How Do I Know If I'm Ready for a VA?

0:00 Hi, welcome to the podcast that explores virtual assistants, lump business owners to know, but may start asking themselves the question, hey, do I meet a VA? I'm Rachel Davila, and after 18 years as a virtual assistant going at a loan, I experienced the steep learning curve from the other side of the VA client relationship when I hired my own assistant. Joining me on this podcast is a group of friends and colleagues who all have their own take on what busy entrepreneurs need to know to find, hire and work with a virtual assistant, and mindfully answer the question, hey, do I meet a VA? Let's get this episode started. Hey everybody, welcome back to episode 2 of Hey, do I meet a VA? The podcast I'm your host Rachel and I am joined again with my cast of VA colleagues and friends and I'm going to set the timer for 20 minutes because I can talk and they know this about me, but today we're going to talk about how do I know if I'm ready to hire a VA? My thought on that is if you're asking the question, then you're already on the journey, but I want to ask my friends what their experience has been when clients or potential clients have come to them and asked the question, how do I know?

1:31 So, Ray, we'll start with you because we end with in the high seat last episode. Thank you Rachel. Yeah, I agree with you. If you're asking the question or if you're feeling overwhelmed or stressed or feeling areas in your business that feel like they're sucking your energy and not bringing you the joy that you love working in, then it might be something to consider in that time to like reach out and maybe ask other people who they know or even take a moment as you're going through your day and just jot down. What are the things that you really wish you could get to somebody else? Is it doing your email admin? Is it doing, you know, your bookkeeping stuff? Is it doing your social media? Are these pieces that you would love to hand off? Just even start like a dream list of the things that you would like to hand off and see what that feels like if you have a slight idea of what those are, it helps to start, but don't feel like you also have to have all the answers before you even begin. That's part of the building relationship and know that when you're working with a VA, that's what it is in the beginning. It's a lot of the building relationship getting to know each other, getting to know what your interests are, what you're doing, how you're serving people so that we can help support you the best way we can. Definitely. Yeah, and your needs change as you work with a VA, so you don't have to know at all at the beginning.

2:54 Having a good VA on your team will help you kind of, wait, I can do that. I can ask you to do that. Yeah, I'm going to hand out over to you because I didn't even know that was a thing. So, right? Ask questions, ask your VA questions. We want to learn and grow with you. So, I mean, in our team, if there's something that we don't already know and a client asks it, I'll go to my team and ask them, like, hey, does anybody want to learn this new to skill? And more and often than not, I already have a course for it, and there's somebody on my team who's been chomping at the bit to learn it. We just didn't have the reason to yet. So, always ask your VA question, or if they're in a collaboration like VR, they'll make me somebody else that they could pull in and make it another team member for you to help support you in those areas.

3:40 Sydney, you got anything to add? I think an important part of being ready to hire a VA is being comfortable with your business, come for all enough to trust someone else, to start to weigh in on it. I think one of the things that might be the most difficult about hiring a VA is losing that little bit of control. I think it's easy to really enjoy controlling every aspect of your business even though it's a draining you. And I think that learning to let go little by little and trust the VA you're working with. I think that's one of the most difficult parts, and I think it's also the part that is constantly in development even after you've hired a VA.

4:48 That was right on the nose because having been a VA and then handing stuff off to a VA or Sydney, the learning curve that I had to go on to be able to hand stuff off to them was severe. It was pretty steep because perfectionism and you know, well it's just easier for me to do it versus explaining and teaching and showing why I was doing it and what I was doing. That is still something I'm working on. So, thank you Sydney.

5:29 Me as well, just to speak to that for a second to you is that like when you do hand it off and you start taking it back, then you have to remind yourself that there's a reason why you hand it off and it's for the greater good for that person to take it on because I also fall into taking it back. And it doesn't serve me that was there was a reason why I handed it off into the evening so catching yourself and being aware when that happens helps too. And being ready to acknowledge that about yourself so that you can go, okay, this is something I'm working on. This is why I'm doing this is so that I can let it go and focus on other things or business building things. So Leanne, what do you tell clients when they ask the question? I actually ask them a question back which is are you able to continue running your business the way you're doing it?

6:21 Because really, they're already asking questions. They already know the answer. So my biggest thing is can you keep going this way? Did your health continue? Did your family going to be okay? Can you continue doing 24-7 on your business or do you need some help? And a lot of times although I'm a little bit different of a VA I do a much more tech. I start with project. So it's like hey, let's try something out. Let's find a piece that you just is a project. Just a piece to hand off to me. I'll take care of it. And then we can decide hey, is this working? Is it not and move forward from there? And most of the time, even if the little tiny piece and the only takes me, you know, 15-20-mint, half hour, whatever. Even if it's a little tiny piece, they'll go, that was so much better here. And they just keep handing.

7:16 And it works both ways. It gives me a chance to learn how they work. And it gives them a chance to relax a little about handing something off. One of the biggest things like we've preset and I think actually every basement you just hand it off, they want to take it back. It's like the meal. I want to take it back. I'll take care of this little piece for you. And then let's see how we go. And for me from the way my business works, that works better than hey, sign on the dotted line. And I am now your VA and for all things, you know, 30 hours a week. That's not the thing for me. But it is for some businesses. That works that way. So sometimes starting really small, even if it's like a little tiny piece works better. And they kind of get to understand what a VA can do for them.

8:06 Because that little tiny piece is like, like, they're stumbling block. They couldn't get past it. And then like, hey, they did that. Now I have an hour free. And I can go do something else. Yeah. And it's not always a task. Sometimes it's a feeling that you need like, if you're a solo per newer and you've been doing it on your own, for however long you've been doing it. And then suddenly now you have somebody that's on your team. It's it's um, it's a learning to go, oh, I'm not by myself. I have somebody. And that does take time to sink in. It takes time to build the trust, the, I picked the right person. I didn't even know I needed that kind of support. And they're giving it. I didn't even know. And so there's a lot of elements that we're going to talk about this season on this that when you're first thinking, am I ready to hire a virtual assistant? Most people come to it with what am I going to hand off? And I think what what I got out of it and what I think we all try to cultivate with our clients is

9:41 it's not just the handing off of tasks. It's that feeling of, I'm not alone. I can, I can hand off this piece that's been holding me back and somebody's going to catch it, run with it. Sometimes better than I could do it myself because I'm distracted or there's more things, right? I just got to get that done. And I just spent three hours on a graphic because I can't get out of my own way. And sometimes it's just, I need a starting place. I need somebody to just, right, just do it so that I can not think about it anymore. And I think there's some of those emotions that like when I, you know, when they, when I was in my program to become a virtual assistant, they're like, we're not going to teach you the skills. We're not going to teach you those kinds of things. We're going to teach you the foundations of being a business partner with other businesses, your business, their business, and you're working together. And it's going to change your life because you're going to look at things differently. When you're working with a virtual assistant, it's business to business. They're not, and employee, they're not somebody that you just

11:13 order about. And at least not the way we do it. I mean, I can't speak for everyone else here, but that's not how I run my business. I am a partner with my, with my clients. And so having that sounding board for both businesses is, is a value added that you don't necessarily go into a VA client relationship with. But once it kicks in and once you're like, oh, they're doing this better than I could. They're, they're taking it and they're running with it in a direction. I never imagined it could go. Wow. That's, it's a, it's a feeling, it's not a task. It's, I mean, that that's how you build the trust and that's how you kind of, you know, go, okay, I can hand off more, but it's that freedom that relief that I'm not alone. And I have more space, I have more time.

12:24 And I always joked because I've seen it with clients. Is that when I start to take things off their plate, things that they're like, okay, that's, that's why I hired a VA. That's what I need them to do. They're like, oh my God, I just had this idea. This crazy creative download of what's next. And and it just, their confidence grows their Because I know when I handed things off to Sydney, you know, and actually surrender crazy, crazy growth happens. So it's not something that we can tell you is going to happen. We just know it's going to happen. So how do you know if you're ready?

13:15 You may not be ready for what's going to happen, but you don't have, it's never that like, that super fast growth, right? It's baby steps. It's incremental. It's learning, trusting, growing, and my wrong. No, it totally develops over time. And I can just those tasks that you need to get done. Those ones that have been on the back burner hanging off of you for a long time, just getting those ones off your back, too. Yeah, yeah. I call them procrastinations and tolerations because before you can even start looking at goals, I just, I just need to get this off and out of the way.

14:04 And a lot of times Sydney is just my starting place. It's like, Sydney. They did an amazing job on my social media because I met with Bree. And she gave me all these wonderful pillars to incorporate in my social media. I was like, oh my god, that is Sydney. Look at this and tell me what to do. I can do the video. I can write the content, but give me an outline, give me a direction. And they did, they took that and they, and I didn't know I needed that until I was faced with it.

14:45 And it makes life a lot easier. I think that is our job is to make our clients' lives easier. And so if you're starting to think, am I ready? Are you ready for ease? Are you ready for more time, more creativity, more ability to focus on the reason you got in your business in the first place? Because there's the two sides of a business, right? There's the client facing side, the reason you got in your passion side. And then there's the business owners hat side. You know, the running of the business and the in-voicing and the pain, the bills and the scheduling and all the things that make your business run. And sometimes those are things you want to end off because I just want to focus on what I've passionate about. And so if you're ready for that, then you know you're ready.

15:50 And I think if you're listening to this podcast, you're ready. Or at least you're ready to start the journey, right? Even if you're not ready to sign on the dotted line. And there's a lot that goes into finding hiring and working with a VA. Be on that question of am I ready for this? So as we go through, we're going to touch base on all of those things that you may not have been aware of, were reasons and things that you need to consider. And that will also help you to answer the question, are you ready to hire a VA? Because you might come up again, some things really like, no, I don't necessarily have a process in place that I could easily hand off to somebody, or I don't really know enough about this to explain it to somebody else. I need to do some work on that. Anything else, maybe? I think I like what you're talking about about like the things that need to be done before hiring a VA makes sense. Because I think there's a lot of, I guess consideration about what even you would hand off. And what you would need to teach the VA about your brand and your style. And so I think that I think that that is something to consider,

17:27 that like sometimes it takes time to make time in the future. So I think that is part of the learning curve. Yeah. One of the things I realized when I, you know, I brought Sydney on board, but I hadn't done any of that work. So it was kind of like, I don't have anything for you this week. You know, because I didn't do my homework. And so there are things we'll talk about in later episodes, but do you have enough work to hire somebody? Do you know how to hand it off in what format? Like there's just a lot to consider since we do have time. Oh, no, we got two minutes.

18:13 Oh gosh. Okay. So real quick, is there anything that you want to wrap up with and say to consider if they're asking that question? I'd say you can also consider your virtual assistant as also like an accountability partner, right? Because there's a lot of things that we have on our plate and we just fluff off because it's easy for us to do. But when there's somebody on the other end, waiting for us to get those pieces to them, then now it holds us accountable. And that's where some of that momentum and traction will come because somebody's keeping you on board and asking those questions and helping you look for those answers that you may not know you needed to find because you didn't have to ask those questions yourself. So it's nice to have an outside perspective on those things that you're getting to build that relationship as well. Yes. Yes. Good point. Good point.

19:03 Man, I just think that if you think you might be ready to hire a VA, the biggest question you can ask yourself is, can you keep going the way you are or when working with a partner help? Because that's definitely what VA's are as a partner. Nobody has the band with to run a business and tell somebody exactly what to do all the time. You can't micromanage that. You have to just hand off to a VA and let them do the work. So they become a business partner for you that is different because they're not part of your business, but they're part of your business.

19:44 It's kind of an odd way of looking at it. They're not financially or contractually attached to your business, but at the same time they have invested interest in your business and they kind of help you grow. So like you said, a accountability partner. It's amazing how many of my clients go. I got so much more than that because I knew I was going to meet with you. It's like, yep, I'll just sit here and you can give me the work. But at the same time they knew they were going to meet with me. They didn't want to face me and tell me they didn't do their homework. It's amazing to me how they're like, this is so awesome. I didn't even really do anything but show up and they're like, that you're helping me get things done. That's part of it. Yeah. Yeah.

20:35 Is it nearly any last thoughts? Yeah. I mean, I think I like what Leanne is saying about and you continue with the way you're going. Because I definitely, I think being in college is definitely giving me a new understanding of what is sustainable and what's not sustainable. I feel like, and I feel like the college lifestyle maybe isn't meant to be sustainable. But at the same time, I think pairing that with like being a business owner is definitely like like sustainability in like energy and everything you're doing is definitely a strong consideration.

21:29 And I hadn't seen it like that before. So I appreciate that perspective. Yeah. I can definitely attest to the accountability piece because I'll do things for clients, but I won't do them for myself. So having to get things to Sydney so that they can do what I need them to do by the time I need to do it creates that deadline that end goal for me that I need to to be accountable to myself, to my business to Sydney. So it's definitely a strong, a strong piece.

22:10 And I know that I have a 30 minute clarity call to kind of touch base with potential clients who think they might be ready. Do you all have a short call to just see if were you kind of talk through with a client if they're ready? If the fit is right, you know, those kinds of things? Yep. Definitely. Yeah. So even if you're not sure if you're ready to hire a VA, if you just want to have that conversation with a VA, you can reach out to any one of us in our in our clarity call discovery call to ask the questions to get those answers to even just start the conversation because even if you're not ready in the moment to start, it might be let's start with a small project, see how it goes. When we ask the questions of these are the things that I'm thinking I want to hand off is that even a thing of VA does, you know, all those kinds of questions that you might have instead of letting them swirl in your head, it could really help to talk with any one of us to get the perspective that you might need to

23:44 answer the question I'm already. So thank you for joining us today on episode two of hey, do I need a VA, the podcast, and we look forward to seeing you next time. Thank you. Thank you for joining us on this episode of hey, do I need a VA, the podcast? If you found this episode helpful, please leave a like, comment or review. Until free to join our Facebook group, find hire and work with a VA for more tips and tools. If you have any questions, please email them to hey VA podcast at gmail.com. We'll see you next time.