What it’s really like working with a VA in Your Balloon Business

Everyone says hire help, but very few people can actually explain what that looks like. Hire help to do what, exactly? Answer phones? Tie balloons? Follow up on leads? Most of us get stuck at that question and never take the next step... not because we don't need support, but because "just get some help" isn't actionable advice.

So here's the actual version. This is how I work with Nicole from Let Nicole Help, who has been my booking specialist for three years, and what we'd tell you to do if you're thinking about bringing someone into your balloon business.

What my Balloon Business VA Actually Does

Nicole is not a balloon person. She has never designed an install. She has never talked to a client on the phone. She's never tied a single balloon.

What she does is handle everything that happens between an inquiry landing in my inbox and me getting a payment notification while I'm on a delivery.

Here's the workflow: a lead comes in through my website, into 17hats. My only job is to check a box that says I'm available. From there Nicole takes over: she reviews the inquiry, responds using my saved templates, goes back and forth with the client on design and pricing and sends the invoice (or sometimes queues up the invoice for me to approve). 

I once found out about an $800 booking because my phone buzzed with a 17hats payment notification while I was driving to a job. I had no idea what it was for, but I didn't need to. Nicole had handled it.

That's the goal.

Why a Narrow Product List Is Non-Negotiable

The thing that makes this work... the thing that makes it possible for someone who doesn't know balloons to book balloon jobs... is a tight, clear product list.

Nicole doesn't have to know the difference between every column style or every centerpiece option because I don't offer fifty of them. If someone's having a 50th birthday, she recommends marquees. Grand opening with double doors? Arch... probably columns too. She's not designing anything. She's matching the situation to what's on the menu and moving the client toward a decision.

That's efficient, profitable and that only works if your menu is narrow enough that someone who isn't an artist can navigate it confidently.

If everything in your business is custom, you can never fully remove yourself from the sales process. I truly believe that a tight product list is what makes delegation possible.

The Tools That Connect You

You need a CRM. There is no version of this that works without one.

We use 17hats, and the shared access is the entire foundation of how Nicole and I operate. She can see every client file, every email thread, every workflow step. I can see what she's sent, what's pending and where a booking is in the process (without us having to text back and forth constantly).

We also use the Google Workspace chat that's built into our shared inbox. It lets us have sidebar conversations about clients and jobs: flagging a tricky inquiry, noting that someone keeps changing their mind, etc., all without risking accidentally copying a client on something unprofessional.

If your entire booking process lives on paper or in your personal email, handing any of it off is nearly impossible. Get it into a system first.

What Was Clunky at the Beginning

We figured out a lot as we went and we're honest about that.

Early on, clients didn't always understand that Nicole was my booking specialist rather than me. People would email her directly with last-minute updates: a date change, a cancellation... and I'd only find out when Nicole mentioned it. We had to set up email forwarding so everything copied to me automatically.

We also had to work out how Nicole presented herself. She doesn't pretend to be me. She has her own signature, her own title, her own email under my domain. Clients talk to Nicole; I show up and do the balloons. Half the time clients call me Nicole at events and I just go with it!

The other ongoing challenge is me. I break my own rules constantly; responding directly to a lead I feel like I know, forgetting my county minimum for marquee rentals, agreeing to something off-menu without telling Nicole. She's genuinely the enforcer of policies I set for myself and then immediately forget.

How to Get Started

The short version:

Find someone you know and trust. A smart person from your day job who wants a side hustle. A friend who's detail-oriented. Someone you've already seen work. You can bypass the "are they capable?" question entirely if you already know the answer.

Set your boundaries upfront. Nicole said from day one she wouldn't talk on the phone to clients. That's fine. Know what you're asking for and what you're not.

Get a CRM in place first. If your business isn't in a system, there's nothing for a VA to plug into.

Build your product list and templates. Give them the tools to do the job without having to ask you about every single thing.

Then just start. It'll be clunky and they'll use wording you'd change. You might even realize mid-month that you forgot to tell them something important. But do it anyway. Three years in, Nicole and I are still tweaking and updating the workflow... and it's still one of the best things I've ever done for my business.

Hear the full conversation with Nicole on The Bright Balloon podcast here!