What’s Getting in The Way of Your Success?
When you’re a Virtual Assistant caring for other entrepreneur’s businesses, it’s easy to neglect your own. However, tolerating issues that you are tripping on, day in and day out, will get in the way of your day-to-day success – and sabotage your ability to grow and scale your business. That’s why it’s important to tackle issues as they come up.
In this episode of the RocketGirl Show, I'll share a list of common issues that stop business growth and how to overcome them.
TRANSCRIPT
My name is Belinda Wasser, also known as RocketGirl. And today we're going to talk about what's getting in the way of your success. When you're a virtual assistant it is so easy to be thinking about your clients work and what's happening in their businesses and not really thinking about your own. So today we're going to talk about some common things that can stop growth in your virtual assistant business.
The number one thing is consistent computer annoyances, not enough RAM, not enough screens. You know, I'm a fan. I have three screens, not enough ink on your printer. So you're running down the hall, things like that. So it's really important to make sure that you have the equipment that you need to do the job. Using broken equipment. Now I am an example of that right now. I just upgraded my computer recently, and my scanner is no longer compatible. So top of my list is to go get a new printer with a scanner. So I'm not running up and down the stairs all the time to use another printer in the house. Not being sure that your computer is actually backed up. That has kept me up at night before. That is a very important thing. There's a lot at stake if you lose your hard drive, and it's really expensive to get that data back. So don't fool around with that. I learned that the hard way.
Constantly running out of supplies. That is something that if you're always having to run to the store or get more paper or whatever it is that you're using stamps, make sure that you have enough of what you need. Get a little runway. Runway, meaning enough to last for a while, because most of the things that we need are not generally that expensive, or the clients paying for them.
A chaotic desk can get in your way when you're trying to grow your business. If you're always tripping over things, moving things around, I suggest clearing the whole desk off and only putting back the things that you absolutely need to have on your desk.
If there are things that you can automate, do it. There are things, for example, where every time someone signs up for one of my downloads, it automatically adds their name to a spreadsheet, same with clients. So if we automate clients work to make ourselves more efficient, right? We need to do that with our stuff as well. And maybe it's setting up credit card processing or setting up a PayPal account so that we can get paid more quickly.
And then the last thing I want to talk about before I talk about the real cost of this is using equipment until it dies. I have heard so many people. My computer is about to die. I'm going to wait until I thought it's very last leg. And so what you're doing is just torturing yourself. It doesn't take very expensive equipment or supplies or anything to run a VA business, but you definitely have to invest money in order to make money.
Now, the biggest thing I want you to take away from this is that the real cost is the loss of momentum And what I mean by that is if you get in a groove and you're doing billable work and it's like ka-ching ka-ching, you're just moving through the work, getting things done, and then you have to print. And now you have to email yourself the file, go to the other computer, print it out, or put it on a thumb drive. You're losing momentum. You're shifting your thoughts away from what you're working on, and it really takes time to get back in into the groove and momentum, I think, is one of the things that makes successful virtual assistants successful, because, as we know dollars, or we should say, billable rate times hours worked equals how much money we make. So we want to make sure that we're optimizing that as much as possible.
So let's talk about some ways to fix that. Okay? Make a list of all your annoyances, all the things that are driving you crazy. The printer where your desk is in the room. I've done this for my whole life before, gone through my whole life and made a list of everything that when I see it or have to do it, it makes me feel like, right. So make a list Then what I want you to do is prioritize them.
There's two ways you can do it. You can either do low hanging fruit things that you can handle really quickly, or you can take care of the things that are making you crazy first. But make a list, go through it. It might take you some time. You don't have to get everything perfect right away. But chances are that you're making mistakes and that these things are getting in the way and they're just causing you angst. So it's important to take care of them.
Tackle them one at a time. Okay, so you can feel that feeling of momentum for this. Do one at a time, do it all the way, or as far as you can until something else has to happen. But just do it one at a time and print out a list. Check them off. Get the satisfaction for sure. As new problems arise, don't ignore them. As soon as I realize that my printer doesn't scan with my new computer, I put it at the top of my list. So make sure that you stay on top of this. And then, because sometimes we miss things, do an annual audit, you know, walk around your business, sort of mentally in your head.
Look at your equipment, look at how it's set up. Look at your applications, get rid of the ones that you don't need. See if there's any that would enhance your businesses if you have them and do an audit just to stay on top of everything.
All right, well, before we go, I just want to make sure that everybody knows about my free online classroom. It's called The Virtual Assistant Connection, and you can find us on Facebook. There are 12000 members of the community, and it's an awesome place to come. If you're just thinking about being a virtual assistant, or you've been one for a while, we'd love to have you lots of information, community, and learning over there. If you're watching us on YouTube, please click the Subscribe button so that you'll be notified each time we go live until next time I'm Belinda Wasser, RocketGirl Signing off. Bye bye.
