In this episode of The Smart ADHD Podcast, we'll uncover the secrets of leveraging Virtual Assistants (VAs) to optimise your ADHD business. Join me, Ian Anderson Gray, as I chat with Sarah Rugg, the founder of Vi-VA, about essential tips for delegation, communication, and finding the perfect VA to supercharge your productivity.

Sarah brings a wealth of experience to the table. Having set up her VA business in 2005, she now leads a team of over 30 VAs, many of whom are ADHD trained. Together, we'll explore how her unique approach can help neurodiverse entrepreneurs thrive.

🎙️ In this episode:

00:00 Introduction to Effective VA Management

00:29 Welcome to the Smart ADHD Podcast

00:35 Guest Introduction: Sarah Rugg and Vi-VA

02:28 Challenges and Tips for Delegating Tasks

03:31 Effective Communication with Your VA

10:46 Handling Sensitive Information and Security

17:39 Finding the Perfect VA

23:33 Importance of ADHD Training for VAs

25:13 Conclusion and Contact Information

🕺More about Sarah Rugg

Sarah set up Vi-VA, her own VA business, in 2005. Her focus on providing the very best virtual support meant her business grew and she now heads up a team of over 30 VAs. Leading the way with supporting neurodiverse clients, many of the Vi-VA team are ADHD trained VAs.

Connect with Sarah:

Website: https://vi-va.co.uk/

What's your biggest challenge in navigating ADHD as a smart creative? Share your thoughts in the comments section below, and don't forget to subscribe and leave a review!

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🎤 About the Smart ADHD Podcast

The Smart ADHD Podcast is for smart creatives, entrepreneurs, and business owners who are navigating life with ADHD. We celebrate unique brilliance, whether we're intelligent, exceptionally talented, or both. Ian Anderson Gray interviews experts to uncover the real story of ADHD for smart creatives, busting myths and discovering effective strategies to improve our lives, unleash our creativity, and grow.

🔗 Find out more at https://smartadhd.me/15

—----------------------------

🕺More about Ian Anderson Gray

Ian is the host of the Smart ADHD Podcast and a live-streaming video coach and consultant. He helps business owners and entrepreneurs broadcast live confidently, communicate better, and set up the right gear and tools. Ian runs Seriously Social, a business aimed at helping others be more productive and level up their impact online. He's also a professional singer, web developer, and an international speaker. Ian lives near Manchester in the UK with his family.

—----------------------------

🤗 Connect with Ian

Website: https://iag.me/

X/Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/iagdotme

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/ianandersongray

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ianandersongray/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iagdotme

Threads: https://threads.net/@ianandersongray

see it as a six monthly thing or a three monthly thing see it as a long term

and

get on a zoom with them talk them through your inbox

share with them all your isms as well, tell them what your pet hates are,

tell them I really like things done this way and this is one area that I

just can't compromise on or whatever it is, tell them so that they know

If you have a VA with complete job satisfaction, who's very fulfilled,

you'll get so much more out of them.

will pay dividends if treat them well

Welcome back to the smart ADHD podcast.

This is episode two of the smart ADHD guide to virtual assistance.

And I'm really glad that my friend Sarah rug came back to help us delve deeper

into the world of VAs and how that can help us as ADHD business owners.

She set up Viva her own VA business in 2005.

And her focus on providing the very best virtual support meant her business grew.

And she now heads up a team of over 30 VAs leading the way with

supporting neurodiverse clients.

Many of the Viva team are ADHD trained VAs.

Let's get on with the show right now.

Hello, I'm Ian Anderson Gray, and this is the smart ADHD podcast.

Now if you're a smart, creative entrepreneur or business owner

navigating your life with ADHD, This is the podcast for you.

Now, I'm no ADHD expert, but I'm eager to share my story on what I've learned

by talking with experts, as well as digging into the personal ADHD stories of

successful creatives and entrepreneurs.

I was diagnosed at age 46, and it answered so many questions in my life.

But of course, that was in many ways, only the start of my journey.

So let's learn together.

Smart stories, smart strategies, smart ADHD.

Welcome back, Sarah.

It's great to have you back talking about the wonderful world of VAs.

How are you doing?

I'm good, and it's great to be back.

Thank you.

I'm actually recording this on the same day.

So it seems a bit weird.

But to listen to the viewers, you have gone away and you come back.

This is a new episode.

I found it fascinating and really exciting talking about how we can,

how VAs can really help those of us with ADHD, but just entrepreneurs,

business owners, not just not business, Life, but in our personal lives too.

So many things to think about, but I think one of the things that

I found really difficult and you alluded to this last episode, and

I know that you didn't say that all your customers are control freaks.

That's not what you said, but a lot of them say that about themselves.

And I definitely say that about myself.

I'm a recovering control freak.

That's what I am.

I'm a recovering perfectionist and I found it really hard to begin with letting go.

My first VA was amazing at that.

She was just very helpful at slowly just think maybe Ian, you could do this.

And then I would freak out and then slowly.

Whereas now I'm, I let my VA do pretty much everything.

Access to my Gmail, to my calendar, all those kinds of things.

So letting go and delegating can be really hard for those of us,

particularly those of us with ADHD.

So what are your thoughts and tips on how to move forwards with this, how to

dip our toe and even a year down the line, how do we get better at this?

Something that really resonated with me that a mutual friend of

ours, Noel Guildford said to me recently, and I was Thinking I, I'm

very busy at the moment and I need probably a bit more of a balance.

It's crept up on me and I'm looking to get somebody else to start doing

our discovery calls alongside me and potentially then to take over.

And I said to him, put, no one's going to have the same, be bothered as much as me.

No one's going to do it in quite the same way.

They might not know what to say though.

And he said, he turned around to me and he said, yep, you're right.

And I was like, He says absolutely 100%, no one's going to do it.

Like you do and they probably won't get the same results But if you want to grow

your business and if you want to take it to the next level You're going to have

to just accept that and that to me was like, oh, yeah It's obvious, but I hadn't

even thought about it like that So that was quite I just want to share that in

case that resonates with somebody else and helps but in terms of you know from

a va point of view Delegating I think invest as much time as you can up front.

You know think of it that you're going to be using this VA for

Three years plus and have that

mindset when you're showing them what to do so don't see it as a six monthly

thing or a three monthly thing see it as a long term and just get on a zoom

with them or a team's or whatever you use, talk them through your inbox.

Tell them what's not working.

Hopefully if they're a good VA, they should be asking

you all these things as well

but tell them, give them as much information as you possibly can.

So that's my first tip.

The second tip is share with them all your isms as well, tell them what your pet

hates are, tell them I really like things done this way and this is one area that

I just can't compromise on or whatever it is, tell them so that they know again, if

they're open minded and a good VA, they'll be used to this and they won't judge and

they'll, they'll try and work with it.

and they'll respect that.

And I think the third tip is Share your goals, your vision, your dream,

whatever, wherever you see your business going, share it with them.

Because they're on this journey with you, and a lot of VAs

love being a VA because they might have worked in the corporate world previously,

and there was so much red tape to get the slightest thing done, they never really

saw a massive difference, or felt like they were making a massive difference,

or were able to change anything.

Compare that with working with an entrepreneur is just so liberating.

They love it and they feel part of it and they like to grow, but with you.

So they often see your business as their business.

So share that with them because then they can help you achieve

what you want to achieve.

They'll understand what your ultimate goal is.

And I think that's quite important.

Love that just there, just, I love the fact that I think that is

so true that they are often very invested in your business and I

like to be invested in them as well.

I think it's a two way thing.

I want my virtual assistants to feel happy and, you know, what's the word

affirmed I suppose in what they're doing.

I think that's really, would you say that's important?

To that, that it is a two way thing.

yeah, definitely.

It's.

If you have a VA with complete job satisfaction, who's very fulfilled,

you'll get so much more out of them.

Definitely, I think, it will pay dividends if treat them well and spend time telling

them about all these things that I've gone through and yeah, just, just ask

the odd question, how was your weekend?

It makes the world of difference to them.

And yeah, if you have a happy VA they're going to

be with you longer, I think.

It's just the right thing to do, I think.

So, okay.

So we've talked about a lot of the positives there are going

to be problems along the way.

What are the potential pitfalls in working with a VA?

And I suppose I'd ask that question again, but also through the lens of

ADHD, particularly for those with ADHD, because an ADHD is very broad.

It's a spectrum.

There is many different types of ADHD as there are people, but just

interested in your thoughts there.

sure.

I think what we see as the biggest pitfall with our clients who have ADHD

is that when they go off grid, we're learning more and more now, but in the

early days, we didn't know Like how often to contact them and how and when

to stop and it was that we now ask every client if you go You know, if you don't

respond to us, what do you want us to do?

And some of them will say right?

Okay, you need to first text me if I don't respond then whatsapp me if I don't

respond then email me And if not, then ring me and if I don't respond bring me

a second time, And others will just say, just leave me for 24 hours, 48 hours.

I'm probably just having a day where I want to be left alone.

And so I think, it's just again, communicating to your

VA, what you want to happen.

When you become in, whatever it is, whatever reason you're not responding,

it's, normally, overwhelmed or

don't know where to start.

And the second part of that, most importantly, So, your VA can help you is.

Don't be frightened to say to your VA, I just don't know where to start with

this or I don't know what to do today.

I just, I, can you help me please?

And, VAs are brilliant at, taking control and going okay, let's,

and they'll, let's break this down

into bite sized chunks, let's do a little step one, don't worry, I'll,

I can take this, you do that let's catch up tomorrow and, accountability

and all of that don't be frightened to just Ask your VA for their help.

I don't know what to do.

Don't know where to start.

Can you help me?

It's, they will be happy to do that and they'll suggest the best

place to start in their opinion.

It might not always be what you write or what you want to do but quite often

it is and, and it just moves things forward that little bit and makes

everything so much less overwhelming.

That's a great reminder because I've seen that in my own life that it's

up and down, and this is, it doesn't matter whether you have ADHD or not.

Our lives are up and down, but often it's, it is overwhelming.

You mentioned that word that sometimes.

I found that I just, do you know what?

I just need a day off.

I just need to decompress and I've found that I don't often communicate

that, so I forget to communicate that.

And so it's a good reminder.

Just communication is key with your va.

So like to have a system where your VA might message you and then if I don't

see that or I've switched everything off like, how's she gonna know what to do?

So there's, there needs to be a system.

And it might be.

Maybe it's just to wait 24 hours, as you say, but I think that

is, that's really important.

It's not something I've given much thought to actually, so

something I need to think about.

And then there's, I think the other thing is to, for your VA, just

to understand a little bit more about the way your brain works.

So again, for me, I would tend to heap a lot of guilt on myself because

I feel that I'm not doing enough.

Even though I am, but I tend to do that.

So it's again, having a VA that will understand that I wanted to

ask you a little also about, so this is in the whole idea of letting go.

And I think for me, there's the thing that I concern me a lot was

the idea of sharing passwords.

And sensitive information to begin with.

Now I've got a good system, so I know how to do that and I feel okay about it.

But at the start, I remember thinking I'm giving them access to everything here.

Like this, they could do some real harm or not that I wasn't trusting

them, but it's just in my head.

I was thinking about all the things that could go wrong.

So how do you deal with all those kinds of things?

Yeah, sure.

As Viva, we don't want access to anything too sensitive.

We don't, a couple of clients have said, Can I give you access to my bank account?

We're like, No,

sorry, I don't, Yeah.

And in terms of passwords I would suggest always use a password manager.

We use LastPass, some people use Dashlane, there's others out there.

I'm sure, your tech you'll know all of those.

A few of our clients have said, no, I'm not using LastPass because I think

there was a data leak at one point, but as, An IT person I know pointed out

they're going to be the most secure of all of them following that data leak So

whichever one it is, they're all free for the basic version, which is all

you need It's just share your passwords through those for your VA And then what

it means is that A your VA never sees your password as long as you tick or

untick the box that says that And B most importantly you can revoke it at any time.

So if

it's not working and the relationship went You I don't know, bad, it doesn't happen

very often, but let's say worst case

scenario, then you can just immediately on your LastPass account, you can

just remove the access, and they never knew your password in the first place.

That's one, one tip.

Also, if you're getting them to, your VA to purchase anything on your behalf,

I wouldn't ever give them your credit card details, ideally because you're

liable at the end of the day for that I would give them a prepaid card.

And then you can obviously only put as much on it as you need them to spend.

Ah, that's a good idea.

Hmm.

yeah, And check that they're ICO registered.

They need to be following GDPR.

And A good VA will or a proper decent professional VA will do anything

sensitive through either WhatsApp, cause it's end to end encrypted.

I know we, we ask for things like passports through WhatsApp.

We would never do them on email or your password protect stuff

that's being sent by email.

So just basic GDPR rules.

And again, most VA's should have cyber.

insurance and or and preferably, can't think of what it's called, the software

you put on your computer to stop

virus, antivirus.

Oh, antivirus.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

No, that's really.

do all that.

Yeah, absolutely.

I don't think you need, obviously you need to check that your VA.

Does all those things using a password manager probably doesn't matter, which one

last past one password dash lane, whatever it's called any of those is really good.

So the other thing I think for those of us with ADHD that

can sometimes be an issue is.

We've got all these thoughts, running around in our head, spinning around, and

it sometimes can be difficult to explain our processes and what's on our minds.

Getting it out there can be hard.

One thing I've found when I want to my VA two to do a task, I've

found just recording a video of me doing it, sending it over to them.

They can then actually convert that into a process that they can

rely on later or another VA in the future could use that as well.

But, how can VAs maybe help download the information that's in our heads?

Do you see what I mean?

There's

this issue sometimes with that communication side of things.

Yeah.

You're a model client.

If all of our clients could do a video and say, this is how it needs to be done.

That's like the absolute perfect, that would be, that's amazing or show us.

The other thing is show us on a, or record a loom video or something like that.

So that's amazing.

Other than that, I think it's just making sure that if you are doing a bit of a

kind of brain dump, it's just trying to do it a little bit maybe slowly

and just bear in mind that the VA is probably catching up and they'll be

making copious notes and they'll need to put them in some sort of order and it's

just being aware, just being a little bit patient with your VA and they'll probably

ask questions as well just to clarify that they have understood correctly.

So yeah, it's

just maybe going a bit slowly and or asking them to clarify back to you

perhaps what their understanding is.

You can do it in various different formats, so you could

do it on an email, a phone call.

A recorder, like an audio recording, a voice memo or however you want voice

memos are probably quite good for a VA because they can rewind them and play

them back and, get their head properly around, around everything and order it.

But sometimes a lot of our clients just want, um, they call it sometimes like a

brainstorm, but they just like to have say a zoom or a call just so they can yeah.

Put it in some kind of order in their own brain.

So often we'll just, they will do that brain dump and we'll talk it

through and we'll put it into tasks.

And those tasks end up on, let's say, Trello or whatever as a result of it.

But it's just that extra person to You know, bounce it off and dump

it on and then make sense of it.

Does help some of our clients quite well.

Yeah, definitely.

And I think for those of us who are verbal processors, and this is one

of the thing with, with ADHD, quite often it's our prefrontal cortex,

which kind of stores all that short term information is it's I liken it

to it's like an Etch A Sketch it, the information's not going to last very long.

So I find that verbal actually speaking out is really helpful and often it

will come out as not quite gibberish, a little bit, a little nonsensical.

And so if your VA can really help with that what I find this being a techie,

I find there's a little tool that I will use in between those things.

So before I go to my VA, I actually use ChatGPT for this now.

And there's the voice app on your phone.

So you can actually talk to, to ChatGPT.

And so I did this, I was dropping my daughter off in Manchester for

a rehearsal and on the way back, I just had a conversation with ChatGPT.

I said, look, I've got all these things on my mind.

They're all jumbled up.

Can you help make sense of it?

And it did.

And at the end of it, I got like a checklist.

And then I could then take that to my VA and it made a little bit more sense.

So that's maybe another tip that you could use.

It does certainly doesn't It doesn't replace your VA at all, but it helps

order your thoughts a little bit more.

So I don't know if you played around with that, Sarah.

Yeah, I play around with chat GPT quite a bit, but I've

never even thought to do that.

That's a brilliant tip actually.

I shall I shall share that with our clients and potential

clients going forward.

Thank you.

Yeah, no, it is really good.

So just a few final questions.

and this is a difficult one because it is, how do you find the perfect VA?

I mean, The perfect VA probably doesn't exist, but here.

How do we go about finding the VA that's going to be perfect for us?

It's

there's a perfect VA for everyone and what's yours might not be mine.

So I think you just have to check them out online.

Get a feel for them from the website.

From, the language they're using, the things they're saying.

Do you resonate with them?

I think when you speak to them, and I would speak to a few or

a few companies, I would get a feel for their attitude as well.

I'm not saying that it's black and white, but you do get the VAs who are or

why should I be learning new software?

I'm going to be paid if I'm going to learn Trello, you need to pay me for that.

And then you've got the ones that are going, Oh, I've always wanted to use

Trello, it's another string to my bow.

That's brilliant.

So you've got that sort of, the, you've got the.

different attitudes.

You want someone with a really good attitude because you want some, you don't

want a VA saying, no, that can't be done.

You, you got to, and I say to my team all the time, never ever say no to a client.

Unless it's really unreasonable because

that they don't want to hear no.

So you want someone with a really good attitude, like a can do attitude

and go with a gut feel as well.

So I think, when you speak to people.

Pull.

There's some things you can't ever put into words.

It's just a gut feel.

Go with it.

Along, I always say go with your gut feel in any situation.

And this one is no it's no exception.

I think as well, just, there are, there's a couple of things which, People might not

even think of, but there are VA companies

out there who don't offer a very personalized service.

For example, I know there's one VA company out there where, you

know, if you were their client and said, Can you book me a train?

It would get thrown into this like pool and there's these, people working

from home and it's like, first come first serve, so, it's like first

fingers on the buzzer type thing.

So you don't have a dedicated VA.

Make sure that you do, you would be given a dedicated VA, that's so important.

And also just check that they are going to flex to you.

Again, some

VAs, some VA companies have their own software and they

insist that you have to use it.

Nobody wants to have to learn, they're busy enough have to learn new software and

have to change all their systems to that.

So just make sure that they're not going to make you use your

their way of doing things.

Make sure that they work around you rather than the other way around.

And finally, I think, if you do have ADHD, I would really recommend that you

go to a VA who's got ADHD experience because otherwise, the amount of clients

that come to us saying It's not worked out with my previous VA and when you

ask a few questions about that it turns out really that that person has never

dealt with anyone with ADHD before.

They've not had any training.

They don't they don't really understand it.

So I think it's important that, you're understood.

I think that's absolutely vital.

And I'll come back to you on that.

Cause I want to ask you a few more questions on that, but

so which is your company.

It's a company where you offer wide selection of VAs.

And the advantage with that is that.

You've got lots of VAs that will specialize in different things.

So you could go from more of a general VA, but if you want some help with maybe

more social media or bookkeeping, then you could potentially have more than one VA.

You could have two VAs or, you've got that flexibility.

And presumably if your VA goes away on holiday or vacation, you have

backup VAs that can take over the job.

And there's that side of things, whereas you could go and work with just higher

Privately and that's just one va.

And then of course there's the other question which is

where is your VA located?

So I'm assuming in your case all your VAs are based in the UK

and your clients are in the uk.

There are some US based ones who are just U US and then there's

also ones that are worldwide.

Particularly there's a quite a.

A big VA industry in the Philippines as well.

And they all have different, there was obviously lots of different

prices and all that kind of thing.

So you can start when you go down this rabbit hole, you can begin

to think, Oh my goodness, there's so many things to think about.

Could you maybe just briefly touch on that?

What are the pros and cons with the different ways of doing this?

I know you've touched on it a little bit, but for people, for me, having

somebody who was based in the UK, and I've also got a us based one as well.

It's been perfect for me.

Because I've, I think the time zone thing as well, but there's lots of other things.

But what

sure.

There's all sorts of issues with using, VAs overseas but there's also loads

of benefits, like you said, as well.

So what we tend to do at Viva is if somebody's using multiple VAs

maybe overseas, We're asked to coordinate it so they don't have to.

So we might be coordinating a tech VA in India who does like web stuff with,

somebody in the Philippines who does copy with somebody else that does SEO.

And so we, we'll, often coordinate that and make sure that everything

is pulled together in one place.

So I think, there's, I think it's, there's some brilliant skills out there.

It's just, I think it's harder to find somebody unless

they're recommended overseas.

Cause

I've tried than it is in the UK.

There are I don't know if you've reminded you American or you won't have seen this,

but sometimes there's different cultural differences, which, can mean there's

misunderstandings and so there can be issues, but I think, if you can get.

Like your main VA to coordinate the expert VAs who you pull in who were,

either recommended or you're very happy with because you found someone good.

I think it works really well.

Yeah, definitely.

And I think if you can meet them in person, that's not

always the best thing to do.

If they were overseas, but my us based one, Tonia, we,

we actually knew each other.

We met each other beforehand, so that was perfect.

So yeah, you just, yeah, it's a lot to think about.

So you touched on this, having a VA that understands.

Your neurodiversity or ADHD.

And this is something I know you've thought about a lot in your business.

We've talked about it quite a bit.

So how about, how important do you think that your VA should be trained in ADHD?

Or they've, they at least understand all of that.

I was going to ask, do they exist?

But of course I've already said that they do exist because this is

something that you've talked about about VAs who understand this.

Yeah.

What are your thoughts on this?

Yeah, we train all of our new VAs now.

They go through ADHD training.

Because to me, it's really important if somebody, if your VA is not trained, I

think if they've got direct experience of dealing with somebody who has ADHD,

whether that's a family member or whatever, I think that's, not necessarily

the same, but maybe the next best thing.

But I think, there's, I think somebody going into it with absolutely no

experience of anyone with ADHD and no training, I just think

I've seen it not work so much, which is why a lot of clients come

to us because it's not working.

I'm sure it can work in some situations, but I think it's really important that

there's at least the experience as a minimum, but preferably the training.

We have our training with Max Lawrence and he has So his training

is very specifically for virtual assistants who are going to be

supporting clients with ADHD.

So it's very specific and it's very useful for us and for my team.

I've been on it, it's great.

yeah, no, that's great.

I, in fact I actually haven't spoken to Max Lawrence.

I found him on the interwebs, but see, I'll see.

I'll have to see if he can come on the show.

Cause that'd be really interesting

to talk about this.

Well,

I'm sure he'd love to.

Yeah, definitely.

we've run out of time.

Thank you so much.

So I really appreciate your time.

We, I feel we've only scratched the surface.

There's probably so many more things that we could talk about, but I hope that's

really for you watching and listening.

I hope that you've learned loads there.

If you have any questions, do reach out to me.

My email is Ian at smartadhd.

me and we'll cross the interwebs and the socials and of course

do do get in touch with Sarah.

How, what's the, where's the best place for people to get

in touch with you, Sarah?

They can email me directly if they like.

So it's sarah, with an h, at vi va.

co.

uk Or if you want to know more, probably our website is the best place to go.

So it's vi va.

co.

uk

That's cool.

Are you on the socials at all?

Do you tend to hang out somewhere?

Yes, I am on social media.

I'm sorry, I should have been prepared enough to

know all of you.

But I am,

we are on,

It'll be in the show.

It'll be on the show notes.

I'm not asking you to come out with them all because that's,

there's so many different things.

do check out the show notes there.

Just go to smartadhd.

me.

All the information will be there.

Thanks so much, Sarah.

It's been great to have you back on.

it was a pleasure.

Thank you, Ian.

Awesome.

Thank you so much for plugging us into your ears or watching us on the YouTube.

But until next time, I encourage you to be smart with your ADHD.

Toodaloo.