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?
Recommended Training: VA Classrooms Internet Marketing 2010
VAClassroom.com is offering great courses right now that I encourage anyone interested in Social Media and/or Internet Marketing to take a close look at. Newly updated for 2010 the information offered and the training available will give you a solid foundation for specializing in your virtual assistant business.
I personally took the Internet Marketing Course when it first was released and was greatly impressed the breadth of information covered. There are tutorials showing you how to set up and install Google Analytics, examples and tools on conducting keyword research and finding affiliates for affiliate programs… all of these give you the training you need to offer strategy and suggestions to your clients and to use in your own business.
A well rounded understanding of internet marketing will help you as you develop your skills in social media marketing, blog marketing, web analytics and affiliate programs. I found it opened up quite a few doors and showed me different options that I could focus on as a virtual assistant… as well as showing me areas I do NOT want to focus on as a VA. Affiliate Marketing manager is not at the top of my list after going through this training LOL!
Internet Marketing is such a huge topic that in many ways this program can only scratch the surface and there were times I found that frustrating, I wanted more information and more in-depth training. But as I said, in many ways this really only scratches the surface and is a great starting point, a sound foundation for taking your training to the next level.
The training comes in a variety of styles including a review and resources for each lesson in PDF form and a wide variety of videos. Each lesson has a video plus special segments focusing on a particular tool or concept. Each lesson is in an easily digestible chunks that allow you to move forward at your own pace. The assignments are not complicated but are thorough enough to make sure that you do understand the training and can take what you are taught and apply it in a real world situation.
To be honest I’m a bit addicted to their training courses, finished Traffic Geyser training earlier this year… in the middle of Podcast Marketing and participated in the Ning training and I’m sure that will not be the last class I take with them. So If you have any questions on this program or any other programs through VA Classroom please feel free to ask I would be happy to share my experience and feedback with VA Classroom.
**Note: These links are affiliate links.
