I loved my job as Office Manager and PA to the 3 Directors I looked after in a multi-national engineering holding company, but I hated the sometimes 2 hour journey into and from work, dropping children off en-route at either the child-minder or nursery. When the company announced their Exit plans and that we at HQ would all be working ourselves out of a job, I started imaging what my next perfect job would be. I first discovered the world of Virtual Assistants reading through some of the PA and secretarial magazines that were sent to us and after some research and speaking to a few VA's, I decided that working as a Virtual Assistant seemed to be just the option that fitted with my work/life balance. I came across Carmen's VA Mastery coaching and training programmes after reading one of the PA magazines and after having an initial chat with her, signed up for the VA Mastery Course, using my redundancy money.
The course took the form of hour-long weekly phone calls over 7 weeks. It was well-structured and in particular I found it useful that Carmen got me to focus on how my VA business was going to be and then identify the steps I needed to take to get me there, as well as discovering my blocks and fears. Carmen helped me every step to identify what I wanted/had, the steps I needed to take as well as help me overcome my fears and blocks. Each session was followed by a practical exercise that made me commit my ideas to paper, which would eventually be used in my business plan. These included identifying/sourcing items of equipment and services, setting time boundaries, my business name and legal status, my niche market, my skills strengths/gaps, pricing, quality control, marketing and financial plans, business and personal targets. Carmen provided constructive and positive feedback on my homework, all of which was easy to understand and accommodate.
After I completed the course I set about putting my marketing plans into action, which were creating my website and networking. I was fortunate to have my redundancy money to fund the early months whilst I was setting up and trying to secure clients. My first client came as a result of my responding to one of many VA posts that Carmen circulated to her graduates. After being interviewed, I was offered a contract. I was in an enviable position of having my target 25 hours per week satisfied by the one client. My client was in the process of franchising their already successful networking business and I helped streamline many processes as well as take care of the day to day admin of the business, while they focused on marketing and recruiting franchisees. After some 11 months, the franchise side of my client's business had successfully taken off, with several territories sold and many more reserved. Consequently, my and my client's workload reduced significantly. I needed to get more clients.
I had a follow up call with Carmen who helped me get out of panic-mode and re-focus on how I wanted my VA business to develop and commit to actions and steps to get there, which included networking. By the end of the month I managed to secure 1 more regular client and by the following month another 2 regulars came on board as well as another 4 ad-hoc clients. 4 of the 7 new clients were my first client's franchisees, so I was able to offer them my expertise of running the admin for their new franchise business. I had found my niche market. At the same time, I came in contact with 2 ladies who were looking to set up virtual admin businesses of their own. I trained one to do the franchisee's admin work to my high standards. The other had a great track record in call centres, so it was natural to offer her telemarketing skills as a service to my clients.
Now, a little over a year later from being in "panic-mode", I have a team of 6 super associates and together we serve 8 regular and as many ad-hoc clients who think we are wonderful!
It has been enormously beneficial for me to have Carmen as my coach. Not only is she understanding and empathetic she is able to get to the root of my concerns and fears, squash them or turn them into conquerable obstacles. In addition, Carmen has an amazing in-depth knowledge of all aspects of the VA business which she enthusiastically passes on. Every call I've had with Carmen leaves me inspired, energized and focused. I feel very fortunate to have someone as knowledgeable as Carmen on my side and would whole-heartedly recommend anyone committed to the VA route to fast-track their journey by "standing on the shoulders of giants" and taking up the VA Mastery Course.
By Vee Smith - founder of My Super VA
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