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Referenced Links:
- Elance
- VAVS Conference
- Upwork
- Udemy
Tweetables:
Webinars are a great way to reach more than just one client at a time. #vatip 
Gotta Tweet!
As long as you sit on the sidelines, nothing happens.
#vatipGotta Tweet!
Sometimes we have to experience a low thing in order to get that fire in us to go forward. #vatip Gotta Tweet!
In Words:
Welcome to episode number 38. I am just so honored and excited that you are listening to this podcast episode today. Whether you are in the car, at home, at the gym, I just appreciate your time so much.
Today we’re going to dive in. I’m going to give you an update on a topic I talked about in episode 33 about failure being a part of success. I’ve got an update for you, and we’re going to talk about getting some results for you. I just want to let you know what’s going on behind the scenes with me, what’s happening, and hopefully it will motivate you to pull the trigger on your end as well.
If this is your very first time listening to The Business of Being a Virtual Assistant, thank you so much for tuning in. I am Tiffany Parson and I’ve been a virtual assistant full-time since 2008. My clients, I’m a VA to them, a technical virtual assistant. I am also a WordPress consultant as well as a virtual assistant coach and trainer.
When I started in 2008, I had no idea what I was doing. I learned about Elance and got going that way. A couple of years after that, I started getting a lot of questions about how I got started and people wanting to know, and for me to give tips and information. I am a trainer at heart. I’ve been a trainer since I was kid, showing people how to do things, and so that’s pretty much how I got into training other virtual assistants.
The podcast is a great way to help you each and every week as well.
Let me give you an update on episode 33. Now, episode 33, I talked about failure being a part of success and you pretty much have to go after some things in order to achieve your success. Clearly. However, all of us are guilty of allowing failure, not even failure itself, but the possibility of failure, hold us back from going after things.
In that episode I talked about a book writing contest I entered, and I also talked about submitting my application for VAVS Conference with Tawnya Sutherland. It is a virtual assistant online conference and you have different trainers every day. I think it’s like two or three trainers a day teaching on different topics specific to virtual assistants. I have been a guest presenter before. She does it twice a year. I skipped one of the times and so I applied again when I had talked about it in episode 33.
Well, the update to that is that I was selected to be one of the guest presenters. I’m really excited about that. I’ve submitted all my information. I’ve submitted my giveaway, my offer, and my presentation. All of that has been sent off and ready to go. My day is Thursday the 20th. I think it’s the 20th or the 19th. I’m pretty sure it’s the 20th. I’ll check the calendar. I’ll include a link in this episode so that you can go and get some more information on that event. I’ll be talking about how virtual assistants can use webinars to market their business, so really exciting stuff.
Something I’m not seeing a whole, whole lot of – our clients are using webinars, but we aren’t and we should be. It’s a great way to reach more than just one client at a time.
The other update is regarding the book contest. I didn’t even want to give this update. I don’t like to be negative about things. Let’s just say I was disappointed in the contest. What happened was they did select winners. You basically won a coupon or a discount to purchase the training to write a book. I think it ended up being, after the coupon, like $3,000. To me, that was not a prize. I didn’t feel like a winner after that.
However, I am determined and will still write my book without that particular training. Just not prepared at this time to invest that much and it kind of put a bad taste in my mouth because it was promoted as a contest, something that you would win as a free prize. I think I would have felt better if it was like a special offer, no contest, nothing you had to submit, just a special offer for the courses. I probably would have felt differently about it and looked at it more.
Those are my updates on episode number 33. One is a win, whoop-whoop, and the other one, not so much. But that’s okay. That is okay. That’s what it’s all about.
That leads me right into the next thing I want to talk to you about and that’s getting what you want – getting results.
It’s very easy to come home from work and just unwind from the busy day at work, and if you have to talk all day at work you might come home and not want to talk or not want to answer the phone or not want to look at your computer. However, if your desire is to build your own business, whatever it is, whether it’s being a virtual assistant, a graphic designer, a freelance writer, an author, a direct sales rep, it doesn’t matter, whatever it is, if deep down you want to start your own business you have to sacrifice some of that winding down time to get what you want.
Unfortunately, many people don’t want to go the extra to go after what they want, and kind of sit on the sidelines and watch everyone else get what they want. Watch everyone else go after opportunity, after opportunity, after opportunity while they sit on the sidelines and wonder why isn’t it happening to me? When is it my turn?
Well, as long as you sit, nothing happens. No one knows who you are. No one knows what you have. No one knows what you’re capable of because you just sit and you give away all that you have to something you don’t like. Maybe it’s a job. Maybe it’s a relationship. I don’t know.
Let’s say it’s a job you don’t like. I can remember going to work and not liking it at all. I’ve had one corporate job that I loved. I loved that job. It was my first job in IT. They called us software engineers. We were programmers, but they titled us software engineers. It was my favorite job because we were casual. The office was fun and casual. They made sure that we had a lot of team activities and team outings and different things like that. They truly believed in work hard, play hard. This was before 2008, so before the recession and all that when things were pretty good with companies.
That was my favorite corporate job to this day. Thinking about that job makes me smile. I looked forward to going. My coworkers were my friends. We not only worked together, but we’d hang out together after work and on the weekends. It was great. It was great. That was when I lived in Texas. I lived there almost four years, and then I came back to North Carolina, my home state, and got a tech job to move back. They relocated me back, and that was cool, but it lasted all of seven months and I got laid off. I think this was after – no, it was before 9/11.
Anyway, after that I wasn’t in IT anymore and I had to go after just whatever job I could get because months were going by. I wasn’t finding anything. I was having a hard time finding stuff. Actually, I think I’m skipping ahead after 9/11. It took me four months to find another IT position. But before that, I worked with a temp agency and I worked a 3rd shift job. I think I was there for one month. I worked a 3rd shift job, so we had to be at work at 10:00 at night and we got off at 6:00 the next morning. I think Sunday nights we would be there from like 11:00 to 6:00. It was a slightly shorter time on Sunday nights, 3rd shift. I’m getting at going after what you want.
Sometimes we have to experience a low thing in order to get that fire in us, that fuel in us, to go forward.
So at this 3rd shift job, it was data entry. You know the numbers at the bottom of your check? Whatever check you get, your personal check or a check from somewhere else and it has the numbers at the bottom. We had to enter in those numbers at the bottom of the checks plus the check amounts in a system, and you had to do it fast. You were being timed for speed and accuracy, so you had to get it exactly right or you’d be dinged for it. Keep in mind this is the middle of the night. Again, I said we had to be there at 10:00 p.m. and we were doing this until 6:00 a.m. and we got 30 minutes for like a food break and 15 minutes for just like a stretch break and that was it.
Just thinking about that really puts things into perspective. It makes me grateful for the opportunities that I have, because I had never worked in an environment like that before. I was working with people, some did not have high school educations, some just had high school, but people definitely didn’t have college and they definitely weren’t computer programmers. I was totally out of my element.
I would even wear the same clothes to work every day for so many days in a row just to kind of fit in and not stand out so much with my coworkers. I’d wear like a sweatshirt. I can remember wearing my Carolina sweatshirt and jeans a couple days in a row and then I would turn my sweatshirt inside out and wear it like that. I knew I wasn’t going to be there long. I knew that God had me there to just see what it was like, and it was life lessons for sure.
Gosh, it’s kind of weird because thinking about it and thinking about my coworkers there, it kind of brings tears to my eyes because I wonder what were their dreams? What did they aspire to? What happened that landed them at this particular job? I’m saying it like this because they were in some pretty rough situations. I mean, we’d sit there and we’d talk at breaks. We would talk while we were working, so you got to know people a little bit. I mean, this was in the middle of the night, you know, working with single moms, some with just different bad situations.
Like I said, I knew I wasn’t going to be there long. They were permanent employees. I was a temp and so you know you’re passing through when you’re working a temp job. But I would love to know what happened to some of them, and prayerfully, they’ve moved on to some bigger and better things.
If you want more, you have to go after more. You have to take chances.
You have to submit applications for contests and conferences and whatever it is that you want. You have to do it. Nobody’s just going to say, oh my gosh, somehow or another I found out about you and how wonderful you are and I came to get you. It does not work that way. We have to go after it and not be afraid. Just go, just go, just go in order to see the results that you want.
In addition to this VAVS conference, virtual assistant conference, I’m preparing for – I’ve got a couple other things going, a 21-Day Upwork Challenge. Elance, I’m not sure if they’ve merged with Upwork or bought by Upwork or changed their name to Upwork, whatever it is, Elance is moving to Upwork and I’m moving with them to Upwork. We’re in the midst of a 21-day challenge. It went live the second week in November and so we’re going for 21 days. It is a training and a challenge all at the same time. This went out to my VIP list, my email list, and I have some ladies in the challenge and they’re working their way through it.
It’s fun to be with others who are moving in the same direction as you are.
When you’re an entrepreneur, when you are striving to have your own business, it can be very lonely. You go through enough ups and downs as it is in getting clientele and also sales, but the experiences we go through behind the scenes, everybody doesn’t understand. So when you’re a part of a group of people headed in the same direction, you’ve got camaraderie and support and you know everybody’s going for it.
With the challenge it also gives you an assignment every single day, something to accomplish every single week, and you’re going after it together. I’m excited about it. I’ll be doing some other challenges as well. This is the first one, and just wanted to give you an update on that, let you know about that.
If you’re not on my VIP list, make sure you go to my website: TiffanyParson.com, click on Free Training, put in your name and email for that, and that puts you on the VIP list so you can find out what’s going on so you can be a part of the next challenge.
You’ll also be one of the first ones to find out about my Udemy course. I don’t know if they pronounce it oo-da-me or u-dem-e. I’m not sure. I’ve heard it both ways. But I’m doing a course on there. That will be sent off this week. It’s going to be about providing WordPress content management as a virtual assistant. That’s not the exact course name, but that’s what it’s all about. My email list will be one of the first VAs to be able to check out that course. Of course, I’ll have a special offer for you for being one of the first, so I wanted to let you know all about that.
Thanks again for listening to this week’s episode. Have a wonderful, wonderful, wonderful and blessed week.
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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