I thought I had a team, turns out, I'm alone... Asking for advice/short coaching session

Posted June 29, 2021 in
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Jasmine Beausoleil

I teach French small business owners how to get more visibility and leads with social media marketing.

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Sorry, this is long...

Here's the portrait:
Back in 2020, I had a consulting/social media management agency. I was tired and wanted out of having my hands in the production part of things. You know "work on your business, not in your business", so I hired my first full-time employee.

The pandemic hit, we lost a few clients but gain way more. Which is great but still had my hands shoulder-deep in the production part of things (aka doing the work for the client).

THE BEGINNING
Many entrepreneurs were coming to me saying "many VA's offer social media management but few actually do anything more than post content. They don't have the marketing strategy, and no ROI, etc.."
On the other hand, VA's were coming to me requesting training to provide social media management services to their clients.

I thought this is an opportunity: provide paid training for VA's then when clients come to me for services, I'll delegate them to the VA's I've trained, keep a small percentage and that will allow me to take my hands out of the production work... THAT BACKFIRED! 

WHAT REALLY HAPPENED
  • My only full-time employee left after only 5 months when I gave her a lofty commission pay. Which left me with her 40h/w workload on top of my already 70h/w.
    • Thankfully I had already trained my first cohort of VA's so I could delegate clients to them.
  • I learned quickly that VA's are "doers" and not strategy-oriented and are extremely dependant on me. So now I have 6 VA's asking for help multiple times a week, plus 15 clients also coming to me to strategy sessions, reports, and adjustments. 
  • The clients I close are all disappointed when I tell them they will not be working with me. They all still communicate their needs to me instead of the VA assigned to them because they reap more benefits coming to me.
RESULTS: 
  • I actually tripled my workload instead of freeing up some time
  • I'm extremely tired, if not to say burned out. 
ASK:

Feel free to suggest what you would do... I already have processes in place but it doesn't seem to help. 

If you are a business coach, a session or two would be appreciated.
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