Strategies for Entrepreneurial Success with Melody Edwards
It's International Women's Month in the virtual Lemonade Stand, and Emily is joined by Melody Edwards from Home Service VA! They talk about driving efficiency, team empowerment, and personal strength.
0:08 - Entrepreneurial Journeys
10:24 - Training and Hiring Virtual Assistants
19:42 - Maximizing Virtual Assistant Services
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We’ll see you next time, Lemon Heads!
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Speaker 1: 0:08
What's up, lemonheads? Welcome back to another episode of From the Yellow Chair. I'm fine solo, but I have a very special guest in the Lemonade stand today, and I think this is going to be a topic that so many people are going to be able to relate to from the entrepreneurial journey how to manage and cope with some ADHD tendencies that a lot of us have in shiny object syndrome, but how to harness that and utilize resources to help us all be productive, powerful business owners and entrepreneurs. And so I'm so excited to dive into this with our guest, melody Edwards, and, without further ado, let's sip some lemonade. Oh my.
Speaker 2: 0:46
God, I love all of this.
Speaker 1: 0:49
Sorry, all right. So joining us today, like I said in the Lemonade stand, is Melody. Melody is an entrepreneur with over 25 years of experience in the home service business. She has a very unique journey owning her own business, operating multiple businesses in the home service industry and she's co-founded HomeServiceva to help business owners gain back their time and freedom using virtual assistance. So I'm very excited to have you today, melody.
Speaker 2: 1:18
I'm excited to be here. Thank you, and it's HomeServiceVAcom. I'm sorry.
Speaker 1: 1:23
I said it wrong, homeservicevacom, I'm sorry. Well, so I hit on the high points, but of course you can do it much better. So tell us more about you. Give us more of the winding roads inside of those high points.
Speaker 2: 1:35
Okay, so I did not grow up in the trades at all. It was not something. Yeah, I didn't know that that was. I mean, I wanted to go to trade school, believe it or not, but I wanted to go for, like, cooking or something, which is crazy to me now. But really I started accidentally cleaning windows when I was 17. I was saving money for a trip to Europe and I really hated it. But I found after that trip that I just kept coming back to it.
Speaker 2: 2:00
A family friend owned that company and window cleaning, like most of the trades not a lot of women in it and I was just lucky that I had a family friend who needed help and he eventually sold me that company and then I eventually sold it to my employees and since then so I did window cleaning I still consider myself a window cleaner, even though because I do one job a year for them and so I just sold a holiday lights company, which was my final home service company that I owned. I even had a coffee shop. I did pressure washing, all the things. I'm also a woodworker, so I'm very much a hands-on lady. You know, I love all the things. I like to know how they work, but during that journey I definitely struggled a lot, as we all do.
Speaker 2: 2:47
I always say people in home service, we don't end up here because we went to Harvard and then we're like, guess what, I'm going to go to the trades now or do home service right, most of us maybe struggled in school or did a different route or had a different way of learning and we all kind of came out maybe with a little bit of it. A lot of my friends and I, we have a little chip on our shoulder of like I'll show you worlds. I'm sorry, I'm going to start my own business. Nobody can tell me what to do, and on that journey I really have done a lot of like self-discovery.
Speaker 2: 3:17
I was diagnosed with ADD when I was 30, and that really changed the way that I looked at everything about my life. Instead of looking at everything as failure, in a way, I started realizing I can do things the way that I want to do them. I don't have to follow the script. And eventually I got into virtual assistant world, which is where you find me now. I got a virtual assistant to help me with my window cleaning business many years ago and I hired her for 20 hours a week. Within three weeks she was working 50 hours a week because she was a good match for me, but also I didn't realize how much somebody who is skilled could do for me and I was open to it, and so she is now.
Speaker 2: 4:05
She's the co-founder of Home Service VA. We are business partners. She's in the Philippines, I am here, and we basically created the business that we wish had existed when we first started working together. So a lot of training, a lot of support, and we love what we do and we're very good at it too. We've worked with hundreds of people in the trades and Home Service especially.
Speaker 1: 4:28
That's fantastic. Okay, there's so many things I want to kind of dissect and dive into there. So first let me start with kind of the understanding yourself and doing that self-reflection when you discover ADD, adhd or just ADD, add, I mean most, I don't know.
Speaker 2: 4:44
Honestly, I think they only have one nowadays, oh do they Okay.
Speaker 1: 4:47
So, as you've started to kind of develop or understand that more, how has that changed your way of working and how you reach out for help and delegate or shifting? How did understanding that about yourself change things for you?
Speaker 2: 5:02
So I was in college at the time, finishing it up for like the 10th time, and my doctor said to me you know, I wouldn't say this to somebody who's just going to sit around and sit on the couch, but I think you should go get tested. And what it did for me is it really taught me how I learn and how I think and all of these things you know. In school we are taught how to learn, we are taught how to think, and in my husband's an engineer, he's great at that way of thinking. I never was, so I never fit in. But instead of feeling like that's some sort of magic, it felt like a deficit. And so over time, once I discovered that diagnosis, I want to say I read all the books. I really skimmed all the books, because that's what I do. I just I've always been learning. I joined a lot of coaching groups and done a lot of therapy and really what I've learned is that, for me, what I really want overall.
Speaker 2: 6:00
We always say time is the most valuable asset, right? Well, energy is actually the most valuable to me, and here's why because I'm 47 year old woman and I don't have the same energy that I did when I was 30. And that's what made me realize, oh, this is the thing that doesn't necessarily stay the same. So everything that I can do to get rid of the things that drain my energy, I can give to somebody else. That's what my assistant does for me, and then any, because I want to live in that sparkly part of my brain where I get to like, do the best, creative, creative thinking and grow the business. And you know, look forward, I'm really future looking. But, that being said, because we always say people, I say with virtual assistance, and if you see ads for it, they'll say free up your time so that you can have the freedom you've always hoped to enjoy. Well, entrepreneurs are not going to free up anything If they're like there's something new, yeah, always something new. And I'm I call myself a recovering workaholic because it's something I really work hard to. Not I work hard. Okay, you know what I'm saying, to not be like I don't want to just be work. But the thing is, the kinds of work we do tends to be busy work, when the kind of work we should be doing with the big brain, work the thinking, that's hard work. And most of us don't like doing hard work like that because it takes a lot of energy to get into that zone. So I've learned kind of.
Speaker 2: 7:32
My skill set is I'm really good at making very simple systems that trick people into doing the things that they want to do.
Speaker 2: 7:39
And that includes business owners who work with us, and I make it as easy as possible While making it so that they can give their assistance if they work with us, the information that they need to be supported with them. So we're really good at teaching, communication, compressing the amount of time it takes for people to develop a close working relationship, and we're good at we do a lot of training, even with clients, but of course, it's all quick video training. It's I'm really thoughtful of who I am and if, if anybody's like me, then this is perfect for them. And if anybody is better than me at these kinds of things like I know those mega business people who are just really driven to this is like a piece of cake, like for them. So I made it for people like me who might struggle a little bit with systems or things like that, but anybody else can also do this system that we've created and it's really. We've worked with hundreds of people successfully.
Speaker 1: 8:41
That's awesome. So I love several things you said there too. And just, it sounds like you're very thoughtful of who you are and like I love how you even said like the sparkly part of your brain. A lot of people could chop that up to being a negative like well, well, I have ADD, so I'm just off to do this, and like I could never stop and focus and tell someone else what to do. But like, no, this is a different part. It's a sparkly part. Okay, it has it's rhyme and reason and its place. And then here's what I've learned to harness that.
Speaker 2: 9:08
So that's one thing about my assistant. I have an executive assistant and her whole job and I is to manage me. I call her the melody manager because I don't want to manage somebody else. I don't need more management tasks. What I need is somebody to be my communication buffer, to be like the person who's watching all of the things in the company that I, so I can like be more removed to it. I don't never go in my inbox. They do that for me, so literally my Facebook messages are answered usually by them, if I, if they get to it first. They they run my life and I love it. I love not going in.
Speaker 1: 9:47
So help me because, like, I'm probably like somewhere in the middle, so I don't have a virtual assistant at this point, but it is something that has highly piqued my interest. I know there's some people that are like there's no way, there's no way I could have, and then some people like, oh my gosh, you'll never look back. So Tell me, like for someone who's like maybe in the middle, like, okay, how can this really become reality? And, like you said, you give the information that people need to be able to make this a successful Relationship.
Speaker 1: 10:13
so like, yeah like it can be kind of a foreign concept that someone could answer emails for me, but like break that down a little bit more to like how it is possible and it's a successful way of doing it.
Speaker 2: 10:22
I would love to. So the system I created is so simple. It's brilliant and I don't say that lightly Because I love it so much and I can tell you in the next three minutes how somebody in the next week could take over your Email, answer like you never talk that. Say that they are you. Yeah, they could respond exactly like you or, let's say, any company that's out there. So what I do when somebody new comes in is I give them access to the inbox and let's say it's for a plumbing company or whatever.
Speaker 2: 10:51
Every email that needs to be Answered, or anything, any question, anything that it's already been written, every email has already been written. If you've been around for a year or two and they're gonna study, they're gonna go in and they're gonna start looking for the types of emails that tend to come in and if you're smart, you're going to give them a list of like. Usually we have, you know, prospect emails, or we have like Returning customers, or we have every time they see something that's a question that's been answered, that's gonna become an FAQ template, or yeah, and then any time they see a problem that's been solved, that's now a troubleshooting template. They are going to build templates for you. One of the things I say to business owners who already have office templates for people You're not allowing people to take agency over that that work. When we give them the answer and it's not the answer right, we give a template. It doesn't like help them. It helps them to do cookie cutter, but not not to them how to think. So they're, they're actively taking over the inbox.
Speaker 2: 11:57
When they're done putting templates together, they're gonna send them to you. You're not gonna touch them. You're gonna send them a quick screen recording video like a loom video and say these look great, but now I'm gonna tell you how you can, what changes need to be made to them and why. So you're gonna explain. They're gonna go back, they're gonna do the work again, owning that information, and then you go back and forth until you have a pretty good set of templates.
Speaker 2: 12:21
Even if you already have templates, I would suggest that you get rid of them for now to let the person do this work. Then they can start at, they can start drafting emails for you. They're not gonna go straight to send, but you're gonna trust them to draft Mm-hmm. If they can, if the emails good, they send it out. You just say go ahead and send it if it's not. Make a quick loom, explain why that, what needs to be changed, and why they change it when they're about 80 to 90 percent Really good at sending, and the other time they're asking the right questions or they're saying, hey, I think you need to deal with this.
Speaker 2: 12:55
They're ready to take over your email. You're going to trust them completely because you just watch them learn and it's all gonna be the way that you communicate, but it but they'll never say it's you're gonna be representing, or they're gonna be representing, a company Like you would speak it, like they're using that language, and so it's really kind of a simple way to and it's not a lot of work for you. Did you have to train like? Usually what I used to do is I'd sit in a computer and type an email and explain what I was doing, and that doesn't teach anything right.
Speaker 1: 13:29
Well, and I think again it kind of goes back to the self-awareness of you. You have to describe hey, here's how I would have done this differently so they can really get to know you. But, like, you have to be able to articulate it and know what you want and set those clear expectations. And I think setting clear expectations is one of the best gifts that you can give somebody, because how could they meet them if you don't know, if they don't know what your expectations are? But if you can provide that to them, they want to meet it. So the self-awareness to Give good feedback, give good explanations and expectations, I think is really good.
Speaker 2: 14:02
So yeah, to make it easy for you and for them is important.
Speaker 1: 14:07
So that all sounds like well and good. But like, how do you find these people like like how do you like to where like they can learn and like Retain cuz. Like sometimes I'm gonna be like Like why do you not get this yet with sometimes people and stuff? But like, how do you find great people and teach them to be able to learn from my communication or things like that?
Speaker 2: 14:27
So I'll go back to my window cleaning world. Most people in the trades are not necessarily great at training people or hiring people. No, I know it's very controversial to say that. It's very true, though I'm being honest, because we learn with our hands and then we teach with our hands right, and so I just gave this example today.
Speaker 2: 14:53
A lot of times, business owners will take somebody into the field and throw them in and just say, hey, but they're already running late now because they're bringing somebody into the field and that takes time. And so they're going to say, look, I have to Mickey Mouse this thing the way that I would do it with my 10 years of experience. But you're going to listen to my words as I tell you how you should do it the right way when you're a beginner. Now, this poor person that you're training is confused already because they're watching you do one thing, but you're saying don't do what I'm doing, do it the way I'm saying. And so people get upset when those people are not catching on fast, and then they think, wow, they're so. Why are they such an idiot? And then they start to micromanage them, and so on. That's how that happens, and so we Americans and I'll come back to the whole. Where do we find these or how do we find these people?
Speaker 2: 15:46
My gift is training. My gift is understanding people, hiring people and figuring out how to teach people things, especially about communication, that maybe other people don't always know how to do. If I could say it like that, like I spent this whole week training new VAs for our company and most all of the training was deep level communication skills More than my, more than most people would get. We did deep disk training. We did training on how people learn, how do you you know, how do you receive and how do you give information. So I know I'm going on an ADD tangent here, so let me go back to how we do it. My business partner, dean, lives in the Philippines and we have, because of my years of experience of like iterations, of figuring out what works and how to get really good I'm one of probably the only people in the world that I mean I'm going to say this with confidence, but I don't know this for sure I know how to hire women into the trades. I 100% my system works. The people who bought my window cleaning company they had five women on their team last year. That's unheard of in the industry and it's because I've learned how to attract certain types of people, and it's not about having women or men, but just the people that I want on my teams.
Speaker 2: 17:11
And so, having all of this knowledge, we go really deep into finding the right people, attracting the right people and then putting them through a hiring funnel. That includes testing, and you know we do a lot of interviews. We want to look at their experience Not everybody is meant to work from home, so they might have office experience but they might not be good at working from home. Or, and we look at disk assessments for both clients and so behavioral assessments when we're matching clients and VAs, not just to not to match them, but to figure out how can they communicate well together. So we do a lot of things to find the right people and guess what?
Speaker 2: 17:53
We're still not perfect. We're not perfect at it because people are imperfect and we only. It's art and science, and when we're not good, when we make a match that maybe isn't the right match, we do it again, that's it. But we've already had them create the training ahead of time. So we have like a system that makes it so that the business owner doesn't end up with a VA on day one and they have to start training them, because I know that every business owner is going to have about 100 fires that come up every single day, no matter what they think and to.
Speaker 2: 18:25
So we take care of making sure the VA is set up with the right training ahead of time, and there's a lot that goes into it and the time is here is compressed, but this is kind of where we really excel. On average, we measure it by month, but we have an 82 to 88% success rate for our matches on first matches, which is super high for this industry, and then on second matches we have up a high 90, like very high 90% success rate. Very, very rarely would it ever go to a third match, and if and at that point it might be that that business owner is not, it might be they didn't follow my system or that there's usually something else that's happening. So I never promise perfection, but I always promise we're going to keep going and figure out how to make you successful with this.
Speaker 1: 19:19
Sure, sure. So if I was a contractor, like what would you say? Or what have you seen has been? Like, maybe like the most surprising thing that contractors have discovered by working with a virtual assistant, Like if they're, maybe I didn't realize that this is what this would be able to do for me, or that this is what I would free up, or that they'd be able to answer those types of questions, what do you think has been the most surprising thing?
Speaker 2: 19:42
I think, using our system, what I usually say to people first is a VA can do anything, but they can't do everything, because what we people we hire are growth-minded people. They want to learn, they want to grow and so let's say you hire them. We have three roles that we hire in specifically, which is a CSR, general office, admin type role, a sales role and then an executive assistant. Most people are hiring in the trades for a CSR or sales role. For the CSR role, they can do pretty much anything. Filipinos learn American English and they speak very, very well, with very neutral accents. A lot of clients are, before they work with us, are afraid. Like are my customers only want to hear Americans? We all have that fear, every single person. But they're going to sound like your employee because we teach them how to learn everything about where you live, how to pronounce the places where you live, and I like them to take the tech training that you would have your technicians learn, if there's videos for that.
Speaker 2: 20:52
So are you saying you could train them to speak East Texan like this no, but we can train them or they can learn the kinds of phrases that you guys. I don't know the phrases of East Texas, but I know that they can learn that stuff. Sure, and the more that they learn about your area, about the local lore, the cool places, the more they can relate with the client, because it's you know, and that can happen when they're on the other side of the world.
Speaker 1: 21:22
That's great. Okay, so you mentioned this a few times. So majority of the virtual assistants are from the Philippines. Is that right?
Speaker 2: 21:30
We only work with Filipinos because my partner's there and I know I've lived in other countries before and what I know is that I don't know everything about culture, and so I wanted to make sure that we are really paying attention to the things that would come up that Americans probably wouldn't understand or know. So I teach our clients about all of this, but they're very Americanized and they've been working for Americans for decades.
Speaker 1: 21:57
Yeah Well, and I know like what I'm picking up on is you are about finding their best skills, your best skills, and how to make partnerships and create real purpose, and so I think you're, by enabling these tools and resources, you're allowing everyone to do the best they can possibly do and not just be stuck in doing the things that they're not the best at.
Speaker 2: 22:21
Well, for sales, for instance. What are salespeople good at? They're good at selling. What are they not?
Speaker 1: 22:26
good at.
Speaker 2: 22:27
They're not good at paperwork or anything that's not sales right, Exactly.
Speaker 2: 22:30
And so imagine how much more successful your salesperson is going to be if they have a sales support person on the back end who's getting cold leads together like lists for them to call or doing the pre qualifications of people. Like they can set them up for more success for you. Like there's so many different ways you can use virtual assistants and they have so much experience in many different areas. So my favorite, of course, is the executive assistant, the melody manager, because that's somebody who's going to help run your business, run your life. They, they. My assistant does all my travel planning for me, because I'm very specific about how I like things, but I help business owners be able to say this without having to think so. Thinking is hard, so checklists are not so, or checkboxes, so that's how we kind of handle it in the company.
Speaker 1: 23:24
Well, like you said, that energy aspect of it, that's what's hard and stuff no very cool. Well, another thing you said that I'm intrigued on is the depth that you go into into the personality and communication style. I mean, like I'm like man. Could we have used that in our business today, like you know, and we have 30 women and two guys and you know, sometimes we can be like, oh my gosh, there's just too much emotion and drama. But then we can look at the guy and be like why can't you multitask?
Speaker 1: 23:55
I know, but in reality it takes all types of people you know, a salesperson is great at talking to them, but they have terrible documentation or processes, things like that. On the flip, if you made a super organized detail likes to be behind it. If you made them go sell it, they would freeze in their, in their you know, understanding and learning how to utilize everyone's skills the best. To me that's fascinating and like I want our whole team to go into them because we've all done the disc profile, a much deeper disc.
Speaker 2: 24:29
That's what we do is especially when we onboard clients with their assistant. We actually do almost all of that. Onboarding is about communication and I it's kind of like business therapy, where I'm starting a conversation for these two people that would not naturally happen and opening a door so that they can like kind of get rid of that first month of trying to figure each other out and figure out what's okay or not. So that's the magic of disk is not. It's just helping to get rid of that time and then create the trust very, very quickly.
Speaker 1: 25:05
That's fantastic, so you said so like. The executive assistant sounds the most intriguing to me personally. But in the home service industry, the CSR role is the majority of what your services are utilized for.
Speaker 2: 25:20
So if a business owner has one or two business, if a business owner has two businesses, I usually say, get an executive assistant, because what they are is they're kind of like a higher level eyes on the company for you, so they're paying attention so that you're not in the day to day of anything. In particular, when I had home service VA and my holiday lights company, my VA was running part of the office of holiday lights and also being my placeholder in home service VA, and so there's like a lot that they can do. But it's a much higher level of support. The general would be the CSR role and it could be just taking phone calls.
Speaker 2: 25:58
If you have an office manager already and they're not able to do the things that are actually the projects that have been on the back burner forever or the things that are going to really like move. They're good at customer calls but they don't have time to check in because they're taking calls all day. You can have somebody come in and do that part or do the data entry. There's so much that can be done from a support perspective, so it's so many different things. We really like to find out where people's areas of weakness are right now or what's going on in their company, because we really customize it to what their company is going through, because it's not one size fit all.
Speaker 1: 26:39
No, for sure, not for sure, not. And I know you figured out like the time zone difference and things like that, like you. Yes, yeah, I know that could probably be another fear of contractors.
Speaker 2: 26:50
It is. I think what they need to understand is that Filipinos it's a coveted role to work as a virtual assistant. It can take an hour and a half my old assistant she traveled an hour to an hour and a half to get to work every day there and back, and then that's three hours of travel and then being in work all day and then dealing with all the traffic there. To be able to just work from home is a blessing. To be able to see, even if it's night a lot of shifts, that call centers are night too, so sometimes they're still at night, but to be able to be home with your kids during the day or you know, it's just a really good job. And so we might feel guilty of like, oh, how are they going to do that? Well, that's how they, that's how it might. My salesperson has been doing overnights for 15 years. That's just the life that she leads.
Speaker 2: 27:40
And the other thing to know is like we really believe in a living wage, and providing people with good benefits in a wage in the Philippines is not hard, and so for our services it's. You know, 600 bucks a week is going to get you a full time person who is going to be able to do a lot, a lot for you. You're going to get a lot. What could you do with those 20 hours of email time that you're doing right now? What would you be able to? How much more would you be able to sell or do? So it's not it's cost, it's an investment. But, yeah, it's really powerful to be able to have somebody come into your company and you're also changing their life, and it's really hard in America to make life changes the way you can for somebody in the Philippines, just by giving them a good job, and they'll be staying a lot longer with you because of that.
Speaker 1: 28:30
Wow, that that's a crucial piece. Yeah, the them staying with you and like not having to redo this again in six months. Yeah, yeah. Well, melody, I have really enjoyed our conversation. It's super piques my interest and I know it's going to peak a lot of the interest of lots of other listeners here. And so, melody, how could people get in contact with you if they wanted to?
Speaker 2: 28:50
Well, if they go to our website in homeservicevacom, they could doa setup a discovery call, or they can find me on Facebook, melody S Edwards, and just message me, because that's a way a lot of contractors tend to reach out. I'd be happy to chat and see if we can help.
Speaker 1: 29:11
That's awesome. Well, I thoroughly enjoyed our conversation and how we've revolved around how to harness the power of virtual assistance for home service businesses, and so thank you for all of your, your insight and sharing some of your journey and what you've developed now to stream on operations, increased productivity and regain time and freedom in your business, and so thank you for sharing all that. I've really enjoyed this today. Oh, me too. Thank you for having me Awesome. Well, thank you, lemonheads, for listening to another episode. If you wouldn't mind, leave us a review, give us a share, follow us on all the social medias. We're there. We would love to see you on those channels and interacting with us. If you see it as at a show, just look for yellow, come up and give us a high, a high five, give us a hug. We'll love to talk to you. So thank you for listening to another episode. Bye.
