What about your virtual assistant business in 2011?
For most small business owners – the month of December is a time of reflection, looking back over the year and planning for the next one. You see it in year end reports (I did one myself it was an interesting exercise…), blog posts, videos, teleclasses and even in social media.
As virtual assistants we also get bombarded with trends for the coming year, what skills are you going to improve, grow or add to your list? Will you specialize more etc. Great questions and great content shared but it can be a little much at times and complicate the plans you have started to develop for you and your business.
One thing that gets left out many times is the need to connect. Yes we hear about connecting with your clients, developing relationships with them, but when was the last time you heard about connecting with your fellow VA’s?
As you can see from the sporadic blog posts this year, 2010 has been a year of investigating, thinking and planning. Now it is 2011 and this is a year for action, moving out of the comfort zone and taking a few risks. In 2011 a goal I have is to connect with my fellow VAs. While there are great forums, virtual assistant associations and conferences out there but these are not the connections I am looking to develop. I’m looking for a group of VAs….
- Who are ready to grow and change their business
- Who view their business as an opportunity to create something special, something out of the box and unique that allows them to have a business that works for their life and not fitting life around their business.
- Who are looking to push the envelope of what a virtual assistant business is and can be.
- Who are willing to be held accountable while pushing back and holding others accountable
This will be a smaller group and will be limited in number to keep the connections real and personal. It will be a way to dive deep into one another’s business, provide honest feedback, support, accountability and encouragement to one another. It is also an opportunity to create a network of resources, ideas and referrals – I’m sure we could all use that in our businesses.
Virtual Assistants are entrepreneurs and many times on the leading edge of creating business models that work and work well. The creative energy of being part of a group like this is exciting and motivating. Exciting to see and be a part of the success of others and it is also motivating to keep charging ahead when the road gets bumpy.
If this sounds like something you would like to be a part of this virtual assistant mastermind group, let me know. I have some ideas and plans but would love to have feedback and suggestions on creating a group that would fit you.
What’s your motivation?
Ask just about any Virtual Assistant, “Why did you become a VA?”, and most likely, there will be 2 reasons…
The Public Reason (aka the one on my website’s “About” page):
- To own my own business
- To work with clients I enjoy
- To do the work I love
- To pursue independence
And these are all true, valid and great motivators. They are for me, but I have a sneaking suspicion that the private reasons are the deep down truths that truly motivate.
The Private Reason (aka the ones that I think about every day):
- I need to be available for ____________ (kids, family, aging parents, volunteering, traveling etc)
- My husband lost his job and I need to help support the family
- I have health issues that keep be from working outside the home
- Me and the “traditional” office structure just don’t mix…
The public reasons are needed and necessary but many times these are just the surface reasons we all have for starting a business. But the core reasons, the ones that keep us going when times are tough, are the private reasons. These are the motivations that push us toward creating a “VA Life Style Business“.
For me the reason I jumped into self employment in the first place was:
- That I had gone as far as I could in my job
- I was completely stressed out by the schedule and work load
- My Mom’s health was not so great and she really needed me around more
It has taken me a while to get my footing, find direction and start moving forward to designing a lifestyle business that works for me and my life.
This type of move is a 2-part journey.
It is a personal journey to learn more about yourself, fully identify and know your values, work style and personality. It is also a professional journey getting to know, understand and utilize your strengths, your skills and your experiences.
The professional journey is just as important as the personal. How many of you have discovered in your business that the skills and experience you brought over from your corporate job are not things you like to do? You learned the skills and you did the work because it was put in front of you and told to get it done. You probably became even quite good at it!
When you get into a business that you run, where you get to choose what you do, you may have found out that what you may be good at… is not something you enjoy or want to do. This can be a frustrating place to be in. Relying on skills that you always thought were strengths and what you could bring to the table for your clients, only to find out that you would be fine if you never had to do that type of work again. So taking the time to understand this part of the journey is key to creating a business that you enjoy working in.
For instance…
1) I have found I do not enjoy project management on a large scale as much as I thought I did.
This is work I did on a regular basis in my J-O-B and did not think to much of it at the time.
2) Supervising employees is not my cup-o-tea
Running a department, hiring, training, managing and firing employees is not something I wish to continue. Working with sub-contractors who are professionals and know their job is so different and much more enjoyable. It is still managing to a point so I am have become very particular about who I work with, I concentrate on finding collaborators not someone I need to manage.
3) I love WordPress!
The technical aspect of setting up, customizing, troubleshooting – yep, just call me a nerd 
The creative aspect of figuring out how to make the site do what I need it to and designing a site is a pretty cool job for me. In my J-O-B this was not the type of creative opportunities that came up very often.
4) I love learning
If you would have told me in high school or even college that I would be continuing to constantly upgrade my skills and ACTIVELY seek out training and education, I would have laughed and said yeah right. This is probably the part of my business I enjoy most!
What about you?
What are your motivators? What have you discovered during in your personal and professional journey? What has this shown you about what your virtual assistant lifestyle business will look like?
The Super Long Day Badge of Honor – No More!
Earlier this year I wrote a post “So when did 12 hour days become the norm?”, it has been on my mind a lot lately and need to write about it again.
My question then and now is, when did the “I worked a 20 hour day and I’m working on barely 4 hours of sleep!” become a badge of honor? A requirement to be a good virtual assistant business owner? Early morning, nights, weekends – you are at the beck and call of your inbox and the requests of your clients. It seems that the bragging rights from this type of schedule are not about how much you enjoy your business but how many hours you worked.
Why is that? Is this a carry over from our corporate jobs? I think that may be where I learned it. No only from my own experience but from watching others – even on TV. With all the cut backs, each employee has needed to work faster, harder, longer and become an expert multi-tasker.
To be honest, it was one fo the reasons I thought the VA industry would be a good fit for me. Lots of variety, enjoying the juggling of multiple projects/tasks. Yes I knew there would be long days, that is to be expected as a business owner. But when the days and weekends kept getting longer I realized I had only created another j-o-b.
There has to be a better way!
Read more
Making your virtual assistant business your own
I don’t know about you but for me and my virtual assistant business I have been doing a lot of thinkin’ and asking a ton of questions.
Where is my business currently at?
Where do I want it to go?
How do I create a business model that works for both me and my clients?
There has been a theme in the newsletters and blog posts coming to my inbox lately….
1) The Art of Non-Conformity by Chris Guillebeau, after a recommendation from a friend and colleague I checked out the book and Chris’ website. The book by the way immediately landed on my “to-read” list and I highly recommend signing up for his newsletter and downloading his free eBook, “A Brief Guide to World Domination: How to Live a Remarkable Life in a Conventional World”.
2) Karyn Greenstreet of Passion for Business has been writing thought provoking articles on her blog, RoadmapToReinvention.com about not copying the business models but create your own. In looking at her business transformations in the past, her success came from stepping out of her comfort zone and creating something different. This is another resource I highly recommend checking out – follow the feed from her blogs and sign up for her FREE monthly calls, I always get something out of what Karyn has to say about business and what she has learned.
For many if not most VAs we have created the standard, normal run-of-the-mill virtual assistant business. We get the website up and running, find a niche, start marketing and perform the work.
How to partner with your client the right way
In doing some research last night I ran across this blog post from Karyn Greenstreet of Passion for Business, How to Choose a Virtual Assistant. It made some interesting points and had great tips for small business owners who are in the hunt for some help.
There was one section that stood out to me though and had me thinking about it still this morning…
Some VAs are taught that they should be a “partner” with you in your business. On the surface, this sounds great. However, I have heard too many horror stories about VAs who did things without asking permission, from modifying website text to changing established class titles.
This was one of those statements that make you stop and think. Karyn is right, we are taught to think like a business partner. I’m wondering though, have I/we properly defined what a partner is? For instance I would never dream of changing text, class titles etc. for a client without express permission but I would want to be proactive and make suggestions on changing copy or class titles if I noticed something was not quite right.
I like this definition of partner from Wikipedia:
A friend who shares a common interest or participates in achieving a common goal.
And this one from Dictionary.com:
A person who shares or is associated with another in some action or endeavor; sharer; associate.
In both definitions the word share comes up and I think that is a key point. As virtual assistants, virtual support professionals, online business manager… or whatever name you give yourself, have you properly defined for you and your client what the word partner means?
For me a partner is someone you can bounce ideas off of, who tells you it is time to slow down or maybe gives you that needed kick in the tail. A partner shares the load, helps you out when you are overwhelmed. I think it also means you have an interest in their success, that you have a desire to help them bring their business ideas to life. When you get to know their business and understand their goals, you can make helpful suggestions, offer ideas and strategies that may work in a current project.
Being a partner is not about taking control or making independent decisions, but it is about sharing and support.
Being a partner is about being proactive in saying… “Here is what I can do for you” and not just asking the question, “How can I help?”. (Thanks to Tina Forsyth on this one, she talked about this concept in a preview call for the Virtually Successful Telesummit. It has stuck with me ever since )
When you talk to your client about being a partner in their success, does your definition send them running for cover? Or does it go the other way and they rely on you so much that it becomes overwhelming?
Defining up front what is means to be a partner in the business is vitally important. As Karyn mentions in her blog post – set boundaries up front. This goes both ways, the extent of your authority and decision making power AND it also applies to the business owner and their expectations of you.
Not every client is looking for this level of partner/support, some are just looking for that key help when they need it and our job is not to force that role onto them.
This has made me go look at my own personal definition of ”partner”, how I talk about it, what I mean by it and how I present the idea to my clients both current and new.
What about you, what do you think the word partner means for you and your clients?
