Latest / The DM Sales Gal: Close Sales in DMs with Instagram Stories, Lead Generation & High-Ticket Sales Strategies / How to Hire Your Next Virtual Assistant: 3 MAJOR Mistakes Founders Make | Ep 21

Transcript

How to Hire Your Next Virtual Assistant: 3 MAJOR Mistakes Founders Make | Ep 21 · The DM Sales Gal: Close Sales in DMs with Instagram Stories, Lead Generation & High-Ticket Sales Strategies

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: If your Instagram stories and your Instagram DMs are bringing you 16k hot steamy leads and you're not exactly at the sales school you want to be at for this quarter, I've got you.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: Hey sales friends, I'm Alyssa, your chief sales gal.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: I've been in business for 11 years and I currently run a done for you lead generation and lead management agency with Instagram DMs.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: I'm about to show you guys all of the juicy sales things on Instagram, Instagram stories to get new leads, and closing sales in the DM salmon sales calls.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: So let's get into all of the juicy details.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: Hey guys, welcome back to the DM Sales Gal podcast.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: I'm super excited to introduce you today to a client of mine that is in Denver with me.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: She's actually the first Denver client that I've gotten to work with since we've been here for four months.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm so excited to introduce you to Donisha, and she has an incredible VA matchmaking agency.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: So for all of you that have hired a VA or an ops person and it didn't go so well, we're gonna talk about how to make it go better in the future.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: Donisha, I will let you go ahead and introduce yourself.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_01: Good morning.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_01: I'm super excited to be here.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for having me.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_01: I'm Donisha Taylor.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_01: I am actually a native of Denver, which um, if you probably hear when you talk to other people, they're like, there's not many of us left um as you have been here for four months.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_01: I have been here my whole life.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um I'm based out in Award, Colorado, which where I'm at now, it's like literally 45 minutes away from you.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_01: It's staying near an hour.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we're like on the completely different sides of Denver, but it's all good.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um, yeah, so it's funny.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: I actually I actually always hear the opposite.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: I keep telling people in Denver, they're like, I've been here forever, or I was here, went to Cali and came back.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: Marie, our podcast manager, we talk about that all the time.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: But I wish I was from here and not Kentucky.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: But here we are.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, go ahead.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: Go on.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_01: At least you may be.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_01: I think Denver is awesome.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we are natives for like a reason.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_01: It's really cool because both me and my husband's families are here, and so we probably won't ever move.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_01: Like we'll travel, but this is home for both of us.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but yeah, I am married, I have a big household.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_01: There's seven of us.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_01: We have five kids.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_01: We got um some college kids, and we have two little, so we're super busy um amongst building businesses, but it's really great.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I'm the founder of On Point.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_01: We're an executive VA agency, and we match founders, executives, consultants um with US-based executive virtual assistants, and we call them Evas.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_01: And their job is to provide strategic support.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_01: So they're not task acres, they're not general admins.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_01: They want to bring structure to the day-to-day.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_01: So leaders can really operate like the CEO instead of the admin in their own business, which a lot of founders do.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but my background is spending 12 years combined with both executive support and operations leadership.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_01: And in both of those roles, I kept seeing founders doing everything themselves, draining and drowning themselves in work that didn't require them, that didn't meet their approval, sign up, or their expertise.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_01: So I built on point to solve specifically for that.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_01: So um we have a 72-hour match um promise, which um really sets us apart because usually when a founder is hiring for their own VA, it takes weeks and maybe even months.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_01: And so we bring them a vetted EVA within three days.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_01: So um someone that can already have like the executive level experience and expertise that can really get started on day one.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I love all this.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: There's a reason, many, that Donna Isha and I are working together.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: I I totally agree.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: So everybody who's listening, we're gonna talk about the biggest mistakes when you've hired a VA.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: If you have hired one, then you will probably resonate with some of these.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: If you have not hired one and it's one of your next hires, it usually is.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna talk about how you can do it better after that.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: And then we're also gonna talk about some questions that we're getting in Johnisha's DMs right now because my team and I get to help her out in her direct messages.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: So we're gonna talk about all of those things, and I can uh certainly give evidence to the point that this year alone I've hired more people in my business than I ever had in 11 years, probably combined, maybe not over all the 11 years, but this year alone, we've probably hired for projects and then including people that have taken leave, probably quite hired like over 22 plus people, if I'm trying to count.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm lucky that I have someone who helps me with hiring and finds candidates and vets them and does interviews, etc., because I could not make it happen.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: I think one of the hardest things about hiring is when you're drowning in operations because you're working in your business all the time and not on your business.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: No one can see my hands, but I'm making hand gestures.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: But when you're always working in your business because you have to and you're drowning, and you need a virtual assistant, you need an EVA, you need operation support.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you're looking for a COO level position, you barely have enough time to do what you're drowning in, and then you're out.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: What do I even looking for?
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: How do I make a hiring post?
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: Where do I post it?
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: How do I score candidates?
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: Who do I interview?
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: How do I hire?
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: How do I train?
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: How do I manage?
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: How do I onboard in the midst of all that?
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: So the hiring process itself is a barrier to entry to get us out of doing all of the things and actually be able to operate as a founder.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: We met through entrepreneista, and one of the women that are in on is in entrepreneista hosted this call earlier this year about owner versus operator.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: And I had never heard that phrasing so clearly before.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: And basically, she was talking about like you're the owner, but you don't have to operate every single thing in your business.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: Like, how do we pull you back from that?
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: So let's say, like, I've hired VAs before and it hasn't worked out.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: We know lots of like clients of yours and incoming clients and our colleagues have as well.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: What are the top mistakes when you go to hire a VA and it doesn't work out?
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_01: I would say I think the first mistake is hiring before you're clear on what you actually need.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_01: And I see a lot of founders out there like, I think I need an assistant.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_01: It's time for a VA.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_01: I'm overwhelmed.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_01: I need someone in my business.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_01: Like, they know they have all of these things going on, but they haven't identified what should come off of their plate or what outcomes can they expect, or what type of support the role actually requires.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_01: So I think that is the biggest mistake.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_01: It's not being clear on what you actually need.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_01: And I tell clients, I even tell prospects when I'm talking with them and they're like, I don't even know what to like hand off.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_01: I do so much.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_01: I will do an exercise with prospects or whomever clients, and I'll say when they're like, I don't know what I should be giving away.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I don't know what that looks like.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_01: And I tell them over the next seven days, look at your workload every single day, circle what only requires you.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_01: And whenever what requires you is what do you need your a sign off on?
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_01: Do you need to improve that?
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_01: Does it need your expertise?
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_01: And if it doesn't, the things that you didn't circle or the things that don't require you that their honey is the delegation opportunity that you would give to your VA.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: That's what I started doing a couple of weeks ago as we hired someone for off, specifically a client experience manager.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: And we had ideas of what he was going to be doing.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I wanted to know, like, specifically, what all am I spending time on?
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: How much time does it take?
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: And how efficiently can we relay that off to him?
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: So, like, I'm time tracking down to like the 15 and 30 minute time blocks of like it's always it's so annoying.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: I wish that I was superwoman and could like speed up time just for shit that I hate doing.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: But you can't do that.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: But any time that like we have to like fix SOPs or client tasks takes longer.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: Like it takes two or three times longer, most things I do than I would expect it to.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: Or I spend the amount of time I allotted, but I wish I had two or three times as much time because I don't want to like rush or just do it as efficiently as possible.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: Like, that's not fun for me.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: So, yeah, I've done that even after we hired of okay, so we hired, they're supposed to be working on this.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: Here's what I'm still doing.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: What more can we hand off?
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: How well is this working?
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: That's one piece that's been like my recent experience, like yesterday.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: And then also like SOPs.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not a big acronym woman.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: They confuse me over time when there's so many across so many industries, but SOPs have become the business lifeline.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_00: So we have a team of 16 right now.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: We'd be if all of our SOPs like were eradicated, which they never will be, knock on wood, but we would be crushed.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: Like that's like our Achilles heel, like it has to happen.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes like we have SOPs where our operations team are writing them and I approve them, and that's fine too.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: But if you have SOPs ready for certain tasks, like you know what the tasks are, which Donisa, Donisha is talking about, and you have SOPs on how to do them, then you really can like remove yourself and remove yourself.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: I think one other note there too, and we're gonna talk about this.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe this is another mistake we want to cover.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: I think so, in terms of like hiring order, I've been around a while, as has done Donisha in business.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: And people usually hire for admin ops support first.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: Usually we'll hire maybe social media marketing, opslash VA, then we might do, you know, I mean, it could be website, it could be ops, it could be social media.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: Those are some of the first couple, maybe a podcast, maybe email marketing, coaching, then the DM sales work that I do.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_00: But I think that people will hire an ops person first, and what they're asking really of your Eva is can you help run my company?
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and that is not a fucking low ticket like investment.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_00: Like when I handed our operations to Audrey, because I've had a past operations person before, as I was telling Donisha who fucked up a$25,000 contract and we almost lost the deal.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: I've had an ops person who did lose me a$9,000 deal.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: So those are massive mistakes overall.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: Like they can't be made.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: I think that if you're gonna hire someone to massively support in running your company, like it has they have to be there to run the business.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: That person should be paid for that role accordingly, like not$400.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: $1,000.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: You think on pricing?
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_00: I know you have not.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my goodness, it's so funny because that is my second mistake that I think is very primarily like the lowest price.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_01: And I hear it all the time, I see it all the time.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_01: I had a prospect call with this beauty founder, and she's doing so well in her business.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_01: I kid you not, when she told me what she needed, she needed a chief of staff for her business, but also for her home life, for her family.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_01: She's going through everything and the things that she needed.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, okay, this girl needs a lot, right?
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_01: She needed to someone to like build the SOPs and run the operations of the office and keep everybody on track and manage this calendar and schedule this and create this and build this.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_01: But for the home life, this person needs to research meal meal prep people and cleaning people.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_01: So when she's on vacations with her family, she comes home and her house is clean, how she likes it.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_01: And this person sets up the kids' calendars.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, okay, I need a lot.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_01: She's like, Well, I met someone who's gonna charge me$4 an hour.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_01: Really?
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_01: Really, like that is such a slap in the face to the virtual assistant community.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_01: They are willing to step in and rock the shit out of those responsibilities, but you only want to pay them$4 an hour is crazy to me.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_01: So I feel like the second mistake is hiring based primarily on the lowest price.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_01: Because cost matters, right?
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_01: We know that cost matters, but hiring the cheapest person without considering all that you're asking of them, what do you expect the outcome to be?
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: I I totally agree.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like the US-based versus like overseas conversation.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: I want to touch on it for a second because you know, there's so much said about it, and my recent experiences have been, I don't know, like illuminating for me.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: We have team members that are outside of the US on our sales team, on our aux team also, and we pay them the same rate that we pay people in the US.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I love that.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, they're doing the same job.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_00: We have people who like, you know, it was a different position.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_00: Like, if it's different positions, like ops versus sales team, like they're not literally all paid the same.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: Each role was paid accordingly.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: But I had somebody like come in for operations and we love him.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_00: This was our new client experience manager.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_00: He's the only man on a 16-person team.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I feel like it like kind of puts all the girls on our best behavior, which is a bad thing.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but we have this incredible new guy, Passem, that's working in on our operations team.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_00: And I upped his hourly by like 40%.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_00: He was like, Yeah, sure, I'll take this, like, you know, base of the range that you offer, like the low end of the range.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, no, we're gonna pay you 40% more because that's what the role is worth.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I want you doing your bare, very best freaking work.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm gonna pay you for it.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_00: Like, we don't want to have turnover.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: Ideally, I don't want to hire team members and then have them like not work out after two weeks, four weeks, six weeks, eight weeks.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: Like the turnover sucks.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: If you can find someone that's like a lifelong partner, not to mention the fact, and this is just one more note on pricing.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_00: I think what founders that are still scaling, executives, consultants, founders, I think what we forget to do is realize the trade-off cost of their time versus my time.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: Because I know from recent calculations, like earlier in August, my hourly is about 250 bucks an hour.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_00: Like that's how much my time that's all me in that hour should cost.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: So if I'm paying an EVA 10, 25, 50 plus dollars an hour, I'm still saving$200 of my billable hours.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, that is a great point that you that you bring up.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_01: And I think a lot of founders need to look at it that way.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_01: And I'll post content about that.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's like you have to understand the trade-off, and then you also have to look at it as an investment in your business, not just another expense.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_01: You have to understand what are you your yes, you might be paying a thousand plus a month for this operational support, but guess how much you offload onto somebody else where you get to do the things that you want to do.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_01: The whole reason why you started the damn business in the first place to make money.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, a lot of the people like in Dawnisha's DMs that we're and now doing like sales calls together with too, which is a surprise to the audience.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_00: There's so many uh podcast episodes on here on like skip the sales call, the clones in the DMs, but there are certain businesses like Dawnisha's where we're gonna tailor, you know, we're gonna pick an offer that matches what that person is looking for.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_00: That that requires sales calls.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_00: But, anyways, I would say to like I'm paying the most for operations I ever have.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_00: I have like a combo deal with my chief revenue officer, Zoe, who's also our chief operations officer, and then has an operations manager and a client experience manager underneath her.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_00: So I just I just paid my invoice yesterday, and I'm paying about$4,000 a month for three people, and it's a hundred percent worth it.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_00: And when Zoe tells me that we need$500 more, we need$600 more.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_00: My price is what I pay her, it's gone up from like$3,000 to I think next month, like$4,200.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: I would pay her whatever she asks.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_00: All like whatever, whatever she says, I'm gonna pay that because she's indispensable to me.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_01: I think what's really great about on point is we just don't place the VA, right?
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_01: We just don't place our EVAs, just like you said, Zoe is chief of X and Y.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_01: We do internal things with our EVAs too to make sure like they're always on point and they are learning and they're growing with your business.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_01: So if there that comes a moment where she's outgrown a VA and you need her chief of operations, she's built that and we are able to scale as well and pay her more, right?
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_01: So you just move up in whatever tier that you're in, but we pride ourselves in the type of like the the caliber of support that we have that they're able to grow with your business.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I totally, I totally agree.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_00: Now I'm like doing math as we're talking because I know Donisha's rates and I know you know how many hours my ops person is doing, and I know Donisha's packages, obviously.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_00: But let's say that, okay, math.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_00: Let's say that I pay Donisha's Evas$50 an hour.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_00: And let's say that I need 40 hours a month.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm paying two like$2,000.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_00: This is just hypothetical math.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_00: But let's say I'm paying$2,000 for my operations manager for 40 hours a month to save me 40 hours times 250 an hour.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_00: That's$10,000 of my billable hours minus$2,000 that I'm paying them, which means I've saved eight grand.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_00: So, like, fuck yeah, I'll make that investment for the rest of my life.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_00: I love saving eight grand.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_00: That's awesome.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_00: That's a big win.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_01: It's a huge win.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_01: I think I think founders need to look at the map, look at what your billable hours are, and then how much of those hours are consumed by you doing the operational shit, the administrative stuff that you could be handing off to an experienced VA.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_00: You know what we need to do for people listening to this podcast is have people come to you and calculate their savings on paying for an Eva.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_00: So, like, you know, Dana, I hope you get to listen.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_00: If Dana, who does listen to the podcast, if like her available hours are X and she needs X hours of operations, like then like she's gonna figure out how much she's saving and how much she should pay to like, you know, get that exchange.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_00: But a lot of our like clients have had like calculators, like Ashley has an ads calculator.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_00: Like, if you put this much into ads, you'll make this much.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yours could be so like simple.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I feel like people listening would love this.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_00: If your billable hourly rate is$100 an hour and you're spending 40 hours a month on ops, if you like paid someone for it, here's how much you'd save.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_00: That's such easy math.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_00: You guys should go ask Donisha if she'll help you crotch the knockers.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, tell me about one more hiring mistake.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_00: So we've talked about not knowing what you need to offload and you need to figure out what involves you and what can be outsourced.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_00: And we also talked about like people trying to hire the cheapest option when if I'm trying to get someone to run my company, I want someone who's paid well so they don't make mistakes and they really care about it.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_00: What's one more mistake?
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_00: And then I'm gonna have you talk about like, you know, anything you want to share about how you guys avoid these mistakes with yeah, for sure.
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_01: I think.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: Another uh mistake is expecting your Eva to create clarity out of chaos with no access, no context, or anything like that, and treating them like a tool instead of a team member.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and what I mean by that is there's a lot of people that I talk to and they're like, Oh, well, I don't like I I don't have like I don't have all I don't have it all together.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_01: I gotta figure it out.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_01: I gotta, which is great, yes, figure out what you need, but you also don't need perfect systems before hiring because a lot of great VAs, they love that shit.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_01: They don't want to just manage or maintain what's already there.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_01: They really do love the ability, having the ability to anticipate needs, identify gaps, and create structure out of those imperfect things that you have going on in your business.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_01: They want to be able to indulge in that and in embrace the role to keep the priorities moving.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um, on the same token, I feel like founders need to understand like VAs, they're not a tool, they're not there to be a task taker, right?
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_01: That's not there, they want to be an executive partner.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_01: And so they still need communication, they need feedback, and they need trust to become effective in that role.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_01: And that's why uh a working partnership, it's not just solely on the VA, it's also on the founder as well.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_00: I was talking to our other client who you know and came to her awesome workshop.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_00: I was talking to uh Emily Williams yesterday about accountability that is um I'm freaking sober.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_00: So, like holding yourself accountability is like one of the top core principles.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_00: Like, you don't, you know, not be sober and then get sober without taking accountability for all the shit that you've done.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_00: But in terms of hiring, Emily and I were talking about it, and to me, this speaks to character.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_00: I talk to women that are like, well, I hired so and so, and she did this, that, and the other.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, have you reflected on your own like part in the hiring process?
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_00: Because you probably created some of these problems with them.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_00: Like, if you're not willing to hold yourself accountable in providing clients the best experience, in providing team the best experience, the best people that I like hire, and same for my clients.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_00: Like when I hire for ops and I am the client, the best question I get of like people that you're providing to are like what can I give you to make sure that this works the best?
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_00: Like checking in on that every single week.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, I have one more question before I forget to.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_00: So I think like in the same vein of pricing, I'm curious what your response is gonna be.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_00: So let's say I go on threads and do like, you know, a suicidal mission and post.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_00: I'm looking for a VA to take over my life.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_00: These are the 72 things I need help with.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_00: And it covers every single department in a business, right?
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_00: I need someone to manage my inbox, I need someone to reply to partnership emails, I need someone to book my flights, schedule my meetings, send me recordings, consolidate meetings, do my lead generation, manage my lead tracker, do my social media, do my engagement.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_00: So do you think that if I want to hire for, if I want to hire an Eva, if I want to hire one of your Eva's, do you think that like marketing, lead generation, like are those part of the is that part of the deal?
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_00: Because I think to some extent, I see a lot of people consciously or subconsciously thinking a VA is the lowest priced person I can hire to do anything.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_01: So everything.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm gonna try to give everything to the person I can pay the least, which I have issues with that perspective on it.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_00: But do your Evas like, do you think that virtual assistants should be like doing marketing and lead gen, etc.?
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_00: Like, is that a role that some of them that you work with can do or not most of the time?
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_00: Like, how does that work?
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so I think the stigma comes from people need a job in especially VAs, right?
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_01: They need clients, they want clients.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_01: And I have transparent conversations with the Evas in my pool.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_01: I don't want you saying, Yes, I can do that, yes, I can learn that.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_01: If that's really not your expertise or your capability, it's okay.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_01: Because I don't think your VA should be handling marketing and should be handling um, you know, your social media the way that you need it, like hire specifically for that.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_01: Can a VA do light task for those things?
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, they can um do engagement and they can create, you know, certain graphics, things like that.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_01: But if they're not experienced in marketing, you should have enough sense to say, I need to hire for marketing.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um but with our EVAs, we do like a review of specialized capabilities because I know there are people out there who need like Pinterest management or they need affiliate um management, things like that.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_01: But I don't want people saying, and I get this a lot too.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_01: Like I had one lady that I need someone with Kajabi experience, and I didn't see that in any of my Eva's profiles.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_01: So I sent out a blast message, like who has experience in that?
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, well, I looked it up and I can learn it, which anyone can learn that.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_01: But if a founder is looking for something specific, I'd rather have an Eva who is experienced in that and specialized in that because a lot of these people, they don't they don't want that that ramp up where they got to teach, right?
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_01: They need somebody who can step in and really take over it.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's where I was like that's where I've landed after so many years getting old in business, is like I'm either gonna go for the middle ground or the high ground.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_00: I I am not like I don't know if you know this or not, but I am not a good manager, meaning I hate it.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_00: I know many people do.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_00: I hate I hate it, but if you hire someone for the lowest cost that's newer, whatever the reasons, if I pay less, I get the work oftentimes of paying less.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_00: I'll hire people at the mid or high level of what's like a fair rate for that work because I don't wanna like I want to give them what they need, especially at the beginning, but then I really want them to like soar.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_00: I want them to be able to manage their own stuff and tell me what they need when they do need me and know when they don't.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_00: And now I have like a team and an ops team where if they don't know the answer to a question, they're gonna go to the spots where they can research it before they come ask me.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_00: Like that's what you want.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_00: You want a partner.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_00: So anything you else you want to share, and I want people to come be able to ask Donisha questions because I know from the inside of the business that she is taking new clients who are looking for EVAs for on point.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_00: So anything you else want you want to share about hiring mistakes, and then how can people find you and work with you?
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_01: I think one thing that I want to touch too is the mistake of hiring a task taker when you know you need an executive partner.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's a really big thing.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um, there's a lot of general virtual assistants out there, and that's okay.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but they're learning, they really don't like they're not quite there yet to understand like how to anticipate needs, how to identify gaps, how to create structure and keep things moving.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so when you are hiring, don't want to hire for just the VA.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_01: And that's something that I really pride in my pool of assistance, is that they are valued for what they bring and how they show up.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_01: So hiring for someone who thinks like a strategic partner, because that is truly what you need when you're handing over these very intimate details about your business.
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_01: You need someone who's able to um not only handle it, but also know how to like move with discretion and move with um a little bit of pep in their step.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I got this, right?
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_01: So I think that's really important.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um I was gonna say, I was gonna say too, like with the operations people, I was thinking about this, you know, at like 11:30 in bed last night.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_00: But a lot, a lot of my team members are either doing shit that I don't want to do, don't have time to for, or I don't like, you know, that's why I hired them.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_00: And also my operations team and other team members too are doing things way better than I would.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_00: Like I'll never, I'll never be as good at Audrey at ops ever.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_00: I would make a hundred mistakes.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_00: She doesn't.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_00: She's made like one mistake in like four months, and it was small, and we fixed it.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_00: Like one mistake.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_00: But my team is better than me at roles that I don't want to be doing.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_00: And at first I was like, this is a little intimidating, but like that's their that's their massive strength, that's their superpower.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_00: And I have to find these and it sure my superpower shirt as shit is not operations, Donisha.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_00: If you saw my like task list when I was like uh not yet sober, you'd be like, girl, like what is going on?
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_00: This is scary.
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_00: I've seen inside your brain what a terrifying like this is this is rough, anyways.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, this is awesome.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_00: How can people come find you?
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I am on Instagram, which is at the real VA Connect and LinkedIn.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I think my LinkedIn is the same, might be VA Connect also.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_01: Let me get that so I have it right.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_00: We will we will link it too.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, sweet.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_01: So yes, Instagram, LinkedIn.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you can email me at hello at vaconnect.co.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_01: But um we're out there, especially on Instagram.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_01: So like there's a lot of questions that I answer in my stories, on my reels.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um, there's carousels out there, so there's FAQs.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_01: If you just want to know more about what we're doing and who we have on our roster, definitely take a look, take a peek, and then you know, hit me up in the DMs too.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, Donisha has become uh very quickly like a master of content creation.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_00: I don't see many people in the operations world like breaking it down the way that you do.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_00: Like a lot of people for operations are like, do you need help with admin tasks?
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_00: Because we can do it.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_00: Like you've just encompassed an industry with a thousand different details within it.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_00: Like, can we gotta give a little more context?
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_00: And are you overwhelmed?
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_00: Because we can fix it.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_00: How how?
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_00: Like, let's let's talk about it.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_00: But Donisha is making incredible content, she's lovely.
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_00: I'm so grateful to have you on the podcast.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_00: I'm so glad that you're here in Denver with me.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_00: And we will link all of Danisha's uh contact info below so that you can come find her and ask her all the questions about operations.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_00: And uh one thing that we love to have you guys do for Danisha is go message her the thing that you hate most in your business.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_00: Like, what do you absolutely freaking hate doing that you wish you would never do one single more time?
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_00: And then we can talk about how you cannot do that anymore, ideally.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_00: So let's do it.
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you guys so much for listening to the DM Sales Gal.
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_00: Please go find Donisha through her links, linked in the show notes, and we will talk to you guys next week.