Today on Episode #49: Virtual Assistants for Entrepreneur Self-Care and Stress Relief w Renee Hastings , I speak with CEO of Executive Help NowRenee Hastings about the benefits of hiring a virtual assistant (VA) to help entrepreneurs manage their workload and achieve a better work-life balance.

In this episode we discuss:

-clever ways virtual assistants can help both entrepreneurs and employees in reducing costs and increasing productivity

-the biggest hurdle for business owners to start using virtual assistants and how they can overcome it

-non-revenue generating tasks that virtual assistants can handle for business owners

-why scaling a business becomes much easier with a virtual assistant

-the #1 major wellness benefit entrepreneurs get back because of virtual assistants

Renee Hastings is the President and CEO of Executive Help Now, a virtual administrative assistance service. She and her team of VAs provide administrative support and business consulting services to small business owners and busy executives. Renee started her entrepreneurial journey in 1996. Against all odds, she holds a Bachelor’s degree in Business Management, she's been a Dale Carnegie Leadership Training Coach, she has held a Certified Administrative Professional (CAP) designation by the International Association of Administrative Professionals, and has recently been seen on NBC's KCRA News 3 discussing the impact of the pandemic on business owners and virtual assistants. Renee is now a sought-after inspirational speaker, podcast host, successful entrepreneur, philanthropist, and a Small Group Bible Study Coach who leads women on their journey towards becoming the women of God they're called to be.

Renee's Website

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Renee on YouTube

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From a Full Cup is a mental wellness education podcast that teaches women to prioritize their wellness and put themselves first, because you can’t pour from an empty cup. 

I'm your host Natalie Mullin , Certified Wellness Educator, Speaker, Facilitator and Teacher. Every Thursday I release a new episode, teaching women how to dream big, take action and move the needle forward in life.

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[00:00:17] Renee: Well, hello, Natalie. Thank you so much for having me on the show. Uh, it's truly an honor and a privilege and I don't take it for granted.

[00:00:54] Renee: Um, but we basically provide virtual administrative support to small business owners and senior level executives. Um, and we also provide, uh, podcasters with video podcast support, uh, production support as well.

[00:01:22] Natalie: It's the same thing like zoom. You know, there were some people using zoom before, but the vast majority of the world just wasn't. And then COVID put them onto it. So. Definitely. I'm happy for your business. And I have heard so much about virtual assistants within the last couple of years. And I'm just excited to share this with the audience because I think it will help them in their own needs.

[00:02:02] Renee: Um, well, what got me started in the business?

[00:02:29] Renee: They met and they were sharecroppers and they ended up leaving the South and moving to the North with their family to work land. In the area where we lived, we were the only Black family and as the only Black family for miles and miles and miles, anyone who saw us Knew that we were of that, our family, because we were the only ones.

[00:03:36] Renee: So you must be excellent at everything. And, and, and it just kind of a second nature to not be slack, not. You know, be half hearted and the things that we are doing and that carried over into schooling that carried over into working and when I, my, my, I was the oldest of a single mom. So I have 2 younger brothers.

[00:04:30] Renee: And 12, the program placed me at the Madison Urban League and I got to help them create a library of all their books. So they had a room that was probably the size of my living room, and there was books, magazines from the floor to the ceiling everywhere, not categorized, not anything. By the end of the summer, all of those books were categorized, they were alphabetized, they did, you know, all the things that make it a library.

[00:05:27] Renee: And I was her assistant and I got to hand out the application forms on a clipboard to the people who came in looking for jobs, and then they would give it back to me and I would. Key their information into the computer, and I discovered then that the clickety clack sound of the keyboard was changing lives.

[00:06:15] Renee: And so from there, I just continued to focus on business classes. Uh, learning all I could about business, um, and I started a career as Uh, an administrative assistant or a receptionist and an administrative assistant and then an executive assistant and then an executive assistant to the C suite. And that's what I did and I became very, very good at it and my executives really valued our relationship because of how I was able to anticipate their needs before they even knew they had them because of all my years of experience.

[00:07:24] Renee: And they're like, Oh, you'd be so great at that. Count me in. I'll be your first customer. And so that's kind of how it all started from just young. And then just, it just kind of grew from there. And now I'm a business owner with, you know, a team of virtual assistants that work with me.

[00:07:49] Natalie: I think that as kids, sometimes there are things that deposit into us and it's, do we pay attention to it as we continue to get older, right? Because sometimes maybe that's supposed to be your purpose. Maybe that is your calling, even at that young age, even if you don't understand how it's all going to come together.

[00:08:24] Natalie: You're doing the delivery of the content or the product or the service. You're doing the marketing, you're doing the research, you're doing the accounting, you're, you're doing all of the things and that can be very exhausting. So how can virtual assistants effectively handle administrative responsibilities to allow solopreneurs to more focus on their core business strategies?

[00:08:50] Renee: Right, right. Exactly. And that's the thing. So if anyone has ever had an assistant at work, and there's a someone sitting outside their office or whatever, they basically tell them what to do that. It's something that they could do themselves, but because they get paid this amount of money, that's not the most valuable way that they should spend their time.

[00:09:43] Renee: All of those things that take focus and, um, your attention are the things that are going to eventually make the business money. And so anything else that's not that is what your virtual assistant can do virtually.

[00:10:05] Natalie: Because, you know, I'm a coach, so I'm not going to have a virtual assistant coach my clients because that's where my money is going to come from is my client. But I can definitely have, a virtual assistant send an email for me or do some research, some fine podcast guests, things like that, that are still important to the business.

[00:10:44] Natalie: Because they're bogged down with that. So that's exactly where, um. It makes sense that that's where a virtual assistant can support and, you know, mental clutter, it can really hinder our overall wellness. So can you provide examples of how virtual assistants can assist ambitious women professionals in decluttering their minds?

[00:11:10] Renee: My experience has been, um, email management as a business owner, or as a busy executive, most of us, even if it, even if we're not managers, some of just

[00:11:27] Renee: people get sometimes over a hundred emails a day.

[00:11:57] Renee: Working on your business plan or working on the strategy or working on a presentation to the board or, or whatever that looks like, or, you know, uh, you know, developing an outline or whatever your thinking process is that you could have been doing. You weren't doing it because you're too busy. Clicking through all these emails.

[00:12:40] Renee: And that's a lot more manageable. It's a lot more doable. It definitely helps you to stay, um, keep from being cluttered, cluttering up your mind with unnecessary things. And further to the email management is calendar management. Cause a lot of times those important emails that come in are saying, Hey, I want to meet with you.

[00:13:22] Renee: When you don't have to focus on those things, again, you're decluttered, you're freed up to do the things that are important and bringing in revenue. On top of that, uh, between email management, calendar management, those are the two most important things I think that, that clutter, uh, clutter us. But a virtual assistant can work on projects for you, like you said, do research, help you find guests for your shows, actually set up shows, follow up with your guests, uh, that sort of thing.

[00:14:04] Natalie: Yeah. And I just noticed more and more, I'm actually interacting with people's virtual assistants and they'll often say like, Oh, I'm so and so's a VA.

[00:14:34] Renee: Absolutely. So even if you are not an entrepreneur, you're not a solopreneur, you're not even a business owner. So you just work a nine to five. And your nine to five is not nine to five, maybe it's nine to nine because there's so much to be done. We can also support you for your company. And that's one of the benefits of working with a virtual assistant.

[00:15:26] Renee: And you may not even work a full eight hours a day. You might work, you know, six, you know, you know, chit chatting with this, that, and the other person down the hall and the kitchen at the bubble cooler, whatever for the same work. You can actually get more done as a virtual assistant because and, uh, when you hire a virtual assistant, because that virtual assistant is working from home, you're not paying for her coffee or their coffee.

[00:16:16] Natalie: That does make sense. I never realized that companies that I'm thinking like offices and stuff would need virtual assistants. I always thought of virtual assistants as to support mostly service providers, actually. So this is just showing that there's different ways to use a virtual assistant.

[00:16:53] Natalie: Like this is you're protective of it. You don't want to just give over the reins. So it can be very challenging to delegate and to trust somebody else with your business. So how can women professionals overcome the mindset barriers and trust virtual assistants to handle critical aspects of their business?

[00:18:10] Renee: From the beginning so that you won't have to have those conversations later because you had them in the beginning. And then as you start developing trust based on your experience with them and what they've been able to deliver. Then you add on a couple more things. So maybe they start out doing email management or maybe they start out doing calendar management and then you add on to that maybe.

[00:18:55] Renee: Now you have this time, you have this clear head, you have this feeling of relaxation and, and capacity. To think thoughts that you hadn't been able to think before because you were so busy putting out fires, because you were just one person trying to do it all yourself when you're not busy putting out fires and and have now partnered with someone who is for you, then now you have this.

[00:19:49] Renee: And when you bring out a virtual assistant, You're then able to do those things again.

[00:20:13] Natalie: but if you can bring someone in. To support you and say, I'm not going to let this go. I'm just going to pass this off. I'm going to pass this off to you. You can handle some of this for me so that I can come back to myself. I can feel more grounded. I don't need to feel overwhelmed. I can feel more balanced in my life so I can lead in business, but also so I can lead in my personal life because the idea is always for balance, right?

[00:20:52] Natalie: Overwhelm is like a It's almost like a, a weighted blanket that's on top of you and, or a weighted vest, I would say, and it's hard to move when you have a weighted vest on. And so you want to pursue your dreams and to pursue things takes momentum, but how can you build that momentum when you're bogged down?

[00:21:20] Renee: And I love your illustration of the weighted vest, because the weighted vests I've seen have had pockets with like one out, one pound weights in them and you're just getting started and you're, you know, a little hesitant, take out one of the one pound weights and hand them to your virtual assistant.

[00:21:47] Natalie: And I love that too. And it's, and it's all a process because I think, you know, someone might say, okay, I hired a virtual assistant, but what do I do next?

[00:22:10] Renee: Um, I think that is the most important and then recognize too that even though on the front end, it might seem like, Oh, you get so frustrated.

[00:22:44] Renee: to train to go step to build a step by step checklist when you're doing this particular activity, do this first and then do this and then do this and then do this. And that is going to be the guide that your assistant uses every single time they have to do that. And then because you guys are getting to know each other throughout this whole process.

[00:23:20] Renee: So it's important that you have a good fit and find the right person to work with you. And if, but if all you want is a doer, be sure to get that kind of VA. Do you know what I mean?

[00:23:40] Natalie: understand your client's need and say, what kind of VA are you looking for? Right. Because some, sometimes people, they still want to be very close to the products. Like some people are not willing to just fully delegate. They, they still want to have a lot of content and other people are like, I'm just giving the product, the project.

[00:24:17] Natalie: Because at the end of the day, Um, what you said is this person is coming on as a partner. So they have a vested interest in your success. So it's in your best interest to be honest and say, how can I train you the best? Right. Because this is now a person, this is your team. This is the first step in building a team.

[00:24:59] Natalie: So it's just different ways of thinking about how can we strategize our team, and I think also the benefits of, you know, VAs being able to be from anywhere, and again, working remotely, um, and so, Very adept to technology already, as opposed to having to maybe train people who are not necessarily, it depends, but that can be another benefit as well.

[00:25:37] Renee: Yes, absolutely. So as I mentioned before there, once you develop this partnership with your virtual assistant and the two of you are meeting regularly, whether you know, it's once a month or once once a week or once a day, whatever that looks like to begin with.

[00:26:29] Renee: And because of the support that we provide him, he's been able to bring on new clients that he otherwise wouldn't have been able to bring on had we not lightened his load for him. And then we have other clients who have said, you know, I, he was the one who said that I used to put out so many fires. I was always in putting out fire mode that I could not think about the future.

[00:27:20] Renee: And then we have other clients who we might do a newsletter for them and help them with their articles or writing things for them and are doing blogs and, um, and they're sending it out to their constituents. And their constituents get back to them and say, wow, that looks really great. Wow. Who did your newsletter?

[00:27:55] Natalie: This has been a really good conversation.

[00:28:18] Natalie: And sometimes it can be a lot and they might feel like they're alone. But it's not true. So let me ask you, have you ever experienced a challenge in business or even in your personal life that has affected your wellbeing? And if so, can you share one strategy that has helped you?

[00:28:50] Renee: And so I had two full time things that I was doing. So from, you know, eight to five, I would work my, my day job. I'm also a wife. And a mother. And so I come home, do dinner, the whole thing, and then do the business from like eight at night to maybe one or two in the morning, and then have to get up again.

[00:29:43] Renee: I was like, yeah, I know, but there's so much to do. And, um, and, and so I'm a praying woman. And so I prayed and I was like, Lord, I know that you are blessed in this business and I'm so grateful to be used by you. I said, but I need more sleep.

[00:30:04] Renee: To help lighten my load so that I can be my absolute best in all the things that I'm purposed to do.

[00:30:39] Renee: Like we took time away, away. I said that in air quotes and I couldn't stop. I couldn't wind down. I, my mind was constantly racing, racing. I could not relax. And I was saying to my friends, I'm like, what is this nonsense? Whoever thought. That it would not be possible to relax. I mean, I'm here on an island on a beach.

[00:31:45] Natalie: That's amazing. And I'm glad you shared it because I'm sure that there are other people who can identify with that, even just that specific story of being on vacation and not being able to relax. Like your mind is always on. And then you question like, well, why did I get into business?

[00:32:18] Natalie: Like, our bodies need rest. Rest is one of the 12 elements of wellness. And... If we keep kind of pushing past and there might be a one off that sometimes you do have to do a late night, but if you consistently do it, your physical and mental health is affected. Then your emotional health affected. And then what happens to, there's always ripple effects.

[00:32:58] Natalie: And I'm even this morning, I was like, no, we're making some changes because no, I can't go like this. But I've noticed that it'll take me longer to do something because I'm operating out of tiredness. Right. Or I'll make mistakes. So I think recognizing that within yourself and saying, what can I do?

[00:33:28] Natalie: So I, I love that. And, um, you know, Renee, before we go, I just want you to tell the listeners, how can they find you and learn more about what you offer?

[00:33:51] Renee: org. I also have a personal website that. Shares all of my different socials for Renee speaks because I do speaking engagements as well to talk about this, these exact things and wellness and productivity and the art of delegating, you know, those sorts of things. So I have a podcast that I host every Friday called Renee speaks.

[00:34:44] Renee: So, uh, Renee Hastings 24 7. com is that website and that's, um, R E N E E H A S T I N G S 247. com. Um, and that will point you in all the directions of the socials, um, that we have available.

[00:35:11] Natalie: Sometimes you just want to ask them questions and I'm sure Renee and her team are on standby and willing to assist you. So Renee, thank you again so much for coming on the show and until next time, everyone continue to serve yourself, your loved ones and your communities from the full cup.