The Virtual Assistant Podcast by eaHELP

Subscribe to The Virtual Assistant Podcast iTunes | Stitcher | RSS Welcome to this week's episode of Virtual Assistant Podcast! Watch for new episodes every other Monday, highlighting how eaHELP clients are using virtual assistants to take thei...

Subscribe to The Virtual Assistant Podcast iTunes | Stitcher | RSS Welcome to this week's episode of Virtual Assistant Podcast! Watch for new episodes every other Monday, highlighting how eaHELP clients are using virtual assistants to take their businesses further faster. We're pleased to welcome Craig Jarrow as our guest this week. Craig Jarrow is the author of  Time Management Ninja and is one a mission to help individuals and companies reclaim their time. Craig is an expert in time management, productivity, and goal setting. This episode is packed with helpful insights for people looking to leverage their time better through the use of a virtual assistant. Craig gives us an inside look at his business and how he delegates more so he can focus on what's most important to him. Episode Highlights: 01:13 // Real live ninja on the line! 01:30 // Craig explains his business 02:07 // Two factors that lead to needing a VA 03:12 // The tasks that got handed to Craig's VA 05:55 // Craig wants his VA to be able to represent his business 06:30 // A VA should free you up to work on the core revenue building tasks of your business 07:55 // Find tools to help maintain communication with your VA The Lightning Round: Planning Process // Monthly calendar of open projects, editorial calendar. How do you protect your time? // Use VA to be the first layer of communication, holds him accountable to say "no" Ninjas vs. Pirates // Ninjas - every time! Craziest thing asked of VA // She signed three paid advertisers for his blog in the first month! Contact // timemanagementninja.com or @tmninja  Episode Transcript: Rich - Welcome to the Virtual Assistant Podcast. This is the place for busy leaders who are looking to delegate more so they can focus on what's most important in their business. My name's Rich Birch. I am the host of the show today. Today we have Craig Jarrow. We are so excited to have Craig on the line. Craig, thanks for joining us! Craig - Thank you, Rich. Glad to be here. Appreciate you inviting me. Rich - We have a real ninja, a real live ninja on the line. This is amazing. I think it's the first time I've ever….You don't have your mask on today though. Craig - No, but thank you for that Rich. I get that a lot. Rich - Nice. Well, Craig, why don't you tell us a bit about your business. What is it that you do in life? Give us as sense of your context. Craig - Absolutely. I run a website, as you alluded to, called Time Management Ninja. It's a productivity, time management blog. Talk about everything from motivation, to productivity, to technology. I've been running it for about four and a half years. I have grown it from small to quite a big audience today. As it grew, that was kind of what lead me down the path of needing a Virtual Assistant…needing an extra set of hands to help run the website. Rich - Nice. Why don't we start there. What was happening? What were some of the factors in your business, and then in you personally that were going on when you realized, "Gosh, I need to get a virtual assistant here to help." Craig - Absolutely. I think there was really kind of two factors. First of all, I do run my website as a second business. So it is something I do in my spare time…nights, mornings, weekends. Things like that. So I do have another job, so you can imagine there, boom, I've got a lot less time to run this website. And then second of all, when you start your blog you want it to be big, but when you start to grow, that's when you start to see the tasks start piling in. All the inquiries start to pile in. Once you have an audience, that's when you start to get people knocking on your door whether it be to advertise or guest post or whatever it may be. I quickly found myself starting to drown in some of the administrative tasks such as email, such as inquiries, and less time to work on the creativity, on the material, on the website. Rich - Absolutely.

Subscribe to The Virtual Assistant Podcast iTunes | Stitcher | RSS Welcome to the new Virtual Assistant Podcast! Watch for new episodes every other Monday, highlighting how eaHELP clients are using virtual assistants to take their businesses further faster. We're pleased to welcome, as our first guest, Mike Weinberg. Mike Weinberg is a consultant, sales coach, speaker and author on a mission to simplify sales and help his clients achieve greater success developing new business. Listen in on this podcast as Mike shares how he leverages a virtual assistant to free him from an inbox jail, manage his schedule and ultimately help him grow his business. This episode is full of insights for solopreneurs and leaders of all types looking to focus on what's most important in their business through the help of a virtual assistant. Episode Highlights: 01:30 // Mike explains his business 02:10 // When Mike realized he needed an VA 03:15 // High pay off activities - what only you can do 03:46 // Mike's high pay off activities: consulting, content, and selling 04:19 // Three things that were killing Mike 05:15 // What it looks like to have an VA in Mike's inbox 06:40 // Mike's VA takes care of all his scheduling 08:15 // The hardest thing for Mike to handover to his VA 09:21 // How Mike's VA gained his trust 10:47 // Since having an VA Mike's wife is happier and he sleeps better 12:30 // Mike sees a lack of selfish productivity 13:40 // Figure out your high pay off activities! The Lightning Round: Helpful Productivity Apps // Uber Planning Process // Mike's not a great planner! How do you protect your time? // Putting vacations in calendar first, avoid the pressure to delay responses to inbound communication Ninjas vs. Pirates // Peyton Manning, Ninjas! Craziest thing asked of VA // To tell Rich Birch to get lost! Contact // newsalescoach.com, Twitter Episode Transcript: Rich - Well welcome to the Virtual Assistant Podcast. This is the place for leaders who are looking to delegate more so they can focus on what's most important in their business. My name's Rich Birch, the host of the show. Today we have Mike Weinberg on the show. I'm super excited to have Mike on the phone. It's going to be a great call. Mike, thanks so much for joining us today. Mike - Hey Rich, good to be with you guys. Thanks for having me today. Rich - Now I wonder if you could tell us a little about what you do, Mike. Give us a sense of your business. Mike - Ya, I help sales teams and sales organizations become a whole lot more effective at picking up new business. I do consulting, coaching, and speaking. And I have a best selling book right now on prospecting and new business development. Rich - Wow, so you are probably a busy guy. I get the sense that you are probably all over the place trying to make all those various pieces of what you do work. So when you decided to step out into having a virtual assistant, what was happening, what was happening in your life that made you say 'ok, now it's time for me to make that step.' Mike - I was dying, overwhelmed, drowning, searching for answers from other people. I'm running a solo practice and I am committed to maintaining a solo practitioner consulting model and I'm actually pretty excited about it. But between just the need for what I sell, and the success of the book, and some of the stuff with just my social media platform, I couldn't keep up. So I was drowning. I have no administrative gifting what-so-ever. And I was drowning in details, in email, in trying to do traveling. And I like travel planning. That's my thing, but it's not my high payoff activity. And I couldn't keep up, and I thought I'm either going to break, or I need a solution to this, or I need to do something else. But I couldn't go on. I was at then end. Rich - Wow. So a lot of dark nights or early mornings saying 'Oh my goodness, this just isn't going to happen.