Client Success Story: Adam Whelchel

Adam Whelchel is the founder of Spark Bookkeeping, a remote accounting, and bookkeeping firm. Spark Bookkeeping provides top-quality billing, payroll, invoicing, and QuickBooks services for business owners who want to spend less time on back-office tasks and more time on the things that move a business forward.

As Spark Bookkeeping grew, Adam needed to hire an extra set of hands. But he didn’t have the time to find good help. To avoid the burden of finding the perfect person in a sea of unvetted and untested candidates, he reached out to 20four7VA.

Adam recently sat down for a chat about his experience with 20four7VA and what it’s like working with a virtual assistant. Here’s what he had to say:

What do you do and how do you operate?

Spark Bookkeeping started in 2017 in Central Florida. We had a few remote employees in the US and then we found that we had some tasks that could really be done anywhere. So we reached out to 20four7VA and started utilizing their team to help us with some of the data entry and some of the manual tasks that we needed help with.

What are your main responsibilities at Spark Bookkeeping?

My job in Spark Bookkeeping is to keep it going, keep it growing, training new staff members, and acquiring new clients.

What made you decide to hire a VA from us?

When I met the guys at 20four7VA, the staff there looked at what I needed, put together a profile of the skills and the availability I was looking for, and they found me the candidates. I got to choose and test who I wanted to work with before I had to make a huge hiring decision.

I decided to move forward with 20four7VA because I felt like I could always talk to somebody [there] about my VA. I had a direct line to the administrators and they were always available on Skype when I needed them to be. Really, every issue that I had, we found a way to handle it. And the staff that they gave me, I’ve always been happy with.

Are you happy with the results?

I’ve been really happy working with the team at 20four7VA! As we grow and expand, I just reach out to my contacts there and say, “Hey, this is what I need, this is what we’ll be doing next, and I need a couple of weeks to get ready. Can you send me over some candidates and we can look at the skills and requirements I need?”

They’re very fast, they communicate very well, and they find the people that I really think I can work well with. Just so far everything’s been great and the skills are exactly what I needed — and more!

Tell us about your VA. What’s it like working with him?

My first VA, I started working with him and we just got along very well. I was able to communicate with him via Skype every day and we started solving problems together. I ended up needing to stop that contract because my client and I separated. But as soon as I got another client that I needed help with, I asked for that VA again because I really enjoyed working with him. So he came back and did a second contract with me and we’ve been working together ever since.

It’s just been going very well! I really count on him to not just wait for me to tell him what to do. He’s very proactive, very able to see what needs to be done. He gives me an update in the morning of what he saw that hasn’t been done and we communicate about what we’re going to do that day. It’s very collaborative and I really feel like he’s taking initiative and being very proactive in everything that he’s doing.

How did our VAs and the company in general help your company? What value did we bring to you?

One of my goals with hiring a VA was to hire somebody who had skills that I didn’t have. And there were some technical skills that I didn’t really know what to look for in a candidate.

Reaching out to the guys at 20four7VA, I was able to meet some candidates who had skills that I didn’t have and I was able to let them create this role for me and help me decide where I should take that job and what I should do with it and what skills I actually needed for that job. I’ve been able to use 20four7VA to help me learn about my own company and figure out what skills are actually needed in the roles that we are building.

Would you refer us to friends who are facing similar staffing challenges?

I would say to anybody who’s thinking about using a VA for a role in their business that they should give it a try. There’s not a lot of risk. You can tell the team at 20four7VA what you’re looking for and they will find the candidates for you that have the skills in those areas. And it will help you see what it’s like working with somebody remotely.

I feel like I’m always in constant communication with my team. And I’ve been very happy with the flexibility I have with the scheduling, the skill sets, and even just the type of work I have them doing. It’s just been a really great experience so far and I would highly recommend it!

Thank you, Adam!

With 20four7VA, Adam was able to identify new job roles that were needed at Spark Bookkeeping and what skills were needed for those roles. Hiring 20four7VA virtual assistants was the low-risk solution that allowed him to test those new positions and find people with a wide variety of skills to fill them.

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Are you struggling with staffing issues like Adam was? Book a free consultation with our Business Growth Specialists and we’ll help you figure it out.

Spark Bookkeeping also offers employee training and bookkeeping support to keep teams informed about the latest on bookkeeping technology and practices and to help them perform faster.