How Hiring a VA Can Actually Make You Money!

In this week’s episode I want to talk to you about outsourcing and bringing on a virtual assistant. I’m going to tell you all the benefits of bringing on a virtual assistant, and how it will actually make you more money.KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCASTIf you are doing a task in your business more than twice, you shouldn’t be doing it.Every time you are doing a task that you don’t have to do in your business, you are paying your hourly rate.If a task is not your zone of genius or it is a process, you don’t have to do it!You do not have to do everything in your business.In the UK, you can expect to pay anything from £25-£40 per hour for a VA depending on experience. In the Philippines, you can expect to pay between $5-$15 per hour.You don’t have to have a full time VA, they can do as many hours as you need.VAs can get things done so much quicker than you can.Different people can do different things, no one can do absolutely everything.You have to make sure you are managing your team and giving them enough work to do.THE ONE THING YOU NEED TO REMEMBER ABOVE ALL ELSE…You do not have to do EVERYTHING in your business, you can outsource it. Whilst they are doing those tasks, you can focus on the things that only you can do.HIGHLIGHTS YOU SIMPLY CAN'T MISSWhat is a virtual assistant? 05:00You do not have to do everything! 05:35My VA experience 12:00Hiring a Filipino VA 13:42The cost of hiring a VA 19:20Working with a VA 23:56LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAYS EPISODEBen Bellamy Katie Podcast EpisodePhilippines Online JobsSlackLoomTranscript below Hi and welcome to this week's episode of the podcast. How are you doing? So I just want you to pitch it for a second. I'm sat in my office, windows open. I've got a fan that blaring at my feet. I'm hoping you can't hear that too much. And I'm slowly melting. Now I am really not one to complain about the weather, but I just really struggle when it's humid. I love the heat. I don't like sitting in my office melting and slowly my makeup falling off my face because it's so warm. So that's where I am today. Recording this podcast episode. And I'm recording it late again. The team are so very kind and gracious to me because obviously these last few weeks have been somewhat crazy and hectic, and I am still only just getting back into the swing of things. But the other thing that's happened is obviously when mum was poorly and died and obviously I'm seeing my dad an awful lot, make sure he's okay. I was basically putting everything on hold. So there was calls. I should have done interviews. I should have done me being interviewed and all these various things. And now of course, I've pushed them all back and they're all in my diary at once. So my days, are crazy busy as well as I've literally just come back from seeing my dad just to make sure he's all good. So it has been a little bit of a busy few weeks, but I'm hoping now to get ahead, which would be good. However, during this crazy time, something kind of cool has finished. A project has finished for us here. And that is my new website. Now I am a huge advocate of you still having a website it's still really, really important. And next week, we've got an interview where we talk about websites and we talk about some of the things that you want to do to ensure, to convert people when they're on your site. But I'm a huge advocate for it. And I've always had someone do my website for me, because as you will know, I am not that techie. So a website is definitely not something I would do for fun. So I've been working with the very lovely Ben Bellamy and he has created me a beautiful site, which I love, and I've done lots of different things to this site. So for instance, my speaker page goes into loads of detail of my, about page is my story now. Um, so if you didn't know my story, then you'll get to hear that. And there's lots of, kind of, um. There's lots of like little features and things that I didn't have before. So I'm really pleased with it. I love it. Please do go check it out. I'd love to hear what you think. So that would be fab. Okay. So that's pretty cool. We got that done. Cause it didn't feel like I was going to get that done that while everything else was going on. And actually this is kind of like a good, a good time to talk about today's topic. Because as I said, I got someone else to do my site. Because I do not have the skills and yes, I could learn them because we're in a world where we have Google and it can teach us anything. However, I don't have the time or the inclination to do either of those things. So it made perfect sense for me to outsource that. To pay someone who does know what they're talking about. Do know what they're doing and get them to do the work that I would take forever to do, and it probably would have been dreadful. And that's what I want to talk to you about today. I want to talk to you about outsourcing and in particular, talk to you about bringing on a virtual assistants. And I'm going to be real teachery today, and I'm going to like go a really firm hardline with you because I see obviously businesses all the time. I speak to entrepreneurs all the time and I see that basically. They are nervous or they have a load of reasons why they can't bring on a virtual assistant. Mostly down to "I can't afford it". But today I want to talk to you about how not only bringing on a virtual assitant will be amazing, but also how it will actually help you make more money. So this episode is very, very much in praise to my amazing assistants that work with me and almost like an odd to them. And both of them have dealings with the podcast. So both of them will listen to this. And I want them to know that they are a massive, massive support in my world. And my business would not be the business is today without having my systems that I've had. So let's get started with this. So let's just talk about what a virtual assistant is just in case you didn't know. So virtual assistant is basically someone that works with you in your business from a virtual place, obviously. So they don't have to be in the same room in the same town or even the same country. And they work alongside you to do specific tasks and things. Now. There is a saying out there that basically says, I think James Wedmore originally said it to me that "If you are doing something in your business, more than twice the same task, you shouldn't be doing it". And I want you just to, I'm jumping around here a bit, but actually it's something just coming to my head. I want you to think about what's your hourly rates. Okay. So I don't know whether you've given that any thoughts since you have your own business and no one is actually paying you by the hour. And if they are paying you by the hour, it's when you're specifically doing something for that person. And therefore you might not be getting a full time salary being paid by the hour. But I want you to think about what you actually charging at your time outs. And then I want you to think what if you had to pay that every time you sat and did a task that you didn't need to do? What if I had to pay someone my rate, every time I wanted to mess around in Canva for a few hours now I do love messing around in Canva. So the thing is, I don't even give that to anybody. I like to do it, but I do it in an evening while I'm half watching the telly and having a glass of wine. And therefore, I don't feel too guilty about that. But, I want you to think of it that way. I want you to think about every time you are doing a task that you do not have to do in your business. What if you had to pay yourself your hourly rate and I mean, your good hourly rate. I don't mean the hourly rate that you like, "Well, you know, and probably there's", I mean, this is what I should be charging hourly rate. So that's the first thing I want you to think about. Like I said, if you have to pay it for it, that would be a lot of money for you to mess around on Canva, if that's your thing. Okay. The next thing I want you to think about is when you went into business, you went into business because you, you are really good at a particular thing. The thing that you sell, the thing, that's your service. You are really good at that thing. And that's why you went into business. So I went into business for myself because I kick butt up marketing. Okay. And I'm feeling really empowered cause I've just finished reading the Year of Yes by Shonda Rhimes. And basically we need to like be our own biggest cheerleader. So I am going to be blazing and say, I am amazing at marketing. I've spent my entire career. Doing marketing, talking about marketing, helping businesses with marketing, making huge mistakes in marketing. So I am really good at what I do. I know I am. So I get into this business and I think brilliant. How hard can this be? I'm an expert in marketing and that's then my business. I'm going to help people with marketing. Yeah. But that doesn't mean I can run a business that doesn't mean I need to do admin. That doesn't mean I need to do finance hate finance. It doesn't mean I know how to do all those other bits of