Today I’m interviewing my team member, Susan Haines, about her experience as a homeschooling mom becoming a virtual assistant. She started working with me as an intern from February to April of this year, and then she became a team member in August.
About Susan
Susan is from the great state of Oklahoma. She is primarily a homeschool mom. She homeschools her four kids and is a stay-at-home mom. Susan is also a pianist and has played piano for 25 years, along with having piano students.
Q&A of Susan’s Virtual Assistant Experience
Alyssa: Can we talk about leading up to becoming a virtual assistant?
Susan: Well, this kind of thing it wasn’t something I was really looking at, but we needed some extra income. My mother-in-law offered me a job remotely, just helping with her business, so I was doing her social media. My sister-in-law showed me how to do all of that, and it came really easily. It wasn’t tricky. It was fun.
I discovered two things: it just came naturally just doing these computer-based tasks and it gave me a little break from being a mom. I’ve always been a stay-at-home mom, and sometimes you just need to do something else besides wash dishes or change diapers.
A couple of years after that, I did start my own blog because I’d read about people doing this, and I thought it sounded fun. I took a course to do that, and I learned some skills I didn’t have before. And again, it came naturally to do all this computer stuff.
After that, I ended up in a sort of mentorship with another lady, and she asked me to manage her Facebook group. I kept learning all these other little skills. That group is where I met Alyssa originally, and I was following what you do and saying, “Okay, that I like that. I think eventually I’m going to do that.” And here I am.
Alyssa: Yes, we were connected for a really long time before Susan actually decided she wanted to do the internship. We had been connected a while through this mentorship program that we were in, and then I believe you took my course prior to doing the internship. So you did it in a different order than some of the previous.
Susan: I am a processor. I got to think about it a really long time before I did it. So that’s what I did.
Alyssa: Yep, so she did the course, and then she decided she wanted to apply for the internship.
So let’s talk about your experience as an intern and how that was for you.
Susan: I was really nervous just because it was a little more official, structured thing than just me piddling around doing my own thing, but it was really good for me. I learned some extra skills that I didn’t already have. It showed me that I could work in a more structured way for someone else and keep up with it. And I enjoyed having the mentorship. The most valuable thing to me was having someone else who’s already done virtual assistant work that I could ask my questions and grow that way.
Alyssa: Absolutely. That is the internship program. The reason I did it is because I was an intern for someone way back years ago and got so much from the experience, and that’s really why I did it.
So how did your role evolve from being an intern to a team member?
Susan: Everybody on your team has some sort of specialties, a thing that we’re good at. Either that or just something you don’t particularly do or you don’t prefer. So you are strengthening your own team and company by adding on these things. I specialize in SEO and keyword research, and I was doing some of those things for you.
You had asked me to do some tasks and there was this kind of gap because I was done being an intern, but I was just hanging around and you were throwing me tech. I loved helping out, and then it morphed into me officially being on the team. And I was very happy for that. I like being a part of the team. Again, I love the mentorship and the ability to ask all our questions and workshop things together.
Alyssa: Yeah, absolutely. That has been so beneficial to both me and to each other, being able to have our own areas of specialization and being able to support each other in those areas.
So moving on to talking a about the course that you took. You took the Become a Virtual Assistant course. How do you think that course helped you to prepare you for the role that you’re in now?
Susan: Okay, you talk about a lot of resources and systems that you need to have as a virtual assistant, and some of that opened my eyes to the logistical things that you need to have in place. You also have to take it seriously as a business.
It’s one thing to just create a spreadsheet for my friend or post on her social media, but it’s another thing to just run it as a business and be organized about it. So that open my eyes and helped me think about those things for myself. It also reinforced the skills that I already had because there’s hundreds of things that you could do as a virtual assistant.
It’s hard to think about: What am I going to offer? What are my things? But it reinforced that I did have things that I was already good at and I could do this.
Alyssa: Absolutely, I say everybody has marketable skills. You will hear me say that a lot.
So what has it been like working as a part of the team? And can you share some key takeaways from our collaboration as a team?
Susan: The best part of being on a team is your personal willingness to share your experience and your wisdom. That’s just so cool, and watching you work. You have this to get-it-done attitude and ability. And it may just come naturally to you, but I’ve always been a person who procrastinates and just doesn’t get things done. I’ve always been down on myself about that, but I watch you just get it done. And I love that about you. I have worked hard to emulate that and do that my own, and I’ve discovered that I can.
I also see that you’re not afraid to research and figure out a new skill because everything’s changing all the time. We have to be like constant learners, and you’re always doing that. And it’s not a bad thing, it’s a good thing. Just doing your research and learning new things all the time.
Alyssa: Yes, absolutely. That’s something I’ve talked about recently, just that one of the things that can help you as a virtual assistant is to always be learning. Even Facebook changes constantly. It is crazy how you have to always be learning and growing to be able to do this work.
So in relation to that, how do you think you have grown as a virtual assistant in this past year?
Susan: Again, I’ve always been a procrastinator. Just classic time blindness and ADHD stuff. But I’ve learned how to track my time and use it efficiently when I’m tracking it.
Also my confidence in the things that I can do. Along with telling people what I can do and how I can help. Also, I’ve always been a procrastinator, but I’m also a perfectionist. Sometimes I procrastinate because I can’t do it perfectly. But my perfectionism and my passion for the details being just right can actually be a gift. So it’s not always a downside because if you’re doing things for clients, they want that. They want it done perfectly, exactly how they want it. And they’re going to be blessed when their VA is able to do that for them.
Alyssa: That’s right. I am also a perfectionist. I blame my father for that. He is one, and he expected that from me. He was hard on me about things like that, but now I’m very grateful for it because it has helped me in my life and my business.
Now, what advice would you give a woman who is wanting to become a virtual assistant?
Susan: The biggest thing this relates back to is what we talked about being on a team. I would not try to go it alone, I would have a mentor or a community or something. Alyssa has a Facebook group for VAs. Even if you just think you want to be a VA, you can be in her Facebook group. Just having access to someone that you can ask your questions and learn things from.
Whether you pay to take a course just to have access to somebody, don’t try to do it on your own.
For another thing, it’s becoming more popular, so there’s a ton of information out there. Some of it’s conflicting and some people will charge you ridiculous amounts. I looked at one lady at one point, and it was 200 a month to be in her little group. And I thought, “That’s ridiculous. I can’t make money that way.” So there are people that will charge you ridiculous amounts of money for their wisdom. Try not to do that, but find somebody to be a mentor like Alyssa who can help you.
Alyssa: I feel like we give a ton of information away in the Facebook channel on the podcast, so there is a lot of free information. I try to encourage people because that’s how I learned in the beginning. I didn’t even know I was becoming a VA, but I learned from a lot of people and received free or low cost information. So that’s obviously something that is very doable.
Where do you see yourself as you move forward in this field? Do you have some professional goals?
Susan: This was hard for me to think about. I didn’t think about it because at the moment I’m a little bit in survival mode.
I’m helping support our family because my husband’s unemployed, but I thought about if life settles down and I could go any direction.. My kids are going to start graduating, and I don’t really want to go work outside the home. I would love to just keep growing my own clientele as a VA. If I can have long-time clients that I just continue to work with and building that base, I would love that.
Alyssa: I think you can do that. And what is one surprising thing that you’ve learned about yourself becoming a VA?
Susan: I feel like this kind of I feel like I already said it, but I’m not a focused person. I’m not a sit down and get it done person. But I can be, and I hope I’m learning to embrace that. Not just that it can be a business and I can support my family, but I love serving and I love helping people. I want to be known as a VA who doesn’t just have a business and have people pay me for my services, but a VA that can serve people. I can be someone who helps people in supports them, makes their life easier.
Alyssa: Exactly. And this is the mission of our business Alyssa Avant and company, to serve God and others. That’s my mission statement. I love that my team members have that same mindset and same values that I do.
I want to thank you for that and for being on the team. And also for this time that you spent with us this morning.
Susan: Thank you so much, Alyssa. Thank you for letting me be on your team. This has been a blessing for me.
