You may or may not know this, but I used to be a full time virtual assistant.

I started in 2006 and in 2007 I quit my job to work as a full-time virtual assistant from home. I was so excited and thrilled to finally be working from home and free of a ‘JOB’! At the time that I quit I knew nothing of the secret stress of virtual assistance that affects almost all VAs (but you’ll probably not hear them talk about it). I also didn’t realize I would be 10x more stressed in my home business than I ever was at that dreaded JOB.

It’s what I would call client burn-out.

When you start a VA business you’re so excited about getting all the clients you can handle and taking on the world with your mad skillz.

That’s all well and good, but as you grow your virtual assistant business a few things are probably going to start to happen:

1. Clients Don’t Pay on Time – You’ll undoubtedly have a client or two who owes you money, maybe around Christmas, and they are late or don’t pay at all. I had this happen one year just before Christmas. I was owed about $400 (ie. my gift money) and I never got it until about two weeks into January. After that I created a strict ‘pay up front’ policy, which seemed to work.

2. You Don’t Have Enough Time – All the best planning in the world doesn’t seem to ever work out when you work with clients. You see, you can schedule them in and plan on working when your calendar says but you can bet your boots that once you sit down to do the work you’ll be missing something or you’ll need extra information that you didn’t think you needed. This throws your carefully planned calendar out of whack and means you’ll be working ’till midnight again.

3. Client Stress Becomes Your Stress – Virtual assistants want to go above and beyond to please their clients, this includes taking on their stress! Seriously just writing this is stressing me out because I remember having about 15 clients at once and when any of them was stressed I took that on, and helped them get through it. That’s a lot of stress for one person to deal with on TOP of what they already have.

4. Clients Who Are The Wrong Fit Sneak In – My favorite quote in relation to this is “There are some clients you CAN’T afford to KEEP”. When money is tight and clients are coming to you it’s hard to say no. Trust me, I’ve been there many times and every single time I took on a client who I had a bad feeling about it turned out BAD. There are some clients who really are not in the stage where they are ready for a virtual assistant. They don’t understand how their business can turn a profit and they look to a virtual assistant to figure it out for them. If you’re already a stressed-out business owner trying to figure out your own profit you should NOT be taking these kinds of clients on.

VAs don’t normally talk about this AT ALL. They hide their stress, they keep it on the down-low because they don’t want their clients to think they’ll flake out on them and they don’t want their colleagues to stop referring clients to them. It’s a no-win situation because holding all that extra stress in is a formula for a big ol’ breakdown! (I speak from experience here!)

I think there are a lot of people out there who think that VAs have it EASY. I’m NOT one of those people. I highly respect and admire those ladies and men out there who face these daily businesses stresses and manage their way through them to a happy business life.

That’s the point here – be happy.

I know it sounds simplified to the extreme but if you are stressed out and miserable in your business right now then something’s gotta give!

Will it be your health? Your sanity? Or will it be your business model?

My recommendation to any VA who’s personality has a hard time dealing with the stresses I mentioned above (and you know who you are!) is to seriously consider your options for the new year.

Think about how you can create PASSIVE income, money that does not rely on dollars for hours.

I did this, quite successfully, right here at Marketers Mojo.

I first started by creating my own information product about how to start a virtual assistant business:
24 Hour VA Profits

Then, I focused my efforts on business in affiliate revenue by recommending things my clients already needed (like web hosting, email list management and podcast software). Then, I added more products, and build my own email list and started a coaching program.

I encourage you to get started on building something that allows you to invest your time rather than only spend it.

Then, when you have a combination of passive and hourly incomes, you can drop the secret stresses and choose only the best clients in the world, the ones you absolutely LOVE to work with.

Cheers to you, all the best and good luck!

Angela

There was a time when ‘dollars for hours’ on my own terms sounded really awesome. Then, as my understanding of real business leverage grew I wanted do less of the dollars per hours and more of the ‘passive stuff’. I highly recommend, stressed or not, that you build passive income (income that’s NOT dollars for hours) into your business.

Here’s an example of how:
I have an affiliate program, it pays $100 per referral to my program Website Design Mojo. Last month I paid out about $1600 to my affiliates and I was thrilled to have so many partners making good money promoting my products.

That’s not the only product I offer, I have great Marketers Toolkits that cost only $10 and you get $5 of every sale. I’d like to invite you to sign up for my affiliate program and start telling your customers about the resources I have available for them. They may be especially interested in the Marketers Toolkits because they can hand them over to you to use as tools to help you complete work for them faster and easier.

Here’s the link to sign up for my affiliate program: www.MarketersMojoAffiliates.com
Here’s where you can check out the toolkits: www.MarketersToolkits.com