Keeley Teemsma: Giving Psychotherapy A Refresh With Virtual Assistants

Guests: Keeley Teemsma, Daniel Ramsey
Recorded: August 4th, 2021

Excerpt

Often times those who help others, need some help themselves. Such was the case at Refresh Psychotherapy; a mental health service in the New York area. CEO and founder Keeley Teemsma talked to us in this video about their experience with scaling up, mental health in the time of covid, and what brought them to MyOutDesk for a virtual assistant. Because no matter the industry, the more growth your business sees, the more work you need to put in to sustain that success. For Keeley that meant alleviating the pressure for their therapists, because after all, they are the stars of the show, right? Without them, the business isn’t a business. They need to be able to freely focus on the therapy service they provide, which is what makes the business successful. Meanwhile, people whose skill set is more on the business side focus on managing those tasks so successfully that the therapist never even notice.

Help Yourself To Help Others

Hence the introduction of a MyOutDesk virtual assistant to the Refresh Psychotherapy team. They grew from roughly 6 employees to over 60 in the past year! As the company scaled up they realized the systems they had in place simply couldn’t accommodate all of that growth. Being the professionals they are, they built systems to manage their workflow and maintained their quality of service successfully. However, they had to reinvent these systems themselves over time to accommodate the steady growth they were experiencing. The time came to seek outside help, and so Keeley decided to seek some remote assistance. They had to be sure it was reliable assistance though because no one wants to sabotage their own business by relying on something fickle. We at MyOutDesk hand select all of our virtual professionals based on the existing, specific skillsets and experience. They become part of our arsenal, so to speak. So that when a company like Refresh Psychotherapy comes to us seeking help with administrative duties, we have plenty of experts to choose from.

The Perfect Fit

Their virtual assistant ended up getting direct training and guidance from the COO, Patricia Valencia. It’s important to properly onboard any new help to your environment and your professional needs. You don’t want to set them up for failure. They recognized this and it paid off for them, over time. Their VA(virtual assistant) was able to fit right into their company culture and hit the ground running in no time. Their VA has been answering phones, managing emails, and processing application paperwork. Not to mention the various one-off tasks they tackle as they come up. Keeley calls a lot of this work the VA does, “intake coordination”, and it’s become an incredibly valuable part of their continued success.

“You don’t want to build something up and discover the process doesn’t work. You have get things done as you go, to learn what works and what doesn’t.”

The problem that Keeley and her team at Refresh Psychotherapy faced is exactly the kind we at MyOutDesk love to solve. Years ago we set out to help businesses experiencing growing pains by providing professional virtual assistants. With over 7500 clients and over 800 verified 5-star reviews, we like to think we’re on the right track.