 Hopefully you can hear me okay. Yes I'm usually at home behind a computer. So this is whole new ball game for me. So So as Nick said, yes, I am a virtual assistant. So I started my business three years ago Built my own WordPress website That was a learning curve and a half I will say and since then Because my clients are all either solo micro or small businesses They're all using WordPress too. So a lot of the time I find I'm supporting them in using WordPress in back end of things too so last year was my first year at WordCamp and as everyone has mentioned the community is Amazing and so I thought this year when the speaker opportunities came up Let's shake things up a bit and get in front of the room myself so Yeah, I'm coming at it from the angle of I'm I'm supporting people using a using WordPress and being in the back in the back end of businesses I see how WordPress changes how they do their day-to-day and how a Website change can and all the plugins and and all the extra things can change how you do your day-to-day Hopefully the clicker will work I'll go manual So as I mentioned, I'm a virtual assistant. Yes, I am real. Yes. I am a person standing in front of you I provide admin support Remotely, I've got clients all around Australia and one who's based in Hong Kong, which is rather exciting all in varied industries all I've got a mixture of journalists an engineering consultancy So I'm kind of a Jill of all trades you could say but my my true zone of genius is techie and systems So hence why I love WordPress and I also specialize in G-suite, so I guess that's that The techie brain Happening there So with my work as a VA I I love finding Efficiencies and how they are doing their day-to-day a lot of my clients come to me when they're just running and running and running I like to sit down with them and and map out, okay What are you actually doing and how can I help or how can someone else help because virtual assistants? vary in their skill sets Like I said, I'm a techie person, but there are other VAs who do the more the day today checking emails client liaison For own reception there is one of my colleagues. She's completely phone reception phone services. So Yeah, I've been each of the the Each of the things listed above At some part at some stage in my business. So yeah, I've got a varied Range of clients. So it's it's challenging and there's a lot of different hats to wear So today here's what I want to run through the four the four zones of power in your business processes and this is where I I See it consistently when I start with a new client So this is sort of my my plan attack when I start with a new client and I see how that translates into how you're using WordPress How to use WordPress to strengthen your business admin? And I'm talking more about the strategy because I'm not I'm not an expert in WordPress and the plugins like this The speaker before me. I picked up a few plugins there where I'm like, yes, I am I am running with that Like I got excited last month when I figured out how to add coupons to work with us like it's the little things It's the little things How to link your systems to processes to make your businesses run smoothly smoothly, so I'm very very Processing systems driven Again, it's an admin trait And the essential WordPress challenges clients are outsourcing to a virtual assistant like I said VA's are very varied and I only do a small part of some WordPress system so I'll cover that later So the whole inspiration for my talk today My one of my very wonderful clients who I love dearly Decided to move from another platform that I won't speak of the name here today Decided that's it. I want to go WordPress. I want to up the yenti I want to have this this this in this in place So I gave her a list of developers that I have Seen the work of or recommend she went completely in the opposite direction completely fine But and the outcome was a fantastic looking website But in the back threw up a whole new world of challenges for me as an admin person helping them To get around and get things flowing smoothly for them because up until that point. She was a one-person show There was no support. She was doing everything herself a lot of it through social media So adding a complexity of a new website that does all these extra things Then added to her her plate of what can she do herself or what does she need to outsource so Yeah, that that has thrown up a few challenges in the last few months, but We're ironing out the the creases and things are running out so much more smoothly, which is what you want With WordPress doing it in the in a structured way. That's what you want to happen So this is probably the whole meat of what I'm going to discuss today When I start with a new client and actually this is that the areas I look at I also do audits for Clients who aren't ready for a full full-blown VA, but they just want to you know, figure out what's going on Where they can streamline things? So the four key areas I look at and I see this across product and service-based businesses your operations your marketing your sales and your delivery and How you're doing your admin for each of those areas like some do crossover You know one system working in one section can filter across to multiple areas But looking at that and seeing okay, how can I? Structural how I'm doing this and what tools am I using and what does that mean like it may not be automated? It may still be very manual, but thinking of how you do that step-by-step day-to-day And then adding in the pieces that will make it run a lot more smoothly So operations It's kind of a little bit wide. Yes, but I think of it more as day-to-day Looking after your financials doing your day-to-day tasks talking to your customers from for my client this Dramatically changed because they were Previously doing a lot on social media and that was it because there were press web store Their their website was just a static piece of the puzzle But when we had the new website up a lot of her social media was driving people to her website Signing up for online courses signing up on the you know contact me via the contact form high rate of blogging All the quality actions changed in to move towards the WordPress website and so this changed the whole way of whether I was monitoring the inbox or she was looking after it or You know new inquiries coming through that she didn't realize were coming through a different way so This created a whole new gamut of challenges for us because then we had to sit down and go Okay, so who's doing what where and when? Sorry, I'm referring to my notes So it's just keeping it all consistent and sort of looking at okay with financials You know if you have an e-commerce platform is it feeding into your? Into your accounting software if not can it Just just to take out those extra steps along the way So the next area was marketing and I touched on this before the change of how she was doing her marketing then drove people to her website and how would that look With the blogging as I said the blogging then changed like Previously she just throw it up and that was it but then came the change of all this SEO to think of and how Does that look and what images do I need to add up to make it look good and? All of a sudden she went all right, that's too hard So that then got handballed to me and we had a timetable of okay I'll be doing the copy this day, but it has to be ready to go by this day Podcast she added a podcast to the mix which wasn't there before So then we have now have a podcasting page on the website That also ties into with call to actions of okay Do you like the podcast sign up for my free e-course here and all that sort of thing so? There was extra levels that the the website were now handling that then we had to think about all right Now I have to step in or she has to think about how we approach each of those areas Also the landing page is actually and I did this for her this week Because the website now has the e-commerce side with her subscription base and her Course and now this week a retreat I then had to be creating landing pages for her because she didn't know how for starters And also the way the developers built the website. It's a lot of hard coding in there and things like that So for her to even attempt it Yeah, she just went too hard So with my knowledge of WordPress I was able to go in there and help her get that up and running and We're now half booked already this week. So But then with that being now applicable She's booked it out that like had those extra places there where before it was a hell there was a lot of manual calling or Emails and things backwards and forwards Whereas we've just put the landing page up and it's going and it's done and And actually each time someone signs up we've got an automation running where it populates a Google sheet for her to go Okay, that person's come through right where are they up to when in the process of what we need to do So the third area is sales and I sort of touched on this with the Google sheet having Having system having plug-ins and things happening with your website like for me personally I have I Recently added WooCommerce and I'm going to be building Some more templates because I specialize in G-suite and a lot of people ask me for my templates And so I've had to add that level into my Website where that I'm able to sell my templates and they're able to go and download them and that and that sort of things so That's now changed for me in Okay, that happens, but then what are the steps then from that do I automate it? So then they're able to like that gets populated elsewhere for me to manage Who's buying what and when or for my client? With the membership portal that's now on her website. She gets the new Signups, but it's not automated in setting them up as users. So then it was turned to okay Am I setting up the users is she setting up the users or and how is that looking? What do the user names that look like what are the set passwords? How is that then getting communicated to the customer that's now? That's now signed up and it's all steps that hadn't even entered her mind at the time of getting this website done That it would change how she's doing things also With forms on the website She's also got now an onboarding process because before it was just all in in here in her head Being done manually, but now that she has me and also another team member looking at this She's now got a Google form that we now use and embed into the welcome emails and all that sort of thing That's off the back of the changes that we've made on the with the website because it's completely Changed how her whole business is running and I'm just realizing I'm charging through So hopefully I'm not exploiting any brains or going too quickly and then the fourth piece is the delivery and as I mentioned With my particular client a lot of was a lot of it was done on social media And that's now changed because she's now got this evergreen platform with a membership site that she's been able to upload all her Videos all her content then sell that as the packaged product And so she's been able to step out of having to do that live all the time in social media And the ways that she was doing it and so that has meant the delivery models changed for her product there also the delivery of She has a subscription service for an SMS messages, which wasn't even in the realm of Comprehension at the time actually it's another one of her lovely brainchilds that we had a moment of Okay How is that going to happen? And so we had to map out what that looked like. Okay, they went to the website Putting their details then what would happen for that to get into the the platform that it needs to to be doing that side of things But then on top of that where else does those contact details go and who like who's troubleshooting when things don't go to plan? And so it's it's thinking about the processes in the back that Yes, some of it's automated, but then you also have to try and catch what's not automated and That's you know, a lot of that falls down to the admin person that's helping them or to the person that Is looking at the inbox and going oh, where's all this going and having that structured? All right, we need to catch this now and what's the next step from here? And Also, some people some have you know, you're Your downloadables are all hosted on your work on your website. What does that mean? So how is that getting from? From sign up to the customer so just thinking about how how your web whether your webpress website can help you Deliver what you're you're selling to your customers Side note. I totally sit in a forest on a tree stump thinking like this when I'm thinking of of admin processes Actually, yeah, no, I don't it's Actually, I don't know of anywhere around here. That's quite as lush and green Because you totally do that sit in nature when you're thinking of technology So how do you use webpress to strengthen your business admin and I Kind of have touched this all the way on this all the way through is Thinking about how are you doing things right now and then looking at it of okay? There's these really cool plug-ins around which we saw in in the session before How can I imply that into my business to take out those extra little steps along the way? So just thinking of how do you do your current processes? What are in place because a lot of things do talk To each other if you dig deeper or find the little the fun little tools that connect things along the way How does your toy website tie into this because? Websites used to be a static thing, but now they're not so Is your website doing a lot more than just being a placeholder for your for your business? And like I said, where can you create those links something might go there directly? I know a few things you can just integrate straight away, but some might take an extra few steps And is there an opportunity to automate and I've said this here do not try to automate everything There it's all well and good to try and yep. I'm going to completely let go of all this stuff but sometimes Just keeping your fingers in in touch points is handy to have Just pick a couple of key things at a start because I I'd speak to people that I do the audits for and they're like, yeah, I just want hands off and They try and do it and it's just overwhelmed because there's so many pieces of the moving pieces of the puzzle that If one thing fails here, then what does that mean for the rest down the track? So And so that gives you the chance to Continuously tweak and improve what you're doing Okay, so I touched on it before There's a couple of VAs in the room, which is slightly terrifying. So I apologize if I throw you in it Different VAs do different things. I'm a techie and systems person I work very closely with a VA in Sydney who loves Calendar management and emails and the day-to-day stuff You couldn't get me out of there fast enough But a lot of people need that me included I Systemized and automate that side of things because my brain likes to run in little Simple flows, but When I said I was speaking at work camp, I threw it out to my colleagues in virtually yours, which is an Australian based network for virtual assistance Because I only do a small very small amount of WordPress support work for my clients But I threw it out there and said look What are the type of things you guys are helping your clients with? In WordPress because there's going to be a room for a full of people who are using WordPress But might just want some extra help And so they come back to me with a very healthy list of things that they're helping their clients with and it's Sometimes it's ad hoc. Sometimes it's a it's a set thing But it's also interesting to note that VAs are working in the back of WordPress and are able to help with some of the things that you might find challenging So editing pages using themes various themes. I know a favorite Amongst a few people I know is Divi and I've recently just bought it myself to learn it But I've also like I've got a client. He uses element of so Yeah, I'm using various themes that different clients are using Updating the content and this that's usually a really big one because they just go look at the back end of WordPress and go Yeah, not not not doing that So yeah doing the blogs copy images videos podcast episodes little harasses in the room podcast VA So that's that's really her zone a genius Researching plug-ins I Actually, I haven't done that myself. That was actually another suggestion from someone And a lot of time their clients are going. Oh, I want I want it to do this. So they send our VAs on the Some but their VAs on the loose to find plug-ins to do that for them Running the updates and backups Custom coding. There's some VAs in the group that wholly Specialized in in WordPress websites, which is very cool basic basic stuff And troubleshooting. I've had a couple of times with my client where things just stopped working. So another learning curve So Monitoring the comments and responses on pages and posts. I had actually had this with my client it all used to Do it when she was on the old website and then all of a sudden she was getting just emailed after email after email about the the comments and She went what's going on. I don't understand. So Yeah, I think I went in there at about 200 comments after she finally told me what was going on So that was fun Basic SEO keywords analytics reporting. So a little time they just want to know what's going on But don't want to pull the reports or figure out what's going on embedding of the forms in from other systems Managing the e-commerce listing so product-based businesses and this last one flagging upcoming WordPress events for clients That is genuinely a response. I had from someone so they're stalking the dashboard of WordPress and flagging the events for their clients So Yeah, as I said, I didn't only do a small amount of what I went through there But yeah, there are VA's out there that are also working in in WordPress and are trying to find ways that using WordPress Can help streamline their the admins for their clients Because admin takes up so much time then why not use a tool that's you're already using to to streamline what you're doing day to day So that is my details Yeah Hope that had some helpful insights for you Yeah, using a virtual assistant isn't scary. We are humans. We are we are in the in the trenches So, yeah, if you have any questions or yeah want some feedback on just Yeah, that's where you can find me So any questions for current actually what we'll do are the questions if If you could actually come down with your question And then max a bit easier for us and then we can actually get you on camera as well You mentioned that you are feeding Information from WordPress into a Google sheet. Yep. How are you doing that? Usually This particular client has a wu comment has wu commerce and so using Zapier So that just that bridge between wu commerce through to Google Google sheet It and that's the thing little things like that really are simple And it just takes out that legwork in between and that's yeah And then I can be a lot of time that that connection just is enough for my clients to go. Yep We're all over it. So it sort of takes out that time from me spending doing it manually for them to them being Confident with yep, that's just going straight there to their happy days. So, yeah Any more questions one down the front here. I'm just wondering does that actually work with other Things like databases other than Google sheet as well. I Actually couldn't tell you Yeah, sorry. I like a lot of the time when I my clients go. I want to do this particular thing I go off and research it and find what the best solution is based on what they're doing Yeah for Google and YouTube I guess that's probably part and parcel being a VA is just being able to hunt down the solution. So Yeah, it's a piece of my favorite thing for a lot of those connecting bits and pieces But yeah, it just depends on what's yeah, what they're using and and what's possible Yeah, hi, hi, how do you charge for jobs as a virtual assistant? Do you charge like a good question? Something I should have covered My personally I'm a per hour VA But there's a lot of the VA's that either do blocks of hours So they do say five ten hours in a month or or others do package rates based on what the deliverables are It really does depend on the VA and the kind of support they're doing and yeah, my the network I'm a member of virtually yours it's kind of Starts from $30 and upwards depending on their skill sets and and what yeah, what exactly you're looking for because It is so varied cool You are mentioned that you do G Suite templates, so we're about some way You mentioned you do G Suite templates. What's that about? Well, I am just I've got my certifications with G Suite so One of my most favorite things is being cheap Like there's CRMs out there that are fantastic and but a lot of time my clients they have G Suite But don't want to pay extra subscriptions for all those CRMs out there So I've actually built quite a few CRM type spread Google Sheets That they use just to track Inquiries and things like that because they don't either a they can't get their head around full-blown systems or B, they just want somewhere to easily update themselves and see what's going on with particular clients So and I've also like built social media planning templates and things like that that my clients Just finds just easy to use easier to use in a full-blown system So yeah, I've had quite a few requests to get the templates happening. So That way they just can do it without having to think about it. Yeah You mentioned you Zapier for a lot of your integrations How do you approach handling like privacy of data information when you're going cross-platform and if you use like third-party or various connection points To be honest a lot of the time I I give There's the advice to my client and they go with what they want feel is right because sometimes they even go Yeah, I don't I'm not comfortable with that happening. So then we go back to a manual option So it really does depend on my client and what they want to do and what they want to achieve So yeah, I don't go in there going. Yeah Go across all multiple places Just because It's something they have to be comfortable with and okay with in terms of the privacy stuff and things like that So yeah, a lot of the time they're like, yeah, that's fine. But yeah, if it's they don't want to do it We don't so it's really dependent on them. I'd love the idea of having a Virtual assistant to handle all my admin, but I'm a massive control freak. Oh, yeah Terrified of the idea of letting someone yeah do that stuff. Yep How do we actually task? Someone like you because half the time I feel like if I would take the time to describe what I need done Yeah, it's kind of already done anyway. Yeah, and then I'm like, how do I keep that private and secure it? Yeah I Like a lot of my clients are like that and they're like I don't want to let go Or yeah, I don't like the idea of letting someone into everything So usually it starts with one thing and then once they get that that That trust they go, okay, well then can you do this as well? Virtually yours the network. I'm a member of Rosie has a lot of resources for for people who want to outsource So I'm yeah, I'm a VA. I'm the doing the do But a lot of her resources run through a lot of that and give you ideas on how you can think about Where to start or where do you what do you want to get help with? So yeah, I could recommend having a look at some of the stuff on her website Oh Is there one more is that yeah one more? Thank you Quickly as a VA. How do you compete on an international basis because your competitive prices? I run on the theory that There's enough for everyone so I don't even try And that's a lot of things a lot of that we find is The people I work with they want someone based in Australia and they understand that the cost of living and all that's and the everything on that side of things doesn't compete anywhere near what the overseas VA's have so Yeah, and there are instances where yes, you could go overseas but the the the culture barriers the language barriers the quality of work Yeah, it all it all differs so much so I run on the theory that you get what you pay for and Yeah, if you want someone that you can wholly trust and be in the you know in the same time zone and understand the business environment then That's what Australian base base VAs are for. Yeah Excellent. Well, that's that's a wrap for this afternoon. So let's give Tony a big round round of sorry, Coran a big round of applause