How to use a good virtual assistant to make your business more profitable.

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Hi docs. Welcome to the Entre MD Podcast where it is all about helping amazing physicians just like you. Embrace entrepreneurship so you can have the freedom to live life and practice medicine on your terms. I'm your host, Dr. Una. Welcome back to the Entre MD podcast. You in for a treat today? But before we get started, I wanted to take a moment to acknowledge some wonderful members of the Entre MD tribe that left a review for me on iTunes. So Dr. Jennifer Varese says, Inspiring and motivating. Dr. Una shares her story while motivating you to believe you can do the same thing. She inspires docs to aspire for more than the four walls of clinical medicine. This is a great podcast for docs who are. Who wanna take back control of their careers. Thank you so much, Dr. Jennifer. This is so amazing. And this is the reason why I do this. I want to inspire, I want to help. I wanna motivate doctors to take back control of their careers, build businesses, build profitable businesses so they can have freedom. I think we work too hard to not have freedom. But thank you so much for leaving this review. And if you're here listening to this podcast and you're like, this has been amazing for me, I want you to hit the subscrib subscribe button. I want you to take a moment or two to write a review as well. You never know, you could be the next shout out so today we are going to be talking about how to use a good virtual assistant to make your business more profitable. Now listen, in 2019, one of the biggest mistakes I made was I tried to do everything by myself. Like, I kid you not, when I think about it, I'm like, Dr. Una, what is wrong with you? So I, I did all of my social media myself, I did all my client emails myself. I, you know, did the research myself. I booked locations for events by myself. I set up my courses by myself. Now the thing is, I love learning new things. I love the challenges. So I probably had a little bit of fun doing all these things. But the truth of the matter is there are some core things that only I should do. And if I want to be super productive, I need to focus and do those things. So when I did Entre MD Live, oh my goodness, now don't get me wrong, I had some wonderful people helping me, like Makeda, like my media person, Obi. I had a number of people helping me, but there's so much more that I could have taken off my plate. So entre MD Live was June 2019. It was an amazing conference. We talked all things business of medicine. And as a result of that event, I got to work with a really good group of doctors who started businesses, skilled businesses, did all kinds of fun stuff. It was so amazing. But the process of setting that up, I did that all by myself. I did all the social media, I did my own lead pages. I did, you know, I kept my eyes on the, you know, the sales and the follow up emails and all of that. And I mean, it makes no sense, right? That was my biggest mistake. Now, I'm not saying I'm living in regret or anything. If you met me, I've chosen to enjoy my life, but it would make no sense to Repeat this in 2020. Right? So, so what I'm going to do is I'm gonna show you the way I've looked at this and the way I've restructured myself for 2020, even though I'm starting right away. And what I want you to start thinking about, no matter where you are in your entrepreneurial journey. So one of the things that will impact my business the most in 2020 is that I am going to focus on the things that have these things all in common. Number one, I'm great at them. Number two, I love doing them. And number three, multiplies the impact of my business the most. Okay. Everything else is going to be delegated and you should be thinking about doing the Same thing. So think about it. You only have 24 hours in a day. The only way to get more out of your day is, is to maximize the use of the time you have and use other people's time as well. Now you're going to have to pay them for said time, but you want to start using other people's time, leverage other people's time so that you can get more done. So it was Brian Tracy that I heard say this thing. And the first time I heard it, I was like, oh, my goodness, I don't think I could do that. He says, take your hourly rate, your hourly wage, and be clear on what that number is and determine to only do activities that will produce that much revenue. So the bottom line is if you're a doctor and you're earning $250,000, you know, a year, it comes to about 120 there, about an hour. I mean, you have a whole package. So it's not exactly that, but let's just use that number, right? $120 an hour. The idea is you should only be doing tasks that would pay you $120 an hour. So there are so many things that somebody earning $10 an hour, $15 an hour could do. You can delegate those. You don't need to be doing them. That's the thought process. And that's one of the, you know, things that the most successful people would do is they're very conscientious about their time. Like, am I using it right? Is this the best use of my time? Is this something that I could pay somebody to do? So let me take a moment and unpack that a little bit. So let's say you, you have a side business, and part of what you have to do is you have to send a lot of emails back and forth clients and stuff like that, and you earn $120 an hour. But those emails are things that you can have an assistant who would love to be hired by you for 15 or $20 an hour. What if you had them work an hour a day or five hours a week or so, and you paid them 15 bucks an hour to take care of all that stuff? Your emails will all be done. Nothing will fall through the cracks and you didn't have to do them. And especially if it's something you think about and you have palpitations because you're like, I just flat out don't want to, you know, they take that, take that stress off your plate as well. And if you pay them $15 an hour. For those five hours, it comes to $75, which you can easily afford if this is something that is producing you money. So you get rid of the stress, and it gives you time to focus on the things that only you can do. So you want to start looking at your time that way. You want to start looking at the opportunity cost. Yes, I can manage all my social media. Yes, I can create all my graphics on Canva. Yes, I can create all my lead pages. Yes, I can do all those things. But at what cost, right? Because you only have 24 hours, and you do not have enough time in the day to do all the things that you want to do. So for you to choose to do something, you're choosing not to do something else. So the question becomes, what is that something else you're choosing not to do? Is, is it worth it? All right, so we need to start looking at our time differently, and that is something that I'm really gonna give a lot of attention to in 2020. So when I think about Entre MD, which is, you know, the. The platform where we help physicians create profitable businesses, what is my area of focus? What are the three main things that I, and probably only I can do? Content creation would be one, like, you know, doing the. The podcast and, you know, YouTube videos and writing blog pieces maybe, and all those things, you know, who's. Who else can do that? That's kind of my job, right? So content creation is one. Speaking isn't the second one, and coaching is the third one. Those are things that I'm great at. I love doing. I really love doing. And it multiplies the impact of my business. I'm able to touch more people. You guys know about my BHAG, right? I'm trying to help 80,000 doctors do this. So it helps me. It helps me get towards my goal, you know? So you want to think about that for you. What is that? What are those three things that should be your area of focus so that you can start delegating the other things that maybe you don't have to do? Right? So what are those areas for you? So let's get. Let's get right into the meat of it. So seven things a virtual assistant can do for you. Now, let me stop here and give a little bit of caveat, if you will. If you've never done any of these things, like, you're still in idea phase, it might be worthwhile to get your hands wet with a little bit of it, because if you've done it, then you can Direct better if you've done it, you've created a style, a language, your, your theme has a voice. So you know, your, your assistant knows what to, to follow, knows what to model after. So if you're just brand spanking new, there's some things you can use your, your assistant to do, but you really want to, you know, take the time to kind of do some of this stuff yourself. So you can say, this is what I want it to look like. Okay. So I just thought I should throw that out there. All right. Now the other thing I want to throw in is that your virtual assistant has to be an investment, not an expense. So what that means is you don't want to get an assistant and having have them do a lot of cute things that don't add to your bottom line, they don't add to your overall goals. So they're really like in the grand scheme of events, it didn't matter. You want to have your eyes on the price at all points in time. And what your virtual assistants is doing should be setting that person up to get paid as well. Right? So maybe not in the very beginning. Maybe you may have some up cost front. Up, up front costs. I don't know why that was hard to say. But at the same time, you want to make sure that what your virtual assistant is doing is directly impacting your bottom line so that the person's pay is coming from what they did and not from your savings. Okay. All right. So eyes on the prize at all times. So the first thing they can do is email management, especially if you have a business email. So maybe not your personal email, they can, but you know, for starters, maybe your business email, can they handle it? Yes. If you're overwhelmed by your email, it's. If you're having email fall through the cracks. If you remember your email and your heart skips. If you have 2,000 unread emails, then a virtual assistant will probably be great. Um, you can have templates, you can have templates of if somebody's calling, asking about my service, if someone is emailing me, asking about my services, this is a standard response. If somebody's asking if I can speak at their event, this is a somewhat standard response. Or you can have them reach out to you, whichever. But those are things they can respond to. If you are in the like, I would be scheduling guests on my podcast, the back and forth with that. I can have a virtual assistant do that. I have coaching clients. We have to, you know, work the, the calendar and choose dates when you know, when they'll come on their calls and all of that stuff. That's something a virtual assistant can help me do. Even setting the rules for the emails, scheduling some emails so they're going out when they're supposed to go. You can have an email. You can have a virtual assistant help you do that. Okay. And it takes away a lot of pressure, a lot of pain. Okay. All right. So that's one of the things that's gonna be happening. The second thing is research. So again, I'm going to be using myself, and then you can adapt this. So maybe I'm like, you know, every month I would love to be a guest on, you know, on a podcast, right? And I can have them do the research. What. Where. These are the kind of podcasts that I want to be on, podcasts that physician entrepreneurs are listening to. And they can do the research and say, these are the top 20 we found. And they. Because they're managing my email now, right? They can send the pitch email to say, this is who I am. This is what I've done. This is what I, you know, talk about. And this is how I can serve your audience. And they can take care of that process stages that I would want to speak on. They could do the research. You know, I can give them parameters. These are the times I'm, you know, available. These are the kind of events that I want to be speaking at. And they can do the research and come up with, hey, these are, you know, 30 stages. That would be great for you. And then we can start the process of elimination. But all those hours of looking for it, I don't have to do it. They can do it, right? Maybe I have. I want to do an event. And, you know, they could look for, you know, possible locations where I can. I can use as my. For my event. Maybe I have vendors and they can do some price comparisons and stuff. Maybe I have quotes, like, I remember this quote and all this stuff. I don't remember who said it and whatever. I can type those, you know, up, and I'm like, here. And they can go, you know, fact check. You know what I'm saying? Like, and that's stuff that we spend hours doing. But remember, if you're doing 120 an hour or 200 an hour or whatever, is that the best use of your time? Or could you pay somebody else to do that? All right, so that's the second thing that, you know, you can use a virtual assistant for that I would be using a virtual assistant for. The third thing is calendar management. Now, I'm going to tell you something funny. I remember reading about someone who was like, oh, you know, I need an assistant to manage my calendar. And I'm like, what can possibly be on your calendar? And I'm like, you know, I'm a doctor, I work 60 hours a week, and I have all this other stuff going on and. And I can. The calendar is all that complicated. I don't understand what you mean. Now, my calendar is complicated, right? Because there's all kinds of meetings from the different businesses that I run, and then I have my coaching clients and I have my group clients, and, you know, I have. Maybe I'm interviewing a doctor for my new practice, my old practice and all this stuff. And now I'm like, oh, my gosh, like, I don't even know what day of the week it is and where I'm supposed to be. So to have somebody take all of that information, put it on a calendar, color coded, and that way I can take one look at something, I know where I need to be, you know, kind of get a feel for what the month looks like, and then I can take another look day by day. That is just fantastic. And that is something that it's wonderful to have, but I don't have to do it myself, right? And then so that way when I get excited, I'm like, oh, yeah, of course I can do lunch with you by two o' clock and I can look at my calendar, which is, you know, also connected to my phone, and go like, yeah, but I don't have that time to do it. You know what I'm saying? And then maybe we have to do emails back and forth to see where I'll be, where I have. I would have to put that meeting on my calendar. And then guess what, that the emails back and forth will be done by my virtual assistant. Do you see what I'm saying? So, yay, calendar management. So if you have a ton of stuff going on and you want to be able to use your time better, then a virtual assistant would be great. So that's number three. Number four, repurpose your content. Oh, my goodness. All right, so I believe, at this point, I believe that it's a crime to have one piece of content. It could be a video, it could be a podcast, it could be a blog post. I think it's a disservice for you to create that content. And it only shows up in one way. Right? Your content should be repurposed, but it's a lot of work to do that. And you can pay somebody to do that. So I can give you an example with this podcast, right? So we create this podcast and we can repurpose it many different ways. For instance, I can create a two minute audiogram that takes two minutes out of this content and makes a little audiogram. So it looks like a, it looks like a post, but it has a little wavy thing, right? So it lets you know this is audio. And I can post that at a different time on Facebook. I can take this same podcast episode and convert it into a blog post. Could take this same episode and pull out some quotable quotes from it, right? And pull out some quotable quotes from it. And those will be image posts. And the list goes on and on and on. So taking that content and multiplying it, amplifying it, is great, and it gives you a huge return on investment and amplifies your voice and it gets your message out to more people. But it takes a lot of time. So if it's something that you want to do consistently, if you're a content creator, then one of the best things you can do is get a virtual assistant who can do that, okay? So repurpose your content. Don't write one blog piece and let it die. Don't do one podcast episode and let it die. You let it live on by repurposing it, all right? And maybe you don't have the skills, you don't have the time, or you don't have the interest. Either way, get somebody to take care of it. Number five. Number five is social media management. Now, as an entrepreneur, right, as an entrepreneur, you should be thinking about return on investment when you use social media. So social media should be strategic, it should be done on purpose and it should be done consistently. In the beginning of your business, you're really finding your voice, finding your message, testing who your ideal client is. So I really recommend that you do your social media to some extent by yourself because you're having conversations, right? You're not just. You just don't want to have a pretty page, right? You don't have a pretty page with no engagement. You don't want to have a pretty page that's not advancing your message or cause not bringing you any new clients. That's not what you want. You want to get your message out. Now, after you kind of have a little bit of a feel for your voice, for your message, for your languaging, for your calls to action and all of that stuff, it's time to build a sequence system around it, right? So social Media, this is how we play it out. These are what kind of posts go out on, you know, different days and all of that stuff. Once you build a system and don't, okay, so don't make this complicated. When I say system, I'm not talking about, you know, something really serious that the CIA would do. I mean like it. You just have to have, you know, Monday, maybe these kind of posts, Tuesday, these kind of posts, these kind of posts would go with these kind of call to action, you know, like simple, it could be rudimentary stuff that you wrote on a legal pad. Don't make it complicated. But once you have some kind of system, then you can hand that system to somebody and that person can help make sure that your social media content is consistent and you know, it's is going out on time and the languaging and the focus and the branding and all of that stays the same. You can delegate that. And I think that would be a huge time saver. And if you run a business, I think that's something that you should seriously consider. So I'm going to be doing that. Okay. The sixth is data management. So you've had all these clients, people who've checked you out, people who've had conversations with, and you don't have one place where you store all that data. So you want to have that and you want to have somebody who manages it, right, so that you can keep in touch with your clients and continue to serve them and you know, continue to help them with your, you know, valuable content. And if you have programs that would help them, you have a place where you can put all, you can, you know, put out that information. So they have the option of, you know, signing up and stuff like that. So you know, like CRM, stuff like that. You, you want to have someone manage your data, put it all together and you know, kind of clean everything up. The seventh thing is a newsletter. And I'm of the opinion that every doctor in the process of building up their personal physician brand, it would be great to have a newsletter. You're an internal medicine doc and maybe your thing is obesity. And you constantly talk about intermittent fasting and you know, you talk about a plant based diet and exercise and all of that stuff. Stuff, whether you're employed or not, nothing stops you from having a newsletter and have people sign up and all that stuff because you need to have a tribe. You need to, you know, you need to, you need to touch people and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. And imagine what it would be like if you can kind of like maybe, you know, open up your phone, create a voice memo. This is what I want my newsletter, the content of my newsletter to be. And then your virtual assistant can take that and write it out to a really nice clean newsletter, blog post, whatever. But, you know, then that way you can have a newsletter that's going out. You can start off every month and maybe, you know, every week, because that could morph into a different business, right? So your virtual assistant can handle that. So you don't have to do that. Just, you know, pick up your phone, open the voice memo and record, you know, and they can make it out into something nice, you know, that's easy on the eye and, you know, it's worded properly and all of that stuff. So these are seven things that a virtual assistant can do for you. And the beautiful things, you don't have to have space to, to hire them and keep them in your, in your office or your home. You don't have to deal with W2s and stuff like that, you know, depending on how you, you set it up. But I think if you are crunched for time and you're overwhelmed and you're an entrepreneur, then you want to consider this, okay? We can talk about, you know, how to find this person and, and all of that in a different episode, but I want you to start thinking about this, okay? And I want you to start from somewhere and scale. Maybe all you need is someone who can do some research for you, manage your calendar, manage your email, repurpose a little bit of your content. Maybe you want to get them on for, you know, 10 hours a month, and that comes to $200 a month. But I want you to think about it. If someone can manage your email, do your research, manage your content, and maybe write you a newsletter, and they can do that in 10 hours, even if it's 15 hours a month and you're paying them $300 a month. How much piece of, I mean, that shoot, that's like free, right? Because the peace of mind that comes from that, you know. So whether you're a startup and you're really small, you can delegate. You can start off with 10 hours, you can start off with 5 hours, but you want to start thinking that way. Leverage other people's time is one of the things that very successful people do. So whether you're a start off or startup or you're established or you're a veteran, I want you to start and you can start from somewhere and scale up. One of the things that Held me back the most was, oh, I have to get the whole system for everything that I want them to do and all that stuff. And truthfully, I could have started with email, calendar research, and maybe a newsletter. And then I could have increased their hours and their responsibilities from there. So if you are in a position where you're overwhelmed at all with what you have to do, I want you to start. Start with five hours, start with 10 hours. It's 200 bucks. I mean, that's a pair of shoes, girls. Okay, so. So what did I do after this discovery and after what they can do? I figured out what they could do for me and how I need to be, you know, focused on three things. Content creation, speaking, and coaching. I hired a virtual assistant. I actually hired a social media manager and a virtual assistant so my social media person can focus on that and the graphics and all of that stuff. And they start January the first. So we're just working systems and all that, you know, at this point. And I will be doing an update podcast after the first quarter to let you know how it goes. But I really did a good job of hiring, so this is going to be fantastic. And I'm going to be able to give you so much more value, serve you at a higher level, because I've gotten some of these other stuff off my plate. Okay, so this is what I want to do. You need to do three things for what you just learned to change you. Okay, so three things. Hearing this is not enough. So I have homework for you. So number one, I want you to teach it. So what you're going to do is you're going to take a snapshot, just take a screenshot of the episode, and I want you to post that along with what you. You learned on your social media channel. So Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and I want you to tag Entre MD. So hashtag Entre MD. Okay, so you're gonna teach it. All right? The second thing you're gonna do is you're gonna apply something. You don't have to apply all seven you, but you need to do something. All right? So you're going to commit to do something that could be to research what, you know, virtual assistant you're going to do or to define what they could do for you or to finally bite the bullet and hire somebody. But I want you to apply something, anything, something. Maybe you already have a virtual assistant, but there's something on your plate that you've been doing that they could do. So get it off your plate. Maybe you haven't defined what your three areas are. What are my three areas? Highest. The three activities I do with the highest return on investment that only I could do. Right. Define what that is so you know what's left and what you need to delegate. The third thing is I want you to stay connected. Stay connected with people just like you who are doing the same thing. So I want you to join the private Facebook community for Entre MD.

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And be part of the family. So thank you so much for listening. I want you to let me know what helped. Let me know what stood up, stood out to you. Let me know how this made a difference. Okay? Because I am doing this for you. And if you're like, oh, my goodness, I wish she would talk about this, I want you to post it on your social media hand social media channel and tag me or post it in the Facebook group. I will create a whole segment just for you. Because I'm here to serve you. I'm here to help you. I'm here to keep you inspired to build those businesses that will give you the freedom to live life and practice medicine on your own terms. Thank you so much for listening and I will see you next week. If you love this podcast, please take a moment to subscribe, share and review it on itunes as you go about your week. Remember, you're not just an md, you're an Entre md. Don't forget to tune in next week for another great episode. Until next time.