Are you still stuck in indecision about a VA? Join us today to dig into a few more questions to ask yourself to uncover if it is the right time for you to hire or not.

US based VA business Alyssa Avant comes with over 17 years' experience serving others. Starting out small and eventually finding her niche Alyssa helps Christian authors, speakers, and coaches get more accomplished.

Starting with a common question of how she could stay home and still make an income without impacting her children, Alyssa found her way into the VA world.

Come listen to her talk about what makes for a successful VA experience, frustrations of a VA, and how to know what to delegate to your first VA.

In This Episode:

Steps to make a successful VA experience:

1. What are you wanting to outsource?
2. Know what your budget is
3. Are you willing to let this go?

Questions to discover how a VA will benefit:

• What is your end goal?
• What do you want off your plate?
• What are you struggling to get done?

Even if you don’t know how a VA can help you, if you know the end goal, they may be able to show you how they can help.

The two biggest frustrations of a VA

1. A micro-manager as a boss
2. A person who doesn’t know what they need

Redeem Your Business Today by the Following:

How can we honor God in our business?

               Pray for your clients and business every day. It will change the way you see and treat them.

One challenge from today:

Make a list. This is how a VA can change your life.

1. What you don’t know how to do
2. What you don’t want to do
3. What you don’t have time to do

More About Alyssa Avant

Website: Alyssa Avant and Company | Christian Virtual Assistants

Free Tool: Top 5 Questions to Ask Yourself Before Hiring a Virtual Assistant

More About David Schmidt

Subscribe to Redeeming Business Today Podcast Newsletter

Website redeemingbusinesstoday.com

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Mentioned in this episode:

Step Up Referrals

Ever wished you had all your business information in one place? With Step Up Referrals, you can! It’s the ultimate digital referral card that makes sharing your business and showcasing who you’re connected with easier than ever. Step Up Referrals helps you stand out from the crowd, build relationships, and grow your network. Follow the link below and get started today.

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David:

[0:00] Well, hello. Today we're going to talk about VAs again. Virtual assistants have been around for a long time, and like so many other things, there are various numerous opinions. When I was a mechanical technician, I heard the term piggy, which is a poorly implemented good idea. And I think sometimes that may happen with VAs, too, where it's a great idea, but it's poorly implemented, and so they're like, ah, I don't want to do that. That doesn't work. But it can work for you. And hiring a VA may or may not be the right fit for you. But today, I brought another person on, Alyssa Avent, who's been a VA for 17 years. Lots of experience in that. So we're going to, I guess, pick her brain to get some information from her about what makes a good VA experience and what we as business owners can do on our side. Because it's not just their problem. It's our problem. It's working together, communication and all that. So, Alyssa, welcome. And to start us off today, could you tell me one way that you have found that we can honor God in our business that other people may not know about?

Alyssa:

[1:05] Oh, absolutely. Sure. So, well, the one way that I do this is by making sure that I am spending time praying for my business, but also for my clients each day. So that's something I do every morning prior to getting started on my work day.

David:

[1:22] Very good. Very good. And so tell us three, four minutes, five minutes, a little bit about yourself, your journey as a VA. How'd you get started? Why did you get started and all that?

Alyssa:

[1:33] Well, that's a good story. So this was all obviously back at 17 years. I had a newborn and about a four-year-old child. And I had just quit my part-time job in ministry to stay at home with my kids. And I guess it was about five or six months later, I realized that we really needed that income that I'd had. I'd had a part-time income, but it was paying for some things. We needed that. We needed what I say was diaper money and grocery money back then. And I was like, okay, how can I make an income and not be outside the home? And so I looked around online for some opportunities.

Alyssa:

[2:19] Obviously, there were and still are a lot of scams out there But I joined what I call an old school forum, so kind of like a Facebook group today, and began talking to the ladies in the group because it was for moms. And I had created a mom blog just to pass the time, really. And one of the ladies reached out because she had read my mom blog and she liked my writing style. And she said, can you write some articles for me, like ghost write articles? And I said, sure. And so I actually started my business as a ghostwriting service, and I did that for three years. And then as I began to grow that and learn some of the pieces that I needed to promote my own business as a ghostwriter, I learned about WordPress for websites and I learned about social media. In fact, some of the social media that we have today was just getting started at that point. I remember being one of the first people on Twitter, which we used to call our virtual water cooler.

Alyssa:

[3:28] It was a lot of fun back then. It's completely different. And of course, it's changed names and everything. But that was something that was really fun. And so as I did that, other people were asking me, well, how did you do this? Like, how did you start your website? How did you start using social media to market your business? And I would tell them and then they would say, well, can you do that for me? And I was like, well, sure. And so I became a VA and didn't even realize that's what I was doing.

David:

[3:56] I see. That's interesting. And that's why I've seen a lot of people. They just, they're doing it for themselves. And other people see it and say, hey, could you do that for me? It's like, wasn't planning on it, but sure. Why not? Sure, yeah. Go for it. Yeah, that's neat. That's neat how it transpires and God moves you in that way. Yes. And so how would you define a virtue assistant and what your company provides versus maybe different virtual company assistants? Is it different or is the same or how would you define what you do?

Alyssa:

[4:25] I think it is very different based on that either the person, the VA, if it's an individual virtual assistant or a company like mine. Because I look at virtual assistants as a big umbrella and underneath that are lots of different services because I provide services in email marketing, social media marketing, and content repurposing. But there are also virtual assistants that provide things like bookkeeping or graphic design or any number of things that are done virtually. A lot of them are what would be considered general admin VAs. And so they might help you keep your inbox cleaned out and help you schedule your calendar and things like that. And so it is very different based on the individual or the company.

David:

[5:15] Okay, so if I was going to hire a VA, do you have different levels of virtual assistants that could help me out with different things then?

Alyssa:

[5:23] Yes, absolutely. So it starts, like I was saying, with what I would consider a general admin VA. So it's more like what you would think of a secretary doing. So it's like they would help you with your email, keeping your email inbox organized and clean, and helping with correspondence, maybe helping you set meeting times. And if you travel like with your calendar and things like that, and then there are people that specialize in certain areas. And for our company, we specialize in those areas that were mentioned, but there are other businesses, VA businesses that might specialize in other areas. Some help with like funnels and sales funnels and shopping carts and all of that sort of thing. There it's very very different based on their unique skills and their specialization so oftentimes you'll just need to do a search for the type of work that you're wanting to look for or if there is a specific say you're in a specific field say real estate for example you could search for real estate virtual assistant people file often find me searching for author virtual assistant or Christian virtual assistant. So it, it does, it is a area where you can find, you can niche down and find very specific services.

David:

[6:45] Okay. That's good. Good to know because, yeah, it's not one size does not fit at all. You don't maybe you can't do everything, but what you do, you do well. So that's good.

Alyssa:

[6:56] Exactly.

David:

[6:57] So back to our original question of a poorly implemented good idea. What factors make for successful virtual assistant experience? Like if I was going to hire somebody, what would I have to do to make this good work work well?

Alyssa:

[7:12] Right. Well, I believe that there are some things that you need to know before you go into a relationship with a virtual assistant. You need to know what you are wanting to outsource. So I would recommend that a business owner sit down and think about the things that, number one, they don't have time to do, or number two, they don't enjoy doing, or maybe both. You know um and think about those things so that they can focus on the areas that they're good at that they enjoy that you know maybe their area of expertise and so think about the things that either you you don't enjoy doing you don't have time to do or you don't have the skills to do because there are some things a lot of times people come to me because they don't have the skills to put together an email newsletter, or they don't understand how social media works. So, you know, there's, it is the need for the knowledge as much as it is the implementation, but you need to know what you're looking for. You need to also know what your budget is. And because there are levels, different levels of services, and you need to know, am I willing to let this go? Like, am I willing to outsource this to someone else? Because that has a lot to do with your own personality, you know, your management, like your management style and, you know, just things like that. And those are some questions you need to ask yourself prior to hiring a virtual assistant.

David:

[8:50] I would think that would be part of your obvious that you're going to want to let it go, but because that's why you're hiring somebody else. But have you found over the years that there are what we consider micromanagers as virtual assistant people?

Alyssa:

[9:05] Yes. So there are, I have had clients who want to micromanage and I find that it's very difficult for them to outsource because even if they outsource it, um, I've had two different types of micromanagers. So they outsource it, I do the job and then they do it. They, they take it back and they redo it, which is fine. Or, um, I have people who, um, they micromanage and maybe they, I have found that these types of people, the second type is they are just not ready for that whole experience and they tend to just get stuck because they want control and they realize they can't have control. So they just kind of clam up and nothing gets done because they are afraid. So those are very hard to work with either way. Um, but that's why I always ask people if they're willing, um, in the beginning to let go of the project, you know, and give it to somebody else because otherwise it is very difficult to work with them.

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