Hiring a VA for Your TPT Business - Daunting or a Dream?

Kirsten 0:01

You're listening to the creative teacher podcast, a show for busy teachers looking for ways to engage, inspire and make an impact in their teacher businesses. I'm Kiersten, a teacher business owner who is all about simple and actionable tips, strategies and resources that result in wins, big or small. If you're looking for that extra spark of creativity, you've come to the right place. Let's dive in together.

Hey there and welcome to another episode of the creative teacher podcast. Recently, I asked some listeners of the podcast and some my fellow subscribers, if they had any questions about product listings or branding, just pretty much anything related to TPT. And one question I got was so good that I thought that this could be a whole episode. I don't see many episodes along this category. So I thought this would be really great to add my thoughts into the mix and give you some tips in the process.

So here's the question. I struggle with hiring out a VA, I seriously need help. But I can't get past the idea that it's as much work to plan for a VA than it would be to actually do the work. I often end up revising anyway. So how do I get my mindset change? Also, how do I prepare for one I've been a one man show for so long. I don't know how to make the move. I thought this question was so good. And I know so many of us TPT sellers can relate to a lot of what this person was saying. So I thought I could address my thoughts and a few things just about VAs in general. So this episode, I'm going to talk about several things. What a VA is, if the A's are a good fit for your business, some tips for getting over the mindset of hiring a VA because I know it can be a lot to think about the process of hiring a VA and what you could do while the VA is working with you on your project, so what some you know some best practices during the actual task.

it is such a hard mindset to change hiring a VA hiring somebody to work with you in your business and give up parts of your business. When your business is your baby. I can relate to that so much even still I have struggles hiring out for certain things even though I know I definitely should. So let's go ahead and dive in.

a va is is a virtual assistant who can help you with tasks in your business. A good VA can be taught a task, quickly pick it up and take it over for you. Vas can be hired for product covers, creating digital resources, creating pen templates, there's like so many things that they can be hired out for. And you can hire them for just one off tasks. Or you can even make them part of your team. There is a difference between VAs and people who offer a specific service. There are freelancers who offer specialized services for TPT sellers, these are providers who have their own business working with a variety of sellers, my service business model that I have offers specialized services for product listings and brandings. So you wouldn't really be able to hire me as a BA, I only have a set number of offers that I offer to other sellers. And I'm not, you know, specifically loyal to just one TPT seller.

Now let's think about if VAs are a good fit for your business, it could be a great fit for you, if you have tasks that you're willing to let others help you with that you don't want to do. This could be time consuming tasks that take a lot of effort, or just tasks that you don't really like doing. It's also a great fit, if you have the financial ability to hire a VA at a cost that is fair for both you and the VA. So being able to find a VA that you like, and be able to agree on a price that is fair for you as the seller and as the VA. The good news is that when you do hire the right VA that is a good fit for your business, and is skilled at what they do, it is a little easier to let go of things, especially when you have a great experience with those Bas, here are some tips for getting over the mindset of hiring a VA in general, there's a few that I have for you.

The first tip is to think of how valuable that time would be to have someone work on something that you don't enjoy doing, they may end up doing it better or faster than you and it frees up more space to work on other things you enjoy. I'm going to share with you some examples later on about my experience hiring vas. But I will say one of the tasks that I just really don't enjoy doing is writing passages, I have resources that include passages. And so it was a no brainer for me to hire out. Somebody that loves writing passages, because for me, it takes a lot of time, but I'm sure for them, it's not nearly as long, it's just a lot faster than me having to do it myself, I could work on something else in my business.

Another tip to get over the mindset is to understand that VAs are not a little mini me version of you. They are not you, they will not do exactly what you do. And they will not make the same exact decisions as you that would just be completely unrealistic to expect that. And that's okay. Ultimately, you know, you have to let go a little bit. And that requires to understand that not everybody is going to, you know, do exactly what you might have done, as you're creating product listings and stuff like that. You can always approve things, you know, this looks great, I would like this little bit change. But to nitpick every single thing a VA does, is not only a lot of time for you, but it's also a little stressful for the VA in general. It's just it doesn't meet the needs, it does not meet the interests of anybody involved. And if eventually maybe you get all your work back and you see something you would like to change. I like by all means do that don't get into this, well, I need my money back because this is just like there's three errors and there should be zero errors. Everybody is human. So just keep that in mind. That's a big mindset to get over is that they're not going to do exactly what you do.

Another tip is that all VAs are not there to take your money and run. I know plenty of VAs that are truly good at what they do. And they have the integrity to complete tasks to client satisfaction. They love what they do and they'll charge at a price that compensates for their own time and effort. So don't be deterred by what you see in Facebook groups or horror stories. That is not the majority of the experiences from what I've seen among TPT sellers. I think Look that there's a lot of things, you know, there's two sides to every story, you never know what really goes on.

And then my fourth tip for you is that cheapest doesn't always mean best quality. And I'm not just talking in the VA world I'm talking about in pretty much you know, any other avenue, like at the grocery store or clothes, stuff like that, find the right VA that has the skills that you desire, at the price point you can afford. Sometimes, if it's truly a task that we would much rather not take on, it's so much more valuable to pay a little bit more. I hired a wedding photographer several years ago, months before my wedding, because she was cheaper than most. And she seemed to do a decent job, I did a lot of research. And I thought, well, this would be good, you know, I want to save some money. So I'm going to go with her. Our engagement photos turned out really great. But I wanted the photos to go in a different direction. I wanted things to be lighter and airier. And it was a little bit more, you know, moody or darker. And so I contacted her asking if she was able to, you know, change it up, you know, change your purse style. But of course, let's just say that didn't end well. So I ended up hiring another photographer before my wedding that matched my preferences. It was more expensive, but it was so worth it. So yes, I did, you know lose out on money from not sticking with the first photographer. But I would have much rather gone with my final photographer than to stick with one just because it was cheaper. So that's something to consider is cheaper doesn't always mean the best fit or the best quality.

All right, let's talk about the process of hiring a VA there are different processes, but I'm just gonna go over a general overview of how this could work. So the first thing to do is to find a trustworthy source. I always like going to the TPT. VA finder. It's a Facebook group, and I'll make sure to link it, it's run really well. And I know that there's a lot of work that goes into making sure things are civil and as non biased as possible. This is a great way to find TPT related tasks. You can also go to Upwork for you know very small tasks general tasks that people could, anybody outside of TPT could do, such as maybe social media, captions, or social media graphics.

The second part is to create a job post or search VAs by typing in tasks be specific in the task you're hiring, and direct people to apply using the Google Form if possible, in the form, add questions applicable to the job. Some examples could be like What is your experience working with social media, have them create a sample template and send it to your email address just so you can get a feel for what type of templates they go off of ask for a portfolio if they have a type of portfolio, whether it's PDF or Canva. Viewing on a web page, number three would be to select a few strong candidates from the prospective pool and schedule a virtual interviewer. This could be over zoom over the phone, super casual, maybe over email, however you want to do it, ask a variety of questions to see if they are the right fit for your business.

And the fourth process would be to narrow down to one to see who is the best fit you select from there. Sometimes a hire can be informal, it doesn't have to be super formal like this, like I just described, where you might have a simple task and you hear about a VA who does a really great job. So you can skip the interview process if that's the case, and just ask a few questions regarding price and asked for a portfolio to determine if they're the best fit. This is kind of what I'm usually pretty informal about who I hire because they're usually one off tasks, but I might hire them again, you know, just because they did such a great job. But I definitely go off of my instincts of you know if they are the right fit if I think they would help me get to the goal that I would like to accomplish with a specific project.

Alright, so let's talk about what happens when your VA is working with you on your project. There shouldn't be too much to plan or prep beforehand. Because if you hire a good VA, they'll collect the important information they need from you, such as information on your brand or information about a resource. And if you're truly ready and willing to hire a VA, they should be able to take your idea or what you already have and go from there and there shouldn't be any need to micromanage unless like you hire someone and it fall off the face of the earth. You can't get a hold of them. You can't email them. There's no way of contacting them. That way Be when like, that would not, that would be a problem. But hopefully you would filter those types of vas. So that type does not happen. It's important before starting any task, and before paying anything, to have a contract in place, you can provide a contract if a VA doesn't have one, but most good VAs should have one for you to sign, read it carefully, because contracts are meant to protect both the client and the VA. So hopefully, if there's a contract in place, the previous thing that I mentioned, where they fall off the face of the earth, they, that doesn't happen, because they are liable if that you know if something were to occur.

All right, so I'm going to end this episode off with a couple of examples of my experiences hiring a VA, for the most part, I've had such a really great experience of the people I've hired. And I would love to be able to do more with certain aspects of my business. So there was a series of resources, several resources, product lines, I should say, where I just did not want to write the passages, I had a small newborn baby. So that's where I went into the TPT. VA finder group, I found someone to work with who had a lot of great reviews, she had a really great portfolio. And so I messaged her about her prices. And we kind of just went back and forth, it was very informal. But she gave me a contract, I signed it, she said that there would be a certain day where she would be able to show samples of what she was working on. And I also gave her like, I didn't just say, you know, make passages I gave her like what I was, you know, trying to my idea what I wanted to do, or what the ultimate goal of the resources were. So she had an idea. And I even gave her you know, topics to work off of, for certain times of the year. So she definitely didn't just go off just with nothing. She had some background information about what I wanted in the resource. And she did such a wonderful job. And she gave everything in a timely manner. And so it was just a really great experience. And I didn't have to read the passages, that was the best part. Somebody else was able to do that while I was working on my business in something else that I enjoyed. A second experience I had was there were certain clip arts that I wanted that were specific to Texas TEKS. And it was kind of based off of one of my best sellers that had a certain look, or style of clipart. And I wanted that same look and style with my Texas social studies posters, I was probably not going to find a Texas history, people like Lizzie Johnson or Cabeza de Vaca clipart, just on TPT, I had to just hire out for somebody. And so I was able to reach out to the same artists who had done clipart that she sells on TPT. And she was able to create clip art for me that I have a license to so nobody else can use and it can't be sold anywhere else. So it was really cool to be able to have a custom list of individuals that I could utilize for my resources. So that was a really great a really cool thing. I mean, I like to doodle, but there's no way I could replicate anything of that sort. So I that was definitely a thing, it was a no brainer to have to hire out for that clipart.

So I know, hiring VAs won't be everybody's cup of tea. But my creative action tip for you is to at least write down two to three things you don't like doing in your business that you could possibly consider hiring out. So would that look like social media? would that look like writing SEO friendly descriptions, you just don't want to do all the research, you want somebody else to do it. Maybe it would be having somebody work on your covers or thumbnails so that you can have pretty looking product listings, whatever that might be, write it down and just do some research to see who offers those type of services, whether it's just a general VA who is pretty well rounded, that you maybe could eventually hire for your team, or somebody who offers a specialized service such as a VIP day, or some type of product photography service or something like that. Whatever it is, do some research after you look at a couple of things that you really don't like doing or you really think could be easy enough for somebody else to work on.

I know it's a hard mindset to go Over, but it's definitely possible. Well, hopefully this is a helpful podcast episode. And I hope for that individual who gave that amazing question it answers what you were thinking about, you know, the process of hiring a VA. I know it can be tough, but it's definitely something that you can start small with. You don't have to just start off with hiring a whole team and dole out a bunch of money. So thanks for tuning in. And I will see you again soon.

Thanks for tuning in to the creative teacher podcast. If you enjoyed listening to today's episode, feel free to subscribe and leave a review. I'd love to hear your feedback. You can also find me on Instagram at the southern teach. I cannot wait for you to join me in the next episode for more tips and inspiration. Have an amazing day.