A Freedom Framework for Families and Business – with Mary Elaine Baker – [Ep. 266]

Linda J. Hansen:  Welcome. Thank you for tuning in to this episode of the Prosperity 101 Breakroom Economics® Podcast. My name is Linda J. Hansen, your host and the author of Prosperity 101, Job Security Through Business Prosperity, the Essential Guide to Understanding How Policy Affects Your Paycheck® and the creator of the Breakroom Economics® Online course. The book, the course, and the entire podcast library can be found on prosperity101.com. 

I seek to connect boardroom to breakroom and policy to paycheck. By empowering and encouraging employers to educate employees about the public policy issues that affect their jobs. My goal is to help people understand the foundations of prosperity, the policies of prosperity, and how to protect their prosperity by becoming informed, involved, and impactful®.

I believe this will lead to greater employee loyalty, engagement, and retention, and to an increased awareness of the blessings and responsibilities of living in a free society. Listen each week to hear from exciting guests and be sure to visit prosperity101.com.

Thank you so much for joining with us today. It is just a pleasure to welcome my guest today, but before I introduce her, I want to say thank you to our Prosperity Partners. Those who help us keep the podcast on the air by sharing financially either monthly or just once in a while, a one-time gift as they're able.

So if you'd like to become a Prosperity Partner, please visit prosperity101.com, hit the Prosperity Partner link on the website and join us in sharing the freedom message. We also have wonderful strategic partners. I'll mention them at the end of the episode.

However, one of them is actually my guest today. In an era when remote work has become normalized, it's easy to forget that nearly all businesses require a team in order to grow. Even solopreneurs, virtual assistants can ease the load and help with their talents matching perfectly to the business owner and the needs of the company.

I love what this guest has done. Mary Elaine Baker and her husband Brett felt the need for her to start working as a virtual assistant. Brett is a military member and their schedule of deployments and travel really interfered with Mary Elaine's ability to keep a steady job.

I appreciate so much how God led them to start VAUSA. Founded in 2018, VAUSA has changed lives by helping hundreds of clients and virtual assistants to gain more time to focus on their people, their purpose and their passions by creating thriving working relationships all across the United States. This is an American company that is just founded on the principles that made America great.

It is just a joy to not only partner with VAUSA, but to promote VAUSA. And what an honor to have Mary Elaine with us today. Welcome, Mary Elaine.

Mary Elaine Baker: Thank you, Linda. I am so happy to be here. 

Linda J. Hansen: Well, we had a great pre-recording conversation where we got to know each other a little better.

We originally met a couple of years ago at a national conference with the U.S. Christian Chamber of Commerce. And at the time, I heard about your mission, your goals, what you had already accomplished with VAUSA. And I knew immediately that I needed to hire a VA through VAUSA.

I'm so thankful to say my VA is wonderful. I also, as a customer of VAUSA, can say with all honesty, transparency and enthusiasm that the processes you use and the customer service that is shown not only through my VA, but through the support team that as we work to hire, as we work to set goals and do training together, I mean, it's incredible. Your processes are amazing. Your people are amazing. It is just, like I said, an honor to introduce you to my audience, but also it's a joy to work with my VA, Rachel. 

Mary Elaine Baker: Oh, thank you. Yeah, God be the glory. We're just a vessel for all of this. I tell my people all the time, these aren't just clients. These aren't just VAs. What we're doing is creating relationships and making businesses be more impactful to affect to impact their mission. It's just a blessing to be able to do that and be a vessel for that to happen.

Linda J. Hansen: Well, it is. And you are a blessing. I can attest to that from talking with other people working within VAUSA in different roles and how happy they are.

It just seems like there's a great level of satisfaction. And but that really doesn't come without planning, without purpose, without prayer. I know that you are a Christian. You and your husband are Christians. And you really wanted to bring Christian values to the workplace. 

It's interesting. We recently had a podcast interview with Andrew Crapuchettes from Red Balloon, another one of our strategic partners. I've featured Andrew because their whole goal is to make sure people can be free to work and free to hire within their value system. And then how do you live out those values in the workplace? I know you said that's something very important to you and your husband as you lead this company.

So tell us a little bit about that. Like, what is it that is really most important to you in terms of the mission and values of the company and how you live that out? Because I'm sure there's a lot of business owners listening right now who'd like to learn from your example. 

Mary Elaine Baker: Yeah, of course. So you mentioned a little bit about my story and how we started the company. Before I became a virtual assistant myself, I was a teacher. I was a full time educator in the elementary public school system and was starting to feel extremely burnout just from, well, I don't know how much you know about teachers, but that's a high stress job, low pay in and of itself.

But I loved education and I think I recognized I had a gift for teaching and communicating. But the burnout was starting to kind of escalate year after year just because my husband was deploying all the time. We had two young children.

My paycheck was basically going straight to daycare. I realized I wasn't the primary influence really in my child's, my children's lives. And I just needed to pivot to something that would give us more freedom.

I didn't even have that word for it. I didn't even realize what I was looking for. I just knew that the path that we were on wasn't going to be sustainable for our family and really my own mental health.

So I went on a search of, OK, well, what's out there? What else exists that I can still use my gifts to serve others?Because that was always really important to me, but that I could still be present with my family and adaptable to our lifestyle. I really felt like I was looking for a unicorn job out there.

And my fifth year of teaching, my last year of teaching, my room mom was a virtual assistant herself. And she was volunteering in my classroom. And I just saw that she was always present for everything. And the more I learned about virtual assisting, I thought, OK, I could try this.

So fast forward to, I was a virtual assistant myself, loved my clients. I love what I was doing. I love learning everything about business. I love learning how all the wheels on the bus work together. I was just frankly a nerd about it, and my clients were serial entrepreneurs themselves.

So I just learned so much about entrepreneurship because I was serving other entrepreneurs, but God was really telling my husband and I after we experienced this relief of I could be more present for my family, I could contribute financially. I was still using my gifts to serve others.

And the stress level in our home is drastically lower that this wasn't meant for just us and that the problems that we were experiencing wasn't unique to the Baker family. This is a huge problem in America. I started to do some research on it.

Like, well, how many other people? Because I had my friends asking me about it and they were interested. I realized, oh, OK, maybe this is a thing. And at that time, the unemployment rate for military spouses was four times higher than the national average. And that blew my mind.

You know, it just you know, here I am thinking, OK, this is a bigger problem to oh, my goodness, this is a major issue in America. And what I knew about most military spouses that I encountered and also I grew up in a military family, so I had that background knowledge, too, was that this lifestyle, if you survive it, if you adapt to it and you persevere, develops character traits in you that are incredibly valuable to any employer in America.

I mean, any employer, they're looking for people who are great under pressure. They can switch gears easily. They can be adaptable and flexible and they're loyal. Everyone wants that. Everyone wants that. And this lifestyle really helps fine tune those character traits in military families and they don't sweat the small stuff. Things can just really roll off their shoulder. And there's just constant problems and things happening that we just have to figure it out. And we're going to figure it out. 

So tenacity is 10 out of 10 for my team and perseverance is 10 out of 10. And we have just an incredible group of people.

Your original question was, what values do you have? Our three main values that we focus on and we hire by these values and we fire by them, are authentic connection.

We're looking for people who want to build real relationships built on a foundation of trust. If you're looking for a robot that just takes a checklist from you and does the check, they do it, but they don't care about you and your mission and aren’t truly invested in making sure that you're successful personally and professionally. And there's real trust in there so that you can give and receive feedback both ways. And no one crumbles. No one wants to quit right away. Like, that's what we're looking for.

And so authentic connection, selfless service is the next one. We want people who find true joy in serving others. You can't dangle a carrot. You can't keep giving them raises to keep them motivated. They just genuinely find joy in using their gifts. This reminds me of a verse of one of my favorite verses, 1 Peter 4:10, but using your God-given gifts to serve others. They know that that's their purpose.

The next one is intentional growth. We don't settle for the status quo. We are always looking to sharpen ourselves personally, spiritually, emotionally, mentally and physically. And we're always looking for opportunities to improve, not because we're trying to achieve perfection, but we're always looking to make one percent, one step closer to a better version of ourself tomorrow than we were yesterday.

And that applies in every every aspect, how they show up and work, how they show up in serving others, that goes down to are they anticipating needs? Are they taking initiative and are they investing in their own personal growth? And yeah, so those are our three main values.

We honestly, we look for that in our clients and most of our clients, I would say naturally have that in them. I know you do, but we're relentless in that pursuit of growth because we know that if we are growing ourselves and improving ourselves, it only impacts our ability to make a difference for other people.

Linda J. Hansen: It's so important. And as I mentioned, Andrew Crapuchettes, I'll mention it again, in our last episode, we were talking about the importance of clarifying your mission, your vision, your values, when you are interviewing, when you're having those initial conversations.

I would say that even though Christian owned companies do not necessarily always hire Christians, I mean, that would be discrimination, right? Yeah, you can't do that.

And nor do I think that they would want to necessarily, because having a diverse workplace is important, but diverse in terms of what we're talking about versus what the woke left calls diverse are two different things.

And being able to really adapt to people and their different gifts, abilities, experiences and how you bring them into the VAUSA family is just really incredible.  I just think that there's so many different ways that VAUSA could be a blessing to people in all different work and personal situations, because we could all use a little help sometimes. 

Mary Elaine Baker: That's right. That's right. And it takes humility to admit that you need help. But always, I always like to remind people that in order to really operate in your gifting, there's always going to be a percentage of things that you're doing throughout the day that you're not great at. It drains you of energy. That's just life. There's always going to be those things that we're going to have to do because we have to do them.

However, most of our time, I believe is, we're intended to be operating out of our gifting. Most of the work that we're doing in order to serve others should be done out of our gifting. So it takes, pausing and looking at your life from a bird's eye view. Sometimes that's just letting go of something and delegating it to another person that's more qualified or is at least going to do it as 80 percent as well as you do. And that's good enough, most of the time, that's good enough.

Linda J. Hansen: Right. And perfection is the enemy of progress sometimes. It's so true. We don't always operate in our giftings. You can’t do it all yourself if you actually want to grow your business and be an effective leader and have a balanced life.

You can't. There's just too much to do. And especially in this fast paced society where so much is expected of us. Also, speaking of fast pace, one of the things I do want to cover is, we talked before about different policies and this is policy related broadcast.

I want people to understand how public policy affects their business and their opportunity for earning income, whether they are the entrepreneur or they are the employee. So, we talked about some of these issues, especially regarding the difference in states. So tell us what you've dealt with at the national level and then what you're experiencing in different states and how it impacts your business and the VAs that work for you.

Mary Elaine Baker: Yeah. So how are we structured? We have right now, we're about 70 people on our team and they're all scattered throughout the United States and all different kinds of locations.

But one of the concerns when we started the business and even to this day is, how do we categorize our team? Are they 1099 contractors versus employees? Some states are very strict about these regulations and you can't have contractors like California is one of those states.

I really wrestle with this because, I'm a little bit fearful of this just like every year. I'm like, what's going to happen? Because state by state, it could be different. So the issue with our company and just the dynamics of it is, yes, we're primarily military spouses. And what that means is our team, most of our team, they want the freedom to be a 1099 contractor. They want the ability to make income in other places if they want to. They have so much flexibility. They don't just have to work with us. And they like the benefits of basically being able to operate as a solopreneur, as a freelance person. And they don't need a lot of the traditional benefits that employers provide because their spouse is a military member. 

So it doesn't even make sense for our people. It doesn't really make sense for us. And it does affect what states we can hire from. We have some clients that will be based out of California where their hands are really tied. It really just hurts. I feel so bad for business owners in states like that. I'm like, how do you even survive? But yeah, that's a concern always of, well, what's going to happen? I mean, it was a big concern when Biden was in office. But, I just for now, I guess we just keep doing what we're doing and it's working for us. But I would say that is definitely a concern. 

Linda J. Hansen: The biggest thing is the inconsistency with the state, the 50 laboratories of democracy, basically the 50 states that really inform us about what policies work, what policies don't work, what policies help people flourish and what really diminishes the quality of life for the citizens in the state.

It's so evident sometimes. And you wonder why people keep voting for these people…That's why I do what I do, because I really want employers to be empowered to share with their employees, like this really matters. So pay attention to these policies at the very, very basic level.

Then if you feel led, never telling them who to vote for or whatever, but make sure you vote for the people who support the policies that will help you stay employed and prospering. It's common sense, but it's not really what happens, especially in some of those states.

So we see that there's differences in the states. Are there things at the federal level that you've had to deal with that you would like to… the good, bad and the ugly from there and then what you'd like to see it be moving forward at the federal level?

Mary Elaine Baker: So I'm always also concerned about the ability to operate freely as a Christian based company. I feel like Christian values are constantly under attack, sadly, in the country that was based on Christian values.

But when we started the business, we weren't so bold and open about our faith. I would say if you had conversations with us, my husband and I were open about it, but we weren't broadcasting our company as a faith based company. And it wasn't until we were a few years into it that I felt very convicted about it.

Honestly, I just felt like that's really who we are. I wanted to be open about that. It was very important for us. So I can't, for me, I can't show up to my business one way and in my personal life a different way. I just can't.

Linda J. Hansen: Well, that's that authenticity you talked about, if we truly love the Lord, it is an all the time relationship. It is something that….

Mary Elaine Baker: Right, I can’t compartmentalize that.

Linda J. Hansen: … we live, breathe and have our being.

Mary Elaine Baker: Yes, and so it was interesting, like year by year, it got harder to compartmentalize these things.

And at some point, I want to say it was within the first year, definitely the second year we started a Bible study with my team and it grew and people were just—I mean, things like you give God an opportunity to work somewhere and let that happen.

I mean, you're going to just see incredible change in people. You're going to just see literally miracles happen. And I just thought, well, what would happen if I just completely unleashed this?

And we also changed. So I didn't even say earlier what our mission statement is. We create jobs and community for military families by strategically building remote teams for faith and purpose driven businesses. We did not always say that so boldly in our values.

I mean, our unique—so it makes us different is, we put our people over our profit. Our purpose is to use our God given gifts to serve others. And we use our business as a ministry. That's all on our website now.

And I thought, OK, like I mean, like once we made that decision, we got to do it. I'm sweating a little bit because this was also in the thick of cancel culture. I mean, people are just being shut down on the Internet left and right. And it was just ugly out there. And for whatever reason, I thought it'd be a great idea. That'd be a great idea to just say this is who we are.

I don't know. But as soon as we did, I mean, it just opened the doors for so many opportunities and meeting people. And it inspired other people to do the same. Or I would hear things like, that is so wonderful that you are able to do that. I wish I could, which opened the door to say, you can.

But the concern is always, well, how do we do this in a way that's legal? How do we use our freedoms? And that's what's confusing for so many Christian business owners is, yes, you can operate freely as a Christian company, but you can't be discriminatory in who you hire and who you fire.

And actually, it’s encouraged for you to, if you are a Christian company and you aren't publicly declaring it, it's actually riskier for you from a legal perspective. And a lot of this knowledge I didn't know until I consulted with Alliance Defending Freedom.Yeah.

Linda J. Hansen: ADF Alliance Defending Freedom. Wonderful, wonderful. I've had many of their people on my podcast as well. Wonderful. 

Mary Elaine Baker: Have you? Because they helped me with that confidence and that knowing, OK, yes, this is a weird time in America.This is very sad. It's scary. All the things. But you can do this.

You just have to be willing to accept the fact that not everyone's going to like it and you're going to get rejected. And we have dealt with a little bit of that online. But what I have found—and we obviously we don't have nothing but believers on our team. We have people in all kinds of backgrounds with their faith and religion.

And I love that. I mean, that's what I want as a Christian. We should be creating community and going out into the world. Not to be of the world, but we're meant to go love every single person.

Linda J. Hansen: Yes.

Mary Elaine Baker: Every single person. So you can do that without compromising who you are. Right. You don't have to shapeshift yourself into the culture of the world in order to be loving of the people of the world.

I think that concept is so challenging and it's hard. And yes, it is scary because Christian business owners are being sued. They are being attacked. They are being… 

Linda J. Hansen: Just singled out a little bit.

Mary Elaine Baker: Yes, yes. 

Linda J. Hansen: But they are. But I would say too, some non-Christian business owners are as well if they decide, you know, to hire or fire. I mean, sometimes it's just if you fire someone and someone decides to claim that they were fired unjustly.

I mean, there's all kinds of…you know—Andrew was saying that out of the 32 million private businesses in the US, 75 percent of them have had a labor law or a labor lawsuit put against them in the past few years.

Mary Elaine Baker: I remember my attorney whenever we started the business and it's teeny tiny that, in 2018, we were still a very small business, but we were really small then.

But I was smart enough to know I should probably have an attorney to make sure we just start everything correctly on the right foot and everything. So I remember sitting there in his office and he was like, Mary Elaine, you just really need to accept the fact it's not a matter of if you're sued, but when. And I remember my husband being like, oh, that's a terrible thought. Yeah, that's just the reality.

Linda J. Hansen: Yeah, it is. Well, you mentioned about being bold enough to be out front and with Prosperity 101, it took me a long time to get bold enough to be out there more on social media.

I don't know why—I was involved in politics and all. I mean, I've worked at national, like presidential-level politics and things where you're really on the national stage, you've been on national media, all these things.

And for whatever reason, what is it that makes us not promote—I could go raise millions of dollars or promote other people. When it came to really being more bold about promoting my work, I was like, oh yeah, I need to do that. Yeah, I should do that.

But I really wanted to be bold about who I am as a believer, too. And so actually, on my website, it talks about that—my mission. Like, my mission in life, people said, if you could sum it up in a sentence, it's to know Christ and make Him known, and to promote freedom and liberty throughout the land.

I feel like to know Christ and make Him known—that encapsulates my love for my family, it's God, family, country, really. God always reminds me in that order. But, it's just putting that out there, tells people who I am.

But then actually, I started doing a Bible verse—like just posting a Bible verse graphic on a regular basis on social media. I had a lot of people tell me, well, that's not very professional, don't do that. It doesn't even have your branding, it doesn't have your website, it doesn't even have your branding.

Now I tend to use the same graphic that I created for it. So people, if they see it—if they see it over and over, they know it. But I'm like, well, that's not why I'm doing it. Every week, I pray and ask the Lord, what verse is it that you want out there this time? What is it?

Honestly, when I started that, it was so interesting, because some of the first ones had like my highest engagement in terms of social media. I was like, well, who knew? It's just important, I think, for us to be authentic, to be who we are. And we will.

Mary Elaine Baker: The enemy always wants us to play small, to keep it private, and to play small. 

Linda J. Hansen: But that's not how we change lives, though. That's not how we change.

Mary Elaine Baker: I also think that's why we've gotten in the mess, the situations that we're in now, is because Christians didn't want to hurt other people's feelings, or they were listening to that voice saying, just be quiet, don't ruffle any feathers, that you could lose—you could lose customers, you could lose friends, you could lose whatever.

And I think it is one of the smartest tactics of the enemy to do that.

But something that encourages me whenever I get a little nervous, or my hands are a little sweaty about whatever—even just having this conversation—for a lot of people, a lot of people I know in business would be like, I could never go on a podcast and talk about these things.

But one thing that helps remind me of why I'm doing this is when I remind myself of stories and things that are happening now, all over the world, Christians are being killed for their faith.

And where do you think things started from in that? So if we in a country that is currently free start allowing these little policies or social culture—the ways of the world—to start telling us to be quiet, where could that turn to in the future? It may not happen in our generation, it may not happen in my children's generation.

Linda J. Hansen: But it will happen.

Mary Elaine Baker: What about their children? Where does it stop?

Linda J. Hansen: Yeah. And this is it, things happen slowly until they happen all at once.

Mary Elaine Baker: That's right. And the enemy is very patient.

Linda J. Hansen: Right. And the enemies of America play the long game too. I would say, the patriots and the people like we want, oh, yay, we had that victory or we did this and now the country is going to turn around.

It took decades for it to be this way. I look at what's happened culturally and in the schools and things. I started homeschooling in 1984 because I had been really studying what the globalist plans were.

Mary Elaine Baker: That was well before it was cool. 

Linda J. Hansen: It was well before it was cool and well before, yeah, it was very not cool. And well before it was legal across the country. So we literally picked the state we were going to live in. We had a choice of a region and we picked the state we were going to live in based on the homeschooling law. And so it meant higher taxes. 

It meant more expensive living expenses and things, but the homeschool law was better. I'm old enough to know that there was a time when people literally were jailed if they homeschooled and that even happened here in America. So educational freedom is so important.

I was telling you before we recorded that as I have grown my company, and even when I have been an employee for another organization or had needed to hire an employee or an assistant or something, I always looked for a homeschool mom or a stay at home mom, somebody, not to be discriminatory against anybody else, but I will say employers out there, if you are worried about hiring a mom or even a grandma, we have been through the trenches and especially those of us who've been military moms. I mean, it's incredible like I've hired…

Mary Elaine Baker: Expert level project managers. 

Linda J. Hansen: Right. It's like you want somebody who can handle multiple things at once and pivot from this to that, you have to learn to pivot and deal with it and accept change and change your schedules. 

Mary Elaine Baker: Be a problem solver.

Linda J. Hansen: Yeah, be a problem solver and be willing to keep things moving. Those skills are really important.

I think in an age of AI, where you know, everything is looking at being automated and especially remote, you talk about remote work, but the wonderful thing about VAUSA, it's building these relationships. So it isn't just some random remote work, right? We are putting the humanity back into the ability to work remotely and to work with a flexible schedule and to take care of our family and keep our family first. And that's, that's what's so incredibly important.

So well, before we close, I do, if you, you were just going to say something, go ahead.

Mary Elaine Baker: You we're just talking about the importance of family. I will say that that is a shift since COVID that I have, I would say has been amazing to watch.

I think so many people, that huge pause everywhere, force people to really think about their priorities in life and they started to adjust their life accordingly. That's why one of the many reasons why homeschooling became way more popular in the past few years and why people were saying, Hey, I want to keep working from home. I don't want to be back in office because I can still show up and serve and be productive and get the job done and make my family a priority.

I think that's been one of the coolest things to see. I think that has really revived some of those fundamental values that we've had in America to kind of wake people up to, oh my goodness, my work shouldn't be my number one, I'm worshiping my work. But why? Look at these beautiful humans that I have been called to steward in my home and it was testing so many marriages, they were like, wow, do I really like my spouse? Maybe I need to work on my marriage more because we've been ignoring some of these major issues and you break down the family unit, you break down the fabric of America.

And so our mission statement is we create jobs and community for military families. We didn't even have an opportunity to go into that yet, but that community aspect of what we do is the heart of why we serve our people. Providing a job opportunity is a big deal and it's a great way to start, but it's okay.

Now we have these people in our care to take care of and steward. Now what? How can we show up as the organization, as the company to continuously love and nurture them? So one of the things that we created was called a freedom framework. And what that is, is we look at faith, family, finance, fun, and fitness. I don't know why I just really had to stick with all Fs on this and then- 

Linda J. Hansen: It works. 

Mary Elaine Baker: It does work. It sticks in your head.

But then we break down those into three categories, connect, creating opportunities for them, social opportunities, for them to really build relationships with their other team members all over the U.S. Serve, how do we show up and serve our people in times of hardships in any of those categories? And then grow, how do we educate our team in those areas? So, if you can imagine this, this is essentially an Excel spreadsheet, and it's a table in there, we fill in each one of these squares with different initiatives and programs to serve them.

So forget traditional employer benefits. This is a creative way to serve and nurture your team. Honestly, this is what your team members are looking for and what they're wanting.

They want to know that they are cared for. They want to know they're just not another number on a piece of paper for you. And so how are you going to do that? It comes through action.

So that's my challenge to you and other employers out there. It's great if you're providing insurance, it's great if you're providing health care and all those things. But to me, that's like bare minimum requirements. What are you doing to help them thrive in their life? 

The reality is most people don't know how to even manage a simple budget for their household and finance is one of the number one causes of divorce. If your team member is having financial distress in their home, it doesn't matter how many raises you give them. If they don't know how to effectively steward and manage their money, or if there's major communication issues between them and their spouse at home, you are not actually making a difference. You're not. 

Linda J. Hansen: When employees are struggling, they're not going to be bringing their best to their job because they just can't. 

Before we close too, I do want to mention, you mentioned something at the very beginning, you said that you realized you were spending more on daycare and then you were earning or something. 

Mary Elaine Baker: Basically, my whole paycheck was just paying for daycare.

Linda J. Hansen: And that is so common. I hear that from so many people.

Mary Elaine Baker: And daycare is so expensive. 

Linda J. Hansen: It's so expensive. And then you have, depending on your job, you have the wardrobe, you have the commute, you have the meals out, you have the extra things that your kids need because they're going to daycare above and beyond the daycare costs. You have just so many different things. So I really encourage employers and employees, those of you who may need a VA or if you are a VA looking or maybe you're not even thinking like, oh, I could be a virtual assistant.

Maybe you just have a skill set and you're like, oh, I can be a graphic designer and do this or I could be a film editor and do this. I could be an accountant and do this. I could be a writer and do this.

You know, there's all these different roles that people can fill. So it isn't just managing calendars and emails or something like that but that can be part of it, whatever it is, I really encourage anybody who's looking for a meaningful job, a meaningful way to earn income and put their faith and their family first. I encourage them to reach out to you and VAUSA, but also any employers out there or solopreneurs. I can tell you firsthand, not just because they are a strategic partner with Prosperity 101, that came after I hired them.

I was so impressed with them. I said, I'd really love to promote you at a higher level and be able to encourage others to engage with VAUSA, but that's because you offer something that's so important.

So before we close, could you let people know how they may contact you? I really appreciate the fact that you came up with a great incentive for people to contact you as a result of listening to this podcast, and especially if they contact you in the month of July 2025. But I think anytime, if they contact you as a result of listening to this podcast, they're going to have some special incentives to do so. 

Mary Elaine Baker: Yes, absolutely. So if you go to our website, it's hirevausa.com, and you go to the contact, there will be a dropdown. How did you hear about us? So if you select this podcast, then you are going to get $500 off your onboarding fee should you decide to use us to help serve you. So you'll get scheduled for a free matching consultation. And then once you make that decision, you'll be able to receive that discount. 

Linda J. Hansen: That's incredible. I know that your matching services are also just so high quality and very individualized. And I really appreciate that. So again, listeners, please contact VAUSA at hirevausa.com And any other closing comments before we say goodbye? 

Mary Elaine Baker: I just thank you so much for giving me this opportunity to share. And then if anyone wants to continue the conversation or has any more questions, also, you can email me directly. That's fine as well. So it's just MaryElaine@hirevausa.com

Linda J. Hansen: Well, that's perfect. And this so aligns with what I try to do with Prosperity 101 in really empowering employers to educate employees about the policy issues that affect their jobs. You talked about helping employees thrive, letting them know that we care about them, letting them know that there are important issues, important information that will help them in all of their life, whether they work for that company or they don't.

And so that's what I really strive to do, too. In fact, the first lesson in my online course is why am I taking this course? And it starts out with because your employer cares about you. So that's what we're trying to do.

I think if employers focus on that, there's the bottom line financially and the bottom line relationally. I know for myself, I want to be able to hear, well done, my good and faithful servant at the end of my life. And sometimes that comes with great profitability and sometimes it comes with smaller opportunities and flexibility and time to caregive or take care of family.

So whatever it is, I invite everyone to just seek that out for yourself. But if VAUSA is something that is attractive to you as an employer and someone who needs some administrative help or help in other areas, contact them. Or you may be the one listening, saying, boy, I'd love to work with that company.

So contact, hireVAUSA.com. So thank you so much. And thank you, Mary Elaine. 

Mary Elaine Baker: Thank you.

Linda J. Hansen: Thank you again for listening to the Prosperity101® podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, share and leave a great review. Don't forget to visit prosperity101.com to access the entire podcast library, to order my newest book, Job Security Through Business Prosperity, the Essential Guide to Understanding How Policy Affects Your Paycheck®, or to enroll you or your employees in the Breakroom Economics® online course.

You can also receive the free ebook, 10 Tips for Helping Employees Understand How Public Policy Affects Their Paychecks. Freedom is never free. Understanding the foundations of prosperity and the policies of prosperity will help you to protect prosperity as you become informed, involved and impactful®.

Please contact us today at prosperity101.com to let us know how we can serve you. Thank you.