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Referenced Links:
- Upwork
- Ontraport
Tweetables:
Webinars are a great way to reach more than just one client at a time. #vatip 
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As long as you sit on the sidelines, nothing happens.
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Sometimes we have to experience a low thing in order to get that fire in us to go forward. #vatip Gotta Tweet!
In Words:
Hello, hello, welcome to episode number 39. I am so happy that you’re listening today. We are going to talk about a few things. But before I do that, let me give you some quick announcements, what’s going on behind the scenes with me and with my company.
First things first, this episode will be released the week of Thanksgiving, I believe, so if you are in the U.S. and you are tuning in – Happy Thanksgiving. We’ll be heading to family and to enjoy food and just fellowship, and I’m sure there will be some football involved as well.
Kind of funny, I never watched football before I got married. A friend of mine, she was like, oh, “You’re going to be watching football,” and I’m like, “No I’m not. My husband knows I don’t like football.” Well, I’ll be married three years in December and I have to tell you I have seen some football and I’m learning what’s going on. I’m rooting for the home team, which is our Carolina Panthers and at the time of this recording we are 8-0. I don’t know if there are any other games scheduled between now and Thanksgiving, but if so, hopefully by that time we’ll still be undefeated. Anyway, you didn’t come to The Business of Being a Virtual Assistant to talk about football and that’s as much talking about football as I know anyway.
There are four things I want to get into, and one is really a part of the other.
- The fear of success
- Knowing your limits
- Being okay when you have to decline
- When’s the time to get some help?
That last one actually goes along with knowing your limits.
Let’s start with the top one, which is fear of success.
We often hear about fear of failure, not wanting to lose, per se, don’t want to be rejected or told “no,” but the flip side, fear of success, what does that look like? Well, it could easily be the moment that you start getting project awards or a client says, “Yes, I’m interested,” you get a little afraid. Because think about it. What if you do an exceptional job and that client refers you to people they know? Then you submit a proposal on Upwork or somewhere else, someone finds you through Google, and what if your client roster grows? Are you afraid that you may be overwhelmed with the work that will come as a result of that success? If so, that is a fear of success.
A part of fear of success is being afraid that you won’t be able to continue that success at the same level.
Let me give you an example for me is that when I was in school I can remember I got straight A’s once the whole time I was in school, and then was not college. I didn’t straight A’s in college. A’s were rare in college. But anyway, in junior high was the first time I ever got straight A’s, and it was cool, but I made up in my mind, you know, I don’t want to get straight A’s because if I get straight A’s then it will be expected of me to get straight A’s. That was a fear of success thinking that, oh, because I’m successful people will begin to have expectations of me to continue at this level and I don’t know if I can, and instead of seeing if I can, I’m just not going to do it.
Fast-forward to now, we have social media. Have you ever had one of your posts go viral? Meaning all of a sudden you start getting all these likes, and viral is subjective. It could be 100 likes, 1,000 likes, and comments and shares, you know, double digits, three digits, four digits, whatever it is at the level that you are, could be viral, because viral to us is totally different than viral to, say, Oprah. Totally different, so base it on where you are now. If you ever had a post go viral, and then you think, oh my gosh, what do I do with that? How do I respond? Will I be able to maintain that type of content every single day?
This happened to me recently and I’m thinking the post wasn’t even something that I would have even guessed would take off like wildfire, but it did and it wasn’t really related to business. It was related to stress and coloring. So now I’m wondering, okay, what do I do with that, and I think I have an idea. But for a moment there I felt like, oh, you know, what if the next thing I put out there doesn’t get as much as action? That’s the fear of success. It looks a little different for different people. You may not even be experiencing fear of success or you’ve experienced it and didn’t even realize what it was.
How do we get past that? How do we jump over that hump of being afraid of that success?
Because we want to be successful and our fears could easily sabotage the efforts that we’re putting behind everything that we do to be successful. It’s important to acknowledge it. It’s important to acknowledge that the fear is there. Then once you’ve acknowledged it, it’s like saying it out loud decreases the fear. It seems like a mountain when it’s in your head. But when you say it out loud, “Oh, I’m afraid that I won’t be able to continue at this level of success.” Well, when you say it like that, it’s like you know what, that’s kind of silly because teams lose and teams win. I started out talking about football and right now where the Carolina Panthers are currently undefeated, I don’t know where they’ll be the time this recording gets released, but we know that teams win and teams lose.
The team that won the Super Bowl last year – and I have no idea who that team is. The team that won the Super Bowl last year, they have to start over at zero this year when the new season started, right. They started at zero with everybody else. They didn’t start at Super Bowl level. We know they won the Super Bowl. They were champions of that. But they go back to zero with everybody else, and that’s how it is each time we’ve achieved a success because it’s a journey, right. It’s a journey, and yes, we want to be Super Bowl every single time, but if not, that doesn’t mean we’re out forever, right. There’s a new season.
We keep going and we keep pressing, and what happens is you tweak and you learn. Each time you’re learning lessons along the way. Okay, we did that right. We’ll keep doing that. Oh, no, we did that wrong. Won’t do that anymore. You learn and you maneuver and you navigate just like a road, and eventually you find your way to that success, right, and it keeps going, keeps going, keeps going.
Let’s talk about your limits. Do you know what your limits are when it comes to the work that you do?
Recently, I had to get some help because I had reached what I called my max. My strength is with technology and concepts related to technology. When it comes to the administrative side of being a virtual assistant, I can do it and I can do it well to a point. When I say that, what I mean is that if I continue past that point, my quality level decreases because my energy decreases because I’m outside of my area of strength, and so I know what my limits are when it comes to that side of things when a client wants that.
It just depends on what it is. Like Excel spreadsheets, I’m all over it. I love Excel spreadsheets and creating and keying in data. I’ve narrowed it down specifically. Now, I’m not going to update my website and start saying I’m offering these services. No. I’m going to stick with the technology because that is my strong point all the time. Okay. My max on that end is just a tool I haven’t learned yet, and then I learn it and then it’s added to the list. But on the administrative side, there are limits, and I know when I need to get some help.
So when I was reading the instructions for the next thing and it was some reporting task or something, creating a document, and it was like my eyes were blurred. I was reading it, but I wasn’t comprehending what was being said, and that could get really messy because then I could be asking questions that are already answered in the instructions, but I’m not understanding them because I’m not comprehending. That’s when I know, oh, I’ve reached my max.
Do you know what your max is? You may not. Depending on where you are in your VA business, you may not. It comes with some experience and being able to be in tune with what your strengths are and recognize when you’re excited about a task and when you can’t wait. You jump right on it. Sometimes you get an email from a client, you know, this is me, get an email from a client, “Can you add this video to my website? I need that added.” Boom. It’s added, because I’m excited. That’s my strength. Yeah. Got it. Done. Client sends a handwritten document. It’s going to take me a minute. I’m going to read through it. It’s more of a process for me, so I know where my limits are.
When you know where your limits are, that’s the time to get some help.
That’s the time to call in another fellow VA. Subcontract with them. Let them be an extra arm for you in helping you get some things done. Just like our clients do with us, a brand new client does with us, they give us a small project as a test run, some do as a test run, see how we do. If all is well, then you continue. I’m very much like my clients. When there’s somebody that I like, I like how they work, I stick with them and we ride until the wheels fall off, you know, whether they’re taking the wheels off, I’m taking the wheels off, or the wheels just came off because nothing lasts forever.
But when you know your limits, get you some help. It’s okay. It doesn’t mean you failed or anything like that. It means you’re smart. You know, hey, time for me to outsource. VAs need VAs, so it’s important for us to build a community of VAs that we know and trust that we can call on to give some of our overflow and also give some of our work that falls outside of our limits.
Declining – how do you feel when you have to tell a client “no” or that you’re not interested in something?
Do you try to make it work in your head first? Like, well, I could do this. I could do that. When you start negotiating with yourself, you need to say “no.” The answer is “no.” When you start negotiating with yourself, the answer is “no.” Because the things that we’re excited about, we jump on right away. Yeah. I can’t wait for that.
A client recently told me she wants to know more about Ontraport. That got me excited because Ontraport is a tool that I’ve been playing with and I’m excited about it. Ontraport, Ontrapages. Yeah. So when she mentioned to me, I was like, oh, yeah, definitely. If she had mentioned bookkeeping, it would have been like, uhh, I mean, I like numbers. I like Excel spreadsheets. I do my booking, you know, this is me negotiating with myself. But the answer is “no.” It doesn’t get me hyped. I’m not pumped. I’m not excited about it.
It’s not all about the money. The money comes when you’re doing the thing that you’re pumped about. Money doesn’t come when you’re dragging in. That’s how it felt at corporate, dragging in, dragging in. I did not create my business to be a drag. Did you? Absolutely not! So it’s okay to let them know if you’re not interested in something and the response back is “awesome.”
This is part of embracing the business owner in you. You are not your client’s employee. Just because they ask you something – can you do…are you interested…will you do…does not mean the answer has to be yes every single time. They are not your boss. They are your client. You have a business, right, and we have to treat it as such.
You don’t have to say “yes” to everything. Be okay declining.
Thanks so much for tuning in. If you like what you heard, stay tuned. We’ll be back. Tell me what’s going on with you. Come on over the Facebook page: facebook.com/tiffanyparsonbiz, or if you prefer a little shorter message, come on over to Twitter: @tiffanydparson.
See you next time.
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