This week’s Misfit Entrepreneur is Molly Rose Speed. Molly has a great story. She is a military spouse who had enough of being a corporate accountant cubicle dweller and decided to create a business to help military spouses and others reach their own dreams through entrepreneurship. In fact, she was named 1st Special Operations Group Spouse of the Year.

She is the creator of Virtual Assistant Academy which provides trusted Virtual Assistant solutions and flawless tech execution to busy entrepreneurs and business owners. Molly has become the go-to professional for some of the most successful entrepreneurs in the speaker/author and content creator industry. Even the former president of Chicken Soup of the Soul is her client. Molly has created the life she dreamed of and is helping others do the same. And I’ve asked her on the share her story and how to completely outsource your business.

www.VirtualAssistantManagement.com

Molly was a young, focused executive hustling in corporate America. She woke up one day and realized that there was more to life than just moving up the corporate ladder. Her husband was being deployed at a rapid speed. And when he was home, she was working and they hardly could see each other. So, she quit. Her husband came home to find out she did not have a job and said, “OK, you’ve got 4 months to figure this out.” She started doing freelance work and had success. It evolved into more clients and success in the personal development space. She was creating the life she wanted and other military spouses kept asking her how she did it. She saw an opportunity to help other military spouses do what she was doing in the virtual assistant space. Virtual Assistant Management was born.

How did being a military spouse help prepare you for entrepreneurship?

• You’re given this huge responsibility of running the ship when your spouse is gone. The house, the family, the finances, all the little things that couples would do, but on your own.
• There is a level independence that being a military spouse teaches you which helps to transfer to entrepreneurship
• . It also teaches you to be resilient and adaptable.

What there a catalyst that spurred you to quit? And what is your advice for someone who is in the same place you were and wants to make the leap to entrepreneurship?

• She went to a conference for high-potential young professionals.
• The term entrepreneur, the ability to use your skills and talents to create and sell services was introduced to her.
• Learning this gave her the lightbulb moment that there was another way.
• She was getting completely drained every day in the corporate world and was in tears a lot of days.
• She had to trust in herself and created a plan and took action on it. She had the choice and the power – it just needed her to take action. She did.

Talk about having a plan and taking action. How do you advise people in this area?

• First, you must figure out what you actually want.
• Define what you want your work to be. For example, Molly defined hers as a position that she can do virtually, on her own time, that pays her at least 75% of what she was making in the corporate space.
• When you envision what you want, the universe will open it up to you.
• But it takes an action plan.
• You should know what you are going to do every day.
• You should reach to others and let them know what you are doing. Your Power 100 list – the most influential people and those close to you that should know as they may be able to help you.
• “By doing nothing, you are not going to get anywhere.”

Other lessons that you feel are most important from your journey?

Being present in the interactions with people you are with every day.

• How you spend your day is how you spend your day – and it is your choice how to spend it.
• It is amazing how fast you can build a network.
• Pay attention to the people that show up and the opportunities – they can come out of nowhere and are so important. Be open to them.

Talk to us about utilizing virtual assistants, the dos and don’ts, etc.

• Entrepreneurs have a passion for the solution they are providing, but as they grow, they find that they wear a lot of hats and have created a number of jobs for themselves.
• There is a big difference between running a company and creating a job for yourself.
• Entrepreneurs need a plan to outsource from the beginning.
• When it comes to hiring a virtual assistant, it should be the first person an entrepreneur hires as they can where several hats and take a number of things off the entrepreneur’s plate. 
• They give you leverage at a lower cost.

If you were coaching someone on how to hire their first VA, what would you have them do?

• First, recognizing all the things that are on your plate and then start cherry picking all of the things you want to offload. This serves as your initial job description.
• Start with 5 hours a week.
• Each week should have a weekly meeting with the VA and an action plan with roles and responsibility.
• You can use a project management tool like Monday to help.
• Communication throughout the week is important. VAs where a lot of hats and have a number of ways to communicate – pick the medium that works best for you.
• Make them part of the team, share your goals and how they can make a bigger impact.
• By knowing the bigger picture, VAs can find opportunities to make things even better.
• Clarity is very important for everyone in the process to maximize productivity and success.

Tell us about hiring an outsourced, COO…

• This is the goal of a tenured VA in their career.
• They are the right-hand person for a business owner.
• They take your vision and run with the strategy, the how, and run and delegate a team to help execute the vision.
• A level below that is an OBM – outsourced business manager.
• This can be done at a fractional level, and you don’t need a 40 hour/week employee. They can execute their duties in 10-20 hours per week.

What are the major duties Outsourced COOs do and how can they do it in less than 40 hours per week?

• Technology and automation is a big part of things.
• Outsourced COOs are very good at building systems.
• They are good at taking projects and mapping everything out, hiring the needed contractors to help to do it.
• They can do payroll and book-keeping and interface with others in the business and even clients.
• They are the gate-keeper for the entrepreneur.
• Costs for COOs range from retainers of $5000 to paying a commission or a mix of both.

Talk about automation and its importance…

• If you are doing any task that is repetitive, you need to automate it and automate it all the way down to things like email templates.
• Online schedulers are very important to maximize productivity.
• Your sales funnels, how you sell, and after-sales engagement, etc. should be automated.
• Every area of a business, if broken down, can have a lot of it automated.

Other best practices to free time and be productive?

Take some time and look at your calendar for the last couple weeks. How did you spend your time? Did you enjoy it? How many things would have made sense to avoid or eliminate?

• Pay attention to what you are saying “yes” to and decide if you should be saying “yes” to these things.
• Working in sprints of say 90 mins at a time and then having a little break is good to help.
• You can also work in 45-minute sprints with a short break to maximize productivity.
• You must be intentionally with your scheduling and plans.
• You must also create days off.
• Automation is very important to help make this a reality.

​ Any other advice for managing and hiring VAs?

• There is a big difference between overseas and local VAs.
• It takes more work for overseas, but there are great people.
• For overseas, you must be very specific and be willing to work across the different time zones. In fact, local VAs can even help hire and manage overseas VAs.
• There is a place both types in a business.

 

Best Quote: By doing nothing, you are not going to get anywhere. 

 

Molly Rose Misfit 3:

Time freedom – wherever you can create this in your life, look for it and enjoy it.

There is great importance in human connection. Those your surround yourself with greatly affect all areas of your life. Choose wisely in your connections.

We are here to support and engage with one-another. Give and have gratitude. In the end, it is about the impact and experience you had on this earth.

 

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