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Effortlessly Productive
Welcome to Effortlessly Productive with Annie Veblen McCarty, where we dive into the art and science of mastering your time and boosting your productivity without the burnout.
Join Annie as she explores practical tips, strategies, and mindset shifts to help you streamline your tasks, prioritize effectively, and get more done with less stress.
Whether you're juggling work, family time, or just trying to find more time for what matters most, our conversations will empower you to work smarter, not harder.
Tune in and discover how to make productivity not just a goal, but a way of life!
Effortlessly Productive
Hiring Insights for Entrepreneurial Success: Should I Hire an Employee or a VA?
Unlock the secrets to building a powerhouse team with me, Annie Veblen-McCarty, as we explore the fascinating world of hiring decisions that can make or break your business. Imagine freeing up your mental bandwidth by hiring a virtual assistant for just one hour a week—it's not only possible, but it can transform your productivity. I'll share insights from over two decades of entrepreneurial experience on how to assess your needs, whether that's for consistent employee hours or flexible VA support. We'll tackle the financial and tax nuances in the U.S., ensuring you're equipped with the knowledge to make savvy, informed choices.
Ever wondered about the true costs and benefits of hiring an employee versus a subcontractor? I'll guide you through the maze of workman's comp insurance and administrative responsibilities, illustrating how these choices reflect your business ethos. Together, we'll delve into the dynamics of team building, from recognizing the hidden skills of those around you to the unexpected benefits of hiring familiar faces. Through personal anecdotes and practical advice, discover how thoughtful delegation not only frees up your time but also enhances your focus on the passions that drive your business forward. Join me for an episode that promises to reshape the way you think about support, efficiency, and success in your entrepreneurial journey.
Hey, this is Annie Veblen-McCarty and I'm gonna teach you how to be effortlessly productive. I've been an entrepreneur for over 20 years and I got sick and tired of experts preaching what business and life should look like and what I should be doing as a leader and to turn a profit, only to find myself wasting time, burned out, feeling inauthentic and still not making any money. On this show, we are ditching the shoulds. I'm giving you permission to do business differently. As a certified master coach, I believe that everything you need to have success and build the life and business of your dreams is already living on the inside. I'm going to empower you to lean into what you do best, help you see your path forward clearly and give you the strategy and action steps along the way to become effortlessly productive. Let's dive in. Thank you for joining me today on this episode of Effortlessly Productive. A couple episodes ago, I talked all about delegating, about having other people help us with tasks in our business and also in our life, so that we can use our time and energy for the things that we do best and that we love to do, and I've gotten so many questions over the last couple of weeks on whether people should hire an employee or whether they should hire a VA. So that's what we're going to chat about today.
Speaker 1:If you do not know, I have been a business owner for the last 21 years and I have had businesses where I have had employees. I still have business with employees and I have businesses with VAs. So I wanted to dive into why we would hire employees in one business and a VA in other businesses. So let's dive in. I think the first thing to ask yourself when you're looking to hire anybody is how many hours do I have of work to give them per week? Because this is definitely going to play at least a little bit into our decision. Because, yes, we can hire a part-time employee and VAs can be part-time or full-time for us, so that is not necessarily a disqualification for one or the other. However, I think that often, when we are first getting started with having somebody to delegate tasks to, to hire to do tasks for us for the first time, we often are going to start with a very low number of hours or a very specific task that does not take as long. I know when I hired my first VA for my own business.
Speaker 1:I want to throw this out here because so often I hear people say like, oh well, I'm too new of a business owner to have a VA, I couldn't hire somebody. I hired somebody for one hour a week and it was the most magical hour to unload off of my plate in my entire life. It literally was a game changer, because it was not just that one hour of my work a week, it was the mental bandwidth that was being taken up by the task that I had her doing. Knowing that that was getting done, I didn't have to think about it, I didn't have to touch it, I literally could just hand it to her and let her do it. And she did it amazingly and beautifully and it was done and I literally after the first couple of weeks I would check in on her every now and then. I'm not just going to like leave somebody hanging, but I literally didn't even have to check in with her because she got the hang of it and we were just in that groove. It was not like a constant training or check in with her.
Speaker 1:So I just want to throw out there you do not have to be making a million dollars a year, you don't even have to be making a million dollars a year. You don't even have to be making six figures or five figures. You can hire a VA for very few hours a week. Now I will say for an employee you probably are not going to find many people who want to work for you as an employee if you only have one to five hours a week for them. Most employees, even part-time, they're going to want about 20 hours a week, 10 to 20. Now you might find a different arrangement and that is great, but that would be one thing to think about is how many hours a week or what kind of tasks do I have that I want this person to be accomplishing? So that's number one. Number two we get into some income and tax implications and I will come right out and say I am not a CPA, I am not a tax advisor. You need to check with your CPA, tax advisor, accountant. You need to check with them on what would be the best for your business.
Speaker 1:However, I will say that in terms of, at least here in the US, in the terms of how employees versus VAs and when I say VAs, we are paying somebody as a subcontractor for our business. So I'm going to use that term going forward when I say VA subcontractor, it's the same thing. So it's somebody that does not work for our business. They are not payrolled. They are not getting a W-2. If you are in the US For my international listeners tax stuff is so different for every single country so I cannot help you in an educating conversation to have here but there is an equivalent to that.
Speaker 1:So a subcontractor is somebody who invoices you and you pay them for the hours or the work that they invoiced you for. Now one of the big differences here, at least in the US, is with a subcontractor, you are not withholding taxes from their pay. You are not withholding federal state income taxes. You are not withholding social security and Medicare. If you are in a different country and I'm speaking Greek right now you probably have some similar or equivalent kind of withholdings. So you're not withholding from their paycheck kind of withholdings. So you're not withholding from their paycheck. You're simply giving them their pay for what they have invoiced you for. They are a subcontractor doing. It could be an agreement where they're doing X number of hours, but they're invoicing you and you are paying them from that. You are not withholding taxes. It is up to that subcontractor to then pay their appropriate taxes. And the reason that I bring this up is because, as somebody who I the one who runs payroll for my husband's business we have a payroll company actually handle all the filings because delegation I will just say that that is not something I want to be spending my time doing. However, I do collect our employees hours each week, I submit them to the payroll company, I process the paychecks when the amounts come in.
Speaker 1:I am familiar with some of the nuances here. With an employee, you need to make sure that you are withholding the correct amount from their paycheck, and this gets even more complicated if somebody is not in the same state as you. I mean, if you're in your own state, you're still withholding the state income tax if your state has income tax or I think it's similar like in Canada with the provinces However, if somebody is in a different state than you at least if you are in the US you still often, as the employer, you need to withhold and then file the income taxes for the state that that employee lives in. So we get very complicated. And the reason that I'm bringing this up with you is I know a lot of you listening or watching on YouTube. A lot of you are working with people you are going to be delegating to people who are not in your same state, who are not even in your same country.
Speaker 1:I know a lot of people who work with subcontractors from the Philippines, and so when we are dealing with a W-2 employee, or whatever that equivalent is for where you live, what country you are from, we get into very complicated tax laws and tax withholdings and it is your responsibility as their employer to make sure those taxes are withheld, to make sure those taxes are filed on time, that they are filed with the appropriate agencies, that they are filed in the correct states. And, yes, a payroll company can help you with all of this, a CPA can help you with all of this. This is not to say do not go down this road because of all of this. However, this is a caution that you do want to ask somebody. Unless you are a CPA or a tax professional, you probably want to check in with somebody who is to make sure that you are in compliance and that you are filing taxes properly for your employees.
Speaker 1:Now with a subcontractor, the subcontractor is responsible for filing all of their taxes for often withholding and paying estimated taxes for themselves because they are, in essence, in their own business for themselves. You are paying them kind of as if they have their own business because they're invoicing you and it's their responsibility to keep track of the income. Now I know also in the US, though I will say for subcontractors you still need to track their income. Number one, because it is a tax write-off. And, again, chat with your tax accountant, your CPA, whoever is doing that. But if you are hiring somebody to do work for you, even on a subcontractor basis, most of the time that can be included as a business expense. Again, check with your CPA on that to make sure that that applies for where you are and for your business. You also in the United States you are responsible for filing tax paperwork. It's called a 1099. So every year you do have to file that once a year, but it's very different than an employee, a W-2 employee, where you are having to withhold and file and submit and pay tax withholdings often every single week. So that's something to take into consideration. Is that level of paperwork, of tax implications, of withholdings? Is that something that you want to take on? Again, not being a tax professional, there are benefits and downfalls to both in terms of your tax implications. So definitely check with a professional on that before you make a decision about which way you are going to go, because it will impact your business's taxes and, most of the time, as a knock-on effect, your own personal taxes as well.
Speaker 1:Another thing to take into consideration here, when we are thinking about an employee versus a subcontractor, is workman's comp insurance here in the United States. Again, this may be different depending where you are listening from, but as an employer, we are responsible for carrying insurance for our employees, even if they are working remotely in a lot of states, you are required to carry that insurance for them, and you might be thinking well, they are sitting behind a computer most of the time. For most of us that are listening, I think most of us have online businesses. You're probably hiring somebody to do things on their computer, to do things online, but it still is going to be a requirement. There still is a risk of injury. I know that in certain instances, in certain cases, even things like carpal tunnel syndrome it doesn't always get on or under a workman's comp, but it could be, and that's part of why it's our responsibility as a business owner to make sure that we are carrying the proper insurance. And again I will say I am not an insurance agent. So this is definitely something that you want to check with an insurance agent for your business on about what appropriate insurance is to cover, about in what cases you need to carry insurance.
Speaker 1:Employee versus subcontractor Employees is most of the time, a definite yes, subcontractors no, because they have their own business and are invoicing you. But that might be different depending where you live. So definitely check on that. But that's another thing to take into consideration when we are thinking about am I hiring an employee or am I hiring a subcontractor? Now I will also say too that there's a little bit of a different relationship because, like I said, a subcontractor, technically they have their own business. You are hiring their services.
Speaker 1:So the relationship looks maybe slightly different and maybe this is a personal view that I have, but when somebody is an employee of yours, it's a much more direct boss versus employee relationship. So my employees they know that I am in charge. I dictate exactly what they're doing. If they refuse to do something that I have asked them to do, we now are kind of in an area of like if that is within the job purview of what I hired them to do. We now are talking about possibly a termination situation. So it's a much more just like intermingled relationship, if that makes sense, much more direct like supervisor to subordinate relationship and that's not like a negative way that those words kind of sound a little negative, but it's like leader to a follower. We get to determine how we want that relationship to look.
Speaker 1:So for a lot of people I know myself I have worked under bosses that it was not the best experience and we try to run our company so that it is more of a positive experience. However, you are going to have situations as an employer where you have really tough discussions to have. You have hard things that you have to say, and this comes along with the territory with a VA or a subcontractor as well. However, it's not like a fireable thing. Sure, you can terminate services and say, hey, this isn't working out right now, for whatever reasons, like I, just I don't need your services. It's not the same paperwork. It's not the same like they can't go file for unemployment insurance, which an employee can. It's a lot less connected relationship if that makes sense.
Speaker 1:I have found, yes, with our brick and mortar business. We have employees and these are are full-time employees that come to our business every single day. We have had some employees that work remotely part of the time and in certain circumstances, like with COVID, we had some people who were able to work remotely and we allowed them to do so for a period of time and that was wonderful. But it also like it's just a very different dynamic and a very different relationship. I also have had VAs where they worked for me for five, 10 plus years, but with an employee they are like they are there with you, right they? That is a relationship that is more difficult to break, I guess you could say, because we get into termination and quitting and, like I mentioned, unemployment insurance.
Speaker 1:I believe in the US, in every state, when you hire an employee, you have to file a new hire report to the federal government. There's a lot of things that come along with that. Whereas with a subcontractor they are more operating autonomously, if that makes sense, because they technically again are their own business. They are invoicing you for the services and, yes, you might contract them. It might feel like more of an employee-employer relationship, depending on how you structure it, but you are not linked together quite as tightly in certain ways and you're definitely not linked together in the eyes of the government the same way that you are with an employee.
Speaker 1:So I bring all of this up because I think it's really important as a business owner to tune into what feels good to us, right? So we want to take all of these things into consideration. We want to talk to our CPA about what makes the most tax sense. We want to think about what we're adding onto our plate or who we might need to hire to deal with all of the tax and payroll and paperwork filing process. That's not going to be free if you are delegating it, unless you have a friend who's a CPA who's like the most gracious person on the face of the planet. Most of the time that's not going to be a free service. Maybe if your mom's a CPA, then she would do it for free, but for most of us that is going to be something we pay somebody to do, whereas the paperwork side of it and logistical side of it when it comes to government and compliance and all of that with a subcontractor is a lot less.
Speaker 1:I file all of my 1099s both within my husband's and my brick and mortar business and my own businesses. I file all of those myself. I do not file our W-2s and all of that stuff. I let somebody else take care of that, because it's much more complicated. So I want you to, number one, think about your capacity as a business owner, what you are willing to do, the tax implications, the insurance implications, do your research, do all of that stuff. At the end of the day, though, I do want you to spend some time thinking about what you want this relationship to look like, what you want this relationship to feel like. How much is it going to be a leader, follower? How much free reign are you going to give that other person?
Speaker 1:Maybe you are hiring a subcontractor who actually has an expertise in an area that you don't have. I know I have VAs where I give them very specific instructions and I'm like follow this every single day. Perform these tasks in my business, please, and thank you. You are the most amazing, beautiful human on the face of the planet, because that is all the stuff that is not the best use of my time and energy. And then I also have subcontractors who have skill sets that I, just straight up, do not have, and, yes, I could acquire them, but I don't have them.
Speaker 1:This podcast, for example. I could learn video editing. In a former life. I knew a little bit about video editing. However, that was like 20, 25 years ago and technology has changed a little bit over those 20, 25 years. I would have so much stuff to learn. So, yes, my podcast editor, kurt, thank you so much. I know you're listening to this. He is amazing. So he has this skill set and this knowledge that he operates. He does his job very autonomously, because I honestly don't know all of the nuances of what he does. I'm like here's an episode Go work your magic.
Speaker 1:And so Each one of your relationships with your subcontractors, vas, employees, it's going to look and it's going to feel a little bit different, and I think that's why it's so important, before you go hire somebody, to really think about what you want that to look like and feel like what kind of relationship you want to have with that person, because that is also going to guide the person that you hire. If you want somebody to work like completely autonomously from you and be able to just go do the job that you hand them, with very little feedback and leadership from you, that's a very different person than you might not want to go hire some like 16 or 18 year old in high school who's looking for a couple extra bucks to like add to their allowance money, because that person is probably going to need a little bit more guidance. However, I know for some of my social media stuff that I've had people do engaging and responding to messages and things like that it's a great fit to have somebody who wants that instruction, because then I can give them that instruction and be like here is how you answer this. Here's how you do this specific task and that way it's getting done the way that I want to do it and the way that I would do it if I was actually physically doing that task. So spend some time thinking about that.
Speaker 1:Journal out, meet a wish list. Make that list of all of the things for this specific role that you are looking for. What are all the qualities in that person that you want? What are the skills that that person needs to have? What are the skills that you would think was an amazing bonus? Yeah, it's not 100% necessary, but having that skill set is a pretty big bonus for what you're going to have them doing. Think about how many hours a week that you have to give them. Think about what pay rate that you are willing to pay for those jobs that you want them to do, and also the pay rate that your company or your business can't afford right now too, because that's important to take into consideration is our budget.
Speaker 1:Start to get all of this out on paper, and the reason that I say to spend some time thinking and literally just sitting in this is because we'll start to call in what we want right. When we get very clear about what we want, these people will come along. I can't tell you how many times where I've gotten very clear on this is the person that I need to hire or want to hire, or a subcontractor I want to work with. And all of a sudden, I have a friend. Be like, oh my gosh, I met this amazing person, or I have this person working for me. I'm like exactly what I've been looking for. That would not have jumped out at me if I hadn't been very clear on that being what I wanted in my business at that moment. That was the help that I needed, that that was the person, the personality type, because it's also really important. You're going to be working with this person. You're going to be entrusting part of your business to this person.
Speaker 1:For me, I make a choice and a decision as well that all of the people that I hire whether it's employees or subcontractors for my business, we share at least some of the same core values, that we get along, that I enjoy hanging out and talking with this person because you're gonna be talking with them and having a relationship and getting on calls with them. You're gonna be texting them, you're gonna be going back and forth and, ideally for me, it's really important that the people that work for me catch that vision that I have for my business, because if they have that vision, they see where I want to take this. They believe almost as much as I do in this dream that I am creating, that I am bringing to reality. That is going to be a beautiful working relationship. That is going to be the kind of person that I want to spend time with, that I want getting their hands on my business, that I want putting messaging out there and doing all the things, because they get me, they understand me and I get them and understand them. So that's part of why it's really important to think about all of these things.
Speaker 1:Make your wish list of the ideal person. It's almost like that dating profile. You are literally looking for somebody that you enter into a relationship with. It is just a business relationship compared to a romantic relationship. So put it out there, ask for what you want, get very clear on it. Also, just start to ask around.
Speaker 1:I know so many friends who I didn't even realize did VA work, did creative work.
Speaker 1:They had these skill sets that I didn't even realize that they had.
Speaker 1:And I got to hire people who are some of my best friends.
Speaker 1:How fun is that.
Speaker 1:And they already know me.
Speaker 1:So we don't have to have that time of getting to know each other.
Speaker 1:We can just hit the ground running.
Speaker 1:But I also have met people like hey, here's a friend of mine, here is one of my closest, most dear people who's ever worked for me.
Speaker 1:She's the mother-in-law of somebody who I'd met through another group and she's absolutely amazing. So also, don't close those doors, because you never know what people are going to come into your life when you need it to help support you and your business and take those steps forward to creating that dream business that you want. So I hope you enjoyed this. I hope this was helpful in helping you figure out who it is that you're going to be delegating all of these things to. Now that we know what we're ready to start getting off of our plate to create and open up that energy and that space and that time for us to spend our time doing the things that we do best, that we do like nobody else and that we love doing. I hope this helped you figure out how to take those next steps moving forward to find those people to delegate to. I hope you have a beautiful day and I'll catch you soon on the next episode of Effortlessly Productive.
