Wedding Business Solutions

Ryan Angott & Regine Regencia - Myths and Truths about Virtual Assistants

• Alan Berg, CSP, Global Speaking Fellow

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Ryan Angott & Regine Regencia - Myths and Truths about Virtual Assistants

Are you struggling to find the right fit for your team? Have you considered the impact of language and local dialects on sales? In this episode, we dive into the world of virtual assistants, discussing how to identify the perfect candidate for your business needs. Learn how technology like ChatGPT can help virtual staff emulate local communication styles, making them feel like an integral part of your team. Are you leveraging VAs to not only save costs but also enhance productivity? We explore the importance of clearly delegating tasks and trusting your virtual staff to execute them efficiently.

Listen to this new episode for insights on maximizing business efficiency with virtual staff and understanding the value they can add to your operations.

About Ryan Angott:

Ryan Angott is a seasoned professional with a decade-long journey in the wedding and event industry. With a wealth of experience and a track record of generating over $50 million in revenue, Ryan brings unparalleled insights into the intricacies of the industry as he transitioned and co-founded a virtual assistant staffing agency based in the Philippines. 

Connect with Ryan directly at Ryan@strategic-assistant.com  or explore the world of virtual assistant services for weddings at https://strategic-assistant.com/wedding-services/  


About Regine: 
Regine, CEO & President of Strategic Assistant Staffing, brings a decade of expertise in virtual assistance. She helps entrepreneurs reclaim 20-30 hours weekly, redefining the virtual workforce from hiring one Virtual Staff to building dream teams. A Christian business leader, devoted mother, and advocate for women, she empowers others to achieve work-life balance while ensuring exceptional service for clients and virtual staff.


If you have any questions about anything in this, or any of my podcasts, or have a suggestion for a topic or guest, please reach out directly to me at Alan@WeddingBusinessSolutions.com or visit my website Podcast.AlanBerg.com 


Please be sure to subscribe to this podcast and leave a review (thanks, it really does make a difference). I

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I'm Alan Berg. Thanks for listening. If you have any questions about this or if you'd like to suggest other topics for "The Wedding Business Solutions Podcast" please let me know. My email is Alan@WeddingBusinessSolutions.com. Look forward to seeing you on the next episode. Thanks.

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What are some myths and truths about virtual assistants? Listen to this episode and you'll find out. Hey, it's Alan Berg. Welcome back to another episode of the Wedding Business Solutions podcast. I am so happy to have back on my friend Ryan Angott and another friend who you guys haven't met yet, Regine Regencia, to talk about virtual assistants and to bust some of the myths that there are about that. So, Ryan, welcome back. And Regine, welcome.

Great. Thanks for having us.

Okay, so when I talk to people about virtual assistants, people don't really understand what that is. So the first thing I want them to understand is virtual assistant is not a computer. Right, Regine? We're talking about real people here. Hey.

Yes, we are real people.

Right. Right. Whether we use a virtual background or not, that doesn't make us not a real person or something like that. So I think the term virtual assistant is misunderstood because, first of all, a virtual assistant or your strategic assistant staffing. So staffing is a better word for that because it's not just assistance. Right. What are some of the things that your team does for people? What do they do? Besides, I mean, certainly they assist them, but what are some of the things that they're doing?

I think I can answer that first. So we're actually going away with the word virtual assistant because there's, like, a connotation that they're just really assistant. But here with SaaS, we do offer different roles. Like, the only different thing, if you're hiring an employee, is the word virtual, but you're really hiring, like, an executive assistant. You're hiring a graphic designer, social media person. You're hiring a salesperson, a customer service person. So that's the kind of different roles that we're actually offering to the clients that we're working with.

So virtual is the bad word. It really should be remote. Right. Just the fact that they're not sitting next to you.

I like that, though. We're actually going with virtual staff because they can hire, like, one staff to a team of virtual staff. So that's what we're offering.

Right. So there's no perfect definition.

For sure.

That's what it is. Now, Ryan, you're not only one of the founders of the company, but you also use some of the teams. So what are some of the things that you have people do? Because you have multiple businesses, you have a lot of different business. So what are some of the things that you have people do that are not sitting next to you? What are they doing?

Yeah. And I think, Alan, the way of COVID now is that almost everyone's virtual. There are people back in the office, but this is. I think virtual is now the new norm more than you're in an office nine to five these days. And I started this business really during COVID when my entire tech lock team was remote. So this went hand in glove to our. To our strategy. And, you know, the fun thing, as I started as a customer several years ago, just having my own local challenges in the US with finding good people that would show up and work hard and do the things we need to do at a reasonable rate.

As we know, inflation and cost of labor here is crazy. So I started with one assistant who's truly an assistant of mine, Christina. She's been with me almost two and a half years. I think she's called in one sick day in two and a half years. It's been great. And she just gets stuff done. So she's a true assistant for me. And then we have five other folks with us that do a variety of roles, starting with the most impactful is sales, business development.

And really, that's appointment setting for me. You know, it's the dreaded task most people don't like doing is just banging on the phone 100 times a day and sending up follow up emails and messages. So that's a. We have two people doing that for us full time. We have two executive assistants, Christina, and another. Another person. We have a full time customer service representative that works on eastern standard time. And then we also have someone that dabbles in digital media for us as well.

Right, and those of you that didn't hear it, tech lock is one of Ryan's other businesses. So all of you dj's out there that bring your laptop someplace and want to make sure they're secure. Uh, go look at techlock. Spell that for them. Tech lock.

I like the plug. Alan Tek Lok. Techlok.com. techlock.com.

Techlok.com. but I was just. I had that visual of DJ's, you know, setting up their stuff, walking away to do something else, and. And there it is. So there's a little plug for you, but. And for those of you that didn't hear the other episodes, Ryan and I go back a long time when he was vp of sales, one of the largest catering companies in the country, and he was bringing me in for his team. And that's how we first meth. So I think back to when I was at the knot.

My whole team was remote. Now, we didn't call it virtual then. This is way before COVID We didn't call it virtual. They just happened to work from their house and I worked from my house. And unless we brought everybody into some place for a meeting, we did our work. And there's a great book called why Work sucks. And it talks about a results only work environment. They call it a row R O w e was started by people at the best buy in their corporate office.

And that's what we're talking about here, is having people who get the work done. And Ryan, you just mentioned something where they work on east coast time, even though they're not in the eastern time zone, they work on east coast time. They have to get the work done. And sometimes it's time based and sometimes it's not. So, Regine, you have people that have to be working on a time that's not their time zone in the Philippines. Right, right. Is that very common?

Yes.

Okay.

And then other, just like me, I've been.

Go ahead.

Sorry about that. Like, I've been working in this time zone for a decade. I follow eastern time like it's 01:00 a.m. now my time while we're doing this.Okay, well, that's not unusual here. You have shift workers, you have people that work overnight. You have nurses and doctors and security people and people that have to work overnight. One of my sons is in California and it's finance related. So the stock market opens at 930 at 630 in the morning for him. Gotta be there. My other son works for ten hour days, so he works 06:00 a.m. to 04:00 p.m. four days a week. So he's getting up at 334 o'clock in the morning, you know, to do that. So this is not uncommon to do that. But I think the other thing is you probably have people that have a task to do that's not time based. Right. Like when I asked you guys to help me do some research in terms of associations and things like that, I didn't care what time of the day it was done as long as it was done. So is that also pretty common?



It is. It depends on the role, like for social media, for research and all. It doesn't need to be on your time zone. So.

Yes, right. As long as you're getting that stuff done there. And I think about the people listening to this wedding and event pros. There are certain things that are definitely time based. If you get an inquiry in at 10:00 in the morning in Chicago, you want somebody who's paying attention is going to respond to that inquiry. Now, is that a virtual assistant? Sure, they're assisting your business, but no, that's a virtual salesperson or a virtual sales assistant or something like that. And then there are other things that you can send those emails at any time of the day or night, or you can do requesting paperwork or doing research and stuff like that, any time of the day or night. So this is, I think, where some of this misconception comes in.

So, Ryan, when you started this, doing this for yourself, and you said, okay, I need to explain, who did you have in mind? Because I know your background, but who did you have in mind and what kind of things did you think? Hey, these people listening right now, these wedding and event pros, here's some of the things that we could get done for them without them having to do with the hiring issues everybody's having.

Yeah. You know, when I reflect back when we worked together many moons ago, it was a fun time of my career, and we had, I think we had seven venues, two catering arms, and we did a lot of stuff and a lot of content. And I think the number one thing is, I remember we had marketing people and we had digital media people. And this was a decade ago when things weren't as popular. Tic Tac didn't exist ten years ago. And all the work that goes into making clips and reels and content, in keeping reviews, testimonials, great photos, great video, it's a full time job and then some, depending on the size of the business. And I feel like the modern bride who's in their twenties or young thirties, it's all about content. It's all about being fresh and relevant.

And the more you stay current on all the social platforms, the better chance, the higher likelihood that they're going to be engaged with your brand and make an inquiry because of that content. So I think the number one thing that jumps out to me in that industry is you've got to create lead generation through content. You can also pay for it on Google, which you can do, and I think there's value that vas can do there, too. But all that digital stuff to help filtering leads is the first part and then the second part, Alan, as you know, over the top is, and I want you to share the statistics, because I can't remember, but I remember when we were at the yachts, for example, and we found that when we could get back to somebody within 15 minutes of an online inquiry and email, text, call them, get them on the phone and sell them a visit, the likelihood of us closing that business went up like 50%. So the response time and follow up to have somebody that's just boom on the ball to do that made a huge difference in our, in our closing ratio. And that's another thing that I would recommend to anyone, just having somebody on the clock to get people on that phone to get them an appointment before your other 20 competitors do.

Right. So I think about, I was just at a client who's got two venues and two bridal shops, and they have their own social media person. They have somebody who's making videos all the time and all that. That's a person on staff doing that stuff. You're right. It is a full time job. They have that and they have other people that are also working on social media and marketing and things. And most people that are listening here can't afford that.

Right. They can't afford to have that person. And this is where a team like yours comes in because it's more affordable. Right. But it's getting done really 24 hours a day. You can have people watching that stuff. Something that happened, Regine, at this last meeting. So they brought me in for a day.

And I always say, if we get any new leads while I'm here that haven't been answered yet, let's answer them together. And we got four new leads that hadn't been answered by somebody else. And we got responses from all four of those people. And two of them were scheduling appointments, right. They were just going back to figure out the right day and time. But two of the four, and I said, does this normally happen? Like, you get four leads in today and you get four people responding to you today, and theyre like, no. I said, right. And thats to your point, Ryan, why? Because were sitting there watching it, answering it right now.

And then when they answered, we answered them back. And when they answered, we answered them back. One of the concerns and one of the people there was, well, if thats all im doing, what about the other things I have to do? And I said, we call that a good problem. We call it a good problem because now if youre so busy answering sales leads, somebody else can take care of production, somebody else can do those things because you're bringing money in. Salespeople should sell. They're bringing money in there. So that's an important thing. My virtual assistant does things that I used to do sitting on the sofa at night when I should be paying attention to my wife and the tv.

You know, we talk about the second screen, regrine you probably heard that phrase, right? The second screen.

Yes.

It's like, it's like the third screen, right? So my phone is next to me. My iPad's there, my lap. Right. The fourth screen, I don't know. And now if my laptop's on my lap, it's because I'm doing Duolingo language lessons or I'm doing a word puzzle on, you know, online or something like that. I'm not working right. I'm do. It doesn't mean I don't have the screen.

Let's face it, we all have screens, but I'm doing something else. So, Regine, tell us about your team a little bit, because I think that's another misnomer. You're in the Philippines, Ryan. You've had, like I said, christine's working for two and a half years doing this. You have other people doing that. Tell us about your people. Who are they? Who are they? What's their backgrounds, education? Where did, where did they come from? How do you find your people?

It's quite a broad, I would say. So mostly we have virtual steps that has graduated. We also have a team that's very experienced in a specific role, I would say. But the candidates that we're looking for, we already have waitlisted, but we're also searching. Like, we're always searching. That's what we're doing. But the search will really depend on what the clients is looking for. That's why it's important for us to know the role that you're looking for.

And we always ask, like, when Ryan and I does calls or discover calls or sales call, we always ask, you have to give us, like, what is it really that you're looking for in a virtual set? We know you have the skill set that you're looking for. How about the other things, like culture things? So you need to tell us those things as well for us to make sure that we're going to give you the right. So it's all around. I would say the backgrounds are all different as well, but it really will depend on what you are going to, I mean, what you're looking for in a specific role.

So how do you train someone? You talked about culture, but there's also language, right? They speak English. That's not what I mean. I mean, you go around the United States and people speak differently, right? There's different phrasings and different things like that. I live in New Jersey. Occasionally I say, y'all, but I'm not from the south. That's not my phrase there. But how do you, how do you take your team and say, okay, you're going to respond to inquiries for this, I don't know, this venue, this DJ, this photographer, whatever, in Kansas City. Right.

So how do you train them to respond like that person would? Because it needs to be consistent with the voice.

What we really do, because here in the Philippines, it's really common for us to speak in English. So that's one thing.

I meant more like dialect.

Yeah, right, right. Yeah, you said that. Yeah. It still depends because what we do is we want to make sure that we're going to be searching for the right fit of a role and you want to make sure that they're like, going to be a chameleon. What you're looking for, especially if it's a salesperson, if you want to, like, want them to speak Kansas, if that's where the business is located, it will actually depend on you because we're going to give you like, candidates. Like there's a set of candidates and then there's a video intro that's actually under versus profile, or we call it the virtual staff profile. So you're gonna hear them talk. Aside from you seeing their virtual profile, where it's, it has their work experiences, the tools that they know how to use, and so on and so forth.

But one thing is there's the video intro. So you're going to hear them talk. And I think that's the biggest thing for you to make a decision or the clients to make a decision if you're going to go with this virtual staff or this one. So.

Yeah, but it's also, it's also in writing, right? It's also the style of writing.

Oh, yes.

So do your, you mentioned being a chameleon. I think that's the perfect way to say it. So we always mirror our clients, but you also want, do you have them give you previous writings that they've done, emails and things to see what their style is so that you can emulate that?

We haven't actually done that because we trust that all of our virtual staff, especially those with experience, really knows how to write emails. And it's also written on their experience, plus the virtual staff that they're creating, it's actually them who writes it. So we can already see if there's a grammar lapses spell, wrong spelling and so on. So that's one thing that we're looking at as well.

Okay. So it might, might be a good idea. It's training it. It's like I trained chat GPT to write like me by giving it examples of my writing so that it can come back and say, okay, I get it now. I get your style now. And this is. This is what it is. So there's an idea.

So I'm giving you ideas instead of you giving me ideas. Good.

Yeah.

So.

And I would add to that, I would just add one more point, Alan, to your point. Chat GPT has really helped the VA industry a lot because you can take things like, we want to say chameleon. We want to chameleonize the VA. So people, as part of the tech lock team, when a client comes on a Zoom call with Mylene, or whoever it may be, they think that she lives in Michigan. Yes. She looks Filipino. There's a lot of Filipinos in Michigan and all over the US. She speaks perfect English.

She wears a blazer. Her hair is done up. She's got makeup. You know, she looks very presentable, even though it's four in the morning at her place. And that's just what she's been doing for ten years. But, you know, on the detail side, if you're a DJ company and you want. If you want to down in Louisiana and if you want the right dialect dialogue, you know, to kind of be hyper local, you can ask chap GPT, like you said, to kind of self train on what is the optimal, you know, cadence that you want to have with a potential bride. So we are starting to incorporate more of that stuff.

And the end of the day, we also tell our clients, like, listen, you treat this employee that just like they live, that you work in the same office, you get out what you put in. So if you want them to have a specific way of representing your brand and questions that you ask, you got to tell us, yes, we know how to do basic follow up and emails and dialogue, but we need to know about Mike's dj company in Louisiana and how they roll as a brand and emulate that in our communication, and that could be verbal or text anyway, right?

And another idea, again, maybe for you guys, some of the things that I've been doing is just feeding it previous examples and then saying, okay, here's my email. Make it more like Mike. Right? Like, you give it. Give it 100 of Mike's old emails and say, okay, here's my email that I wrote a. Now make this like Mike. I've done some things where I've said, take this text and make it more for a Gen Y, Gen Z audience, and it changes some things. I have to be careful of the Gen Z stuff because it just doesn't sound at all like me. All of a sudden it's ris and sus and skibity or whatever it is.

I don't know. And I'm doing vibe checks and things and people like, you didn't write that. But what we've been able to do is any of you listening to this podcast, if you look at the transcript, the transcript is my actual words, but before the transcript is a summary that we've asked chat GPT to do from my words and the email that you got. I used to write that introduction, but now, because it already has the transcript, we've come up with the right prompts and said, okay, now just take this transcript, turn this into this. And every time I read it, like this morning, I got one. I'm reading it going, yep, sounds like me. It sounds like me because it's been using my words and my way of speaking, and it says, okay, I'm writing it in that style, which is a fun thing to do. If you go into chat GPT, write it in the style of William Shakespeare and you'll get some really funny things coming out of it.

So it does that. So, Ryan, where do you see the future coming for this? What do you see coming down the pike with your team? Things that maybe you weren't even thinking of when you started. And now it's like, here we go.

You're talking about for tech lock what.

We plan on doing, what you plan on doing, as well as what people listening could, could maybe be doing with these staff that's, again, not sitting next to them, but they can do stuff for them.

The way I approach my business at tech lock, and this could be for any business. You know, I spent a decade in the wedding industry, and, you know, we're a small business at 1212 employees, half of them are out of Philippines, six of the twelve. And the impact financially, what that makes to us, that's the difference between being a healthy profitability or basically breaking even. If I were to, if I had those exact same six people in the states, you know, my payroll would increase by almost a quarter million dollars. And that's the profitability for this phase of our business. So it makes a huge impact. So for me, because of my experience in knowing the capabilities of Vas, I look at any job that we have, can it be done with a VA first? And as more businesses are starting to take that approach, you know, we've got a fundamental shift in the us job market. You got 10,000 boomers retiring every day.

You have a work from anywhere world, which is now the norm, or a hybrid world. You've got, you know, a huge labor gap. You've got labor as an all time expense. And, you know, there's been challenges with getting a motivation for a younger workforce. So all these factors as a business owner, you really need to take into consideration. And at the end of the day, you always want to do what's in the best interest of the business. It's the business first. And, you know, I look at it, I go, what can we fill from our filipino team? Is it sales? Is it cold calling? And not everything can be filled.

You know, we're looking for a new director of sales for tech lock that's got big strategic relationships with massive accounts in the US. I can't get that on a philippine, some with a 20 year Rolodex and knows the depth in detail, but I can sure as heck have someone to do cold calling, appointment setting, and basic follow up things based for our business. So I think in any business, you got to look what is the best thing I can do for the business to keep my costs as low as possible while having the best results. And that's what I found in my lens on the filipino staffing model. Yeah.

I mean, like you said, there's some jobs that have to be done here. If you're doing weddings and events, weddings and events happen somewhere, and people have to be there. We can't have virtual, you know, servers, bartenders, right. Things like that. Although I have seen those robotic bartenders. I like people. I like talking to my bartender. So there were those jobs.

But if you think about every business, everybody listening has things that have to be done that don't involve being face to face with a client. Right. And they might involve a Zoom call, they might involve a phone call, but they don't necessarily have to be done face to face. So I think Covid has certainly turned us that way. But that stat that you said, about 10,000 baby boomers retiring every day, the labor gap is just going to get worse. And the jobs that aren't being filled, those are the jobs that people don't want. I don't want to get into a political discussion about immigrants and stuff like that, but people coming in, in California to, it's America's, what do they call it? Salad bowl, growing all the vegetables and stuff there. You can't do that virtually.

But, you know, let's face it, Ryan, your kids and my kids don't want that job. So somebody's got it. Somebody's got to do it, right? Somebody's got to do it. The stuff that I was doing, it's not that somebody doesn't want the job. It's I don't want to do it. I don't want to be sitting on the sofa doing that kind of stuff. I'd rather be doing a crossword puzzle or a word game or, I don't know, crazy thing like talking to my wife and watching tv. I don't know, you know, something crazy like that.

But so this, I think, goes back to what I started with, the whole idea of these myths about virtual assistants. Virtual assistants are people to do things that need to get done that don't need to be done in person. If I was going to give it a definition, I think that would be it. So, Regine, whether it's remote, remote staffing or whatever, because virtual didn't. It's funny how that's taken on a different meaning, right? Virtual used to mean something else, and now it means this. And think, oh, wait a minute. I go back to my days at the knot. Eleven years at the knot, and none of my salespeople worked where I was.

That was it. So they were virtual? No, they were just remote. They were just in their place there. So, regime, what do you say? I mean, that's what Ryan sees over there. You're also dealing with other clients besides Ryan. So what are some of the other things that you see maybe your team is doing for other people that maybe could be done for the wedding and event market?

There's a lot more. I would say one of the clients that we're working with is more just really inbox management, like what we've been talking earlier today, making sure that all inquiries are being answered at the right time. That's number one thing. But one of the, I would say, story that I received from one of our clients is that he doesn't really need to be there doing the business. Like he was on a vacation, and this was an experience before he actually hired an executive assistant from us. Like he was on a vacation. He was on a boat, but he needs to work on the boat for like 4 hours because he cannot leave the work. It's the recent story that I cannot really get out of my mind, and I'm really happy to hear that.

And after he hired the executive assistant, doing the inbox management or other things, admin things, research and all, he said his life really changed. He can now go on a vacation without really thinking of admin tasks. And that's just one of the stories that I really love talking to clients. Another client that we're working with is a wedding planner, and this was her, I would say, feedback with one of the virtual staff that she's working with is that even though she doesn't really check in with this virtual assistant or virtual staff or whatever you call it, is that this person is always working, making sure that the hours are being filled. And it's like she was surprised because she's not checking in, she's not giving. She seems to see that she's not really giving enough. But this person is always working. So there's an integrity there, and I think that's also one of the things that they have in mind.

Like the clients that we're working with, are they really working even though they're virtual? Is there those misconceptions? I would say, but yes, we are working.

Well, that goes back to, again, this results only work environment. There are certain things that have to be done at certain times on certain days. I record my podcast way ahead. The one we're doing here right now is being done at least weeks, if not a couple of months in advance of when it's going to go out and it's going to sit. That recording is going to sit in a Dropbox. And at some point I'm going to get a confirmation message that the transcript's been done and that the social has been posted and the other stuff's been done. That's my confirmation that the work got done. But it doesn't matter if they do it days, weeks in advance.

It matters if it's done, that it gets posted on the day it's supposed to get posted, and all those things happen. And that is a challenge for some people who are hiring staff, whether it's local staff or remote staff, is the micromanaging. If you give them more clear direction on this is what I need to be done, and this is when I need to get it done and it gets done. Do you care? Right. And I did that with my salespeople. If they're not my top salespeople, well, I didn't micromanage any of my salespeople. If you're making your numbers, I could care less if you were doing 3 hours a day and making your numbers or if you were working 8 hours a day and making your numbers because the goal was make your number. That's what the goal was.

Inbox management. If this person's sitting on a boat and gets a emergency call from their assistant who says you need to answer this now? It cannot wait until you get back. That's also good. That's also a good thing. But in the meantime, emails are coming in, emails are getting answered, and it's just getting done, and it's also us letting go. If you are listening and you're a micromanager, stop. Just stop. Nobody wants that locally.

Nobody wants that remotely. But what they want is clearer direction. And I think I mentioned to this, to you guys the other day when we had a call, a guy instructor at a course I did, a session I did on AI the other day, he said, who gets better results out of AI? People in their twenties, their thirties, their forties, their fifties, their sixties, and so forth. And it was people over 45, because they give better instructions. And when I mentioned it, I mentioned it to my assistant, who's in her twenties, and she's like, yeah, my generation is just like, boop, boop, boop. There you go, it's done. And I sit there and talk, to chat like I'm talking to a person. And when it gives me an answer, I say, hey, great, thanks.

Could you change this? Do this? Let me tell you a little bit more about this. Let me know if you need clarification. And she would have given it eight words and, you know, and had to keep telling it again and again and again. I think the virtual assistant is the same thing. The better the instructions, the better the direction, the better the goal. We can't hit a target we can't see. Right. I think that's a better way.

As someone who's hiring an assistant locally, remotely, whatever salesperson locally, remotely. Do you know what we're trying to accomplish? Do you understand the goal of what we're trying to do here and the mission and all that? So, last thoughts, Ryan, some last thoughts about hiring, staffing that is not there specifically for the wedding and event industry because you spent ten years in it.

Yeah. Just be really clear about the expectations and what you want, you know, and go into it with open eyes and try something new. You know, I never used Vas before two and a half years ago. It's changed my whole business model, changed my life. But the amount of work I have, multiple businesses, I've got so much going on, I literally have no idea how it operate and be. I wouldn't be nearly as progressed as if, as I am now if I didn't have pivot to that VA model because I couldn't afford to hire a half dozen people in the states like our other business. Just isn't there. And it's not only just this business, my personal life.

You know, I just had my ten year wedding anniversary. The work behind the scenes that my, my va did for me on my personal side, like making some reservations, she put together a 45 minutes photo collage. Now, I walked her through it with an hour and said, use these photos. And she made his fantastic video presentation where my wife was bawling, I'm not going to spend 8 hours putting a video movie together. I'll tell her. I'll give her my vision. And I did. I was transparent, by the way, of my wife.

I said, christina did help me out because she knows I'm not going to spend 8 hours on it. So it has personal and professional impact that I can't rave enough, enough about. And for the people out there that are reluctant, like, I don't know, I've been doing things a certain way. The beautiful part about the VA industry, not just our business, but many of our competitors, it's a month to month basis. So if you try something, somebody for a month, and it's $1,500 for a full time or part time person for a month, depending what you're looking for, and it works out. Oh, my God. It can dramatically traject, it can dramatically change the trajectory of your business with a whole new model, staffing model. Could be one people, could be ten people.

It doesn't matter. But if you don't try something new, you'll always get the same result. And that was my aha. Moment two and a half years ago. I tried christina one time, and now I have a half. My company based on the Philippines. And that's my story.

You know, I, something just clicked with me. I had something I needed to get done one time, and instead of telling my assistant how to do it, I said, this is what I'm looking for. You want to take a stab at it? And she came back and said, sure. And came back with something so much better than I could have ever come up with in terms of the graphics and things. I wanted a secret shopping scorecard, and I called it a report card. Well, my vision of a report card and hers are completely different. And she came back with an infographic, and I'm like, what? My mind couldn't even go there. And I think, regina, I think if people would trust your people the same way and say, hey, you know, I want to try to show this, you know, come up with an idea for that.

And, you know, we all have our kind of lens that we look through in my lens there. Just did not see that at all. Now I can't unsee it. And now every time I'm like, make another one. Do one for this client. One for that client. So there you go. So, Regine, last thoughts? Last thoughts like Ryan, there any last thoughts for people listening?

Just like what Ryan said, if you have something that's already clear, because I want to go back to what we've been talking earlier, like, the more you put in, the more you're going to get. So if you're someone who doesn't really have time and you want to try this, you need to get on a call with me first. That's for sure. Because we want to. I asked one of our clients that we will work with, like, after we call it the first week check in, and I asked her if there's one thing that could have been changed during the onboarding process of you getting that virtual assistant, what would it be? And he told me, like, I wasn't sure during my first day. Like, this is already the first day, and I didn't even know what to give to this va. So that's one thing, and that's one thing that we help all of our clients. You need to be ready with the list.

There are also clients already, you know, who already have the list, like years ago before getting that assistant. And those are the clients that I really like to work with, to be honest with you. But, yeah, get that first step. Get on a call with me, let me know what are, you know, the task. And just like what Ryan said, think about what you can leverage. Think about what you can delegate if you're going to, you know, how much is your hourly rate? You, as the CEO of the business for sure, compared to like $7 an hour virtual staff doing that for you, you can never compare. So just think about that. And, yeah, I think that's the last thought I'm going to get for today.

That's what got me started years ago with having virtual assistant was I was listening to an audiobook, and the guy said he charges $250 an hour, and if there's something he can give to someone else to do, outsource, delegate, whatever, that'll cost them dollar 100 an hour or less, and a lot of it is a lot less. There's no point in him doing it. And my rate is higher than that. I get dollar 400 an hour. So why would I sit there and do something that somebody could do for a fraction of them? But I did what you said, regine, when I first started with the virtual assistants. I just made a list. Every time I was doing something, I was like, do I really need to do this? That's a tough question to ask yourself, because as the owner of a business, especially when you start out and it's just you, there's a saying that you're wearing many hats, but you're wearing them all at the same time. So can I take this hat off? Realistically, can I let go? And some people have trouble with that.

I had trouble in the beginning, you know, just letting go. Is that going to actually get done? And now it's like, how many hats can I take off? I want to take off some more hats, if there are any other others to take off here. But I sat down and every time there was something I was doing, I would just put it on a list. And then when I decided to get someone, I made the steps, I went through the steps and I just meticulously wrote down, every time I did it, I took every step that you just take for granted, that you click this button, you drag and drop that you did this. You have to be able to document that and only had to do it once. That's all I had to do is do it once. And then when I gave it to my va and I said, try this, do this, let me know if you run any things. And all of a sudden the thing got done.

And I'm like, she didn't ask me any questions, it just got done. And then I told her, if you make any changes, change the list. I gave you the list. Change the list and just add stuff on there. So it is the first rule of computers, which is garbage in, garbage out. It's the same with any staff, right? If you don't give them good instructions, you're not going to get results. So if you're not prepared to take a few minutes or a few hours to help this person take these things off your plate, you're not going to get the best results. I think that's it.

So we could keep talking about this, but I want to thank you both for coming on here. Regine, early in the morning for you. I know that's normal for you, though. Early in the morning for you over there. Ryan, looks like. What time's the tea time? I don't know, but you're over there.

I wish. I'm not playing today. I'm just sanctuary. Wait for my little kids because they're screaming in the house today.

There you go. There you go. Well, thanks both for joining me. Going to put into the show notes, but, Ryan, what is the website if they wanted to find out more about strategic assistance staffing?

Yeah, it's strategic dash assistant.com.

Okay.

Strategic dash assistant.com.

Strategic assistant.com. i'll put it into the show notes as well. Thank you both for joining me and look forward to seeing next time.

Thanks, Alan. Appreciate it.


I’m Alan Berg. Thanks for listening. If you have any questions about this or if you’d like to suggest other topics for “The Wedding Business Solutions Podcast” please let me know. My email is Alan@WeddingBusinessSolutions.com or you can  text, use the short form on this page, or call +1.732.422.6362, international 001 732 422 6362. I look forward to seeing you on the next episode. Thanks.

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Alan Berg, CSP, Global Speaking Fellow

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