Latest / Founder Unfiltered - What Founders Think But Never Say / What VAs Actually Do (And How Mine Saves Me 10+ Hours a Week)

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What VAs Actually Do (And How Mine Saves Me 10+ Hours a Week) · Founder Unfiltered - What Founders Think But Never Say

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  Welcome to another episode of 6 Figure Secrets for Fractional
• 0:03
  Experts. My name is Bradley Jacobs.
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  I'm your host, founder and CEO of my lands.
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  Today I'm talking about a topic that was brought to me by one of
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  our listeners who's getting tons of value out of the podcast,
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  which was music to my ears, really exciting to hear.
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  And she asked to talk about using a virtual assistant, how
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  to make it work, how to, it's like a good idea in theory, but
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  in practice, how do you actually do it?
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  How do you make it work for work for you?
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  Where do you find one? What do you have them do?
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  How do you hold them accountable?
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  All those kinds of things. So we'll dive into that today.
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  I've been using a virtual assistant for many, many, many
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  years. And I'd say only recently, over
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  the last few months have I really gotten to a great place
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  with one where I have a very high performing individual
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  that's taking so much off my plate, making my life easy.
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  And I can share everything I've learned about how to make that
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  work. OK, so this might seem obvious
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  of why I should get one. But the first thing I would say
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  is there are tons of tasks that your business needs on a daily,
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  weekly, monthly basis that frankly, you probably don't have
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  enough time to do. And if you really think about
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  where your zone of genius is and the things that you love to do
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  that make the biggest impact that really like fill you up, my
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  guess is a huge number of tasks don't fall in that bucket.
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  So if you can find someone that's really affordable to do a
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  really good job on the things you don't like doing, aren't
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  that good at, don't enjoy doing, I want to say to some degree are
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  are below your pay grade right there out of your zone of where
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  you make the biggest impact, then it makes a ton of sense to
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  find someone that can do that for you.
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  And it does not have to be expensive.
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  It does not have to be time consuming or tedious.
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  So you might think, OK, well, what can this person do for me?
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  I'm just going to share personally what I have them do
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  for me. And you can decide what other
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  tasks you do on a daily, weekly basis that fall in line with
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  that. So I have them manage my inbox.
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  So the first thing I have them do is go through my inbox and
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  mark emails that they think are important for me.
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  So I'm getting rid of all the spam, all the junk, all the
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  stuff that you know are fill our inboxes unfortunately.
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  And I have an interested to respond or Bradley needs to
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  respond tag that he goes through and adds to those emails.
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  And then better he adds those in a list in a Slack message that
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  he sends to me every morning, noting the new one that he added
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  and the ones that haven't responded to yet.
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  So I used to really struggle with making sure I got back to
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  everybody and get back to everybody in a timely manner.
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  And now look, he's not perfect, but I really don't have to worry
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  about that. Secondarily, he manages my
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  calendar. So in that same or maybe a
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  follow on message in the morning, he says these are your
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  invites for the day. Here's who you're talking to,
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  here's their LinkedIn, here's a prior discussion.
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  You had certain conversations. I have him set up a Notion page
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  for maybe it's a sales call. So like set me up a Notion page
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  where I can track notes or a product feedback conversation,
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  set up that Notion page with the questions I'm going to be
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  asking. So everything's ready to go that
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  by the time I get on that calendar invite on that call,
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  I'm ready. I don't need to do all this
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  prep. I literally look at it for 2
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  minutes ahead of time and I'm ready to go.
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  So he sets up my day for me. Of course people need to
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  reschedule. He manages to reschedule.
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  Sometimes he'll ping me like, is this OK?
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  So he just takes all of that off my plate and I really don't have
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  to think about it. The other big bucket he does is
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  he helps with marketing. So for example, I might want to
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  get on some bigger podcasts and I can give him criteria and say
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  go research podcasts that are going to be a good fit for me.
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  Once you find those podcasts, go research the host of those
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  podcasts, how to get in touch with them.
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  And then I can have him or AI or even myself draft an outreach
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  e-mail or a LinkedIn message and have him actually do that
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  outreach for me. Tracking everything in a Google
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  Sheet or Notion. Have him doing follow-ups,
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  tracking, you know who we reached out to when he reached
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  out, all those kinds of things. And the podcast is just an
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  example, right? So he does that for guests on my
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  podcast. He does that for me being a
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  guest on others. And then he also does it for
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  potential customers with my Lance, right?
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  He's adding new connections, he's reaching out to them.
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  So he's doing a bunch of marketing activities for me.
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  I'm almost always prescribing what I want him to do in
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  incredible detail, and I'll talk about how I do that.
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  The more detail I give him, the better he is set up for success
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  and I'll talk also like how I hold him accountable and make it
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  make it work. But that's a big, big bucket of
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  what he does as well. The last big piece that he
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  really helps with is actually delivering value for our
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  customers. So I'm doing the strategy and
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  I'm doing all of the refinement and creative pieces.
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  But then he might pull it all together in formatting things
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  correctly, right? So if I give him a long list of
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  here's the calendar for, you know, customer A, here are all
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  the prompts, here's the dates, here's everything like that.
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  Now go make it look nice in the calendar with the format that I
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  gave him. I can give him a template and he
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  can go create that for every customer.
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  He can then go draft the emails in my inbox.
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  I'll review all of them, make sure everything looks right, and
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  then send them out. So he's saving me a ton of time
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  across marketing, across my own internal e-mail, calendar, all
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  those kinds of operations, customer delivery, and then
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  social media as well, right? He can, he'll actually go
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  through my LinkedIn inbox and he will see who's responding to me
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  and he will either throw out the ones again that are spam, but
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  ones that are either Mylan's customers or interested
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  inquiries, he'll ping them to me and say, hey, like, do you want
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  me to respond to this? Here's even a suggested
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  response. I might edit the response and
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  then have him send it. So it's just saving me time.
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  Things that do need to get done that I want to get done, but
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  that I don't need to be doing every single little thing for
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  it. Now the next question is, how do
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  I set him up for success, right? Because he doesn't know how to
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  do all these things without me. So I give him a comprehensive
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  sometimes I'll just meet with him live, or I'll record a Loom
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  video, or I'll write down in as much detail as possible.
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  Here's what I need done. I might even set up the document
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  for him to populate, like fill out the headers, things like
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  that. And then I will ask him to do
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  literally 10 minutes of the task, like do 5 or 10 minutes
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  and then let me review. And that way I catch any errors
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  that he's making or things that I maybe even like.
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  He didn't make an error, I just set up in a way that I actually
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  don't want it like that and I made a mistake.
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  But I get to see what his work is going to look like before he
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  spends 2 hours doing it. So that is the way that I set
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  him up for success. The other way that we are set up
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  for success in a partnership is I have him track his tasks in a
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  Notion page every single day. So every day I can at any moment
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  I can click into that Notion page, I can see what his list of
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  task list items are for that day and he will check them off as he
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  goes. So I never have to wonder, did
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  he do his job? What is he doing today?
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  I never have to worry. I can go very quickly, look, and
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  every single day he sends me the link so I can easily find it and
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  go in and see what's he doing, how's he spending his time?
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  Are there tasks on there that are being missed, whatever it is
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  and make sure that everything is getting done.
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  So that's how I hold him accountable.
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  And for him, it seems like a way that he gets to keep me updated
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  so I don't need to ping him. Like did you do this?
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  Did you do that? It really does work both ways.
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  Now the question is how do you find someone good?
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  Because I've actually had a number of virtual assistants
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  along the way and a lot of them have been, I'd say, mediocre at
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  best. And what makes the the
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  difference from my experience is 1.
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  What are the things in their life that get in the way?
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  And there are certain countries, certain places where life is
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  frankly just more difficult, whether it's like typhoon season
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  in the Philippines or inconsistent Internet coverage
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  in different parts of the world. I have found that actually
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  working in certain countries is just easier than others, right?
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  It's not a prejudice, it's just my own personal experience of
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  HE. The one I currently have is
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  based out of Colombia and it's the same or very similar time
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  zone in South America. I think any of those South
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  American countries, whether it's Colombia or Brazil or Argentina
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  or Chile, it's a very similar time zone and they seem to have
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  more infrastructure where the Internet, for example, is going
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  down less than in places like the Philippines.
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  So personal experience is that I'm having a way better
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  experience in South America than over abroad in an Asian country.
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  That's just my personal experience.
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  I have found a lot of success with agencies.
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  So you can go on up work, you can go on fiber, there's tons of
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  virtual assistants everywhere. But how do you find a good one?
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  Because there's literally millions of people that are
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  willing to do this work. And so I have found an agency.
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  I will actually link it in the show notes.
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  And so you'll get that link right there.
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  And they, I don't know, I'll have to look if we do have like
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  a referral or a discount or something like that.
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  But they do an amazing job really vetting the candidates
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  for you. And then they will send over.
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  I think they sent us 3 candidates that I then
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  interviewed as like a final round.
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  But I told them what I wanted. We even gave them a test of
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  like, do these things, record it on a loom video and then send us
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  the Loom video. Because it's not about what they
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  know, it's about what they're able to learn and so on.
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  And I'll talk through like, how do I make sure that I interview
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  for a good one? But that's what I'm really
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  testing for is what is their attitude?
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  Like, what are they able to learn?
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  Do they have that hunger to learn that positive attitude?
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  Because I want my virtual assistant or frankly, anyone
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  working for me with the yes, of course attitude, right?
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  Or they might say like, I don't understand, help me understand.
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  That's fine too, right? You're allowed to be curious.
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  You're allowed to have questions, but really for an
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  assistant, I'm looking for someone that's like, I got you
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  whatever you need, tell me what to do and I'll do it.
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  A plus plus, plus plus. And if I make a mistake, which
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  of course they're going to do that I can receive feedback on
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  that so I can learn to do it better the next time.
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  No problem. And we're good, right?
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  So I would give them a, an exercise to do and see how they
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  perform the exercise. And the exercise could be as
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  simple as like create this Google folder, move this
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  document from this place to that place, create an ocean page,
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  create an ocean database, do like just simple stuff to make
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  sure that they are just savvy around different kind of tools
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  that we already use. And then I will jump on the call
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  with them. And on that interview, I'm
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  really testing for attitude, hustle and willingness to learn.
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  That's what I want. It's not about what they are
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  capable of or what they've done in the past.
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  You're really getting at questions of what do you do in
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  this kind of situation? So again, I'll share the agency.
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  You do pay them obviously a fee for finding you someone, but I
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  think you will save so much time in after the fact and you can
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  find someone full time, You can find someone part time.
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  There are task packages where you can get a certain number of
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  packages. I actually pay for mine part
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  time. So we get 20 hours a week from
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  him and for me that's more than enough and I don't need to pay
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  for the full amount. So it's again, totally up to
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  you, but there are different ways to kind of reduce the cost
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  to actually meet the needs that you have.
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  And I will also say that this person, especially if you're a
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  business of 1, they're they don't need to just manage your
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  business life. They could really manage your
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  personal life. They could manage, you know,
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  your travel, they could manage like kids schedules that there's
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  like a lot of things that this person can do that you really
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  get to decide what do you want to take off your plate?
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  What do you trust this person with?
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  Because that's a big decision. If you give them a credit card
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  versus not, right? Or you tell you like, you can
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  make purchases up to this amount or not, or I'm going to give you
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  approval for like, there's definitely ways to do it in a
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  way that gives them ownership, that gives them enough leeway
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  that they can actually get the things done without, you know,
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  you overseeing every little thing.
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  But then you still have enough oversight that they're not going
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  to go rogue and do something that makes you feel really
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  uncomfortable. And look, just with any other
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  relationship, you're going to build up trust over time.
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  So you might give them more later as they earn your trust
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  than you do from day one. The last thing I'll say is not
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  every VA is going to be a home run.
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  Even if you find someone great from an agency or you think is
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  great and you have to be willing to move on quickly so you can
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  give them feedback. I'm all for giving people
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  feedback and giving them a second and third chance, but at
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  the end of the day, if they're not getting the job done, if
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  they're coming up with excuses, if they're being the victim, if
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  they're just not working with you for you in any way, you get
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  to move on. You get to fire them.
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  You get to move on and find someone new.
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  There's enough people out there that you can absolutely find
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  someone who's going to meet the needs of your business that's
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  going to support you. Because one of the first tasks
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  that I gave our this, this guy that we've been working with now
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  for a few months, he blew me away.
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  I think it was like simple as like make a type form with these
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  questions And the type form came back.
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  It was beautifully my Lance branded.
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  He had taken some liberties with like language towards the end to
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  make it flow really nicely. And it was just like, it was so
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  well done. I was like, wow, I have been
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  settling for mediocrity in this category because it's an
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  assistant. Like, is it the end of the world
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  if they just get the bare minimum done when I could have
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  been having this stellar experience this whole time
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  because I was settling. Frankly, I was like, oh, it's a
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  hassle to fire someone and hire someone new.
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  Firing someone's always painful and uncomfortable.
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  But the end of the day, the sooner that you can cut that and
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  then move on to find someone better, it could change your
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  entire life, at least your business life, so or maybe your
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  whole life. So Virginia's have been totally
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  amazing for me. I know there's for every great
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  story, there's probably 10 horror stories about working
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  with the VA. So that's why I recorded this,
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  to really show you how I'm using a VA very effectively, how you
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  can use a VA effectively as well, where you can find one,
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  what tasks they can do and how you set them up for success.
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  That's all I got for you today. Come check us out at my Lance.
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  We are building really cool stuff that attract your ideal
• 14:28
  client on LinkedIn, that make LinkedIn really easy to use with
• 14:32
  content that's really going to resonate.
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  I've been using LinkedIn for five years.
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  It's been incredibly effective for the marketing of my Lance
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  and my consulting experience before that.
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  So I just can't emphasize enough, whether you use us or
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  not, the importance of getting out there, creating content on
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  LinkedIn, being willing to put yourself out there with
• 14:51
  effective content that's going to resonate.
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  Come check us out again. If you got value out of this,
• 14:56
  please send me a note. I'm loving the notes I'm
• 14:58
  getting. Means a lot.
• 14:59
  Write us a review, share with a friend and have an amazing day.