November 4, 2024 • 32 mins
Unlock the secrets to building a sustainable business with Kirsten Graham, a distinguished business mentor and coach, as she joins us on the Seven Figure Builder Show. Kirsten shares her remarkable evolution from the real estate and mortgage industry to becoming an authoritative voice in business coaching and team outsourcing. Get ready to learn the art of finding the perfect hire and crafting a business model that benefits both owners and employees. Kirsten reveals the significance of solid onboarding processes, management systems, and SOPs, and why a "unicorn" employee isn't the key to success. Her insights into outsourcing are invaluable for anyone eager to build a thriving, efficient team.
In this engaging conversation, we explore the delicate balance of hiring and managing virtual assistants effectively. Discover strategies that prioritize relationship building, open communication, and result-driven management. Say goodbye to micromanagement woes by using project management tools to enhance efficiency. We also discuss the power of Standard Operating Procedures, particularly how they can save you time and streamline operations. Whether you're looking to expand your team or refine your management skills, this episode is packed with practical guidance and tips to elevate your business, all while keeping your passion and excitement alive.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Well, welcome back.
This is Julie Baranek, host ofthe 7 Figure Builder Show, and
I'm here today with my friend,kirsten Graham hey, kirsten,
hello, and we are going to talkall things VA and building out
your team, so I am super excitedto chat with you today.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Thank you, Julie.
Thank you so much for having me.
I know we just always have.
We have so much in common, so Iknow this is just gonna be a
great conversation.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
Yes, absolutely.
So tell us a bit about what itis you do with your business and
what brought you to where youare today.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Oh my gosh.
I will give you the long story,but I will compress it down
quite a bit.
So my background is actuallyreal estate.
I started selling real estatein the late eighties and I ended
up moving to the mortgage sideof the business.
I eventually owned a mortgagecompany and a title company and
loved it and survived 2008,actually stayed in business
(00:49):
until 2013.
And I left because my motherwas terminally ill.
But what happened was one of myclients is now my business
partner and I had helped themget the loan to buy their house.
She had called to check in onrates a couple of times when
they dropped, and I knew thatshe had planned to leave her job
and start a business so thatshe could be home with her
(01:11):
children.
And so I asked her how arethings going?
And she said it's going okay,but I don't know anyone else who
owns a business.
I just I really don't feel likeI know what I'm doing as far as
being a business owner.
So I offered to meet with herfor coffee, which I didn't
realize I had been doing forabout a decade.
I'd been mentoring otherbusiness owners.
(01:32):
You know they would take me tolunch to pick my brain.
So yeah.
So I ended up meeting with herand it was back when it was 2016
.
So it was right when Facebookcame out with fan pages, so
that's 16 years ago, and she wasdoing business cards and rack
cards.
She was doing a lot of physicalmarketing for her clients.
(01:53):
So we put together a focusgroup to find out what local
business owners knew and thoughtabout fan pages.
That's back when businesseswere just starting to realize
that LinkedIn wasn't just a jobposting site, and it's also when
email marketing and bloggingwere really coming into the
awareness of local businesses.
(02:15):
Online businesses have beenthere for a while, but local
businesses were just starting tounderstand that.
So it was fantastic.
The focus group gave us a tonof information.
She put together classes on allof those topics, sold out.
But then what happened was allof these people that she taught
how to set up a LinkedIn profileor how to set up a fan page and
how to post.
(02:36):
They didn't want to do it, sothey were reaching out to her to
do it for them.
So her agency really took offkind of quickly and I said to
her I've read, I read aboutoutsourcing overseas.
Would you want to try that?
And she said yes.
So talk about blind faith.
Oh my gosh.
Yeah, I mean it was.
It was so interesting because Ihad read a lot about
(02:57):
outsourcing but it wasn'tsomething I had done.
Obviously, my mortgage business, I had all in-house staff, I
didn't need outsourcing at thattime.
So we went down this journeytogether of hiring her team and
we like to say, if it could bedone wrong, we did it wrong more
than one time and you know wewere taken advantage of.
But there's always the otherside to the coin.
(03:17):
I'm sure in a lot of cases wewere really crappy bosses
because we didn't have systemsand processes in place the way
that they needed to be.
You know we maybe weren'tgiving feedback in a timely
fashion or you know directlyenough that they understood what
the next steps were.
So it was a.
You know it was a double-edgedsword of, you know, being taken
advantage of and learning somehard lessons of what we didn't
(03:39):
want to do and then alsolearning what we needed to do to
actually do a good joboutsourcing do and then also
learning what we needed to do toactually do a good job
outsourcing.
And then I kind of turned mymentorship into a business
coaching practice and startedhelping other clients outsource,
because lead generation is thebiggest challenge for most
business owners building theirbrand, getting their marketing
done, whether it's inboundmarketing or outbound.
(04:00):
So then Jeannie and I decidedto partner, and so we decided to
partner on the process ofhaving a detailed structure of
how we help our clientsoutsource, and it has been.
It has been so much fun.
It's been such a fun journeyand we just have the most
amazing clients and I love thefact that we're helping these
(04:20):
fabulous people halfway aroundthe world have long-term jobs
that change their lives.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
Yeah, absolutely.
I love all of this.
I would say I'm trying to getready to even start, but what
would you say makes a good boss?
Let's start there, becausethat's something that you hit on
.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
Yeah.
So, first of all, it breaks myheart when I hear people say, oh
, I hired someone and it didn'twork out.
If I have to spend that muchtime telling them what to do,
I'll do it myself, and that's,of course, very short term
thinking.
But, just like us, a lot ofpeople hire before they have an
onboarding process in place,before they have SOPs done,
(05:01):
before they decide on howthey're going to manage the work
that that person's doing.
So I feel like that is thebiggest thing is to one, make
sure you're ready to hire.
But then the other thing and theother reason why I think so
many people fail is they want tohire a unicorn.
They want to hire a person whois fantastic at everything right
, and the reality is we hire ourteam for specific skills and
(05:26):
their specialties, and what wehave found over the years is, if
you hire someone who's doingwhat they're passionate so, for
example, our marketing virtualassistants, their video editing,
audio editing, graphic designthey're all very creative and
they love being in that space.
So as long as we're placingthem in a job where that's what
they're focusing on and doingmost of the time, they're happy
(05:47):
and are going to stay in thatjob for a long time.
So making sure that you arehiring for specific tasks and
know what hard skills and whatsoft skills that person needs to
have to be successful.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
Absolutely, and I want to stick with just looking
at ourselves for a moment andthen we can talk about the
hiring process and all that.
But what are the skillsprocesses and ongoing
communication that you see workreally well from a boss
perspective?
Like, how do you maintain thatrelationship?
Speaker 2 (06:20):
looking at ourselves, Okay, so first of all, you said
from a boss perspective,looking at ourselves.
Okay, so first of all, you saidfrom a boss perspective, julie,
you'll be surprised how manytimes people will say to me I
just want to hire someone whowill tell me what to do.
Well, if you want to hiresomeone to tell you what to do,
go get a job.
Like you're not an entrepreneurand so you.
You will never be able to hireand manage successfully if you
(06:43):
don't want to step into the roleof being the CEO, of being the
boss.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
So I guess having real quick there, though sorry
not to cut you off, but there's,that's a consultant, right?
Like, if you want someone, ifyou want to hire somebody that
will tell you what to do, hire aconsultant.
If you want someone to buildout your team, then hire a VA,
hire a team member, right?
Speaker 2 (07:04):
Would you say that's accurate, absolutely yeah.
If you're not sure what you'redoing with your business, like
you said, hire a professionalbusiness coach and figure out
your strategies and yourprocesses, you know.
Hire someone like you thathelps with automation.
So hire people who have reallyhigh level skills.
They're generally like you know.
Again, they're a consultant.
They're not someone who you'rebringing onto your team, because
(07:24):
that is a very different typeof person.
We always like to consider ourvirtual assistants as part of
our team, not just someonehalfway around the world who's
just doing tasks.
But the reality is that'syou're hiring them to do very
specific tasks within yourbusiness and things that they
are brilliant at doing and theylove doing.
(07:45):
So that's where I think youhave a different role.
And so you asked what does ittake to be a good boss?
Again, I think making sure youtake the time, you invest the
time to hire the right person,making sure it's the right time
for you to hire someone, meaningthat you have the time to
onboard them and that you havethe time to put the systems and
(08:05):
processes in place that you aregoing to use to manage their
workflow.
And then it's about investingtime with that virtual assistant
.
When you bring on a team member,we usually recommend to most of
our clients that they meet withthem four to five times a week
for the first couple of weeksbecause that's about with them.
You know, four to five times aweek for the first couple of
weeks because that's aboutrelationship building,
communication.
(08:26):
Then they usually go down totwo or three meetings and then
eventually they're just meetingwith that team member once a
week and, to be honest, we havepeople on our team that know
what they're doing so well.
We wouldn't have to meet withthem every week but we still do,
because it is about making themfeel a part of the team and
value in that time that we spendwith them on the relationship.
(08:47):
And that's what really, I think, sets people apart who have
high turnover or people thathave virtual assistants who stay
with them for a long period oftime, absolutely.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
And what is your viewpoint on having to manage
basically micromanaging, butlike having to manage their
individual tasks and their timeand the you know flexibility?
Or is it like you know you workwithin these hours, like what
do you find works the best withthat relationship?
Speaker 2 (09:17):
Yeah, we're very result driven.
So you know what we focus on isour clients are generally
hiring a virtual assistant for20 hours a week, 30 or 40 hours
a week.
So in that block of time, ifthey're taking care of our
clients video editing, socialmedia marketing we know how long
it takes them to generally dothose tasks.
So it's easy to say this is howlong it will approximately take
(09:39):
each week, depending on thelength of the video and the
amount of edits and B-roll andthings like that.
So we really encourage ourclients not to use time trackers
just because we really focus on, again, long term relationship
and communication.
We also believe in usingproject management software and
structure.
So at a glance, I can look intoour software and see exactly
(10:01):
where every video we have inproduction is at this moment and
who's working on it.
So it's a matter of having,like you said, automation and
using technology to help youmanage it.
So it's not, you're notspending a lot of time doing
that.
And then the other thing aboutmicromanaging I would ask is are
(10:23):
you micromanaging for yourbenefit, because you don't want
to let go and you feel like youneed to be needed, or are you
micromanaging because they'renot capable.
And if they're not capable,generally you've hired the wrong
person or you haven't giventhem the tools and the structure
and the coaching that theyrequire to do a good job.
And that's one of the things wework a lot with our clients on
(10:46):
is how to coach your virtualassistant so that they're doing
things exactly the way you wantthem, because we're all a little
bit different in how wecommunicate, so we want to make
sure you know our clientsunderstand the value of coaching
and then having expectations.
You know, one of our virtualassistants who gets me booked on
podcasts came to the meetingthe other day and she had
(11:07):
questions about two podcastsWould these be good podcasts to
go on?
Well, she hadn't really gonethrough the checklist and if she
had and paid attention, shewould have known one of them was
not ideal.
The other one she wouldn't haveknown because it was just we
had to dig a lot deeper.
So I had the conversation withher about please don't bring
these to us until you'vecompletely gone through this
(11:29):
checklist and have all of thisinformation, because, again, I
think if you had done that, youwould have been able to decide
on this one and then as far asthe other one goes.
We said look, you know, thebottom line is even we even had
to question whether or not itwas the right podcast for me to
go on.
So sometimes you have to get inthere and support them on task.
But being clear about what theexpectation is for the next
(11:52):
meeting, don't bring things tous unless you have done every
bit of research you can possiblydo to figure it out yourself.
Speaker 1 (12:01):
Absolutely and ultimately, you're teaching them
to up it out yourself.
Absolutely and ultimately,you're teaching them to uplevel
their skills.
Right, it's not?
You don't have to babysit them,of course, but you're teaching
them to be independent, you'reteaching them to be a more
valuable team member and like.
The more you teach them touplevel those skills, the more
it's going to help you as abusiness owner within your
business.
Speaker 2 (12:19):
Right.
And the flip side of that is,the more you spoon feed them and
micromanage them, the lessconfidence they're going to have
and the more of that you'regoing to have to do.
So it's up to you what you get.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
Absolutely A hundred percent.
So flipping the script.
Looking at the team member,what do you encourage business
owners when they're looking forsomebody to enhance their team
or fill a void?
Speaker 2 (12:37):
within their team.
Sure, again, know exactly whattask you want that person to do
and then, once you know the task, figure out what the skill sets
are, what are the hard skillsets and the soft skill sets, so
that you can figure out whowould be the right person.
Take the time and write a full,detailed job description and I
feel like this is where you geta lot of clarity over who you're
(12:59):
hiring is by getting that jobdescription documented.
And you'll need the jobdescription in order to create
create your job post or your jobad If you're going to run an ad
for a virtual assistant.
So I feel like investing thattime in the beginning is really,
really important.
You know, and when I talk abouthard skills, you know, are they
do they have great video editingskills?
Do they have fantastic graphicdesign skills?
(13:19):
Then, do they have greatcommunication skills skills?
Do they have fantastic graphicdesign skills?
Do they have greatcommunication skills?
Might be one of the softerskill sets.
Can they work independently?
Do they enjoy workingindependently?
So, figuring out what type ofperson you need to hire, both
what they can do and then howthey like to operate within the
(13:41):
business itself, because if youhave someone halfway around the
world who can't workindependently, then it's not the
right person.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
Absolutely, and do you, within your team, have them
provide daily summaries, orwhat is a good cadence for
communication between when youhave somebody working halfway
around the world?
Speaker 2 (14:02):
communication between when you have somebody working
halfway around the world, yeah.
So we in our project managementsoftware, we generally keep all
conversations in that software.
So generally, as long as I seethat our team is documenting
what they're doing, they'reasking questions or they're
giving they're doing an updatewithin the software, then I know
what they're doing and I don'tneed that daily report or even a
weekly report.
So usually and we can tell ifsomeone has extra time, what we
(14:27):
encourage them to do is we say,hey, if you have extra time, let
us know so that we can give yousomething else to do.
But on the flip side of that,if we've given you a couple of
projects that are taking longerthan you expected, let us know
that.
Let us know that I'm not goingto get this all finished this
week because I don't want you torush through it and do it
sloppy.
So let us know.
Hey, within my 40 hours I'm notgoing to be able to finish this
(14:49):
.
I'll probably need 10 hoursnext week.
So for us, we really focus onclear communication.
So we want to make sure thatwe're not throwing so much on
them that they're feelingoverwhelmed and rushed and we
want them to be ethical enoughto come to us and say hey, I'm
pretty fast at doing thesethings and I'm finishing within
about 15 hours.
Is there anything else you wantme to do?
(15:10):
And that's where I thinkbuilding the real relationship
and having trust and integritycomes in.
Speaker 1 (15:15):
Absolutely.
And what do you recommend forthat hiring process?
Like you know, you can talk abit about your own hiring
process, but for the businessowner I have a need on my team.
What's the best way to find agood fit?
Speaker 2 (15:28):
Yeah.
So after you've done the jobdescription, the job post you
know, you know what skillsyou're looking for you can then
post, you know, a job postonline jobsph is probably the
best place to go and then atthat point you start your
interviewing process and Ireally recommend that, again,
you have in order to compareapples to apples make sure you
(15:48):
have a list of questions so thatyou're asking everyone the same
questions and getting a feelfor that.
Some people, depending on whatthey're hiring them to do, will
give them a little task to do,kind of like a test.
You know, we usually do someback and forth email
communication to make sure thatthey reply quickly and to see if
they're taking the time to readwhat we ask and write
appropriate answers.
So take your time through thisprocess and if you get down to
(16:10):
two or three applicants that youthink would be great, then do a
second interview with them andthen decide who would be best
when.
If I'm working with someone likea law firm in particular, I've
helped them hire some medicalrecords professionals and it's
interesting because as one lawfirm, they give them several
(16:30):
different tests, so it's likethe Colby test, and then there's
another test and these testsare more about how they work,
not so much their skills, soit's interesting that they take
it to that next level.
For us, we generally don't feellike we need to do that because
, again, we know exactly whatthat person's ability is once we
put them through our pace.
Speaker 1 (16:53):
Yeah, I love that.
And how?
What is?
What is your onboarding processlook like?
Like, do you have you know?
Here's a time that you workwith them, or tell us you know
how does that work.
Speaker 2 (17:02):
Like, like, do you have you know periods of time
that you work with them, or tellus you know how does that work?
Sure, so we have a programcalled the Marketing VA
Advantage and that is for peoplewho want to start a YouTube
channel, and we work a lot withlaw firms and real estate agents
.
We do work with coaches andconsultants, of course, but
lawyers and realtors are reallystarting to understand the value
of building their personalbrand and taking advantage of
YouTube for local SEO.
(17:23):
So for that particular job, weactually do all the interviewing
and vetting and we thenactually put that virtual
assistant into an internshipprogram where we pay them and
they have to learn all of ourprocesses and SOPs before they
get to go to work for a client.
So then, of course, we teachour client all of the SOPs to
(17:45):
manage them.
So for that particular program,we do all the back-end work.
We have a hiring team thattakes care of that.
It's surprising how many peoplewash out, but again, if they've
made it through graduation,they're committed, they're
excited, they want a long-termjob, they know that our clients
are generous and kind and theyknow that they've been educated
(18:07):
on how to be a good boss.
So we get a ton of referralsfor virtual assistants who want
to come into that program.
Speaker 1 (18:16):
Awesome and that's a huge benefit from the business
owner perspective because thattakes the heavy lifting off of
their hands.
Right to say, okay, I've got avetted, trained, established VA
that can just, you know, comeinto my team and that really is
an awesome thing that youprovide.
Thank you, you're welcome.
And what do you recommend forthe timing coordination?
(18:37):
Obviously, when you have peopleworking around the world,
you're in flip-flop time zones,so how do you find that works
the best?
Speaker 2 (18:44):
So it depends on the task.
So, for example, if themarketing virtual assistant is
editing videos and creatingsocial media posts and setting
up emails to go out, I generallydon't care what time they do
that.
So for me I don't care whathours they work, as long as
they're meeting all of thedeadlines and the goals.
So it can really be whatevertime they want.
(19:05):
Also, we do talk to our clientsa lot about when someone's in a
creative space, because mybusiness partner is also a
creative and if you get intoediting a video, you may not
want to work four hours and stop.
So it doesn't make sense to say, oh well, you're going to work
four hours a day, five days aweek, because if they get into
that creative mode, you knowthey may sit there and work
(19:26):
eight to 10 hours becausethey're just in flow of the
creativity.
So with the creative virtualassistants, we really don't care
For virtual assistants that getour clients booked on podcast.
We generally want them working,you know, generally between 7am
and 9pm our time, because wedon't necessarily want them
(19:47):
reaching out in the middle ofthe night to get you booked on a
podcast.
Or if we have, you know,virtual assistants that are
doing setting up sales calls forus.
We want them working our hours,so I think it really depends on
the job and the tasks thatthey're doing.
Speaker 1 (20:02):
Absolutely.
And you mentioned a lot aboutSOPs.
What would you say makes a goodSOP?
Speaker 2 (20:10):
Well, I love the saying.
I don't know who said it orwhere I heard it, but it said if
you do something more thanthree times that has more than
three steps, you should documentit.
So a really good SOP is justdocumenting step by step how
something is done, and I thinkfor most business owners,
including myself, we're notgreat at creating SOPs Luckily,
I have a business partner who isbut documenting everything that
(20:33):
needs to be done and thenworking through the SOPs
yourself to make sure, because alot of times we automatically
do things that we don't thinkabout doing, but if we don't
document it, the virtualassistant will know how to do
that.
So I think that taking time tocreate the standard operating
procedures and then having aprocess to go through them with
(20:54):
the virtual assistant and talkout the different things that
they're going to do and whythey're going to do it a certain
way and we use projectmanagement software.
We're really big on checkliststo make sure everything gets
done, every step within the SOPgets done, and I guess my
biggest advice for businessowners is don't think about all
of the SOPs you have to create.
(21:15):
Just create one Next time youdo something that requires more
than three steps and you knowyou're going to do it more than
three times.
Go ahead and start documentingit.
Speaker 1 (21:25):
Yeah, absolutely, and I do the same.
I'm very much a systemsautomation person, so I tend to.
When I do something the firsttime, I always am doing it with
the 50th time in mind, right,because we're going to forget
the steps and I don't want tohave to re-figure things out
every time I have to come backto that.
So I do it for myself right Inaddition to my team and then, as
(21:48):
I get an established processand I get it documented for
myself, I can then hand thatover to my team member and it's
one less thing on my plate.
So I echo everything that youare saying a hundred percent.
Speaker 2 (21:59):
And then I think the other thing is to realize that
things change over time.
Obviously, look how quicklymarketing is changing and
automation and AI.
So remember, in those weeklymeetings with your virtual
assistant, this is a great timeto update things you know, to
add in.
You know it may just be addingin something like here are the
AI tools that you could use towrite this post.
(22:20):
Right, because maybe thatperson's been with you so long
that it isn't documented withinthe process that they could use
AI.
But you want to document itbecause if that person ever
leaves or goes on maternityleave or something and the next
person that steps into that role, you want to have it updated
100%, and are there any goodtools that you found that you
know you can share with with ourlisteners that work really well
(22:42):
?
Sure, so we started off usingBasecamp ages ago and then we
moved into Asana and right nowwe use Trello.
And the reason why we useTrello is it allows us to give
all of our SOPs directly, dropthem directly into our clients
Trello board accounts so we cangive them very easily all of our
(23:02):
processes.
So that is one of the softwaresthat we use.
And then for our client, thevirtual assistant who books me
on podcasts, we use high level Ithink you're a high level fan
too so we use that software forher to book my calendar and
things like that Awesome.
Speaker 1 (23:20):
And what are the biggest gaps that you see in
this whole process, both frombusiness owner or from the VA
side?
Speaker 2 (23:29):
I think the biggest gaps for business owner is that
they just don't have the time.
They don't have the time tocreate the SOPs, they don't
necessarily have the time foronboarding or training, which is
, you know, when we first setout to do the marketing VA
advantage, our intention was toteach our client how to hire the
right person.
But we had several people sayto us I wish you could just do
(23:49):
this for us.
And so we thought well, that'swhat our clients want, let's
figure this out so they don'thave to go through the
interviewing process, they don'thave to go through the training
process, they don't have to gothrough the onboarding process,
they just have to learn ourworkflows to manage the virtual
assistant, and so that makes itsuper easy for them.
And again, we also help themwith their content because,
(24:10):
again, a lot of our clients willhave questions about the best
content to create for theirYouTube channel.
So we do a lot of coachingaround that.
So I think that's helpful.
But I also feel strongly aboutthe fact that learning how to
outsource is a skill that mostpeople should have, which is why
our second program we actuallyteach our client how to hire the
(24:32):
virtual assistant who is goingto get them booked on podcast.
So we do that in a verydifferent way.
We still train that virtualassistant once they hire them
through a portal.
But we feel like it's reallyimportant for business owners to
start to understand how to hire, and we came to that conclusion
because a lot of our clientswho have our marketing virtual
assistants some of them have hadthem for years now they want to
(24:55):
build their team but they don'tknow how because we did it for
them.
So this is an opportunity forthem to learn how to do it.
Speaker 1 (25:03):
I love that.
That's awesome, and I'm curious, as you've been growing your
business, you've accomplished somuch, both personally,
professionally, but how do youdefine success?
What does that look like foryou?
Speaker 2 (25:15):
Getting up every day excited about what I do.
I mean, that's the bottom line,I think you know, for us, we
love helping people.
I, you know, I love something,julie, something I wasn't
expecting just because, again,like when I, in my mortgage
company, I had staff.
So something I truly wasn'texpecting was when our clients,
when they first started workingwith their virtual assistant,
(25:36):
when they would come back andsay things like I'm so much more
confident now that I have avirtual assistant, I feel like a
real business owner, now that Ihave support or they may say I
had no idea how isolated andlonely I was in my business.
And now that I have this personthat I'm meeting with and
they're as passionate as I amabout getting my content out,
you know, it gives them a wholedifferent feel to their business
(25:59):
.
And those were things, you know, I really wasn't expecting.
And then also, you know, aswomen, we tend to beat ourselves
up because we can't get it alldone, and so that was the other
thing is so many people saying Ididn't realize, like, how hard
I was on myself and how much Iwas beating myself up, but now I
have this person working 20hours a week for me and I don't
know how I thought I could doall of that work as well as my
(26:21):
client work and as well as allmy prospecting and sales calls.
So that was the part thatreally blew me away, and that's
the impact that we want to havewith our clients.
We want to change their lives,not just help them get their
YouTube channel up and runningor get booked on podcasts, but
we want them to see what itfeels like to build a team and
have the support in theirbusiness that they deserve.
Speaker 1 (26:43):
Yeah, and the other thought I had with that is
you're also able to constantlyshare your vision with somebody.
Our vision is evolving andgrowing and molding over time
and you can share that with yourteam member, where it's not
just buried in your headsomewhere.
We're trying to get it out incontent or whatever.
It's.
A whole other level of this iswhat's burning inside of me, and
(27:05):
now you have someone else whosees that in the day to day
process.
Speaker 2 (27:09):
Is that something you enjoy working with your virtual
assistant on?
It is.
Speaker 1 (27:13):
I echo everything you've said, like I think my VAs
are invaluable and I've workedwith some better VAs and I've
worked with some not so greatVAs and I've learned a lot
myself through that wholeprocess.
So, you know, the ones on myteam right now are freaking
amazing and I have an A teamlike they're just awesome and I
don't know how I would do itwithout them.
(27:33):
So, but it's really excitingfor my lead VA in particular to
be able to share that passionwith her and say, okay, this is
my vision, this is where we'reheading.
So she sees how all the piecesare fitting together and sees
the longer term goals that we'reworking towards and sees the
steps that are coming behind it.
So it kind of gives her contextwhich fires her up even more
(27:55):
and gets her excited to getthere.
Speaker 2 (27:58):
Yeah, and I think sometimes when you talk it out
with your team member, you getmore clarity or you get excited
as well, because they're excitedand a lot of times you know our
team members will bring greatideas to us and I'm sure you
have that too.
Someone comes to you and says,well, have you thought about
this?
And you're like, oh, my God, Ihadn't thought of that.
It's brilliant, Like you know,because sometimes we're so close
to it we don't see it.
And it's great when you haveteam members where there's trust
(28:19):
and respect and they'll come toyou with an idea or suggestion
and you know, hopefully, they'recommitted to making your
business better.
Speaker 1 (28:26):
Yeah, no, absolutely.
And as she's gotten.
You know, my lead in particularis she's gotten more ramped up
in her expertise.
I've relied on her a lot forthat.
I'm like here's an idea, here'smy goal.
Speaker 2 (28:48):
I would love to hear your thoughts of how to get to
that goal right so that I trusther judgment.
She's proven herself.
Speaker 1 (28:50):
So I really value that expertise that she has.
That's so awesome.
I love hearing that Absolutely,and I'm curious if you had the
attention of the whole world forfive minutes, what would you
tell them?
Speaker 2 (28:59):
The whole world.
Find something that you'reexcited about doing and do it so
you get up every day excited.
Be kind to each other.
You know we never know whatsomeone else is going through
and that we're all here to makea difference.
And sometimes I think maybe wefeel like the difference we make
in our business like oh, yeah,yeah, helping someone to hire a
(29:20):
virtual assistant or help themwith their marketing that's not
really changing the world.
But it is changing the worldbecause it's changing that
person's life.
It may give them the extraincome to go on vacation or to
put money away for retirement orto buy the house they've been
dreaming of.
So realizing that, whateveryour purpose is in life, you are
changing the world.
You're doing your part tochange the world.
Speaker 1 (29:40):
Yeah, and you're doing it way more than you even
realize.
You're doing Absolutely yesabsolutely.
So how can people find you andyou know, get in touch with you
and have you help them.
Speaker 2 (29:52):
Sure?
Well, first of all, I have afree guide If anyone's
interested.
It's called Double your Incomewith a Marketing Virtual
Assistant, and you can get thatat Oourcingforbossescom,
outsourcingforbossescom, and youcan find me on our website,
which issixfigurebusinesscoachingcom,
and that's S-I-Xfigurebusinesscoachingcom.
Speaker 1 (30:12):
Awesome and we'll have all the links below for
people to come check it out.
And thank you, Kirsten, forcoming on.
Speaker 2 (30:18):
This has been a great conversation.
I'm all fired up to get back towork now.
Thank you, Kirsten, for comingon.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
This has been a great conversation.
I'm all fired up to get back towork now.
Good, absolutely as you shouldbe.
Thank you so much, a lot of fun.
Yeah, of course, and if youfound value in this episode,
please do share it and give us asubscribe and a like, and
that's when people find usonline, and I will see you on
the next episode of the 7 FigureBuilder Show.
Well, welcome back.
This is Julie Baranek, host ofthe 7 Figure Builder Show, and
I'm here today with my friend,kirsten Graham hey, kirsten,
hello, and we are going to talkall things VA and building out
your team, so I am super excitedto chat with you today.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Thank you, Julie.
Thank you so much for having me.
I know we just always have.
We have so much in common, so Iknow this is just gonna be a
great conversation.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
Yes, absolutely.
So tell us a bit about what itis you do with your business and
what brought you to where youare today.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Oh my gosh.
I will give you the long story,but I will compress it down
quite a bit.
So my background is actuallyreal estate.
I started selling real estatein the late eighties and I ended
up moving to the mortgage sideof the business.
I eventually owned a mortgagecompany and a title company and
loved it and survived 2008,actually stayed in business
(00:49):
until 2013.
And I left because my motherwas terminally ill.
But what happened was one of myclients is now my business
partner and I had helped themget the loan to buy their house.
She had called to check in onrates a couple of times when
they dropped, and I knew thatshe had planned to leave her job
and start a business so thatshe could be home with her
(01:11):
children.
And so I asked her how arethings going?
And she said it's going okay,but I don't know anyone else who
owns a business.
I just I really don't feel likeI know what I'm doing as far as
being a business owner.
So I offered to meet with herfor coffee, which I didn't
realize I had been doing forabout a decade.
I'd been mentoring otherbusiness owners.
(01:32):
You know they would take me tolunch to pick my brain.
So yeah.
So I ended up meeting with herand it was back when it was 2016
.
So it was right when Facebookcame out with fan pages, so
that's 16 years ago, and she wasdoing business cards and rack
cards.
She was doing a lot of physicalmarketing for her clients.
(01:53):
So we put together a focusgroup to find out what local
business owners knew and thoughtabout fan pages.
That's back when businesseswere just starting to realize
that LinkedIn wasn't just a jobposting site, and it's also when
email marketing and bloggingwere really coming into the
awareness of local businesses.
(02:15):
Online businesses have beenthere for a while, but local
businesses were just starting tounderstand that.
So it was fantastic.
The focus group gave us a tonof information.
She put together classes on allof those topics, sold out.
But then what happened was allof these people that she taught
how to set up a LinkedIn profileor how to set up a fan page and
how to post.
(02:36):
They didn't want to do it, sothey were reaching out to her to
do it for them.
So her agency really took offkind of quickly and I said to
her I've read, I read aboutoutsourcing overseas.
Would you want to try that?
And she said yes.
So talk about blind faith.
Oh my gosh.
Yeah, I mean it was.
It was so interesting because Ihad read a lot about
(02:57):
outsourcing but it wasn'tsomething I had done.
Obviously, my mortgage business, I had all in-house staff, I
didn't need outsourcing at thattime.
So we went down this journeytogether of hiring her team and
we like to say, if it could bedone wrong, we did it wrong more
than one time and you know wewere taken advantage of.
But there's always the otherside to the coin.
(03:17):
I'm sure in a lot of cases wewere really crappy bosses
because we didn't have systemsand processes in place the way
that they needed to be.
You know we maybe weren'tgiving feedback in a timely
fashion or you know directlyenough that they understood what
the next steps were.
So it was a.
You know it was a double-edgedsword of, you know, being taken
advantage of and learning somehard lessons of what we didn't
(03:39):
want to do and then alsolearning what we needed to do to
actually do a good joboutsourcing do and then also
learning what we needed to do toactually do a good job
outsourcing.
And then I kind of turned mymentorship into a business
coaching practice and startedhelping other clients outsource,
because lead generation is thebiggest challenge for most
business owners building theirbrand, getting their marketing
done, whether it's inboundmarketing or outbound.
(04:00):
So then Jeannie and I decidedto partner, and so we decided to
partner on the process ofhaving a detailed structure of
how we help our clientsoutsource, and it has been.
It has been so much fun.
It's been such a fun journeyand we just have the most
amazing clients and I love thefact that we're helping these
(04:20):
fabulous people halfway aroundthe world have long-term jobs
that change their lives.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
Yeah, absolutely.
I love all of this.
I would say I'm trying to getready to even start, but what
would you say makes a good boss?
Let's start there, becausethat's something that you hit on
.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
Yeah.
So, first of all, it breaks myheart when I hear people say, oh
, I hired someone and it didn'twork out.
If I have to spend that muchtime telling them what to do,
I'll do it myself, and that's,of course, very short term
thinking.
But, just like us, a lot ofpeople hire before they have an
onboarding process in place,before they have SOPs done,
(05:01):
before they decide on howthey're going to manage the work
that that person's doing.
So I feel like that is thebiggest thing is to one, make
sure you're ready to hire.
But then the other thing and theother reason why I think so
many people fail is they want tohire a unicorn.
They want to hire a person whois fantastic at everything right
, and the reality is we hire ourteam for specific skills and
(05:26):
their specialties, and what wehave found over the years is, if
you hire someone who's doingwhat they're passionate so, for
example, our marketing virtualassistants, their video editing,
audio editing, graphic designthey're all very creative and
they love being in that space.
So as long as we're placingthem in a job where that's what
they're focusing on and doingmost of the time, they're happy
(05:47):
and are going to stay in thatjob for a long time.
So making sure that you arehiring for specific tasks and
know what hard skills and whatsoft skills that person needs to
have to be successful.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
Absolutely, and I want to stick with just looking
at ourselves for a moment andthen we can talk about the
hiring process and all that.
But what are the skillsprocesses and ongoing
communication that you see workreally well from a boss
perspective?
Like, how do you maintain thatrelationship?
Speaker 2 (06:20):
looking at ourselves, Okay, so first of all, you said
from a boss perspective,looking at ourselves.
Okay, so first of all, you saidfrom a boss perspective, julie,
you'll be surprised how manytimes people will say to me I
just want to hire someone whowill tell me what to do.
Well, if you want to hiresomeone to tell you what to do,
go get a job.
Like you're not an entrepreneurand so you.
You will never be able to hireand manage successfully if you
(06:43):
don't want to step into the roleof being the CEO, of being the
boss.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
So I guess having real quick there, though sorry
not to cut you off, but there's,that's a consultant, right?
Like, if you want someone, ifyou want to hire somebody that
will tell you what to do, hire aconsultant.
If you want someone to buildout your team, then hire a VA,
hire a team member, right?
Speaker 2 (07:04):
Would you say that's accurate, absolutely yeah.
If you're not sure what you'redoing with your business, like
you said, hire a professionalbusiness coach and figure out
your strategies and yourprocesses, you know.
Hire someone like you thathelps with automation.
So hire people who have reallyhigh level skills.
They're generally like you know.
Again, they're a consultant.
They're not someone who you'rebringing onto your team, because
(07:24):
that is a very different typeof person.
We always like to consider ourvirtual assistants as part of
our team, not just someonehalfway around the world who's
just doing tasks.
But the reality is that'syou're hiring them to do very
specific tasks within yourbusiness and things that they
are brilliant at doing and theylove doing.
(07:45):
So that's where I think youhave a different role.
And so you asked what does ittake to be a good boss?
Again, I think making sure youtake the time, you invest the
time to hire the right person,making sure it's the right time
for you to hire someone, meaningthat you have the time to
onboard them and that you havethe time to put the systems and
(08:05):
processes in place that you aregoing to use to manage their
workflow.
And then it's about investingtime with that virtual assistant
.
When you bring on a team member,we usually recommend to most of
our clients that they meet withthem four to five times a week
for the first couple of weeksbecause that's about with them.
You know, four to five times aweek for the first couple of
weeks because that's aboutrelationship building,
communication.
(08:26):
Then they usually go down totwo or three meetings and then
eventually they're just meetingwith that team member once a
week and, to be honest, we havepeople on our team that know
what they're doing so well.
We wouldn't have to meet withthem every week but we still do,
because it is about making themfeel a part of the team and
value in that time that we spendwith them on the relationship.
(08:47):
And that's what really, I think, sets people apart who have
high turnover or people thathave virtual assistants who stay
with them for a long period oftime, absolutely.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
And what is your viewpoint on having to manage
basically micromanaging, butlike having to manage their
individual tasks and their timeand the you know flexibility?
Or is it like you know you workwithin these hours, like what
do you find works the best withthat relationship?
Speaker 2 (09:17):
Yeah, we're very result driven.
So you know what we focus on isour clients are generally
hiring a virtual assistant for20 hours a week, 30 or 40 hours
a week.
So in that block of time, ifthey're taking care of our
clients video editing, socialmedia marketing we know how long
it takes them to generally dothose tasks.
So it's easy to say this is howlong it will approximately take
(09:39):
each week, depending on thelength of the video and the
amount of edits and B-roll andthings like that.
So we really encourage ourclients not to use time trackers
just because we really focus on, again, long term relationship
and communication.
We also believe in usingproject management software and
structure.
So at a glance, I can look intoour software and see exactly
(10:01):
where every video we have inproduction is at this moment and
who's working on it.
So it's a matter of having,like you said, automation and
using technology to help youmanage it.
So it's not, you're notspending a lot of time doing
that.
And then the other thing aboutmicromanaging I would ask is are
(10:23):
you micromanaging for yourbenefit, because you don't want
to let go and you feel like youneed to be needed, or are you
micromanaging because they'renot capable.
And if they're not capable,generally you've hired the wrong
person or you haven't giventhem the tools and the structure
and the coaching that theyrequire to do a good job.
And that's one of the things wework a lot with our clients on
(10:46):
is how to coach your virtualassistant so that they're doing
things exactly the way you wantthem, because we're all a little
bit different in how wecommunicate, so we want to make
sure you know our clientsunderstand the value of coaching
and then having expectations.
You know, one of our virtualassistants who gets me booked on
podcasts came to the meetingthe other day and she had
(11:07):
questions about two podcastsWould these be good podcasts to
go on?
Well, she hadn't really gonethrough the checklist and if she
had and paid attention, shewould have known one of them was
not ideal.
The other one she wouldn't haveknown because it was just we
had to dig a lot deeper.
So I had the conversation withher about please don't bring
these to us until you'vecompletely gone through this
(11:29):
checklist and have all of thisinformation, because, again, I
think if you had done that, youwould have been able to decide
on this one and then as far asthe other one goes.
We said look, you know, thebottom line is even we even had
to question whether or not itwas the right podcast for me to
go on.
So sometimes you have to get inthere and support them on task.
But being clear about what theexpectation is for the next
(11:52):
meeting, don't bring things tous unless you have done every
bit of research you can possiblydo to figure it out yourself.
Speaker 1 (12:01):
Absolutely and ultimately, you're teaching them
to up it out yourself.
Absolutely and ultimately,you're teaching them to uplevel
their skills.
Right, it's not?
You don't have to babysit them,of course, but you're teaching
them to be independent, you'reteaching them to be a more
valuable team member and like.
The more you teach them touplevel those skills, the more
it's going to help you as abusiness owner within your
business.
Speaker 2 (12:19):
Right.
And the flip side of that is,the more you spoon feed them and
micromanage them, the lessconfidence they're going to have
and the more of that you'regoing to have to do.
So it's up to you what you get.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
Absolutely A hundred percent.
So flipping the script.
Looking at the team member,what do you encourage business
owners when they're looking forsomebody to enhance their team
or fill a void?
Speaker 2 (12:37):
within their team.
Sure, again, know exactly whattask you want that person to do
and then, once you know the task, figure out what the skill sets
are, what are the hard skillsets and the soft skill sets, so
that you can figure out whowould be the right person.
Take the time and write a full,detailed job description and I
feel like this is where you geta lot of clarity over who you're
(12:59):
hiring is by getting that jobdescription documented.
And you'll need the jobdescription in order to create
create your job post or your jobad If you're going to run an ad
for a virtual assistant.
So I feel like investing thattime in the beginning is really,
really important.
You know, and when I talk abouthard skills, you know, are they
do they have great video editingskills?
Do they have fantastic graphicdesign skills?
(13:19):
Then, do they have greatcommunication skills skills?
Do they have fantastic graphicdesign skills?
Do they have greatcommunication skills?
Might be one of the softerskill sets.
Can they work independently?
Do they enjoy workingindependently?
So, figuring out what type ofperson you need to hire, both
what they can do and then howthey like to operate within the
(13:41):
business itself, because if youhave someone halfway around the
world who can't workindependently, then it's not the
right person.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
Absolutely, and do you, within your team, have them
provide daily summaries, orwhat is a good cadence for
communication between when youhave somebody working halfway
around the world?
Speaker 2 (14:02):
communication between when you have somebody working
halfway around the world, yeah.
So we in our project managementsoftware, we generally keep all
conversations in that software.
So generally, as long as I seethat our team is documenting
what they're doing, they'reasking questions or they're
giving they're doing an updatewithin the software, then I know
what they're doing and I don'tneed that daily report or even a
weekly report.
So usually and we can tell ifsomeone has extra time, what we
(14:27):
encourage them to do is we say,hey, if you have extra time, let
us know so that we can give yousomething else to do.
But on the flip side of that,if we've given you a couple of
projects that are taking longerthan you expected, let us know
that.
Let us know that I'm not goingto get this all finished this
week because I don't want you torush through it and do it
sloppy.
So let us know.
Hey, within my 40 hours I'm notgoing to be able to finish this
(14:49):
.
I'll probably need 10 hoursnext week.
So for us, we really focus onclear communication.
So we want to make sure thatwe're not throwing so much on
them that they're feelingoverwhelmed and rushed and we
want them to be ethical enoughto come to us and say hey, I'm
pretty fast at doing thesethings and I'm finishing within
about 15 hours.
Is there anything else you wantme to do?
(15:10):
And that's where I thinkbuilding the real relationship
and having trust and integritycomes in.
Speaker 1 (15:15):
Absolutely.
And what do you recommend forthat hiring process?
Like you know, you can talk abit about your own hiring
process, but for the businessowner I have a need on my team.
What's the best way to find agood fit?
Speaker 2 (15:28):
Yeah.
So after you've done the jobdescription, the job post you
know, you know what skillsyou're looking for you can then
post, you know, a job postonline jobsph is probably the
best place to go and then atthat point you start your
interviewing process and Ireally recommend that, again,
you have in order to compareapples to apples make sure you
(15:48):
have a list of questions so thatyou're asking everyone the same
questions and getting a feelfor that.
Some people, depending on whatthey're hiring them to do, will
give them a little task to do,kind of like a test.
You know, we usually do someback and forth email
communication to make sure thatthey reply quickly and to see if
they're taking the time to readwhat we ask and write
appropriate answers.
So take your time through thisprocess and if you get down to
(16:10):
two or three applicants that youthink would be great, then do a
second interview with them andthen decide who would be best
when.
If I'm working with someone likea law firm in particular, I've
helped them hire some medicalrecords professionals and it's
interesting because as one lawfirm, they give them several
(16:30):
different tests, so it's likethe Colby test, and then there's
another test and these testsare more about how they work,
not so much their skills, soit's interesting that they take
it to that next level.
For us, we generally don't feellike we need to do that because
, again, we know exactly whatthat person's ability is once we
put them through our pace.
Speaker 1 (16:53):
Yeah, I love that.
And how?
What is?
What is your onboarding processlook like?
Like, do you have you know?
Here's a time that you workwith them, or tell us you know
how does that work.
Speaker 2 (17:02):
Like, like, do you have you know periods of time
that you work with them, or tellus you know how does that work?
Sure, so we have a programcalled the Marketing VA
Advantage and that is for peoplewho want to start a YouTube
channel, and we work a lot withlaw firms and real estate agents
.
We do work with coaches andconsultants, of course, but
lawyers and realtors are reallystarting to understand the value
of building their personalbrand and taking advantage of
YouTube for local SEO.
(17:23):
So for that particular job, weactually do all the interviewing
and vetting and we thenactually put that virtual
assistant into an internshipprogram where we pay them and
they have to learn all of ourprocesses and SOPs before they
get to go to work for a client.
So then, of course, we teachour client all of the SOPs to
(17:45):
manage them.
So for that particular program,we do all the back-end work.
We have a hiring team thattakes care of that.
It's surprising how many peoplewash out, but again, if they've
made it through graduation,they're committed, they're
excited, they want a long-termjob, they know that our clients
are generous and kind and theyknow that they've been educated
(18:07):
on how to be a good boss.
So we get a ton of referralsfor virtual assistants who want
to come into that program.
Speaker 1 (18:16):
Awesome and that's a huge benefit from the business
owner perspective because thattakes the heavy lifting off of
their hands.
Right to say, okay, I've got avetted, trained, established VA
that can just, you know, comeinto my team and that really is
an awesome thing that youprovide.
Thank you, you're welcome.
And what do you recommend forthe timing coordination?
(18:37):
Obviously, when you have peopleworking around the world,
you're in flip-flop time zones,so how do you find that works
the best?
Speaker 2 (18:44):
So it depends on the task.
So, for example, if themarketing virtual assistant is
editing videos and creatingsocial media posts and setting
up emails to go out, I generallydon't care what time they do
that.
So for me I don't care whathours they work, as long as
they're meeting all of thedeadlines and the goals.
So it can really be whatevertime they want.
(19:05):
Also, we do talk to our clientsa lot about when someone's in a
creative space, because mybusiness partner is also a
creative and if you get intoediting a video, you may not
want to work four hours and stop.
So it doesn't make sense to say, oh well, you're going to work
four hours a day, five days aweek, because if they get into
that creative mode, you knowthey may sit there and work
(19:26):
eight to 10 hours becausethey're just in flow of the
creativity.
So with the creative virtualassistants, we really don't care
For virtual assistants that getour clients booked on podcast.
We generally want them working,you know, generally between 7am
and 9pm our time, because wedon't necessarily want them
(19:47):
reaching out in the middle ofthe night to get you booked on a
podcast.
Or if we have, you know,virtual assistants that are
doing setting up sales calls forus.
We want them working our hours,so I think it really depends on
the job and the tasks thatthey're doing.
Speaker 1 (20:02):
Absolutely.
And you mentioned a lot aboutSOPs.
What would you say makes a goodSOP?
Speaker 2 (20:10):
Well, I love the saying.
I don't know who said it orwhere I heard it, but it said if
you do something more thanthree times that has more than
three steps, you should documentit.
So a really good SOP is justdocumenting step by step how
something is done, and I thinkfor most business owners,
including myself, we're notgreat at creating SOPs Luckily,
I have a business partner who isbut documenting everything that
(20:33):
needs to be done and thenworking through the SOPs
yourself to make sure, because alot of times we automatically
do things that we don't thinkabout doing, but if we don't
document it, the virtualassistant will know how to do
that.
So I think that taking time tocreate the standard operating
procedures and then having aprocess to go through them with
(20:54):
the virtual assistant and talkout the different things that
they're going to do and whythey're going to do it a certain
way and we use projectmanagement software.
We're really big on checkliststo make sure everything gets
done, every step within the SOPgets done, and I guess my
biggest advice for businessowners is don't think about all
of the SOPs you have to create.
(21:15):
Just create one Next time youdo something that requires more
than three steps and you knowyou're going to do it more than
three times.
Go ahead and start documentingit.
Speaker 1 (21:25):
Yeah, absolutely, and I do the same.
I'm very much a systemsautomation person, so I tend to.
When I do something the firsttime, I always am doing it with
the 50th time in mind, right,because we're going to forget
the steps and I don't want tohave to re-figure things out
every time I have to come backto that.
So I do it for myself right Inaddition to my team and then, as
(21:48):
I get an established processand I get it documented for
myself, I can then hand thatover to my team member and it's
one less thing on my plate.
So I echo everything that youare saying a hundred percent.
Speaker 2 (21:59):
And then I think the other thing is to realize that
things change over time.
Obviously, look how quicklymarketing is changing and
automation and AI.
So remember, in those weeklymeetings with your virtual
assistant, this is a great timeto update things you know, to
add in.
You know it may just be addingin something like here are the
AI tools that you could use towrite this post.
(22:20):
Right, because maybe thatperson's been with you so long
that it isn't documented withinthe process that they could use
AI.
But you want to document itbecause if that person ever
leaves or goes on maternityleave or something and the next
person that steps into that role, you want to have it updated
100%, and are there any goodtools that you found that you
know you can share with with ourlisteners that work really well
(22:42):
?
Sure, so we started off usingBasecamp ages ago and then we
moved into Asana and right nowwe use Trello.
And the reason why we useTrello is it allows us to give
all of our SOPs directly, dropthem directly into our clients
Trello board accounts so we cangive them very easily all of our
(23:02):
processes.
So that is one of the softwaresthat we use.
And then for our client, thevirtual assistant who books me
on podcasts, we use high level Ithink you're a high level fan
too so we use that software forher to book my calendar and
things like that Awesome.
Speaker 1 (23:20):
And what are the biggest gaps that you see in
this whole process, both frombusiness owner or from the VA
side?
Speaker 2 (23:29):
I think the biggest gaps for business owner is that
they just don't have the time.
They don't have the time tocreate the SOPs, they don't
necessarily have the time foronboarding or training, which is
, you know, when we first setout to do the marketing VA
advantage, our intention was toteach our client how to hire the
right person.
But we had several people sayto us I wish you could just do
(23:49):
this for us.
And so we thought well, that'swhat our clients want, let's
figure this out so they don'thave to go through the
interviewing process, they don'thave to go through the training
process, they don't have to gothrough the onboarding process,
they just have to learn ourworkflows to manage the virtual
assistant, and so that makes itsuper easy for them.
And again, we also help themwith their content because,
(24:10):
again, a lot of our clients willhave questions about the best
content to create for theirYouTube channel.
So we do a lot of coachingaround that.
So I think that's helpful.
But I also feel strongly aboutthe fact that learning how to
outsource is a skill that mostpeople should have, which is why
our second program we actuallyteach our client how to hire the
(24:32):
virtual assistant who is goingto get them booked on podcast.
So we do that in a verydifferent way.
We still train that virtualassistant once they hire them
through a portal.
But we feel like it's reallyimportant for business owners to
start to understand how to hire, and we came to that conclusion
because a lot of our clientswho have our marketing virtual
assistants some of them have hadthem for years now they want to
(24:55):
build their team but they don'tknow how because we did it for
them.
So this is an opportunity forthem to learn how to do it.
Speaker 1 (25:03):
I love that.
That's awesome, and I'm curious, as you've been growing your
business, you've accomplished somuch, both personally,
professionally, but how do youdefine success?
What does that look like foryou?
Speaker 2 (25:15):
Getting up every day excited about what I do.
I mean, that's the bottom line,I think you know, for us, we
love helping people.
I, you know, I love something,julie, something I wasn't
expecting just because, again,like when I, in my mortgage
company, I had staff.
So something I truly wasn'texpecting was when our clients,
when they first started workingwith their virtual assistant,
(25:36):
when they would come back andsay things like I'm so much more
confident now that I have avirtual assistant, I feel like a
real business owner, now that Ihave support or they may say I
had no idea how isolated andlonely I was in my business.
And now that I have this personthat I'm meeting with and
they're as passionate as I amabout getting my content out,
you know, it gives them a wholedifferent feel to their business
(25:59):
.
And those were things, you know, I really wasn't expecting.
And then also, you know, aswomen, we tend to beat ourselves
up because we can't get it alldone, and so that was the other
thing is so many people saying Ididn't realize, like, how hard
I was on myself and how much Iwas beating myself up, but now I
have this person working 20hours a week for me and I don't
know how I thought I could doall of that work as well as my
(26:21):
client work and as well as allmy prospecting and sales calls.
So that was the part thatreally blew me away, and that's
the impact that we want to havewith our clients.
We want to change their lives,not just help them get their
YouTube channel up and runningor get booked on podcasts, but
we want them to see what itfeels like to build a team and
have the support in theirbusiness that they deserve.
Speaker 1 (26:43):
Yeah, and the other thought I had with that is
you're also able to constantlyshare your vision with somebody.
Our vision is evolving andgrowing and molding over time
and you can share that with yourteam member, where it's not
just buried in your headsomewhere.
We're trying to get it out incontent or whatever.
It's.
A whole other level of this iswhat's burning inside of me, and
(27:05):
now you have someone else whosees that in the day to day
process.
Speaker 2 (27:09):
Is that something you enjoy working with your virtual
assistant on?
It is.
Speaker 1 (27:13):
I echo everything you've said, like I think my VAs
are invaluable and I've workedwith some better VAs and I've
worked with some not so greatVAs and I've learned a lot
myself through that wholeprocess.
So, you know, the ones on myteam right now are freaking
amazing and I have an A teamlike they're just awesome and I
don't know how I would do itwithout them.
(27:33):
So, but it's really excitingfor my lead VA in particular to
be able to share that passionwith her and say, okay, this is
my vision, this is where we'reheading.
So she sees how all the piecesare fitting together and sees
the longer term goals that we'reworking towards and sees the
steps that are coming behind it.
So it kind of gives her contextwhich fires her up even more
(27:55):
and gets her excited to getthere.
Speaker 2 (27:58):
Yeah, and I think sometimes when you talk it out
with your team member, you getmore clarity or you get excited
as well, because they're excitedand a lot of times you know our
team members will bring greatideas to us and I'm sure you
have that too.
Someone comes to you and says,well, have you thought about
this?
And you're like, oh, my God, Ihadn't thought of that.
It's brilliant, Like you know,because sometimes we're so close
to it we don't see it.
And it's great when you haveteam members where there's trust
(28:19):
and respect and they'll come toyou with an idea or suggestion
and you know, hopefully, they'recommitted to making your
business better.
Speaker 1 (28:26):
Yeah, no, absolutely.
And as she's gotten.
You know, my lead in particularis she's gotten more ramped up
in her expertise.
I've relied on her a lot forthat.
I'm like here's an idea, here'smy goal.
Speaker 2 (28:48):
I would love to hear your thoughts of how to get to
that goal right so that I trusther judgment.
She's proven herself.
Speaker 1 (28:50):
So I really value that expertise that she has.
That's so awesome.
I love hearing that Absolutely,and I'm curious if you had the
attention of the whole world forfive minutes, what would you
tell them?
Speaker 2 (28:59):
The whole world.
Find something that you'reexcited about doing and do it so
you get up every day excited.
Be kind to each other.
You know we never know whatsomeone else is going through
and that we're all here to makea difference.
And sometimes I think maybe wefeel like the difference we make
in our business like oh, yeah,yeah, helping someone to hire a
(29:20):
virtual assistant or help themwith their marketing that's not
really changing the world.
But it is changing the worldbecause it's changing that
person's life.
It may give them the extraincome to go on vacation or to
put money away for retirement orto buy the house they've been
dreaming of.
So realizing that, whateveryour purpose is in life, you are
changing the world.
You're doing your part tochange the world.
Speaker 1 (29:40):
Yeah, and you're doing it way more than you even
realize.
You're doing Absolutely yesabsolutely.
So how can people find you andyou know, get in touch with you
and have you help them.
Speaker 2 (29:52):
Sure?
Well, first of all, I have afree guide If anyone's
interested.
It's called Double your Incomewith a Marketing Virtual
Assistant, and you can get thatat Oourcingforbossescom,
outsourcingforbossescom, and youcan find me on our website,
which issixfigurebusinesscoachingcom,
and that's S-I-Xfigurebusinesscoachingcom.
Speaker 1 (30:12):
Awesome and we'll have all the links below for
people to come check it out.
And thank you, Kirsten, forcoming on.
Speaker 2 (30:18):
This has been a great conversation.
I'm all fired up to get back towork now.
Thank you, Kirsten, for comingon.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
This has been a great conversation.
I'm all fired up to get back towork now.
Good, absolutely as you shouldbe.
Thank you so much, a lot of fun.
Yeah, of course, and if youfound value in this episode,
please do share it and give us asubscribe and a like, and
that's when people find usonline, and I will see you on
the next episode of the 7 FigureBuilder Show.
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