We recently connected with Amanda Boleyn and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Amanda thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Talk to us about building your team? What was it like? What were some of the key challenges and what was your process like?

One of the things I help solo business owners with is hiring their first virtual assistant. I know first hand how impactful it can be as a business owner to have support when it comes to running and growing your business. In 2014 I launched my first online business that included a podcast. With being focused on sales and marketing it was becoming challenging to spend time and energy launching a weekly episode. There were a lot of moving parts from shownotes, uploading everything to my podcast hosting site to create graphics, sending email correspondence to guests that it was taking up a lot of my time. I finally hired a first virtual assistant to help me produce my weekly podcast. Prior to hiring her I had created processes and templates for the podcast process so when I onboarded her I was able to quickly and easily walk her through the steps of how to produce a podcast. One thing that I tell business owners though is you do not necessarily need processes and templates mapped out before hiring a virtual assistant, your VA can help you get organized and build processes/templates. I found my first virtual assistant via a friend who runs a business that teaches people how to start their VA business. I had crafted a list of 5-7 questions to learn more about her, her work style, previous work, interests and how she likes to operate. 7 years later and she’s still working with me. We communicate regularly though email and Voxer and has played a huge role in operating my business and helping me free up time so I can focus on other areas in my business.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I left corporate America back in 2012 after only being in it for 2 years post college graduation. When I left, I became a full-time freelancer where I sub-contracted on large enterprise sales and leadership development programs. I still do some of this work today. In 2015 I officially launched, She Did It Her Way that started out as a podcast where I interviewed female entrepreneurs about their journey to starting their own business. Through that business I hosted online and in person summits, courses and programs to help others launch their own online business and podcast. In 2021 I decided to retire from She Did It Her Way and in 2022 I launched my second online business – Simplify with Amanda B.

My current business focuses on helping solo business owners hire their first virtual assistant, organize their business and scale without burnout. The biggest problem my clients face is that they have so much going on and it has only ever been them operating their business. They get into the way of scaling their business because they’re trying to do it all. In my 6 month program – Simplify – I teach business owners how to hire their first VA so they can start to get some of their time back, to help them get organized and run a more efficient business. I also host a live 3 hour workshop — Digital Declutter Day – where I help business owners go through and organize their digital files, delete old ones so that they can navigate their business more efficiently.

I’m most proud of my program Simplify and the support it offers business owners to help them scale and grow their business.

Does your business have multiple or supplementary revenue streams (like a ATM machine at a barbershop, etc)?

In addition to my online business and corporate clients, my husband and I are part-time real estate investors. We own three multi-units, 2 buildings downtown Chicago (each 4 units, total 10 doors) and 1 building in Dubuque, Iowa (2 units) plus our primary residence in Charleston, SC. For awhile I self managed all of our properties from the business operations, legal, daily maintenance requests, tenant turnover until about 2 months ago, June 2024 when I hired an in-house property manager who now helps me with everything which has been absolutely incredible. I decided to hire someone in house because of how much it would be to hire an actual company.

What’s worked well for you in terms of a source for new clients?

Referrals have been the best source of new clients for me. When my current clients love my program and see success they love to share it with others and I am so grateful for that! I have learned over the years that if you can get your existing clients results, those results will speak for themselves.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.simplifywithamandab.com
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/simplifywithamandab