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What sets this podcast apart? We believe in the power of meaningful marketing—a holistic approach that prioritises authenticity, connection, and purpose, whilst still turning a profit.
Chantal Gerardy is an International Award Winning Marketing Strategist who empowers purpose-led businesses to revolutionise their online marketing approach and create a brand that resonates deeply with their online audience. If you're tired of cookie-cutter marketing advice, and seek strategies that truly make a difference, this podcast is for you.
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Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Meaningful Marketing Podcast. Today I'm here with the lovely Francesca Moy, and we're going to be talking about outsourcing to virtual assistants in order to manage your marketing. We live in a world right now where this has become the new norm here in Australia where we are.
And it's. They're VAs everywhere. You can go to agencies, you can get them privately. And today we're just going to share with you some of how that looks for you because in my experience, a lot of people are hiring, firing and rehiring. Others are just massively scared to even take the plunge and do something about it.
And then there's others that are absolutely thriving. So they are restructuring their teams, uh, being able to bring on more virtual assistants and scale and grow their businesses effortlessly. So thank you so much for joining us. today. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. I love to be here. This is so professional.
I love it. Thanks so much. I always love to start with the story. I mean, how did you get into virtual assistance and outsourcing? Well, about 11 years ago when I started my first business, which was life coaching, I noticed that I was very good at being on the call with the people. And then I had back, I was very good to do the marketing.
And then what would happen is that first the marketing will stop when I was on calls. Right. And so I didn't have the next client. So then I had to spend a week not making money and do marketing. And then when I started to get a bit of momentum, I was not following up with my own people. So I was letting them down.
I was doing the session. I'm like, yeah, yeah. I'll send you the recording. Yeah. I'll send you this notes. Never did because I was busy. And so I was like, okay, I needed to admit what I was not good at. And I would delegate what I was not good at, which was a lot, which was like the marketing, the admin, the follow up, the customer service, nurturing my clients, and my VA loved it.
And I was not good at that. So we created like a really win win situation for everybody. Yeah. There's definitely this capping point where at some, at some stage you go, I can no longer do this all by myself. I need to do it. For me personally, I always say that. You should only really look at outsourcing when you become a six figure business.
Yes. Until then, you really should have the time to Hustle and bustle. Yeah, so invest in yourself and invest in your ability to do it because when you get a virtual assistant, you actually do need to know what it is that you need to give them. And you do need to know what's required in giving them that task so that you can support them in that activity.
Also in the hiring process, you need to know what you're actually hiring for as well. Yeah, because if not, it's the blind leading the blind. If we don't know what we need to be done, how can we get someone on board? Uh, but also it's like what I love to do is that when I started to grow the business and then I created a marketing academy and I was teaching business owners how I did.
I grew my small life coaching business into a six figure business. People are like, how did you do it? I'm like, with the help of a VA, we support and that business grew so much that I got a EA here in Australia. And then she was drowning. And I was like, wait, wait, wait, wait, you don't drown. Yeah, I need you.
If you drown, then I'm screw as well because I have to start over again. So I got a VA for her. So I've got a VA to support her. And then she felt like. Successful and she felt like she had an assistant and it's like a bit of a career progression and I was like, Oh, this is cool. So then from there on, I made a rule that every time I've got a person here, obviously at the beginning they need to learn the role.
So again, the six figure, right, they need to get the role, get the result. And as soon as they do that, three months later, I go, Okay, you know, I've been in business three months, you deserve a EA. And so then I get them a EA in the Philippines for them. Yeah, that's so good. And I'm in the process at the moment.
I'm so excited. I've had my EA now for the last almost five years and it's time now for me to get a VA to support her as well because I'm growing. So her tasks are expanding and she can't thrive in her role. And there's a whole bunch of tasks now that she's got that are repeatable. Um, which means we can now bring on someone else and go, you can do the repeatable tasks because I need her for the higher level stuff.
Yes, absolutely. And our responsibility as a leader is to see our look at our staffs and understand what is the career progression and support them in their career rather than be the bottleneck of our own business. And so for me, like even now I've got a in the Philippines with me seven years. She's done everything.
She's my EA. She's my operational manager. She's my financial support advisor. Like literally she's incredible, but she's multitasking and it's not healthy for her. And it's also, she's stuck in that position. We tried to hire other EAs, but we have such a good connection. They were like, I'm don't like anybody.
So I'm like, I haven't succeeded that. But by doing that, I've realized that I'm letting her. down. I'm closing her into just be my EA rather than have a career progression. So sometimes it's us that we're like, we get comfortable. We're like, Oh, well, this person is my EA. I don't want someone else. But by doing that, we're not being the right leader for them as well.
Yeah. And there's a couple of things that can happen with that. So in my experience, what happens is they can burn out, burn out, not enjoy the job anymore, multitask. So they're not efficient anymore. They become inefficient. So you end up having to, it's not working anymore. So those are great signs of that.
Frustration. Frustration's huge, but the other problem that comes with that as well is that if they get hit by a bus, and everyone says, Chantal, how can you say that? But that's the reality, right? If they get hit by a bus or something happens, you are screwed. And this has happened to me twice in my life.
Twice in my life when I've had a PA, a personal assistant here in Australia. Out of the blue, the one just went, I'm burnt out, I'm leaving, and gave me like two weeks notice. And I had no idea what she did. I cried for the month of December. I still remember that month of December. And my other one, I'd had for like five years, she went through a divorce, she was all fine, woke up one day, was having mental health issues and went, I'm out.
Nothing had been recorded. No systems or processes have been put into place. I had no idea of what a daily tasks were. I hadn't been having regular meetings with them, and that became a massive, massive problem in my business and a learning. And I'm grateful to say that all of that's happened because it's made me a lot more structured in my approach now with virtual assistance.
A million percent that happened to me as well multiple times. And obviously that helped me to understand also what I wasn't doing right. Exactly. Like you said, like I wasn't in the career. I was burning them down. I was expecting so much, but the business was growing and I was giving it the support that I needed.
It's like the business is doubling thanks to their help as well. And I wouldn't put them as an assistant to take some of the tasks so that they can thrive and continue growing the business. So it's actually a big problem of Us business owners that we just expect our people to be superhumans and we need to recognize when enough is enough.
And the other day I was talking to Lena, she's my customer service manager. She's incredible. She's very passionate about the role. And I said, this is our business. Like, I want this business to be give you freedom. and free of finances, but also of time. I don't want you to be stuck in this role and work over time.
This is not what you're here for. And I want to support you. So let's put another person under you. I see you're struggling these couple of weeks. Let's put one person under you to get things. And she was like, but I'm very good at that. I'm like, yes, you are, but you're not going to get stuck there. You can delegate, you can create procedures.
We can pass it to someone else and you can thrive. You can go to the next step. And it was, she was scared, but she was excited. And that's what we need to recognize before they drown or before we burn them out or before they start to look around for another opportunity because they don't recognize there is an opportunity within this business, right?
Yeah, I love that. So there's three amazing things that I took out of that. And number one thing is that we actually have to become good leaders. We not naturally that, I mean, a lot of people, my friends would go, Chantal, you're a great leader. We think that I can tell you right now that when I started getting staff and team.
Leadership was something that I needed to work on. I've had to work on it. I've had to be very self aware, work on myself as a leader, be a better communicator and upskill in that position myself so that I can be a better leader within my team. The second thing that you mentioned over there is time. So spending time with them, because if you don't spend time with them, you're not going to recognize when these things are happening.
Time means that you're communicating, you're aware of what's going on inside the business so that you can be a good support team for them. And then the other thing is. obviously look at the cultural differences within the business, which is something else that you'd be able to identify in that time. So for example, I've got Nigerians, Indians, Filipinos, and I also train South Africans and I've got someone in the Brisbane as well.
So there's cultural differences that you've got to pay attention to. So as a leader, you've got to be able to do that. Time allows you to spend time with your team to see what's actually happening, to make sure that's really good. And the third thing there is the upskilling because just like we have to upskill in our role as a business owner.
We, our virtual assistants need to upskill as well, so if they don't understand a task, they need to upskill as well, and unfortunately there's this thing that business owners think that when they hire someone, they're going to come fully skilled in that role and in that position. They are not skilled in your business.
They've got no idea what you do. They've got to learn and they've got to understand your key messaging, your branding, your proposition, your value propositions, your call to actions, who your target audience is, what your competitors are. That takes time from the time that you bring on your virtual assistant.
It's not suddenly they're managing your marketing and it's like, Oh, we spoke about this earlier. And you know, you'll get an Australian marketing manager that's in house and you'll pay them anything from 70, 000 a year to like 120, 000 a year. You still have to spend time with them. You still have to be a leader, you know, and you still have to upskill with them.
They need to upskill. You need to upskill. Virtual assistants are a lot cheaper than that. They still need those three things. Absolutely. And it takes about three, three months for someone to really be confidently working in their role. It no matter what role it is, if you pay them 100, 000 here in Australia, or you pay them 25, 000 in the Philippines or someone else, you have to take responsibility of the training and the integration into the business into building relationship with the team, what to ask to who the other day I had One of my VA's commenting on one of the new staff members in Australia and they do that, right?
They compare and they'll be like, wait a minute, this person gets paid way more than me and she doesn't still know who does what in the business. I'm like, but she's been here for like six weeks. Like, just give her a chance. Like, did you sit down with that person and explain your role and what you actually do?
Like, don't just expect, like, it's about for us. And it's funny because at one point I had to go, okay, the business is growing and now I'm becoming a, I'm becoming a general manager of the business. I, I can, I'm not the salesperson anymore. I'm not the marketing person anymore. Like you've got to accept your different roles in the business as well.
And I had to go and get leadership training cause I have no idea how to do these people. I still don't. I can still go, oops, I did that mistake the other day. And we have to learn and upskill ourselves to be able to provide that. Yesterday someone told me something that I was like, Oh my goodness. They said, if you are not upskilling yourself as the right leader, You're doing a disservice to your staff because they could have a better career somewhere else, and you're holding them back.
So you either step up, and you be a great leader, and you call them out when they're not performing, and you coach them with any support, and you be there for them. If not, don't keep them there and let them have a better career somewhere else. Whoa! Okay. I love that. So there's a couple of things, because we've spoken about having to spend time with your virtual assistant.
So people freak out. Every time I talk or do a presentation, I did two yesterday, and they go, oh, time with my VA, I don't have time. And I go, well, if you've got no time to spend with your VA, then you really don't have time for new clients. And they were like, Whoa, it's so true. So the thing is, you still got to slow down to speed up.
Like this is, I said it, I think you say it in a different way, but you've got to slow down in the beginning to speed up at the end to get what you want out of them. And at the end of the day, it could. take you, say, eight hours to fulfill a project, because you could go, I can just do it myself, eight hours to do that project.
But if you spent the eight hours with your virtual assistant teaching them to do it, you now don't have those eight hours anymore. You now might only have to oversee it for one hour. One hour to oversee them doing it for the eight hours. Next time that project happens. Hundred percent. Yeah. Sorry to cut you off.
Not at all. Perfect. I was like, I'm too excited. Too excited. I was like, you know, like, this is the thing. Like, yes, the first time it will be faster if you did it. Absolutely. But actually, I don't believe that to be honest, but it could be. past, like as much time, the same time, right? But what I say is don't, well, I have a few things I want to say here because someone else the other day told me something that I need to share with you.
So it's like, don't just sit there with the VA and expect them to learn on like a five minute brief. It's like, do it with them. You have to do it anyway. If you didn't have an assistant, or I'm going to call a staff member, because if it's here, there doesn't matter, right? So if you don't have a staff member, you will have to do it.
So that will take you maybe three hours a week to do that task every week, right? Recording task. If you teach it to a VA, they expect it to be like, Oh, I have to teach us. I have to take a fourth hour. It's like, no, you still, you still were doing it for three hours. Now spend the three exact hour with your VA.
And you let them watch it on Zoom, you record, they record, they watch it, then they're going to go away, watch it back, create a procedure. Next week, the same task you had to do anyway, because when you didn't have a staff member, you had to do it, right? Yeah. So then you go back on Zoom, now they do it, you watch them by following the procedure.
Now in this moment, you have the power to edit the procedure, to coach them, upskill them. You now let them do it and you just spend an hour checking. So now from three hours a week, it's down to one hour. The fourth week, hopefully, you can just do 15 minutes to check. So now you'd cut down the three hours to 15 minutes.
And you do that for each task, each project. And if it's you or your team member, They're having an assistant is the same process, right? So I don't see how it's faster to just do it because it's not in three weeks time. It's not faster to just do it, right? I think a lot of the problem that I see is that they bring in the virtual assistant and they don't know.
They know broadly what they want to delegate when it comes to marketing because obviously marketing is my thing. So broadly they know what they need to do. They go, I need to do reels. So make me some reels, but they don't actually have a strategy. They don't actually have a plan. They don't really know how to do that.
So when they're delegating the task, they delegating something that's very nonspecific to somebody, and then they expecting them to just whoop up something and it's not possible. Absolutely not possible. And this is where having a strategy and having a marketing plan is so incredibly important because when you have the strategy and you've got the plan and you've taken the time to.
to explain it and teach them that. Then when you say, this is our strategy, this is our plan, this is the outcome of what we're wanting to achieve, now please go and create a reel that's targeting this audience, that's in our brand colors, that is going to have this call to action, that we're going to put out on Instagram.
You've now delegated more specifically and you've set them up for success, not failure. A million percent. So you can't say, Um, you know, when they go, they didn't do it right. I go, no, you didn't do it right. Sorry, reality check. Reality check. I mean, and, and, you know, for our audience, that's why a lot of people who get virtual assistants bring me in to spend eight weeks to five months to come and actually Go through that marketing strategy and plan because they didn't have it in the first place.
Yeah, but so many clients come to me and they're like, I want a VA to run my marketing. And I say, wait, wait, wait, do you have a strategy? And they say, no. I said, okay, you need a Chantal first. So let's do a meeting with Chantal, get the strategy from Chantal, and then the VA can work with Chantal. to learn the strategy and she had to supervise and help and help our VAs are trained to be supervising as well.
So you can get the support, but you need the strategy because if not, but the VA, this is what I'm getting a bit like, no, VA is not a strategist. A VA is a doer is an implementer. What is the strategy? It's like you're giving the VA a car. But then you tell them that you want to get them to drive to Darwin, but you're not giving them a GPS.
Chantal is the GPS. Get the GPS so that the VA will be able to follow Chantal. Absolutely. For you, what Chantal tell you probably would Japanese, right? You don't understand it. I get it. But for a VA, they will understand the marketing jargon that Chantal will use. They will be able to follow it, watch the GPS and follow it.
But if you don't give them a GPS, they're going to be lost. No matter how good their driver are, they're going to be lost. Yeah, so we spoke about time, which is great, now let's just talk about money. So you could get an in house marketing person, they're still going to require the same amount of time, right?
The difference is that they are usually in house in your organisation, so they are in closer proximity to your business and your brand, so they can absorb some of the understanding of the business a bit quicker. Yes. When you go offshore, it's cheaper. So you have to spend some time with them in order to be able to get them to do it.
Like you said, if you take, took a, a Filipino virtual assistant, put her in Australia and said, drive around Australia without a GPS, they've got no idea. There's cultural differences, there's whatever. That is how it is inside your business. They've still gotta get to learn your business. They've gotta get to learn the country.
Yes. The terrain, you know, they've, that's what they've gotta familiarize themself with before they do it. So money-wise, if you have a look at it, you can save yourself about 60%. Yes. around 60 percent and really it's going to actually take you the same amount of the time if you put a structure in place, you know.
Absolutely. And the thing is, it's about saving the money and saving the time. Like I think that I always say, VAs will save your time, save your money and make your money. Because it's a process and, and if you get someone in Australia, I don't think there's going to be a difference in knowledge. The difference is in the way that we delegate because we have the impression that we when we have someone in the office, it's easier to delegate, which to me is fascinating because for me is actually the same.
I find I've got two staff members in the office and we work from home Monday and Friday and we work in the office Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. The only thing that happened Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday is the bonding, the lunchtime together. That's the difference. Like, they feel closer to me. That's the only thing that happens.
But Monday and Friday, they are the most productive. We still meet on Zoom for different meetings and things. And I'm thinking there's literally no difference. It's just our perception that having someone in the office is more productive or better. Actually, my team is more productive when I'm not there, when I'm not in the office.
Our teams are the same. Because I'm distracting, I'm the idea person. I come like, I've got an idea. And they're like, I'm finishing something. Like, doesn't matter. Listen, like, I get too excited. And so. I actually think that having a team offshore is more productive, is more time, more time, time productive as well.
So it just need to us learn how to deal with that, which will take time, but eventually it will million percent save money. And as I said before, help the team to make more money because now they have an assistant and they have their support. So let's talk a bit about this, the sort of fear for Australian sort of employees and stuff, right?
Because they get very scared because they go, Oh, you know, everyone's getting a virtual assistant right now. So let's talk a little bit about that for a moment, because in my experience, Every single time somebody hires a Filipino virtual assistant, they actually then are able to support the Australian employee and that person can then shine in that position.
Yes. So one other thing that I love is that every staff member that I had in the last 10 years, I've always got them a VA. Once I learned that, that was going to help them. And there's always resistance at first. They're like, wait a minute, why do you think I can do it all? I can do it all. And they want to prove to you.
And I said, no, no, no, no. I do think that you can do it all. I just don't want you to first burn out. And I value you so much that I want you to do high level stuff. And for you to do high level stuff, you need to really have someone to delegate to. I'm going to help you. I'm going to show you, I'm going to teach you.
And this is the thing. You cannot just go. As a business owner, hey, this is your VA goodbye deal, like find a way you have to coach both or how to deal with each other because they don't know how to do that. So I coach them a little bit and then they understand how to work the moment they understand and the VA is like there to support them.
They're like, Oh, My goodness, they feel important. They feel excited. They feel like they can do so much more. They can bring more. They come with ideas and plans to grow the business when before they were like stuck in day to day. They've got a better attitude towards the business because they feel supported.
Actually. I don't see any negative. Actually, there is one negative. Sometimes they get a little bit, um, compliance, like, Oh, my VA is doing that. Like, they're sort of like, they start to don't want to do the little level stuff, which I like, because I don't want them to, because they're too expensive to the business for them to do data entry or for them to do two hours on editing a reel or something.
It's like, no, no, no. Give that to a VA and you focus on checking it and give feedback and then get away. So the biggest problem is to teach them how to do that, how to delegate and not micromanage. And that's why I wrote the book, The Power Delegation, because actually my team, I give them to them to read because it's important for them to understand, but any, our staff would love to have that support.
Yeah, awesome. So there's two massive takeaways there for me and they're both, both start with a B. I love my acronyms. Oh. So the one is buy in. You do need to get buy in from the team members. So you have to have a conversation with them and they've got to be ready to accept the fact that this is new. And I've actually had to let go of staff because the staff were great with me, whether or not they were VAs or in house employees, they were great up until a certain level.
And then when they got to the certain level, I wanted to grow, but they actually didn't have the capacity or the goals to grow. to, to grow. For Geneva. So they didn't. And so therefore, if you don't have buy in, and it's as sad as it sounds, it's better to let them go. If you're going to scale, they're holding you back.
Yes. So buy in is really important, getting them to say, yes, I'm with you. I want to scale. Let's do this. The second B is boundaries. And having boundaries in place is really important. So, Yeah. Okay. Making sure that, you know, delegation is done respectfully. I don't like crossover of virtual assistant tasks because they blame each other.
No, you were meant to do that. No, you were meant to do that. No, you were meant to do that. So. Boundaries are really important, but then also boundaries when it comes to communication because a lot of business owners complain about the amount of time virtual assistants check in with them during the day.
So personally for me, like I've got a structure that I teach all the businesses that I work with where they've got their Monday meeting, their Friday meeting, and they've got a specific time during the day where they check their communication and project management systems and business owners are going, Oh my gosh, this is amazing because all I've got to do is do it in that time and that time and the rest of the week I'm free.
So I think. Buy in is really important. Boundaries are really important when it comes to this. Absolutely. And the thing is, talking about the buy in, sometimes they say yes, yes, yes, but then when they start working, there's the resistance, there is maybe like they're afraid of their job being taken away from them.
So it's super important to buy in. Absolutely. Because you need to have a conversation going, this is not taking away from your position. You're not, you're not going to be cut down in hours. We're going to step up your position. This is like giving you a promotion, like I'm giving someone to help you so that you can grow, learn, and like at the moment I've got that for my BDM.
And I'm sending the video to a coach to get sales coaching so that she can train her VA better to help her get better leads so that she can close them on the phone. So it's like a whole process and she feels important. She feels supported by the business because we're giving her VA and we're giving her training.
And she's like, wow, like where do you find that? Right. So is that support of the team? But I also saw in some businesses of my clients that when they. They get a va exactly what you said. They didn't do the buy-in, they just go, Hey, great news. You got a VA to work for you. And then the, the team member here in Australia has been a bit like not very nice to the VA and not showing the whole process so that the VA is now set up for success, for failure.
It's just been very interesting, the dynamic. So definitely if you don't have the buy in, it's not gonna work. Yeah. That's awesome. So good. And I cannot. I cannot recommend enough taking the time to actually go see your Filipino, uh, virtual assistants. This year, it'll be my third visit and I go over to the Philippines.
I treat her, her husband and her kids and, uh, we go on. We do do some work and we do quite a bit of work actually when we're there. But we also have a bit of play time in that and I can tell you that the efficiency and the buy in from my virtual assistants since that has been so worth it. So I highly recommend that you work towards that.
Yes. And I have done the other way around. So everybody's been asking me, have you been to the Philippines? I'm going for the first time in two weeks, right? First time. But the only reason why is because I cannot bring the whole 80 because obviously now we have an agency and we, we, we, we have lots of VAs underneath us and I cannot get 80 VAs to come to Australia.
But until now, Every single year, once a VA has been working with me for two years, they get a ticket to Australia for a month. They get one week of holiday paid by us in Australia, and then they get to spend three weeks in our, we put them in an Airbnb. They work with us every day. They come to our conference.
We have a conference once a year in Australia. So they get to be with us for a month. And they come together. So, like, the first time there was two people, the second time there was three people, now there is, like, five people. This year, five people are going to come. And it's a win for them. It's like, they get to come to Australia, they get the visa approved, everything done, and they love it.
Yes, I think that it's good for us to go, but I love also for them to come here because they would not have that opportunity otherwise. Awesome. So, I mean, this is a great segue for us to go into then your business and your culture of your business. So, you know, I always say marketing is always about what we do that's different to everyone else.
So you as a VA agency, what would you say are some of your points of differences and things that you do differently? For us, culture is super, super, super important. So they have to fit in with our culture. We've got our four values that are clear to everybody. They even got them in the zoom call. They've got the four values there.
So it's very important that they all understand our values and we don't accept anybody we, we hire and fire based on the values and that is vital. And I suggest that for any business and our VA's love. Staying with us. Like actually I was reading the other day some bad reviews from other agencies that they were saying the VAs were quitting and disappearing.
I was like, oh my goodness, thank Lord. That's what, that's what's happened to us. Our VAs, they are committed, they stay, they love it. They, they mentor each other, they help each other grow, like because that growth is our number one value. So I love that. We do a personality test to make sure that the VA and the client can actually work together long term because it's not about the skills.
We can learn skills, but we can't teach attitude to anybody. So they've got to have the right attitude, but also we match them on personality. The other thing that we do is also upskilling them. So if there's any problem in the business or the clients maybe start to do something that they never did before, we have a supervisor that will be able to train them and upskill the VA.
Even a year after they've started. So there's not just here's a VA goodbye. We always support the clients and we put a supervisor to supervise the VA as well. So the client gets to speak to someone that is like in the middle that can be like, Hey, why didn't I get that properly? Like why the VA didn't get it?
And what's happening. And the supervisor can support the client to improve the delegation, but also can support the VA to make it happen. Oh, that's, that's amazing. And I think one of the biggest things that I hear all the time is that you charge an AU dollars. So for an Australian, that's amazing because you don't have fluctuating US.
And that's, that's a massive, massive thing as well. With regards to the personality test, the personality test is actually quite important. And I'll tell you why, because I'm a DC personality type. So I shout out orders and um, and in the early stages when I was hiring, it's, I worked out that some virtual assistants couldn't actually work with me because I don't always say, Hey, hello, how are you?
How's the family? I just go boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, because I'm creative and I just want an outcome and I do whatever. So when I interview my virtual assistants now, I make sure that they are going to be okay with that right from the beginning. So my team know how I am like, none of us say hello.
How are you? None of us do it. Actually. It's the weirdest thing. People are probably going to go like. I think I'm so rude, but we're not like three o'clock, four o'clock in the morning or whatever. I mean, they don't have to check it at that time. You know, if I've got something on my brain, I'm just like blah, blah, blah.
And that's how we work. And it's perfect. It's perfect. And it works. And my VA's have been with me for years. So. Personality testing is really important. Okay, so this is all absolutely amazing and I'm loving all of this and I'm sure that there's a thousand gold nuggets for everyone to take from today, but because this is the Meaningful Marketing podcast, I love, I would love for you to share what are some of the meaningful marketing strategies that you use in order to generate customers for your business.
So we've created a community of business owners that are willing and coming to our events face to face. They come to our online classes. They come to our conference once a year. So networking has been and community has been number one. marketing strategy that we used for the last 11 years in business and it works really well and I love that community thing.
I love to run events and all of that. So that's one. The other thing that we do is obviously we have a podcast and we do a lot of social media. My VA's run all of that for me. They make me record once a week. They make her. That is keywords. So they forced me to go on a Zoom. They tell me exactly what to do, how to do it.
We have actually have a lot of fun. We have a good laugh. It's actually good for the soul. Like we are on Zoom together. We have a good laugh and. I've actually structured this. I want to say this because it could be very valuable for people. So they give me like some sort of script. And at the beginning I was like making it so hard for myself to remember the script and try to do that.
Then I tried teleprompter and that also can work. But now because the videos on real works best is even like cut and then you start from here and then cut and you start from there. Like it's actually a trend that works like that. I'm doing that now. So I like read the first phrase and then I look at camera and I say it and then I read the second phrase and then I go and I say it again and it's working really well and it's looking natural like this is so much easier.
I'm giving myself so much time. So that's our second thing that we do. And then we do, what else do we do? It's more like messaging on LinkedIn and we have like a LinkedIn strategy that is working quite well as well. But those are, I would say, the three main biggest things. So it's like lots of video and value on our social media.
Our networking is the biggest. And obviously LinkedIn is working quite well lately as well. Awesome. And you've got your books, of course, as well. Yes, I've got my book, The Power of Delegation. Um, the book is actually a strategy that works well for the events. So when people come and they see that I'm an author, and they get the book, and they get assigned, that it's a very good strategy that works.
Online, um, a lot of people are getting the ebook version. And actually in page 10 of the book, I say, if you're ready to delegate, stop everything now and email me. I am ready. to delegate enough of working 24 7, literally that's the phrase. Don't even read the rest of the book. Yes, just send me that, commit to yourself because if not you're wasting your time.
Reading a book and not taking action is going to give you not delegation, right? And so my team like didn't know that that's what I put in the book and they were like, I've got this really weird email that doesn't say hi, doesn't say anything, it just says And that's it. I'm done. I'm ready to do it again.
I'm like, Oh yeah, it's working. It's working. Awesome. Now that's excellent. Referral partnerships is another thing that you do quite well. So for example, you know, we cross refer to each other. So that's something that works really well too. Yes. Yes. And I, I think what's really important to note here as we start to finish off is that just have a conversation, just reach out to Francesca, have a conversation.
They do this amazing thing where they look at all the tasks that you could be outsourcing because people go, Oh, I've got nothing to outsource. Then you do this activity and this activity is like, OMG, I can actually outsource all those things. Yes, I'll need a full time VA. Yes. And, and that's great. Right?
So. There's no harm. It's free. Just do it. But if you don't, if you haven't explored it, then you don't really know, you know, you've listened to this podcast, obviously something's, you know, connected with you. You're obviously ready to scale, but take the next step and at least have that conversation. Yeah.
They're called Game Changer Call and it's 45 minutes together and there is no obligation. at the end of this, you can just sit with us and we love to do that because sometimes it's helping people getting the clarity. It's like everybody needs a VA. I believe that. Like everybody. It can be 20 hours a week.
It can be 40 hours a week. It doesn't matter, but everybody needs one. So we've done the research ourselves to our 80 clients. We did the most common task that the VA, the clients is delegating to the VA. We put the average amount of hours that it's taking for the VA to do that task per week. So the hard work is already there.
It's already done. So we only need to do it, say yes, no. And then at the end we get a total and that's like priceless. People love that call and they say no other agency does it. And this is what we want to do. We want to truly help people to get the life back because when we started the business, nobody signed up for living a nine to five to work 24 seven.
Yeah, yeah. But that's what happened. So. We want to help not just business owners, but also team members to feel like they can have the support they deserve to have the career they can have to have the business that they can, they can thrive and everybody can create a win win from that. And I think it's really important to note, we all know that, you know, in the olden days, which was like last year, people would go, you know, you can post, you know, you might get a social media management company and I'll put three posts up for you a week.
You know, it's not going to work like now when we're talking about the amount of content that you've got to produce and put it out, you need a strategy. You've got to have a plan and you need somebody dedicated to making sure that you can get across all your channels, do your blog, you know, optimize your website, do your email marketing, do your, your social media.
And you can't just do it sporadically because whoever does it best gets the customer. That's the reality of it. So, and sometimes with. too close to it to see it. Like I'm a marketing strategist for other people. I can do it great, but for my own business, I don't see my own blind spots. So that's why I've got you now coming in and be like, Chantal, come in.
I'm done with this. I need someone from the outside, an expert to look through it and tell me what are my blind spots? Because I know there are. Because obviously, like, we can always improve, right? Yeah. So, it's like, why people are so afraid of that? It's like, for me, it's like, why? They're like, oh, but I know marketing.
It's like, I don't care if you know marketing. You don't, you cannot see your own blind spot. You need someone else. So, I love the fact that you're coming in. I can't wait to see you. See what you're going to find. I'm actually feeling like, you know, when someone is going through your like wardrobe, you're like, Oh, she's got a find in there.
That's how I'm feeling right now. But it's good because me and my team are willing to get, make the edits that you're going to tell us to do so that we can get the clients that we want to get. So we can support the people that we want to support and we cannot do it by just being stuck our own way. Yeah, a hundred percent.
And some people are happy to stay where they are. They're happy in their business to sit where they are. They don't want to scale. They don't want to grow, and that's okay. But for those who do want to scale, strategy, plan, and get somebody to implement it is absolutely fundamental. I'm going to touch on one more thing because I just can't help myself.
But, because there is this thing, right, and this happens a lot where they go, Instead of hiring a full time VA, I'm just going to get people to do projects. Right. So we'll go into freelancer. com. We'll go into Fiverr. We'll go, we'll go into Facebook groups and we'll just say, I need somebody to do this task.
I don't think people realize. The amount of stress that goes in with that, because you don't fully actually build a relationship with that person, how much money it actually costs you in the long term, how many people have been screwed, excuse the language, but how many people have actually been screwed by tasks they've gone to outsource and it just hasn't done, like there's so much risk involved with it.
Have you got anything to share about that? I truly, truly believe that that's where it's faster if I just do a phrase came from. Yeah, people are like, Okay, I'm just gonna get this little thing done. And then the the freelancer disappear. They don't follow deadlines, they don't show up, they did it all wrong, because time that you brief that person and explain your business and explain your your network, like what you were saying the beginning, right, your target market, all of that.
A month is already gone and now you pay top dollars because you pay more for a project manager and you're not getting the results. So I prefer to have someone that like owns someone like their mind, they're not working for anybody else. I actually prefer 40 hours over 20 hours. I know that sometimes you have to go for 20, which is fine, better than freelancer, but try to get someone there.
Consistency is key. If they work four hours or eight hours a day for you. They are there. They get the habit of the business. They understand who's coming in, who's going out. They understand what's working, what's not working. It's not just like a ad hoc thing. I do not, right? I do not believe in ad hoc. I would never hire someone on ad hoc.
It doesn't work. Please don't waste your time and money. Last week alone, I had somebody who'd hired a virtual assistant and this virtual assistant's job was to go and appointment set. And she had no idea what this virtual assistant was doing. She just said, you appointment set, get people to my webinar.
And they didn't get anybody to the webinar. But what this virtual assistant was doing was going in as herself onto social media and was actually poaching her friends list to try and get more customers. And they didn't know that I actually worked with this person. So they came to me, poached me and I worked out what she was doing.
And she was paying her, I think about 80 a week to do it and had for the last 10 weeks. So that's 800. Absolutely wasted, done nothing, but not only that, reputation that you build. So spamming people, you know, from a reputation perspective. Do you think now when she goes and invites people to a webinar and this person's been going and trying to poach people, it doesn't do anything for their reputation at all?
Common sense is not very common, unfortunately. And we need to guide our people. And this is the thing also, a project manager, a freelancer. It's not going to be aligned with our values. We have no idea who they are. We haven't got that relationship. Like a VA, someone, a staff member will have your back.
Like you have each other's back. You support them in today, career and today the, you know, supporting their families and they have your back in the business. Like it's a longterm relationship. These short term things don't work, waste people's time. When people tell me, I say, do VA? It's like, yes, I do. I'm like, Oh, fantastic.
How many hours to do? You know, depends sometimes two, five hours a week. That's not a VA. That's like a random person that you, you donate money to because it's actually a donation. It's not, it doesn't work. They're not giving you anything back. So you just have a charity. Apart of that, have you got actually someone working for you?
I just met someone, I think two days ago I was at a conference and I said, Oh, how long, you know, like when last did you talk to your virtual assistant? They said, Oh, it's been about seven months. Oh my lord. I don't even know what they do. Yes. Yes. It's horrible. It's insane. It's insane. Yeah. You know what's happened?
Actually, we have a supervisors that check in with our clients and they have to flag to us as the management when the client doesn't reply or they see they don't check in with the VA. You wouldn't believe how many times that happens. And then clients are like, Oh, your supervisor is checking in too much.
I'm like, no, no, no. The supervisor is not checking in too much. They're checking in once a month. But you are not replying to your VA. You're not replying to the supervisor. That is a flag to us. I mean, so you are not nurturing your team, which means they're going to burn out and they're going to quit. And then you're going to talk bad about our agency because you didn't do your job.
And I love the accountability of that. Like I love the accountability of that. And, and I think you and I are both. about that. We're about absolute transparency right at the beginning. When, you know, when I start to work with, you know, business owners and their virtual assistants straight from the beginning, I'm going to say, this is the time commitment that you give me.
This is for the strategy and the plan. This is the time commitment that you're going to give to your virtual assistants. And, you know, like last week we had somebody said, no, they're not going to go ahead because they're not prepared to do that that time. And if they're not prepared to do the time, they're going to say the marketing strategy doesn't work.
The plan doesn't work. The VA doesn't work. So absolutely transparency at the beginning. Yes. And it's important because we have to take responsibility. We cannot just like, it's like a hot potato. It's like, okay, I've got this marketing thing. Hold on, here, give it to someone. Like they're just throwing it to someone.
It's not going to work. You gotta, you gotta be involved in the process somehow. And if you know, we need to be involved in the process. I don't think that's going to be the right, yeah, it's going to work. And it does work because there are a gazillion thousand people who are using offshore virtual assistants and it is working.
They are scaling and they are growing. So as much as you hear, you know, Oh no, I've hired five, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah. There are thousands that are doing it successfully, and they are the ones that are doing it properly. So I encourage you to do it properly. Don't listen to the horror stories, please. And just do your own research and find someone that you trust and help them get them.
Let them help you. I couldn't live without my VAs. I have now 10 full time staff members working in my business. And I honestly don't do anything. Like when I say I don't do anything, all I do is I manage and I do meetings. And that's it. So I spend about 20 hours a week working. The rest of the time I'm off, I'm exercising, I'm enjoying life because I don't want to be stuck in the business.
I go to networking events, I go to training, earlier there was a full day event. That's where my role is now. Yeah. And it sounds like I don't do anything. Obviously I do, but it's a different doing. Yeah, it's more of high level is more strategy is more what the business need to go forward rather than be stuck in the day to day.
I don't talk to clients anymore. I don't do any of that. I just step up. I think the last thing I want to bring up. For this, hope it's the last. Who knows. We're having too much fun. Yeah, but the last thing I want to talk about is, you know, and I see this in Facebook groups all the time, it drives me nuts, but they talk about, Oh, I've got a virtual assistant, you know, and how much are you paying for your virtual assistant?
Five dollars US an hour. Nine dollars US an hour. $7 us an hour. For me, it doesn't matter how much they charge per hour, it's how much they can actually do in that hour. I dunno about you, but that's how it is for me. So it drives me nuts when they're looking at the hourly rate. I had a lady who was saying she was paying, I think it was $7 an hour for her VA to do 10 hours a week, so $70 a week or whatever.
But when she went over the marketing task that that virtual assistant was doing, I was going, my virtual assistant is only, I think about, uh, probably about $15 an hour, $15 US an hour. They're all different. say 15 US dollars an hour. However, she was getting about four times as much work done at a higher level than this other VA was doing.
So I don't think that you should just be looking at price. And also the other thing that I find fascinating is that the, a lot of people like yesterday, literally I was reading in with this massive group, I was reading about these, oh, these other agency charges 16 an hour, but they're only giving this much to the VAs.
And this is not fair. And I'm like, but wait a minute, like when you get an electrician in your house and it's a apprentice, you don't go like, wait a minute, apprentice, how much did you get paid? Because I just paid 250 for half an hour, but you got paid 30. Wait a minute. I want the money back. Like it's normal, it's business, right?
An agency will, will be the person that you can go to if your VA makes a mistake, they can find you another person. It's a normal process of business. So I don't, I wouldn't get stuck in the hourly. I would get stuck into the results and the outcome that you can get by having a VA that is supported in an agency that's got the right culture.
that are going to do things to maintain them happy, to upskill them, to support you. That is what I would look at. And that's so important. I'll say this now because I have a couple of clients that have got VAs themselves or they've got them through other agencies. So, I see everything and I can say right now that there are some agencies that will charge you every single time and a large amount of money every time you want to change a VA.
There's others that don't invest in their education or their skills. They don't support them at all. So you really have to have a look at, well, they've got a high turnover rate. So you have to look at, you know, an agency, you have that protection, but not all agencies are created the same. So do it. I do encourage you to actually go and do some homework.
Absolutely. Because it's important for you to understand the process that they're going to take you and the VA. through and understand that you need that support because if you go just, I mean, I've done it in the past, right? I've heard directly from Upwork and I had most time didn't work, but a couple of times it did work.
So again, if you have the time to go and search for someone and do the due diligence and interview them and then choose the right person and then train them, if you have the time, go ahead and do it. Because obviously it will be. cheaper. But I'm not looking at cheaper. I'm looking at what is going to be the best outcome for my business.
If in a year time I need a second VA, do I have to spend another three months training someone from scratch, finding them, sourcing them, all of that? Or if I've got an agency that I trust, I can just go, I need a VA and boom, it will be there. Like, what is the best for your business? And I love my coach always said to me, you need to keep in mind the question, what does your business need?
Don't keep in mind what you want or, you know, we need to shift the mindset from being at the beginning of the business where we're trying to save every dollar to be like, I'm now a business owner, time is way more valuable than money. So what is going to give me an outcome that I need in my business for the business to grow?
And that's the type of people that I like to work with. Yeah. No, I absolutely love that. I think that that's fantastic. And I know recently, like there was an agency and the agency. If your VA is not meeting deadlines and not doing it, at least you have the agency to go to the agency and say, the deadlines aren't getting met, so how can we better support the VA?
If the VA is on their own, because I've got two VAs that are not through agencies, to try and get them to hold a deadline. Yes. Because they're going and they're doing work with other people trying to chase money with other people. Yes. So then they now put yours on hold because they're trying, they found another job and they found more money.
Now I'm on hold and this is happening to me, so I get it. Yes, absolutely. And this is where we don't hire VAs that are driven by money. Because that's not our value. Our value is driven by success. If they want to succeed, they can work with us because we're going to support them in their career growth no matter what.
And this is the type of people that we screen. And the other day I was talking to my HR team and I said, Hey, uh, we've got a BDM now. So we're getting about We train about 10 VAs a month, so we train 15, but at the end of the four weeks, only 10, eight or 10 survive our training, which is good. And I said to my team, how can we double that?
Because we have in our BDM, so we're going to have more people coming. So we need to double our numbers. And they said, FM, I've got great, a huge amount of skilled VAs. I can get to skilled VAs, but you want. VAs with the right values and the right attitude. That's what I'm struggling. Yeah. I'm like, that's fine.
Do not compromise that . But we need to double the number with that because that I haven't, do I have an idea for that after this? I'll tell you. . Okay, good. Perfect. Tell because it's important, right? If we manage to to get more, then yeah, we need to make sure, but we cannot compromise the quality because that's what clients tell us.
Yeah. They can trust us that our VAs are incredible. And one more thing I'm gonna say. The other day I had a client that said to, we introduced one VA and just from the portfolio, this client was like, no, it's not the right person. And it was strange because it never happens to us. So we're like, okay, we found then the second person, which is outstanding.
Like I promise you, I work with her personally and I'm like a million percent. And this client was like. No, I think I'm not ready for a VA. And so my team, that's when it escalates to me. So I talk to the client and I said, look, this is your call. It's your business. At the end of the day, I cannot tell you how you can choose someone.
Do you, have you had got bad experience in the past? And she goes, yes. I said, okay, are you judging these new people with your eyes of a bad experience or are you giving these people a chance? Well, I see it from the portfolio, there's nothing special. And I said, but have you talked to them at all? No. I'm like, okay.
So listen, this is what we're expert in. We have 94 percent success rate in matching. Give these people a chance or if you don't want to, I'll give you money back and it's totally fine and you can, you know, but it looks like you need someone. I need someone, but your profiles didn't look good and I said, okay, so if you don't go with us, what are you going to do?
I'm just going to keep doing it myself. I'm like, so how are you going to grow your business? It's like, it's just a fascinating, right? We're just stuck in there. So by the end of the call, she goes. I think you got it. I think I got it. I need to let go. I need to trust and give it a go. They did a meet and greet and this VA wow her and she's called me back and she said you were right.
This VA is amazing. I'm already happy. It's only been three days. Thank you for pushing me because then we are our own bottleneck. Yeah. I actually find that control freaks in businesses are actually great. So they, in the beginning they like, it's hard to get them across, but actually they are the best. Yes.
Um, when they do finally let go. They are the fricking best. Okay. So we do have to end off now, but I'm going to end with a shameless plug for myself here. So when business owners are struggling with the marketing strategy and with the marketing plan, I've had the privilege of being able to come in and work with some of the virtual assistants.
So what is some of the feedback that you've got from the business owners that have. Or, and also what have you seen from the VA? So with the business owners, what have they said? But from the VAs, can you tell a difference between those who've been trained with me and those you can't? Okay. I've got a good story with that.
So when I first got you in, a lot of my team were protective. It was like, but this is what you do, Francesca. Why are you getting Chantal? And I said, first, I don't want to do this anymore. Second, Chantal has been doing it hands on with a lot of bigger clients than what I have done. So I want to, I want to support her and I want to support my clients because I don't want to do that.
And so they were very resistant and they were. And it's so eventually I'm not even joking that it is that the other day I had a meeting and I said, how can we upskill the VAs more? Like I said, this VA is great. That VA is great. That VA is great. How can you get more of those VAs? And my clients, the service manager said, those VAs that you're pointing out, they all work with Chantal.
So we need Chantal to train all our VAs. And I'm like, fabulous. And I said, how's the client going that Chantal is helping? They're like, those clients are the ones that never complain. They're always good because they're getting momentum because the strategy works. And so we just need all the clients to work with Chantal.
I'm like, okay, solution done. Chantal on steroids and that's it. No, it's awesome. It's been a great partnership. So thank you so much. So we do for our audience. Um, if you email and we'll put it in the, in the notes, but if you email Francesca or their team and let them and mention the Meaningful Marketing Podcast, you're going to get extra special treatment.
I'm not going to tell you what it is because you're going to get all that other good stuff that we spoke about the game changer call or whatever, but we've got like. An amazing extra, extra bonus for you. So all you have to do is just email Francesca and just say the meaningful marketing podcast. And then it's just going to be like red carpet for you.
Right? That is going to be amazing. And so you can email us at Betsy at empowering virtual solution. com. Betsy is spelled B E T S. Y at empowering virtual solution. com and you'll be able to get this extra bonus that Chantal is talking about, which is Chantal on steroids. Just kidding. So yes, we'll have it in the show notes as well.
We'll just reach out to us. Thank you to everyone who's been watching this episode of the Meaningful Marketing Podcast. This is your host Chantal Gerardy. Don't forget that if you go to themeaningfulmarketingpodcast. com. au, there's a whole bunch of free downloads on that website, as well as all the podcasts, platforms are all listed there as well if you want to look at your other platforms.
Don't forget we're also on YouTube, so you can check us out on the Online business marketing as, and sorry, you can check us out at online business marketing and have a look at the podcast playlist to find us there and whatever platform you're on, don't forget to like, comment, review. All of it. Every, there's different language for every single rate us.
There's different language for every single platform. So you can't use the same language. And if you've got a suggestion for a podcast, please reach out. Let me know. My preferred platform is Facebook. So Chantal Jurati on Facebook, my personal profile, send me a PM and, and let me know how, how you're going.
Thank you so much for joining us, Francesca. Thank you for having me. It was so much fun. Can I stay? See ya. Thanks for listening in. Meaningful marketing is all about you making your marketing meaningful. If you've enjoyed today's episode, please hit that subscribe button. But subscribing means that you won't miss out on future episodes all about marketing and motivation.
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