Signs you may NOT be ready for a VA

0:00 Hi, welcome to the podcast that explores what virtual assistants want business owners to know when they start asking themselves the question, Hey, do I need a VA? I'm Rachel Davila. And after 18 years as a virtual assistant going it alone, 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 need a VA?

0:43 Let's get this episode started. Hello and welcome back to season two, episode three of Hey, do I need a VA? The podcast. I'm your host, Rachel Davila with me is Bree BV, Sydney Hubbard, and Leanne Uremli. Today we're talking about signs you're not ready for a VA. Season one was full of all the things to do to get ready for someone. And season two is kind of like the other things that you might want to ask about. But sometimes the answer to the question is you're just not ready or a VA is not the right fit for you and your business.

1:32 So that's the topic of today. Does anyone have any points that they want to jump in with? What's one sign that you might kind of go, yeah, you might not be ready for me yet. I can start. Yeah, a lot of people aren't ready if they don't have income. You gotta be able to pay your VA. And it's funny because it's almost like which comes first, because you kind of need the VA to get your business going. But at the same time, you need your business going to pay for the VA. So there are ways to work around that. But that's one thing to really think about is do you have the income to pay for the services you're going to need?

2:15 That's a good one. Yeah. And sometimes you might need that budget episode to kind of work through the order in which you will work with someone to get to the point where you get that income stream coming in to pay for somebody. Sid, what idea do you have? Yeah, I think the income thing is really good. I think being able to make income without a VA is necessary. And if you can't make income without a VA, then you probably actually need an employee instead. Because I know I've worked for people who really the amount of hours they needed was an employee amount of hours.

3:03 And VAs, they have their own businesses, they have their own clients. And so it doesn't make sense for a VA to really only be dedicated to one person. It doesn't make sense to ask a VA to take on an employee workload. And I think also just the idea that an employee will work to emergencies because that's what they're being paid to do. But a VA shouldn't have to do that because they're not an employee. So I think those are the main things that come to mind for me.

3:46 Just because it's not an employee, though, like you can still have somebody who works for you remotely, even if it is that 40 hour a week, like just having it because it has a different status, like there might be somebody who's willing to do that work remotely where you don't need to have the overhead cost of having an office or something like that, just that relationship might look differently. And then those expectations would need to be addressed if that was going to be the case. And that would be the heaviness of the workload just to have those kinds of things. And so then that's where for me, like if you are not ready to communicate those needs or you're not clear on what your goals are, that can also be a sign that you're not quite ready. Because if you don't have the direction to give to them, or at least what the goals are that you guys can all work towards to communicate that with them, that might also be a sign because we can only do as much as we're giving the guidance and the information to do, right?

4:39 Like there's only so much magic we can do. And if you're not clear on where you want to go, what your goals and objectives are, what's been working and what you would like to improve, there needs to be some kind of baseline there of getting that clarity or working with maybe a little bit of a higher level, more of that partner minded VA that can help you talk that out and has the experience to help you kind of come up with what those might look like, like how Rachel, you do your sessions on mapping out what the things and stuff look like. Like that would be different than a first starting out VA that may not have that capacity to do those. So also knowing those kinds of things. If you don't have that to get started with just any VA, maybe it's that you have to find a different VA and then that loops back again to the budget.

5:23 Yeah. Yeah. And just to reiterate for anyone new to the podcast, most VA's will max out at 40 hours a month. I know here in California, I can't legally do more than 40 hours for one client. That puts me into an employee, not a 1099 contractor position. And so when you're considering what your needs are, if you need someone on site or you need someone for more than 40 hours a month, or you're looking for that kind of on the spot support that is just for your business, then you might look at getting an employee versus hiring a VA, especially if you're trying to find a temporary solution to a problem.

6:25 A VA may be a great option for a part-time worker or doing some part-time support. But if you're looking for a temporary solution to a full-time employee, a VA may not be the right fit for you. You might want to look at a temp agency or working in-house with other assistants that can take on the workload if you have more than one. And I like what you are saying, Bri, about the vague ideas of what you need, what you're looking for, what your vision is. You have to come to the table with at least a basic understanding of what you're looking for.

7:06 And Randolph List is a great place to start, kind of knowing what your first project is and kind of knowing in what order you want things to go. You need to have that in mind. And if you don't, figure that out first. One thing that kind of was mentioned in a roundabout way, but I'm going to pull it to the front, is if you don't have time to invest in the relationship. The client-VA relationship is a relationship. It's a give and take. It's back and forth. We need your support. You need our support.

7:47 If you don't have time to invest, if you think you are just going to hand something off and ignore us, then you may not be ready to work with a virtual assistant. You may want an employee who can come to you and ask you questions throughout the day or whatever. But we need that communication. We need to have that back and forth because questions come up. Needs come up. We might be heading down a path and be like, whoa, Nellie, and go down a completely different trajectory just on what comes at us. Then we might need you to step in and make decisions because I tell clients all the time, it's your business.

8:32 You are the decision maker. The buck stops with you. I can help you. I can support you. I can give you my years of knowledge and experience, but ultimately, it's your business. You make those decisions. If you don't have the time or the desire to be part of that, then a VA is not the right fit. If you brought up the work to emergencies, I would also say if you need to see your support person, we're virtual. We're all over the country and sometimes all over the world. If you need someone to be there and you want to see them, it might feel micromanaging, but some people do feel better when their assistant is in the next room and they can see that they're working on their stuff.

9:20 If that's your leadership style or manager style, then a VA is not the right fit for you. You'll want to look for somebody that can be there and they can oversee any other ideas, anything that's come up for you in your years of practice. I think too, having realistic expectations on timelines, even if you have goals for the next three months, what that looks like, but then having realistic expectation of what the timeline and the budget line up to be is really important to have. If you're like, I want to go full bore ahead, but you don't have the budget to do that, then setting that expectation and communicating those things is really important too when you're working with it.

10:03 Again, maybe you're not quite ready to go that fast if that's the type of support and the things that you're looking for, but you don't have the budget for it. Notice that you're not ready for a VA. You have no money coming in. You have vague ideas of your projects or vision. You have no time to invest in the relationship. You don't know what you want your VA to do and you work to emergencies or want to see a person doing your work or you need more than 40 hours a month. These are all signs that you may not be ready for a VA or that a VA is not the right fit for you and your business.

10:49 If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to any one of us or send us an email at heyvapodcast at gmail.com. We're happy to answer any and all questions. Give us a like, review, or share this episode with anyone who you feel might benefit from this information and we will see you next time. Take care. 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 and feel 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 heyvapodcast at gmail.com.

11:34 We'll see you next time.