Hiring High-Quality VAs the Right Way with Valerie Bowden

In this episode, I dive into one of the smartest ways to scale your business as an entrepreneur or online business owner—outsourcing your marketing and sales tasks to virtual assistants. If you’ve ever felt stretched thin doing everything yourself, or you’ve struggled to find high-quality help without blowing your budget, this episode is going to give you real clarity.

I walk through what tasks you should actually be outsourcing, how to do it the right way, and why looking globally—especially to Africa—might just be the most strategic move you can make.

I’m joined by outsourcing expert Valerie Bowden, and together we talk about how to build a lean, effective, and ethical remote team that supports your growth without the burnout.

Guest Introduction

Valerie Bowden is the founder of CRDLE, a company that connects entrepreneurs and business owners with top-tier remote sales and marketing talent from Africa. After living in Ethiopia for years and witnessing firsthand how major corporations were quietly outsourcing to Africa without fair wages or growth paths, she launched CRDLE to offer a better, more ethical alternative. Today, Valerie helps online businesses and growing companies build cost-effective, high-performance teams that scale sustainably and responsibly.

Hiring High-Quality VAs the Right Way - Key Takeaways

• Strategic outsourcing helps you scale affordably without compromising on quality
• Many online business owners wait too long to delegate and end up burned out
• Tasks like cold calling, lead generation, and podcast booking are perfect for virtual assistants
• The #1 outsourcing mistake is failing to train your team properly
• Daily check-ins, clear SOPs, and a strong onboarding process drive success
• Freelance platforms like Upwork are great for one-off projects, but building a long-term team requires deeper integration
• Focus your time on what only you can do—and outsource everything else to free up capacity

Training Offshore Team Members

• Record initial trainings to onboard future hires more efficiently
• Schedule short daily check-ins during the first couple of weeks to build momentum
• Include VAs in team meetings—they’re part of your team, not a side resource
• You should always own the voice, strategy, and messaging
• Don’t expect perfection immediately—give space for growth

What to Outsource in Sales and Marketing

• Marketing tasks: social media scheduling, video editing, content uploading, podcast booking, engagement
• Sales tasks: cold calling, lead scraping, CRM maintenance, appointment setting
• Combine LinkedIn outreach with cold calls to warm up your sales funnel
• Tools like Apollo.io make it easy to gather verified lead data

Why Choose Africa for Outsourcing

• Africa has a large, highly skilled talent pool with strong English and solid education
• It’s far less saturated than traditional outsourcing countries, so you find better candidates faster
• Hiring from Africa also supports a powerful social mission—especially for young women
• CRDLE connects you with pre-vetted, highly motivated professionals ready to contribute

Integrating AI into Outsourced Roles

• AI tools like ChatGPT help VAs generate content, match tone, and stay on-brand
• VAs can research and test AI tools to streamline your workflows
• AI + outsourcing = more leverage for your business, less time doing the heavy lifting yourself
• This combination empowers you to stay agile and competitive as you scale

Key Quotes

• "If someone’s spending all day cold calling, they shouldn’t be doing it at a U.S. salary. That’s the kind of job that should be outsourced."
• "The biggest mistake I see is lack of training. It’s not fair to expect a new hire—especially overseas—to perform perfectly on day one." 
• "Your VA is only as successful as your onboarding process. If you treat them like a real team member, they’ll deliver like one."
• "AI didn’t replace offshore work—it amplified it. It’s made global team members even more powerful." 
• "You can’t do it all. And you shouldn’t. If you want to scale, you need support." 

Resources Mentioned

• CRDLE – Valerie’s company for hiring vetted marketing and sales VAs from Africa
• Connect with Valerie on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/valeriebowden
• Register for my upcoming free LIVE workshop: https://www.lindseya.com/workshop