IAM2473 – Virtual Assistant Supports Small Business Owners With Online Office Support Services

Melissa St. Clair

00:00 - 00:29

I primarily help solopreneurs in all areas of their small business operations, communication, and administration. So some examples of that would be business-to-business or business-to-customer correspondence, such as press releases for a special event or new news within your growing business, or if you're speaking or writing, some of that support to go along with research or presentation planning.

Intro

00:31 - 00:57

Are you ready to hear business stories and learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and level up your business from awesome CEOs, entrepreneurs, and founders without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresh values your time and is ready to share with you the valuable info you're in search of. This is the I am CEO podcast.

Gresham Harkless

00:58 - 01:05

Hello, hello, hello. This is Gresh from the I am CEO podcast, and I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Melissa St. Clair of Paper Chaser.

Gresham Harkless

01:05 - 01:15

Melissa, it's awesome to have you on the show. Thanks so much. No problem, super excited to have you on. And what I wanted to do was just read a little bit more about Melissa so you can hear about all the awesome things that she's doing.

Gresham Harkless

01:16 - 01:42

And a certified virtual expert, Melissa St. Clair is the owner of Paper Chaser, a virtual based company established in 2006, providing a wide array of online office support services for small business owners. She made a beeline to entrepreneurship in order to thrive professionally alongside her active duty service member, and then made a seamless transition as a United States Marine Corps retiree spouse. Thank you.

Gresham Harkless

01:42 - 01:57

Melissa has been featured speaker, has shared her small business expertise on multiple media platforms, and she was quoted in Julie Perrin's book, Become a Procedure Pro. Melissa, are you ready to speak to the IMCO community?

Melissa St. Clair

01:58 - 02:00

I sure am. I couldn't be more ready.

Gresham Harkless

02:00 - 02:05

Awesome. Let's do it. So I wanted to start everything off with what I call your CEO story and what led you to start your business.

Melissa St. Clair

02:06 - 02:32

So you got a little snapshot of that in the bio. As a military spouse, I wanted to have a career and work alongside my active duty service member. But moving from place to place, it's difficult for a spouse to start and stop all the time. So I discovered the virtual assistant industry back in 2006 and said, how can I make this work for me?

Melissa St. Clair

02:32 - 02:51

13 years later, it's been a tremendous, portable career for me. So using my executive assistant and management skills and then the technology was becoming available around that time to make those kinds of innovations possible for the workforce.

Gresham Harkless

02:53 - 03:08

Yeah, absolutely. And it kind of sounds like you were definitely ahead of the curve. I would say, you know, in 2006, being able to start offering, you know, those virtual assistant services, like you mentioned, the technology was just starting to emerge and you could do, you know, cool things like this. So definitely it seems like you did it at the perfect time.

Melissa St. Clair

03:09 - 03:13

Yeah, it was great timing. And again, it's been an ideal portable career, so.

Gresham Harkless

03:14 - 03:23

Absolutely. Absolutely. So I know you touched on it a little bit, but could you tell us a little bit more on like how you support the clients and some of the things that they can expect to get from working with you?

Melissa St. Clair

03:23 - 03:56

Sure. So as a virtual assistant, um, I primarily help solopreneurs, um, in all areas of their small business operations, communication and administration. So some examples of that would be business to business, um, or business to customer correspondence. such as press releases for a special event or new news within your growing business, or if you're speaking or writing, some of that support to go along with research or presentation planning.

Melissa St. Clair

03:57 - 04:30

So in the operations area, those standard operating procedures, they are not spicy. But they certainly are a necessity, really starting even before day one, I feel, as a small business owner and developing, helping to develop that operations manual. And then in administration, just some of those general administrative office functions that the business owner doesn't necessarily have to dedicate their time to the back office functions.

Gresham Harkless

04:31 - 04:45

Yeah, and I find that you can definitely correct me if I'm wrong. I'm basically just talking about myself. Sometimes you don't like doing all the paperwork and all those things, and you get the opportunity to really focus on where your strengths are when you have somebody on your team just like yourselves to be able to do that.

Melissa St. Clair

04:46 - 04:51

Absolutely. Yes. There are some people that like paperwork and I happen to be one of them.

Gresham Harkless

04:51 - 04:51

So

Melissa St. Clair

04:51 - 04:52

yeah.

Gresham Harkless

04:52 - 05:02

Yeah, absolutely. So it's kind of like a match made in heaven. So now I wanted to ask you for what I call your secret sauce and it could be for you or your organization, but what do you feel kind of makes you unique?

Melissa St. Clair

05:03 - 05:43

So I feel like I offer the advocacy and building an alliance with my clients because I want to see their small business grow and anything I can do to help them further their journey and their business and make life as easy as possible for them. Becoming that collaborative partner, because my mission is to help my clients save time and money, reducing their workload, And like you said focusing your energy on the parts of business that you're passionate about and maybe delegating some of those things that You don't necessarily want to do or have to do so

Gresham Harkless

05:44 - 06:05

Absolutely, and I think that you know the the sooner that you're able to kind of figure that out and get somebody that's trustworthy like yourself, you know under and working with the business definitely helps out a tremendous amount because I you get to stay in your zone of genius, so to speak, and work at where you're really good at working, and it can't help but continue to have the business to grow and be successful.

Melissa St. Clair

06:05 - 06:24

Exactly, and small business owners might find themselves working with more than one independent contractor in those areas, special niches, web design, graphic design, things that they really need taken care of, but they may not necessarily do or struggle with.

Gresham Harkless

06:25 - 06:49

Yeah, absolutely. So, yeah, I definitely think it's something that, like I said, you know, something that is definitely changing a lot more and it has changed. Well, I think you were definitely, you know, ahead of the curve because I didn't necessarily even hear about virtual assistants before that. So being able to kind of transition from your executive assistant role and then being able to start a business and then, of course, be able to travel as well, too, with your husband helps out a lot.

Melissa St. Clair

06:50 - 06:51

Yes, definitely.

Gresham Harkless

06:53 - 07:02

I wanted to switch gears a little bit and ask you for what I call a CEO hack. And this might be like an Apple book or a habit that you have, but it's something that makes you more effective and efficient.

Melissa St. Clair

07:03 - 07:29

So I couldn't narrow it down to just one, so I have to share two. Absolutely. First and foremost, my Google calendar, because I can access it anywhere. And calendar management is key for me because I often work with a half a dozen to a dozen different business owners each month, and it helps me to really plan and manage my time, personal and professional, because I

Melissa St. Clair

07:29 - 07:52

like to get a workout in when I can, so I definitely block that out too, because you have to stay healthy as a CEO. And then number two is Dropbox because I use it to share everything in the cloud with my clients. So I would definitely emphasize the calendar and some kind of cloud share mechanism. Mine just happens to be Dropbox.

Gresham Harkless

07:53 - 08:10

Yeah, because I can imagine, you know, for me, I started to try to mix up as many things digital as possible because sometimes I would write stuff down and I couldn't find it. So I was like, if I just put everything, make it a practice to put it in the Dropbox, you can always find it, make sure it's organized. And of course, I swear by my calendar as well. So I think that's a great hack.

Gresham Harkless

08:11 - 08:22

Yeah, thanks. No problem. And now I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO nugget. And this is a word of wisdom or piece of advice, or if you can hop into a time machine, what would you tell your younger business self?

Melissa St. Clair

08:23 - 08:30

Oh my goodness. Okay. So I think I'll share my three B's for success. Nice.

Melissa St. Clair

08:31 - 08:42

The first B is to be present. And that is so hard to do with so many distractions in life. So be present. Uh, and then the second B is be persistent.

Melissa St. Clair

08:43 - 09:05

Um, you know, staying focused, don't give up, you know, keep your eye on the fries and, you know, keep your eye on the five o'clock and getting as much done as you can. Um, and then the third B of the three B's for success would be positive. It's because attitude is, is half the battle. So that, that's, uh, just my words of wisdom.

Gresham Harkless

09:05 - 09:27

I love that it could be three B's or three P's because you said persistent, present and positive. So I absolutely love that. And things like that help me to remember, but I think it's so important, especially, you know, the everyday quote unquote grind of running a business and all the things that can pop up that you have to make sure that you're persistent sometimes to fight through to get to your goals.

Gresham Harkless

09:27 - 09:39

And you have to be present and making sure that you are, you know, looking ahead and have one eye ahead, but you definitely want to be in the here and now and take care of those things. And of course, you have to be positive or, you know, you kind of forget why you're doing some of the things you're doing.

Melissa St. Clair

09:40 - 09:52

Exactly. And, you know, the, the trend used to be to kind of multitask, but now I think that single tasking and, you know, being present and focused is just really the way to go.

Gresham Harkless

09:52 - 10:07

Yeah, absolutely. Cause I've heard that, um, you don't actually get as much as you think you get done. And I'm talking to myself, basically. You have all these tabs and stuff open that, you know, being able to laser focus for even if it's a short period of time, take a break and stuff can make you even more effective.

Melissa St. Clair

10:08 - 10:08

Exactly.

Gresham Harkless

10:09 - 10:20

Yeah, that makes sense. So now I wanted to ask you 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 Melissa, I want to ask you, what does being a CEO mean to you?

Melissa St. Clair

10:22 - 10:47

Okay, being a CEO to me means helping others, doing the work that I love with the freedom and flexibility on my own terms. So again, helping them grow, but growing and learning myself and having that flexibility during the day to balance personal and professional.

Gresham Harkless

10:48 - 11:03

Absolutely, that makes sense. And I imagine just because you have so many different types of clients and probably different stages as well too, you probably have to be somebody that's very flexible and gets to experience and work with a lot of different types of businesses, a lot of different types of personalities as well too.

Melissa St. Clair

11:04 - 11:08

Yes, and that's what I love. I get to work with so many great small business owners, so.

Gresham Harkless

11:08 - 11:19

Yes, absolutely. Well, Melissa, I truly appreciate your time. What I wanted to do was pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional you want to let the readers and listeners know, and then of course, how best they can get ahold of you.

Melissa St. Clair

11:20 - 11:50

Okay, so I guess my final piece of sage would be if you only write one standard operating procedure, write your ICE, that in case of emergency, to be sure that you can direct the disposition of your business either on a short or long-term basis in your absence. So right, right from day one, know how to handle any kind of emergency. And eventually you're going to want to take time off.

Melissa St. Clair

11:50 - 12:01

So knowing how to, uh, incorporate that into your planning. So, um, that's what I would say is my final, uh, feather in the hat.

Gresham Harkless

12:02 - 12:20

Nice. I absolutely love that. And that's something that, you know, you never really think about, you know, as a business owner, if emergencies happen and they always happen, but you never really prepare, but. have an opportunity to, as you said, you know, write that SOP so that you can understand that if something does happen, then ABCD will, you know, happen as a, as an effect of that.

Melissa St. Clair

12:21 - 12:41

Exactly. Yes. Unfortunately, I have two colleagues that have had some personal crisis and one is just completely stalled and people are just, you know, hands up wondering what's happening. And if you can do that forward planning, you know, please, that's, I can't stress it enough to write that ICE in case of emergency.

Gresham Harkless

12:42 - 12:48

Absolutely. Make sure to write the ICE. And then for people that want to reach out to you and contact you, what's the best way for them to do that?

Melissa St. Clair

12:49 - 13:00

You can connect with me through my website. That's paperchaserbiz.com. www.paperchaserbiz.com. Make a beeline.

Gresham Harkless

13:01 - 13:09

Awesome. That's make a beeline and we'll make sure to have that link as well in the show notes so that anybody can follow up with you. But Melissa, I truly appreciate you and I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

Intro

13:10 - 13:26

Thanks, same to you. Thank you for listening to the I am CEO podcast powered by CB Nation and Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at imceo.co. I am CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community.

Intro

13:27 - 13:47

Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, and everywhere you listen to podcasts. Subscribe and leave us a five-star rating. This has been the I Am CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless Jr. Thank you for listening.