IAM1045- CEO Contracts Virtual Administrative Services

Rachael Bush is the CEO of Mova Business Solutions. She goes through each day empowered by the personal mission statement, “To live and share a calm, authentic life that inspires the love of life in all my interactions.” Through her contracted virtual administrative services-based business, her approach and willingness to get in and really tackle a problem for her clients.

• CEO Hack: (i) Passion Planner to create and start everything up with my business (ii) SunSama
• CEO Nugget: Go ahead and do it
• CEO Defined: (i) Living and working in passion ii) Being open to learning

Website: https://www.movasolutions.org/

FB Business Page: https://www.facebook.com/movasolutions
IG Business Page: https://www.instagram.com/movasolutions/
LinkedIn Company Page: https://www.linkedin.com/company/mova-business-solutions
LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rachaelbush/
Twitter Business Account: https://twitter.com/MOVA_Business

Full Interview:

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Transcription

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00:17 – Intro

Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkless values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO Podcast.

00:45 – Gresham Harkless

Hello, Hello, Hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast. I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Rachel Bush of MOVA Business Solutions. Rachel, it's awesome to have you on the show.

00:54 – Rachael Bush

Oh, hi, I'm so glad to be here. Thank you, it's an honor. Any interview opportunity is just Great. So thank you for having me.

01:02 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, absolutely. You're doing so many phenomenal things. So I'm super excited to drill in a little bit more here and learn a little bit more about all the awesome things that you're doing. But before we did that, I went to read a little bit more about Rachel so you can hear a little bit about some of those things. And Rachel is the CEO of MOVA Business Solutions. She goes through each day empowered by the personal mission to live and share a calm and authentic life that inspires the love of life in all my interactions. Through her contracted virtual administrative services-based business, her approach and her willingness to get in and really tackle a problem for her clients. Rachel, it's great to have you on the show. Are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

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01:42 – Rachael Bush

I am, oh my goodness, yes.

01:45 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome, Let's do it then. So to kind of kick everything off, I wanted to rewind the clock a little bit here, a little bit more on how you got started, what I call your CEO story.

01:54 – Rachael Bush

Sure. So by trade, I guess my original career, I was actually in food service management. And again, you get put in these roles, you get bigger accounts, and they don't provide you an admin. They think that salary is enough to keep your work going, which is cool at times. However I realized that I wanted to step away from that work, but through the skills that I had, I created my business, which is Mova Business Solutions again, which provides contracted virtual administrative support to other business owners like myself. So yeah, just taking all the skills I had and being able to apply them to my clients has been the most thrilling opportunity over the past 4 years. So yeah, just took what I had learned from that, and then said, I'm gonna go start a business. So It's a great story, I guess, to continue to share. So just remind anyone that whatever you put your mind to, you can do it.

02:52 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, absolutely. And I think, too, 1 of the big things that I took away from your story as well is sometimes we don't realize what we have in place. We're always looking externally for we need to have this or we need to have that. But a lot of times we have what's already there. It's just a matter of kind of leaning forward in that opportunity. Sometimes we see something that's not being fulfilled.

03:10 – Rachael Bush

That's exactly it. Again, I had to look and see what skills I had and how I could apply them. And the fun fact was I was doing it for people for fun, just another way to get, you know, working through it. And then finally, 1 of my friends was like, you should get paid to do this. And I went, people get paid to do things online virtually for other people. And she's like, yes, do your research. So that's how that came about. I was just taking what I like doing and taking care of others.

03:42 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, absolutely. That's another great lesson. Make sure you have really good people around you so they can tell you when you have a potential opportunity so you can definitely seize it and make sure you're getting, you know, paid in order to do that.

03:54 – Rachael Bush

Yes, that's exactly it. Good people around you.

03:59 – Gresham Harkless

Absolutely. So, I know you touched on it a little bit and I did a little bit too, when I read your bio. Could you take us through a little bit more on what you do with your clients and how that process goes?

04:08 – Rachael Bush

Sure. First, I would say it's pretty built personally for each client. As I do, I take a consultation for all of them. What happens is usually clients come to me with a bunch of different problems of what's happening and how their work is going or where they need support. And I truly take the time to master down to at least what I know I can complete based on my skillset and build that for them. It starts in 2 different ways. The first 1 is again, that consultation. And then from that consultation, I've learned that my clients either just need support on a project or task, which I actually offer as a concierge package. So that gives them a good group of hours for them to, you know, we can get through to work together.

Or I offer what is my favorite part of the work, the project management audit and evaluation And implementation. So from that, you learn with other businesses, they have a lot of moving parts and it's really trying to find the right program for them to align that together so that no steps are taken care of them, you know, automatically without them trying to pull a bunch of work from behind the scenes. And so being able to interact with my clients and their small team, or if it's just them, and then find what works best for them has been, it's been great. Like, I don't know how to put it.

05:32 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. That makes so much sense. And I imagine it's been great for clients as well too, because I think when you get stressed, when you feel like you are juggling the world, the best thing that sometimes happens is when you can talk with somebody, have that consultation, and go through that process and learn about, okay, this is what you really need help with, and this is how I can help you. And that, I imagine, reduces the stress and probably makes people feel a lot better.

05:57 – Rachael Bush

Yes, and it definitely reduces the stress on me because you talk to somebody, and again, they're giving you so many different ones and you're like, well really, there might be 1 software that will handle all that for you and of course, as a business owner, they're in the operation knee deep, they don't have the space or the capacity to figure it out. And that's where I come in to help them create that and set that up as efficiently as possible. But then again, asking those probing questions, and seeing how the team interacts. My favorite, 1 of my clients always said, Rachel knows how to get me uncomfortable when I think I'm in a comfortable situation with the project work and you know really being able to ask those questions so we can deliver something good for them.

06:43 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, absolutely And I love that you said that because I think so many times also like having the knowledge as you said so well of the different systems. Cause I think a lot of times business owners sometimes don't even know that something exists that can kind of, you know, massage a lot of those things that are stressing us out. So I love that you have that knowledge, but you also have that it kind of sounds like listening ears to really understand and be able to connect those dots.

07:05 – Rachael Bush

Yes, first of all, I am a twin. I have a twin sister. So when you grow up with another person in your space, you have to listen because usually, people are talking to both of you at the same time. But also I definitely lead with a level of compassion when it comes to business owners, just because you really have to hear what they're saying in order to resolve that. And I'm a total systems nerd, So I've enjoyed learning new efficiency products and software is you know, I'm a I'm I love the trellis of the world's asanas acuity which I saw you use as well. So just being able to plug those in and support other business owners through that based on my expertise is again, it's just I'm thankful. I don't know what else to say. It's been wonderful.

07:53 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, it's absolutely golden and I say like those systems and processes and I call them hacks are really, really great but to have somebody who knows how to leverage them, that's golden in and of itself to really be able to take things to an entirely different level. So you might have already touched on this, but I wanted to ask you now for what I call your secret sauce. And this could be for yourself personally, or the business, or a combination of both. What do you feel kind of sets you apart from McChinique?

08:19 – Rachael Bush

Again, I just think it's an extreme personalization of the experience of working with my clients. Just being able to connect with them on that level. I think that's 1, that's a huge piece. And I totally credit, you know, my background, especially working in food service and customer service. You get all types of personalities that show up to you ranging from Help me create an event or I didn't like my chicken quesadilla and you're the 1 who needs to solve it. So just being able to experience all those personalities and really grow from those and say, okay, here's how I can apply it to the next step.

It's been a pleasure to be able to take that from my past work and put it into my current work. And it makes people realize that, you know, while you may not be the only client, you are that client in that moment, and helping you solve that problem is what's best. So I just think I'm pretty personable and I'm not fake. So there's a lot of authentic, you know, being genuine in those conversations that, you know, also, I think comes to the secret sauce. So you won't get that anywhere else.

09:26 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, absolutely. And I think that authenticity is definitely something that's huge. But as you know, the word that kept coming to my mind is that stress as we kind of talked about earlier. And I think when do you understand that? And as you talked about in your background, being able to kind of see that stress in the food services and be able to kind of alleviate some of that stress, I think in the business, I imagine you come across clients that have the stress of being able and trying to understand how to juggle a million things and to be able to just have a conversation to kind of be steady, so to speak, so that they are able to kind of lean into whatever solutions you're able to find is absolutely huge.

10:00 – Rachael Bush

That's exactly right, I couldn't have summarized that any better. Thank you for taking the words and putting it back out there for your audience. That's it, perfect.

10:09 – Gresham Harkless

Thank you. You're welcome, you're welcome. That's why we're recording this, that's for sure. Exactly. So I wanted to switch gears a little bit, and I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO hack, this is an opportunity for us to nerd out a little bit. So this could be like an app, a book, or a habit that you have, but what's something that makes you more effective and efficient?

10:28 – Rachael Bush

Oh, that is a wonderful question. So the first thing is as a CEO, I have to make time to plan. So I'm a huge planner, nerd, junkie, notebooks, you name it. So I actually currently use the Passion Planner, which is a minority-owned and based operation company in San Diego. I am in year 6 of using that. I credit that planner for helping me create my business or at least starting everything up from that. If we jump to apps, actually 1 of my newest finds, oh man, you're gonna get ready for this. It's called SunSama.

And I'm probably saying that wrong. But it's actually been around, if I read correctly 2013, it's been an app that's used, but being able to see my calendar and it syncs with all my other fun apps. So Trello, Asana, my Gmail calendar, my email, and literally I'm just dragging and pasting, you know, tasks into there. And I love to color code everything. I'm actually 2 weeks into that app and I'm completely in love with it.

11:41 – Gresham Harkless

So I wanted to ask you now for what I call CEO nugget. So this could be a word of wisdom or piece of advice, it might be something you would tell a client or if you hopped into a time machine, you might tell your younger business self.

11:52 – Rachael Bush

Well, my CEO nugget would just be to go ahead and do it.

11:57 – Gresham Harkless

I appreciate that.

11:58 – Rachael Bush

No problem.

11:59 – Gresham Harkless

Yes, And so I want to ask you now my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. And we're hoping to have different quote-unquote CEOs on the show. So Rachel, what does being a CEO mean to you?

12:11 – Rachael Bush

Oh, that's a first of all, that's a deep question. But I will say, you know, being a CEO is giving myself permission to do exactly what I know needs to be done. So it's really providing the opportunity to lead with passion and work with passion. I learned recently that I'm not an entrepreneur in regards to making businesses to sell businesses, but I'm actually a small business owner who enjoys doing the work that I'm in. So just being able to lead through that way has been, it's been the best thing I could ever ask for. I'm also at a point where I guess being a CEO also means you gotta be open to always learning.

So just because you have a CEO title in the beginning or at the end, wherever you put it, you have to always be learning. You gotta be a student. You have to, if you're not learning from somebody else, you're learning from a book, you're learning from an article, you're just always learning and then taking that and applying that to the work that you're doing is, yeah, it's great.

13:19 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, absolutely. I appreciate you, Sharon, you know, especially that learning piece because I think you always want to sharpen this all and get better and see how you could do that, whether that be like you said, book, video, course, podcast, whatever it might be, you know, getting that opportunity to really learn, you know, from others is absolutely huge. And I think that really understanding like as a quote-unquote CEO, small business owner, entrepreneur, whatever title we use, you get to kind of create the path that you decide to create. And that's something you can kind of have peace in and you can kind of lean into once you're able to understand this is exactly what I want my business or my life to look like and I appreciate you for doing that and reminding us of that too.

13:56 – Rachael Bush

Thank you. I was trying to figure out what that was gonna sound like but I'm glad it came out.

14:02 – Gresham Harkless

Hey, it came through loud and clear. Right, good. Absolutely. Well, Rachel, truly appreciate that definition. And I appreciate your time even more. What I wanted to do is just pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional you can let our readers and listeners know, and of course, how best they can get ahold of you and find out about all the awesome things you're working on.

14:21 – Rachael Bush

Thank you very much. So I would just say the best way to get in contact with me, I'm going to put right now my favorite, social media platform, which is LinkedIn. I do have a company page, Mova Business Solutions on LinkedIn. You can find me, Rachel Bush, R-A-C-H-A-E-L on LinkedIn as well. I also can be followed on Facebook Twitter or Instagram. And I like to keep it old-fashioned. You can email me at rachel at movasolutions.org or my business email, which is info at movasolutions.org. I feel like I'm missing 1 more category.

Or I, you know, I think that's it. Just stay in touch. Always trying to connect and, you know, build with others and if you're looking for anyone who is an efficiency expert in your business to find someone to help you build and implement proper project management software, please give me a shout-out. Or if you're looking for additional support for projects because hey, we are in a virtual world, so I don't have to look right at you anymore to do that work. So if you're looking for a full support system for those, please give me a ring or email. I love that.

15:41 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome, Awesome, Awesome. Well, I definitely appreciate that, Rachel. We will have the links and information in the show notes as well, just to make it even easier for people to reach out and connect with you. But like you said, I mean, I think we talked about like how a lot of times during disruptive times, there's loads of opportunities there. So I appreciate you for leaning into the opportunity in your business and also helping out so many people because like you said, we're in a virtual world and sometimes how to use these tools or even knowing that they exist is something that we all aren't aware of. So I appreciate you so much and using your talents and your gifts and being able to do that for so many others. So thank you so much again and I hope you have a great rest of the day.

16:17 – Outro

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts, SUBSCRIBE, and leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.

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