The Difference between the Types of VA Businesses

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Hi, welcome to the podcast that explores what virtual assistants want business owners to

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know when they start asking themselves the question, Hey, do I need a VA?

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I'm Rachel Davila.

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And after 18 years as a virtual assistant going it alone, I experienced a steep learning

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curve from the other side of the VA client relationship when I hired my own assistant.

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Joining me on this podcast is a group of friends and colleagues who all have their own take

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on what busy entrepreneurs need to know to find, hire, and work with a virtual assistant

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and mindfully answer the question, Hey, do I need a VA?

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Let's get this episode started.

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Hello everyone.

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Welcome back to Hey, Do I Need a VA?

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The podcast.

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Season two, episode six, and today we're talking about the difference between the types of

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VA businesses.

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So in past episodes, we talked about the different kinds of virtual assistants, but there is

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a difference between a solopreneur, a team, an agency, and an online business manager.

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And we're going to get into those in this episode.

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With me always is Sydney Hubbard, Leanne Uremely, Embree Beebe, and each one has a different

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take on what the differences between the types of VA businesses.

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So we're going to get started.

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I'm a solopreneur.

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That means I work by myself.

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I work independently with my clients.

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I am not answerable to really anyone else.

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If I need to bring on somebody to help my clients with something that I don't do, I

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don't act as the middleman.

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I let the client work directly with any other VA.

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I may coordinate some of the work that we're doing, but payments, contracts, working relationship

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is between the client and the VA.

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I am not the middle person.

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Bree, the way I understand it with teams is you are kind of the point of contact and then

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you work with somebody else with a client.

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Will you explain how your team works?

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Absolutely.

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So the way that we work with clients, and I don't know if this is the way every team

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does, but the way that we do is when we team up with a client, I always have at least two

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team members working with that client.

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Either me and somebody else or two team members.

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The benefit of that is that you get collaboration in the background.

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There's multiple ideas and voices to help contribute to what the strategies are and

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how we want to implement things.

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Should life happen, somebody gets sick, somebody has a family emergency or somebody goes on

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holiday, there's somebody else in the realm of things that has their finger on the pulse,

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they know what's going on.

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You have a connection with them.

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Sometimes there's more than two people, sometimes there's three or four, depending on what skill

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set and interests that are in the work that we're doing.

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I always try to team up my team members based on the things that they love doing and their

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interests.

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So if the client is into personal development or if they're more into healing or more into

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home improvement or things like that, making sure that the team member who's working with

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that client is as excited about those things as the client is.

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Very cool.

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Now, I don't believe any of us are part of an agency, but I've worked with one agency.

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It was not a great experience for me from a VA and a client side, but I know some people

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who really love them and they get a lot out of working with an agency.

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What is the difference between a team and an agency?

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For my perspective, I also haven't really worked with an agency.

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This is just from what I've heard from other people.

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My understanding is that with an agency, it can look a couple different ways.

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You can have where you submit work to be completed and it goes into a queue or you have certain

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days of the week that they work on your stuff.

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And then whatever team member or virtual assistant in that agency is up for capacity, then when

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they have time, they go and they take the next thing off.

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If that's your stuff, they go work on it, they bring it back.

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The other version I've heard is that you get a team member assigned to you from the agency,

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but it could be for a shorter amount of time.

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Maybe you have them for a week or a month and then it rotates out to somebody else depending

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on needs and what things look like in the background.

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That's my only hearsay experience.

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I think between working with a team and an agency, it's how much control and collaboration

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do you want to have with your VA who's doing the work?

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If you're okay with a doer, someone who's just task oriented and is going to do something

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that you have clear process and procedures and clarity on, then an agency might work

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well for you.

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I do know based on my research on agencies, they have high hourly minimums.

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So you have to look and see if the amount of work that you need fits in with a doer

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task oriented scope of work and time.

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But if you need that collaboration and you need to talk through something, then you're

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probably better off going with a team, somebody who can help you, guide you into what you're

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looking for, how it will be best served across the board of the different people who can

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touch it.

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And then there is an online business manager.

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And an online business manager, as I know it, and I'm going to pass it off to Leanne

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in a second here, but an online business manager is a higher level team owner slash solopreneur

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who can either bring a team with them for a client or they can manage a team that a

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client already has in place.

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Leanne, what's your take on an online business manager?

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You got the definition pretty much spot on.

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So an online business manager is not necessarily the doer.

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They manage the people that do the doing.

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So they usually end up somewhere in between the business owner and VA, VA bookkeepers,

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whatever you need.

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So I'm a trained OVM as well as I'm much more tech savvy.

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So I do both.

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So for me, what I do is I can manage the team, but I also take the piece that I like to do

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and I do both just because I like tech.

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I'm geeky that way, it's fine.

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But I don't have a team.

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Like Bree has a team she brings with her.

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I work with the business owner to bring in the people they need.

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And then the contract is with for the ones I work with is between the business owner

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and the doer.

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So if they want to bring in a bookkeeper, I will manage the bookkeeper, but the contract

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is between the business owner and the bookkeeper.

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I don't pay out.

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That way it's their own business still.

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I'm not the middleman, but I'm managing OVMs generally end up being more collaborative.

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So they'll talk to the business owner, get the gist of what they want and how they want

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to do it.

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Or they might say, hey, the business owner say, hey, I have a brilliant idea.

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And the OVM comes in and says, okay, this is how we're going to make that happen.

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And these are the people we need to bring in and manage and things like that.

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So it's kind of this middleman doer kind of person.

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The easiest way to think about it, OVMs do all sorts of different things.

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Some of them come right up and they are almost a business partner.

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Like they will literally run the business for the other person.

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Others will be a little more into that to your business.

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And I just make your dreams happen.

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That makes sense?

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Yeah.

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Now, Sydney, how would you classify your business?

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I would say that I'm also a solopreneur.

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I think there was like a moment when I was first working for Rachel where it did feel

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like more of a team.

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I mean, I don't know how long that was, maybe a month, maybe two months.

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And then Rachel eventually handed off a client to me and I was like, okay, now I have my

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own clients.

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And that's when it was really like, okay, this is a solopreneur.

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I have my own business.

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But yeah, I think it's interesting to hear from the perspective of a team and the perspective

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of an OBM.

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I have a question for you, Rachel.

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I know that you do work with another VA.

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Do you know, is that like, is that VA part of a team?

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Is that VA like a solopreneur?

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What's that experience like?

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So because Sydney has now switched over to being our podcast manager and does not have

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time for VA work for me, I've hired a VA team in the Philippines to do graphic work.

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And I guess in a way they are team members because I've handed off client work to them

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and I am acting as a midwife.

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So oh my God, I'm a team.

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But for the most part, it's mostly like my graphics and stuff.

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It's really just one client because, you know, I think solopreneurs can get to a point where,

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especially if we've been in the business for a long time, I like doing graphic work, but

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it doesn't excite me anymore.

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And there are people who do it so much better.

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They love it.

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It's their zone of genius.

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And I would much rather be like, here you go.

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Here's what I need you to do for me, for this client.

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And I don't have to.

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I had to walk my talk, you guys.

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I mean, if I'm going to tell potential clients to hand over the things that don't jazz them,

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then I got to do the same thing.

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And so actually, Rusty with Above Talent Creation, I met him through a client.

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He worked for an agency and the client worked with him.

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So I got to work with him through that and I got to see his skill set.

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So when he left the agency and went freelance and was starting his own team, I was like,

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yes, please.

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I love your stuff.

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I want you to do the stuff for me.

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And so I reached out to him to see if he was interested and he was.

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And so he's doing excellent work for the clients that I send him.

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But for the most part, he works for me.

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Yeah.

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Oh my God, you guys, I'm a team.

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The reason I didn't want to be a team was I didn't want the responsibility of finding

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clients to hand off work to someone else.

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And I think what makes working with Rusty is he's not beholden to me to find clients

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to give him work.

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I am one client who happens to give him other client work, but he has other clients.

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So I'm just one client in his practice.

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It's not my responsibility to be bringing in clients to give my team enough work.

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And that's my story.

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I'm sticking to it.

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At this point, my focus is to help potential clients find the right VA, know what they're

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looking for, help them create that kind of job description.

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And then if I'm the right fit, woohoo, let's work together.

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But if I'm not, pull from my referral network to help match clients and VAs because it's

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not a competition, folks.

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We're all unique.

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We're all wonderful.

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And there's the right fit for everyone.

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And so that kind of brings me to a question that we do get asked often.

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And it is, should I build my own team or should I work with a team or agency?

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And I've often told potential clients who have asked that, I recommend building your

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own team.

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And there's pros and cons to both.

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And I'm curious what Bree thinks and what Leanne thinks about this.

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But if you build your own team, then if one person drops off, the fit's not right, you

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complete that task or life implodes or whatever, then you don't lose your whole team.

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If you hire a team and you and your point of contact or you and someone on the team

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don't mesh anymore, then you've lost all of that support.

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That's kind of my take on it.

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And you can pick and choose who works best with you if you're working with everyone.

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However, I can see the value with having a really amazing relationship with your team

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lead who then can troubleshoot and redistribute projects within the team.

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Bree, what's your thoughts on building a team versus hiring a team?

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It really depends on preference.

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There are pluses and minuses to everything.

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I've had clients who have come to me who had started with building their own team and they

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were like, I got a social media person, I got a website person, I got an email person

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and I can't get them all to talk together.

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So she felt like she was constantly hurting kittens.

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She was spending more time trying to get them all on the same page or if something shifted

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and they decided at last minute to do one thing, she had to remember who did she tell,

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did she make sure that she told everybody, did it get passed along the line?

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So she said that when she started to work with us, that it was really nice that she

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could just share it with one person and we would sprinkle it in the background.

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Or if there was, you know, we were talking about one thing, we would think about all

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the different pieces that we're doing and make sure that they're all aligning with what

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it is versus having to make sure you're having those separate conversations and keeping everybody

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in the same page.

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The other way that we do things is if, and I'm not saying every team does this, if there

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is, like I'm not always the only point of contact.

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Sometimes my team members do meetings with clients and stuff as well.

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But if there is, it doesn't mesh anymore or there's a, it didn't work or they're just

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not getting what the vision or that kind of thing, then we don't take it personally.

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We're like, okay, that team member is not a fit.

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Okay, let's get you somebody else in.

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But the benefit of having that through a team is that you've already onboarded us.

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We already know the information.

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I can share the information in the background or we can, they can see like we always capture

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like a client sheet where we have like the information about the client, what we do for

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them, what their mission is.

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We capture workflows and stuff like that in the background.

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So that part is still there for the new team member if it happens to have that process

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where it needs to switch out or we need a different vibe or something like that.

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Leigh Ann, from an online business manager, I know part of that role is to kind of be

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that wrangler for a client who might have already created a team.

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What's your thoughts?

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As Free termed it, I'm the kitten wrangler.

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An online business manager does what a lot of people find out is a lot of work once they

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have their own team, which is, you know, you got two or three people that are not talking

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or you mentioned it to one person and someone else stops doing something else.

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Online business manager comes in and make sure it all happens and everybody knows what's

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going on and moves things along.

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The nice thing with using online business manager in your own team is if somebody drops

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off for whatever reason, you can bring somebody else on, the rest of the team continues.

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But like Bree said, there's pluses and minuses to both.

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It just kind of depends which way a client wants to go.

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If they have like, hey, I already have this bookkeeper that I love and I already have

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this social media person that I love, well, I just need a VA.

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Well, okay, but the VA is in town.

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Okay, so bring in an online business manager and do the whole thing.

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It just kind of depends on where you are in your business.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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And depending on who you're working with, like us as a team, if somebody already has

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people that they're working with, like we have some clients who have VA's in the Philippines

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that they work with, or if they have a bookkeeper that they just need to give information to,

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we also collaborate with them and pull in whoever we need or if there's a gap that we

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don't fill or that kind of thing as well.

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I find even as a solopreneur, I bring other VA's in all the time to support my clients

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and the real difference really is, I'm like, you can go talk to Leanne about your website.

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I don't need to be part of that conversation.

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Right?

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Like go talk to Bree about your social media content and then bring it back to me and I'll

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implement it.

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Right?

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So, I'm going to hand this off to Sydney because they're really good at this piece of it, but

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you talk to Sydney directly about your expectations.

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So I think, as a potential client, whether you work with a solopreneur who can fill in

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the gaps with colleagues or working with an OBM to manage people you're already working

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with or hiring a team to kind of fill in all the gaps.

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I don't think you can go wrong.

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It's just knowing what you need and how it best supports your budget, your needs.

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I will say that online business managers do charge a higher rate than VA's do because

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they are overseeing it all and they are much, they're more of what, like an executive level.

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Right?

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If you as the business owner or the CEO, then they're more likely a COO, right?

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They're the operating officer keeping all the teams in motion.

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So you know, budget might be how you look at it, but it might be if your goals are vast

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and broad with lots of different specialties, it's not likely that a single VA can do all

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of those pieces.

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So it's at what point in your journey are you doing those things?

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And if it's all at once, because you're like, I'm doing a rebrand and a website and a this

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and a that, and it's a whole slew of things, then you might want an OBM to kind of project

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manage that or a team owner who has the necessary skills within the team.

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Because like a solopreneur, like, yeah, I can take your rebranded look and put it into

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social media, but I don't do websites, but a solopreneur might be able to do some of

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the steps, but not all of them.

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But it sounds like regardless, we all can get it done.

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Or know somebody who can help.

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Or know somebody who can help.

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Or I'll go to my VA referral directory and find someone for you, so just give me a call.

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Let me know what you need.

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Thank you so much for being here today with us on season two, episode six of Hey, Do I

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Need a VA?

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The podcast where we talked about the difference between the types of VA businesses.

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If you have any questions, please send us an email at heyvapodcast.gmail.com.

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Or if you have something specific to one of us, use the link tree to connect with us.

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Thanks so much for being here.

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We'll see you next time.

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Thank you for joining us on this episode of Hey, Do I Need a VA?

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The podcast.

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If you found this episode helpful, please leave a like, comment, or review, and feel

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free to join our Facebook group, Find, Hire, and Work with a VA for more tips and tools.

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If you have any questions, please email them to heyvapodcast.gmail.com.

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We'll see you next time.