[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:28] Speaker B: Welcome to Balancing act, your guide to grow, profit and scale. I'm your host, Linda Hamilton, a CPA certified exit planning advisor and a systemologist. For the past 30 years, I've been looking under the hoods of businesses to uncover what truly drives success.
The numbers do matter, but the story behind the numbers uncovers hidden threats and opportunities.
One thing I've learned over the years is that working harder isn't what alone drives success. It's also about having the right strategies in place and taking actions. Often I teach financial fluency workshops, business strategy workshop across the U.S.
fluency means to speak and understand a language. Financial fluency is about understanding the story behind your numbers, your financials. Tax fluency is about understanding the impact of taxes on your business decisions. And business fluency is about understanding the activities, the processes, the people that impact your decisions, and ultimately your profitability.
So today's problem and topic is about business fluency.
I want to call this segment the right hand you didn't know you need. And we have a special guest, Tanya Thomas, who is the CEO of Team Delegate, and she's here to unpack that for us and kind of inform us about how we go about finding an executive VA and making it work for us. Welcome, Tanya.
[00:02:10] Speaker A: Thank you, Linda. Thank you for having me.
[00:02:13] Speaker B: So one of the biggest problems I see with business owners is, especially founders, is we're constantly, we're either on a hamster wheel, off and on, or we're putting out constant fires. A lot of that is because we really struggle giving up control and delegating. Can you talk a bit about that when it comes to how you get help for that or get past that need to control?
[00:02:39] Speaker A: Sure. I know oftentimes when you've been maybe doing things so long for yourself, it's hard to release and let it go. But I always tell people that, you know, you've got to have your goals in mind. If your goal is to grow your company, grow your business, then what you, you need to keep that in the forefront of your mind, and that's going to be helpful for you to release because you know that you can't grow if you keep everything yourself because there's only so much that you can do. So. So if your goal is to grow, then that's going to be what's going to help you release things that you know you need to delegate.
[00:03:26] Speaker B: So that's really, really important. I think that it's tied to goals. And most business owners do have a growth goal, right? They do want to grow. They want to Improve profitability. So how is it that an assistant can help them with that?
I know some business owners will say, oh, it's easier to do it myself, or if I just, if I hire an assistant, I have to train them. And how do they know they will do it? Right. But how do you deal with that?
[00:03:55] Speaker A: Sure. Just, you know, the, the thought of having somebody new come on can be daunting because that's the first thing you're going to think about is, okay, what, what, number one, what will I have them do for me? And then the second part is the onboarding piece of it. So it is important to know what you're going to have them do for you. And that's usually hard for people to determine. So most of the time I told them it's simple, simple task for yourself. Keep a notebook, a pad nearby, and be cognizant of what you were doing for five days.
Try to remember to write down everything that you're doing. And then at the end of that five days, you should have a nice list. And then what you want to do is review that list and circle the items that you know. Either number one, you don't necessarily have to do somebody else could do for you. And then keep in mind things that you hate doing that you particularly procrastinate to do. Circle those items as well. And that's going to give you your list of, you know, what you would have someone do for you. And then you want to prioritize that list. Pick the top three things that you feel like would be the most impact for you is going to really help you feel like you're getting support because you'll have that main list. But you don't really want to throw the book at the person either. And then it's going to be easier for you too to focus on those three things.
So that's your priority that you want to start with. And then you just kind of want to think about, okay, how am I going to get some help with this? The other thing I always tell people is just not think about writing things down.
What you want to do is just verbally hand those things off because it's going to be easier. Usually what happens is if you think about writing, you're going to procrastinate and you're never going to move forward. So if you talk with someone, you know, it's easier to do that, Schedule that meeting, talk with them, and they can take notes. You know, an efficient person is going to know to take notes anyway. So that's going to be helpful in terms of trying to identify what you need help with and then how to start.
[00:06:26] Speaker B: That's a great idea. I keep this list, I call it my love hate list. And it has all these things on things I love doing, maybe and shouldn't do and things I hate doing and maybe I'm awful at.
And that kind of helps us. Lane, how could I offload this to somebody else? But let's talk about.
I know that what you offer are executive virtual assistants and talk about the. What is the difference between an executive or general assistant?
[00:06:57] Speaker A: Yes, sure, there. I always tell people there's a difference between clerical work and work. When somebody supporting a director or a business owner, a CEO, a high level person, Clerical work is generally going to involve things that you do that doesn't involve helping another person. I mean, and that's hard to try to correlate, but I'll try and throw some examples out there. Maybe it's, I don't know, you know, making copies or ordering office supplies or you know, those types of general tasks like that that someone could, could do versus a, versus supporting a person in terms of managing their schedules. Because all of us, you know, business owners, our calendars are paramount in our days. And so that's a close task to us, that is important for us. The other thing is our email inboxes. So having someone be able to manage those, that's how we work. Because oftentimes what happens is people work from their inboxes, you know, they're reactive to emails. So that's your whole day, your travel, in terms of you looking for that. Most people are particular about things like that your client care, dealing with your clients, writing emails to your clients, communicating with. All of those are higher level things that truly impact a CEO. So those are things, those are the differences in the task of people helping you. And then on top of that, also being able to strategically help you. For example, some of our clients, you know, want support with time blocking. So somebody having the ability to be able to think about your work, the work that you do, the projects and tasks that you have, and then outlining, you know, time on your calendar for you to do those things, those are higher level things that for someone to do for you. And those are the differences between executive assistant support and just standard virtual assistants. Clerical support.
[00:09:21] Speaker B: Yeah. I think part of that difference is too that an executive assistant is kind of capable of making some judgments of especially the judgment to ask you before they do something. Right. To get clarification, which maybe a lower level or A general assistant might not think to do or might be intimidated by doing so. That's really important, especially when you're talking about client communications which can really have, you know, come back to bite you if not handled properly. Right. So what are some of the biggest mistakes you see when people are delegating, especially when they have a new assistant?
[00:10:04] Speaker A: Sure. Communication. I would say that's the number one thing. Oftentimes we're busy. I mean, and that's the reason that you want support. But what people fail to realize is when you're new to working with someone, regardless of how good they are, they still have to get to know you. And the only way to do that is through communication. So abdicating work to them over time is going to come back to bite you. If you don't take the time to meet regularly with them out the gate, that's going to be difficult for them if they have. Because generally when someone's first working with you, they, like I said, they have to get to know you. So there's going to be some questions that they have for you. And if you don't take and make the time to make yourself available to answer those questions, then that's going to be difficult for the person to know and understand you. And I'll use this as an example. It doesn't have to be this extreme. But when I was doing this work myself, I had a client that he would call me every day, a couple of times a day, and check in. I didn't like that. Full transparency, Full transparency in the beginning, but I saw over time how that helped. He wasn't my only client. I had other clients, but I knew him better than any of them. And so if somebody wanted to schedule a meeting with him, I knew whether or not he wanted to take that meeting because I knew him that well because of the level of communication that we had. So that's the biggest area where I see. Because a lot of times people don't want to take that time. They just want to send emails and not talk or have any type of communication. And I always share with people at the gate. If you can have, Even if it's 10 to 15 minutes a day for the first couple of weeks, then you can taper off from there. But making yourself available to talk and get questions answered and share a little bit more about how you want to.
[00:12:10] Speaker B: Be supported, that's so critically important. I'm so glad you said that. It's about the power of human communication. You can't possibly get to know someone Understand their needs, understand the things that they have to do or how they would approach them without communication. We're going to take a break. Stay with us because we're going to talk more with Tanya about how an executive assistant can set things apart for you. Stay with us.
Welcome back to Balancing Acts. I'm your host, Linda Hamilton, and I'm talking with Tanya Thomas of Team Delegate, and we're talking about executive virtual assistants. And in this, the last segment, we talked about the delegation delay dilemma and why it's hard for business owners to let go of control. But now I want to talk about the power of an executive virtual assistant. What sets it apart from others? Tanya, what's one of the biggest misconceptions about hiring a executive virtual assistant?
[00:13:38] Speaker A: I think that it used to be that it is remote. People felt like they needed someone in office to be able to support them. After Covid, people did open up a little bit more to the remote aspect.
So the thing now that I would say is people just really not, you know, knowing how to work with them. So, you know, not. And delegating is a skill. So that's one of the biggest areas of concern that I see that people have is really not understanding that and knowing that they're going to have to work at. So I often meet a lot of people who've gone through several assistance.
And one thing I always tell people and just being fully transparent that if you've gone through several, it couldn't have all been the other person. So self evaluating, you know, how could you have what, how or what could you have done better in that relationship as it relates to how you were delegating things to them and working with them and always self evaluating and, you know, if a problem arises, you know, how did you handle the conflict? Did you have a conversation? Did you then think about, okay, what could I have done better or what could I have done differently? As opposed to always blaming it on the other person, which there's usually blame to go on both sides. But definitely being open to, you know, looking to what you could have done better as well. But that's probably the biggest area of concern that I've noticed lately.
[00:15:28] Speaker B: You know, that's interesting that you talk about that. And I think whether it's a remote assistant, an employee online, I've been running my business for more than 30 years.
And I know that, you know, sometimes I make assumptions about someone being able to do something or maybe I'm assuming they understood what I asked for and I wasn't as clear and you have to give an employee, any kind of employee or contractor, you know, you have to empower them to be able to ask you questions for clarity. If they're afraid to ask, you know, the odds are it's going to go off the rail. So it's not just about doing it better, but it's also, you know, doing things differently. I don't know. Do you ever use any of these, you know, personality assessments or behavioral assessments like Colby or Disc? I know when I took one of those that Colby won. I'm a high fact finder. I like to research. I want five different sources before I'm happy with it. So I don't want my assistant to be a high fact finder. I want them to be a quick start being able to get things done or will never get anything done. What do you think about those kind of having. Even if you didn't do the test, what about having personalities and making sure the skill sets are complementary?
[00:16:51] Speaker A: And you said a lot there, Linda. And I was trying to remember some things that I want to touch upon.
One of the things that I'll circle back to that about the skill set and stuff like that. But that is another big one too, that can cause the conflict because I've seen people wanting. They don't really take that into account the person's skill set. And a lot of times, too, they're trying to make the position be a jack of all trades. And they're. They're putting things in there and having the person do things that probably aren't comparable with their skill set or even that an executive assistant would even do.
For example, I had someone that told me that they wanted an executive assistant, but they needed the person to go to job sites and climb up on roofs and take photos of different things. And it's like, okay, you know, that's not something that particularly that an executive assistant would do.
Sometimes too, you think about bookkeeping and graphic design. Those are particular skill sets that not, you know, everyone possesses. And oftentimes those types of those skill sets and tasks are separate. You know, if you need a bookkeeper, that person's solely going to focus on bookkeeping, graphic design work. That's usually a graphic designer. But you find that people are looking for those, all of those things to be rolled into one. Can people do them? Sure. But what you want people to do is focus on their core talents because you're. That's where you're going to get the best results out of them. And so then it falls back on to kind of what you were touching on, too, about Colby and the assessments and things like that, there are, you know, particular things for executive assistants. They should be detail oriented. So that's something, you know, you need to look for with them there because they need to have the ability to be able to, you know, develop standard operating procedures. If they're not detail oriented, they can't do anything like that. They can, but then they're just working outside of their scope and it's probably not going to be the best output. So, yes, you know, knowing. I think in terms of skill set, it's important personality wise. I think you talked about that there. I think that is something that is, you know, different for all of us and who we think we can work best with. The different type of personalities.
You know, if you're an introverted person, maybe it's not good for you, or maybe you do an A type personality, person that's going to be strong and doesn't, you know, isn't shy about what they say, or it could be the opposite, and that's not someone that you work well with. So having an idea, too, of, you know, the different types of personalities that you work well with in terms of also the skill set that's needed. Like I mentioned, the detail orientedness of.
[00:20:03] Speaker B: An EA as well, you know, it's interesting because it's probably not really personality as much as, you know, the scope of the job. I would imagine if you talk to 20 different CEOs, every one of us, you're a CEO as well, the complexity of the job might be different. Right.
So some of the things you described were more operations roles or a finance role, a bookkeeping role. So how do you help your clients kind of describe the role? What are they hiring for? How do you advise people to do that?
[00:20:42] Speaker A: Sure. Usually what we do at Team Delegate is we meet with the clients as they're onboarding, and we talk about some of the areas where they need support. And I use my expertise to guide them. As I mentioned before, what are the. Some of the areas that an executive assistant can help?
And so that's really how we do that there and guiding people to know. What areas of your business are you going to get the most impact from an executive assistant? Because oftentimes people don't know, like I mentioned before, they may, you know, try and throw in other tasks that don't really fit the strong suit of an executive assistant. And so talking with them and guiding them in terms of, you know, these areas are where you can get that out. But it Generally is operations for an executive assistant, it is typically going to fall within that realm.
[00:21:46] Speaker B: And so I think you're right that people often, I will tell you as a CPA in my 30 years how often my clients will come and say their assistant is doing their bookkeeping and their banking. They're like doing everything, but that doesn't mean it's done correctly or well. Right. So that's probably only a temporary measure. And you should be, you should be clear on how important the task is.
Can executive assistance help with strategic support, maybe with goals, or is it just about task management?
[00:22:25] Speaker A: No, I mean, that's a good question.
That is something that a good executive assistant can help. They can be more strategic in nature, like I mentioned, even with the time blocking, because that's something that is critical for a CEO because the task that you focus on is what's going to drive the needle in your, in your business. So your time is very important and where you spend it. So having someone that has the ability to know what tasks you need to work on and when you need to work on them to get them accomplished is paramount. And even, you know, kind of like project managing in there, if you're using a Monday or an Asana or something like that and setting things up in there for you to be able to work on those tasks, those are higher level critical thinking tasks that someone can help you with, even, you know, being a sounding board if need be, if there's something that you are working on. Even also, you know, if you're looking for different software applications, the ability to be able to do the research for those, lay out the findings and give their recommendation on whether or not that's something that they feel will be helpful in your business. Areas like that, where it's taking someone using their brain and their knowledge and skill set to be able to help you with tasks of that nature.
[00:24:05] Speaker B: And that's where I think also their knowledge of your business, of, you know, what your CEOs, what your vision and your, and your purpose for the business can make a big difference. So those are great things. I know one of the things I needed most all the time is reminders. I need somebody to like but kind of thinking in advance, being a little proactive. Linda, you're going to need this for this meeting. How can I help you?
Just makes a huge difference and kind of taking some of the stress off my shoulders of all the different things I'm responsible for.
That was great.
Tanya, your website, teamdelegate.com we're going to take a short break and come back and talk some more about this. But I want to make sure you can also find more help if you're looking for it. Stay with us because next we're going to talk about more about the right way to work with a VA and maybe some more points on delegation skills.
[00:25:15] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:25:30] Speaker B: Welcome back to Balancing Acts. I'm your host Linda Hamilton, CPA certified exit planning advisor and systemologist. And we're talking with Tanya Thomas, the CEO and founder of, of Team Delegate. And we're talking about virtual assistants, about delegation, but we're really talking about executive assistance, a CEO getting help, which is very unique and different from all the other roles in your company. So in this case, I want to talk about what is the right way to delegate, what's the right way to work with your executive va and how do you delegate like a CEO?
Tanya let's talk about like, what's the first task you should start delegating to your executive assistant?
[00:26:18] Speaker A: What I often tell people to do and I know I address some of them. The first task is, you know, what task is going to drive the needle for you in terms of because what you're trying to do is, you know, give yourself more time, take things off of your plate so you have a bit more time in your day. And so the thing to think about is what task am I doing that's taking up the most amount of my time? And for most people, that's usually their email. Second I would say their scheduling. So and, but on that side, oftentimes people are a bit apprehensive when it comes to releasing those things because they are so critical for them.
And what I tell people to do is start slow. You know, if it is your email, you know, if you just want people to move spam out of the main inbox so that it's, it's, it's clear for you. And they don't have to delete anything. They can just simply move it to another folder so that it's clearing out for you. But that's a small way to dip your toe in the water in terms of, you know, releasing something like that. And you know, the other thing, like I said, is usually typically your calendar and that's going to take communication and you providing, you know, your preferences to someone first, earliest you want to take a meeting, the latest you want to take a meeting, if do you want a lunch break, do you need buffer time? So simply giving people those parameters and a good executive assistant is going to be able to really make a big Difference out the gate in those areas for you. But those are the two usually critical ones that are typically taken up the most amount of your time if you, you self evaluate.
[00:28:22] Speaker B: Oh, that's great. So are there specific, like, are there tools that you recommend for communicating with your VA? These are remote VAs, right. Executive assistants that your company helps CEOs with. So what is the best way to have these communications and maybe some different alternatives.
[00:28:42] Speaker A: I always tell people too because I know we're talking about when you're first working with someone and then there's that level of trust that you need to build and usually the best way to do that is face to face. So zoom, you know, meeting with them by zoom to have your communications out the gate on, you know, after that, of course you could either use email or a project management system, whatever you want to use to communicate in written form. But definitely having that face to face, which is going to help you, you know, bring the curtain down some get at ease because you're meeting and you're seeing someone face to face.
[00:29:24] Speaker B: Oh, I so agree with that. And you know, you can also see in body language or, you know, facial expressions. Does someone understand what you're trying to communicate? If they have confusion, you can kind of ask and follow up. And some businesses use Slack to communicate. They use email, they use Slack, or they might use Microsoft Teams. Do your VAs work within the communication tools that the business owner uses?
[00:29:52] Speaker A: Yes.
So, you know, everybody's preference is different. So they do, you know, whatever that, whatever the client, you know, their preferences for communication, if it is, you know, instant messaging, like that, or email or like I said, a project management system, whatever that is, they work within that particular platform to communicate.
[00:30:15] Speaker B: And would they already know how to use the platform or would the CEO have to, you know, do some training? I, I would expect some training, but how much training is often needed to get up to speed.
[00:30:27] Speaker A: And are you talking about the communication.
[00:30:29] Speaker B: Tools or just, or any, just anything that, that, whatever. What would you recommend in.
That's part of like how to delegate like a CEO. So how do we delegate and get things done from day one or maybe the first 30 days?
[00:30:46] Speaker A: Sure. Having a strong onboarding process is going to be important, I mean, because that's with any position.
So this position is no different. Regardless whether they're a virtual EA or not, having that strong onboarding system is going to be helpful. So knowing exactly, you know, do you want them to have an email address at your domain and getting that set up and ready to go, you Know what, as you're talking about here, what platforms do you want them to have access to? So, you know, determining and making that list and do they need to have, you know, they're on and login and all getting those things set up. So, and then also, you know, as we mentioned before, what, how do I want to communicate with this person? So having the communication process down as well, so having all of those things are what's going to help get off to a strong start. Because you already have that. And those are things that we work on with our clients. We make sure that they have those things. We help them get that set up so that they are able to hit the ground running when they begin working with us.
[00:32:06] Speaker B: Great, that's great. And I would imagine from there now there comes a time to build trust, right? Efficiency, but also confidence that the business owner feels confident that the things delegated will be done to the standard they would like them to be done. So how do you build that trust?
[00:32:29] Speaker A: Sure. It just has to be in terms of working with them. So as I mentioned before, when I talked about picking the top three tasks, that's helpful too because again, you're not just giving a whole lot of things that you have to be looking at out the gate. You've got those top two to three things.
So as you're working with someone, also making sure that you know what outcome you want to achieve as a result of delegating that particular task to the person and making sure that they know it too, so that you're both on the same page as to what the outcome needs to look like. So that level of communication. And then as I mentioned before, not abdicating, so having, you know, check in meetings as well as the person is working that way, there are no surprises.
I always tell people too, like for example, if it's research, you don't want to give someone a research task and then just check in with them. In the end, you know, that's something you want to maybe schedule a meeting with to discuss after they're an hour in or two hours in, however long the project is going to take, checking in to make sure that they don't have any questions if you're on the same page, if they're on track with what you're looking for.
So definitely not, you know, waiting to the end for something like that. So it just comes down to that level of communication which is going to help build that level of trust because you're instrumental in the process. And that doesn't mean micromanaging because that doesn't feel that way when you're scheduling meetings to discuss and say, you know, are there any questions that you have for me? You're, you know, a little ways in. Are there any questions? How do you feel? How are things going?
So those are just simple ways to be able to stay instrumental in what's happening, building your level of trust without, you know, micromanaging.
[00:34:32] Speaker B: That's really great advice. Are there any red flags that CEOs, business owners should pay attention to that maybe says they're not delegating effectively?
[00:34:44] Speaker A: Sure. In terms of whether or not the person, you know, has a lot of questions, then that's something to say, okay, well, maybe I didn't, you know, communicate as well as I should have.
And then also, if a task doesn't go right out the gate, then like I mentioned earlier, thinking, okay, maybe how did I relay this to the person?
Did I not give the outcome that I wanted? Did I not give enough information?
And then also, how does the person react to the fact of us discussing the fact that this didn't go right? Are they open to the fact? Are they open and willing to own up to their part in it, or are they more combative and accusatory? That can be a red flag that maybe that's not the right person that you want to be working with because you're seeing that early on.
[00:35:47] Speaker B: And couldn't it also be other than communication and things that maybe the person didn't really know how to do that particular task? Maybe they need a little more training around it. It isn't necessarily that you don't have the skill for it. You might not have understood exactly how the process works for that company, even if you've done something similar.
How do you help business owners kind of transform their mindset from doing everything, I do everything better and it's just faster if I do it myself, to being kind of a leader in their team?
[00:36:27] Speaker A: Sure, yeah. I mean, it goes to the fact of, of whether or not you want to have your business grow. Do you want to stay stagnant or do you want it to grow? And it also takes leadership and knowing that you have to lead people or even if it's one person, it's no longer just yourself. So taking on that mindset and educating yourself as well on leadership, whether that's taking a course or reading books, but you are now a leader when you have someone else on your team, even if it's just you and your virtual ea, you need to have the ability to be able to lead that person and lead your company. So educating yourself on that because there is a difference between, I think, to me, leadership and management. And so having an understanding of the difference between the two. And oftentimes that comes down to getting help and support. If that's coaching from someone else on how to be able to do those, those things.
[00:37:34] Speaker B: Thank you so much and stay with us. We're going to take a break. That was really important. And I think it truly shows the balance between being able to delegate, get things off your plate so you can grow, and learning to trust others to help you. Stay with us and we'll come back and talk about the ROI of an executive assistant, how they can transform your business and your life.
Welcome back to Balancing Acts. I'm your host, Linda Hamilton, a CPA certified exit planning advisor and systemologist. We are talking with Tanya Thomas, the CEO and founder of Team Delegate, and we're talking about the power of an executive virtual assistant and how that can transform your business and your life. And in this segment, we're going to talk about the ROI of that, how it can really make a difference. On top of all the things in our last segments, if you didn't listen in about delegation, how to delegate properly, and how to really work with a va. Tanya, do you have some examples you can share with us of a business owner who did transform their life and or their business after hiring an executive assistant?
[00:39:12] Speaker A: Sure. I'm thinking of a couple here. One particular person was a client and she described it this way before, you know, working with us, I don't know, and I'm probably dating myself here a little bit, but even this show was older than me, but I still watched it. And that's the Lucille Ball Show. There's particular episode where she and Ethel are working at this company with a conveyor belt. And the conveyor belt is going slow. It's got chocolates on it. And they're thinking, you know, hey, you know, this is easy. And the production manager sticks her head out and says, we need to increase production, so I'm going to speed the belt up. So she speeds it up a little bit. They're still able to keep up. And then she sticks around again and says, we got to get more. So she then speeds it up a third time and it's going really fast. And they're trying to stuff chocolates in their mouths and their clothes and all of those things. And this particular CEO described that that's how she felt in her business, that, you know, it started out that way as that slow Conveyor belt. But then it began to, as it began to grow, it got faster and she just felt like she was, you know, just duct taping things, trying to keep everything together until, you know, she came to us and we assigned her a virtual EA on our team who was then able to help her with, you know, her calendar, email, all those things that were taking over her life and making it seem like it was going by so fast.
That was instrumental for her and another person that was working evenings and weekends, you know, 60 hour work week weeks and didn't really have any processes in place for her business. Hers was a little bit newer and once we assigned someone to her, she was of course able to not work evenings and weekends and spend time with her family, develop structure for her business.
Five years later, she still, you know, thanks me all the time.
And so those are a couple of examples of ways that getting that ROI for yourself, for most people that's in time because in both of those situations that's really what it was. But they were able to work on things that they couldn't otherwise have worked on. Because I'm thinking of another person too who had another service offering she wanted for her company, but she didn't have the time to get to it until, you know, working with us and we assigned someone to her. And so she was able to develop that service offering and that brought in additional revenue for her. So it comes down to gaining that extra time. But then that extra time allows you to be able to focus on other areas of your business that were probably not getting the attention that it needed. And so, so if you're able to then focus your time there, you are going to see a difference in the growth of your business.
[00:42:33] Speaker B: That is great. And I think yes, time is a great roi and giving yourself more time back is a way to work on money making activities. You can work on those high level activities that you don't have time when you're on that hand hamster wheel as you described, like the production thing, the hamster wheel is kind of the same. I think I once saw one. It, you know, you fall off the wheel and you get back on, you fall off the wheel. So having the right VA can really make a difference in your work life balance. And this show is also, it's balancing acts, it's about balancing your books, balancing your money, balancing all the activities you have. But what about having the right VA and on your stress levels?
And is it important to find the right va?
[00:43:23] Speaker A: Yes, because as we've talked about and alluded to a little bit before one of your questions about whether or not that's the right person. Because if you have the right person, that's going to give you peace of mind because you know you've got that person. And I've been having a lot of conversations lately with people who, who don't have the right person and so they know that it's making a detrimental impact to them in their business. And so they're needing to find the right person and some of the things. And sometimes I guess a question might be that someone would know, how do I know whether or not I have the right person? And I think one thing is, like I mentioned, you're going to have peace of mind. You're going to know that you're being supported soundly.
If you're having to constantly check on the person, make sure that they're doing what you've assigned or what they should be doing, or if things are slipping through the cracks regularly in terms of you having to follow up and say, hey, where's this? Where's that? When can I expect this? If that's something that you're constantly doing and you have to realize that's taking time out of your day to do that. So you're losing time being concerned about things on the back end that you shouldn't be concerned about. So if those things are happening, then you have to self evaluate and audit to think, okay, maybe I don't have that right person. So those are the key things to look at to know whether or not you do have the right support that you need.
[00:45:11] Speaker B: Oh, that's so I'm so glad you shared that. That's really important.
If you're spending a lot of time fixing things and doing things on operations that you shouldn't be doing, you can almost never get ahead because we can't really get our time back unless we free that time up by having someone do the things that need to be done. Some of our listeners are concerned about the financial cost of hiring a virtual assistant. So how can we talk about the financial ROI of it? Is it, you know, of not looking at it necessarily as a cost?
[00:45:48] Speaker A: Right. I'm glad you know, you brought that up. But yes, it is an investment and that's the way you need to look at it because it's an investment that's going to help you help your business grow. So you have to think about, as I just talked about before, if you don't have the right support and you're spending a lot of time going behind the person you're wasting time. So you want to think about, you know, that investment that you're making and sometimes the way people have looked at it too. I've heard people use this analogy as well. But. And you could look at that way if you want, if you're a numbers person in terms of looking, thinking about, okay, what is my time worth? And if I'm spending my time doing these tasks, this is what I'm paying myself to do it. And so you could look at it that way as well. But then also like I said, just looking at it too, from a time standpoint, what is it that is there another aspect of my business that I want to focus on and develop so that I can bring in, you know, x amount more of dollars? Or is it that I want to have the ability to be able to, to go to my children's, all of my children's sporting events and not be concerned about doing that? Or it could be both of those things. And so just weighing out what's important to you as you look at investing in bringing someone onto your team to support you.
[00:47:37] Speaker B: That is also great advice. You are so much to share with us today. What about somebody who's on the fence about hiring an executive assistant? What's one powerful piece of advice you could share with us?
[00:47:51] Speaker A: Sure, if you're on the fence about bringing on a virtual ea, grab some paper, a notebook or something and write down the pros and the cons. And that's what I would tell people to do.
But most of the time the pros are going to win, especially if it's going growth is your gain if that's what you're wanting to do.
Remembering to think about do I want to grow? Is that what I want to do with my business and I can't do this alone. Do I want to stay in overwhelm thinking about those things? If you're on the fence to help you be able to push the needle and move forward.
[00:48:37] Speaker B: Thank you for that really important advice. Can you share with the audience how people can find out more about you, whether it's social media, your website?
[00:48:46] Speaker A: Sure. You can learn more about
[email protected] I am also very active on LinkedIn if you'd like to follow me there as well.
[00:49:00] Speaker B: Tanya Thomas, thank you so much for sharing your expertise with us. And I know that I am going to also check out all the things you write about the executive assistant because that's the one role that is for us, the CEO, about getting help for us personally in our business so that we can be a better leader, a better CPA, and grow a profitable business. So thank you again. I hope you all check out teamdelegate.com and join us again next week for another episode of Balancing Acts.
[00:49:36] Speaker A: This has been a Now Media Networks feature presentation. All rights reserved.
