How Virtual Assistants Can Solve Key Pain Points for Course Creators | VA for Course Creators
Understand How Delegating to Your VA Gets You Back to What You Love
Being a course creator can be an exciting but overwhelming experience. As a course creator myself, I know 😮💨
You know that creating and running online courses can reach your target audience and change their lives for the better - that’s why you do what you do, right?
But the challenge of doing everything yourself is a common issue that can drain your creative energy. And when your energy is drained, your business can only grow so much.
At this point, you’re probably thinking that it’s time to bring in some help or outsource some of your tasks to stay on track of things.
Enter: your Virtual Assistant Superhero!
(If you’re a virtual assistant reading this, listen up! Here’s what you bring to the table for your clients 😉)
Working with a VA can be a complete game changer in your course-based business. Why?
Let’s talk Zone of Genius.
In his book The Big Leap¹, Gay Hendricks introduces the concept of being in one’s Zone of Genius, or the place where you work from a skillset you are uniquely suited to do.
There are other areas to consider as well: the Zone of Incompetence (others can do tasks in this zone better than you), Zone of Competence (others can do tasks in this zone just as well as you), and Zone of Excellence (you can do tasks in this zone very well and could make a good living from them).
But the Zone of Genius is like the final boss, the place you reach in order to operate at your highest potential and see the most exponential growth.
Check out this nifty infographic² that describes the zones well:
To operate from the Zone of Genius, you have to know your own pain points and how to address them. Let’s explore a few common ones below:
Pain Point #1 – “This isn’t my strong point”
As a course creator, you know who your audience is and you know how to speak to them. You’ve invested countless hours in soaking up as much information about your field as possible from a place of passion and curiosity.
And now you’re ready to spread that knowledge and enhance the lives of your hungry, adoring audience.
But maybe you aren’t as tech-savvy as you’d like to be in order to increase your reach, and you understand that outsourcing may be the fastest way to propel your business forward. Plus, the time it would take to learn what you need could lead to burnout and definitely takes you away from what you truly enjoy: creating high-quality course content.
Hiring a skilled VA allows you to let go of tasks you aren’t great at, which can result in higher-quality and faster completion. Think of the African proverb that says, “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”
Pain Point #2 – “I’m amazing at this, but hate doing it.”
Have you ever sat down to manage customer tech support for your course and had that sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach hit you? You know the one that makes you feel like running in the opposite direction and doing anything other than troubleshooting potential solutions that could drain precious hours from your day.
Or maybe the mere thought of organizing the back end of next month’s webinars bores you and keeps you from starting on it in the first place?
It’s not like you can’t do the work - you know exactly what to do!
But knowing how to do the task and actually doing it are two completely different things. The truth is, doing the thing you hate doing usually affects your creativity in a negative way.
Working with a virtual assistant can drastically change the way you do business. Quite literally!
Conserving your finite energy³ allows you to focus on what excites and inspires you and worry less about the things you hate about your business.
Pain Point #3 – “I’m bad at this and it zaps my energy.”
Business ownership is a ride all on its own with having to wear multiple hats, be a key decision-maker, and strategize how to best meet your customers’ needs. As we’ve covered earlier, some of the most important tasks are simply outside your skill set and could become a source of stress.
Maintaining a healthy work-life balance and managing your business-related stress helps you avoid burnout. Business News Daily agrees, saying lowering your stress keeps you in better shape overall⁴!
Virtual assistants often specialize in valuable skills that you as a course creator don’t need to master. This saves you time and gives you the ability to focus on what you do best.
Pain Point #4 – “I want to be able to walk away and know everything will run smoothly.”
Picture it: you’ve taken the month off to do some much-needed traveling and reset before a new quarter begins. You finalized all of your pressing projects for your business and had a meeting with your team of any issues to anticipate in your absence.
Because of the clear communication you have with your VA, you know that they will take care of everything while you’re away and only contact you in an emergency. Otherwise, it’s smooth-sailing for you! You’re confident that things will run as smoothly as if you were doing it yourself.
You’ve freed yourself from feeling trapped by the need to constantly manage every. Single. Thing. On your own.
Ryan Deiss, a successful business leader who teaches businesses how to scale, emphasizes the importance of being able to step away from the business without it falling apart in your absence.
Because being able to take a step back from time to time is needed. And frankly, it’s a perk of owning your own business!
A VA can take over day-to-day operations like customer service, course enrollments, and running your email list. Delegating these tasks and systems are key to building a sustainable business.
The bigger picture - protecting your energy
Like stress, managing your energy (or “spoons” as Christine Miserandino coined) is essential for staying at the top of your game and not overloading your personal bandwidth.
What are some energy-draining activities?
🪫 Trying to do it all. Without delegating the routine tasks that you don’t necessarily need to be involved in, you end up taking on much more than you can handle.
📉 Constantly switching between roles. When you try to shift between unrelated tasks (like editing an existing course module while simultaneously trying to create a new one), studies show that it increases your stress levels and negatively impacts your productivity. In short, many people can’t effectively multitask!⁵
🔻 Ignoring the signs. Not paying attention to your body’s low-energy signals and stress responses could cost you big time. Learn to recognize your body’s signals and have a plan in place to stop or temporarily remove yourself from whatever task is causing you to go into overdrive.
None of us are skilled at everything available to us - and that’s ok!
Hiring a VA is a smart move, sort of like having your own secret weapon at your disposal. When you delegate important tasks, that can help you grow your business while staying true to your Zone of Genius and protecting your energy.
Take some time today to consider what tasks you could delegate to a VA, and start taking steps to take some things off your plate and scale your business to new heights!
If you already have a VA (or someone who isn’t but they’d love to become your VA) and would like to help further their skillsets, my course Virtual Assistants for Course Creators could be just the thing they need! We go over how to show up professionally, how to use tech tools common for course creators, and so much more.
References
“The Big Leap” by Gay Hendricks
Zone of Genius infographic by Anaik Alcasas
Stress Management Key to Keeping Business (and Owner) Alive - Business News Daily
Multicosts of Multitasking - National Library of Medicine
