This is a YouTube video titled '#191: Want to Scale Your Business? Start with a Virtual Assistant!' published in July 2024. It features Ed Gandia as the host of the High Income Business Writing Podcast, where he discusses strategies for business writers and copywriters to scale their businesses effectively. In this episode, Ed advises starting the scaling process by hiring a virtual assistant rather than another writer, explaining the benefits and offering practical tips for working with VAs to free up time and grow the business.
Welcome to the High Income Business Writing Podcast, helping you propel your writing business to a whole new level. And now, here's your host, Ed Gandia.
Hey there. Welcome to the High Income Business Writing Podcast. I am your host, Ed Gandia, and this is the podcast for business writers and copywriters who want to earn more and less time doing work they love for better clients. Just a quick reminder that you can find detailed show notes for this episode@b2b launcher.com Episode 191. Those show notes always include a summary of our discussion as well as any links to resources we mentioned during the show. This episode is a little different and a little shorter than usual. If you've been listening to my podcast for a while, you already know that most of my episodes tend to run about 30 to 45 minutes. Many are interviews with practitioners who are doing really cool things. Others are monologues where I personally share an idea or strategy or tip to share you to help you improve your writing business. But in this episode, we're going to do something a little different and I'm going to address an issue that came up in one of my coaching programs with somebody who was looking to scale up their business and they were looking to start by hiring another writer. This is a very common concern and a very common path. Many writers will reach a point in their business where they max out their work capacity. They're doing extremely well, they've been book solid for a while, and as a result, they start thinking about where they want to go next and many of them start looking for ways to scale their operation. One of the most common first steps they take is to find and hire another writer. And when you think about it, it just makes sense, right? Well, if writing is what I do, I've been maxed out for a long time. If I could bring other writers in here to help me, we'd be able to churn out more work. The interesting thing, though, is that's not necessarily the best place to start scaling your business. A better first step in this direction is to get help on the administrative front by hiring a virtual assistant. Not for everybody, but for many people, this is a better way to start down that path. Virtual assistants, or VAs, can provide more than just administrative support. And I want to mention that, and I want you to be aware of it, because a lot of times people think VAs just do a couple of different things. But really the range of things a VA can help you with varies dramatically. Not every VA can do all of these things, but many will really specialize in certain different areas. Many of them are generalists, and they can do a lot, a bit of. A lot of different things. They can help you with things such as client support or website maintenance or updating your blog or your newsletter, sometimes even writing your newsletter or blog post. If you put together a webinar, they can help you with that. They can help you put together an event, help you with bookkeeping, helping you deliver some of your productized services, if you do some of that, which is essentially services that are fixed scope and fixed fee. Now, there are a couple of good reasons why you want to start with a va. One of them is that it's a safer bet. It's less risky to bring in that kind of administrative support. And freeing up more of your work capacity is usually the most valuable thing you can do. It's also a great testing ground and a good practice for when you do look for a writer, if you do decide to go that route after hiring a va in terms of what to give them, any process that's repeatable, think about anything in your business that it's repeatable, whether it happens every day or once a week or once a month, anything like that that's repeatable and you can document is a good candidate for outsourcing to a va. The key, by the way, is, is to keep an open mind. Find that a lot of writers are very hesitant about these things. They've been wearing all the hats. They come into this business with a mindset of, well, I'm a business of one. I got to do everything. And many times we all get really good at all these different functions of our business. So it's sometimes hard to let go. It's sometimes hard to think about some of the things you do on a regular basis, of things that you should be giving somebody else. So let me give you a few tips on how to make this work if you do decide to start with a virtual assistant. And I should say that many of these tips came directly from Krystal Coleman, who's my VP of operations in my coaching business. She started out as VA. She manages my team. A couple of them are VAs. And so she's very, very knowledgeable on how to find, hire onboard, and work with virtual assistants. One of the things Crystal recommends is, is that you may have a long list of tasks for your new VA to help you with, but she strongly recommends, and I agree, that you should start with only two or three tasks. Don't go crazy. Start with a couple of simple things. The simpler the better pick two things that are simple and of course, if possible, things that would definitely make a big impact. So if you have a choice between something simple that's not really going to move the needle and something relatively simple, maybe not quite as simple as the other one, but that will really free up some time, a significant amount of time, then even better, start with those. The other thing Krystal suggests is you may not find one VA who can meet all your needs. So if you have a long laundry list of things that you need help with, prioritize your tasks, prioritize your needs, and then in time you can add more members to your team as needed. But start with the things that really would make the biggest difference. Many times you're not going to find someone who can do all those things. So figure out, okay, well all these things would be nice, but you know, these are the top three areas or functions where I would really need someone who can do good job there. Also, don't commit to a retainer, because a lot of them do work on a retainer basis. But don't commit to one until you've had the opportunity to work with your new VA for at least 30 days. So use that first 30 day period as a trial. You have to understand that after that it may have to go on a retainer if they do work out, if they are a good fit. But ask your VA if they're willing to do a trial for the first 80 days, good VAs are going to be more than willing to do that. They understand that that is a very common requirement and they feel very comfortable with that kind of arrangement. The bottom line is this, before you automatically assume that the best way to scale up is is to hire a writer, consider bringing in a VA first. It's typically a safer way to start down this path and a great VA is often easier to find than a great writer. And you know what? You'll typically be able to free up more of your time faster, which is going to accelerate your progress and then give you the freedom and Runway and just mental headspace to be able to find that writer when the timing is right. This has been Ed Gandhia. I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day. Take care.
The High Income Come Business Writing Podcast is a production of B2B Business Launcher. Learn more at B2B Launcher.com.
