Tag: internet

A New Direction – A New Business Adventure

Working From Home?

So I’ve had a lot of people ask me what I’m doing, beyond writing (or trying to write in my case).

My motivation to work from home, especially after the birth of my son, has strengthened and grown, especially after the past year.

About five months ago, I signed my first client as a virtual assistant! 

Now the clients I have had before were small, individual accounts, a few hours a month if that. Being a personal assistant and handling a few tasks for busy individuals, tasks they wanted to outsource.

Then this week, I signed my second client!

Could you guess the direction I’m going with this?

I decided to start my own VA business. It’s something I’m good at, something I’m passionate about. And something I can not only do well but fast. I’m dedicated and determined. I love to learn and in the past four months, I have learned so much while working for a wonderful business coach who teaches women how to scale a six figure business while working less.

Doesn’t sound realistic? Keep reading!

I’m learning the backend of the business and soaking everything in as fast as I can. She’s a wonderful teacher and patient with the fact that when she brought me on, I didn’t know even half of what she would teach me. If anyone would like her information or the application, please comment and I will send that information! I’m not a business coach and even though I work with her and learn so much, that’s not the direction I want to take. 

I love what I do. I love and enjoy doing the work on the backend of the business. I’m not a face to put on the front. That doesn’t make me comfortable. I’ve never been okay in front of the camera, with public speaking. Many people are. I’m just not. I get tongue tied. I freeze. And then I lose my train of thought.

But doing the backend of the business?

And I’m okay with that.

The online space of what our society has become in the past two years is something that really makes a person sit up and take notice. Working from home used to be frowned upon.

Well, not necessarily frowned upon but not taken as seriously as it is now, that much I know.

Now it seems like more and more companies are going the virtual route. More and more companies are hiring outside of the norm.

That’s the direction I want to take.

I want to be able to watch my children grow up, to be there for them through their childhood. I don’t want to get up at 4:30 am in the morning any longer. I don’t want to be gone 10 hours or more five days a week. 

I don’t want to get home close to 6 pm and be too exhausted to give them my attention, my love because all I want to do is fall into bed and go to sleep, only to turn around and do the same thing the next morning, five days a week, over and over again. 

I don’t want to be an absent parent because that’s what society has become. Someone else is raising my children and I don’t want that any longer. 

I have two Masters and a shit ton of student loan debt because I wanted to give my children a better life, but at what cost? 

I’m not watching my children grow up and that’s something I’m changing, slowly but surely.

That’s the new direction I’m taking, the new adventure of what my life has become. I want this more than anything and God willing, through determination and strength, I’ll get there and in the end?

I’ll get to watch my children grow up, raise them instead of someone else, and give them all I can without the sacrifice of my absence and exhaustion.

Building Your Online Presence

Good morning Friends! Today’s blog might be a little short but today’s piece of advice for you all is growing your online presence, even if you haven’t published yet. When I first started writing, I didn’t think of anything beyond that.

Writing. Getting my book written. Pages in my hand.

And yet something nagged at me even when I was writing.

I kept thinking, when I’m done, how am I going to get it into the hands of readers beyond the simple act of publishing? There has to be more to it than that. How am I going to market it if no one knows it’s published?

I have found, through the years, that the number one mistake writers make, is getting the story, their book, published first, and then they start to build their platform, their online presence.

Me and a friend were talking a few years ago and she’s in the process of writing her book. I told her to build her presence and her response was, “but it’s not done yet. I’m not technology an author yet so what’s the point?”

Wrong.

Just because you haven’t published yet doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t build your presence. In fact, it’s better to start early, to grow. A few steps you can take are simple.

Develop an attractive professional Facebook Page. Work on growing it. Build your base.

WordPress and WIX is free. Develop your website. Design it yourself. Believe me, you will be very proud of yourself when you do. If you aren’t confident enough, hire someone to build it.

Create a twitter account. Create LinkedIn. Create Pinterest. Start an author blog or more generic one. Since the internet has revolved, it’s been so easy to grow your product, your brand, beyond your own little world and family.

I wish I had known all of this when I was first starting out but if you focus on growing your presence, even before you publish, it will be a lot easier to sell when you have your audience in front of you.

For me, I began to develop it as I published my first paranormal romance. I created all of the above, worked on networking, posted teasers with specific hashtags, etc. It was after I was published so a little late but heck, better late than never, right?

There are so many paths you can take to build your online presence. Never be shy of promoting yourself even before you publish.

You won’t regret it.

Stay tuned, stay sane, and stay safe my friends!