If you are a founder, entrepreneur, or small business owner who spends the last hour of every workday drowning in tasks you never wanted to do, Anna Brambilla has a simple diagnosis: you need a virtual assistant. Not someday. Now. In Episode 67 of DissedMedia: A Startup Story, the founder of Virtually Aligned joined Ben Olmos to explain how hiring a virtual assistant transformed her own business, why the hire a virtual assistant decision is an investment rather than an expense, and how purpose-driven entrepreneurs can reclaim 10 to 15 hours per week without losing control of their work.

What Is a Virtual Assistant and Why Do Entrepreneurs Need One?

A virtual assistant is a remote professional who provides virtual assistant services by handling tasks that take up your time but do not require your specific expertise or decision-making authority. For most founders, that list is longer than they realize: scheduling, inbox management, research, content posting, data entry, client follow-up, bookkeeping support, travel coordination, and dozens of recurring administrative tasks that collectively consume hours every week.

Anna spent 25 years in the career transition field before founding Virtually Aligned, most recently as a franchise business owner helping people explore franchising. Eight years ago, buried in admin and client paperwork, she hired her first virtual assistant. The result was immediate and measurable. She reclaimed 10 to 15 hours per week, doubled her revenue, and eventually tripled it. She now runs a team of 20 virtual assistants and has built a company to help other entrepreneurs do the same thing.

The concept traces back to Tim Ferriss and The 4-Hour Workweek, but Anna's version is more grounded in the practical realities of running a business than in lifestyle design. Her argument is not that you should work less. It is a work smarter not harder philosophy applied specifically to entrepreneurship: work on the things that only you can do, and stop doing everything else yourself.

How to Hire a Virtual Assistant the Right Way

Most people who decide to hire a virtual assistant head straight to Fiverr or Upwork, type in the search term, and immediately face over 1,000 results. They try to sort by ratings, read profiles, compare portfolios, and eventually give up or make a random choice that does not work out. The problem is not the platforms. The problem is that finding the right virtual assistant requires the same thoughtfulness as any other important hire, and most founders have not done that work before.

Virtually Aligned approaches the process differently. The company begins with a detailed intake conversation to understand the client's working style, preferences, and needs. From that conversation, they build a detailed job description and then do all of the screening themselves. On average, Virtually Aligned receives between 600 and 900 applicants for every job posted. The client is presented with two to four finalists, all of whom have been background checked, video screened, and tested for English fluency and technical capability. The most common piece of feedback Anna hears from clients is that the hardest part of the whole process was choosing between two or three outstanding candidates.

One thing she is emphatic about: do not hire your best friend's cousin's former VA just because they are available. Someone who was a great fit for another business is not automatically a great fit for yours. The relationship between a founder and a virtual assistant is personal, and getting it right matters far more than getting it fast.

Virtual Assistant Philippines: Why Virtually Aligned Sources from the Philippines

All of Virtually Aligned's virtual assistants are based in the Philippines. Anna's experience over eight years is that Filipino professionals bring an exceptional combination of work ethic, English fluency, cultural familiarity with American business norms, and genuine dedication to their clients. The English screening is rigorous: candidates are required to demonstrate near-native fluency and submit video introductions so clients can assess communication style before ever getting on a call.

The virtual assistant Philippines model also includes timezone flexibility. Anna's team works California hours despite being 15 hours ahead, which means some of her VAs are working at 2 AM their time. Virtually Aligned screens for candidates who are genuinely willing to do this, not ones who are reluctantly agreeing to it. For clients who prefer a different arrangement, the company can also source VAs who work during Philippines business hours or in a split-shift model.

The other thing Virtually Aligned screens for that most people would never think to check: backup internet. Certain areas of the Philippines are more vulnerable to typhoons and power outages, so the company verifies that candidates have not just primary internet but backup and sometimes a backup to the backup. It is the kind of operational detail that only comes from eight years of running a virtual assistant business at scale.

What Does a Virtual Assistant Actually Cost?

Virtual assistant cost is one of the first things entrepreneurs ask about, and it is usually the number that surprises them. A top-tier executive virtual assistant through Virtually Aligned runs between $7 and $12 per hour. For US-based founders, that number feels almost implausibly low for the caliber of work being described. For the VA in the Philippines, it represents a meaningful income with genuine life-changing impact.

Anna is direct about the math. If your time as a founder is worth anything close to what you charge clients, you are losing money every hour you spend on administrative tasks. Paying $7 to $12 an hour for someone who does those tasks faster, more precisely, and more consistently than you do is not an expense. It is a return on investment. Anna doubled her own revenue after hiring her first VA. Many of her clients report the same trajectory.

The contrast with the large VA agency model is also worth understanding. Some of the biggest agencies charge clients $15 to $20 per hour while paying the VA $1 to $3 per hour. Anna considers this a form of exploitation, and it also creates a retention problem: a VA earning that little has every incentive to leave the moment something better comes along. Virtually Aligned has had zero voluntary VA turnover in eight years, which she attributes directly to the model of paying VAs fairly and having the client manage the relationship directly rather than routing everything through an agency intermediary.

Your Zone of Genius: Stop Robbing the World of What Only You Can Do

One of the most resonant ideas in this conversation is Anna's concept of the zone of genius. Every entrepreneur has a set of things they do better than almost anyone else, the work that energizes them, produces outsized results, and represents their unique contribution. When founders spend hours on administrative tasks, scheduling, data entry, and research, they are not just wasting time. They are robbing the world of what only they can uniquely contribute.

For Anna, admin is not in her zone of genius. Talking about virtual assistants, coaching entrepreneurs, and building relationships absolutely is. For her VA team, the inverse is true: the precision, organization, and thoroughness that admin requires is exactly what they excel at and enjoy. The right virtual assistant match is not about one person doing what they hate so another person can avoid it. It is about two people working in their respective zones of genius at the same time.

This connects to a broader theme that runs through many DissedMedia conversations. As Rich Ashton discussed in Episode 66 on building leaders from within, the most effective teams are ones where every person is operating in their area of strength. And as David Salerno explored in Episode 61, a business that depends on the founder doing everything is not a business. It is a job.

How to Delegate to a Virtual Assistant Without Losing Control

The biggest emotional obstacle to hiring a virtual assistant is not cost. It is control. Many founders have a deeply ingrained belief that if they have to explain how to do something, they might as well just do it themselves. Anna hears this constantly and addresses it head-on in the Virtually Aligned onboarding process.

Her advice is to start small. Give your new VA something that is not mission-critical, something where a mistake is recoverable and the stakes are low. Use that first task to establish communication rhythms, understand each other's working styles, and build trust. Once that foundation exists, keep adding more. The relationship compounds over time the same way habits do. Virtually Aligned stays close for the first 90 days, includes a replacement guarantee if a match does not work out, and checks in regularly with both the client and the VA to catch any miscommunication before it becomes a problem.

On the practical side: clients pay their VAs directly using tools like Wise for international transfers, and track hours using something like Clockify. An email account and password manager like 1Password or LastPass for secure credential sharing are essentially all the infrastructure needed to get started. The startup costs are minimal compared to any other hire a business might make.

Frequently Asked Questions: Hiring a Virtual Assistant

When should I hire a virtual assistant?

Anna's honest answer is immediately, but she acknowledges that is not realistic for everyone. The inflection point she most commonly sees is when a founder has scaled to multiple six figures and realizes they have become the bottleneck of their own business. Every decision, every task, every communication flows through them. Growth has stalled not because of a market problem but because there are only 24 hours in a day. If you are constantly trying to catch up, working weekends, and watching important things fall through the cracks, that is the signal.

Are virtual assistants employees or contractors?

Based on Anna's experience and the advice of her legal and accounting team, offshore VAs in the Philippines are generally treated as independent contractors, meaning US-based clients are not typically responsible for payroll taxes, workers' compensation, unemployment insurance, or benefits. She is clear that you should verify this with your own CPA and attorney, as rules vary by state and circumstance.

What tasks can I delegate to a virtual assistant?

More than you think. Calendar management, email triage, research, scheduling, social media posting, podcast production support, content repurposing, data entry, customer follow-up, vendor coordination, travel booking, report preparation, and graphic design support are all common starting points. Most clients who go through the Virtually Aligned intake process discover 20 or more tasks they had not even considered delegating.

Where to Find Anna Brambilla and Virtually Aligned

Whether you have never explored virtual assistant services before or have had a bad experience with a large agency, the decision to hire a virtual assistant through a vetted placement partner is one of the highest-leverage moves an entrepreneur can make. Visit virtuallyaligned.com/podcast to let Anna know you found her through the podcast. Fill in the contact form and schedule a no-obligation conversation. She is clear that she will not push anyone into a hire that is not right for them: she turned down a prospective client on the day of this recording because the timing was not right. If the fit is there, you will leave with at minimum a detailed job description you can use anywhere.

Episode 67 is available now wherever you listen to podcasts. Watch the full conversation on the DissedMedia YouTube channel at @DissedMedia and subscribe to help us reach 100,000 subscribers by the end of 2026.