We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Betsy Castro a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Betsy, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Can you talk to us about growing your team – how did you recruit the first few people, what was the process like, how’d you go about training and if you were to start over today would you have done anything differently?

When I started my business, it was just me, my laptop, my cellphone, and the dining room table was my desk. Little by little, I built a small office space (with the help of my fiance at the time, now my husband) in my bedroom. The same year I was starting my business was the same year I was planning my wedding. As my wedding date approached, I realized I did not want to be working on my honeymoon, so in a way, I was “forced” to find help. The very first person I hired was only for temporary work. She would only cover me on certain occasions, and I would still pretty much do everything.

After a year of doing everything and occasionally having someone cover me, my client base grew, which meant more work coming in. I started to feel burnt out, and started dislike what I loved doing the most in my line of work, being the bridge that connected people to their healing journey. As soon as I realized that, I decided this was a “good problem” to have and that it meant it was time to hire more permanent team members for my company. It was so scary! Bringing in a stranger and hand over some of my clients to them! I googled a number of articles on hiring team members and watched many youtube videos on what questions to ask during the interview, how to divide roles within the company, and how to be a good leader. I even made candidates take a personality test to be sure we were a good match. I posted an Ad I was hiring in almost all of my networks. I used Google Forms for candidates to apply and only set up interviews with people who seemed like good candidates based on their answers.

After almost five years in business and with a team that continues to grow, I have changed my hiring process. For starters, I do not wait until I start to feel burnt out to start hiring team members. I actually train my team members before I even have the client. I took out the personality test and replaced it with critical thinking questions and during the interview, I do an improv answering phone calls role-playing. I pretend to be a person seeking therapy, and the candidate has to help me. I focus more on getting to know the candidate and their opinion around mental health and test their critial thinking on how to help clients.

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

Sure! I am a Client Experience Expert and the CEO of The Mental Health VA (which works under the umbrella of Hello BetsyAnn). At the Mental Health VA, we are a team of Mental Health Facilitators. We help therapists in private practice by closing the gap between themselves and potential clients through digital exposure and communication services. That way therapists can continue to help in the healing journey of individuals and families through therapy.

I am very passionate about being part of the evolution of the Mental Health industry. I am always looking for new technology to make the business life of therapists easier and to help them reach more people. I also love collaborating with brands that bring awareness to mental health and provide opportunities to heal by making therapy accessible.

I am building an organization that empowers individuals to empower themselves and others. I want to play a role in breaking the stigma on mental health in third-world countries and crush the idea that “Therapy is just for the rich or the ‘crazy’!”

For my team and I to be the voice in our communities that says “It is okay to seek therapeutic help.”

One of the things I am the proudest of is creating my own “tribe” of Virtual Assistants who are as passionate as me about mental health. I never saw myself as a leader, but building a team who share the same values as me, some of them have been with me for a couple of years now, is proof that I can be a leader.

Any advice for managing a team?

My advice would be to have a clear vision on what your values are as a company. Be sure your team members not only share those same values but actually applies them as a professional.

If you are working with team members virtually/remotely, be sure to have at least one monthly meeting to check in with each other and humanize each other.

I love the virtual world! It makes my business possible, however, sometimes not seeing the person face to face daily as you do in an office, we forget that on the other side of the text message, email and/or laptop screen is a human being, with feelings, family members and sometimes struggles. It is important to humanize your team members and be there for them, so they can be there for you.

And last but not least, own up to your mistakes. Leaders make mistakes too.

Have any books or other resources had a big impact on you?

I have a long list of books that have made big impacts on my life, both personally and professionally. But for today, I will share only the following:

1. “Daring Greatly: How the Courage to be vulnerable transforms the way we live, love, parent, and lead” By Brene Brown. A client gifted me this book. This book changed my perspective on what a leader is. I used to believe leaders knew all the answers and never made mistakes.

That belief comes from “cover-up cultures” and the “blame-game”.

I’ve learned that by having vulnerable conversations with my team members about my mistakes, things I have learned, and areas of expertise I lack, has motivated my team members to step up to their own leadership skills. In return, I discovered that some of my “weakness” were actually strengths in some of my team members. Which then made us all a well-rounded team.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.thementalhealthva.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thementalhealthva/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HelloBetsyAnn
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hellobetsyann/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCINrKgrOQNFH6a_c1O7oHjw