"[BELAY] found me a VA who was tremendously helpful and allowed for my coaching business to take off and become so much more effective because I was able to offload a lot of the minutia and the things keeping me from being able to get everybody else in alignment with that."
— Dr. Michael Jacobson, Founder & Business Coach
The Challenge
Dr. Michael Jacobson, founder of Redemptiv Solutions LLC, built his business around coaching leadership teams and entrepreneurs in small to medium-sized businesses — helping them gain clarity, simplify operations, and create margin in their lives. But the demands of running his own business were making it impossible to practice what he preached.
"I was in a tremendous state of overwhelm a few years ago,"Michael admits. His pain points were wide-ranging: email and calendar management, general correspondence, coordinating meetings, travel support, and keeping track of tasks — all pulling his attention away from the high-value coaching work only he could do.
Determined to find relief, Michael sought out and hired three separate executive assistants on his own. None provided the sustained, high-quality support his growing practice required. Recognizing that a different approach was necessary, he made the decision to reach out to BELAY.
The Solution
After connecting with BELAY, Michael was matched with a Virtual Assistant who quickly proved transformative — giving him the capacity and clarity to focus on his clients and grow his coaching business. When that VA moved on to a dream job opportunity, Michael's BELAY Client Success Consultant stepped in and assured him she would find the perfect next match.
That match was Kevin Fontes, a former U.S. Navy submarine commander whose background, values, and work ethic closely mirrored Michael's own. The transition was remarkably smooth.
"One of the huge advantages that we had was having a predecessor who had all of those processes in place. He and I had a week together and we were able to operate in parallel [in order] to learn everything,"Kevin explains.
Today, Kevin handles a broad operational scope for Michael: organizing and responding to emails, maintaining schedules, running weekly meetings, executing business coaching all-day intensive sessions, taking meeting notes, and engaging with building contractors and other service providers.
"It's just amazing the talent BELAY found and with our similar military background, we understand the culture that's shaped us. So, as far as working together, I put a lot on him and am increasingly trying to use Kevin to get things started for me."
— Dr. Michael Jacobson, Founder & Business CoachThe Impact
With Kevin managing the operational details, Michael gained the freedom to focus on higher-level business concepts and address more complex challenges — the work that truly moves the needle for his clients and his business. Together, they improved day-to-day operations, strengthened response workflows, and built a growing coaching practice.
The match proved to be exceptional in ways that went beyond task management. Michael and Kevin share a military background, similar values, and a compatible approach to work — a combination that has made their collaboration both effective and genuinely enjoyable.
"I remember during our initial meeting saying, 'Well, maybe I should be interviewing for you rather than the reverse.'"
Michael also reflects on an unexpected dimension of the BELAY experience:
"When we hire somebody, we think more about the help that we need — and not necessarily the community that we experience in working together as teammates. That's just an unexpected bonus to working together — just enjoying that teamwork."