My Amazing Virtual Assistant Just Resigned …What Do I Do Now?
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In this episode, Matt and Barbara discuss the reasons why business owners should never become dependent on any one person in any specific role and the common traps many fall into in this area.
This episode focuses on some of the key areas that business owners need to stay on top of to ensure there is minimal impact to their business when that superstar VA leaves.
Some of the areas covered include:
The need for up-to-date and current systematisation and documentation
Understanding that you need to slow down, in order to speed up your business
It is the responsibility of the business owner to build and create the systems to ensure business success
Let us know what your key takeout has been from this episode and join the continuing conversation over in the Virtual Success Facebook Group.
Resources mentioned in this show:
The E-Myth by Michael Gerber
In this episode:
00:54 – My VA just resigned…
02:05 – Creating a turn key business
02:56 – You must document tasks
05:05 – Everybody is replaceable, including you
06:28 – Slow down to speed up
10:40 – Key takeaways
12:57 – Wrapping things up
Barbara: Hey everyone and welcome back to another episode of the Virtual Success Show, where I’m joined by my co-host, Matt Malouf. Hi Matt, how’s it going?
Matt: Well Barb, and yourself?
Barbara: I’m really well, thank you. We’ve been flat out busy, both you and me in the last few weeks, up-leveling.
Matt: Absolutely. And braving that it’s very chilly here in Sydney today, but …
Barbara: It is.
Matt: But we’ve got a hot topic that we’re going to be talking about.
My VA just resigned…
Barbara: Yes, definitely, definitely. One of the questions … I mean, I hear this quite a bit at Virtual Angel Hub, but I also see it online and I’ve heard it from people I’ve spoken to, who’ve had VAs or virtual teams before, what if my … Let’s say you have an amazing VA, that just does epic work for you, is a massive asset to your business, and then they tell you that they’re resigning for whatever reason, they may be going back to study, or whatever. They’ve announced you that they’re resigning and you go into this total panic mode of, “Oh my god, what am I going to do now?” because this person is such a huge part of my business and knows all the processes and what we do.
And I find this really interesting, because in my business, I often move people around, I promote people. Thankfully nobody’s ever really left me, but people often very quickly have to be moved into new roles, which means that I can’t have a situation where they’re indispensable in the previous role.
So Matt, I’m really interested to talk to you about this as a business coach. How can people not fall into this trap of having somebody who is indispensable, I guess, in their business, and then you’re left in chaos if they leave?
Creating a turn key business
Matt: Yes. It was a really interesting conversation we were having just before the show, but I think that the person that put this best is probably Michael Gerber in The E-Myth, about you’ve got to create a turn key business. A business that can operate without you.
And I think that anytime in business, where knowledge is held with a person, without documented systems or processes, it’s risky. And I know Barb, what I see, a lot of these business owners holding a lot of the IP in their head, and doing things just naturally in the natural course of business. Then they bring a team member on, and what they do is they download their brain into the team member’s brain, without getting it all documented. So really what you’re doing is transferring the risk, as opposed to de-risking the business.
You must document tasks
Barbara: Yes. And you know what I find as well? Sometimes when a client comes to us, and we have a very high success rate as you know,
