Katie Isenor goes candid as David Cinelli interviews her about her role and what her daily routine looks like as a virtual assistant and a mother. She openly shares her experience, advice for anyone starting off as a virtual assistant, how she manages her four children during the global pandemic while working from home, and much more.
Post shared by David V Cinelli on May 19, 2020: Talk with Katie Having a candid conversation with my VA (Virtual Assistant).
You can follow David on Instagram: @davidvcinelli_realtor
Transcript:
David Cinelli (DC) – Hey everybody, I always do that to my hair because I don’t always get a chance to look at it when I am running down the stairs. So, I was just talking with Katie, I’ve got my LaCroix water. Hi Katie, will see if we can add (drinking beverage). Just waiting for Katie to join us.
Katie Isenor (KI) – Hello!
DC – There you are!
KI – Can you hear me?
DC – Yeah Yeah Yeah…Katie is already laughing at me.
KI – This is so funny. (laughing)
DC – So we are just having a regular conversation with you every day just that everyone else is going to be involved in this one. It’s going to be a little weird. I was just saying, like, I was talking to you like she’s at home trying to (inaudible) around. I’m like I didn’t realize I have two wives she’s like, I don’t even (explicit) call you. (Laughter) Sorry, I don’t know if I’m allowed to swear or not. Sorry…that’s me! (Laughter)
KI – Oh David, Oh David, that is you.
DC – So how are you doing today, I didn’t get to talk to you much today
KI – Yeah, I don’t know, you went off the grid there a bit.
DC – Yeah, I know, I had a listing appointment. Things have been crazy.
KI – Been busy doing your job! Look at you!
DC – Yeah for those people that don’t know that it’s like what’s going on in the Toronto real estate board lately, it’s ah WOW, the last week it’s been insane. Like I was working all long weekend. In a good way, I’m excited about it. It’s a pretty good thing.
KI – Is it surprising do you think with everything going on with Coronavirus?
DC – No, I think people were getting pissed off at being at home all day and now that especially they announced it, everyone knew that kids were going back to school. By the way, I guess your kids aren’t going back to school either.
KI – Oh I’ve known for a while, but I knew that. They just kept pushing it back, same as Ontario, they just kept pushing it back. Then they were like, guess what they aren’t going back, and we were like, yeah we know. Wahooooo!
DC – I thought you were going to go insane, 4 kids. Your oldest one is how old?
KI – My youngest? So my youngest is two and my oldest is 8. Then there’s two in between.
DC – Wow so you have four kids under eight?
KI – Correct. Yup.
DC – Wow that’s interesting
KI – Yup. My partners joined I can see Grant there.
DC – (Laughing) He just joined?
KI – He’s on right now.
DC – You’re a good man Grant, good man. (Laughter) So to get into it a little bit so, I think we’ve been, what, a couple of minutes here – some people joining. As you’ve seen before through my live feeds, we will have people periodically pop in. For those that are new to my live feeds. I usually bring on somebody twice a week, Tuesdays and Thursdays. Today I have with me one of my assistants Katie. Katie lives in Halifax, if I am correct.
KI – Yup, Halifax
DC – Her and Kim, I have two assistants, they both help me out. Katie does a lot of my social media, almost all of it. But I’ll let her introduce herself in a second. But all your kids and everything else, Katie and Kim are the reason why I am able to do my job and they are invaluable to me so.
KI – We’re kind of like rock stars basically.
DC – Yeah you guys are, and there is just me, yeah know I’m holding it together barley over here.
(Laughter)
DC – So Katie, those of you – just saw my mom joined – Hi mom. So, introduce yourself to people who don’t know who you are and what you do and all that fun stuff.
KI – So my name is Katie, I live in Halifax. I went to the University here. I went to St. Mary’s and did my Bachelor of Commerce in Marketing. So, it’s kind of my background. I’ve worked with David for just over a year now. I basically just help him out with his online prescience. So, that means like running his Facebook ads, it means adding subtitles to the videos you see, helping him out with the captions on his videos, and posting everything for him so it runs like clockwork in that sense.
DC – Kim just messaged, when you said you were rock stars, she said “YEAH WE ARE”.
KI – Pretty much
(Laughter)
DC – So typically, for those who don’t know, so Katie obviously is one of my virtual assistants. Obviously not physically there, and you do have other clients. So, what does your typical day look like when you wake up, kids and all that, what does your typical day run? Maybe let me preface this. Let’s do a pre-COVID and then a post COVID.
KI – Good call, so before Coronavirus my kids were on a pretty tight schedule with school, with daycare, with preschool. I would wake up in the morning and get my two older kids on the bus. Then I would get my third, my four-year-old, off to preschool. Come home, do client work, pick her up, do more client work, and then my kids would get off the bus. But after Coronavirus, my older two kids are not at school anymore and of course, we know daycare is closed, so we’ve just been juggling the day. Trying to keep to a schedule and basically just getting through, getting through. Yeah so my days are a little bit different from pre-Coronavirus, but not a lot to be honest, it’s just I have more kids in the house that’s all.
DC – I can’t get on you too much, it’s funny because before, you know me I usually wake up, pre-Coronavirus at 5:50 because I had to get to the gym and doing stuff. Now the days are just 12/14 hour long so there’s no point waking up at 5 o’clock in the morning to do that.
KI – I think you still do. I think I still get messages from you at that time still.
DC – I’m usually up pretty early, I sleep till 7 o’clock now.
KI – OK. Yeah ok, makes sense. So, a typical day now is basically, you are the first client that I do work for in the morning because the work I do for you is more time-sensitive, in terms of what you want to be posted that morning. So basically, the first thing I do is your client work. Your client work is basically adding subtitles to a video, creating the caption, and posting it on your four social media accounts which are YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram.
DC – Yeah, so if we are pulling back the curtain a little bit so what happens is Katie and I will talk about what we have throughout the week, and to do postings. Throughout the way we’ve kind of created a schedule, some of it came a bit haphazardly where things were working one day. So, we started testing things out a little bit and now we have a little more of a schedule set up. So, I’ll take some time out. Which reminds me I haven’t recorded my video for tomorrow morning yet.
KI – You haven’t?
(Laughter)
DC – I’m open to suggestions for wellness Wednesday. I had some things in mind I just haven’t’ recorded yet. But yea and it kind of grew from there. We started testing out, we were having some really hard issues at the beginning with some of the captions (laughter).
KI – Yeah there is trial and error, even from you recording the video and sharing the video with me, then the video going out on social media. It was kind of trial and error in terms of the quality of the video and the subtitles…yeah that was kind of trial and error for a little bit but we’ve kind of got a flow now with what works and what doesn’t work.
DC – Yeah. I think it was good, like trial and error. We use clips, just in case people are wondering what subtitles we use, we tried…what was the ad one you used (inaudible).
KI – Um we used to do it on our phones with the CC app.
DC – CC was the first one we used, and we knew that there were some issues that way. It was just kind of making the video not good. It was taking too long as well; I think that was the issue too. I remember at one point, I was typing in the whole thing afterwards, what’s the point of this. And the captions weren’t looking great and stuff. Then you went to another one with my call too, remember it had the little watermark at the top?
KI – It wasn’t an app; it was actually like a web-based program we used. Which wasn’t bad but you didn’t subscribe, like if you didn’t pay to use it, it would put a watermark on the video, and it would also, like it wouldn’t save the video if you don’t have an account. If you did all the subtitles and didn’t download the video, the video was gone. Or if you need to make edits, it just wasn’t ideal.
DC – Yeah it was a little bit of a nightmare. Yeah, Clip Scribe on the other hand has had its fair share of issues. But I think by far it’s the best one we’ve had so far.
KI – Yup, well, yup I would say so.
(Laughter)
DC - So what other things do you do for other clients? I know what you do for me, but what do you do for other clients?
KI – Good question, so I think I have 9, 8, or 9 clients that I work with on almost a daily basis. So mostly social media is one of the bigger things I do. On one of my clients, I do email checks for them. I’ve written articles for some of my clients as well. But basically, calendar management is under my umbrella. Email checks…
DC – What’s an email check?
KI – Email checks, so for example say a customer has a customer service email address for their business, I would be the one actually in there replying to emails.
DC – oh Kim does that for me.
KI – Yeah so and as well if I have a client that travels a lot, has meetings, that I am the one going back and forth with the person they are trying to meet and schedule things or whatnot. But yeah that is pretty much it. A lot of online presence in things like social media, and what not, writing, I’ve been doing a lot of writing lately. But yeah, every client is different too as their different industries.
DC – So Katie also took over a task for me which was, actually a couple of them, related to my listings. So, what was happening in the past was I would write it and I would get Natalie to come and proofread it. She would change a couple of things and I would go back. So now Katie has the great honour of doing that for us. (Laughter) And we still proofread it and change things around obviously but uh that’s the one thing like… so for those of you thinking about getting a virtual assistant or an assistant so one of the benefits we have, one of the reasons I love Kim and Katie is that you take things off my plate and I’m just not, things that I don’t like doing just cause I’m not comfortable doing them right. For example, I wanted to write a letter just to say how much Katie and Kim mean to me and I couldn’t write it, so I did a video. I’m more comfortable doing videos than I am doing that so that’s something that I would one hundred percent. There are so many things that you bring to the table that allow me to do my job, which is amazing.
KI – Basically what Kim and I do are take things off your plate that aren’t income-producing activities or that aren’t…yeah you probably could do it, you could do X, Y, and Z that we do for you. But when you are doing that it takes time and mental energy away from things you enjoy more.
DC – Well that’s one of the things that Natalie asks, those that don’t know Natalie is my wife, so Natalie asks “How come you don’t outsource your videos?” I’m like, that’s the fun part! That’s my creative outlet. Like it’s, you know I like buying and selling, I like the art of negotiation but also one of the reasons I like doing this kind of stuff. Even before I was a realtor, I was always on social media, and even when I was working in Hydro before it was Ban and Facebook. I didn’t do social media a lot. People are like, wow you’re on there a lot. No, I just like it, it was just one of those things for me. It’s a creative outlet, right?
KI – yeah it worked out. And you love your videos so I guess it worked out well now didn’t it.
DC – I love my videos? Or I’m doing alright?
KI – Videos, you got a lot of creative outlets and that’s really good.
(Laughter)
DC – I don’t know, I can never tell if you are being serious or not.
(Laughter)
KI – I’m always serious.
DC – Ok so guys we are opening for questions. Anytime you have any questions for Katie or myself. You can just write them in there too. When there is a pause, we can always answer them. So, feel free to ask questions at any time. If there is none, I’ll continue writing, I’ll continue moving forward. So, I always love this, five years ago, when someone asks you where do you see yourself in five years, did you imagine you’d see yourself stuck in your house with four kids?
(Laughter)
DC – Where do you see yourself, in 2015, where do you see yourself in five years? Obviously not here.
KI – I don’t think I predicted that, no. Not at all. Nope. Uh…but really looking forward to restrictions being lifted or continued to be lifted because yeah, it’s a lot, it’s a lot having four kids home all the time. Like, my two girls, they are close in age and kind of have each other, they are four and six. But my oldest, he’s 8 and he’s developed an addiction to Fortnite that we will have to have an intervention with here soon and my youngest is a walking hazard, just kind of doing his thing all the time. But yeah, it’s a lot having four kids all the time.
DC – I did appreciate Haines's message to me the other day.
KI – He did message you, yup. Getting really good at opening my computer... yup.
DC – what was it your older one saying to me about my one listing… “oh that’s not as pretty” (Laughter)
KI- The other day he said, “oh that’s kind of old”. Yeah, it’s a little dated yeah it’s ok.
DC – Hey I sell everything; it doesn’t matter the type. I see Anna says the same thing, so Anna Fucci, is one of my mortgage brokers, she’s great, and she says the same thing like “God bless you have four kids” I still think you and Grant are crazy, four kids I don’t know it’s a lot of kids.
KI – well it’s not like we woke up and there was four kids, we kind of built up to that.
DC – What it just doesn’t happen overnight?
KI – It doesn’t actually…It doesn’t. But yeah, we kind of built up for it. We knew that we were going to have three kids, and then…So we have my first two in Vancouver, we had my third in Ottawa, then we moved to Halifax and we weren’t totally against having another child but we weren’t totally for it. And then Hey! We have four kids.
DC – Well it’s funny, I’ve heard having four kids is less stressful than having three just because they can pair off in a sense.
KI – Yeah, depends on the kids though, yeah somewhat. But there’s the question somebody asked “Where (inaudible) social media is headed in the next decade?” Good question. Well, let’s look at the past decade like what’s happened in the past decade. I don’t know, ten years ago I don’t think I had Instagram. Instagram is a completely new app.
DC – It’s not ten years old yet.
KI – Yeah, I don’t think I had Instagram ten years ago, or maybe it just came out at that point. So, if you look ten years ago, Instagram wasn’t a thing. I think Twitter was more, people were more active who had Twitter perhaps. Facebook - there was no Facebook lives, there was no Instagram lives. We would not be doing things like this ten years ago. As well TikTok didn’t exist!
DC – I was wondering when you were going to mention TikTok.
KI – I cannot imagine my life before TikTok (Laughter)
DC – So there might be a possibility that TikTok might be hiring a new CEO, which they might be more in the public. But I am wondering if it’s going to be one of those situations as in like Snapchat went live and went crazy for a bit.
KI - That’s true, Snapchat is another one. I don’t think Snapchat was really a big thing ten years ago.
DC – So do people go on Snapchat now?
KI – I have an account, but I think I only have an account for the filters. I think that was the only reason. I don’t think I even added anyone on it. I think I just had it for the filters but…
DC – I didn’t even know you could have people on a social media account, I just thought it was for filters. And then I saw someone pinned me one day and I was like “What the hell is this?” I had no idea (Laughter).
KI- Snap Chat, it’s a big thing. And as well if you talk to somebody in high school right now. They’re not using Facebook. It’s not... like Facebook is an older thing now, where everybody is using Instagram, and Snap Chat, and TikTok of course. Those are the three apps that the younger generation is using more. But I don’t know, ten years from now, it’s hard to predict social media. Like how can we evolve where we are right now? It’s kind of a good question, I don’t know.
DC – Yeah, I don’t know, I think it’s becoming more and more mainstream and part of our everyday lives. I still remember when I did my MNBA, there was no, we were still talking, this was like 2003 or 2004 I think I graduated? We were still under the legalities and making sure that the security for online presence at all, people were still scared at that point at just buying something online, let alone like having social media really at that point. Because I remember back then, it was when online dating was taboo really.
KI – Yeah that is true too. I remember 2010 and plenty of fish was around and now even dating apps have evolved so that like there is Tinder…not that I use them, but they’re around.
DC – I think it’s also, society, the change to where we are noticing what is more acceptable these days. You’re hearing a lot of people now “Oh yeah, we meet online all the time”. Whereas back in the day, you know, only losers would meet online because they can’t meet someone at the bar. Remember that was the whole thing. It’s funny now that all companies are taking on social media. They are hiring social media managers.
KI – Think about it, for me personally, if I am shopping online, I look at the company’s hashtags and I look at their Instagram account. And I look at who has tagged them in their photos where I can see like... for example, I bought furniture recently and I went on their Instagram account and I had looked up other people who have photographed that furniture in their home just by their tagged photos. So, I could see what it actually looks like rather than the stock photos they have online. Or how other families styled it, you know what I mean? I online hashtag shop and I shop through Instagram and their social media pages.
DC - Interesting. I don’t do that.
KI – I don’t know if a lot of people put that much thought into their online purchases either.
DC – No. I think Amazon has just killed me. Because now if I find something on Instagram, I’m just like I’ll order something from Amazon Prime and I’ll get it in two days. I’m not waiting. And I look at the price point too. I saw this, for some reason, there was a hairdryer on there too and oh it’s marked regular $499.99 marked down to $129 dollars. I go on, I don’t even need a hairdryer, I go on Amazon and it’s $59 and I can have it tomorrow.
KI – I know the convenience of it too. We live in a world if we can’t get something immediately, we are not satisfied. We’ve kind of made these expectations that we want it and we want it yesterday.
DC – I think the evolution is that, especially now and going through Corona(virus) and realizing that people still do a lot of work from home. I’m feeling that the trend will be a lot of people will be working from home. Or things will be more for quicker I think to get to us as well. Unfortunately, it’s also, our phones are watching us, our TVs are watching us, they are going to know your preferences before you know them. Which is kind of scary but kind of cool at the same time.
KI – I think that is the way companies are going now. Well, they never had a work from home policy or HR policy in place, however now after Coronavirus, they’ve had to be pushed in that direction. However, I think a lot of companies will adapt that as well. Seeing the benefits of having employees work from home instead of paying X amount of dollars for an office space or whatever the case may be. They are kind of seeing the benefits of having a remote team.
DC – Speaking of home. So obviously with Coronavirus, you are working from home. But you are working from home on a daily. Do you have a dedicated space that helps you do the work? What do you find works for you?
KI- Previous to Coronavirus, I had an office set up but it is right off my kitchen. So, after Coronavirus, that office space is not ideal because it’s in the middle of my house. So, I was actually working from my bed and drinking coffee and spilling coffee all over my bedsheets and it wasn’t working out very well. So, I put a couch in my bedroom with a little desk area, because it’s the quietest spot in my house, so I made it work. So that is my dedicated office space. Yeah… physically that is where I work.
DC – So what happens when Grant goes to work? Like how do you work?
KI – Well, we will figure it out. So, one way to maximize efficiency is to wake up early. Wake up early, get everything done like that needs to be done in the morning. And then the benefit as well is that I have a lot of clients that are on the west coast is that they are four hours behind me. So, with most of my stuff, my afternoon is their morning, so there is a little bit of flexibility in terms of tasks, and when they are done and time zone differences kind of help that way.
DC – So how did you get involved in what you are doing. What did you do beforehand? Was there any prep? Like anything you set yourself and you said, “I want to be a virtual assistant one day”?
KI – So I was just looking for something that was flexible that I could do from home. My husband is RCMP, so he had a crazy schedule. I always say that he works 380 out of the 365 days. Like he has found a way to work a lot. So, he had a crazy schedule…
DC – Wait a second. If I had four kids, I’d work a lot too.
(Laughter)
KI – Yeah, makes sense. Yeah so, he was just working a lot and I just wanted to be home when the kids got off the bus and I just wanted the flexibility of not having to put all my kids in childcare, like I did that before and it was awful. My most vivid memory of that was me leaving work 30 min early, getting to one daycare, putting the bathing suit on my kids at one daycare, driving to the next daycare, getting a bathing suit on that kid, getting to the pool – and by the time we got to the pool and in the pool, getting out of the pool before my kids’ hair was even wet. Like it was awful. And so, I just didn’t want to do that. And so yeah, I was just basically looking for something that was flexible that kind of worked in my lifestyle instead of me trying to juggle a lot of things. It just kind of fits with what I want to do.
DC – Yeah, yeah, makes sense. Yeah, so what did you do beforehand?
KI – Before, I uh. So, we moved a lot. And I had a lot of kids. So, I wasn’t really doing a lot outside of the kids.
DC – Right! Right, I forgot about that. But you have a degree you were saying too.
KI – I do. So, I have my bachelor of commerce in marketing. I’ve done regional sales, I’ve been a district sales manager for different companies, I’ve been a logistics manager as well. Different things. Mostly sales, mostly business to business sales is kind of what I did before.
DC – Nice. Obviously, I’m thinking this is more fulfilling for you. Because you get to stay with the kids and see them grow up.
KI – Yeah, exactly. I’m not on a constant time crunch of running from one activity to another. That’s just going to increase as my kids get older too, with activities and whatnot, but….
DC – Yeah, so guys, feel free to ask Katie questions. I’m here, ask me questions, that’s fine too but it’s better to ask her questions I think at this point. Going to other people’s social media presence, have you encouraged other clients to have more of a presence, or is that like, how does that kind of look?
KI – So one of my clients wasn’t really doing a lot on social media. So, I moved in there and helped that particular client out with just making things flow a bit better. Another example is they would post something, there would be spelling errors or punctuation, so I would go in and edit or we would discuss what they wanted to post, I would create the post, and go on. But this person wasn’t doing this previous to me offering that. So that was nice to see, he was pretty happy to get it off his plate. It was something that, technology just wasn’t his thing and he just didn’t feel comfortable with it.
DC – how does that actually work for posting? Do you have to take pictures for it?
KI – No, different things like this particular client actually has a podcast, so the photo for the podcast would be who he would be interviewing that day, and that’s the social media post. He doesn’t have to send me content, it’s already available.
DC – Nice. I’ve thought about doing it. We have other realtors doing podcasts. I do so much as it is, I just didn’t know if it would overflow.
KI – And there’s no video in podcasts, David! Like how would you survive?
DC – Well, I was thinking of doing these, extracting the audio, putting it into a podcast because it’s the same thing anyway. But I was having some issues, I thought about it in the beginning, but I’m like, no, I don’t think it’s going to work. Ok, so we have two questions. So, Anna asks “Katie, do you work with a limited number of clients?”
KI – Yes so, I have to be mindful of the hours that I want to work per day. I wouldn’t be able to take on, let say, 20 clients because that’s not realistic in terms of what the clients’ needs are. So, for me, I want to stay within a certain window, where I would only work with the amount of clients within that window.
DC – And if you had maybe clients like yours truly, does that also eat into the amount of people you have to work with?
KI – Yeah, I think I could only have one David. I can only have one David.
(Laughter)
DC – Come on, I’m your best client, you know that!
KI – Oh God, but yeah different clients have different needs as well. Like some of them don’t have as much of a timeline, like deadlines I mean, so that plays into it. And different clients, like, I might work 30 minutes a week on one client or I might work, like, an hour a day on another client. So, their needs flow into how many clients I can actually work on per day or in general.
DC – When somebody is first starting out with a virtual assistant, what do you find is the biggest hurdle, whether they continue to use a virtual assistant or not?
KI – I would say delegating. You are like a master delegator so that is why everything works really well with you, is that you are able to delegate, you are able to communicate, you are able to give a lot of direction. Not everybody has that ability. Some people like to hold on to certain things and so maybe getting that particular client comfortable with the idea that someone else can do it that and they can focus on other things. I would say delegating is probably the biggest hurdle.
DC – Yeah, I can see that. Like if somebody can’t delegate, they can’t see the value of having you there. Well, I could do it all myself. But also, that would hinder their growth with any company.
KI – Exactly, yeah, the mental energy that you put towards that like, I don’t know if it’s like 30 min and they think it’s only 30 min, well I could do that - but if you are doing that two or three times a day, that all adds up and that is time taking from things you enjoy or whether it’s an income-producing activity.
DC- One of the things also, I don’t know if you guys realize that Katie has been helping me with was the part of the delegation. I’ll get to the next question, was creating a website, so before I had hired Katie and Kim, I had hired a website designer. Talk to us a little bit about how that web designer…
KI – It didn’t go well.
DC -What’s that?
KI – I said it didn’t go well. To put this tactfully, the deliverables were not met so we had to look at what was done, what needed to be done, and kind of stayed in the vision of what David wanted for his website. We discontinued with the previous web developer, I communicated that the relationship wasn’t ideal, the website wasn’t ideal, and luckily, we found an amazing web developer that has been working on David’s website for the last couple of weeks. And that should be launched in like a week-ish???
DC – Well, depending on once someone finishes their blog post.
KI – Correct, that is right. So, we’ll say ten days, ten days.
DC – I’m going to hold you to that. Ten days, I pretty much think we are almost there. It’s so disheartening because I want to show the website to my new clients. Even today I really wanted to show it to them, but then it’s not ready yet. It looks so close and looks so much better than I currently have.
KI – Yeah, we are down to the nit-picky things, it’s not like, we were currently working on the macro level and now we are on the micro-level and it’s nice to be at that point.
DC – Yeah, which is like, well even with your training and stuff, like that was invaluable when it came to that kind of thing; when you think about just things that looked on the screen between the white spaces, etc. I’m hoping I didn’t crack down too hard on things because I gave my wish list, keeps adding and changing and the dynamics. But we are trying to make sure that the website we are going through, that’s why I rely on Katie to say as a sounding board like “what if I did this” ehhhh that’s a good idea. That’s another thing you can use a virtual assistant for is having some other opinions on something. When you are working all by yourself, maybe you think all your ideas are great when they are all (explicit), you are not going to know the difference when you don’t got somebody else.
KI – That’s true, I can see that.
DC – With the person that has, you’ve seen a mental block with delegating, is it something you’ve noticed of anybody you’ve actually worked on? What is the, what are some of the things they won’t delegate to you? If you don’t mind me asking your specifics.
KI – I think, different clients, different things. Some clients like you are more than happy to take things off their plate. Like they are very happy to delegate and are comfortable with it. But you have to remember, some people have been doing something with their business, they’re entrepreneurs, they are small business owners and they’ve been doing this by themselves, perhaps for years. And for them to give that to someone, it’s like a piece of your baby. They want to make sure it’s done, and it’s done the same way they would do it. It’s the same quality they would do it. So different things, so if someone does a write up for something, for example, someone does a write up for something and they are not comfortable with delegating that. Or they are not totally familiar with the person they are working with skills, then they are a little bit hesitant.
DC – I think what works in that kind of situation is you’ll never know unless you try, you know? I remember the first time you did a write up for me and we were like, it wasn’t bad.
KI – it was awesome, what are you talking about?
DC – It was good, but it was just kind of like, we are kind of tweaking it. Even with Kim, the first time she was looking at some of my expenses, well how did you do this or not. Well, in the beginning, once you get a repetition and start doing things…now it’s to a point that you guys do it so often I don’t even remember how it’s done, so I guess that’s kind of a good thing.
KI – Having good communication is big too when you’re delegating because, yeah...
DC – Well it’s the only way your able to grow in this kind of, in any kind of environment, if you want to. That’s up to you, like, sometimes people don’t want to grow, they just want to do everything themselves...ok then.
KI – That’s not ideal, you are going to burnout if you keep going at that pace.
DC – I have even burnt out. Remember we had that conversation (inaudible) the problem is Katie frees up so much of my time, that I was kind of like craving my creative outlet and was working, working, working, creating videos, doing other things, which is great during COVID. Thank God we actually had time to work on that stuff, but I was getting a little bit burnt out. As much as we were in the market, we weren’t selling, we were kind of helping people you know, providing some information
KI – Bit of a limbo I guess when the uncertainty was happening and whatnot, yeah. There’s some questions.
DC – So let me go for this, let me ask this question, this is from Sandi “I recently started to work from home, due to COVID of course. I’m going a little stir crazy. How do you cope from working from home all day? Do you not have cabin fever? I need the social media interaction.”
KI – Good question. So me, myself, I’m a pretty extroverted person. So, working from home, obviously, I’m still interacting with people, it’s just different. It’s virtually instead of face to face. So, I would suggest, go to a coffee shop. Go to a coffee shop and work from there. You are going to interact with people, you are going to see people. Someone you might know might walk in. You could have a break and talk to that person. Get out of the home if you need to. Just because you are working from home doesn’t mean you need to be physically in your home. You can work outside the home. Like I know coffee shops are not open right now, but when they are, that’s something you can do. I don’t know, make time to leave your house. One thing that really works well for me is time blocking. So, I will set aside blocks of time in my calendar where this is client work, where this is laundry, this is me going for a walk. You know what I mean? This is me time where I’m off the grid and I’m not doing anything. Time blocking works really well. Have some virtual calls that are not work-related throughout the day too. That helps. Face time is awesome for that, Google Hangouts are awesome for that too.
DC – Well Sandi lives in a condo. (inaudible) So they don’t have a back yard and obviously, they closed the pool. But right in your area Sandi, just take the time and go for a walk. Like you have some of those great buildings in your area just go for a walk. Even like there’s lots of things to just explore. I would say that do that more often and instead of going for a long walk go for two 20 min walks maybe helps you breathe. You do have to set a time limit. Because I think it was the other day, the kids were up I think I started working Friday, we had the Zoom call with you at 8/8:30, I worked straight till, I didn’t even stop for lunch. I work straight through to 9 o’clock at night. And it was 12 hours straight and I realized it was, (explicit) like I wasn’t feeling great, so I didn’t work out that day but I was like (explicit), I just worked 12 hours straight without taking a break. I felt exhausted the next day. (inaudible) It was a little too much.
So, Anna asked here, before, let’s get back to here, she wanted…oh God… can’t get the screen back down there it goes. She was asking like “How do you get in touch with other virtual assistants like yourself?” So, there are varying companies out there, we’ll do this offline if you want to know what kind of companies. There’s a number of them that do this, we can talk offline about that. You can message me or Katie directly. We can talk about some of the companies. There are companies when you are looking for virtual assistants, you have your range. You have some that are Canadian based. I went with Katie and Kim because they are based in Canada. They speak my language; you know it matters. You know there are other companies based in the U.S. and Canada that can do specific things with VA’s. For example, a former realtor, she has VAs based in the Philippines. They charge a really ridiculously low price, but they are based in the Philippines. There is a time gap. There are other VA companies, which my financial planner, which is how I was introduced to Katie and Kim. He tried them out, and they were cheap, but they kept messing things up on purpose so that they would be billed for different hours. There are other ones in which you will have a VA and you will have them every day between 9-5, every single day, and you have to pay them even if you don’t use them. There are others that bill by the hour. So, it all depends on what kind of business you are looking for and I would highly suggest you Google search, you talk to colleagues, see if anybody else is using a VA, and figuring out what exactly what works for them and what might work for you. The good thing about Kim and Katie for me is that I only get billed for the amount of hours you work. So, If I choose to not use you for a day, I don’t have to pay for that day which is good.
KI – Yeah, I don’t ever see anything happening with you, (inaudible) on a permanent basis.
DC – Do you want to explain? So, I’ll give you an example. When I was away on vacation, I don’t think anyone knew I was away on vacation because I didn’t post anything. We all had the videos and everything ready.
KI – I was also on vacation during that time and it was all ready to go and you just loaded it up. Yeah, that’s true.
DC – I keep getting a phone call here, and there and I just keep canceling. It’s the second phone call and I’m like, just leave me alone.
KI – What are my likes and dislikes of being a Virtual Assistant? Um, So I’ll start with dislikes. So, the only dislike I can think of is that, when you are working from home, sometimes you are constantly thinking about what you have to do. You think “oh this will take me ten minutes, I’ll just do this”, and then you are doing something else that’ll take a couple of minutes and you don’t actually shut off. So, it’s important that you actually give yourself reasonable, if you want to be done at 5 o’clock then you are done at 5 o’clock. Some people prefer working at night and that’s fine. But if you don’t want to work weekends, then you don’t work weekends. You just have to be, just have to set your schedule and stick to it because you’re like “oh well it doesn’t take that long”, but if you do that several times, it does take some time.
My likes is that I have flexibility. So, I have the flexibility that I can go for a walk in the middle of the day, as long as I’ve time blocked and everything flows for that day. The biggest advantage is that I’m home when my kids get off the bus when they were going to school. And I don’t have to worry if my husband takes an overtime shift or whatever the case may be. I’m not like “oh no! I have to find childcare” you know what I mean? It’s just, the flexibility is really good.
DC – what about do you find interaction with other adults throughout the day affects you? Or because you are working with different clients, it fulfills that?
KI – To be honest, because I am such an extroverted person, I talk to people wherever I go. Like I’m pretty busy outside the home.
DC – So you’re crazy? Ok.
KI – What?
DC – So you’re crazy, you just talk to everyone, like random strangers? (Laughter)
KI – Yeah, like I was going to the gym a lot, so I was talking to people there. Dropping into my kids’ school, talking to people there. Like I’m always talking to somebody. Like I have neighbours around and stuff that I talk to, just because you work from home does not mean you don’t have relationships and don’t talk to people outside your home. Um yeah, sometimes you work from home because you don’t want to talk to people, that’s the other side of it. Like if you are super introverted this job is for you because you don’t have to leave your home, you don’t have to. You can even do video calls without your video on to. It’s totally flexible.
DC – Or text messages which is (inaudible). Um, have you had a client, or have you had a situation where you had a client where things do not mesh? What happens in that situation? What happens if you actually have someone that you are constantly butting heads? Has there been that kind of situation?
KI – That really hasn’t happened yet but, some skillsets of virtual assistants aren’t meant for some clients. And some personality traits don’t match well. It just depends. It hasn’t happened yet, not saying that it won’t. But it hasn’t happened yet. I think you just re-evaluate what you would like in that relationship and what that person wants in that relationship. Just see maybe if it’s not a good fit, problem solved, and figure out how you can find someone who would be a good fit.
DC – And how long have you been a VA?
KI – Over a year now, so about a year and a half. Because I started in January of 2019. Yeah, so almost a year and a half now.
DC – So if somebody is thinking, what would be the type of person you think is ideal for hiring somebody like yourself.
KI – it depends, I don’t know, just thinking of the clients I work with currently. Their industries are pretty vast. There is no cookie-cutter, like, this is a good client to work with virtual assistants. But basically, if you have stuff or tasks that need to be completed or whatever the case may be and you don’t need someone physically doing, for example, you don’t need someone physically completing that task, then a virtual assistant is awesome. And the good thing about virtual assistants, again we’ve touched on this before, that most times you are billed per minute. So, you are not billed for time that you don’t use.
“How do you market yourself and your services?” - Ah good question, talking to people is a good way for a virtual assistant to market themselves. Basically, if you know business owners, start there. If you’ve done administrative work in the past, that is kind of good to add to your resume. LinkedIn is a great place as well, to share your experience. Upwork is another one of them that there is people on Upwork that you could look at potentially hiring. Basically, talking to people, start with one business owner because that business owner knows a lot of business owners to. It’s just networking.
DC – I don’t know if you’ve noticed, there’s an app called Fiber. There’s Fiber where people would upload a task, I would use it, I remember you were in on a meeting (inaudible) because you do the stuff that I would upload on Fiber. Like if you wanted to start small, there might be tasks or something on there too, where someone would say “OK can somebody edit this for me “or if you just wanted to start, ad hoc it that way and “ok let me try this I can do this virtually from my home”. So that might be a way of starting it if you are not comfortable and maybe a way of getting your foot wet. And never done administrative assistant work before, it’s a good way to start, I think.
KI – Yeah, exactly.
DC – Other things. So, what is the most surprising thing you’d say that’s happened that you found out yourself living at home in quarantine for the last two months?
KI – Good question! Jesus, you are hitting me up with the hard questions here! Um what have I discovered, um…I would say that, well to be honest when all of this started, I was like “Oh My God! This can’t happen. I have to like interact with people, this is awful. How can businesses be closed, how can things shut down? This is awful”. But now it’s been, I don’t know how many weeks it’s been, it’s been eight weeks now, we’ve been home and kind of doing our own thing. And I don’t know how things are going to like go back to where they were before, because we are so used to being like this, right? My husband was working from home for a lot of those weeks as well. And so, it was interesting because we actually got to sit down and have coffee in the morning, which we never did before. He actually started drinking coffee because he was there, and I was here, and we were able to talk. What I’ve discovered, perhaps, is my relationship with my husband as well, which is kind of appreciating each other a little bit more. We were able to spend more time together; we weren’t stressed out. And I’m sure David, you’ll probably agree, you’re not hustling from one place to another and like on a tight schedule.
DC – Yeah, it’s different on our end, and this is where I had to struggle, where we had the meeting before where things were getting a little busy again. But yeah, we don’t have to drop off the kids in the morning. My schedule has changed. For example, I didn’t go downstairs to work out till ten o’clock this morning. Where usually it would have been, God, ten o’clock I would have already had worked out, dropped the kids off at school, I would have been 15 calls deep into my selling, so it’s changed a little bit.
KI – Yeah, it’s going to be weird to go back to where we were before, it’s going to be weird, you know what I mean? It’s going to be weird because we are so used to this calmer way of life. I am looking forward to it in some ways. It’ll be great to go to the gym!
DC – Yeah go to the gym in a bodysuit, ya know...
KI – I don’t know how we are going to do it but whatever, they can figure that out and I’ll just be there.
DC – They need one of those misters when you walk in, you know…like they have at a place we call Canada’s Wonderland.
KI - What about those blue lights, how safe is it to put those blue lights on a human? I don't know? Probably not very safe but...
DC – I prefer the misters, you come in and they would be all full of this disinfectant when you walk in.
KI – Yeah. Yeah, you could be on to something there.
DC – Might as well, hey when your hot, they have them out there in the parks, why not!
KI – Oh my God, I don’t know David….
DC – So again guys if you have any questions to ask Katie, now would be a great time, either ask her to work at home with four kids, ask her ones about being a virtual assistant. Any other crazy mom stories. What about your family now too? I know you have two sisters...
KI – I do, my two sisters live in Alberta, same with my parents. My husband’s family, he has a brother here, a brother in Ottawa, and then his mom and stepfather are in the states.
DC – What’s their hatred for Toronto? No one’s living in Toronto.
KI – I don’t know David, I like Toronto. I don’t know, I live just outside Halifax, like 20 min from downtown, and like there’s woods all around and it’s just quieter, I guess. We have more land, more space.
DC – My nightmare, I couldn’t cut grass and stuff.
KI – You have a lawn now? You must…
DC – NO! I have fake grass in the front, so my neighbours are nice they cut the little boulevard I have out front. I’m not joking. I’ll take the camera and show you.
KI – I’m not surprised right now.
DC – The back has a pool and a thousand square foot deck. I have the cabana back there where I have my cigars, I can watch my TV. The house was set up so… because I can work long hours, we weren’t going to have a cottage, but I also didn’t want to come in and like come home on weekends in case I had a half-hour to, I wasn’t able to cut the grass, it just was never enough time. So now we started hiring people to cut the grass. It’s stupid, it takes them five minutes. I just never have the time…so anyways…want me to read it out? “I always wondered how do you work at home with four kids? I have a hard time working with my kids in the same building.”
KI – It has its challenges. Yeah, they have times where they are like fighting. They fight all the time actually. It seems like all the time. They have their moments. They are pretty loud. I always say I have the loudest kids in North America. So that’s another challenge, but again they are not always like that. So yeah, working from home with kids is basically maximizing the time blocks where they are occupied. And as well, my husband was also working from home for a lot of weeks so we kind of like, went back and forth a little bit too. So that was helpful.
DC – Tell Grant, I hope he’s on this call, that one morning and you were on it with my social media and I was like “What the hell is this?”. And you were like, Grant woke up early, made me breakfast, got everything ready. And I was like, how do we get Grant doing that every day for me. Do I get to pay him?
KI – Do you want to marry Grant?
DC – No, I don’t want him to do it for me, I want him to do it for you so you’re up for me to work. (Laughter)
KI – Yes, Grant has been awesome through it too. It’s not just me, it’s me AND him. So, he’s been awesome too. Anybody who knows Grant knows he’s a very caring person so, yeah, he makes me my smoothie in the morning, and it’s like timed, he’ll come up ten minutes later with my coffee, you know what I mean. Yeah, he’s a very, he’s been very good throughout all of this too. Like very very good. He’s been great with the kids, we kind of divide and conquer in that kind of sense.
DC – So honestly, working with me, what is the worst thing working with me?
KI – (Laughter) Why would you ask me that, um what is the worst thing?
DC – Yeah, I want to know your opinion on it.
KI – The worst thing… I think maybe when the subtitle program messes up, that’s the worst thing. BUT that’s not even a thing, it’s not even that bad. I don’t know, um….
DC – Sorry, I thought there would be something right off the cuff, like, I hate when you do this Dave. Actually, if it was something you hated you’d probably tell me.
KI – I don’t know, sometimes I think you are attracted to shiny things. And sometimes I have to be like, “no man you don’t need that! You don’t need that”.
DC – No, no, no, that’s 100%! Sometimes Natalie has to walk me back from the edge a lot of times. So, I’ll give you an example with that. When I see new programs, maybe we can use this. No, Dave, you don’t need that…What about this…no Dave (Laughter)! Or when I’m messaging you having a cigar at two o’clock in the morning and I’m listening to an audiotape and I text both you and Nicole at the same time. “Hey what about this program!?”
KI – Yeah, well that’s the thing to, you …our hours are different. You are always working, and I’m not always working. So maybe that’s perhaps, not a dislike but a conflict sometimes. Where your mind is always going, and you are always open. You’re a realtor, you don’t stop working. However, I have to be firm with myself, “hey this time I’m going off the grid. If you need me, need anything done, this is the time you need to get it to me for”. And being firm with me going off the grid on the weekends, or whatever the case may be.
DC – I love it how Kim is laughing at that one too. Kim is very good at shutting me down. I’m not answering the phone, I don’t need this (explicit).
(inaudible)
KI – When we first started working with you and you needed something completed and it was eight o’clock at night, I was like “we’re managing, we are managing your behaviour…” what did we say? We are managing your ummm…
DC – Expectations or something.
KI – Expectations! Yes! “We are managing your expectations. David, we are not doing this at eight pm at night, if we didn’t know about this before!”
(Laughter)
DC – Well and things have been a lot better. It was all new to me too, right? And that’s a thing in the beginning when you have a virtual assistant it’s good to work on things, say you work on maybe we do this; you do this. I don’t know how we worked it out but it’s like every little thing I would try something, even with the move Snapple, which Kim has taken over which is great, in the beginning, I don’t know I’ve seen this thing, I’ve heard about it - I passed it on to her, “can you just like figure out if it’s worth it?”. So that’s why Katie says about the shiny things. I’ll ask Katie tones of things I come across, I’ll take a screenshot and I’m like “Can you do some research on this”. She’s like (explicit) off David you don’t need this. I KNOW but it looks so nice! So like Kim says, managing expectations that’s right. I think that’s on all our parts. I think that it…moving forward…. we’ve been pretty good with that though lately, I think. It’s been about a year.
KI – Yeah, we’ve got into a flow and that’s as well kind of goes back to when you first start off with a client, your managing their expectations and you’re kind of getting into a flow with things of like, and yeah managing deadlines, and expectations, communication I guess is the biggest thing with that.
DC – Yeah Yeah, so guys we have about seven / eight minutes left here. It’s gone by pretty quickly. So, questions for Katie here, I keep asking you guys, if not I’ll keep grilling her with the hard questions.
KI – it’s ok. It’s all good. My kids are pretty quiet though hey! They’re pretty quiet.
DC – You know I find, sometimes, when I had Natalie in the beginning, no one was asking any questions. Then we started getting into the personal stuff and people were just like…we had to do an extra hour. That was kind of funny. It’s a little different because you are an employee, you and Kim are like my other wives. My work wives.
KI – (Inaudible) David…What are you going to do with all these wives, oh my God!
DC – I know I know; ok I had another question. I am trying to remember off the top of my head, I’m trying to remember. High profile, do you have any high-profile clients? You don’t have to give me names.
KI – Those are all high profile in my mind David.
DC – Oh come on, you know what I mean,
KI – No, I don’t have any that are more in the media more than others. You would probably be my most high profile. Mr. Hot market, TV star. I would say you’re probably more, yeah in the media more, perhaps in that kind of sense.
DC – Yeah Yeah, ok I see that. Any other dignitaries or anything like that?
KI – No, nothing like that.
DC – What do you mostly have, so in your…are you allowed to say like other professions, so like a lawyer?
KI – Yeah, so industries that my clients are in are: investment management companies, financial planning company, consultants, coaches, wellness coaches, realtors of course, like you.
DC – But I thought I was your only realtor?
KI – I don't know, David are ya? are ya?
DC – You’re breaking my heart.
KI – I only have one David. That doesn’t mean I don’t have another realtor as a client.
DC – You are giving away all my secrets to the other realtor aren’t ya?
KI – All of them! (Laughter) Yeah, different industries and again there is no one industry that really benefits from a virtual assistant, it’s basically anybody that needs stuff off their plate.
DC – So back to Grant, and I love Grant because he’s an ideal husband, what did he end up doing for you for Mother’s Day? Because we never talked about Mother’s Day.
KI – For Mother’s Day? Well, what did we do for Mother’s Day? What did we do for Mother’s Day? OH RIGHT! I know what we did for Mother’s Day. I don’t know why I had to think of it for that long. So, the day before Mother’s Day I said “Grant, I want a feature wall”, this was on Saturday, I said I want a feature wall behind the TV. This is what I want done. Home Depot opens at ten a.m. or whatever time. I need you to go to Home Depot tomorrow, pick up the supplies. You need to get paint, you need to get this, you need to get that. And I want you to do the feature wall tomorrow. That’s what I want for Mother’s Day. He was like “OK”. And he did it! And it looks amazing!
DC – I saw, oh that was for Mother’s Day because I saw you posted that and I’m like, “Wow that’s pretty cool, like really good.” Nice.
KI – Yeah, no he did it, and a couple of weeks earlier I picked out a laser hair removal thing to use at home.
DC – Oh I saw this!
KI – Yeah so, we’ve been using that, and by we, I mean me. So that was the gift that he got me. The actual gift. It was a good Mother’s Day.
DC – I got Natalie EarPods, because where we are working from home, I (explicit) hear her talking in the room upstairs and her clients, or whoever they are on the computer, and I’m like seriously!? I’m trying to do videos here, so I got her ear pods.
KI – Oh my God. I bet she loved that, the reasoning behind it.
DC – I don’t know, you can answer that question.
KI – “What do you like most about David?” Um, David is very good at communicating. He is very, he’s very good at communicating I would say. He’s very good at giving direction to you, so I’m not like “I don’t know what he wants me to do with this.” I know exactly what I need to do, and I know how I need to do it and when I need to do it for. I work, with David especially, I work with him, I work for him obviously, but I work a lot with him which is nice.
DC – Yeah, I don’t consider us - You and Kim - I don’t feel like I’m… when I ask you to do something, it’s more like – do you do this? it’s never like – you need to do this now! Because that is just not my style. I don’t think that would ever be my style. I’m not a dictator. I think that’s great for you, working with you as well that’s the same idea. I like what you and Kim bring to the plate. Like even the last thing we were trying to figure out for strategies, sorry strategies popped up. Like for work and tasks and stuff. Kim had a great solution which was free, and I loved that, it’s not going to cost me anything and helps me manage it. So, I think that’s great to. So, we asked the worst thing and now the thing you like most working with me. Oh, I was going to ask you another question and just broke my train of thought...
KI – Grant? (Laughter) I hope he’s watching this. Like, I really hope he’s watching this right now.
DC – I know because I was on the Grant move and now my heads gone right now. Your current home you live in, it’s a beautiful home, did you guys build that from scratch? Did you buy it off plans? How did that work out?
KI – We built this, so we saw a floor plan of a house that was roof tight when we first came back to Halifax. And we walked in, we kind of liked the layout whatnot. We were like yup; we want to put this house on this cul-de-sac and we kind of picked what we wanted as we went.
DC – So we have two minutes now, we have the two-minute warning. Just to let you know. Which is funny, so when those kinds of …I don’t think people realize the price point, you don’t have to say the price point here, is significantly less in Nova Scotia.
KI – Oh yeah, Nova Scotia uses a program called Viewpoint. And if you go on Viewpoint and look at the housing market here, it’s significantly different from the housing marking in Toronto. The average price, I would say is half – about half what the average price is in Toronto. The thing is, the closer, like any city, the closer you move to city center the more expensive your house is going to be.
DC – Have condos? Do you guys have condos in the city?
KI – Yes, we have condos, we have condos…
DC – No, what I’m saying is high rise. Because they could be low rise, mid-rise, I’m talking high rise. I’m talking about 40-floor skyscrapers.
KI – Yeah, I was going to say, Halifax does have condo’s…we are a city. We are a small city…
DC – I didn’t mean like that because you know Toronto, we have 120 cranes right now in downtown core, which is the most in North America. Which is just ridiculous, because you go into our downtown now… ok we have 45 seconds…anyway but I was wondering about price points for those. For example, one of my clients were looking, two of my clients were looking at 600 sqft. /500 sqft. condos for $500,000 and it includes parking…
KI – Yea, we’re not there. We are not at that point in Halifax. I would say you would get a decent sized condo for around $250,000/$300,000…depends where exactly it is, and what amenities you have and whatnot. I have not looked for condos, so I am not really sure what the price is, but I think we have like ten seconds.
DC – We do, yeah you can see that at the top of the counter.
KI – I can’t see that. I’m just guessing.
DC – So um I’ll talk to Katie after online…
_________Video cuts off at 59:59
End of Transcription
Transcribed by: Christina Chubb