Episode 17: From unfulfilled dreams to living your dream life w/ Molly Rose Speed

Welcome to the 17th episode of the Self-Employment Success Podcast. My guest on today’s podcast is Molly Rose Speed. Molly Rose is the owner and founder of Virtual Assistant Academy and Virtual Assistant Management, two companies created to train and place high quality, professional virtual assistants with business owners looking to make a hire. What is unique to Molly Rose is that she is both a small business owner and a virtual assistant herself, so she truly has the knowledge and experience to train VA’s in a way that can provide massive value to the employer, while creating a fulfilling, profitable, and flexible career for the VA’s themselves. In this episode Molly tells her story of building these businesses. She details how she was in unfulfilling jobs, in a constant state of dissatisfaction. How she had big dreams of traveling, living life to the fullest, and creating a career around her life, not a life around her career. And how being a military spouse and all that that demands led her to realize that she wouldn’t be able to do that in a traditional office or 9-5 position. Thus she became a virtual assistant. She also explains how others, having seen her flexibility and success, asked what her secret was, thus birthing these companies. And be sure to listen in as Molly Rose provides nuggets of wisdom and advice to anybody interested in becoming a Virtual Assistant, and anybody looking to hire help for their business. So with that introduction, I hope you enjoy this episode of the Self-Employment Success Podcast with Molly Rose Speed.

LINKS

PeaceLink Financial Planning
Virtual Assistant Academy

TRANSCRIPT

Leland Gross CFP® (00:01.139)

All right, welcome Molly Rose to the Self-Employment Success Podcast.

Molly Rose Speed (00:05.254)

Hi Leland, I'm so happy to be here. Thanks for having me today.

Leland Gross CFP® (00:08.375)

Of course, I'm excited for our conversation. Before we hit record, we were talking about how I think this is gonna be exciting, because not only are you self-employed, but you work with self-employed people as well. And we'll get deeper into that. So to get started, tell the listeners a little bit about yourself and your business and kind of where it stands today.

Molly Rose Speed (00:29.686)

Yeah, absolutely. So I am the founder of virtual assistant management. It's a placement agency for certified virtual assistants and the creator of virtual assistant academy, which is a certification program for virtual assistants. I'm really trying to professionalize the space that we all know as virtual assistants because there's not a lot of that out there. And so it's been a wild ride getting here, started in corporate finance, you know, have kind of a similar background as you and.

took a turn and now I'm helping people in the online space.

Leland Gross CFP® (01:01.291)

I love that. So yeah, tell us a little bit about your journey. You just hearing that like how did you get from corporate finance where in a lot of the corporate finance world you don't have virtual assistants there. We just have assistants. And so how did you get from that world to where you are now?

Molly Rose Speed (01:13.054)

Yeah. Assistance, yeah.

Molly Rose Speed (01:19.55)

Yes. So after college, I had three jobs in about four years. Corporate finance, I was a manager at Target, which was wildly fun and crazy. And not giving a 24-year-old keys to a Target store is insane. But anyway, and then back to finance. And I'm a military spouse. I was engaged to a guy in the military. And he was on his fourth deployment. You know, we're 25 years old. And I realized, I'm like, this is not.

Leland Gross CFP® (01:30.317)

I can only imagine.

Molly Rose Speed (01:47.874)

going to work. This isn't the life that I want to have. I want to be able to travel when he's gone. I want to be, if we're moving around the country, I want to be able to take my career with me. And I just kind of saw a dead end path in a lot of ways. So I quit Cold Turkey and became what we all know now as a virtual assistant. I had no idea what that was back then. This was 12 years ago. And just started supporting all sorts of entrepreneurs from speakers to authors to financial.

Leland Gross CFP® (01:49.097)

Mmm.

Leland Gross CFP® (01:59.633)

Mm.

Molly Rose Speed (02:15.842)

in the finance industry to real estate agents to coaches, you name it, and it continues. And along the way, I had several peers, military spouses, seeing my life, seeing me travel abroad, working remote, making good money. And they just kept asking, how do I do what you do? And so that's kind of what birthed this virtual assistant academy as it stands now. It's been through several iterations and then really trying to, like I said, professionalize this career path for the people that want this flexible opportunity.

Leland Gross CFP® (02:46.023)

Yeah, we so I'm located in Virginia Beach, Virginia, and Virginia Beach in Norfolk is a huge military area. And so a lot of the people I work with and just a lot of friends and neighbors are on that every couple of years you move or, you know, you're a military spouse and you might have kids and your spouse is gone. And so it's like, well, how do I work and do like parenting and daycare and things like that? And so it really is.

Molly Rose Speed (02:50.742)

Yeah, okay.

Leland Gross CFP® (03:15.859)

so hard for military spouses to keep a standard office career. And so I think that's so creative. But you said that you weren't really aware of what virtual assistant was. So you realize, OK, what I'm doing, there's a dead end that I'm going to hit with our lifestyle, with his career. How did you just pick up a computer one day and talk to a small business owner? Like, what happened there?

Molly Rose Speed (03:19.116)

Yeah.

Molly Rose Speed (03:29.986)

Yeah.

Molly Rose Speed (03:44.542)

Yeah. So, um, my, I went, attended a conference called succeed faster. It doesn't exist anymore, but it was about 150 I call high potential senior in college to, you know, first two to three years out. And the guys that started the conference just were bringing us together to teach us those skills that we don't really learn in college. The, the, how to connect with people, remember their name, uh,

Leland Gross CFP® (03:45.562)

get you in that world.

Molly Rose Speed (04:11.062)

going big, big dreams, what do you want out of your life, all that type of stuff. And along the way, I heard the term entrepreneur, which again, 12 years ago, people weren't just doing this rapidly, becoming entrepreneurs and making their own money. Now it's common. And I was like, wait a minute, you mean I can get paid for services that I know? Like this is interesting, also called freelancing, you know, entrepreneurship's a little bit more than that. And so,

Leland Gross CFP® (04:13.847)

Mm-hmm.

Leland Gross CFP® (04:26.76)

Mm-hmm.

Leland Gross CFP® (04:36.422)

Yeah.

Molly Rose Speed (04:39.39)

I kind of knew that in the back of my head. I was educated on that a little bit. And then driving back to work the next four months, my life was changed. My mindset was changed and I realized, this is not gonna work for me anymore. I was crying, I was so sad. I was just depressed pretty much. And my mom said, what's the worst gonna happen? I'll always feed you and you always have a roof over your head. Quit your job and come home, get married and all those things. And so my husband comes home from deployment to an unemployed.

Leland Gross CFP® (04:52.489)

Oh no.

Molly Rose Speed (05:05.494)

fiance and he's like okay you got four to six months to figure this out I love you it's gonna be okay all those things so within three months that same conference one of the connections I made there power of making connections he was crowdfunding for a student loan documentary and they needed a social media manager to raise $75,000 through social media awareness and all of that and I applied for it created this little video interview I spent a whole day doing it and they hired me

And it was a pretty decent retainer, you know, not what I was making it corporate, but I just figured it out. I, that was my first little taste of making my own money. And that's what snowballed everything forward. And we did a great job. We raised our money. The documentary made it on CNBC. My name was in it, you know, all those cool things that I didn't even expect. So just that little taste of like, okay, I can do this. And then it snowballed into being his assistant, the founder of that film. And then he referred a bunch of people and then.

Leland Gross CFP® (05:52.415)

That's awesome.

Molly Rose Speed (06:03.05)

the trail just kind of started.

Leland Gross CFP® (06:04.603)

Yeah, it is amazing how in the virtual assistant world specifically, you just get in one door and do a good job and it's like, oh my gosh, well, you know, I've got this other person who is looking for the same amount or like the same work or similar work and, you know, I pay you for X amount of hours or services, like you should also work with them, which is so cool. Okay, so you're doing it yourself. Other friends, acquaintances are seeing you.

Molly Rose Speed (06:27.478)

Mm-hmm.

Leland Gross CFP® (06:33.927)

and saying, wow, okay, she's kind of got the whole package, like the freedom and the money and the consistency of work, like regardless of where she's living. And at this point, like, you begin to think, okay, I could make this into a business, like, essentially headhunting for virtual assistants or making connection staffing. How did that begin, like, practically?

Molly Rose Speed (06:39.53)

Yep.

Molly Rose Speed (07:04.182)

Yeah, yeah. So I kind of say one too many Starbucks dates. I was, people were saying, can I take you to coffee and learn about this? Can I, and I was like, okay, I need to package this. So first came training, um, the virtual assistants in the way that I wanted them to be educated, right? The skillsets that I wanted them to have, how I wanted them to show up in their business, really that professional approach. So, so that was, you know, we're in this course creator economy too. And so kind of jumped into that.

Leland Gross CFP® (07:23.991)

Hmm.

Molly Rose Speed (07:31.65)

and was pretty successful in getting several students enrolled. We're up to 150 now and growing. And then I'd say it took about two years. You know, I taught first and then within two years, I kept having entrepreneurs that I'd meet at conferences or, or my own clients, clients saying, you have, you have all these virtual assistants you trained, are you going to place them? Can I have one of them? So I'd, you know, make the referrals here and there. And then I realized, wait a second, this is, this is a business.

Leland Gross CFP® (07:59.071)

This is also something I should be getting paid on. Ha ha ha.

Molly Rose Speed (08:02.214)

Yes, because it is it's a lot of work and there's a lot there's a really a lot of technique into making the perfect placement So that's what births virtual assistant management and so we have both kind of sides So we're serving the clients and now serving the students as well

Leland Gross CFP® (08:18.571)

So did you start with the Academy or did you start with the staffing? So you started with Virtual Assistant Academy first. Okay, man, genius. And what are, I mean, I can imagine that in the Virtual Assistant world, there's so many skills. You've got people who do writing, who do social media, who like do calendars, and I mean, email, way more. I mean, I just feel like you name it, you can find a Virtual Assistant who can probably do it for you.

Molly Rose Speed (08:24.261)

Yes, correct. Yep.

Leland Gross CFP® (08:48.639)

So have you like, niched down into anything? Like my virtual assistants kind of do this, or are you like, what does that training look like? I can just imagine there's so many skills that someone would need.

Molly Rose Speed (09:00.782)

Yeah, great question. So I wanted to have the general virtual assistant because the clients that were coming to me and the ones that I serve, it's kind of your jack of all trades. It's that business owner that's hiring for their first hire. They need someone that does more than one thing, right? They don't want to hire five people. They want to hire one. So you named several of them. So I have eight core competencies that we train to and then from there, the virtual assistants kind of forge their own paths and I have advanced, you know,

Leland Gross CFP® (09:13.879)

Mm-hmm.

Molly Rose Speed (09:30.558)

course creation or website development or sales and negotiation, things like that, that your VA can really be doing for you, the right VA can be doing for you. But some of the basic things are, like you said, email, inbox management, so inbox zero, something I teach, calendar scheduling, travel booking, email, CRM systems on a basic level, so broadcast and some funnel work and tagging.

Research and doing KPIs for your business. So how are you growing, running your stats? What else do I have? Project management. So you have a vision, you want something executed, they can help you kind of flush out all the tasks that need to be done and then help you with all of those tasks. So that's just a number of them that, oh, and basic bookkeeping. I should know these off the top of my head. But yeah, there's a lot, right? And then it just kind of goes from there. And then the other side of it is the tech, right? We all use different softwares.

Leland Gross CFP® (10:21.163)

Gosh.

Leland Gross CFP® (10:25.819)

Yeah, that's when you said CRM, that's what I was thinking about. I'm like, there's Salesforce, but then there's like a million others that go per industry, you know? So what is what does that look like when you're thinking like, how do I train people on all these different

Molly Rose Speed (10:33.811)

Yes, yes.

Molly Rose Speed (10:38.722)

Just, yeah, yeah. So I, something like CRMs, I teach very high level what you need to know, what a CRM is, how it works, what's important about it. And then I dig into Active Campaign, which is different than a CRM, but kind of does the same thing. Less skill or less options than something like Salesforce. But the beauty of once you kind of understand it and know how you're.

it's going to benefit the client. What you need to know about it is all these companies have insane training. Salesforce has one of the best training academies for a software that I've ever done. So I'm able to kind of direct them on what they need to go do next.

Leland Gross CFP® (11:08.245)

Mm-hmm.

Leland Gross CFP® (11:16.523)

Kind of like how you said, once we have the core competencies, they can kind of run with it, and there's sort of the advanced. They can sort of niche themselves down, and you can kind of guide them in that direction.

Molly Rose Speed (11:20.775)

Yep. Correct.

Molly Rose Speed (11:26.278)

Yes, yes, absolutely.

Leland Gross CFP® (11:28.019)

Man, okay, so when you opened the doors for the Academy, were you thinking this is gonna become my new gig or was it like, I'm gonna still be a virtual assistant myself and this will kind of be a fun side thing? Because it sounds like that has now advanced to be like primarily what you're doing. Are you still doing any virtual assisting yourself?

Molly Rose Speed (11:42.463)

EGGS

Molly Rose Speed (11:49.754)

Yeah, yeah, I am. I have one client and I run the whole business. So it's a great, it's a great thing. And it keeps me, keeps me fresh, right? It keeps me, yes, yes. COO, yep, exactly. Or CEO, I'll take that title too, but really I am. I'm, and so it's a different, it's way high level and more than being a virtual assistant. And that's the beauty of this career. I started with honestly, calendar scheduling and email management. And now I know how to run up, you know,

Leland Gross CFP® (11:58.195)

You're a virtual CEO.

Molly Rose Speed (12:20.146)

seven-figure business for somebody. So I taught, you know, the growth is there. So to answer your question though, I started it just to fill the need of all my peers and it was super low cost. I was like, okay, I just want to get you trained, give you something to get started. And then it kind of just took off and so that's what allowed me to go into more iterations, get really deep into it, really kind of look at the curriculum and what we were teaching. And now it's, it makes up more than...

half of my work, so it's awesome.

Leland Gross CFP® (12:51.223)

is so cool. And when you first launched, I mean, 150 people is huge. Like, how did that growth, how long has the Academy been around, what was the growth like there? For something kind of creating something that like then grows to become your main thing, was that, well, I had more people than I anticipated, was it, you know.

Molly Rose Speed (13:03.71)

Yep, super slow.

Molly Rose Speed (13:15.358)

It was super slow and candidly that marketing is one of the hardest things we do in our businesses. So it's just been really organic. I have done some online marketing and that's really opened the gates for me. But a lot of our business has been referral, word of mouth, and we've gotten such good quality of people to come through because of that. So that's been really, really great. And not everyone that comes through the virtual.

Leland Gross CFP® (13:22.412)

Hmm.

Leland Gross CFP® (13:31.723)

Hmm.

Molly Rose Speed (13:41.41)

the virtual assistant academy joins the management team because we also teach you how to go do this on your own. You can run with it. So it's been a slow moving thing. The academy has been around, I'd say, just under six years. So not a huge influx at one time.

Leland Gross CFP® (13:56.522)

Okay.

Leland Gross CFP® (14:00.071)

Yeah. But at this point it feels like, you know, it's now at the point, like kind of a slow growth situation. How long has the management team been there?

Molly Rose Speed (14:12.522)

Uh, little pre COVID. So three years, two and a half years. I should know these numbers. Um, and that's been really exciting. Yeah.

Leland Gross CFP® (14:22.499)

Yeah, I can only imagine. And what does that look like ongoing? Like is it for you as the business owner or as someone if they're listening to this being like, I want to do this? Is it you take just a one time like fee for the connection? Is it you are the company is hiring virtual assistant management for their assistant and you're providing it and they're paying you their comp? Like how does

How is that structured?

Molly Rose Speed (14:52.99)

Yeah, so we have two different models and you just laid them out. So we have a direct hire model. So if you know without a doubt, this is the right person, you're gonna bring them into your team, potentially end up making them a W-2, but most of our VAs are paid on a 1099. We have a one-time fee that you can pay for the placement, just like a headhunter fee. Or we have a more flexible option, which is our agency model, where exactly that, you pay a smaller placement fee.

Leland Gross CFP® (14:55.731)

Okay, perfect.

Molly Rose Speed (15:19.274)

and then there's an hourly rate for a dedicated virtual assistant. So we don't run a service where you put your tasks in a queue and a random VA is going to grab it. You have a dedicated person that becomes a part of your team. And a lot of times, if they do the agency model, they end up directly hiring them down the road. It's more cost effective in the long, long run. But yeah, so you have the flexibility. And also the beauty of the agency is if it doesn't work out,

Leland Gross CFP® (15:28.22)

Mm-hmm.

Leland Gross CFP® (15:36.572)

Mm-hmm.

Molly Rose Speed (15:46.506)

we can replace someone rather quickly because we're involved in it, know your account and all of that.

Leland Gross CFP® (15:50.799)

Oh yeah, I can imagine if you are making your first hire, like you said, my key clientele are those business owners making their first hire. And a lot of times in my experience with the people that I serve, a lot of times they get to their first hiring, they don't really know what they need. Like they haven't, they know they need help, but they don't know like, what is the type of person that I need? How do I do this? And so I can imagine that agency model is so helpful to be like.

Molly Rose Speed (15:59.363)

Mm-hmm.

Molly Rose Speed (16:06.851)

Yeah.

Leland Gross CFP® (16:17.523)

Hey, I have this person I'm realizing it's not a good fit for X, Y, Z reason that I hadn't thought of before, but there's someone else who kind of fits that skill set or gift set or even just personality profile. You know?

Molly Rose Speed (16:29.266)

Yep. Yeah. You're really nailing all the things we cover before I can even say it. It's exactly what we do. No, it's perfect. No, it's wonderful. I'm happy that it's understood on your side. So yeah, that's exactly what we do. So when we bring a new client in, if they're unclear that, you know, a lot of times a coach or someone's told them, you really need a virtual assistant, like you need some help. You know, you're giving up your life and your client work suffering or whatever it is, and that's specifically going on. And then to your point.

Leland Gross CFP® (16:36.202)

Oh, I should but...

Leland Gross CFP® (16:51.741)

Mm-hmm.

Molly Rose Speed (16:59.094)

They say, I don't even know, I'm so overwhelmed, I don't even know what I would give them, or it's gonna take me time to give that thing to them. So we have a really good process of flushing out of you kind of what you need to do. And for those listening, what I recommend you doing on your own is kind of taking a week and writing down all the things that you do. Just have a notepad next to your desk. I know it sounds tedious, but it's really eye-opening to come back to it and look at it and say, wow, I'm doing all of this stuff? Like, I shouldn't be doing.

Leland Gross CFP® (17:05.719)

Mm-hmm.

Molly Rose Speed (17:28.086)

this and this and this and that's what really starts to create your job description. Then as you said, then there comes personality set, what time zone are they in, what hours do you want them to work, what capacity, how many hours per week, all of that plays into that job description that we help you with.

Leland Gross CFP® (17:46.555)

It is so that exercise that you said is so helpful. I personally actually did that earlier this summer because I'm trying to work with my assistant and we're bringing on a paraplanner. So I was trying to figure out like who's gonna do what and what are all the different things. So someone encouraged me write down every task you do throughout a week. And it was tedious. It wasn't as tedious as I thought because as I'm doing things I'm like, oh, this is something I haven't written down.

And it was amazing how many things I do that aren't like revenue generating. Or if I'm thinking like as the business owner, I need to be spending my time doing the things that propel the business forward, really drive the mission of the business, but I'm doing all these things that like if I were to place an hourly rate on my time, aren't worth that hourly rate, if that makes sense. And so, um, I think that that's just a wise.

Molly Rose Speed (18:20.366)

Mm-hmm.

Molly Rose Speed (18:39.339)

Yes, absolutely.

Leland Gross CFP® (18:44.091)

encouragement of like really look at your business transparently saying, which takes work and say, what are you doing and are the tasks you're doing worth your time as the owner, as the primary person in this organization or in this even small business, solopreneur business?

Molly Rose Speed (19:04.138)

Yes. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And if you think about, there's also the control. There's two other things that people get hung up on. One is control, right? It's your baby. It's your business. You started it. You've been doing it for years. And how could you let someone else do it? Well, the people that you're hiring should be better at it than you way more efficient. You know, when I check someone's email, I can zip through it. Versus when they're sitting next to me working on it, they get in their head.

They add more detail, they ask questions. It's like, nope, let's just get through this and keep moving forward. That's an example of something where you get slowed down. And then the other thing is the investment piece, right? Like, okay, but you just kind of hit the nail on the head. If you're able to use that time then to go get a new client or do business development or provide a service at an hourly rate that's far more than what you can pay a virtual assistant, you're ahead.

Leland Gross CFP® (19:35.76)

Mm-hmm.

Leland Gross CFP® (19:56.327)

Yeah, I totally agree. A question popped in my mind. Do you have a virtual assistant for yourself for the Academy and Management System?

Molly Rose Speed (20:04.206)

Hehehe

Molly Rose Speed (20:08.55)

I do. And a lot of the things I just said, I struggled with too, right? I was like, wow, this is what they actually mean when they talk about like, I can't give this up. I'm like, I was struggling with the same exact thing. So it was a really, this just happened in the past year actually. Um, and yeah, I do.

Leland Gross CFP® (20:09.655)

It's good.

Leland Gross CFP® (20:26.399)

I love when someone takes their own advice and I think a lot of especially business owners need to do that. I find like financial advisors are like the worst clients of themselves, if that makes sense. But for you, I can imagine like what was it? All the things you were saying like, it's my baby, I can't give this up. But also you being like the professional virtual assistant.

Molly Rose Speed (20:37.913)

Oh yeah, yeah. Mm-hmm.

Leland Gross CFP® (20:54.135)

can probably do email better than the virtual. Like you cannot do all these skills that you're hiring someone to do better than them because you're the one that trained them to do it. And so like, what was that like? I guess similarly like having to hold loosely some of these things.

Molly Rose Speed (20:59.818)

That's true.

Yeah, it's been.

Molly Rose Speed (21:11.354)

Yeah, I think, like I said, I really related to the clients that are like, this is, I can't fill my hours, you know, cause I just kept doing it. Um, and I had, I've, I have a good virtual assistant who would come to me and say, okay, but you're working on Fridays and you don't want to be, or you're, you know, it's seven 30 and you're responding to me. This is why I'm here, you know? So, so they're actually making me realize like, yeah, I can pop an email and.

Leland Gross CFP® (21:33.207)

Hmm

Molly Rose Speed (21:37.91)

get this done or I can schedule all my podcast interviews, but that took me an hour and a half when I could have gotten through my work and been off at 3 30. Like I desire to, you know, each day. So it's a time thing. If you don't get that support, you're never going to get that time freedom. That was the whole reason we have it.

Leland Gross CFP® (21:50.025)

Mm-hmm.

Leland Gross CFP® (21:54.423)

that I think that is a profound thought for all business owners is people go people start their business nine times out of ten the clients that I work with started their business with a vision of freedom like I'm not an employee I'm not restricted to a desk eight to five I get to work wherever make my own destiny and there's this image in the back of your head of like

Molly Rose Speed (22:00.887)

Yeah.

Leland Gross CFP® (22:21.355)

then I can have other people run the business or I can kind of be freed up in my own time. But then you see the entrepreneurs are the ones working 60 hours a week and doing all these things and it's really hard to step away and say, I started this so that I could take Fridays off. I started this so that I could be home early or travel. And that's kind of like the bait and switch of entrepreneurship. And so...

Molly Rose Speed (22:44.098)

and they don't do it.

Leland Gross CFP® (22:49.735)

You're right, like having someone come in and say, this is why I'm here. Like you can live by your values. For you to actually carry out the fullness of the stream, like you've got the baby of the business and it's doing well and you're running it. But for you to get the benefit of the business, which is why you started it, you need to delegate it. Like you need to give up these things. And it's hard and I find business owners wait too long to hire.

Molly Rose Speed (23:09.922)

Exactly. Yeah.

Leland Gross CFP® (23:18.643)

And they get to the point where they're like, now I don't have time to train someone. And so I love that like for you, they're getting someone who's like already been trained for the most part, like the pre-packaged deal, you know?

Molly Rose Speed (23:18.893)

Oh yeah.

Yes, yes.

Molly Rose Speed (23:27.678)

Yes, for the most part. Mm-hmm.

Molly Rose Speed (23:32.37)

Yeah. Um, and this might resonate more to the females listening, although maybe, maybe the males too, I think also having a virtual assistant, it's like giving yourself permission to receive. I know that sounds kind of woo woo, but I was just doing some personal development work yesterday in a program I'm part of, and that's what it was all about. We were talking about just receiving the help or receiving the gift. Right. And it's like that that's also been something that came up for me. That's like, it is okay to get help. I don't have to do everything. So I think it's.

Leland Gross CFP® (23:52.674)

Mmm

Molly Rose Speed (24:01.43)

as business owners, that's also something to kind of look internally about.

Leland Gross CFP® (24:05.147)

Yeah, I think that is, yeah, I just completely agree with that for women, I think, especially women who are like, kind of fed the message of like, you need to be a mom and like a CEO and like have it all together. And for men who are business owners and have like the like so much of our identities wrapped up in work that we're like, I have to be the one to do this. And so to just be able to be like, no, you don't. Like, that's

Molly Rose Speed (24:07.928)

Yeah.

Molly Rose Speed (24:16.354)

Yeah.

Molly Rose Speed (24:22.057)

Thank you.

Molly Rose Speed (24:31.487)

Yep.

Leland Gross CFP® (24:33.607)

you can't, like you said, receive the gift of having someone come in and help you, even if you could do it. Like, I can manage my email, I can manage my calendar, but is that the best use of my time? Whether that's in the business or even like personally, could I take that time and go, you know, be with friends or be with my family or whatever it may be. So for you in

Molly Rose Speed (24:45.386)

Mm-hmm.

Molly Rose Speed (24:56.822)

Yes.

Leland Gross CFP® (25:01.383)

this journey, I've got a handful of questions, but in this journey, what surprised you the most from like, okay, I've hit a wall as a military spouse and now I'm, you know, working for this documentary and it's blowing up and then now I'm a virtual assistant. I sort of stumbled my way into it in some ways and now I'm training virtual assistants. Now I have these other businesses that like throughout the whole journey, what has surprised you the most?

Molly Rose Speed (25:03.882)

Okay.

Molly Rose Speed (25:30.862)

I think the biggest thing is that, humbly saying this, that I created a program that, whether I speak to the virtual sister or not, which I always try to, they can take it and it will completely change their life. So for example, these military spouses that I'm supporting, the word identity comes up a lot as a military spouse. You're fleshed into your spouse's career, they put you in a certain part of the country where there's usually no industry.

Leland Gross CFP® (25:59.351)

Hmm.

Molly Rose Speed (25:59.462)

If you're a female, you're the homekeeper and you have the children and you just lose your identity to the military. It happens all the time. And so to have this program that these spouses could take, make their own money, add financially to the family, work around their schedule, still be a stay at home mom, if they want to still travel, if they want to, um, and see it work. It, I didn't see that coming. I just thought, okay, I'm going to help these, these women in my squadron and they're going to take my course.

Leland Gross CFP® (26:21.181)

Mmm

Molly Rose Speed (26:28.374)

I'll give it to them if that's what I have to do and it's going to be great. And just, but just to see the impact has been insane. Like I, I got on a call last week and someone was like, you've literally changed my life by introducing me. So that's been really cool. And I didn't see that coming. And I don't think I accept that totally.

Leland Gross CFP® (26:40.157)

Mmm.

Leland Gross CFP® (26:47.687)

How powerful is that? I mean that is like hard work and heart work. Like you're impacting people's lives and heart and that's just amazing. Was there a low point for you in it? It kind of feels like we're just trucking along and things are just advancing. Was there a part where you're like, yeah you experienced a low point in the journey?

Molly Rose Speed (26:55.762)

Yes.

Molly Rose Speed (27:13.098)

Yeah, I think there's certainly been low points. I think when my academy, so I always say this, when you work the business, the business works. And so I have a habit of getting into my trade of being a virtual assistant, which I do very well. And so I go focus on that and I, you know, this side suffers or I just kind of ignore it for a week or two or a month. And when that happens, things...

I don't see the results that I want. I don't see what's coming. And then my mind goes, am I doing the right, am I making the right decision? And should I have done the corporate job? There's been times over the past 10 years that I'm on Indeed and I'm like trying to compare myself to my peers. And I'm wondering, if I would have stayed in corporate healthcare, would I have been a director by now? What would my life be like? Did I make the right decision? And you kind of get into this mental game and you get really down on yourself when your program isn't working or the placements aren't coming through. You're like, what am I doing?

Leland Gross CFP® (27:58.571)

Hmm.

Molly Rose Speed (28:05.89)

You know, it's just a bad month. And so I've had those low points where I just have to check in and go, you know, not every month is a shining revenue month. You have your dips, just like the market, right? And you just have to work through it and have the good energy and the people around you to pull you out of that. So I have a lot of those that I make phone calls. I'm like, what am I doing? Keep going.

Leland Gross CFP® (28:05.907)

Hmm

Leland Gross CFP® (28:18.624)

Yep.

Leland Gross CFP® (28:27.392)

Yeah.

Leland Gross CFP® (28:31.707)

Yeah, that is the journey of entrepreneurship right there. Like I want anybody listening to hear that. I had an episode months ago with a guy named Wills Francis, and we talked about like almost the daily or weekly quote unquote head trash that we tell ourselves of like, is this gonna work? You know, okay, I had this great month, but are we just, is the well gonna dry up or, you know, and you almost have to like constantly battle that and say like,

Molly Rose Speed (28:35.252)

Mm-hmm.

Leland Gross CFP® (29:00.843)

Today was hard. We're still doing well. Or this month, we didn't hit our goals, but that's okay. Next month we will and we're gonna keep pushing forward. Because entrepreneurship is hard in that way. So, I mean, that just makes total sense. What advice would you give to either, like someone thinking about becoming a virtual assistant, like say the military spouse, and what advice would you give to a business owner or

solopreneur entrepreneur who is building their business and kind of getting to this point where they think they need to hire.

Molly Rose Speed (29:37.706)

Yeah, so those, if this is piquing your interest about being a virtual assistant, I wholeheartedly want to express how much this has changed my life. When I say I've traveled the world, I've traveled the world by myself over seven times and have worked in the morning and played in the afternoon and had these amazing adventures. I've made great money doing it. And so the advice in getting started is,

Leland Gross CFP® (29:49.896)

Yeah.

Molly Rose Speed (30:05.454)

to take a professional approach at it, and you will be far more successful than just kind of wobbling and figuring it out. That's something I didn't do. I left a lot of money on the table. I didn't have boundaries. I took clients that I shouldn't have, all those things that I've hopefully figured out for my virtual assistants that they're not having to work through. And believe that you can do it. We have virtual systems from all backgrounds. Some have college degrees, some don't. Some are nurses, some are.

Leland Gross CFP® (30:31.527)

Mm.

Molly Rose Speed (30:34.198)

We have physicians assistants, we have architects, just women that are like, I can't get jobs, so I'm gonna do this, and they end up loving it, and then they become virtual assistants in those industries, which is really cool. So there's so many ways to go with it. And then those that are, knowing that you need a virtual assistant, start before you're ready, which you mentioned, and what that looks like is, if you're doing repeatable tasks, there's a tool called Loom.

Leland Gross CFP® (30:39.724)

Mm-hmm.

Leland Gross CFP® (31:00.939)

Hmm.

Molly Rose Speed (31:01.086)

records your screen, it's 10 bucks a month, there's probably a free version I'm sure, loom.com, L-O-O-M. And just start recording your processes and you'll have your training deck for your own business before you even go to hire someone. And that will save you a lot of headache and a lot of time when you go to do it. And then you'll realize at the same time all the things that you're doing that you probably shouldn't be doing. So start before you're ready and then as I mentioned, I also struggle with.

Leland Gross CFP® (31:15.639)

Mm.

Molly Rose Speed (31:30.814)

try to release that control. It doesn't matter how they get it done, just that they get it done. And that's super important as well.

Leland Gross CFP® (31:35.403)

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, better done than perfect in many ways. And to anybody listening, Loom really is like the greatest tool ever. I use it all the time for either like sending a note to my clients and just have making it a video and making it more engaging too. For my assistant, we use Loom for training videos because I can record my screen and have my face on there and kind of say, you know, this is how I do it and why I do it this way. And...

Molly Rose Speed (31:40.732)

Yes.

Molly Rose Speed (31:48.162)

Awesome.

Leland Gross CFP® (32:08.147)

It's super helpful. I think that was like a great, just a great nugget right there. So this is a podcast about success. But if you pull anybody on the side of the road and ask them, you know, how do you define success? Everyone defines it differently and you'll get a different answer from each person. So for you, how would you define success and how will you know if or when you've achieved it?

Molly Rose Speed (32:09.047)

Awesome.

Molly Rose Speed (32:19.778)

Mm-hmm.

Molly Rose Speed (32:33.254)

So success to me is having the freedom to do what I want, when I want, and where I want, along with the financial.

Leland Gross CFP® (32:39.988)

Mmm.

Molly Rose Speed (32:45.25)

freedom as well within reason to meet that lifestyle, right? When I say financial freedom, it's not like you need to be Buko rich, but it's covering all of your lifestyle expenses in some way, shape or form. That would be success to me. So I'm on kind of that passive freedom approach and I'm pretty close, so.

Leland Gross CFP® (32:50.135)

Hmm.

Leland Gross CFP® (32:58.852)

Mm-hmm.

Leland Gross CFP® (33:03.638)

Yeah.

I love that. I mean, yeah, it sounds like with the traveling the world and having the freedom to be able to afford that and work in the morning and play in the afternoon, I mean, that's it. When I talk to clients, I'm like, money is only as valuable as the quality of life it gets you. Like everyone's longing for that. And if the goal for my clients, like if we're doing financial planning, I'm like, if your goal is money alone, just more money, we're not going to be a great fit.

Molly Rose Speed (33:25.218)

Mm-hmm.

Leland Gross CFP® (33:36.127)

Because if that's your goal, you're never going to have enough. Like, that finish line keeps moving back, and there's something psychologically about that. But if your goal is just what you said, I want to be able to take time off. I want to be able to work when I want to work, where I want to work. I want to be able to do what I want, when I want, where I want. We can build that. Like, we can use all your tools and resources to be able to do that. So I love, I just completely agree with that definition of success.

Molly Rose Speed (33:58.744)

Mm-hmm.

Molly Rose Speed (34:02.626)

awesome.

Leland Gross CFP® (34:06.919)

Well, I have loved this conversation and I think we probably have to have you come back on to at some point to talk through like hiring a virtual assistant and how to maximize that because I think the listeners would get a lot out of that. But thank you so much for being on today. It's been a great conversation.

Molly Rose Speed (34:12.992)

Deep dive. Love to.

Molly Rose Speed (34:23.87)

Yeah, thanks for having me. Good luck to everyone listening.