Where to Find a Virtual Assistant

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, hello everyone and welcome to Hey, do I need a VA? The podcast. We're in season two and today is episode number five and we have a great episode for you because it is all about where to find a virtual assistant. You've already done the hard work. You figured out what you needed. You figured out what they were going to do and how they were going to do it. You're ready for onboarding. Now you just got to find the person to onboard and start working with. And where are they? They are everywhere.

1:25 Back in 2005 when I became a VA, I didn't even know that it was a thing. And when I talked to potential clients about being a virtual assistant, they were like, you work for the VA administration? No, I had to do a lot of education around what a VA was, what we could do and how we could help. And I think over the years the industry has grown and everything and lots of different titles have gotten lumped in as VA. And so a lot of potential clients are concerned. Where do I find a virtual assistant?

2:06 The one that fits what I need. So that's what we're going to talk about today. So I know where I send people, but I'm going to open it up to my cast of Sydney Hubbard, Leanna Remley and Bree Vevey. Welcome to the call with me. I want to ask you, where do you tell people who are saying, hey, I think I might be ready for a VA, where do you tell them to start looking for someone? I tell them to go to you. There are a bunch of places, but at this point that is where I send people to you. Well, thank you.

2:47 I appreciate that. I also send them to like, there's online groups that you can send people to that are with virtual assistants who are being trained. There's ones like the virtual savvy, which I actually was, I did a lot of their training and things like that. If you're in Canada, there's one called CAVA, which is the Canadian virtual assistant association and they have a bunch of information and things like that. Sydney, how about you? I mean, I also just send everybody to Rachel. I mean, sometimes I send people to Leanne if they're looking for more of a tech website type thing, but yeah, Rachel kind of knows everybody. I don't actually, but I appreciate the sentiment.

3:33 But yeah, so as you can tell friends, family, and your personal network really is the first place you should start because you may not know someone, but it's like that six degrees of Kevin Bacon thing. Someone you know may know someone who knows someone that can get you to the VA who can be right for you. As Bri said, there are online training programs for virtual assistants and most of them do offer a request for proposal service or hire a VA directory. I know the assist you has a registry and that was my training program and the registry is still there.

4:22 And virtual savvy that Bri talked about and there's also one that I follow on Facebook, which is the VA connection. And I'm sure there are others. When you go looking there, you might want to check in with a couple of different people. Don't just stick with the first person that responds to your questionnaire or your referral. Do your interview process. Interview with a couple of people. I tell people at least interview three, even if it's love at first sight on the first one. So yes, online communities. If you are part of a networking organization, I'm part of an organization called Polka Dot Powerhouse and the motto of that is there's a dot for everything.

5:10 And so we get lots of requests in the Facebook groups and everything for where do I find a VA? And the feed, the comment feed is lots of different names that pop up. So check if you're already networking, doing business connections. Always ask. Because you don't know who knows somebody who can help you. And when I was looking for my VA, it was like a working group. But I just said, I think I'm ready for a VA.

5:50 And like that night, my friend was like, what about Sydney? And I said, okay, let's give it a shot. So you may know someone who knows somebody who is looking to be a VA or is already a VA or knows someone who is a VA. Next question is how did you find out about virtual assistant in order to become a VA? Because that's another way of finding a VA is learning about what a VA is and the industry of virtual assistant. So Sydney, let's start with you.

6:30 I first realized what a virtual assistant was when I met Rachel and I met Rachel through my mom. So that kind of goes back to the whole, you know, friends and family probably know someone who knows someone. If you know any solopreneur, any small business owner, they probably know someone. I mean, in my case, I started working right out of high school. So even if you just know a high schooler that's tech savvy, you know, like that could that could be a potential connection. But yeah, I think especially in the case of Rachel, like I had her to kind of teach me about what a virtual assistant was, what it meant to have that as a business.

7:20 So yeah, that was my that was my point of contact. I had already been doing, I guess it was virtual assistant work. I was already working with a client from my home office. So technically I was virtual, but I found out about being a VA by accident. I was looking up a name for my organizing business and came across a virtual assistant and I was like, I read through her website. I was like, oh my God, what is this magic? You mean I can do the work that I love for clients? And she ended up talking with me for an hour and introduced me to assist you where I learned the business side of being a VA and the rest is history.

8:11 And I know I for one love to pay it forward. So anytime I find or someone asks me like, you're a VA, can you talk to so and so because they want to be a VA? I am all for that because then I get to know them and I can respond. So we and how was your entrance into VA? I started before VA was a thing because of circumstances with my twins and stuff. I had to leave corporate America and I happened to be working with a couple of contractors at the company before I left and they said, well, we still need admin help. Would you do that for us just out of your own office?

8:54 I'm like, yeah, sure. And then after a little bit they go, can we tell our friend? And I'm like, sure. So I went from the one client to 10 clients in one month. That's a lot. Don't recommend it. But it was an introduction into there's this whole group of people that need VA work. And yeah, I can do that from my own office and set it up and do it that way. So it wasn't like I met anybody that was a VA because it wasn't a thing yet. It's just you started the same year I did. So and that's one of the oldest ones. So yeah, I just kind of made it up. I didn't know what it was called at the time.

9:34 I am the same as all of you. I fell into it by accident. I actually was running a childcare business out of my home for 20 years while my kids were growing up and was looking for a change. And I was talking about how I wanted to do something new with a friend of mine who was getting her business going. And she wanted to do these amazing things in her industry and she wanted to do a conference and all these things. And she was like, I wish I was as organized as you and I could coordinate this stuff like you. And I was like telling her, I don't really know what I want to do with my life, but I want to do something different. Let me help you out. And within a week she was like, how could I hire you?

10:16 And through working with her, I got to learn all these amazing things on working in Kajabi and websites and marketing and social media and transferring, like traveling with her to go to different conferences and putting on our own international conference and finding all these bits and pieces. And I was like, I love all of this. I love the work that we're doing and that I can do it from home, that I can still travel and do it with my family. And I ended up taking on more clients and learning more things and eventually started inviting others to come on the ride with me. Yeah. So how do you find your team members? It's been a mix of things.

10:58 One of my first team members were my kids. They were my teenagers and university students as well. And so I got to learn a lot through, they learned a lot through me and it was fun watching them do that because they got to use those skills for their school projects and stuff as well. So it was really neat. And then I just, I would put up posts and people would refer friends who had skills that would fall into that kind of thing. I had people that reached out that I knew and I never would have asked because they were kind of doing their own thing, but we were in the same training groups or we were like taking the same social media training staff and they were like, oh, I don't want to go out and find clients on my own. I'd rather come work with you.

11:39 And so we team up that way, which is really cool. And so quite often some of my team members will have their own side gig as well, and then work for me part-time, which is really neat because they get to bring those skills and stuff in as a contribution to what the rest of us have. But that seems, I posted out there and see what comes, but that's how most of them have been coming. So a virtual assistant is a business owner. They are not a remote employee or a remote worker. Remote employees belong to the company that they work for. They just work from home. So while some of them might say I'm a virtual assistant because I am an admin that is virtual, the term actually encompasses a business owner, a 1099 contractor, somebody whose sole business it is to do virtual assistant work for multiple clients.

12:38 It can be a side gig. It can be a part-time thing, but there is a difference between having in a remote employee, somebody who works virtually doing admin work and working with a virtual assistant. So I just want that to be clear because I've heard of people who say, oh, well, I can do that from home. I'm a virtual assistant. I would like to encourage potential clients to look for someone who looks at their VA business as a business. Even if it's a part-time one or something like that, not just somebody who can do the tasks for you.

13:22 If that's your budget and you have a child or a friend's child or somebody that you're like, okay, I can hand off data entry or social media or graphic creation, there's a difference between just handing off a task and working with a virtual assistant. So if you're looking for a virtual assistant, a business owner who does this as a business, then have that clarity of it's business to business and it's not just somebody who is doing remote tasks for you. So if you have any questions about where to find a virtual assistant, please send us an email at heyvapodcast at gmail.com or send me an email.

14:12 I'm happy to refer you. I just started a virtual assistant referral directory for potential clients and a find a VA program that can help you figure out what you need, what you're looking for, and that includes referrals once you get to that point. So all those details are on my website and that is in our resource and link tree. So thank you for joining us today for season two, episode five, Where to Find a VA. We look forward to seeing you next time. Thank you for joining us on this episode of Hey, Do I Need a VA? The podcast.

14:53 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. We'll see you next time.