Welcome to the Small Business Big mindset podcast, where we dive into tactical strategies to grow your business. And to make an impact on this world. A huge part of success is keeping your mindset and vision on track. So this is a major part of our process. And this podcast, let's do this. Welcome to the small business, a big mindset podcast this week, I am so excited you guys we have Sandra Booker, founder of any old task and host of psychic co Welcome to the show. Sandra.

Thank you so much for having me here. I'm so excited to be here.

Sandra, if you guys have not heard of her or worked with her, she is a godsend to so many companies, so many businesses, business owners flocked to work with her, check out her website, I'm going to put her you're out on the show notes. So typically, I mentioned all that at the end. But she really is just incredible. You can learn more about what about what she does, but and she'll tell us more about what she does. Oh, of course, Sandra, oh my gosh, we have a mutual friend in Laura Bell Gray, and she just I cannot sing the praises of Sandra more than more than I already have a total fangirl. Okay, so Sandra, will you give us info about your your background, how you get started and how you came to be where you are today?

Yeah, for sure. Coles Notes version, like in my past actually holding down jobs, I was always kind of the go to person. Everybody, like I ended up covering everybody's desk, I ended up kind of like going to every department and helping get people caught up. So I was always kind of just the catch all person. And fast forward a little while I ended up in a bookkeeping firm, not going to have no bookkeeping training or anything, I just picked it up, it was fine. So I ended up there and helping him build his business. And during this time, I'm still kind of living paycheck to paycheck with my husband and our child. And who is very high, like highly introverted, and social anxiety wants lots of stuff. And they came home from high school, um, wanting to go on a school trip to Iceland. And I was just amazed that they wanted to leave the house, let alone a country. And they didn't know anybody that was going just they've decided Iceland was sounded fun. And so I was like, I need to make this happen. And so I was just trying to come up with some money, started on fiber friend told me about fiber. So I started offering transcription services there that took off, people started asking me what else I could do. Eventually, I decided, a friend of mine said, you know, you can make this into a business. And I went, Oh, I Okay. So I started the business. And from there, I started as a virtual assistant and quickly realized that that even though I'm very, very good at it, that I that's not really where my, you know, my skill set really shines. And it's more business management, really helping people put all the pieces together so that their their business actually flows well and, and streamlined and, you know, can get past all those stuck points. So that's why I moved into business management and helping people figure out their path to scaling their business.

Yeah, and I have seen you in action, and it is incredible to watch. I mean, you are always juggling a million things for multiple businesses, and we're talking big successful businesses that have a lot of pressures and a lot of expectations attached to them. And you always handle everything with such ease, you know, it's like anything that I've seen thrown your way or just like, okay, you know, and you figure it out, and you move on, and it's just like, what doesn't even seem like a glitch to anyone else, you know? So I mean, just kudos to you so, so impressed with that, because that is not an easy task at all, you know, to kind of support and manage these, these big businesses that are super successful, so and in no small part to you, you know, that's amazing. So you have so many things like that we could talk about on this podcast, because so many skills in so many areas. But let's kind of focus in on the hiring aspect of managing and growing a business because we haven't talked too much about that on the show as of yet a little bit. And I know that there's some people in the audience that are alike I'm a I'm a, you know, a team of one or maybe I've hired we're not sure if I did it right, or I need to grow more. And so they're kind of at this breaking point. And so could we kind of focus on that and just kind of talk about like, you know, first of all, there's options when you want to hire their subcontractors or employees there, you know, and it's like the pros and cons to both. Most of the people most of the listeners are probably going to want to start out with on the subcontractor route. So we can dive deeper into that. But maybe you can even start the beginning of like, how do you know when it's time to hire? And then your options? And then how do you go about executing it?

Yeah, for sure, we can totally focus on that. It is a big sticking point for people figuring out like, when do I hire? And how do I hire and who do I hire and all of that stuff. And I'd say that a lot of us wait too long to hire, a lot of us wait till we're struggling and overwhelmed. And on the point of burnout, before we actually put any effort into finding support, we do it when we're desperate, instead of planning ahead, and part of that is because a lot of a lot of business owners that I see don't actually have any times in their business where they actually sit down and analyze what's actually happening, a lot of us get stuck in just like the day to day trying to move stuff forward. And not really taking a step back and analyzing where we are and figuring out what is the next the best next step. So if I could, you know, give anybody a piece of advice, it would be like start building pauses into your business where you actually stop. And, you know, take a breath and look at where you are, and, and really analyze what you actually need in your business. Anytime a business owner is already, like, if you're already working like full time hours, or whatever, like the maximum number of hours that you want to be working, you probably at that point already need somebody in your business to help. Because as soon as you're at that point, then there you have no room to do anything else. So as soon as you're getting close to that point where like, yeah, I have my full day is just like taken up. Likely, you could easily hire somebody to take on events, if it's just to start with admin tasks or whatnot. So I would say, Yeah, that would be it is like, as soon as your full like besties are coming up to full time hours, you really should start looking at potentially delegating some stuff off your plate. Yeah, that's

so smart. Because I don't even think about that, you know, you kind of like, almost work yourself to a wall. And then you're like, Okay, wait, now I need help, when you should actually be planning for that, you know, like, working toward that and having that as like, okay, that's going to be something that's going to happen, and I need to be aware of that and intentional about it instead of like, oh, shoot, I'm behind. And I'm super stressed out. Now I need to figure out how and okay, I'll just take this person, like, they have a pulse.

They might know what they're doing. And for anybody that's thinking like, Yeah, but money. One to hire somebody to start isn't necessarily going to be I will get into the details, but it's not really necessarily going to be that much to save you some time. And also to so many people I know are spending a huge amount of money on professional development on buying courses and things to upgrade their own skills, take a fraction of that, that you're putting towards your own professional development and just hire somebody to help you. There. If you're buying courses or anything like that, then you do have some funds that you can put towards help instead. And that's another thing a lot of people just get stuck in the I have to do it, which means I need to know how to do it, which means I need this course. Instead of it has to be done. What's the best avenue for getting it done? And that's not necessarily me. Like maybe it is you but a lot of the time? Probably not.

Yeah, yeah. Cuz like you want to be able to focus on your area of expertise, you know, and it's like, yes, learn how to do what it is you're about to outsource. So that you can kind of guide that person and you know what you want out of it. But then also you want to like be able to grow the part of the business that really requires you then your knowledge and your expertise and I love that tip about kind of reallocating funds because it does you're like I can't add on another expense. I just can't you know, as most people are gonna say, but it's like look at what you're already spending and a lot of us Yeah, are buying digital courses to try to up level. So So I love that so much.

Yeah, I do want to just hit on something that you said just said because This is a thing a lot of people believe that they have to learn something before they can pass something off. And that is 1,000%. untrue. In my mind, if my toilet clogs or something breaks in my bathroom, I don't go and learn any plumbing skills, I just hire a plumber. If I need help in my business, and I don't know how to do something, I don't need to be the one to learn it, and then bring somebody in, I just need to know what I want out of it. So if I, for instance, Facebook ads is a big thing people want help with, but they don't know how to run Facebook ads. But you know what you want out of those Facebook ads, you know, the numbers, you're looking for the number of leads that you'd like to get, and the revenue that you'd like to generate. That's all you need to be able to confirm if somebody is doing a good job, are they meeting the goals for that role. So you don't have to learn all about forecast to see to, to then teach the person or make sure that you have the right person, you just need to take your time when hiring and double check in. You know, there's a lot of things you can do in hiring to find the right person, but you don't have to learn it all. So sure,

sure. And I you know, let me take a step back, and I'm being an expert at it. No, having a basic knowledge. Yes. You know, you know, like a basic of like, okay, I've looked at the Facebook ads tool, you know, I kind of understand where my money's going, you know, that sort of a thing I think is smart. Knowing it all being an expert. 100% agree with you on that. Because yeah, so you don't need to know I'm not a plumber, I'm gonna hire someone I know. But I never be sick of like, okay, I know, the pipe is broken. And I know how you know, you don't, I'm saying like, I have a basic knowledge of like, what the problem might be, and they're gonna fix it for me, because I don't know how to do it. And I'm not going to learn. So yes, 100% agree on that. So let's thank you for that. Thank you for bringing that up and clarifying for sure. And then, you know, a, there's also a thought out there that you only have to know a tiny amount of something in order to teach something, you know, and there's different, different camps on that as well. But I really, really appreciate you bringing it up. Because it's very, very good point. Don't run yourself ragged learning everything about everything before you hire, please don't do that. So thank you for clarifying. Okay, so once they've decided, okay, I need to hire, then what what do they do? What are their options? And how, what do you what's your advice there.

So I think the first thing is figuring out what you need to hire for. And to do that you don't like a lot of people, a lot of gurus will just say you needed a min, you need a VA get a VA or you need an integrator, get an integrator or whatever the hot, new trendy thing to have in your businesses, they're gonna tell you that don't do that, you need to actually analyze your own business. So a great way to do that is to just analyze where your time is going. So I recommend, like just actually just taking note of where all of your time is going every day. So every 15 minutes, you stop and you write down what it is you're just doing. If you're on a meeting for an hour, then at the end of that meeting, you're not done that meeting till you stop, and you write down what it was you were just doing for that last hour. And do that for two weeks. And at the end of the two weeks, you can start grouping, you know, all the like, work together. And you can see, oh, like I actually don't, because I've worked with businesses too, they don't have a lot of admin, they've they've implemented a lot of automation, they don't actually have a lot of admin to do what they really are spending their time on in social media. And, you know, they, they're not great at it, and they spend way too much time at it. And that was where they're going to get the biggest bang for the buck. I had one person who after looking at other time, because I recommend doing it from the, you know, from when you get up to when you go to bed because you know, as business owners, you're not turning it off, right? A lot of us anyway. So one person I was speaking with at the end of her two weeks, when she looked at it, it was actually like her business didn't take up a lot of time. But she had three kids, three kids, I can't remember now, she had a lot of kids. They were all picky eater, she was spending a ton of time just shopping, meal planning, cooking. And then also spending quality time with kids and then also cleaning and I was like, Okay, well, where can we just like maybe you need a personal assistant or somebody just come in and do meal planning and cooking for you or cleaning or whatnot. So sometimes it's not even in your business where the first best step is. So don't listen to the gurus who just say get a VA. Listen to your own business and what you're actually doing and see where you actually need the help and don't try and just judge it by your memory. Because your memory is a liar. All the things that you don't like doing or you think is a slog to do. You're going to think take up many, many, many hours and all the things that you While doing you're gonna think takes up a fraction of the time it probably does. So you really need to actually write it down in order to get a good book. Oh, that

is so true. It's like you go through your day, like, Oh, God took me forever to get through this one thing. And then, you know, you think maybe it took you an hour or two, and you look back and you're like, Oh, it's 20 minutes? What's Yeah. You know, and then you think you need help with your like, that actually is like a small fraction of your entire day. Yeah, and you're right. Maybe it's, maybe it's professional to support your business, and maybe it's personnel to support your life so that you can do your business. That's such a great way to look at it. For sure. Okay, so then once they kind of identify that, what's the next step, then? Are they at the point where they're looking at like subcontractor or employee or like, what, what's next?

Yeah, so then you're gonna want to decide whether you're gonna get a subcontractor or employee. And there's pros and cons for both. But in general, like an employee, a lot of times you can get, you know, at a decent hourly rate, but then you also have to tend to pay benefits and stuff. But if you have like, full time work, like if you know, this is going to be full time work. And you really want somebody who's going to be available when you want them to be available, then definitely probably an employee's what you're going to be looking for, if it's not full time work. And if you're very flexible, like you're, it's as long as it gets done, it's fine, then you might want to go for the subcontractor route. subcontractors. Not all but like if you've got one that's experienced, they might already know a lot of stuff. Employees, depending on what you're hiring for, there's probably going to be electronic involved. So just kind of have to weigh the pros and cons and determine what's best for you. Most people are going to go with a subcontractor for their their first hire.

Yep, know for sure. Thanks for those stipulations. And so okay, they're like, Okay, I'm gonna hire a subcontractor. Do they write out the job requirements first? Like, what, what's kind of the first step there?

Yeah, so I typically encourage people to write out a job description, so that they're clear on what is entailed, like what they're looking for, rather. And when you're writing your job description, you want to include, you know, what outcome are you wanting these people, this this person to achieve in your business, and what their responsibilities are going to be like, you know, don't just include I want somebody who knows what Facebook ads, you want to include. I want somebody who knows about Facebook ads, too, because you will be responsible for increasing our, you know, lead generation by X percent, or whatever, like, just try and like, make the outcome clear. And then, once you have the job description, then you're going to start actually looking for, for the person. And a great way to find somebody is through referrals. So ask your other business owners for referrals. Depending on what role you're hiring for, there might be associations that you can contact, like, if you're looking for a virtual assistant, there's like a bunch of different VA associations, like one for Canada, one international and one for the US that you can usually find a VA through them. There's, there's all sorts of all sorts of places you can, it's easy to find a subcontractor, the mistake most people make, is they hire the first person they talk to, or the first person that somebody says, Oh, this, this is who you should go with. And that is really, the mistake that I see most people making is just only talking to one person.

Yeah, is there kind of like a sweet spot, you know, talk to this many people and like, and then follow up question is like, how do you know, you know, which, which is the right person to go at? Like just your gut? Or like, what what do you look at?

Oh, it's really it is really hard to know. There's ways to reduce the likelihood of getting a lemon. And there's ways of making sure that it is a successful relationship once you do hire somebody, because those are the two times like, that's really all that happens. It's either you pick the right person, and they're amazing, or you pick the right person, but it doesn't work out for some reason, or you pick the wrong person. That's, that's those are the three options, right? So I would say, first, you're going to want to try and like get as many as you can. I like to look at, you know, at least 10 to 15 Different people in the area, as many as I can get, and that seem reasonable and just kind of go through. I don't talk to all those people. But I do like to try and talk to at least three to five. So after I go through a bunch and I kind of do my own research on people. Then I'll kind of pare it down to the top three or five that I want to speak to and then I have meetings them. And, you know, depending on what you're hiring for, you might, you might do different things. But some things that I like to do is just like, one, make sure that I can see examples of their work. I try it, I hope that they kind of lead the call. But I also try and prepare with questions. And some of my questions will be designed to kind of test their their knowledge a little bit. So, for instance, if I'm looking for, for a virtual assistant, I might ask them, Well, I used to ask them, it doesn't make sense to ask them anymore. But I used to ask them how to add preview text to a ConvertKit. Email, like, Do you know how to add preview text to ConvertKit? Email? And the reason I asked that is because when I when I used to ask it, there wasn't an easy way to do it. But there was an easy way to find out. And if they could at least find out the answer. That was that was something right. But I ask them questions that kind of test their knowledge a little bit. See if you can talk to some of their past clients, if anybody ever refers you to somebody, don't just take the referral, like ask that person questions like, you know, did you work with them? What were there? Like? What did you like about working with them? What did you didn't you like about working with them? Just take the time? And then if you're still not sure, you're still worried. It's always a good a good idea to do some sort of like paid trial. So you can always say like, can we just work on one small project and see how it goes? Got

it? Okay, no, super smart. And so when you think you found your person? What steps do you take to figure out pay? Right? So you're like, how much do I pay this person? I have no idea. So what how? How do people research, you know, within their own industry and the tasks that they need to be done to figure that out.

So again, like, you don't, you don't get to set the pay of your hiring a subcontractor, you just get to accept that, you know, set what you will accept, or what your budget is. So when you're talking, like if you're talking to three to five people, and you're getting proposals from those people, you know, you can see if, what the averages, but you can also like, you don't have to talk to everybody, you could put feelers out to two different places. And, you know, say, Hey, I'm looking for X, Y, and Z is there, do you have an idea of like, what that might cost? Or you can do that work? Usually, I rely on just looking at the proposals that I get and see what it is. And then whatever my budget is, because yeah, especially in the online space, like you can get a wide variety of ranges. So me, but it all does, it all will come down to what your your actual budget is like hiring a virtual assistant, you know, depending on where you're hiring from, or you know what you're hiring them to do, you could be spending 25 to $50 an hour. And some every once in a while. I see more than that, but I wouldn't. I don't know. It's kind of bad to have to be special. Yeah.

That's it. Cool. Okay, so you've hired your first person. And then I think the last thing to do, you know, because then we go into, like maintaining employees that you know, them as a subcontractor and working with them, but just focusing on the hiring part. So, do you have any kind of tips for offering the role to a person and then onboarding them when they first start?

Yeah. So again, because there's so contractors, it's like, a lot of us have, a lot of us have the idea that it's kind of like hiring employees until I have to make them an offer, but you're not making them an offer. They're making you an offer, and you're deciding whether you're going to accept it or not. And then they just have, you know, first chance at refusal, pretty much. So I would say like, once you have it, have the different proposals in front of you decide who you're going to hire. You're going to go through the whatever process they have for onboarding you in regards to, you know, signing the contract and all that stuff. And then for when I'm hiring, when I'm hiring subcontractor, I really want to follow their onboarding process as much as possible for depending on the subcontractor, right, right. So they're the expert, they should be telling me what they need and how we're going to move forward. But when we're talking about like an administrative assistant or a virtual assistant or something like that, then there is a lot more training that has to happen. So a lot of the times you're going to people, sorry, I'll take one step back. Before hiring people get the other thing people It stuck on is not just I have to know these things before I put them out. But I have to create all these SOPs, all these standard operating procedures and stuff. And you don't have to do all that. What you can do to make your life easier is just the next time you're doing any of your tasks, just record I'll just start a loom. If you don't have a really cheap, get it, just start a screenshare or whatever, just to, to record yourself doing it and just talk through the process while you're doing it. And then that's the start of your training materials. And then you can if you're hiring a virtual assistant, you can actually help them help you create SOPs. So just have as much documented as possible. But I'd say for onboarding the two things, two mistakes I see people make often, especially when hiring Bas, is one they just hire, and then they hands off it. They're like, Oh, I hired somebody to do it. Also, everything's fine. They're going to do it. And then six months later, they actually look at what's being done or not done. And it's, you know, a problem. So that's one thing. And then the second thing is just kind of micromanaging. Some people will get in their head that they have to like, highlight every single step to have somebody do but really, just try and delegate the outcome. So instead of saying, you know, hey, can you log into my website and put this blog here, and here's how you do it, and blah, blah, blah, blah, you can say, hey, I post a weekly blog, it's, I just put it in the Google Drive. Can you get it up on the website? And you know, that needs to be up by Wednesday at noon every week? Like delegate the outcome? And then you can see how see how it goes.

Yeah. And how Okay, so how do you delegate, I think you felt like that's such a problem. You know, it's like, so many people are like, if you want it done, right, do it yourself. So it's like, what's your advice for them? Like, just like the love of Pete, delegate it?

Yeah, it is really hard. And there's a lot of things happening for people. And it's different things for different people. So some people they've you know, they've had a bad experience. And now they're really worried about handing stuff over. It's hard to trust people. Some people, they just feel like it has to be exactly their way. I've done it this way for, you know, six years, it needs to be this way all the time. But yeah, there's lots of stuff going on. So you're going to, you're going to speed up your ability to delegate, if you kind of figure out what it is that's holding you back, if you just be honest with yourself about specifically what's holding you back. You don't have to tell anybody what the what the block is. But just tell yourself what it is. Because then you can you can start moving around it. But I'd say like practice makes perfect and everything right? So starting your day with looking at everything you do, you're about to do for the day and go, Oh, I that that is something somebody else can do. That is something somebody else can do. During the onboarding process, especially like for virtual assistant, you're going to want to take your time, like, you're going to want to meet with them, I usually meet with them on. Well, if they're working on my business every day, I'll meet with them every day. Otherwise, I'll meet with them, like at least once a week to just kind of go over priorities like this is what we're looking at to do. And double check, do you have any, any issues, anything coming up any questions happening, and then also double checking their work, I don't double check everything they do. But I will kind of like spot check things and just see how things are going. And then the more I like to meet with my team, at least weekly anyways, no matter what. But you can put it to every two weeks if you have start getting a good flow going. But that first month is really, really imperative that you actually spend a little bit of extra time and just be checking in with them on a regular basis to make sure that it's all going well and that they have the opportunity to check with you. And make sure and like ask you questions and things like that. And if you do meet with them regularly, you'll typically know within that first two weeks to a month, if this is the right person for you. Yeah, so as long as you're checking the work, checking with them, asking them questions, paying close attention to things like well, I gave them I gave them a task. It was done wrong. I gave them I corrected it like I didn't correct don't ever correct their work, you ask them to correct their work. But you know, I asked for it to be corrected and then they still did it wrong. That's that's usually a bit of a red flag so so watch for things like that. And then the other thing is, what I see people do is they don't like telling people bad things. So they don't like contacting their VA and saying hey, you know, this is a problem for me and That's one thing you can do to try and get around that is because you have to have those conversations or else, you're not doing anybody, any favors Least of all yourself. But one thing you can do is like, just think about, like one getting them involved in the solution. So if you see a problem, you can say, hey, I noticed that this is happening. This, you know, this way, but it actually has to be this way. You know, is there something in the process we can change to make sure that this happens going forward? What would you suggest? Like, do you know what's happening here? And just get be curious, rather than laying blame? And, you know, look at the process that needs to happen, rather than judging them as a person.

Yeah. Now don't yeah, don't make it personal. Make it about the business. And also like, yeah, just look at focus on like, what needs to be improved, and not go into the backstory of why what they did is horrible. Yeah. So let's say you hire someone is going great, awesome. Let's say you hired someone and you're like, This is not working out. Tips for letting someone go, what should they say?

Yeah, tips for letting somebody go, just be open and honest. And make it short and sweet. So if you have done your like, if you have met your side of the commitment, meaning that you've checked in with them, you have corrected, tried to correct the process, and, you know, help them learn, and they're still doing things wrong, or still not working out or whatnot, then they should know already. So it won't come as a surprise, and just to how quick zoom meeting, you can do it through email. But you know, that's up to you, I'll leave that up to you, whether you do it through email, or zoom, I tend to do it through zoom, but check your contract first to see like, make sure you understand what it is you've agreed to. And make sure that you're you're living within the confines of the agreement, and then just be open and say like, Hey, as you know, like, we're struggling to get this done. And unfortunately, it's still not happening. And at this point in time, we're gonna have to, you know, move on, I don't think this is a great fit for us. So for either of us, honestly. And just make it short and sweet. Don't belabor the point, don't tell them how sad you are, or anything like that, it's already probably going to be hard enough for them that they're losing it. So don't make it about you, and just just let them go. And when when you let them go. Like, you do need to know like, are they working to the end of a contract period? So a lot of times there's a contract period. So most people are fine. Like, as long as you've you're following the letter of the contract and giving them the notice that they need, then it's okay, they can go win somewhere else. And

yeah, yeah. So speaking of contract, where do you have like a source that you recommend? Or how does somebody draft a contract, when they're just kind of starting out with their first tire?

Well, again, if you're hiring a subcontractor, it's the onus is really on them to give you a contract. So I would say, if you don't have if they don't have one, it's but like, if you're hiring somebody that's pretty new to their field, then maybe they might not have something drafted. Then I do recommend, I mean, there are so many places online, like law depot and things like that, where you can get a independent contractor agreement. But make sure that you get your own lawyer to review it so that it makes sense for you and covers you and also is legal in your in your area, as some people just grab a grab a contract and go and then half the clauses don't actually apply or not. Or not found, like legal in their state or country or whatever.

Yeah, how to close those loopholes. Yes. Yeah. So so, so much great information. And I feel like I'm just like throwing questions your way because it's so interesting to me. And I'm like, what about this? What about that? So what in your own business? Is there like a tool or a process that you're like, I cannot live without this thing. And it's really kind of changed your business or your life for the better that you could share?

Oh, my gosh, yeah, I have so many tools. What do I pick? So my main kind of like, I guess, heart of my business, if I, if I call it that is my project management tool. And my favorite project management tool is Teamwork projects. I've used a ton of project management tools and teamwork is, it's, to me, it's just the absolute best because it has won the best customer service in the world. They are the best humans I've ever gotten the pleasure of having to deal with. And they're in development all the times, like they, they're always up, you know, updating the program and listening to their actual people, to their actual users. But it controls everything in my business, like everything that has to happen. And it's a really good marriage between like simplicity of use, but also really feature rich, so you can do a lot in it, but you don't have to. And you can just use basic features and still get the most out of it. So teamwork is probably the big thing. And then second to that would probably be Zapier. I like creating automations and trying to streamline things in my business and even doing fun things like I have one, I have one fun zap that just once a week, it goes into giffy and finds a fun Safe For Work dancing, GIF, and shoots it over to my team slack. And then everybody, I never told anybody I was doing it, I just did it. And then all of a sudden, everybody started responding with their own little dancing gifts. So once a week, we just you know, the whole team just shares dancing gifts, and it's just an automatic process that I don't have to do anything for.

I love that. That's so cool. Yeah, there's always different ways you could use it. Right? That's also really creative. I'm curious, I know, you've probably used so many programs or so many different things. What about social media? Like, is there a social media platform that you're like, oh, yeah, this one's the easiest one to like schedule and get the all the analytics that you need not to stuff.

Unfortunately, social media is my like, my one weakness. I am terrible at social media. If you go to any of my social media platforms, you will not think that I'm terrible at social media, because I hire a lovely person named Mary J. And she is amazing. And yeah, she's she is the best thing in the world. And yeah, she makes me look good online. So for planning and stuff like that, for social media, I unfortunately don't know. I know, like a lot of people use play alley and like things like that. But yeah,

they'll get it. Yeah, that's a great example of hiring somebody to take care of such things. You know what you're great at and you hire out for the other things. That's awesome. Everyone's,

like, get the idea that I'm going to post this story, and then it's like, an hour later, and I just decide, no, I'm not going to because it's not gonna happen. Okay, so let's be honest.

Um, are there any sort of like, routines that you use in your life to keep sane between your personal life and your professional life that you kind of do every day or not, you know, maybe not on a consistent cadence, but it just helps you like be?

Yeah, I do have. So one big thing is I try and keep my work in my office. And I will sometimes work from the couch. But typically, my work is in my office. So it's a nice, separate space. And then, you know, I work out three times a week and do some weightlifting and punching the bag and things like that, and which always keeps things a bit sane. And then anytime I'm gonna hustle. Like, if I feel like, I need to hustle to get something done, I outline the like, the parameters of the hustle. So I don't just start, you know, working a ton of hours and keep it going forever. I'll say, Okay, well, I want to get this done. And this is the reason I want to get it done. And this is, and I want to get it done by this date. I'm going to do X amount of hustling between now and then. And I just let the family know if I'm going to do that so that they know I'm, you know, might be unavailable for a week or two while I get something, you know, accomplished. So,

I love that schedule your hustle. For sure.

Hustling is not inherently bad. It's the fact that people think they have to do it. That is the problem and you don't have to do it. I mean, hustling can be good. Just don't. Don't just get stuck in the endless hustle. That's terrible.

Yes, that eats away at everything. That's pleasant. Yes. So as you look ahead, what goals do you have what visions you have for your for your business?

Oh my gosh, so many depends on how far ahead we're looking at. I'll tell you that. Like I have a kind of secret pseudo secret goal to, at least in my lifetime help create a million jobs by helping business owners I was growing scalar business and also by mentoring other other people to start their own virtual assistant practice. So that's kind of my ultimate goal. I don't know that if I'll ever do it or ever know that I'll do it that I've done it because I don't really have a way of tracking. But. But that's kind of like what I'm what I'm aiming for just to try and create as many jobs as possible through helping helping people be successful and doing what they love. So other than that, in regards to my business, the way it is right now, like, my goal is, I have a few new products that are coming out to make things a little bit more hands off. And I'm looking to ramp up my training of virtual assistants, too. So that because I'm constantly getting people asking me for VA references, so I am actually training more people up to be able to refer to

so that's kind of my goal. That's really, it's really cool. So then you can like know, with, like, so much confidence of like these people came up through my program, and I know that they're stellar. And so now that's really great. Where can people find you online?

You can find me at any old task.ca. You can also find me on Instagram, with just any old task, and you can find me on YouTube. It's sidekick, COO.

Awesome. We'll include those links in the show notes. And lastly, we asked everybody the same question at the end of the discussion, which is, if you can only listen to one music artists for the rest of your life, who would it be?

This is really hard for me because I am terrible with picking favorites. And I, I'm very eclectic in my musical choices, so but I would probably have to say either Johnny Cash or George Jones, like,

those are solid. Yeah,

yeah, they're, they're in. I grew up with those listening to listen to them in my home. And they just remind me of my parents. And it's I think, if I had to pick just one artist, that would be the person I the people that I listened to, I think

yeah, no, that's, that's really cool. Yeah, we asked the question, I asked the question, because it's a hard one. And it's like, and I tell people, like, I know, I'm a jerk, but I love it. Um, Sandra, thank you so much for taking the time out. I had such a blast discussing this with you and you shared so many useful things. I really am so grateful.

Oh, thank you. It's been a pleasure talking to you. And, you know, it's always it's always nice to chat. And thanks so much for having me on. Right. Thanks, Sandra.

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