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Start, Scale, Succeed: How to Grow a VA Business and Still Have a Life · Work It Like A Mum

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hey, I'm Elizabeth Willits and I'm obsessed with helping as many women as possible achieve their boldest dreams after kids and helping you to navigate this messy and magical season of life.
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: I'm a working mum with over 17 years of recruitment experience and I'm the founder of the Investing in Women job board and community.
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: In this show, I'm honoured to be chatting with remarkable women redefining our working world across all areas of business.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: They'll share their secrets on how they've achieved extraordinary success after children, set boundaries and balance, the challenges they've faced and how they've overcome them to define their own versions of success.
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: Shy away from the real talk?
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: No way.
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: Money struggles, growth, loss, boundaries and balance we cover it all.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: Think of this as coffee with your mates, mixed with an inspiring TED Talk sprinkled with the career advice you wish you'd really had at school.
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: So grab a cup of coffee or a glass of wine, make sure you're cosy and get ready to get inspired and chase your boldest dreams, or just survive Mondays.
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: This is the Work it Like A Mum podcast.
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: This episode is brought to you by Investing in Women.
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: Investing in Women is a job board and recruitment agency helping you find your dream part-time or flexible job with the UK's most family-friendly and forward-thinking employers.
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: Their site can help you find a professional and rewarding job that works for you.
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: They're proud to partner with the UK's most family-friendly employers across a range of professional industries.
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: Ready to find your perfect job?
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: Search their website at investinginwomencouk to find your next part-time or flexible job opportunity.
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: Now back to the show.
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: Hello and welcome to this week's episode of the Work it Like A Mum podcast.
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: Today I am chatting with Sarah Rugg.
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: Sarah swapped the demands of the corporate world for the flexibility of running her own VA business when she realised that being a mum in employment just wasn't for her.
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: With her VA company in its 20th successful year, sarah's still passionate about running her own business and fitting work around her busy life rather than the other way around.
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: Sarah now has a team of over 40 VAs and all her mistakes firmly behind her.
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: She mentors others as they set up successful VA businesses and achieve their own great work-life balance, and in recent years Sarah has helped over 900 people to get started with her proprietary Fab Framework approach.
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: So thank you so much, sarah, for joining us today.
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: Obviously, we're going to be chatting all about your business, viva, and really what prompted you to set it up really and how you've grown it from just you doing, I guess, everything to running a very successful business prompted you to set it up really, and how you've grown it from just you doing, I guess, everything to running a very successful business.
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: Hello, thank you for having me.
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: So were you working like in admin before you set up the business?
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: I did work in a admin job as one of my previous roles.
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: Yes, I wasn't a PA, which a lot of people that go into the VA world as you know are um, but no, I did.
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: I did a little bit of admin.
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: I was very organized and and liked doing that kind of thing.
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so what made you that?
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: So what prompted you then to start a VA?
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: business.
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: Well, um, when I was working in the corporate world, really, really busy as a kind of middle management level, I was so busy this is just before children I didn't have enough hours in the day and I couldn't get all my life admin done.
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: So I had this in my head at the time brilliant idea I was going to set up a business to do people's personal admin so that when they got home from work in the evening or you know, they wanted time at at the weekend, they didn't have to spend it doing that.
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: I'd do it for them.
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: Anyway turned out this was already a thing at the time called lifestyle management, but not very well known or popular.
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: So I did originally launch the business as life admin, not a VA business.
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: But very quickly my clients were self-employ and they started saying can you do spreadsheets?
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: Can you, you know, review CVs?
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: Can you do this, can you do that?
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: Can you do me a PowerPoint presentation?
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: I was like, yeah, sure, I can do that.
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: So the business very kind of naturally and quickly went into a VA business.
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: There was a much more, much bigger demand for the business side than there was for the life admin side.
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: But weirdly that's taken another turn recently and there is now quite a demand for life admin.
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: So we still offer both but business.
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: The business side of it is it's kind of the majority of what we do wow, that's amazing.
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: I love that.
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: So were you doing this then alongside your job?
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: I was for a little while, yeah.
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: So um, kind of had the idea.
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: Then got pregnant with my eldest, kate, and went back to work after maternity leave and was kind of like shoved in this filing room after.
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: You know, I'd had quite a high level job there prior to to going on maternity leave and I was just put in this job that I just, you know, I was so bored and it was just so different to why were you put in that job?
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: did they tell you why?
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: No, they don't?
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: it's just, they sort of found a job for me.
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: I think they just created this job and I was so bored, I had nothing to do.
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: I just sat there and, you know, along with the other part-timers, we had our special little place in the office where we were all shoved and, yeah, it was just, you know, like somebody had gone.
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: Oh, you're not capable anymore.
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: You can sit in that little corner with the other part-timers.
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: It was, just you know, so unfulfilled after that point, and such a shame, because I loved working in that world.
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: And obviously you've got a lot of get up and go about you.
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: You know you've done what you've done since.
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it was like a caged animal being shoved in a fire.
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely yeah, that happened, but you know, in on the other hand, it wasn't a shame, because I've been able to create what I've created and have the right to do so.
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: It actually was all for a good reason, turns out.
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: So you were doing your job, you'd obviously gone back after maternity leave, you were in this filing cabinet and then you were doing this.
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: What on the side?
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: Um, the VA business on the side.
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: So, um, I started building it alongside the job and then I had my second child and by that time I was so fed up with the job I did actually hand my notice in and leave.
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: So my VA business had been sort of you know it was it been growing very slowly in the background, alongside the job.
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: I was doing it every break time, every lunch time.
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: I was always finishing on time, which I'd never done previously.
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: I was quite committed and you know they had all sorts of hours, hours from me, but so I was using all my spare time to set it up and, um, yeah, and then I really focused on it after I handed my notice in and uh, and then it, yeah, it just grew.
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: I made every mistake in the book.
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna say so talk me through the early days then.
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: What was it like?
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: Because, yeah, was it different than when you were?
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: Did it feel different from going from a side hustle to, like you, going all in as well?
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: Did the pressure maybe increase, or?
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: yes, the pressure to bring money in to pay the bills was now completely on me.
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: So well, I was married, so it was on my husband as well, but you know, I didn't have the the regular employed wage coming in.
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, there was a financial pressure and, um, yeah, it was just like I didn't know what I was doing.
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: So when you're in the corporate world, as you know, you're like, oh, my computer's got a problem.
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: You ring IT or what a problem with this expense, and you ring accounts and and of course there's none of that.
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: So you suddenly, like you know, rabbit in the headlights and, oh, what do we do in this situation?
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: And you're on your own.
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: But you know, it's not actually as scary as it originally seemed.
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: So, you know, you kind of build relationships with local businesses, local IT companies.
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: You know you get yourself an accountant, as you'll know, and and it works out being fine.
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: But I think that was the scariest thing for me initially was whoa.
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: You know what do I do if something goes wrong.
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: And the book stops with you as well, doesn't it?
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: Absolutely, If there's anything that does go wrong you just got to fix it, you know, at nine o'clock potentially on a Saturday night.
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: Hopefully there's not too many of that.
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, no, absolutely.
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: Book stops with you.
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: So you've got full responsibility but you know the benefits definitely outweighed um, you know that that side of it.
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: So I was able to go and see my children's assemblies, their sports days you know all the stuff I really wanted to see I didn't want to miss.
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: I was able to do that.
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: I was able to work when I wanted I was.
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: I was um loving what you put had on your website about drinking cocktails on Friday afternoon.
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: Um, I was doing that for a while.
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: It was a novelty and you know it's like I'm just having Friday afternoon off or sometimes it might have been a Tuesday just because I can and I love that side of it.
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: yeah, I mean, it's not, it's not just about the kids actually, because my children are.
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: They're at school now.
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: So I we've got ladies day, me and the school mums next month at the.
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: We live near a race course and it's like things like that.
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: It's on a Friday, I don't have to tell anyone to take it off.
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, no boss, it's so liberating.
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm just like, yeah, I'll go.
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: And then there's something else happening on a Friday for me again not kids next month and it's like it's just nice to do that as well.
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: Oh, it's fabulous.
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: It's just so much freedom, isn't it?
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: The feeling is just great, not?
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: Having to answer to anybody.
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so it was you for a while.
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: How were you getting your first customers when you first started?
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: Well, very badly, and I did everything wrong and I was kind of targeting completely the wrong people.
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: I was desperate to get clients and I think that showed I was going to the.
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: That and helped me.
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: I realized how wrong I'd been going and and what was the right way to do it.
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: So, all again, all of that must have happened for a reason.
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: So the good thing about that is I now use all of that to train people how to set up their own VA business without making all my mistakes, because I know what works now and I kind of fast track people.
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: But yeah, I just did everything wrong.
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: I spent loads of money on adverts that didn't work.
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: I've done that.
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: Oh, I was trying to persuade people you do need a VA, you really need a VA, and they were like I so don't.
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: And I realized now that a lot of companies don't want a VA.
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: They won't use a VA.
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: It's very certain type of business owner who will use a VA.
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: So it's all those lessons that it took me a long time to learn, but a lot of pain.
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: But there you go it's.
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: I'm benefiting others with it now.
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I think it is, isn't it?
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: I had a coach when I first started, which I think really helped, and I do credit her for be still being here like four years later, um, but I think, yeah, I think there's this whole I don't know if you find it as well.
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: It's like whether you invest in something like that or not, and when you invest in something like that and I always think, yeah, there's so much benefit when you do invest, but often it feels a bit of a scary investment yeah, absolutely.
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: I mean, I'm a massive fan of a business coach.
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: I have one.
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: Do you still have one?
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: Yes, absolutely, yeah, um, it's up there with my cleaner.
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: You know, everyone says it's a luxury, it's so not so have you always had a coach, then?
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: yeah well, have you had different ones throughout your time, or have you had the same?
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: Yes, I have had not loads.
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: I've not had loads of coaches, but I have had a few different ones.
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: So from the point I realized, you know, and when I joined this entrepreneurial group and I realized I need a coach, then that was the point where, you know, I never looked back really.
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: So I have had my current coach I've been with for absolutely years.
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: She's amazing and prior to that I had her business partner.
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: So, um, they, they kind of joined, joined up, so and there was a lovely part in between where I had both of them alternating.
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: So I had two very different approaches.
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: I was spoiled, rotten, um, and yeah, no, I also have a second coach as well and she helps me with more practical stuff, like how to, you know, run the business more effectively and like my mindset about what?
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, more practical stuff, really, whereas the coach I've had for years she's probably more mindset, um, but they're both, you know, absolutely amazing.
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: I cannot recommend the coach highly enough.
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: I couldn't think about one.
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, do you know what you're inspiring me now?
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: Because I haven't had a coach for about a year.
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: But actually I sometimes think, yeah, I probably should have one.
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: It's just, you know, I think I don't know it's a woman, or you know.
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: Sometimes you think, oh, it seems quite a scary investment.
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: But yeah, I know, like, honestly, she well, she was with me from the beginning, so I think she really set my business, helped me set my business up yeah, I mean, it's not only the making you look at things differently and understanding yourself and achieving things, it's the accountability as well.
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: I mean, even now I, just before my, I have a monthly coaching session just before it.
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: It's like before you go to Weight Watchers to be weighed oh shit, I haven't done this.
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: So you're kind of, you know, just making sure you do everything, but you do it because you're paying and you pay.
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: You know coaches value for money, but you know not.
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: You know they are a significant amount.
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: So if you pay well, I think, if you're paying for that, you're going to make the most out of it.
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, the accountability is really important to me as well.
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: absolutely so you now coach other people, do you?
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: yeah, like coach, probably I wouldn't use that word maybe, but I meant I would probably use the word mentor because I haven't got a coaching qualification, but I suppose I probably do coach them in a sense.
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: But yeah, I'm more of a mentor so I'm more kind of um, just you know, answering any questions, helping them through any days they have where they might be struggling and and just kind of you know motivating them, inspiring them and just making sure they go on the right track to um, set themselves up properly absolutely so you were doing.
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: You'd obviously start your VA business, you would gone all in and you were on your own, and so what prompted the move then, really to go from you on your own to then starting an agency and bringing other VAs on?
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: so I just got busy, so I just thought, oh, I can see actually this growing now and I thought I don't want to be in a situation where I'm kind of like I can't do the work, I'm having to turn clients away.
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: I kind of thought I'm going to have to bring someone on board.
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: It was a friend of a friend who was looking for some work from home, part-time, and she had some skills that I didn't.
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: So, um, I brought her on board in 2007.
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: She still works for me now.
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: She's our longest standing VA, which I'm very proud to say, and she'll become a friend as well.
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, she lives, like I'm, in Chester, as you know, and and she lives kind of quite a long way where she's moved a couple of times.
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: I think she's down south at the moment and so we don't see each other physically.
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: But yeah, we, we catch up on phone calls and we are friends, yeah, yeah, but, um, so she was that that worked really well.
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: And then I was like, oh, this is good, you know, I can kind of see the future where potentially, I might be able to step out of this.
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, more freedom.
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: So I just, you know, kind of started recruiting more and more people and I went for people I knew at first.
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: Um, yeah, because it feels safe, doesn't it?
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: yeah, it did and and you know those people were very loyal and it worked really well.
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: I was.
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: I was always recruiting at the school gates yeah, love it yeah, I had quite a few of the school mums working with me and my sister says to me oh my god, so is there anyone in Chester that doesn't work for you?
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: And I like, just, you know, I see somebody and I think she is.
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: I want her on my team.
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: You know one of those, yeah, organizes all the nights out.
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, pta mum.
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: Yes, exactly, yeah, yeah.
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: So we're always like, yeah, I want her on the team.
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: I love that.
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: Do you know?
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: I'm reading a book at the moment and it's really reminding me that it's called I don't know if you've read it called.
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: I couldn't tell you who wrote it, though called we should all be millionaires?
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: Oh no, and it's all about women becoming more successful and, you know, becoming millionaires.
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: And it's all about women becoming wealthy, because when women becoming wealthy, um predominantly through their own business, they create all these opportunities for other women, which sounds like you've done.
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: You've created this like micro economy through your business and given what I think sounds brilliant, all these women jobs that the corporate world couldn't offer them yeah, I mean my mission across both businesses and I actually have another business that I run in Chester that um though we've not spoken about, which is a companionship business but across all the businesses, my aim is to give people I mean they are predominantly women, that's just how it's landed and you know, men as well give them jobs that that create freedom and that they don't feel tied down to, jobs that they really enjoy doing and, you know, give them opportunities that they might not enjoy in the corporate world or they might not want to go into the corporate world.
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: So it's just a slight, you know, a slight difference doesn't suit everyone at all, but it really suits certain people.
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: So I like to just kind of give everyone that flexible working and that freedom.
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: I love it.
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: How did you make the transition as well?
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: Because I think you're obviously you've been going so much longer than me and you've got, you know, such a bigger team, so you're definitely a lot further on this road than me.
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: That transition from the doer to the leader and like delegating, I guess a lot, because now you've got three businesses, you're in a really like solid position.
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: You know, I'm really interested from a really selfish perspective, how you made that transition and what you do now, what your role involves.
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: So it was really hard and I really struggled with it.
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: I am a bit of a control freak, which my coach tells me off for calling myself that, but I have quite high standards well, very high standards.
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: So I found it difficult to trust other people to do work and kind of step back.
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: But you know, I kind of quality checked the work and made sure I was really comfortable with people.
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: Over time I developed a really robust recruitment process.
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: I mean, my VAs are all self-employed, so none of them are employed, but nevertheless we still have a really robust process that they have to jump through quite a lot of hoops to get to work for Viva directly.
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: And you know we've kind of learned who to look out for what skills and and you know that's kind of made me we've got a really good team and we know how to find them.
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: So that helps.
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: That kind of makes me more comfortable.
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: Um, my role in the business now is I run um four businesses so I oversee all of them.
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: I have a few key people in place who do certain roles.
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: So I've got, you know, someone doing the finances, someone doing them.
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: In fact I've got an external consultant who does our marketing.
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: Um, I've got somebody who kind of matches with you know, my input sometimes matches um VAs to clients and manages the client and VA relationship.
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: I've got somebody who's kind of my right hand, if you like.
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: She's amazing, katie, and she kind of understands my mad brain and, um, I don't know, you've read a book, um, where I'm trying to think of the name of it now, um, but basically you've got the visionary and then you've got the operator yeah, like yeah, but they're also that, like the interpreter, and that's not the word and I can't think of the word and I can't think of the book, which isn't very useful.
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: It'll come to me in a minute, but Katie kind of gets what's going on in my mad head and just goes okay, yeah, I understand, I will kind of translate that to the team and make it happen, whereas if I went directly to the team, sometimes they're like what?
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: yeah, what does she mean by that?
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: So you're like the visionary.
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: Now you've stepped into that visionary leader role apparently, yeah, but it's great to have that person who you know and I'm still that visionary makes me sound like I'm a million miles away from the day-to-day.
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: I'm actually not, I'm quite all over it.
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: I know, I want to know everything.
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: I'm seeing stats, I'm getting updates left, right and center from everyone and because I just like to know that nothing's slipping because it is it's really hard to kind of let go, but you've got to.
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: And one of the recent things is with sales calls.
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: So we get clients who book a call with us and my very good friend, who's kind of a bit of a mentor to me as well he's a chartered accountant, very experienced, and he also is a business coach and, um, he said to me why, why don't you want someone else to come in and help you with sales calls?
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: And I was like, well, I don't know.
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: He's like just say it.
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: I was like, okay, well, they're not going to do it as well as me.
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: And he's like yeah, yeah, you're right, they're not.
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: And I was like, oh, he goes, we'll get used to it.
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: So I was like, oh, okay, he said they'll do a really good job.
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: But yeah, they might not.
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: He said, who knows, they might do it better than you, but let's say they don't.
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: And you're right.
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: Right, you know they might do a slightly lesser, lesser job than you.
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: He said so what, you're not going to grow if you don't let go.
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: So that was quite a good.
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: You're not going to grow if you don't let go, and it rhymes.
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: Oh, that's brilliant advice.
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: Oh, I love that.
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: You're really inspiring me.
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: You know, I feel like I'm gonna go away and have a look now for some business coaches but I think that has helped, obviously, has helped you, and it did help me in the past as well.
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and it's like moving.
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: I think you've always got to be moving, haven't you, when you're a business owner, and you've always got to be evolving, and I always think, as though it sounds so like random, you know, like the Taylor Swift song where she's answered the phone.
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: She's like Taylor can't come to the phone right now because she's dead, and I know it sounds awful, but I feel that's a little bit with entrepreneurship.
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: You're constantly evolving and feel like I'm a completely different person to the person I was four years ago, and I'm guessing you feel like that as well when you look back you think, yeah, no, absolutely.
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: I think you just change.
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: You grow as a person, your business grows, you, you know you, you I definitely am different with people on my team now.
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: I was probably everyone's friend at the beginning.
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: Um, I'm very, very friendly with everybody, but I'm quite direct.
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: If something doesn't happen the way that it needs to happen or if it's kind of, you know, not as per what we've agreed, so but it's, it's difficult, it was difficult for me to become that person really and uh, but you have to and you know I get on very, very well.
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: I have a brilliant relationship with all of my team.
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: But, um, there is that you kind of have to step into the like CEO role.
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and when, as soon as you view yourself and this has all been taught to me, I'm not, you know, this hasn't come from me, but this is what I've learned but as soon as you step into that role and class yourself as a CEO rather than a manager, that makes all of the difference to how you view stuff, the stats you need to see, how you delegate and you know and what you, how you run it, yeah, wow.
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: So what's next for your organisation, then for Viva?
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: So, we, we've kind of grown organically and one day realised, oh my goodness, we need to relook at all of these processes, because we were tweaking them as we went along.
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: But we have outgrown some of our processes.
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: So we we've spent the last six months and there's more to go Just kind of relooking at the basic processes and then after that it's all about scaling and then we'll just kind of you know, so are you?
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: regional?
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: Are you national or no?
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: we're national.
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so a lot of our clients are based in London.
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: We've also got clients in Scotland all over um, but yeah, we're based in Chester, but I think we have very few clients actually in chester and what sort of clients do you have then?
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: what sort of businesses are they?
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: um.
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: We have business coaches like therapists um gosh.
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: We have chimney sweeps um, which is a bit more random.
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: We have online businesses um life coaches.
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: Basically, I think the the link, even though it's across lots of different sectors, is the entrepreneurial mindset.
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: So that's, that's what we see there most.
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: Most of our clients are we would class as entrepreneurs, or certainly successful small business owners like that, and if someone's listening to this and wants to become a VA, what do they need?
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: A PA background?
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: What sort of skills?
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: Not necessarily no.
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: So I mean, obviously it helps as a PA or an EA you would kind of slot very well into a VA role.
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: But you don't need to.
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: You need to be organized, you need to have a really great attitude.
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: Clients do not want to hear no, can't, you can't do that, or you know they just don't like no.
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: So you've got to always find a way.
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you've got to have a willingness to learn.
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: There's all.
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: There's a million softwares out there that you could, as a VA, when you start out, learn them all.
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: But it's not worth it because some you may never use um.
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: You know some you might use, but not for six months time and you may never use um.
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: You know some you might use, but not for six months time, and you've forgotten it.
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: So you've just got to be have that willingness to kind of jump onto youtube and just go right, I'm going to teach myself trello because this new client you know um uses it.
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: Um.
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: Positive outlook is important um, and a really high level of initiative.
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: So you know it's really important.
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: You've almost got to think ahead and thinking in the client's way and just kind of make sure you're one step ahead of them and the ability to prioritize.
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: So I think if you've got those kinds of skills, you know people that have been project managers make pretty good VAs as well, because they're used to juggling all the different things and never missing a deadline and coordinating stuff.
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: You do a lot of that kind of thing as a VA.
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: And what do they typically earn as well, if someone's listening to this and does it, all tend to be self-employed.
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it is self-employed, yeah, all of it.
• 27:59
  Speaker 2: And the average rate for a VA is around £30 an hour across the UK.
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: So if you're in London you probably earn a bit more some other areas possibly slightly less, but £30 is the rough average.
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: So that's if you run your own business.
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: Obviously you've got to have your own clients and you've got all the expenses of doing that, like your insurance and your marketing costs and website and all that if you're an associate VA.
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: So you kind of get the hat the clients handed to you on a plate so that would be people that work for you.
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: They were associates, so they they don't have to find their own clients yeah.
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: So we just hand them the clients and they just work.
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: So you know, the rate for associates is a lot less.
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: It's kind of, you know, potentially half that, um, even lower in some cases.
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: And because you're obviously just, it's normally for people who are not as ambitious and don't want to necessarily set up their own business.
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: But you know they just want I mean, the vast majority of my team, I would say have got kids and they are doing it as particularly young kids and they're just doing it around that because it's flexible.
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: She can work your own hours yeah, I like that.
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: I had a VA for a little bit as well, and it is very flexible.
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: You know, she just did like half an hour a day or whatever, and I guess it was like whenever, whenever she had half an hour, she could just pick up what she wanted to pick up yeah, it is.
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: It's really flexible, like that, yeah.
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: So if someone's listening to this and they may be interested in becoming a VA through Viva or being mentored by you, if they are wanting to set up their own business, what's the best way for them to contact you?
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so they're probably best going to our website, which is myvabusinesscouk, and there's a webinar that we do.
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: That is really good.
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: Uk and um.
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: There's a webinar that we do.
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: That um is really good.
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: It'll give loads of hints and tips about becoming a va and at the end it's got information on our program if people did want to join.
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: So that's very obvious.
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: Where to find that?
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: From the website brilliant.
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: Are you on linkedin or any social media?
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: I am.
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm on linkedin as sarah rug.
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: Um, I'm on instagrammers.
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: Underscore sarah rug.
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: Underscore I think.
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, um, I think we're on facebook, but yeah, I think kind of it's we're more on linkedin.
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: I think that's the main one that we yeah, we're on linkedin, so we will definitely tag everything in the show notes.
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: So thank you so much, sarah, for joining me today.
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: It's been a real pleasure to chat with you.
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: You, too, thank you for having me on thank you for listening to another episode of the work.
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: It like a mum podcast.
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: If you enjoyed this episode, please rate, review and subscribe, and don't forget to share the link with a friend.
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: If you're on linkedin, please send me a connection request at Elizabeth Willett and let me know your thoughts on this week's episode.
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: You can also follow my recruitment site Investing in Women on LinkedIn, facebook and Instagram.
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: Until next time, keep on chasing your biggest dreams.