Service Based Business Society Podcast

You brought on help so you could stop doing everything. So why does every decision still land on your desk? Tonya Thomas has spent twenty one years as a virtual executive assistant and now runs Team Delegate, an agency of US based EAs, and she has watched hundreds of owners ask for help and then fight it.

In this episode:

• "You don't have a business, you have a job you created for yourself," and the moment Tonya knew her coach was right
• Why it really is faster to do it yourself on day one, and why the reward is on the back end
• Talk to your assistant. Two or three meetings beat a long email every time
• The light switch and the seatbelt: the tasks you don't know you do until they stop
• Doer versus thinker: what separates a virtual assistant from an executive assistant
• "Bring me a solution with the problem" builds the thinking muscle
• Soft skills matter as much as software: critical thinking, prioritising, organisation
• Out of sight, out of mind: the underused virtual EA
• Marco Polo and the school run brain dump
• Virtual does not mean flexible: overlap hours and non negotiables
• The things owners don't know an EA can do: invoicing, research, proposals, licence renewals, subscription audits
• Letting them into your inbox, your Amazon, your house
• The one week exercise: write down everything you do, then track your time

Find Tonya at teamdelegate.com or Tonya Thomas on LinkedIn.