July 16, 2025 • 42 mins
What does it take to grow a business from $46K to $16M in just five years?
Beth Lachance, founder and CEO of GMVA (Global Medical Virtual Assistants), joins Jay Owen to share her incredible story of rapid growth, purposeful leadership, and how saying “no” to distractions helped her say “yes” to scale.
In this episode, you’ll learn:
- How to rethink your systems for 10X growth
- Why imposter syndrome might actually be a strength
- How to build culture with 1,300+ remote workers
- The power of niching down—and staying focused
- What work-life balance really looks like as a founder\
Beth’s journey proves that sustainable growth is possible when you combine vision with values—and listen to your gut.
Learn more about GMVA at https://gmva.com.
Listen to other episodes and see videos of the podcast at http://buildingabusinessthatlasts.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hey Beth, thanks for being on the show.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Thanks for having me Excited to be here.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
So you have an incredible story of just
exponential growth that Ithought would be exciting for
our listeners to hear.
What I'm looking at says thatyou went from $46,000 in revenue
in 2019 to $16 million in 2024.
And from what you just told mebefore we even recorded, it's
actually gonna be more than thatin 2025.
What has that journey been likeand how did you get to where
(00:29):
you are?
Give us the overview.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Yeah, the journey has been crazy.
I first would like to thankDoorDash for feeding my children
for the last five years.
Yeah, I'm not kidding, yeah,it's been incredible.
It's been an incredible rideand journey.
Previously to starting acompany, I was a W2 employee.
I didn't work for myself.
(00:52):
I worked for differentcompanies.
I learned so much in terms ofhow they strategically designed
their businesses around growth.
I paid attention heavily and soI brought some of that just
learning experience to thisorganization.
But even having had been inmany companies that had
exponential growth, even takingthat here, it's one thing to
(01:13):
watch it and one thing to haveto do it and build it, and the
journey has been one of findingthe right people in the right
seats.
That has been the most numberone critical thing.
I think that has been crucialto our growth and continuing to
have the growth at thetrajectory we've had.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
That's good.
One of the things you just saidthat I want to highlight is
it's easy to watch it.
It's more difficult to do it,and so I'm curious to dig into
that a little bit.
I think a lot of peopleexperience this.
They think, well, I'm justgoing to go start my own
business.
I could do it better, andthat's good.
That's a good instinctsometimes to go let me just go
do a thing.
Or maybe I got a new idea,maybe it's not even better, it's
just something brand new.
But what are some of thosethings that you maybe, before
(01:56):
you got into the business, youthought this is going to be
easier than I think it's goingto be.
And then you get in and youfind out it's actually much
harder.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
Well, luckily, I'm not sure if I'm lucky for it,
but I have a little bit ofimposter syndrome, so I never
went in thinking, oh, I can dothis way better than anybody
else.
So ego at the door was neverpart of who I am.
So I always thought, okay, Iwant to learn from some of the
best leaders, learn from some ofthe worst leaders and bring
that into the organization thatI'm going to run, and from some
(02:24):
of the worst leaders and bringthat into the organization that
I'm going to run.
And also just consistentlythinking about okay, well, what
does my company look like nowand where do I want it to land?
Where do I want it to look?
What do I want it to look liketwo years from now, five years
from now?
And so for me, I think thebiggest thing is what works now
doesn't work when you double inbusiness.
You have to always consistentlybe thinking, especially if
you're scaling consistentlythinking about okay, the
(02:46):
strategies that we're utilizingright now does it look the same
and does it still function whenyou double your business, triple
your business, quadruple yourbusiness?
So that's one of the lessonsthat I've learned very early on
is that I had to consistentlyreimagine that because we would
have some growth, and after wehad that growth, it's like oh,
we've already outgrown theprocedures and policies we had
(03:07):
in place, and so now we'rehaving to reimagine all those
policies and what it looks likenext time.
And so, having had done thatthree or four times now, I'm
finally in a position, about ayear and a half ago, where it's
like, okay, now I'm alwaysthinking 10X, I'm not thinking
what happens when we double ourbusiness.
We are investing so much time,energy, into new software, into
(03:30):
new strategies.
Let's make sure that thosestrategies are going to be, that
are going to function when we10X this company.
And so I think that's one ofthe things that has been a
critical learning curve for me,because we have been spinning
our wheels time and time againto reimagine a process that we
could have imagined from thebeginning, thinking that we were
going to 10x our business.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
You know a couple of things that are really
interesting there.
One the imposter syndrome thing.
I think most entrepreneurs, andprobably the vast majority of
successful ones whatever youwould classify as a successful
entrepreneur I think it'sdifferent for everybody have
some version of impostersyndrome, and I think it is that
there's a little bit of thatbelief in us that questions am I
good enough, do I have what ittakes?
That actually drives us to gofigure that out, where I think
(04:12):
if we sat around with theopposite and thought I got this
figured out, it probablywouldn't go very well.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
Correct, absolutely Well, because if you have an ego
and you're going into it, thenyou have blind spots, and I
prefer to be eyes wide open andbeing open to you know, to
whatever other else people canbe thinking about or bringing to
me.
So but if you think it's onlyyou and you can do it, and you
can do it on your own and youcan do it better than anybody
else, then you have heavy, heavyblind spots and I think that,
(04:41):
in essence, you're actually heldup, held back in the end.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
Yeah, for sure.
And I love the thing too thatyou said about first asking what
does it look like if I doublemy business and then now going
what does it look like to 10X?
It's kind of like the DanSullivan thing.
You know, 10x is better than 2X, and I think that that's a
really difficult thing for a lotof people to wrap their head
around because they think, well,that can't be true.
It was interesting.
I was on a call with a bunch ofother marketing agency owners
(05:06):
that's the industry that I'm inand the other day I get to help
coach a lot of them and it's alot of fun.
And one of the other coaches onthe call had kind of said this
is a smaller kind of fledglinggroup that we were actually
talking to and look what, knowrunning million dollar agencies
and a lot of them just couldn'tfathom it.
(05:27):
Meanwhile I remember beingthere, but now I think about it
and I'm like if I had $100,000 amonth, I'm in big trouble.
I'm not gonna be paying anybody, you know, but it's so
interesting.
Like those, there's these likeglass ceilings.
I don't know if you experiencedthis, but I had these glass
ceilings mentally of like what alot of money was what like what
success was, what was evenpossible?
(05:50):
So did you experience that likein that imposter syndrome side
of going well, this I don't knowif we can even do this, you
know did you ever experiencethat.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
Absolutely so.
I had it in my head from thevery beginning when I started
the company, that I you know,reaching a thousand VAs, placed
with medical clients would bethe big, the big giant goal.
Right the hair the big giant,hairy, audacious goal.
Like that's, that's that's whatI thought and I really I created
that get glass ceiling formyself.
(06:18):
We hit a thousand VAs and thenI was like, well, well, now what
you know, now what happens, andI thought you know the saying
is I thought I'd be up over myski tips, meaning I would be out
over my ski tips and about tocrash and burn and not knowing
what to do next.
And the reality is I set thaton myself and now we're over
(06:38):
1,300 VAs and growing andcontinuing to add on.
So now 2,500 VAs doesn't soundridiculous anymore.
So I've removed that glassceiling.
I still have imposter syndrome.
It's still there, it stillhappens.
But I definitely have had toremove that glass ceiling and
it's critical that you do so.
I remember reading DanSullivan's book and going
(06:58):
through like 10X and trying todo the whole.
You know, even imagining 10X ofmy organization was.
I couldn't even put myself there.
I'm like that's never going tohappen.
So I didn't.
I backed it down to okay, whatif I 5X?
And that number was still a bignumber and a hefty goal for me
to be able to reach.
But, and even now still, when Ithink about 10X in your company
(07:19):
, can I really 10X my company,you know?
And that starts to go back intomy head as well.
So, yeah, I think the impostersyndrome is still there, but we
create these glass ceilings onour own, and getting an
executive coach and havingsomeone like yourself who can
consistently kind of break downthose barriers to keep you to
continue to launch forward iscritical.
Speaker 1 (07:38):
Yeah, I think having people in my life that will just
question my limitations, whereI'm like, yeah, but I don't
think that's possible.
And they're like, why is thatnot possible?
And it's like anything isactually possible, like we live
in a world of abundance and youjust got to go get it.
And I'm curious one thing.
This is kind of a total sidebar, but I was looking about
(07:59):
looking at your website,thinking about the niche that
you've chosen, because you coulddo just virtual assistance in
general.
I mean, a while back I got tointerview Brian and Shannon
Mills who used to own Belay, alarge VA organization.
They sold it.
They were not as niche as you.
They probably more like generalsmall business VAs.
That's probably where theirfocus has been.
But they had a massive, massive, mega, multimillion dollar exit
(08:20):
a while back.
They did incredible.
But I remember them being at anevent years ago and they were
like this tiny little booth youknow that was, I don't know they
were just getting started.
And now they're like I don'tknow they're killing it.
But what made you choose to gointo that niche, that vertical
of medical virtual assistantsspecifically, versus virtual
assistants?
Speaker 2 (08:40):
Yeah, so I came from the medical space.
I.
I've been in the medicalindustry for just over 30 years.
In high school I knew veryearly on I wanted to be in the
medical industry, I wanted to bea nurse, I wanted to be in the
operating room and so throughthat journey I was introduced to
virtual assistants.
But I really knew that therewas a niche within medical that
had been unmet, partiallybecause number one the rest of
(09:07):
the industries out there virtualassistants were starting to
really be heavily utilized inall different industries except
for in medical.
And I knew it was possible.
I spent a lot of time inmedical practices.
I spent a lot of time inhospitals paying attention to
the ins and outs of what happensin patient care, with the
administrative piece of patientcare, and I knew that it was
going to be successful.
I knew it was possible.
But previous to COVID themedical industry wasn't open to
(09:30):
remote work.
They weren't open to any of that.
You had to come into the office, you need to see patients, you
need to be there on site,regardless of what your task was
within the practice.
Covid that my sales callspreviously to COVID was trying
to get people to imagine evenbeing able to do it.
When COVID hit, it forced theindustry to have to go remote
(09:55):
and people realized, wow, notonly is this possible, but we
can potentially be moreefficient.
We have, then, access to aglobal workforce that can be
remote, and so then the salescalls became more around
strategy not around like youknow, can I sell you into this?
But strategy how can we do this?
How quickly can we do it?
Where can we start?
And then, how do we infiltratequickly into that medical
(10:16):
practice or hospital system?
So and the medical side justcomes naturally I love medicine,
I love working with, withmedical practices and hospitals.
So that's that niche, butthere's still a huge amount of
space to continue this on in areally big way.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
It's great.
It's just a good example ofpeople that are listening to
kind of think about a couplethings that you just said, beth.
One is that you already hadexperience in that space, so you
know the people, you know howthey talk, you know what they
think, you know what the insiderlanguage is.
You got some establishedrelationships, so that helps
when you're kicking somethingoff.
And while I have nothistorically like niched down as
a marketing agency even thougheverybody told me I had to but I
(10:56):
haven't I think for a lot ofbusinesses there's no question
that from a scalabilityperspective, you will scale
faster because your audience ismore focused.
You're not selling everythingto everyone.
You're selling a particularthing to a particular audience.
I think that makes a hugedifference.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
It makes a huge difference.
You know, I have beendistracted many times.
People have come to me oh, youknow, let's place virtual
assistants in law practices,let's place virtual assistants
as executive VAs.
Or you know, executiveassistants, I know my diamond, I
know my lane, I want to staythere and I think that that, you
(11:34):
know, holding true to that, isreally what's going to continue
to the growth.
And also, I kind of have figuredout that when we mass market
into one particular area andwe're not having one client come
on and just request one VA,they're coming on and requesting
10 VAs.
Then, as they see that, oh, theproof of concept is there and
(11:54):
it's working really well, thenthey're requesting another 20
VAs.
So we're seeing a massiveamount of growth in each one of
our clients.
We don't need a ton of clients,we need a couple of big clients
that will turn into big clients.
So it's a different strategy ofgoing deeper and not just
bringing in more clients butactually focusing in on the
clients that we have andbringing in the right clients to
(12:15):
grow at scale.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
Yeah, that's a big thing to pay attention to.
I mean, I think a lot of peopleare always worried about how do
I go get a new client and I'mlike look, how do you care
better for the ones that youhave, because the chances are
really good that your currentclients probably don't even know
everything that you offer.
I mean, we're guilty of this.
I'll talk to people all thetime and they're like I know
y'all do like a lot of marketingstrategy now and messaging, but
do you still do websites?
(12:36):
I'm like yeah, of course we dowebsites.
Like it's like a that's thecenter of the marketing hub, but
some the marketing hub but somepeople ask questions they don't
know.
Like we live in this curse ofknowledge that everybody just
knows everything we do and theydon't actually care, you know
until it's going to help them.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
Yeah, so the power of scale could just be with your
existing client base Absolutelyand really making sure that they
know everything that your, yourcompany, does.
In most cases they come to youwith one pain point.
You fulfill that one pain pointand then they think they're
done.
But in fact there's deeperpenetration that can happen
within that client of more, ofcourse, adding additional
(13:13):
services across the board tothem.
Speaker 1 (13:14):
So in not forgetting that is key, absolutely.
Thinking about you scaling inCOVID is interesting to me
because you know it's such acrisis.
I mean, you know I could list ahandful of them in my lifetime
that was certainly one of thebiggest one, maybe the biggest
one that just is so disruptive.
I mean, no other time in ourlives have we been told hey, you
got to actually stay at home bythe government, you know.
I mean that's like a wholedifferent ballgame from anything
we've ever experienced, atleast in my lifetime.
(13:36):
And but the question that Ilearned a long time ago from
Michael Hyatt that I love, whichis kind of what you did, is
asking the question what doesthis make possible?
Now, that can feel a littledark in the context of people
having serious health problems,all those kind of things, for
sure, but at the end of the day,we've all got to still put food
on the table and we've got tofigure out how to manage our
businesses, how to care for thepeople that work for us, how to
(13:57):
care for our clients.
And it seems like you did that.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
You kind of go hey, what does this make possible now
as people's perspectives arechanging?
Oh, absolutely.
And pouncing on opportunitywhen the opportunity is right
there, knocking at your door,not stepping back and waiting.
Also, not getting stuck inanalyzing.
You get paralyzed by analyzingand we just didn't have time to
do that.
I also knew, you know it was athree small children at the time
(14:25):
.
You know, one high school, onemiddle school and an elementary
school student.
And I was like, well, you know,we're all kind of grounded,
we're all stuck in hell, noone's going to sports, no one's
leaving the house.
This is actually a great timefor me to work and work really,
really hard, really hard, andand so it it.
(14:46):
Actually it gave it gave methat time and that platform to
do that where ordinarily Iwouldn't have had the
necessarily time or even madethe time to be able to to plunge
as deep into it as I could.
So timing is everything andcertainly COVID was in so many
ways so trialing for all of us.
And in business, even inbusinesses that were shut down,
you still learned from it.
You still kind of came out andthe businesses that succeeded
(15:09):
after the fact, when everythingcame back, it was because they
reinvented themselves duringthat time off, because they
didn't just stop.
They were thinking, okay, whatdo we do next?
And that's also key.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
Yeah, so good, let's let's talk about remote work a
little bit, because this is abig one.
We were all kind of I alwayslike to joke I was remote work
before it was popular.
Back in the day I didn'tbelieve I needed an office.
I was remote, my whole team wasremote for 16 years and then
finally put an office in and nowI'm like I don't think I would
(15:38):
want to live without my office,but also have five kids at home
getting homeschooled.
Well, two of them are gone, andnow I think the world, or the
vast majority of industries,have moved to this kind of more
hybrid approach, which is whatour team here is.
At Business Builders, peopleneed to be in the office two
days a week, but the rest of theweek they can choose where they
want to be.
Some people are here every day,but we also work with a ton of
(16:01):
contractors in all kinds ofspaces who are virtual and
remote, and that requires acertain level of skill.
So I'm curious for you as youthink about building culture and
caring for people who areremote how do you do that
without it becoming people,turning into raw resources
instead of actual human beingswith cultural relationships?
Speaker 2 (16:20):
Yeah, great question.
So I can totally attest to theentire remote workforce and some
needing to be in also like ahybrid role entire remote
workforce and some needing to bein also like a hybrid role.
Here in the United States forour onshore team, we are in
hybrid positions where we canwork from home, part-time work
in the office, the, the, but weneed to be attending and going
into the office as an executiveteam.
(16:41):
Just, we get so much, we get alot done.
You know we're working remotely, but it's that team camaraderie
, especially at the executivelevel, I feel is critical for us
to be in front of each other alot, because then we end up
being so siloed in our thoughtsand kind of how we're addressing
our departments.
So that's incredible for us.
But with culture, culture handsdown is the number one thing
(17:03):
that we are focused on here atGMVA.
Because how else can you get anentire remote workforce of know
remote workforce of over 1300people to all be rowing in the
same direction?
How can you make sure thatthey're all putting in, you know
, putting in the day-to-dayeffort and productivity that's
absolutely necessary for successof their medical client?
So so we have standards thatare put in place.
We have process and procedures.
(17:25):
We have core values that weconsistently stick to and are a
really big piece of our dailyoperations service excellence,
compassionate care, team.
Together everyone achieves more.
We focus on those and if wereally focus on those core
values and everybody works hardto try to stick to those core
values, the work and theproductivity and everyone rowing
(17:46):
in the right direction happens.
As soon as you have someone thatdoesn't believe in that culture
and doesn't stick within thatculture and they're no longer a
culture fit.
It doesn't matter if they'reproductive, it doesn't matter if
they're great in terms ofproductivity Then they start
rowing in a different direction.
That's counterproductive forthe entire team and then we end
up having to have them exit orthey exit on their own because
(18:06):
they just don't fall in linewith the culture.
But that is the core piece Ialways feel really strongly.
You know there's a differencebetween skill and will.
We can upskill someone.
I'd rather have somebody who'samazing in terms of they believe
in our culture, they believe inour core values, they'll
continue to work at the levelthat they're supposed to.
But if we need to upskill them,let's coach them, let's upskill
(18:27):
them, but if they don't havethe will, that's really hard to
teach and coach and get them tohave the will, and so the core
values and the culture isabsolutely number one,
especially in having a remoteworkforce values and mission
(18:50):
statements.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
All that were just things that big corporations did
.
They didn't actually follow.
And I spent a lot of time,though, with Dave Ramsey and the
entre leadership team, and theyreally focused a lot on having
solid core values and missionstatements and all these kinds
of things, and for a long time,I struggled to define like.
What is culture Like?
What does that even mean?
People talk about it and a lotof times they mean like ping
pong tables and taco lunches,and it can.
That can be a piece of it, butthat's not it, and the way that
(19:11):
I like to define it is and it'sbasically exactly what you just
said which is our culture arethe attitudes and behaviors that
prove our core values to betrue.
Like we say that these are whowe are, we've listed these core
values and that's kind of who wesay we are as people.
Those are the right person, ifyou will because you talk about
right person, right seeder.
The right person is defined byare they aligned with our core
(19:32):
values?
And our culture either calls usa liar or not, and I always say
a good culture does just a teamfull of people fully aligned
with the core values.
That's a good culture.
Speaker 2 (19:42):
Yeah, absolutely, and it's interesting.
I just, for example, I just hadan HR call this morning with
some you know unfortunately, wehave somebody on our team that's
been with us for a long timethat their core values are just
no longer aligning with ours.
They've strayed from the corevalues and they're not uplifting
their team members around them,they're cutting them down, and
so that just doesn't work here.
So just coming up withstrategies of okay, you know how
(20:04):
are we going to handle thissituation, Because that does
more damage.
We have nine other people thatare about to resign because this
one person is really poisoningthe well and because they're
just not really following ourcore values.
So it's amazing how you know.
For myself, I do have to say,like I said, I worked for lots
of corporations before I went towork for myself and I try to
(20:27):
think about well, what weretheir core values in the
different companies I work forand I don't remember that.
So what does that mean?
Does that mean that theleadership did not do a great
job making sure that I was atthe lower level?
I was a lower level managermanaging a territory.
Does that mean that theleadership didn't do a great job
of making sure that I knew atthe lower level, as a lower
(20:48):
level employee, what our corevalues were, or did I just not
pay attention to them?
Either way, I learned from thatbecause I want to make sure
that everyone in my organizationknows our core values and that
we are paying attention to them,and it's how and it's how we do
our daily, it's how we thriveand we do our daily job, so so
it's a big focus.
So if anyone on you know that'slistening, that is just
starting out, or even has adecent sized company that don't
(21:11):
have their core values truly asa focal point, you need to, and
that is what ends up definingthe culture of the organization
100% so real tactically.
Speaker 1 (21:20):
So let's take a team member who is not aligned with
the core values.
What have you learned over time?
What is your actual tacticalprocess of?
Okay, we've, we've, identifiedthis person not aligned with
things.
We've got a couple options.
One, you know terminate themimmediately.
At some cases that's requiredbased on things that are
happening.
Another is I'm going to have aconversation, but what is?
(21:41):
What is your actual workflowlook like internally?
And you're obviously a lotbigger than you were when you
started.
But I mean, for people that arelistening, how do you handle
that like step one, two, three,before you actually fire
somebody?
Speaker 2 (21:52):
Yeah, great question.
Well, one of the very firstthings we do is we do what's
called skip-level meetings.
So our HR team will havemeetings with anyone that has.
So we do surveys each month.
Every manager has surveys donefor anyone that's working under
a manager.
They have surveys that are doneevery single month.
(22:12):
For anyone that's working undera manager.
They have surveys that are doneevery single month.
When we see the responses to thesurveys, it immediately gives
us a clue in on what is themorale of the team working for
that manager.
And there's two things to lookat.
It's one of the very firstthings you notice.
Let's say you have 15 peoplethat you're managing, if only
four respond to the survey, ooh,that means people don't have
much nice.
They don't have many thingsnice to say about you, so they'd
(22:33):
rather just not respond.
So that's one thing, right.
The second thing is if you havea large response number and
it's consistently,overwhelmingly good, okay, then
you know that you've got prettygood standing with this team.
The morale is high.
So there's immediately there'sjust things you can look at
within that.
If there's littleinconsistencies within those
surveys and then we see thatsomeone is there might be some
(22:55):
performance issues.
We then start doing skip levelmeetings.
Our higher level managementwill skip over that level
manager to go, start meetingwith their team members to find
out what is going on.
How are you feeling?
How do you feel about your job?
What's happening on a dailybasis?
Do you feel like you're beingsupported?
And we kind of do just thatskip level touch base with them.
(23:17):
It's amazing how muchinformation we learn during
those meetings.
Right, it's not throwing anyoneunder the bus.
That's not what we're expecting.
We know that we will haveattrition if people don't like
their manager and we want tomake sure that we're enhancing
our managers to be bettermanagers if they're not hitting
it.
So from there, if we getconsistent feedback, that's not
great.
We then will do coachingdirectly with that manager.
(23:37):
So the operations manager willmeet directly with the next
level down manager and have somecoaching with them.
Find out what's happening.
Is it the workload is too much?
Is it that they're havingwork-life issues at home or
personal issues at home?
Is it they don't have awork-life balance?
What's going on?
To try to trigger what'shappening and try to figure out
if we can be assistant to that,if it really truly is just a
(24:01):
misfit.
This person does not believe inus any longer, doesn't like
what they're doing, whatever itis, then that's the path to the
exit.
We know that.
But if we uncover other thingsthat's happening on it most of
the time there are other thingsthat are going on.
We always in this organizationgive a second chance.
We don't just give up onsomeone.
We don't just immediately dothe exit.
(24:22):
It takes time and energy toreplace people number one and
especially if they're goodpeople but they just need a
second chance.
And then it's redirection andthere's additional coaching.
Then that's what happens.
Third step is, of course, a PIPputting someone on a
performance improvement plan,seeing if they can actually stay
within the guidelines andconfines of what we're expecting
them to be able to do.
And then there's an exit afterthat if they just can't stay
(24:45):
within, you know, within theconfines of the PIP.
But in most cases our teammembers we've rectified most
cases as just being.
They're burnt out, they'reoverwhelmed.
A lot of it is personal problemsat home is affecting their work
life and so, as soon as we canbe and a lot of times it's just
a matter of giving them the timeand the focus to be able to
(25:09):
vent it to us that then we canhelp in trying to offset their
workload or try to get to them aplace where they can be in a
healthier space to be able to goahead and do their job at the
level expected.
Speaker 1 (25:19):
Yeah, I think it's just incredibly important.
I mean, you know, we're notsevered human beings, we don't
show up at work and haveseparate lives from our home
lives, like it's all one biggiant thing that overlaps and if
somebody is going through adivorce or has a sick kid or who
knows what, they've actuallygot going on at home and
everybody doesn't need to knoweverybody's business all the
time for sure.
But it is okay for somebody togo hey, I've got some really
(25:41):
hard stuff going on at homeright now and I'm trying to
navigate it and it probably isgoing to mean I'm not operating
at the highest level, but I amtrying.
To me, that means a ton fromanybody and I would want the
same for myself.
I always think I err on theside of grace.
We err on the side of gracebecause that's how I want
somebody to treat me.
Speaker 2 (26:00):
And time and time again in HR hearings.
When I'm brought into HRhearings, I almost always end up
having the discussion with ourteam that in the end, we are all
human and we need to be makingsure that we're treating each
other with utmost respect andgrace.
And we are human and so as longas we go into those meetings
with that in mind, you'll makethe right decision as a business
(26:22):
owner and or leader in terms ofwhether or not to continue on
with that person or to where youhave to let them go.
Speaker 1 (26:30):
Yeah, and we're going to.
By the time we get to the endof this show, we'll talk
specifically about work-lifebalance.
What does that even mean to you?
How's it changed in differentseasons of life?
We're not there yet, but wewill get there.
One thing I took away from whatyou just said is I love the
monthly survey idea.
We do something kind of similarto kind of gauge people's
morale, stress, workload, andreally it comes back to that old
quote of don't expect what youdon't inspect.
(26:51):
I am probably the polaropposite of a micromanager in
general.
Sometimes that bites me.
I've had a problem historicallyof not being clear enough with
people because I want them tolike me and I have learned over
time that's not actually kind.
Like to be clear is actually tobe kind.
If I'm doing something wrongthat's causing other people
(27:11):
problems, I want them to tell methat because I might not know,
you know.
Speaker 2 (27:15):
Agreed.
Yep, we're siblings in that.
I think that people understandwhat I'm asking when I ask for
something.
My team has been so incredible.
They've learned.
Okay, I don't typically setdeadlines for people, which is
an immediate disaster.
I am setting someone up forfailure when I don't give a
deadline of when I want thiswork performed, because either
(27:37):
they're going to they're goingto do it way after I anticipate
it because they don't know howto prioritize, or they're not
sure what I'm expecting them toprioritize because I've given
them something new to do.
So you know it's also makingsure that people around you, you
know, give feedback, but ofcourse then also know how to
work closely with you.
And immediately, one of thevery first things when I, when I
asked for a particular project,immediately anyone on my team
(27:57):
knows okay, beth, when is thedeadline for this?
Like there's like certain timesthey did, they know the
triggers, they know my downfallsright, and that's critical to
also having a great, great teamaround you is learning from that
.
But I'm trying to get better atthat myself.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
Yeah, it's going to be an ongoing process.
I think for me it's probably apersonality trait that I've got
to work through.
One thing I'm really curiousabout you know, going from you
know, tens of thousands ofdollars of revenue to tens of
millions in revenue is an entireorganizational shift at an
incredible level.
Everything you mentionedearlier, like getting the right
people in the right seats, likethe people around you, have to
(28:33):
change.
In many cases, the people,processes, tools, systems that
got you to a million dollars arenot going to take it to 10
million.
I'm going to take it to 50million and so.
But what I'm actually curiousabout is not those things.
What I'm actually curious aboutis how you have had to change
as a leader and how you've hadto adapt from the early days to
(28:54):
where you are now.
Speaker 2 (28:55):
Yeah, oh gosh.
It's been a lot of learning.
I have learned that things thathave had to change for me
especially, is knowing that weneed software solutions faster
than I anticipate.
And a lot of times some of ourteam members hide the redundancy
(29:21):
of their workload because theyjust assume that, well, this is
the job and this is the way todo it and they don't bring it to
our attention that the processis really can be updated and not
be so redundant.
So, as a leader, one of theways that I've had just to get
down into the weeds as a leaderjust really being able to focus
down into each department andwhat are the absolute
(29:43):
necessities that are needed togrow and scale at the level that
I'm expecting, because I canbring in a ton of new sales and
bring in a bunch more newclients and grow.
But if the rest of myorganization isn't prepped for
that, it doesn't matter.
We're going to be set up forfailure and I'm going to have
really upset team membersbecause they also are also being
hit with the burden of theadditional workload.
So one of the things I've hadto learn is that I'm not a
(30:06):
software person.
I've never loved software.
I was like nitty gritty salesperson that would, you know, hit
the road with my list and goafter my targets and not really
focused heavily on software.
So always making sure you're astep ahead and anticipating the
needs of the business, because alot of times your department
heads won't know what'santicipated or what's needed
(30:27):
because you as the leader aredeciding really the trajectory
of the business and so you'vegot to know well what's
necessary for the rest of thecompany to have.
So that's one of the things.
One other thing that's been areally big shift in my mindset
is I didn't always used to fullyfollow my gut and in the
beginning I would consistentlyquestion myself.
(30:54):
I would consistently questionmyself.
As I got further along Irealized that my gut instincts
were absolutely dead on.
Do not ignore what your gut istelling you, even if you have an
advisor or you have anexecutive in your company or
someone else that's telling youto do something else.
Deep dive, do all the hard workyou need to do to try to make
sure you're doing your duediligence on an issue, but
follow your gut, and time andtime again I've had to have
(31:15):
tough conversations with peopleand say you know what my gut is
telling me we really need to bedoing X, y and Z and this is why
we need to do it.
I always have a why.
There is a reason why, butyou've got to follow your gut
because, definitely, as theleader of the organization, the
responsibility is on you and inthe end, you've got to be able
to really look into yourself tomake sure you follow the right
(31:38):
direction, and a lot of timesit's your gut telling you what
to do.
Speaker 1 (31:41):
Yeah, I have a leader that I get to work with who
talks about his kind of like hisSpidey sense, you know, like
Spider-Man's kind of got hissomething's going on here and I
can just feel it.
It is, that's a real thing, youknow, it's a real thing and
there's something to it that Iactually I've got no science for
this, but just this is from myexperience, I think.
(32:02):
In some cases I think women havebetter intuition and like gut
instincts than men do At leastthat's the experience in my life
which is why my wife, while shedoesn't work in the business,
kind of becomes like the youknow sounding board.
Even before I hire people,she'll be kind of like the last
we'll take them and their spouseout to dinner, and I'm not
asking for like a deep interview, but I do want her instinct to
go like does it feel right?
And I will tell you what inevery situation, every time
(32:25):
where she has said I just don'tknow, and in some cases
sometimes I'm like but why?
And she's like I don't know, Ijust don't, I don't think it, I
don't think it's going to workout.
It never works out, never.
So I just need to listen to herfrom the beginning, from now on
yes, you do, and that thatactually happened to me last
year.
Speaker 2 (32:43):
Same situation my fiance had met a new hire that I
was going to be bringing in andhe didn't really.
He didn't really say anythingto me at the time because it's
my business, I'm doing my thingRight, and he's so proud of what
I do and how I've grown, so he,he fully trusts me.
But in the end, after, when itwasn't working, he's like yeah,
(33:03):
you're like.
Speaker 1 (33:04):
Well, let me know next time.
Speaker 2 (33:05):
And then someone else .
Someone else said the samething and I'm like why didn't
anyone say anything?
Because I was going inwholehearted with this person,
thinking this person isabsolutely the right hire, and I
had two people that are veryclose to me that from very early
on had that spidey sense of I'mnot so sure.
So follow that instinct, I know.
Speaker 1 (33:27):
It is funny how some of those times like sometimes,
you'll have a hiring situation.
I had a girl that we hired onetime on a team to run social
media for an account and she inthe interview I sat and asked
her.
I said, hey, tell me the fivethings that we're not doing that
you think we should be doing.
And it was like she was readingmy brain and I used to meet.
It was like hire her right now,don't even interview anybody
else, like it was, it was and itwas the perfect hire and I just
(33:47):
knew it.
And then there's another timewhere I was in an interview.
I didn't have as good a reason,but I thought this girl was
great, I thought she's gonna beamazing, our, it was just like a
personnel and it's probablybecause my personality liked her
personality and we just I justseemed like the kind of person
would go get stuff done.
And I had a couple of peoplewho afterwards same exact thing
we're like yeah, I could havetold you that.
And I'm like, okay, well, whydidn't you?
(34:08):
Then you could have saved me alot of drama and money.
Speaker 2 (34:11):
You know, yeah, absolutely, and it's always good
to, you know, go in eyes wideopen, right, and to be aware.
So let's say I mean, cause thathappens too where you may have
some in your team, that's eh,I'm going to hire this person,
but I'm going to stay on alertright.
I'm just going to make surethat we get off to a really
great start and it stays thatway, or you know, you, just you
(34:33):
know when it's time to move on,you move on quickly, right 100%.
Speaker 1 (34:37):
Well, there's two final things that I definitely
want to get to before we landthe plane today.
The first is going to be thatwork-life balance question.
It's always an interesting one,and so what I like to do is ask
what does it even mean to youand how has it changed through
different seasons of your lifeand business?
And then the second one isreally where people can learn
more about you, about yourbusiness.
What's the best place for themto find you online?
(34:57):
So let's start with thework-life balance question.
It means something different toeverybody.
I've got five kids.
It was very different when theywere all toddlers than when
they're all now teenagers slashadults.
Seasons of life change, seasonof business change.
But number one, what does itmean to you?
What does work-life balance?
People say that.
What does it mean to you?
And then two, how has itchanged the different seasons of
business and life?
Speaker 2 (35:18):
Sure.
So work-life balance what doesit mean to me?
So, for me, I'm heavily rootedin purpose, like I, I'm my happy
, I'm my happiest when I amrooted in purpose and what I
feel really good doing.
And for me, right now buildingthis company and continue to
build the company it's justgiving me a tremendous amount of
(35:39):
purpose.
So all the people around me, Ihad, you know, I had an
interesting conversation with my21 year old just last night,
because we were talking aboutbusiness and he had said to me
oh, you know, you know plans forthis weekend, for example.
And so I'm like well, I've gotthis meeting, I've got this
meeting and I also have thisreport I need to get done.
And he's like, mom, like I'venever like you work so hard,
like you've worked harder nowthan you did.
(36:00):
And I'm like no, I'm older, youare more independent, you don't
need me right there either andI can choose to offset my time a
little bit differently now.
So so, work-life balance whatit looks like for me is is just
that, as I'm feeding my purpose,so not to say that it's all
work, I want to have kids hockeygames.
(36:21):
I am there, I am there in mycowbell, I am there screaming
like a lunatic.
I am that hockey mom that youwould expect to be there.
But when it's time to work, andeven when I have downtime, I am
always thinking about work,always.
So some people would say I haveno balance, I am heavily
workloaded, but I feelextraordinarily purposeful and
so I feel very fulfilled, and so, for me, that's my work-life
(36:43):
balance.
When I feel like I need to backoff of that, that's when I'll
take a vacation, that's whenI'll take a break, that's when
I'll, you know, back off.
And so I know those gentlebalances and I, even last week,
I knew, okay, I needed two extradays off because I just needed
a break after a 4th of July, andso that's what I did.
I took two days to get what Ineeded to get done and feel
fulfilled again, to really goback in.
(37:05):
But that's really my work-lifebalance.
That's kind of where I sit, butI'm working a ton, make no
mistake about it, but I love it.
Speaker 1 (37:13):
You know it's so interesting because I ask the
question a lot, because it doesmatter to me, because I don't
want my kids to grow up andresent the fact that I worked
all the time.
I want them to know me, I wantto have deep relationships with
them and my wife obviously, likeyou know, I care a ton about
that and I also know thatbusiness comes and goes, you
know, and I can always go getanother deal.
That said, I think our cultureis like over indexed to some
(37:36):
extent, like almost work shamingpeople.
I'm like, well, if you'reworking X amount of hours a week
, like you're not resting enough, and I'm like, but work?
I realize you don't understandthis, but work is my risk
sometimes.
Like I like doing what I'mdoing.
I'm not waking up Monday beinglike, oh my gosh, I have to go
to work.
How miserable I'm.
Like let's get going, you know.
And and.
(37:56):
So I always joke that like workis my hobby.
So I kind of feel the same way.
I am probably a little bit of aworkaholic.
But what does that even mean?
Like as long as it's notnegatively affecting the other
significant relationships?
And that's the stuff I thinkI've got to pay attention to.
It's like if I personally havesaid I care a lot about deep
relationships with my childrenand my wife, if that's what
matters to me, the question is,does it actually matter?
(38:18):
Because if I am working 16hours a day and I never actually
see them, it doesn't actuallymatter.
I'm just saying that it does.
And so you know I've certainlyadjusted over time, but I think
it's worth people hearing thatsometimes, most of the time, to
grow a really successfulorganization, you're going to
have to put a lot of hours intoit and you're going to have to
be willing to outwork basicallyanybody else.
(38:40):
That's why it works.
You know it's not, and maybeyour goal is, maybe somebody's
goal is to sell the company andgo live on a beach somewhere.
I actually probably would lovethat for like two weeks and then
I'd be like all right, well,we've done this, let's get back
to work.
Speaker 2 (38:55):
It's so funny.
You say that so many peoplehave talked to me about exiting,
about selling the company, andthey're like, well, that's the
thing to do there, that's thenext thing to do.
And I'm like, well then, whatam I going?
Speaker 1 (39:03):
to do.
I love this, I love what I do.
Speaker 2 (39:05):
This is exciting, it's also my passion, and when
you you know, when you'refollowing your passion, it's not
work, it's it's, it's fun,you're growing and building
something exciting.
So, but yeah, but work, lifebalance.
It is true People are shamingothers for working too much, not
working enough, whatever itmight be, but it has to be, it
has to work for your familyAbsolutely.
(39:26):
And so you know, beingcritically involved, you can't
have your primary partner,cannot be your business.
Your primary partner has to beyour spouse or your loved ones
or your children, and then youwork around that.
But, knowing you know my father, it's interesting.
Kids take things differently.
Each kid has their ownperspective.
Speaker 1 (39:45):
For sure.
Speaker 2 (39:45):
My sister and I were raised with the exact same way.
We saw the exact same things.
Her perception, her perspectiveon how things went are
drastically different than mine.
My father started his owncompany.
He worked his butt off, heworked a ton of hours, and so I
just I watched that and saw thatand was like he's doing all of
that for us.
And he's also doing it becausehe has goals and dreams that he
(40:06):
wants to hit.
I took it that way.
My sister's perception isdifferent.
She is like, well, dad wasnever around.
Oh my God, he was never aroundbecause he was doing all of this
for us and also he wanted tobuild.
So you just sort of be in touchwith your children to make sure
they understand the why andthat they understand that
they're also really important,and then they also learn so much
(40:27):
from watching what you're doingand that work ethic and how and
how how to handle difficultsituations and how you struggle
or work under pressure, teachingyour kids.
What does this?
What does a stressful looksituation look like?
Not everybody has anxiety.
There is stress and how youlearn and work with stress and
so and your kids will learn thatfrom you if they see you in
(40:49):
those situations and that alsois huge learning curves for our
kids.
Speaker 1 (40:53):
Yeah, not to go too far off a side tangent, but talk
about the stress and anxietything culturally.
It's so interesting because it'slike there are, there is some
level of anxiety.
That is good.
If I have a meeting in themorning that I have not prepared
for and it's a really importantmeeting, I should be a little
anxious about that.
That's a problem I should gosolve.
You know, if I, if I, if I'm,you know, worried about not
(41:16):
having something done that Ishould have done, that, that
that's a reasonable amount ofworry that our body naturally
goes.
I need to prepare you for this,so you should pay attention.
It's a smoke alarm, you know,and you look for smoke and if
there's no smoke, you blow itout of the way and keep moving.
Speaker 2 (41:31):
I know it's not easy for everybody, but you know not
easy for everyone.
Speaker 1 (41:33):
I know Well, let's gosh.
We could probably keep talkingall day, but I'm not sure who
would keep listening.
So hopefully they've gottenthis far and if they have, I'd
love for them to know where tofind about all the things that
your company does and what youdo.
Speaker 2 (41:45):
Yeah, absolutely the best place to go is just go
right to our website.
There's a tremendous amount ofgreat information to learn about
medical virtual assistants fromus.
There's also a spot where youcan click on and create a
strategy session with us to havea discussion with us about what
we do, but it's wwwgmvacom orwwwglobalmedicalvacom.
(42:07):
Either way, it'll bring youright to the same spot and come
check us out, and definitelywe're happy to have a discussion
with you.
If you're in the medical fieldand you want to learn more about
what we do, we'd love to assist.
Speaker 1 (42:18):
Awesome Beth.
Thank you for being on the showtoday.
It's been a real pleasure.
Speaker 2 (42:21):
Nice meeting you.
Thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (42:23):
Hey, I hope this video has helped you with some
tips and ideas to build abusiness that lasts.
Make sure you subscribe to ourchannel so that you don't miss
out on the next videos that weroll out and, more importantly,
for some awesome free resources.
Head over to our website atbuilding a business that lasts.
Calm, you can get a free copyof my book there, where I tell
you how I have built an agencythat's grown year over year for
(42:46):
the last 20 years in a row.
So go grab that building abusiness that lastscom and make
sure to subscribe to our channel.
Thanks, we'll see you soon.
Hey Beth, thanks for being on the show.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Thanks for having me Excited to be here.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
So you have an incredible story of just
exponential growth that Ithought would be exciting for
our listeners to hear.
What I'm looking at says thatyou went from $46,000 in revenue
in 2019 to $16 million in 2024.
And from what you just told mebefore we even recorded, it's
actually gonna be more than thatin 2025.
What has that journey been likeand how did you get to where
(00:29):
you are?
Give us the overview.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Yeah, the journey has been crazy.
I first would like to thankDoorDash for feeding my children
for the last five years.
Yeah, I'm not kidding, yeah,it's been incredible.
It's been an incredible rideand journey.
Previously to starting acompany, I was a W2 employee.
I didn't work for myself.
(00:52):
I worked for differentcompanies.
I learned so much in terms ofhow they strategically designed
their businesses around growth.
I paid attention heavily and soI brought some of that just
learning experience to thisorganization.
But even having had been inmany companies that had
exponential growth, even takingthat here, it's one thing to
(01:13):
watch it and one thing to haveto do it and build it, and the
journey has been one of findingthe right people in the right
seats.
That has been the most numberone critical thing.
I think that has been crucialto our growth and continuing to
have the growth at thetrajectory we've had.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
That's good.
One of the things you just saidthat I want to highlight is
it's easy to watch it.
It's more difficult to do it,and so I'm curious to dig into
that a little bit.
I think a lot of peopleexperience this.
They think, well, I'm justgoing to go start my own
business.
I could do it better, andthat's good.
That's a good instinctsometimes to go let me just go
do a thing.
Or maybe I got a new idea,maybe it's not even better, it's
just something brand new.
But what are some of thosethings that you maybe, before
(01:56):
you got into the business, youthought this is going to be
easier than I think it's goingto be.
And then you get in and youfind out it's actually much
harder.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
Well, luckily, I'm not sure if I'm lucky for it,
but I have a little bit ofimposter syndrome, so I never
went in thinking, oh, I can dothis way better than anybody
else.
So ego at the door was neverpart of who I am.
So I always thought, okay, Iwant to learn from some of the
best leaders, learn from some ofthe worst leaders and bring
that into the organization thatI'm going to run, and from some
(02:24):
of the worst leaders and bringthat into the organization that
I'm going to run.
And also just consistentlythinking about okay, well, what
does my company look like nowand where do I want it to land?
Where do I want it to look?
What do I want it to look liketwo years from now, five years
from now?
And so for me, I think thebiggest thing is what works now
doesn't work when you double inbusiness.
You have to always consistentlybe thinking, especially if
you're scaling consistentlythinking about okay, the
(02:46):
strategies that we're utilizingright now does it look the same
and does it still function whenyou double your business, triple
your business, quadruple yourbusiness?
So that's one of the lessonsthat I've learned very early on
is that I had to consistentlyreimagine that because we would
have some growth, and after wehad that growth, it's like oh,
we've already outgrown theprocedures and policies we had
(03:07):
in place, and so now we'rehaving to reimagine all those
policies and what it looks likenext time.
And so, having had done thatthree or four times now, I'm
finally in a position, about ayear and a half ago, where it's
like, okay, now I'm alwaysthinking 10X, I'm not thinking
what happens when we double ourbusiness.
We are investing so much time,energy, into new software, into
(03:30):
new strategies.
Let's make sure that thosestrategies are going to be, that
are going to function when we10X this company.
And so I think that's one ofthe things that has been a
critical learning curve for me,because we have been spinning
our wheels time and time againto reimagine a process that we
could have imagined from thebeginning, thinking that we were
going to 10x our business.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
You know a couple of things that are really
interesting there.
One the imposter syndrome thing.
I think most entrepreneurs, andprobably the vast majority of
successful ones whatever youwould classify as a successful
entrepreneur I think it'sdifferent for everybody have
some version of impostersyndrome, and I think it is that
there's a little bit of thatbelief in us that questions am I
good enough, do I have what ittakes?
That actually drives us to gofigure that out, where I think
(04:12):
if we sat around with theopposite and thought I got this
figured out, it probablywouldn't go very well.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
Correct, absolutely Well, because if you have an ego
and you're going into it, thenyou have blind spots, and I
prefer to be eyes wide open andbeing open to you know, to
whatever other else people canbe thinking about or bringing to
me.
So but if you think it's onlyyou and you can do it, and you
can do it on your own and youcan do it better than anybody
else, then you have heavy, heavyblind spots and I think that,
(04:41):
in essence, you're actually heldup, held back in the end.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
Yeah, for sure.
And I love the thing too thatyou said about first asking what
does it look like if I doublemy business and then now going
what does it look like to 10X?
It's kind of like the DanSullivan thing.
You know, 10x is better than 2X, and I think that that's a
really difficult thing for a lotof people to wrap their head
around because they think, well,that can't be true.
It was interesting.
I was on a call with a bunch ofother marketing agency owners
(05:06):
that's the industry that I'm inand the other day I get to help
coach a lot of them and it's alot of fun.
And one of the other coaches onthe call had kind of said this
is a smaller kind of fledglinggroup that we were actually
talking to and look what, knowrunning million dollar agencies
and a lot of them just couldn'tfathom it.
(05:27):
Meanwhile I remember beingthere, but now I think about it
and I'm like if I had $100,000 amonth, I'm in big trouble.
I'm not gonna be paying anybody, you know, but it's so
interesting.
Like those, there's these likeglass ceilings.
I don't know if you experiencedthis, but I had these glass
ceilings mentally of like what alot of money was what like what
success was, what was evenpossible?
(05:50):
So did you experience that likein that imposter syndrome side
of going well, this I don't knowif we can even do this, you
know did you ever experiencethat.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
Absolutely so.
I had it in my head from thevery beginning when I started
the company, that I you know,reaching a thousand VAs, placed
with medical clients would bethe big, the big giant goal.
Right the hair the big giant,hairy, audacious goal.
Like that's, that's that's whatI thought and I really I created
that get glass ceiling formyself.
(06:18):
We hit a thousand VAs and thenI was like, well, well, now what
you know, now what happens, andI thought you know the saying
is I thought I'd be up over myski tips, meaning I would be out
over my ski tips and about tocrash and burn and not knowing
what to do next.
And the reality is I set thaton myself and now we're over
(06:38):
1,300 VAs and growing andcontinuing to add on.
So now 2,500 VAs doesn't soundridiculous anymore.
So I've removed that glassceiling.
I still have imposter syndrome.
It's still there, it stillhappens.
But I definitely have had toremove that glass ceiling and
it's critical that you do so.
I remember reading DanSullivan's book and going
(06:58):
through like 10X and trying todo the whole.
You know, even imagining 10X ofmy organization was.
I couldn't even put myself there.
I'm like that's never going tohappen.
So I didn't.
I backed it down to okay, whatif I 5X?
And that number was still a bignumber and a hefty goal for me
to be able to reach.
But, and even now still, when Ithink about 10X in your company
(07:19):
, can I really 10X my company,you know?
And that starts to go back intomy head as well.
So, yeah, I think the impostersyndrome is still there, but we
create these glass ceilings onour own, and getting an
executive coach and havingsomeone like yourself who can
consistently kind of break downthose barriers to keep you to
continue to launch forward iscritical.
Speaker 1 (07:38):
Yeah, I think having people in my life that will just
question my limitations, whereI'm like, yeah, but I don't
think that's possible.
And they're like, why is thatnot possible?
And it's like anything isactually possible, like we live
in a world of abundance and youjust got to go get it.
And I'm curious one thing.
This is kind of a total sidebar, but I was looking about
(07:59):
looking at your website,thinking about the niche that
you've chosen, because you coulddo just virtual assistance in
general.
I mean, a while back I got tointerview Brian and Shannon
Mills who used to own Belay, alarge VA organization.
They sold it.
They were not as niche as you.
They probably more like generalsmall business VAs.
That's probably where theirfocus has been.
But they had a massive, massive, mega, multimillion dollar exit
(08:20):
a while back.
They did incredible.
But I remember them being at anevent years ago and they were
like this tiny little booth youknow that was, I don't know they
were just getting started.
And now they're like I don'tknow they're killing it.
But what made you choose to gointo that niche, that vertical
of medical virtual assistantsspecifically, versus virtual
assistants?
Speaker 2 (08:40):
Yeah, so I came from the medical space.
I.
I've been in the medicalindustry for just over 30 years.
In high school I knew veryearly on I wanted to be in the
medical industry, I wanted to bea nurse, I wanted to be in the
operating room and so throughthat journey I was introduced to
virtual assistants.
But I really knew that therewas a niche within medical that
had been unmet, partiallybecause number one the rest of
(09:07):
the industries out there virtualassistants were starting to
really be heavily utilized inall different industries except
for in medical.
And I knew it was possible.
I spent a lot of time inmedical practices.
I spent a lot of time inhospitals paying attention to
the ins and outs of what happensin patient care, with the
administrative piece of patientcare, and I knew that it was
going to be successful.
I knew it was possible.
But previous to COVID themedical industry wasn't open to
(09:30):
remote work.
They weren't open to any of that.
You had to come into the office, you need to see patients, you
need to be there on site,regardless of what your task was
within the practice.
Covid that my sales callspreviously to COVID was trying
to get people to imagine evenbeing able to do it.
When COVID hit, it forced theindustry to have to go remote
(09:55):
and people realized, wow, notonly is this possible, but we
can potentially be moreefficient.
We have, then, access to aglobal workforce that can be
remote, and so then the salescalls became more around
strategy not around like youknow, can I sell you into this?
But strategy how can we do this?
How quickly can we do it?
Where can we start?
And then, how do we infiltratequickly into that medical
(10:16):
practice or hospital system?
So and the medical side justcomes naturally I love medicine,
I love working with, withmedical practices and hospitals.
So that's that niche, butthere's still a huge amount of
space to continue this on in areally big way.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
It's great.
It's just a good example ofpeople that are listening to
kind of think about a couplethings that you just said, beth.
One is that you already hadexperience in that space, so you
know the people, you know howthey talk, you know what they
think, you know what the insiderlanguage is.
You got some establishedrelationships, so that helps
when you're kicking somethingoff.
And while I have nothistorically like niched down as
a marketing agency even thougheverybody told me I had to but I
(10:56):
haven't I think for a lot ofbusinesses there's no question
that from a scalabilityperspective, you will scale
faster because your audience ismore focused.
You're not selling everythingto everyone.
You're selling a particularthing to a particular audience.
I think that makes a hugedifference.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
It makes a huge difference.
You know, I have beendistracted many times.
People have come to me oh, youknow, let's place virtual
assistants in law practices,let's place virtual assistants
as executive VAs.
Or you know, executiveassistants, I know my diamond, I
know my lane, I want to staythere and I think that that, you
(11:34):
know, holding true to that, isreally what's going to continue
to the growth.
And also, I kind of have figuredout that when we mass market
into one particular area andwe're not having one client come
on and just request one VA,they're coming on and requesting
10 VAs.
Then, as they see that, oh, theproof of concept is there and
(11:54):
it's working really well, thenthey're requesting another 20
VAs.
So we're seeing a massiveamount of growth in each one of
our clients.
We don't need a ton of clients,we need a couple of big clients
that will turn into big clients.
So it's a different strategy ofgoing deeper and not just
bringing in more clients butactually focusing in on the
clients that we have andbringing in the right clients to
(12:15):
grow at scale.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
Yeah, that's a big thing to pay attention to.
I mean, I think a lot of peopleare always worried about how do
I go get a new client and I'mlike look, how do you care
better for the ones that youhave, because the chances are
really good that your currentclients probably don't even know
everything that you offer.
I mean, we're guilty of this.
I'll talk to people all thetime and they're like I know
y'all do like a lot of marketingstrategy now and messaging, but
do you still do websites?
(12:36):
I'm like yeah, of course we dowebsites.
Like it's like a that's thecenter of the marketing hub, but
some the marketing hub but somepeople ask questions they don't
know.
Like we live in this curse ofknowledge that everybody just
knows everything we do and theydon't actually care, you know
until it's going to help them.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
Yeah, so the power of scale could just be with your
existing client base Absolutelyand really making sure that they
know everything that your, yourcompany, does.
In most cases they come to youwith one pain point.
You fulfill that one pain pointand then they think they're
done.
But in fact there's deeperpenetration that can happen
within that client of more, ofcourse, adding additional
(13:13):
services across the board tothem.
Speaker 1 (13:14):
So in not forgetting that is key, absolutely.
Thinking about you scaling inCOVID is interesting to me
because you know it's such acrisis.
I mean, you know I could list ahandful of them in my lifetime
that was certainly one of thebiggest one, maybe the biggest
one that just is so disruptive.
I mean, no other time in ourlives have we been told hey, you
got to actually stay at home bythe government, you know.
I mean that's like a wholedifferent ballgame from anything
we've ever experienced, atleast in my lifetime.
(13:36):
And but the question that Ilearned a long time ago from
Michael Hyatt that I love, whichis kind of what you did, is
asking the question what doesthis make possible?
Now, that can feel a littledark in the context of people
having serious health problems,all those kind of things, for
sure, but at the end of the day,we've all got to still put food
on the table and we've got tofigure out how to manage our
businesses, how to care for thepeople that work for us, how to
(13:57):
care for our clients.
And it seems like you did that.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
You kind of go hey, what does this make possible now
as people's perspectives arechanging?
Oh, absolutely.
And pouncing on opportunitywhen the opportunity is right
there, knocking at your door,not stepping back and waiting.
Also, not getting stuck inanalyzing.
You get paralyzed by analyzingand we just didn't have time to
do that.
I also knew, you know it was athree small children at the time
(14:25):
.
You know, one high school, onemiddle school and an elementary
school student.
And I was like, well, you know,we're all kind of grounded,
we're all stuck in hell, noone's going to sports, no one's
leaving the house.
This is actually a great timefor me to work and work really,
really hard, really hard, andand so it it.
(14:46):
Actually it gave it gave methat time and that platform to
do that where ordinarily Iwouldn't have had the
necessarily time or even madethe time to be able to to plunge
as deep into it as I could.
So timing is everything andcertainly COVID was in so many
ways so trialing for all of us.
And in business, even inbusinesses that were shut down,
you still learned from it.
You still kind of came out andthe businesses that succeeded
(15:09):
after the fact, when everythingcame back, it was because they
reinvented themselves duringthat time off, because they
didn't just stop.
They were thinking, okay, whatdo we do next?
And that's also key.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
Yeah, so good, let's let's talk about remote work a
little bit, because this is abig one.
We were all kind of I alwayslike to joke I was remote work
before it was popular.
Back in the day I didn'tbelieve I needed an office.
I was remote, my whole team wasremote for 16 years and then
finally put an office in and nowI'm like I don't think I would
(15:38):
want to live without my office,but also have five kids at home
getting homeschooled.
Well, two of them are gone, andnow I think the world, or the
vast majority of industries,have moved to this kind of more
hybrid approach, which is whatour team here is.
At Business Builders, peopleneed to be in the office two
days a week, but the rest of theweek they can choose where they
want to be.
Some people are here every day,but we also work with a ton of
(16:01):
contractors in all kinds ofspaces who are virtual and
remote, and that requires acertain level of skill.
So I'm curious for you as youthink about building culture and
caring for people who areremote how do you do that
without it becoming people,turning into raw resources
instead of actual human beingswith cultural relationships?
Speaker 2 (16:20):
Yeah, great question.
So I can totally attest to theentire remote workforce and some
needing to be in also like ahybrid role entire remote
workforce and some needing to bein also like a hybrid role.
Here in the United States forour onshore team, we are in
hybrid positions where we canwork from home, part-time work
in the office, the, the, but weneed to be attending and going
into the office as an executiveteam.
(16:41):
Just, we get so much, we get alot done.
You know we're working remotely, but it's that team camaraderie
, especially at the executivelevel, I feel is critical for us
to be in front of each other alot, because then we end up
being so siloed in our thoughtsand kind of how we're addressing
our departments.
So that's incredible for us.
But with culture, culture handsdown is the number one thing
(17:03):
that we are focused on here atGMVA.
Because how else can you get anentire remote workforce of know
remote workforce of over 1300people to all be rowing in the
same direction?
How can you make sure thatthey're all putting in, you know
, putting in the day-to-dayeffort and productivity that's
absolutely necessary for successof their medical client?
So so we have standards thatare put in place.
We have process and procedures.
(17:25):
We have core values that weconsistently stick to and are a
really big piece of our dailyoperations service excellence,
compassionate care, team.
Together everyone achieves more.
We focus on those and if wereally focus on those core
values and everybody works hardto try to stick to those core
values, the work and theproductivity and everyone rowing
(17:46):
in the right direction happens.
As soon as you have someone thatdoesn't believe in that culture
and doesn't stick within thatculture and they're no longer a
culture fit.
It doesn't matter if they'reproductive, it doesn't matter if
they're great in terms ofproductivity Then they start
rowing in a different direction.
That's counterproductive forthe entire team and then we end
up having to have them exit orthey exit on their own because
(18:06):
they just don't fall in linewith the culture.
But that is the core piece Ialways feel really strongly.
You know there's a differencebetween skill and will.
We can upskill someone.
I'd rather have somebody who'samazing in terms of they believe
in our culture, they believe inour core values, they'll
continue to work at the levelthat they're supposed to.
But if we need to upskill them,let's coach them, let's upskill
(18:27):
them, but if they don't havethe will, that's really hard to
teach and coach and get them tohave the will, and so the core
values and the culture isabsolutely number one,
especially in having a remoteworkforce values and mission
(18:50):
statements.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
All that were just things that big corporations did
.
They didn't actually follow.
And I spent a lot of time,though, with Dave Ramsey and the
entre leadership team, and theyreally focused a lot on having
solid core values and missionstatements and all these kinds
of things, and for a long time,I struggled to define like.
What is culture Like?
What does that even mean?
People talk about it and a lotof times they mean like ping
pong tables and taco lunches,and it can.
That can be a piece of it, butthat's not it, and the way that
(19:11):
I like to define it is and it'sbasically exactly what you just
said which is our culture arethe attitudes and behaviors that
prove our core values to betrue.
Like we say that these are whowe are, we've listed these core
values and that's kind of who wesay we are as people.
Those are the right person, ifyou will because you talk about
right person, right seeder.
The right person is defined byare they aligned with our core
(19:32):
values?
And our culture either calls usa liar or not, and I always say
a good culture does just a teamfull of people fully aligned
with the core values.
That's a good culture.
Speaker 2 (19:42):
Yeah, absolutely, and it's interesting.
I just, for example, I just hadan HR call this morning with
some you know unfortunately, wehave somebody on our team that's
been with us for a long timethat their core values are just
no longer aligning with ours.
They've strayed from the corevalues and they're not uplifting
their team members around them,they're cutting them down, and
so that just doesn't work here.
So just coming up withstrategies of okay, you know how
(20:04):
are we going to handle thissituation, Because that does
more damage.
We have nine other people thatare about to resign because this
one person is really poisoningthe well and because they're
just not really following ourcore values.
So it's amazing how you know.
For myself, I do have to say,like I said, I worked for lots
of corporations before I went towork for myself and I try to
(20:27):
think about well, what weretheir core values in the
different companies I work forand I don't remember that.
So what does that mean?
Does that mean that theleadership did not do a great
job making sure that I was atthe lower level?
I was a lower level managermanaging a territory.
Does that mean that theleadership didn't do a great job
of making sure that I knew atthe lower level, as a lower
(20:48):
level employee, what our corevalues were, or did I just not
pay attention to them?
Either way, I learned from thatbecause I want to make sure
that everyone in my organizationknows our core values and that
we are paying attention to them,and it's how and it's how we do
our daily, it's how we thriveand we do our daily job, so so
it's a big focus.
So if anyone on you know that'slistening, that is just
starting out, or even has adecent sized company that don't
(21:11):
have their core values truly asa focal point, you need to, and
that is what ends up definingthe culture of the organization
100% so real tactically.
Speaker 1 (21:20):
So let's take a team member who is not aligned with
the core values.
What have you learned over time?
What is your actual tacticalprocess of?
Okay, we've, we've, identifiedthis person not aligned with
things.
We've got a couple options.
One, you know terminate themimmediately.
At some cases that's requiredbased on things that are
happening.
Another is I'm going to have aconversation, but what is?
(21:41):
What is your actual workflowlook like internally?
And you're obviously a lotbigger than you were when you
started.
But I mean, for people that arelistening, how do you handle
that like step one, two, three,before you actually fire
somebody?
Speaker 2 (21:52):
Yeah, great question.
Well, one of the very firstthings we do is we do what's
called skip-level meetings.
So our HR team will havemeetings with anyone that has.
So we do surveys each month.
Every manager has surveys donefor anyone that's working under
a manager.
They have surveys that are doneevery single month.
(22:12):
For anyone that's working undera manager.
They have surveys that are doneevery single month.
When we see the responses to thesurveys, it immediately gives
us a clue in on what is themorale of the team working for
that manager.
And there's two things to lookat.
It's one of the very firstthings you notice.
Let's say you have 15 peoplethat you're managing, if only
four respond to the survey, ooh,that means people don't have
much nice.
They don't have many thingsnice to say about you, so they'd
(22:33):
rather just not respond.
So that's one thing, right.
The second thing is if you havea large response number and
it's consistently,overwhelmingly good, okay, then
you know that you've got prettygood standing with this team.
The morale is high.
So there's immediately there'sjust things you can look at
within that.
If there's littleinconsistencies within those
surveys and then we see thatsomeone is there might be some
(22:55):
performance issues.
We then start doing skip levelmeetings.
Our higher level managementwill skip over that level
manager to go, start meetingwith their team members to find
out what is going on.
How are you feeling?
How do you feel about your job?
What's happening on a dailybasis?
Do you feel like you're beingsupported?
And we kind of do just thatskip level touch base with them.
(23:17):
It's amazing how muchinformation we learn during
those meetings.
Right, it's not throwing anyoneunder the bus.
That's not what we're expecting.
We know that we will haveattrition if people don't like
their manager and we want tomake sure that we're enhancing
our managers to be bettermanagers if they're not hitting
it.
So from there, if we getconsistent feedback, that's not
great.
We then will do coachingdirectly with that manager.
(23:37):
So the operations manager willmeet directly with the next
level down manager and have somecoaching with them.
Find out what's happening.
Is it the workload is too much?
Is it that they're havingwork-life issues at home or
personal issues at home?
Is it they don't have awork-life balance?
What's going on?
To try to trigger what'shappening and try to figure out
if we can be assistant to that,if it really truly is just a
(24:01):
misfit.
This person does not believe inus any longer, doesn't like
what they're doing, whatever itis, then that's the path to the
exit.
We know that.
But if we uncover other thingsthat's happening on it most of
the time there are other thingsthat are going on.
We always in this organizationgive a second chance.
We don't just give up onsomeone.
We don't just immediately dothe exit.
(24:22):
It takes time and energy toreplace people number one and
especially if they're goodpeople but they just need a
second chance.
And then it's redirection andthere's additional coaching.
Then that's what happens.
Third step is, of course, a PIPputting someone on a
performance improvement plan,seeing if they can actually stay
within the guidelines andconfines of what we're expecting
them to be able to do.
And then there's an exit afterthat if they just can't stay
(24:45):
within, you know, within theconfines of the PIP.
But in most cases our teammembers we've rectified most
cases as just being.
They're burnt out, they'reoverwhelmed.
A lot of it is personal problemsat home is affecting their work
life and so, as soon as we canbe and a lot of times it's just
a matter of giving them the timeand the focus to be able to
(25:09):
vent it to us that then we canhelp in trying to offset their
workload or try to get to them aplace where they can be in a
healthier space to be able to goahead and do their job at the
level expected.
Speaker 1 (25:19):
Yeah, I think it's just incredibly important.
I mean, you know, we're notsevered human beings, we don't
show up at work and haveseparate lives from our home
lives, like it's all one biggiant thing that overlaps and if
somebody is going through adivorce or has a sick kid or who
knows what, they've actuallygot going on at home and
everybody doesn't need to knoweverybody's business all the
time for sure.
But it is okay for somebody togo hey, I've got some really
(25:41):
hard stuff going on at homeright now and I'm trying to
navigate it and it probably isgoing to mean I'm not operating
at the highest level, but I amtrying.
To me, that means a ton fromanybody and I would want the
same for myself.
I always think I err on theside of grace.
We err on the side of gracebecause that's how I want
somebody to treat me.
Speaker 2 (26:00):
And time and time again in HR hearings.
When I'm brought into HRhearings, I almost always end up
having the discussion with ourteam that in the end, we are all
human and we need to be makingsure that we're treating each
other with utmost respect andgrace.
And we are human and so as longas we go into those meetings
with that in mind, you'll makethe right decision as a business
(26:22):
owner and or leader in terms ofwhether or not to continue on
with that person or to where youhave to let them go.
Speaker 1 (26:30):
Yeah, and we're going to.
By the time we get to the endof this show, we'll talk
specifically about work-lifebalance.
What does that even mean to you?
How's it changed in differentseasons of life?
We're not there yet, but wewill get there.
One thing I took away from whatyou just said is I love the
monthly survey idea.
We do something kind of similarto kind of gauge people's
morale, stress, workload, andreally it comes back to that old
quote of don't expect what youdon't inspect.
(26:51):
I am probably the polaropposite of a micromanager in
general.
Sometimes that bites me.
I've had a problem historicallyof not being clear enough with
people because I want them tolike me and I have learned over
time that's not actually kind.
Like to be clear is actually tobe kind.
If I'm doing something wrongthat's causing other people
(27:11):
problems, I want them to tell methat because I might not know,
you know.
Speaker 2 (27:15):
Agreed.
Yep, we're siblings in that.
I think that people understandwhat I'm asking when I ask for
something.
My team has been so incredible.
They've learned.
Okay, I don't typically setdeadlines for people, which is
an immediate disaster.
I am setting someone up forfailure when I don't give a
deadline of when I want thiswork performed, because either
(27:37):
they're going to they're goingto do it way after I anticipate
it because they don't know howto prioritize, or they're not
sure what I'm expecting them toprioritize because I've given
them something new to do.
So you know it's also makingsure that people around you, you
know, give feedback, but ofcourse then also know how to
work closely with you.
And immediately, one of thevery first things when I, when I
asked for a particular project,immediately anyone on my team
(27:57):
knows okay, beth, when is thedeadline for this?
Like there's like certain timesthey did, they know the
triggers, they know my downfallsright, and that's critical to
also having a great, great teamaround you is learning from that
.
But I'm trying to get better atthat myself.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
Yeah, it's going to be an ongoing process.
I think for me it's probably apersonality trait that I've got
to work through.
One thing I'm really curiousabout you know, going from you
know, tens of thousands ofdollars of revenue to tens of
millions in revenue is an entireorganizational shift at an
incredible level.
Everything you mentionedearlier, like getting the right
people in the right seats, likethe people around you, have to
(28:33):
change.
In many cases, the people,processes, tools, systems that
got you to a million dollars arenot going to take it to 10
million.
I'm going to take it to 50million and so.
But what I'm actually curiousabout is not those things.
What I'm actually curious aboutis how you have had to change
as a leader and how you've hadto adapt from the early days to
(28:54):
where you are now.
Speaker 2 (28:55):
Yeah, oh gosh.
It's been a lot of learning.
I have learned that things thathave had to change for me
especially, is knowing that weneed software solutions faster
than I anticipate.
And a lot of times some of ourteam members hide the redundancy
(29:21):
of their workload because theyjust assume that, well, this is
the job and this is the way todo it and they don't bring it to
our attention that the processis really can be updated and not
be so redundant.
So, as a leader, one of theways that I've had just to get
down into the weeds as a leaderjust really being able to focus
down into each department andwhat are the absolute
(29:43):
necessities that are needed togrow and scale at the level that
I'm expecting, because I canbring in a ton of new sales and
bring in a bunch more newclients and grow.
But if the rest of myorganization isn't prepped for
that, it doesn't matter.
We're going to be set up forfailure and I'm going to have
really upset team membersbecause they also are also being
hit with the burden of theadditional workload.
So one of the things I've hadto learn is that I'm not a
(30:06):
software person.
I've never loved software.
I was like nitty gritty salesperson that would, you know, hit
the road with my list and goafter my targets and not really
focused heavily on software.
So always making sure you're astep ahead and anticipating the
needs of the business, because alot of times your department
heads won't know what'santicipated or what's needed
(30:27):
because you as the leader aredeciding really the trajectory
of the business and so you'vegot to know well what's
necessary for the rest of thecompany to have.
So that's one of the things.
One other thing that's been areally big shift in my mindset
is I didn't always used to fullyfollow my gut and in the
beginning I would consistentlyquestion myself.
(30:54):
I would consistently questionmyself.
As I got further along Irealized that my gut instincts
were absolutely dead on.
Do not ignore what your gut istelling you, even if you have an
advisor or you have anexecutive in your company or
someone else that's telling youto do something else.
Deep dive, do all the hard workyou need to do to try to make
sure you're doing your duediligence on an issue, but
follow your gut, and time andtime again I've had to have
(31:15):
tough conversations with peopleand say you know what my gut is
telling me we really need to bedoing X, y and Z and this is why
we need to do it.
I always have a why.
There is a reason why, butyou've got to follow your gut
because, definitely, as theleader of the organization, the
responsibility is on you and inthe end, you've got to be able
to really look into yourself tomake sure you follow the right
(31:38):
direction, and a lot of timesit's your gut telling you what
to do.
Speaker 1 (31:41):
Yeah, I have a leader that I get to work with who
talks about his kind of like hisSpidey sense, you know, like
Spider-Man's kind of got hissomething's going on here and I
can just feel it.
It is, that's a real thing, youknow, it's a real thing and
there's something to it that Iactually I've got no science for
this, but just this is from myexperience, I think.
(32:02):
In some cases I think women havebetter intuition and like gut
instincts than men do At leastthat's the experience in my life
which is why my wife, while shedoesn't work in the business,
kind of becomes like the youknow sounding board.
Even before I hire people,she'll be kind of like the last
we'll take them and their spouseout to dinner, and I'm not
asking for like a deep interview, but I do want her instinct to
go like does it feel right?
And I will tell you what inevery situation, every time
(32:25):
where she has said I just don'tknow, and in some cases
sometimes I'm like but why?
And she's like I don't know, Ijust don't, I don't think it, I
don't think it's going to workout.
It never works out, never.
So I just need to listen to herfrom the beginning, from now on
yes, you do, and that thatactually happened to me last
year.
Speaker 2 (32:43):
Same situation my fiance had met a new hire that I
was going to be bringing in andhe didn't really.
He didn't really say anythingto me at the time because it's
my business, I'm doing my thingRight, and he's so proud of what
I do and how I've grown, so he,he fully trusts me.
But in the end, after, when itwasn't working, he's like yeah,
(33:03):
you're like.
Speaker 1 (33:04):
Well, let me know next time.
Speaker 2 (33:05):
And then someone else .
Someone else said the samething and I'm like why didn't
anyone say anything?
Because I was going inwholehearted with this person,
thinking this person isabsolutely the right hire, and I
had two people that are veryclose to me that from very early
on had that spidey sense of I'mnot so sure.
So follow that instinct, I know.
Speaker 1 (33:27):
It is funny how some of those times like sometimes,
you'll have a hiring situation.
I had a girl that we hired onetime on a team to run social
media for an account and she inthe interview I sat and asked
her.
I said, hey, tell me the fivethings that we're not doing that
you think we should be doing.
And it was like she was readingmy brain and I used to meet.
It was like hire her right now,don't even interview anybody
else, like it was, it was and itwas the perfect hire and I just
(33:47):
knew it.
And then there's another timewhere I was in an interview.
I didn't have as good a reason,but I thought this girl was
great, I thought she's gonna beamazing, our, it was just like a
personnel and it's probablybecause my personality liked her
personality and we just I justseemed like the kind of person
would go get stuff done.
And I had a couple of peoplewho afterwards same exact thing
we're like yeah, I could havetold you that.
And I'm like, okay, well, whydidn't you?
(34:08):
Then you could have saved me alot of drama and money.
Speaker 2 (34:11):
You know, yeah, absolutely, and it's always good
to, you know, go in eyes wideopen, right, and to be aware.
So let's say I mean, cause thathappens too where you may have
some in your team, that's eh,I'm going to hire this person,
but I'm going to stay on alertright.
I'm just going to make surethat we get off to a really
great start and it stays thatway, or you know, you, just you
(34:33):
know when it's time to move on,you move on quickly, right 100%.
Speaker 1 (34:37):
Well, there's two final things that I definitely
want to get to before we landthe plane today.
The first is going to be thatwork-life balance question.
It's always an interesting one,and so what I like to do is ask
what does it even mean to youand how has it changed through
different seasons of your lifeand business?
And then the second one isreally where people can learn
more about you, about yourbusiness.
What's the best place for themto find you online?
(34:57):
So let's start with thework-life balance question.
It means something different toeverybody.
I've got five kids.
It was very different when theywere all toddlers than when
they're all now teenagers slashadults.
Seasons of life change, seasonof business change.
But number one, what does itmean to you?
What does work-life balance?
People say that.
What does it mean to you?
And then two, how has itchanged the different seasons of
business and life?
Speaker 2 (35:18):
Sure.
So work-life balance what doesit mean to me?
So, for me, I'm heavily rootedin purpose, like I, I'm my happy
, I'm my happiest when I amrooted in purpose and what I
feel really good doing.
And for me, right now buildingthis company and continue to
build the company it's justgiving me a tremendous amount of
(35:39):
purpose.
So all the people around me, Ihad, you know, I had an
interesting conversation with my21 year old just last night,
because we were talking aboutbusiness and he had said to me
oh, you know, you know plans forthis weekend, for example.
And so I'm like well, I've gotthis meeting, I've got this
meeting and I also have thisreport I need to get done.
And he's like, mom, like I'venever like you work so hard,
like you've worked harder nowthan you did.
(36:00):
And I'm like no, I'm older, youare more independent, you don't
need me right there either andI can choose to offset my time a
little bit differently now.
So so, work-life balance whatit looks like for me is is just
that, as I'm feeding my purpose,so not to say that it's all
work, I want to have kids hockeygames.
(36:21):
I am there, I am there in mycowbell, I am there screaming
like a lunatic.
I am that hockey mom that youwould expect to be there.
But when it's time to work, andeven when I have downtime, I am
always thinking about work,always.
So some people would say I haveno balance, I am heavily
workloaded, but I feelextraordinarily purposeful and
so I feel very fulfilled, and so, for me, that's my work-life
(36:43):
balance.
When I feel like I need to backoff of that, that's when I'll
take a vacation, that's whenI'll take a break, that's when
I'll, you know, back off.
And so I know those gentlebalances and I, even last week,
I knew, okay, I needed two extradays off because I just needed
a break after a 4th of July, andso that's what I did.
I took two days to get what Ineeded to get done and feel
fulfilled again, to really goback in.
(37:05):
But that's really my work-lifebalance.
That's kind of where I sit, butI'm working a ton, make no
mistake about it, but I love it.
Speaker 1 (37:13):
You know it's so interesting because I ask the
question a lot, because it doesmatter to me, because I don't
want my kids to grow up andresent the fact that I worked
all the time.
I want them to know me, I wantto have deep relationships with
them and my wife obviously, likeyou know, I care a ton about
that and I also know thatbusiness comes and goes, you
know, and I can always go getanother deal.
That said, I think our cultureis like over indexed to some
(37:36):
extent, like almost work shamingpeople.
I'm like, well, if you'reworking X amount of hours a week
, like you're not resting enough, and I'm like, but work?
I realize you don't understandthis, but work is my risk
sometimes.
Like I like doing what I'mdoing.
I'm not waking up Monday beinglike, oh my gosh, I have to go
to work.
How miserable I'm.
Like let's get going, you know.
And and.
(37:56):
So I always joke that like workis my hobby.
So I kind of feel the same way.
I am probably a little bit of aworkaholic.
But what does that even mean?
Like as long as it's notnegatively affecting the other
significant relationships?
And that's the stuff I thinkI've got to pay attention to.
It's like if I personally havesaid I care a lot about deep
relationships with my childrenand my wife, if that's what
matters to me, the question is,does it actually matter?
(38:18):
Because if I am working 16hours a day and I never actually
see them, it doesn't actuallymatter.
I'm just saying that it does.
And so you know I've certainlyadjusted over time, but I think
it's worth people hearing thatsometimes, most of the time, to
grow a really successfulorganization, you're going to
have to put a lot of hours intoit and you're going to have to
be willing to outwork basicallyanybody else.
(38:40):
That's why it works.
You know it's not, and maybeyour goal is, maybe somebody's
goal is to sell the company andgo live on a beach somewhere.
I actually probably would lovethat for like two weeks and then
I'd be like all right, well,we've done this, let's get back
to work.
Speaker 2 (38:55):
It's so funny.
You say that so many peoplehave talked to me about exiting,
about selling the company, andthey're like, well, that's the
thing to do there, that's thenext thing to do.
And I'm like, well then, whatam I going?
Speaker 1 (39:03):
to do.
I love this, I love what I do.
Speaker 2 (39:05):
This is exciting, it's also my passion, and when
you you know, when you'refollowing your passion, it's not
work, it's it's, it's fun,you're growing and building
something exciting.
So, but yeah, but work, lifebalance.
It is true People are shamingothers for working too much, not
working enough, whatever itmight be, but it has to be, it
has to work for your familyAbsolutely.
(39:26):
And so you know, beingcritically involved, you can't
have your primary partner,cannot be your business.
Your primary partner has to beyour spouse or your loved ones
or your children, and then youwork around that.
But, knowing you know my father, it's interesting.
Kids take things differently.
Each kid has their ownperspective.
Speaker 1 (39:45):
For sure.
Speaker 2 (39:45):
My sister and I were raised with the exact same way.
We saw the exact same things.
Her perception, her perspectiveon how things went are
drastically different than mine.
My father started his owncompany.
He worked his butt off, heworked a ton of hours, and so I
just I watched that and saw thatand was like he's doing all of
that for us.
And he's also doing it becausehe has goals and dreams that he
(40:06):
wants to hit.
I took it that way.
My sister's perception isdifferent.
She is like, well, dad wasnever around.
Oh my God, he was never aroundbecause he was doing all of this
for us and also he wanted tobuild.
So you just sort of be in touchwith your children to make sure
they understand the why andthat they understand that
they're also really important,and then they also learn so much
(40:27):
from watching what you're doingand that work ethic and how and
how how to handle difficultsituations and how you struggle
or work under pressure, teachingyour kids.
What does this?
What does a stressful looksituation look like?
Not everybody has anxiety.
There is stress and how youlearn and work with stress and
so and your kids will learn thatfrom you if they see you in
(40:49):
those situations and that alsois huge learning curves for our
kids.
Speaker 1 (40:53):
Yeah, not to go too far off a side tangent, but talk
about the stress and anxietything culturally.
It's so interesting because it'slike there are, there is some
level of anxiety.
That is good.
If I have a meeting in themorning that I have not prepared
for and it's a really importantmeeting, I should be a little
anxious about that.
That's a problem I should gosolve.
You know, if I, if I, if I'm,you know, worried about not
(41:16):
having something done that Ishould have done, that, that
that's a reasonable amount ofworry that our body naturally
goes.
I need to prepare you for this,so you should pay attention.
It's a smoke alarm, you know,and you look for smoke and if
there's no smoke, you blow itout of the way and keep moving.
Speaker 2 (41:31):
I know it's not easy for everybody, but you know not
easy for everyone.
Speaker 1 (41:33):
I know Well, let's gosh.
We could probably keep talkingall day, but I'm not sure who
would keep listening.
So hopefully they've gottenthis far and if they have, I'd
love for them to know where tofind about all the things that
your company does and what youdo.
Speaker 2 (41:45):
Yeah, absolutely the best place to go is just go
right to our website.
There's a tremendous amount ofgreat information to learn about
medical virtual assistants fromus.
There's also a spot where youcan click on and create a
strategy session with us to havea discussion with us about what
we do, but it's wwwgmvacom orwwwglobalmedicalvacom.
(42:07):
Either way, it'll bring youright to the same spot and come
check us out, and definitelywe're happy to have a discussion
with you.
If you're in the medical fieldand you want to learn more about
what we do, we'd love to assist.
Speaker 1 (42:18):
Awesome Beth.
Thank you for being on the showtoday.
It's been a real pleasure.
Speaker 2 (42:21):
Nice meeting you.
Thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (42:23):
Hey, I hope this video has helped you with some
tips and ideas to build abusiness that lasts.
Make sure you subscribe to ourchannel so that you don't miss
out on the next videos that weroll out and, more importantly,
for some awesome free resources.
Head over to our website atbuilding a business that lasts.
Calm, you can get a free copyof my book there, where I tell
you how I have built an agencythat's grown year over year for
(42:46):
the last 20 years in a row.
So go grab that building abusiness that lastscom and make
sure to subscribe to our channel.
Thanks, we'll see you soon.
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