Dave Braun
Hey welcome folks to the HireMyVA Team and Business Building Podcast, where we help you to reclaim your freedom through hiring and thriving with virtual assistants without breaking the bank, breaking your bank. And I’m Dave Braun. I’m here with my partner, cohost, my friend, former Green Beret, well, actually you still are Green Beret bro. Larry Broughton.
Larry Broughton
I feel like I should have a cowbell.
Dave Braun
How are you doing?
Larry Broughton
You know, doing great. You know, we’re recording this over Thanksgiving weekend and it actually is my favorite time of the year. I try to do this, I try to be very intentional throughout the year about being grateful and telling people I’m thankful for them, but really I am so grateful for you, so grateful for you. I’m glad we’re friends and our friendship has endured for awhile and I’m thankful for you. Thanks for all your hard work on this program too. I think we’re impacting people. So yeah, it’s been a great weekend. Spent time with my kids, a great time of day with my dog and son today. So it’s good. How you doing?
Dave Braun
Grateful for you too? Yeah, it’s been a fun weekend. Lots of eating. I had something happen that never happened to me before in my life.
Larry Broughton
What? You can’t just drop that one.
Dave Braun
Well, I’ve got to take my glasses off for that. So
Larry Broughton
Whip them off like this.
Dave Braun
Dang. Yeah, I make, since it’s Thanksgiving weekend, everybody has their favorite things they cook and I’ve done homemade rolls from scratch for like 25 years.
Larry Broughton
I have had them and they are delicious.
Dave Braun
Well, first time ever the yeast did not rise. It was a whole lesson. We need to do a podcast on what do you do if your yeast doesn’t rise!
Larry Broughton
Unleaven rolls!
Dave Braun
All right, well, we’ll have to talk about that , a whole other podcast, but all right. So today without further ado, we’re going to do something a little bit different. We had an interview, I did an interview with Sarah Lang a while ago. She’s a web agency owner and located in Ontario, Canada, and she’s been a friend we’ve helped her get a great VA, a little bit ago still with her today, did a great interview with her. And I learned, you know, several things from her and I’ve, you know, I’ve got a list here, but you know, one of the things that she did to prepare herself and she’ll talk about this is, is that she ended up just starting to do her processes, recording her processes. And we, and we talk about, that’s a huge side benefit of deciding to actually employ somebody to work on your team is that it kind of forces you to be, to grow up and be a real business. Right? Get your processes down.
Larry Broughton
Yeah. Hey, we’ve done this with other people. It’s one of the things we’ve been recommending to our coaching clients for years, one of the easiest ways to start systematizing things in your business. systematizing processes, I need to be specific, not things. And one of the things we’d like to remind everyone of Dave is that we’re not doing this program just so that you can hire a VA. We’re trying to help you become a better entrepreneur and it’s kinda clothed in hiring a VA. And this is one of those things, I mean, crying out loud, you jumped on planes and flown across the country to help people record processes in some of our coaching clients businesses. So this is so important. I’m glad that we’re doing these interviews with folks who are going through the program. And so the community is one of the great ways to raise your hand,
Larry Broughton
If you’d like and say, Hey, I’m having these great successes. And here’s what I’m learning from the HireMyVA program, whether it’s the prepare module, the Hire module or the Thrive module. And who knows, we may be calling you to interview you for one of these podcasts, but I do love the tips and insights that we’re learning from some of the folks who’ve been through the program. So I really appreciate that you interviewed Sara for that. It should be a really good learning opportunity for folks that are listening to this or watching this depending on they do.
Dave Braun
She’s got some great tips and some good advice at the very end. We’re not going to spoil it for you. So you guys listen and Larry and I’ll be back at the end. So without further ado, I said that once before, here we go, here is our interview with Sarah. All right, welcome everybody. I’m Dave Braun of HireMyVA. Welcome to another great discussion we’re going to have with someone who’s on the journey to gain true freedom with virtual assistants. We’ve got Sara Lang on today and her story is just amazing what she’s going to be doing and like, and about a little over a week. And Sarah is with Prestige Digital and she’s a web designer. She has an agency there in Hamilton, Ontario, which is in Canada in case you guys don’t know, but she does graphics. And she’s just a great, great business owner and a great friend. And I’ve known her for a long time. So Sara, tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do.
Sara Lang
So I am living north side across the border Canadian. My business has been around, we just celebrated six years and in a previous life was a social worker and I did that for about eight years and then found it was just really difficult to earn a living and find that good kind of work-life balance. It was working like three, four different jobs. And I really wanted to try to find some freedom and I’d been kind of working with WordPress blogging back when it was really cool to blog. So I thought, Hey, maybe I can make a go of this. So I quit my job. I had a great job with our city, you know, pension, benefits, all that. So everyone thought I was absolutely crazy when I left, but within the first year, I’d kind of proven I could do it, but not necessarily very well. I built, like, I think it was almost 50 websites in my first year for a bunch of
Sara Lang
poor yoga teachers that paid me barely 500 bucks a shot. So I realized if I wanted to make this an actual, like viable career, I really needed to kind of change the way the business was structured and who I was targeting and recurring revenue and those types of things. So from kind of years two to four was really experimenting. I did, that’s how you and I met. We did some coaching together and it really kind of pivoted the way the business ran. And then I had my first baby in 2017. So that was my first time taking any time away from the business, but I didn’t have a VA at that time. And it was really, really stressful. I did hire someone, but it, it was just kind of as a stop gap solution. And now I’m expecting my second baby next month. And yeah, so things have really in the last year, actually, I have had my, my one VA for, we just celebrated a year on March 6th. So yeah, it’s been an interesting journey to get here, but the business is about as strong as it’s ever been at this point.
Dave Braun
Oh, fantastic. And that’s the business being as strong as it’s ever been, and that’s not without a lot of effort right? On your end for sure. And a lot of learning. Yeah, for sure. So you’ve had, it’s it’s Kenneth, you’ve had him for now., you said you just celebrated your year anniversary, right. And he’s your first, is he your first virtual assistant?
Sara Lang
He’s my first that lasted more than the first two week grace period.
Dave Braun
Okay. All right. Good. Oh, well we want to talk about that. We want to talk about that. So, so what was your work and life like before you really had Kenneth? So think back to a little over a year ago when we started working together on this particular project and we’ve known each other for what about three years now? Something like that.
Sara Lang
I think it’s closer to four.
Dave Braun
Four. Yeah. Time flies, especially when you get old, like me!
Sara Lang
So when I came back from my first maternity leave, I joined a networking group which worked out really well. And I got absolutely hammered with work, and that started in September of 2018. And by March of 2019, about five or six months later, it was just pandemonium. Like I was working probably 80 hour weeks. Husband was cranky. Baby was cranky, everyone was upset on how much I was working.
Sara Lang
Oh yeah, I was cranky. I, I, it was beyond what I can do. And I, without sounding really arrogant, I know I, I can churn out work pretty fast and pretty good. And it was still, you know, I think at the most like 16 projects, not we, I had about 16 projects all trying to juggle and I missed my very first deliverable ever in all the years. I missed it. And that was kind of my wake up call to say, Hey, you’re not, you’re not managing well. And now it’s impacting work. Forget your own mental health. It’s impacting the clients. So that was kind of the turning point for me, where I was like, okay, something has to give, I either need to reduce the clients and charge more or get help and keep this momentum going. But it was time to evaluate what that next move would be.
Dave Braun
And then your decision for what that next move would be was..well we worked together on getting you someone, getting you Ken.
Sara Lang
So it was to come to you and say, Hey, you’re the VA expert. You’re the person I know that has done this and has had wonderful success. And it feels, especially in that place of like already feeling really stressed and anxiety and kind of pushed to the limits, the idea of trying to hire somebody just felt really, really overwhelming. So I wanted someone that I trusted that could help me navigate that process because hiring is difficult, let alone hiring overseas and hiring, you know, someone that’s virtual and figuring out how to trust them, how to onboard them, how to pay them, like all the, like from the little logistical things to learning about some of the things that are important about like cultural differences and expectations to, you know, how do I let them into my world in baby steps? Like it was everything from the little to the big to, and again, a lot of us in this field, we’re, we’re good at executing work, but the business side of things can be a big challenge. That’s not necessarily where our skills lie In this human resources area more.
Dave Braun
Yeah. So you talked a little about several things there about, you know, trust and we’ll get into that in a sec, the trust issue. Cause that’s a big one for all of us, probably the biggest, the biggest thing. Right? And so we’ll get into that in a sec, but you know, so think back to a year when we started working together on this and you hired Kenneth, what did you, what did you do to prepare yourself and the business for jumping into this?
Sara Lang
Processes. Outlining processes and defining, like writing everything I do down, because one of the things that was really important to me was consistency. So, you know, whether it was him developing and designing a site or me, I didn’t want the clients to know the difference. So he needed to be able to follow exactly what I did and how I did it. So that was sort of a big piece. And then also evaluating the tools I used, what I wanted to share with him, what I didn’t want to share with him and how to bring them into my world without exposing it all, if you will.
Dave Braun
Yeah. Yeah. So that is the trust issue. Let’s just talk about it now. So you said you set up processes and things like that, writing everything down. I mean, what was your go-to way to do that?
Sara Lang
So I was working in Trello. That was the platform I used for my process. I created a template board and I’d clone it for each new client.
Dave Braun
And that’s a really good way for everybody to start. Right?
Sara Lang
And it worked beautifully for me. Like I’ve been using Trello for years and we started down that path, but we found, I’d say within three months we had already switched platforms. We were debating between teamwork and Basecamp and we ended up jumping forward with teamwork and we haven’t looked back. It’s been great because I needed, we needed a project management tool that was more team driven versus more solo driven, better communication, better ways to manage files and assets and, and all of that. And we moved our communications from slack over to teamwork as well, using teamwork chats. We were able to drop an app as well, which was great. So I needed to kind of reevaluate everything that was in Trello. And I still use it for myself as a business owner. I manage my project funnel through it and all my maintenance guys, but for actual project dev and communication, teamwork has been wonderful.
Dave Braun
We had a discussion on that, that similar to the way we do it, we put everything in basecamp, our chats, and all that stuff, our to do’s, it’s all there. However, my CRM that I use for tracking clients and following up with them and stuff and putting it through a pipeline, I still use Trello.
Sara Lang
Yeah. And us too. So yeah, I manage my leads, my prospects, my, you know, what’s on deck, here’s what’s active. Here’s every set we’ve ever built in every year. We keep a list going and then yeah, all the follow-ups, the maintenance, who’s renewing when…I couldn’t abandon Trello completely. But it just, as a team now of two, it didn’t serve us for project development.
Dave Braun
Yeah. And I think probably what you’re finding too is that as your business changes and grows, as you try to get more efficient as maybe you get more clients or whatever, your processes are changing.
Sara Lang
For sure. And I look back, I still kept our temporary board in Trello and I looked back to what it was before Kenneth arrived. And I look at how much we’ve improved and refined and added and services that we, I just never had time to do because it wasn’t an area of strength for me and he kind of brings those skills to the table. So now we’re able to offer more, more bang for their buck. We don’t charge anything extra, but his skillset is now included in what they get. So yeah, our process has been refined and refined and refined.
Dave Braun
And the way you brought that up, I’m glad you said that. Because part of the way we structure things at HireMyVA is it’s a three-step process. It’s prepare yourself and it’s hire and then it’s thrive. And the preparation part is important because you have to decide really who and what you need. And you said that you didn’t necessarily want another Sara, you wanted somebody who had different strengths and different capabilities to augment you. Correct?
Sara Lang
For sure. Because my biggest area of strength is design and beautiful design. Like, I don’t want to say feminine per se, but like who we were, who I was targeting and who was coming to me, who I was attracting were, you know, professional women. But there was a lot of technical stuff that I was slow at that took me a while or that I was just like, I don’t have time to learn how to do this right now because I’m so busy. So sure, I was turning out beautiful websites that were like, by all means very sound and functioning well, but all the extra things Kenneth can bring for optimizing and that kind of thing. I just wasn’t able to do at that time. So he really kind of added a lot to the team.
Dave Braun
Yeah. And I liked the way you put that because it’s not about bringing somebody into your business to fix it. It’s bringing somebody in to help you go to another level, to give you some extra capabilities, to serve your clients better, and/or to help save you from those 15 projects all being on your shoulders. Right?
Sara Lang
One of the things I found helpful was you had encouraged me before, like early in the process to define my core values and figure out who I was as a business and what was important as a business owner and important to our clients and those types of things that I had never really invested any mental energy into figuring out really what those were. I knew it because it, I was doing it, but being able to put it down on paper and then use that in times where, you know, I was having some challenges maybe with Kenneth, it was like, I was able to come back and address those and say, Hey, you know, one of our core values is dependability. So when we don’t deliver on time or we miss a deadline or the quality is not there and they can’t depend on us the way that they need to kind of thing. So I found that that was really helpful and helpful in the hiring process because it, it helped me figure out really what I was looking for and skills can be learned. Skills can be taught. Processes can be taught, but who the VA is really does matter and what they value and there’s kind of that whole other element to it as well about hiring the right person.
Dave Braun
Yeah. And I remember back to when we were working together on this and it was Kenneth and another person, we were debating upon which person and they were both great. And tell us a little bit about that story.
Sara Lang
So yeah, it was the two candidates, candidates were pretty, pretty close in terms of qualifications. The other gentleman was a little bit more lacking in design, which whereas Kenneth had a stronger experience with design and comfort with design. And at the time I was like, well, I don’t want another designer. I’m the designer. So I ended up, that was sort of like the logic behind the decision to go with the other guy. But I had felt like when I was interviewing them, everything was kind of pointing to Kenneth. But with regard to personality, language skills, just, you know, he was a little bit more extroverted, a little bit more confident. And I felt like it would be an easier transition, like less, less cultural differences that I noticed with the other gentlemen. Like he, again, it was just a comfort thing for me, but he called me ma’am and I’m like, well, I’m only in my thirties, I’m not a ma’am yet, but it was what was comfortable to him.
Sara Lang
So, I guess that whole gut instinct played a role. And I was like, my gut said Kenneth, but logic said the other guy, based on what I, I was looking for at the time. And it turned out that I, because the type of work that we do is not, you know, really intensive, custom builds. It’s, it’s pretty simple, you know, five, 10 page WordPress websites. He had way too many development skills and not enough design. And I realized that I needed more design than I thought I did. So early on in that process of working together and trying to onboard him, I realized,hHy, I need something different than I actually thought. So I approached Kenneth and said, hey, can we do a little trial? I’d like to see how you do with a few tasks with regards to communication and design and, and some of the things the other gentleman was struggling with. So I had kind of both of them working at the same time and it turned out really good. I ended up firing or letting go the first guy and hiring Kenneth on. And it proved a couple things, one, follow your gut. And two, that sometimes what we think we need, isn’t always what we need.
Dave Braun
Sara Lang
And being able to be open to that and pivot, and especially early on in the hiring process, when, if it’s your first or second, you might not get it right the very first time.
Dave Braun
Yeah. Well, and that’s not something to be scared of. It’s something to embrace and say, you know, look, cause you, you had to get to where you are now. It’s like, that was, that was really what you wanted. And like you said, you pivoted, business is like that, our life is like, that we’re constantly pivoting. In certain ways it’s kinda like, you know, our business is raising, raising kids. You think about how many times you’ve pivoted and dealt with Ben and all that stuff, right? Yeah. So you just have to, you know what you need, you do the best you can and prep, and then you jump in and do it. And then you’ve got people like you and me and others in the community that help you figure that out and help you adjust.
Sara Lang
Definitely. And it was something that I know I was struggling with and I had come to you and said, hey, how do I let them go? How do I, what’s the right thing to do? Is it like, how do I do this? I’ve never fired anybody before. Having the access to that type of information, it takes the stress off. Because again, I don’t know these things, I didn’t know these things, I do now, but having access to someone that knows all this and has done all of this, and even the things like offer letters, what to offer, how to write it. Like, I can’t say enough about all of the…. forget finding the right person, that’s a huge piece of it, but there’s just this whole other component that HireMyVA simplifies and takes all the stress out. I mean, sure you can google, offer letter, but to have something that you know is sound and proven, it was super helpful.
Dave Braun
Yeah. And, and it’s great because it gives you a starting point and then that way you can adjust it to your personality, you can cut stuff out or add stuff in, depending upon the situation. Cause you know, every situation is, is different. Lke you said, if you have to let somebody go, there’s various reasons why you may have to let them go and you may handle that very, very differently depending upon what happens. Right? That’s, that’s a great journey that you’ve been on. So what do you think that you would do differently next time? Say you had to go back a year and you were hiring your first VA. Is there anything, what would you do different?
Sara Lang
I think, well, I don’t know if this counts, but do it a lot sooner.
Sara Lang
I would have been smart to do it like in the fall versus in the winter. It would’ve saved me a lot of stress. And I think in terms of the actual process, I think I would have, because I didn’t really feel super confident at the time of hiring, but I really liked what, what ended up working with kind of giving Kenneth a pilot, a trial. I would consider doing that again. And one of the things that stressed me out was like paying them like, okay, now I have to start sharing my money with somebody else. But that bit of investment, because I was so unsure and because they seemed so equal, what I would have done different, I would have hired them both on a trial basis for two weeks or a month or whatever would have made sense, given them the tasks that I felt like they were going to be weakest at.
Sara Lang
So I would’ve given the other guy design and given Kenneth more development and given them also some same tasks to see who kind of came out on top. Like I would have done a little bit more evaluating versus just jumping right in with the one and then, experiencing the stress of it, not working out and that type of thing. So not being afraid to dump a little bit of extra money and time into trying them out and letting them know that upfront, hey, this is a trial. And I found that also Kenneth earned a lot of respect for me in that process knowing, cause I told them things aren’t going great. I’d like to give you a trial. I’d like to try you out, but you’re not hired yet. And the fact that he was okay with it and willing to, to try to prove himself, spoke to his character to me.
Dave Braun
Yeah. I think, I think that’s good point when you have a couple of candidates that you’re not quite sure of. It’s really good to try them both out, give them a trial project and see how they, especially how they communicate because you know, it’s interesting. I think I was talking with somebody about this. I think it must have been Melanie the last time, but you know, the way we teach it now is to do some, like have them record a video of themselves doing something. Right? It’s very interesting how them recording a video of them doing them, doing something and then talking about it. The level of their communication is very different than when you’re just interviewing them. Of course that level of communication is different when you are doing chatting like text messaging, right? That’s different. And then on zoom calls and stuff and it’s an adjustment and it’s, there’s kind of, I’m getting a little bit of echo there, but there’s, there’s kind of the, I don’t know, it’s part of it’s gut, but then part of it is do you sometimes have to adjust as a leader in how you are communicating, too.
Sara Lang
Absolutely.
Dave Braun
It’s not the responsibility of the person that you’re talking to to understand you, it’s your responsibility to make sure that the person you’re talking to understands you.
Sara Lang
Yeah. And I found that just knowing my personality and knowing how I learned, like I’m a really fast learner and I don’t need a ton of explanation, was a very difficult thing for me to not have that same expectation of Kenneth. As great as he is, and as much as he’s a very good fit for the business and he’s still here rocking along a year later, we had some really challenging times at the beginning when it came to communication because I was not explaining enough. I was not, you know, detailing what I was expecting enough. And so he wasn’t hitting certain things, whether it was a quality of a design or again, he would put shading on everything and drop shadows…it’s 2019, enough! But I wasn’t clear enough about what I was expecting when it came to specific things.
Sara Lang
And I really had to learn how to clearly communicate with him in details that I wouldn’t necessarily need, I need to provide him. So learning that spending an extra 10 minutes on my part, organizing his week or detailing a project and expectations, those few extra minutes on my part really made a huge difference to A, his quality of work and B his productivity, and C, I think his overall feeling of confidence, because we had a little bit of a rough patch early on where I felt like he thought he was failing and he started kind of not communicating as much and, you know, missing some shifts. Like I felt like we were in a bit of a funk if you will. And it really came down to communication and me not being clear enough with him about what I needed, what I wanted.
Sara Lang
And as soon as I, I pivoted and started doing things a little bit differently, it changed. And now I know that, you know, for Kenneth to be successful, I have to plan out his week about what is also, you know, achievable per shift. Just dumping a list of 20 things, it overwhelmed him. And that’s who he is and that’s his personality. So instead of giving him a list of 20 things for the week, I take five minutes every day and drop in five and that’s, you know, so that was something that, you know, at first I was like, well, I don’t want to have to do that, he should just know. And I went through a little bit of frustration with, you know, I’m, I’m paying you get with it, but the same way you look at like a partnership, there’s going to be things about your partner that maybe drive you a little bit crazy. But if they’re the one, you adapt and you do it and it just becomes part of how it is. So that was a big learning for me too, is to let go of some of the expectations, and face what is real in front of me and work with that, because that made it very, very successful.
Dave Braun
Yeah. That’s a good realization on your part. It’s ends up being, it’s not as much up to them to adjust to you, even though we think that’s like, well, I’m paying you. That’s just, but that’s just not in most people’s capabilities. It’s a rare capability, right? It’s in our capabilities, that’s why we’re owning a business. Right?
Sara Lang
Yeah. And that’s why we’re hiring them. And you know, other things like geography and language and access to stable internet and, you know, there’s so many factors that go into that type of understanding as a business owner.
Dave Braun
Yeah. Okay. That’s great. I kept teasing that we would talk about the trust issue…we’re out of time. No, not really. Let’s talk about the trust issue. Finally. That’s the big thing. So tell me, tell me what you’re thinking on that.
Sara Lang
I was pretty guarded at first. I didn’t really give him a lot of access to much. It was individual WordPress accounts. I was loathe to let him into cPanels even, not loathe, but nervous.
Dave Braun
So now when we talk about cPanels, some people may be watching this that don’t understand it. So it’s basically giving a level to your server that they can do some, if they’re bad, they can do a lot of screw up, like with email and all that.
Sara Lang
Yep. Yeah. So I was just giving him access to WordPress admin accounts at the very beginning. And you actually were very helpful cause I was just giving him my admin access and you’re like, no, don’t do that! Make it a company account!
Dave Braun
Yeah.
Sara Lang
The little things I didn’t think of.
Dave Braun
I remember when you told me that I’m like WTF!
Sara Lang
So yeah, I started off pretty guarded with all my information, all my clients, you know, it was nerve wracking and that was early March and by middle of July, he had access to WHM. So that was huge! I had decided I was going to take a holiday and I gave him the keys to the kingdom and I said, well, I’m either going to come back to things running wonderfully or I’m going to come back and he will have destroyed my entire business. I really didn’t think that would be the outcome, but yeah, it was earned. And I gave him, you know, a little bits of access here and there to different things. And, once I realized he kind of had found his place within the company and I felt like there was some respect on his end towards me and my business. And I knew he was seeing the value in, you know, steady paycheck and good hours and that kind of thing. It was like, okay, well, I feel like you’re part of the team now. I feel like you believe you’re part of the team now and you’re not gonna, you know, kind of be distrustful with this access.
Dave Braun
Well, that’s, that’s good. You, you jumped in pretty quick!
Sara Lang
For sure! I remember thinking I’m not going to give them WHM access until six months or a year. And yeah, it definitely was sooner and had that vacation not come up it might’ve been a little bit longer, but it was one of those it’s kind of like, well now or never. And I took a bit of a leap of faith, but it turned out and it actually took a lot of like extra work out of things for me because now he can just go in and work and you know, I’m not having to create cPanels and give him access. Like it’s, it’s nice now.
Dave Braun
Yeah. In fact, a lot of times we look at the worst case and we need to look at the worst case when there’s situations like this right now and contemplate it. But then the other thing is let’s not forget about the best case, how much load they can take off of us and how much free time we have to shift our thinking. In fact, I wrote a blog post, it should be coming up soon on what a VA can do to shift your thinking, to change your thinking from more tactical to strategic. And that’s just huge for us as business owners to be able to do that.
Sara Lang
For sure. I feel like at this point in time with having Kenneth a year later, I probably spend about half of my week working on the business and not in the business. Whereas before I had him, it was like 99.9% in and not on, it was just like, hold on, get the work done. You know, there was so many things that got missed end of 2018 to mid 2019, you know, portfolio not updated. Like there was just a lot of stuff that fell the wayside because client work comes first and now I have so much more freedom and prior to the whole COVID thing, cause we’ve been very busy since that happened, but I was down to probably about 35 hours a week from 80.
Dave Braun
Wow!
Sara Lang
Yeah. So it really, really impacted my business and my family lives better. My mental health is better and the businesses making just as much money as it did when it was just me.
Dave Braun
Wow, fantastic!
Sara Lang
Really, it was a game changer.
Dave Braun
That’s great! Well, you’re, you’re my hero, Sara, in so many, you know what you’re doing with your business and how you brought on a project manager and you’re going to be stepping away from it. So I think we should bring you on another time we can talk about that. Once you get past having your next child…who is it? Boy or girl? I don’t remember. Oh, you don’t know yet. Okay. Well super, well after he or she is, you get in a routine, you can come back to work. Love to have you back on and talk about how things went when you were off, what you did before, what you’re doing after. That’s going to be really, really great because I want to aspire to that myself a lot more than I have now,
Sara Lang
For sure. I don’t know if circumstances weren’t as they are, I don’t know if I would have hired a PM (Project Manager) quite this early, but we’re going to see how it goes.
Dave Braun
Awesome! So one quick piece of advice or tip for someone who’s considering hiring a VA, what’s a big tip, real quick.
Sara Lang
Do it!
Dave Braun
Do it? OK.
Sara Lang
It’s going to be challenging and it’s going to feel like a little bit more work than you’re already trying to manage right now, but it’s going to be worth it. And Dave’s course, knowledge, all the tools, all the resources it’s worth, it’s just worth so much. I couldn’t have done this without him. So don’t hesitate. Go forward. And you know, in a year you’ll be very grateful.
Dave Braun
All right. And what’s your biggest advice? One big tip for somebody who has a VA and really wants to thrive, take it to the next level.
Sara Lang
Hmm. Think tip to take it to the next level.
Dave Braun
We talked a little bit about communication there and
Sara Lang
I’d say figuring out what they love, what they want, what things, you know, help them feel good and confident in their days. Cause that’s, you know, their attitude and their mental health and you know, what they bring every day to your business and to your work, that’s almost more valuable or more important than whether they turn out good work or not, like the attitude they bring. So finding ways to work with who they are, their little idiosyncrasies and giving them the things that make us feel good when we work for other people, whether it’s an extra half a day off or not loading them up on Fridays so they can have like a nice weekend. Finding out those things that bring value to them and being like that good boss.
Dave Braun
Oh, okay. Awesome. That’s that’s really, really helpful. All right. So I think we’re about done, but give yourself a shout out and tell the listeners where they can find a little bit more about you or contact you.
Sara Lang
So that would be prestigedigital.ca. We are in the process of finally updating our portfolio, so there’ll be some new work up there. You can see what we’ve been up to for the last year and a half and we’re on Facebook as well. And there’s links on the website.
Dave Braun
All right, well thank you again, Sara, for your time. It was great. I’ve learned stuff. I hope everybody else who’s listening to this or watching this will learn stuff. And everybody that’s a wrap. Remember to go to HireMyVA.com to check out all of the great material that we’ve got! Sign up for our course so that you can reclaim your freedom!
Larry Broughton
Well, welcome back folks. I hope you got a lot out of that like I did. Wow. Dave, that was power-packed. I’m really glad that you did that interview and Sara, thanks so much for sharing or giving us all those insights. It was a great, Dave.
Dave Braun
Yeah. And it was so much fun to talk to her and she enjoyed it as well. There’s a couple of really good points that she made and even listening to it again, really stuck in my mind. One of the things she talked about was a steady paycheck is huge value for folks. And it’s like, especially in the Philippines and one of the things in our community recently, Bryan Valentino shared how important that is to their family oriented culture.
Larry Broughton
Well, I think about it. In today’s environment ,now you may be listening to this two years from now, from the time that we’re recording it. But right now we’re in late 2020 Thanksgiving weekend, 2020, when we’re going through this pandemic, right? That’s not just hit here in the US it is hit globally. So if there’s a steady income, it’s amazing what kind of loyalty, dedication and sense of appreciation that people will have. And when people appreciate their employer, when they appreciate the job, when they appreciate the steadiness of an income boy, it’s amazing what it does for productivity, creativity, loyalty, because it takes the stress out of life, off of them. Do you know what I mean? So that’s a great point.
Dave Braun
And that’s why it’s so important for us as business owners and entrepreneurs to work towards getting some steady income, some recurring income in our businesses right? One of the other important points she also talked about is, and this was surprising too. Not surprising, and we know it, but it just reemphasized in my brain. She was a little bit worried about the money, but she was so busy. She had to get some help, but she’s now making just as much money as when it was just her. Isn’t that amazing? How that worked?
Larry Broughton
Well, we know that that’s going to be, we know that’s going to be the key, right? Because when you start working in your strengths, you start producing more. Right? And you’ve got more freedom to do things that you’re really good at and that you love and you’re doing great things for the world and for other people. But you’re right, it’s so good to hear it reinforced from someone else. Instead of us just saying that. You know, as a parent, you say things to your kids over and over again, and then the neighbor, or crazy uncle Bob says the same thing and they listen to the crazy uncle Bob, you know, instead of listening to us, it is just a different perspective. So yeah, that’s a great one too.
Dave Braun
And you know, another one is she talked about Kenneth bringing an additional skillset to her clients. So she’s actually bringing more value to her clients by having a virtual assistant to help her out. And I thought that was, that was great. And then, but one of the tips that she had too, is that at one point you just got to jump in and do it because it will change your life.
Larry Broughton
Yeah, absolutely. Fear prevents us from doing that though, sometimes. What if I can’t, whatever, there’s all kinds of mental blocks that we have. But when you jump in with both feet, some people say when you burn the boats, right. And you’ve got to do it, then it’s amazing what happens in your life, and crying out loud, we’ve got some of the clients that are going through the program now, and they’re seeing exponential growth since they’ve been doing, doing this thing right now they’ve hired three VAs, one person in particular I’m thinking of, they’ve hired three VAs since they started this thing a month ago.
Dave Braun
It’s going to change his business, put his business on a whole brand new level, way up there.
Larry Broughton
Yeah. And he had the same thing, he was fearful about doing this.
Dave Braun
Well, I hope you guys all enjoyed that interview. I mean, we did. And as you could tell, we got so much out of it. So this is probably one of those interviews, just like, I think any interview you want to listen to it, you know, multiple times, because there’s just so much in it that you want to get out of it.
Larry Broughton
What I’d like folks to do Dave is in the comment section whether you’re listening to this on iTunes, or you’re watching this on the YouTube channel, put some comments in there, but also come back to the forum, come back to the community forum and encourage your fellow tribe members in the forum to go listen to it and let us know what you learned there as well. Because you know, Dave, like you’re saying, you’re getting something out of this the second time, well you did the interview, you know, you’ve heard this a couple of times before. You’re getting stuff out of it this time, that you didn’t before. And so it’s that old hashtag I like to use, #TFTR, Thanks For The Reminder. Every time you read a book, you’re going to get something new out of it. And same thing with these darn interviews. So thanks Dave for doing the interview. Please leave a comment. What you might’ve picked up from the interview.
Dave Braun
That was awesome. All right. Well folks, thank you for joining us today. And remember building a team is the way to reclaim your freedom and we’re here to help you. So there’s three things that we’d love for you to do right now. And we’d really appreciate it if you did it. Number one, subscribe to this podcast if you haven’t done so already. Number two, give us a rating, preferably five stars. And then number three, go to HireMyVA.com for more information on our course and community and our products, everything that we have to offer there, because remember, even without experience, you’ll learn how to prepare for, hire, and thrive with virtual assistants. Larry and I have helped a lot of folks, you can hear what’s going on when you listen to these interviews and listening to the other podcasts that we’ve got, we’d love to just help you too! Join up, get in the community! To do that, just go to HireMyVA.com for more information.
Larry Broughton
And there’s no other time, no better time, this time of the year, to be connected with somebody, you know, share the joy, share the love, get connected with somebody. Life is not meant to do by yourself. The whole Lone Wolf thing is just an absolute myth, my friends. Get tied in with somebody, have a travel companion as Dave and I like to say in our little group that we’re we’re in every week. But do yourself a favor, do the world a favor, go do something significant today! All right, folks, go get ’em!
Dave Braun
Bye. Take care. See ya.
