Scale Up Strategies: The Business Podcast for Coaches, Consultants, and Speakers
We're your hosts and Business Coaching experts Mary Fain Brandt and Laura Bashore
We’re sharing all our mistakes and insider tips from our 20+ years in business and
how we successfully scaled up our businesses without losing our minds or our husbands.
Sure you can piece it together and try to DIY your way to success
OR
you can listen to us every week and learn the shortcuts because we promise there
are some.
Scale Up Strategies: The Business Podcast for Coaches, Consultants, and Speakers
Elevate Your Business: Insider Tips for Finding and Building an Exceptional Virtual Assistant Team with Stefan Van der Heyden
Ever wondered how to find a virtual assistant who truly elevates your business? Join us as we chat with Stefan Van der Heyden, the brilliant founder of Virtue Staff. Stefan pulls back the curtain on his game-changing approach to sourcing top-tier virtual assistants, sharing just how his team filters through 40,000 applicants each month to bring you the best of the best. Learn the secrets behind their competitive rates of $12 to $15 per hour and discover why quality and impact matter more than ever in today’s virtual workspace.
Stefan doesn't just stop at the vetting process; he dives deep into the art of building a high-performing VA team. We'll explore why committing VAs to a minimum of 20 hours a week is crucial for both stability and exceptional performance. The conversation goes beyond hiring, covering the vital steps of training, creating Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs), and aligning your delegation strategies with your core business values and mission. Plus, Stefan shares how business coaches at Virtue Staff are helping clients streamline their processes for maximum efficiency and success.
But there's more to Virtue Staff than just business. Discover how they are making a real difference with their philanthropic efforts, like the recent relief fund for a typhoon-hit region in the Philippines. Stefan walks us through the straightforward, satisfaction-guaranteed hiring process at Virtue Staff, ensuring a seamless experience for clients. As a cherry on top, Stefan shares a delightful personal story about finding the best tacos in Phoenix. Tune in for a rich blend of business insights, heartfelt stories, and actionable advice that will inspire you to rethink your approach to virtual assistance.
Connect with our Guest: Stefan Van der Heyden
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stefan-van-der-heyden/
Virtue Staff: https://www.virtuestaff.com/
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You're listening to Scale Up Strategies, the business growth podcast for coaches, consultants and speakers. We're your hosts and business coach experts Mary Fane Gran and Laura Bay Shore.
Laura Bashore:We're sharing all our insider tips from 20 plus years in business, including how we successfully scaled our businesses without losing our minds or our husbands.
Mary Fain Brandt:Sure, you can piece it together and try to DIY your way to success. Or you can listen to us every week and learn the shortcuts, because we promise they're really awesome.
Laura Bashore:So grab your favorite cup of coffee, tune in and let's start the show.
Mary Fain Brandt:Welcome to the show, stefan Van der Hayden. That's a mouthful for me, but I think I got that right. Just a little background and a shout out to the power of LinkedIn that you and I met on LinkedIn through a common connection. And another shout out Laura and I have spoken about virtual assistants and we both have assistants in our business. I have spoken about virtual assistants and we both have assistants in our business, and I find that it's not always easy finding the right VA and putting your trust in. Like it's a big thing to hand over your business and say here, I don't know you, but I'm going to trust you with logins and you know to to do what I hope you're going to do in the timeframe that I need it done. So I'm excited we're both excited to have you on the show and tell us you know what is, you know how your agency is different from the Upworks, the Fivers, because that's where a lot of people go and they're like, oh, let me hire a VA, I'll go get one for $5.
Laura Bashore:And it's going to be magic right, it's never magic. So what makes you and your organization so unique, Stefan?
Stefan Van der Heyden:Yeah, I mean to put it simple, it's quality and impact. I mean, you know it's called Virtue Staff for a reason. Sure, it's a little play on words, right, but the virtue is a big part of what we do here. You know my background. This is my second company. My first company was a recruitment organization, so we're really good at finding the right people, right. So you know, what's different with us is there's a lot of VA, ea companies, global talent companies, things like that. For the most part, a lot of them do the same things right With us.
Stefan Van der Heyden:What we really wanted to focus on is so, before we had this company, we've used some other agencies, right. So I've used a lot of other agencies and I actually have colleagues who have had and sold agencies and things like this. So you know, the biggest difference with us is like we know that the best thing comes when you get somebody that is a high performer and does well but is really waiting for their next opportunity, and then you find an employer that has a good spot for them, like that's a home run in recruiting in general, right, and so we said, all right if most of these, you know, virtual assistants are getting paid X amount which is pretty standard across the board. Could we set the bar higher charge, pretty much the same as the competition, and basically find the best of the best. Change the VA's life, change the business life right? So just for putting things into raw numbers, we get on average about 10,000 people per week. What?
Mary Fain Brandt:Wait, wait, wait, hold, hold, stop the show. 10,000 people a week. Yeah 40,000 people a month are applying.
Stefan Van der Heyden:And that's an average. Some month it's much more than that, right. So it's globally right. Like we have recruiters in several countries. You know we use a lot of different areas, but what's different with that is, for every 10,000 people, I mean 20 to 50 make it through our screening to make it to our clients.
Mary Fain Brandt:I mean 20 to 50 make it through our screening to make it to our clients. You mean you don't just hire everyone that turns in an application like on Fiverr or Upwork. You mean you actually vet your VAs. Well, there's a novel idea.
Stefan Van der Heyden:Yeah, believe it or not, I would encourage anyone to ask what the vetting process, approval rate and things like that is. I think if you secret shop some competition, you'll kind of be surprised.
Mary Fain Brandt:I think that you mentioned that before, that you did some secret shopping which is good. We call that market research. As a business owner, Exactly, Exactly.
Stefan Van der Heyden:So it's always good to know what other people are doing and, to be honest, we are a step ahead. So you know, we had to implement certain AI products and features and things like that to get us through some of the screening vetting. We constantly update our supplements.
Stefan Van der Heyden:We keep resetting the bar higher and higher because every month we get more applications than the month before. And then the second part like I said, we really like to give back. We give a higher percentage to our VAs than any of our competition that we've priced shop before, while maintaining a very competitive price point.
Mary Fain Brandt:I mean typically 12 to 15 bucks an hour is what our clients pay us, that's it. That's it, I mean, for such a highly quality vetting process. So 40,000, okay, a month, that's still. I'm, I'm shocked. Um, but then you vet them all and you're telling me it's not going to be $25 an hour for a quality virtual assistant. Okay, I'm just kind of blown away with that right now, like yeah, so Stefan, how?
Laura Bashore:how have you found the feedback, then, from your clients? Because I'm sure you have some clients who have used a VA before and alluded to a not a great experience, right, which is why they're coming to you. What has been their feedback and or their results based off of going into a system like yours, where you do actual vetting of the people and you're looking for that higher quality?
Stefan Van der Heyden:Yeah, you know there's nothing. You can be more prideful as a business owner than someone who's used something similar, or maybe even a competitor of yours, and then they come to you and say this is way better. So, to be honest, there's a few things that happen. Is one people get just higher quality. We also pay the virtual assistant more, so that higher quality is more likely to stay, so the churn rate is much lower and the satisfaction is much higher.
Stefan Van der Heyden:And the connection is also much better, right, and also have like a quality assurance department. I mean it's a whole thing. I mean we ask for feedback from our clients. It's not just good luck. I hope we never hear from you. I mean we text our clients every week. You know like we want to know what's going on. You know we talked to the VAs. The VAs are all assigned to success manager. Our clients may not even know we have a success manager behind the scenes that if a VA feels overwhelmed and they want to do better, no cost to the client. We have someone that basically mentors and coaches them and they hop on a call and say, hey, this is what you can do to be more productive. It's no cost to our client and they may not even know what's going on, because if I promise you it's going to be good, then it's just up to me to deliver that Right.
Mary Fain Brandt:So you're actually investing in these.
Mary Fain Brandt:VAs. You're not just like here's a VA, there's a VA, okay, that one can do that. And so if they're overwhelmed cause I've never heard of an agency like, hey, we're here to mentor our VAs and help them be the best version. A question that I get asked a lot, obviously, is like oh, you have a VA, how do you get started? You know, a lot of business owners are again, hesitant, fearful. I want to put all my trust into this person that is in a different country, typically right. So is there some tips or thoughts that you can share to those business owners that are hesitant about outsourcing? Like what's some advice that you would give a business owner to overcome their fears and hire their first VA?
Stefan Van der Heyden:Yeah, yeah Well, first thing.
Stefan Van der Heyden:First is I was used, I was that guy hey, like I'm keeping everything here, I'm keeping everything you know local. Like you know, I was that guy. You know, right, I went through an experience where I needed a personal assistant. I overpaid, they were working from home, it was a pretty good job and I just was not that satisfied. And, like I said, I had a couple of colleagues in the space were great at finding people, and so we gave it a try and it's really changed my life.
Stefan Van der Heyden:I mean, listen, like people get VAs for different reasons, whether it's the business owner that wants to make it to his son's soccer practice and not have to look at his phone Like that's a real story, you know, as their wife in the business and it's impacting their marriage and they just need help. We have people that need an auto cab designer and don't want to pay 75,000 a year. So they get someone at 15 bucks an hour. That's an engineer and now they can reinvest 40,000 into their company again. So we know that if we can get them there, that's the most important part.
Stefan Van der Heyden:Personally, overcoming it is really difficult, right. The simplest thing anyone can do, right, that I would recommend you doing, is saying is there something that's duplicatable, repeatable, that I know how to do that. I could get off my plate and give to somebody else. Building trust is absolutely tough, but it takes time and it takes finding the right person, and it may also take someone telling them I tried this and it worked. Anyone that comes to us, I'd love for you to talk to one of our other clients.
Mary Fain Brandt:I would love it. I love that Um yeah. What are you know? I know what, what I use my VA for, and I know what the future might look like. But what is the number one thing? You know that people come to your company and say I need a VA for fill in the blank, are there one or two things, one or two? I'll give you, okay, more than one Cause. I know that's hard, but like what are the okay, the top three reasons or tasks?
Mary Fain Brandt:that people are like okay, I'm gonna outsource that because it's repeatable I think that's the important thing or project-based I think project-based too, so let me see if I can kind of categorize this, maybe give three different examples, if that would work.
Stefan Van der Heyden:I think we deal with either small businesses or solopreneurs that are working in and on their business. I think, first things first, a lot of these people are doing stuff repeatedly themselves and not having enough time for sales or growth or networking or quality assurance. They know how to do it. They just need someone reliable and affordable to do it. So I would say the first case example is people that have a company and they're still fulfilling on it and they say, hey, if I just had somebody smart enough or with a little bit of experience, I could train them and buy my time back. So buying your time back is number one, right? The second thing, kind of like you said, maybe project-based stuff, maybe you're going to Upwork or you're asking around. It could be social, it could be video editing, it could be data entry, it could be anything like that. That's like, hey, I just kind of like need someone to kind of pick this up and get it done and I go through Upwork and it's more expensive, verified, but they're not dedicated to me, right. So little things like that that are more project based, they're not dedicated to me, right? So little things like that that are more project-based.
Stefan Van der Heyden:The third tier, I would say, is people that have their eyes open to entirely new possibilities. We have landscape architects that actually hire overseas engineers that can read 3D designs and help them with their process and I'm not going to pretend to know exactly what goes into it, okay. We have other people that need program developers and they don't want to have to pay somebody on that caliber. We have team managers. I mean, it's insane. The average business owner saves at least $20,000 per person per year with this. Wow, so if you're a business owner and you have one person you need to hire and you pay 20 to 25 bucks for that person minimum before taxes and benefits, if you have them you're going to save 20,000 a year right off the bat. And just think of what that would do to your business. You know, right? Yeah, we've had customer service departments where they have 25 people and they're like, hey, maybe I replace five of them and right away they save a hundred 120 grand a year.
Mary Fain Brandt:I think customer service is an area where a lot of people hire the virtual assistants that and uh uh online business manager um social media manager, you know experts in Kajabi.
Stefan Van der Heyden:course creation, course creation Um, I mean it's kind of crazy. I mean a lot of times people say, hey, do you think you can find somebody? And we do you know, um, which is so cool, which is so cool to be able to change the business life, be able to change the VA's life, and us to just have a small part of that is it's a win, win, win, which is so cool to be a part of, so I love that.
Laura Bashore:And I think something that you shared with us and how you make sure you have engaged VAs and those who are top quality is you were talking before we got on here. You were talking about how you require those who hire on your VAs to commit to 20 hours a week right, and that in itself can be a barrier, but do you just want to elaborate a little bit more on what the benefit is and why it's so worth it? I mean, I think it tails into what you were talking about, but I'd like just a little bit more so it's clear for our audience.
Stefan Van der Heyden:No, that's a really great point. Right Is basically what we're seeing here is I think sometimes business owners forget that just because they're not here in the USA, that it's no different than any other employee you're going to hire. Can you imagine saying I want the best video editor I can find for this price range, but I only want you to work one or two hours a week. I want you to leave your job and uproot you and come over here, but I only have one or two hours of work. But you know, I want you to do and I want you to do. Well, that's not going to go over.
Stefan Van der Heyden:And I want you to be on call for me because, let's be real, oh, you're going to work two hours a week minimum is kind of like our bottom line. Everything we preach, we want to deliver on the quality. Someone who's a quality worker typically doesn't want a one to five hour a week contract because they're going to try to float maybe 10, 20 of those, right, right, yeah, the second thing is stability. You know, if anyone listening to this is a professional that's worked in corporate, you want stability, like you're not going to go somewhere. That's like, ah, like some days it's busier, some days it's slower and we're going to pay you without. That's not going to happen, right.
Stefan Van der Heyden:And the third thing is commitment. Clients do need to commit themselves to the VA as well. This is a two-way street, you know. Third thing is commitment. Clients do need to commit themselves to the VA as well. This is a two-way street. Oftentimes it gets looked at as a one-way road, but if you want the best, you have to also give back to them and give them time and dedication and show stability. And when you have that two-way relationship, that's when we get the awesome success stories on both sides. And that's really what we're after. And I would recommend, if somebody needs someone an hour or two a week, by all means go to a freelance site. You know we're not for everything.
Mary Fain Brandt:So I think that's the difference the freelancer versus a dedicated virtual assistant right.
Stefan Van der Heyden:Yeah, that's the biggest difference with us, yeah.
Mary Fain Brandt:So you've really built a purpose driven business at Virtue Staff. That's the name of your business. I want to make sure everyone catches that. How important is it for business owners to align their hiring and delegation strategies with their core values and missions? Like we always talk about that, like when business owners are new to virtual assistants, like really understanding how to hire and is it and the delegation, like is it in line with the core values and missions of their business?
Stefan Van der Heyden:Yeah. So I think I think my first company, health op which I still have today, it's very busy and things like that it's a healthcare recruiting organization, right? Our mission there was to give resources we wish we had while we were in clinic. It's built on healthcare professionals. I worked you know, corporate life and medical for a long time when I had to use recruiters and resources, consultants. It was a nightmare. So when I started that company, I said, hey, as long as I'm giving a resource that I wish I had and I would use myself, it's a quality product, right.
Stefan Van der Heyden:So, through your question, same thing with virtue staff. If you are going to use anyone outside of yourself or a company to deliver work to your clients, whether it's a VA or not, you do want to make sure that your mission is delivering something that's valuable to them and figuring out how you're going to deliver. That is very important because you can delegate things to anybody, right. Where we come in is we say hey.
Stefan Van der Heyden:A lot of times, people try to delegate to someone and they're not satisfied with the quality or they don't have the budget for it, and that's where this like dream come true thing comes off. Where it's like hey, I can save money and have a higher caliber person to dedicate and keep that high quality workload. And, honestly, that's another reason that I love people to shop around from competition to us, because a lot of times you know people that take the effort to want to give this away and have gotten over that hump of wanting to give that trust away. We made an SOP to be able to train somebody and they don't get someone in the door. That's on the same page. It's tough, right, but you make a really good point right. If you are going to delegate to anyone, whether it's a VA or not, make sure it aligns with your company mission value. And you got to make sure that you have a plan on how to train them and make sure that quality assurance and deliverability is there. Otherwise you're not going to be set up for success.
Laura Bashore:We even have a group of business coaches that we actually pair up some of our clients with for an hour or so at no cost to help them overcome some of these things as well. So smart, you're helping on both sides of it, you know, helping your client realize these are the things you need, cause you're right. Okay, talking about my husband real quick, but he's looking at expanding in a way and I'm like well, you have to have SOPs first. You can't just bring someone on and say you're going to hire them without it. So I think that's wonderful. And then again, how earlier you talked about having training for your VA. Like I can really see the whole virtue side of the play on words that you have right where we're talking about virtual assistants, but also the virtue behind it and making sure that you've got that quality there. I just think it's such a great business model and something that's so needed. I'm glad you're on here sharing this today because I think it's letting people feel more comfortable about the possibility of bringing on a VA to help them.
Mary Fain Brandt:And I think the whole world of VAs and virtual assistants. It's really. It's grown, it's shifted, it's a whole entity now, like 10 years ago. It really wasn't Right 10 years ago.
Mary Fain Brandt:It wasn't Five years ago. It was popular, but I feel like five years is what we do and we're doing it right. It's not Fiverr, it's not a freelancer, it's not Upwork, because I've had bad experiences right Learning how to hire my first VA. I have colleagues that have had bad experiences, so I love that we've got these agencies like yours that is really trying to provide a quality service for the virtual assistant on both sides. Quality on both sides, and that's the big game changer. That's, I think, what sets you apart from other companies.
Stefan Van der Heyden:And the last thing I want to actually do is like outside of all that which is great, like I love everything about it On top of that. Like a great example is last month we used a select few countries. You know Latin America is great, like I love everything about it On top of that. Like a great example is last month we use a select few countries. You know Latin America is great Macedonia, philippines, things like that. We kind of have, depending on the role of certain countries that we use for certain things, we also give back in those communities. So this is kind of building on that virtue staff pillar. So last month there was a typhoon in the Philippines. We put together a relief fund out of our own pocket to be able to give back to the community, right?
Stefan Van der Heyden:And so it's like so cool, you know, and then all of our clients are going to get an email with our team that blogged the whole thing. It's such a cool thing, right To be able to give someone a life-changing opportunity, to be able to have a client finally get the person that they needed. Sorting through 40,000 people a month, lining up the interviews for them and then hiring them and, on top of it, saving about 20,000 per year per person. Can you imagine getting all that? And then you get an email saying also, the money you're paying on top of going to the VA is also impacting lives across the world. You have me right there when you're saying that you're giving back.
Mary Fain Brandt:You know, because Laura and I are big proponents of giving back to our communities and not just like financially giving money where people need it, and I love that about. I didn't know that about the business until right now, so I'm really excited to learn that now.
Stefan Van der Heyden:So I'm really excited to learn that. Yeah, and we'll keep it going. So we're trying to do a little bit more content, which we haven't been good at, but we actually have our recruiters in all countries. They're also doing blogs and things like this to keep track and keep everybody aware of what's going on.
Mary Fain Brandt:Yeah, you need to post that on LinkedIn and stuff. I'm like I didn't know that, like I would have been sharing that post, commenting because that speaks to my heart. Right, that's part of who I am I would share too.
Laura Bashore:That would speak a lot to your clients as well, like that could be something to help push them over to to just know that you have a give back component, because I find one of my businesses is team referral network and so I have a ton of business owners who are part of my members and one of the things that ties us all together is I have a ton of business owners who are part of my members and one of the things that ties us all together is we have a really give back and philanthropic drive, and so they appreciate some of the things we do through team and I know they would appreciate your organization even more just for that. So I agree with the content out, get that content out.
Laura Bashore:People will want to know that.
Stefan Van der Heyden:I know it. I know it, we're it. I know it, it's in the it's in the roadmap, so we will I'm sure you have a virtual assistant that could do that for you yeah, 100, 100 well.
Laura Bashore:So I wanted to ask. So let's say, I'm getting really sold on this episode. I kind of am okay, um, we'll talk after. But what is the process? Let's say somebody is interested in this, how do people contact you? And then how do you go through that process to pair them up with the right VA?
Stefan Van der Heyden:Yeah, great question. So you can find us virtuestaffcom it's virtue, just the way it's spelled and then Staffcom. There's a contact us form on the website. As soon as you fill it out, we'll book an appointment. The steps are pretty straightforward. So you book a call with us. We find out what's most important to you. So, leading up to the call, we'll send you a form telling us hey, who do you want, what kind of applications? 20 to 40 hours, everything like that. We understand what kind of personality, type, company culture, what are the dues, everything like that. We then go back to all of our candidates and we pick usually two to five of our favorites that we think are absolute home runs. We make sure that they're interested and eligible. We then, for you, say, hey, when's a good hour to hour and a half, and we'll book all the interviews so that you can knock it out. We want to take as little of your time as possible. You hop on.
Stefan Van der Heyden:You interview all four of the VAs. If you love one, you pick them and you can start them, sometimes even next day. Um, if you don't like any of them, it hasn't cost you a dime. You can tell us hey, this isn't going to work for us. Or you can say can we do another round of interviews? We'll do it all over again, and you don't pay us a dime until you start a VA. So none of that costs anything, Wow.
Mary Fain Brandt:That service.
Laura Bashore:Wow, and what I like, too is it just shows a confidence in the VAs that you have where you're like. Once you see the quality, you are going to move forward. If you were somebody who was really looking at having a VA and hiring someone on, yeah, yeah, it's funny you bring that up.
Stefan Van der Heyden:I had. So I had lunch yesterday with somebody that's newer to Arizona. There's a place in Phoenix called taco guild, if you haven't been there before is it good tacos?
Mary Fain Brandt:Oh my God, I'm looking for a taco place. Everybody knows that I I'm from San Diego and I haven't found tacos here that I like taco guild free.
Stefan Van der Heyden:Shout out for taco guild, but I took them over there yesterday First by the taco. He's like this is one of the best tacos I've ever had. I don't know about you guys. Do you ever like get that feeling of like yes, like when you like recommend something and like they eat oh my God, I love this as much as you do? Or like you tell someone to watch a movie and you know they're never going to watch it, but they do and they're like oh my God, best movie ever.
Laura Bashore:Yeah.
Stefan Van der Heyden:Yeah, people hop on these interviews with the VAs and watch their face to be like this is way better than I thought this was going to be and this experience is so cool, like as a business owner. It feels like that right, you're like we knocked it out of the park and that's such a cool feeling. It's such a cool feeling to have you know.
Mary Fain Brandt:I can't lie, but I'm looking up taco guild right now.
Stefan Van der Heyden:So if you go I don't know if you like steak tacos get the cherry steak tacos at taco guild in central Phoenix and the atmosphere is cool. It's actually built inside a church too.
Mary Fain Brandt:So the person and we'll do lunch at taco guild tacos on me, for sure. Okay, I'm sorry, you're like, I'm just that person. I'm like what is this taco there? Tacos in arizona that are good, no but that's okay.
Laura Bashore:We all need to know because sometimes we visit there and also the fact that you went on taco tuesday is also an excellent idea. Good job so laura so we.
Laura Bashore:We're gonna share this information on how people can connect with you. I think a lot of our audience is really going to identify with this, and so we will put all of that information in our show notes and make sure that that gets out so people can see it. Before we wrap up today, we are going to, uh, go through the four questions that we ask each of our guests, so you think you're ready for it.
Stefan Van der Heyden:I'll give it a shot. I'll give it my best shot.
Mary Fain Brandt:You got this. Okay, I'm going to take the first two. We like to divvy these up. So what was the last risk you took as a business owner, besides just getting up in the morning and, you know, going into work?
Stefan Van der Heyden:Sure, sure, the last risk I took as a business owner. Again, business is a risk, I know. Getting up in the morning, going to work, everything like that right, going into business for yourself is the biggest risk, right? Not that I'm a Beyonce fan, right? Beyonce says hey, I don't gamble, but I'll bet on myself every day. I love that saying right, and I think that's a good saying.
Stefan Van der Heyden:For sure, for sure. Health op was my baby. It's still around today. It's a very, in my opinion, a great success. And the next risk was taking a leap of faith that we could start a business. That truly was that win, win, win. And there were so many headaches and nightmares and things we jumped through in building this company, risk after risk, just putting time and effort into it, you know, to make it the best it could possibly be. It was all a risk, not really, and with much smaller margins than we were used to. But, man, are these risks, when they pay off, so worth it? I fill my cup every day just by being a part of this company. It paid off.
Mary Fain Brandt:I love that. Okay, what is a quote that you live by in your business or life?
Laura Bashore:If there's a quote you know, besides the Beyonce one, I mean but unless you want to use that, unless you want to use that, I got no problems with that.
Mary Fain Brandt:Do you have a mantra or you know a saying or a quote that just resonates with you?
Stefan Van der Heyden:It really varies, I know that. So Virtue Staff, we kind of like a tagline, if you will it's building brighter futures and better businesses, which kind of feeds into you know our mission, and I think that we really try to make sure everyone at Virtue staff that works for us understands that Right, perfect. So yeah, I think.
Laura Bashore:Yeah, great. Well then, our next question is an easy one, but we still love to hear your answer. So what is the number one social platform that you use for your business is?
Stefan Van der Heyden:No brainer, it's LinkedIn. Absolute no brainer. Linkedin.
Mary Fain Brandt:Are we tallying these up when we ask the question so we can say LinkedIn one?
Stefan Van der Heyden:I mean, I'm just assuming, but you know, yes, yes, If you're doing B2B and you're not on LinkedIn like you are, you are missing out. You are just flat out missing out. Yeah.
Laura Bashore:You got to agree, yeah. And if you don't know how to talk to someone that does, maybe so. Yeah, Thank you.
Stefan Van der Heyden:And then our final question is and then our final question is what is the key to your success? Yeah, you know this is such a hard thing for me to answer. This is such a hard thing for me to answer. I think that, for one, I never saw myself being a business owner right. I like to tell people that a lot is that I never saw myself doing that, you know, um, but I think what made me successful is that, um, over time, I've realized that it's almost a Nike thing. Just doing it right Is like for me. I think that my gift is that, um, I'm able to take action on things that move the needle.
Mary Fain Brandt:Right, and so that's a gift, because we don't not all of us do that yeah, and so sometimes it's a gift and sometimes it's a curse.
Stefan Van der Heyden:So it's kind of a double-edged sword, is that I can move the needle? And while you're moving the needle and you're kind of getting to red line, sometimes things will break and you have to have other people to help you manage that or keep up with you and keep everything in alignment. Right, I have two full business partners. I wouldn't be where I'm at without them. So I do think it takes a team to build something great. Anybody can do something good, but I think it takes a team to build something great. And so, although I'm good at taking action, doing things, moving the needle, um, you do also need other people saying hey, maybe we should pump the brakes. Or hey, if we're going to do this, let's, you know, catch everything, that's, you know, falling apart while you're doing it.
Mary Fain Brandt:So or maybe tell you uh, let's stop going that direction. Uh, Laura and I, we had the B show and we had a career podcast and we stopped that. Yeah, we didn't. Yeah, we pivoted and we were able to say, as partners, like, yeah, that's not serving us.
Stefan Van der Heyden:Interesting, interesting. Yeah, that's so important. I mean, that's such a good one to have people that can actually like make that decision together and not have it like damage things or have someone feel some kind of way about it. If it can definitely be like a conversation that, hey, we're all in this together. Going back to the mission, it's cool you guys are able to do it, cause how many, how many people have we met that just do the same thing? You're like, oh my God, like that's not working, like you gotta do something else.
Mary Fain Brandt:You know, if it stops working you need to review it and leave it. You have to say goodbye to things so you can welcome new opportunities. I'm a big believer in that change management thing, Like say goodbye to welcome new things.
Stefan Van der Heyden:A hundred percent. And I think people forget that change hurts. You know, like you know, it's not really a risk if, like, you're not giving something up. That's tough, right, right. A lot of people think, oh, I've changed, but you do all the same things. It's like, no, you just say you did.
Laura Bashore:Exactly, exactly Well. Thank you for being on with us today, stefan. I think this has been so enlightening. I know Mary and I are already thinking about different ways where we can utilize services, and, I bet, a lot of our audiences too. So we want to thank you for your time and also just remind our guests that we will have the contact information in the show notes so that if you, too, are looking at crossing over that line and finally getting that VA to help you stop working just in your business but start working on your business, we have a solution for you. So it's Virtue Staffing right.
Stefan Van der Heyden:Virtue, staff, virtue, staff, virtue.
Laura Bashore:Staff, so we're so thankful to have you on. And, mary, do you want to go ahead and wrap us up?
Mary Fain Brandt:I do. Well, I want to say thank you as well. And, mary, do you want to go ahead and wrap up that? I do? Well, I want to say thank you as well, and I just want to remind all of our listeners to subscribe, rate and review our podcast and contact us and let us know. Is there a topic or a guest that you think would be great for our podcast? We are here to help you scale your business with different strategies, and so you know, until next time, here's to good coffee, great conversations and even greater success cheers. If you enjoyed the podcast, show us some love. Please rate, review and subscribe to our podcast, and if you have any feedback, go ahead and share that with us too, because we want to hear from you. Until then, stay focused, stay motivated and stay caffeinated.
