The Art of Online Business

The Truth About VAs: What You Really Need to Grow Your Business featuring Emily Reagan

• Kwadwo [QUĀY.jo] Sampany-Kessie • Episode 952

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Emily Reagan is a freelance marketing coach and the founder of the Unicorn Digital Marketing Assistant School and the Digital Marketer’s Workgroup. She is passionate about helping her students transition from task-based virtual assistants to skilled marketing professionals who can confidently command premium rates and deliver high-value services.

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Emily shares how she built her business from scratch, why she chose to focus on training marketing assistants instead of general VAs, and the key signs that it’s time to start growing your team.

We get into the real challenges that come with hiring, how to decide between overseas or local support, and why it’s better to start small now rather than wait until you’re completely overwhelmed. Emily also reveals some of the biggest mistakes business owners make when hiring—and what you can do to avoid them.




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Speaker 1:

So if you ever wanted to know, should I hire a team, how many team members should I hire, when should I hire and should it be overseas or local my new virtual assistants, and how do I best work with them? Well, we have Emily Regan here and she is an expert at teaching people how to hire a virtual team so they can scale their business. You get to go behind the scenes with her and us as we listen to how she built her business, and she is ultra relatable, in fact so relatable, might I add, that we met already in person. We've been in a mastermind. I'm telling my wife, jamie here, which you can see us all. If you click in the show notes below and go over to this episode on YouTube, you can see our lovely faces and expressions. But I was saying Emily, it's super relatable and that's pretty cool.

Speaker 1:

We've been talking now for like 20 minutes.

Speaker 3:

Welcome to the episode Emily.

Speaker 2:

Hey, thanks for having me. I'm so excited to have this conversation with you today.

Speaker 1:

You are very welcome. Let me read your bio, bless the listener and not know how amazing you are. Emily Regan is a freelance marketing coach and the founder of the Unicorn Digital Marketing Assistant School and the Digital Marketers Work Group. With over 14 years of experience in public relations Dang and digital marketing, emily specializes in helping underemployed military spouses and stay-at-home moms launch flexible, profitable freelance businesses. Her mission is to empower women to monetize their existing skills, work with aligned clients and create meaningful impact by supporting online businesses behind the scenes. All right, emily, my first question for you is and next I'm going to ask you about a snapshot of your business and what it looks like now but why the focus on unemployed spouses and military moms? I mean, I support that initiative. I'm just curious, like how that came about.

Speaker 2:

Well, obviously that's not only who I serve, but that's where I came from. I was a military spouse for 20 years, moving every one, two, three years, always starting over my career, obviously flatlined, I'm starting over having to prove myself. I am capped at my salary, I am limited on my paid time off and holidays and I watched my friends progress whereas I just stayed the same like almost trying to get any job that would hire me. No-transcript about sales calls Like this is back in 2013. And I just said you know what.

Speaker 2:

I bet I could teach my friends how to do this and I at one point had the commander's wife working for me, had my own agency, and then I realized I'm not good with the people management my husband deployed for a year. I'm like this is not what I like. I'm more creative and I kind of do better on my own. And so I released everyone. A couple stayed with me and I just thought if I could just take the trainings, if I could teach Laura the engineer how to be a launch manager, then I can teach anyone anything. And that's how I started my course and training people. So it's really just where I started, because it was from my pain point of trying to prove myself, bridging that baby gap when I chose to stay home. And there's a lot of women who are also career changers. I have a few dudes too. And there's a lot of women who are also career changers.

Speaker 3:

I have a few dudes too, not women only and just helping them learn the marketing services that launch a freelance business Nice. Nice. So what does your business look like today? Can you give us a snapshot of that of your, the offers that you have, and kind of what percentages they make up of your business?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I've always done the client work and I've always loved that because it keeps me in the trenches. I like to be a practitioner. I have that journalism degree at heart where I love to turn around and help other people learn what I've learned, and so I do the client work. Right now it probably makes up about 25% of my income. Obviously, over time I went from charging $10 an hour to 5K retainer CMO packages, so it might have started with me on Pinterest doing hourly work. Oh, is it working?

Speaker 1:

What's a CMO?

Speaker 2:

Oh, at first I thought my audio was going out Chief Marketing Officer in a fractional way. First I thought my audio was going out Chief marketing officer in a fractional way, so coming in and helping clients and monetize their talent into courses and launch their courses and memberships and things like that like their digital products. So I do the marketing work to grow and nurture the audience.

Speaker 1:

Thank, you yeah, okay, sorry to cut you off.

Speaker 3:

When you say client work, do you mean like one-on-one, like kind of coaching?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, no, I mean the marketing implementation. I have always helped clients grow their email list right, so it's a mix of content marketing. It's Pinterest, it's YouTube, it's podcast. I help my clients. I've done even a little bit of ad work and then nurture to sell. So a lot of that is also the funnels. I've built a lot of quiz funnels. I've done a lot of lead magnets, slow funnels, things like that, and so my work has evolved over time, obviously because we want to move towards the services that pay more. I also have four kids, so I need the flexibility and that's also why I lean into marketing teaching my friends marketing because admin calendar management some of the traditional VA work is very normal office hours and very rigid and so marketing lends itself to the projects a little bit more flexibility and higher pay right, because it's tied to an ROI. So right now I do fractional CMOMO work, coming in and helping my clients build and launch their usually it's courses. I'm in the course creator space every now and then it's a membership. Yeah, I've been a podcast manager. I've done the varieties of spice of life. I have done it all and that adds up in this space so I can teach also the women in my community how to do that.

Speaker 2:

So I took what I did for myself and for my clients, and I worked with some big clients. I've been in over 100 different businesses over the last decade. Newsflash no one is organized or perfectly put together. I will tell you that there's always room for improvement. So yeah. So then I put everything I knew into a course that is called the Unicorn Digital Marketing Assistance School.

Speaker 2:

This is something I've always run as a live cohort that I'm in the middle of switching, especially as I saw lesser launches the last year, and so I've just been kind of re-engineering what that looks like. I have that also on self-study, so that used to be 50% of my income, but now that I'm switching the live launching model, I'm going to have to rework that. But a big portion of everything is my work group. It's my membership. I've shared over 3000 jobs with other freelancers and contractors. It is exactly what Stu McLaren teaches where you have your monthly content, you have your you know monthly content, you have your community, where freelancers supporting each other with referrals, advanced trainings, and then I share jobs that come through my form, hireunicorncom. So it's a mix. I have the e-learning side of my business, and then a little bit of the freelance work.

Speaker 3:

Okay.

Speaker 1:

That is cool. That is really cool. Quick note for you, dear listener Later on in the episode is when we're going to dive into what it looks like, because you might either want to become a VA Emily specializes in teaching you how to do that but you might also want to know when it makes sense and the signs to look for in your business to begin hiring for your team. So stick around, and that will come up on the second half of this episode. So inquiring minds want to know, emily, as you were building your business, what was the absolute artist time that you can share about during your journey?

Speaker 2:

I've had a lot of low moments and, you know, wasting money on bad investments. But I think the lowest, the hardest time and I see this over and over with my clients too is starting and starting from nothing and having to go in and build an audience when you're struggling with. You know, knowing your offers, creating like visibility opportunities and just starting as the new kid on the block. I remember for years I was behind the scenes in other businesses and I told you I didn't have a website, I didn't have the vision of what I should have been doing. That whole time of promoting myself. I was behind the scenes of clients making them money and so coming out from nothing. It's like who are you? Why should we trust you? Why would we want to buy from you? And it's still hard and I'm seeing that with some of my clients now. We're trying to dig into the social proof and the testimonials and just really prove the credibility and the authority there, that why someone should buy.

Speaker 2:

I remember looking at Amy Porterfield and Jasmine Starr and Jenna Kutcher and that little click. I remember feeling like I will never be a part of that click right Like they've got their friends, like they're waving. They're riding that wave onto the beach together, and then I'm going to have to start with people at my level and that was really hard, just to go from nothing. And there was a lot of like ignorance there, which is bliss, like I didn't know what I didn't know. So I was able to just jump in and and do it and not be so scared because obviously I held onto the vision and the possibility, the why of you know, creating a business that supports my family and my kids. But if you've ever been at high school and not been invited to the cool kids table like you, get it Okay.

Speaker 1:

All right.

Speaker 2:

I feel like people knowing who you are and referring you like you see that as a service provider, right, people talking about you. I would be in a face like well, you need to take this other VA course because this person's been around longer and everyone's been through her course, but like actually there was big gaps in her course and what she was teaching and not teaching. And I saw that in the trenches when my clients went and hired VAs who didn't know a dang thing about marketing, and so it was really just like frustrating to see that and just you know, start from scratch I feel like I want to know how and why you still started from scratch, though, because, yes, you just said big names, like you know jenna kutcher and amy porterfield and

Speaker 1:

like we'll never be a part of that, but yet we got to start and you started. I feel like that's like saying, you know, steve jobs, mark zuckerberg, larry ellis like, yeah, never be a part of those like tech folks, but of course we won't. Like we started the industry, so to speak. Yeah, but we, we can still start, and you still did, and when that they might ride the first wave, but like we can be on that second wave. So like how did you actually start with? Or I guess, what did you do to psych yourself up to go for it?

Speaker 2:

yeah, okay. So one of my big clients. I helped her make a million dollars. I watched her do those Facebook lives every day and she had such charisma and and she had such strong viewpoints. And when you're starting new, like you don't know all of that, like some of your messaging has to flush out over the years, that also like a hard lesson I've learned, like how to communicate and attract the right type of buyers, not building the wrong email list and so I think for a little bit I was like, oh, I could never be like her. I can never be like her.

Speaker 2:

And then I had this side conversation with somebody at a conference. I went to Stu McLaren's event it was 2018. It was Tribe at the time and I had this magical side conversation because I'm so used to being the other person that gives the cheerleader, who gives everyone else a pep talk or sees the vision. That's one of my excuse me, top CliftonStrength strengths is that individualization, like seeing the uniqueness in people and where they should go, and like how they could, you know, stack their skills and have something really special. And so this lady took the time her name was Deanne to reflect that on me and she's like you know what. You actually have something really, really good here. I went to this conference no business card, no website, and I just got swamped. I just got swapped. I just got swapped. Everybody wanted to hire me to help them market and build their, their memberships, and so it kind of hit me there. I actually have something people need. I can train people to do this. And now I like I almost needed like the tactical, tangible idea and I also knew I couldn't just like go copy what other people were doing or what my clients had done, like that wouldn't have been ethical with me. So once I saw that vision for myself, it was off to the races. I didn't look back. I tell the story and Amy Porterfield will steal it sometimes. But my very first Facebook live I did from that conference, put a clay face mask on my face from my hotel room, had a drink of wine and announced my business because I was so scared and I was like you have to know this about me.

Speaker 2:

I did journalism. I did broadcast electronic media. I was the girl behind the camera. I was not one of the, the girls who wanted to be the TV reporter or the, you know, the weather girl. That was never me.

Speaker 2:

I always wanted to be the news reporter or the you know the weather girl. That was never me. I always wanted to be the news reporter and I just see that. Whereas like visibility, the limelight, it was just never something I wanted. And so when I saw my client who was making a million dollars doing that, I'm like, well, that's not me either. So I think it's just like finding your, your special sauce you know what you really bring to the world and leaning into that, and I think that's what like made me, made me do it. Once I saw it, I couldn't unsee it and like that why? Was screaming at me every day and it came from business owners who were like Emily, I need to hire you. Oh wait, emily is booked out, emily can just go train people. And I don't know why I'm talking about myself in third person like that.

Speaker 1:

It's awkward go with it.

Speaker 3:

Go with it so a lot of it ended up being just word of mouth recommendations yeah, completely.

Speaker 2:

It was so crazy because if you're good at what you do and you see this when you do ads like your clients just scream your name. You need to work with her, you need to work with her, and so this is what I coach my service providers it's about your name being passed around in those Voxer conversations in a DM in a text message, in an email.

Speaker 2:

Who else do you know who can do this? And that's how a service providers can really book out with the best clients, because our top clients aren't scrolling Instagram looking to hire us. It's word of mouth that'll, that'll preach right there I think so you get it.

Speaker 1:

You're out there making connections and you know your clients are impressed by your work and singing your and we were just discussing doing something quite important to further our reach and meet new people, which is going to another retreat and that looks like we will be. Well, I'll be there, but you'll possibly be there. Did you already buy tickets?

Speaker 2:

no, I just got the baby, the terror child care confirmation this morning, so I I blasted out a couple texts like are we still going? So hopefully, I like kayaking, so I really want to go no, but these are the things.

Speaker 1:

These are the way we grow our business. Okay, so another snapshot for the listener, but let us in on like one of the best times in your business, and it's okay if it's not currently, but why was that the best time for you and your business? And what was going well, like, what was contributing to that being the best time?

Speaker 2:

Oh my gosh, I could answer a couple of these too. So I actually had A terrible thing happened with a bad investment and a lawyer who scammed me, which probably be the story there. Probably should be like the low time story. Only it ended well and I have that hindsight now. But I had a trademark who a trademark lawyer scammed a bunch of people in a community that we're all familiar with, and so, but during this process of slowing down and thinking about my trademark, I was able to rebrand myself and go online and figure out like, how am I different, how can I evolve in my messaging? How can I be different than the VA coaches who just teach how to set up a business and don't teach actual services? And so, out of this bad thing that happened, I was forced to slow down, which isn't always my mode of operations.

Speaker 1:

And.

Speaker 2:

I rebranded into this whole digital marketing assistant and I relaunched my course and I ended up having multiple six-figure launches and for me, I know like our worth isn't tied into numbers, but it was like a respectable marketing number I needed to hit and the fact that I did it for myself after doing it for clients was the boost of confidence that I needed.

Speaker 3:

Right.

Speaker 2:

So that was pretty high. You put your blood, sweat and tears into your business, into your offers. You're trying to figure out what works, what sticks, what people are, you know, willing to go all in, and I cracked that code and that, like that, was just one of the best moments. I hit six figures. I don't know, I mean, I'm not the 700th network of people Congratulations.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I was wondering if you could get a little more specific on what you did to hit that for yourself.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, because it wasn't just changing a name, it wasn't just recording a few videos. So there's also time. It took a couple years. Right Like this is four years into my business, maybe three and a half, so it wasn't the first version of my course, it wasn't the first price.

Speaker 2:

You know the course had completely changed and evolved and you know that clarity came with time and I think that's important. People realize that. You know, even my clients need to realize like right out the gate, with the first launch and the first course, it's not always going to be the best version, it's not going to be the one that lasts. You're going to have to constantly be evolving. And so one thing I realized is seeing with my clients and I think I hinted at like what a hot mess people are behind the scenes I realized what my friend Brenna McGowan was teaching was the pre-launch and I know you're like you know you're familiar with her topic and her talk. So I went all in with the pre-launch because again, I was still in the kind of like proving who am I, can I really get transformation? Why do I trust her when there's this other VA coach who's been around for years and has even bigger numbers. And so really leaning into how I was different, my unique selling proposition I'm teaching marketing services, I'm teaching how to do the client work. None of the other VA courses are doing that. I don't know why I'm slurring my words today. Oh my goodness, I'm like sober here.

Speaker 2:

So, yeah, so, like the pre-launch was big, I went in with Brenna, she helped me, we crafted a six week pre-launch plan and I was pre-selling that course before it came out. And so just being able to have this asset and reuse it really to knock down buyer objections before we opened the cart Cause I mean I'd had some launches, they were kind of plateauing. I don't think it ever made more than 24,000 and it was always crickets. I would open the, I would open the cart and it would be crickets. And so I've always had, I've always struggled with trying to figure out my webinar and like which one is going to convert. And you know that's always been like a puzzle piece for me. What do I call it, what do I call us? And so when those pieces kind of came together, oh, we are now officially marketing assistants. You know, we're not just VAs coming in the new branding, coming in with a solid pre launch it just. It all worked, so I would give. I would give credit to the prelaunch and maybe the lawyer who screwed me.

Speaker 1:

I never, because I was talking with another lady who also was in the mastermind that we're in together right now and she was explaining how some other person screwed her over.

Speaker 1:

And other clients too, clients too I'm just like, okay, I understand doing or providing a service, you know with excellence and making mistakes, like once or twice, but how could somebody decide to actively go and cheat other folks and then do it again and again, and again in an online space where you know everyone's connected too? It's like how many mental hurdles do we just have to hop?

Speaker 2:

over to be so fast. I think she's delusional. I think she's delusional. So she was collecting money for paid marks and then not filing them and then blaming the slowdown of the pandemic, what? And so I also was doing additional coaching with her to figure out my intellectual property and be able to license my course Right. So I was like thinking like a couple of steps beyond, like how do I make this course profitable without me having a live launch? And in that process I had to slow down and look at the branding and like what is actual trademarkable, and like I learned a lot and then realized a year later she hadn't filed anything. It's crazy, it's crazy. And I think I got one email from her and I she really does think she did no wrong okay.

Speaker 1:

Well then, maybe she's more delusional than con artist. This guy on instagram and tiktok who just like the worst it's like total reaction video, right, and he just takes the worst crazy tiktoks and makes fun of them.

Speaker 3:

Itty who anyway, kweja has a great story of his mom, like I mean, this was already years and years ago, but like when she was. I mean she still doesn't really know how to use a computer, but when he would like go to her house and use the computer and like cover up the, like the safari icon, you know, with something else that he was doing, and she would like freak out and be like I can't get on the internet.

Speaker 3:

The bike is gone oh my goodness, maybe, like mom, just close the other. You know the other tab, or whatever he was working on.

Speaker 1:

It's right there, you know yeah, it's like they can't do like it has to be very it has to be right there, you know so where I already go yeah so my daughter, our daughter, was watching a video, you know, where people clone themselves and talk to themselves side by side, you know, and she thought like her favorite creator of the moment had a twin. And I'm like that's not a twin, they're just like cornering, so it's the tiktok and her, her mind was like what it's not her sister.

Speaker 1:

I'm like no, that's not her sister, and so then I showed her a video and she's like super interested and I was like I gotta capitalize on this. My daughter will just launch into video editing and help out with the business and this would be a thing we can bond. And it took like four-ish weeks because I'm slow and busy. But now, now I went and I filmed a video with her and she actually watched a couple of YouTube videos and successfully cloned herself and she has it downstairs.

Speaker 3:

And now she's moving CapCut to edit the videos.

Speaker 2:

I need my teenagers to do this for me and just like repost it yeah, Put them to work.

Speaker 3:

Man Pay their IRA.

Speaker 1:

Right, do this for me and I will fund your retirement.

Speaker 3:

I did read something about like having your kids help in the business and stuff and like you can write off like 15 grand a year or something like.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, something like that I haven't done it.

Speaker 2:

I don't have the paperwork to start their ira over here, it's just in the pile. That's to do the pile of things to do yeah, it like are not important, but one day we'll like one day do a lot one day.

Speaker 1:

I mean you still have until they turn 18, because all of like the personal finances online always start with saying if you just save a hundred dollars a month between the ages of 18 and 25 and then stop, you'll be a millionaire when you retire. So that means like we still have a moment. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, totally Okay. Why the change and what happened with the value? And then we'll just go straight. I'll make sure to also plug what you put to plug for your lead magnet and we'll keep on trucking, okay.

Speaker 2:

So I think my journalism background really pays off here, because I go around and I talk to a lot of our business peers and find out what they're struggling with and why they're frustrated, and I hear the same things over and over and I saw this when I was on the seven-figure team about people coming into the business untrained, not having the skills, and there's a difference between an employee and a contractor. A contractor needs to come in knowing how to do the work. If you misclassify them, there are big penalties, right, and so it's important that we hire for a skill set. And this is what's happening is everyone calls themselves a VA, but no one knew how to do marketing, and this was a couple of years ago, and so it makes sense. A virtual assistant is a very vague job title and actually it's becoming more synonymous with AI and chatbots. Even me and my I'm a soccer mom, I have four kids, I drive a minivan, my Kia Carnival has a virtual assistant button right.

Speaker 2:

And so I thought how can I help make people you know get into higher paid work? Because you know, I wouldn't have been attracted to the title assistant. I have multiple degrees. I was just a stay-at-home mom. We wanted to work during school hours.

Speaker 2:

You think about business. There's six main departments. We have accounting and finance. Okay, we'll hire a bookkeeper. We'll hire a CFO, a CPA, to help us. We have product development. That's usually us as the business owner figuring out, oh, what is our course, and our offers owner figuring out what is our course and our offers. We have an in-bar. We have customer service, operations and marketing and sales. All six different departments.

Speaker 2:

So why would we hire one person to do everything and Frankenstein that role and not do it well? So here's what was happening is people, would you know, say they were a VA but not actually know how to do anything. So everyone was really frustrated with their teammates. And so I think, starting off in one department, or maybe a hybrid of two, like marketing could go with some kind of fulfillment, right, with operations, it could be a little bit of customer service, like just narrowing down the scope you'll get, you'll get better results from the person and you won't be as frustrated thinking they're going to read your mind and save your business by Thursday. I mean, how many times have I gotten a job where people are launching? We get the job Monday and they're like I'm launching Thursday. I'm like, okay, that VA is not going to save your business. They also probably don't know copywriting. I mean, I think my biggest pet peeve is can I have a VA who does Facebook ads?

Speaker 2:

I mean, these people are trying to get somebody to do everything and they're trying to pay generalist prices to a specialist, and so let's call it what it is. So I'm empowering my people to see the worth of their work. Marketing is tied to ROI. Right, we're bringing in leads, we're helping with sales. We might not be part of the sales team, but there's ways we can do conversions within funnels or ads or webinars that we're still kind of assisting with, and so that was really kind of what, like what got me set off.

Speaker 2:

There is like we're not just underlings and not that there's anything wrong with admin or calendar management, but when you've grown your clients list to 80,000 and you help them make a million dollars, like you shouldn't be charging $20 an hour, right, right, right. And what's cool is the cream rises. You know you start off as an assistant. I've had people come through my program or in my work group who had corporate marketing experience, just didn't know this online space, because it's a little different, it's a little funky, and once they get it and take on a couple of clients, they really quickly rise to the top and become, you know, specialists of some sort or managers, and so I'm seeing a lot of people who are have been burned by the VA, who didn't really know what they were doing and just wanting someone to be more specific when it comes to the outcomes. They provide, the responsibilities, even getting into a little bit more, you know, management of a project.

Speaker 3:

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 1:

Right, that makes a lot of sense.

Speaker 2:

That gets me kind of hot and bothered God.

Speaker 3:

Marv.

Speaker 2:

It's like no more $10 an hour when you're, like you know, helping your clients make the big bucks and move big mountains in their business.

Speaker 1:

We're a specialist, right, we should be paid as a specialist, yeah, and according to the value that you're providing. You know, I just think about launches and there's so many moving pieces there, but there are several that really do affect revenue, and so it's like, of course, it makes sense, like if you can become specialized in that specific area and a number of clients.

Speaker 3:

You should be paid accordingly right, yeah, actually, another podcast I was listening to at the beginning of the year was talking about like different positions in the online space that might be decreasing in 2025, and one of them was talking about like the general VA, and this is kind of exactly what you're talking about is having someone have more of a specific skill that they can offer your business, and once you have that, then you can be paid more because you are providing something that is more valuable.

Speaker 2:

Oh, you're gonna have to send me that link because that's exactly what I'm saying. But on the flip side, I saw so many new VAs struggling to get work and it's copywriting 101. You're not clear, you're not specific, we don't know what you do. No one's ever going to hire you, so you're not going to stand out like. The general VA term is just done.

Speaker 3:

Right.

Speaker 2:

Right.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, so what were the terms again that you were saying? That you, you see, or that you use or prefer?

Speaker 2:

well, I think that you know we have. There are admin assistants, right? I think that's what a lot of us think of as va, right, like we're thinking about admin calendar, maybe inbox. But the other common hires are an executive assistant, where you're, that whole job is to, you know, cater toward the C-suite to make that person's job easier. So if you're this yo, you might have your own EA, right? There's so many acronyms that become alphabet soup here, but I teach the marketing assistant and they can level up to be a marketing manager or a specialist.

Speaker 2:

Some people decide like, oh, I want to do ads or I want to do only copywriting, because they realize I can start charging more and doing packages there. One of the jobs that I'm seeing on the rise is marketing project manager, where you're able to come in like a launch manager and make sure that campaigns are happening, but you're not always the one in charge of all of the deliverables, you're just managing the people, and that's essentially what I do in my CMO work too. So operations are another one, seeing people be operations assistants and then grow up to be the operational directors. It just depends on the size of the business. I think people think like, oh, I have to have like 25 different employees to be successful, and it really doesn't have to be like that.

Speaker 2:

You can find what makes sense for your business. It could be you just need marketing help a couple hours a week and there is a very smart mom not always a mom, but we'll just use that picture who wants to work between nine and two and then go to the bus and then have her job be done for the day and not have the responsibility of running a business, like us crazy people as entrepreneurs. Right, right, he has a good hire out there. So people always are asking me like how do I find this person? Does it exist? No, not. All of us want 40 hours. We don't mind a couple of clients and being behind the scenes like the Wizard of Oz, you know, like pulling the strings, making magic happen, and don't need to be the face of our business.

Speaker 2:

And so it really is a personal decision. You know what you need and like what is. I don't know like what is the mick? And so for me, my first hire was actually a bookkeeper. I didn't need marketing help because that was what I did well, but it didn't make sense for me to spend my time billing all the clients and taking a full day away from the higher paid billable work to do the invoicing, even though I love collecting money and reading numbers.

Speaker 2:

You know, yeah, okay, so I opened up a couple doors there. Ask me the next question.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I know, Before we get ahead of ourselves, the listener's like all right, I got a couple of questions.

Speaker 2:

Listener um the listener's like. All right, I got a couple of questions.

Speaker 1:

Listener, I hear you as you're hearing me, I hear you. So, first of all, if you're in the spot where you are listening right now as she's talking, you're like I want to supplement my income. I can become a marketing assistant. Where, how do I do this? Go to hire a unicorncom like higher than the letter a than unicorncom, and submit your virtual assistant or marketing assistant job opening there, because that is Emily's site and it's super self-explanatory. That link is in the show notes below. And then now it's time, emily, for those who are listening right now and want to know, how does somebody know when their business is ready to hire and which position do we hire for?

Speaker 2:

first, yeah, well, it's going to be different for everyone, right? It's like that dreaded. You know marketing answer it depends. The best thing you can do is look at your business and, you know, do the time audit. We all hate that, you know. Even Rick already told us to do that. We all hate it.

Speaker 2:

But really, what is sucking up your time and limiting you from going after the big opportunities? And it is a Pareto principle, it's the 80-20 rule. You need to outsource 80% of your business and you need to work toward that. We don't all start there when we start a business. So what is sucking up your time? What are you not getting done and what will actually move the needle?

Speaker 2:

And so, with a lot of my clients, yeah, we start ads right away because I know we need a specialist. Our priority is to list build and we can make that decision right away based on our goals. Other people we might need help freeing up time so we can go make the money. Right, so we might need to hire the admin help, the calendar management, the inbox support by the way, I suck at those those are all in my drudgery zone. I've hired help because I know it's something I don't do well and it doesn't light me up, and so it's about thinking about you know what, where can I free up time and where can I make money and what is the most important, with where I am in business right now? Sometimes the specialist is the answer, sometimes it is the time saving help.

Speaker 1:

Drudgery zone.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, drudgery zone yeah.

Speaker 2:

And anything repetitive, anything that you're like okay, this is happening every week. Every week I send out an email. Every week I do this LinkedIn post. If it is repetitive, get it off your plate. If this involves pushing a button, somebody else can do it, and then with that hour of time, you can go and you can I don't know like meet with a client and charge your hourly rate, or you can go make the course that will then be scalable, Like there's something else that you could be doing with your time.

Speaker 3:

Right, and, like you said, there's people that that want to just kind of have that consistent, almost like mindless kind of work that they can do while their kids are at school. And oh geez, I lost my train of thought with what else I was gonna say.

Speaker 1:

it's okay, you know like I would use the term mindless for something that I just didn't like, but yeah I, I love the, the spreadsheet or the email inbox management example. Like it doesn't work very well for me and I lose interest quickly, but there is somebody who loves that and can do it better than you do and just enjoys it. You know Right, and it's like why not save the time? Okay, but here's the thing though, jamie. Did you figure out? I remembered what I was going to say All right, cool.

Speaker 3:

No, just again encouraging people that it doesn't have to start with hiring someone at, you know, full time. It can be five hours a week, 10 hours a week, like, start again, start small with what you can afford and just start kind of taking those little things off your plate and start freeing it up. And then you're like, oh my gosh, this is really exciting. I can do more, you know. So I just wanted to encourage people with that that you can start small. It doesn't have to be like, oh my gosh, I'm hiring a full-time employee with benefits and all this stuff, right.

Speaker 1:

So go ahead. Do most people hire full-time employees? No, no.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, a lot of contractors. I think what I'm seeing right now is teams go more streamlined and they want more hours, more long-term, reliable, loyal contractors in their business doing a little bit more. And so you talked about like the generalist is going away, like there's a sweet spot between somebody who is not so specialized where you can't really get a lot out of them either. And I'm not saying like use and abuse people here, but that's what I'm seeing in the online space and it can be like a mix of people who are assistants. Like sometimes we get to this point where we need more of a manager. We need somebody to run it for us.

Speaker 2:

Like I know for me, I spend way too much time in a sauna. My business is that the 300,000 annual revenue. That's right about the point where I need an OBM. Right, I'm like living it right now and I'm like I'm starting to need that project manager because I am not doing it well. I'm not always available to my teammates. Like my business needs to be aligned with my life.

Speaker 2:

I'm a single mom of four kids. Like I don't have a lot of time to be in a sauna and be on Zoom calls, so when I am on the clock clock. It needs to be very strategic and the reason I'm able to do these high visibility like podcasts with you since I have a team doing a lot of the grunt work it could be mindless and for some people it's fun in the background, so I don't know. It's hard. You have to think about, like, the lost time. You have to think about what is really important. Like I use that as example. I don't think I tied that in really well, because you have to reverse engineer, like what is the goal here? Right? And it doesn't always make sense for everyone to be spread on every platform showing up omnipresent if, like, the goal is really to sell the course and so you got to reverse engineer.

Speaker 2:

What is the fastest way and how can I be more consistent at getting those leads and what is that? And you and I know like ads aren't always for everybody, but you know I'm always trying it into ads because I'm like looking at your face thinking about ads management.

Speaker 2:

There's also this thing that happens in this space where people hire somebody new who doesn't really know what they're doing and then, it's almost like the blind leading the blind they're doing, and then it's almost like the blind leading the blind, and so sometimes you do want to hire somebody with more experience who can kind of steer you to hit your strategic goals and then grow up within your business. So like that's kind of the beautiful thing that happens when you find your right hand person is they will be with you and they can add on more hours like an accordion as you make more money.

Speaker 2:

And it's really about creating a dream business, kind of trying to operate in that now, even though we're not there yet. So what are some of the things you need to get off your plate, like, when you are at capacity, your ads work, your webinar fills up, everybody buys. What are the things that you need to get off your plate so you can deliver for your students and your clients?

Speaker 2:

And so it's starting to go through the process of what can I offload and outsource? Even if it's small, even if it's just an hour, you know, a week here or there, it will add up to a lot of, you know, time saving. But it will also allow you to reach your capacity, max out your revenue, and I hope that makes sense. I feel like I kind of went on the box it does make sense.

Speaker 1:

What I'm hearing is, as we're growing as business owners and making money, we need to look at either what we're not good at or what we just do not like.

Speaker 3:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

That is not, let's say, tied to the core business building things that only we can do. For example, like, just to be honest, do I like all aspects of marketing myself? No, not necessarily, you know. Like, do I like striking up new conversations? And you know, all the time? Not necessarily. But if I hire somebody to do that for me, possibly, but right now, no, it's just going to be me um or in this case, jamie, I got.

Speaker 1:

I hired that out to my wife to pitch people to be on the podcast or for me to be on theirs but the point is, like these things that we don't.

Speaker 1:

what I'm hearing you say is the things that we're not good at or that we don't like per se. As we're going to build our businesses, hire those out first, and we don't have to find somebody full time it can be a couple hours a day, as our business can afford so that we can take that time that's hired out and then reinvest it into what we know is growing the business.

Speaker 2:

Is that?

Speaker 1:

accurate.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, you got it, it's about the reinvestment. We Is that accurate? Yeah, you got it, it's about the reinvestment. We don't just turn around and sit on the couch and watch your friends and neighbors and eat bonbons, but we're turning around and doing the high visibility, high stakes, revenue generating activities.

Speaker 1:

There we go, okay. So another question is you think what about hiring somebody who's local to the country that we live in in our context the US, versus hiring someone who's overseas, let's say like the Philippines?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, this is a sticky. This is a sticky question, right, Because I've heard different things, Like if you hire someone overseas and you're paying them beyond what their market rates are, like you're creating a false bubble in their country and you know like it was really bad for their economy. I like what Tasha Booth says and she's like pay the rate of the role and the work that you have, Right. But there's also the reality of running a business, Like it's not just the startup cause, it's like the ongoing human capital that it takes to be successful. And so you know I don't have the most politically correct answer here. I think it's right. It's to each their own, Right.

Speaker 2:

But I think there's a lot of very successful online businesses who get help overseas. Especially when it's a process that is very clear, very standard, with like good SOPs, with good standard operating procedures, it can be a huge blessing to go to sleep and then wake up the next day and your podcast is done and edited because you have a solid editor right.

Speaker 2:

I think where it's not okay is when you're taking advantage of cheap labor. You're dumping everything on them and expecting them to completely grow and run your business and you keep all the profits. I do see a certain business coach in the online space kind of telling people to do that, and I think that's unethical. So I think you have to check in with you. It's really great to give someone a paycheck, but at what point do you cross that line and are you using them in a bad way, because they're humans?

Speaker 1:

I think it's actually when you're working with somebody on your team like it does take us as the owners doing research and making sure that you're paying them in a way that, like they're delighted to do what they're good at right, but not overpaying them. You know, compensating for whatever other issues we have, like emotionally or who knows what baggage we bring to the business owner table, so to speak but not overpaying, because that can also be a bad scenario. So as we talk about this, dear listener, like we are just random business owners on the internet or on the other side of the podcast, you know we're not giving you tax advice or hiring advice. You can't quote us and say that we told you to do it.

Speaker 1:

You need to check with your cpa and your local labor laws to figure out what can work for your business. But we can say that, in order to scale, if you don't want to be busy all the time, then could be a good idea to figure out when would be the best time to hire the first person to your team. Emily, you have a bookkeeper right I do all right, I have a bookkeeper.

Speaker 1:

Actually, technically, I let my bookkeeper go about three weeks ago and I'm looking for a new bookkeeper. I hire a talented individual to edit the podcast and my video. Do you edit your own? Shout out to you, kin, thank you for what you do right now. You're listening, dear listener, don't even know this huge part that we, in the middle of the episode where, made a few mistakes and I had to go use the retro. But you know, kid, he's talented and he took care of it.

Speaker 2:

Do you edit your?

Speaker 1:

own media still emily, or do you hire?

Speaker 2:

no, I mean, the reality of my business is I have five contractors helping out. I told you I have four kids. Like three of them are in orthodontics. I have a lot of appointments I have. Like I'm thinking about my schedule. Tomorrow I'm going to the vet tomorrow I probably need a personal assistant as I speak out loud.

Speaker 2:

But no, the reality is I can't do everything and show up in all the platforms. I do, because of my business, hire people from my work group, so I do pay US VA rates anywhere between $25, $40 an hour for my assistants. I had a friend look at my business and say you pay way too much in contractors. But when I think about it like my business is different. I'm audience building. I'm not just a service provider. You know, like you YouTube, podcasts all of that Of course I have. It's very critical that I be very visible and grow my audience right. I'm list building all the time and so I have to get help with that.

Speaker 2:

Because the reality is I also can't deliver on my program and my client work. I can't do all of it and I'll tell you I know a lot and I have done a lot of services and I have done a lot of these for clients and I've been a podcast manager, I've been a YouTube manager and a Pinterest manager. But if I did that all for my business, I would never get anything big done, like the big rocks that you're supposed to do to move the needle. And it's more important that I do these interviews, that I get my name out there, that I, you know, speak on stage, that I go to coffee chats and network with people, that I do sales calls, that I create the videos that my team can use, and so it's not all perfectly perfect, but you know, even with my podcast, to be able to pull out of that process like I remember it, just like eating up time for the I do a lot of the pre-production, scheduling, the guests, but then I just hand it off to my team and magically shows up on Instagram and that probably saves me, I would say, four hours a week.

Speaker 2:

I don't like, I don't have that time anyway. So it's a huge gift when I can look at it like that. And that also lights my fire to how can I monetize this, how can I get my business to be profitable and pay for this? Because it is an expense and it might not be the expense everybody needs to take on right now either.

Speaker 1:

Agreed Right, very much agreed. What is the last thing you would leave the listener with? I guess I feel like what you just said was super important too, but final closing thoughts.

Speaker 3:

Emily, One, two, three go, oh gosh.

Speaker 2:

I'm thinking about the people I'm just going to be direct because I don't know how who do hire overseas VA and then they're frustrated that they don't sound like them, that they're not copywriters and, like you know, mastering their brand voice by Thursday. And I just want people to be realistic about who you hire. If you can come with a solid job description, think about what are the KPIs? What are the key performance indicators that I need to track? What is what are the responsibilities of this person? What is the major outcome I want?

Speaker 2:

We can all be more realistic about who we hire and what they produce, because you can get really good overseas VAs but they might not be the best copywriter. I mean there's always like exceptions. So at some point you will need a specialist. At some point you're going to want an ads manager and not expect your VA to just gamble your money away and figuring out how to build audiences at your expense, and I think that is just something I want to put out there. There's a time and place for the specialists. There is somebody out there who will support your business in a day-to-day operations and just like know the difference between the two and your expectations.

Speaker 1:

I agree.

Speaker 3:

Very good. The right person for your business is out there, you can't find them.

Speaker 2:

I like to tell this story. I had a lady that comes to me from Amy Porterfield's world. Her name was Lotus. She had a course about art history and it was helping teachers. So she had this weird niche of art history education and she wanted someone to know marketing. And she came to me and she's like can you help me find someone? I was like this is the definition of my unicorn Someone who's passionate about your topic and your business and understands online business and marketing and can help you.

Speaker 2:

We went to my community at the time. It was like only 300. I had three teachers in my group who knew art history. I don't know, I don't know anything about it. I go to museums. I don't know what I'm looking at. Like, sorry, you know Monet, I don't really get it, but they were able to interview. She ended up hiring two to assist her. Like that is the definition of a dream team. Like somebody who's passionate, can help you make an impact and gets it, and you don't have to force it. That person is out there. You don't have to settle for someone who doesn't have the skills and just make sure you write a solid job description. Talk to your fellow business owners. Your unicorn is out there.

Speaker 1:

There we go. Your unicorn is out there. Well, if you're listening and you think that you are a unicorn in a good way, in a good way, and you want to become the freelance unicorn digital marketing assistant who every online business owner wants to work with and pay well.

Speaker 1:

Visit the show notes below, get in touch with Emily. Her website is down there, her Instagram is down there and the hire a unicorncom link where you can submit an application or start the hiring process, so to speak, is down there too. Thank you for being a guest.

Speaker 3:

Thank you it was a delight.

Speaker 1:

Emily.

Speaker 2:

Thank you. I hope to see you on a kayak soon.

Speaker 1:

Well, I'll be there. I already got the ticket. Dear listener, until the next time you see us or hear from us, be blessed, and we'll see you in the next one bye.

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Kwadwo Sampany-Kessie

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