Are you ready to dive deep into the strategies and mindset to help you optimize your business, prioritize your family, and stay true to your vision? Get ready to transform your life and business one episode at a time. This is the align your true north podcast, and I'm your host, Brooke elder. All right. Hey. Hey, everyone. I am so excited to have my good friend Jade Smith here. She is an amazing entrepreneur and just a delight. So I'm so excited to introduce all of you to her.
So, Jade, welcome to our show. Thank you. I'm so excited to be here. Thank you for having me. I cannot wait to connect with you and all your people. Yes, yes. So, Jade, I would love for you to just tell everybody, how did you get into, you're an entrepreneur, you're training bas, you know, how did that whole journey start for you? Yeah, it was very organic and messy in some ways. I think in other ways, it felt very timely. It was a very natural progression for me.
I had been in a project management role at a film company, had done a lot of executive administrative support, and kind of dabbled in a little bit of the marketing pieces just because of that, being in creative space, creative industry. And I had gone in and out of this role primarily as, like, the project manager producer.
I'd kind of come in and out of it a little bit over maternity leaves, like, having a baby and then going and coming back and working again, trying to do that, you know, come back and part time work and scale back up to full time. And I had done that twice. And then after I had my second kiddo, I was like, you know what? This is not the great long term thing. It's not the best long term thing for me. And so I started thinking, what can I do?
Really wanting to make a transition, to be able to work from home so I could be with the kids and have a lifestyle that supported that and really do something that was fulfilling as well. And so I came across what a virtual assistant was. Had never heard of it before, but I came across it in a Facebook group, like on a Pinterest post. You know, these different places, you come across things, and I. It just seemed to make so much sense. I was like, I can totally do this.
And I think within a few weeks, I started, like, putting together some services I could offer, putting a website together. And it wasn't easy by any means, but that was kind of how the ball got rolling. I was introduced to Dubsado and I was like, this. It makes so much sense for me. And you are like a Dubsado master now, aren't you? Yeah. The technical term for it is a certified Dubsado specialist. Gotcha. I like Dubsado master better. I'm not like a Jedi master or anything.
Some people that work with systems would say, yes, you are. But, yeah, Dubsado was a tool that I really was exposed to, like, from the very beginning of my virtual assistant journey. So that's kind of a cool thing for me that I was familiar with it from the very beginning. It was a very intuitive tool for me. I'm very systems wired the way I like to do things, the way I think.
And so then that was 2019 when I was starting my business, and then Dubsado released their certification program in 2021. And so I applied, and I was like, I'm going to prove that I really know what I'm doing because I had kind of done it almost on the side. My primary thing was being a virtual assistant. Yeah, I wasn't really positioning myself as a system specialist, but I was doing some Dubsado setups I was implementing in my own business. And then eventually I was like, you know what?
I do really know this tool. I'm going to do the certification and prove that I know what I'm doing and that I know this tool. And that was a really cool, pivotal moment, I think, in my journey with my business overall, because it did really start to set me apart as a systems specialist. A lot of confidence that I was a system specialist, that I could really offer that value to clients.
And because I was now a part of their certified specialist directory, it started bringing really cool new traffic and potential clients to the business as well. That's awesome. So for people, like, I'm just going to kind of recap because this is what I think is really important for people to understand, too, is, like, you got in when, like, you were just like, I'll be a do whatever you need me to do kind of virtual assistant, you know?
But then you found the thing that you really loved, and then you started to niche down on that thing. Is that right? 100%. And I think that I like to take this, too, and really apply it to people's journey, no matter where they are and what whatever industry or experience you have. A lot of people maybe wouldn't say this, but I think that being a virtual assistant can really be a gateway or an entry point into anything else you want to do in the online space.
It's like, just get your foot in there. Just get an understanding of, like, what the online space is the lay of the land, how people operate different tools. And then once you find something that really aligns or interests, you start pursuing that thing, find people in that space, find mentors, find those tools, start learning it, and then it will really kind of unfold from there. I love that. And, like, I kind of followed the same thing.
You know, I was doing everything, and then I found the systems that I loved. You know, for me, it was ClickUp, and I just love everything inside ClickUp, you know, and I did the same thing, like, became certified and all of that. And it's fun because then you can see, like, everyone kind of has their own unique gifts and talents and the things that they, like, really fall in love with. And so it helps you to stand out in the marketplace, too, because you're one.
You're doing something that you're passionate about, and that passion is always going to shine through versus just being like a jack of all trades kind of business. Yeah, 100%. I think what's interesting, too, about when you are kind of following the bouncing ball or kind of seeing where that journey takes you, it does always open up new doors and it opens your eyes, really, to things that you may not have realized.
So I love systems and I love Dubsado stuff, but I'm actually learning about myself. I don't like the implementation as much, or I've met some Dubsado specialists. They love the proposal design. Like, they love the design component of what you can do when you're building a Dubsado.
So really being able to tap into what is it specifically that you're good at or that you enjoy, and then that could take you on a whole other journey of having a podcast where you talk about Dubsado setups like, it's so, so honed in on what you enjoy and what you're good at. Yeah. And I love that because it just shows that, like, you can make money and have a business around things that you love to do, and you can do just the thing that you love to do.
And if there's stuff that you don't love, there's going to be other people that love to do that, and you could just hire them to do that thing for you and your business. Yes. And we need, we need to do that because we need we all doing things that we enjoy and that community component of being able to collaborate together and work together to produce something better without all the stress or the intimidation or expectation we place on ourselves, that I have to do everything from the ground up.
Right. I have to build the whole business with all the pieces when I'm not qualified or have the know how. I don't know why we have this expectation of ourselves that we have to do it all. Yeah, exactly. So working together is a really big piece. Yeah, agreed.
Well, and I think it's also a different mindset, because I've noticed a lot of people, when they're starting as, like, being a va, they don't even think about, oh, I could actually hire my own va to do some of these things that either I don't like to do or I don't have time to do. And that's actually how you can scale your business, is by hiring people to do the things that you don't enjoy.
Yes. And I have seen that, I think even with my team, because I have a team now from the time I was a VA flying solo to building a team, we are now an agency model, and I've had people on my team outsource their work for their other business or their business that they're growing to other team members. So we have, like, this really cool community of women that are all just supporting each other in that online space, and it's been really neat. That's really cool.
Well, let's talk a little bit about your agency model that you have now. So how did that come about, and what does that look like? So I would say probably from the very beginning, I knew I wanted to build a team. I think the name of the business felt like an agency misses Smith assist. It just felt like it had that Mary Poppins feel. So I wanted it to feel a little bit like anybody can come to work with the team, and we just take care of anything that you need.
And that messaging has done me good. And it's also been a pain point, because we have led people to believe these expectations that we can do everything, which that's not possible.
But it was just really cool to have that vision from the very start of the business that I wanted it to have that feel that there's this whole team of women behind you, supporting you, whether it's your admin or marketing or more technical things, we have a team of women that can support all of these needs so that you, as a business owner, aren't fulfilling the expectation you placed on yourself of building everything from the ground up.
And so once I started building a business with that vision, I think it was only the first, maybe the first year or year and a half that I was able to go from zero clients up to about 15 clients. So by the time I reached this point of having 15 clients I was trying to single handedly support, I knew, oh, it's time. It's definitely, definitely time. And some of them were, like, higher volume clients, and some of them were lower.
So it wasn't necessarily like I'm, you know, doing a 20 hours per month for 15 clients or anything crazy like that, but there was still a huge the boat is about to sink situation because I needed to have some vas join me, so I hired probably one or two, and then from there, in that first year, we just started building an infrastructure for the agency model.
And agency models can really vary from one to the next, how the structure is set up, what the hierarchy looks like in terms of team members and the roles and how those interact or support each other internally, and both with the clients, like, face to face. So I worked through that in the first year and just started building some structure and some systems and ClickUp. Um, because I'm such a systems person, I had a lot from the start that I laid out for myself.
And so I essentially just started duplicating, you know, templatizing and duplicating everything that I had done myself in ClickUp and. And just rolled that out with a whole team, and then it. It would able to grow as we grew together. That's awesome. So did you, like, have. Okay, I have this client. Here's all the things I'm doing for that client.
Then you would bring on a VA and teach them how to do that, and then you would pass on all those tasks to that person, that kind of the model that you were following. That's a great question. So, yes, in a lot of cases, that's what happened. And in other cases, the. The work we would do with a client would maybe vary based on, you know, if it was their social media or their email marketing.
And so what I originally had set out to do, I had an internship program, and this program is really still in place today, but it's evolved quite a bit from what it was when I very first started. But this internship program was intended to bring women who wanted to be virtual assistants or who were new virtual assistants and kind of wanted some side by side training to give them experience, to give them a space to learn and grow and to pay them.
And so I would bring these women in to do exactly what you said, to just kind of go through with them some training or give them, like, some trial tasks, like, you know, to do these projects on a. On a trial basis and get experience and I was the quality control person, so I would work things out with them and then hand it off to the client.
And that worked really well for the first, probably the first year, maybe two years, where things were a little slower and I was able to be more involved in the business. Once things picked up and we had a larger everything, we had a larger clientele, we had a larger team, I had less time. It just wasn't possible to do so much hands on training with new vas. And so from that point forward, we were only hiring virtual assistants to join the agency that had specific virtual assistant experience.
And so we looked for those that had a portfolio of social media work or of email marketing work. And typically we're looking for a very specific set of tools because some of the tools in the industry can be very similar. So if you're working with Mailchimp or convertkit or activecampaign or flowdesk, you know, there are differences for sure. Sure. And some of those are more technical for me, I personally think some of them are more technical.
But the functionality and the overall marketing strategy with all those tools are so similar that if someone knows convertkit, they can probably work their way around mailchimp or flow desk or any of the other tools. And so our goal at that point in our hiring process was, let's just find virtual assistants that are super resourceful. They have experience with these types of tools or these types of skills, whether that's email marketing or social media, what have you.
That way, when we're partnering them with the client, yes, we can build out sops for the clients based on their tasks and specific things like that. And we do, and we have done that in the past. But then the client that's working with our team has a team that's already completely equipped to support whatever it is that they need, even if that's changing month to month. That's awesome. And is that what kind of led to, because I know you also train vas, too, so is that kind of what led to that?
Yeah. So the internship program is called the Learned Va. And originally that's what it was. It was just an internship program. And so now today it's this course, kind of hybrid of a course, but it's also like a mentorship, you know, live interactive component.
And so what we do is we take virtual assistants through this program, and it's great for people who are not familiar with the virtual assistant industry or the online space at all, because it can really orient you into what is it just understanding the different types of tools and the names of the tools so that you can identify those when you're talking with potential clients or when you're showing up in different groups, things like that.
Understanding the difference between like an email marketing tool and a project management tool, sometimes those things, there's such a huge learning curve to that.
So being able to go through a, like a crash course type of program where you're not just absorbing the content, like in a course where you're going through and you're kind of doing your homework and you're watching the YouTube videos and all this, but you have somebody or you have a set of people that can walk through the process with you that can help talk it out. Like look at your resume or your portfolio or your site and your pricing.
They can help you process and put all that together because there's a lot of trial and error and it's a very self learning, exploratory process when you're building a business. And even if you have all the courses at your fingertips, you still need to be able to talk to somebody and get their feedback and bounce your ideas off of them. And so that's what that is now. That's awesome. And if people want to know more about that, where can they go to learn about that?
Yeah. So misses smithassist.com is my website and the learned BA, there's information there. There's a freebie. That's a great entry point, too, if that's something that you're super interested in. It's called the roadmap, the virtual assistant roadmap. And that kind of walks you through, like, that intro journey of how to take where you're at now and apply it. Like, no matter what that is, take where you're at now and apply that to moving forward into the va path that you want to pursue.
Awesome. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for sharing, like, your whole journey. Like, I've even learned a lot about, like, even talking about how you set up your agency and all of that. Like, it's super, super fascinating. So thank you for sharing all of that with us. Yeah, yeah. It's been quite a journey, and I'm not there. You know, no one's ever arrived. Right.
But it really is incredible when you can look back on, you know, your last few years of life or where you had wanted to be at that point in time, and you just think, oh, I'm here now. I'm where I had wanted to be, being home, working with my kids. And then the things I'm kind of thinking about or imagining for the future. Like, that wasn't even anywhere in my scope, you know, my line of sight years ago. And so it's really, really cool to be able to be proud of that, that growth.
Yeah. Yeah. That's awesome. Well, thank you so much for inspiring everyone that listened. And make sure you go and check out Jade's site. I'll make sure to have all the links in the show notes, and we'll see you guys all next time.