Pod Insights The $100 MBA Show MBA2702 Q&A Wednesday: With All the AI Tools Now, Do I Still Need a Virtual Assistant? About this episode With AI tools getting smarter by the day, it’s easy to wonder: do you still need a virtual assistant? If apps can handle your emails, schedule your meetings, and automate your workflow, what’s left for a human to do? If you’ve been thinking about whether to hire help or lean harder into tech, this episode is for you. This question comes from Kim, who asked: “With all the AI tools now, do I still need a virtual assistant?” Omar shares his personal experience navigating this exact dilemma. You’ll hear what happened when he put both AI and human support to the test and what he learned about judgment, trust, and the kind of help that actually moves the needle. This isn’t just a tech vs. people debate; it’s a real-world look at how support systems shape your business. Curious what the right move is for your setup? Hit the play button at the top of the page and get the full story. The answer might surprise you. To submit your questions, visit 100mba.net/q. Watch the episodes on YouTube: https://lm.fm/GgRPPHiSUBSCRIBEYouTube | Apple Podcast | Spotify | Podcast Feed Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
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1:54 Speaker 01 Welcome to Q and A Wednesday here on the $100 MBA Show where I answer your questions about building and growing your business. Today's question comes from Kim and Kim asks, "With all the AI tools out there, do I still need to hire a virtual assistant?" This is a great question, Kim, and in short, my answer is yes. Yes, you still would need a virtual assistant or an executive assistant to take on your admin tasks. AI tools are incredible. I use them every single day, but AI is not a replacement for human support. I'm going to break down in today's episode, based on my own 20 years of experience, why this is true.
2:36 Speaker 01 AI is a powerful tool, but for the time being, up to this point in this moment in time when I'm recording this episode, you still need humans on your team and I'm going to explain why. Welcome back to the $100 MBA Show. I'm your host, Omar Zenhome, where I deliver practical business lessons three times a week, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, to help you start, grow, and scale your business. Real quick, if these episodes help you in any way, hit the follow button on this podcast app. It helps us to keep bringing you practical business insights three times a week for free. Thanks. I first want to acknowledge the power of AI.
3:20 Speaker 01 AI is so, so amazing. It's like magic, really. It can help you draft emails, social posts, documents, it can summarize meetings, it can generate ideas for you that you can bounce off the AI and then come up with your own ideas. You can even code. Tools like ChatGPT and Jasper and Descript and Canva, they all have AI built in now and they have automations that allow you to save hours of time. It's incredible. In a lot of ways, I believe that AI has leveled the playing field and solo entrepreneurs can really produce a high level of work, almost to the equivalent of big teams, but it can't do everything. Entrepreneurs think, "Well, if I have AI, if AI is doing X, Y, Why do I need to hire a human?
4:06 Speaker 01 That's like saying I have power tools, so I don't need a builder. The tools are powerful, but someone still needs to use them. Use these tools, use their judgment, and quality of judgment is incredibly important, and make sure that the work gets done consistently and properly. You can't just point to the tools and say, you know, build me a house. I actually know this firsthand because I use a lot of AI tools to build AI apps and tools. And you can't just tell the AI app, hey, build me XYZ with a simple prompt. It doesn't really know what you want, right? It doesn't really know how to implement what you want. And that's why precise prompts, instructions is required. That requires a human with thought, with idea, with experience,
4:50 Speaker 01 with the knowledge of what to tell the tool in order for them to actually get the best result possible. So say, for example, there was an AI to build a house, right? If I just said to the AI, build me a house. It might build a weird looking house where the bathroom is inside the kitchen and all that kind of stuff. And it doesn't really know exactly what you want. It's just gonna guess what you want. So what you really need is a plan. You need to make decisions and you need to actually use these tools to get you the best results. And that requires human interaction. So let's get back to the VA idea, having a virtual assistant. Somebody to take off your admin work. Here's why VA is still essential, in my opinion. Even with AI being used everywhere, you still need somebody that can apply context and judgment.
5:35 Speaker 01 You know, AI is great at generating, but it's not great at knowing your priorities, your brand, your nuances. And a VA, a person, knows you, knows your tone, understands your goals, understands the totality of your brand and the end goal of your business. A human can actually judge if the AI scripted email is gonna make the cut or if it needs editing, if it needs changing, or further prompts are needed. The other reason why I still hire humans is because you need somebody who is focused on execution and follow through. AI can create, but it doesn't do. It actually doesn't do the work for you.
6:16 Speaker 01 A VA or an assistant make sure the tasks actually get published, get sent, get uploaded, get checked. They are responsible for the task. Execution is everything. This is a key difference. AI will never be responsible for anything. In fact, they have all these like clauses and terms like, hey, you got to check the work. Make sure that we didn't make a mistake, you know, AI always can make a mistake. They have that in chat, GPT and everywhere else, you know, they check the response. But when you hire somebody, they can be responsible of the output. They could check everything and make sure that, hey, this is up to standard. It's up to integrity, it's up to the law and to your own standards of quality for your business.
6:57 Speaker 01 So you really need a person to own the responsibility of what you're trying to pull off. Be honest, as a business owner, how much of your day is actual work? And how much is it just getting ready to do the work? Answering emails, tweaking presentations, hunting for numbers? That stuff adds up fast, which is why upgrading to the premium tier of Google Workspace with Gemini is a game changer. One subscription gets you Google's AI right into all your apps like Gmail, Docs, Sheets and Meet. So it can handle all the heavy lifting across your day. Need a reply drafted in your exact voice? Gemini handles it in Gmail. Need to turn messy spreadsheet data into visual insights? Done in Sheets. Missing a meeting?
7:42 Speaker 01 It takes notes and gives action items in Meet. It acts like a full-time assistant connected across your entire business. Make work, less work. Try Google Workspace with Gemini at G O O dot G L E slash Workspace with Gemini.
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8:51 Speaker 01 Another reason why you hire humans is that they're very good at managing, honestly, chaos. AI doesn't triage your inbox or chase up late invoices or remind you about the podcast interview with a phone call. Somebody, a human person calling you up and say, "Hey, don't forget in five minutes, you have a pre-interview for this podcast guest." A VA does. This person's got your back. I also hire humans because relationships matter. Relationship management in your business is a big deal. Business runs on relationships. AI can't manage client introductions, sensitive situations, or they can't build rapport with another human, right? People know it's AI. A lot of people, they can't stand when they get the AI bot in customer support
9:34 Speaker 01 when they're trying to reach out to cancel the subscription or get a refund or whatever it might be. So that human touch is so valuable in business that it's just not worth risking with an AI. What else? Quality control, right? AI is fast, but it's not always accurate. It makes a ton of mistakes and VAs are very good at spotting mistakes, attention to detail, and reaching out to your customers to make sure they make it right. Maybe this will change. Maybe AI will get more accurate and get better at it. But right now, I think that AI makes more mistakes than an actual human being.
10:15 Speaker 01 And sure, AI creates leverage, but a human hire ensures leverage actually turns into results. They take responsibility of the results. Listen, I'm not telling you to throw the baby out with the bathwater. I'm not saying AI is horrible, get rid of it. No, we want to use both. And let me share how I do it and how I've done it over the years with automations, with tools, with AI, with all kinds of stuff, right? But my VAs, my administrative assistants, these are the most valuable hires we make because they actually take off my plate the things that take the most time. So for example, let's take something that we do every single week, which is our newsletter.
10:55 Speaker 01 Right? We have a copywriter that writes our newsletters, but we could do a quick check in AI to test different subject lines for this newsletter. So we could upload the newsletter copy and say, "Hey, we want a bunch of subject lines that we can A/B test inside of our email marketing software, ConvertKit." So this is a good use of AI with my VA, working with the AI to get us a better result, right? And she will load up inside of ConvertKit and load up all the subject lines to see if things work. And we're using, obviously, the automations inside of ConvertKit and the scheduling and all that kind of stuff. So this is a great use of human interaction and
11:37 Speaker 01 AI interaction. Another use of AI I use personally is that I get a lot of people reporting to me, and they give me the summary of what they've done this week, right? They give me their high level report. How's YouTube performing? How is the podcast performing? What about our ads? Our ads team come and tells me this is what we've done this week. And often, these reports are quite detailed, several pages long. I can then just upload it to my favorite AI app, and it gives me a quick summary that I could just read in five seconds to understand, okay, this is what's going well, this is what's not going so well, this is what we've got to work on. And then I can then look at the report in detail in the areas that I want to go deeper in. But the big reason why I still hire humans, especially for VA jobs, is that I don't want to be a bottleneck
12:21 Speaker 01 anymore. I don't want to be the person approving, tweaking, fixing, uploading. The VA is the person that does that. I get leverage on top of leverage. You get it? So I don't have to block anything. I'm not the person that's rubber stamping everything. They make decisions because they own the task, they own the job, and they make sure that, "Hey, I got this, and I'm going to get you the result you're looking for." Now I'm going to share with you a way of looking at this, a exercise that you can do right now that I've learned from my coach, my mentor, Dan Martel, years ago. So Dan taught me about this concept of $10 task, $100 task, $1,000 task, and $10,000 tasks. A $10 task is something repetitive,
13:04 Speaker 01 like scheduling, posting, formatting, replying to emails. A $100 task is like a customer support response to a sales inquiry. It's going to make money. And by the way, this $10, $100 is like how much money I can make from this actual task, right? From this actual action. So I could probably make around $100 if I handle this conversation with this customer. But I still don't want to do it myself. It's, I consider a $100 task because somebody else can do it. Then there's a $1,000 task, like choosing a marketing strategy. Right? This is usually a medium level decision. And then there's a $10,000 task. This is vision, creating a new product, closing a big deal, recording a podcast episode. These are things that actually move the needle big time.
13:49 Speaker 01 Now, AI can reduce the time you spend on $10 tasks and $100 tasks easily. But without a VA or a human assistant, you're still doing way too much. You're still doing way too much without them on your side, without them being on your team. Because yes, the AI can help you, but you're still rolling up your sleeves and doing the work. If you're in business right now and you are making money and you're transacting, maybe you're not making millions, but you are, you know, moving along. Your job is to move towards only doing $1,000 and $10,000 tasks. And eventually, not doing $1,000 tasks and just doing $10,000 tasks. And then, the ultimate goal is not doing even the $10,000 task. You get high level employees, team members,
14:34 Speaker 01 to take care of that for you too. So for the time being, you should be only doing things that only you can do. So for me, really, all I focus on is content, being the person that teaches on the podcast. After I record right now, everything gets sent to my team and they take care of everything, and the publishing, and all that kind of stuff. I don't do any of that admin tasks, the editing, all that stuff. The other thing I always focus on is product, any kind of product we work on. Because those are the two things I think my input has value in increasing the value of my company and the revenue we make. Everything else, basically, I should be outsourcing. And that's what I do. I should be delegating to somebody else on my team or hiring for it. Now, here's the good news. AI actually makes your assistant, your VA, more valuable.
15:19 Speaker 01 A VA with AI skills is like a VA that is like a superhuman person. Is like a superhero in your business. They don't just do admin. They can now draft, create, edit with AI's help. And there's less room for error now because AI can correct typos and grammar mistakes. It can fix issues. Even like if there's a little bug on your website, they can figure out what's wrong with it. AI can help you fix that for you. That means if you hire one great VA who uses AI well, this is going to be as powerful of having two to three people on your team. And in my opinion, when it comes to hiring assistants, somebody who's doing a lot of admin work, pay above market rate.
16:04 Speaker 01 If you're hiring out of the Philippines, if you're hiring out of South America, whatever it might be, Latin America, paying just 20 to 30% more than the average attracts some of the best people in that region. And it creates loyalty, it creates retention. It's well worth the investment. I'd rather pay one amazing VA than juggle three mediocre ones that are giving me headaches. So, Kim, who asked today's question, do you still need a VA with all the AI tools out there? Absolutely, because you're going to be able to leverage more with a human using AI. AI doesn't replace human, it empowers them. For the time being, AI is a power tool. Your VA is the builder and you, the founder, are the architect. You're the person that tells the actual builder, this is the blueprint.
16:49 Speaker 01 This is what I want you to build. If you want to scale, then follow my advice because it's going to really help you build on solid foundation. Kim, thank you so much for the great question. And if you have a question you want to ask, don't forget you could submit it over at 100mba.net/ q and we'll answer it right here on Q&A Wednesday. Before I go, I want to leave you with this. When you make a hire on your team, you basically multiply the power of your company in what you can do. And I believe one of the best hires you can make in your company are administrators, VAs, assistants, because they take away a lot of the stuff you shouldn't be working on, low-value tasks, and allow you to have a bit more time to think creatively,
17:33 Speaker 01 allows you to recruit better people, allows you to be a leader. And the cost versus reward on this transaction is immense, and it allows you then to focus on bringing in more revenue to your company. So this is a great, great time to hire, because the floor is shifting right now, and a lot of people are worried, "Hey, what does that mean for me?" The first thing I would recommend is when you hire somebody, make sure that they're willing to be trained, and train them on how to use AI. There's plenty of courses out there, there's plenty of stuff that you can find online, and allow them to kind of just get a good understanding of how to use the basic tools like ChatGPT to be able to leverage their own skills in doing a better job for you.
18:19 Speaker 01 If you found today's episode helpful, and you want more practical business lessons to help you start, grow, and scale your business, the best thing you could do is subscribe to this podcast. Hit subscribe or follow on your favorite podcast app, the one that you're using right now, whether it's Apple or Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. By hitting subscribe, you get our next episode automatically, and it's the best way to support the show. It's absolutely free, and it's a way for you to commit to growing your business. And now that you've subscribed, I'll check you in the next episode.
18:57 Speaker 02 Mazda has been named Consumer Reports' safest new car brand. It starts with our approach. Every Mazda comes standard with proactive safety features, so you're more aware of what's around you, more focused on the road ahead, and ready before problems ever start. Mazda, more of what matters most to you. Go to MazdaUSA.com to learn more. Consumer Reports does not endorse or promote any product.
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