Transcript: Virtual Assistant for Business Growth
Jennifer Dawn: Hey. Hey everybody. Welcome to a new episode of the Happy Productive Podcast, you guys, I’m so excited for my guest today. Her name is Renee Hastings. Renee, welcome to the show.
Renee Hastings: Hey.
Jennifer Dawn: I am so good, and I have to tell you, this conversation is so timely because this morning, of course, as many business owners, I woke up really early before the alarm went off, before the sun was up with like, oh my God, I have to like get this done and this done, and this done and this done.
Jennifer Dawn: And so when I saw you on my calendar day, I’m like, oh, this is a timely conversation. You guys are gonna absolutely love this one today because it’s all about. Delegation and getting the right help that you need in your business so that you are not trying to do everything yourself. Renee is, yeah, right.
Jennifer Dawn: Renee is here with me today. She’s absolutely brilliant. She is the president and CEO of executive help. Now a virtual assistant service agency. She has a degree in business management. She’s been a Dale Carnegie leadership training coach. She’s appeared on many, many multiple media outlets. You guys, y’all, she knows the deal here, so she’s the right person to be talking to.
Jennifer Dawn: Renee, welcome. Welcome to the show.
Renee Hastings: Thank you so much for having me. I am ecstatic to be here.
Jennifer Dawn: Yes. And you know, Renee, I know a little bit of your story of like how you came into having this company and helping people with virtual assistants, but would you just share with everybody a little bit of your story?
Renee Hastings: Sure, I would love to. So it actually started way back when I was a little girl, and my mom encouraged me to become a part of this program called the Summer Youth Employment Program. And this was a program that the. City put on to keep the kids off the street in the summer and give them some exposure to what it would be like to work in a real life work environment as well as, you know, help them identify some of the things that they might like or enjoy doing. It was during these summers that I was a part of this program that I discovered how much I loved organizing things and putting things in folders and sorting and, and streamlining. Things and I was just a little kid, you know, learning these different tools and techniques. So as I continued to nurture those interests, I just kept getting jobs. Doing those things that I was really good at. I started out, you know, my career very young and started out, and I call it a career. I was a receptionist,
Jennifer Dawn: Yeah.
Renee Hastings: but I moved from there being the clerical assistant and then the ad assistant administrative assistant, and then the executive assistant to a director, and then eventually an executive assistant to the C-Suite for about 20 years. And these were in Fortune 100, fortune 500 companies. And when you are supporting an executive on that level, there’s so much that’s required in terms of. Scheduling and streamlining and, and being able to anticipate your, your boss’s needs and ba basically doing for them the things that they don’t even know they need to have done.
Jennifer Dawn: Yeah. Yeah.
Renee Hastings: And so when you get really, really good at that, you know, I just could do that with my eyes closed and hands tied behind my back because it’s something I loved doing,
Renee Hastings: being the confidant to, the senior level executive. So when I. Thought about starting a business after my kids left home and graduated from high school, or you know, it was just me in the house with all this passion and drive and desire and time. I
Renee Hastings: had all of time on my hands. So I was like, well, let me just start a business. And then I was thinking, well, what kind of business would I start? And someone said to me, which was some of the wisest words ever, if you are gonna start a business, do what you know and do what you love. And so
Jennifer Dawn: Hmm.
Renee Hastings: supporting executives is what I knew how to do.
Renee Hastings: So I started a, a virtual assistance service and it was just me supporting the clients in the very beginning. So while I was doing that, I still had my full-time day job. I. And so when you’re working a, a business in addition to a full-time day job, they sometimes call it a side hustle.
Jennifer Dawn: Yeah.
Renee Hastings: And so eventually my side hustle and I put that in air quotes for those that are listening to the podcast because eventually my clients kept telling their friends about the service that they were receiving. Eventually I was putting in just as much time and my side hustle as I was in my day job. And I’m a wife.
Renee Hastings: And then, and so I was like, how am I going to continue doing this? I was working a full-time day job. I was, you know, trying to come home and, and be a halfway decent wife. I was not doing well. And then, trying to run my business at on nights and weekends, sometimes not getting to bed till three in the morning, and then having to get up again at six to get ready to be at work again at eight. This went on for months and months and months, and so finally I was so exhausted. I called my uncle, who was a businessman, retired, and he said, you know, this is not sustainable, right?
This is just one example of why hiring a virtual assistant for business growth can change your business.
Renee Hastings: You cannot keep going this way if you don’t get some balance. Your body is going to shut down and you’re gonna be sat down whether you like it or not.
Renee Hastings: And so I was like, oh my goodness. I said, well, I need some help. He said, you need to get an assistant. And I was like, yes, I do. And so anyways, long story short, I ended up getting my own first virtual assistant to help me to help lighten my load so that
Renee Hastings: I could get some more sleep and try to, you know, spend some more time with my husband and try to be a halfway decent wife, you know, as I’m.
Renee Hastings: Still working this full-time day job and running this business and getting a virtual assistant. Was a game changer in my life. And because I know firsthand what it feels like to be an overwhelmed and exhausted entrepreneur, I can easily have conversations with other entrepreneurs about this situation because virtual assistant changed my life and
Renee Hastings: improved my quality of life.
Renee Hastings: And so I just absolutely love it. And that’s my, my story, how we got started. The business has since then grown and we now have a whole team of virtual assistants all specializing in different areas that we use to help support clients in whatever it is that they need.
Jennifer Dawn: Oh, so great. So great. Okay, so I know there’s some people listening right now who were like, yeah, Renee. I tried a virtual assistant and it didn’t work out. And here’s the thing. This was me too, like in the beginning when I went through several assistants who didn’t work out, and you and I were talking before we, we clicked that record button about how the key is really about having the right assistant.
Jennifer Dawn: And so if you’re listening and you’re just like, yeah, I tried it. It didn’t work. I want you to just. Stop for a second and just listen. Renee, could you speak to what happens, like when you have the wrong assistant at versus when you actually get the right assistant in place? Like what’s that difference like?
Renee Hastings: Right. So one of the things that we come across is people who have had ha bad experiences. And what they’ve said is, well, it took me so long to show ’em how to do it. And then once I did finally show ’em, they still messed it up anyway,
Renee Hastings: or, when they did it, the, the work I got back, it took me so long to edit it because it wasn’t exactly what I was looking for.
Renee Hastings: I could have just done it myself to begin with because it took me more time to fix it than, than to do it. Or some people are just reluctant to hand off things because they have their own fears of letting go and perfectionism and, you know, just different sorts of things like that. When you have the wrong person, it can definitely put a sour taste in your mouth and you start to paint the, the whole industry with the same brush,
Jennifer Dawn: Yeah. Yeah.
Renee Hastings: Which is understandable.
Renee Hastings: I mean, we’re human. But don’t let that one experience taint you from getting a handle allowing yourself. To be taken care of by bringing on the right person. When you hire an agency like ours, then we have already vetted the assistance on our team.
Renee Hastings: They’ve already been tested for skills, for their level of experience.
Renee Hastings: They’ve been trained in the level of excellence and expertise and quality of work that we expect at executive help now, and. They have worked with me personally,
Renee Hastings: so I can vouch for them as people who I want to represent us
Renee Hastings: as they get assigned.
Renee Hastings: So it’s important to find an agency that has already done the work, already has the quality people.
Renee Hastings: I. So that you have a better chance of getting the right person to support you from the absolute beginning, because we realize that this relationship is one that’s not usually a one and done type project thing,
Renee Hastings: but it’s an actual long term journey relationship.
Renee Hastings: And so we are there with you through it all the ups and downs, the good, the bad, the ugly by your side. Being there for you, helping you through it, helping you, you know, being your, whether you need a cheerleader or you need, you know, somebody boots on the ground, you know, doing the things, you know, to help coordinate from afar because we are remote. But I’m just, so the difference between having a good assistant and having That assistant is actually that fit. And so the time has to be taken to make sure that it is the right person. And when you identify someone who is a right fit, definitely hang on to them because it, it is it some, it can sometimes be hard to find the right fit, but when you have an agency, you definitely shorten that time.
Jennifer Dawn: Yeah, I agree and I think it’s so very important that vetting process, that as a busy business owner, we know we need the help. But we don’t always have the time to go out and check the references and to do the skills testing because anybody can say, you know, on a resume, I know how to do, do this. And they can show up in an interview and say, oh, yes, I know how to do this.
Jennifer Dawn: But then when they actually have to do it and they don’t really know what they’ve said, like we find out the hard way and now we’ve wasted so much time and effort. So I think it is. So very important and especially when you work with an agency like yours, that that skills testing, that vetting has already been done.
This is just one example of why hiring a virtual assistant for business growth can change your business.
Jennifer Dawn: So you know that your assistant is actually representing themselves in a way, and it’s like, yes, they actually have the skills that they say because. For those of you who have gotten an assistant, because somebody said you need an assistant, and so you got an assistant and then you’re like, this person doesn’t do anything.
Jennifer Dawn: Right. This person is like taking up more of my time. Like, yeah, it’s true. It’s true when you don’t have the right person, but don’t give up, like set your intention to just be like, all right, if I have to go through one or two, fine. I’m just gonna. Go through ’em until I find that right assistant. And then when you do, it is a game changer when you can just be like, Hey, go do this.
Jennifer Dawn: And they do it just as good, if not better than you would have done. Like everything changes in your business because it’s like, wait, all of a sudden now I can focus on the things that. I really need to be focusing on. I now have three assistants and it didn’t happen overnight, but now I’m up, I’m up to three and I’m just like, if I need more help, I’m gonna add another one.
Renee Hastings: Yes, that’s right. And that’s what you do. And one of the things that I love that you said is that, you know, people can put anything on a resume,
Renee Hastings: and especially with this ai,
Renee Hastings: that people can put anything and they’re like, oh, they sound so great.
Jennifer Dawn: it sound wonderful, and AI says, all right, let me make you sound fantastic. Yep.
Renee Hastings: Exactly. And then when the rubber meets the road, they’re like, wait,
Jennifer Dawn: Ro.
Renee Hastings: And, and so when we are going through our vetting process with our people who wanna be a part of our team. They actually have, you know, these skills assessments that they have to do as well as scenarios that they need to put together and explain to me, and presentations in the whole nine. And if I’m going through this process and there are, you know, typos and poor grammar and bad graphics and all, they don’t even make it to the team.
Renee Hastings: They just don’t even make it.
Renee Hastings: And so it, I’m so excited for you that you have three assistants and they each are, you know, in their lane doing their thing operating in their zone of genius, in their expertise, that you’ve allowed them that opportunity to do what they love.
Renee Hastings: To do. And I’m sure some of those things you could probably do yourself and do them very well, but when you have someone else that you can delegate that to, who loves it even more, like wakes up to do those things that you don’t
Renee Hastings: always enjoy it’s just really a great partnership to be able to say, look, I know you love to do this.
Renee Hastings: You’re super good at this here, have at this.
Jennifer Dawn: Yeah, you bring up such a great point because yeah, all the things my assistants do, could I do it? Yeah. Am I good at it? Yeah. But should I be doing it? Is it a good use of my time? No. Hell to the no. It is not a good use of my time, even if I can do it really well and I really struggle because. I’m one of those like get it done myself, kind of people.
Jennifer Dawn: And so delegating for me is some, is a skill that I’ve really had to work and develop of changing my thinking as far as like. Just like, here’s a task, let me get it done. No, let me slow down and let me think, how can I train my team to actually get this done? So that’s been a, a real skill I’ve had to work to develop of just like developing them, not doing it myself.
Jennifer Dawn: Yes, it takes a little more time in the beginning, but then you get all that time back, like you get that time back tenfold over the long term.
Renee Hastings: and you get that time back to do the things that add value
Renee Hastings: to the, your business. So you have all this now freed up space in your brain
Renee Hastings: so you can now focus on the future and strategy and building those relationships that you, met in your networks and networking events and just different things that we meet people all the time
Renee Hastings: and that takes time to nurture those relationships, you know?
Renee Hastings: And so when you’ve now got this newfound freed up time, you can actually focus on them and, and building your business and helping other people in that way.
Jennifer Dawn: Yeah, agree. So completely. Okay. So I know some people right now maybe don’t understand all of the different things that you can get an assistant to help you with, so would you mind just going into the, the little bit, tap into that. The iceberg, right, the tip of the iceberg of the myriad of things that assistance can actually help you with these days.
Renee Hastings: There’s so many things. So many things. So we have clients that are in so many different industries, public relations, real estate they’re even in corporate America as single parents who need personal assistance at their house. Because they’re single moms or single parents and their children are active in different things, and so they need their bills paid and for the kids to get their haircuts, and so they need appointments and all the things so. All the things that an executive assistant in the office typically does, whether it is calendar management, email management, scheduling meetings, trying to get groups of busy people together and coordinating dates and times, doing the presentations, bookkeeping and expense reports, all of those things that an executive assistant in the office does.
This is just one example of why hiring a virtual assistant for business growth can change your business.
Renee Hastings: Those are the things that can be done remotely by a virtual assisting. We also offer social media management and engagement. And so everyone, every business needs a social media presence, but not every business has the time to put into having a actual, regular presence and to be able to engage with the people who engage with their content. So. A virtual assistant can certainly help you with that. And we also offer podcast productions What business wouldn’t love a podcast. But yeah, it’s a lot of work putting together a podcast, as
Renee Hastings: I’m sure you know.
Jennifer Dawn: Oh yeah.
Renee Hastings: But when you have a team, a production team, people who can produce the shows for you, find you guests, find you opportunities to be on other people’s stages and put together all of the content, make it look great, make you look great, make you sound great, post all that content. Repurpose the content. All of those things can be done by a virtual assistant, and we have people with those expertises on our team as well.
Jennifer Dawn: Oh, so amazing. Like really guys. So podcasting. And I wanna ask you about email because email sometimes for me feels like the bane of my existence of just like you, you answer five and 50 more come in and so can a virtual assistant. Really help with email inbox management. And what does that look like?
Jennifer Dawn: Because I’m a little bit like, eh, I don’t know if I want somebody in my email inbox, especially with coaching clients and proprietary information. And so like if you are one of these people that your inbox is a little bit more like, oh, I don’t really know if I want somebody in there. You know? What are some ways that a VA can actually help you with inbox management?
Renee Hastings: Yes, absolutely. And we get that a lot where
Renee Hastings: people will hand off everything else but they hang onto the email, which is like you said, the bane of their existence. But with us, we definitely will sign confidentiality agreements or NDAs with our clients if that. You know, provides them a, a level of comfort.
Renee Hastings: All of my team members have NDAs with me at, at executive help now and confidentiality agreements are, are binding
Renee Hastings: and so, and that is an expectation of everyone on the team that they know that whatever information we become privy to, we’re like Fort Knox. There’s, it’s not going anywhere.
Renee Hastings: No. Is getting that information. We get in access to the inboxes, and then we’re able to find out from the client, who are your important people? Who do you really wanna hear from?
Renee Hastings: What topics or what things that come into this inbox? Do you really want to see or need to see who are? And we create that list of the, the key people who’s the most important. All the other things that come in when we are going through and looking through all of the emails. We’re now, our antennas are up for those key people.
Renee Hastings: And if something comes in, we’re aware of what you are dealing with.say you’re getting ready to do a, a, have a meeting with a potential new client and they’re in a particular industry, and we may come across something in your inbox that. May relate to that. That’s something that we can then flag and say, Hey, you might wanna take a look at this. This might help you with this meeting that you’re getting ready for,
Renee Hastings: you know, next week or whatever. So we can be the set of eyes to vet and go through all of the email, most of which is usually junk,
Renee Hastings: and then flag those things that are that need your attention or put them into folders, separate them out from the, the, the big main inbox into other folders that.
Renee Hastings: Are are prioritized in a particular way. There’s so many different ways that we can manage that information and different clients like it done differently. ’cause sometimes they don’t even want it in the inbox, they want it sent somewhere else.
Renee Hastings: So that all they have to do is check this one little space for all of the important things. And, and so we do that as well. So there’s a lot of different methods to getting the job done.
Jennifer Dawn: Oh, it’s so true because I find that I often just like sit there and delete, delete, delete, you know, go through all the garbage so that way then I can get it down to, hey, these are the emails that are important that I really need to receive. To, so having somebody help like clean that up can honestly make email be so much more efficient.
Renee Hastings: Yes, absolutely, because you’re not having to co get through all the clutter and there’s so much clutter.
Jennifer Dawn: Oh, there is so
Renee Hastings: And you can create rules too that if a per a particular email comes in from a place, you know, you can create a rule that says just send this to trash,
Jennifer Dawn: Yeah. Oh.
Renee Hastings: and that doesn’t even go into your inbox.
Jennifer Dawn: Oh, I love that so much. And I know a lot of the email providers these days are really cracking down. I’m seeing a lot more emails land in my spam and junk folder, and so it’s almost like having to go through that as well more now because it’s like, oh, I’ve seen like legitimate emails actually land in there.
This is just one example of why hiring a virtual assistant for business growth can change your business.
Jennifer Dawn: So, wonderful. But it’s so great that you can have an assistant do that for you. Alright, Renee, before we run out of time ’cause you clearly are the efficiency and the productivity expert and that’s what you and your team do. Are there any other like efficiency hacks that you can share with our audience today?
Renee Hastings: Oh my goodness, there’s so many. One of the things that I really encourage executives to do is especially busy people meet with busy people.
Renee Hastings: I encourage our clients to. Give up their calendars as soon as possible. I know
Renee Hastings: that’s a tough one. It can be super scary, but when you allow someone else to take over that very time consuming part of your life, you’re freed up.
Renee Hastings: That frees up a whole lot of time. So calendar management and email management are our two most requested services.
Renee Hastings: They make the biggest difference in the quality of time or the amount of time that an executive has available. So I would definitely encourage that. So that’s that one productivity hack I’ll call it.
Renee Hastings: In terms of what an executive can do to free themselves up immediately,
Renee Hastings: like immediately. And then beyond that, anything that’s taking them too much time, you know, things that are like, expense reports or doing receipts and things like that, or, you know, bookkeeping, delegate those things.
Renee Hastings: Delegate, delegate, delegate. And then just get used to. Saying to yourself, it’s okay for me to have help.
Jennifer Dawn: Mm.
Renee Hastings: It’s okay.
Renee Hastings: It’s okay for someone else to do this.
Jennifer Dawn: Oh, I love that so much. That was one of the things that my assistant started doing. So as a co, as a business coach I’ve got her now. I, I gave my calendar freely. I’m like, here you go. But had to give right. Some parameters. Don’t book me after four o’clock because after four o’clock I am tired.
Jennifer Dawn: I don’t wanna talk to anybody. And so she knows, you know, not to book me during these times. And then we have times blocked out on the calendar when she knows not to book anything. And so I think it’s really important to educate your VA on, you know, the rules of the road when they do take over your calendar.
Jennifer Dawn: But now what she’ll do is she’ll go behind me. So as I have a day, she’ll go behind every client appointment and she’ll make sure that their next appointment got scheduled. It’s a simple thing, but sometimes when you’re back to back to back on coaching calls, I don’t always have time to like schedule that next appointment.
Jennifer Dawn: And so just having an assistant do something like that when you, when you work with recurring clients over and over, just knowing that I don’t have to worry about it. Somebody’s going behind me to double check their next appointment got scheduled. If they’re in a recurring time, great. If they’re not reaching out to the client to getting it on the books and then making sure it’s entered in the system and on my calendar properly, like that little thing has saved me so much time and aggravation.
Jennifer Dawn: And then what I can do is now really focus on the client. And give my full attention to the client and not have to worry so much about those logistics. So it really is a gift when you have the right assistant and you can train them up and they’re just helping you. And gosh, like I was a one woman show when I first started my business years ago, now I’m like, I could not run all this by myself anymore.
Jennifer Dawn: I’m like, no.
Renee Hastings: Scale, scale, when you bring on an assistant, that’s when you can scale.
Renee Hastings: That’s when you can grow, because now you
Renee Hastings: have all this time to, to bring on these new clients.
Renee Hastings: But yeah, my goodness, a an assistant is definitely a game changer. And one of the things I love about calendar management is learning our clients’ preferences.
Renee Hastings: You
Renee Hastings: know, some like you said, don’t book me after four, some don’t book me before 10.
Renee Hastings: Some block all my lunches, you know, make sure I eat,
This is just one example of why hiring a virtual assistant for business growth can change your business.
Renee Hastings: you know. All of those things are so critically important and and we’re just so happy to, to do those things and take that off your plate. We love doing those things.
Jennifer Dawn: Oh, I love it. And when you have an assistant who loves what they do, it really does make it a game changer. Like they want to do things for you and they’re like, Hey, give it to me. And now it becomes this beautiful partnership and together you can scale your business. And you don’t feel quite so alone in that journey because you really do have that help supporting you.
Jennifer Dawn: It’s really a beautiful thing.
Renee Hastings: It is, it’s wonderful. We absolutely love it, and the way that we impact lives is so rewarding and refreshing and just gets us up every morning,
Renee Hastings: just, it’s really such a great feeling.
Jennifer Dawn: I love it. All right, Renee. So for those of us listening who are like, I gotta go, hire me an assistant now, and Yes you do. Renee, where can they find you? Where can they find out information about your agency?
Renee Hastings: So we are on the web, of course, at executive help now.org. And we are also on all the socials at executive help Now, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn if anyone wants to know if they’re ready for a virtual assistant. Some people might think, well, I’m, I don’t know, maybe I am a solopreneur. Maybe I’m, how do I know if I’m ready?
Renee Hastings: They can text a number. I’ll give to you. 1 8 6 6 9 4 3. 3, 5, 9, 1 and get a freebie download of things to consider to let you know Yeah, you could be ready. It could be time. And our packages start at just 10 hours a month. So, you know, certainly things to support every budget and yeah, it works really well.
Jennifer Dawn: Wonderful. Alright guys, we’re gonna put all that information in the show notes as well so that you can go check out Renee and hopefully hire one of her amazing pre-vetted, pre-screened assistants that are gonna be the real deal for you and your business. Now, I know if you’re listening today, we had, we talked about.
Jennifer Dawn: So many different things. Something resonated with you. There was a truth bomb in there somewhere. So I really wanna encourage you to take action on it. It’s one thing to listen and learn. It’s another thing to take action, and that’s how we get the results in our businesses. So pick anything from today, you guys, and take action on it.
Jennifer Dawn: Renee, thank you so much for being here with me.
Renee Hastings: Oh, it’s been my pleasure, Jennifer. Thank you so much for having me.
Jennifer Dawn: Yes. Alright, that’s it for today’s show. Y’all get out there and have a happy, productive day. Bye.
Learn more at Executive Help Now.
Explore more growth strategies at JenniferDawnCoaching.com.
