My Dream VA

To my dream VA:

I know you are out there, and I can’t wait to find you!

I am putting a lot of effort into this hiring process, because it is incredibly important to me and my business that this be a successful hire. I hope you will consider the time and energy I am investing here as an indication of my intent to identify the right applicant who can grow with me for years to come. Similarly, I will consider the time you take to thoroughly review and consider this information as an indication that your intentions align with mine.

Who am I?
My name is Jennifer Calhoun. I grew up on a farm in rural Tennessee. My mother was an addict and we lived in poverty. I was good in school and always saw education as my path to a better life. I became a mom at 18 and raised my son alone while also attending college and working an assortment of jobs. I started taking on small entrepreneurial ventures (“side hustles”) to get the money I needed for myself and my son to live, and over time these hustles became more and more successful. I finished my Masters Degree in Human Resources on full scholarship and worked for 12 years in corporate HR. I continued my small business endeavors, though, and the business my husband and I launched in 2018 out of the garage of our home quickly grew to bringing in $100,000 USD monthly in revenue. While we are grateful for the growth, we are also struggling to manage it. Growing this quickly puts a real strain on our business systems, and we are working frantically to become sustainably profitable. I left my corporate job in 2021 to pursue entrepreneurship full-time, and in May of 2022 I started a 1yr MBA program at Babson College, which has been rated the #1 program for entrepreneurship in the United States for the last 26 years by U.S. News. To attend this program, I moved ALL the way across the country where I am living alone for 1 year until the program is finished in May 2023. My husband, children, and business are all in Portland, Oregon (West Coast of the US) while I am in Boston (East Coast of the US). I am managing a very rigorous course load while still working on my business from here.

Who are you?
You pay close attention to details, but you’re also able to “figure it out” when instructions are sparse. You love solving problems and creating efficiency. You may or may not have extensive experience as a VA, but you are very smart and you learn new skills quickly. At the same time, if a project is complex and time-sensitive, you aren’t afraid to admit that you need to bring in support from someone with the specific technical skills needed to get the task done perfectly and on time. You are eager to prove your value and be retained and rewarded accordingly. You are willing to set aside other work to commit yourself fully to this role. You are excited by the opportunity to learn new skills and are committed to lifelong learning. You can see yourself becoming someone’s “right hand man” (or woman) and are willing to work hard to get there.

What’s the company?
The company is G.I. Junk Removal. ( ---------- and gijunknw on all socials). We are a Veteran owned and operated company in Portland, Oregon offering professional full-service junk removal services to residential and commercial customers. This means we haul away unwanted items from our customers’ homes and businesses. We also partner with a nonprofit that we launched in 2021 to salvage used items and redeploy them in support of vulnerable populations in our community. As just one example, we’ve been able to donate furniture and housewares to fully equip dozens of apartments for Veterans transitioning out of houselessness.

What’s the Job?
To start, we will focus on getting more leads in and optimizing conversion of those leads into paying jobs. This is vitally important because the investments we’ve made to grow our business (additional trucks & trailers, upgraded softwares, etc) have increased our overhead, and the seasonal dip in work we are experiencing during winter months is making it very difficult to cover that increased overhead. The profit margins of our business go from very slim to huge when we have enough work coming in, and right now that is not the case. We use a full service digital marketing agency for our paid ads accounts, but need our VA to handle all organic social media including at least FB, Instagram, and LinkedIn. This will involve content creation, engagement, and active B2B sales prospecting. We also need support in Optimizing the copy on our website, blog and lead nurture email sequences for best sales conversions and for SEO. Paid tools that we will provide in support of this work include WriteSonic, HighLevel, and SquirrlySEO. We will also be looking to automate processes wherever possible using no-code/low-code solutions like Zapier. More advanced paid tools like Robomotion are also available for use. Our website is on Wordpress using Thrive Suite of tools which you would need to be or become proficient in. We are also building out a database in Google BigQuery with automated data transfer using Twilio Segment, and will be creating dashboards on Google Looker to provide real-time business analytics insights to drive business decision making. We are also working to streamline and automate our hiring and training processes. We will want our VA to be active across all of these projects, up to and including potential oversight of future additional VAs when specialized skills are required. The sky is truly the limit in this position, including transition to future companies as I launch them :)

What’s the pay?
As I mentioned above, the rapid growth of the business has left us with very tight cash flow and struggling to break ---------- addition to an admittedly modest monthly salary ($500-$1,000 USD per month depending on experience, enthusiasm, and cost of living in your country), we will provide you with access to robust training opportunities to build your skills. We will also provide meaningful project opportunities. This role will provide HUGE opportunities to deliver value to the company, and we are committed to passing that value on in the form of salary increases and/or spot bonuses as we are able. If I get someone in this position who is wildly successful, I would have no problem increasing to 2x, 3x, 4x, or even 5x the starting salary within the first 1-2 years.

How do you apply?
Pitch yourself. This can be done by video and/or written ---------- should demonstrate that you are familiar with the contents of this posting and explain why you are the best candidate for the job. Extra attention will be paid to submissions that link to relevant work examples (especially content creation) and demonstrate an understanding of the G.I. Junk Removal brand voice. Please also attach your DISC assessment results. Generic copy/paste messages that disregard these instructions will not be reviewed.
All application materials should be saved to a google shared folder, and that folder should be shared to ---------- for review.