SVA Forum

[1503angela]

Hi all, firstly apologises for posting late this week, I was attending a Business Gateway Book-keeping workshop yesterday evening and didn’t get home until after 10.00pm after leaving the house at 7.30am. This was not because the workshop was ridiculously long (thank god!) but because I am still working full-time at the moment.

Being employed whilst setting up and establishing your business was the main topic I wanted to post about today. I have been planning and setting up my business for about the last eight months and I have also been working full-time during this period. This has meant that the vast majority of my evenings and weekends have been spent doing business planning, business start-up workshops, meetings with accountants, meetings with solicitors, meetings with my graphics designer, research, writing my business plan etc etc. This has been pretty exhausting but totally necessary.

However, as I move into the new phase of the business actually trading as well as working it is all becoming quite complicated. I have informed my employer and have agreed to reduce my hours to 4 days a week from the start of April with the flexibility to reduce further as my business grows. It is great to have this flexibility as I obviously need to have some money to live off of while my business gets established.

The difficulties I am having are all around keeping my employment and my business separate but being accessible to my clients as per their needs. This is proving to be a very difficult balancing act. I got a great suggestion from Caroline about using a call-answering service which I am currently pursuing. VA businesses are so helpful even VAs need to use them! I’m wondering if anyone has any other suggestions of how to manage the balancing act?

Also thank-you very very much to everyone that took the time to have a look at my website last week and send my your feedback. I have taken lots of your comments on boards and made lots and lots of little tweaks and changes so it has been really helpful.

Many thanks and I’ll talk to you all next week.

[caroline]

I know this isn't very helpful, but perhaps might make you feel a bit better: Undoubtedly the hardest part of setting up is when you are working full time + setting up + trying to eat/sleep/maybe say hello to your family occasionally. It gets lot easier when you have specified time during business hours to work on your business. I'm convinced I was far, far more effective when I worked part-time than when I became a full-time VA simply because I only had X number of hours to get everything done, so sat down and got on with it. I can't say I miss the late nights/early mornings though.

Stuff you could do to help:
- Blackberry to check emails during breaks/just before work/straight after work
- Autoresponders on email saying you'll get back to them within 24 hours
- Set deadlines with clients that allow you to work in the evenings/at weekends.

Any other ideas?
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[Jill@JMVA]

I agree with Caroline that at the beginning there just isn't enough hours in the day.

I am actually helping out another VA at the moment, who is in a similar predicament, in that they are working full-time but have built up a lot of new clients in a very short period of time. We have an Associate Agreement in place which means that they will pass to me any projects, pieces of work that can be outsourced. Therefore it means that all the work is done in a timely manner and also allows my friend some "give" in their day. An associate for a short period of time might be a solution.
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Jill @ JMVA

[ASAP Admin]

I agree with Caroline too. We all been there, starting up and working full time and then trying to accomplish projects during the evening.

A blackberry or webmail is necessary to be able to respond to emails when you are on a break from your employment etc and keeps your clients in the loop. You might also need to consider outsourcing some projects that clients want completed during the day that you are not able to do but don't want to lose the client. You can outsource to another VA for say around 50%-75% of the fee you would charge your client and you still keep your client happy.

With regards to call answering, an excellent suggestion by Caroline and a necessity for when you are not able to answer your calls. I would like to say it has been great speaking to you about this and would like to welcome you on board as a Call Team client. Thanks for referring Angela to us Caroline.
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Lyndsey Gilchrist
ASAP Admin
Call Team