Why You Need a Virtual Assistant and How to Hire One with Sara Wiles [Episode 173]

Molly: Hiring a virtual assistant is a topic that I get asked about all the time. And, um, this is not one of those, like, you know how influencers will hop on their stories like, "You guys have been DM'ing me about this" . You, you really do. I really do get this question a lot. So I had my friend Sarah Wiles back on the podcast to talk about it because one of the biggest problems that I see is practitioners continuously beating themselves up thinking that they're just not good at time management or they're not good at technology or whatever, when the reality is you just need some help.

And I think you would be shocked at how affordable it is to get the right type of help to kind of get you over a hump. Whether it's on a project basis, like you need some emails set up or, you know, maybe you're trying to switch EHR or whatever, or whether it's, like, somebody you need ongoing. Even if you aren't a practitioner who is try- You know, there's a lot of practitioners right now who are trying to create, like, um, a separate online service of some sort.

I mean, if you're one of those, you definitely need a virtual assistant. But even if you aren't doing that, there is still so much value that can be had in the patient experience by hiring a virtual assistant. So I think you're absolutely going to love this episode and love my friend Sarah. And as always, if you have any questions, just let me know.

Hey, welcome to Holistic Marketing Simplified. This podcast boils down to the fact that we wholeheartedly believe that more humans need to know about holistic health solutions. And you didn't go to school to learn how to be a full-time content creator and show up on Instagram and do all of this marketing stuff all day, every day.

So let's come hang out while we chat all things easing your marketing. And my goal is that you shift your mindset around your marketing from a, quote, "should" to a, "I get to." More dream patients and clients? Yes, please.

Dr. Carla: This is Dr. Carla Freeman, and I'm a chiropractor and a Holistic Marketing Hub student in Phoenix, Arizona.

And I love listening to the Holistic Marketing Simplified podcast.

Molly: Hi, Sarah Hi, girl. We've already been chatting. Um, Sarah's one of my favorite humans. We met, like, God, like, three years ago now, something like that? Yeah.

Sara: Four?

Molly: At a retreat, and we bonded immediately when I saw all of your, uh, your bathroom makeup brush situation.

Y'all, this chick. She-

Sara: I am a, a, a tornado when I travel Uh-huh. Uh-huh ... like, I am just, if there is organization, I can keep to it. When there's none and I'm traveling out of my home, I am a hot mess. The one thing that I try so hard to organize in the bathroom is my makeup brushes.

Molly: She went to the kitchen of the Airbnb, grabs a bunch of cups-

sets them out on her bathroom counter and has all her makeup brushes. And I walked in and I was like... I just started busting out laughing. I was like, "Okay, we've gotta be friends."

Sara: But don't get it twisted because nothing else is organized but the brushes. Everything else is everywhere, but those brushes are exactly where I need them to be.

Molly: Yeah, in the morning you were leaving, you were, like, sitting on your suitcase trying to get it. Oh. I love it. Okay. Sarah, tell us about Start and Grow and what you do. Give us a little backstory.

Sara: Yeah. So I am the founder of a company called the Start and GrowCo, and we help women become virtual assistants.

Um, I started in 2017 as a baby VA myself after I left a career in the event planning industry. I had spent eight years climbing the corporate ladder, you know, working my ass off- Mm-hmm ... to, you know, do the thing we were all taught to do, especially as elder millennials. And then I had a baby and, you know, all of the sudden traveling for 10 days, you know, at a time and working 20-hour days was not really accessible for me, and the company that I worked for really didn't understand why.

That was a really hard pill to swallow at the time. I had spent eight years really, again, busting my ass, being, you know, the first one there, the last one to leave, really, um, self-sacrificing quite a lot. And then I had to go because they, they didn't really respect me anymore now that, you know, I had another human being in my life.

And so I floundered for a little bit just trying to figure out what to do with the skills that I had. Worked for a startup for a little bit. Kind of ended up being the same stuff It just n- not, not the flexibility that I needed to be able to work and mother at the same time because, you know, for two reasons.

Number one, we were not in a position to be a one income household. I know you are the same. I love to work. Yeah. Like, I love to work. Mm-hmm. And so, a good friend of mine, who is actually a mutual friend of ours, Lacey Seitz-

Molly: Now my business coach.

Sara: Now your business coach, um,

Molly: was my colleague- But I met you first

for many- Which is crazy how it all worked out ...

Sara: Isn't that f- I know. Yeah. I love, I love the small world that is the online space. And, um, you know, she was already in the coaching industry, and she had worked with VAs, and she said, "I'm pretty sure you could do this. You're very resourceful." Uh, you know, I planned 5,000 person trade shows in, in Las Vegas, and I know how to move people around a city.

She was like, "I, I feel like you could figure this out for people online." And I said, "Sure." And she sent me some leads, and I figured it out as I went. And, uh, nine months in, I had made $48,000, which was pretty cool, 'cause my salary at the time was- Insane ... 50. So, and, uh, then we grew to a team of eight all-mom VAs working for us to help us keep up with our client load.

And then I realized a couple of things at the same time. Number one, I am a horrible people manager. It is not my skill set at all. And I had so many women that I had known from high school, college, you know, m- mom life around me who were seeing what I w- was doing, and they were saying, "How are you doing this?

Because I need that. I also need to work or want to work, and, and I need the flexibility because I'm a, a parent, or, you know, I'm a caregiver." Or, you know, nowadays we have a lot of retirees that do this work. A lot of retirees who do this work. Mm. We have, you know, people with chronic health issues or mental health issues that just cannot keep up with a traditional nine to five, especially what nine to fives look like nowadays, 'cause they're no longer nine to fives ever, right?

Yeah. They are just, uh, expecting so much of you. I decided I wanted to teach, and we started a course called The Start, where we train women how to begin, uh, VA businesses and get them off the ground very successfully, and we've been here ever since.

Molly: We talk a lot about, or you talked a lot about online business.

But as I told you, like my off- my, um- Yeah ... like my office. My audience is Mostly brick-and-mortar practitioners Yeah And so I think a lot of brick-and-mortar clinicians kind of like don't think about a virtual assistant. Yeah. They're like, "Oh, I have to hire staff," or like front desk or whatever. So can you talk about that?

Sara: Yeah. I mean, I think one of the most incredible things about, uh, being able to hire VAs, uh, when you're in, you know, when you're a brick-and-mortar is that you don't have to hire a full-time person, and you don't have to have a desk for them, and you don't now have to get a computer for them and supplies for them and all of these things for them, right?

That is the beauty of it. If you just want someone for 20 hours a month to handle, you know, these five tasks or these sis- six tasks, you can get that, and you can get that at a rate that makes a whole lot of sense for you without you having to take over a full-time employee and all- Mm ... of the paperwork and all of the stuff that goes along with that.

Molly: So I want to talk about rates, but I also, I just made a note. Can you talk about contractor versus employee? I know you're not an attorney. Hmm. Yeah, yeah. Disclaimer, Sarah is not an attorney, but she's married to one. No, I'm just

Sara: kidding. I'm an armchair attorney. Yeah. None of this is legal advice. Yeah. So if we're talking US-based, which is all of your folks, you know, the- A

Molly: lot of them.

I have, yeah, I have some New Zealand, Canada- Yeah ... Australia, but-

Sara: Okay. Hey, guys. So the big, uh, legal differential in the United States, it could be elsewhere too, between a contractor and an employee is that when you have an employee, you own their time. You say to them, "Hey, our hours are 9:00 to 5:00 or 8:00 to 6:00," or whatever it is, and then they come to you, and they do the work that you need them to do within those hours.

When you are hiring a contractor- You don't own their time. Their job is the deliverable to you, right? And so they do the work when it is convenient for them. You guys can agree upon that. You can agree upon due dates, right? It's not like they're just gonna, you know, take the tasks and do them willy-nilly whenever it is that they want.

But you have to understand that, you know, the, the benefit of you getting to hire someone for 20 hours a month and not hiring them for full-time means that they might have four clients. So that means that they're not at your beck and call every two seconds, right? Yeah. But they are checking in with you every single day.

They are able to get that work done, but it, it is in a much more usually affordable way for, uh, the practice owner, and also just a whole lot easier because you don't have to now manage someone and be on top of them. These are people who are very good at doing work online and doing it very efficiently.

Molly: Yeah. That actually ... Oh, so many places I wanna take this. So don't worry if you're listening. We're gonna talk about what they can do for you, 'cause I get that question a lot. We're gonna talk about where to find them, but there's two things that kind of pop out at me from what you just said. First, let's talk about something that's more concrete.

Let's talk about rates. Mm. Because I think a lot we hear like, "Oh, just hire an offshore VA for $5 an hour." Yes. So, like, can you talk about- Totally. Okay ... not just that, but like offshore versus local to you or in, in the States, whatever.

Sara: So offshore VAs, you know, primarily you're gonna find these people in the Philippines.

Uh, those are fi- folks that you're, you know, a lot of times gonna see on Fiverr or, you know, the second you go and do a Google search or even say near your phone, "Virtual assistant," you are probably- Yeah. ... gonna get 97 ads for all these VA agencies, and they're gonna be promising you a whole lot for not a lot of money.

You can have success with an overseas VA, for sure. The thing that you have to realize is, number one, you are dealing with a massive time differential when you're dealing with someone overseas. Number two, oftentimes you're dealing with a language barrier. And number three, sometimes in these countries there are rolling power outages and internet outages as well.

So those are just three things right off the top to be aware of. It does not mean that these people cannot be beneficial to you or helpful to you. You just have to know that. Because of all of those things- It tends to work really well if you are using an offshore VA if you are asking them to do very specific task-based work that you are providing very specific instructions for.

So what we are finding more and more, especially with AI, you know, a lot of the work that was being handed to offshore VAs is now going to AI because that work can be done by AI. The benefit of keeping an onshore VA is that you are getting the work that AI cannot do. So it is the critical thinking, it is the compassion, it is the talking to your clients and your customers like they're human beings instead of like it's just a task to check off a list, right?

So you can certainly hire those folks, but you, you very much get what you pay for, not because there's anything wrong with them at all. It is just those things that we talked about before. You're not gonna be able to outsource to this type of person and think that you are getting someone who can really just pick up wherever you need them to and figure things out.

Mm-hmm. The number one thing that we train our VAs on is to be resourceful, 'cause that's really what they need to be for you, right? You're so busy as this business owner. You are... You've got your hands on people, right? You're dealing with them and, and forget about just, like, the ailments in their bodies, right?

Yeah. We know what happens when somebody lays on that table. All of a sudden, whoop. Yeah. All of their... Right? Like you are also now a therapist, right? Yeah. You have to do that work, and the whole point is that you have a vice president of figuring shit out who can figure shit out for you because you're busy doing the work that only you can do.

That is a really hard thing to get in an overseas VA, and that is why, for the most part, if that is what you're looking for, is not just a task rabbit, but also somebody who can step up and figure things out for you, then, then you're gonna need an onshore VA. Onshore? Yeah. Is that how we say it? Onshore.

Molly: I don't know.

I, I do have- Okay ... um, my VA, Maria, is in the Philippines, but she's actually- Yeah ... in the city, and she is

v- she is pricey. Yeah. But she is worth every penny. Yeah. Because she is more of that, like- figure it out. She's very good at tech. Hmm. So I think if you're looking for more like-

Sara: Yeah ... like a, like- Tech is really helpful for those folks.

Molly: Yeah, like I, I'm- They tend to be

Sara: really good at that ... I,

Molly: yeah, and she's, like I said, she's just kind of like a different

And for me, it doesn't matter that she's overnight, but my business is different, right? Like it's- Right ... different than your nee- what your needs are going to be.

Sara: Especially if you're dealing with, you know, you've got clients that are emailing on normal business hours because they need to reschedule something.

Or right, like, I think that's where that time differential comes in. Yes. What actually just came to mind, and I think your Maria is probably, like, you probably have a unicorn, which I absolutely love for you.

Molly: I do. She's incredible.

Sara: I think when we think of overseas VAs, those are hard skill folks. When we think of onshore VAs, those are soft skill folks.

They can have the hard skills too. So I wrote

Molly: down, yes, I wrote down soft skills because I've heard you talk about this so many times.

Sara: Yeah.

Molly: So let's go there because it's exactly what you were just talking about.

Sara: It's really interesting because there's been a lot of conversation that I've seen recently in terms of, like, what is gonna happen to the job market with the advent of AI, and what are the skills that we're gonna need?

And everything that I am seeing is soft skills, soft skills, soft skills, right? What we are noticing ... We always see this, right? When we have more auto- automation, when we have less human interaction, we will crave naturally as human beings more human interaction. Yeah. And so those soft skills, the, you know, the compassion, the empathy, the treating people like human beings instead of like a, you know, just a, a transactional task to check off a list.

Like, that is going to become more valuable in our society. And when you are a business that has that very high level of customer service and support, especially in an era of ... Do you have Comcast for your internet and TV?

Molly: I don't even ... I think so.

Sara: Comcast is always my answer because it's like you call and, and you're like, "Oh, my God.

Why did you change the rate again?" And they're like, "Well, you're out of this thingy-magobber," blah, blah, blah. Right? Like, everybody knows how horrible it is to call Comcast or AT&T or whoever your internet provider is. When you are the company that has incredible customer service, like, that is now going to become such a, an added benefit and a selling feature for businesses, whether they're online or offline because of AI and because of the advent of these things.

Oh, without question.

Molly: Yeah. So okay, that's like a perfect segue into- What can these VAs do for you?

Sara: So first, really simple couple of things to do for a VA, and, uh, and I'm, I'm gonna preface this by saying I think these are some of the best tasks to outsource first because they give you, number one, easy things to outsource.

Yes, there's always gonna be, uh, a learning curve there, but, but, you know, pretty simple things that are also gonna make a really big impact on the business owner. And so we're talking about, number one, inbox management, right? Like, forget ... Maybe you're not even comfortable with them responding to customers, right, on behalf of you yet, but do you have filters set up?

Is your inbox organized, right? Like, does everybody know where to go in there if you have multiple employees or multiple people that are working in the office? Does everybody know whose job is what and where things go, right? Folks can ... They can set up those filters for you, their, those special labels and those special inboxes for you to just make the inbox work more efficiently first.

Then, slowly over time, you can also have them start to respond as you in there. Create canned responses for you, right? Yeah. I am sure. Like, what are the questions that people probably get for a chiropractic office most, most often, Molly?

Molly: Oh, I mean, a lot of rescheduling, uh, asking about insurance questions.

Sara: Insurance.

Molly: Yeah. Um-

Sara: So, like, they can create, right, like, they can go figure out, what are the 10 most common things that people are emailing about? Great. Let's go ahead and make canned emails- Yeah ... so that we're not thinking right off the top, right? Sure. And getting those confirmed by the business owner.

Managing digital files is another really big one. Oh,

Molly: yeah.

Sara: And creating organizational structures for that, right? And then making sure those are in the right places. Setting up an online scheduling tool. If you've got people calling off the hook off the office, and it's just so much to manage, you can set up a, a really beautiful online scheduling tool that's gonna take care of a lot of that work for you.

Molly: Yeah. I was just talking to my chiropractor yesterday, and, uh, they're, um, friends. I'm like, "Okay, this is not a diss on you." I was like, "I'm just curious- Yeah ... why do y'all not have online scheduling yet?" And she's like, "Well, we want it, but we are gonna have to transfer 10 years of patient files, and it just seems so daunting."

And it's like-

Sara: Oh ...

Molly: boom. This isn't even where I was planning to go with this, but it makes sense. Like, what a great trial run for someone to do something on a project basis.

Sara: Yes.

Molly: If you wanna think about project base. If you're like, "Ooh, I don't know if this is gonna work out." So let's talk about project basis, and then let's talk about, too, like HIPAA obviously if they did something like that with you, they would have your patient information.

Sara: So couple of different ways that you could hire VAs, right? You could... And, and it depends. Every VA is different, just like every chiropractor is different, and every chiropractor- Yeah ... has different pricing and models of- Yes ... of pricing and things like that. VAs do, too, but there's some common ones. Um, so the very first one is project base, right?

So you could hire someone specifically to set up a scheduling platform for you. Could be a really beautiful way to get to know them, see, like, do I like them, do I trust them, you know, do we jive? Because that's a whole nother thing, too. Then there's, um, uh, package based. So you could hire somebody and start at 10 hours a month, right?

And, and just try them out like that. Great, we're gonna start with 10 hours. We'll see how that goes. Then normally once you're up and running with someone and you guys are feeling comfortable together, most VAs will switch over to a retainer model, and that essentially is just they're withholding 10 hours of support a month for you, or 40 hours of support a month for you.

Whatever it is that you, you guys have mutually agreed to, to make sure that they've got the time in their schedule to support you because, again, remember, they're not working for you full time, so they've gotta have a couple clients to be able to also meet their financial needs. So a lot of this we were talking about is, I would say,

Molly: like admin-y.

Can you talk about marketing VAs- Ooh, yeah ... or like even social media? Because, so for example, I just sent one of my clients your way because she wanted to set up a nurture sequence for new patients- Mm ... who've booked an appointment in her flow desk.

Sara: So good

Molly: And I was like, "Oh, you could totally find a VA."

She's like, "Oh," she's like, "I know what I wanna say in the emails, but just like the time of setting it up feels like a lot."

Sara: Totally. Easy stuff to pass off to a VA, right? Yeah. Like, setting up emails in Flodesk or any email marketing platform. So often we find with chiropractors and every business owner, y'all will have the images.

You'll have the videos. You'll probably have the, the flyers and the things that you want to go out on social media, but social is probably the first thing that falls off the list. Because- 100% ... you had to fit two more clients in today, and then, you know, someone is breach, and now we're dealing with that, right?

Like, whatever it is, there's always more. So when you, when you have the content, when you have the images, m- having the person there to just make sure that it's getting out and getting out onto social media for you, that is such a sup- a super simple thing to outsource.

Molly: Yes. They can do research for you.

And I do this for a living. Right. I do this for a living, and even my VA, I was noticing that... I was like, "Oh, oh, I'll po- I'll post my podcast stuff. Don't worry. I got it." I had like 20 backlog of podcast episodes that I had never posted.

Sara: Mm-hmm.

Molly: And so I finally had to tell her, I was like, "Don't even let me review it anymore.

Just post it." Like, I can't- Just go ... 'cause clearly I'm not doing it.

Sara: Yep.

Molly: So.

Sara: I'm not the one.

Molly: So I always say, going back to kind of, um, what can they do for you, one of my litmus tests is like what keeps going on your to-do list that never gets crossed off?

Sara: Yeah.

Molly: And gets

Sara: keep- Love it, Molly ...

Molly: keeps going to the next to-do list and the next to-do list.

That's usually your sign.

Sara: Yep.

Molly: I was gonna say, with AI, you can like brain dump all of this. Like, you could literally open up Claude or- ... WhisperFlow or whatever and be like, "Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah." Like, it has to make no sense, and you can give them this file.

You don't have to sit down and type it all out. Nope. If say you want a free resource you wanna create for your moms or whatever. Uh-huh. You could hand it off. But I would say make sure when you're hiring, that's something you ask for is like, if you are looking for more of the creative marketing.

Sara: Yeah.

Molly: You think it could be found in one person?

I have. Yeah. I have found it before.

Sara: Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Totally. Yeah. I think, again, like every, every office has a different need, but it's just being really clear on the front end about, you know, what, the types of skills that you think it is that you're gonna look at or you're gonna be looking for.

And also remember, these are people who are really good at figuring things out. Resourcefulness is the number one skill set that you have to have to be a successful VA. For us, when we train, when we are talking to women who are considering this as a career, we're like shouting that from the rooftops. If you are not the type of woman who sees a problem and goes, "I'm gonna Google that and figure out how that's done," you're not gonna make it in this industry, 'cause literally the whole job is figuring things out that you don't know.

So I also just wanna say like, don't stress if somebody doesn't necessarily know how to do the thing yet. You really wanna find the right personality fit and find a really resourceful person, because a resourceful person can travel with you. Meaning like, okay, great, you're using this email platform, but now you decide to switch because something new came on the market, or, you know, Molly recommends this to you because it makes more sense.

If you are only hiring for hard skills, you don't know if you've got somebody that's good at learning new things. What you really want is somebody who's resourceful and is good at learning new things, because they will be able to be with you for a very long time, which is the, the, the whole goal, right?

Like, we want people long. Yes. I do. That's how I-

Molly: Yeah. Oh, yeah. I mean, there's people on my team who've been with me six years, four years. Right. And I love, there's one girl on my team who anytime she's like, "Okay, hey, I ran into this issue, and here's what I have discovered," she's like already done the research, right?

She's like-

Sara: Yeah ...

Molly: she doesn't ... And I don't expect, like she doesn't know the answer, but she's at least done all the back work. She's not just like, "Well, I don't know, so here you go, Molly." Yep. Like-

Sara: Yep.

Molly: And what I would say, and Sarah I know would back me up on this, is follow your freaking gut instincts. Yes.

I cannot tell you how many times I have kept someone on longer, and not only is that a disservice to you, but it's a disservice to the person, 'cause you know they are not feeling good about it either, right? Like-

Sara: Totally. Totally. 100%. I'll also piggyback off of that and say, you know, I think the... If there's two things that keep people from hiring virtual assistants, especially the chiropractors, um, and people just in the wellness industry in general, it's what do I even give to them, right?

And, and I loved your, your hack there for, like, what's on my list that always stays on my list, or what's the most annoying thing that I have to do. Mm-hmm. That too. Like, what's the thing that I'm always like, "Ugh, this is the worst part of my job"? Because somebody else is gonna think that's the best part of their job, by the way.

And I think sometimes we feel bad 'cause we're like, "Oh, I don't wanna have to ask you to do this thing, 'cause, like, I hate this thing." But like, no, no, they like that thing. That's why they're here. That's why they're in this industry. You know, that's number one, and number two is the training. How do I tell them how to do it?

And so this is my two birds, one stone method, and y'all, like, people are like, "It has to be more complicated than that," and I'm like, "It, it's literally the simplest thing in the world." Y'all use Loom. Do you use Loom?

Molly: Yeah. Oh, yeah.

Sara: Okay. I mean, you can use anything, but I just like Loom 'cause it's so easy.

When you have a task that you do, all you need to do is Loom yourself doing the task, okay? What Loom is gonna do for you is it's gonna make you a transcript. It's going to walk them through that process. It's gonna create the link for you. You can now do a couple of things. Number one, you can give that to the VA.

They can watch it again and again and again and again and again if they need to re-watch how you do it the first couple of times. And then two, if you want, your VA can then take that transcript, pop that into ChatGPT or Claude, and make an SOP for it, right? Yes. And have that documented in your business as well.

Molly: Yeah, and if you don't know what Loom is, she's saying L-O-O- Oh, thank you It's like

Sara: Weaving loom ...

Molly: I'm doing, I'm doing a sewing motion, like

Sara: Oh, uh- I don't really know ... we think, we think it's weaving. I think it's weaving. Loom.

Molly: Oh, okay. Sure. I don't know.

Sara: I don't know. Um- I don't know. I don't know ...

Molly: I use Loom, like, I make like five Looms a day.

So that is the best way to, like, I'll be like, "Hey, let me show you..." Like, it's, so it's where you can screen share. You can also, there's an app for your phone- Thank you ... and you don't even have to have your video on. So just if you want a voice memo real quick that's like web-based and you wanna just send someone a link-

Sara: Yeah

Molly: Loom. It's so easy.

Sara: Yep. It's basically like Zoom where you can screen share and do a task, and you can walk through, you can walk the person through it. "Great, so if I was gonna post to social media, here's how I would do it." And you walk them through the task. The task is done, and you've got a training video, too.

I think that's a really easy way to do it. And then the second thing that I would add is don't expect that they're gonna nail it the first time, right? Like, if we all think about us getting into our jobs and our careers, I have never nailed anything on the first try. I'm sure you, right? Like, it takes time.

It takes learning. The first time you send them something, if they don't totally nail it, don't freak out yet, right? Like- Yeah ... did you explain it well? 'Cause o- oftentimes, and again, I said this in the very beginning, I'm a horrible people manager. Oftentimes I would be frustrated because somebody wouldn't get it, and I would look back at the video and I would be like, "Oh yeah, I left that part out.

Obviously they don't know what it is." So- Yes. Yeah ... when they're doing the work, if you need to fix some of their work, again, Loom it. Instead of just fixing it and being like, "I'm gonna do this myself," you're never gonna get the support if you do that. We all think that. We're like, "Ah, it'll just be easier if I do it myself."

Well, yeah, easier today, but tomorrow that doesn't get your problem solved that you're still the one- Mm-hmm ... doing all the work. So if you're fixing something, Loom it. Again, record the video. "Hey, thank you so much for posting this to social media. So I really like it when we post if we do X, Y, Z, one, two, three.

I'm gonna walk you through what it i- what I'm doing and why I'm doing it." And now you can add that as an addendum to the training video, and they- Yeah ... can add that as an addendum to the SOP. Boom. We have answers.

Molly: Yeah. Yeah. No, and that's what we tell our agency clients, right? Look, if you're fixing something in our work over and over and you don't tell us-

Sara: Yeah

Molly: it's never gonna get better. Like, and yes- Yeah ... we still make mistakes repeatedly because we are human beings. Who doesn't? Yeah. But, um, yeah, like you absolutely had to. And I was going back to the skills you hate. My mom is a book- she actually works for my bookkeeper. She's worked for my bookkeeper for like four years.

Oh, that's so

Sara: cool.

Molly: And I called her yesterday and I was like, "Hey, what are you doing?" She's like, "I couldn't get these books to reconcile, but I put on my Sherlock Holmes hat and I figured it out." I'm like, "That I can think of nothing less I would rather do." Like- Yeah ... I would rather go to the dentist- Yeah

than reconcile someone's books. Like, that Like, it actually, like, makes me sweat.

Sara: Same. But she loves it. Loves it. Yeah. Loves

Molly: it. Like, loves finding... So yeah, like, I always like, I like the type A people because I'm so not that I'm like like, can you-

Sara: Ooh.

Molly: Go ahead.

Sara: That's a great point, actually. Do not hire yourself, hire for your skills gap.

So like as an example- Yeah ... I am not type A, uh, either. Although, do you feel like you really tried to be type A for a lot of your life?

Molly: My family thinks I'm type A because-

Sara: Yeah. Well, we're high achievers, and I think- Like

Molly: a compensator ...

Sara: I think people think that high achievers are type A, but we're, we're very often not I feel like for mu- much of my life I tried to really be type A, and then now in my 40s I'm finally like, "I don't care."

But- Yeah ... that's not the point of this conversation. The point of this conversation is hire the skills you don't have. So I have ADHD, I'm not type A, I am an incredible... I, I come up with ideas all the time. I, I am, I am great- Yeah ... with a lot of things in my business. I am not great at completing things. I am not the finisher.

I am not ... Right? If I hired someone like me because I really like their personality, I wouldn't actually be filling a gap in my business. No. My COO is so type A, not neurodivergent at all. She's an Enneagram 1. Like, we are ... We could not be more dissimilar, and that is why we've worked together so well for eight years.

Molly: We ... I had a girl on my team who, it was beautiful story. She ended up adopting a baby, but it ... And it happened, like, in the blink of an eye. Sh- the foster. Literally she texted me, "Don't freak out, but, um, I'm getting a baby in two days." And I'm like, "Okay, not freaking out. I'm not freaking out. I'm not freaking out."

And one of my clients was like, that I was taking over from her, was like, "Oh, I'm so excited that you, you're gonna ... The boss is doing our content." I'm like, "Don't be excited."

Sara: No.

Molly: You don't want me... You don't want me doing your content.

Sara: Mm-mm.

Molly: It might get done- And you don't

Sara: know what you're gonna end up with.

Molly: It might get done the night before it's supposed to get posted. Like-

Sara: It'll get done the night before. It might get done the moment before it's supposed to.

Molly: Actually, the night before would be generous. It would get done as I'm posting it. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. It would be being created.

Sara: Yeah,

Molly: yeah. So I'm like, yeah, you don't want me.

Now ideas, hooks, what stops your scroll, like relationships, I, I'm your girl.

Sara: Yep.

Molly: You don't, don't ... You don't want me executing anything.

Sara: Mm-mm, mm-mm, mm-mm. Yeah. If it is, if it is time, details, and date based, it's not us.

Molly: Yeah, for sure. So okay, go, let's go back to, I don't think we actually closed the loop, I'm looking at my notes of course, to ADHD that we were talking- Oh,

Sara: the rates.

Yeah, rates.

Molly: What are you seeing in 2026? Okay.

Sara: Yeah, so in 2026 this is what we're seeing. Entry level VAs, okay? And, and when I say entry level, I, I wanna be super specific. This means that they are new to the industry, not that they are new to work. Okay? So a lot of times what we'll see is that, you know, for us, for the women that we train, these women come from incredible careers.

From, you know- Mm ... all, all different walks of life too. It's just that they're new to the online space. They are new to doing this digitally and virtually with other people. And so our recommendation is always that they start at a lower rate because even if they have such an advanced skill set and so many other things, they're still learning how to do this online, right?

And so the rate should reflect that. So entry level VAs are in the 25 to $35 per hour range. Mm-hmm. Right? It's really gonna depend on their background- Yeah ... and things like that. Mid-levels, okay? These are folks that have been in the industry for, you know, for a little bit. They are much more comfortable.

They're much more confident, right? These folks are 35 to 45 per hour. And then we've got our high-level VAs. These are folks who have been here for a while. They probably have more advanced skill sets. You know, they are really, really, really strong in the work. Those folks are 45 to 55 per hour, and up, for sure.

Like, they're, you know, there's advanced skill sets and things like that for them. Mm. But that's what they're looking like here.

Molly: And they're worth it, too. Yeah. Yeah. They're, they're worth it. Like, I, I can vouch for... I mean, just like, do you remember, what was this, what was this, like two years ago, when the whole, like you had to verify your domain and, like, the DMARC stuff?

Do you remember that? Ugh. And it was like-

Sara: Yes ...

Molly: I was like, "I don't even wanna read about this. Can you figure it out?" And my VA, who's, she's 50 an hour, and she was, she's in the Phil- She was like, "Yeah." And, like, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba. God. It didn't even, like, cost me a 4:00 AM sweaty palm wake up. As you know- No

as entrepreneurs, I mean, how many? It's like put a finger down if you've woken up at 4:00 AM with sweaty palms. Like,

Sara: why do I own a business? This is so stupid. It's so stressful. I know. I know. The differ- And the thing that I wanna say about the rate, too, is like don't compare that rate to the rate that you would pay someone in office, because you are paying a full-time person in office.

You are paying for their supplies and their seat in your office, and the- Mm ... location and all of those things, right? So, like, the rate might be more per hour, but you have to think- Yeah ... about how many hours are you having that person a month, right?

Molly: Mm-hmm. 'Cause you're not paying taxes. They're paying their own taxes, all

Sara: that stuff.

They are paying their own taxes. Exactly. So- Yeah ... remember that part. Yep.

Molly: That's a great point, Diane. Do you remember that trending audio?

Sara: No. That audio?

Molly: Oh my

Sara: God. I'm so- I keep saying it. I don't know any trending audio anymore. I need to, like, get back on that, but.

Molly: Oh, I don't anymore. This was, like, two or three years ago.

Oh,

Sara: okay.

Molly: Okay. Um, and for some reason it was like, "That's a great point, Diane." So anytime I say, "That's a great point," Diane comes out every time.

Sara: Thanks. Thanks, Diane.

Molly: Yeah, we don't ... Sidebar to this conversation, we don't really care about trending audio anymore. No. Not even there. We don't really ever look at that.

Okay. There's a couple ... I'm ping-ponging here, but- Mm-hmm ... everyone's used to my podcast, so.

Sara: Welcome.

Molly: They, they're, if this is your first episode you've ever listened to of mine, this is what you can expect. So I'm going back to the whole marketing VA, because I made a note to myself- Yeah ... when we were first talking about, I think it is so much sexier

Like, let's say- Mm ... I'm putting out marketing for- Okay ... people to, to join my program. Mm. How much sexier is it to be like, "New patients, new clients on your schedule." But lest we forget, it is seven times cheaper to retain a current patient or client. Yep. So let's talk about how a VA could help you with- Patient and client retention and getting them back on your schedule, back in your world, helping them leave you a Google review, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Sara: Yeah. All of that. I mean, follow-ups- Mm-hmm ... right? Like follow up after- Mm-hmm ... the appointment. How are you feeling? Right? How's your body feeling? Do you need to book your next appointment, right? Like- Mm-hmm ... those are all follow-ups that can happen with your VA. Uh, can you please leave us a Google review, right?

And then what we know to be true for sure, how many emails do you have in your inbox right now, Molly?

Molly: Oh, I don't... You don't wanna know.

Sara: Well- We- ...

Molly: actually, Dixie, my OBM, has gone through it, so it's showing 11, but ...

Sara: Okay. If you look- It's showing 11 because she has support ...

Molly: my personal inbox- Noted ... I keep getting the notice that goes, "Your Gmail's gonna be shut down on May 5th," and I'm like, "Eh."

Sara: You're like, "Shut it down. Let it go. We don't want it anymore anyway." 100%. So, so, you know, those are, those are all things that they can be helping you do. We know that people's inboxes are, are full, so we know that follow-ups are required, right? The first time you ask somebody to write you a Google review, they're probably not gonna write it because they, like, watched it or looked at the email, and then the dog knocked something over, the doorbell rang, the groceries showed up, the kids' school called, right?

Like, we gotta follow up, and your VA can be that person to follow up and put people on a spreadsheet. We can track them, right? Okay, great. Mm. Who came into the office this week? Have they given us Google reviews? No. Great. When they come in the next time, they can set up programs for you. "Hey, if you give us a Google review, you'll get $5 off of your next," whatever it is that you want.

They can set all of that, all of that stuff up for you and do those follow-ups for you.

Molly: Yes. And l- so like you said, like, yeah, they could do it manually to start, but they could also set up a system- Automation. Yep ... and systematize it for you so that you don't- 100% ... have to keep doing it. And so I've had these...

I have these two email scripts that have, like, gone viral because- Ooh ... I keep getting DMs about them working, which I'm so excited. One script is, I always say, "The first thing you need to do when you start getting consistent on Instagram is email your patients and tell them to follow you and come comment."

Like, that's, like-

Sara: Yeah ...

Molly: huge. And then the second script is, um, you send it every Sunday night. I did not invent this. And it just says, "Here's the availability we have on our schedule this week." And I have gotten so many DMs of people being like, "Oh my God, this is working." Like, I had, um, two different DMs of people going...

I had people go, "This is so smart. I just, like, like you said, the doorbell rang, this happened, this happened, and you keep forgetting." Although, this is really cute. I had a chiropractor DM me a couple days ago. She goes, "Molly, I'm sending your email and it's not working." I said, "Oh, send it to me." And she sent it to me and I said, "You're gonna crack up when I tell you what it's missing.

Do you see it?" And she goes, "No, I don't see it." I was like, "There's no Book button." Oh.

Sara: She

Molly: was like, "Oh my gosh." She's just like, "I've sent this, like, four times and wondered why nobody was booking." I was like- That's

Sara: why, 'cause you gotta make it easy

Molly: on 'em ... "I'm only laughing" ... I was like, "I'm only laughing because this is so something I would do, and, like, your brain just stops seeing it."

But yeah- Totally ... like, those little things, like- I always say hop on your stories every Monday and just post a quick screenshot of like, "Hey, we had a cancellation Thursday at-

Sara: Yep ...

Molly: at 2:00." And like that appointment will get filled.

Sara: Yep.

Molly: And you've just paid for your VA for like a couple hours- 100% ... just by posting one story and filling availability.

Sara: Yep. Ooh, I love that so much. I love that. I think if there's anybody out there who is like, "I really wanna hire someone, but I have to make sure that I'm gonna get the ROI immediately," which, you know, if, if that's the way that you think about it, that's totally okay. Put them on those tasks first.

Molly: Yeah. Well, I'll close- Because then in your brain you've already won.

Exactly. Well, I'll close with this because I don't know if I've ever told you this, but something I learned from you that I teach my people every freaking day, is any time my students or clients are like, "Oh my God, I'm like, patients are super down," or whatever, I tell them exactly what I learned from you.

Do you know what it's gonna be?

Sara: No.

Molly: Look at your last 10 new patients and where did they come from?

Sara: Mm-hmm. Yep, 'cause that's your lead source. That's where you should go focus more time.

Molly: Say your last 10 new patients came from, okay, the midwife down the street has referred me two patients. Okay, your VA can send her a Starbucks gift card or a whatever, or like a thank you.

Sarah, oh, I see Sarah's referred me two patients. I'm gonna send her a thank you card. Or you know- Mm-hmm ... it's different now. In some states you can't actually incentivize referrals or-

Sara: Mm ...

Molly: reviews, whatever. You have to know your own laws. But- Yeah ... a thank you card. My chiropractor here sent me a thank you card for referring my friend, and that meant so much to me.

Like, oh- Yeah ... she's paying attention. And she cares. I don't need a monetary-

Sara: Uh-uh

Molly: You know, like, just,

Sara: like, thank you. Like, that's great. And I think that really plays back into our conversation earlier about AI and what's gonna make a difference here, right? So, like, not only what's gonna make a difference in terms of hiring, but also what's gonna help your chiropractic office stand out.

And it's stuff like that, right? It's like, it's the small things that have been missing, I think, from our society that have been, like, stripped away because, you know, by and large we got so focused on, like, profitability or nothing else, right? And at the end of the day, it's like- Haylee, scale,

Molly: scale, scale

Sara: scale, scale, scale, scale, scale, right? Yeah. And like, it's actually so much easier to scale if you just care about people, and like show up for them, and are kind to them. Yeah. And like, that's the stuff to use a VA for. Yes. It's the human connection stuff.

Molly: Yeah, and like, go back to episode, I'll have Haylee, my, my podcast editor, link it in the show notes, but it's an e- episode I did with Nikki Cottis.

Mm-hmm. Um, oh, she's incredible. On numbers that they check. Mm-hmm. They're like, "Okay, we noticed after 10 visits our patients were falling off and not rebooking." Like, that's- Yep ... something your VA can do.

Sara: Yep. So, yeah. If you prompt people, they'll do it. It's just we all get so busy in our brains. I know I do, right?

That's why, like, when I leave a doctor's office I try to be like, "Uh, let's make the next appointment now even if it's a year from now." Oh. Otherwise you'll never see me again. Yeah. You'll never see

Molly: me. That's the only way I'm making sure I don't have skin cancer, okay, is my dermatology appointments are- Same, girl

booked out, like, a year .

Sara: Same, girl. Mine's next week.

Molly: Okay, I said one more thing, and I do have to hop off, but I do have- Yeah ... one more thing for real. Yeah, yeah. And then I want you to tell us how to find you. Very quickly, I do think people interchange VA with social media manager, and I almost think social media manager, I'm getting, like, into semantics here, could be VA.

But when it comes to social media strategy, I think that is unfair to the VA to assume that they're like- wearing all these hats. I expect you to be- Yes ... an expert graphic designer and an expert in all social media trends, and, and, and, and, and. I think that's trainable, like you said, the soft skills, right?

That's why my program exists. I have several hub students who have hired a VA and put them through my programs. But I don't know if you have any extra things to add on that.

Sara: No, I mean, I, I j- I just totally agree with you on that. I think the virtual assistant's job is to do things for you. It is not to be a strategy person, right?

There's a reason that it costs a whole lot of money to hire a social media manager, and if you, if you, and I mean this with all the love in the world, but if somewhere in your brain you think, "Well, I don't have the money to pay a social media manager, so I'm just gonna hire a VA for less and expect that they're gonna do that job," that's like somebody being like, "Well, I don't have the money to pay for a chiropractor, so I'm gonna go ask my husband to step on my back, and that'll be the same thing."

It won't, right? Yeah, yeah. So, like, can they grow with you over time? Yeah, absolutely. Can they learn? Can you, you know, c- can you throw them through a social media course? Can you do all of those things? For sure. But at the end of the day, they are there to do the work for you. They, they are not social media experts.

You might get someone who freaking loves social media, right? You might get that unicorn who just, like, has the eye for it, has the brain for it, and they can figure it out with you, but you just can't have an expectation that they're gonna be, you know, all of the things for you.

Molly: We didn't talk about the HIPAA BAA stuff, but just know- Mm

that they can sign. There's things that can be signed. Consult your attorney, um, if they're gonna be dealing with PHI of any sort. Um, I think that's everything. I'm just, I'm looking at all my crazy notes here. So Lacey, who is Sarah's best friend that we were talking about, who's now my business coach, she talked

Well, she didn't talk me into it, but I saw that she had a Remarkable, and so I was like, "Oh my gosh, I want a Remarkable." Do you think I use it? No. It is now luckily my husband's, because it was just too much to, like, put in the password and open it and find the note and all ... Like, Lacey's- No ... way more Type A than

I would say- Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah ... I'm in the middle of you two. I'm, like, not, I'm like a B plus, I say. Hmm.

Sara: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm. I am, like, an A plus with, like, three things, and then I'm, like, a solid C with everything else.

Molly: This is what all, all of us go around. Okay, Sarah, how can ... You do have a matchmaking service, which I've sent many, many people your way.

Sara: Yeah.

Molly: So if people, how do they find these VAs?

Sara: Yeah. So if you are looking for a VA, we run a ph- a completely free, uh, matchmaking service. We will connect you, uh, depending on the level of support that you're looking for and the level of VA that you're looking for, we will either connect you to one of our current students or one of our past students who's already graduated from our program.

It is free for you, and it's also free for them. They don't pay anything extra, and they don't pay us a fee or a percentage or anything like that. It's literally just we lose money every year doing this service, but we've, we've done it since the beginning because it feels like the right thing to do. So you can go to startandgrowco.com, uh, slash matchmaking, and you can find the link there.

All that you will do is fill out a quick form. It's actually really nice, too, if you're like, "I really wanna hire a VA, but first I have to spend, like, you know, 52 hours figuring out what I'm gonna do with them." Our form will walk you through that and really help you figure that out, too. So, like, don't stress about that.

It'll probably take you five, 10 minutes to complete it, and then you send that to us. We take that information, and then we send it out to our network. Uh, we send it out without your information first so that you don't have, like, 9 million people contacting you. And then we ask our VAs to respond back to us, and they have to answer a couple specific questions to make sure that they've read the information and they understand what you're asking for.

And then we will try to connect you with, you know, three maximum of five virtual assistants, and then you, you and the VA take it from there. You get to interview them, and, a- and you guys go from there. So that's startandgrowco.com/matchmaking, and then we're also on Instagram. Our handle is @thestartandgrowco.

You can find us there, too.

Molly: Okay, Sarah, thank you so much. It was so good to connect with you again. Mm. Um, keep on ... Y'all should follow Sarah personally, too. She's doing some, like, incredible work out on the mean streets of the USA.

Sara: And they are mean. They are mean.

Molly: They are mean. Um, I love you. I'm so glad you're in my life, and thank you for this conversation.

Thank you for listening to Holistic Marketing Simplified. And hey, you know how every podcaster at the very end of their episode asks you to rate and review their podcast? Well, that's because it's super important. These podcasts take a lot of time and heart and effort to produce to bring you free information.

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