April 8th, 2009

WAHM Dreaming

Every wahm has a dream about her business – maybe that it earns enough to help with the household expenses, maybe we just want a little fun money or maybe we want to be the next million dollar mom! I’m putting into words my big wahm dreams, and I hope you’ll share yours with me!

Ok, this is part of my “series” (not officially, lol – just going to be several related posts over time and I may recap them into one post when I’m done!) on where I want to go with my virtual legal assistant business.

I had a list of business aspirations I set out at the beginning of this year, but my long term goals and planning has been more private – ok, not even private, more just not set out at all!! I’ve got vague ideas in my head, but nothing really committed to paper! So here goes nothing, a list of my big dreams for Halo Secretarial over the next couple of years:

• Committed clients and total of 30+ billable hours per week.
• Two conferences per year (one legal/one VA?)
• One long vacation per year plus three or four long weekend mini-vacations
• Busy enough to subcontract out some of my general admin work
• Busy enough to hire someone to help clean my house

You know, it’s funny when I start writing it all down it doesn’t seem out of reach at all! In fact I’m pretty sure I can make these things happen. I wonder if I don’t dream big enough or if things just seem hard to attain until we really, really think of what we want. Cause really? All I want is to make a good living from doing something interesting and challenging and to be around when my kiddos need me. Being a virtual assistant offers me that possibility – the income part will come as I work on building my client base!!

So do you dream bigger than this? What do you want your business to provide for you and where do you want it to go eventually – post in the comments or link back to my post with a post of your own (hey – you need room to dream big!!)

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!

January 1st, 2009

Happy New Year!

2009 is promising to be a fabulous year and like so many others I am taking today to post some of my plans for the coming months.

2008 was my first year as a work at home mom and it truly was a wonderful, wonderful year! I love being a virtual assistant and I feel more filled with hope for the possibilities this amazing career path offers than ever before. I had hoped for the past couple of years to make this dream a reality but thankfully when I had my wonderful baby Soy I was given the opportunity to seize the day so to speak and make it happen.

Now, with my business progressing I’m in a place to make so many plans for this year. I’ve already made business goals for 2009 over on my business blog, so this is where I’ll make plans for 2009 that focus more on my life. What is important to me, as a work at home mom, in 2009?

First – health. I am commiting to truly improving my health this year. I am going to hugely reduce the amount of sugar I consume and start getting more exercise. Typical goals of so many people in January, but I promise if you check back with me in June (in fact I think I’ll put into my calendar!!) I will be on track and feeling GREAT!!

I’m also going to work hard this year on one super important “mom” skill – my patience. I get far too easily frustrated when I feel pulled in all directions by my work, the kids needs, my husband’s needs, the housework, etc. I need to find that place inside of me that is capable of being calm and resourceful. Five minutes before reacting can save so much time in the long run – tickling instead of yelling, a hug instead of a “just give me a minute”.

My mama blog – well I feel like I truly discovered myself within this blog lately. Writing about being a work at home mom is just perfect for me and I plan to really invest some time into it this year. I’m also giving some thought to installing a really pretty new theme, but I have a couple other  financial goals first – including paying for my BlogHer registration after I receive payment for my invoices this month!

Finding my online tribe might seem like an odd goal, but it’s something I really care about. Business wise I’ve worked hard to become part of the legal blogger community and I’ve been relatively successful. I’m very involved on Twitter with other legal professionals and I was awarded a Clawbie for best new law blog of 2008 (so exciting!!!) Now it’s time to really start connecting with some other mom bloggers in a meaningful way, especially other moms who work at home or want to work at home. I have a great collection of Twitter pals, but I don’t spend nearly enough time on their blogs so I definitely want to do more of that this year! I also think meeting up with other bloggers at 2009 will contribute to meeting this goal. Meeting people in person can really change your interactions with them!

That’s enough for me to plan for now for 2009. I’d like to work super hard on each of these goals, I want it to be about quality, not quantity.  I can’t wait to see what the future holds!

Ok, I’ve told you mine – now you tell me yours! What are you doing to make 2009 a successful and exciting year?