One of the guiding principles behind personal branding that can also be applied to other aspects of maintaining a business or a career is that you must be in love with what you are doing.

In order to drive that point home I’ve invited one of the most passionate people I know, the virtual assistant (Or VA as we will call it from now), business owner, and my Instagram bestie Brittany Moore.

In our talk Brittany talked about her adventurous path towards running a successful VA business and shared some important tips on how to become or find the best VA’s in the market yourself. 

Here’s how that went:

Driven By Passion

Brittany recalls that at the age of 15 she was one of those students that despite not being the best academically was still beloved by all teachers, going to school and then to university because “socially it was the thing to do.”

As expected, Brittany’s first contact with university didn’t last, or as she explains:

“Full disclosure, I dropped out of university at that point, came to Australia at that point dipped the ground and went back to university”

In her time in Australia, Brittany experienced what so many do when travelling the world and met a whole plethora of different people from the most varied backgrounds which gave her a lot of necessary insight about the world and herself.

Deciding that university was the right path for her, Brittany went back home to graduate in Sociology, this time tackling her degree with the burning enthusiasm with which she approaches everything today.

Now, with a degree in her hand and marriage in mind after having fallen in love with an Australian, Brittanny found herself having to choose a career, which made her look towards opportunities that awaited her back in Australia.

“When I was a backpacker I stumbled into a job for an agricultural company and they just wanted someone to help with admin and marketing, […] marketing for them worked a lot like telly marketing and I was kind of like have you heard of social media?”

Finding your Niche

From there our conversation drifted towards Brittany’s current business, “Working with B” and how she is extremely niche aware and knows exactly where her talents are best put to use.

Now, knowing and capitalising on your niche is a message that I always try to get across and a topic that I’ve actually discussed with several other guests like Kristopher Levy, because that is where the most success for your business and personal brand tends to be.

For Brittany in particular, who worked in the fields of marketing and administration this meant being fully aware of the former versus the latter, and knowing that she was always going to be better at marketing because this is what she enjoyed doing the most.

Here is what she had to say about it:

“From the beginning I needed to know straight away what I wasn’t going to do, and I was not going to do email management, admin, bookkeeping, anything that was going to stress me out”

What I really like about Brittany’s way of finding her niche is that, while she was clearly aware of her market, she also took into consideration her own preferences when picking out a niche.

That is, while it is important to consider the market potential of a niche, it will never work out if your heart is not on what you’re doing.

Understanding your needs

Eventually I got to ask Brittany about the things that someone looking for a virtual assitant should take into consideration before closing a deal.

She had many tips to share in this department, but the first and foremost had to do with having a clear idea of what you’re going to ask of your VA and how they can help you, or as she put it:

“I have a lot of people come and, I think that having a VA right now is really trendy, I feel like it comes from a good place, from over the glamorization of overworking, that’s not cool anymore, so now everyone is like ‘I think I need a VA.’ and I’m like ‘you think, or you know?”

So, what Brittany suggested you’d do, is every time you think of a task that could be done by someone else, write it down and form a list, then try to identify if the items in that list have a common denominator.

So, if you realize that all the tasks you listed have to do with emails, then the VA you hired will know that they are responsible for your email management and will act upon everything having to do with that aspect of your business

Establish trust

Another thing that you should look out for when searching for a VA, according to Brittany is whether your prospected hire shares in values and objectives that are compatible with your own.

Here’s how she suggested you’d do it:

“Go on Instagram, just search virtual assistant and follow them for a while, figure out if they’re actually your vibe, […] You need to make sure that this person is actually someone that you fell like you can connect with and work with.”

This has something to do with a topic that often comes up in my talks with other guests and that is the fact that when it comes to whom you work with, professional matters like skills and the value that a person adds to your business is just as important as interpersonal chemistry.

After all, if you don’t get along with someone and most of your time together is spent arguing instead getting stuff done, the two of you will never get very far.

Conclusion

If you are a VA looking for clients or a business owner looking for the right person to help you manage the inner operations of your enterprise, there is no doubt that your objective will become significantly easier by having a solid personal brand.

After all, how are you going to follow Brittany Moore’s advice and find people who share your values and motivations if you don’t make them known in the first place?

So if you would like to work with people that on the same wavelength as you and drive your company to the next level, then you should start by contacting me either on this site or any of my social media for a full personal training coaching program.

Book a Discovery Call with me and let me help you build your brand while you sleep!