Business Plus Baby

August 12, 2014

Why being a virtual assistant is great for mums

It’s no surprise that the thought of working from home can be a daunting prospect for expectant or new mothers. Perhaps a substantial amount of time has passed since you were in the workforce or maybe starting to work again seems impractical given your daily responsibilities around children – it’s all completely understandable.

One increasingly popular option is to set up as a virtual assistant (VA), basing yourself at home. Here are some key reasons which might help explain the recent VA boom…

About to go on maternity leave? Did you know that it’s sometimes possible to earn money whilst taking maternity leave as a self-employed person? This is separate to maternity pay from your employer and keeping in touch days. This initial work provides a great platform to launch your VA business from. Do check your employment contract first though – some companies don’t allow work outside of its employment.
Being a VA allows full control of your own work schedule which for example means you can fit working around the school runs and potentially cut back on nursery sessions. Workload can be managed and controlled to fit around the family. Of course, you will still need to do some work within business hours so it isn’t advisable to remove childcare altogether once running your own VA business, but at least you can minimise what is required. For example, I have a young boy and often work when he is asleep in the evenings and I am always on call via email. This freedom means my son is only at nursery in the afternoons rather than for a full day.
Being a full time mum can be an almighty change if you are used to being in full time employment – your life suddenly becomes centred around the child and new mums often miss that independence. Having your own business is something just for you and provides the opportunity to do something completely separate from your family alongside caring for them.
Being a VA allows amazing freedom. We run annual surveys through the Society of Virtual Assistant and the word ‘freedom’ comes up time and time again when we ask what people love most about being a VA.
Perhaps you’re sick of office politics? Not keen on your boss? Full of ambition but feel held back or under rewarded? Working for yourself is one of the very best ways to take control of your career – free from other people’s limitations. There is no upper pay grade limit or delays for overdue promotions!
No suits – wear what you like! I wear jeans to the office every day (ok, ok – I’ll admit it, sometimes I wear my pyjamas!)
Being based at home means there is no commute. I used to sit in traffic for over an hour each way in my last full time job before having children. It used to make me grumpy, irritable – and I was spending a small fortune in fuel! Running your own business means you can use that precious time to do something you love.
Variety is the spice of life – how true! You never get bored working for a wide variety of clients and as a VA you are constantly learning new skills.

So what are you waiting for? The VA industry is quite unique in the sense that we are all so approachable and friendly to newbies! If you need advice on getting set up just ask. This is not a closed door industry. Our latest survey is now available to download. The information in this insightful document is key to anyone starting out as a VA.

Caroline Wylie is the founder of the Society of Virtual Assistants (SVA), the largest membership organisation for virtual assistants (VA) in the UK. The SVA connects VAs of a certain standard with businesses of all sizes.

August 2, 2014August 2, 2014

Tips for making the most of your working hours as a WAHM

One of your primary reasons for starting out as a work at home mum (WAHM) be because you want to have more time to spend with your family. Unfortunately, when starting out in self-employment, you may find that you’re spending even less time with them than you were before, simply because there’s so much to do. It can all be a bit overwhelming – but luckily there are a few ways you can streamline your business processes to make your working day a little bit easier.

Office Efficiency

Keep a clear desk. A tidy working area – or at least one where you can physically see the surface – psychologically puts you in an ‘uncluttered’ frame of mind. Before you stop work for the day, spend five minutes tidying up.

Colour code files and folders – use colours that you associate with specific emotions to help you decide: i.e. you might have a green folder for marketing activities (green for growth) and perhaps a black folder for the dreaded tax return!

Disable the new email notification so you won’t be distracted by it popping up on screen. Better still, only check your email at set times of the day: first thing, last thing and lunchtime can work. If you’re worried about being out of the loop, set an autoresponder that will tell people that this is what you’re doing and they won’t expect an instant response.

The trick to keeping on top of the paperwork is to deal with it as it arrives. If you don’t have time to do this, you need to set a time aside daily or even weekly to go through your in-tray. Try sorting it into four categories: Action, File, Bin/Recycle, Shred.

Automate what you can

Use an email service provider (ESP) to send out email newsletters. If you’re collecting email addresses to add to your mailing list you should be using an ESP anyway, to have a ‘double opt in’ mailing list. This ensures that only people who want to receive your newsletter will get it delivered to their inbox. You can write your newsletters and set the time for their release, days or weeks into the future.

If you use a WordPress blog, did you know you can preschedule your blog posts? If you write a month’s worth of blog posts in one go, you can then schedule them to be posted at whatever date and interval you like.

Software applications like Hootsuite can also preschedule your Tweets so you can write them and then schedule them to be Tweeted at whatever time you want.

You can buy software which will automatically send your articles to hundreds of different article directories across the web. Most are available on a month by month basis, so if you’re planning a big article marketing campaign, it might be worth signing up for a month or two.

A lot of marketing can be done at anti-social hours, particularly on-line marketing, which is brilliant as it means you can crack on with it when the children are asleep. As well as automating your Tweets, you can also use inbuilt buttons on your blog and website to automatically link up your new blog posts to your Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn accounts.

As a business owner and a parent, your time is doubly precious. Don’t waste it – streamline your business processes and start enjoying more of the work/life balance you promised yourself when you started out as an entrepreneur.

Celina Lucas is author of How to Run a Work from Home Business When You Have Small Children: The Secret to Achieving the Work/Life Balance You’ve Dreamed Of, How To Be A Virtual Assistant, and How to Start a Business When You’ve Got No Time (or Money)

Contains affiliate links

July 13, 2014July 11, 2014

The 6 Secrets to Starting a Business Whilst on Maternity Leave

Having children is a life changing event and when you first get pregnant, you may think that you will go back to your current job without too many changes, and for some women this will happen.

But for others, when they’re holding their baby in their arms, they just know that things have changed forever and the thought of returning to work fills them with dread.

This is why using your maternity leave is a great opportunity to evaluate your career and decide what you want to do after your leave ends – return to your job, become a stay at home mum or start your own business.

The most important thing to remember though is that you are doing what’s right for you and your family so please don’t feel like you have to follow ‘the rules’.

If you do decide to take the plunge and start your own business, follow these 6 simple steps and it will make the transition a lot easier for you and your family:

1. Decide on your business idea

Let me be very clear from the start. Running a business is hard work and definitely NOT a get rich quick scheme – if that’s what you’re after, you need to go elsewhere!

That’s why it’s really important to choose something that you’re going to enjoy doing a lot of.

There are lots of business opportunities out there, whether you are selling your own products or services, or buying into a franchise or MLM business, you will find something that is a fit for your skills, experience and goals. Continue reading “The 6 Secrets to Starting a Business Whilst on Maternity Leave”

July 4, 2014July 4, 2014

How to make your web content more persuasive

If you’re doing any kind of sales writing, like adverts or sales pages on the web then it needs to be persuasive. But did you know that content like blog posts, articles and tutorials can be persuasive too?

In fact, persuasive content can actually sell more products and services. Persuasive content is information that grabs your reader by the heart, pulls them in, and gets them involved on your website.

Let’s take a look at a few the secrets to persuasive content writing:

1. Find your voice

Your voice is the unique way that you communicate. When you share your voice it has an impact on your reader. Often, business owners are afraid their voice will come out too strongly so they tone it down. There’s so much information available online it’s difficult to stand out, so you need to find the confidence to speak in your own voice. Continue reading “How to make your web content more persuasive”

June 27, 2014June 30, 2014

Three easy ways to be more eco-friendly this summer

The summer holidays are almost here and that makes it hard for us work at home mums to get much work done! So I usually use some of this time to do a little work around the house, and I get the kids to help too.

This includes some (late!) spring cleaning, but I also look at where we can save energy, remove clutter and maybe even save some cash too. It’s not hard to do our bit for the environment at the same time. And all those small steps really add up over time.

Here are some of the little steps we’ll be trying to take this summer:

1. Using less water

These are all easy to do, it’s just a question of getting into the habit so we remember to do them every time:

Turn off the tap while you brush your teeth
Take showers that are a minute or two shorter than usual
Flush the the toilet a little less often
Only do full loads of laundry and dishes

2. Using less energy

Although you can buy a hybrid car or power your house by solar energy, you can also make a big difference with small changes like these: Continue reading “Three easy ways to be more eco-friendly this summer”