Stacy Sutter, Founder & President, Summit VA Solutions
In today’s globalized world, the evolution of digital technology has provided the opportunity to find easier ways to start a business and run them successfully. Businesses can still face a lot of challenges, primarily when the founder and the team are tasked with multiple roles, expectations, and obstacles. Summit VA Solutions is a US-based company with a mission to foster a stable fluid workforce for businesses. Headquartered in Houston, Texas, the company provides highly skilled Virtual Assistants from the Philippines to help businesses grow while being an economically sound staffing solution.
Founded by Stacy Sutter, President of the company in 2015, Summit aims to improve how virtual assistants are trained. He says, “Our clients deserved better and so did the virtual assistants, so ALL of Summit‘s virtual assistants must complete 160 hours of live classroom training.”
During its initial days, the company has faced the usual growing pains, but through great customer service, well-educated virtual assistants, 160 hours of training, and a commitment to excellence, Summit VA Solutions has become one of the industry’s leading virtual assistant companies. With a shared vision throughout the team, the company strives to be better every day. “I can say that the experience has been amazing and I am glad I have gotten to share the ride with the Summit team and all of our Virtual Assistants,” shares Stacy.
Summit VA Solutions is primarily dedicated to real estate professionals who sell real estate, mortgage brokers, and title companies. With the new acquisition company, VirtualAsst.com, Stacy aims to help professionals in other industries. The company teaches the virtual assistants a broad range of skills including database management, social media, calendar, and email management, document preparation, and a variety of other skills that prepare them to be successful in their new position. The team is also involved in specialized training modules specific to the industries.
“We are committed to supporting both the client and the virtual assistant with an entire team of managers who are focused on making the transition successful. We have ongoing training for our virtual assistants so they can learn new skills and increase their value to the clients,” affirms Stacy. Summit VA Solutions plays a major role in every industry that needs helps in sales, marketing, and social media, database management, and back-office administration. By providing the time they need for their clients, the company allows them to focus on working on their business, not in their business.
Driving Values
Over the years, Summit VA Solutions has earned the trust of its clients by providing the best training in the industry. “We do a great job because our trainers have done the job themselves and have been successful,” shares Stacy. Summit VA Solutions relies on past experiences, new industry standards, and the latest technologies to prepare its virtual assistants to be successful on their first day and every day. The team regularly communicates with the clients, helping them with the issues pertaining to on-boarding, communications, or industry-specific training.
Stacy says, “We do a great job because our trainers have done the job themselves and have been successful. The other thing our clients appreciate is our honesty. We are not afraid to tell a client we don’t know something.” He adds, “In that same vein, we are willing to go and find the answer, learn the system and resolve the task.”
Visionary Leader
Stacy is a real estate professional in Houston. He shares, “I have the pleasure of working with the finest management team anyone could ever wish for, and before you think everyone says that, think about what we created.” The entire team at Summit VA Solutions from Filipinos and were virtual assistants in the past, providing them the knowledge and understanding to help and direct the virtual assistants when they need help. He established the company to provide the virtual assistants great paying jobs and provide them more time with their families and give them a better life.
“Our goal is to provide GREAT jobs, GREAT income, and a GREAT quality of life. Summit is very much a family-oriented business and that’s the way we wanted it,” asserts Stacy.
Stacy’s Response for the Pandemic
According to Stacy, the global pandemic has not affected the company as all virtual assistants work from home as usual. As people have found a way to work virtually and reduce their costs at the same time, Summit VA has almost doubled since the start of the pandemic. The company has spent a lot of time, energy, and money to educate people on the virtues of virtual assistants, and people are now seeing the reality and save as much as 60% on their payroll.
With a strong supportive management team that is focusing on the client and the virtual assistants’ success, Stacy found a winning combination regardless of the pandemic. The biggest challenge Summit VA during the pandemic is to keep enough trained virtual assistants to meet the demands of the industry without compromising the training.
Future Roadmap
According to Stacy, the future for Summit VA Solutions is ‘GROWTH’. “We will not allow the company to grow beyond the control of our management team and we are always on the lookout for strong experienced managers that we feel would be a great addition to our team.”
In the near future, the company plans to diversification into other verticals like e-Commerce, Insurance, and Health Care. With VirtualAsst.com, Stacy builds strong relationships with the industry leaders who help the company grow and see the potential in their respective fields for virtual assistants. “Long term diversification is the key to growth and on a worldwide stage, the potential is almost unlimited,” concludes, Stacy.