Episode Transcript
Emily Reagan 0:05
You can hire a virtual contractor from anywhere. That's what we're doing when we go to fiverr or Upwork. And we're seeking a specialized service. But a lot of times when we hear VA, we're thinking of more of an admin assistant who can help us with the inbox, calendar management, customer service. And so I like to try to get people to be more specific with the title because I think that's why it probably doesn't sit well with us because we're like, what is it? What is this person do? But if we can get more specific about what a VA, it'll make it easier to figure out? Will it help me? Who should I hire? What can they do all of those like bigger questions that come after we first learned about it?
Monica Pitts 0:47
You're on mission, and you just need more people to know about it. And whether you're brand new to marketing or a seasoned pro, we are all looking for answers to make marketing decisions with purpose. I'm Monica Pitts, a techie crafty business owner, mom and aerial dancer who solves communication challenges through technology. This podcast is all about digging in and going digital. I'll share my marketing know how in business experience from almost 20 years of misadventures, I'll be your backup dancer. So you can stop doubting, and get moving towards marketing with purpose. Hello, again, friends, and welcome back to marketing with purpose. My name is Monica Pitts, and I am your host today. I'm pretty excited about this episode, because I am always looking for amazing human beings to help me get things done. And the podcasts that I've been listening to and the blogs that I follow, have been talking a lot about virtual assistants. And I was really interested in this idea, because in my company, I've had a lot of interns, some part time employees and lots of full time employees. But I just now started coming around and hiring contractors to help us with very specialized things like our social media, and our online advertising. And I was wondering, are there more things that I should consider outsourcing to people who are maybe far better at them than I am so that way I can stay focused on the things that are most important for me to do for my business. So then comes this idea of a virtual assistant. It sounds like virtual assistants are oftentimes the first hires that young or new entrepreneurs make in their business because they aren't a full time employee and they are often experienced at the tasks that you're asking them to do. So they don't require an enormous amount of training to take on those tasks and run with them. Well, that seems like a pretty valuable person, right? But what does that even mean? And how does it work? Haha. That's where our guests comes in today, my friends. I am so excited to introduce you to Emily Reagan. She's the founder of the unicorn digital marketing assistant school. Yeah, with like a name like that. I knew that I was going to want to be her friend from like the second I saw the business name like her Oh, that's so much fun unicorns. Okay, so she is a mom of four. She's an Air Force wife and a Jill of all trades when it comes to digital marketing and techie skills. She's worked behind the scenes as a digital marketing implementer and worked with all kinds of different creatives and furniture painters to help them grow their online businesses. She in her digital marketing assistant school, the unicorn one yes, she teaches women the digital marketing skills to get hired online as an in demand highly sought after unicorn digital marketing assistant. In this episode, she's going to help us understand things like how many hours a week you need to be able to offer before considering a virtual assistant. She's going to let us know what we can expect a marketing virtual assistant to be able to do, how much guidance they might need. Also, you know, how do you communicate with one? How much would you usually pay for one, and even some tips to interview them and make sure that they're a good fit for you. So without further ado, I want to introduce you to this awesome unicorn, Emily Reagan, Let's get to business. Hello again. And welcome back to marketing with purpose. I am super pumped today because as everybody is trying to figure out how on earth they're going to get their marketing tasks done. There's the there's this term that I keep hearing in like the universe and it did it is a virtual assistant and I don't really 100% know what that means. I think that they sound like the magical people that could make me get stuff done, but I don't really know. And so Today I brought with me, Emily Reagan, of the unicorn digital marketing assistant school to tell us all about them. And so we can understand. So, Emily, why don't you start by just introducing yourself and your school?
Emily Reagan 5:17
I want to hear about it. The term VA threw me for a loop to when I was first freelancing, my biggest client used to call me her VA, it was like, what is that? What is that I thought, Virginia, being a military spouse for Veterans Affairs, and there just wasn't a lot of knowledge about this role. And it also never felt right to me, and I'll talk about that in a little bit. But a VA virtual assistant is an independent contractor who comes in and helps you with your business. And it is an umbrella term. And it can be a freelancer more or less, who just helps you with any aspect. And we are starting to get a little bit more synonymous with hiring overseas, like a lot of VAs are known for being from the Philippines. But you can hire a virtual contractor from anywhere, it's, you can hire a virtual contractor from anywhere, that's what we're doing when we go to fiverr or Upwork. And we're seeking a specialized service. So for years, I was doing the marketing side of things, I come from a journalism and PR background. And I kind of fell into that kind of work. I have never done admin myself. But a lot of times when we hear VA, we're thinking of more of an admin assistant who can help us with the inbox calendar management, customer service. And so I like to kind of dump it on his head and flip the script a little bit and try to get people to be more specific with the title because I think that's why it probably doesn't sit well with us because we're like, what is it? What is this person do? But if we can get more specific about what a VA, it'll make it easier to figure out? Will it help me Who should I hire? What can they do all of those like bigger questions that come after we first learned about it?
Monica Pitts 6:58
So how did you go from being in an agency to running this unicorn digital marketing assistant school? And by the way, like, once I understood that that was your name, I was just like high and so pumped about talking to this human because she has glitter on her email signature. And there are unicorns, and I love it like, you will I'm so so
Emily Reagan 7:24
Sporty Spice, right I actually, this is my brand. And it came from this moment of questioning, who am I? And what do I do, and I was talking with my teammate. And I've always been booked out because I had this marketing skill set and was able to help my clients grow, nurture and sell to their audience. I was not your regular VA. So I had this funny little conversation. It's been years of figuring out my own messaging, right. And I told my teammate Deb, well, I'm a unicorn, that's what I am. And then we're like, let's run with that. And it's so fun to see this term being used now because I'm like, Alright, I'm doing it right. But when I say unicorn, I don't mean someone who just does everything. I don't mean a general assistant who's like doing everything in your business. I mean unicorn as in, we all are smart women, and especially my audience, a lot of women, we are oftentimes over educated have lots of career experience, we have our own unique passion, hobbies interest. And then when I can teach these freelancers how to do marketing skills that are relevant and up to date, they become someone's magical hire. It's like the total package. A unicorn is someone who's rare and hard to find. It's the true Webster's What am i What is the call the definition? Sometimes not very good with words over here. But yeah, so that that was really it. And that's why I started to call my marketing assistance, unicorn digital marketing assistance, because I can actually trademark that I couldn't trademark unicorn BA or anything generic. So the unicorn is really the essence of like you're leaning into your superpower. So with me, I came up with the background of PR. So one of the first things I was able to do is write press releases. And then it just kept building up and building up. And next thing I knew I was completely booked out, I was telling you before we hit record, I went to su McLarens. Back then it was called tribe conference. And I didn't show up with a single I had no business cards, I had no website, I was not growing my audience. I wasn't doing any of the things that your podcast listeners know better to do. And I got inundated because of this skill to be someone behind the scenes who can help the visionary in the intrapreneur and or the entrepreneur and the intrapreneurs the person behind the scenes who can do a lot of the work but does it need to be forward facing. So that's kind of how it started. And then I started training my teammates because I just had so many clients and then I'm like ding ding ding this is a no brainer. I've already created the trainings. Why don't I just offer them to the world because I hit my max. You know what it's like to run an agency. It's hard. It's a lot of people management. I don't enjoy that. I like to do little creative work. And so I started the unicorn digital marketing assistant school, I've helped over 350 men and women start their business and focus on the marketing services that help business owners like you. With this content hamster wheel that's happening helping you with your inbound a lot of inbound marketing. Really?
Monica Pitts 10:22
Yeah, I definitely. So just in the last two years, we, we were doing online marketing for people we like, as well as website design. We did digital ads, and we also did social media, we did some blog posts for people. And then when COVID had a lot of our people were like, I can't spend any more money. And then I was like, You know what, I, I really don't like doing this anyway, what if we just don't do it anymore. And then we kept some people still close, you know, because they were, you know, we felt like we loved them. And we wanted them to have like someone take care of them. But then just about a month ago, we were like, no more of any of it. And I had already outsourced all of our ads to somebody and then we outsourced our social media to another person. It's way better. It's way better, like I don't want it's like I never want to touch it again. I love that. Like our social media. Now. It's like I just upload stuff to the Slack channel and somebody takes it and puts it where it's supposed to go. And I'm like good because I can share my story. I just don't want to, I just don't want to do it. Like I And so anyway, this is my own personal testimony of it's so great to be supported by human beings who do the things that you don't want to do.
Emily Reagan 11:39
I mean, legislative business owners, we have to I mean, I love blogging, I love writing a good blog, I love formatting. I love dinking around on my website, but is that the best use of my time right now? No. Sometimes my brain might need it. But I need to get support in areas that really free up my time to do the bigger things which are, you know, do these visibility moments like this podcast with you or work on the Evergreen funnel that I'm trying to build or the webinar that only I can do so it's really important that we get help is the thing. Any successful person you see online is not doing it alone. And looks it might look like they are sometimes but they are not somebody is helping them. And one of my best examples is this, like 94 year old woman named baddie Winkle, she's on Instagram, and she is a baller. She's like, you would love her style. It's like bright pink. And she has somebody styling her scheduling these posts writing these posts, you know, she's getting her naps in, but she looks like you see Instagram, you're like, oh my gosh, she's on fire. She's not doing every little thing with Instagram, we already know it. And I think we all need to take a little like a lesson from baddie and hire out the things that are not in our genius. And you know, where we are in, in our genius zone.
Monica Pitts 12:55
Yeah, and I do so even in our own universe, like and I have like, actually, I have employees and I have, since the big almost the beginning of my business. But I have to think about it like $1 and $1 out, right. So if I can do this task, and I can bill out $110 an hour, and I've got another person that I could pay $90 An hour even, but they do the tasks twice as fast. You got you have to consider that like, like, which makes more sense. Where should you be spending your time if it's going to you know, so it's funny because my husband and I sometimes think about our house the same way we're like, well, we could I could take off work, and I could go pick up the kids early or I could you know, pay somebody to go pick up the kids like when they were really little. And so I'm like, Well, I, you know, I I make more money than I pay the babysitter. And so I'm gonna have her go pick up the kids and take them home and feed them a snack. And then they're happy when I get
Emily Reagan 13:52
I mean, I had this epiphany in my business. I had a year my husband was deployed, and I have four kids. And it was I don't know how I got through it. But I had hired a housekeeper to come in and help me. I had a big old house in South Florida. And I was amazed at that because she could come in and spend a day and clean the whole thing. And I would feel like not only like the stress relief, knowing that I didn't have something on my plate fully capable of doing it. It also lit my fire to declutter before she came in. And that's what having employees or VA's in your business, if you know they're going to be working on something, it gets your hiney moving to get them the deliverables they need to do their job because you don't want to waste their time.
Monica Pitts 14:36
Yes. Okay. So let's talk about some of the things that these unicorn virtual assistants can actually do. And actually my first question though, is for people who are trying to qualify themselves, they're probably sitting over there and they're like, Yeah, but I don't really know if I have enough stuff to do to hire a virtual assistant. So how many hours a week? Do you need to be able to offer to somebody Before considering hiring a virtual assistant,
Emily Reagan 15:02
that's a loaded question because every single independent contractor sets their terms, their rates and their hours. So what do you need? It's not what they need. And yeah, some VA's are at a higher level where they're going to be looking for higher chunks of time, right and different kinds of retainers. But here's the thing, one of the one of my longtime running clients, when I first started helping her, it was five hours a month. That's it, and we were able to get the ball rolling, I was handling her blog, and then I would just tell her, Hey, we've hit our time, should we add more like, let's get some more attraction? So I think the biggest fear is, am I going to be surprised by this invoice that I wasn't expecting? Am I going to blow my budget? Am I not going to have enough for this person to work on but a lot of us, like myself included our moms who want to work during school hours, we actually are choosing this because we don't want the 60 hour workweek there are people who want part time jobs, that not everybody every VAs dream is to go be an employee and get back to a 40 hour workweek.
Monica Pitts 16:08
No, and I like every time my husband and I talk about him potentially shifting into a more flexible job. Where like, Yeah, but does that mean that you're gonna have to go be under somebody's thumb and wear a suit to work every day and like have to be at the office five days a week, like, at least like nine hours a day? And I'm like, no, no, baby, no, we can't do that, like we is not it, not in our mid 40s. We don't want to go back there,
Emily Reagan 16:37
right? We want we know better. And we can change that. But what I'll say about VA's is, if someone's not going to give you as many hours, that's cool, you just need to give them more time, you need to give them more lead way and turnaround times to get the project to you. So that might not work. Well, if you need admin help. If you need someone in your inbox every day, like that minimum amount of time and having to spread it over every hour, it gets harder to find somebody who wants those parameters for there. But there's always somebody there's a lot of like great people eager for work, who just want to make a little extra money and use their brains.
Monica Pitts 17:15
Okay, so then we just started describing some of the skills or you did or some of the things that you might have a virtual assistant do so you particularly work with new marketing virtual assistants because I find me who doesn't want somebody to help with your marketing, I would like someone to help me with mine, please. Like to overwhelm myself is the thing I do. So what can you expect a marketing virtual assistant to be able to do what are some common tasks that
Emily Reagan 17:43
In my program, I teach email marketing, beginner funnels, so being able to do the lead magnet funnels, we teach SEO and content marketing as far as blogs and social media and affiliate so we give I give them a solid baseline. So it's important to ask questions, because everyone's going to have a different, like unicorn package and things they that are in their wheelhouse and things that aren't. And I think that's the hardest thing, because you don't really know unless you ask, but the marketing VA will help you push your content out. And they'll be able to repurpose your content. And they'll be able to, as they get to know your business, start thinking strategically for you, and coming up with ideas. And that's probably, it's just so helpful. Because when you're stuck in your own business, it's like you can't read the label from inside the bottle. It's so nice sometimes to have fresh eyes, pull it out, somebody who follows it through can set a content plan to keep you on schedule. Like one of the first things they take over is that weekly nurture email to get you on schedule. And then also follow through to the reporting and tracking, which is really what makes my unicorn special. But any Freelancer listening to like, you know, like, you don't just send an invoice you you go over the work, you bring your insights, you bring the the data points you see and you help create a strategy from that. And I think that's really important. It's not just like posting to post and if you do get like a general admin VA, and they say they do marketing, like make sure you're getting that extra, like analytical service included.
Monica Pitts 19:16
Absolutely. And I think that those of us who do run our marketing ourselves, that's the first thing that goes like is that analytical service like i There are definitely times that I know that this email hit because I get responses. Right? You're like what people are emailed me they emailed me back. But that does not happen very often. And so when it happened, you know, it worked. And of course at the end of a really big marketing campaign where you put a ton of energy into it or a ton of money into it. You're going to look at those those details but on the regular I don't look every single week and be like so how that email open rate go. Or like, hey, how many listens that I have on that podcast? I don't do that. Like I They do it every so often, but not not like you're describing here. So I could see that accountability would be really good. And it sounds like to once they get to know your business, they really are like, they're thinking with you and for you like as a partner, not somebody that you're like, that's
Emily Reagan 20:18
my goal out of this, because this is what I did for clients. So well, and this is what made me so indispensable. And I think that it's easy to go to Fiverr and get somebody temporary to help you with something. But it's hard to find the teammate who's loyal, who's going to grow with you. And so what I like to say is get somebody who has that growth mindset. And then as your business gets more successful, you can help that person up level into a different role and start shedding some of even the lower level tasks, like just, you know, some of the things that they're going to outgrow they are, they are going to outgrow it like nobody wants to stay doing the same repetitive thing forever. And if you do, if you have that person I heard, I think it was Rachel Hollis said that that's the soldier versus the general, a lot of people are looking for the general who can give the orders and just take more leadership because we can't do all the things in our business. But if you do have a soldier recognize it, there's a time and place for that some people are happy like that, though, I think the hard thing is having these high expectations that your soldier is going to be a general, and I can't help me sell talking in military terms right now.
Monica Pitts 21:27
It's okay. My husband's job is he does loans for veterans. And that's it. That's his whole job. So I come home every day to hear stories about the same types of stuff, even though he didn't serve in the military. That's his job. So he works with veterans every day.
Emily Reagan 21:44
VA is gonna think it's like the veteran.
Monica Pitts 21:49
Yeah, I mean, this. Yeah, yes. But like, maybe maybe, I mean, he does have a wife that runs a small business. So maybe he knows. So question for you, then the way that you were just describing virtual assistants, you're saying that they can be generals, but they can also be soldiers, they might start as soldiers, and then they work their way up to being generals, which is, that's cool.
Emily Reagan 22:14
I mean, I see it time and time again. And I think that's why so many people come to me for hiring because they do want, they want that brain. But you know, you start adding in if you find somebody who's like organized has project management experience, like that's a good our capabilities, like their thinking in terms of tracking deadlines, if they're able to start helping you manage things like that's a good sign that you have a general and then from there, that person who could be what we call an online business manager, maybe they're running more of the day to day task, or the another term that's popular right now is integrator, and director of operations. These all start, you know, as you go up the business ladder, it's like a higher title. But yeah, that's what we're ultimately, you know, hoping when we're solopreneurs and small business owners.
Monica Pitts 22:59
Well, and you kind of work your way through the ranks as a small business owner to do those things, too, because I was the, you know, the person that did the work, and then I was the director of operations. And then eventually, I was like, I'm not really fit to be the Director of Operations anymore. I mean, you have two kids, and then your brain explodes. And then somehow you can't think that way anymore, I don't know. And so then you have, like, people that come up after you and they can grow into those spots. And it sounds like a VA is just, you don't want to depreciate it, but it's like almost a smaller commitment employee. So you have, you know, instead of having to offer a bajillion hours, you can have a person that comes in and helps you with specific tasks, and then they can move their way through. So question. What does like weekly communication look like? In general? Like, how do you advise people to interact with their vas? Because, you know, gotta get tasks to I mean, did they just work through a software meeting? Like,
Emily Reagan 23:59
this is kind of a funny topic, because as independent contractors, you just don't want to miss classify someone as an employee, right? Who one of the things you can do is have a contract in place for sure. And don't give someone that whole bread and butter of your business, like have them have a specific role, have them send an invoice. And one of the tricky things with IRS is this whole meeting thing, because technically, when you hire a contractor, you're hiring them for results, and you're not supposed to micromanage. And if you start micromanaging, you get misclassified as an employee. So it's like you're hiring for results that you want, but it gets a gray if you're hiring someone for hourly support, right? So and you're gonna have your app use for that. So when it comes to meetings, I think protect like I it's good to have meetings, I think it's a huge mistake people make is they hire a VA like never talk to them again and expect them just like run to the sun with all the tasks you know exactly what to do. That happens way too much. You do need regular meetings, but I would Just Dance around that time in place and you like, technically the contractor should be setting those, but just come up with a time that works with you. Make sure you're both honoring that it's really good to have a 30 60 90 day with any new hire anyway. But make just make sure that you're not demanding there at that meeting, because technically, the IRS would count you for that.
Monica Pitts 25:24
Okay, so they need to be probably reaching out and doing those meetings. And that's a really good differentiator, too. I noticed like after you talking about those patterns, I'm like, what, yeah, that's what my contractors do. Like, that's what the people that manage my social media and my ads and stuff, they do that they're like, Hey, how do you like we're gonna meet, we're gonna go over these results. And I'm like, okay, my employees, they don't ever go over the results with me, and they just move on to the next thing.
Emily Reagan 25:53
Well, in my business, I have a weekly Wednesday meeting, I do and I brushed it over with them. There's no pressure to be there. You know, I get it. And I probably understand too much. But yeah, it's a standing meeting. And sometimes it's just like a check in with me, like, let's talk. How am I bottlenecking? Everyone today? You know, so? Yeah. So I think as long as you're just not becoming the dictator of it, you're, you'll be okay.
Monica Pitts 26:18
Yeah, that actually is probably a big relief for people to hear. Because, like, I have told Stacy, who's my CFO over and over again. And like, I think you could use a virtual assistant, I think it would make your life so much better. And you would be able to focus on more things that are like Stacy level tasks, right? And she's like, Yeah, but I can't handle another person to micromanage. Like, that's her biggest pet peeve. But what you're telling me is that that is not what they're supposed to be. And if you're micromanaging them, then they're actually should be classified as employees. And we would be like that guy. That's probably
Emily Reagan 26:51
what a I see the most is the micromanaging problem. It's hard. I mean, I do a little bit of it, too. And it's hard because I know marketing. So I'm like, oh, but you know, you have to set them up for the outcomes that you want. You give them the SOPs, and then you let them you let them do that, right. And it's hard to let go, like delegation is a skill that we learned over time, we have to refine it, it's not easy. But if you're thinking in terms of like how, like, take the time to get organized, and get it right now, so that it pays off for your business in the future. And you had asked this question earlier about, I can't even remember how you phrased it, but my answer was like design the business of the future. Like if you know, you don't want to be doing social media forever. Now, it'd be a great time to take someone on small and get them used to their business and test it out. And don't wait for that burning fire. So many people come to us submit their job, and they're like, we're launching in two days. And then like, good luck, like, it's too late. Like, you could get some webinars support or something, but no one's gonna come in and like flip your business around. And, like, do it before you're ready. And do it all and see
Monica Pitts 28:00
Yeah. Well, and like what i Whenever I really hate a task, and I'm like, this is the de motivating to me, so I don't like anything repetitive, anything way too detail oriented, not your girl. So um, when I'm thinking really, really hard about the task, what I'll do is I'll like open up a Google Doc and I start writing out instructions and making short videos and linking them in and taking screenshots because I'm like, this is the last time that I am doing this thing. And like so in the back of my head, I'm like, I'm never doing this again, and I'm gonna document the crap out of it. So someone else will do it for me. And then like, I think that my biggest moment of sadness is when I hand this glorious thing over to somebody and I train them and then they don't use it and I'm like, but the human that even had to check that box. And anyway, so that's like, use your resources, though.
Emily Reagan 28:55
Yeah, what you're describing as like setting up the SOPs for somebody to come in and repeat it and do it how you like it. Yeah, the key and hiring somebody because it's so hard to hire someone and then be like, Oh, God, now what do I do? What do I give them? It would be nice if you had the list. Like we should name it like the dirty six or something like the first things you don't want to do anymore? I don't know. And get that off your plate. It's actually going to feel so, so good. It's gonna free up so much time but you call it like when you manage your time and you create awareness about what is not in your wheelhouse. What's becoming, what are you shuffling your feet on and dragging on and on? Like, those are the first things to get off your plate?
Monica Pitts 29:38
I agree. Okay, so, um, budget, I gotta know. Because that is a question. I see it even in Facebook groups are like, how much do you normally pay a VA and I bet I bet there's a range I there has to be a range right? So like, can you give us an idea of a typical range so that people who are like I can't afford this could be Like, well, maybe I could, or maybe they pencil it in and they're like, I will afford this in in three months or whatever now,
Emily Reagan 30:08
okay, let's all peel it all back. Let's start with overseas vas, they tend to charge, they could charge him between two and $10 an hour, we'll need to have I know, and I have a slight ethical problem. And it's really confusing. But yeah, you don't want to blow up someone's economy with a bubble of like overpricing. So, I don't know the answer on that. But a lot of people go overseas, because they know I mean, those companies do we outsource the you can save money, you could still find your general over there that some of the pitfalls are like different timezone. English isn't their first language so that I think that works well with things that are repetitive, or maybe you need it done overnight. So you wake up and it's done. You have a lot of options there. And then we see this like general admin VA level, I will see anywhere between 15 and $25 for a general admin VA, and I think that's pretty fair, I don't feel good paying somebody like what Chick fil A pays right now, you know, you can go through a agency, and you can hire somebody, and you're going to be paying $45 an hour for that same person, like trained up knows what they're doing. But then you don't get the loyal teammate. And to me, it feels kind of icky to be paying the middleman. But sometimes that helps if you're if you're in a fast start, if you're in a situation and you're like I don't have time to waste, that can be a great resource, but long term, you're going to want to find the teammate, you're going to want to hire for that certain position. And then I teach my marketing assistants to start at $25 an hour just after they've been through all the training and all of the knowledge. Here's the thing, anytime you get closer to the sale, you can charge more right when marketing is bringing in traffic or traffic brings in sales. So when I see a $25 an hour VA or marketing VA, I know that they're newer, which there's nothing wrong with that, but just have that frame of reference. It's you don't want to have blind leading the blind if you need some work experience. Yes, like think about that. And I will see upwards of $50 an hour. And then you start to see copywriters. If you see a copywriter, anyone who can write usually I tell them start at $50 an hour because that writing is like such a gift. And then it can go up from there, you start getting to OBM level OBMs or above 50 65 $75. But that's the only business manager that I met. Oh, yeah, there's a general start out a lot of them have started out as vas, they just had a really knack for systems and processes and management. And like I said the cream rises really quickly. So the OBM can come in in that regard, too. And any Did I leave out any other prices, I felt like I threw a lot at you. There's a lot tech, the tech now is can be the same as marketing vas. But one of the one of the things I see is people get so stuck on, I need this skill set, I need this tech stack, and only someone who's an expert at this, this and this. And that just becomes so unrealistic. Because that tech expert and that one platform, if they're any good, they're already there, like $300 an hour. So if you can get the person who's worked in SR programs, who has that growth mindset, you you can still stay below $50 An hour and not panic.
Monica Pitts 33:29
Yeah, and I mean, friends, for real, like, when you want to have good people that are really going to take care of you and think for you and do it for you, you have to be ready to pay them for it. And I always tell myself, like if I had a person that did all the things that my contractors do for me, would I be paying them as much as I pay my contractors? And the answer is I would actually be paying them more because I value my full time employees and I and I have benefits for them and you know, paid vacation and all these things well, that plus their base salary is going to be way more than I pay these contractors to help me with my work and it. But I'm not afraid to pay someone to do a good job. Like I don't make hate. I hate paying people to do a bad job that makes me very sad. So much other pay to do a good job. Okay, so
Emily Reagan 34:18
one thing about that you really get it but an independent contractor has a lot of extra expenses. And one thing that classifies them as a contractor is the fact that they do so if you like provided them with a computer that's like treating them like an employee, but they're just keep this in mind because they know people get stuck on that hourly rate but like you said, you were saving so much money because you are not committing to the 40 hour a week person or you know, the part time employee and you can use them as you need. It's very flexible, right? And you don't have to worry about the benefits and all the HR rules, but the independent contractor, they're paying a 15% self employment tax, like they have all these extra expenses. So somebody who's at $20 An hour There's a price perception there. And I'm going to question if this person is stupid, because they're doing it for nothing, I can't help but be like, Why are you not confident? Are you not good? Why are you at this rate this fool? This, people are moving on up, right? So you get why
Monica Pitts 35:17
I feel the same way about web developers and designers, like if there is a web developer who's like, I'll do your website for $50 an hour, I'm like, so you're going to, you're going to sell it, you're going to build it, you're going to account service it and you're going to build it. And you're going to pay the rent, and you're going to pay for your internet, and you're gonna pay for your health insurance, and you're gonna pay for your and put money away from all with $50 an hour, like, what is going on here? Like, what are you getting? Like, it can't be? It's not right, like, it can't be right. And so I'm always like, Whoa, I don't know that, like, whatever you get out of that person, it could be magical, but it might might just be heard, like, you might have wished that you would just not spend that money and go spend it with somebody who may even be $100 an hour but but get the experience that you deserve and the website that you want, because there's just so many more things that go into it, than what we're thinking. Okay, so um, my last question for you for wrap up about virtual assistants is like, how and where do you go to find them? Like, what? What place? Where a whole secret
Emily Reagan 36:25
underground network of us because a lot of us are that intrapreneur. Behind the scenes, we are not playing on social, right? A lot of us are introverted. There's a secret network. So what you should do is first start with your friends, ask, ask if somebody has a really good OBM or a VA on their team. Ca, are they taking more clients but or do they know someone because chances are like that referral network to me is really strong. Right? You can also ask people who are already following you and on your email list like it does not hurt to try your own social media. What I will say is to have a system to collect this, so you're not overwhelmed. It could take one person sharing your job and it could blow up and you could be inundated with crappy job requests, because you didn't, you know, set it up, right? Right and collect it. So that's a good thing post on your social send in an email. There's a good Facebook groups with a lot of fellow business owners, you'll always see people asking their name dropping their there's a site for going overseas to the Philippines, you can check that out. And then there's a lot of sites minus hire a unicorn.com, what I do is take your top three tasks, so you don't have to overthink it and write a job description. And I share it with my my work group, which is my membership. But there's a couple other sites that like hire by mom.com, there's you know, you can always go to fiverr Upwork. You can look on LinkedIn, you can use hashtag research. What I will say is vet this person, if they say they can do social media graphics, look at their look at their portfolio, make sure they actually can, because the so many people skip this step because they hate it so much. And they just hire the first person who comes their way. So I'm in hiring the right person
Monica Pitts 38:08
and call their references. And yeah, it's hard even even when you do take the time to hire somebody the right way, it still doesn't mean they're going to be the right human. And that's like the worst feeling. But if you take your time, and you really do think about it, it's so much easier. And if they don't, if they do not have a portfolio, and they say that they do graphic design job to hire them. Yeah, they have to have, they have to have at least examples of their work that they can send to you because that is noodles. Okay, so how can people get a hold of you? Let's say that there's somebody in the audience who is a virtual assistant, I actually have a couple of virtual assistants I know that are in my audience, because I hung out with them during my website planning workshops, and they might want to get trained up. How do they do that? If you're
Emily Reagan 39:00
if you're a VA, and you're hanging out in admin land, and you want to come and join me in the marketing world. I have a course that teaches all the things we talked about from affiliate marketing to email marketing is called the unicorn digital marketing assistance school. It's everything that I first trained my own team on which it all started with SEO, but I flipped it we start with email marketing here. But yeah, come on Come I set up a self study. So for if you're a go getter, if you already have clients if you don't need extra hand holding, that is a reduced price and it's at your own pace, which is beautiful, but I do live launches once a year for the live cohort that has a few extra things. And I include some job opps over there, and that will be launching again in October.
Monica Pitts 39:47
Yay. Okay, so now friends, you know that virtual assistants are so awesome, and they can help fill in the gaps in your team and get you rolling even better. So um, let's see your domain name again or however you want people to contact you and find you
Emily Reagan 40:05
I hang out the most on Instagram right now. So you can find me at Emily Reagan, PR, I still have the PR from when I had the agency and I just haven't changed it because everything has that right now. And the other Emily Reagan beat me to my domain name that we could, you know, one day I'll get it. So hang out on Instagram, I also, I also have a podcast called unicorns unite, where we talk about different marketing tactics, we talk to different freelancers. It's pretty fun over there. It's a small podcast, but it's very, very niche and specific. And I also have a free Facebook group, if you're looking to hire and you're not ready to submit the form or you want to come lurk and stalk a little bit, you can join the free Facebook group, there are VAs hanging out there. And there's extra trainings and whatnot there and I have a freebie. And it's will help you with your first hire. And it's actually new. And it will help you write down the tasks you need. categorize them. So you can have different job roles or figure out like what that hire is because here's the thing, here's the thing I'm going to tell you earlier, there are six departments of business, there's HR, there's accounting and finance, there's customer service, there's product development, there's operations, and then there's marketing and sales. So there's six different departments. So you want to be thinking about which departments do you need support in the most. So start creating that awareness around that now this guide will help you and then you can hire for that person where people fail is they start to Frankenstein it and they get that person they expect him to be good at everything and work in all the departments with multiple bosses. And that doesn't work. And so when I talked about that person up leveling they up level within their department. So think of me as the marketing you know, department for you, I can supply the views. But here's the thing, the like everybody's individual, I have women in my community who who do accounting and bookkeeping, like that, that's their background. So you might truly get a unicorn who does that too. I just don't do admin. My inbox is a mess. I don't touch it, I actually should hire a admin assistant myself. But you can get that freebie how to hire your first VA in four weeks at emilyreaganpr.com/hire.
Monica Pitts 42:13
emilyreaganpr.com/hire. I love what you said about not frankensteining them, it reminds me of every time I have to go buy a pair of black shoes. I'm like, Well, I want them to be good with jeans. And I want them to be great with a dress. And then I want him to be like, you know, I could wear him in the fall and probably in the winter and maybe in the spring and summer too. And then I'm like What have you just done, you just tried to put four pairs of shoes into one pair of shoes, you need a pair of boots, you need a pair of heels, you do pair of flip flops, knock it off by the three pairs of shoes, right because they they don't Frankenstein into one thing and people are not that way either. Like they're really not like I cannot tell you the last time I hired somebody who can really really design who can write, they don't go together. Like they don't I don't know how I can do both. But I've never hired anyone else you can. And a lot of great programmers, they can't design. Mine can because he's magical, but a lot of them can't write. So I think it's the same thing with all the different people in your business, especially if you're hiring for somebody for marketing, they probably can't work on your books. They're not their brain doesn't do maths.
Emily Reagan 43:24
You just don't know and you want the want your teammate to be in their wheelhouse or they're going to turn in crappy work, they're going to drag their feet, things are gonna come on time. So you want that person. And one of the questions I like to ask in like when you're doing a discovery call is pull out that growth mindset and say like, what are you most interested in learning? Because I will tell you everything. One girl was like, Oh, this SEO course. And I'm like, Ooh, nice. So what does that tell me? It's probably not gonna be my graphic designer, right?
Monica Pitts 43:52
No, and Okay, so my favorite I should. And then I'll wrap up after this. My favorite interview question is to ask people what is their least favorite kind of housework? Because if you are a person who likes to do a big job and get it done, like I like cleaning the bathroom. I only have to do it every so often. It's a big job. I get it done. I walk away. I hate doing laundry. It's never finished. I can't keep up with the laundry. I don't remember to flip it. I'm a big picture girl. I'm a bathroom cleaner. And so you ask people about this. And you can almost always tell like, there was like my best friend loves the laundry. loves it. And I'm like, that's why we're so good together girl because I'll do your bathroom, do my laundry.
Emily Reagan 44:39
And I'm just like, I like laundry when the kids leave me alone. I can watch a Dateline or love is blind or something but like, that doesn't happen. Yeah. So what do you what would you call the person who aimlessly walks around the house does decluttering and then therefore it gets a no cleaning done? That's me.
Monica Pitts 44:55
Yeah, that's me. And that's like a big picture person. Right. So that's not the person that I want doing my admin tasks or working inside of my QuickBooks or doing like monotonous tasks over and over again, because it just motivates that person. I want that person doing something that's like bigger picture, maybe a big planning exercise, like writing that blog post or doing that one off blog, you know, or page on my website. That's that person. They don't belong over in the land.
Emily Reagan 45:27
Do you have another podcast or blog about this, I would love to share it, you should just do a LinkedIn article. And I will share it because this is I've never heard this before. It's like the best thing ever.
Monica Pitts 45:39
I have another one too. I will make a podcast about it. Because I have like a few interview questions that are just really out there. And when people answer them, they're like, I don't even know why I'm answering this. And I'm literally checking boxes in my head, like, you can do this job or
Emily Reagan 45:52
not to me later, because I'm dying to know.
Monica Pitts 45:56
Okay, well, thank you, everybody, for hanging out with us in this really fun VA slash hiring discussion. I feel like if you haven't thought about hiring, you probably now have all kinds of like thoughts in juices flowing about hiring. And that's a big deal. And it might not have to be somebody who's full time, it could be a virtual assistant, it could even be a unicorn, it could be. So um, thank you so much for joining us, Emily, I learned so much today. And everybody who's listening. Thank you so much. And until next time, go forth and mark it with purpose, to get a copy of the show notes, and all those links that we just heard from our guests, head on over to Mayecreate.com and mayecreate.com. And of course, I have to tell you the things that all podcasters are supposed to tell you at the end of your episode, like if you thought this was awesome, you could subscribe and then I would like get to tell you when I have new stuff for you to learn a new episodes and new people to meet new stories to tell. And of course, I would really love it if you left a review. So head on over to Mayecreate.com. For those Show Notes mayecreate.com Or maybe even contacted my team about building that next website. We can do it for you. And we even have our better than DIY website program that teaches you to plan and build your own website. So head on over to make create.com ma y ecreat.com I'll meet you there.
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