[0:19] they've had these prime opportunities, whether it's new clients or a colleague of theirs recommending someone to them and they've missed it because they don't want to look at their inbox.
[0:27] They're too overwhelmed. So we will pick up new client inquiries and we will agree a process
[0:33] Ian: Welcome to Smart ADHD. In this episode, I'm joined by my good friend, Sarah Rugg, as we discover and go into the world of VAs when it comes to running your own business. This is the Smart ADHD guide to virtual assistant Part one. Sarah set up Vi-Va her own VA business back in 2005, and her focus on providing the very best virtual support meant her business grew, and she now heads up a team of over 30 VAs. Leading the way with supporting Neurodiverse clients, many of the Vi-Va team are ADHD- trained VAs. Let's get on with it, right now!
[1:08] Hello, I'm Ian Anderson Gray, and this is the smart ADHD podcast.
[1:23] Now if you're a smart, creative entrepreneur or business owner navigating your life with ADHD, This is the podcast for you. Now, I'm no ADHD expert, but I'm eager to share my story on what I've learned by talking with experts, as well as digging into the personal ADHD stories of successful creatives and entrepreneurs.
[1:45] I was diagnosed at age 46, and it answered so many questions in my life. But of course, that was in many ways, only the start of my journey. So let's learn together. Smart stories, smart strategies, smart ADHD.
[2:13] Hi, Sarah, welcome to the smart ADHD podcast. I'm very excited that you're here. We've known each other for quite a few years. And you've helped me in a huge way in probably, I don't know, is it like a year and a half ago, in sorting out a VA for me. So that's what we're going to be talking about in this episode, how virtual assistants can help those of us those of us who are entrepreneurs, business owners with ADHD and how that can really help.
[2:40] So Sarah, can you introduce yourself and maybe give us a brief story of how on earth you came to be the founder of Viva and this whole virtual assistant thing?
[2:53] Sarah: Yeah. Hi, Ian. Thank you so much for having me really appreciate it. And it's great to be on your podcast. So going back to 2003, 2004 time, I was working in the corporate world, what they're about. probably 18 years I think in total and I was really busy and quite a busy role with quite a lot of responsibility and I was coming home late at night and just spending, was exhausted and I was spending my weekends and late evenings just catching up with chores and basically not really having much of a life and I thought wouldn't it be great if someone could do my life admin?
[3:30] But What a brilliant idea, I thought, absolute genius, I'm going to start, or look to start a business in this. Anyway, after a bit of Googling, there was already this concept, not very, out there at the time, called Lifestyle Management, now called Life Admin. And I, long story, but it was a bit of a dream in my head Two children, went back to work, went from quite a high powered job, got shoved in a filing room, being told basically that was my new job. So I thought, nah, I don't fancy this. Set up a lifestyle management business, attracted quite a few clients who were, business owners, entrepreneurs, and they quickly started asking me, can you do spreadsheets?
[4:12] Could you do a PowerPoint presentation? Can you basically do business stuff? So my business kind of grew into a virtual business naturally cause there wasn't a massive need for the lifestyle management. Um, and that was, Um, I think I started it 2005. So, um, that's kind of the, the background of, of where it was. And, uh, I built it, I have a team today that work with me, um, and I kind of do more of the management of it.
[4:37] Ian: Wow. That's amazing. And it's great. It started off with a dream. We're all dreamers here, but you made it into this amazing business and you're helping. So many people but I suppose we need to ask the question because I'm, I think a lot of people have heard of what a VA is, a virtual assistant is, but what's your definition of a VA?
[4:55] Okay.
[4:56] Sarah: So my definition of a VA is something between a PA and an EA. So I think we're all probably familiar with a PA and an EA in a corporate world or that kind of a world. So it's halfway in between. So it's somebody that works for a. Business owner normally entrepreneurs that doesn't have to be, and they do all the admin support for them.
[5:20] So there will be a diary management, inbox management, that kind of stuff. But also what tends to happen is they become a right hand person to the business owner. So they start, they do part of the admin and that's how they start, but they end up pretty much running the business on the days that the business owner is out, coaching or doing whatever they do.
[5:40] Ian: So that's the assistant part. Okay. And you were talking about it's similar to a PA. What does PA stand for again? Is it personal assistant? Yeah. And then executive assistant is the EA I'm assuming. Cause of course I didn't work in the corporate world. So I, this is all new to me.
[5:56] Although I've heard of all these things. So that's the A bit, but then of course there's the virtual bit and I'm assuming that in most cases, VA's are they are virtual. So how does that work? I've been working with VA's for quite a few years now, so I I think I've got a good, my head round that, but to a lot of people, the idea of how can I work with somebody who's not here in my office?
[6:21] Sarah: sure. And thanks for picking me up on missing the most important part of it, the virtual bit. Yeah. So we all work from home. And, just say inbox management, for example, it's really simple. Most of our clients use Gmail or Outlook and you, know, you They can just add us as a delegate access and we can just access it from, from home and same with calendar management and any other software that we use.
[6:45] Cause most of it's done via software. And a lot of the communication is by zoom, by email WhatsApp and phone.
[6:51] Ian: Yeah that's cool. So that's, this is the bit that really excites me because you can start to delegate all the stuff that you've got, in the cloud, you've got, Gmail or Outlook, as you say, calendars. is also very scary as well. We're going to come back to that though, because the whole thing of. It feels like you're giving away the, access to the crown jewels here. But what, so this is the thing that I've probably struggled with as, and that is, there are so many possibilities here. Now you've mentioned going into your inbox and I'd love for you to maybe explain how that can work.
[7:27] In fact, why don't we just start with that, and then I'll ask you a little bit more about other jobs. But I think for many of us, particularly those of us with ADHD, the inbox, the email inbox is an absolute nightmare for so many people. So how does that work? And maybe you could give us some examples of how that works with different clients, because we've probably got all different ways of working here.
[7:50] Sarah: Yeah, sure. I'll tell you how we do it at Viva. So we would, first of all learn what is currently working for you. What isn't, for some people, certain systems are already working. So we, tighten it up and go with that. Sometimes, it's just, people just say, It's a mess, and nothing's working, what can we do?
[8:09] The first thing we'll do is find out what's going on, what's going wrong, and we'll put a process in place. One example is we can use colored stars in Gmail where, you know, The thread is. The client knows that anything yellow they might need to look at urgently anything green don't worry about it's in hand with the VA Etc.
[8:27] So there's all the different kind of codes that we can agree. There's also like folders or labels that we can use to to Put thick file things away. So it's not overwhelming in the inbox. And our goal is that our clients don't need to go in their inbox if need be. Now I know that's not completely realistic, but if that's our aim, then hopefully we can get as close to it as possible.
[8:49] So there's a lot of tasks that come in the inbox as well, as so we can pick those up and we can put them onto a task management software, like Trello to do lists. Notion Asana, those kinds of things and we can manage that and we do manage that for our clients. That's quite that's quite a common thing that we do.
[9:07] Also I think the main thing, the main issue that we're, we hear from clients coming to us is that they've had these prime opportunities, whether it's new clients or a colleague of theirs recommending someone to them and they've missed it because they've, You know, they don't want to look at their inbox.
[9:21] They're too overwhelmed. So we will pick up new client inquiries and we will agree a process that this is only if this was what the client wants, but this is quite typical. So we'll agree a process upfront with a client that they're comfortable with. So we'll systemize it if you like, and then we'll deal with it.
[9:38] So we know when that email comes in, we have a. Perhaps a standard worded email with an attachment that might be a PDF about, the services offered or whatever. And we'll send that out and then we'll chase it if we haven't heard within so many days and do step two. And so we can do all of that.
[9:56] And we also when we deal with an inbox at Viva, we will always ask, can we jump on a zoom? Can you give us half an hour or as much time as you will, that you can afford and talk us through it, talk us through your inbox. And, what would you do with that email? What, which emails don't you want anymore?
[10:15] What can we class as junk and unsubscribe from without having to check with you? Or would you like to check with us for everything? So we'll ask an awful lot of questions to understand because we know that most people Arrive on a discovery call and announce themselves as a control freak.
[10:31] That's what, so I'm not calling our clients control freaks. But they call a lot of them call themselves it. So we're very aware of that. And we're very aware it's difficult. You've built up this amazing business. It's yours. You love it. It's your baby. You don't want someone else coming in and messing it up or doing something wrong.
[10:47] So we've, we're very mindful that we need to do it your way and within your. comfort zone and, at your pace.
[10:55] Ian: Yeah, I love that. And, everyone is different. We all have different ways of working. And I love the fact that you get, you go in there and you listen to how it is currently set up. And I'm sure you're going to give. Advice and maybe we could do it this way, but you're not going to push that is is a kind of a two way relationship there.
[11:13] And I think that's amazing. And yeah, this is something that I've found really useful because I was thinking when I was working with my assistant, I thought how are we going to work out? What to do for each email. that's where actually jumping on a zoom call, coming up with these task lists or SOPs, standard operating procedures, whatever you want to call them, so that if an email comes in, your VA knows exactly what to do in that situation.
[11:39] And for me, I don't know what you think about this, Sarah, but I think you can't rush this. This is what I've found. This is an ongoing thing. I'm still working out things today. Like an email might come in. And that's not on our list of SOPs. It's a new thing, but you can add that. It's this kind of organic, flexible thing that, that happens over time.
[12:01] So that's email. How about other things you mentioned calendars, I think. And are there any other things that you found are really helpful for VAs to help with?
[12:10] Sarah: Yeah, so calendar management is another one. We also can book travel, whether that's trains, hotels, planes, whatever. And bookkeeping, some VAs offer, some don't. It is something that Viva does. We do a lot of research we put together information on Canva. So whether that's for social media templates or whether it's for a presentation, we can pull that together.
[12:37] What else do we do? Do a lot of phone calls, a lot of chasing other VAs. Also some special, some specializing like social media doing the actual full thing or tech stuff. Building landing pages and that's not something we do, but that is out there and VA, some VA's do that. And basically anything else that's part of anything that takes.
[13:02] The client away from running their business. So if they think back to why did they set up the business? What did they want to do? It's just trying to give them the ability to do that. So they don't have to be bogged down in the admin and they don't have to be checking emails and doing the bookkeeping at weekends when they want to be spending time, say with a family.
[13:19] Ian: Yeah, do you hear that bookkeeping? This is the most amazing thing because I hate bookkeeping. And so I think what's, what I found really useful is making a list of all the things in your business that you do or that needs to be done in And put them in a, in, I think this might be a Chris Ducker thing that he was talking about.
[13:37] So you've got a list of all the things that you absolutely love doing and that you're good at. And then you put a list of the things that you're good at, but you shouldn't really be doing. And then another one that you're not good at and you shouldn't be doing. And you should absolutely, that third list, you should absolutely be delegating all those tasks to a VA if possible.
[13:55] The second list, I would say as much as possible too. But that first list, you should be doing the stuff that you're good at. And that actually brings value to your business. So that's, that was really helpful thing to do. And as soon as I started to do that and I realized the. The possibilities to this really helped with letting go.
[14:13] And I'm going to come back to you on the whole letting go thing. So that's cool. And I think you, you mentioned quite a few things there that, if VA's can't help with everything, or at least not all VA's are the same. You, I suppose you've got like a general VA, you've got one that will specialize in bookkeeping and some in tech and tech and so it's finding.
[14:33] Finding one or possibly a selection of VAs that's going to help you in your business. So we've talked about business, but I, this, I'm sure this is the case for many people watching and listening that their business lives are not completely separate from their personal lives. So how can A VA help in our personal lives.
[14:53] And I suppose in that kind of that crossover. So I'll give you an example. Like my email is not all business. I have personal emails in there and my calendar is not just business. It's got family stuff in there. And I met, I had a chat with somebody at a conference recently and they, I can't remember what they called it, but they have a sounds very posh.
[15:15] This, they have a house manager or something like that, or personal manager. That just sorts everything out. So I'm interested in this. How can a VA's help in our personal lives as well as business?
[15:26] Sarah: Yeah call Life Admin and some of the examples would be, like, the most popular thing that we do for our clients in their home lives is we manage their personal inbox, which, like yours, is sometimes mixed in with the business one, and we'll deal with all the school emails if they've got children of which there are.
[15:44] As most people who've got kids will know. So you know, we're telling them right, Okay, don't forget it's World Book Day a week on Tuesday. Would you like us to order an outfit for your daughter? And, we can order the outfit from Amazon, have it delivered. Birthdays, Christmas, we can source gifts for those.
[16:02] We can do reminders. We book appointments.
[16:05] Doctors, dentists, opticians, beauty appointments we can book reservations. Some people, some of our clients say to us I'm losing touch with all of my friends and family. I don't see them enough because I forget to keep in touch. So our job is to make sure that, and I'm using this one.
[16:23] Client as an example, that he sees the rugby crowd every three months for a meal out. He has date night fortnightly with his wife, and they have family days out once a week at the weekend. And we can arrange all of this for people and going to the extreme. One of our clients, he's asked his mother to deal with us by email, and, obviously, he, he spends the time with her, which is the important bit, but we do all the, basically, the date and the time and the backwards and forwards, anyway, so that's extreme, but yeah, what else do we do? Gosh, we, we say that we'll do anything as long as it's legal and ethical. Oh, a lot of stuff like finding cheaper gas or electric or mobile phone deals travel insurance, research on those kinds of things as well.
[17:10] Ian: Wow. Okay. You've got my brain going. This is part of the problem. Once you dip your toe in this world, you just don't know what else is out there. There's so much extra stuff and you've given me some more ideas. This is something that I want to do a lot more. So I've been working with my VA from your company for, At least it feels like a year and a half.
[17:29] I can't remember, but there's still so much more that I know that I should be doing. But I also know that you can't, again, you can't rush these things. So, I'm, wait, this is part one. I've got you back for part two very soon. I, just the final question I've got for this one, because we're trying to keep these kind of short and snappy.
[17:48] How can A VA or what, yeah, how can a VA help those of us with ADHD? And I know this is something that you've gone down, you've looked into and is a specialism or one of the specialisms that you have at Viva. But how can a VA help those of us with ADHD?
[18:03] Sarah: Sure. So obviously we can help with the tasks I've already said, but on top of that we can I've probably already mentioned this, but manage tasks and have regular updates. So typically we might have a weekly update with our clients. It might be three, three times a week, it might be twice a week, but weekly is probably the most popular.
[18:23] And we look at the week ahead and we look at is it realistic? Whatever you've got in your diary for the coming week. Is it actually, is it realistic or are you just setting yourself up to fail before you've even started? Have you got any double bookings? What tasks have you got coming up for next week?
[18:39] And, when realistically are they going to get done? Again, is it realistic that you're going to fit all these around your meetings, your Zooms, your blogs? So we'll do that, look at it and manage it. If there's anything too overwhelming, we break it down into, we help break it down into bite sized chunks, so that, you can start, if it's a big task how do we start this, right?
[19:00] Here's step one, let's do that this week. We can do that kind of thing. We can also do body doubling. I guess you, Listeners, do they know what body doubling is? I guess they probably do.
[19:12] Ian: You can explain, I, this is, this has been something that I've thought about for ages, there's a few services out there. There's, I can't remember what they're called. Is it focus? It might be called focus mate or something. And the idea is you just jump on a call. With some random person in the world and you both say to each other, what you're going to do, and then you get on with it and you they're looking at each other and it's like accountability.
[19:36] But my problem with services like that is it's a, this fills me out with anxiety because it's this random person I've never met before. Whereas with your VA, it seems silly. Like I'm paying money for my VA just to sit there watching me do what I'm doing, but it's amazing. It's the most amazing thing ever because I actually get to do it.
[19:54] So quite often my VO will go say, okay, you've got these emails that really you need to deal with. I can't really deal with them. So instead of saying, okay, I'll do that. I'll do that later today. Cause that's not gonna happen. So I'm going to do the now. So is that what you mean by body doubling?
[20:12] Or have I got something wrong
[20:13] Sarah: No, absolutely. There's, exactly what you've just said, basically. So there's kind of two ways of doing it. One is we literally just sit there on a Zoom while you're on the other end doing whatever it is you need to do. But, often we're very conscious that we don't want you. Paying for our time to just sit there or do someone else's work.
[20:30] So we would always do the client's work. So we'll be checking your inbox or whatever we do for you. We'd be doing that at the same time. So you get best value. And yeah, the other thing is if there's a particular task that you've been putting off or that's been too overwhelming to to start, we can do that more actively as well.
[20:49] I think one of our clients had to fill out some sort of a form, I don't know if it was passport form. And so the VA said let's get on a Zoom and let's do this. She sent him off to get his a photo, I don't know, whatever he had to get out of the cupboard. And then, they screen shared and they did it together.
[21:05] And that's one thing. to make sure that a specific task gets done if it's a really massive deal and it's got to be done and it's urgent and it's not getting done that's a really good way to do it.
[21:16] Ian: I've been there, I've been there and it really helps. And it seems, it does seem ridiculous that, you're paying somebody just to sit there, but as you say, they can get on with the tasks related to you. But even if they weren't, I still think this is good value for money because you are getting the stuff done at the end of the day. That's so important. So we're going to come back in the next episode, I'm going to ask you a little bit more about how. VAs can, I think it's important to have a VA who is understanding, doesn't add on the guilt and understands your neurodiversity. And I know this is something that you feel very strongly about and you've really helped with, for me there as well, but we'll come back that I'll be in next, the next episode, but just before we finish, how can people find out more about you, about Viva?
[21:59] How can they check out the next step and what would be the next step in, in hiring a VA?
[22:05] Sarah: Sure, yeah you can find us on our website, it's probably the easiest way it's vi va. co. uk and there's an obvious option on there to book a call to speak to us and you would get me and I would love to speak to you and we can chat through requirements or just have a chat about whether a VA is for you.
[22:26] It's not necessarily for everybody and I'll be honest about whether we can help or not.
[22:32] Ian: Yeah, that was great. I meant to ask you actually, so do you mainly work with people in the UK? Obviously you've got a co. uk domain name. Is it many in the UK?
[22:42] Sarah: Yeah, all in the UK.
[22:43] Ian: All in the UK. So if you're international, if you're in another country, don't worry, there are plenty of agencies around there, so you can do some searching around.
[22:52] And I'll probably be inviting someone to the show as well. But yeah, if you've been, if you've been, if you've found that the whole idea of getting a VA is really exciting, then stay tuned for the next episode. And we'll talk a little bit more about that, but. Until next time, stay smart with your ADHD.
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