April 4th, 2009

Making It Up As I Go

Spring break has kept me busy this week and while I kept thinking about things to blog somehow it just didn’t happen!

I’ve been thinking a lot this week about my business – on Monday I took my lovely boys to Chapters so they could each pick out a new book and so I could get a research book for a client’s project. Of course I ended up browsing the business section and found an interesting looking book (the colors just grabbed me!) called The Boss of You. I’m going to do a separate post about the book as I think it’s a fabulous WAHM resource, but today’s post is just about how reading that book and life in general, is making me think about my business.

I love being a virtual assistant and when I started this journey I was so glad for the many amazing virtual assistant resources that were available to me. But as I started to network, and build my practice, I realized that a lot of resources are aimed very much at beginner VA’s only. Also? I realized that whole pick a niche/target client thing is totally true!! So I went with my original plan to target lawyers (specifically solos or very small practices). Only guess what? Suddenly the great VA resources aren’t really so helpful for me, because I want information and advice on building my virtual legal assistant practice – I want to know if I should plan on using subcontractors or if I should be more team-based or if I should just grow to my own maximum client load and stop. I want to know if I’m undervaluing my services and if I should have branded myself differently.

A million other thoughts about the whole thing swirl in my busy little head, but I don’t want to bore you to tears or anything so I’ll just assume you get the idea!  Now I feel like I kind of have to make a lot of my business plan up as I go – because in a lot of ways I’m in uncharted waters. Oh sure, there are other virtual legal assistants and virtual paralegals out there. But honestly, there aren’t that many. I was asked by a lawyer on Twitter if I knew of any other Canadian virtual legal assistants for example, and I could only name a handful. Wow!

So anyway – I think I’m rambling today – good thing this is my personal blog not my business one! Better come back and read more on a day I make more sense! Over the next couple of weeks I’m going to be doing a series of posts dealing with business planning. I’ll be sharing my options, my hopes, my dreams and I hope I can offer some help for any other wahm in similar situations to me. If you are building a business from your home I hope you’ll share some of your concerns, worries and goals with me!