When I was working in Corporate America I bitched about the long hours until the cows came home! And I dreamed of the day when I would finally start my own business – to work whenever I wanted and however long I wanted.
Little did I know I was in for a rude awakening!
Eleven years later, the dream has come to pass but you want to know the crazy thing? I’m working more hours now than I did in Corporate America!
The craziest part of it all is that I don’t mind it one bit. And I think it’s safe to say all business owners and entrepreneurs feel the same way.
How To Make Time For Your Virtual Assistant Business: When Most Of Your Time Is Dedicated To Your Clients
As your Virtual Assistant business grows most of your time will be dedicated to your clients – as well as it should be.
At the same time, you can’t put your own business on the back burner. I mean, how else are you going to land new clients, right?
Here are five ways you can make time for your Virtual Assistant business when most of your time is dedicated to your clients.
Get Organized
First things first, you have to get organized and by that I mean knowing what you’ll do for your clients on a daily, weekly or monthly basis. I really can’t stress that enough! Otherwise you’ll be all over the place and that can affect how productive you are throughout the day.
What you can do it put a to-do list for each of your clients. If you not big on to-do’s, read this article by Toodledo about why you should start using a to-do list.
Microsoft Office has a cool weekly task schedule you can download for free. The spreadsheet already has formulas included. All you have to do is enter the date and task and you’re good to go.
Make A Plan, Stan!
After you put your to-do list together, it’s time to make a plan, Stan!
Create a content calendar plan for the following week. For example, say you have a client who offers products/services like graphics design and blogs about it. Instead of playing it by ear, use a content calendar to know what services and blog posts you’ll be promoting and when.
Instead of making one up yourself, you can use tools like Promo Republic that not only tells you the best time to post, it also suggests the type of content. Here’s a screenshot so you can see what I mean?
Isn’t this much better than playing it by ear?
Automate Your Virtual Assistant Business
Imagine if you had to monitor your client’s social media accounts individually? You’d have tab after tab open and you’d have to toggle back and forth to check and reply to comments. Seriously, I’m already tired just thinking about it!
Find a tool to automate social media posts. I recently switched from Hootsuite Pro to Agora Pulse. It’s a real time saver to be able to automate your posts!
I can:
- Connect my client’s social media profiles
- Schedule client’s content
- Reply to comments on their behalf
- Schedule curated content for each client
- Use other tools like Promo Republic to create promos and other social media posts.
And all of this is done straight from the dashboard.
Extra Time
If you can, take advantage of extra time on your hands. Now if you have little ones running around or have school-aged kids to tend to, I know this can be hard to do – been there, done that. Trust me, it gets easier the older they get.
But if you can squeeze in an hour in between naps or after the kids are off to dreamland, it’s one less thing to do during the day. Even if it’s just checking your email or social media comments.
Shewt, I remember I would check email while I was waiting in the school parking lot! Hey, a working mama’s got to do what she’s got to do. 😊
Get Help
Last but not least – get help. Am I crazy to suggest hiring a Virtual Assistant to help you manage your business? Not at all!
When your business starts to grow you’re going to need help managing the ins and outs of your business while you take care of your clients.
A Virtual Assistant can help you with your own social media accounts, take care of your email, promote your business, write blog content for your website…or anything else that you won’t have time to do when you’re building an empire! 😊
Wrapping It Up How To Make Time For Your Virtual Assistant Business
Those are my five tips to help you manage your virtual assistant business when most of your time is dedicated to your clients.
Remember:
- Get organized
- Make a plan
- Automate
- Take advantage of extra time
- And when the time comes, ask for help!
Now it’s your turn to share. What steps do you take to manage your virtual assistant business? Share your tips in the comments below and don’t forget to share this blog post with other VAs so they can see what you had to say!
I, also, used to work in Corporate (Canada) but now find myself (happily) working many more hours. These are excellent “must-do” tips for keeping our sanity because it can be very overwhelming when you’re the everything!
Thanks for sharing, Cori.
Hi Amanda,
I totally know where you’re coming from! I learned a lot working in the corporate world but the long hours was too much for my family. The only regret I have about being self-employed is that I didn’t do it sooner. 🙂
Thanks so much for coming by to check out this post and for your comment!
Cori
Hi Cori – Wow I thought this was written for me. Yesterday was the first day since I started my business full time that I finished my to-do list by 5 pm. I find having a schedule and a to do list by my side at all times really helps me get things done. I still need to find more time to write in my days/evenings.
I find breaking thing up into little things helps as well.
Thanks for the tips Cori and have a great day!
Hi Lisa,
Congratulations on going full-time! I’m so excited for you, I know you worked hard at it.
I think 5pm is a good stop time. Are you working straight through or breaking up the time frame? I like to split my time up in the mornings and evenings and in between I’m doing laundry or something house-related, how exciting, right? LOL.
And when the hubs works all night, I’ll work until midnight to get a head start on a blog post or my game plan for the following week. I do like the idea of breaking things up into little tasks. I’ll have to look at my to-do lists and see how I can break things up.
Thanks for coming by to read the post and for your comment + extra tip! 🙂
Cori
Hi Cori
Great Post Thanks For Sharing
It was my pleasure Muhammad. 🙂
Hi Cori,
Good stuff here.
A lot of people don’t even think of getting help from a VA (virtual assistant) because they’re already so busy it seems like just one more thing to organize.
But if they stick close to your guidelines, here… it can be done.
And it’s a sure way to actually give you more time to do important things.
Win-Win 🙂
-Donna
Thank you Donna. 🙂
I think VA’s (myself included) think we can handle everything…I tell yah though, getting help was the best decision I made. I would be drowning right now if I were still juggling everything on my own.
It definitely is a win-win!
Thanks for coming by Donna. I hope you’re having a great week so far!
Cori
Hey Cori,
Very interesting article. I loved reading this.
Regards
Hi Bikram!
Thanks for coming by to read this blog post and for your comment. Glad you enjoyed it!
Cori