker 1:Want to kind of lay the groundwork for where you and I are. When I first brought you on. So I had a council, I had a. Y'all know I was running a group counseling practice. This was pre-zoom, pre-pandemic. This is. This is several years ago and I had a system. I had gotten to the point where I required new clients to Pay for their session before I met them the first time. And did you remember that?
Speaker 1:and so there was this whole thing where I would schedule them. I needed them to bring a check or something like that, do the paperwork, get them sort of set up. Before I saw them because I I had changed the way I was doing that first visit it was a two-hour visit, it was more money, I could not risk people cancelling at the last. I needed them to follow through. But I was literally physically having people drive by my office and drop off a check and I remember telling you I can't figure out any way to do this. How can I automate this? How can I make this simple? I literally see no way to do it and I hired you for kind of a test project.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, you and you offered that. I think that was something that way you were doing, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, I offer a trial period, so everyone yeah, do you remember that?
Speaker 1:What do you remember about that?
Speaker 2:I I cannot remember exactly what was the. You know what exactly was that, but it's about Setting up a system for your schedule, for your calendar, that People can make appointments with you and be able to pay you. Yeah, so, and then you have a series of emails that go out when people book an appointment and you're using. I think we started with a Q.
Speaker 1:It is yeah, which I still use. I still use a Q. Yeah, just use.
Speaker 2:I think that was the very first Task. Yeah, when I look, at that.
Speaker 1:Now it cracks me up because it's so simple. But it didn't seem simple. Then I literally could not. And you know, when you've done something a certain way for a long time, you can't imagine doing it any other way. And I was like, if you can figure this out, you're a godsend, because I don't know what to do. And you're like, well, we just need to set up an online schedule and we can make it where they can pay you online. Oh really, can I just do a pot? Yeah, we can do all that. Okay, can you? Can you do that? And what? You have emails that go out afterwards automatically. Really, how does that work, right? So you set that up for me and then I learned how to do it myself, and then, and then we just took off from there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and we started with a newsletter and then, I think you asked me to there was one time I was transcribing some audios for you. Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I can't remember what that was.
Speaker 2:Had a program before. Oh, it was.
Speaker 1:I think it's my first online course, wasn't it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, but it's just audio, like you just talk to people on the phone, or yeah, I remember that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was. It was called scared strong and it was a five week teleclass. Yeah, also, that's, I'm dating myself here. This is Back then people were doing teleclasses where you would call in on a phone, um, and you would teach on the phone, right, that's right, queenie, and we would do a transcript after it was a five week course. Yeah, that was my very, very first course. Huh, what a hoot. I've forgotten about that.
Speaker 2:And I told you I learned a lot from that teleclass. While I was transcribing them, I was also learning about business strategies and Everything that you thought your students or was. I loved it.
Speaker 1:I love that too, yeah, and that has turned out to be kind of a theme for us. So I learned tech from queenie and systems, and she learns how to run a business from me, which is which has been kind of a win-win all the way around. So, queenie, tell everybody, like, just describe for them. I mean, they can already tell a little bit. But what is a virtual assistant? And, um, how is that different from all the other things that are out there? How's that different from hiring an employee? How's that different from paying somebody 50 bucks on fiverr to design a logo for you? What is tell? Talk to us about the whole concept of a VA.
Speaker 2:So this is just a concept based on my experience. So it's from virtual assistant can be sometimes confusing, because Alexa is also a virtual assistant, right? Yeah, that's why I oh, that's also one of the reasons why I always put Before virtual assistant. I always say proactive virtual assistant to describe myself.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Because of course, I'm not Alexa and I'm a human being, so I work proactively with my clients. But virtual assistants For the sake of this podcast is really a human being assistant, right? So it's a person who assists you from you know, remotely, or yeah, so they're not in your office.
Speaker 1:First of all, they're not showing up at your office and using your equipment. Um being in your building, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah so it's virtual, it's online, it's remote. So that's the. That's the difference from having of an assistant. That's. Okay and that regular assistant. We are not employees because you don't pay for our vacation leave, for our sick leave. Work contractors really like you. Yeah you outsource our services and just pay for the services that we provide. Now, no employee thing. All the benefits, all the perks that an employee can get. You don't need to provide that.
Speaker 1:Right, right. So when you hire someone in-house which I've done both ways, y'all I've had in-house. There was one time when I had two assistants in-house. When you're in-house, you buy the computer, you buy the paper if they print something, you buy the modem, you buy the telephone. You provide the physical space for them to work. If they're you know all that kind of stuff and if they are true in the US, what we would call a W-2 employee. You also have to pay Social Security, you have to pay Workman's Comp. There are all these various other fees that go and fall into the fee. When you hire a VA, queenie's Right is an independent contractor. They provide all their own stuff. You may provide access to some software. That's the thing. If I'm using Dropbox, I may provide access to that and I'm paying for that on my end because I use it.
Speaker 2:But you have your own stuff, I have my own stuff, yeah that's right, yeah, so I pay for my own coffee break and tea break, yeah.
Speaker 1:And I also. So what about the gig economy? So what about hiring a VA versus hiring somebody on Fiverr? Because that's a for those of you. I want to make sure that y'all know what I'm talking about here. Fiverr, f-i, v-e-r-r. I'll drop this in the show notes. Fiverr is just one of many sites where you can go and find quick help to do something specific. You can get somebody to design a business card. You can get somebody to do almost anything you want there, but that is a like. Talk to me about the difference there.
Speaker 2:So I guess the difference is that with Fiverr by the way, Fiverr is from the word five, because I did it with five dollars- per project.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So that's why it's called Fiverr, but of course now they are charging more than five. I mean a lot of the contractors they are freelancers charge more than five. I guess the difference with Fiverr, based on my experience, is that people there we hire them on a per project basis or on a speeded basis.
Speaker 2:So the relationship is really short term. Yeah, so with the VA you can hire VA actually from Fiverr or Upward. But if you really are thinking of having a long term relationship with the VA, that's when you hire outside this third party platforms, because that will be just between you and the VA, like there's no other party involved.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:So for me, a VA outside, because there are also VA's on Fiverr and this platform, but VA's outside these platforms deserve VA's you want to have a more long term relationship with.
Speaker 1:That's key y'all. I really want to emphasize what you just said, quinny, because that's exactly it there's a big difference between hiring somebody for a one off project that you may never talk to again versus cultivating a relationship with someone who becomes a part of your team.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they're not an employee.
Speaker 1:So they're not that kind of part, but they are. They are a part of your team and you and I are a really good example of that. I have tried really hard to convince Quinny to move to the US and live in my town really hard. I have not had any luck at that. But a good VA is somebody that you cultivate a relationship with. They get to know you, they get to know your quirks, your habits, your preferences. They get to know your business right and they can not just do things, but like not just because they're not just taskmasters, they're not just people you hand off a to-do list to, right? I don't think so, tell me, let's talk about that a little bit. Like how is a VA more than just somebody who sends out the email you told them to send out, whatever? Yeah, do you know? Oh, okay.
Speaker 2:So it's a good thing you mentioned about not just handling a task, because it's a role. Actually it's a role of a VA and you have certain tasks, of course, but then when you say a role, you're not just limited to those tasks that are assigned to you at the moment. So you perform a role and you're not just simply filling in a task or completing a task.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Whereas if you hire someone this is the gig economy you're most likely hiring somebody to complete a task and not exactly perform a role, the role of a VA, which can, depending on what you do and how you want the VA to work with you, the role can be totally different from just completing a task.
Speaker 1:Yes, this is important, and then we're going to get into exactly what some of the examples are of this. That's a really great point, queenie. It is a role, it is a position in your business. So, like in my business, you have been the person who has been the. You have certain key. You have several key roles, but one of them is you're the person that helps me put a course into action. Every time I come up with a new course, which happens fairly often One of the things I love about Queenie is I can throw her five curve balls at a time and she catches them.
Speaker 1:It's crazy. I don't know how she, I don't know why she hasn't fired me 10 times over at this point, but for some reason she hasn't. But I can go hey, queenie, guess what? I've got a new idea for a course. I'm going to launch it next week and know it doesn't even exist yet, but I'm going to send it to you because it's coming and she's like okay, and what you do for me. So courses is one big way you've helped me.
Speaker 1:Another one is even in my counseling practice. You help me onboard new clients and get that set up. It's a very small role, but it's a role. Nevertheless, you help me when I have an ongoing course like Evolve that is going on now. That's my six month mastermind. You become the person that sort of helps me keep everybody in the loop. So you keep, you know, you interact with folks for me. You make sure they get what they need.
Speaker 1:We do, I do a training, you capture all the assets, you set it all up in Kajabi like you're doing all the tech stuff, but you're also making sure my clients are well served. So there's a little bit of a customer service thing. There's kind of a big picture tech thing there that's hugely helpful. There's a little bit of help with the counseling side of stuff. And then a lot is you just help me organize my brain, which is like going in so many different directions at one time.
Speaker 1:It's kind of scary. And no, I do not have ADHD, I am just an entrepreneur and this is how we think. But you are often I'll be like Queenie, what do you think Could we do? X? And you're like okay, if you want to do that, here's what you need to think about, and you will put together a list for me or you will say when do you need to consider this if you're going to do that, this is how we can make that work, and you are so good at helping me fill in the cracks and lay out the lines of, like, all the different pieces that have to go into a project. That's what you do for me, right, like a project integrator.
Speaker 2:Exactly, project integrator. Yeah, yeah I love it, I think, as a VA like, because I also have VA's right. You know that, so what?
Speaker 1:You're a VA and you have VA's. Say more about that.
Speaker 2:I'm a VA and I have VA's as well, yes, but I think my you know I have expertise in administrative marketing tech support, but what I actually give to my client is freedom from overwhelm of all technology and information overload.
Speaker 2:So, I just want my client to say, queenie, I want this and this is the result that I want to see. Yeah, now you take care of, help me. You take care of, help me. You just take care of the processes in between, in between what I want, what I have now and what I want to deliver. So if the client is very clear about that, or this is what I want to deliver, then a good VA should be able to figure out how she can help the client deliver what she wants to be delivered.
Speaker 1:So give me some examples of the kind of things you've done, because you've worked with lots of people. At this point, you've been in business for a long time and I'm I know I'm your favorite client. I'm sure I have to be, yes, any of your other clients many of whom I know who are going to hear this. I'm her favorite y'all. Queenie, tell us a little bit about, like, different types of clients you've worked with, different types of businesses you've worked with and what you've done for them. It's a pretty interesting variety, I think.
Speaker 2:Yes, I work with designers, I work with business coaches. I work with. My first ever client was a real estate A realtor, a realtor, yeah a realtor. I have clients who have Pilates Studio or Yoga Studio. So I think I've done. I've worked with clients from different industries.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so Yoga Studio real estate. Graphic design, music, musician.
Speaker 2:Musician, somebody who has a doctor, who has a breast care center somewhere in Nigeria. A breast care center.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:And I've worked with people from Canada, from the US, a lot from the US, actually also from Nigeria, from the Philippines, wow, so yeah, so that's the good thing about this job. And so, basically, because my main services are categorized into three admin, marketing and tech support. So you say admin, so just taking care of their files, simply organizing for things like that. Also, customer service I put that under admin. Like responding to clients, to your clients.
Speaker 1:Right, so if a client has a problem with the payment, or a client needs to schedule something, or a client has a problem with your system in some way, you're the one that will help figure that out for them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but only through email. I don't do any phone service Helping you with your CRM, customer relationship management, that's part of that and many others. You can go to my website to find out what the services are. And then marketing. That includes email marketing, like your newsletters, creating marketing materials like shores flyers anything that has to do with marketing. I also do marketing plans and social media. That's part of marketing. Social media, like helping you with, let's say, facebook advertising, instagram.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, that's right. I forget sometimes that you know all that stuff too. Yeah, because I haven't done a lot of Facebook ads. I need to do more, but you have helped me with that when I have done that, because you know how to do it, you know how to read it, you know how to understand it, you know how to think about it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yes, but then I help you with the technical part of it, right, because I'm not a copywriter, so you create the copy or you have a copywriter and then I help you set it up on Facebook or on any of these platforms. And tech support, of course. You know that, like I help you with websites. A problem with your websites or with your hosting provider, or if you have, if you need a tool that can, that you think will solve your problems, then I will help you figure that out and I will help you set it up.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so this is another example. So y'all, we're talking about what Queenie does. There are lots of VA's and everybody does something different and different. Different let's not trip over my words, wendy different virtual assistants specialized in different areas, so there will be you can get a virtual assistant who will answer the phone for you who will?
Speaker 1:actually talk to people right and who will schedule clients for you. You can get someone who will Set appointments, Set appointments who actually acts as if they were sitting in your office and being your receptionist, even though they're doing it remotely. I, when I first started working with the VA's, I felt like I had to have somebody who was in my time zone.
Speaker 1:And so I was leery in the beginning with you because you're six hours ahead of me. So today y'all, my bookkeeper is six hours behind me and Queenie's six hours ahead of me, so I have a global business, which I really love. But that has turned out not to be an issue at all, actually, because which is something to address because what I love is like I can send you something before I go to bed and I wake up the next morning and it's done, because you're so far ahead of me time wise. Today I am on the middle of onboarding a new virtual assistant who's going to serve a different role, who is in the Philippines. She's 12 hours ahead of me, but if you have someone answering the phone, then, yeah, they probably do need to be somewhere close or in your time zone. They also probably need to, you know, have really good English or have real good skills that fit with your particular audience.
Speaker 1:But you can hire someone. Live like that. You can hire someone to do this kind of administrative stuff. You can hire someone to do the tech stuff. One of the things I want y'all to think about is that you're hiring somebody like there are certain things that you probably can do but should not be doing. Just because you can do, it doesn't mean you should.
Speaker 1:So, right, because which is one of the problems for an entrepreneur we are kind of one-stop shops and we are the kind of people who are like you know what? I can do this. I can figure this out Because we are. We are problem solvers and we kind of like to get in there and do it.
Speaker 1:In today's world, there are more and more tools. There's more and more things online that you can find a tool for anything. Yes, I can also waste an inordinate amount of time figuring out which scheduling tool should I use. How do I make that communicate with my credit card processor? How do I make that fit into my website? How do I make that fit into what I say to people on the phone and then what I do when something breaks? You know and oh, I've kind of figured that Right, all that kind of stuff. What if I want to put a plug-in on my website? Don't waste your time doing that. Hire somebody who knows how to, who already knows how to do that stuff.
Speaker 1:And one of the things that you're good at, queenie, is figuring out which tool would work best in a specific situation. There's been more than once when I have said to you I'm kind of thinking about X. Is this the best one or what should we use for this? And you'll be like let me look into that and we don't do this. We did this a lot in the beginning. We were just getting started. You would research different platforms.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And you would send me an email that goes here's the top three that I recommend. Here are the pros and cons of each. This is the one I really think you should use, and why.
Speaker 1:Which was inordinately helpful to me because I didn't have to spend all that time digging into it Just like Queenie. Go figure it out, tell me what I should do. Okay, here you go. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, in terms of how somebody can help you, you just said that you can actually design a website if you need to. You can pay somebody $10,000 to do a website, and there are times when that is exactly what you should do, believe it or not, if it's a really complicated situation or your business is at a certain level. But you I've seen you've done websites for me now several times and you've done it for several of my clients as well but you can fix a website, you can improve a website, you can set up a website, but you can also make all the parts play together. That's the tech side of what you do, yeah.
Speaker 2:And also because nowadays there are so many tools or platforms that are user friendly, you don't need a programmer to do it for you. So that's why things there are some things that are website related that a VA can actually do for you. However, there are also a lot of things that you have to hire, that you need a developer to do for you.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:In my case right now, because I have a team already right. So if somebody would like to have a website developed, I would hand it over to my website developer, who will take care of developing that website. But then I know what should be done. I know what result to-.
Speaker 1:You know what you're looking for, yeah.
Speaker 2:I'm looking for.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Then it's easy for me to work with a developer and also deliver the kind of website that my client wants.
Speaker 1:So yesterday just yesterday I did a training on the sixth pillar of my seven pillar framework. Y'all know that I have something I called the seven pillars of an ideal practice and the sixth one of those is about promotion, which is about the marketing side of your practice, and I did a whole training yesterday with the people in my mastermind about that and by the time we were done with that it was a comprehensive training and we were talking about all the different parts of a client's journey, from where they first even become aware that you exist to when they're a little curious about you, to when they want to know more, to when they're ready to hire you in some way for even a small thing, to when they become a loyal fan and an ambassador for you in a way. And we went through all those different steps of that process and what has to happen in each one of those. And there were all kinds of ways where you create content, connect with your clients in some way, deliver a service or a value in some way, and there's a lot to that.
Speaker 1:As you're creating it, Once it's up and running it's not so bad, but as you're developing it it can be a lot, or tweaking it and what, Queenie, what a VA can do is help you. And they were asking me this yesterday. They were like how do I do this? How do I plan content? How do I put this stuff out there? How do I develop a tool, a worksheet, a quiz, a mini course on parenting for my clients? How do I do all that? And every time I'm like you figure out the content, what the meat of it is, and then hire a VA to help you put it together.
Speaker 2:Don't worry about that part.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, so it's not. You're not. I think one other thing I want to say about this is you're not outsourcing your brain. Like you're the soul of your business, you're the one who knows what you care about, what matters to you. You know who your clients are. You, the messaging that you use, that drives your business, that's you. You cannot outsource that, but what it takes to implement it you can. So, like you're the visionary, like there's the what's the book?
Speaker 1:Is it the book? Is it Rocket Fuel? Is the book that talks about this or Traction? I think it's Rocket Fuel. One of those two books is either Rocket Fuel or Traction. We'll link to both of them. But one of those talks about that there's a visionary and there is a implementer. In most businesses, like the number, the person who gets things off the ground is the one with the big idea, but there's always a number two who knows how to make that real. That's what a really good VA can be for you.
Speaker 1:So there are two more things I want to talk about before we pull this episode to a close, and one of them is I want to talk about, like, where would somebody start if they if they've never done this before and they have some kind of a wellness based business? So there are therapists and counseling, there are yoga teacher, there are a reiki practitioner and energy healer what's and they've never hired help of any kind. What's a good place for someone to start the very first thing? What would be a good kind of task or a good way to sort of tip toe into this world? What would you recommend?
Speaker 2:So I would probably recommend, if you're saying where, like which platform, to find VA's.
Speaker 1:No, not where to find them. But what kind of task would you recommend people hire somebody for? To begin with, we'll talk about where to find them next, but what? What would I ask a VA to do? I don't even know what to ask somebody to do Right off the bat.
Speaker 2:What I would recommend is that you delegate tasks, that you are, you know what, you know how to do it, but you think it's. You know it's taking so much of your time and you could have. You could have done something more significant for the business, but then this task is taking your time.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:For example, blog posting. Let's just say blog posting, yeah you, you will craft the, the article or the blog post, but setting it up, setting the blog post in WordPress or whatever platform you're using, is taking your time, because maybe you're not so familiar with WordPress or maybe you are familiar with WordPress. But that 15 minutes of your time.
Speaker 2:If you do it weekly, then in a month that's, you're already losing one hour of your time which would be really you know, precious Like maybe people would pay 200 euro an hour for that one hour and then you're losing it because you are doing a blog posting which you actually just delegate to someone for a fraction of your hourly rate. Say for example right. So, but I would recommend that you delegate tasks that you yourself is a little bit familiar with in the beginning, especially if you're hiring someone who is not that experienced yet.
Speaker 2:But if you're hiring someone and experience, for example, if you're, if you hire someone like me, then you know you could. You could just delegate that without you knowing how to Meaning somebody who's experienced and has been in it for a while versus someone who's brand new right that's a really good point.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a good point. So, as you're talking, I'm thinking okay, I can think of how to how to sort of break this down a little bit. Your point about the first thing to do, guys, is what I would recommend you do is to spend about a week one whole week, maybe two where you make a list, like put a piece of paper on your desk and just capture all the things that you do in a day. Just notice how many times do you make phone calls? How many times are you scheduling something, looking up something for a client online, trying to figure out something, having to email something, trying to figure out some form that you've got to update in some way, sending off information to some board that you've got to report something to, whatever? If you just keep a notepad on your desk and for a week, if you do it at least a week you're going to capture almost everything you typically do in a day. You don't need to write down the details about what it was about, but just capture the different kinds of things that you do in a day that you don't even pay attention to. Then, out of those, what are the things that? They're easy. You do them all the time you don't really think anything about it. But, queenie, you're right that you know how to do so. Well, it's like why would I pay somebody to do that? That's easy. Oftentimes those are the things that are eating up a lot of your time, and your time is worth a lot.
Speaker 1:The benefit of starting there was something that you do all the time. That's really easy. You know how to do it. Hand that off first, because two things One, that's busy work that's going to. You're going to be astonished at how it feels to get that off your plate. But two, you will know when it's done well by the person you hire, because you know what you're looking for. You know what to expect, right. So I would think of it this way I would start with what you already know how to do. That would be first. My second thing I would look for is if there's a problem that you can't figure out how to solve, like I did with you when I couldn't figure out how to get people to make a deposit for that first visit.
Speaker 1:If there's some little thing like how do I make? I've just, I want to do X, but I cannot for the life of me figure out a way to do that. How would I do that? That's the second way. And then, after you've got someone on board and you're kind of you're getting used to this idea of working in this way, then you can ask them to do things you don't know how to do.
Speaker 2:Exactly Right.
Speaker 1:That's where I would yeah, so you like that.
Speaker 2:Once you get to know the VA well.
Speaker 1:And you trust them. Everybody's all broken in. You've got it, you kind of got your patterns figured out and y'all. We're going to do a second, queenie and I are going to do a second episode for you where we're going to talk in more detail about how to find somebody, how to hire them, how to onboard them. We're going to get, we're going to get into the how to's in part two of this. Today, I just wanted to tell you a little bit more about what a VA is and how they can help you. Let's talk about money real quick, queenie, and then we'll wrap this one up. So, in terms of money and cost, you're fine. As we're recording this, she's worrying about our videos being frozen, but it's okay, we don't have to worry about that. So, in terms of costs, what would you like to say about that, queenie? I've got my own take on that, but I'd like to hear from you in terms of what somebody should expect when it comes to paying for a virtual assistant.
Speaker 2:So for a virtual assistant you can. Should I give a figure?
Speaker 1:Yeah, whatever, whatever your, because you've worked with people all over the US. Let's focus on the US, because that's where most of my listeners are. What? How should people think about what they should expect to pay? What are some ways that pricing structures work? Do VA's offer packages? What's typical, how many hours do most people pay for, or just any kind of an overview of how the pricing tends to work?
Speaker 2:So a freelance virtual assistant can charge anywhere between, from what I know, $5 to over $100 per hour if you're paying them per hour, but also packages, like in my case I do packages right, so I have a package of five hour, for example, for $299 plus bonuses. But I think the cost of hiring a virtual assistant largely depend on factors like, say, the type of work that they do, because if you are hiring someone to post blogs for you, that virtual assistant may be less expensive than when you hire someone to help you launch a course right.
Speaker 1:Right right.
Speaker 2:So the type of work that they do is a factor in determining how much to pay. And then the urgency of the task. Like, if you want to, there is a. Let's just say that you don't have a VA yet. It's your first time hiring a VA, so you don't have a relationship with that VA yet, but there is a task that you want to do immediately. So most of the time if it's urgent, people charge you for more. Even if you hire people from Fiverr, for example, they have different rates for number of A rush job.
Speaker 1:A rush job, yeah, yes so it's one factor.
Speaker 2:And then, of course, the experience, the skill that they have. I'm a bit more, I charge more now because I've been doing this for 15 years already, but hiring someone new may charge you $10 per hour. And then I think also where they are based from, like people from the Philippines, they charge less than when you hire people from the US. I think I'm not very sure, but that's, I think, the general idea that I don't know. Do you still pay $10 per hour for people in the US, Wendy?
Speaker 1:Because you can that would be really low in the US. So in my experience, this is when I first started hiring like this. What I learned is that when you and actually I had a my tech the guy that used to help me with my taxes helped me understand this that when you hire a W2 employee, they you're paying all those extra government, you're paying for their social security, for workments, comp, all those things I said well ago. So you may pay them $15 an hour, $18 an hour for an in-house person, but you're actually gonna it's actually gonna be costing you a dollar or two more. Now, y'all, I'm not an expert at this, so don't quote me on this, but this is what I've been told.
Speaker 1:If you're paying. You hire somebody at $15 an hour in-house to do to just deal with it, talk to your clients and schedule appointments for you and send out paperwork, whatever. You may hire them at $15, but you're actually gonna be paying more, like $17, because of the extra things that you have to pay. Right, if you hire a virtual assistant, you're gonna pay more per hour in a way, but you're not buying all the equipment. So I may pay somebody $15 or $18, but I gotta buy them on computer, you know. But if you're hiring a virtual assistant, your per hour rate will be higher than it would be an employee usually. But that's because they have to provide all their own insurance, their own supplies, their own software, their own right, all that and in my experience on the lower end of a VA in the US is gonna be around 25 per hour and it goes up.
Speaker 1:I've seen $75 or $100 an hour, like exactly like you said, depending upon your level of expertise. That's a biggie y'all. Yeah, and in fact, the coach that I'm working with now I wanna speak to this too, the coach that I work with today. He has a staff of eight who are full-time employees in his company and I'm sure he pays them very well. They are US-based and they are professionals who have a very, a certain type of expertise. That is not necessarily what you would do with a VA. So they are copywriters, right, social media managers, like the people who have to have a certain, like a very high, level of professional expertise. But they all have two or three VAs out of country that they pay less for but who help them do their jobs right.
Speaker 2:So, yeah.
Speaker 1:So I have paid anywhere from as low as I have paid people out of country as low as $8 an hour. I've paid as high as $50 or $60 an hour.
Speaker 2:I think in the Philippines there are still people who are charging $5 an hour.
Speaker 1:Because of the difference in the strength of the dollar. Right, yeah, yeah, right, which feels really weird to us.
Speaker 2:Partners speak. You know, vas in their first year. Usually that's how much they charge.
Speaker 1:Right. So that VA that I hired to help me with my speaking business, her and I didn't set the rate. She set the rate, but it was. I don't remember now, but I want to say I was paying her some like 20, 25 an hour, but what she was doing did not require a high level of skill. It did require a level of organization, which is what I needed, and it was fine and I really appreciated it. But I didn't need her to know WordPress and I didn't need her to understand how WordPress and active campaign work together with Kajabi and with Stripe. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Right, so I was doing all that by then. Yeah, another factor, I think, is whether or not you're paying them hourly or fix like, or by package, like in my case. If I consider it fixed, if you are getting my retainer, one of my retainer packages, so if you, that's actually less expensive if you pay me per hour.
Speaker 2:That's a charge more for that, because with the package it's like there's also a guarantee that you're actually going to be working with me for a certain period of time and so I charge less in terms of per hour rate. But then if it's just you know, okay, I will just pay you per hour, not the package, then it's more.
Speaker 1:I can't help it, gran, because I know you learned about packages from me. Thank you, Wendy. She didn't have that when we got started, but somewhere along the way she's like I think I need to do this package thing you keep talking about and I'm like I think you should too.
Speaker 2:It's very funny, I'm only showing you.
Speaker 1:There has been a little coaching along the way. It's been really fun and it has been a real treat for me, Quinny, because I have seen you grow so much from when we started. You really have come along.
Speaker 2:I did a VIP with you, so that was very helpful.
Speaker 1:We did. We did a VIP day. That's right, we sure did. I forgot that. So, y'all, I don't do as many of these these days, but every now and then I will do a VIP intensive with someone, which is where we work all day long, one-on-one, just on your business, just on your business.
Speaker 2:And that's right.
Speaker 1:I forgot that Quinny and I did a VIP day and we figured out a lot of stuff that day.
Speaker 2:I remember that I'd forgotten that Because I wanted to start a team. Right, I wanted to grow my business from one woman's show to having a team and I didn't know. I had ideas in mind, but I don't know how to implement them, how to organize them, where to start, how to start Just the same thing.
Speaker 1:isn't that a hoot? So you had to learn how to onboard a new virtual assistant you had to learn how to build a team.
Speaker 2:How do I?
Speaker 1:communicate my expectations, how do I manage them? How do I teach them? How do I pay them? What do I expect of it? Like all that you had to learn the same thing for them that those of you who are listening have to learn when you hire a VA. Like there is a process to this.
Speaker 1:And we're going to help you with that next. So we've thrown a lot at you today. I think, if I want to sort of tie this like, sort of bring all this home and sort of tie it up, what I want you to know is that a virtual assistant can help you with something as simple as getting your paper, your paper, your forms, designed for your practice, all the way up to managing your website and integrating it with your payment system and helping you launch the course that you want to do, right. So all like, they can do the whole thing. You're still the brains behind it, but they can help you in any way you want and you will pay less or more depending upon the level of expertise. Urgency was a good point that you made, queenie.
Speaker 2:And location right that they can do one help with.
Speaker 1:Yep, us-based employee or VA's will be more than people out of country, but sometimes that's okay, sometimes that's what you need, sometimes you need, like there are all kinds of factors that can influence that decision, so that's something to think about. And the last thing I want to say is, if you're just getting started with this, it is perfectly fine to hire somebody for five hours a month, like literally five hours a month, right, I have that package Five hours a month, which doesn't sound like much, but you know, if you're just getting started, sometimes that's all you need, right.
Speaker 2:Just testing waters, right?
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, and learning how to be somebody who has a team right.
Speaker 1:I love that you had to learn that. So we are gonna bring this to a close, queenie, is there anything else related to how a VA can make a difference for you in your business that I haven't asked you? In our next episode we are part two of this we're gonna talk about where to find somebody, how to hire them. We're gonna go into the details about the how, but is there anything else around? Just the concept of the role that I haven't thought to ask you, that you wanna say, or anything else you wanna share.
Speaker 2:I think you've asked everything. Wendy Can't think of anything else now.
Speaker 1:Okay, okay.
Speaker 2:What else? But I think the most important thing about hiring a VA is in my experience it's always because some people they hire a VA and they don't have a job. Yeah Right, they have things for a VA to do at the moment, but once they hire a VA, then it's just good for one month. After a month they don't know anymore what to delegate to a VA.
Speaker 2:So, I think it's one of the most important things to consider when hiring a VA. Like maybe you make a plan, like let's just say a 30-day plan, on the things that we want to delegate immediately to a VA. And then you can think of the more long-term.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so think about. So what I hear you, what I'm hearing you say, is think about a part of your business that you want to hand over. I want the onboarding of a new client. I just want somebody to figure that whole process out and make that system smoother. Or I want to build a mailing list and send them a newsletter every two weeks. I need someone to help me figure out how to do that and I just want to handle that process. Or I want to put together some kind of a free offer on my website that people download, and I don't even how do I design that and how do I set that up.
Speaker 2:I just want somebody to.
Speaker 1:Right, so what's the process that I need someone to help me with in an ongoing basis? Because even then I'll use that as an example. Once that's set up, you still need someone who can monitor that over time and manage those names when they come in. Like there's a whole, there's a process around that. So what's the segment of your business? Like? I just want someone to smooth this out for me, yeah, yeah there you go.
Speaker 2:That's a good place. I have that experience with you know. Not so many but a few clients would hire me for, let's say, a six months, but then out of six months I only did like a good two months work for them, because they don't know anymore what they want to assign me which is you know you're paying someone for doing nothing.
Speaker 1:So know what you want before you hire them. That's your tip right there. Yeah, yeah, okay, there's so much about. This is about just kind of learning how to think like a business owner and think like what do I need in my businesses? To what do I? What's going to make me more successful here? And your systems are a big part of it.
Speaker 1:All right, I'm going to pull this to a close with that, because I think we need I could talk all day long about this, and we actually are going to kind of talk all day long. We're going to wrap this one up. I hope what you have learned today is giving you some really good sort of places to start thinking about how you can identify what your practice needs, how you can offload that into a role and add someone to your team who's going to serve that particular function, and how to start thinking about maybe some of the budgeting aspects of that. All right, we'll talk a little bit more about that later as well, and with that, queenie, thank you so much. How can people learn more about you? What is your website? You want to share that with them so they can find you.
Speaker 2:My website is yourbusinessallycom, so ally, as in A-L-L-Y, your business ally.
Speaker 1:Which is a perfect name, because she is yourbusinessallycom. We'll put that in the show notes down below. Hope you all enjoyed this as much as I did. I really want this to be something you sink your teeth into, so we're going to come back with part two. Look forward to that. You'll hear that soon and I will see you right here next time on Ideal.
Speaker 2:Practice.
Speaker 1:Thanks everybody, bye now.
