Looking for real-world inspiration? Follow along with Jaime to hear her story of launching her dream virtual assistance career from scratch! Plot twist — Jaime does VA work for us here at The Virtual Savvy, and we are SO grateful to get to work with her! Let’s dive into her story…

 

Meet Jaime

I’m so excited to chat with a dear friend today, and I can say that because we have been on this journey as virtual assistants together! I’ve even been able to share several meals with her and hang on the couch in our jammies. Welcome, Jaime, and thank you for joining us today!

 

What a welcome, thank you for having me!

 

Oh yes, of course. It’s been so fun to watch your launch, growth, and future scaling happening in real time. And, this is super fun – Jaime, where do you live?

 

I live in Canada, but more specifically, I am in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. I challenge anyone who is not familiar with this part of the world to go check it out and see where it is on the map. You’ll be surprised at how stuck out in the Atlantic I am!

 

 

I love that you bring that perspective of being outside of the United States, because I cannot tell you how many questions we get asked surrounding this! All the time! Does The SavvySystem Virtual Assistant Course work for somebody who is outside of the US? Jaime is here to tell us YES, absolutely it can, and has, and will continue to. I’m excited to dive into that today. But first, Jaime, tell us a little bit about yourself. Family, friends, hobbies, all of that. 

 

One of the things that will stand out for me is the traveling bit, and I get to do a fair amount of that because I don’t have any children. Traveling is definitely something I really enjoy, specifically new places as often as possible, rather than repeating old ones. Day to day life for me is pretty routine at this point. I spend a lot of time with friends and lots of friends are having babies right now, so while I don’t have any of my own, I do get to see that unfold. Some of them are business owners themselves, so watching them explore that part of their life and getting to share in the joy of all of that.

 

That’s so cool. I think that the fact that you are coming and sharing your story not as a parent, is so great and relatable too, because we have people that are exploring virtual assistance who are recent high school graduates, or early in their college experience, or even more and more coming out of their college experience, looking to find a legit way to make money because they’re not able to find a job even with their college degree. We have those entering retirement or in the thick of retirement. There is no perfect life stage for virtual assistance. It can fit into any life stage, no matter where you are. 

 

Starting Her Virtual Assistance Journey

Alright, Jaime, let’s go back in the past. Tell us a little bit about where you were in life before virtual assistance, and then how you found virtual assistance.

 

I had spent pretty close to 13 years in a private healthcare setting. I was certified in the work that I was doing, so I saw patients on a daily basis. It was kind of getting to the point where I was like, is this going to be it? You know, am I going to be a lifer in this? A lot of people go into that clinical and medical field,  because you’ve put so much time into the education piece of it, certifications and all of these sorts of things. And then 2020 happened. But for me, it wasn’t 2020 in the way that it happened for all of us. It actually started for me a bit earlier when I found out that the clinic that I was working for would be closing. I laugh now because I said I didn’t want to own a business. I never wanted to be a business owner. I would say that on a weekly basis, I never wanted to buy the clinic. I never wanted to be a business owner. So, I had a little bit of a head start on the whole pandemic and career shifting and these sorts of things that a lot of people were going through later on. I thought back to probably about a year and a half before that, I had attended a social media conference locally, just kind of with the lens of wanting to learn how to help the business market more. Social media is so important, especially in community settings. I had heard this term virtual assistant. I know now, obviously, but at the time, I had no idea why it stood out to me so much. 

 

Retrospect is a powerful thing. I encourage all of you to pay attention to the steps that you’re taking now, because when you get further down the line and you get to look back at the path, it’s so cool. Jaime and I were chatting about this earlier. We’ve been able to go back into the student community for The SavvySystem Virtual Assistance Course, and find our OG posts from when we were students and when we were working through the course. Thinking about before that, where I was in life and, and oh my goodness, like life looked completely different when I was searching, but I was searching. Hearing your story, that you weren’t really looking for virtual assistance, but you had gone to this conference and you heard the term and it was noticeable to you for a reason, for a purpose. Now looking back and saying, oh, that was part of my journey. So, I encourage everybody, pay attention. What are the things around you? What steps are you taking now that are going to be part of your story later on down the line? 

 

 

So Jaime, you found virtual assistance. We’re talking 2020. We all know what was happening during 2020. How did you find The SavvySystem Virtual Assistance Course? When did that come into play? Tell us a little bit about that.

 

I had a lot of extra time on my hands, like a lot of us did. While the clinic was meant to close down in May of that year, we ended up shutting down in March, so even some extra time. That’s when I started to think, you know, what are my options? I could go back to a different clinic, which was something that I explored. I spent a lot of time getting that designation. But, Google. Coincidentally when I was googling, a SavvySystem pre-launch promotion and challenge was happening. And so timing is everything, you know? 

 

Yes! Timing is everything. We have to pay attention. Things are going to cross our paths. It may just be at a conference and you hear this term, but all of those things are intentional for us, and we have to be paying attention. I love it. Ok, so you’re doing a Google search. And you joined one of our free challenges, right?

 

I don’t even know if I joined right from the beginning, I might have come in on day two or three of whatever challenge was happening at the time. I just remember the energy of what was coming across the screen. I know things have shifted a little bit as far as like, the times that things were offered, but I remember sitting in the dark because it would’ve been a two hour time difference. You know, just like staying up as late as I needed to, to catch all of this information and energy. There was no way I wasn’t getting excited along with everyone else!

 

That’s what I LOVE about our challenges! If you have never done one of our free challenges or workshops make sure you sign up next time. We equip you with the information to make decisions to launch your own virtual assistant business. We’ve actually had people join one of our challenges, and find a client before the week is over! It’s amazing. I love it. 

 

Starting The SavvySystem Virtual Assistance Course

Ok, Jaime, you jumped in and started our signature program, The SavvySystem Virtual Assistance Course. Tell us a little bit about those beginning days. Why did you start? What services did you start with? 

 

It felt so doable, you know? It didn’t feel so overwhelming to me, and so I dove in. I still had a lot of time on my hands. At that point, I had been interviewing with clinics virtually. So I still had that in my back pocket. I wasn’t 100%, but because I had already been connected a little bit with other people in online marketing and different things like that, I just started having conversations. By the time I started The SavvySystem, which was maybe about a month from the time of taking that initial challenge workshop, I had already scooped up my first client because of one conversation that I had been having. Now, it wasn’t going to replace my income and all of that, but it got me thinking, what does this actually look like on a day-to-day basis? So I got very lucky, but part of it was also preparation! You know, I was ready to have conversations. Just last night a friend of mine was saying, we can get in our own way and sort of discount ourselves, but I had nothing to lose at that point. 

 

There’s no bad investment that you can make in yourself! Right? Investment sometimes has an attachment to money. You may pay for something to invest in yourself, whether it be a gym membership or a book, or what we’re talking about with The SavvySystem, investing in an online course. You can also invest time. Just you being here and reading this interview. I hope that you’ll ask questions later on, like, that’s investing in yourself and there’s no bad investment that you can make in yourself! And I 100% believe that The SavvySystem was an investment of both finances and time for me. It does take time, energy, and effort to get this thing off the ground. The other thing that I want you to consider, for those reading, is what part of life that you’re in. We’ve touched on that, but no matter what stage of life you’re in, you have experience to bring to the table that can translate into a virtual assistant business. There is not one better offer of services than another. The best services that you can offer as a virtual assistant, is yourself and what you bring to the table. Will that grow and expand as you grow and expand? Absolutely. Jaime, what services did you start with and what services are offering now? For me, that radically changed in my business, over time. 

 

That’s a good question. And there is an evolution over the past four and a half years. I didn’t take a 180 pivot or anything like that. When I first started, I was interested in Canva, so I did some workbook and ebook design, and then very quickly realized that was not my jam. I would spend way too long trying to make perfect it and all of these sorts of things. I had made a connection with a fellow colleague who was in the same industry that I had been in, who was looking to build his personal brand, so I helped him with getting on podcasts and promoting his book that he had written. While I didn’t really know a whole lot about, you know, sending guest requests or asking to be on somebody’s podcast, I did know his industry. I listened to podcasts. I knew how to use Google. I was resourceful. I knew I could look, I knew I could ask even if I didn’t know. And I was upfront about that as well, just saying, you know, I don’t necessarily know exactly how to do it, but I’m willing to try and find out. And for a lot of people, they’d rather pay someone else to figure it out than figure it out themselves. Just because they can manage their own inbox or can manage their own calendar, doesn’t mean it’s a good use of their time, and to pay someone to do it makes way more sense when they’re a busy business owner.

 

That’s so good! Your willingness to learn all the intricacies! You knew the podcast world because you were a consumer and you knew the basic process. You didn’t know all of the moving pieces and the ins and outs, but you had the willingness to figure it out. We have said that multiple times here at The Virtual Savvy, but being a good virtual assistant isn’t necessarily being a master at a skill. It could be, but really the deep rooted thing here is being able to figure things out! Figure-it-out-edness is a characteristic of a really good virtual assistant.

 

How Her Virtual Assistance Services Have Changed

How have your services evolved? What services are you offering today?

Well, as you mentioned, you don’t have to know it all. You don’t have to know all of the different services that can be offered. I’m laughing because I consider myself a little bit of a Jill-of-all-trades, master of none. I just have so many different interests, but I wouldn’t classify myself as an expert in any single one of them where, you know, I just offer the same thing over and over again. That was a little bit of what I wanted to get away from, where I was having the same conversations in the clinic, day in and day out.  Honestly, I do a little bit of everything right now. From scheduling social media posts – I don’t even create them, I schedule them! If you’re not creative or you’re not into copywriting and all of that, you can still administratively support in social media marketing. I do a lot of customer service, spend a lot of time in the DMs, time in emails, responding on behalf of other people. But what I’m really sort of leaning in towards right now is some business operations and team leadership. And I’m happy to have all of those different things because it just lights me up to have no two days really looking the same. It’s the other side of the spectrum, going from all the structure and repetition to no structure and very little repetition, at least on a day-to-day basis. 

 

 

SO GOOD. Something there that I want to pull out, is that you mentioned it lights you up. That’s so important to recognize because yes, you all have gifts, talents, and abilities to bring to the table, and you are uniquely you. Nobody else is just like you. While you may be an email manager or a social media marketer, you’re not going to operate the same as somebody else that’s going to do it. There’s room for all of us. Another soapbox I won’t necessarily get on right now, but want to mention, is the thought that the  virtual assistant world is oversaturated. Absolutely not. We are nowhere close. There are so many opportunities, but sometimes we get trapped in our Google search bubble, and we think, oh my goodness, there’s so many virtual assistants. While there are a lot of VAs out there, there are so many business owners, entrepreneurs, companies, etc, that have no idea what a virtual assistant is, and they’ve never utilized them. I was just talking to a business owner the other day on a coffee chat, and she had just learned the term virtual assistant, and she had never even considered hiring a virtual assistant before. So, no, it’s not tapped, but looking at what you bring to the table and doing what lights you up is so important. We all have our own zone of genius. What we love to do, what brings us fulfillment, what brings us joy – and focusing on those types of tasks can be life giving for you as a virtual assistant. We get to create a business doing what we love, when we love, where we love, and with who we choose.

 

Finding Her “Why” in Virtual Assistance

Jaime, what is your why? You may have already kind of shared it, but what was your why when you first started your virtual assistant business, and how have you seen that pivot and change to today?

 

Yeah, my why hasn’t changed in any extreme way. I went back to my previous posts in The SavvySystem community on Facebook, and thank goodness that we had assignments to do because I have record of all of these things, including posting who I am, my why, and what brought me to The SavvySystem. In 2020, it was freedom. Time freedom, emotional freedom, financial freedom, and, you know, the list goes on kind of thing. Basically freedom of choice. To be able to choose how I outline my day, how my money gets spent, what I do when I have some time off, all of these sorts of things. It was really about that freedom, which now I see everywhere like what is your freedom life? I watched a video recently that Abbey did, that her freedom life is different from mine and it’s going to be different from yours, and it’s going to be different for every single person watching. In a nutshell, that’s it. Freedom. 

 

Has it morphed or changed at all?

 

Well, I sort of said it earlier. I went from this really structured and repetitive, every Monday to Friday always looking the same, to having almost all the freedom in the world. I’ve had to kind of scale that back a little bit as far as you know, just having like no schedule and all of that because there’s freedom in structure and there’s structure in freedom. That’s how it shifted. I still have the overall theme of being able to, you know, let the choice be mine and not up to somebody else or some other organization or something like that. And if I want to work at 9:00 PM so that I can, you know, meet a friend for coffee the next morning, I get to make that choice now. 

 

“I get to make that choice.” YES, girl! Like, how many of our followers are trapped in an employment situation where you don’t get to make the choice. Maybe you do have some freedom within your employment, but are you getting to make the choice of how much money you make? You get to, as a virtual assistant, that’s one of the first choices you make is your rate! There’s so many things that you have freedom in with being a virtual assistant. It’s important to recognize that it’s not always going to be easy. There are going to be days that it’s challenging. There are going to be days that you’re going to have to push yourself outside of your comfort zone. And there are going to be days where you ask yourself, why did I do this? Why am I on my own? Yes, it’s going to be a challenge. It’s going to be hard work. It’s not going to be easy, but it will give you that freedom. It can give you that flexibility if you’re willing to step outside your comfort zone and to stretch yourself and to grow and to learn, and to put in the time and energy and effort. Just being willing to step into that journey and say, “yes, I’m going to do this because I’m worth it and I want to try it, and I want to change,” is the first step in seeing those things come to fruition. 

 

What Her Life Looks Like Now With Virtual Assistance

Ok, so Jaime, going back to 2020. You had lots of time. You looked into virtual assistance, you started the course, you got your clients, you’re growing your business. How does life look different now?

 

Oh gosh, it feels a lot more stable than it did then.

 

Can you believe March will be five years since your office closed. That’s crazy!

 

Yeah. I mean, that just boggles my mind when I think about it, that that much time has passed. That entire time was such an emotional experience, we all remember it pretty well. Still feels fresh. But how has it sort of evolved? I mean like I said, I swung the pendulum the entire other direction, so I’m kind of bringing it back where it feels a little bit more manageable. I’ve been consistent with a couple of clients that I have worked with for a while. One of them pretty much the whole time, and then another for three years or so. That feels good because you get to know the businesses that you’re working with, the people that you’re working with, while still having that, you know, one foot removed where it’s not entirely up to you. Or, it doesn’t entirely ride on your shoulders for all the decision making and that sort of thing. But yeah, I’ve just gotten really comfortable. Right now things feel stable and consistent and, you know, the variety that I get in the run of a day in a week is really rewarding for me.

 

What were some of the fears or hesitations that have come forward for you in this process?

 

The one that is always kind of a little bit there is like, is this the right thing for me? You know the phrase, the grass is greener on the other side, as you see these other things and you think, oh, it might be better. So, that one’s always there a little bit. But I mean, there were fears around the first time I had to fire a client. You know, what does this mean for me? What does it say about me? What does it say about my business? What are they going to say? Because one particular client actually lived in my community. There were some fears around that, but you know, people are going to say what they’re going to say. Sometimes we can catastrophize things a little bit. We think of those worst case scenarios, which can come in handy. I mean, if you want to get into business operations and that sort of thing, being able to discern what sort of the possible outcomes could be on the whole spectrum is something that comes in really handy, but also can hold us back sometimes too, being discerning and critical of those fears and thoughts. Ultimately, if your why is strong enough, if your why is your why through and through, you have to just take that action, afraid or not.

 

Yes. It’s so important to stare fear in the face, and to name it, because doing so can also open the door for your willingness to figure that out. If you just say, “I’m afraid”. Okay, well, what are you afraid of? Are you afraid of failing? Or could it be that you are afraid of succeeding? Like, if you actually did this and succeeded, what would that look like? Because you’re going to fail in some aspect or another, and I don’t necessarily mean that you are going to completely blow it up and it’s going to be terrible. But are you going to make mistakes? Sure. Are you going to forget something? Absolutely. Are you going to send the wrong email on the wrong date at the wrong time? It’s going to happen. But that doesn’t mean that you’re a failure! You can absolutely do this. It’s being willing to say, “I’m afraid of failing, but I’m going to do my absolute best and step forward into that – it’s going to be uncomfortable, it’s going to be hard, but I’m willing to do it.”

 

Yes, and being afraid of failing is not a unique fear! I’ve had it, I still have it from time to time, depending on what the thing is. And, as you mentioned, what if it’s actually a fear of success? By not trying, you have already guaranteed failure. Fear is normal, we can feel all the feels! Don’t discount yourself, just push forward.

 

Exactly. Fear is normal. If you’re not afraid of the thing, it’s not going to push you to take action. So, so good. Let me ask you one more question. Jaime, what is one piece of advice that you would give to those exploring virtual assistance? What would you say to them? 

 

Gosh, there’s so many things, you know? I think having those conversations and asking those questions is a really big part of it, that self-reflection and introspection. It’s really key to start with getting clarity on what you want your life to look like. You may discover that it isn’t virtual assistance, and that’s okay too. But it’s really important to get clear, starting with you, starting with number one. I’m going to say this even as a non-parent, is that it starts with you even before your kids. I know there’s going to be people that disagree with me on that, but without you and your joy and all of those sorts of things, that then reflects into your family and your key relationships.

 

Oh, so good and so rich. When I started looking into virtual assistance, I had two children (now three) and I loved them dearly. I still do, of course. Being a mom, it’s my number one job. But as I was exploring virtual assistance, the thing that kept coming to the surface for me was, this is something I can do for myself. Yes. I wanted to bring in income. I wanted to bring income to pay for daycare and pay for a gym membership, and have extra cushion in the budget. All the things, because we were a one income household at the time. But at the end of the day, my gut was, this is something I could do for myself. Taking a moment and putting yourself first, and looking for something that you can do for yourself, whether it is virtual assistance or not, is so important. So good! 

 

Jaime, thank you for joining us today. It was such a pleasure and you are simply amazing!

 

 

Ready to start your virtual assistance journey like Jaime did? Watch our free training below — it all starts here!

 

 

Prefer video? Watch Jaime’s interview on YouTube below!