As the founder of Untangling Time, Shanté Brown is a virtual assistant for entrepreneurs, utilizing her expertise and experience in problem-solving to support big and small business owners in building efficient habits for a productive workflow. With her assistance, entrepreneurs can tackle tedious tasks such as answering emails and booking meetings, ultimately showing how to increase your productivity. Shanté goes beyond the traditional virtual assistant role; she empowers business owners by offering guidance and support to assist them in unlocking their full potential and driving growth for businesses.
Shanté Brown is a powerhouse. Literally.
“For now, I only want to be around people who value me and who I can help, to see people who look like me.”
In this article, you’ll learn:
- The story behind Untangling Time
- Common misconceptions about virtual assistants
- Shanté’s experience has been as a Black female business owner
- Apps she recommends to manage time and stay organized
- And so much more!
Helping business owners build better businesses.
Untangling Time is the cross section between virtual assistant work and online management work. Shanté Brown not only supports business owners with the operations, but also helps them reclaim their time. “So they can be out doing the things they love to do without being bogged down in what makes the business run,” she tells Magnify Consulting founder and CEO Julia Lumpkin on our Instagram. “A lot of times business owners, there are the things that fall in the cracks because they’re just not fun. Like, who really loves the admin stuff? I do, but they struggle to juggle all those balls. I’m there to catch them so they don’t fall through the cracks.”
And now featuring … Shanté Brown
What led you to start Untangling Time?
My career trajectory is actually quite interesting. I was in student affairs for 15 years almost, working at really wonderful colleges and universities. I’d been thinking about how to balance my life. Really, if you ask me today what’s my five year goal, I’m looking to have balance.
My very first client was a lucky moment. I had done a photography shoot with her more than a year ago now. She had sent a note to folks she had met along the way, just saying she needed a little of [administration] help and would anybody be interested. I started doing that for maybe seven hours a week or so. Within maybe two weeks she recommended me to a friend, who is also one of my clients currently.
Within two months, I was in a place to really do some soul searching and knew I couldn’t keep going in my job. I needed to find something to spark some joy in my life. I put in my notice, which is probably the scariest thing I’ve done in being an adult. It’s terrifying. And yeah, I left higher education April 1st, and here I am.
With your newfound career, what is one misconception about being a virtual assistant?
I think there is some confusion about having a virtual assistant and having a personal assistant.
I love all of my clients right now and I would consider all to be friends. But when you are in those early stages of building a relationship, there are some boundaries that are quick to be crossed. Setting some expectations along the way or being really upfront about what you need in the beginning, is really important. For me, when people are honest about what they need in all areas, I can figure out if we are going to be a good fit or not.
You have a range of clients in varying industries. What are some ways you support business owners?
There’s some minor overlap in what folks do, but for the most part everyone is wildly different and everyone’s needs are wildly different. I have some clients who are in the very beginning stages of their business and for me that’s been so exciting to see them securing an LLC and to draft contracts, picking brand colors and brand photoshoots.
I do have some clients who are really well established. Who have been in their field for 15, 20 years or so. Those folks, there’s a passion to be with their clients. They’re out doing those things and I’m behind the scenes responding to emails, sometimes managing social media depending on who it’s for. But what I enjoy about that is I am making relationships with their clients as well.
And then sometimes owning a business is hard and you need someone to vent to. I’m here for you. I’m not a therapist by any means, but I am an empathetic, compassionate human who can hold space for struggles and I understand it.
What has your experience been in being a black woman, and more specifically, a Black business owner?
I would say another big reason I left higher education is, it is exhausting as a black woman saying I deserve to have a seat at the table. It is as challenging as building my own chair or my own table in that world, and it’s invasive, really. It kind of seeps into the water and it hurts your soul, and I don’t want to be hurt like that any more. For now, I only want to be around people who value me and who I can help, to see people who look like me.
What does a day in your life typically look like, professionally and personally?
I’m in a stage of life right now where I’m trying to separate professional and personal. There are two chunks of time during the day where I am the most effective: first thing in the morning and probably 2-4. I don’t need to look up, I don’t need to stop, I don’t need to blink or breathe. But what I have found in my transition is I have found more time for me and making sure I have time to get up and eat.
Establishing these habits is so important. It adds structure to the day, but also if I start my day with a walk with the dog, I also commit myself to ending the day with a walk with the dog so that I’m physically leaving the office and when I come home we’re on personal time.
You talked a bit about this with how you’ve been managing your time, but how do you maximize your productivity with your tasks and your schedule?
I use a program called ClickUp. For each of my clients every day, I’ll put in two hours of work. I’ll plug in those times on the calendar on ClickUp, and you can click a timer and it will run a clock for you.
Google Chrome. If you have fifteen email addresses you’re in every day, it is so helpful because you can be logged into all of them at one time. You don’t need to remember everyone’s passwords every time, and honestly I actually don’t.
I don’t think it’s a good business technique to remember passwords or to have your computer remember passwords, so one tool that we use together is LastPass, which is so great because I own one-hundred and some passwords for the miscellaneous things in my own life. Everybody else has a hundred passwords or different credit cards. LastPass will let you store passwords and credit cards, secure information, all kinds of stuff in there, so that has been super helpful.
And then for payment, for Magnify or for another company or for my own company, I use HoneyBook, which helps keep invoices and contracts all in one place. You can download your contacts, so if you ever move away from HoneyBook, it’s all in a spreadsheet.
Notion has been really great for workflows and project management. I currently use it with some clients.
For any business owners or for anyone who wants to be more organized, what’s the best place to start?
I think the best place to start is to honestly look for someone in my sort of world, either in a virtual assistant world, a business manager. People go by so many different titles, but to see if you can do a consultation with them because sometimes talking to people can be a drag, right? You have to talk on the phone with them sometimes, or submit a form. It can be a lot, and then you get into this world of “I can do it myself,” and then you’re ten technologies deep, and you’re less organized than when you started.
Find someone who recognizes that life happens. Life can be really hard and we have these major moments where you just can’t business right now but you need your business to keep going. I can help you keep going.
— Shanté Brown
Getting into the fun questions: What are your top three podcasts?
First, would be Modern Love from the New York Times. They are stories of love, loss, and redemption, and they’re 15 minute stories or columns people have submitted to the paper that are then read by some famous person. If there is some actor that you know and love their voice, there is a strong likelihood they have read it.
The second half of the podcast episode is hearing from the person or the family that the column was written by and how they go there or how they worked through it. There have been some amazing columns that have shook me to the core and when they turned it to a TV show, it was even more poignant, so you could see it, you could feel it.
I think I would be remiss not to mention Glennon Doyle’s We Can Do Hard Things podcast. So wonderful in terms of empowering people, and I do say this with a caveat because I absolutely love it, but I also think it’s important to recognize that Glennon Doyle is working from a place of immense privilege in her life, and even before she was famous, with a lot of white female privilege and now wealthy white woman privilege.
And then the last one I would say that is a favorite is called Maintenance Phase. It basically debunks diet culture from a historical perspective. It takes all of these fad diets and the two hosts, Michael Hobbs and Aubrey Gordon, take these particularly rough moments in diet culture history and pull them apart and talk about why these things cannot possibly work, the ridiculous nature behind these diets, and the way that we’re hurting people by continuing to push these things. And they’re funny, like the Scarsdale murder diet or Angela Lansbury’s diet from the 80s—which is just crazy.
And last but not least, what is something no one knows about you?
I have this really weird obsession with Sherlock Holmes. Like, unnatural. I’m looking at a Sherlock Holmes action figure. I own all of the Sherlock Holmes movies from the 1930s and 40s, they’re in black and white and remastered. I think I own two sets of the new Sherlock Holmes TV show, all of the Robert Downey Jr movies, and then I think three or four of the first editions of the stories when they were published as books because they were originally in a newspaper. I’ve spent every Christmas Eve since 2008 with a Sherlock Holmes movie marathon, all day.
Shanté’s business focuses on supporting business owners through all stages of their company and personal development. Learn more about Shanté and her services on her website.
