79: Want to Hire A Virtual Assistant in 2026? Here’s What You Need to Know!

A virtual assistant can be a huge asset to a business — but as a business owner, it's not as simple as "just hire a VA" when you start to get overwhelmed.

In this episode, I’m calling out the bad advice that’s setting business owners up to fail (and straining client/VA relationships), how to know if you’re actually ready to delegate, and what things you need in place before you hire a VA!

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Transcript

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If you've been told to just hire a VA when you are feeling overwhelmed, I need you to pause because hiring without a plan doesn't solve your problem. In fact, it makes it much bigger. Listen, I've been the VA, I've coached VAs, and I've hired them. I have one literally as we speak. And I can tell you right now, a virtual assistant can absolutely help you grow your business, but only if you're actually ready to lead. In this episode, I'm breaking down how to know when it's time to hire a VA, what a VA can actually take off your plate, and why so many business owners come to regret their first hire. And it's probably not what you think. If you are planning to hire a VA in your business, but you want to do it the right way, this episode is for you. Let's dive in. Welcome to the Virtual Assistant School Podcast. I'm your host, Kate, a teacher-turned entrepreneur, mom of two, and I teach women how to use the skills they already have to make money from home as a virtual assistant. Every Tuesday and Thursday, you'll get step-by-step strategies, behind-the-scenes insights, and hear honest, unfiltered conversations about making money and growing an online business so you can stop feeling stuck and start taking action toward your goals. Whether you're looking for a flexible side hustle or want to take your business full-time, this podcast is for you. Building a business or starting something new can be super overwhelming at times. But here, you don't have to do it alone. So grab your coffee or make another cup and let's dive into this week's episode. One of the worst pieces of advice that I see in the online business space is when a business owner feels overwhelmed and like they have too much on their plate, and everyone says, Oh, just go hire a VA. It'll solve all your problems. Go hire a VA. Yada yada yada. Seriously, it's like top five worst pieces of advice, in my opinion. But honestly, it's not just unhelpful, but in some cases, it's harmful. I've seen time and time again well-meaning business owners try to bring a VA on because they got the advice that so many people do, but because they didn't have their business prepared ahead of time or even really a solid understanding of what it looks like to hire a VA, they waste time, money, and honestly, a lot of times it strains the relationship with the virtual assistant. In fact, this is the number one reason why when I talk to people who say, you know, oh yeah, like I hired a VA once and it just really didn't work out at all. And, you know, yada, yada, yada. It's because the business owner wasn't prepared ahead of time, not to like their fault. Like people just aren't talking about this, people aren't educating about this, um, which is exactly why I'm doing it. Um it just they didn't have a solid understanding of what a virtual assistant's role is. They didn't have the systems in place to make delegation easier, and it ended up being a not so great move for the business. So let's break it down a little bit. A virtual assistant's role is to help and support you. Okay. A VA is not a strategist, a VA is not a coach, a VA is not a co-founder. They are people who come into your business and can take over things that either A, you don't want to do in your business, B, don't have the time to do in your business, or C, a mixture of both. They are the people who can come in and implement right away so that you can do more of what you are really good at and why you probably started your business in the first place. But in order for a VA to implement, they need direction. They need to know your expectations, your standards, your processes. I've seen it from all sides. What works, what doesn't work, and what is actually going to be the thing that makes the difference when hiring and having a successful relationship with your virtual assistant. Because the truth is your VA wants to help you. That's literally why they became a VA. They are the helpers, they want to support you, but you have to be willing to give them what they need in order for them to be able to do that. Now, in case you didn't know, we match business owners with VAs that graduate from our program. And when I have people come to me about hiring a VA, there's two big questions they always ask. Number one, how do I actually know it's time to hire a VA? And number two, what can a VA actually do for me and my business? But the question most people don't even think to ask, they just don't even know to ask, is what do I need to have in place before hiring so that this can be successful for both me and my VA? I'm gonna answer all three of those questions in this episode. So buckle up, but let's get started with number one. How do I know it's time to hire a virtual assistant? The number one way that you can really like know that it's time is you are spending way more time in the weeds of your business than in your actual zone of genius. You are not able to do the things that you love in your business because you're having to do all the things that keep your business running, right? Like answering customer support emails or doing, you know, the pretty basic tech things behind the scenes, where it's like um, you know, turning on and off different links or, you know, scheduling your social media posts or whatever that might be. You didn't start your business to do the admin stuff. You started your business because you wanted to help the people that you are serving in your business, right? Like if you are a health and fitness coach, you're you started your business because you love health and fitness and you want to help people with that, not because you want to answer emails all day long or manage invoicing and client onboarding and offboarding, right? You want to stay in your zone of genius. And that is what a VA helps you do, helps you stay in the things that you're really good at and takes away the things that you don't need to be doing and that somebody else could be doing. Another good time when it's time to hire is you're repeating tasks that can be recorded and handed off. We're gonna talk about SOPs in a moment, but if you are doing the same thing over and over and over again, it's time to pass that off to someone else. And another really good way to know that it's time to hire a VA is things are falling through the cracks or you're procrastinating, you know, different admin-related things, um, simply because number one, you can't keep up, or you just are dreading doing those things, right? Again, kind of goes back to that first um sign that it's time to hire, is that you're just not doing the things that you enjoy doing. But in order for you to grow, you are going to have to get some help with those things so you can do more of serving your clients, sales, whatever that looks like for you. I think it's also a really good thing to note is that if you don't have the budget to hire a VA, hiring a VA can actually be more stressful than helpful. Sometimes people hire before they are ready financially, and that causes not only strain on you and your business, but it causes strain on the VA too. Because if you're not willing to pay them what their rate is, which I would say most VAs rates land somewhere between 20 and you know, up to like$40 an hour. I always recommend the gals that come through my program they do retainer-based, um, hourly retainer-based rates. So basically, like if you need them for 10 hours a month and their rate is$30 an hour, you're gonna pay them$300 on the first of every month. This is very, you know, industry standard kind of deal. It makes it very predictable for you. You know exactly how much they're pay you're paying them for exactly what they're doing. And it makes it predictable for the VA because they know exactly, you know, how many hours they have reserved for you and um they know exactly how much money is coming in for them too. When you get into the weeds of, you know, hourly-based kind of rates, it can get really messy because uh it can fluctuate a lot, you know, and we would rather have predictability in our businesses, all of us would. And so it's really important to note that. But if you aren't in a place where you can spend, let's say, you know, base probably$200 a month. If you find a VA who has a$20 an hour rate and you need them for 10 hours a month, um, that's probably like your best starting point, then you might not be ready to hire a VA. There are some really unethical practices, in my opinion, where people are paying VAs less than livable wages. And I just don't think that's right. I like to think of, you know, when I'm hiring a babysitter to come and watch my kids, I should be paying my VA at least when I'm paying my babysitter, and I pay my babysitter$20 an hour. It's pretty typical to find a really great VA at$30,$35 an hour. So we're looking at, you know,$300 to$350 a month. But like I said, you can find some VAs who are new and they are willing to learn and they are excited to work with you who you could pay, you know,$200 a month for 10 hours. Um, but underpricing and underpaying your VAs is also undervaluing them as, you know, a partner, a team member in your business who is helping support you. Okay, the second question that most people ask when it comes to, you know, hiring a VA and looking into the whole process is what can a VA actually do in my business? And the VA can do a lot of different things. And that's going to look different for every single client that they have, every single person, because everyone's business is different, right? But a generally, you know, generally a good rule of thumb is going to be if you can show someone how to do something in a one to 10, maybe 20-minute loom video, which is basically like a screen recording of the task, then a VA can take that over. I bet if you did an audit of everything you do daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, et cetera, which is actually exactly what we do with our clients that we work with through our VA readiness audits, you are going to find there are a lot of things that you could easily show someone how to do in a recorded video and hand off to them. And we're gonna dive into that a little bit more in a minute, but there's things like how to format a blog post, scheduling out your social media content, how to manage a membership, like when someone cancels or you know, someone joins the membership. What's the process for that? Inbox management, you know, making sure that people know what to say to different people who are emailing you. There are so many things that a VA can do for you, but it's going to look different depending on who you are and what your business is and what things you want to pass off, because there might be things that you want to keep and there's things that you want to delegate. I heard a quote a couple of years ago that said, hire for the heart and train the hands. And this was actually in reference to corporate hiring, but I think it is so relevant to hiring a VA because some of the best VAs out there, they might not have a ton of experience yet, right? A lot of VAs, at least the ones that I work with, are teachers or former teachers. They maybe quit their corporate job to stay at home with their kids. A lot of them have a lot of experience in other things, but now they want to be able to make money from home. And supporting business owners as a VA is a way for them to do that. And so, yeah, while they might have never, you know, been a VA before, they have limited experience in the systems and processes that you have in your business, it doesn't mean that they won't be a great VA. I think the most important thing when it comes to hiring a VA is well, first and foremost, your business is ready for it and you've prepared ahead of time, which is exactly what we're talking about in this episode. But number two is that you and the VA actually get along. Like you actually like the person that you are hiring and you can see them, you know, being someone that you work closely with because you are going to be working closely with them. That is way more important, in my opinion, than the fact that this person has experience in X, Y, and Z systems, because you should be able to show them exactly how you want things done in your business and how you want them to use the system. Again, every client does something different. So I would have clients who both use Kajabi, for example, but the way that one client wanted me to use it, you know, to manage their um, let's say missed payments is different than another person and how they wanted me to do that process. You know, it's it looks different. And so it's important that you have all of that established. And I think it's more important that you enjoy the person that you're working with, enjoy the person you're hiring, and you can show them how you want the other things taken care of. Now, what a VA is not is a social media manager. Okay, they can help with social media in terms of, you know, scheduling or you know, helping you with graphics or whatever that looks like. But if you truly want someone that is like creating the content for you, posting, engaging, all of that kind of stuff, you probably actually want a social media manager and that looks different. They also are not an operations and systems expert, that is a different kind of role. So if you are someone who needs different like systems set up from scratch and you have no idea how to do it, then a VA probably isn't going to be the role that you need. You need someone who specializes in that and can help you with that. And then you can pass off those things to a VA. Also, if you're a VA listening to this and you're like, wait, I do those things and I'm a VA, sister, you are no longer a VA. Okay. You likely are offering services and you're undercharging for them if you are calling yourself a VA and you're doing more of this high-level stuff. So let's chat if that's you, and we can, you know, figure something out to help you. Okay, just wanted to take a quick second to remind you about our Black Friday five days of deals week that is happening in just a couple of weeks. So starting November 24th through November 28th, which is Black Friday, we will have a deal a day on our most popular programs, including Beginner to Booked VA, as well as our digital products, our Your Behind the Scenes BFF membership, and even our VA readiness audits for those of you who are business owners looking to hire a VA in 2026. Plus, if you jump on the wait list, you will not only get all of the details sent to your email, you will also get early access to the deals next week on Wednesday, November 19th until Friday, November 21st. So that for the deals that have limited spots, you can snag them. And also you don't have to worry about getting the deal between hosting, Thanksgiving, and last minute Costco runs, you know? So head to your BTSBFF.com slash deals to sign up for all the details. And let's get back to the episode. Okay, so that third question is what do you actually need in your business to hire a VA? How should you actually prepare your business to bring a VA on? And honestly, I could probably talk about this for another hour, but I'm going to try and keep it short and sweet. Number one is understanding the tasks that you want to delegate. I would look at your tasks, your daily, your weekly, your monthly, your quarterly, and more of your repeatable processes and tasks. And what are ones that I can record a one to 10 minute loom video and show someone else how to do? Okay. That right there is what we call recorded SOPs. All right. That's standard operating procedures. And it helps you really define expectations. VAs, like I said, work with many different clients. And even VAs with the most experience will still need you to tell them how you want things done because every single client has a different process or expectation of how they want a task carried out. Think about it this way: as a teacher, my students had classroom jobs. With the classroom jobs, they all had different things that I delegated to them. Let's say that this student's job was to sharpen all of the pencils. I would show them exactly how I wanted them to do this, right? I would show them how to collect the pencils, how to use the pencil sharpener, and then where to put them when they're done. Sure, it takes a little bit of time up front to show them the process, but now I don't have to sharpen any more pencils ever again, right? Same goes for your business. That's the goal. So while, yes, setting them up with a recorded SOP, showing them how to do the task. And, you know, as you're onboarding the VA, answering any questions that they have, that's gonna take a little bit of time. But now that VA is going to be able to take that task off your plate forever. So you're going to gain so much more time back in the long run. And this is something that I get a lot of pushback on is like, oh, well, if I have to show someone how to do it, then I might as well just do it myself. And I think that's a really honestly bad attitude to have because you show someone one time in a video. Let's say, you know, the next time you do that task, you just start screen recording what you're doing and talking through the process. That's better than nothing. Then you're never going to have to do that task again. So really it's saving you hours and hours and hours, probably days long term, because someone else is doing that task for you. Another thing to think about before you hire is what you want to use for communication or for giving feedback. Um, this is something I talk to my VAs who go through our program about is, you know, best practices for client communication. But if you're hiring a VA that's not through our program, um, I would just really figure out what works best for you. Is it Slack? Is it Boxer? I personally would not recommend texting or using your personal phone number. I think that that blurs boundaries pretty often. So having like one channel that you can use that's like for professional communication is great. I think it does need to be something more than just email because if I need to send a quick voice message to my VA or the VA needs to send a quick voice message to you, that's a lot easier than like typing out an email, you know? Listen, at the end of the day, your job is to lead, not micromanage, but being clear is kind. Okay. Having these things in place are going to help you with that. Okay, that is all that I have for you today. Hopefully, this gave you a good idea of what a VA does and how they can help you in your business because truly it is a game changer and it's a huge deal and something to celebrate when you get to the point of hiring a VA. You should feel really excited about this process and not overwhelmed. And that's what I hope you not only got from this episode, but it's also what we help you achieve through our VA Readiness Toolkit and our audits. But if you have any other questions about what it looks like to hire a VA, what to expect, what to make sure you have in place before you do so, please send me a message on Instagram at your BFF Kate. I would love to chat with you about this. And if you're ready to book your VA Readiness audit or download the VA Readiness Toolkit, first place that you can do that is through our five days of deals week that's happening very, very soon. So make sure you sign up on the early bird list to get early bird access. And I will chat with you in the next episode. I'm rooting for you. Bye.