88 | When is it Time to Consider Working with a Virtual Assistant?

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Hi there, welcome to In the Clinic with Camille. My name is Camille Freeman.

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I'm an herbalist and nutritionist. And in this podcast, I share little tips

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and tidbits that might be helpful for other practitioners.

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Today, I want to talk to you about getting started with a virtual assistant

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and specifically, how do you know if having a virtual assistant is something

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that makes sense for you either now or in the future.

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In full disclosure, part of the motivation for doing this podcast is that I

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am running a mini course on how to get started with a virtual assistant next week.

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Well, it starts, the course starts next week. However, this podcast is not designed

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only to be a sales pitch for that course.

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I think that having this information about when is it time, is this even something

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that's in the cards for you, is going to be helpful independently of whether

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you take the course or not.

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So just wanted to be clear about what's happening here.

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So first of all, let me just talk about what a virtual assistant is.

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I think a lot of you have heard of a virtual assistant.

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This is essentially somebody who works for you online, often from afar on their

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own schedule that can come in and support you with very specific parts of running your practice.

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There's all kinds of things that a virtual assistant can do for you.

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I'm not going to go through the full list, but essentially the idea is to take

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off of your plate things that don't really need to be done by you.

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So that you can spend your time focusing on the things that you do best and

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allow you to free up your time either for rest, for personal time,

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or to see a few more clients or to do other things that you care about doing,

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like writing a book or creating content or whatever else is on your plate.

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So that's the deal with a virtual assistant. A lot of people don't think about

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having a virtual assistant because you're like, oh, you know,

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one-on-one work is so personal.

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It feels weird to have somebody else involved. And then also there's the idea

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of, you know, none of my tasks are so overwhelming. It doesn't seem like I have

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enough things to bring somebody else on board. And it seems like a lot of trouble

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to go to to hire somebody.

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The reason I know this is because that's exactly what I was thinking several

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years ago before I first hired an assistant.

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I was like, I'm not sure this really makes sense for me.

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You know, I'm not maybe not the kind of person who has an assistant.

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So let me talk you through some of these things, because there are times when

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all of those things are true. And there's times when maybe it makes sense to reconsider.

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Okay, so first of all, the idea that you're doing this personal work with your

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clients and that an assistant might make things feel a little bit less personal is really valid.

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One of the things, though, that I think a lot of people don't realize is that

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when you have an assistant working as part of your practice,

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you have control over how much you're going to delegate to that person.

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So it is entirely possible to have an assistant who is really only helping you

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with behind-the-scenes tech things like dealing with your website or getting

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the logistics of your mailing list set up or things like that,

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that there's really not going to be any direct client communication happening

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at all, so that wouldn't affect any of your interactions with your clients.

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So it is possible to bring on an assistant that can help in certain aspects

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of scheduling or billing or insurance and that type of thing as well.

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But you would just want to think about that and decide how you want an assistant

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to be part of your practice.

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And then you want to hire for the jobs that you want.

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So if you're thinking this person is maybe going to interact with my clients,

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that's a little bit of a different hiring process than if the person is coming

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on only to do behind the scenes tech stuff and isn't going to have any interaction with clients at all.

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So that's something that you can make a decision about. And if it doesn't feel

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comfortable to you to have somebody else doing that kind of interfacing,

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it doesn't have to be structured that way.

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And if you're like, ooh, that would really help a lot to not go back and forth

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about whether we could reschedule on Monday at 5 or Tuesday at 10,

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to have somebody else do that,

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it's absolutely possible to find somebody who's a good fit to do that kind of

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work so that you can just show up on Monday at 10, do your rescheduled appointment

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and not have to get all those back and forth emails about the pet emergency

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or whatever it is that made it so somebody couldn't come to their original appointment.

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All right, so that's one concern that a lot of people have.

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But another concern people have is like, oh, I don't really have that much going

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on in my practice that I would need to have an assistant coming and working for me.

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And this is a lot of what I felt in the beginning as well, where I was like,

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well, I do have a lot of little tasks, but all of them take,

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you know, two to three minutes.

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It's not that hard for me to cancel somebody's subscription when they ask for

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it to be canceled or update somebody's email address when they have a new email

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or, you know, make that one small change on my website.

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Each one of those things probably takes me five to ten minutes, something like that.

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So it was like, well, I don't know if it's really going to be worth it to have

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an assistant come on to help with this because it seems like it would take longer

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for me to explain how to do this than it does for me to just do it.

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And why do I need to pay somebody to do these things?

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Because they're pretty simple and it's not that hard for me to just do them.

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So that's definitely one way to think about it.

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And especially for those of us who like to have a lot of control over every

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aspect of everything, it can be a little bit hard to let go and trust that somebody

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else is going to do this properly and the way that we want it done.

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However, I was totally shocked when I started thinking about bringing on an assistant.

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I decided to just write down a list of some things that I was doing,

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no matter how big or small, that I didn't have to be the one doing.

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So anything, I just would make a note of anything that it didn't really matter

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who did it behind the scenes. It had no interaction on with,

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you know, clients, nothing else going on.

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It was just like, well, somebody has to do it. And I guess it's me because I'm the only one.

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And when I really sat down and looked at that list, it was way bigger than I had thought.

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Lots and lots and lots of these little five to 10 minute tasks. And I was like, wow,

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when you really look at these, it's probably in the beginning,

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I was like, this is probably a couple hours a week, one to three hours a week

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of just teeny little niggly five minute things that I'm doing that aren't hard,

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but that I don't really have to be doing.

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So when you think about it like that, and you're like, well,

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even if I just take one hour of this type of thing off of my plate each week,

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that's four hours a month.

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That I now have, first of all, that my brain isn't occupied with this.

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And then second of all, I could see two more clients in that time.

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I could read a book in that time. I could go for a walk or do several gardening sessions or whatever.

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There's lots of other things that you could probably do with four hours.

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So then it becomes a question of well financially does this

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make sense for me right can i steadily support

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somebody who who could come on

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and do some of these tasks assuming i find somebody who could do them really

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well would it be worth it to me to have these four hours back to not have to

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deal with these things and to be able to open up my brain space to do other

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work whether it's writing my book or seeing more clients or whatever it is so

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that's an interesting thing to think about It does sometimes come down to money.

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I don't recommend thinking about getting started with a virtual assistant if

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you don't feel like you consistently have at least a couple hundred dollars

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a month extra that you could safely, comfortably pay someone.

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But even if you just start with a few hours a month, even like $100,

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let's just say you have $100 extra a month that you feel like you might be able

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to divert to this project.

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It may be worth a try to see if that brain space is actually helpful to grow

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your practice and to start seeing more clients, to have a better marketing plan,

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to have more efficiency in the things that you're doing with marketing and that sort of thing.

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All right the last thing I want to talk about when

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it comes to understanding if you're ready to start

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working with a virtual assistant is just the whole idea of letting

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go this for me was the hardest piece like well if I say that somebody else is

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going to do all these tasks can I really trust that they're going to get done

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because it's going to be more problematic for me if somebody does these things

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incorrectly and then I have to go back I have to worry about it and then I have

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to go back and check it and I have to correct it.

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And that sounds more stressful than just doing it myself.

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For me, this was the biggest barrier of getting started.

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And this also comes down to the hiring process, making sure that you have somebody

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who's a good fit, and then also having good systems in place so that it's really,

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really clear what needs to happen and how both of you know if it's been done correctly.

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And there are ways to make that happen so that you truly, truly can say,

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these tests are on somebody else's plate and I really don't have to worry about

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them. Maybe I'm going to check them every now and then.

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But once you get through a training period, it's 100% possible to have them

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just be really actually off your plate.

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So some of the ways of doing that are what we're going to talk about in this course.

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So just to wrap up, I can tell you a little bit about my path here.

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I, when I started doing more courses and continuing education work in,

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I guess it must have been 2019, 2020, something in that range.

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I pretty quickly saw that the amount of time I was spending on administrative

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things was limiting the amount of classes I could teach and clients I could

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see because I was having to spend so much time answering emails and dealing

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with behind the scenes stuff.

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And so I was like, okay, let me just let me see what's going to happen.

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I went through a process of hiring virtual assistants. I worked.

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I made some mistakes along the way. I definitely had a few wrong turns,

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and I learned a lot from that.

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But I also wound up with some really great folks who are helping me out.

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And I can really say at this point, I probably have somewhere between five and

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10 hours of support from virtual assistants throughout the week, each week.

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And I have those hours back. Those are, for the most part those are not hours

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that I've rededicated into my business I'm just not working as much,

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and it's really helpful for me so I've noticed

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a huge difference in my mental and physical health because of

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it and I'm excited to share a little bit more about how do you find the right

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virtual assistant how do you set systems in place so that you can work together

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smoothly how do you think about safety confidentiality what about pay just sorting

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through some of those things if you are interested in learning more about this,

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you can come take the course. It's a two-week mini course.

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It's on a pay-from-the-heart scale between $47 and $97, I believe it is.

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And we are going to start on the 6th of July.

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So if you want to come join us, love to have you.

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You can sign up. Let's see, what is the address to sign up? It's camillefreeman.com slash va course.

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And you can learn more about it there. I'll also put the link in the show notes.

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Okay, I hope that was helpful. If you have any other questions about virtual

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assistants, sign up for the course.

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We're going to have live Q&A calls, and you can bring them there if they're

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not already answered in the material.

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Otherwise, if you have a request for something you'd like to hear me talking

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about on the podcast, I would love to hear from you.

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You can go to intheclinic.com, leave a note for me there, and I will answer your question.

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All right, thanks so much for listening. I hope you have a really wonderful

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day, and I will talk to you soon.