Courtney Okanlomo — 60-day check-in

All right, we are here with Courtney, and Courtney has a real estate company. She manages the office, and for the office they have Leia. Leia has been with them for 60 days. How is Leia doing, Courtney?

Leia is excellent. You know, I was one of those busy business-owner professionals that didn’t really believe in virtual assistants much. I thought that they would not be a good fit for the personal touch that I always look for and seek in business — and that couldn’t have been further from the truth. Your company and Leia have turned me into a believer. I manage about 72 agents or so, as well as a small staff, and she has completely revamped our entire operation. I want to continue to build our business and our volume so that we can get two or three Leias.

And one big piece of advice that I would give to new individuals that are seeking to consider this route: every piece of business advice that I’ve received, probably within the last 6 to 12 months, has all been geared to using virtual assistants and building out a team of them versus in-person staff on a larger scale. And that can be very scary for many business owners. But I’m here to tell you that not only was I changed into someone that now sees the benefit of that, I also get to reap the benefits of taking that step and that risk of just really not knowing what to expect.

And I have to say that you, Michael, have been very instrumental in just making me see things from a different perspective on a large scale. And I love that you guys are interviewing these individuals and kind of being that buffer between us and them. It gives us a lot more support that we probably didn’t even know that we needed.