Kelly Reynolds  

It's so hot. I'm like losing my mind.

 

Ashley Weigl  

Yeah, it would be really great.

 

Kelly Reynolds  

Yeah, it's been like this all morning like, Okay, this is awful. But in there, it's really loud because we're stuck. So So today we have a new guest in our agency series. Ashley Weigl. Ashley, welcome to the show. Welcome to the Get your act together podcast.

 

Ashley Weigl  

Thank you. It's a pleasure being here.

 

Kelly Reynolds  

So can you tell us a little bit about yourself and your agency just get started?

 

Ashley Weigl  

Yeah, sure. Yeah, I'm Ashley. I'm originally from the south east of the United States. I'm a Georgia Pete, my husband and I actually moved abroad about five and a half years ago. And just a few years ago, I just decided to start my own online business. I was working online, but I was teaching beforehand and realize that was not my passion. And so I got, I got the wheels kind of turning as I discovered what it is to be a VA and then I became certified as an online business manager. And everything just kind of took off from there. I then became certified as a dubsado specialist. And I am also a clickup expert. So I became a lover of all things systems, and just really realized that was my strength and my forte. And that's kind of how the story began.

 

Kelly Reynolds  

Awesome. So you are a certified OBM as I am, as well. And so what kind of offer like, what kind of work do you do with clients? Is it ops management? Is it systems stuff? What do you what do you do?

 

Ashley Weigl  

Yeah, this has shifted a lot in the last year, especially in the last six months, I started out a lot, doing retainer work with clients several at a time in their businesses, managing their teams, managing their projects, getting their systems in order, so much of all the things right. But the cool thing about what I learned about being an OBM, is that so many online business managers really can take their business in so many different directions and still benefit the CEOs of these businesses and in tremendous ways. But I also realized that a lot of people thought that they were ready to hire an OBM, and they were not ready to hire an Obeah. What they really needed were good systems in place. And so that's where my business started to shift, because I got tired of jumping into these businesses to try and save the sinking ship by being thrown into that role of manage all the things. Wow, this was not what was. Yeah, I figured you could relate to that. I could relate to that. And then that's where, for sure, that's where my passion for really helping business owners to see the importance of getting their systems into place before they start making all of those hiring decisions. And just making sure that the people they're hiring are the people they need to be hiring. But you really can't see that until your systems are clear.

 

Kelly Reynolds  

Yeah, I agree. Sometimes when you come into as an OBM people hire you, and they think they need one thing and you get there and you're like, you do not need me at all. Or this is like or even discovery calls, I get so many discovery calls that I've rarely am being hired for that kind of work. It's always they need systems, they need someone like an HR a kind of person that will help them hire people like, but that's it. That's all they need. You don't I mean, so I, I sympathize there and jumping into that kind of chaos when they don't know what they need. They don't have any systems. It's usually all their stuff is in their head. So getting it all out of their head to try to figure out what is going on. Right? Yes, sure. That is, yes. So tell me about your agency. How many people do you have? How is it structured? What does your team look like?

 

Ashley Weigl  

Right, so it kind of came about by accident,

 

Kelly Reynolds  

as they often do

 

Ashley Weigl  

it right. So I have currently four team members that work with me. So it's more of a boutique agency as you will. One is actually another OBM that helps with kind of systems level things. The other is VT, well, the other three are really VA level but they we've kind of figured out where their right seat is what they really shine in. You know, I'm a big fan of attraction. And so it's like right first and right seat is kind of what I'm always preaching and just finding what what each does best and making sure that they stick to those tasks and when we're serving clients especially.

 

Kelly Reynolds  

Yeah, that is so important to try to find the right seats. But I've had people come in to my business over the years that are still with me, but like came in as one thing. And then it completely morphed into another as as we've done some of the work and have been like okay, If this isn't the right place for you, you should be over here. So I'm finding that matches is so important.

 

Ashley Weigl  

Yeah, especially my first team member that I hired, she has just kind of developed with me and with the team. And the more that I saw, for example, her strengths, she was kind of my unicorn to begin with, she could do all the things, she would do all the things, but I finally just started asking her the question, what lights you up, and then I could really see what she was really excelling in. And so that's where we started to drive her more towards and then started hiring other people for the things that didn't light her up. So that's just kind of how it developed by accident. We've just been hiring multiple people and filling the spots. But again, having the systems in place first makes it where you actually know who you can and should hire and how to kind of move those positions and responsibilities around.

 

Kelly Reynolds  

Totally. I mean, that's my Gwen. On my team, she came in as one thing. And at overtime, she's like she is learning what she likes to do as well. Because I think some sometimes we come into these businesses, we start our businesses, we probably left corporate, or we want to be home with our kids, or some reason where we have this business. And then we don't really know what we like, right? Like, the offers I probably was giving six and a half years ago are completely different. And so a lot of ways that I'm doing now, because you get there and you're like, I can do that, because you're just excited to have a client. And then you do those things. You're like, this sucks to do this anymore. And then I feel like the same thing with team members. They come here and they're like, Okay, I want I want to do that job. And then they get it. And they're like, I don't really like doing this. And you're like, but I have this other thing. Do you like it better? Like, yes. And being able to be flexible when you're such a small agency is so important.

 

Ashley Weigl  

Yeah, 100% Yeah, I mean, because it's not like, I just have a ton of contractors. And I can just pick and choose, I just want to make sure that the people that I have that I love to have on my team, that they're gonna stick with me and that I'm not doing anything that makes them miserable. Like, it's also their own business. They're not my employees, they're a contractor. So, at the end of the day, I want them to be happy with what they're doing, because they might drop me is. Yeah, I don't want that. I want to have you to you.

 

Kelly Reynolds  

Yes. So with that in mind, you are now you have a team of four plus you. You've grown this into a successful agency, like what? What advice would you give someone who is just starting out or thinking about an agency? Like what advice would you give to along your path? Like how you became successful? Looking back? Now? What is that advice you give?

 

Ashley Weigl  

Yeah, it probably depends on a few different factors. Do you already have team members? If not starting by? What do you want to get off your plate and thinking about what you possibly can delegate what you possibly can automate? And just kind of brainstorming dump brain dumping that all into a list and then going from there and like, kind of grouping those like tasks together and saying, Okay, who's the person that I need to hire? Or What tool do I need to use to take some of these things off my plate, and then really seeing who the person is to hire, because I definitely believe in making sure I'm ready with my systems, and that I've automated whatever I can, because I don't want to have a person doing the things that a software can do instead, you know, some firing workflow off. firing off workflows, and automations and such. But then at that point, then you can actually again, look at the things that they have in common all these tasks that one person could do and saying, Okay, that's the first person I need to start with and hire. But above all, making sure you're ready to hire that person, you can bring on the most talented, brilliant, beautiful, amazing human to your team. But if you don't have the systems in place, ready to receive that person, it's going to be chaos, they're not going to thrive, you're gonna feel frustrated, you're gonna feel like you're still spinning plates, you're gonna feel like nothing is off your shoulders, because you're still the bottleneck. So you have to start by getting those systems into place. That's probably my biggest thing is do that brain dump, and then make sure you're prepared when you are ready to start hiring that person with your systems.

 

Kelly Reynolds  

Yeah, I mean, this is the church of systems over here. So I preach this constantly, right? Because I mean, wait, especially when you come into businesses, and you see the chaos that happens, like you know that you need systems like, everything is messy, until you get that kind of setup until people have expectations of what they're supposed to do. Like, hi, what is my job? Why should I be doing those jobs like, like clear expectations, knowing that what's going on is so vital, and so many business owners completely skip over that. They just kind of throw things and they're like, yeah, we'll figure it out. We'll figure it out. And everything's always chaos. And and I am a firm believer that can OS does not scale. How do you lay it out as an org chart like Is it you, and then them is there an ops manager in between like,

 

Ashley Weigl  

mine is simple. Again, I consider us a boutique agency. So it's very clean lines, simple communication. I try not to make anything too complicated for where we're at, at this point in my business. So it's me, and I do any kind of delegation and communication. However, one of my team members to work together for one client kind of in different roles. And so for example, I communicate with one of them, and he communicates the rest to the other team member, and they will go back and forth a lot. And then I can kind of step back and not have to be involved in all of those details, I handle kind of the higher level, you know, processes and systems for that particular client. And then the rest I'm not all in because they actually provide virtual assistant services, and the systems and all that good stuff for that particular client. So in cases like that, then my hands not all in the pot, which is really lovely. And then even with my other team members, she does help with kind of the visual and marketing pieces with some of our clients, and then does all of my marketing as well. So I'm in direct communication with her. And we all kind of brainstorm things together. But it's very simple in terms of I kind of make the strategy and I delegate things out and then watch things happen. Because the systems are in place.

 

Kelly Reynolds  

Right? Totally. Yeah. I mean, I am still in a lot of the business. I know that that's why I was curious to see how you were set up. Because, you know, some people are like, Nope, I'm out. I'm just, you know, CEO, and managing marketing or whatever. And I'm not a huge lover of marketing. So I don't want to do it all day exclusively. I do like the work. So I have stayed in the work. So you are in the work as well. Yeah, yeah. Um, is that something that you have made a decision to do? Or is it just like where you are right now? And you would like to move on to something else? And get out of that? Or do you like being there?

 

Ashley Weigl  

I mean, I like being there. I don't necessarily just want to work for my business, and then have my team members work for other people's businesses, if that makes sense. Yeah. I enjoy kind of getting in and getting my hands dirty. I actually come from a medical background, I was a radiologic technologist for years that have really been busy Atlanta area hospital. And I like getting in the nitty gritty, I like figuring out where the organization is, and the chaos and kind of finding my own plan, and figuring out how to deal with all the things that are being thrown at me. So I probably wouldn't know what to do if I didn't have a little bit of that. Yeah, yeah. I enjoy. So yeah, I mean, I guess that's kind of kind of the short answer. But the our offers have changed a lot this year, as well. I'm not openly offering retainers to be involved with these clients. It's more package work. And we're focusing a lot on VIP days, which is me and a team member. So it is cool, because I do get to have team members support on those VIP days. And we have really defined roles. So it's not just all on my shoulders, and it feels good to have that kind of teamwork team effort. But yeah, I mean, that involves me until I can figure out if I ever want to hand that off, or I don't know. I mean, I enjoy the VIP days. So that's kind of where we're at right now with that.

 

Kelly Reynolds  

Well, yeah, I mean, like, I have done a similar thing, right? We have some older legacy kind of ops management clients, so I'll probably have those forever. But like that kind of, we had grown a lot of clients that were chaos retainers clients, and I lost my mind like you. It doesn't matter how many team members I have, everything is like because nothing systemized or there's just day to day work that can't just be systemized sometimes. Right? Like, you just need a person to know what's going on. And it's exhausting. So we have gone a lot more toward repeatable processes systems as well, just for the chaos factor, because it's hard when there's 20 People all yelling at you. Right. Right.

 

Ashley Weigl  

Right. Yeah. And that's what I really love about even trying to shift kind of our whole business model that direction. I don't know if that's what our entire business will be based on in the future, maybe, maybe not, we'll see. But even having kind of that be the main offer and having some upsells downsells. From that, you know, but that would take us a lot out of the weeds. And I really the thing that I want for my team, my agency, my contractors is the same thing that I want for myself. I want to be able to work part time no more and enjoy my life and I want them to have that same freedom and flexibility. I don't ever want to be breathing down their necks expecting things from them that I don't expect for myself. So that's that's the kind of agency I'm Trying to build because I feel like I love what I do. I love the work. But at the end of the day, there are things in life. There is life that is more important than just being tied to my computer and getting knots in my back halt.

 

Kelly Reynolds  

Yeah, right. I mean, that's another thing is we all started visiting, not all of us, I think most of us started businesses for some kind of freedom of something, right? Freedom, your schedule, or time, whatever. And a good part of that is like, I'm gonna go see my kids more, I'm gonna go, you know, surfing or whatever the thing is. And then we start working our business. And we kind of forget about the rat that like part of it. Like, we forget why we did all this. We forget, like, what the purpose of this was to get away from corporate, I did the exact same thing, I left a job on Wall Street, and then I have this crazy business, my own that I'm working all the time. And I was like, okay, so yeah, like, I have made those kinds of conscious decisions as well, to say, I'm not going to do that 15 hour days, or I'm not going to do the craziness. Because I like going outside the thickness desk once in a while. That's, that's fantastic. Really. Yeah. I mean, you kind of have, you don't kinda, you have to know why you're doing this.

 

Ashley Weigl  

Yeah, for sure. And, you know, something that I have found that has been extremely important for me, and I even try to preach to my contractors is boundaries. Because a lot of times, I'll ask them to do something, and I'll say, Does this feel good to you? Do you have room in your schedule for this? Are you okay, with doing this task? Would you rather me find somebody else to do that? And I asked them that. But that's because, again, I want them to be happy. But I also would never want them to feel like I'm stepping on their boundaries, or that they don't have boundaries, and that they think they have to drop all the things and, you know, run when I call, that's not what I want at all. And that's definitely not what I want for myself.

 

Kelly Reynolds  

Yeah, I mean, right, because I feel like some people get, they want that pressure off themselves. And then they just put it right on their team. Right? I've seen that a lot. Like as an OPM, like, the business owner comes in, and they don't want to have to deal with all this anymore. So they make their team's life a living hell. And you're like, I didn't want to do that. I think watching all of like, watching the people on Wall Street, treat their people terribly. And then coming here, and seeing a lot of business owners do the same, it was a big value of mine to really take care of my team. Because you know what? I mean? Like, I want them to have a good, good life, too. Yeah. Yeah. To be able to provide that. Like, I don't want them to be miserable, just because I'm at the beach. So how do you work? You work with contractor? So do you have? How do you communicate? Is it do a lot of team meetings? Are you on Slack? How are you getting the tasks to them? Is it just all, you know, project management tool things? How are you communicating back and forth and getting all the work together?

 

Ashley Weigl  

Yeah, in terms of team meetings, we try to have as few team meetings as possible. What I have found, and even just the feedback from team members is that constant meetings, saps their energy, and really just even their creative energy, it just takes away from their ability to do their actual job well, and so I try to keep that to a minimum, because meetings can just drag on and on. And sometimes you're like, why are we actually meeting today? What was the point of this meeting? Oh, it's because it's Wednesday at nine. That's not the reason for a meeting Nelo calling all CEOs that is not the reason for a meeting. So we really tried to keep them to a minimum for when we need a meeting. We do occasionally do co working sessions. So say for example, that we have a system spilled and a couple of us have a lot of tasks that we want to work on, it helps us to just hop on a co working kind of Pomodoro style and co working call and just hop in and you know, we have two hour block and like if we have questions, we want to ask each other we can we just put on a Spotify playlist and we just get to work. That is kind of the extent of meetings, that was an air quotes. You know, you can't see me but that was some air quotes there. But in terms of actual just regular communication, we do have slack that we use for just kind of like one off little questions. And then we use click up for project management. We live in clickup. So we do everything that we possibly can do within clickup and even task specific questions. They go into the task and we just add tag somebody so that that stays with the task information and it's not flying over to Slack and it's not an email and it's not in a random meeting where no one knows about it or hiding and DMS so every place kind of has their specific purpose but mainly out of slack and clickup is where we accomp was all of communication and task assignments and can keep track of bird's eye view of everything.

 

Kelly Reynolds  

Which is so important, because otherwise you're trying to follow up all the time with everyone. Which sucks. And then your team hates it, because all they could get from you is a million messages asking you things are done.

 

Ashley Weigl  

Yeah. And it's like, I can just go in and click up and look,

 

Kelly Reynolds  

right. I've I've tried to explain this to some people, like they've started out in agency or coaching. And I'm like, isn't it great if you could just like, see what's happening? And they're like, no, no, but I want to talk to everyone. I was like, no one wants to talk to you all the time. Right? Thank you.

 

Ashley Weigl  

The answer is in Oh, they do not

 

Kelly Reynolds  

know. And especially with contractors, they're all working on their kind of their own time schedule. Right. And that you have to respect that. So yeah, we don't do a lot of meetings here either. Like I'm always here, if anyone wants to have a meeting, but like, it's, it's hard to like, write, why am I here? Why am I having this meeting? Unless I'm I should be having a meeting, then if we should have a meaningless just make a meeting? Exactly. The standing meeting to me is gone. is a huge time waster. I feel like for for unless you're doing something each week or on purpose. Not purposeful, or I mean, these meetings. So how are you paying your team? You don't have to give me numbers if you don't want to, but like, how do you structure that kind of numbers on what they're gonna get paid? Is it a percentage? Is it a flat rate? Are they getting paid hourly? Or project based? Does it change based on the offer that your your clients are paying for?

 

Ashley Weigl  

Yeah, great question. Really, for all my contractors, I mean, they they come to me with their terms, because they're contractors, not not my employees. So they've all come to me with hourly rates. And that's just kind of been like, Okay, we do a retainer based on hourly rates. And that's how they get paid. For example, the only thing that would be different for VIP days. Like, for example, if one of my contractors is with me, on the VIP day, I like to give them a bonus for setting aside that amount of time for me that day, because it's a big block of hours, yes, they're getting paid for all those hours. But I also like to give them a bonus for being there and for taking that effort, because it's a long day. And then they also will receive bonuses if they result in a referral, or even if my marketing assistant if she all her marketing efforts results in some weed getting us getting a client from that, that marketing, then she gets another bonus. So just things like that, too. I mean, obviously, they came, they said, Yes, we want to work hourly, this is our retainer. So I said, Cool. That's how I'm gonna pay you. Now if somebody else came to me and said, I want to do something on a package, and we work something out, then that's how I would pay them. So to me, it's like, you're the contractor, you get to determine and if I agree, I agree. So that's how you're gonna get paid.

 

Kelly Reynolds  

How do you? Yeah, totally. I agree with that, too. Like, I think a lot of people have this. I see a lot, they pay their contractors, they don't really keep track of the hours that they don't have this like a retainer, if the client pays for 40 hours, and then the contractor basically eats up all of that time, and then you end up not getting paid. How do you structure? How do you structure your kind of the packages and the team so that you are not just the money's not coming in one hand and going out the other like that? You're getting a cut of that? How do you control for that?

 

Ashley Weigl  

Yeah, so on a weekly basis, I have my contractors, I don't scrutinize these reports, it's really just for me to keep track of numbers, but they just send their their time report from toggle into a time report channel in Slack. And it's like a recurring task every week that they have to do that. And that way, I can just kind of visually keep track of okay, this is roundabout the out number of hours that this person had allotted to them for this week. But really, it's up to each contractor to make sure that they're staying kind of within their bounds of hours. Because once they get to a certain amount of hours, they have to have a conversation with me and say, Do I have approval to go over my hours? And then I got to talk to the client and say, Hey, X project is taking a lot longer do we have approval to go over our hours and we kind of have a process for that. It's not just a free for all. It's not just we through all these tasks that you now do them no matter what. We just we have to kind of pace ourselves and when it comes to the clients, if they're asking why aren't things getting done faster? I say hey, remember, we have this hourly retainer with you or whatever it is, right? And so that's kind of how we work it.

 

Kelly Reynolds  

Okay. And is there a percentage of that you'd like to stick with like if you're You're hiring someone and you're they're coming to you with a rate. Is there a like a percentage of the clients rate that you want that to be at? Are you like you want them to be at 50% of the rate or whatever, so that you can make the numbers work for yourself?

 

Ashley Weigl  

I haven't worked all that out. It's been, I mean, for for the clients that we've had that were hourly retainers, I have a better idea of that. It's not a 50% margin, I would say. Let me think now. Well, it's almost a 50%, margin, quote, maybe closer to 40, let's say. But in terms of the packages, I mean, I have a pretty good idea of what our packages take to set up and the hours and you know that I kind of already have that in mind. Because again, when we set up dubsado, when we set up like up when we set up SOP manuals, SOP manuals are super customized, it really depends on the size of the business and what they need. But when we set up those things, I do kind of a pretty good estimate, and then I know what it's going to take to actually set that up. And then, you know, I assigned it to the appropriate people that I know can do the thing. So for those that don't have a specific formula, but it definitely helps when we know what hourly retainer is going out. And what hourly attempt retainers I'm paying to my contracts as well.

 

Kelly Reynolds  

Right? Yeah, cuz I mean, if someone's, you know, clients paying $50, and you're paying, you know, OBM, $45, you like, there's not a lot of margin left for you to actually, you know, run the business, right? You have like, pay for software and things like that, and take your cut as the manager and things like that. So that's why I always ask those questions, because I feel like no one really talks to numbers most of the time with agency stuff. So even when I was looking to see what other people were charging, or what they were, what their margins were things like that, no one really talks about it. So thank you for, for being honest about it. Because I think that it go there's a really wide range, there's the range of they pay almost all of it to their contractor, and they make no money to they pay almost nothing to the contractors. And I kind of feel bad for those contractors, like I feel like so I'm always curious as to where that you kind of lie in there. Awesome. So when you are bringing on team members, since we were talking about that, how, how do you go about finding a team member? How do you pick your team member? How do you get them ready to be on boarded? Like, how do you bring a new person on?

 

Ashley Weigl  

Yeah, super good question. For me, personally, everyone that is on my team has been from my network. So the same way that I like to find clients, I like to find team members. You know, if it's, if it's somebody that I've kept in my network, even for collaborations and referrals, you know, that person might be in the back of my mind for hiring later when I'm ready for that person. And that's kind of what's happened. It's that new like, trust factor, I don't really want to hire a stranger. For me, personally, that's just what's worked for me. And it has worked really well for me. And even when I've done hiring for clients that needed a podcast manager, or needed a general VA, or marketing assistant, and so on, same thing, the first people that I went to was my network. And then I also do put out, you know, applications and all that good stuff. And in some of the different communities that I frequent that I know, have good quality candidates in there. And I found good people that way, as well. And I would definitely not turn my nose up at those people just because I haven't built them into my network. But I definitely start with my warm network for who and where? What was the question after that?

 

Kelly Reynolds  

It was to like uncooked, like, where so where do you find them? Where like, how do you choose them? And then how do you onboard them? Yeah, okay.

 

Ashley Weigl  

So yeah, the choosing thing is, I might have already chosen them because they were in my network. And I said, Hey, you want to work together? No. But aside from that, even when I've done hiring for other clients, we do put them through kind of a process where either there's a test project or some scenario questions and things like that. And then we usually get it down to the top two, and then let the actual CEO talk with that person and like fill what the vibe is and kind of ask their own questions and things like that. So that's kind of my choosing process once they get through the application process. And then the onboarding process. Yeah. So we do a lot of the onboarding through clicker. I actually have like a team member or team member dashboard that I have created that I just duplicate for each team member. It's got welcome videos and it's got on ordering forms for our team members, it has their initial task and tutorial videos for how to work the different software, how to get started and click up. It even shows what their first task list right is right there and click up. So it kind of teaches them the ropes of all the basic things that we do. And then has all of our contact information and shows them how to get started in everything. So that really just, like I said, before, we try to do all the things that we can and click up. So that's, that's where we start them at is right there.

 

Kelly Reynolds  

That sounds wonderful. Like having all that. Did you have that in the beginning? Or is this kind of a newer thing built up?

 

Ashley Weigl  

I don't, I didn't have it for my very first team member. But I think I built it for her pretty soon after I was immediately making videos for her and doing like, I think I did a walkthrough with her and click up. And you know, she was my very first my VA before I even got started with anything. So from after her yeah, that I built that up because I said I definitely want this process I've learned from her and I want this process to go smoother. So the moral of the story is learn from your mistakes. Right?

 

Kelly Reynolds  

Like, no, but like, I think a lot of people want to have this all finished and be perfect before they hire the first person I'm like, but you don't even know what they need yet. You haven't you have to kind of start. So that's what to say like, you have this this new person and you learned and then you can do it for the next person.

 

Ashley Weigl  

Yeah, yeah. And then after that, it was a lot. I mean, I had so many of the videos already created of what I needed to teach someone. And then we build out SOPs, and then you know, so on and so forth. So it's yet to build those things up. But don't wait until it's too late. And you have none of those things. We need all the systems in the business, then we have nothing because we've been so busy, but it's worse later.

 

Kelly Reynolds  

Yeah, get going. But it doesn't have to be perfect. Exactly. Yeah. Fix it as you go. For sure. Yes, I that's a big, I think with a lot of hiring people get so Oh, no, I'm not ready yet. I'm not ready. It has to be perfect. And it's definitely messy in the beginning. I think your agency is messy. In the beginning, you're trying to figure it out. Like you're trying to figure out managing a group of people. If you haven't done it corporate or even if you have it's a totally different world here. So yeah, that done not perfect. I'm serious. I'm gonna have a tattoo of it soon. Because I keep telling myself that this week as I tried to do things that are like, no, no, it's not perfect yet. I'm like, nope, nope. Trying to keep myself in check. So I think I'm just telling you, so I can remind myself,

 

Ashley Weigl  

I'll send you a note afterwards. One of my coaches, you know, her her big motto is take messy action. And so that's it's really the same thing. But it's don't worry about being a perfectionist, and a lot of us, especially if we're at the point of being agency owners, or as OEMs or organized VA or whatever we are, that's really hard for us.

 

Kelly Reynolds  

So hard, right? Like, we want to have all the pretty spreadsheets done, and everything filed nicely. Like all the things right, all the automation is done. And then like, that's really hard to be like, I'm just gonna make this messy. I'm gonna go I'm gonna make videos on Instagram and be messy, like, it's not going to be perfect. Like, that is a huge, hard thing. But it's so necessary. Just Just get going.

 

Ashley Weigl  

Just get going for sure. Yeah.

 

Kelly Reynolds  

What do you really love about running your agency? And what are the good parts?

 

Ashley Weigl  

Yeah, I mean, when when I was working on retainer in clients, businesses, I actually really love the team management part. I enjoy I enjoy that I am thrive with communication with team members. I feel like maybe working in the hospital all those years taught me a lot about communicating with different people and being able to read what they're going through and trying to understand different circumstances being empathetic, you know, but I just love that team management part. But it's really nice to actually be able to do that for my team. And I enjoy that piece. And not for somebody else's team where I'm also responsible for what that person thinks and once with their team members that I get to be the voice I get to be the indole veal when it comes to my team and I get to treat them the way I feel they deserve to be treated and and I like that. So I like still being able to kind of hold on to that piece of my original what I was doing as an OPM but also within my own business.

 

Kelly Reynolds  

Yeah, I think one of my favorite things to do is like surprise my team with something like send them a birthday gift, give them a bonus. Like it's one of my favorite things in that way. Because just being able to take care of them in your own way. Like you can never do that in corporate. You can never be like hey, let's go for drinks. I'm gonna send you some money. I'm gonna like whatever the thing is, like, you can't really do that in corporate like here. You can do whatever you want. I love it. Alright, so on the other side of that What is the hardest part of the agency? What is like the thing? Maybe we don't talk about very often, but it is the it's the hard part.

 

Ashley Weigl  

Yeah, I mean, the the thing as the agency owner is everything does fall back on your shoulders. So if there's Hecht pay, it comes back to you. And that can be the hardest part. I mean, obviously, even if you're an independent contractor working as a VA, or an OPM, and you don't have a team to answer to at the end of the day, you still have to be responsible for your actions. But now you're responsible for your team members actions. So that can be tough. Especially, I think that's the hard part for agency owners is they feel like, I'm the only person that can do this. Nobody else can do it, like I can do it. And so being able to let go and trust that your team members are gonna handle business, and then when they do make a mistake, remembering to yourself, that could have been me, I could very easily have made that mistake. And then I have a lot of book references, but then taking that ownership, like I'm thinking Extreme Ownership, you got to take ownership for your team members, and then ask the right questions. Okay, why did you do this? And what happened here? And let's talk about the circumstances leading up? And did you need some help? Or what would you have done different, you know, being able to ask the right questions and not getting angry about it, but hoping that also our clients understand, we're humans, and we're going to do everything we can to make it right. But it falls on your shoulders, and that can be tough.

 

Kelly Reynolds  

Yeah, I think that's, that's the one of the things I hear most of the coaching is like, how do I let people touch things? Because they're gonna mess it up? And I'm like, yeah, they're going to, like, you're gonna mess up like, none of us have not messed up in there. You know what I mean? So that is hard. And it's, I love the fact that you're like, don't let them we're not yelling at them. We're trying to find out what happened. And like, let's not let that happen again. And because you, like you said earlier, you want to keep these people you want to keep your team happy. Because you want them to stay. Right? It's much easier to keep a happy team than to have to keep hiring.

 

Ashley Weigl  

Oh, ha, amen.

 

Kelly Reynolds  

It's expensive. It's exhausting. Like, like hiring someone is, it's a project. And here I take it very seriously. Anyone who sends in an application, like I go on every single one. So if you've ever applied to something of mine, I have gotten your Facebook page or whatever else you've submitted, like, I really take it seriously. That's a lot of work. And to do that over and over again, because you're burning team members out is awful. unexpensive like all that time wasted? I'm a big person on the team culture is so important here. Do you? Is that something that you're constantly thinking about? Or do you think that's just been a byproduct of other things that you've done? To kind of bring that, that team together?

 

Ashley Weigl  

Yeah, it's, it's a big thing for me, one of our values. And when you hear it, you're first gonna think one thing, but it really is twofold. But one of our main values is attention to detail. Now, of course, that's super important and crossing your T's and dotting your eyes and making sure you're rereading things that you've sinned and, and checking details and instructions, all that good stuff. Yes, that's an a super important part of attention to detail. But I also apply that to how we communicate with one another and how we communicate with our clients. Something that I learned working in the hospital is that you don't really know what's going on. When you pass somebody in the hallways in the hospital, you might say, I said hello, and that person was so rude to me. But pay attention, pay attention to the details, what's really going on under the surface, ask the right questions, perceive what's happening. And those are really the details that are really important to me. And so when I hire, I tried to emphasize that attention to detail is important for every team member, that not just reading what you think it is on the surface, but trying to dig a little bit deeper, deeper, deeper, and actually seeing what are the little details I was missing here at first because I wear my emotions on my sleeve. What's really going on with this person? Would they normally treat me like this? Is something going on in their lives? Or I'm really upset this day. Why is this person so happy? Why are they so giddy? You know, all of those things like taking in the details of our team members, and not just me as the business owner, but even with one another to make sure that they're communicating well, and that they're not having conflicts between one another as well. So that's a big thing for me and my team culture. Hopefully that makes sense how to explain that it makes total sense in my brain. But that's what I preach to them as well.

 

Kelly Reynolds  

Yeah, it totally makes sense because I was thinking like, oh, you should add to that list. Like not only are they having a bad day, but like do I need to eat because I feel like I'm at my desk and I forget to eat then I'm like really crabby. Like, why isn't this done? And then I have to go, wait, this has nothing to do with my team. They're fine. I just need to eat a sandwich. So like, making sure that I'm not a jerk also is like in that kind of pantheon of looking around and getting the details. So I love that.

 

Ashley Weigl  

Yeah, I don't get hangry but I do when I'm hot. Like, I know you were saying how hot you are. I get real cranky. I do not like being hot.

 

Kelly Reynolds  

Yeah. Well, lucky. Lucky for you. I already ate before I came here. I'd be hot and hungry. Yeah, for all of you out there. I'm in my office right now with no air conditioning. It's like 100 degrees in New Jersey. And I think I'm slowly melting. So actually, it's just watching me like melt on screen right now. So yeah, heat and hungry. It's not a good, it's not a good place to do. And if you think you should go yell at someone, you should definitely take a break. Right. So the last couple years have been they have been tough. And a lot of places and in this online world have actually been tough and good, right. Like the online world. The COVID debacle was really kind of a boon for a lot of people in our industry, right? Everyone was going toward online businesses. And they we already knew what it was. We already knew how to work zoom, and all the things. Has there been? How has that been for you? Has it been harder? Have you when did you start your business? I'm sorry. Maybe I should start there. Did you start doing COVID? I did is? So you have been on this? Hey, everybody's online, awesome kind of track.

 

Ashley Weigl  

Yeah, I mean, I already knew zoom and some basic things like that, but and I had already been introduced to the world. A family member had started as a VA and I was working online, but I wasn't working in that kind of capacity online. So when I realized what I could do, and I actually, if you know, or heard of her Lauren golden with the free mama movement, I started with her. I attended an online event. And then I decided I was going to get her course and the rest was history from there. But yeah, I was a home well said I was a COVID baby. I was a COVID business baby. But it definitely started during 2020 For me,

 

Kelly Reynolds  

so So for that, because I was before that, but like so I'm interested to see your kind of your take on this. So there's been a lot of doom and gloom lately. With like recession, everything's terrible. There's a couple of podcasts that I've stopped listening to. Because every week it all it is is drilling in how awful the world is going to be in the next six months. What is your outlook on the next year? Are you worried about things or you're like, we're fine? Are you preparing in any way for all this doom and gloom? Or is that even on your radar right now?

 

Ashley Weigl  

The short answer is that's not on my radar. Yeah. I think if I surround myself with that negativity, then that's what you get sucked into. But if we keep being positive, and just trying to figure out the best way to adapt to the circumstances, we can adapt. I mean, so many other businesses over the course of time, and recessions and depressions and, and all kinds of economic downturns have survived because they just found ways to be adaptable. So I, I'm kind of the same way as you if I hear things like that. I'm like, Okay, turn off. I don't want to hear this all the time. Like, yes, I know. There are a lot of things happening in the world. But at the end of the day, we're going to find a way to keep going. So that's that's kind of our mentality here.

 

Kelly Reynolds  

So with that in mind, we are looking toward the future. And knowing that we are going to just go figure it out. Right. All right. All right. Well, Ashley, it has been fantastic having you here on the podcast. Can you tell everyone where we can find you?

 

Ashley Weigl  

Right, so we are currently rebranding? Right now you can find us at GP virtual services.com. But on Instagram we are we make systems sexy. So very soon, we're going to be relaunching the website as well. But it's we make system sexy. That's our Instagram. You can find us on LinkedIn, my name at Ashley Weibel. So a couple different little things, but soon it will all be we make system sexy.

 

Kelly Reynolds  

It's always that transition place. Right? We did the same thing and it was like we had to get all the places and then somewhere along the line. It's like when you get married and your maiden name is still on something. My mortgage is still my maiden name. I've been married for 10 years like you just find all those little things. But we will take all of that information. We'll put it in the show notes so you can find Ashley and thank you so much for being here today. It was a great conversation.

 

Ashley Weigl  

Yeah. Thank you. It was a pleasure. Thanks for having me. All right, and we

 

Kelly Reynolds  

will see you guys next week. Thank you so much for joining me this week. If you have an agency or want to create one, come join my facebook community. Get your agency together, where we talk all the things growing and scaling your agency. For show notes and more info on all the things head over to Reynolds obm.com. Follow me on Instagram and Facebook at Reynolds OBM. And finally, if you enjoy this podcast, I would love for you to give us a review on iTunes.