Special Episode: Modern Therapist’s Consumer Guide on Buying Time, LLC
Curt and Katie talk with Bibi Goldstein, of Buying Time, who provides virtual assistant services for therapists. Bibi shares her journey from starting a personal assistant service in 2007 to evolving into a comprehensive VA company. She emphasizes the importance of delegating tasks, using systems like QuickBooks and scheduling software, and maintaining consistent social media presence. Bibi’s team provides comprehensive support, including bookkeeping, social media management, and email inbox management. Bibi stresses the importance of regular communication and flexibility to meet clients’ needs. Curt and Katie highly recommend Buying Time for its efficiency and quality of service. This episode is part of our Modern Therapist Consumer Guide, where we explore innovative tools and services built for therapists and their clients.
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Transcript
Interview with Bibi Goldstein, Founder of Buying Time LLC
Bibi Goldstein is the founder of Buying Time, LLC, a premier virtual support company dedicated to helping entrepreneurs and small businesses streamline operations through effective systems and time management strategies. With over a decade of experience as a systems expert and productivity consultant, Bibi is a sought-after speaker and co-author of Get Organized Today, Navigating Entrepreneurship, and Business Success with Ease. Her expertise lies in creating scalable systems for businesses of all sizes, allowing leaders to reclaim their time and focus on growth.
With multiple certifications across a variety of software platforms, Bibi specializes in automation tools that simplify business processes and increase efficiency. She works closely with business owners to implement strategies that support long-term sustainability and success.
Deeply embedded in her local business community, Bibi currently serves as Chair of the Board Redondo Beach Chamber of Commerce. She also sits on the Advisory Board for Walk With Sally, a nonprofit mentoring organization.
A long-time resident of the South Bay, Bibi lives in Redondo Beach with her husband, Mark. In her spare time, Bibi is an avid 5K runner and enjoys staying active in the community she calls home.
In this podcast episode we talk about how to effectively incorporate business systems and delegate to a Virtual Assistant company like Buying Time, LLC
We talk with Bibi Goldstein about her business philosophy, strategic advice for therapists, and the services offered by her virtual assistant company, Buying Time.
“The vision has always been growth by implementation. The more that we can implement with our clients, the better off we are…We’re working so much in things that I never thought in a million years that I would even know or understand. So the mission always for us is go the extra, find the way, and that allows us to serve more people.” – Bibi Goldstein, Founder of Buying Time, LLC
Interview with Bibi Goldstein, Buying Time
0:01:00 – Introduction
0:04:06 – Company Origin Story
0:11:46 – Advice for Therapists on Business Operations
0:16:34 – Social Media Strategy vs. Implementation
0:20:00 – Delegation and Task Management
0:34:14 – Virtual EA vs. Virtual Assistant
0:36:17 – How to vet a potential Virtual Assistance Company
0:40:04 – How to Sign Up with Buying Time
0:43:20 – Contact Information
“We are here to help and here to support so that we can make people’s day to day more about why they are doing the business that they’re doing, instead of the the busyness of doing their business.” – Bibi Goldstein, Founder of Buying Time, LLC
Curt and Katie Chat – Our review of Buying Time
0:45:24 – Katie and Curt talk through our impressions of Buying Time: We view Buying Time as an exceptional virtual support service that goes beyond typical administrative assistance, offering strategic guidance and practical solutions for therapists and entrepreneurs.
A Special Offer for the listeners of Modern Therapist’s Survival Guide podcast from Buying Time
Buying Time has put together a free Systems Inventory Checklist to help all of us to uncover hidden expenses and optimize spending in your practice. Go to buyingtimellc.com/mtsg to get your free checklist now!
Relevant Links:
- Website: buyingtimellc.com/mtsg
- Email: service@buyingtimellc.com
- Social Media: @buyingtimellc
- Why You Shouldn’t Just Do it All Yourself, An Interview with Bibi Goldstein
Meet the hosts:
Curt Widhalm, LMFT
Curt Widhalm is in private practice in the Los Angeles area. He is the cofounder of the Therapy Reimagined conference, an Adjunct Professor at Pepperdine University and CSUN, a former Subject Matter Expert for the California Board of Behavioral Sciences, former CFO of the California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists, and a loving husband and father. He is 1/2 great person, 1/2 provocateur, and 1/2 geek, in that order. He dabbles in the dark art of making “dad jokes” and usually has a half-empty cup of coffee somewhere nearby. Learn more at: http://www.curtwidhalm.com
Katie Vernoy, LMFT
Katie Vernoy is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, coach, and consultant supporting leaders, visionaries, executives, and helping professionals to create sustainable careers. Katie, with Curt, has developed workshops and a conference, Therapy Reimagined, to support therapists navigating through the modern challenges of this profession. Katie is also a former President of the California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists. In her spare time, Katie is secretly siphoning off Curt’s youthful energy, so that she can take over the world. Learn more at: http://www.katievernoy.com
A Quick Note:
Our opinions are our own. We are only speaking for ourselves – except when we speak for each other, or over each other. We’re working on it.
Our guests are also only speaking for themselves and have their own opinions. We aren’t trying to take their voice, and no one speaks for us either. Mostly because they don’t want to, but hey.
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Modern Therapist’s Survival Guide Creative Credits:
Voice Over by DW McCann https://www.facebook.com/McCannDW/
Music by Crystal Grooms Mangano https://groomsymusic.com/
Transcript for this episode of the Modern Therapist’s Survival Guide podcast (Autogenerated):
Announcer 0:00
You’re listening to the Modern Therapist’s Survival Guide, where therapists live, breathe and practice as human beings.To support you as a whole person and a therapist, here are your hosts, Curt Widhalm and Katie Vernoy.
Curt Widhalm 0:15
Welcome back, modern therapists. This is the Modern Therapist’s Survival Guide. I’m Curt Widhalm with Katie Vernoy, and this is a podcast where we are happy to have the Modern Therapist’s Consumer Guide, where we talk about the different businesses that help to make therapist practices better and to operate your systems better. And we are very happy to bring somebody that we rely on for a lot of our virtual assistants kind of work in our background, and Bibi Goldstein and her team at Buying Time helps in so many ways, and we’re just so happy to share all of the ways that she can help your practice too. So thank you very much for coming on and spending some time talking about ways that therapists can improve their businesses.
Bibi Goldstein 1:00
I’m so excited to be here. I love talking to the both of you. It’s just more fun than sitting here and working by myself in my own virtual office.
Katie Vernoy 1:15
Well, we’re so glad that we can put a spotlight on you and on Buying Time. You and I are friends, and we’ve worked together for like, 12 years, or something? Like this is I pulled that number out of thin air. It just feels like forever, like, basically, I started my business, and I reached out to Bibi and said, How do I do this thing? From bookkeeping to virtual assistant, setting stuff, up, emails, social media, all of our stuff and all of my stuff. It’s been just really wonderful to work with your team, and we’ll talk more about you later, behind your back at the end of the episode. But before we jump in to all of that, we want to ask you the question we ask all our guests, which is, who are you and what are you putting out into the world?
Bibi Goldstein 2:02
So who am I and what am I putting out into the world? I I am someone who has always loved the idea of hearing the word ‘thank you.’ It’s been something for me that means a lot to me, and that’s kind of one of the things in when I started this business that was so important. It was just that feeling of relief that someone felt right. And what I want to put out in this world is that there’s always somebody who can help you, and there’s always someone who enjoys doing something more than you do even when you have to do it, right. People laugh all the time when I say, I love bookkeeping. I love playing with numbers. I love those things. So it’s a being of service. It’s finding that opportunity, how big or small it may feel to me could be huge to someone else, and that is what I always try to get my team to understand, that they’re always very surprised when someone says, oh my god, I would never have been able to figure that out myself, right? But it’s true. There’s things that I can’t do. I mean, I wouldn’t, I don’t try to hang my own pictures. I don’t try to, you know, fix my own car. I don’t try to do any of those things that I know that would take me too long to figure it out, because the picture would look like this instead of like this, and the car would probably stop running. So it’s really just about, you know, focusing on gifts. Focus on our gifts as a team, as individuals, and what we can provide to other people that may not be their gifts and being of service to them.
Curt Widhalm 3:55
How did Buying Time get started? What’s, what’s the origin story, the how and the why that you came to get going in this direction in the first place?
Bibi Goldstein 4:06
Yeah. So when I started this business, we are in our 19th year now of business. We started in February of 2007 and we started out of a need. I was working in corporate, and I had siblings, but all of us were busy doing things, and my mom was struggling, and so we were trying to find somebody who could pick up groceries, who could help with, you know, paying bills and just kind of help with things around the house. My dad did all of that, and after he passed away, as much as she tried, she couldn’t really get to it. So what happened was, as I started to look for somebody who could do that, and I discovered that there was nobody. And so buying time was born as what we would call a personal assistant service, at that point. We used to walk dogs, pick up, dry cleaning, grocery shopping, all of those things that allowed for people to have some support and help in their, balancing their life. In some cases, we would do PowerPoint presentations for people who were speakers or a variety of different things. And so from there, it evolved, probably about four years later, it evolved into just strictly virtual assistance. It became much easier to manage. It was easier to focus on the things that we were really good at, that I was really good at, because we were a small team then, very small team. And so it, it was born out of a need and then evolved out of more of a necessity that we saw with entrepreneurs, as opposed to just the busy professional.
Katie Vernoy 6:13
And I think the thing that I love about how the Buying Time team works, and I love that name, by the way, just as so evocative of what you actually are doing. You’re getting you’re buying your time back, which I wasted so much time before I signed up with you guys. But even if you don’t have a skill set that comes to one of the entrepreneurs or or folks that you’re working with, it feels like you’re willing to take it on and learn it and dig in or find the resources and make sure that someone can get something done. And for me, it makes you a one stop shop, like everything that I have that needs to get done, I reach out to you, I say, Bibi, I’ve got a new thing. And you’re like, All right, we got this, or we already have somebody on it, or we’ll learn it, or that kind of stuff. And so it it seems like your evolution has been pretty organic, where you meet folks and you just take care of them and make sure that their businesses can run, run efficiently, and all of those things. So anyway, I said I was going to be effusive later, and I can’t help myself, so I’ll go on to our next question, because it’s important one that I think is valuable to you, but also to our audience and understanding you a bit better. Talk about your mission, vision and values that guide your business decisions.
Bibi Goldstein 7:36
Well, I think that, you know, we’ve kind of already touched on them, in the sense of the being on service, being of service to folks, and that’s that’s really where we kind of it goes into some of the things that you were just talking about, right? People listen to your podcast because they want to see what, what somebody else might be doing, that they can learn from, that they can gain insight from, that they can incorporate into their business. We have taken on the vision that we can be better by what our clients push us to. I didn’t know SimplePractice before you guys came around. I didn’t know TherapyNotes before some of my other clients that that use different softwares in the therapy world, right? We didn’t know any of these things. But we were like, Okay, let’s figure them out if they’re gonna give us an edge over someone else, because we’ve learned a new software, the vision has always been growth by implementation. The more that we can implement with our clients, the better off we are. The second piece to that is that the frustration that most entrepreneurs feel, most professionals feel in Oh my god, I have to learn another software. Oh my god, I have to learn how to, you know, even the simplest of things, how to submit super bills to a different type of of company, right? Or how to give that information to their patients. We’re working so much in things that I never thought in a million years that I would even know or understand. So the mission always for us is go the extra, find the way, and that allows us to serve more people. So if we learn something new, we gain a new skill set now that skill set might be important to the next client that makes the decision for them to want support from our team. You know the other part that is not client based, but that’s important to me is that I wanted to provide something and some place that people with skill sets could continue to provide support to other people and yet still be available for their child at home and or be able to make appointments and not worry about having to schedule time off at an office job. Many of the people who have worked for our organization have been a part of our team over the years have been single parents or parents that needed to have that flexibility of being able to pick up their their child, or drop their child off at school, taking care of a parent, taking care of the the household, and still be able to be contributing to it from a financial perspective. So it was important to me two fold in that moving to a virtual system allowed for us to fulfill that vision and that mission, to provide a place for people to hone their skill sets, work on things and still be available.
Curt Widhalm 11:16
A lot of therapists, there’s a million different options in the ways that they can run their business, the way that they can organize their systems, that you go into any two therapist’s office, and I would imagine that they’re probably running things slightly different in ways that match up with their personalities. What are things from your perspective and experience that therapists should consider when they’re designing how to operate their businesses.
Bibi Goldstein 11:46
So I think that the first thing that I would say, because we have worked with therapists that are just starting out, and therapists who have established practices, so the main thing that I would remind the client of is that you didn’t go to school to run a business. You didn’t go and get your certification in how to run a therapy business. You got your certification in and your degree in how to be a therapist, and your role is to help people. So that, in itself, is, how do you stay focused on the thing that you’re meant to be doing? I think that that the first area is, is looking at what do you need now? What do you need in six months? What do you need in a year? And in looking at strategy, in establishing what a therapist needs now, most of it is not that much, but you do have to establish some things, right? So looking at your systems and identifying what softwares do I need, what people do I need, and how do I grow? Right? So those three places of systems, team and growth are what I try to really get any client, whether therapist or not, but get any client to look at. So when you look at your systems, number one, don’t sign up for everything. Figure out really what you need. Take advantage of free trials. Taking advantage of free trials, there’s lots of clients that come to us after they’ve already done all of these things. And so one of the things that we do is we have what we call a systems checklist, and we have them go through their credit card bill or their login informations, and we figure out, what are you using, what are you paying for? What aren’t you and I still do it. We’ve had this checklist in place for probably about 15 years, and I still do it. Every quarter or so, I will sit down with my credit card bill and go, Oh, I’m paying $25 a month for this, and $18.99 for this, and $9.99 for this. What am I still using it? When was the last time I logged in? Am I still using it? So that’s on the system side. On the team side, it’s hiring the people that you need now and establishing what they’re specifically there for. For instance, lot of the therapists that come to use us are using us for social media. And in that case, it’s do I hire a social media company, or do I just need to be consistent on social media? And strategy versus consistency is different in that. People as you know, most of the time, don’t go to a website, really anymore. Once they hear about you, they go check out your social media. That’s the first place they go and look. So if they see you haven’t posted in three months, they’re gonna go, okay, is this really the person that I want to you know be working with, or what you’ve posted isn’t really matching who you are as an individual? So those are some of the things that we look at is how that goes into from team, do you really need a social media strategy team? Do you need just somebody to implement? Do you need a bookkeeper or do you need an accountant? Do you need, what are those things in your team that you need now versus later? And I think that the final one is the growth piece. What are you doing for marketing? I know that you guys know that as therapists, you have to market. Yeah, you have to get clients somehow. And how do you do that? So it’s, how do you implement those things initially in your business? Because once you grow and you have more clients, then you have more funds to be able to grow some more and spend on the in the areas that you need to spend on.
Katie Vernoy 16:10
So, the question I have is, is based on the social media description that you’re putting forward, just to make sure that our audience is following: social media strategy is designing what you’re going to post, social media implementation is having it scheduled and going out on a consistent basis. Which of those things does your team do?
Bibi Goldstein 16:34
We do primarily implementation. We will work with strategy companies, but in the beginning, we’ll help you to identify just what your voice is, right? What do you want your voice to be? It doesn’t necessarily have to be a strategy. It’s just got to be about consistency, right? If it’s important to you, let’s just say that you’re a therapist that works a lot and promotes the idea of working with service animals, right? So we would take that information and then help you curate posts that focus around those things that are important to you. If you support a charity, if you’re so the things that are important to you, so that your value system and those things come out in your social media. Strategy is when, how am I using my social media to grow? And that’s the kind of stuff that we aren’t necessarily doing. That’s the stuff that we will work with the strategy team to help you implement.
Katie Vernoy 17:39
So it’s getting this stuff done, because I remember the intro call with your social media person, and it was keyword research. It was, you know, how many posts a week do you want to go up? What are the types of things? Where should I look for memes? Or where should I look for different types of posts that we might be able to curate, and then also, how will we share information? So it just is accountability to get it done. And I think for a lot of therapists, they may have a sense of what they want to do, but they don’t have a sense of how they’re going to get it done. I know for me, the first thing that I signed up for with you is bookkeeping, because I just couldn’t get myself to do it, and it just evolved over time. And so it’s something where I felt like you were a partner in designing my business, whether it was systems to make sure that this opt in went to this email, or the social media, or the bookkeeping, and it felt like you were talking me through how to make decisions. What do I do? What do I delegate? What are the things that I can delegate to, or the people I can delegate to? And so it really was something where I was able to understand the decision I was making and feel like the decision I was making was going to be a solid one. So can you talk through some of that process, how you delegate what kind of systems or what kind of folks you can put on your team? Because I think that would be helpful for people who are starting their practice and feeling overwhelmed by all the decisions that they have to make. Or people who are growing their practice and have those decisions.
Bibi Goldstein 19:17
Yeah.
Katie Vernoy 19:18
To be fair.
Bibi Goldstein 19:19
And you’re right. I mean, a lot of like, We are the doers. We are like the for lack of a better way of saying it, we’re the folks that like this has to get done. Here’s the plan, and then we go and execute that plan. And that’s really what my folks are great at. And they can take concept and ideas and implement them. In the method of delegating I think that a lot of this is, you know, really getting clear on what you don’t enjoy doing. Like what you just said you you you procrastinated doing your bookkeeping because you didn’t enjoy doing it.
Katie Vernoy 20:00
Oh, for sure.
Bibi Goldstein 20:01
And most people, they like to be on social media, but they don’t necessarily like to come up with the posts and and figure out what they’re gonna put on social media. And sometimes it’s just a little nudge, right. I always say that as business owners, we are always better off editing than creating from scratch, because if somebody else starts something, it’s easy for us to pick it apart and say what we like and what we don’t like, right?
Curt Widhalm 20:34
I’m gonna highlight that to my team right there, because I say that all of the time. Yeah, I don’t have anything more to add to that, other than I know from my team, I tell them it is much better to get started on something, even if it’s 90% wrong, because then it gives me something to start working with.
Bibi Goldstein 20:56
Yeah, you have, you have, you have a jumping off point, and that’s where, where we thrive is being able to kind of take that information and be able to create it, right? So we’ve found people on our team who like creating those things, who love the brainstorming aspect of it, who love the creativity piece behind it, and going, Oh, this would be so cool to post for you know, this client, and this would be cool for this client, and sometimes even some of those overlap, right? We have the opportunity as business owners to kind of give someone the ability to to to create these things and then take pieces of it and create multiple things from it. I have clients that do that all the time. Hey, you know what? You guys put this piece together. I think this is actually three different posts. Let’s take this and let’s highlight this one portion of this, and it it really is more of a partnership. It is more of a we are the, we are the team. We are part of your organization. Buying Time is yes, our company, and and, and what we do in letting you buy back your time, but we want to be part of your team. We’ve taken the word assistant out of our vocabulary, anywhere on our website or things like that. We start to use the the phrasing that we are your virtual support team, and that allows for us to then become ingrained in your business. Understand how your business operates, what your mission and vision are, what are you trying to accomplish? Right? Sometimes, business owners, therapists, attorneys, people in the professional world, they just do what the last person did, or what other people in their industry do, and that may not be the right thing for them, and but they don’t have the bandwidth to be able to figure out what are those other things that they should be doing that might set them apart from the other people in their industry. And so for us, if we can take care of things in the background, and we can take care of your bank reconciliations, and we can take care of, you know, managing your insurance billing, billing to your bank account, and making sure it matches and making sure that everybody is paid. If we can make sure that reminder, reminders are going out to your clients because they have an appointment with you. If we can make sure that social media gets posted for you and you don’t have to worry about those things, then guess what? You have all of that free brain power, worrying power to worry about something else.
Katie Vernoy 23:55
I like that worrying power.
Curt Widhalm 24:00
So a lot of therapists are worried about AI and artificial intelligence taking over their parts of the jobs, but there’s also a lot of software that we rely on and can rely on that makes our jobs tremendously easier. It’s not necessarily just replacing you or your team with artificial intelligence, but on the software question, what kinds of software should people really be considering to make their practice and their lives easier?
Bibi Goldstein 24:31
There’s two pieces of software that I will always tell people in especially therapists, that they need to get focused on. Number one is QuickBooks, the bookkeeping aspect of things I know and can speak from experience, the number of therapists that we have taken over bookkeeping for that would do them on spreadsheets. Oh, I just don’t have that much. I’m telling you the $35 to whatever amount in whatever plan you want to use. It is so much better than what you can do on a spreadsheet, and it’s so much easier for that. That would be number one. Number two is a scheduling software. Scheduling softwares are crucial, even if you are not using a high end software that is, you know, managing your your notes and things like that. Although you should, scheduling softwares are crucial. There’s, you know, Acuity, there’s AppointmentCore, there’s a variety of different scheduling softwares out there that connect directly to your calendar. Nobody can see what’s on your calendar. It doesn’t, they’re not going to see if you have a hair appointment and or whatever else is on there. They will only see that there’s available time or not available time, and you can schedule. I’m only available to take this particular link type of appointment, whether it’s a new, new client or an existing client, from 10 to 2 on Tuesdays and Thursdays. You can set it up any way you want, but I will tell you that those two things in the very beginning are two things that I would immediately do, because it will make your life a lot easier.
Katie Vernoy 26:27
Yeah, I think the QuickBooks, some folks feel like their Excel spreadsheets are sufficient, but they get bogged down, and then are asking questions around what, what should I label everything as, and how should I do it, and having someone to help you do it, and also having QuickBooks, which is set up to do that for you, for me, it’s just a big load, you know, kind of relief, a load off my mind. I think, for the scheduling software, I think folks get very nervous about it because they feel like it is less personal than those bazillion back and forth emails or phone calls to get scheduled. But I’ve used them from the beginning of my business, because this was what you had recommended as well. And all I have two different schedulers, one within my practice management system, and one that is separate, and my life is so much easier. They all, they all sync on a single calendar, and I can get people signed up to network, do virtual coffees with new clients, new inquiries. I’ve had people from other organizations that want to talk speaking gigs, or, in fact, sponsorships for the podcast, those types of things. And it’s it is, it saves so much time, and I think people’s hesitations can be overruled when you realize you can send this scheduling link and all of a sudden somebody’s on your calendar, and you didn’t have to go back and forth for two weeks to get it there. So I love that, that suggestion.
Bibi Goldstein 27:54
There’s a lot of things I think that that when you think about and I will, I will give you a quick little with the scheduling software. I think that that the idea that you can have different links for different types of appointments, like you mentioned, for podcast sponsorship, for a patient, for someone who just wants to have a consult, there’s a variety of different links that you can create that make this so much easier to allow for somebody to make the decision to be put into your calendar. And I think that most people appreciate the efficiency behind it, as opposed to it being impersonal. I think efficiency outweighs the impersonal part.
Katie Vernoy 28:44
I do too.
Curt Widhalm 28:48
For people like me who are busy, and we have our systems where things need to get done, and it just I know your answer is going to be, look how much time you will save in the long term before I even ask the question. But when I’m too damn busy to slow down to tell you how I’m doing my tasks in my business, how do you recommend that people hand off and outsource some of these tasks when it’s just already part of their overloaded schedule and overloaded flow. What are the things to consider in handing off some of these things to get to that proverbial time saving somewhere down the line?
Bibi Goldstein 29:32
So it’s actually really overly simplistic. You take a piece of paper and you keep it next to you as you’re working throughout the day, and one side, you put a line down the center, and one side has a happy face on it, and one side has a sad face on it. And anything that you love doing, you put on the happy side, the happy face side, and anything you don’t like doing, you put on the sad face side. And what we do, is we take the items that you have on the sad face side, and we find those opportunities that we can do a Zoom like this for about 10 minutes and have you explain to us what what you do. We create an SOP from it. We create all of the information that we need to get in order to start taking over all of those tasks in that sad face column and hand off those one at a time. Is it going to be perfect the first time? It’s not going to get done the same way that you do it? No, but the only way to delegate is the same idea of wash, rinse, repeat, and that’s the only way. And sometimes hate to say this, because most of us who are business owners think that we do everything the exact, perfect and right way. Sometimes the people who take it over can find a better and faster and more efficient way of doing it than we’ve been doing it the whole way. The entire process, I will tell you from beginning to end of even taking on bookkeeping. Let’s just start there, which seems like a very daunting thing, probably takes about somewhere between an hour to an hour and 15 minutes of the client’s time, the therapist’s time over, I would say, about a two week period. How’s that for easy?
Katie Vernoy 31:36
Curt’s got a very thoughtful face.
Curt Widhalm 31:38
I really like that idea that it’s being able to kind of do it as you’re going along, and being able to say, this is what can be offloaded. Because I think for overthinkers, that we can get into the kind of this position where it’s just Oh, but if I have to stop and think about all of these steps as it’s going along, what you’re describing is an actual process that is, let’s make this seamless for you, and that way it’s not get everything ready and have it be perfectly wrapped up so that way you can do it as, I came across as, quote on a TV show recently, that ‘management is just watching somebody do what you do, but worse.’ And what you’re describing is not that process. It’s being able to actually look for ways that you can get the tasks done better and not have to have it, try to just be done in the way that I’m doing it.
Bibi Goldstein 32:36
It’s it’s so it’s so true, right? You when you when you think about how things can be so daunting. I always use the example, because nobody ever does this, of the people who clean up their house before the house cleaner comes, we don’t want that. We actually want to see the mess, because it’s easier for us to know what needs to be cleaned up and what needs to be taken care of if we know where the mess is kind of piling up for you, if that makes sense. If you’ve got all of these things that are kind of weighing on you, you know, I’m going to go back to our systems checklist, right? That systems checklist is going to be that place that, even with that sad face that we can start with. It’s the idea that, what are the systems that I’m using and not using that I should be using? Right? When I say that that systems checklist earlier about like finding those things that you don’t need anymore. It’s also finding those things that are those golden things in there, that that you’re not taking advantage of and using in the way that they can help to grow your business, or they can help to make your life easier, that the team can then go in and implement and use that system in a greater way.
Katie Vernoy 34:07
What’s the difference between a Virtual EA and a Virtual Assistant?
Bibi Goldstein 34:14
So a Virtual EA is going to be somebody who’s primarily like, Well, I mean, it stands for Executive Assistant, so…
Katie Vernoy 34:24
Okay.
Bibi Goldstein 34:24
…that is somebody who is going to be more of a hybrid type of they are doing a lot of the, you know, personal slash professional type of things. However, in our case, there really is no difference, because what an EA can do we can do. Our virtual assistants are helping therapists with their email inbox management, let’s just talk about there. That’s what an EA would primarily do. They would sit down and they would actually go through your inbox before you got to it. And they would decide what you needed to really, really address that day and what you don’t. They would make travel arrangements. They would take care of paying bills for you. Our team does all of those things. That’s why, when we talk about virtual support, it’s support in whatever fashion, from customer service, email management, calendar management, all the way through to marketing, website updates, graphic design, bookkeeping. Like from beginning to end, the team can do all of those things. So I would say that an EA is probably more limited than what a virtual assistant can do.
Curt Widhalm 35:51
There’s a lot of VA programs out there, and some of the different options can be from one time task, kinds of things, fiber, kinds of options to fully encompass organizations like yours. What do you recommend for people when it comes to vetting what they actually might need out of a virtual assistant?
Bibi Goldstein 36:17
I think that the first thing that you just need to do, first and foremost is know that that you mesh with this person, especially if they’re going to be long term on your team. Know that if you don’t mesh with them, are they, have they been recommended because they’re really good at what they do. Because sometimes we don’t all you know, see I or like each other in that way. So I would say that when you’re vetting a VA that how you work with them is going to be really, really important, because if you can’t operate on a regular basis with them, they’re not going to support you virtually. It’s going to become a push and pull kind of relationship, as opposed to a combined effort type of relationship. Personality isn’t what I’m talking about. I’m talking about how they work, how they operate. Can they be flexible to work the way that you like to work? Can you be flexible to work the way that they like to work? And can you guys find a way to work together so that the objective is that the tasks get done. That’s number one thing. I have seen so many people who go to services, virtual assistant services, and they don’t actually interview the person. They don’t actually talk to them, they don’t actually see who they’re going to work with. And that, I think, is going to be the thing that frustrates therapists in general, because they don’t have time, as you may have mentioned several times, they don’t have time to continue to vet over and over again because it’s not the right person.
Katie Vernoy 38:12
And I think the ability to communicate when there’s challenges, as well as creatively, I think that is really important. I know you’ve helped us and pretty much everything, and when we had a conference, you helped consult with that and put that on and really high intensity times. And being able to hold, you know, hold a moment and identify what is it we’re actually trying to accomplish here? You know, whose lane is this? Those types of things. I think being able to have meaningful conversations that get you to the end goal have been really important. And I think part of it is just, you know, the flexibility, but being able to have those conversations when something comes up. I just got this speaking gig. I need help. I need a speaker reel, or I need this thing, or whatever it is, and your team is able to come in and execute even when I’ve been impatient. And I think that’s that’s part of the deal is being able to communicate and say, Okay, what do you actually need, Katie? Okay, hold, take a breath. What’s going on here? We can help you. This is, we’re going to set you up with this person on our team. And I think that part is, is so critical, because I think a lot of folks aren’t able to see themselves as part of the team and have that interaction and be as invested in the outcome as you are.
Bibi Goldstein 39:37
I agree. I agree. And that’s that’s why it’s important to us, you know, to make sure that that how we operate while we still have our foundational pieces, that we can still accommodate what the client needs.
Katie Vernoy 39:56
So before we run out of time, how does somebody sign up with Buying Time? How does it work? What does that process look like? Let’s get into the nuts and bolts.
Bibi Goldstein 40:04
Okay, so it’s actually really easy. When you go to our website, buyingtimellc.com, there is a place for you to book a consult with with our team. We do the consult because it’s really important that, again, like what we were talking about in vetting, that we want them to talk to us first and know that our model works for them. Once that once we go through that and we identify what they are looking for, and if it’s support that we can provide, and in 99.9% of the case it is, we then go through the next process of scheduling an intake call, taking getting them on board. They spend about anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour with our team that’s going to be based on what they’re looking for. If they’re looking for bookkeeping and social media in a variety of different places, they may end up with four of us on an intake call with them. Depends on, on, on where we’re at. So we will go through the whole process. In the intake process, we want to make sure that we set up weekly check ins, or bi-weekly check ins. We always want to make sure that we’re communicating. Just like you would any of your team members, if they were hired employees, you would want to have regular team meetings with them, and so we would schedule those during the intake call, and then we follow a process of making sure that we are getting the tasks done that we set up as priority from that initial intake call, and then move from there. Our clients receive a weekly task report from our team that shows them, literally down to the minute, everywhere that their monthly support has been. They can choose monthly support packages for as little as two hours a month, all the way up through, we have some clients that use us for over 100 hours a month. So it really runs the gamut of of the really small, to the really large, to the somewhere in between, and making sure that that they stay with us for a long time. You know, Katie’s mentioned this a few times now. She’s been with us since about 2012 I think just towards the end of 2012.
Katie Vernoy 42:30
Oh, wow.
Bibi Goldstein 42:31
It’s for us, that is a huge piece. Is that we can say that we have retention of a lot of our clients, because the process is that we move with your business. To steal from from you, we evolve as we have kind of, you know, gone into different things. So our our team is great at being able to suss out the things that are giving you pain and move from there to continue to reduce that pain.
Curt Widhalm 43:15
Where can people find out more about you and your team?
Bibi Goldstein 43:20
Buyingtimellc.com. They are also absolutely welcome to just email and they can email me, Bibi: B, I, B, I at buying time llc.com or our team at service@ buying timellc.com, We are here to help and here to support so that we can make people’s day to day more about why they are doing the business that they’re doing, instead of the the busyness of doing their business.
Katie Vernoy 43:59
And I know that you have a that systems checklist is something that you’ve made available to our audience as well. Where can they find that?
Bibi Goldstein 44:08
They can find that as soon as they come to our website, it is the first thing that they see. It’s right at the top of the screen. And we would absolutely love to help them to even just get that piece done before, even if, before they reach out to us. Because I think that most people will find that helpful in what they need to look at in their business now. What systems are they using? What do they need, what don’t they need, and what could they need?
Curt Widhalm 44:42
And we will include links to everything that bebe just mentioned over in our show notes at mtsgpodcast.com and thank you so much for joining us and sharing all of the wonderful things about you and your team. And my closing comment is, I’ve worked with people before, and Bibi and her team, I actually believe her when she said that they enjoy doing this stuff. It doesn’t feel like it’s just another employee that you’re hiring and dragging through to get tasks done. So they’re a wonderful team to work with. You should check them out.
Katie Vernoy 45:24
So now that we had our interview with Bibi, we can take our time to do a little bit of a review, like we do for all of our Modern Therapist Consumer Guide guests. And I know I was effusive all the way through, so potentially, it makes sense for you to start out with the work that you’ve done with Bibi’s team and what your impression is of their process.
Curt Widhalm 45:47
So like we talked about Bibi and her team, we do use them with the podcast here, we had also back with the Therapy Reimagined Conference that was where most of my direct interaction with Bibi and her team was, and I know that they have moved out of the live event space quite a bit, and so don’t go to them for that. But…
Katie Vernoy 46:07
Well, consulting, they’ll do consulting and virtual assistant. They’re just not doing the same level of of service that they were before.
Curt Widhalm 46:13
But what my experience was for someone like me, where I have a million plates spinning. And I really like that for somebody outside of my practice is able to come in and say, These are the plates that you need to focus on, and we will take care of these other plates that we’re very good at. And they were. And I’ve worked with other companies before. I’ve outsourced some things with my practice before, where that level of attention to care and to detail, especially with a practice like mine, where I can do a lot of stuff kind of functionally well, I’ve been able to look at what Buying Time does and see that the quality of what they do is really top notch.
Katie Vernoy 47:11
And my experience has been one where I met Bibi actually networking. She is an excellent networker. She has a bazillion resources in every place in the world. She’s gone to a lot of conferences, and she’s local to me. And in sitting down with her the first time and walking through her process, which has evolved over the last 12 or 13 years, it was looking at, how do you set up your systems to work for you, so that you can move away from what you’re doing. And she kind of didn’t get to this. But also, how can you grow? She mentioned it, but she didn’t go into depth. And it really is looking at putting together the systems and making sure that the systems keep working, and identifying opportunities to be able to keep growing as a business owner, and that can look like simplifying, or it can look like expanding. And so anytime I’ve had career shifts or new projects or those types of things, almost invariably, I have a meeting with Bibi or one of her team members to say, Hey, I’m starting this new thing. How do I set it up? And Bibi knows software. She knows what are the things to use, what things have been problematic? I think they’re currently going through some systems assessment themselves, and are going to identify top systems for getting some of these things done. I don’t know what I can say and not say so I’m being a little bit vague, but they do the research, they go through and test all the software that they’re going to use, or if you want to set up a new system, most likely, they’ve tested, used it and understand the pros and cons and are able to match it to your needs. So to me, it’s just the the breadth and depth of business knowledge that align with what practice owners need to know, so that they can just focus on being therapists, and potentially also focus on getting rest and time off, versus grinding away at bookkeeping or, you know, the basic administrative tasks that for us are mountains, and for them are just, you know, kind of their daily routine. So I can’t recommend Buying Time highly enough.
Curt Widhalm 49:25
I agree, one of the things that I appreciate most as an employer, as just a person, of my friends and the people that I have in my life is the people who are willing to not only jump in and do kind of anything but to go in and try to continuously improve it, and it’s just kind of that ambition, and that’s really what you get with a company like Buying Time.
Katie Vernoy 49:53
So as Curt said, before, we’re going to put their their links and all that stuff at our show notes over at mtsgpodcast.com, there also will be a special listing in our consumer guide that’s at moderntherapistconsumerguide.com.
Announcer 50:08
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