FAQ

Frequently Asked Questions

Our subscriptions are based on $45/hour and start at 5 hours per week, or $900/month. At Sparent, we pair stellar virtual assistant services with ongoing business support. Learn what’s included in your Sparent Subscription!

You can absolutely hire cheap overseas labor. That is not our model, nor are we ethically aligned with building our company on the premise of cheap labor.

Sparent is a profitable company, but we are happily less profitable with a business model where we believe in upholding the same pay and high standards regardless of a Sparent’s geographical location. Although most of our Sparent VAs are U.S.—based, we do serve a global economy and have stellar non-U.S. VAs in our diverse talent pool.

Sparent is your virtual business team, your secret superpower, the wizard behind your business curtain, your unsung heroes. Ok, we got a little carried away there.

Seriously, our Sparent VAs are not only stay-at-home moms but also highly skilled individuals that represent various advanced degrees, business backgrounds, and impressive corporate work histories. Currently, they have the most important job in the world—being parents, but we believe they are the best, most under-utilized, skilled workforce out there.

So, we decided to give them flexible, challenging work with great pay, and they lend us their spare hours and impressive skill sets. Your business gets ambitious, caffeinated, organized, and enthusiastic virtual help. We pair that with our ongoing business support. Win. Win. Win.

Nope! Our subscriptions are month-to-month. We plan to earn your business every month, but if we don’t, we will make it right, or we don’t deserve to keep you.

We do ask you to sign a Customer Service Agreement before working with us, but it’s designed to be straightforward and reasonable and we review it with you during your onboarding so you understand exactly what you are signing.

Nope! That is because quite frankly, you don’t have the time and we are much better at this part. There isn’t much you can determine in a sixty-minute interview. That is why we spend lots of time and resources vetting our Sparent VAs for you.

Our multi-step application process involves weeks of getting to know a Sparent before they are ever placed with a client. That includes working for us first on complex tasking designed to assess the quality of their work product, communication and problem-solving skills, time management, and personality.

We have a methodology for selecting Sparent VAs for our clients that will give the relationship the best chance for long-term success. If we get it wrong, we will make it right, but we have a pretty darn impressive track record.

We will review your communication preferences and protocols during your professional onboarding, but we let you take the lead here. You just need to determine how you’d like your Sparent to communicate with you and how often for a good working relationship. Whether you prefer email, phone, Zoom, text, Slack, or Voxer—it is up to you!

Great question! Unlike a traditional, in-house employee, you only pay for actual time worked. You don’t pay for things like coffee breaks (and we take plenty)!

We use a snazzy time tracker called Harvest. Sparents are focused on your tasks, and only your tasks when the time tracker is on. You will be invited to Harvest at our expense as part of your subscription so you can monitor your hourly consumption in real-time.

We work on a monthly, subscription-only basis. Our monthly minimum is 5 hours per week.

Oh, we love a little excitement in our day! Unfortunately, we do not guarantee that we can accommodate last-minute requests. However, if you are an existing subscription client, we will do our best to deliver for you.

It is our pleasure and privilege to set you up for success with your virtual assistant or team. Our onboarding process is focused on an excellent outcome so we invest time upfront not only assessing your needs but defining benchmarks and KPIs so we can gauge what a successful outcome looks like for you.

We also invest time assessing the hard and soft skills combination that will mesh with your business needs, work style and culture. Taking a holistic look at your business also helps us map out potential long-term delegation needs for you. Professional Onboarding: $295 One-Time Fee.

Yes! We pay our Sparents for every minute they work, and communication and meetings are all considered billable time. In other words, you can have a one-hour Zoom meeting every day, but you will be billed for it.

This can be tricky when you first start working with us. We recommend starting out conservatively and consider the weekly tasking you’d like removed from your plate. During the professional onboarding process, we will be helping you define your initial tasking so we can help calculate an hourly estimate.

Our Sparents tend to be efficient, but clients can have unique needs that may have a learning curve attached to them. Keep in mind that your monthly subscription is flexible and we can adjust your hours as your needs expand or contract. Our monthly minimum is just 5 hours per week.

Your monthly subscription hours do not roll over. This is one of the reasons we recommend starting out with a conservative number of hours so you don’t get overwhelmed by tasking out all of your hours. We also provide lots of help and guidance along the way to make sure all of your hours are spent timely and wisely.

We refer to ourselves and implementers and collaborators, but you are not paying for strategy. Sparents can implement an existing strategy, but they do not formulate your strategy. However, our Sparents have quite a bit of business savvy, so it is not unusual for them to make suggestions that can improve your existing systems and processes.

When appropriate, we can refer you to one of our trusted resource partners who can formulate a detailed business or marketing strategy for us to follow.

So many things! We are continually thrilled by the vast variety of requests that come in. Our list of services is really just a starting point. We are here to help your company grow, reclaim your time, and unburden you from incomplete projects, and never-ending to-do lists.

We understand that companies have unique needs, and more often than not, we have a Sparent uniquely suited to fulfill them. As long as the work can be done online, run it by us!

Some of our Sparents are interested in remote, F/T employment placement. If that is the case, they are eligible for permanent placement after 3 months working as a Sparent for your company. After that period, our Virtual Staffing transition fee is $9,500. If you are looking to fill a remote position or one is developing, our VA-To-Hire talent pool is a terrific resource.

Sparent bills in advance for our services via a credit card on file.

Have a question that’s not answered in our FAQ, ask us.