We were lucky to catch up with Sara Wiles recently and have shared our conversation below.
Sara , thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today How did you come up with the idea for your business?
I was 2 months postpartum + desperate NOT to go back to my 9-5.
The problem was, I’d tried so many different businesses over the years.
Yoga teacher
Health Coach
MLM
None of them worked.
And so I went back to work, continually searching for a way out.
When my son was was 16 months I finally had it. I couldn’t make the demands of an employer + the demands of motherhood work. The better I was at one role, the more I let someone else down.
So I started a Virtual Assisting business.
One last try to see if I could make entrepreneurship work.
I used those previous “failures” plus a boatload of transferable skills I had from my corporate days and learned the rest as I went.
I made $48K my first 9 months + $100K in 16 months.
6 years later and I run a multiple 6-figure business on an average of 20 hours or less per week. I take home more working part-time hours than I ever did working full-time for someone else.
Even better? I have time for EVERYTHING I desire.
To show up for myself.
To show up for my family.
To show up for my friends.
To show up for my business and the humans that I support.
Is every day perfect? Nope. But even on the shitty days, I am the one calling the shots and I get to choose what to change.
Sara , before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
I was desperate.
In 2017 when I finally got the guts to start yet another business, I didn’t have a lot of evidence that it would work.
You see, I’d tried a whole lot of businesses before. Yoga teacher. Health coach. MLM.
I always wanted to help people, but I could never quite figure out how to actually make enough money to leave my 9-5.
Then I had a baby and found Virtual Assisting. I needed out of my job STAT because I just couldn’t mom and work for someone else without always feeling like I was failing.
I was able to use the skills I had from years in the corporate space and the few I picked up in my “failed” attempts.
I replaced my $50K corporate salary that first year and made my first $100K within 16 months of starting the business.
I am not special or exceptionally smart or even very tech-savvy. I argued my way into college after getting rejected and I can’t figure out how to use the Apple TV remote 
.
That’s actually why I’m so damn passionate about helping women start VA businesses.
Because they’re so accessible, because they’re so easy to get off the ground, because the demand for virtual work is through the roof, and because you can make them profitable FAST.
We have 2 main products – The Start, our 6 week Virtual Assisting training program that helps women go from 0 to fully functioning business at lightening speed and The Source, our community for existing Virtual Assistants that provides skills trainings, coaching and community support.
What we do differently is we teach through a Life First Business lens, meaning we teach our students how to create businesses that truly work for their lives instead of recreating the corporate cubicle lifestyle they so desperately ran from.
We are most proud of our success stories and success rates. Our course completion rates are more than double the industry average and we’ve helped hundreds of women start VA businesses and make money on their own terms.
Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?
Pulled from a past email about not feeling smart enough to be an entrepreneur:
Knock, knock, knock.
“Can I come in?”
“Yea but first what’s the square root of 81?”
“I don’t even know what a square root is, Ben.”
He and Max were playing and informed me that in order to gain entry to their bro Lego party I had to answer a question.
So back to the couch I went.
I’ve always been bad at math (and geography and history and science…anything except English and psychology).
I couldn’t pass college Algebra (even with Ben’s tutoring) so my guidance counselor had me take extra English classes because they were the only ones I could pull an A in. And my GPA really needed the boost to graduate.
If a subject wasn’t interesting, it was almost impossible for my brain to focus on it. I did enough to pass, but it was barely enough.
Over the years, I’d developed a story that I just wasn’t smart.
So when I excelled quickly in my first career as a corporate event planner…I was shocked.
The 8 years I spent climbing the corporate ladder gave me confidence that I lacked in my teens and early twenties. I finally realized I WAS smart, but in an entirely different way than my husband (who literally has a degree in rocket science).
I’m in my 6th year of business and together with my godsend of a team we’ve:
– Passed the $1M mark in revenue (since the inception of the business in 2017)
– Donated over $10K to organizations and people in need in 2022 alone
– Gave out over 25 partial and full scholarships to our programs last year
– Had industry-smashing course completion and success rates from our students and members
– Canceled launches in favor of my needs and my team’s needs (living into that Life-First™️ model we teach)
– Received our 4th trademark (and our 5th is in the works!)
– Taken time off for vacations and mental health and medical needs
And I did it working an average of just over 15 hours a week.
Not too shabby from a gal who struggled to graduate college, huh?
It’s not rocket science, but I can deliver a program and help people start and grow businesses that truly support their unique, beautiful lives better than anyone I know.
I’ve let go of that old story and now fully embrace that I am smart and great at what I do.
You are too.
You might be just starting your business journey or an online vet. Either way, I hope you remind yourself today that what you have to offer is enough and you’re so much smarter than you give yourself credit for.
P.S. I googled it — the answer is 9.
What’s been the most effective strategy for growing your clientele?
In an industry and world plagued by never-ending messages, marketing and promises, we aim to be transparent and honest with our prospective clients.
We tell them starting a business is hard, we tell them the pitfalls they may face and we show up and give more in our programs than anyone else in the industry.
We have always found that treating people the way we wish to be treated is the most effective strategy for building relationships and when we build relationships and earn trust we’re able to sell more.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.sarawiles.co
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sara_wiles/
Image Credits
Melissa Gritter