Badass Therapists Building Practices That Thrive

164 The VA Playbook: Five SOPs That Protect Your Time and Your Energy

• Dr. Kate Walker Ph.D., LPC/LMFT Supervisor • Season 3 • Episode 164

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If your practice feels like it’s running on chaos, Post-its, and crossed fingers, this episode is going to be a breath of relief. I’m walking you through the first five SOPs I believe every therapist should have, because these are the systems that gave me my evenings back, lowered my stress, and stopped my practice from falling apart every time I hired someone new.

I’m sharing the real mistakes I made when I first started working with VAs, like assuming they could read my mind, or handing over tasks without any structure, and how simple, foundational SOPs completely changed my workflow. From weekly check-ins and shared agendas to onboarding rhythms, accountability systems, and clear “when you’re stuck” instructions, I’ll show you exactly how I keep projects moving without micromanaging or constantly feeling behind.

If you’ve ever hired a VA and felt disappointed, or if you’re just trying to organize your practice so it doesn’t drain the life out of you, these are the steps I wish someone had handed me years ago.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

  • The five SOPs that transformed my practice, including communication rhythms, shared spaces, clear action items, and a visual workflow your VA can follow.
  • How I delegate tasks without miscommunication, using Trello, AI notes, Loom walk-throughs, WhatsApp updates, and first-attempt feedback loops that set everyone up for success.
  • Why onboarding takes time—and what that actually looks like, including starter projects, daily accountability check-ins, and the “when you’re stuck” SOP that keeps work from stalling out.

If you’re ready to stop running your practice on stress and start running it on systems, this is the episode you’ve been waiting for.

If you’re ready to lead with confidence, join the 2026 Supervisor Course waitlist for early access to bonus tools, templates, and fast-track grading. Strengthen your systems today with the free Supervision Onboarding Checklist, and get ongoing CEUs and live coaching inside the Step It Up Membership. You’re not just building a practice, you’re building a legacy.

Get your step by step guide to private practice. Because you are too important to lose to not knowing the rules, going broke, burning out, and giving up. #counselorsdontquit.

SPEAKER_00:

I think this is sometimes why VAs get fired. If my VA is stuck because I have to complete an action item and I forget, and then I get frustrated because my VA didn't do the job. And then I look at my notes and I'm like, oh no, I was supposed to do this first, right? That's the kind of miscommunication this SOP will avoid. Welcome to Badass Therapists, building practices alive. It's about working smart, not hard. And here's your host, Dr. Kate Walker, who is learning right now. Let's talk about the first five SOPs every therapist should have if they want evenings, sanity, and a practice that doesn't run on chaos. These are simple, foundational, and they'll change how your week feels fast. This episode pairs perfectly with this month's bonus, the Practice Reset Cheat Sheet at KateWalkerTraining.com slash bonus. Now let's get to work. Hey, it's Dr. Kate Walker, and I am glad you're here. So today I'm talking about specifically SOPs, standard operating procedures. Now these are good whether you're going to hire a VA or not. But specifically, what we've been talking about in the month of October is how to hire a VA so that he or she lightens your load. And you know, the worst thing for me is when I hear about somebody who says, Yeah, I hired a VA and then I let them go because they just couldn't do the job. I have like a bell or a siren that goes off in my head when I hear that. I'm just like, I think the SOPs were missing, or the SOPs weren't detailed enough. Or, I mean, there are a lot of things that could be a problem, including the VA wasn't doing their job. Don't get me wrong, I've hired VAs that don't do their job. So if I was going to put a magnifying glass on the issue, I would want to see the SOP. So I made a list of five SOPs and I tried to make them super simple so that you can dissect them. You can make them longer if you want to. So number one is communication. And it's funny because I do this with all of my VAs. I did not do it at first. I don't know if I was embarrassed or I assumed too much. You know, the old saying about assuming, right? But it's having a weekly check-in. Now, with Zoom, it's amazing how Zoom has helped this process with me because you can turn on the AI. So, what I do when I schedule meetings with my VAs, I have three VAs right now. I set the meeting and then I have a Trello card for them. Of course, I have a Trello card. If you know me, you know I have Trello. So in the Trello card, I look at last week's meeting. I copy paste everything from that meeting, all the notes, and I put it into the new card for today's meeting. And then I, this is still me, before the VA ever comes around, I go through each thing on the list and I strike through the things that are finished. So we have a visual of what was talked about the week before and what we're trying to accomplish. Now, you may ask, but where did I get those notes? I get them from AI. So when AI takes the notes, so at the end of this meeting, I'm going to have an AI transcript. Well, it's the same thing with my meetings with my VA. I don't have to worry about remembering things. I don't have to worry about my VA remembering things. Because we have a Trello card, we can take the AI notes and I just copy paste. Now we do a little small talk at the beginning. So AI likes to remind me that I talked about my kids or they talked about their vacation. And so I do skip through all of that. And I say on the Zoom meeting at the end, I'll say action items. Here are the action items from our meeting. Or as we're talking. So let's say we're talking about content for December, or we're talking about the step it up directory plan for January. I will say while we're in the middle of that conversation, action item for Kate or action item for Jamie. And AI picks that up and it'll give me a bullet point. So at the end of the meeting, when I hit end on that Zoom call, and then I get an email that says, okay, your AI assets are ready. I go through and there are my action items. I copy paste that into the Trello card, and there go are miscommunications, right? They're not going to happen because they're in plain sight. So one of the things I learned, and this was actually from a book that I read, is to always end a meeting 10 minutes before the top of the hour or 10 minutes before the ending time and review. Take time, hit the end button, and take the time right then to get the information and put the notes in the Trello card. Don't trust yourself to remember the following week. So here are the SOPs. Number one, schedule a recurring check-in. Number two, use a shared agenda. And so I use Trello. I use just a simple Trello card. So on our meeting before the end, I always check and say, okay, when are we meeting next? Because again, AI is going to pick that up. And I make a Trello card immediately. So there we go. We all know in Trello because I share that board, our next meeting is November 5th or whatever. I always start with my so this is number three. I say, okay, what would you like to talk about first? Because if my VA has been sitting on something, they're stuck in some area, maybe they haven't reached out and they knew they kind of should. That's what I want to start with. And then again, number four, I'm going to end the meeting by saying out loud, okay, here are the action items. Some people call that what are our priorities for the next week. But I don't like to say priorities. That's like telling my kids and my husband, hey, the house needs to be clean. That's a priority. No, no, no. I want action items for each person. If my VA cannot go, and this happens a lot. I hear about this. I think this is sometimes why VAs get fired. If my VA is stuck because I have to complete an action item and I forget, and then I get frustrated because my VA didn't do the job. And then I look at my notes and I'm like, oh no, I was supposed to do this first. Like I was supposed to send them a login or I was supposed to send them content before they could edit it and make the blog. Right? That's the kind of miscommunication this SOP will avoid. And then of course, you want to make sure, number five, I'm not going to send them a summary. I'm just going to make sure that they can see that Trello card. All right. So that's number one, communication, communication, communication. All right. This number two SOP is creating a task card Trello. I'm just going to keep referring to Trello slash template and helping them understand why it's important. So for example, all of the trainings that we do, all of these group coaching every Tuesday, it's really, really important that we get those processed for the following month. And because you guys know the newsletter came out today, you it's a super long email. You get to see, okay, here's what members are getting in December. Well, we have to have that based on what we're finishing, right? If we get the CE from the expert webinar loaded into Podia, if we get the trainings into the one start here module, it's a lot. And there are a lot of moving parts. Now, I can put that into Trello and they can understand why and still not understand. And anybody who's ever worked in an organization, you guys know that happens. It's not because there's a language barrier, it's not because you know they weren't listening. It's simply because we all have an idea of what done looks like. I mean, we're counselors, we work in metaphors, we're always trying to help clients see what we're saying, right? So using something like I talked about Loom, L-O-O-M, or voice memos, or there's another app called Marco Polo, where you can have your VA say back to you what they understand. So you can put the project into Trello and you can tag them and say, hey, I need you to send me a voice memo or a Marco Polo or something, a Loom, make a quick Loom video and tell me what you think I'm asking you to do. So it's a check for understanding. And then the very first time you do this task. So if you're giving them a brand new task, I want you to make a Canva cover for my individual therapy product. You know, I call therapy, you know, sessions, those are products. And you say, I want you to make a Canva for this, but you've never asked them to do that before. You're gonna want to set a time to give them feedback, very detailed feedback on that first effort. And then in the Trello card, you take notes. I know with Irvin, what I do is I will take a picture and I will say, Nope, you see, you forgot to check this box, and we're and I'll take the picture and send it to him in WhatsApp. So the three or the four modes of communication I'm talking about are voice memos, and you can just hit send on those, WhatsApp, Marco Polo, which is a face thing. It's kind of like FaceTime recordings, which that's great too. And I'm sure there's stuff that I'm not thinking of, and Loom, L-O-O-M, which is nice because they can show like they can actually do a screen share and record that. So they're recording their screen. Okay, this is what I did. I went here, I clicked this button, I put that in, and you can get that loom and say, oh, uh-oh, no, no, no. I see where you're messing up. I think I showed you guys last time the Trello card that I share with Irvin. And I'm gonna share it again. Quick break. If you haven't grabbed December's bonus yet, go get it. I put together the practice reset cheat sheet to help you clean up your systems, tighten your HIPAA basics, and walk into 2026 without dragging this year's mess behind you. It's totally free for podcast listeners. Just go to KateWalkerTraining.com slash bonus. I'm gonna show you exactly how this works. So let's say, okay, so processing online course. That's where it goes when it starts. It's processing. All I've done is I've just put a bunch of junk into it. I've edited a video, I've given the information about CE hours, there's an evaluation link, then they'll have the video and there's a transcript. So there's a lot of information in this, including, and if you remember last time, I create a checklist, and each checklist has a quick little video that I've made. So a lot of people, I think they think, okay, that's enough. They should get that. If that was me, I wouldn't get that. So Erwin and I have learned to move things. So here he he may slide it here, set to hidden, Kate check. And then he'll go in and he'll tag me. And this is where you tag me. I put seven questions. That's great because it's a 90-minute CE. And so I'll check it. And then if there's something wrong, I'll slide it back and I'll tag him. And we may go back and forth and back and forth. And then finally, if it's Kate approved to publish or add to the spreadsheet, then Irvin can take the next step. But we're tagging each other, we're visually moving things back and forth. I'm taking pictures, I'm sending him things from WhatsApp. So having a VA doesn't mean, especially in the beginning, that you can take your hands off. All right. So that brings me to the next SOP, which is kind of this onboarding. Onboarding can take some time. And here's why. If you had a job that you only gave 10 hours a week to, and some of you, you only want to VA for about five hours a week. That's one hour a day. You know, I know a lot of us think, well, they're going to just devote five hours or 10 hours to it in one day. No, they're not. They're going to devote one hour here, two hours there, three hours there. So what happens is that information, as good as you've tried to package it, gets lost, as it would with anybody. So from day one, you want an onboarding SOP where you share what it is that you do, why it's important, if you have any kind of policy and procedures, that's great. But what's even better is to give them like a list of logins. You know, we talked about LastPass. We talked about maybe giving them their own email. I know that's maybe something a lot of you aren't sure how to do, but if your VA has to communicate with someone outside your organization for any reason and they're sending it from their personal email, you can't check that. And also if they get sick or you do have to let them go, you can't intercept that email in any way. They have all those emails. It's still going to them. So if you have a domain name, you can set up an email. If you have a Google account, you can set up an email with your domain and share that with them. So giving them a packet with logins through LastPass or whatever, giving them access to their own email domain and giving them, and I love this one. This is number three, giving them their first kind of a starter project. So something very, very simple. So remember before I said, I want you to make a Canva cover for my individual sessions. But just make it simple. See what they come back with. Do they know how to use Canva? Did you hire them because they said they knew how to use Canva? Same thing with QuickBooks. If it's something with QuickBooks or accounting or spreadsheets, give them something simple. So yeah, you're gonna have to have a rudimentary knowledge, which brings me to the other reason I think a lot of VAs fail. I think as counselors, we kind of want to just hand over stuff and just kind of do this. Well, you have to know a little bit. Like I'm not an accountant, but I know a little bit and I know how to use Chat GPT and I know how to check to see if my return is, you know, wonky, right? Just basic. So having that rudimentary knowledge and then giving them feedback. That's the other thing, too. I think many of us, especially in the first 30 days of having a VA, we don't give feedback. Like that was excellent. And use words like, great job, wonderful. I mean, these guys and girls, people, they want to please us. They want to do a good job, they want to stay hired. And so if we're able to stay positive and let them know, yes, you are on the right track, but we got to make one little course correction here, we got to make a change or good effort, but man, you blew it. You got it completely wrong. Don't worry though, I'm gonna talk you through it, right? If we are able to keep a really good attitude about the VA, and you're confident that you have given them something simple that they said they were good at, and yet they still cannot complete the project without, and you guys have I've used this term before, several touches from you. Remember, every time you get involved with the project, that's a touch, that's a touch, this is a touch. You're trying to get rid of that, right? We call that mental load. We want that mental load off. So if at the end of 30 days or so you feel like, yeah, I'm not able to offload this at all. In fact, it's become harder, then yeah, it's time to have a talk about probably letting the VA go. So another SOP, let's see, progress and accountability. We talked about a shared tracking space, like Google is a great place to do that as well, but I like Trello. Having your hire update it daily. Now, this is really micromanaging, but you can do this. If you want your VA, especially in the first 30 days, to go in and put in a check-in, like, okay, it's Monday checking. It's Tuesday, checked it. Wednesday, checked it, right? You can make a check-in just for accountability and give it, give them little feedback in context. And then, of course, in the month with a debrief. All right. I think I got to give you one more SOP. And I I know a lot of us when we hire a VA, we may be at this point where we're kind of like, oh, you know, we're ready to get rid of it. And maybe our attitude kind of shows that. So when you are giving off the vibe of, man, you better get this right. And I hired you for this, and uh, you know what, I'm spending good money and right. So they're not gonna want to ask for help. So it is nice to have uh when you're stuck SOP, right? When can they reach out to you? I know with Irvin, he can reach out anytime. I'm not gonna respond because I'm not on my phone all the time and I don't have notifications. That would drive me crazy. But I know I will check it at a certain time every day. So I'm still in control. And if I see, okay, there are five messages from Irvin, I'm gonna check those. I'm gonna respond because I've set aside time for that. Then I'm gonna turn WhatsApp off and I'll check it one more time at the end of the day. So our stuck SOP would be, okay, use WhatsApp, use it in a narrative way, and then I check it once or twice a day. But you might want more than that, right? You might want them to text you and you're gonna respond all the time, and you might have your notifications on. At the very least, I would keep a narrative going. So let's say you're using Google, right? And you just have a Google Doc that you share, and you could make it like a diary, right? So October 1st, this is where I got stuck. October 2nd, this is where I kind of figured it out. October 3rd, I sent you an email. Email October 4th, I hadn't heard back, so I'm still stuck. October 5th, I'm gonna reach out again because I still don't know how to finish this project. So I think that's another reason we may fire RVAs too quickly is because we don't give them a nice way or a clear way to contact you and help them understand you're not just gonna respond like that because that's not why you hired them. Right? Help them understand that you will have some boundaries. And you know, starting off, letting them know those expectations is a great way to train them into your system. Before you go, grab December's bonus, the practice reset cheat sheet. It's your quick guide to starting 2026 with clearer systems and less chaos. Get it at KateWalker Training.com slash bonus. See you next week. If you love today's episode, be sure to leave a five-star review. It helps other badass therapists find the show and build practices that thrive. Big thanks to Ridgely Walker for our original fun facts and podcast intro, and to Carl Guyanella for editing this episode and making us sound amazing. See you next week.