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OBM Tip of the Week – Potential OBM – VA at the bursting point (Part 2)

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The bursting point is your rite of passage

The bursting point isn’t necessarily a bad thing, right? You have what you wanted from your VA business, which was to be busy and make some good money. I actually consider the bursting point to be a rite of passage in a Virtual Assistant’s business; we all have to go through it in order to define what we do best and who we want to work with. The thing is, though, that living in the bursting point is not sustainable in the long run. The bursting point is like a bubble, and if you stay in it too long, it is almost a guaran­tee that you will see the effects of imbalance in your life and that bubble will eventually pop with a messy splat, negative side effects touching everyone within range.

Signs that you are at the bursting point:

  • You don’t have enough hours in the day to get your work done, and you are falling behind on many
    of your commitments
  • You are feeling overwhelmed and are starting to dread hearing from your clients
  • Clients are starting to get upset with you as the work is coming late, is not complete or is incorrect
  • Your family and friends are asking you, “Why do you work so much?” or “Are you on that computer
    again?”
  • You don’t have time to say yes to any new and exciting projects or clients that come your way
    (including those that pay a higher rate)
  • Work has become a drag; you aren’t enjoying it anymore and may even start to avoid it or get
    depressed (this is a big sign of burnout!)

Does any of this sound familiar to you? If yes, you may very well be at the bursting point in your business. The cure for some is as simple as saying, “No more clients, I’m full,” or even cutting back on your current client load to get back to a more sane and stable pace.

But what if you want to continue to grow your business? What if you are really busy but you’re still not making the kind of money you want to make? Or what if you would like to work less but still continue to make a good wage?

You may be ready to graduate to working as an Online Business Manager for your clients.

OBM Tip of the Week – Potential OBM #1 – VA at the bursting point

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You are a Virtual Assistant at the bursting point in your business

Virtual Assistants (VAs), those unseen angels who do a variety of tasks for their clients from a home-based office, are struggling; not so much from a lack of business as from an over-abundance of business.  Yes, just like in any profession, there are new VAs out there who are just getting started and are struggling to find clients and get their business off the ground. However many VAs are reaching a critical point in their businesses – having too much business coming their way – which in itself brings a whole new set of challenges. As the founder of an online recruitment and matching service for VAs, I’ve worked with many hundreds of VAs over the years and have seen a common journey in the growth of their businesses:

  1. VA gets a few clients and some good experience under their belt
  2. VA’s clients refer them to other potential clients (of which there are always plenty!)
  3. VA says yes to these new clients and soon has a full business
  4. VA’s business becomes “uncomfortably full.

They are getting so much work from various clients that it is hard to keep up (and life all of a sudden is super stressful)

This is what I call the bursting point. If you’re a VA who’s even remotely capable, and you haven’t experienced the bursting point yet, trust me, you will. Any VA who has the hot skills that clients are looking for will very soon be full-to-bursting with clients.

It’s like eating a huge meal at Thanksgiving; you are so full you could burst, but the food is so good you just can’t say no!

Does this sound like YOU?  Check out Tina Forsyth’s Becoming an Online Business Manager book and get more details on how to move beyond the bursting point: http://www.BecominganOBM.com

OBM Tip of the Week – Business-savvy professionals who are ready to start serving online based businesses

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(excerpt from Becoming an Online Business Manager) 

Just the other day I spoke to a lovely woman about our Hot Skills VA Training program, where we teach online skills and tools to virtual assistants.

She and her husband ran a very successful embroidery business for years, where he was the tech whiz and she was the marketing pro. After selling the business, she decided she wanted to work online. Not necessarily as a VA, but in some kind of capacity where she can help clients use the power of the Internet to grow their businesses.

“Sounds like you want to be an Online Business Manager,” I said to her. After explaining to her a bit more of what the role is about, she was thrilled to realize that it was even a possibility!

Being a successful business owner herself, she definitely already has what I call a marketing mindset, which is an essential piece of being a successful OBM. With a strong business background and marketing mindset, anyone can learn the online tools and skills necessary to become an OBM.

After all, business is business. Whether it is an online or traditional business it all boils down to the same thing – create value that people will pay for.

This type of potential OBM is probably one of the most exciting to me, especially when I consider someone like the stay-at-home mom or dad. They have chosen to stay home with their children instead of going back to work, and may have amazing business and marketing skills that are lying dormant for the time being.

Many of them would love to be able to work, if only there was an opportunity that allowed them the flexibility to be home with their children while making a living. I know there are potential OBMs at home watching (yet another!) episode of Barney and wishing they could use their brain for more than memorizing the songs from kid shows.

Or, as anyone who has ever worked in the corporate world knows, there are MANY talented people out there who are under-utilized and essentially miserable in their jobs. (This could be you!) My friend Pamela Slim has an excellent blog called EscapeFromCubicleNation.com, where she helps people transform from corporate prisoner to thriving entrepreneur. One of the most common challenges her readers face is that they know they want to get out of their jobs, but they have no idea what to do next.

It is to these business-savvy professionals in particular that I send a “virtual poke” to consider becoming an Online Business Manager.

OBM Tip of the Week – Why It’s Great to Be an OBM – Work with Select Few Clients

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Working as an OBM allows you to work more closely with fewer clients (generally two or three), compared to the traditional VA model of having lots of clients with varying needs and time commitments.

I love to use this analogy when it comes to client load: imagine that you are literally carrying around each client on your back. It doesn’t matter if you do one hour a month for them or 40 hours a month, they each weigh the same amount. This can get pretty heavy if you have a lot of clients!! And darn tiring, as well…

Energetically there is a truth to this scenario. You are “carrying around” each client that you are engaged with. This is a huge cause of the bursting point that we talked about earlier, as an hourly based model (which we are getting away from yes?) requires that we fill those hours with work in order to make a living. And for most online support professionals this means having a lot of clients, quite often 10 or more, each of whom has different needs and deadlines.

I’m sure you’ve had those days when it seems like every client you have pops up demanding your services –very stressful! It can literally be a brain scrambler trying to keep track of what needs to be done for each client, not to mention how you will find the time to do all that work.

When playing a bigger role with your client in an OBM capacity, you have less people to “carry around” on your back. You have two or three clients at the most who may pop up all at once asking for help, instead of eight or ten. It’s easier to focus your energy on each person, instead of feeling scattered and drained trying to keep track of it all.

OBM Tip of the Week – Providing Solutions Not Options

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In our Online Business Manager Certification Training one of the Certification projects will be to layout a plan for a brand new project.  Start to finish.. the systems, software, team, timeline ect.  Many times we see from Certification trainees brilliant ideas, honestly, info we hadn’t even considered for that project (there are some VERY creative OBM’s out there).  But what will draw a red flag from the Certification Committee is when we see options being presented but no actual solution.

Let me explain if your client comes to you and says “Hey, I would like to do a webinar series offer and record it live then set it up on a drip systems to be continually purchased after the live program”.  At that point we (the OBM) will need to create a project plan to see this webinar series come alive.

Many times we will need to research various software or systems for anything from live componants to recordings to the platform we need to deliver on after the live event.  Many moving parts, many decisions to be made many options to choose from.

Once the options are compiled we then need to determine the best route in which to run this project (including budget for any new software, systems or team members) and offer that plan to the client… what does NOT need to happen is a compiled list of “well we could or these are the options’.

Here’s why:  OWNERSHIP!  Once the client has given you the ‘I wanna’ we need to respond with ‘We will’… this will give the client the since of partnership and freedom they need to continue being creatively brilliant and confident their team can handle the direction they are taking their business.

So don’t provide options to your client provide solutions..

OBM Tip of the Week – Keeping a Swipe File

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I remember someone recommending a number of years ago that we keep what is called a “swipe file” – keep copies of emails and such that other people send out. This includes emails sent from your favorite biz owners, emails from a launch/promotional  sequence and/or anything that you simply like.

Now the title sounds a little ick, as the purpose here is not to actually swipe what other people are doing… it is to be able to learn from what other people are doing. It’s all about cultivating your marketing mindset – and as an OBM we need to be able to bring this to our clients. If your client has a launch coming up you can then say “well NAME did this in a recent launch, he did a series of 4 videos released over X day… sent out 5 emails, etc.” Imagine how thrilled your client would be to have that kind of input from you? Gives them a sigh of relief, and really raises the value of what you are offering to them.

As we like to say, our role as an OBM is to help grow a business – and this simple act of collecting information, reviewing/analyzing and sharing with your client can be just that.

From a practical standpoint – a swipe file is just a folder that you setup in your email for your client (mine is literally called Swipe File) and you simply pop the emails that you want to keep into that folder. Then you have them ready if/when you need them.