Hiring a Virtual Assistant is THE Missing Piece for Business Growth [Episode 92]

Molly: Hello, my friends and welcome back. Today's episode is with my friend, Keeley Scheider. She's an online business coach, a successful systems expert. That's hard to say. Wife, toddler mom. And, um, she has a really popular course for virtual assistants and online business managers called the Asana VIP day Academy.

And she has been a virtual assistant. Well, you can hear more about her. Story of how she got into this and all that since 2021. But today's episode is all about letting go of control. And I know it's so funny because this is the third episode that I've done around hiring some type of virtual assistant or help or delegating.

And the reason that this is such a current theme is because it's just so important. Like I just see far too many. It's, it tends to be more women than men that I see. Just wondering why they're always behind and wondering why they always can't stay consistent with things and wondering why they're feeling burnt out when they're trying to do everything themselves.

I had someone tell me in my DMs, I don't know how you do it all. I'm like, I don't even remotely. I have a very, Very large team of contractors. I have help in my house. I don't even do my laundry anymore. So yeah, I'm like the world's biggest fan of delegating. So the biggest thing we teach we touch on today is mindset like around like letting go of control and Debunking that you're not trying to find someone else who can replace you or do it like you And then we also get into some logistics of how to find this person and, you know, red flags, interview stuff, like what they can do for you, different like examples of things they can do for you and all of that.

And I'm also excited to have Keali on because I met Keali in real life in Savannah at the social squad societies retreat. And she's just the yin to my yang. She's very organized and detail oriented. She's also really talented at Instagram stories. Um, she actually has a little Instagram stories mini course.

And that's not what we talked about on today's episode. But you will love following her on Instagram. And I asked her to be the co coach at my retreat in April, April 10th through the 13th, 2025 in Folly Beach, South Carolina. It's right outside Charleston. I would love to, I only have at the time of this recording, I only have seven beds left, but the retreat is, we are starting on a Thursday evening and then Friday morning pro hair and makeup, if you want it.

professional photography, b roll stations throughout the bad. You should see this Airbnb. It is so cool. It's humongous. It's four minutes from the beach and everyone has their own little suite. So everybody's got their own like bed, bath, kitchen, living room area with the exception of like two of the spaces have like two beds, but like everybody's got their own room and space.

So if you're like a private person, like I said, you've got your own little suite. So yeah, so there will be like video reels, filming stations throughout the Airbnb with clear instructions at each one of what to film. And then on Saturday of the retreat, Keali and I will be helping you put together all of the footage.

that you filmed into usable reels that you can go post. And then cherry on top is you get after the retreat, five reels edited by my team, um, delivered to you after the retreat as well. So it's super awesome. Everything is included in the price of your ticket with the exception of your flight there, or if you're driving there and like your Uber to get there, everything like snacks, meals, photography, all of that is included in the ticket.

So just go to mollycahill. com slash retreat, and that will take you to the full. page of all the information and the pricing, all of that. And it'll also put you on a waitlist. You can't check out right there because clearly I don't want, you know, it's like a small house and I kind of want to see who's coming in.

Um, but I'll be in touch with you once you're on the waitlist. So anyway, without further ado. I think you're going to love this episode with Keeley.

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 hanging out while we chat all things, even 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.

Caitlin Ross: Hi, I'm Caitlin Ross, a virtual counselor based in Rock Hill, South Carolina, and I love listening to the holistic marketing simplified podcast.

Molly: Hi Keali. I'm so happy to have you on the show today. Thanks for having me, Molly. So here's the thing y'all need to know about Keali is. I actually hung out with Keali in real life at the social squad society retreat in Savannah. And was that may, so just not too long ago. And we even sat next to each other at dinner and I was like, Oh my gosh, she's so quiet.

I don't know. I don't feel like I know her. And then we come back and like Instagram showing me your stories. And you're just so we're not even talking about Instagram stories today. I've already had someone on the show to talk about stories, but we should have you back to talk about stories too. But just shows you how good you are at stories because now I'm like, Oh my gosh, I'm obsessed with Keali.

She's one of my people. We're so much alike and I didn't even realize it. We were together in person and it took, but you, you said you self proclaim that you have like, you're like, you're like a little anxious socially at first. And then you're like, once you come out of your shell or if it's people, you know, you're totally.

Yeah.

Keali: Yes, when I'm with my people, I'm very extroverted, but when I don't know if they're my people yet, I'm very risk proofed and quiet, and then people, like, see me on social media, and they're like, wait a minute, who, is this the same? And I'm like, yes, this is the real me, too. You can be both.

Molly: Yeah. Um, so I'm like, so anyway, we had some like these in depth, crazy conversations.

I don't know. Whenever I meet another woman in business, I'm like, Oh, she gets it. Like, she's so, you're just so smart and you're so effortless and so natural at what you do. So I know you're like, I hate introducing myself. So I'm going to start with this question. Do you sing karaoke? And if yes, what is your song?

Keali: If I have enough liquid courage, yeah,

sober, probably not. If it was for my daughter. Yes. We seen let it go frozen almost night in the bath. So I feel like I could probably get away with that if she was there watching. But that poses another problem of most people sing karaoke in a bar. So I don't know that I want my two year old in a bar, but my go to karaoke, I have saying the YMCA very often on a cruise multiple times.

I have done that again. So

Molly: everybody gets involved, right? That's not like,

Keali: okay, to keep it going, especially if you're not a great singer, which I am not, you need the crowd participation. Yeah. Yeah. It's all about creating the energy. So,

Molly: and this is exactly what you do when you're posting your Instagram stories too.

Yes.

Keali: Energy is like the lifeline of everything.

Molly: It's the participation, get them talking back. So Keali, like I said, you don't have to go into your, your focus. I'll have done your intro in the beginning, but you actually. How long have you been in the online space? You were a speech therapist before. Wait, pathologist.

What's the proper

Keali: speech language pathologist is the former term, but people refer to it as really anything speech therapist, speech pathologist, speech here. Don't ever say that one. That's just the life. Okay. People really don't like that one. Um, but yeah, I was a speech pathologist for almost a decade and then got started as a virtual assistant in 2021.

Yeah, 2021. 2021. I really enjoyed my speech therapy career, but I just knew after I got married and we were talking about starting a family just wasn't going to be a fit long term. Yeah, it's just physically, emotionally, mentally, very demanding job. And so I had just been. been looking for just kind of alternative options.

And also we were looking to make some extra money, bring in some more income as a newly married couple. So a friend told me about a virtual assistant course. I took it, went all in and did both jobs for a while. And then when I gave birth to my daughter, I did not go back to my therapy job. So I started the VA business in 2021, went full time with it in 2022.

And now it's been almost. Two years just doing

Molly: this. That's amazing. And so I want to start just by kind of, Keali knows that the majority of you are brick and mortar. A lot of you maybe have some type of online program that you've already created, online course, or just some type of like secondary health coaching, functional medicine, something that can be done virtually.

And I hear this literally every day. It's like, Oh, I created this course and it's not selling. Not that this, this show is going to be about selling your course or your passive product, but you know, if you're doing coaching, like I said, any of those like more virtual online things, but what we're going to talk about today is I am telling you the key to probably why it's quote not working and it's actually letting go of control and getting some help.

So first of all, can you just kind of tell us what is a virtual assistant?

Keali: Yeah, that's why it's hard because it's tricky to give a job description and it's really hard to say what you do. People ask me all the time, well, what do virtual assistants do? And really the answer is it can honestly be anything and that's why people really don't like it.

And there's a lot of friction around what it actually is because it can, I define it as it can be anything. A virtual assistant can essentially do anything that you can teach them and train them to do. And I know that's, that's pretty broad, but just to kind of give some more tangible answers. It could be for somebody who has a brick and mortar business.

It could look like checking your email inbox, um, responding to patient inquiries that you might get on a website or fielding that data into, if you want all those answers put into a spreadsheet. Or something like that. If you want somebody to, if you're posted on your Instagram and you have Canva graphics and you don't want to do that anymore, a virtual assistant could do that.

If you have email marketing and you write the emails, but you don't like formatting and copy pasting and putting it in there and figuring out, okay, these people need to get this email, but not these people. A virtual assistant can help you with that. It can honestly be anything that you want it to be. It could be social media help.

And that's also something that I think is confusing for people is that some virtual assistants are highly specialized in certain areas, and some are really broad generalists. It is very different and it can be confusing. So, but a good rule of thumb for things that a virtual assistant could help you with specifically is anything that you feel like anytime you sit down and do it, you think this is such a time suck this I'd rather be doing literally anything else.

You put it off, you procrastinate, or it's just a mental drain after you do it, or it's just something that always seems to be on your to do list. And then it gets bumped to tomorrow or the next month. And then the next thing, you know, a year's gone by and you're like, Hey, I have this goal or this thing that I really wanted to do.

And I just never get to it. The things that you quote unquote, never get to, and you never have time for those are great. tasks to outsource to a virtual assistant.

Molly: Yeah, that's exactly what I say is my, my litmus test is like what keeps not getting crossed off my to do list. And I know there's books about like your zone of genius and like, Oh, you need to find the things.

I feel like that's, that's also a good idea of course, but that to me even feels overwhelming to think about sometimes. And just an example in my business, my zone of genius, what I love doing most is talking to my people and the sales and the, you know, relationships. And yet, even though that's my zone of genius, I still found myself something that's important to me in my business is to have a lot of like, like call it manual personal touch points.

Right? So like if someone buys the hub and they haven't even watched the welcome video after two weeks, they get a personal email from me and that's important to me. Um, and I was like, Oh, I kept trying to do it and do it and I was never doing it. So I was like, okay, even though this is my zone of genius.

I'm still delegating it because it's not going to get done otherwise. I also have someone who helps me manually follow up with my many chat commenters. So anytime someone comments the word to get one of my freebies, that's someone on my team manually following up with them going, Hey, did you get a chance to download it?

Do you need the link again? Is it something I love to do? Yes. But was it getting done? No.

Keali: Well, also zone of genius, I think can feel intimidating to people, especially if you're a health practitioner, because we're like, okay, that's kind of business jargon. Like, what does that even mean? You know? So if you're having a hard time even coming up with what is my zone of genius in a very little literal sense of what can only you do.

Okay. If you are on Instagram, Only you can be in the video, but someone else can help you write the caption, post it and edit it. So for your example about the personal emails. Does Molly herself have to write the email? No. You could give guidance around what do you want, what you want it to say and outline, but somebody else can type it up and send it so you don't have to actually be the one.

Yeah, doing it yourself. So think of it in very black and white terms at first, if that's too confusing. And then based on that, I think you'll learn more about yourself of, okay, if I don't know what my zone of genius is, that will help you get on the right track.

Molly: Yeah. And like, so my virtual assistant also does like the first pass at my email inbox.

So she knows if it's like a blanket podcast pitch that it's just, I'm not replying. Like I don't even get it. If you can tell they have not actually listened, you know, or, um, I don't know, spam or like customer service. Like she, she doesn't, I've had some people be like, Ooh, I couldn't have someone in my inbox.

I'm like, it's not like she's deciding. When you have good procedures and policies and procedures in place, it's not like she's trying to decide, Oh, would Molly want to read this email? It's just like, no, like, there's a set number of things that she knows she's sifting through responding to and deleting.

Yeah, just

Keali: reducing the workload and reducing the decision fatigue. Because if you go through. 50 pitches that you don't want to do anything with. By the time you get to the ones that are important, you've used up a lot of your good brain cells and brain power. I'm a mom, you're a mom. Like those are finite resources.

So we can't be wasting them on simple tasks like that, that somebody else can totally take care of.

Molly: She, um, also does like, SEO specialist to go do like an audit of my site and do some SEO repair on some of my, um, Old podcast blogs. And so like she's going and changing those blogs out. So going back to the whole definition of virtual assistant, like you said, I had one virtual assistant one time who literally her whole specialty was around Cartra, the email program I use.

And that was it. It's like you could find as specialized or as broad. I feel like it just depends. To me, I look at more of. Are you responsible because I'm not a micromanager. I'm literally like you figure it out. I don't know. Come to me if you, I don't have issues with control when it comes to that stuff.

So I'm like, are you someone that I have to keep following up with? Are you somebody who gets it done? And I just had a girl on my team, actually, Hallie, who she was just so good that I was like, Hey, can I cross train you to do some other, do you want more hours? Do you like your other clients? Can you get rid of them?

And you're just so good that I know I can cross train you to do other things. So I don't know if you want to touch on that some.

Keali: Yeah. So I think hiring for personality versus skillset is really important. Or like you said, you could start out hiring for a very, very specific skillset. But if you like the way the person works, their work ethic, you have good communication together and you want somebody like in your case, to be a That is kind of more of a self starter and able to just initiate and is not waiting around for very explicit direction from you all the time.

That's kind of hard to find sometimes. So when you get somebody like that, that's a great way to keep investing in them, to make sure that it's going to work out longterm, um, because you can, you can train somebody. On more of the technical components, you know, we have a bunch of resources to do that. If you as the business owner, aren't sure there are always help articles, there's YouTube videos, like the stuff is out there.

You just have to go and find it, but you can't train somebody to be a self initiator or have a good work ethic if they're not, or if they don't have that naturally. So I think if you kind of lead with that, that's a really good place to start when looking for a virtual assistant.

Molly: Yeah, and there's so many online courses out there now.

Actually, the majority of all of my new Holistic Marketing Hub students have been bigger clinics who are not as some of them have been virtual assistants, but some of them have also been somebody just like an office assistant, and they just put them through my course. It's like, yeah, you don't have to know how to do the thing.

Like we decided we wanted to add Google business profile services to our Instagram management agency and I don't know how to do it. So I bought Jordan a girl on my team, of course, I'm like, here you go, here's the course. Like you can now, and she's the perfect, like she's the type of person who goes through it.

She like had notes for me and ideas and all that. Like she's just, you know, she's just perfect for figuring out that role. So when, at the beginning of the episode, I touched on. You know, this might be your missing piece for trying to get the more passive product off, off the ground. And even if you don't have a passive product, if you're like, man, I can't get to these things that I've really been wanting to do because I'm drowning in, you know, patient notes or whatever.

It's really letting go of control. Cause if I were to, if I were to like, I need to do a post sometime and just list out all of the contractors and help I have because I have somebody say one time like, I don't know how you do it all. It's like, Oh, I don't remotely do it all. I don't even do my own laundry anymore.

That's been a newer edition. And now my husband and I were like, Oh my gosh, how did we live without this? You know, but I think to go back to the mindset around hiring help and the ability to let go, I've never had an issue with it, so I have a hard time teaching on it, so I'd love to hear your expert take on this.

Keali: Okay, so my question for people who are hesitant to outsource or hire help is, are you actually worried that someone else can't handle it, or are you afraid of growth? Because that is something that people really don't realize is a fear. But a lot of times, if you talk about it more in depth, there is a reward for staying the same.

Molly: And

Keali: as health practitioners, we should know that, right? Like there is a comfort level of staying in the same situation. That's why people don't. Pursue things like go trying a different doctor when their primary care doctor didn't address their needs because it's comfortable. It's easy. It takes extra work and effort to find a solution for a unique problem, but there again, there's a comfort in that.

So that's why people do it. So when you're like, I just don't understand why. People, you know, if you are asking that question of potential patients of like, why aren't they coming to me, but you are doing the same thing with not wanting to hire help for your business. It's probably because there's a fear around change and wanting to actually have that success.

Um, and I also in the health space, like you are asking people to trust you with their health and their bodies. And that's a big ask. So if you are asking that of your clients, like, why can we not extend that same thing to ourselves? I'm like, okay, I can trust somebody else to handle this for me. I can trust somebody else to come up with these solutions and the answers to my problems that I haven't been able to figure out myself.

So, and also, if you're especially if you're, I think most people in your world, I would correct me if I'm wrong about this assumption, but I would assume a lot of them don't take insurance in their, their cash. So, even more so, if you're like, I want to attract premium clients, have a premium service, because you don't want to be bound by all these, uh.

Limitations or whatever around insurance stipulations, like you're putting those same stipulations and rules on yourself by making sure you're the only one that could do it because also if you can't step out of your business, how is it going? How is it going to continue when you're not there? How are you able to take vacations?

Take actual time off time off is not Going on a family trip, but bringing your laptop and still answering emails. It's not having your phone on all the time while you're sitting on the beach, right? So if we're asking that of other people, we can ask that of ourselves. Like, trust someone else to handle it because that means that you are trusting yourself to grow and have the business that you want to have.

Molly: I love that. And I have so many follow up questions because I have a lot of like these lovely practitioners in my world who I know well, and they're not Debbie Downers. They're not yours. And they still are like, Oh, I just can't find good people. I just can't find good people. And I know I'm more woo woo than you are, but I believe that if you believe you can't find good people, you're not going to find good people.

I've been on the hunt for a potential office space. I'm not quite ready yet from a cashflow standpoint to like be paying for an office, but I want to kind of be out of the house more. And as soon as I said, Ooh, I'd love to find an office space. What do I see? Okay. Like for lease signs, freaking everywhere.

So I think even if you have been burned in the past and you're like, uh, someone stole my credit card, you know, like that doesn't mean, I mean, I've had people who weren't the best, but like right now I feel like my team, I mean, and, and this is such a timely episode too, because. I've shared with my, I've been really open with my audience sharing that I had a really tough mental health month for like an entire month where I was just, Oh, I won't get into the whole story, but I was just really, I wasn't sleeping.

I wasn't eating. It was just like, so the last thing I was doing was not showing up for my business. And one day I was driving to acupuncture and I was like, Oh my gosh, my business has still been running without a hitch. I've still made sales. No one's noticed I've been quote gone and it's because I have a team who supports me and takes care, they take initiative and like so many things go on behind the scenes.

Sometimes I'll open up a sauna or project management tool and I'll look in the background and I'll be like, Oh, like all these things just happen without me knowing.

Keali: And also they can happen because that you, you trust that they're going to. Yeah. So I think that's where a lot of people mess up too, is if you assume that someone is not going to do their job, well, they won't.

I think there's, I think there's research to support this, that if, if someone thinks that they are already prone to making mistakes, they will make more mistakes. Um, so if you are, If you go into the mindset of, okay, this person's not going to do a great job. They're never going to do it as good as me. XYZ.

Bad thing is going to happen. You're exactly right. That it probably will, because also you have to be willing to set them up for success, which a lot of people. Don't know what that looks like. And we can talk about that, um, or how to do it. But that, just like you said, you know, all these things are happening and you believe that they are, so you're not concerned or worried about it.

And so that, that's the key too.

Molly: Well, and I will say, well, we can talk about pay in a little while too. I'm also like, I pay my people very well. And I think that's, well, maybe we should go ahead and talk about it. I think that's another misconception is like, Oh, I can just pay them. You know, they're just doing these tasks.

Like I can just pay them so little. And it's like, Uh, anyway, you want to talk about that really quick. It doesn't get elephant in the room to pay part.

Keali: Yeah, well, exactly. Like I said about if, especially if you are a cash pay business, you are charging premium rates because you have a premium service that you are offering.

And so if if those two things are true, you want to have premium help and you want to have premium people working on your team. It's not a secret, but when the way a lot of people are successful is because they surround themselves with very successful people. And it's not to say there aren't great VAs who are charging five to 10 an hour, but more often than not, the best ones are not charging them.

They are charging premium rates because they are premium service providers. And so a standard starting rate for virtual assistants now is. I'm going to say 30, 35 an hour. Plus the more specialized they are and the more that they can do for you. And the more experience that they have, that number is going to go up to 50, 60 plus, if they are even, we can even talk about there's a, another role that people aren't as familiar with called online business managers that handle more of the strategic guidance and overall planning, they're more of.

Um, and so, you know, it's not always true that if a partner with you and deciding what to do instead of the virtual assistant is just kind of the executor and the doer and OBM can help you plan to know what needs to be delegated or what needs to be done. And those people are 55 to 100 plus an hour. But it's not always true that, you know, Jessica, someone's charging a super high rate means they're really great at what they do.

But more often than not, it does mean that. Um, and also when you are paying a higher price for something, you're more invested in the outcome. So you're willing to do the work of, of making sure, how can I build trust with this person? How can I make sure I'm getting the most out of it? If I'm spending this amount of money on help, you want the help to be worth it, right?

That's gonna make their job easier, which is gonna make your life easier, which is gonna make your business better. So that's 100 percent think it's worth it. To pay someone a higher rate.

Molly: So what I typically do with my people is I start them on a lower rate for the first 90 days, or we start with a project.

Keali: Yes. Starting with a project is a great way to build trust. There's not commitment really long term on either side, which especially if in this economy, I do think the sales cycle is taking longer for people to want to commit to longer term contracts. And that's a safe. Option for everybody because it also, it's not just about their skillset, but you're learning their personality.

They're learning your personality. You're learning each other's work styles. And that's a really good way to be set up for success. Long term is starting with kind of a low risk situation, like a project.

Molly: So I, I, if it's not a project, I'll usually say, Hey, I'll start you at this hourly rate. And then in 90 days, if everything is going well, then we'll increase you to this rate.

And then, you know, just try to do like pretty much annually after that. But cause I pay any, everybody on my team, you know, it's anywhere from like 25 to up to probably like 75 an hour, just depending on what they're doing for me. And I will say, if you hear this and you're like, Ooh, I don't know. If you, Keali and I talked before we hit record, even if you've just got like a mom in your office who maybe wants to get a couple hours, like, it's okay, I think, to pay a little less in the beginning as they're learning as they're training.

Just to make sure, I mean, if they've never been a virtual assistant before and they're just starting out, we're not saying you have to automatically go to. 30 an hour. But unless they like, oh, they left corporate and you know that they've got their, not saying they have to have left corporate, but like someone like you, it's like, okay, you know that they've got the skills to figure it out.

And like, they're going to be good at their job. I think, yeah, like I said, I think a lot of people just kind of undervalue the work and then they think they're going to get some like great, I don't know, for some lower hourly rate. And you don't have to pay them hourly either. A lot of virtual assistants are, are, you know, project or like monthly retainer.

I don't to talk about that too.

Keali: Yeah, I think a retainer is a great option because really it protects both parties. What a retainer means is you are pre paying usually for a certain package or number of hours at the beginning of the month instead of paying for the hours worked at the end of the month.

So the why, why this benefits both people is one for their service provider, it allows them to go ahead and. set aside that time. So it's guaranteed because most of the time they do have other clients. And so if you wait until things come up or you want to wait till the end of the month to see what's already been done, sometimes they may not be able to budget with their own time to fit things in.

So it can keep, they might say, okay, I don't have the capacity for that this month, but I could do it next month. And if you, if you want the help, you want it now. So that gives them the opportunity to manage their own capacity to guarantee you that time or to guarantee you that that project can be taken care of within that allotted time frame.

So that's really good for them. It's good for you because you can budget for it more consistently from the financial standpoint. And also you can make better planning decisions long term. If you already know XYZ thing is going to be taken care of, you can move on to the next thing. If you wait until the end of the month, you don't always know if that's going to be true or not.

So I think that that's really beneficial for both, for both parties, um, doing the retainer and prepaid projects versus waiting to pay for the hours at the end.

Molly: Yeah. I just got an email from my VA this morning, like, Hey, we'll get eight hours left for the, you know what I mean? Like she's, and I just love that because I have some projects.

Well, I was telling you about the SEO project and. When I gave her the changes, I was like, this is not an urgent project. A lot this, a lot of these changes as you have the hours. And I know that she's so good that she'll just figure it out. Like she, you know, she's like, okay, I can afford to do one today and not use up all, burn through all my hours.

I did want to go back to the mindset piece because I think there's also a lot of people assume they're hiring someone to replace them. Oh, I normally do this task, so this is going to be someone else who could do it just like me.

Keali: Well, the reality is no one's going to do it exactly like you.

That's the risk that you take is someone might do it actually better than you and have even better ideas and strategy and plans around what to do, and they might do it faster. So that's the best case scenario, right? But if somebody is doing it 80 percent as good as you, that's pretty dang good because also you have to consider it's not just about that.

It's what's your time worth. It's our resource that we cannot create more of. You can make more money, you can get more clients, you can do this, whatever. You can't create more time, but so it's kind of saying what is your time worth to you? And so if, if you're devaluing your time, kind of have other questions about what else you're devaluing.

Molly: And I can say from a patient standpoint, client standpoint, as somebody who does get adjusted weekly and acupuncture weekly, it's almost now my acupuncturist, I love her so much. She's so talented, but she is stressed. And I can feel it in my appointment because it's just her, she's overworked. And I'm like, if you think that doesn't trickle onto your patients, It 100 percent does.

So even if you're online only and you're like a health coach, but yet you're stressed out. Like that's, people are buying this dream and this vision of what their life like could be like a little better. It's like, you got to kind of practice what you preach.

Keali: Yeah. Walk the walk.

Molly: Yeah. So let's talk about finding a virtual assistant.

And hire, like finding like quality help. What are your favorite ways to do that?

Keali: So really you can find a virtual assistant almost anywhere. I believe you can train almost anyone to become a virtual assistant if you want to. So a great place to start, if you're really not sure, and you want to have kind of a baseline level of trust is hire a mom that, you know, a patient that's already uses your services because one, they already know about your business and they like it.

Right. So that's going to work to your advantage. If they believe in what you're doing, the work is always going to be better. So start there. Somebody that you know, in your own personal world, if you see qualities in them, that would translate, like maybe they are, you go to their home and they are obsessed with the home edit and they love, you know, Everything organized, everything's in its place.

They're the room mom. They love planning parties. Like those are qualities that can be easily translated into someone being a good virtual assistant because they can manage multiple things happening at one time. If they're the person that's always on time, you know, they're the, they're the friend in the group chat that's, you know, Like, hey, we need to go.

We need to have a girls night. Let's go here. And at this place in time, you know, those are people that have the skillset needed to become a VA. So I would start there. If this is very new to you and you're like, I don't want a stranger that I met on the internet because I understand that that's a, that's a real thing.

Okay. But also there are multiple people that do this, but I also have a network of VAs that are quality vetted. I know they have a baseline skill set of any basic tasks that you would need. So like the email inbox management, basic social media tasks, Canva, anything like that. So I actually have a matchmaking service where you can fill out a virtual assistant request form.

I send it out to my network and I send you the email. A couple of the top people that I think would be a good fit based on your needs. So you can do that, but also doing that, it's not a commitment to anything you meet with the person. We oftentimes virtual assistants will do something that's called a discovery call.

If you're not familiar with what that is, is they will invite you to a zoom or a Google meet video call. Sometimes it might even be a phone call if that's what you're more comfortable with, and they'll just explain. Kind of who they are, what they do, what their experience is, why they're interested in working with your business.

You can ask them questions. You can say, this is kind of what I'm thinking that I need help with, or based on your experience, what do you, they can also help you decide what you need help with. And so, but also you can talk to different people and you don't have to say yes to the first person if they're, they're not the right one.

But there are so many people that do this type of work out there. You probably just haven't found them yet, but like I said before, too, it can also just be somebody that you already know in your real life. That's not a bad option either.

Molly: No. Yeah. Put it out on your own Instagram, your own email list. Um, when I was specifically, like I said, when I transitioned from my Frankenstein tech suite, I had like active campaign lead pages, And then I had everything was like zapped together.

And now that I have Kartra, I was specifically, as I said, searching for someone who was a CARTRA expert. And so I just typed in CARTRA VA on Instagram and found a bunch of people. Yeah, I typed it in on Google and found a whole database of CARTRA certified experts. Like I said, I've since, I worked with her for a long time and I ended up parting ways not because her work wasn't excellent, but I was just looking for someone who could do Karcher plus a whole bunch of other things as well.

But she was amazing and I would recommend her to anybody and she served like a perfect need for what I needed then. Another thing that I didn't think about when I first started hiring virtual assistants is I've had two different types of people on my team and it really either is fine depending on what you need.

So I've had people overseas who only work. their normal hours, which is like nighttime for me. And that works because it was tasks that don't need to be done. Like I don't need to be conversing with them during the day. And then I've also had people I've hired to do like, for example, the posting for our clients were like, okay, this can't be done at two in the morning.

Like the post needs to go out sometime during the day. And this is not a flexible virtual assistant work when you want job. So when I was interviewing people, I was like, Hey, like, This isn't a like, get to it when you can, like our clients posts have to go out every day. So I think also, but then I said, we have another girl on our team who she's a mom of four now, she's a military spouse and she's like, I don't want to be client facing.

I just want to log on to Asana when I have pockets of time and complete tasks. So want to talk about the two different between like, how Almost more of like personal assistant. You need someone there who you can talk to during the day versus someone who's just like, here's some tasks. I don't care when they get done, do them at your leisure.

Keali: Yeah. The most important thing there is just to be transparent about that from the beginning, because where it's going to go wrong is if that is your expectation that they need to be able to do tasks between certain times of the day and you don't tell them they're already, yeah, that's where it's going to be a problem.

Right. So if you make that known from the beginning during the hiring process, I'll be honest. There are going to be people that are that say, Nope, that is not what I do. I do it on my terms on my time. And so this is not a fit and that's not wrong, but it's also not wrong of you to need, Hey, I, this cannot be posted at three o'clock in the morning.

Right. So as long as you tell people that that's what you're looking for, I think that's okay. Where it does get a little sticky and tricky is I always like to ask people too, okay, are you truly looking for a virtual assistant, personal assistant type deal? Or are you looking for a remote employee?

Because that can be, again, it's all comes down to the virtual assistance preference. Like I know certain BAs, myself included, if you wanted me to do something like Answering phones or calling to schedule or do something that required that, that would be a hard no for me because my capacity and my schedule just doesn't allow it.

And that's not the goal in mind of starting my business, but there are plenty of virtual assistants. I share stuff all the time of, Hey, this role involves. making phone calls, answering phone calls, doing stuff in real time, and you have to be available during this chunk of the day. Do you want to do it?

And a lot of people are a game for that. So it really just depends. But if you are saying, okay, you have to log this many specific number of hours per day, you have to be available between this time and this time. And you have to if someone calls, you have to be at your desk. There's no, you know, I'll call, you know, leave a voicemail and I'll call him back in a little bit.

You know, you have to really consider, okay, what are you looking for in that role? If you want somebody, honest, I don't like to say it this way, but like to jump when you say jump, it's kind of like, okay, you're probably looking for an employee who is

Molly: obligated.

Keali: Yeah, so I don't think either one is bad or wrong and people are looking for different things.

So somebody who's wants a remote employee role, maybe they need more of the predictability and the stability and maybe their kids are out of the house or they don't have children, whatever it is, there, there will be reasons of why that role is more suitable for somebody versus A virtual assistant who has a very flexible schedule.

The work gets done when it gets done. You know, along as, as long as it's during the agreed upon time frame. So I don't think any is bad or wrong, but you really have to ask yourself like what you want out of the role to really decide. What's what? Yeah. Because also there's different, you know, tax implications.

It was different. Like all kinds of stuff goes into figuring this stuff out. So it's, it's just really kind of figuring out which one is going to be better suited for your needs long term

Molly: and I'm like, consult your employment attorney. It's different per state. Got to figure that out. Don't we're not the experts there.

Keali: Yeah. And people, you know, you can, you can obviously seek an expert's opinion, but also like people are, have different levels of comfort. Like somebody who's a remote employee, maybe you have the bandwidth to say, you know, I'll provide you your own computer or a separate phone, whatever it is that you feel like they need to do the job versus a VA is going to function more like an independent contractor.

They probably already have those things. And you truly are just. paying for their time.

Molly: Okay, so to wrap this up, can we talk about just kind of some little logistical things? Like, typically I would say I've never hired a virtual assistant who wasn't experienced, so they already had their own way of invoicing me and all of that, but I don't know if you just want to talk about that.

Like, just like I said, the little nitty gritty logistical things.

Keali: Well, how about, I will say how to have success with a VA in general. Perfect. And we'll lead into that. So, cause these are more important than the nitty gritty things in my life.

Molly: I love it

Keali: is people that don't have good experiences with a virtual assistant.

They usually don't state their expectations clearly. And this is like true of anybody in your life. Like no one is a mind reader that I'm aware of. Right. So you can't assume, oh, they know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Maybe. In the future, once you've worked together for a really long time, you will have a working relationship where there is that kind of mutual understanding, but not without it being explicitly explained and gone over in the beginning.

Also, people that do not have success with virtual assistants are just saying, you know, it just didn't work out. It's usually because they don't communicate. with the virtual assistant with the right frequency or with the right specificity. And there's a saying where communication is lacking, negativity fills the void.

So if you are just not, if you only talk to your virtual assistant once a month, they're probably over there on the other side wondering, I've definitely thought this. Oh my gosh, are they mad at me? Did I do something wrong? Like, are they about to get rid of me? And then, Like we talked about before, when you're already in that mindset, you're more prone to making mistakes, not doing a good job.

So you have to be communicative with the person, whether that's just a weekly like, Hey, is everything good on your end? I'm just checking in on X, Y, Z thing. You know, they're going to do that with you too, but you, you have to respond. So many people just. Think it's just a totally hands off process and it can get to that point, but it's not totally in the beginning.

You want to treat this like anybody else that you work with. Okay. And then also you have to be proactive. About what you want done, sending it on time. So you can't prepay for your retainer at the beginning of the month. And then say, you know, it's October right now saying on Halloween, Hey, can you do this, this, this, and this, this the last day, you know, like that's, that's not a good working relationship for either person.

Um, so you want to, you want to give direction with enough time and space for them to execute too. But then on the more tangible aspect of the small things about paying a virtual assistant, like you said, most of them are going to already have something set up. Like, I use something called that sends invoices to people.

It's a digital thing. They get it. They see what it is. They put in their credit card information, or you can do a bank transfer. But some people, they, uh. Uh, with payment processors, you can even be set up on an automatic payment thing, where automatically your credit card will just be charged for however much it is per month.

Um, so if you're like, I don't even have time and space to fill out the payment information for an invoice, a VA can probably take care of that for you with automatic payments. Some people will send things like, uh, Zelle or Stripe, one time invoices that you can pay. But also, I know some people also, they don't have necessarily have a robust invoicing systems, so sometimes people use things like PayPal, I wouldn't recommend doing, you know, like, personal check, um, because it is a virtual relationship, so, you know, mailing it, getting that depositive, that can become really messy, so I wouldn't necessarily recommend that, but we live in, you know, You know, we live in the 21st century, right?

So you can make digital payments, really. And give

Molly: me the million. Yeah, I actually, I use relay bank online. Have you ever heard of relay bank? It's got me set up with it when she got me set up with profit first a couple years ago, because it allows you to have multiple quote, checking accounts for no fees.

It's like set up for profit first. And so I've started paying all my contractors through ACH through there now, because there's no fees for the contractor either. Which is kind of like a little raise. Cause it's like, I need to look into that for sure. Yeah. I just started doing this not too long ago. So now they basically just send me just like a PDF invoice that they made on like Canva or something just from our records.

And then I'm paying them via via relay. So there's no fees, but Keali, thank you so much for coming on today. Is there anything that we didn't cover that you want to talk about before we.

Keali: Yes. People have bad experiences with virtual assistants. That's a real thing. And I do want to normalize that, but more often than not, I've only ever really heard success stories.

And people always say, I wish I had done this sooner. Like when my kids were younger, what would my life have looked like if I had just had, you know, 10 hours a month of extra help or just two hours a week? Like it can feel when you think about it in the black and white numbers, sometimes you think, you know, is that really going to make a difference?

But it does. Once you start doing it, it really, really does. And, and don't think about it in terms of just always thinking about it as an expense. It's an investment in yourself, in your family, in your business. And I think if you lead with that, you will have success. Finding the right virtual assistant and everything that they do for you, you will pay your invoice gladly and be like, I can't believe that.

I have this person that's here to help me.

Molly: Yeah. I, I completely, like I said, there's a reason I've had, I've talked about you're now episode three of the podcast that I've had Sarah Wiles on. I did one where I talked about one myself about outsourcing. There's a reason I'm so passionate about it. It's because I just, and it's, it's since.

Seems to be women more than men who just think they have to do it all. And it boggles my mind why month after month, you're still sitting here scratching your head going, why do I feel so behind? Why do I feel so burned out? Oh, I just can't seem to blah, blah, blah. Oh, I haven't been consistent. And it's like, well, no shit.

Like there's one of you and you're trying to wear 5, 000 hats. Like, at the very least, if you hear nothing today, get your groceries delivered. Something

Keali: I'm going to say to you, it just, if, if this is really scary and hard for you, start with outsourcing something in your personal life to get used to just building that trust of someone else can handle it.

New thought. You have to train your brain to think these new thoughts. Someone else can handle it.

Molly: Yes.

Keali: And once you have factual evidence that that is true, that will give you confidence to do it with your business because I get it. Your business is personal. You've worked so hard to build it. One person.

If someone else, one single person has the power to burn it all down. Like I also have questions about the way your business. Yeah. So. I really do think that it's, you know, in a best case scenario, we're doing both. We're outsourcing business things and personal things. Cause also you're right. We have been fed this lie, especially as if you're listening and you're a mom, that moms have to be superhuman and we're not.

And the people that you think are superhuman, they're probably outsourcing something. They just haven't told you about it yet.

Molly: Yeah. Or they're drowning their sorrows in a bottle of wine or both,

you know what I mean? So yeah, like I said, it's, it's, it's totally worth it. And as you, you alluded to, if your finances are tight right now, it doesn't have to be a bit. It can be a few hours a week.

Keali: Yes. It can literally be five. I know VAs that will do five to 10 hours for the month. So that's an hour a week, two hours a week.

It doesn't have to be. You know, a 40 hour work week situation. It doesn't have to

Molly: be that at all. Thank you so much, Keali. This was so great. And then what's, how do we find you? We can link your matchmaking service, but tell us about that as well.

Keali: You can find me on Instagram at Keali Scheider. I have a tricky name to spell, so I'm sure that will be in the show notes.

Yes. Yes.

Molly: Keali. K E Uh, K E A L. I like

Keali: Schneider. I always tell people Schneider minus the N. You

Molly: know what? I don't think I realized there was no end. My brain saw an end until just now. So glad you said that. Um, yeah, go watch if also too, if you're not ready to outsource, just go watch Keali's stories and just do what she does and stories.

Um, and then your matchmaking service is just on your website.

Keali: It's just a Google form that you fill. Okay,

Molly: so we can link the form. Alright, you'll send that to me, so. Alright, well thank you so much and Oh! I can't believe I didn't talk about this. Well, I'll talk about it in the intro more in case people didn't make it this long, but because I would be a terrible virtual assistant because I'm not good at all of those things.

I'm better at like the good big ideas type of dreaming things. Keali is actually going to come be our co coach at our Charleston content creation retreat. It was actually Folly Beach, which is right outside of Charleston. It's April 10th through the 13th. I will link the application for that retreat at the day, the day we're recording this.

I just sold another spot yesterday. So it was seven, I've got seven beds left, but Keali is going to be, I'm so excited. She's going to be like the concierge mom. Who's making sure the coffee's the breakfast is out. And then she's also going to be The one helping you, um, like I said, it's a content creation retreat.

So we're actually filming video and putting together reels while you are there. We have professional hair and makeup, professional photographer. So Keeley is going to be helping, you know, kind of like a symbol, those reels, if you will, um, and helping you alongside me. So I'm so excited for that. You're going to be the perfect yen to my yang.

Yeah. So I don't have to worry about all the things. Cause like I said, I was like, if it was up to me, I'd probably forget to order lunch or something. Everybody be like, Oh, we're hungry. I don't give myself enough credit sometimes. I'm not that bad, but I am excited to have someone to help me keep all the details in order.

Keali: You can stay in your zone of genius.

Molly: Yeah. All right. 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.

So in order for me to be able to continue doing that, we need more people to find out about the show. So if you could please just take like two minutes out of your very busy day. To leave me a rating and share this on your Instagram stories and tag at Molly A. Cahill, that's C A H I L L. I would greatly, greatly appreciate your support.

I know your time is valuable and I can't wait to see you in the next episode.