My Accomplishments to Date and Strategies for 2009

Wow, it’s already mid December 2008. I hardly can believe this year is coming to an end. I would like to take some time to reflect on what actually transpired throughout the year and actually since the whole concept of being a virtual assistant was introduced to me.

It all started about 5 or 6 years ago when my husband I decided we wanted to start our family. I was fortunate to have my Mom stay at home with my 3 Sisters, Brother and I throughout our entire childhood. I knew that this is something that I wanted to be able to provide for my kids as well. I also knew I had 10 years experience at that time in office administration and real estate administration and that I loved the Internet. I had a desire to be a webmaster. So, I started my research and came across VAnetworking.com and joined in 2005. I launched my first website (which is long gone now) and prepared all my marketing materials while working full time.

So, as you can see I knew for a long time that I wanted to be an entrepreneur offering virtual support services.

I officially opened my doors for business in January 2008. I had already launched my website/blog in August 2007 using WordPress. I came across Erin Blaskie’s WordPress based site in early 2007 and like she did, I found WordPress to be absolutely amazing.  So, from early 2007 until about August I took the time to teach myself everything about installing, working with, and tweaking WordPress for my own site. Once, I felt totally confident working with it, I then starting to create and maintain sites for my clients.

Back in August 2007 a message went up at VAnetworking.com that said they were looking for someone to write a book about “Finding and Working with a Virtual Assistant”. So, I volunteered for that and as a result there is a free downloadable ebook available to everyone titled “Finding the Ultimate Virtual Assistant for your Business“. I put a lot of time and effort into this project. First, I generated the table of contents and then wrote each section accordingly. I don’t think the final title was decided upon until the whole book was finished. I used my years of experience working as a CEO’s and Director’s assistant, and ultimately as a “remote” team member for a large corporation over the course of  5 years to compile the information for the book.

In January 2008, I submitted my first press release and attracted my first client, a local author.

By the end of May, I had completed the Internet Marketing Virtual Assistant certification program at VAclassroom.com plus, The VA Coach’s 6 Week Skyrocket Your VA Business Coaching Program, and had attended the Forum on Virtual Assistance (FoVA) and was feeling very confident with my new found skills and development.

By the end of June, I had built up a good client base of about 24 clients ranging from authors to Internet Marketers.

By end of July, I finished a 12 month entrepreneurship training program and had a solid business plan in place.

During July and August something started happening to me. I was not able to sleep at night and would lie awake visualizing all the great ideas I had for business development. I was very excited about the opportunities I was being presented and very eager to implement them. Out of everything, I implemented one – an online family news magazine portal for my City called, The2Beagles.com. I spent hours and hours working on it.

Then, I started putting together tons of templates. These templates were basically an outline/checklists/guide’s on how to process all these new services such as Affiliate marketing management, Keyword research, Competitive analysis, WordPress Blog Design, Newsletter management, Webinar coordination,Social media coordination, blog, article, PR and Video submissions, Video editing and optimizing, you name it I have a spreadsheet created a system to process it.

After that, I would start thinking about how to attract more and more clients, and I did I.

What I wasn’t aware of, that was actually happening to me, was that I was setting myself up for disaster…

I was taking on too much too fast while still feeling overwhelmed. This overwhelm left me feeling stessed out, and my confidence faded. I wasn’t able to processes everything on my own and had not setup my business to be able to run “without” me.

Not only did I not account for any of my accomplishments to date, but I also was blaming myself for not being able to keep up with everything. So, I spent some time over the last few months to reflect on what went wrong and figure out a plan on how to move forward successfully.

Today, it’s December – year end.

I have secured the services a wonderful business coach who specializes in helping virtual assistants succeed and together we will formulate an action plan for me going forward. She says I have to take baby steps and remember to celebrate my successes while having FUN!

Some of the area’s I was struggling with in my business where project management, bookkeeping, and saying NO! So, to start with I will be outsourcing all of my bookkeeping to a great virtual assistant who loves numbers, researching and implementing an effective project management system that works for me and my clients, and re-working my client intake processes with a focus on “setting expectations”.

I will certainly keep you updated on my progress as we move forward!

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