Where to Find a Virtual Assistant

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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 the 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, hello everyone and welcome to Hey, do I need a VA?

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The podcast.

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We're in season two and today is episode number five and we have a great episode for you because

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it is all about where to find a virtual assistant.

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You've already done the hard work.

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You figured out what you needed.

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You figured out what they were going to do and how they were going to do it.

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You're ready for onboarding.

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Now you just got to find the person to onboard and start working with.

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And where are they?

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They are everywhere.

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Back in 2005 when I became a VA, I didn't even know that it was a thing.

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And when I talked to potential clients about being a virtual assistant, they were like,

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you work for the VA administration?

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No, I had to do a lot of education around what a VA was, what we could do and how we

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could help.

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And I think over the years the industry has grown and everything and lots of different

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titles have gotten lumped in as VA.

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And so a lot of potential clients are concerned.

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Where do I find a virtual assistant?

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The one that fits what I need.

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So that's what we're going to talk about today.

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So I know where I send people, but I'm going to open it up to my cast of Sydney Hubbard,

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Leanna Remley and Bree Vevey.

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Welcome to the call with me.

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I want to ask you, where do you tell people who are saying, hey, I think I might be ready

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for a VA, where do you tell them to start looking for someone?

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I tell them to go to you.

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There are a bunch of places, but at this point that is where I send people to you.

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Well, thank you.

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I appreciate that.

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I also send them to like, there's online groups that you can send people to that are with

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virtual assistants who are being trained.

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There's ones like the virtual savvy, which I actually was, I did a lot of their training

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and things like that.

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If you're in Canada, there's one called CAVA, which is the Canadian virtual assistant association

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and they have a bunch of information and things like that.

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Sydney, how about you?

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I mean, I also just send everybody to Rachel.

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I mean, sometimes I send people to Leanne if they're looking for more of a tech website

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type thing, but yeah, Rachel kind of knows everybody.

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I don't actually, but I appreciate the sentiment.

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But yeah, so as you can tell friends, family, and your personal network really is the first

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place you should start because you may not know someone, but it's like that six degrees

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of Kevin Bacon thing.

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Someone you know may know someone who knows someone that can get you to the VA who can

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be right for you.

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As Bri said, there are online training programs for virtual assistants and most of them do

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offer a request for proposal service or hire a VA directory.

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I know the assist you has a registry and that was my training program and the registry is

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still there.

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And virtual savvy that Bri talked about and there's also one that I follow on Facebook,

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which is the VA connection.

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And I'm sure there are others.

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When you go looking there, you might want to check in with a couple of different people.

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Don't just stick with the first person that responds to your questionnaire or your referral.

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Do your interview process.

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Interview with a couple of people.

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I tell people at least interview three, even if it's love at first sight on the first one.

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So yes, online communities.

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If you are part of a networking organization, I'm part of an organization called Polka Dot

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Powerhouse and the motto of that is there's a dot for everything.

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And so we get lots of requests in the Facebook groups and everything for where do I find

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a VA?

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And the feed, the comment feed is lots of different names that pop up.

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So check if you're already networking, doing business connections.

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Always ask.

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Because you don't know who knows somebody who can help you.

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And when I was looking for my VA, it was like a working group.

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But I just said, I think I'm ready for a VA.

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And like that night, my friend was like, what about Sydney?

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And I said, okay, let's give it a shot.

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So you may know someone who knows somebody who is looking to be a VA or is already a

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VA or knows someone who is a VA.

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Next question is how did you find out about virtual assistant in order to become a VA?

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Because that's another way of finding a VA is learning about what a VA is and the industry

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of virtual assistant.

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So Sydney, let's start with you.

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I first realized what a virtual assistant was when I met Rachel and I met Rachel through

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my mom.

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So that kind of goes back to the whole, you know, friends and family probably know someone

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who knows someone.

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If you know any solopreneur, any small business owner, they probably know someone.

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I mean, in my case, I started working right out of high school.

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So even if you just know a high schooler that's tech savvy, you know, like that could that

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could be a potential connection.

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But yeah, I think especially in the case of Rachel, like I had her to kind of teach me

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about what a virtual assistant was, what it meant to have that as a business.

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So yeah, that was my that was my point of contact.

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I had already been doing, I guess it was virtual assistant work.

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I was already working with a client from my home office.

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So technically I was virtual, but I found out about being a VA by accident.

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I was looking up a name for my organizing business and came across a virtual assistant

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and I was like, I read through her website.

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I was like, oh my God, what is this magic?

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You mean I can do the work that I love for clients?

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And she ended up talking with me for an hour and introduced me to assist you where I learned

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the business side of being a VA and the rest is history.

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And I know I for one love to pay it forward.

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So anytime I find or someone asks me like, you're a VA, can you talk to so and so because

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they want to be a VA?

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I am all for that because then I get to know them and I can respond.

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So we and how was your entrance into VA?

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I started before VA was a thing because of circumstances with my twins and stuff.

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I had to leave corporate America and I happened to be working with a couple of contractors

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at the company before I left and they said, well, we still need admin help.

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Would you do that for us just out of your own office?

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I'm like, yeah, sure.

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And then after a little bit they go, can we tell our friend?

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And I'm like, sure.

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So I went from the one client to 10 clients in one month.

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That's a lot.

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Don't recommend it.

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But it was an introduction into there's this whole group of people that need VA work.

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And yeah, I can do that from my own office and set it up and do it that way.

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So it wasn't like I met anybody that was a VA because it wasn't a thing yet.

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It's just you started the same year I did.

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So and that's one of the oldest ones.

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So yeah, I just kind of made it up.

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I didn't know what it was called at the time.

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I am the same as all of you.

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I fell into it by accident.

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I actually was running a childcare business out of my home for 20 years while my kids

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were growing up and was looking for a change.

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And I was talking about how I wanted to do something new with a friend of mine who was

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getting her business going.

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And she wanted to do these amazing things in her industry and she wanted to do a conference

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and all these things.

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And she was like, I wish I was as organized as you and I could coordinate this stuff like

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you.

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And I was like telling her, I don't really know what I want to do with my life, but I

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want to do something different.

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Let me help you out.

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And within a week she was like, how could I hire you?

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And through working with her, I got to learn all these amazing things on working in Kajabi

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and websites and marketing and social media and transferring, like traveling with her

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to go to different conferences and putting on our own international conference and finding

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all these bits and pieces.

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And I was like, I love all of this.

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I love the work that we're doing and that I can do it from home, that I can still travel

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and do it with my family.

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And I ended up taking on more clients and learning more things and eventually started

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inviting others to come on the ride with me.

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Yeah.

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So how do you find your team members?

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It's been a mix of things.

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One of my first team members were my kids.

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They were my teenagers and university students as well.

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And so I got to learn a lot through, they learned a lot through me and it was fun watching

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them do that because they got to use those skills for their school projects and stuff

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as well.

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So it was really neat.

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And then I just, I would put up posts and people would refer friends who had skills

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that would fall into that kind of thing.

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I had people that reached out that I knew and I never would have asked because they

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were kind of doing their own thing, but we were in the same training groups or we were

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like taking the same social media training staff and they were like, oh, I don't want

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to go out and find clients on my own.

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I'd rather come work with you.

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And so we team up that way, which is really cool.

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And so quite often some of my team members will have their own side gig as well, and

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then work for me part-time, which is really neat because they get to bring those skills

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and stuff in as a contribution to what the rest of us have.

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But that seems, I posted out there and see what comes, but that's how most of them have

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been coming.

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So a virtual assistant is a business owner.

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They are not a remote employee or a remote worker.

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Remote employees belong to the company that they work for.

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They just work from home.

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So while some of them might say I'm a virtual assistant because I am an admin that is virtual,

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the term actually encompasses a business owner, a 1099 contractor, somebody whose sole business

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it is to do virtual assistant work for multiple clients.

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It can be a side gig.

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It can be a part-time thing, but there is a difference between having in a remote employee,

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somebody who works virtually doing admin work and working with a virtual assistant.

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So I just want that to be clear because I've heard of people who say, oh, well, I can do

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that from home.

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I'm a virtual assistant.

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I would like to encourage potential clients to look for someone who looks at their VA

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business as a business.

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Even if it's a part-time one or something like that, not just somebody who can do the

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tasks for you.

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If that's your budget and you have a child or a friend's child or somebody that you're

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like, okay, I can hand off data entry or social media or graphic creation, there's a difference

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between just handing off a task and working with a virtual assistant.

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So if you're looking for a virtual assistant, a business owner who does this as a business,

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then have that clarity of it's business to business and it's not just somebody who is

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doing remote tasks for you.

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So if you have any questions about where to find a virtual assistant, please send us an

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email at heyvapodcast at gmail.com or send me an email.

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I'm happy to refer you.

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I just started a virtual assistant referral directory for potential clients and a find

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a VA program that can help you figure out what you need, what you're looking for, and

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that includes referrals once you get to that point.

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So all those details are on my website and that is in our resource and link tree.

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So thank you for joining us today for season two, episode five, Where to Find a VA.

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We look forward to seeing 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 free

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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 at gmail.com.

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We'll see you next time.