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💥 Ignite your company culture with the Build a Vibrant Culture podcast!
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[00:00:00] Announcer: This is the Build A Vibrant Culture Podcast. Your source for the strategies, systems, and insights you need to turn your dreams into your destiny. Every week we dive into dynamic conversations. As our host, Nicole Greer, interviews leadership and business experts. They're here to shed light on practical solutions to the challenges of personal and professional development. Now, here's your host, a professional speaker, coach, and consultant, Nicole Greer.
[00:00:29] Nicole: Welcome everybody to the Build A Vibrant Culture podcast. My name is Nicole Greer and they call me the Vibrant Coach, and I have an amazing woman on the show today. Let me tell you all about Melissa Smith. Melissa Smith is an award-winning virtual assistant consultant and the founder of the PVA, a firm that matches clients with the right virtual assistants.
[00:00:53] She is also the bestselling author of two books, _Hire the Right Virtual Assistant_. Okay, look, and I have it in my hot little hands. Melissa sent me one. She's so good. Okay. And then she's got another book, Become a Successful Virtual Assistant._ So this is, this could go either way today for us. You could hire one, you could become one.
[00:01:11] But most recently, Melissa has become a stack licenser, offering virtual assistants the opportunity to license her business model and clients the opportunity to hire the best virtual assistants in the business. Melissa has been featured on-- don't miss this list. This is a pretty impressive list, people!-- ABC, NBC, CBS, Entrepreneur, Forbes, US Chamber of Commerce, US News and World Report so she knows what she's talking about. All right. Melissa was named top virtual assistant consultant of the year, a top 10 most inspiring woman in business in 2022. I'm inspired! And one of the top 100 dynamic leaders and a trailblazing female entrepreneur to watch. That is who is on the show today. Melissa, I'm amazed that you're here and you're hanging out with me!
[00:02:02] Melissa Smith: I'm excited about it, Nicole, I'm ready to do this!
[00:02:06] Nicole: All right, fantastic. Well, as everybody knows who listens to the podcast, we are here to talk about what can we learn? And I just wanna again, say that this is the book we're talking about: _How to Hire a Good Virtual Assistant_. And her subtitle is "How the right Virtual Assistant will make your life easier, create time, and make you more money." So, you've got a thing in here where you say, working with a VA, that's how we're gonna say it from now on. People, VA, virtual assistant, working with a VA doesn't have to be intimidating. So a lot of people are like, I'd like to do that, but like, how do I manage this person? What do I do with this person? What can they do for me? Can you kind of debunk and tell us what it's all about?
[00:02:46] Melissa Smith: Yeah. You know, there's this idea that you have to be such a great delegator and so that's one of the first hesitations, someone's like, I'm just not good at delegating. I know I need help, but I don't know where I would start. And so the idea that it has to be hard or that you have to become something else other than you are, is just false. And I tell my clients, if you can share your vision, if you can share the expectations, if you can just go through some things with the VA, then they'll take it from there. I'm not a good manager. I hate managing. It's so exhausting for me, but I work with a lot of great leaders and they identify as leaders. They know how to get a vision across. They know how to put a strategy together. They know what they want to see at the end. They may not know how it's gonna get there, but they're unconcerned about that as long as the expectations are met along the way for how are we gonna meet this goal that fits my work and my brand. And that's where the right VA comes in because the right VA knows how to do those things and immediately you'll know if it's the wrong VA because they won't know how to do those things.
[00:03:55] Nicole: Right. So what we're looking for is some talent that matches the needs that need to be done. Is that right?
[00:04:02] Melissa Smith: It is, and for clients who've never worked with a VA before, and it's quite high. It's very shocking to me always. I've been in the administrative industry field now for 30 years. I went to secretary school. I graduated
[00:04:16] Nicole: Oh my gosh. Secretary School!
[00:04:19] Melissa Smith: Yeah. Yeah 1995.
[00:04:22] Nicole: Wow.
[00:04:23] Melissa Smith: My mom was also an assistant. So this is just commonplace for me, but it's not commonplace for everybody. And there's a great number of clients who've never had an assistant before in person and who've never had a VA before. And so for you, if you are that person, if you're like, oh, that's me. I wouldn't even know where to start, then there's a key word that we use in the industry and we call it _seasoned_. You want a seasoned VA who knows how to work with a client who's never had an assistant before, and that right there will make sure that you don't just get a VA, you get the right VA for you.
[00:05:00] Nicole: Right. So when you think about why do people need a VA, what are some of the things that a VA does for you? Can you kind of give us a day in the life of what a VA might do? I know it probably depends on who they work for, but what are the some things that they could, I imagine, take off the plate of all the things I have to do
[00:05:21] Melissa Smith: Yes. So clients will ask me this all the time, what can I hire a VA to do? And I like to throw that question back to them because the list is endless. I could list you 20 things, and you would say, well, that's nice, but it's not really valuable to me. So I like to put the power in my client's hand. And I like to say, if you could wave a magic wand and this person can do something in your business to give you back just one hour in the day, just one, what would that be? And then they start thinking, oh, if I didn't have to do this, that would make my life so much easier. Or I might ask them, well I do ask them in the consultation, what have you wanted to implement in your business but haven't?
[00:06:01] Nicole: Hmm.
[00:06:02] Melissa Smith: And one of the most common things a client says is a newsletter. A very consistent newsletter. They would tell you, I have a list, I have content, I have all these things that someone could repurpose. I just don't have time to send it out. If someone could just do that, my life would be so much better. And from there we start building because it's very common for a client to think, oh, I have to hire this person for 20 hours or 40 hours a week. I don't even know if I have that much work. Well, the reality is you probably don't. The average client hires a VA 5-10 hours a week. You can retain a VA for as little as 10 hours a month. This is really about getting you to the place where you aren't bumping up against something that halts your energy. So productivity is something we talk about all the time, but what most people don't understand or realize is that your productivity levels are directly tied to your energy levels. And when you don't have the energy to do something, no matter how simple it is, no matter how easy it is, no matter how many times you've had to do it in your business before, you will halt your productivity. And I've experienced in my life, I don't know what happens when you get productivity issues or you start procrastinating. But for me, my house has never been cleaner. When I'm trying to procrastinate on something I don't wanna do, I'll find a reason to do anything plus.
[00:07:28] Nicole: Yeah. Yeah. And I totally agree with that. And I think too, it's like if you could think about - you're talking about energy -that like, oh, I've gotta do that, it drains my energy. So to me it's I don't wanna pay the bills, I don't wanna do that. I don't wanna send out these emails. And well, you know, it just landed for me, Melissa, I don't know if this is true, but even if I was an executive in a company, and the company wouldn't pay for me to have an assistant. I could still hire an assistant for 10 hours a week that could maybe take some things off of my plate that would help me be more proficient. 'Cause you know, there's work you can do that earns you the most money per hour and the work that you can do that does not earn you any penny. It's just that you have to do it to make sure the process flows, right?
[00:08:16] Melissa Smith: Absolutely. And during the pandemic and since, the rise of personal assistants for the non- quote unquote wealthy, has dramatically risen. Dramatically. Because people are thinking, well, it was one thing when I was managing my own email of my work stuff. But I have four kids and they're in school, and each time something changes, I get an email notification now and I also have to go online and sign them up.
[00:08:44] And then I have to make plans for spring break and summer. And then, so, you know, a of times it's that "what can I have this person do, not inside my business, but for my life?" Like, how can they manage our family calendar, our homeschool, our tutoring, the nanny, the sports, whatever that looks like. And again, it used to be for the ultra wealthy or high net worth clients, but that's not the case anymore. And I like to think about it this way, you know, back in the day, not everyone had a cell phone. Only like the super busy and super rich had a cell phone. It was however many dollars a minute and you know, big and clunky, and all that. But you don't have to be a $500/hour lawyer now to have a cell phone, right? We all have 'em. We all use them. Um, it's beneficial to us all and having that kind of personal assistant is a game changer for some people.
[00:09:43] Nicole: Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, let's define, you know, in the book you say here's what a virtual assistant is and what a virtual assistant isn't. So will you kind of tease that out for us a little bit?
[00:09:56] Melissa Smith: Sure. So first and foremost, a virtual assistant, whether human or AI, has the ability to anticipate your needs. If you are having to delegate --not like things come up off the top of your head, like, you're like, oh, don't forget, I need this. I, I scheduled a meeting. I know I didn't tell you, but notice that's on the calendar now. I'm not talking about that, but I'm talking about someone who's gonna see your calendar and know you need an agenda. You booked your own travel? Okay, well I'm gonna follow up and see, do we need a car? Do we need hotel? Who's meeting us for dinner? Whatever that looks like, I'm gonna look ahead. You're not gonna start then telling me-- in fact, I had my own client book his own travel, and I popped in the next morning and I saw that he had booked it for a month, and I thought, that doesn't seem right, but being the kind of assistant I am, I said, it looks like you're having quite a bit of travel. Should I make any special accommodations? Should I make any change to our standing meetings, what does this mean? 'Cause he is under lots of stress, lots of pressure. I didn't wanna point out a mistake that he made and he said, oh my gosh, did I do that wrong? And I said, yes. Here are the dates that you booked. I actually put them in the first message and he's like, I'm gonna change it right now. But even just going in and just not taking things for what they are, but digging in.
[00:11:12] Nicole: Yeah.
[00:11:13] Melissa Smith: So that is first and foremost. Now those duties will run the gamut. So whether it's executive, which means client-facing; general, which basically means isn't client-facing; marketing; online courses; podcasts; emails; technical; launches, all the things! The two things that I don't recommend and I don't match for are sales and customer service. And it often shocks clients. The sales, not so much, but the customer service, yes. But VAs don't wanna be on the phone. They do not like it. You may find a unicorn out there, but as a whole, that is not what we do. And we don't do scripts. It's not, it doesn't feel right to us. It's why we're VAs and not salespeople. I can tell you from my sales clients that I have who are extremely successful, they would never dream-- never dream of outsourcing their sales. That's just not a thing that you do.
[00:12:12] Nicole: No, you gotta close the deal. You gotta create the relationship, right?
[00:12:16] Melissa Smith: Yes. Customer service is often like, oh, wow. I thought that would be great. Well, customer service isn't, for some of the reasons that makes someone a virtual assistant. So you can't tell this person what hours they have to be online. You can't provide them hardware. Doing those types of things legally classifies them as an employee. They can agree to work certain hours. That's their kind of agreement. These are the hours that I work. Do you agree? But when you have customer service and they have to be on call or else a call could fall through the cracks, that's not great. If you have to provide them with special computer or hardware, that's a no go as well. Also, it's really hard to control the situation and the environment. I live in a building. I never can plan for the lawnmowers and the dog that will bark and. You know, I don't even have small kids. My kids are adults. I'm on my way to being a grandmother, so it doesn't have to be this thing. Thank you. It doesn't be the thing, but when you're in a call center, you really have to make sure that you can control that environment and you can't do that. Otherwise pricing is extremely hard because either you are gonna pay this person no matter what, no matter how many calls they take, or the pricing will be off because you're gonna be doing it per phone call. The other side of it goes back to sales. Customer service and sales are so tightly knit for the best companies. You don't wanna lose your hard earned sale because of bad customer service or customer service that is disconnected from the sales department. The best customer service and sales departments work together in tandem. They know exactly how that works. So not only do they fix the problem, meet the customer needs, but then they can go above and beyond and see how they can make sure that problem is forever resolved.
[00:14:11] Nicole: Yeah. Yeah. All right. Fantastic. Yeah. I actually have a gentleman that I was talking to and he is a salesperson and he hired a virtual assistant. But you know what, the thing about salespeople is that they are out there, they're movers, they're shakers, they're talking, they're, you know, it's a lot of activity. And then the funny thing about sales is after you make the sale, you have to sit down and do this thing called a contract or an agreement. And he is like, we have a standard agreement. And so he hired a virtual assistant, out of his pocket, you know? 'cause he's like, I can be out there selling and she fills out the form, she sends it back to me. I double check it. We send it off. But like, filling in blanks is not his forte. But like I, I assume that a virtual assistant would love to fill in those details. Just like you caught that detail for the guy that you were working with.
[00:14:59] Melissa Smith: Yes, and a lot of people would fall into that. Basically, if you are in business and you're a solopreneur, you're an entrepreneur, you are in sales.
[00:15:06] Nicole: Right.
[00:15:07] Melissa Smith: Period. Right? So what happens once you sign that client? Where's the onboarding go? All the pre details, all the things that you have to follow up on, all the meetings that get canceled and rescheduled and moved around and let me find time on my calendar. Those are all things that are extremely common for a virtual assistant. And a woman hired me years ago and I still remember her, and she said, the only thing that's slowing down my sales is my time. I cannot book these meetings fast enough. And she was booking literally 12 minute meetings to get more meetings in every day, and she was just crushing it and she said, I need this VA to be on top of these meetings and book them in 12 minute increments. If someone is late, if they're rescheduling, I don't need to know about it. I just need to know who I'm talking to once I book online. And she's like, and this is how I sell. This is how I sell 'cause I never have to slow down. I never lose my momentum throughout the day. It's done. It's booked. I can't tell myself, no, you're not doing that meeting 'cause someone else put it on there. I can't avoid the calls. It's already there. Someone's done it for me. And so every day I know-- also I'm kind of accountable to this person.
[00:16:19] Nicole: That's right. I, I'm hearing like discipline.
[00:16:21] Melissa Smith: Mm-hmm. Yeah, it takes away the friction, right? So like right now I have a business mullet on. I have my business work shirt that I wear every day, and on the bottom I have my workout pants and I have my tennis shoes on already. I'm removing the friction for at the end of my day, I'm not having to change out of other clothes. I'm already halfway in my workout clothes, so I have less friction if it's a really rough day to get outta the office and get to the gym. And those friction points for our clients are real. The studies have shown that even 20 seconds can make someone do or not do something by the rationale in their mind. So if you wanna learn an instrument, you put the guitar right in the center of the room. Don't get a fancy hook on the wall. You put it in the room. Yeah. If you wanna stop watching so much television, you take the batteries out of the remote. And just putting them 20 feet away, when you go to turn on the TV and it's not working, chances are you won't get up to put the batteries back in the remote. So it's that same kind of friction where we're moving.
[00:17:25] Nicole: Yeah. Oh, I love that. I love that. Okay. So bottom lining this whole thing about VAs, you say VA is an investment in your business or in your life.
[00:17:36] Melissa Smith: Yes, and that's really important because there are some things that are just the cost of doing business, right? I have to pay taxes. That's the cost of doing business. I have to register my business. That's the cost of doing business. When you hire a VA, you must know your return on investment. So my very first hire was bookkeeping. I could not wait to get that off of my plate. It just dragged me down. I'm not a numbers person. I just wanna sell. I just wanna go out there. I just wanna do my stuff. I wanna talk to clients. And so I knew that if I wasn't doing that, not only would I get back that time, but I would also get rid of the frustration, the procrastination, the doubting, like... I don't wanna pay the bills, right? Just tell me what I need to make. Just tell me what I need. Just tell me what I need to do, and I'd rather do that. And so it's thinking about, I'm not just gonna let this hour go. What do I gain in the process? And maybe that time is not work related. Maybe it's, I'm never gonna have to miss a soccer game again. I'm gonna make dinner on time. I'm gonna work out. I'm not gonna be working late. I'm gonna get to bed on time. I'm gonna do something super fun, stress free, and be able to mentally disconnect. And for a lot of people, those types of things are priceless.
[00:18:57] Nicole: Yeah, I couldn't agree more. So it is an investment in your wellness, your performance, your bottom line finances. There's a lot of reasons to do this. All right, so in section two you talk about, productivity is really not your problem. Hey, good news! You know, all of us have been to the time management seminar and we're like, we are using all the tricks, we still don't have enough time. So tell us about the fact that, you know, good news, why productivity is not our problem.
[00:19:25] Melissa Smith: Yeah. And just if someone's like, I don't know, who are you to say that? Well, there's a book I love, um, it's called _Time Management for Mortals_. Um, there's like _4,000 weeks_ as well. Um, there's _Essentialism_ and they all go on to say the same thing. And the reason is, is because priority is a singular word. We have made it a plural word, and so when you have to, it's kind of like your MVP, right? If you have to narrow down that priority to your MVP, it suddenly makes everything clear. And as the CEO, or the business owner, however you identify, the entrepreneur, the reality is, is you could answer a hundred emails in a day and not be productive. But you could come up with one good idea today and that would be the best thing that you could have done. And so when we think of productivity, we have to think, what am I producing? Answering emails only produces more emails.
[00:20:30] Nicole: Oh my God. Mic drop. Truth.
[00:20:34] Melissa Smith: you know, so what are you producing. Creating projects only leads to more tasks and more projects.
[00:20:42] Nicole: Yeah.
[00:20:43] Melissa Smith: So what are you producing in your business? And you have to get really out of the weeds and think high level. And that's really where you wanna be. Because once you come up with that idea, once you come up with that plan, or maybe once you have hired the person that has come up with that plan for you, all you have to do is oversee it. And even then, you could hire someone to start overseeing it. And the more and more you get out, the more you are less likely to bottleneck your business. And so then you can think about things like, what's productivity? What is future-proofing your business? If you want to be productive as a CEO, the best thing you can do is to future-proof your business. And sometimes that just means you have to sit and think and do nothing, and that is absolutely productive. It's why business leaders will go on these retreats. It's why they'll join these masterminds. It's why they will hire really expensive coaches just to have the space to sit and think because as an entrepreneur, as a business owner, as a CEO, that is your highest value work. After that, it's all tactical.
[00:21:58] Nicole: That's right. That's right. So you can't have a business without a good product, a good service. And so those are the things you need to be inventing and then put other people in charge of, like you said, the tactics and strategies to carry it out. Oh, that's so fantastic. And I don't know, are you familiar with this guy named Dan Sullivan? His company's called Strategic Coach. Yeah. So as you're sitting there, I'm like, okay, so she's talking about this thing, everybody go get this book. We're, you know, and we always, Melissa, we're always telling, buy this book, read this book. And people are like, you must have a lot of books. I'm like, you should see my office. This is the only blank wall in my office. The rest is all bookshelves. So his book is called Unique Ability, and when you go through the little process of Unique Ability, he talks about there's things that, that you're terrible at. Stop it. Give that to the virtual assistant. And then he said, there's things that you're good at, which sounds like you should be doing them, but he is like, if you're only good at them, you should give them to your virtual assistant. And then he's like, then there's just things that, gosh darn it, you're excellent at it, but you don't really love it or enjoy it or get any juice from it. Back to the energy thing that Melissa Smith said, right, who is the author of _How to Hire the Right Virtual Assistant._ If it's excellent work, but you don't enjoy it, it's not good. And then he says that very tippy top level is unique ability, and that's what you're talking about. Get quiet and do your unique ability.
[00:23:17] Melissa Smith: Yeah, _The One Thing _is also a really great book. And these are just really successful entrepreneurs but they've really honed in on that thing. And fun fact, when I very first started my business, I was on a plane and I was talking to this gentleman next to me and I was just getting immersed into the business world because I had been an employee, before that. And he told me about Dan Sullivan. And so the first books that was ever recommended to me, I'll never forget, was Good to Great.
[00:23:46] Nicole: Oh yeah. By Jim Collins. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. And
[00:23:50] Melissa Smith: that led me to him, and then that led me to Dan Pink and that it just like opened
[00:23:55] Nicole: Those are all our guys!
[00:23:58] Melissa Smith: Yeah.
[00:23:59] Nicole: Okay. That's so good.
[00:24:00] Announcer: Are you ready to build your vibrant culture? Bring Nicole Greer to speak to your leadership team, conference or organization to help them with their strategies, systems, and smarts to increase clarity, accountability, energy, and results. Your organization will get lit from within! Email her at nicole@vibrantculture.com and be sure to check out Nicole's TEDx talk at vibrantculture.com.
[00:24:26] Nicole: All right, so, um, so productivity's not your problem. You don't have one priority. That's what she said. That's like quotable. You should put that on the X today and put her name Melissa Smith. Okay. The next thing you say in here, which I think is really good, is focus is holding you back. Talk about that.
[00:24:48] Melissa Smith: Yeah, you know this really goes both ways because what we focus on sometimes is like not the right thing, and then the thing that we're supposed to focus on, we don't. So in the context, in the book, it was just the wrong focus. You're just focusing on the wrong things. And now- it's been a while since I've written the book- I'm flipping the other way. I'm flipping the other way because clients have been just not focused enough. They're like, if I can only get 10 minutes a day, I'm like 10 minutes? I mean, what would, what would that, I mean, we want this like a longer time, but it's where we're doing that. And again, we've gotten so far in just a short amount of time of confusing how many quote unquote priorities there are in a day. And in the virtual assistant world and the assistant world for years, we have done time blocking and we know meetings and calendars and cadence, and it's something that a lot of people, it's just revolutionary to them. When they hear the concept, they're like, oh my gosh, this is fascinating. And they call it some kind of crazy calendar hack. Things do have to get done, but not everything has to get done on the same day. And so if you can actually maybe have a day where you just have meetings, right? It's going in between meetings like, after this, all I have is meetings the rest of the day. I'm not doing any writing, I'm not doing anything else because that just wouldn't be the right place for my energy to go.
[00:26:28] Nicole: Right. You're on stage right now. You're having, you're having your on stage day. That's right.
[00:26:33] Melissa Smith: And then tomorrow I won't have a single call. I won't have a single meeting, and all I'll do is heads down work. And my days and my weeks are set up that way. And the more days and weeks that you can put together that way, the better off you'll be by the end of the quarter and by the end of the year. Everyone has bad days. Everyone has days where you didn't plan on the kids getting sick. You didn't plan on having to take the dog to the vet. You didn't plan on not feeling well and trying to power through, and then making a mistake that cost you more time. Like no one plans for these things. But those will become the exception, not the rule, in your business.
[00:27:10] Nicole: That's right. That's right. And, back to energy, 'cause there's a different energy. The being on stage, that's the ta-da energy and then the heads down energy, it still has an intensity to it, but it's quieter, it's softer. So once you get in that mode, we've all been in that thing where we're like flipping in and out of those two kind of energies. It's exhausting 'cause it takes you like 10 or 15 minutes to get into onstage mode and then it takes you 10 or 15 minutes to get into heads down mode. So why do that to yourself? Right?
[00:27:42] Melissa Smith: It becomes one of these things and you're like, what was I doing again?
[00:27:44] Nicole: Right. And, Melissa, I didn't go to get my undergrad till I was in my forties. And then I got my master's after that, only because I thought if I don't keep reading these books and writing these papers, I'll never start again. So I just kept on powering through all this stuff. But like my children lived in the house when I was getting my undergrad, and they'd come in and ask me some question and I'd be like, oh, it's in the pantry on the third shelf. And then I'd look back at the screen and look back at my book. It would take me 10 minutes to figure out where my brain was, answering this question or whatever I was doing, and that's the very thing we're talking about. It's not flipping. So I love that. Now, you also say in the book, and I think this is huge. I think that every leader who's listening needs to think about this. You say, "Know your red flags." You said, "Just before my list of the top 10 reasons you need a VA, I asked you to choose the top three you most identify with. It's quite possible you can't narrow it down to just three reasons. I know because I've been there." So you've recognized your own red flags and so in here you say one of the red flags is that you're not exercising.
[00:28:47] Melissa Smith: Yes, I work with a lot of people. I deal with a lot of people. I have a lot of different personalities. And that's fine. And "Exercise Melissa" really is able to see someone's perspective. I'm able to take a step back. "Not-Exercise Melissa" is, um, what's wrong with this person? Like, why don't they just know that I'm right? Like, what are we having this conversation for?
[00:29:08] Nicole: Right, you're cranky. Yeah.
[00:29:09] Melissa Smith: Yeah, and you know, for me, when I lay my head down on the pillow without exercise, the second I lay my head down, no matter how exhausted I am, I have 50 things running through. Oh, I need to do this. Oh, I need to do this. And there's like this mental checklist coming through. And when I exercise, I don't have that. So it's very much I need to be the best version of me, for my family, for myself, but also for my business. People pay me good money. Their hard-earned money, and I wanna show up as my best self. I don't wanna show up as burnt out and not compassionate, not empathetic. I wanna be able to meet people where they are, and if they're in that place because they're burned out because they need an assistant, I need to make sure that I am in a place where I can really help them and be empathetic and not have my own problems that I'm dealing with because I haven't been working out and I'm just too stressed myself.
[00:30:02] Nicole: That's right. That's right. So that's a sure sign. You need a VA, you're not exercising. The next one is, is you're not reading. Oh my gosh. When I read that, I was like, okay, preach. Because, like I said earlier, we are all about the books. That's why we have all sorts of amazing authors on the show, like Melissa Smith who we're talking to right now about how to hire a virtual assistant. I think to survive in business these days, I mean, you always have had to read, but like even more so, things are changing so quickly, you gotta be up on the latest thing. If you don't have time to read, you're gonna get be, you're gonna get behind and maybe be irrelevant.
[00:30:38] Melissa Smith: I love this one. And people will say, oh, no, I, I'm reading like 60 books a year now. I'm up to a hundred now. And say, great. So I'm assuming a lot of those are audio. Yes. And I even have a service and they just, uh, synthesize the book for me and for those people I'm like, great. I mean, if that's your goal, awesome. But my people, people who are like me, we wanna process it ourselves. We wanna go through. I don't want someone else summarizing. I, I wanna do this and I wanna have it in the process so I can implement it. Reading a book is fine. Learning is fine. It's almost criminal to know something and then still not do it. It's one thing if you don't know it, but once you read that sentence, you read that paragraph, you read that section, and now you know it, and then you do nothing about it. Now that's a problem. I don't wanna read and not be able to implement the great ideas that these people are sharing with me. And newsflash, the author doesn't want you to either, they want you to get benefit out of the book that they poured their heart, soul and time into.
[00:31:52] Nicole: right.
[00:31:53] Melissa Smith: And so for me, it's such a big deal. I work with a lot of authors. I work with a lot of speakers, and you get to that point where you're like, oh, my books are stacked up. I guess I'll read them when I'm on vacation. Like books can only be read now on vacation. That's, that's just a red flag. There's so many studies about the benefits of reading a book and reading a book daily, whether it's business or whether it's fictional or has nothing to do with what you're doing in business. But this is how we get thoughts and this is how we keep our curiosity. And so it's just a flag for me
[00:32:26] Nicole: Yeah. Yeah. And my thing is leaders read. That's what they do. Yeah. Okay. And then the third red flag you talk about in the book is you're not sleeping. And who can relate to that out there? Raise your hand.
[00:32:40] Melissa Smith: When I ask clients if they had one more hour in the day, what would they do with it? Most of them, the number one answer is sleep.
[00:32:46] Nicole: Yeah.
[00:32:48] Melissa Smith: I still remember, I had such a busy schedule when I first started my business. And I had my day all done up, my week all done up, and I had my exercise in there. And one day I just remember sitting down on the couch and I just fell asleep. I just went to sit down to take off my shoes, but I fell asleep. It's about the rest. The way that we decompress at the end of the day and way back when, I was not good. I actually took a sleep class from Dr. Ron Friedman, because it got so bad and I learned some things in there, because I was remote. I've been working remote now for like 13 years and so I just was doing everything you could do wrong when you're working remotely and I had to learn how to disconnect, how to let it go, how not to work all time, no matter how excited I was.
[00:33:46] So, you know.
[00:33:48] Nicole: Bit fun. Yeah.
[00:33:49] Melissa Smith: Yeah, we don't just not sleep because like we're burned out or stressed or just tired. Sometimes we don't because we're so excited and there are times when you roll with that. I'm not a extremist, you know, you sometimes you just roll with that. Sometimes you gotta push through, sometimes you gotta hustle through, but it's not sustainable. So it's not sustainable. And you gotta see that and know no matter how great you are, no matter how great you are at what you do, everybody, everybody needs sleep and you have to identify what's causing you not to be able to do that.
[00:34:27] Nicole: Yeah. Yeah. And if you had a great assistant that you knew had your back, that could put help you put your head on the pillow, right? And like, turn it off. All right. Very good. So, further on in the book, I underlined this. I thought it was really good. You don't need another you. I was like, that's good. So what are you trying to say right there, Melissa?
[00:34:50] Melissa Smith: Yeah, I don't need another me, I need someone who's like the opposite of me. I need someone who's super tech savvy who will actually watch a YouTube video, who will do bookkeeping. And those are all different people, which is fine. I'm happy to hire all of them so I don't have to do it. But I remember clients so often saying, oh, if I just had another me, and I have to remind them: "you" creates more work.
[00:35:15] Nicole: Right.
[00:35:16] Melissa Smith: "You" doesn't like to do this work, so you don't need another you, what you need is someone who compliments you.
[00:35:24] Nicole: right.
[00:35:24] Melissa Smith: You do this, they do this, together you are like cookies and milk, peanut butter and jelly. I mean, however you wanna look at
[00:35:31] Nicole: and milk the best. Yes. That's a.
[00:35:34] Melissa Smith: So you know you need someone who compliments you. And that's where it is. It's very common for clients to say, oh, I have horrible ADHD. Great. Do you want another person who has that? I mean, it hasn't stopped you from being successful. Obviously you're doing great job, but you need someone who has excellent follow up and follow through and who will never let up to make sure nothing falls through the cracks, no matter how many times you tell them, I'll take care of it later.
[00:36:04] Nicole: Yeah. Fantastic. Okay. All right. So you gotta have a complement. And Melissa's probably very familiar with this, we haven't talked about this pre-show, but you know, there's this whole thing out there. You said earlier in this session, you said, uh, there's a lot of personalities out there.
[00:36:17] And so one of the things that I do at Build a Vibrant culture is we do personality assessments. We've got all sorts of different ones, and that's what we preach, right? So if you're driven, go-getter, 16 balls in the air person, you need quiet, calm, cool, collected, structured, process driven to complement you, right? So it just makes perfect sense. All right, so let's say that you have convinced everybody that's listening, I need an assistant. Okay, so now they're like, now maybe a little anxiety rises up because they're like, well, how long will this take? And what's the process? And like, well, how do you actually find this amazing human? What's your suggestions to get through, navigate all that? Of course, get the book right? Here it is, _How to Hire the Right Virtual Assistant_, but can you talk us through that?
[00:37:04] Melissa Smith: Sure. So the book also, you get to download an interactive workbook. So I have full compassion for my clients. I understand you might not read the book cover to cover. My feelings aren't hurt at all. I have put it in the workbook for you so that you can actually go through and complete it, step by step online and go through the same process that I do. But if we're gonna shorten it and condense the version, you need to know what your communication style and strategy is. The two pillars you wanna hire for are communication strategy, and ideal client fit. So communication strategy is for you, the client, in your manner, your medium, your tone, your verbiage. It must be super simple or else you won't do it, and then it feels like it's not working. This is not the time for someone to come in and say, well, I need you to log into this system. And you're like, Ugh, okay. I
[00:37:53] Nicole: Another password, please.
[00:37:55] Melissa Smith: Yeah, you won't you just won't. That's okay. It's the tail wagging the dog. You're paying this person, you should be able to communicate how you like. And if that's not how they do it, then it's not the right VA. It could be a good VA, but it's not the right VA.
[00:38:10] And then the ideal client fit is for the VA. You should be their ideal. They should think like, oh my gosh, I can't believe I get to work with Nicole. This is amazing. She's my ideal client. This is exactly who I created my business to serve. And based on those two pillars is how I have a 98% successful match rate. And many of my clients have been working with their VAs between four and nine years. So an extremely high retention rate. VAs don't wanna lose their clients. They, like I said at the beginning, they don't like sales. They want long-term clients and they'll do what it takes to make sure that they're meeting their needs and beyond for years. And so if you start there, you got that down, I'll walk you through in the workbook how to create and write a job description that will attract the right VA. And some of you might say, oh, I've written job descriptions my whole life. These are different. These are different. We're gonna remove words like, need and must. We know that's a thing, but we don't want just anyone applying because in these job descriptions, we wanna attract the right person to apply and deter the wrong person. If your VA job description is attracting a hundred plus people, it's actually wrong. It is a waste of your time. You should be eliminating people right off the bat and get a solid core group, because remember, you're gonna have to look through all these emails and resumes and dms, and then once you get that set up, go to where you are. Be really specific. The same way you would ask someone for a referral. Ask someone for a referral of a virtual assistant who does these things for you as a type of person. So like for me, it would be, I need a bookkeeper. Who loves numbers and who will make my life easier and won't ask me questions that I probably don't know the answer to and won't speak to me in like QuickBooks jargon and tell me all this stuff, and they'll just figure out a way where I don't have to send them anything. They'll just already have it from me, and then magically I'll get my stuff done. Do you know that person? That's how specific we get.
[00:40:25] Nicole: Yeah. That's so fantastic. That's so fantastic. So when you said you write a job description- and don't miss, she said she's got the free downloadable workbook that goes with the book, so go get that- but then where do you place the job ad? Is this like something we put on Indeed? Do we post it on LinkedIn? Where do we do it? Where do we find these people?
[00:40:45] Melissa Smith: Not indeed, not indeed.
[00:40:47] Nicole: Okay.
[00:40:47] Okay.
[00:40:48] Melissa Smith: Love LinkedIn. It really depends on where you are and when do you spend your time. A lot of my clients are on LinkedIn, so that's where they go. If you're a member of a forum, a chamber, a mastermind, all great places. You could do a search. If you have a business that does a lot on Facebook, Facebook is a great place. There's tons of communities there. Same for Instagram, same for TikTok, same for Twitter. If you have a business that really lives somewhere, it would be easier to find people that live where you live, right? This is a working relationship, but it's kind of like a dating relationship. You don't wanna date someone like long distance, right? You're like, uh, could be good. But gosh, so far away. Like, how do I bridge that gap? You know? But you're like, oh, I live on x, I live on LinkedIn. I love this group. I'm there all the time. That's where people are, and if you pose it to your group and get specific, then they'll be able to send you specific candidates and really help you in the search. People want to be helpful. You will have people fighting to tell you their VA is so great.
[00:41:58] Nicole: That's so fantastic. All right, so use your network. I'm gonna bottom line it with saying that, what do you think about with that? Is that good?
[00:42:03] Melissa Smith: That's great.
[00:42:05] That's
[00:42:05] Nicole: Yeah. Okay. All right. And then, let's say we find this human and we're delighted. And so how do we make sure this, this becomes a very professional situation where we can hold people accountable and make it really work? What are your suggestions like, okay, now that you got 'em, here's what you do and here's what you don't. What would be your advice there?
[00:42:28] Melissa Smith: So you gotta do your due diligence. It doesn't start because you interviewed one person. In fact, if you hired someone and you only interviewed one person, that is not good. Um, you would
[00:42:39] Nicole: Don't do that.
[00:42:41] Melissa Smith: You would not do that. Take your business seriously. Do it as you would if you worked for your company. If you worked for someone else's company and you said, oh, I hired the first person that I interviewed. They'd look at you like you were crazy.
[00:42:51] Nicole: Right.
[00:42:52] Melissa Smith: Interview multiple people, then call the references for those who you are seriously consider hiring. You will find great information. I promise you. Even the quote unquote bad information is good information because what someone else thinks is like, I didn't really care for that too much. You're like, oh, I don't mind that at all. That's the worst thing you can say about this person. Then that's fabulous for me. But they might also tell you things like, I wish I would've known she did this. I would've had her doin;g that from the beginning. That's the number one thing that referrals or references say. Had I known that she did all this, that would've been a game changer.
[00:43:27] Nicole: I'd have put her to work. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:43:30] Melissa Smith: Do that, get a proposal. In the proposal, this shows you that this person is a professional. Clients have proposals. Why? Why wouldn't VA have proposal? This is their business. Let them show you how professional they are with a proposal. Review the proposal, they will send you a contract. It does have NDA and IP clauses in there as a standard practice. You can ask them to sign an additional NDA for your business. That's fine. There can only be one contract. So I do have clients that are in very regulated industries and so they would say we have our own contract. That's fine. The VA would have to just agree to do that. And then also conduct a background check. I conduct background checks on my VAs every year.
[00:44:16] Nicole: Right. Make sure they're not slipping.
[00:44:17] Melissa Smith: mind? You want that peace of mind. I will tell you, I have had people that say, oh, you don't need to do that. Um, you do. 'cause some of that stuff would actually just come up if you Googled the person.
[00:44:31] Nicole: exactly right.
[00:44:31] Melissa Smith: You want that. You want that. If you want that peace of mind, you wanna know that you did your due diligence. And then from there, the first thing you're gonna do is map out the first 90 days. And so this is something that I make available to my clients as well. And that first 90 days is just to set expectations. Where should we be on this journey? What happens if at the end of 12 weeks we are not at this place? This is what I will consider not good, not a success. And it maps it out for the entire 12 weeks. And this lets the VA know if they're on track to meet your expectations. If they meet them prior to that and you get successfully onboarded in 60 days instead of 90 days, then great. But when you don't know where you're going, you can't really measure like how you're going to get there. And in my document, I also tell people, especially for visionaries, no shade to them at all. But you know, you have this person now working with you and you're like, this is amazing. And you're like, oh, I could do this now and I could do this now. And in the document I have people put, here's where we're going, here's what I wanna do, here's what I would derail myself for. Like here's what I'm willing to go off course for. If this opportunity comes up, we're gonna take it. And then also say, here's some other things that usually get me sidetracked. I need your help getting me back on board if I get sidetracked on these things, I still wanna get
[00:46:02] Nicole: things. Yes.
[00:46:03] Melissa Smith: Yeah. And so that is so powerful because what I, I love the saying, the unmet expectations are the root of all disappointments. If you can agree on the expectations and both parties can say, I can make that happen, then there you go.
[00:46:20] Nicole: Yeah. That's so fantastic. All right, everybody, we have been talking with the amazing Melissa Smith, two-time author, how to _Become a Successful Virtual Assistant_. You might wanna pick that up if you're like, I think I could do this thing. Right. And then if you want one, you need to get her book called _Hire the Right Virtual Assistant_.
[00:46:37] And what we've been talking about is you might do this for yourself personally. You might do it for yourself if you're an entrepreneur. You might do this for yourself if your company won't give you an assistant, but you know you could do more productive work and you'd make more money, you could do it like that like my salesman. So Melissa, I've just thoroughly enjoyed having you on the show. Tell me, how do we find you? Um, we can go to the Amazon, we know, but like what? If we wanna talk to you, how do we get ahold of you?
[00:47:02] Melissa Smith: You can email me directly, melissa@thepva.com. You can connect with me and message me on LinkedIn. Melissa Smith, the pva. You can visit my website, the pva.com. Email's my jam. LinkedIn is my jam. So you will hear directly from me. I have assistants who do other things in my business, but these things, these are my things.
[00:47:24] Nicole: All right, fantastic. And, and so I know there's people going, wait, can Melissa give us one more nugget? Do you have like one more little bit of wisdom that you might share with everybody to kind of tie a bow on this thing?
[00:47:37] Melissa Smith: Sure. So paraphrasing Einstein, he said, don't memorize anything you can look up later. For me, don't try to memorize everything I said here or that you can Google. Just reach out to me. Just ask me. I'm happy to answer your very specific question for your very specific business. Don't feel like you have to do it all yourself. That's literally my tagline, because you can't do it all yourself. I'm happy to assist you in that, and I'm happy to save you time from even trying to Google things.
[00:48:07] Nicole: That's fantastic. All right everybody, it's been another wonderful episode of the Build A Vibrant Culture podcast. Would you go down below real quick where you are listening to this podcast and just hit the heart, hit the like button, and then maybe leave a little love note for Melissa 'cause she laid down some serious genius today. Thank you so much, Melissa, for being on the Build a Vibrant Culture podcast.
[00:48:28] Melissa Smith: Well, thank you so much for having me, Nicole.
[00:48:30] Nicole: Yeah, it's been a delight.
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