The One With Jo O’Neil

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:00:33]:

Welcome back. Welcome to another episode. My guest for this week. It’s my guest this week. Well, my guest is a VA. So when you choose to work with VAS or social, which is a virtual assistant, when you to work with virtual assistants or social media managers, it’s all about personality, synergy, rapport and trust. Now, my guest is Sim accredited and members of both the association of Professional Virtual Assistants and the Society of Virtual Assistants. So as I say, if you decided that outsourced support might be right for you, get in touch with my guest.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:01:18]:

My guest is Jo O’Neill from Brightcat Business Solutions. Hello, Jo, how are you doing?

Jo O’Neil [00:01:24]:

Hi, Keith. I’m pretty good. How are you?

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:01:27]:

I can’t complain. Well, I can, but nobody will. No, I’m good, thank you. So yeah, we’ve heard your bio, sort of more your commercial based bio. But the thing that we love finding out about is the person themselves. So who is Jo? Who is the person behind the bio?

Jo O’Neil [00:01:53]:

That would be me. I am your typical crazy cat lady. I’ve got three of them, hence the name Brightcat business Solutions. Well, that and it all stems from a different name and the evolution of it. However, I am the techie weirdo who loves learning new stuff and finding out why things aren’t working, which is part of the reason that vaing was a thing. But I also quite like the creative side of things and design work and lots of other things. I spend my time playing video games just to relax. At the moment, I like very minimal city builders because that sort of switches my brain off work mode.

Jo O’Neil [00:02:37]:

Whereas my husband will play things where he’s killing things. Occasionally we even play together, but we’re quite happy to also just sit next to each other and play different games, usually with a cat attached to me or in the way. But yeah, I’m a bit of a workaholic at times. I get told off for that. But also, yeah, I like to relax, spend time with my husband, go out to nice dinners, go to the theater and occasionally go out and see people. But not often. I don’t like people.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:03:16]:

Steady on before we dive in. Just for anyone who’s listening and isn’t too sure what is a VA?

Jo O’Neil [00:03:29]:

VA is such a massive umbrella of a term. We do so many different things. It will range from somebody remotely doing your basic admin, which is where I’ve started, to things like copywriting, editing, video editing. I focus on all things, marketing. But then you get people who do all different. If it’s an admin, technical, or creative task, we probably find a VA that can do it. But not all VAs are the same. So it’s a really weird term because it’s such a huge umbrella.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:04:10]:

Got you. Yeah. And of course it’s virtual assistant because these days, all done online and you can connect with, presumably work with people wherever they are in the world. And wherever you are in the world.

Jo O’Neil [00:04:21]:

Yeah, it doesn’t matter. So long as we can actually contact each other and sort of get that creative process going and know what each other is expecting, it’s all fine anywhere in the world.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:04:34]:

Nice. That’s the beauty of modern technology. And I guess if anything positive did come out of it, one of the positives that came out of the pandemic from a few years back is that everybody, or so many people now actually embrace online technology and realize, hey, we can remote work and we don’t all have to be physically in the same room to work. We can do it.

Jo O’Neil [00:05:00]:

It definitely expanded all that. I mean, even networking beforehand, I was doing it locally after the day job, or once I’d quit that sort of. I did a two hour meeting, which took 2 hours to get there and 2 hours to get back because I don’t drive. To me, that’s insane. Now it’s like, if it’s not an hour and a half on Zoom, then no, I’ll do the odd outing, but it’s maybe one or two a month, whereas I was doing one or two a week, sometimes a day when I had the time. These days I just don’t. So, yeah, it opened up a lot.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:05:34]:

Yeah. It’s a shame it took something as severe as a global pandemic to get us to actually embrace modern technology.

Jo O’Neil [00:05:44]:

Yeah, but we have mostly.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:05:47]:

Finally, I’m going to assume that you weren’t born as a VA when you were a young girl. You weren’t going, I’m going to be a VA when I grow up. How did come about. Tell us about. Share your journey with us, how you got to being this.

Jo O’Neil [00:06:12]:

Well, I worked as an administrator for 15 or so years, starting off temping because no experience means no job after I’d left Uni and what I did was computers. I know how to build them at that point. So, yeah, admin made sense. So I started off there and gained a whole range of skills temping in various places. And then I worked for the Health Research Authority for six years as a research ethics committee assistant and I loved it for the first five, despite the fact there was the odd bully in the office. They had a restructuring that last year, which turned my lovely, interesting, very job into monotonous hell. But the year before, in 2018, I had Bell’s palsy, which, if you don’t know, is when the. I think it’s the fifth facial nerve gets inflamed and therefore is cut off, and you wake up and you can’t move half your face.

Jo O’Neil [00:07:15]:

Which is fun, to say the least, but one way to put it, yeah. I mean, I did, in theory, fully recover after two months, but it did leave me with some nerve damage and a lot of pain and fatigue issues, which they think now might be fibromyalgia. So just the 45 minutes commute into the office would wipe me out for the day. And so that full day of work was becoming a real problem. Yeah. And then when my job changed, it didn’t feel worth it anymore. So it’s like, I decided I needed to work from home because I needed to get rid of that commute. It’s like, what could I do? So I asked Facebook, and a friend of mine who’s a freelance artist said, why don’t you become a VA? Because, you know, as an admin.

Jo O’Neil [00:08:01]:

To which my response was, what’s that? Like? Anybody who’s not a business person. I’d not heard of it. I did some research, sort of realized it was outsourced admin. I went, yeah, I can do that. So, within a month, I’d learned to build a website. I was learning social media, and I’d set everything up ready to go. And I did try to do it alongside my full time job to start with. As I said, the full time job was wiping me out.

Jo O’Neil [00:08:30]:

But so on evenings and my days off, I was networking. And at that point, I was only admin solutions when I was offering, like, basic admin stuff, and it just didn’t work. So I relaxed a few days that Christmas and couldn’t go back to the job, at which point I had a chat with my family and my husband, and they agreed to support me while I built the business without the job.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:08:55]:

Right.

Jo O’Neil [00:08:55]:

I think it was Boxing Day, and, yeah, I haven’t looked back since.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:09:04]:

How long ago was that?

Jo O’Neil [00:09:07]:

Technically, I started in September 2019. I quit the job January 2020.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:09:13]:

Right. Okay. Yeah. So, basically, five months from starting to create your VA business, five months to reaching the point where you quit full time employment and became full time.

Jo O’Neil [00:09:31]:

It took a bit longer than I liked to get everything up and running.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:09:35]:

Yeah.

Jo O’Neil [00:09:36]:

But it worked eventually, yeah.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:09:40]:

Okay. Interesting. How important would you say having the support of your family was in making this decision, embarking on this journey?

Jo O’Neil [00:09:49]:

Absolutely, 100% important. I would not have been able to do it without them because I’d have had to have kept that job because I was the higher earner of the household as well. So I’d have had to have kept that job and built it at the same time. And I’m not sure it would have ever worked or it would have taken a very long time.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:10:08]:

Got it. Okay, nice. Was there ever any doubt or question from your family, or was it just a case of, yes, we’re behind you 100% the whole way?

Jo O’Neil [00:10:20]:

I think Ben had doubts, mostly with the pandemic and stuff and the occasional dip in it taking a little bit longer than I wanted to get it to where I wanted to be. However, my family were 100% behind me. It’s like, if you put your mind to do it, I know you can do it.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:10:35]:

Yeah. And Ben is your husband?

Jo O’Neil [00:10:39]:

Yeah.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:10:40]:

Cool. And in fact, Ben now works with you.

Jo O’Neil [00:10:43]:

Yeah. For almost a year now. It’ll be a year in January.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:10:50]:

How do you find it working together as husband and wife? Because I know some couples, they like to have that bit where they’re not under each other’s feet the whole time.

Jo O’Neil [00:10:59]:

Thankfully, we have separate offices, but we work really well together. I occasionally get grumbles from him that I haven’t explained something that I want entirely in a way that he can understand, which is usually our own stuff, because I know what’s in my head, so I just write things down. Usually when explaining client things, I’m okay. We have found a program that really helps with that because it was a case of when he started. I’m just emailing things of what I needed doing, and he’d lose them in a massive email. So now we actually use a project management software so he can see what’s coming up, when it needs to be done, and all the files he needs for it. Then I started using it too, which really helped. There’s no more.

Jo O’Neil [00:11:45]:

A big red chunk that just says such and such as client work. It’s all broken down into tasks.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:11:50]:

Nice. I like that. Cool. So what advice would you give any other couple who are looking at setting up or running their own company together?

Jo O’Neil [00:12:03]:

Be honest with each other. Talk to each other. Communication is really important. Just talk to each other. Any problems, any ideas? It’s really useful to have a second brain, I can tell you that much. And just communicate, especially even if it’s something bad and you’re feeling frustrated, get it out there. Otherwise, it just brings resentment. Like with any relationship.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:12:29]:

I was going to say that communication, it’s essential in a business relationship, just as it is in a marriage. And as you say, in any relationship, really, things that work in one relationship help make others work as well.

Jo O’Neil [00:12:43]:

No. And if you can, define your role. So you know what? Everybody should be.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:12:51]:

Interesting. Okay, talk to me about VA, my business. How would I know it’s time to expand and take on a VA as opposed to doing it in house or as opposed to carrying on and doing it myself? What sort of are the signs that, you know what, it’s time to go the VA route?

Jo O’Neil [00:13:17]:

The usual thing is time pressure. If you’re spending too much time doing your own admin, your own marketing, then it’s time. Well, as soon as you notice it’s a time pressure, then it’s time to do it. A lot of people leave it till they’ve got absolutely no time. And then the onboarding process becomes really difficult because there’s no time to get that back and forth, build a rapport on what’s needed. The other one is if there’s something you don’t know how to do and you don’t want to learn it.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:13:46]:

Right. Okay, got it. So I like that second one. If there’s something that you don’t know how to do and you don’t want to spend the time learning how to do it, that’s a great candidate for outsourcing. And to me, the crucial thing from what you said, because obviously, time is probably the main reason most people outsource stuff. But don’t wait until you’re overloaded. Do it at the point where you’re spotting. Okay, this is starting to take up all my time.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:14:17]:

And the reason you said is because otherwise, onboarding will become incredibly difficult. I imagine onboarding is probably part of the process that so many people overlook. Yet it’s essential, because if you don’t do onboarding properly, how is the VA going to know what they’re doing? What will be some tips to make onboarding as painless as possible?

Jo O’Neil [00:14:44]:

Painless as possible is know exactly what you want to outsource. If you have a process, write it down, or have a conversation, for example, on Zoom with that VA, tell them how you like to do it. They might have suggestions to improve it, but if they know how you like to do it, they’ve got a good starting point. Mention anything else that’s sort of nebulous. And, oh, I’d like to do this so they’ve got an idea of where things are going, or it’s things that keep getting shoved to the back because they might be able to pick up those too, and then have things like logging details, any branded designs, a branding packet and things, anything that they might need, if you’ve got those to hand, or ask them to send you a list before you speak to them. Once you’ve said yes, that will make everything go much smoother because the hardest thing is usually getting into all the bits and bobs you need to because you usually need two people there at the same time to let you in, as well as deciding exactly what’s happening this month, carve out that time for a meeting if you can, even if it’s just half an hour, and then the rest can be done via email. But you need to give that time to actually have that communication again. But a lot of people are like, right, I need this doing, but I’m too busy to explain it or look at what you’ve done.

Jo O’Neil [00:16:11]:

Usually when you start off, people want to see what you’re doing before you put it out there, until they realize that they can trust you. That’s often where we run into troubles of people don’t have the time to then go back and look at it and talk about it.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:16:26]:

Makes sense. Yes, makes sense. I imagine in a way, taking on a VA is in some respects the same as taking on any other employee or any member of staff. You need to be able to tell them, this is what you’re doing, this is how you do it. Here’s your responsibilities, here’s the roles. This is what I’ll give you. This is what you’ll give me. Because without that.

Jo O’Neil [00:16:50]:

Upfront, you need that little bit of time just to get everything sorted. It can usually then drop off afterwards as you give them more stuff and you can reduce your time. But if you’re so busy at that point that you don’t have the time for that initial conversation, you’re going to have an issue.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:17:09]:

Yeah, I can imagine. I must admit, one of the things that I do, pretty much anything that I do in my business, I’ve actually systemized it and documented it, even though I do it all myself at the moment. I’ve documented it also, that when the time comes.

Jo O’Neil [00:17:24]:

Yeah, you don’t have to find that time then to do it.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:17:27]:

I just go, right, I would like the VA to do this stuff. This is the process that I’ve got. Let’s. Let’s talk.

Jo O’Neil [00:17:35]:

That is a beautiful thing. It doesn’t happen often. No.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:17:38]:

I can imagine old habits from my old it role where you had to systemize and document everything, because otherwise, how can you expect anything to work? Yeah. How would you go about. I mean, we touched on very early on that you said that VAS cover a wide range of things, many different disciplines, many different tasks. They do, many different roles and functions that they would fulfill. How would one go about finding the right sort of VA?

Jo O’Neil [00:18:17]:

First, you need to identify what type you need. You may need model one, depending on what you want doing. But I would start with asking for recommendations from people you know, because I can guarantee you they know somebody, especially if they’re business people. Other than that, a Google search with your exact terms you’re looking for, and then make sure you speak to them. Make sure they can do what you’re asking. And if you find that they can do some bits but not others, but you’re not finding someone who can do all the bits, you might need more than one.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:18:54]:

Okay. Yeah, I guess that’s something a lot of people might not realize, that you don’t have to have a VA. You can have multiple VAS to cover the different disciplines and different aspects, just like you would in an organization. You’d hire different people for different roles.

Jo O’Neil [00:19:14]:

Yeah.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:19:19]:

When you hire an office member of staff, normally that’s for a full five day a week, 35 hours, 40 hours, whatever your practices are, presumably VAS. Well, how does it work in terms of hours for VAS?

Jo O’Neil [00:19:35]:

There tends to be certain different ways. Some people work on a project rate, or they’ll have a set package for something, but your standard will be an hourly rate, and you’ll buy either ad hoc and you’ll just throw things at them, and then they’ll bill you at the end of the month. But most likely it will be retaining rate or block book hours, where you decide how many hours you need. You block those off, and they will guarantee those hours for you. And usually, I think the standard rate at the moment is about 27 50.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:20:11]:

Okay.

Jo O’Neil [00:20:13]:

It went up during the pandemic, oddly enough, but you can find the whole remit from, like, ten pounds an hour to 50 and more, depending on what skill set you use. If you want minutes taking, that’s a particularly high skill set.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:20:29]:

Yes.

Jo O’Neil [00:20:30]:

Not that many people know how to do it, and many people hate it, including me. I can do it. I don’t.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:20:37]:

I don’t blame you. It’s not fun, and as you say, it is quite a skill. It’s a very underappreciated skill. A lot of people don’t realize what’s.

Jo O’Neil [00:20:47]:

Involved in manipulating, but I would always worry if someone’s got a really low rate, either they’ve not got the confidence in themselves and you need to tell them to up their rate or they’re trying to undercut and they’re not going to make enough money to survive and they’re going to be really stressed. I see them a lot in VA groups where they’ll say, oh, I’m offering this because I’m new. It’s like, no, you’re undervaluing yourself. Please don’t. Because the amount of client work you have to do to make enough money to survive is then ridiculous.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:21:21]:

Yeah, okay. I guess we should touch on it because it seems to be impacting so many different areas of life and business these days. AI. What’s the impact of AI in the whole VA market?

Jo O’Neil [00:21:42]:

Some people think that AI will take over things like email writing, blog writing, social media, things like that. But you really have to know how to use it or it will just throw out crap. Myself and a lot of other VAs like to use it as a prompt. It can generate ideas and gets rid of that blank page.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:22:08]:

Yeah.

Jo O’Neil [00:22:09]:

And I find that really useful. However, don’t use it for everything. If it’s sort of giving you blog prompts, things like that, or email prompts. Take those, go, yeah, okay, I like that. But then write it yourself or get a copywriter to do it because the AI could say anything. Really?

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:22:32]:

Yes. I’ve got plenty of examples. I asked a well known AI platform to write a biography for somebody I know quite well, basic Keith Blakemorenoble, and he wrote a bio and I was very interested to learn some of the things that apparently I’ve done, the places I’ve been and books I’ve written, and it’s, hmm, interesting. I’d like to meet that person. It’s certainly not me.

Jo O’Neil [00:22:59]:

Absolutely.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:23:00]:

I love the way it just confidently lies to you.

Jo O’Neil [00:23:03]:

It does. Confidently lie to you. Great for prompts. Don’t, don’t need to try everything. Either do it yourself or get a copywriter that knows your business to do it.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:23:12]:

Yeah. And I guess it’s the same with all tools. Use the tool in the way that the tool works, but don’t get it to do everything because.

Jo O’Neil [00:23:24]:

It needs that human element still. And I think it always will.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:23:28]:

Yeah, absolutely. Okay. What’s next for Brightcat, which is what’s next for you?

Jo O’Neil [00:23:41]:

Next for us is hopefully we’re going to get to the point where we can build a team of Bas who could do the same stuff we can do maybe a little bit extra. And I will then take on more of a management role rather than doing all the stuff myself and just move work around and talk to the clients, make sure I know what they’re after and then get them to do the work. But also we are launching things like paid webinars and event graphic packs. That one’s coming very soon.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:24:17]:

Event graphic packs. Yeah, I like the sound of that. Nice. Just stay tuned for yeah, if people are interested, they want to find out more. What’s the best way to find out more about Jo and about Brightcat and Vas and all this sort of thing? What’s the best place for them to find out more?

Jo O’Neil [00:24:37]:

Find out more about me and Ben and the business? Go to Brightencat Co. UK.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:24:44]:

BrighCat.Co.UK. Obviously that link is in the show notes and as you might expect from an excellent VA, Jo’s all over the socials. So I’ve got the links to all of the relevant accounts. They’re all in the show notes, which you can find from keithplatemornoble.com slash show. Go to KeithPlatemornoble radio show and look for the one with Jo O’Neill. Or just go to Bright Cat Co. UK.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:25:15]:

Find out a whole lot more. Jo, thank you so much for taking some time out and by the sounds of it, from missing a nice firework display.

Jo O’Neil [00:25:24]:

Yeah, there seems to be one somewhere.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:25:27]:

Thank you so much. Jo and I are now going to pop off and we’re going to record some bonus content exclusively for my Patreons. And if you’re wondering what that’s all about, go to Patreon.com/KeithBlakemorenoble. You can find out more, but for now, Jo, thank you so much for taking time out and for being such an informative guest.

Jo O’Neil [00:25:47]:

Thank you for having me.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:25:48]:

Keith, my absolute pleasure. Thank you, dear Listener, dear Viewer, for catching us. Wherever you caught us. As always, do remember, subscribe to us on your favourite platform. Give us a like a comment, share us far and wide, and thank you for listening. I’ll catch you in another episode very soon. And I’m going to leave you with Jo’s favourite quote. It’s from Oscar Wilde and he talks about how we’re all lying in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.