I Didn’t Build a VA Agency. I Built a Virtual Support System.

Why the virtual assistant model is broken, and how I built managed virtual support infrastructure instead

By Published On: January 8th, 20269.9 min read
Jessica Thomas, Founder of Imperative Concierge Services and former healthcare quality improvement leader

I spent years in healthcare environments where a missed handoff, an unclear role, or an untrained person could put someone at real risk. So when I entered the virtual assistant industry, what shocked me wasn’t the chaos. It was how normal the chaos was.

And everyone just accepted the dysfunction.

  • The miscommunication.
  • The constant re-explaining.
  • The generalists being set up to fail by being asked to do everything.
  • The clients stuck, frantically managing their support rather than being supported by it.

I kept thinking: This would never fly in healthcare.

My Background: Why I Don’t Think Like a Virtual Assistant

My career in healthcare quality and program management gave me a different perspective, and the foundation I’ve built with Imperative very much mirrors the work I did in healthcare, just applied to business operations instead of patient care.

I didn’t come into the industry thinking like a VA, where the mindset centers on task completion, hourly work, and reactive support.

I thought in terms of systems design, measurable outcomes, and proactive infrastructure.

My Roles Before Imperative Concierge Services

  • As a Program Coordinator of a grant-funded delirium prevention initiative, I matched patients with volunteers based on specific needs and capabilities. This set the foundation for the custom-matching process I use for clients and Virtual Support Specialists today.

  • As a Talent Development Manager in Healthcare, I assessed instructor qualifications against curriculum requirements and monitored performance. This experience shaped the vetting and quality control I built into Imperative.

  • As a Performance Improvement Leader, I reviewed compliance, tracked outcomes, and worked with stakeholders to improve care delivery. This taught me the importance of accountability and why we prioritize defining KPIs and measurable goals at Imperative.

The functions weren’t the same, and the context was different. However, the principle held: you don’t throw people into systems and hope they work.

Jessica Thomas, Founder of Imperative Concierge Services and former healthcare quality improvement leader

What Healthcare Taught Me About Virtual Support Work

In healthcare, particularly in patient care, nothing is “just help where you can.” You don’t hire a nurse and hope they figure out wound care. You don’t assign a physical therapist to radiology and expect it to work. You match the right specialist to the right need, then you build systems around them so outcomes are consistent.

Every role I held reinforced three principles:

  • Role clarity prevents failure
  • Documentation prevents burnout
  • Outcomes matter more than effort

Here’s What That Looked Like in Practice:

When I coordinated the delirium-prevention program, I didn’t just throw volunteers at patients and hope it worked. I screened patients daily, developed individualized care plans, assigned volunteers based on patient needs and volunteer capabilities, monitored adherence to protocols, and tracked outcomes. After a year, I proved the system worked. It became a permanent part of the budget because of the results it produced (higher patient satisfaction, fewer falls, and use of restraints). 

When I managed talent development, I didn’t just hire instructors and let them teach whatever they wanted. I assessed how their experience aligned with the established curriculum and ensured that training programs addressed the gaps in the workforce. The results were measurable because the process was structured.

That’s the standard I brought with me when I started working with business owners, corporate executives, and non-profit leaders in the virtual support world. Not perfection, but structure, accountability, and systems that don’t break when you scale.

It’s also why I created 60-day time blocks: something the VA industry had never considered. In every healthcare role I held, capacity had to flex. Some months we had more patients than others. Each patient had different needs. Training programs ramped up or slowed down based on hiring cycles. Performance improvement projects shifted based on compliance deadlines. Nothing operated on a fixed monthly schedule.

So when I built Imperative, I didn’t lock clients into rigid monthly retainers. I created 60-day blocks that flex with actual workload, just like the healthcare systems I came from.

When I Entered the VA Industry (The Shock)

The virtual assistant industry operates like a hospital with no job descriptions. Everyone does everything. No one knows who owns what, so when something inevitably breaks, the client has to fix it.

Here’s what I saw everywhere:

  • Generalist VAs expected to do inbox management, social media, bookkeeping, scheduling, tech troubleshooting, and content creation
  • Undefined roles where the client has to explain the work every single time
  • No training infrastructure, so every VA learns on the client’s dime
  • No quality control, so clients never know what they’re going to get
  • Burnout on both sides because no one can sustain that model

It wasn’t a support system. It was chaos with a rigid contract.

Those hiring virtual assistants thought it was all their fault. Many assumed they were just bad at delegating, managing, or that they’d picked the wrong person. But the problem usually wasn’t them.

Here’s What Changed Everything For Me

A lightbulb went off when I realized the industry’s major flaw: the traditional VA model wasn’t structured for modern businesses. It was designed for VA agencies to sell as many hours as possible, and lacked the infrastructure needed for founders and executives to actually thrive. 

Most business leaders aren’t looking for another person to manage. They’re already at capacity. They also don’t want to navigate payroll, time tracking, contract management, and the various intricacies that come with the territory; that’s why they need support in the first place.

So, they need capacity that flexes with their workload and specialists who know what they’re doing without constant oversight. 

But the industry has kept pushing full-time generalists on monthly retainers. It continues to treat support like cheap labor instead of operational infrastructure and puts all the risk on the client.

I realized support should be carefully designed, not improvised. And it shouldn’t be attached to one overworked generalist who becomes a single point of failure.

That’s when Imperative Concierge Services was born.

How Imperative Concierge Was Born

I built Imperative the way I would’ve built a hospital support system. Process-driven, outcome-focused, built to scale, and designed to protect the client.

Here’s how it works:

  • During the discovery call, we assess what leaders actually need

  • We review our network to identify Virtual Support Specialists that match their working style, industry experience, and technical capability

  • We present those options to leaders so they can decide who they’d like to meet.
  • Once they select who they’d like to work with, they select a time block that’s based on the work they need completed, not arbitrary full-time hours
  • Leaders and their Virtual Support Specialist define KPIs, goals, and measurable outcomes to establish accountability and know exactly what to expect

It’s not about finding someone who can do “a little bit of everything.” It’s about building a support structure that doesn’t break when you grow.

Here’s what that means in practice: if you need email marketing, you get someone who has built campaigns and knows deliverability. If you need client experience management, you get someone who understands retention systems. If you need strategic admin support, you get someone who thinks operationally, not just tactically.

No generalists. No guessing. No hoping it works out.

Download the Strategic Virtual Support Playbook

Includes Our Complete Investment Guide

Why I Don’t Sell Full-Time VAs

Most VA agencies sell full-time contractors on monthly retainers because it’s predictable revenue, but it’s usually terrible for clients.

Here’s why:

  • Work doesn’t come in steady 40-hour weeks. Some months you need 40 hours. Some months you need 20. Locking yourself into a retainer means you’re either paying for hours you don’t use or scrambling when you need more capacity.
  • Full-time contractors create legal risk. The IRS doesn’t care what you call someone. If they work full-time hours, have set schedules, and only work for you, they’re an employee. That’s misclassification, and it’s expensive to fix.
  • Retainers create waste. Clients feel obligated to use their hours, so they assign busywork instead of strategic work. Or they don’t use the hours at all and resent paying for them.

Real specialists talk about outcomes, not task lists.

Specialists on flexible time blocks produce better ROI. You pay for outcomes, not seat time. You scale up when you need capacity and scale down when you don’t. Plus, you’re not locked into payroll that doesn’t match your workload.

That’s not how most agencies operate. But it’s how businesses actually work.

What I Actually Sell

We don’t sell assistants. We sell operational capacity delivered by specialists inside a managed virtual support system.

Here’s what that means in practice:

  • If you’re launching a new service and need email sequences, landing pages, and a CRM buildout, you get a Technology & Systems Specialist who has done this many times and can build it in half the time with no handholding.
  • If your inbox is a mess and you need someone to manage communications, prioritize requests, and handle scheduling, you get a Strategic Admin Specialist who already knows how executives work and what good looks like.
  • If you need consistent social media content but don’t want to manage a content calendar, you get a Social Media Specialist who understands platform algorithms, brand voice, and engagement strategy.

That’s operational capacity. Not labor. But real infrastructure.

Who This Is For (and Who It Isn’t)

If you want cheap labor or want someone to “just do whatever,” we’re not for you. If you’re looking for a full-time assistant who works 40 hours a week whether you need them or not, we’re not for you.

But if you want a support system that doesn’t break when you grow, we are. If you’re tired of managing people and want to delegate actual outcomes, we are. If you need specialists who know what they’re doing without constant oversight, we are.

Imperative was built for corporate VPs, department heads, non-profit leaders, and established business owners who understand that good support isn’t about finding the cheapest option. It’s about building infrastructure that works, whether you have project-based or ongoing needs. 

The Future of Virtual Support

The future of virtual support isn’t more marketplaces or more assistants. It’s better systems, and that’s what we’re building. 

Most businesses don’t need just another person figuring things out as they go. Artificial intelligence will quickly replace many of those mundane tasks we know of today anyway. Instead, leaders need operational capacity that flexes with their workload and specialists who deliver outcomes without drama.

That’s not a VA agency. That’s a support system.

If you’re ready to stop managing people and have your support infrastructure handled for you, that’s what Imperative was built to do.

Let’s Chat: Book A Discovery Call

Loading...