TBBVA 082: Three Month Actionable Plan To A Profitable Year

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Referenced Links:

• 21 Day Upwork Challenge
• Upwork
• AWeber
• Gumroad
• Shopify
• Your Year In Review

Tweetables:

Write down a number of things you want to accomplish in the next three months without thinking of how you will accomplish it. #vatip Gotta Tweet!

It’s important to know the trends because that’s what clients are looking at. #vatip Gotta Tweet!

If video is a trend, we need to understand how our services relate to video. #vatip Gotta Tweet!

In Words:

Hi and welcome to episode number 82.  This is our very first episode of the new year.  I’m glad you’re here.  Now, on to our topic for today.

Today’s episode, I just want to share with you something that I did before the new year came in.  In anticipation of what newness brings, I wrote down ten things that I want to accomplish within the first and second quarter of the year.  Now, on my list I wrote first quarter, but as I got to writing, my list got longer.  It’s ten things, so I’m giving myself the first quarter and then making it okay if some things carry over.  I know some things can get taken care of right away.  I’m sharing it with you.  You’re going to hold me accountable to this.

Also, to encourage you to write down the ten things you want to accomplish the first quarter of 2017.

Okay, here’s my list:

1. You know I’ve got the 21 Day Upwork Challenge. It includes the 2-hour webinar that I did.  It includes the replay of that plus the 21 Day Guide.  It takes you from day 1 onto Upwork, taking you through 21 days, and it actually leaves you with a plan to go beyond the 21 days.  I am going to close that out and separate the Guide so it will be a standalone Guide and the Guide will be $27 just for the Guide.  So the 2-hour webinar, it’s going to go away.  It’s going to be exclusive for those who were there, those who have already purchased.  That is the first thing that I wrote on my list.

   I am deciding on – I want to try a new shopping cart system, right.  So far I’ve been using PayPal integrated with AWeber, and so I’m going to take a look at – I think it’s called Gumroad and then I’m going to take a look at Shopify to see a different way to deliver.   I’m doing that for a couple of different reasons.  One, to dive into another shopping cart for experience so that I’ll know how that goes for my clients, and also for a change, for something different.  So that since it’s just going to be a Guide, I want it to be a quick download versus having to go to a page with a password and all that stuff.

   This is not in any particular order.  It’s just as it came to mind, and when I made the list I did not sit and think, oh gosh, what’s the next one?  What’s the next one?  I let my thoughts flow.  I just let my thoughts flow and wrote it down, and I didn’t think about all the how’s.  Just I wrote down what came to mind.

   This should be a fun experience.  It should not be stressful.  Again, things you want to do, just write it down as they come.  You can modify the list later, but just get it down as it comes to mind.

2. Okay, so this is number 2 on my list – 90 Day Mentorship Program. If you are on my VIP email list, you already are aware that this is going to happen.  I sent out an email before Christmas, after Christmas, and at the beginning of the new year about scheduling an appointment with me to ask me a question about your VA business, and also if you were interested in mentoring with me in 2017, the first part of 2017, to schedule some time with me that we talk about your business.  You ask your question, so on and so forth, and so that is going really well.  I’ve already talked to some of you already and that has been awesome.  Thank you if you’re listening and we’ve actually gotten a chance to have a conversation.  It was phenomenal to hear another voice on the other end.

   Anyway, if you did not get that email or you didn’t read the email, go back and look for emails from Tiffany (at) TiffanyParson (dot) com in your inbox.  If you’re not on the email list, you’ve got to go to TiffanyParson.com.  Get on the email list.  The third thing is if you get on the email list, well, I’ve sent out all the reminders.  So if you’re interested, this is what I want you to do is to send me a message on Twitter.  I am @tiffanydparson on Twitter, and I’ll get you the link so you can schedule and you can send that through Adium or straight Twitter or however you want to do it.Okay, 90 Day Mentorship Program – it’s going to go from February to April.  Registration will open up in January.  January 15^th to be exact is when the registration opens.

3. I have been wanting to write a book for a long time. Years ago, I took a course was Book in a Weekend, and oh my gosh, that was crazy wild.  The book didn’t get done, but I had, you know, it ended up being a brainstorming weekend.  Very stressful.  Stressful to put yourself under such pressure.  But that’s information I can go back to.  I had this idea to write a book for people with local businesses and how they can use a virtual assistant.  I have the written down.  I’ll be doing research on that project.

4. It is for another book geared towards virtual assistants. If you follow not only the podcast, but you get emails as well, then you know every week with the podcast is a full unedited transcription.  Well, I have a list of the top ten podcasts for 2016 as well as the top – I don’t know if I did top five.  I think I did top five overall podcasts.  I am going to create a book with all of those transcriptions.  They’ll be edited.  I’ll probably fill in some blanks with some information.  Questions that came in related to the podcast will be added to that book.  I’m going to – that is on the list.  For the format, I’m not sure if it’s going to be a free eBook, a Kindle Unlimited, or printed out on Creative Space, but that’s what I’ve written here.

5. I need to do some updates to my website, so I’m excited about that. Going to kind of shore up some things in regards to the website.

6. I am going to start up my Facebook Ads and get that going to promote my Facebook page. If you’re not following me on Facebook, I am Tiffany Parson on Facebook.  Come on over; hang out with me.  I am there every single day.  I’m always checking it.  I’ll be posting more, doing more behind the scenes videos using Facebook Live.

   I’m looking forward to Facebook Live Audio that will be coming sometime this year.  Hopefully, this first part of this year, and my plan with the Facebook Live Audio is to do live recordings of the podcast.  Let’s say right now if Facebook Live Audio were live, I would invite those on my VIP email list to join me during the recording session, and I record the podcast and you’ll be able to post questions in the comments.

   Once I have done the podcast episode, then I will answer questions that came up in the comments.  That way it’ll flow pretty easily without stopping in the middle to see what a question was.  The Q&A will follow at the end.  A quick Q&A.  Sometimes that’ll be included in the podcast.  Sometimes it might not.  It just depends on how it goes.  But I think that will be fun, taking care of two things in one.  Having live content on Facebook as well as continuing with the regular format of the podcast where you’ll find it how you normally listen to it, either through iTunes, Stitcher, or directly on my website.

7. Okay, I’ve got a bunch of Upwork connects that I need to use, so that’s what I have here, to use Upwork connects and to make that a part of a whole big case study. That was number seven.

8. A while back – I can’t remember if it was 2016 or 2015. I think it was 2015 when I created those first VA shirts that are on the website.  I’m going to refine that and move some of those designs – or not move them – upgrade the designs.  I want to do some fun things using mugs, coffee mugs.  I realize that I talk – I won’t say a lot about coffee on my Facebook page, but that comes up pretty often.  I like coffee mugs and when you see a coffee mug with a cute saying, that makes it fun.  So I thought, well, why not kind of combine those things?  I did the shirt designs.  Why not do some fun stuff with mugs?

   That will be coming.  Not only will they be able to go on mugs, but it’ll be able to go on, I’m hoping, spiral notebooks, things that are related to the stuff we use every day.  So you think about a mug, a notebook, maybe stationary or a post-it.  I don’t know if they do them on post-its.  Anyway, I’m kind of thinking of ideas as I go.  But anyway, number eight is to create mugs with text for VAs, so that’s going to be fun.

9. I need to update the Upwork Guide. In the Upwork Guide, on I think it’s day one or day two, I talk about what the current trends are for that year and give a couple of articles to go and check out and determine how you as a virtual assistant business owner fit in that.  Usually, from one year to the next, the trends crossover for us in the service that we’re providing.  But the reason why it’s important for us to know what the trends are is because that’s what our clients are looking at.  If video is the trend, we need to understand how our VA services can work along with video, especially this whole thing with live video, what all clients can do with that.

   So I’ve got to update the Guide, and if you purchased it, if you were a part of the 21 Day Upwork Challenge when we did it on Facebook, you were a part of the 21 Day Upwork Challenge when it was turned into a whole webinar series plus the Guide, if you are bought the previous product which was Writing Winning Proposals that was geared towards Elance, if you purchased any of those products, you will get the updated Guide.  You’ll get an email notification once that’s been updated and that will be sent to you so you don’t have to worry about purchasing that again.  Of course, anybody who buys the new Guide will get the new Guide.

10. I want to do a video for my Upwork profile, and the reason why has to do with I’ve been getting a lot of invites to different projects on Upwork and some are hits but a lot of things are not – I won’t say they’re misses, but they’re not things I’m interested in working in even though they’re relative to the tools that I talk about in my profile. So I want to add a video profile to make me real to that potential client on the other end.  I’m hoping that will eliminate some of the spammy type projects.  It’s to show that I’m a real person on the other end, talk about how I got started, and just test it out because I hadn’t done a video on the profile before.

Since I’m sharing with you my ten list, I will be following up with you on the ten list as well.  I think this is going to be fun for us to kind of have this accountability episode.

Now, the takeaway for you is to write down your things.  It doesn’t have to be ten.  It could be three.  It could five.  It could be eight, whatever it is.  I did not start out with, oh, I’m going to try to write down ten things.  I just – ideas were coming to mind as I was sitting there watching television, and I whipped out my phone and the note section.  Well, first, you know, it started off as a text.

If you’ve seen – I think it was the Facebook Live I did about how to create social media content.  I talked about how I text myself, and so these notes actually started out as a text and then it got really long and I was like, oh, this needs to be a note.  So one became two, then three, then four and it just grew.  I was at eight and then I had a couple other things and it ended up being ten, and so that’s how I came to ten.

No pressure on yourself regarding the number.  The goal is to get the ideas down right now either on paper, in your phone, wherever you do notes.

For me, the phone and paper is easiest because that’s usually what’s close.  The phone is close.  I don’t need to get a pen for it.  I just pick it up and then I use paper to kind of draw and doodle and just get some ideas out.  Then from there, you have your list created.  It was so great because, of course, I was thinking of you.  Today was recording day and I’m thinking about, okay, what am I going to share?  I didn’t know, and then this all came and voila, content for the podcast.

Just so you know, if this is your first time listening to The Business of Being a Virtual Assistant, I create this podcast organically.  I don’t have an editorial content for the podcast.  The reason why is because things change and vary from one week to the next, and there will be different things that I want to talk to you about.  I feel like the general topic of the podcast is enough to – we have a going theme.  It’s about our virtual assistant business.  That is a going theme. There’s always plenty of things to talk about, but it’s just a matter of what sticks out the most.

I’m sharing this with you because I have found in the past of how much pressure I put on myself when I heard, oh, people have a blog editorial content or a social media editorial content, and in some instances that is great so that you are consistent.  But when you know you’ve got something and you have your overall theme, some people just do themes, that makes it a lot easier to create content.

If you are listening to this and you haven’t listened to the Your Year In Review episode, which was the last episode of 2016, I encourage you to go back and listen to that where I talked about what questions to ask yourself about your business for the new year.  I also shared a few things regarding what worked, what didn’t work, what I needed to be consistent on.  Just talking about content and social media content made me think about that because I know Facebook is an area I need to up the ante on and just chill like I do for the podcast, not be so pressured in what to post, overthinking and all this stuff.  Are you having that same problem?  You’re over thinking things?  Well, hopefully what I’ve shared to you today helps you in not overthinking.  It’s okay to be organic.

You want to be consistent in your posting, but be organic in how you create your content. 

I look forward to hearing from you and sharing with you more on the podcast.  Thank you so much for listening.  Stay tuned for more.  It’s a new year y’all.  Let’s make it exciting and profitable.

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!