When I was meeting with my coach last week, we discussed my issues with numbers. It took me about an hour and a half to try to balance my checkbook (using quickbooks, which makes it easy.) Now I was pulling out my hair trying to figure out what to attribute to which category, how to code transferring money between accounts, etc. My coach told me to just bite the bullet and ask Candy about taking a greater role in it.
Daniel Gerber, of the book, “E-myth” would call this “management by abdication” instead of “management by delegation.” His theory is that you should know how to do each task in your business before you give it to someone else, otherwise, how can you manage them? Hmm. Well, I don’t need to manage Candy, so I’m abdicating my business finances to her. How’s that for justifying my actions?
You know what’s most embarrassing about this? My dad is a retired CPA. The math gene didn’t get passed on to me, apparently. My kindergartner seemed to have gotten the math smarts. He gets 100% on all his math tests. I tease him that someday he’ll be doing the books for my company. My preschooler is going to be a book author or a virtual writer like me. He already takes construction paper and has me staple them together so he can write “books.” He can even read about 10 words. Not bad for a kid who’s not even 4 yet.
Speaking of him, I took my author-VA-in-training to get a speech eval at the local Intermediate Unit. He has articulation problems. Nothing severe, but he’s more difficult to understand than other kids his age, especially with “s”, “p” “g” and a few other sounds. It was really interested to watch the speech pathologist administer his test. He qualifies for speech therapy through the school district and they’ll even come to his preschool to do his therapy in the fall. The woman who did the assessment says she thinks it’ll be a quick fix and he will probably be done with therapy before he starts kindergarten.
I asked the speech therapist if there was any hereditary link to speech problems and she said she didn’t know. If she knew what caused speech problems, she’d retire and be living on a tropical island. My oldest brother had therapy because he couldn’t say “T” sounds. I was in it for not being able to say “ch” and “sh” and a few other sounds. I’m just glad my parents caught it early. Maybe that’s why I’m in tune to it with other kids. I think it’s sad when you see an older kid or adult with speech problems that weren’t corrected early.
Alright, off my soapbox.
This Friday marks the end of my relationship with a client I’ve had for almost 6 months. It also marks a beginning for some new adventures. I just completed the rough draft of my ghostwritten medical article for my physician client, and I’m anxious to wrap that up and start on the next one. I have to admit, I’m a little nervous about her feedback, but that’s only because this is a new writing format for me. No matter how good of a job you think you did, doesn’t it always feel reassuring when your client says so too?
So with my newly-freed up 10 hours a week from this client I’m ending my contract with, I will spend some time doing my own book management and promotion (my new VA one and Write It Right), spend time doing more marketing of my business and figuring out what I need to do to expand and grow. My business coach, Marcia Rynearson, of Action International, will be instrumental in this process. I had a meeting with her on Friday and was blown away with all the possibilities we came up with.
I begin my own sideline of coaching someone else this week. Did you know even coaches have coaches? I guess that’s just a testament to the fact that you can never stop learning. So tomorrow I have my first coaching session with a “coachee.” I’m looking forward to it! I’ve decided I will keep a few slots open for VAs that are interested. At this point, though, I don’t want it to be the primary focus of my business.
Speaking of the primary focus of my business, my niche is much different than when I started. For anyone who contacts me for more traditional administrative services I no longer provide, I’m sending them to Corie of Core Office Solutions We’re trying to do some mutual promotion since, as far as we’re aware, we’re the only VAs in the Harrisburg area! We’re partnering to provide a local presence.
At some point, I may develop a “referral page” on my site which can direct potential clients to non-competing VAs with different specialties.
Have a productive week!
It’s days like today that you aren’t real fond of, but it also makes you happy you work for yourself. My younger son (almost 4) and I both have colds. He wasn’t able to go to preschool (full-day) today, so he was home with me. So the bad news is I wasn’t able to get much work done. The good news was, I didn’t have to feel guilty about not working and staying home with my kid. I could check email periodically, work for about an hour after he finally fell asleep, and doze off with him while we watched Shark Tales. With his low-grade fever, cough, sneezing and wheezing, I feel like all I did was pump him full of medicine today, when he wasn’t velcro-ed to me. I feel bad for my little guy. He hardly talked today and just laid around or sat on my lap. I’m just glad I could be with him today and not feel guilty about it.
I love being a VA!
I got a request today to mentor someone from dvvaa today. I also got a request about 2 months ago to mentor someone else.
This is one of the hardest things for me to say no to. I had a mentor in the beginning throes of my business, and I also mentored someone else in the beginning throes of theirs. I believe in volunteering. I am on the staff at IVAACast, plus I’ve volunteered for some short-term committees for IVAA. I’ve volunteered my time as an expert of the month for both DVVAA and IVAA in the past. I also volunteer at least twice a month in my son’s kindergarten class to help them with kidwriting.
All of these activities I find rewarding and enjoyable, but I’ve also had to learn to say no to things I’d love to say yes to. The hard facts are that I’m running a business and time is money. I have to divy my time among my clients, my own projects, volunteering and self-education.
As I just wrote out a huge check to my business coach, it makes it clear that I can’t give away any more time for free!
My coach and I had a discussion that the term “editorial virtual assistant” didn’t quite cover everything I do. While I do perform that function for a client, I’m moving toward doing more ghostwriting and author support. (mostly research or appointment setting). So, as I become more interested in ghost writing or substantive editing, I need a title to reflect that. None of the ones I’ve come up with yet seem to be exactly it. Here are some possibilities: ghostwriter, medical ghostwriter, editor, technical writer, business and medical technical writer, writer, editor, book doctor. I’m sure there are others, but those are what come to mind. None of them seem exactly it. Hmm. I’m open to suggestions.
I’ve been working on my long-term plans with my business, the types of clients I want, the number of hours I want to work, etc. It’s very eye-opening. I’m having trouble limiting the scope of services I want to provide. One thing I’m good at is taking scattered information (either verbal or multiple written documents, organizing them and creating a “complete package.” This is the case with 2 of my recent clients…a physician and another client who needed help writing his memoirs. In both cases, they had the ideas, but they needed someone to help see the “whole picture” and flesh it out, see any gaps in logic or missing content and question the clients for clarification or additional information. There is obviously a need for this service, but I’m not sure what you’d call it. A writer’s assistant maybe? I don’t think that’s exactly it either. To be continued…
Lately I’ve felt a little scattered. My niche has gotten narrower and narrower over the last 2 years or so when I started growing my business. I narrowed it down to writing services and author support. I figured it would just keep narrowing down on its own as I saw what I really enjoyed, what the market would accept, etc. But lately, I’ve found I’m too scattered. There are lots of writing services that I either don’t like to do or aren’t my forte. I contacted my new business coach, who is an occasional client of mine, and we had a consultation.
After discussing my situation with her, it became clear what I needed to do. I need to focus on working with non-fiction authors (to learn more) and writing or ghostwriting long articles and books. There’s nothing wrong with the other work I was doing (one big one was writing keyword articles for a computer guru), but it was too restrictive. I had to post these articles every day and hit minimum daily and weekly hour requirements. When I started, it was good, steady income, but I found it just didn’t fit my business model or my lifestyle anymore. So my coach’s first order of business was to “fire” that client to create room for more ideal clients. That was not easy!
So, now I have a good business coach I will be meeting with occasionally and I’m excited about the future. This also means I need to rewrite the copy for my website, along with finishing editing a memoir, continuing to work on a medical journal article, work on my own co-authored book that’s almost done, etc. Busy busy.
Happy Easter everyone!
Lauren