SHOWNOTES
Belinda Wasser (self-confessed control freak) talks to Jen about hiring her first VA. She wasn’t sure that any of this would work for her. Following the process outlined in the Front Row CEO program made the difference.
Belinda shares how things started:
She used a test week to make sure her VA would be a good fit
Get her suggestions for the tasks to assign that make an impact without worry
Using videos helped to make sure she was communicating exactly what she needed as part of VA training
Get the breakdown on 3 specific processes that Belinda created that her VA implements. Repeat tasks that used to take hours, now feel automatic. A key benefit: her VA was able to get up to speed on her content, voice and messaging from the beginning.
Other projects that Belinda has in the works:
Periscope research and process development
YouTube updates based on a content template
Social media posting/scheduling
Jen and Belinda discuss the time difference and how that works. Hear how they keep track of projects and how they’ve developed a process flow for each day. (Copy this and make it your own.)
Belinda has used her videos and Teamwork to create a knowledge library. She also outlines 2 other benefits that were completely unexpected and delightful.
Taking the Front Row CEO course to hire her VA has been a huge help. More than anything, Belinda says she feels supported and that the sense of overwhelm is gone!
RESOURCES
TRANSCRIPT
Gary Vee:
00:00 Hey guys, it's Gary Vaynerchuck and you're listening to the front row entrepreneur podcast with our girl, Jen.
Jen Lehner:
00:13 Belinda Wasser is a virtual assistant and she calls her business rocket girl solutions. She's also growing her business, the VA connection that helps people launch their own careers as virtual assistants in order to get this business off the ground. Belinda joy, my 90 day group coaching program, the accelerator and at that time it didn't really occur to her to hire a VA since she is a VA, but with a little nudging on my part. She completed my front row CEO program and was able to hire her perfect match VA. consequently, her new business has completely taken off because Belinda's able to spend time doing the things that truly make a difference in growing her business quickly, like creating trainings, reaching out to prospective new clients and students, mapping out all of her marketing campaigns, all Y being supported by her amazing new virtual assistant. But what I really want you to hear in this interview is the absolute ingenious way that Belinda has crafted collaboration with her VA. she really gets into the nitty gritty and I think you're going to love it.
Jen Lehner:
01:20 Hey Belinda, thank you so much for joining me today.
Belinda Wasser:
01:24 Oh, thanks for having me. It's a pleasure.
Read more...
Jen Lehner:
01:26 So you, um, you did the front row CEO program and I have just really been blown away with what you've been able to accomplish with your new virtual assistant. But before we go there, because I really want to get into the weeds with you and hear exactly what you guys are doing together. But before we do that, I want to ask like what, what were your very first steps with your virtual assistant? Like did you know exactly how you were gonna make this work or how you were gonna fit her into your daily workflow?
Belinda Wasser:
02:02 Um, no, not at first because I didn't, I didn't know how capable she was going to turn out to be. She turned out to be a complete rock star, so I went in the, the other thing to know about me is I'm a control freak, so I need to know everything. I need to know how it goes together. And I think it's, it's just part of my nature and my VA and I now joke about it. So I wanted to go in with something that was low risk, meaning that it would only impact me if it went wrong and test her to see how well we could communicate together. Cause that was a concern that I had. You know, her being so far away and English as a second language, which she's probably grammatically better English speaker then than I am. Um, but uh, so I went in and had her organize some things that, that, that were a mess because I didn't have time to look at them.
Belinda Wasser:
02:57 So for example, I had, um, a spreadsheet, a Google drive sheet with all the metrics of my newsletter, you know, opens, opt outs, things like that. And it was very structured. Everything that I've given her has been very structured and clear what the outcome will be. And she did a beautiful job and it was funny cause when we first started, I, I was worried that she would, would run out of things to do in the test week. So I really piled it on. And this poor woman, she did all of it and I kept saying, are you okay over there? And she, she just kept going. So I gave her things like that, things, you know, things where if that spreadsheet got misunderstood and she and the data was incorrect, that was an easy fix. So I started with things like that.
Jen Lehner:
03:40 All right. Let me jump in. You had, you mentioned the test week. What are you talking about
Belinda Wasser:
03:45 in your program? Um, you recommended this, this test week, which was genius because when I've hired VA's in the past, I've just jumped in like, here we are, we're together, we're gonna do this. And this test week I gave 'em my VA a number of of tasks and she created systems and perform the tasks. And then at the end of that week we decided we were going to work together. So it was a nice way to work together but not have an, you know, an awkward conversation. If it didn't work out, we, we already knew that we were going to have that conversation.
Jen Lehner:
04:21 Okay. So I want to back up just a second. You had mentioned systems. So, uh, in the front row CEO program, for our listeners who don't, who don't know, what we do is you were giving our VA's initially a task to complete based on a video that we've created, like just a simple, simple video and we're asking them to watch the video and then create a checklist and a basically a system for that process. And usually it's some process that we do all the time daily in our business. Something pretty simple. Then they, they're documenting that. And as they do that, the idea is that not only have they created a system for you in the future, so when you hire your next virtual assistant, you could just hand that over. But also they're learning very, you know, very, um, in a lot of detail exactly how to do that thing. So it's, it's a, it works out pretty well. Okay. So, uh, so after those first steps, Belinda, so like, and she's coming back to you and she's like, okay, check, done. Done. Exactly right. So, uh, and I remember you sharing that with me and it made me so happy because you, um, you were so surprised.
Belinda Wasser:
05:33 Yes. Yes. I couldn't have been more delighted with how quickly she came back and, and how proactive she was was she was concerned that she was doing things properly and she was truly trying to please me. It was amazing. It still is. It still is amazing. I think we're on week 10 or 11 of our relationship and each day she more and more involved and has terrific ideas for me. Things that I didn't even think about that she wants to take on. And it's, it's wonderful.
Jen Lehner:
06:05 How did you, well, I want to talk about you being a control freak and like how you got past that. Well, let's start there.
Belinda Wasser:
06:14 How did I get past it? Well, the first thing is that I make sure that I'm always the one with my finger on the trigger. So for example, she creates my newsletter every week. It's not complicated, but there's lots of different pieces and she has to pull information from several different spots to pull it all together. And there's a lot of links that we need to make sure that they work. So she puts it in MailChimp, but I'm the one that schedules it. So she sends me a test. So she's handling the whole thing, but I'm checking the lengths, making sure they all work and then I schedule it. So there's a way that I think virtual assistants can do a lot of work, but that you can, you can still maintain that control. So she also puts my newsletter on Kajabi and before it publishes, I look at it, I feel like ultimately I'm responsible for the, the work and I'm responsible for my business.
Belinda Wasser:
07:10 She can help with almost everything, but I do put these sort of safeties in place so that you know, we don't, I don't look at my Kajabi website in six months and say, Oh my gosh, I can't believe that that happened. How did I not know that? Right. That's how we do that. And those steps are actually built into the, into the checklist. So you know, she puts it into MailChimp, she does this, she does that. And then there's a step that says send a test to Belinda and then there's a task for me. Schedule the newsletter.
Jen Lehner:
07:40 Love it, love a good system. So speaking of good systems, uh, one thing that just blew me away that I just thought was so, so smart on your part was what you did. Like it was one of the first, I guess real projects that you, that you gave to her, which had to do with your blog posts and your rocket girl show. Can you share that with us?
Belinda Wasser:
08:01 Yes. So twice a week I have a Facebook live show called the rocket girl show. And there was lots of moving parts that happened with that. So I sat down, I thought about what they were and made recurring checklists. So what that means is that every time she checks a task, it fast forwards that task again. So then the next week on the same day, so for example, Tuesday is a, is a day that the rocket girls show happens. So before the show, she takes my newsletter and she creates a graphic for the, for the show in Canva. And then she takes the newsletter itself and she creates a script. There are, there's texts that I repeat every time in the beginning and at the end of the newsletter as I turned it into the show. And so she creates that script. Now I go in and edit it, but all the raw materials there.
Belinda Wasser:
08:54 Then she takes the image that she created in Canva and she creates a five slide PowerPoint presentation for me because I always, I like to have PowerPoint as an aid when I'm doing the rocket girl show. So she, she creates that and she creates the slide where I'm then going to put in my five points of what I'm going to talk about. So that's all in a folder that we share. Then afterward she has all kinds of different things that she, that she does. She posts it on LinkedIn, she puts it on. Um, I'm trying to think. She puts it on LinkedIn. Then she goes to YouTube and she updates the YouTube notes and she downloads the, the file to, uh, our Dropbox. And then I upload it to, um, a place where we get the transcript done and then I edit that, give it to her, and then she, and then she puts that in Kajabi. So there's this whole system that just happens. I feel like a rock star. So when it's time to do the rocket girl show, I just like slide into my chair. She set up stream yard, all the graphics are there. My presentation is ready for me to spend 15 minutes on. I make a few edits to my script and I'm on and that's it. Okay.
Jen Lehner:
10:07 Okay. Let me back up. You started from the point of talking about your newsletter and then she takes your newsletter and creates the slide deck and your script and uh, and all the graphics and she puts it all in stream yard. And all you gotta do is show up and press record, which is a dream. But didn't you also take all of your blog posts initially and give her the blog post first or, or the newsletters created from the blog posts?
Belinda Wasser:
10:35 Oh, that's a good point. Okay. So what I did was one of the first things I had her do was create or create a spreadsheet of all my blog posts when they were published. I had like 70 of them at that point when they were published and put the URL into a spreadsheet because I knew that we were going to reference them from there. She took and they were already on my WordPress website. From there, she took them and put them on Kajabi because I'm transferring that website over to Kajabi. So I wanted all of that to be current. And she categorized them according to the categories in WordPress. And so I'm running these, these mirror systems. So that's where she got the blog posts from from my, from my website. Now I give her the raw blog posts. She creates the newsletter in MailChimp and then you know Moza through all these systems updating all the statistics that I track.
Jen Lehner:
11:35 Oh it's so good. So you guys listening. So think about this like, so maybe you don't have 70 blog posts, but absolutely like one of the things that you that everybody could, could collaborate with the VA on is to have that person cause this would be something great, especially in the beginning to get them very familiar with your, your voice and your content is to inventory your content like this. So to go through your Instagram posts, your blog posts, your podcasts, whatever, put the link next to it on a spreadsheet. Any other pertinent information? I don't know, it just seems like to catalog everything would be the first logical step and then repurposing that content and really getting the most mileage out of it, which is one of the best ways I think that we can, uh, work with the VA is to just get more mileage out of our, out of our content.
Belinda Wasser:
12:34 You know, I forgot something that she did in the beginning too with that spreadsheet I asked her to and I gave her a very specific instructions about, you know, where the words would come from. But she excerpted each, took an excerpt from each blog post so that when we posted it as the rocket girl show on Facebook as an event, that that would be the text that was there. So she did all of it so that it would be ready. I thought for sure I was going to have to edit it. I didn't change a word.
Jen Lehner:
13:02 Wow. That is amazing. So now what? Like, so, so give us an idea of some other stuff that's happening on a daily basis and maybe, uh, where you're, where you're headed.
Belinda Wasser:
13:16 Absolutely. So she is clamoring to do more every day. She's like, I can do more. I can do more. So now, now that we have this relationship, now that I feel confident and I feel like I know her a lot better, I've started just giving her projects. So yesterday, um, I decided that I, that I wanted to figure out Periscope and so I ma and I know nothing about it. I have an account and that's really it. But I want to publish the rocket girl show there as well. So I made a video for her and I just sort of wandered around. I said, you know, this is what we're going to do and this is why we're going to do it and this is what I need you to figure out. And if you could just let me know what this is about and how it works, that would be great.
Belinda Wasser:
13:59 I gave her, you know, my login to Periscope, um, via last pass and she's going to go off and do research. Um, I asked her to do the same thing with YouTube, but I was still in my control freak mode then. So what I did was, you know, I really looked at it and I saw, you know, what needed to be done and I, and I said, can you take this to the next level knowing that I was already sort of safe and that how I'd set it up and she came back with best practices that I ran by you and you, you said, Oh yeah, yeah, that's exactly. And I had no idea. So now she, last night she or yeah, my last night her today she went through and updated all the, um, all the descriptions based on the template that I made last night for the 17 episodes that are on YouTube. Oh my goodness. Yeah. Just so fast I wake up and it's like,
Jen Lehner:
14:52 so yeah. So let's talk about the time difference and how you, uh, you, you two are navigating that. So it's about depending on, you know, daylight savings time or not, you're on the East coast, so it's pretty much 12 hours. Uh, right now I think it's 13 hours. But so like when it's midnight here, it's noon there. And so, so how are you, how are you guys working through that?
Belinda Wasser:
15:13 You know, it really hasn't been an issue at all. Whenever I want to S to speak with her on zoom, she makes herself available. She has a late night. She has, they'd have different, she has different hours. Like she'll get up in the middle of the night, she gets up at five in the morning, you know, and it's not at all at my request. It's just how she manages everything she needs to do. So generally we'll speak at nine o'clock in the morning, my time, which is 10:00 PM her time. And she has suggested that time and that's worked out well. We do have a document, a word, it's not word, it's Google, what is it called? Doc, a Google doc. And every day she updates me with what she has accomplished and if she has any questions. So one of the first things I do, and then I look forward to is when I sit at my computer, I look at her document first and it's kind of my way to say hello to her and the work we're going to do together. And it's very conversational, you know, I'll say thank you, this was great. And she'll say, have a good day. And you know, so we're sort of chatting in there and my, my work doesn't have to be done at a specific time. It has to be done on a specific day. So that that really hasn't been an issue at all.
Jen Lehner:
16:22 I know initially you are a little bit resistant to thisas many people are. And you're, you had, you know, maybe different reasons, but it doesn't matter. Like there was still I think a little bit of of resistance. I don't think you were sure how this person was going to fit into your world. When you, you know, reflecting back, is this something that you would recommend to others and like what, what would you say to anybody else who's sort of like, eh, I don't know about, I don't know about this.
Belinda Wasser:
16:48 It's funny because one of my best friends is also going to work with my VA. she just told me this morning she'd be willing to do that and my advice to him was, and maybe this is my control freak, we'll have to factor that in. But I think that we really have to, we have to be clear about what we want. I just got off a conversation, a phone call with a potential client who has no idea what she wants. I cannot help her. I can't help her sort out her confused mind. That's not my specialty. Go to a VA, any VA and just say, can you untangle this giant mess? That's not going to be successful. However, if you have a specific tasks like figure out Periscope or tell me the best practices for YouTube or here's my newsletter, this is how I would like it done. I think you can be massively successful as long as you're willing to put in the, the time to explain the tasks and, and be a good delegator, you know, when, when is this, when do you need this done by and how do you want it done? I think it's a great thing.
Jen Lehner:
17:51 Yeah. But I, I totally agree and I think that what's, what's, um, good to know is that you do need to take the time to be clear and explain the task. But the great thing is, is that when you use this system of recording, like using a loom video is what people use. When you do that, you, you know that you pretty much only have to do it that one time. And that's right. Yeah. And that's, that is a big like pushback I get is like, Ugh, you know, I'm going to spend all this time training and I've been through it before and then I don't know where I'm going to find the time and then you know, I'm going to, and then they're going to leave or something's going to happen and then I've got to start over. And who has that kind of time?
Belinda Wasser:
18:27 Right though? There's been many benefits though that surprised me. So one of the benefits is that it requires me to be clear verbally and that's something that I haven't, I haven't felt strong in. I feel like I'm clear mentally, but sometimes I can get things tangled up when I'm talking about it. I don't feel that way anymore. I've made 40 videos. I am really clear about how, how to speak about the work now, which has made me a better writer of my blog posts. I mean the, it's, it's shocking that the baskets yeah. And the videos, I turned them into a video library. So we, I use the project management software teamwork and we attach the videos to the recurring tasks. And then there's a feature there called note a notebook. So I started a notebook and each task has my video, her checklist and the process documented.
Belinda Wasser:
19:23 So it's this library of knowledge and what I told my VA early on because I wanted her to understand the intention for why these videos, why the processes should be as the best that they can. I said, look, we're going to grow this business and you're going to be the lead VA and I don't want you to have to waste a lot of time training someone, so we're going to give them the training library and then you can manage their work with me. When she heard that she was so excited, she just was over the moon.
Jen Lehner:
19:52 And I love, you know, I love that outlook because it's, you know, you're not saying, you're not saying like we've got this library in case you get abducted by or you leave me or whatever and you're not, you're not coming from that place. You're like, Hey, we're, we're growing like wildfire. And so the next person, you know, I mean I just, I love that this is for the person who we add to our, our growing, our growing team. So, and finally blend. I want to ask, how do, I mean, how has this affected, I guess your overall business and uh, and your, and your life and your, you know, your sort of, your outlook on things
Belinda Wasser:
20:27 dramatically. Dramatically. Well, first of all, I can't stop talking about her. I think my boyfriend might be afraid I'm going to leave him for her. Um, it's, I feel supported. I feel completely supported. Every detail that she's managing is very visible to me. I can tell what's going on, we're communicating. And I, before we started working together, because I was working so much and it was so detailed oriented, I was feeling like parched, like dried out, you know, just like how I can't do this anymore. And to my delight, she's, she's working 20 to 30 hours a week and she's fast. So she says to me all the time, I can't believe you were doing all this and that other stuff. Like, yeah, I can't believe that either. So I'm still busy, but now I'm busy creating new stuff, you know, not managing. I don't need to be an expert on how to, you know, create an event in Facebook. I already am. Let her do it. Hey men. Yeah. Yeah.
Jen Lehner:
21:35 fantastic. Well thank you so much Belinda for sharing this with us today. You know, I can't wait to check in with you in a couple of months and uh, and see how your team has has grown. Cause I have a feeling that, you know, two is gonna turn into three and three is going to turn into foreign. You know, we'll, we'll just have to say I'm ready for that.
Jen Lehner:
21:54 If you'd like to connect with Belinda or learn more about her business, head on over to the VA connection.com and links to all the resources mentioned today along with the show notes can be found at jenlehner.com/belinda and if you'd like more information about Front Row CEO. Head over to frontrowceo.com see you next time.
