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In Words:
Hi, you’re listening to episode number 61. Let’s talk about your first day full-time in your virtual assistant business.
Episode number 59 got a lot of attention, meaning listens, so I thought it would be fun for us to continue talking about the transition from corporate to running your virtual assistant business full-time, and discuss your very first day in your business.
Now, it’s easy to look at it and just think that it’s like a day off, because it would be your first official day in your business where it’s a blank slate. It’s open to how you want it to look, what you want it to look like.
I’m going to give you a few tips on how to handle that first day.
First of all, you’re going to be excited. I want you to be excited in your business. When you wake up you’re probably going to surprise yourself and wake up early, maybe even earlier than you were waking up before when you were going to your corporate job, and that is awesome.
Your first day, if you’ve got client projects, of course, take care of those, but I’m going to cross that off because you automatically know if you’ve got projects you’ve got some things to do. Let’s talk about outside of your client projects that you would have to work on your first day.
The beauty of this is that you can decide what you want to wear to the office. Be free on this first day. Don’t feel like you have to put clothes on that first day. Normally, as things progress, you do want to get dressed and get ready. But your first day, I want you to fully enjoy it.
If it’s a PJs day, if it’s a sweat suit day, if it’s a shorts and tank top day, do that because you took a tremendous leap to dive into your business full-time. Whether you arrived at that day because of choice or because you had no other choice, either way celebrate the moment. You can do that in what you decide that you want to put on.
Decide your plan of action. What are you going to do?
If you’ve got client projects, you already know, hey, I’ve got some projects to work on today. You also know you need to seek out some new clients. Whether you’ve got projects or not, seeking out new clients.
If you’ve been listening to the podcast for a while, I have talked about before in deciding how many proposals you send out on a regular basis based on your schedule, whether you are working full-time or working part-time. If you’ve been doing that, then you already have a system in place as to how you get yourself in front of the clients that are looking for you. You will continue to do that on your first day.
Decide what the house rules are going to be.
This is going to be a growing list as you develop how you want to do things in your home office. I’m just assuming your first day you’re working from home, so you want to decide what are the home rules as far as personal calls, as far as family interaction. Remember, you’re running your business full-time now and so you want to decide what that plan is.
Day one, you won’t have it down pat. It’s a new thing. Don’t expect it to be perfect. Don’t expect everyone around you to understand. You may even have some people thinking, oh, now you’ve got more free time to either do something for them or go to lunch with them or whatever the case may be. You’ll have to discipline yourself not to do that or plan it. It’s fine to plan it on your calendar.
As you go down the road, if things are caught up, then, hey, you have an open day, and then allow spontaneous things to happen on your open day, or what I used to call fieldtrips. I used to do fieldtrips on Friday where I would go and pick a spot to work at, some place outside of my home office. I haven’t done that in a while because I’m enjoying being at home more than ever before. Anyway, you may want to plan some fieldtrips for yourself, but enjoy the journey. Enjoy the journey.
Some things I didn’t expect on my first day working my business full-time was how quickly the day goes by. 11:00 comes faster than ever. At your job, you know, you’re waiting. You get there maybe 8:00-8:30, and the clock is slow. But when you’re working from home, time flies. It is true. Time flies when you’re having fun. It will zoom by.
If you’re an early bird, continue with that; continue getting up early in the morning. If you’re just used to, out of habit, getting up at a certain time, go with that because the time goes by fast. Oh, my gosh, it goes by so fast.
Keep in mind that now you’re responsible for everything. You’re in charge. You go get the work. You go get the clients. The deadlines, all this stuff, so that’s why it’s important to keep that in mind and kind of map out how you’re going to do that.
I wrote starting a new job, and it is similar to starting a new job because you have to learn the environment, your new workspace, and how you want things to flow. But the difference is that if you sit around waiting, waiting for a client to find you, waiting for a client to check in with you – if you sit around waiting like at work somebody tells you what to do, where to go, there’s a meeting here, this and that, it won’t work in your business because you’re basically waiting for yourself.
I’m excited for you on your first day. Now, if you are a ways away from your first day full-time in your virtual assistant business, this episode is your opportunity to dream about what that looks like. Take some time. Write it down, wherever you put notes, on paper, in your phone, and allow yourself to dream about what that first day looks like, what it feels like, and then I want you to map out what it will take to get you there.
Episode 59, we talked about expenses, and that will help you in regards to cost and expectations.
What else will you need to have in place to prepare to come home if that’s your goal? If your goal is to work your VA business part-time, then I want you to envision what is an ideal workspace like for you. During your timeslot that you’re working your VA business, what does that look like? There is still excitement in that. Enjoy the journey either way, whether it will be your first day soon in your virtual assistant business, you’ve already had your first day, or you’re still dreaming about that first day.
Enjoy the journey. It will be worth it, and know that where you are on the first day is not where you’re going to be six months from now. You’ll be in a completely different place. You’ll be in a stronger place. You’ll be in a bolder place, a more courageous place, because of the steps that you took to bring your business to full-time.
Now, here are a few warnings for you.
Because you are home full-time now, it’s going to be very easy as you’re doing your plan of action to decide, oh, I can run this errand and run that errand because now I’m home. You’ll have other people that might pull on you to do things for them, and then you’ll be tempted to do things yourself. Plan it out.
I can remember reading a while ago that Thursday morning was the best day to go to the grocery store because they stock up on everything for the weekend. If you’re thinking, oh, this will be an ideal time for me to go to the grocery store in the morning that is fine as long as you plan it out. You don’t want to have a day unplanned wide open because it will go to waste.
Remember what I said about how the time flies. It will go by so fast because now you’re home. If you’ve got a day, you just wake up, there is no plan, even if the planned day is to say, hey, today is my free day, you don’t have to necessarily put free on your calendar. Making a mental note today is a free day is a plan.
A day without a plan is just kind of free flowing. You’re just going with the wind wherever the wind blows. You don’t want that because the days go by, which means the weeks go by, which means the months go by really, really quickly.
Don’t overload your plate with family errands or cleaning up around the house because now you’re home. You are working your business.
If you had to do the same things that you did for your company, you’re now doing for yourself, you wouldn’t treat the company that way. The company wouldn’t allow you to do certain things. You’d have to take care of it. You’d have to get those deadlines done, and you would expect your managers or your supervisors to have some work for you to do and not just be sitting at your desk twiddling your thumbs.
Same thing for your business – there’s always something to do.
Thank you so much for listening to today’s episode. I am, again, excited for your journey. Please come give me some feedback.
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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