Deadly Marketing Misconceptions for VAs – Act Now! with Kris Ward

Episode Summary

Unfudge Your Marketing

[00:00:00] Kristi: Things that you kind of stepped over or missed along your own marketing journey as a business owner? Yeah, so I’m just gonna tee it up like that and ask where would you like to start this conversation? 

[00:00:12] Kris: Yeah. Well, I, I think maybe if I may, I would probably give people a little scope of what I do and how, why I do it, and I think then we can take from there if that’s okay.

Yeah. Yeah. So I started my work, oh, 14 plus years ago, doing market messaging. And the first couple years I worked, I worked insane hours and my husband said I was always stealing from sleep, getting up earlier and earlier and staying later and later, and somewhere around the two year mark, I was told I was losing some of my charm.

And I thought, oh my gosh, this cannot be, here’s this man cheer me on. My biggest fan, always supporting everything I do, and I’m just bloody tired all the time. So I literally went from working 16 hours a day down to six. Now, that did not happen overnight. That’s a whole story on its own, but luckily I did ’cause a [00:01:00] couple years after that.

My husband was diagnosed with colon cancer and I was pulled away from the business for about two years. When I returned after his passing, my existing clients had no idea of my absence. It was just not how he navigated his journey. We were very positive in nature, and the local business community didn’t know.

No one knew. And so people kept coming to me and saying like, how could you possibly have been away and we not know? And if you could do that. Maybe you could help us get to our kids’ soccer games and see our friends and family. And so I started working with my existing clients under that capacity and I started to realize that so many of them, they looked good on paper.

Like yourself, they’ve got a podcast or a book or you know, they’ve been doing business for a while, but they’re still working way too many hours for where they are. At this point in their journey. And so that’s when we start working with them, with whether their team, their time, their toolkits, and we find, hire, onboard virtual assistants and we put them through our leadership program and, and it just, as my clients say, it just gives ’em like [00:02:00] 20 hours back a week within the first month of working with us.

So that’s what I do now throughout that journey. We could do a six part Netflix series on how many times I missed marketing opportunities and stepped over things that I thought was significant, right? Mm-hmm. So I will say right from the beginning. Really the part we do about finding hiring and onboarding virtual assistants is really step one, and I think in my mind, it’s the smallest thing we do.

We do it as a bonus. We don’t even charge for it. We’re not an agency. Agencies take a fee, the VA has to sign a nondisclosure agreement. When you leave the agency, you lose the VA. There’s all these problems. We do it because really the muscle and the work comes in setting you up and teaching you leadership skills and how to communicate to a team.

Because a [00:03:00] team is a philosophy, not a number. So you could have a team of one and we have to teach you ’cause you’re not set up, you’re not ready, you’re not doing all that stuff. Right. And, and that’s why you burn through VAs and you don’t have VAs. And people say, oh my God, I had a great VA. And then I, she just disappeared.

It was all this drama. So the VA, we do. Because that’s step one, and we don’t want you to have that learning curve upfront. So we will do that for you and then we’ll set you up and, and we’ll handhold and we’ll show you why we do all that. So then people was asking me about the VAs for the longest time, and I’m like, yeah, yeah, yeah, we do the VAs, but let me tell you about the real work, right?

Yeah. So I was stepping over that for a really long time because it, to me, it was like buying running shoes when you go to the gym. Yes, yes, you need running shoes. But let me tell you about the workout program that we’re going to, like, let’s get you the real work. So it took me a really long time, and that’s just one example.

I have hundreds. Um, it took me a really long time to hear that sometimes people are asking you questions [00:04:00] and you think either it’s, you’re stepping over the questions. I was stepping over the questions and to that point. Sometimes people will say to me, what I think is a silly question, I’m just gonna tell you the truth.

They’ll say something like, well, I don’t wanna hire a VA because I need someone that speaks really good English. ’cause I have high-end clients. And I’ll say, like, to me, that’s kind of a silly question. Like, why would we hire somebody that doesn’t speak English? And all my clients have really high-end clients, right?

Like I deal with people all around the globe with really high-end clients, very esteemed professional people, right? And also if you’re in North America or even Europe, I’m sure there’s many times you’ve gone into situations. I recently was talking to somebody at the government about my business taxes and I could not make out what she’s saying.

I’m like, listen, I’m sorry, but we have to, I have to know what you’re saying ’cause this is important and her English is so bad. So first of all, it’s not like we don’t deal with people. In our own [00:05:00] country, on our own street that is struggling with English. Secondly, don’t hire them if they don’t have good English.

Thirdly, of course, I deal with hi, like, yes, your, oh, your clients are special and you have clients that need to be understood. None the rest of us do. Right? But I still, I would step over that question and think, oh yeah, that’s, that’s a silly question. Fine, let me answer it and then move on to the real stuff.

That’s where my marketing and content should be. Hey, if you’re worried about hiring a VA because of you have high-end clients, here’s some things you need to know, right? Mm-hmm. And I was constantly stepping over stuff that I thought was just not important, and let me tell you the important stuff, but it’s not important to you.

So then it’s not important. Right? 

[00:05:51] Kristi: Yes. And when we first just started scratching the surface on this experience that you had, that’s when I knew, I was like, I need [00:06:00] to have you come on my show and talk about this because. I think it’s so easy for us as business owners to get in our own heads. We’re in the weeds of the things.

We only know how to talk about it, the way we know how to talk about it. And I think it can be a very common mistake. To your point, I love how you use, I just stepped over it, right? It’s like, oh, it’s that thing. I’m just gonna step over it. Like, but really that could be the very thing that differentiates you in the way that you approach the work that you do.

Because I will say, Kris, I know a ton of. Systems, operations, consultants, and companies. I know VA companies. I don’t know anyone who does it the way you do it. 

[00:06:41] Kris: Yeah. 

[00:06:41] Kristi: And so to step over that piece about the VAs is. It’s, it’s missing a huge differentiator for you that sets you apart in the market. 

[00:06:52] Kris: And I do know that like we really are a combination of three in one, like with teaching you energy management [00:07:00] versus time management and the VAs and then the streamline processes, which are our signature super toolkit, not SOPs.

’cause they’re very clunky in nature and, and they take a long time to make. Not only that, to your point is okay, yes, it makes me different, but more than anything, if that’s where someone’s stuck, I know I’ve been stuck. Think places where if they’re stuck and they think, oh, they’ve then eliminated themselves like, well Kris can’t help me ’cause I have really high-end clients, so I need somebody that speaks English.

So now they don’t see or hear anything else I’m saying. ’cause they have put a roadblock in front of them. When one of my clients, he has, you know, five offices around the globe and he’s a lawyer and he deals his clients. His clients are world banks. He’s, and we got him MBAs, right? So he’s dealing with HSBC and different banks around the corporate banks around the world.

So, you know, I can say, yeah, uh, he’s able to stumble through, right? But if you are [00:08:00] stuck and you think, ah, this doesn’t work for me. You know, really essentially, sometimes I compare things to fitness. ’cause at some point we’ve all wanted to lose five pounds. So it’s almost like somebody asking me, I don’t even know what they’re, they’re trying to lose weight ever.

And I’m stepping over that question and talking to ’em about weight maintenance. Like, you know what, no, don’t worry about that. Let me tell you how you’re gonna keep it off. Keep it off. I didn’t get it off Right. You know what I mean? So I just think it’s shocking how many times. I would hear a question over and over again and think, ah, almost annoyed.

Why do they keep asking me that silly question? And I would step over it when that should have been my marketing piece. 

[00:08:41] Kristi: Yes. So I’m curious, Kris, what helped you realize this? 

[00:08:46] Kris: Well, I have, I’m a very slow learner, so probably after a while I just took the back of my palm and smacked myself in the forehead and said, why?

You know, I guess the thing is, what did help, because we are all about streamlined processes and systems, is we have what we call a question bank. So whenever I do a sales call, whenever I do a podcast like this, we then take the questions you ask and we put them some. When somebody in my team goes through it, goes through the transcript and they put the questions in the question bank, and we use the question bank.

For our content. So even then I might look at that and go, there’s that silly question again. But when you see it enough times, you realize, well, frig, if everybody’s asked me that, maybe I should answer that question, right? Mm-hmm. And then again, it does help back to why you wanna have a team, and a team is a philosophy, not a number.

When I have a team and other people are going, I’m like, yeah, that’s a silly question. They’re like, Kris, but they asked you it every single time. Yeah, we should do something with that. And I’m like. Alright, then. Okay. If you think, you know. Yeah. So I don’t have a good answer. I, I think I’m a great example of a slow learner.

[00:09:58] Kristi: I think that you’re a great [00:10:00] example of most business owners to be fair and kind to yourself because it is, I think what you’re describing so many business owners, I’m sure can resonate with is like, oh yeah, I keep getting asked, why do people keep asking me that question? That seems so silly. Like, I wanna talk to you about this thing and let me talk to you about my services and, and how we can help you.

And it’s, but to your point, if you’re not addressing. 

If you’re not meeting them where they’re at, you’re not addressing the, the forefront of, you know, the questions and the concerns that they have on their mind. Like you said, like they’re not tuning into the rest of what you have to say. No, no, and I think the, the question bank is such a great idea.

I think that’s a great lesson for listeners to take away from this is to maybe start thinking how could you implement something like that in your own business so that you’re documenting those questions? I’ve done it to a much lesser degree when I give a presentation to a group, especially if it’s a brand new group that someone else is bringing me in to present to the, um, you know, their audience.

Yeah. I love making note of the questions that they ask me when we get to the [00:11:00] Q and A after I do my teaching, because that helps me come up with ideas of content that I can create. 

[00:11:06] Kris: Yeah. Yeah, and I think for a long time, like I said, I would just say, well, that’s a silly question and you have it in your heart and your mind that I wanna get to the good stuff.

You know, it’s kind of like even my family’s very generous. They like my cooking when they come, they, if anyone’s coming to visit, they all gather at my house, they’re gonna eat. And sometimes if I’m overexcited, ’cause I am known for making pretty tasty, especially desserts, people are always shocked how good the dessert tastes.

And there’s nothing in them. I don’t eat sugar or flour or anything like that. So even big burly man, they’re like, no, I, you know, I don’t eat healthy. Okay. This is freaking fantastic. Great. Well that caramel sauce you’re eating is dates and milk, but Okay. Whatever. Right. So sometimes I can be overexcited ’cause I’ve tried a new recipe.

I’m always experimenting. So you could be sitting at my table and if I’m not careful. Oh good, good. Are you finished dinner? ’cause I have dessert for you. Let’s, let me, I’m [00:12:00] rushing dessert like, okay, nevermind. The table’s not cleared. I got this new thing. I want you to try. Perhaps you should finish chewing what’s in your mouth before you slap the dessert down.

And I think that’s what happens in our business is I have something really exciting I wanna tell you. Look, not only are you gonna get time back, you are going to be able to lean in with a fresh mind and work on that creative work that’s always getting neglected and pushed off. ‘cause I think you should be able to start work, refresh, leave fresh.

You’re gonna get time back and like all my clients tell me. Then you’re gonna start working on the work that really brings in the revenue. You are going to make more money. So I’m hungry to get them to the end result. I’m so enthusiastic because so many people say very generously, Chris, you, you know, changed my life.

I got my life back. I couldn’t believe I could do that and make more money, and all this other stuff. So I’m so passionate about getting them there. That when they ask me these little questions that I think are little questions like, what about if they don’t speak English? [00:13:00] Then I’m, I unfortunately, as a recovering rusha holic, I am rushing by that and not hearing them.

Mm-hmm. And so we have to slow down and understand that there may be 10 questions that every client asks you, but you can’t go to question number six. You have to answer. You know, you have to answer question one. And I, I think a lot of us skip that. 

[00:13:23] Kristi: Yeah, and as you’re talking, Kris, you know, it just makes me think about common misconceptions.

They exist in any industry. I think in any type of, you know, I work with service-based business owners. I think any of my clients, we could say, okay, what are the common misconceptions or what are the, what are the things that hold people back from making progress in this area of their life or business?

And I think that that’s a good starting point for business owners in terms of how could we maybe be doing our marketing a little bit differently? What things could we be talking about to make sure that we are connecting with those ideal clients in a way that’s going to resonate and stand out [00:14:00] from the noise that is, you know, a lot of marketing.

[00:14:03] Kris: Yeah, you said that so well, because then we feel like we’re leaning into the messaging of, Hey, here’s the common misconceptions about hiring a virtual assistant. So let me show you, instead of me going, Ugh, why do people keep asking me that silly question? Like, roll my eyes, move on to the, like, the question I want, it just makes no sense, right?

So I’m sure I can’t be the only one, but yes, shockingly I stepped over a lot of questions because I thought, no, no, let me get you to the, let me get you to the good stuff. This is where you really see it. Mm-hmm. But if you’re way back there, you know, then you know I’m up here by myself. 

[00:14:39] Kristi: Yes. I still keep thinking about your, your dinner party analogy and like rushing to get to dessert before people finish chewing their dinner.

[00:14:48] Kris: Yes, I do have a pen. My, my enthusiasm is a downfall. I’m here to tell you, 

[00:14:54] Kristi: I, you’re the, I think when I was on your podcast, I said, I’m like, you’re the queen of analogies. You’re just, oh, yeah, yeah, [00:15:00] 

[00:15:00] Kris: yeah. I do think visuals really help people. So you know what? Talk, talk, talk. But everybody’s got something.

Once you sort of put that in image form. They remember that forever. So it just helps me. It, I, I don’t do it for others. I do it for myself. And then, okay, here’s what I’m thinking. Can you grasp that thought? And I do find, if I give an analogy, they understand that. Yeah. 

[00:15:22] Kristi: Yes. Yeah, I totally agree. Okay. Kris, what else have you learned from your marketing experience? You’ve, how long have you been doing your business? I stopped counting now. Yeah. 

[00:15:35] Kris: Okay. 

[00:15:35] Kristi: We don’t have to go there. It’s fine. I know you have a lot of lessons learned. Yeah. What is, do the, do you feel like a lot of those lessons learned really tie back, mostly tie back to this idea of stepping over things, thinking that they’re not important when really they are.

[00:15:50] Kris: Well, general lessons or marketing lessons? 

[00:15:54] Kristi: Marketing lessons. 

[00:15:55] Kris: Okay. I think with marketing lessons, I think marketing [00:16:00] has a big heavy word to it, and I think we’re starting to grasp the understanding of it. I think maybe just me a little bit better. ’cause for the longest time you think of marketing campaigns like.

McDonald’s has one and Apple has one. And then I think we underestimate what is marketing, that we are putting a content out on LinkedIn, or we’re doing this or we’re doing that. That there’s many layers to marketing, and we are marketing. You are marketing. Unless you are in a cave and you’re expecting passerbys to peek in the cave and come into your cave, then you are doing some element of marketing.

You’re just not calling it marketing and you’re not being strategic about it, right? Mm-hmm. So I think. Also, we tend to think, well, once I get to a certain level, then I’ll start focusing on my me marketing or spending money on my Mar or Foc. Like just all these things. But you’re marketing now, whether you’re doing it poorly or well, or inconsistently.

So I think it’s a word that gets overused and minimized and always kind of [00:17:00] feels to me like it’s something that somebody else with more money does. Hmm. 

[00:17:06] Kristi: I like that. I appreciate that perspective immensely. 

[00:17:09] Kris: Yeah. 

[00:17:10] Kristi: Yeah. There was 

[00:17:12] Kris: something I was gonna, she’s thinking she’s looking at the ceiling now. 

[00:17:14] Kristi: I know.

I was like, there was something I was just gonna pull out. She had an aha moment. No, this is what it was. Sometimes I’ll do like really simple, quick posts on LinkedIn about marketing, like think of marketing as building relationships. 

[00:17:27] Kris: Yeah, yeah, yeah. 

[00:17:29] Kristi: Like that is really, because to your point, I think marketing just gets.

Yeah, it’s one of those words, which, this is something else I thought about when you were talking. I use this subject line analyzer tool for emails that I, you know, email campaigns I send out to like optimize for open rates. Fun fact, if you put the word marketing in your subject line, it dings you. ’cause it counts it as a negative word.

Yeah. Which I found hilarious and sad all at the same time. Yeah. Um, but. To this whole notion that like marketing [00:18:00] is confusing, it, it kind, it does take on a lot of forms and I love your point about sometimes marketing feels like the thing you’re gonna do someday or the people with a lot of money do someday, but you’re actually always marketing.

Yeah. You just might not be doing it to the best of your ability or in a proactive way. 

[00:18:17] Kris: Yeah, this is marketing. I’m here, I’m talking to you. I’m marketing either to you and to your audience. And so we just forget any kind of output has some marketing element to it, but I do think it’s a too broad of a word, too high reaching of a word.

And then there’s marketing, like, you know, there’s. Copywriting was very powerful. Marketing, you know, there’s just email marketing and and thing. I think that then you have this big, broad word and it’s like you could have probably at least 50 elements of marketing. And so I think it just gets confusing and overwhelming and more than anything, I think it sounds heavy, inexpensive, and so yeah, I think people don’t get that.

There are market marketing opportunities [00:19:00] every single day. We should be utilizing them and we, you know, we should really just be digesting them and figuring out how to do it better and better and start small and grow. And I, I think we get lost in that. 

[00:19:11] Kristi: Yes, I already know that that’s a soundbite that’s getting pulled out from this conversation, already planning on it.

Okay. Kris, you have shared so much awesome information. I appreciate you sharing these lessons, learned some of the things that you stepped over and missed in your own marketing journey. Are there any last lessons learned? That you want to leave listeners with? 

[00:19:32] Kris: I think it’s so important that you understand this.

Your business should support your life, not consume it. When people would hear, you know, in the beginning when everything happened with my husband and they would try to bestow sympathy upon me, I’d say, you know what? Everybody has something. This is my something right now. Here’s the reality. Life has interruptions.

So you better have a business that supports your life instead of consuming it. And more to that, I think business should be fine. Or why didn’t we just stay at that [00:20:00] job? You know, it’d been easier. So, yes, it, it doesn’t have to be this hard, it doesn’t have the, the grind. When you see those people telling you all about how they slept on the apartment floor and there’s no mattress or a bad mattress or whatever, what they’re not telling you is when the transformation in their business started, when they really started to make that path to where they are now, that you’re admiring them as a success.

They started to put some processes and a team in play. They don’t tell you about that part of the story ’cause it’s not dramatic or sexy. So I just want people to understand that this idea. ’cause so many people I deal with are just doing this in sort of in, they’re isolated. No one knows, they’re not visible.

They’re doing okay, but they’re working so many hours. And you know what, what got you, like, what is, what you’re doing right now isn’t enough? You treading water, but you should be swimming, so. Mm-hmm. Anyways, that’s my, it’s a trigger word for me. I gotta stop. That’s my rant. 

[00:20:55] Kristi: No, I, I love it because what, how you talk about.

[00:21:00] Business operations and everything that you just said. I, I would say the same thing about marketing. Yeah, it should be fun. It, you should have a system in place. Those are the things that are going to help you get to that next level in business. We can’t just be throwing spaghetti at the wall and expecting, you know, to grow exponentially.

So I, 

[00:21:18] Kris: yeah. Yeah. And to your point. That’s what I tell people when they start having bandwidth back in their calendar and stuff. It’s like now you can focus on your marketing. You can lean into that. You’re not reacting. You’re not just trying to keep up with your clients and going from feast to fam and feast to famine.

’cause you get the business, you maintain the business, but then you don’t have time to market the business. And then you go up and down and you’ve been doing this for 12 years. So to my point is, yes, you can get time back, you can get your life back, you can make more money. All of that is going to allow you to be, if nothing else, even if you’re bad at marketing, being consistent will make up for it, and you can’t do that if you’re working all these crazy hours.

[00:21:58] Kristi: Yeah. Yeah. Getting [00:22:00] clear and focused on what it is that you need to do as the business owner and what others can be doing for you is, is, yeah, definitely very pivotal in that growth process. Yeah. Well, thank you again so much, Kris, for coming on the show. Very lastly, if people wanna learn more about you and the work that you are doing, what is the best way for them to learn more and reach out?

[00:22:18] Kris: Yeah, you can check me on LinkedIn. You can tell me you heard me on this fantastic show and we’ll become fast friends. Um, you can check out free gift free F-R-E-E-G-I-F-T from Kris, K.R.I. S.com, free gift from kris.com. We have some goodies there that might really interest you. And we do have a quiz. I talked about being recovering rush holic.

You can check out what you are, but they’re, we’re always changing the goodies there. I would definitely take a peek ’cause they’re pretty impressive. 

[00:22:44] Kristi: I wanna go take the quiz. I love a good quiz. I’m a sucker for a good quiz. Awesome. Thank you so much, Kris. I appreciate you coming on the show. Thank you.