Episode 280: A Week in the Life of an Email Marketing Specialist with Melissa Seideman

Full Episode Transcription:

[00:00:00] Arianna Vernier: Hey, y’all welcome to the Virtual Assistant Mama podcast. We’re continuing our week in the life series here on the show, where I’m bringing on different service providers in the virtual assistant entrepreneurial world to share what it really looks like in a week in their life and what service they offer. So, in this episode, I brought on Melissa Seidman. She is the CEO of Not Another Virtual Assistant. She specializes in email marketing and has seven virtual assistants working with her, so she’s got a virtual assistant agency, and I’m just so excited for her to share what it looks like managing that. She’s been in this role for four years and is a former history teacher of 15 years, which you guys know that I love, because I was a teacher. We’ve got a lot of teachers who listen to this show. So welcome, Melissa. We’re so excited to have you.

[00:00:56] Melissa Seideman: Perfect. Thanks so much for having me.

[00:00:59] Arianna Vernier: Yeah, I would love it if you could just kind of start out with introducing a little bit more about yourself. Tell the listeners about you, what you like to do outside of work and how you really got into this space.

[00:01:13] Melissa Seideman: Yeah, so I taught as a history teacher for 15 years in the classroom, and I lived in New York. And if you know anything about New York, New York prices are crazy outrageous. So we had our 1st son in 2016, and I realized I wanted to spend more time with him. And I found that I was like, constantly. Bringing work home and I just needed a better work life balance to be honest. And then I had him in daycare and my daycare bill was outrageous. So once we had 2 kids, our daycare bill was 3600 dollars a month just to put that in perspective. We just couldn’t afford a teacher salary. My husband was an educator too. We just couldn’t afford to have them in daycare and be working both at the same time. So I ended up starting the virtual assistant business. To kind of support my lifestyle of having two little kids who while I was still teaching and I wasn’t ever planning on leaving the classroom, I never thought that was an option. And then it just kind of happened that my VA business took off more than my teaching salary. And I was like, why am I still doing this for fun? Now that I’ve left the classroom and have much more free time on my hands, I go on weekly dates with my husband. We go to lunch while my kids are in school. I volunteer as the PTO at my son’s school. I’m volunteering in a women’s service organization. I really prioritize like giving back and then like having hobbies for myself, which I never had in the 15 years that I was teaching. And that’s, I think what I love doing. So it’s been great.

[00:02:39] Arianna Vernier: I love that you now get to have that work life balance that. We as teachers never get to have I think it’s so beautiful that now you get to Take those weekly dates with your husband You get to volunteer with your kiddos schools and just be that present mom and still like you said have time for you I before recording this podcast I was just working on refinishing some nightstands in between some other work tasks I was doing and I Never got to do that as a teacher, you know, I was stuck in the classroom from whatever it was, seven 30 to three 30 or whatever. So I just love to see how you’ve been able to tweak your life to fit what you want it to look like. And I think that’s so helpful for the listeners to see, like, they can have this, if they just chase their dreams. So can you walk us through what kind of tasks that you do throughout the week for both your own business and then also like what specifically you do for your clients?

[00:03:42] Melissa Seideman: Yeah. So when I first started out, I was like a general VA and I found I was doing a million different tasks. I wasn’t very good at all of them. Like I found I wasn’t. Enjoying all of them. I really needed to specialize and email marketing was something I was already doing for myself and I absolutely love doing it. And then I niched down to just be an email marketing virtual assistant and now I’m an email marketing virtual assistant and specialist. And I absolutely love what I do. We take on weekly clients, weekly, monthly startups, all that stuff. Stuff and we do automations, weekly emails, email startups, all kinds of different things related to email marketing and automations. So my process for doing that kind of just naturally fell into my lap. I just realized I wasn’t good at doing this kind of task and this kind of task. And then I found that I was good at email marketing and then people started to hire me for, and I was like, well, this is something that could really take off. I narrowed down, I hired my first VA to work under me. And now it’s grown that I have 7 different contractors working under me who are all 10 to 15 hours a week or every other week, which is awesome. So there are also, like, getting hours that they want to get and living a life that they want to be living. Most of them are stay at home moms, former teachers, or former stay at home moms that just want to be home with their kids more. And so sometimes they’re working at night. Sometimes they’re working in the morning. Sometimes they work during the day. And I think that’s the benefit of being a VA is you can make your own hours of how you see fit.

[00:05:11] Arianna Vernier: I love that not only have you changed your life to be more of what you want it to be, but now your business has also allowed these other moms to start changing their life to be what they want it to be. So that’s really, really cool. Now. Can you walk us through a little bit of what it’s like having a team that’s that size, because I think a lot of people might get overwhelmed by even just managing one person. So what did that shift into like managing people kind of look like for you?

[00:05:44] Melissa Seideman: It first started, I actually hired my husband to work with me because I just like needed help. Like, I was struggling. Like, imagine I was teaching full time. I would come home at 3 o’clock, 3: 30. I would often work for an hour, then go pick my kids up from daycare. Then I would do the mom dinner bedtime routine. And then I would go back to work from 7 to 10 at night. And I was just getting really burnt out between both of those things quickly. So I hired my husband to help me. He started scheduling SEO blog posts for me. I heard a blog writer, I hired email scheduler and then all of a sudden he goes, he like, it dawned on him after 4 months of working with me, scheduling so many blog posts a week, he goes, you know, you can hire someone for like, half your hourly rate and then make money. But also. Like, do more work and I can hire someone to do the job and then also bring on more clients. So that’s how I started to scale. And now we’re up to about 40 clients a month, which is awesome. I have a number of passive offers a number of affiliate offers. So I make a lot of different income streams. The with the 40 clients, it’s, it’s grown significantly and they’re constantly coming to me, which is kind of cool. And I think hiring out is like nerve wracking, but often I dawned on me that I could hire someone out for 30 an hour and charge my hourly rate and then still make money while also serving clients, living a life life that I want to live.

[00:07:05] Arianna Vernier: That’s just mind blowing to think about, you know, like outsourcing to other people allows you to increase your income, because like you said, you’re paying them a little bit less than what you charge and so you get to make money just by managing what they’re doing for your clients. So I think that’s really cool. And a lot of people don’t see that that’s what a virtual system business could grow into. You could start an agency. Where you’re kind of the, the, the manager of these other people who are working under you, and it doesn’t have to, to become that. But is that something you’re interested? A lot of people don’t know that that’s even possible. So I’m glad that you shared that.

[00:07:51] Melissa Seideman: Yeah, and I talk about like, scaling, I was able to significantly scale to 10 to 15 to 25 to $30,000 a month. Just by bringing on a team and and scaling and and it’s allowed me to some weeks. I work 25 hours. Like last week. I took off Thursday. I took off Friday. Like, I worked a half day on Wednesday this week, taking off Friday this week. Like, it’s allowed me to, like, choose to live the life that I want to live to.

[00:08:15] Arianna Vernier: Yeah, that’s awesome. So you mentioned that you work about 25 hours a week. How much of that would you say is like client work? And then how much would you say is spent on, like, growing your own business?

[00:08:28] Melissa Seideman: Yeah, so it’s about 50/50. I probably do about 10 to 15 hours of client work. There’s still stuff that I really enjoy. Like, I love zooming with clients and going over their email platform. So that’s something I do. I do zoom zoom clients. I do do startup jobs and automations. I love doing that stuff. And then a lot of it is overseeing my team. So I have someone who does scheduling. Someone helps oversee too, but I oversee the team. So like I assign projects to different people. I check the projects. I make sure it’s well done. I then assign, send it to the client. I’m also very upfront with the clients when they hire me. I usually say we. I have a team, like I use that language. So it’s nothing is like hidden. Like it’s like, I’m doing the job, but then I hire it out. So like, I’m very upfront that we have a team, my website says we, that type of thing, and it’s about 50/50, I would say.

[00:09:16] Arianna Vernier: That’s awesome. So outside of work, you said you work about 25 hours a week. I know you briefly mentioned this when you were talking about like what you like to do for fun, but I would just love to hear what your life looks like outside of your business a little bit more.

[00:09:33] Melissa Seideman: Yeah, so I realized like I was getting burnt out by doing both jobs. I was burnt out in the classroom also, and I have more friends now. It’s not so silly to say, but like I have more friends now that I own my own business. Then I did probably in the 15 years that I was teaching in the classroom, just because I was so burnt out. We got with my girlfriends for lunch. We go to the movies and we go for drinks and that type of thing. I have time to work out now, which I never had before. I have times to binge watch shows. If I want to watch a show during the day, I go for massages. I do work, I like, I love working, so it’s hard to say, no, that’s the 1 downside to being a business owner is you really, you get trapped into this. Your work is your home. So you got to, like, learn to shut the door and try to, leave it when you can. So, because, like, the workaholic doesn’t leave, like, I was a workaholic in the classroom and now I’m still a workaholic at home and you got to, like, just set boundaries and try to stick to them. Trying to think what else I do. I get my nails done, get massages.

[00:10:30] Arianna Vernier: Yeah, I love that you make time for the things that make you happy and like you said as a teacher before you couldn’t do that, or if you did, it was time when your kids were home and so then like you’re losing out on more of that time with them, but now like when they’re in school, you can do all these things and foster those relationships with other people where before you were just like too exhausted to even think about going and hanging out with friends after work. So that’s just really, really cool to hear from somebody else, like what you’ve been able to turn your life into. So thank you for sharing that.

[00:11:09] Melissa Seideman: And then I, I recommend, like, I use Asana to keep track of, like, my tasks to do and I assign my team members through Asana, different tasks. And we communicate Asana, but, like, I build it into my schedule. And I know that sounds really silly. I found I wasn’t doing that. And I really missed the social aspect of working in a regular 9 to 5 type job. So I found that, like, I meet, have lunch with one of my, one of my friends who does website design. We have lunch every other Tuesday. I go for a walk with a friend on Fridays and we literally will book a building into our schedule. She’s lives in Texas, but like we call each other on the phone and we talk and walk for a half an hour. It’s so nice to just have someone in the same similar space as you. So, but like, I built it into my schedule and that it’s on my calendar. It’s in my Asana. I know this is what I’m doing. I know I’m having lunch with my husband every Wednesday at 12 o’clock. Like if I didn’t build it into my schedule, I probably wouldn’t do it. Yeah, and I think that making that a priority is important.

[00:12:02] Arianna Vernier: Yeah, I 100 percent agree. So, If someone listening to this podcast wants to start their journey out of their nine to five, but they just felt overwhelmed by the thought of it, what would you say to them?

[00:12:16] Melissa Seideman: So, I’m an interesting story in that I didn’t, like, get trained by anybody. Some people pay thousands of dollars to hire a coach and get trained and all those learn about courses and how to become a virtual assistant. I wasn’t trained by anybody. In that I learned while I was on the job, you need to figure out what works for you. Like, if you’re a certain type of person stick with that. Like, I realized I liked writing, I was organized. So naturally email marketing came to me. I think stick with what works for you. And then don’t be afraid to ask for help. So I eventually joined a mastermind. Group with Sarah Wiles, and I love that. I learned from her in the source, but like, I didn’t necessarily like, it sucked into paying thousands of dollars to learn about how to be a virtual assistant. You can, you can Google and research and learn how to do it yourself if you really want to. But don’t be afraid to put yourself out there. Like, I literally put it on my Facebook group. I even did it again 2 weeks ago that I own a business. I’m looking for more clients. If you are interested in our small business would like more support. This is what we do. And I got 2 discovery calls booked by just. Sending that out to my contacts. So you’d be surprised of how people could use a virtual assistant that wouldn’t even think of that or little things like I order food delivery from a delivery company in my town. I gave him my business card, said I do email marketing and he booked me. He had 5, 000 emails, wasn’t sending a single email. And the first email that we did for him, we got him 15 orders from delivery. Food delivery, like, who would think that would be a client, but that’s a client or, um, I went to a craft store with my kids and I asked her if she had email marketing. She didn’t. So I set her up with email marketing as a startup. And now she sends monthly emails about the different open studio time. She has in craft stores. Like, you can use things from your life and try to think of who could use your use your benefits and use your job.

[00:13:59] Arianna Vernier: Yeah, I think that’s a really great way to find your first, at least your first couple clients, but like you said, you’re still doing it at this point in your business. My first client was from a Facebook post that I just put up, and it was actually one of my family members, and then I’ve had a couple other, like, friends and family members that have been clients too. So, sometimes we think, like, it’s going to be so hard to find clients, but if you just take that, Leap of faith and put yourself out there. You never know who would hire you because a lot of people don’t even know Still what a virtual assistant can do and all these different services that they can provide And so if you just like let people know you’re out there, they’re probably needing your help

[00:14:40] Melissa Seideman: Yeah, and there’s so many forums you can find online, whether it’s on Facebook or Instagram of like connecting with people and you’d be surprised how many people could actually benefit from using a virtual assistant that don’t use it.

[00:14:51] Arianna Vernier: Yeah, definitely. I 100 percent agree. So this has been so great kind of getting to pick your brain and having you share with my listeners about what it’s like running a virtual assistant agency and being in the email marketing space. Where can my listeners come and connect with you, learn more from you and just all the things.

[00:15:12] Melissa Seideman: Yeah. So my name is Melissa Seideman. If you can Google, Not Another VA, it’s actually a trademark name. So you can Google it and anything, Not Another VA comes up, whether it’s my website or Instagram or Facebook. And I also have an email marketing group that will hopefully be linked to the show notes. With email marketing that works and you can learn more about email marketing, whether you want to do it as a VA or you want to do it for yourself to gain new clients. It’s, it’s a really interesting thing that like, I never would have thought of using email to promote my virtual assistant business, but it really does help. Like if I have a client that drops me, I can easily send an email today and sit and get a bunch of new clients within a day of just saying, I have an opening spot open. We’d love to add you.

[00:15:54] Arianna Vernier: Yeah, and that’s just you made me think of that’s one really cool thing about the virtual assistant world is typically you have like a handful of clients. So if you lose one. You still have the income coming in from the other ones. You’re not going down to zero income. Typically, whereas if you like lost your 9 to 5 job, you’re going down to zero income. So I think a lot of people get worried about the stability of a virtual assistant job, but. To me, I think it’s more stable because the likelihood of you losing all of your clients at once is pretty slim. So you’re always most of the time going to have some income coming in, at least.

[00:16:35] Melissa Seideman: Well, and, and you get to pick and choose who you work with. Like if there’s a client that you’re just not the right match for, or you don’t have the similar like values or anything like that, you can choose not to work with them. Like, I think that’s what’s cool about it is like I had a client who was super demanding. I would get emails at 10 o’clock. I had a client this weekend. Email me 40 times over the weekend. And I literally replied to her this morning at 7 a. m. And I said, I just said, this is unacceptable. Like, send me 1 email with all your questions. Like I, and you don’t have to work with those people. I don’t think I’m going to work with this person again. And it’s fine to say that, like, you need to find stuff that supports your clients and a business that supports your lifestyle.

[00:17:14] Arianna Vernier: Yeah, amen to that. I totally agree. This has been so great having you on today, Melissa. I’m so grateful for you just coming on, sharing your wisdom and yeah, just pouring into my listeners. Thank you so much again.

Melissa Seideman: Perfect. Thank you.

Arianna Vernier: All right, y’all, thank you so much for listening to this episode. Make sure you check out the show notes so you can go get connected with Melissa and her business, Not Another VA, learn a little bit more from her and yeah, just soak it all up. Thank you so much again for listening and we will see you in the next episode.