Unlocking New Levels of Business with VAs | Sue Lehman | Work Like A Mother Podcast Episode 11
In this episode of "Work Like A Mother" podcast, host Marina Tolentino engages in an enlightening conversation with virtual assistant expert, Sue Lehman. Join them as they discuss the increasing importance of virtual assistants for entrepreneurs in 2024. Sue shares her journey from a long career in government service to becoming a virtual assistant, emphasizing the need for female support and mentorship in the business world. The episode delves into the significance of delegation, the power of hiring a virtual assistant, and the transformative impact it can have on an entrepreneur's productivity and business growth. If you're ready to take your business to the next level, gain valuable insights from an experienced entrepreneur and virtual assistant in this episode. Plus, discover actionable tips, practical advice, and valuable resources to help you make informed decisions about hiring a virtual assistant for your business. Don't miss out on this empowering discussion between Marina Tolentino and Sue Lehman, offering a deep dive into the world of virtual assistance and its profound impact on your business.
Mentioned in this Episode:
Sue Lehman
Marina Tolentino
https://www.marinatolentino.com/
YT: https://www.youtube.com/@marinatolentino
Newsletter: https://marinatolentino.myflodesk.com/worklikeamother
Transcript:
All right, today on this episode of the work like a mother podcast, I have a new friend. Her name is sue, and she's actually based out of Ohio. So you're wondering, how the heck did you meet her? But it's through this really cool community called the Brand Builders Group. And what's great about this is not only the education that we receive about building a personal brand, but it's the network. And so I literally just posted in the Facebook group, like, hey, I have a new podcast. I'm looking for awesome people to interview. And she was like, sign me up. So here we are today on this podcast, and she is a very experienced virtual assistant.
And so we're going to dive into the world of what does that look like today in 2024? Why do entrepreneurs need them? And really just getting into the nitty gritty of why it's so essential to add to your database. Right. And so, sue, you are also a mom to a 24 year old son. Congratulations. You made it into adulthood with him.
More like he made it into adulthood but yes.
but that's a big part. So I'm in the thick of it with a four year old and an eight year old. And so I just can't even fathom young adulthood yet. But welcome to the show, sue.
Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it.
Yeah. So I just want to dive right into it. Like What was your experience like before you became a virtual assistant, and why did you start your business?
I actually have worked for the government for 32 years, about to retire from my full time gig. And in that time frame, I have found that female mentors are very lacking. And most females, compared to their male counterparts, tend to do things all by themselves. So we would handle everything, whereas the gentleman might pass it off to a clerical assistant or whatever. The lack of mentorship, like I said, is a problem. And people just. I mean, females just don't feel comfortable asking for help because they take it as a sign of weakness. And I started my virtual assistant business because I see such a need for females to be supported in wherever they are in their journey.
Yes.
So that's kind of what brought me here.
And I think I saw in your bio and your site that you helped your sister, who is in real estate, too. Tell me about that and what you were doing with her.
My sister is a real estate agent and property manager. She is obviously a small business owner. It's just her. So she is constantly juggling all the tasks of her business, and then she juggles everything at home as well. And it's kind of started out as an informal thing because traditional Lego visit her in the wintertime for, like, a week or two because it's cold here, and she lives in California, and it kind of morphed know we could be doing this over the computer. So she actually became my very first client, and it's worked really well. I've helped her do all kinds of stuff that before computers even really before COVID we wouldn't have dreamed that we could potentially do together. And she especially got me rolling on this journey.
She's closest in age to me. I have five sisters. And I just was watching her struggle, struggle so hard, and I was like, get off the struggle bus. Let me help you.
So good. So I just want to kind of pick a tangent from that. So, in my experience, I'm in real estate, too, but I had never thought I could afford a virtual assistant or just the same thing. This, like, shame. I need to carry all the plates. I'm a control freak, right? How dare I give this off of my plate? But it wasn't until. And this was 2021, I was probably doing six to eight transactions a month at that time, which was a lot, because this was, I mean, drinking from a fire hose during the pandemic, right? It was crazy town. And at that time, I still had another company.
I owned a staging company, and I have my honey company, too. And I have the two small kids. And so I was drowning, and I kept hearing people who are more successful in me, in real estate talk about their assistants, but because we're a virtual brokerage, I was like, well, there's no way I need someone boots on the ground, right? Like, I have to do all of this here. I need someone to go run and pick up the signs. But I just started to dive into the world a little bit. And honestly, I just put out a cold Instagram story of, I'm looking to hire an assistant. Who do you know? And a wonderful lady named Christy came into my world and took the reins. Like, let me tell you, she was never a virtual assistant before, but she's very experienced in customer service, and she just saw the crazy mess that I was living in and started to bring order to my world.
And so that was huge. And then before I knew it, she was doing client care for me. She was doing all the ordering, all the expenses. She was paying all the invoices for me, all the scheduling, and it was just like, oh, my gosh. You unlock this new level of business and then peace at night, because someone else is also watching your emails and your calendar, and there's just something about a mental load that you are giving off to someone else that's so huge. Like that in itself is priceless. But then fast forward, I've hired Rose now, and Rose is who you've been working with to schedule this podcast. Amazing.
A totally different set of skills where she comes from the tech world where she was managing high level ceos and five different time zones traveling all over the place. So she's like a calendar Excel wizard. And again, it's just a tool set that I didn't even know I needed until I saw it. And I see how efficient she is and how streamlined she is. And again, having that mental load off of just like Rose has got it. Rose has got it so that I can do what I'm best at, which is talking to people, which is having conversations and converting leads into sales. Honestly, that is my sweet spot. And so I just think this world of virtual assistant doesn't get talked about enough.
I think every entrepreneur should have one. And so I'm excited to kind of dive into what is you teach and how you're helping female entrepreneurs really take that load off of their shoulders a little bit. Who would you say is, like, your favorite client? What kind of client do you want to book today or who do you work with?
My favorite definitely is female small business owner. I'm not necessarily partial to any particular business because one of the beautiful things about what I do is I've had the privilege to work with all kinds of different business owners. That's what I like. She is successful. She could probably be more successful if she had a way to get some things off her plate so that she could concentrate on what she does best. She just doesn't know where to turn or who to trust because she's used to handling everything herself and she's afraid that if she delegates anything, it's not going to get done right.
Perfectionist, OCD control freak. I identify with all of too. Me, too.
I often refer to myself as a recovering perfectionist. And as Rory Baden in BBG always says, you are most uniquely positioned to help the person you once were. So those are my favorite. Absolutely.
Yeah. And I think when I think about life before having an assistant versus after, it's night and day and women don't even realize this other world that can exist. When you start to delegate, like, the power of delegation and boundaries and like, oh, my gosh, you don't have to do it all. What do you mean? Someone else is going to do it for me, and they can do it better than you. Even just to have this belief that it's possible is so huge. So you mentioned the kiss principle on your website. You want to kind of explain what that is?
That really literally stands for keep it simple with sue. But my whole idea is that what I propose to people know you can't do it all. Doing it all is going to be your, you know, the bane of your existence is the mundane. So you need to identify what it is you don't like to do, you don't want to do. Go forth, do your research, hire the best person you can or trade tests with somebody. If for whatever reason, you really can't afford it right now, delegate. But always make sure you check in again. You can't just delegate and assume they're doing it.
All right, not that kind of thing. But don't micromanage. I mean, you need to let go. I have often said one of the things as a mom you can delegate is dusting. It's not my favorite task. I delegate it. Is it ever fully dusted? The way I always want? No, but I'm not going to die if there's a speck of dust on something. So it's okay to delegate certain things? It's okay if they're not perfect.
Now, obviously, you want to find the best person you can hire, the best quality you can. It is well worth every penny.
No? Absolutely. And so this is just. I forgot about this. When I hired Rose, I actually hired a headhunter. I paid someone to go interview. We did what was it? Indeed. And LinkedIn blast. We had 1500 applications, which is insanity because it was virtual.
Right. So we had people from all over the country in every single time zone. And so she narrowed those down into 20 interviews. And out of the 20, I did second round interviews with five. And Rose made the cut. And it was such an intense process, I would say. And I'm so glad I did it, actually, because I found someone that had the level of service that I needed because I got all over the place types of experiences. Right, right.
A lot of college kids who were just like, okay, no, you don't get it. I need someone a little bit more polished and professional and organized. Once you're doing that process, you're learning along the way, too. You're learning as you interview what makes a good assistant and what makes a bad one. Just through the interview process, you're understanding a lot about it. And one of the things I wanted to mention with this is like the money aspect right. So the big objection most entrepreneurs have is I can't afford it or it's going to be too expensive. It's like the limiting belief that they have.
And my belief is you can't afford to not get a va. So the reason is we are service providers and usually business owner operators, right? Until we value enough where we have employees, we are wearing all the hats. So you're going to hit a cap eventually. When you get the cap, you're going to stop bringing in enough income. You're going to only be able to meet the amount that you can output. So the only way to grow your business past that ceiling is to delegate and start to add help so that you can do more. And so when I think back to 2021, six to eight transactions a month, with all the other things I had going on, that was my cap. I was at my max.
I was working at midnight just to play catch up on emails like it was not a healthy situation. And now I can easily say, hey, I can do 15 a month and I'm sleeping at night. And I feel great because I've got a transaction coordinator that does everything, and I've got a virtual assistant that helps on the client side, and I've got the title team and all these other partners. My sole job is working with the client only. Anything else is outside my scope of work, and I delegate the crap out of it. And so you really get to rein in what you're good at so that you can then multiply yourself and just do that thing more, whatever that your secret sauce is that's so, so good. But I think when it comes to affordability, it's really not that expensive. Like, if I could bring on one extra closing a month, I would three x pay what it is for my virtual assistant with that one extra closing.
Exactly. And you can't do the extra sale if you don't have the time to do it. I have seen people hire lots of different kinds of people, and the most common complaint I hear is they won't stay. They don't stay. And I'm like, well, you kind of get what you pay for. I mean, if you're willing to go through somebody every month or you're willing to take maybe somebody who doesn't have the skills, all the skills you want, then certainly you can pay less for that. And maybe that's all you need. Maybe you just need someone to answer the phone.
But if you want more, like you said, you were searching for somebody with the skills you needed and wanted and.
You wanted some technical skills.
Like you said, you wouldn't necessarily hire somebody just out of college for that.
Yeah. And I think you get what you pay for. And also is the. I mean, I see this sometimes where agents will hire assistants in the Philippines, which, there's nothing against that, but I think there's a certain mindset when it comes to that, versus someone who's in your hometown or something. Like, there's a divide on how you communicate with that person. Whereas for me, I'm bringing this person into my world. They're now part of my work family. I know I'm financially responsible for this person, so I also need to perform to help provide for her life and the other vendors that I'm working with.
So it becomes this nurturing atmosphere versus just like, I don't want to say like a low level employee, they are equally just as important as my job. It's not under me. That makes sense.
It takes a village, right?
Yes. It's such a big mindset shift because I'll see people treat their vas like they're just like, oh, whatever, delegate. Delegate. And communication isn't very polite or clear, and it's not on the same page. And that's the people that leave. Those are the people that don't feel respected, know worth their time and appreciated. Whereas for me, I'm always like, thank you, Rose, I owe you my me. And she realizes how important she is.
And I think another thing that just popped into my head is talking about sops. So your standard operating procedures and how most entrepreneurs think, okay, I'm onboarding this VA, but it's going to take six months, and I have to really write out all these sops myself, which is a whole nother job. That's a complete falsity and limiting belief. So, for the people, your va can write all your sops for you as you train them. Yay for that. Yay.
And you know what? It is so worth taking the time to properly train someone so that they're not frustrated and you're not frustrated. And communication, like you said, flows easily, because if you just give them something and you don't tell them how you want it done, they may make assumptions, or then you get irritated because they're asking you so many questions and that's not productive for anybody.
Yeah, absolutely. Okay, so let's kind of roll into interviewing Vas. Like, what are questions someone should ask if they've never hired one before? What do you like to be asked on interviews?
Personally, I like to get a feel for what they're looking for. So when someone comes in with a list of skills or tasks that they need done and they basically lay out how their business kind of rolls and that kind of thing, to me, that's what I need personally because I need to know how you function so I can figure out if I can function along with you, if I am a good fit, because if I'm not a good fit, then I don't want to waste anybody's time because that's not helpful. So know what you want, know what you need done, and be prepared to kind of give an idea of how your world is.
Yeah, that's so true. And I think by the end of the interview process, I had a great elevator speech to tell people like, this is who I am, this is what I do, and this is what I need help with. And so just taking five minutes to really think about not only what do you need help with, but what quadrants. Like, there's like four areas of things you must do, things that someone else can do, some things that you should never do, like getting those tasks really clear so you can succinctly say, look, this is going to be your role and this is how we're going to fill your hours. And then there's like bonus material for you to grow into after onboarding. So I did a really great job with that with Rose was like, okay, this is where we are today. By 2024. I also want to add all these other things to your plate.
If you can handle them, get ready. This is like podcast, but it takes time and it doesn't take as long as people think, though, to onboard. So I would say for us it was about six weeks of like, hey, let's just get you into all the programs and platforms. There's a lot of tech here that you might be new to. After that, it's a matter of just like finessing a couple of things. And like you said, making sure we're double checking work. It's to our quality of standard. And then let's go from there.
We don't have to do the same monotonous stuff. And also asking her feedback, what could we be doing better this week? What's some areas of the business that you think we should pay more attention to? Because now you become this mentor for my business as well, which people don't understand, right?
Because even obviously, Rose is not out there doing the sales and that kind of thing since that's your function. But she might be able to see things that you don't see that she can say, if you focus more here, you did more here, or if you call this person or something to that effect, that helps you also grow your business. And that way it's kind of like you said, your work family. You get more buy in from your work family if you include them in on things. So I think that's a really great thing, and that's very important. Don't just think of the person as the dishwasher, because you want them to be able to function at a higher level, to actually actively assist you, even if they're not there running right behind you.
Yeah, exactly. And my goal is also to keep providing new opportunities for her to grow, not only career wise, but also financially. So she's adding new skill sets. I'm able to pay her more. Hopefully. We're supposed to grow together, not just like you're here for a season. And then I'm moving on. I really want to find someone that's enmeshed in the whole world and they feel the mission and vision just as much as I do.
Like I said, the work family is really important. So trying to find that, I think, is huge. Okay. For someone who's never ever hired a virtual assistant, and they're like, I think I'm ready. Or at least I know I need one, but I haven't done one yet. What are the first steps?
Well, aside from making the list of tasks that you know what it is.
You want, there are all kinds of.
Platforms on which you can do searches, like upwork and that kind of thing. And there's all kinds of people on there. I'm not personally on that particular site, but it is a place where you can see a bunch of people. But like you were saying, you put out a cold call, you can do that on LinkedIn, you can do that on Facebook, you can do that on Instagram. You can just simply Google people, see what comes up. Who comes up? Ask your friends, your networking people, your coworkers, if you will, people in your industry. Who do you use? Who do you recommend so that you can narrow it down? Because like you said, you got 1500 applications. You're not going to interview 1500 people.
No way.
But you have to find a way to narrow it down so it is a manageable number and then take the time to talk to the person. Like really talk to the person.
Yeah. And one of the questions I always ask is, do you have multiple clients? What is your time capacity for trying to grow you? I want to make sure they actually have time for me. If they're a time. Mom, what does that look like? Really getting to understand the world off screen, too, so that I understand their life and what's going on and how they prioritize tasks, all of that is great. No. And I think, honestly, it's just taking the first step. You're not going to know if you're ready until you actually start. And I think the more conversations you have, the more you realize you can do it.
And for me, I looked around, and it's a cue to success. The most successful people all have assistance. And so I was like, okay, if I need to be successful, I need an assistant. The ones who are at the top are not doing everything themselves. It's just not happening.
No, definitely not. And going back to what you said about limiting belief around money, I'm definitely of the mindset that the more you're worried about money, the less you're going to have. So you have to be open to the idea that money is simply transactional. It flows out. It flows right back in. But like you were saying, you can't grow your business if you're stuck doing the things that don't grow your business.
No, I think all of this is so good. And planting some really good seeds for some women right now who are feeling the overwhelm where they're just doing and not doing anything at the same time. We're doing it all, but we're doing nothing. We're not moving the needle because we're just stuck in the day to day of too much stuff to do. And so if this is your push that you needed, ladies like, here you go, we're pushing you off the ledge. Time to reach out to sue. Do you want to remind us what your website is?
My website is keepitsimplewithsue.com. I also have a Facebook page. Keep it simple with sue. And I am on LinkedIn under Sue layman, so I can be found on any one of those platforms. And I'm happy to talk to anybody that would like to talk about what it is they might need or how I might fit in or make a recommendation for somebody else if that's what they feel they need. Like I said, my passion is to support other female business owners. If I'm the best fit, I think that's great. If I'm not, okay.
No hard, mean. You know, we all have different personalities and different expectations.
Yep. So, so good. Well, thank you so much for being on today. We always wrap up with a fun, rapid fire questionnaire. So what is your Starbucks order?
Oh, I don't like Starbucks. I mean, I don't drink coffee, which I know is I'm weird, so it'd have to be hot chocolate.
Oh, I love it. Okay, that's a good one. What do you make for dinner? If it's last minute, it might be.
Takeout.
With women on this show.
I like pancakes for dinner.
Pancakes. Okay, what is your favorite department of target, and do you have a favorite designer?
Well, I always love me some Joanna Gaines. So my favorite areas to walk around in, the housewares and that kind of thing, and just look and see what they have. Sometimes they have some really cool stuff.
Yep. Ditto. Awesome. TikTok or wait, I skipped one. Name a book or a podcast you'd recommend to the show audience and why.
Oh, I love Mel Robbins. She delves into some really good subjects, and she bothers to do the research and get really good guests. I love listening to her.
Yes, absolutely. No. Super inspirational. Okay, TikTok or Instagram, are you on either of those?
No, I'm not. I'm old.
We can say Facebook. Where can listeners find you? Online mostly. Would you say Facebook is pretty active for Facebook? Yeah. Yep. Okay, awesome. Well, we'll make sure to have all the links below in the show notes for everyone so they can find you and reach out to you. I really appreciate your time today and the time difference. Wintry, Ohio.
So I send you warm vibes from Hawaii.
Thank you so much.
Yes, we'll be in touch.
All right.
Thank you.
