Becoming a Virtual Assistant While Being Employed Elsewhere

Folks, we are lucky again that another successful virtual assistant agreed to an interview. Lorrie Morgan-Ferrero, Word Sorcerer Business Communications, will help you understand the difficulties with working for someone else while launching your practice. She will provide valuable insight into what it's like to work full-time, market your practice, do client work, and take care of your family – all at the same time.

Lorrie has her journalism degree and is an experienced and accomplished writer. If you visit her site, you will see she writes effective marketing/advertising copy, including Web site content. She designs Web sites as well as provides other business communications and virtual services. Lorrie is another one of the industry "pioneers" (as one of my colleagues recently described some of the earlier VAs) and has successfully made the transition from full time employee to full time VA.

Until January of 2000, my accomplished colleague, Lorrie Morgan-Ferrero, apparently didn't. If you decide to launch a practice while being employed full time outside the home, be prepared for quite a journey – especially if you have a family.

By now most of you know that I left my job to have a baby. Nearly a year later, I decided to open a business support service. I did not work outside the home. All I had was the family to contend with while launching my practice. I don't know how people like Lorrie and Shane did this while working full time. This is not meant to discourage you, but do not expect this to be an easy time in your life.

When you decide to become a virtual assistant, the clients don't just flow like the water from your faucet. You have to find them. You have to diligently market your practice. Sometimes we're lucky enough to have that first client in the pipeline – maybe a friend or employer. And then sometimes we're even luckier yet and word-of-mouth spreads really quickly. But most of us are not that lucky.

Marketing alone takes a large chunk of time. In addition to Lorrie's 40-hour employment week, she spent an additional 8-10 hours a week marketing her fledgling practice. On top of that, once she had clients, she had to spend additional time working in her VA business. She was looking at initially 15 hours a week in addition to her 40 hour a week job. Factor in the family, the housework, shopping, personal care...how many hours does that leave for leisure activities?

When you're working outside the home, you need to determine approximately how much time you truly can dedicate to your baby business. You can't leave out marketing or you won't have a business. For the first six months of Lorrie's business, she only had about 15 hours a month billable time. That's not a whole lot of payoff – at least not yet. But that extra 15 hours a month in addition to her regular job and responsibilities adds quite a bit of stress to an already fragile and hectic schedule.

I asked Lorrie what was the single hardest thing about working full time and launching her successful VA business:

Quite frankly the hardest part of getting my business off the ground wasn't my lack of conviction, but my husband's. He's always been very supportive of absolutely everything I've ever done but this. He was very nervous we wouldn't make ends meet, but I dug my heels in, insisting this is what I want and it WILL work. It took longer than I'd hoped, but once he saw I was serious, he backed off and let me work at it without challenging me. Thank goodness because I've never been happier...and neither has he. You know what they say about a good husband makes a good wife (and vice versa).

Lorrie encapsulates in the above quote what I've said in the past: you must have the support of your spouse or significant other. It is hard enough working all day (or night) and then coming home and working on your business. The last thing you need is to have to listen to someone who lives with you gripe at you and make you feel pressured about time. Lorrie had the support of her husband (and emotional support is every bit as important as financial support). Had I not had the support of my husband, my business would be dead. Having had him help me with the office layout, wiring (phones, cable, and electric), partition and shelving installation, was not only a physical, tangible "help," but also a display of being emotionally supportive. He was on my side.

Something really good happened to Lorrie. She got laid off. When I asked her what the circumstances were that led her to leave her day job, Lorrie replied, "I was laid off. At first I was very unhappy about it, but then I realized the bigger picture. I had been laying the foundation of my own business for months. I guess the universe gave me the kick in the pants I needed to HAVE to make it on my own." I believe corporate downsizing and layoffs has been one of the primary motivating factors in leading one down the path to a virtual assistance career.

Lorrie did not have enough VA income after the layoff to keep the lifestyle to which she and her family were accustomed. "Luckily my husband was still working so we made ends meet, and oddly enough, because there were many expenses I no longer had like gas, work clothes, after-school care, going out to lunch, etc., our expenses were actually much less." After the layoff, Lorrie worked about 40 hours a week marketing her business, but "didn't have a steady client for two months. Then I made $300 a month for about six months." Now you see why dedication and motivation are right up there with skill as primary ingredients for success.

When asked if there were any benefits other than monetary to working outside the home while starting a business, Lorrie explained:

Well it's not a trade off, but sometimes it was nice to put on a business suit and wear make-up and go to business lunches. I have to admit there's something about physically interacting with other colleagues that brings my business sense up a notch. I actually still get to do this once every month or so because one of my clients is local and I have to attend workshops and meetings occasionally as her project manager. It's nice not to have to do it everyday though, no doubt about it.

The above point is probably better left to a future article, but I wanted to include it here also. You do give up something when you are self-employed. I would venture to say nearly all virtual assistants at one point look in the mirror and say, "I have to get out of my pajamas today."

As a final question, I asked Lorrie if she had anything else she wanted to say to admins wanting to start a VA business while they were employed full time:

I have to say that I never would have made it as a successful VA without the help, advice and support of the IVAA listserv. Whenever I had technical questions or just needed encouragement, someone was ALWAYS there.

The above is a very important point. You need to find a network of colleagues. These folks become your coworkers. They become your advisors, friends, mentors, and they offer emotional and technical assistance on an as-needed basis! I've never had a better bunch of coworkers than my online colleagues.

It's a bumpy road to have to work full time and launch a VA practice. I don't know if it's because I'm getting older, but I could not work all day and come home and work in my business. But VAs are doing it everyday. I know several VAs who are successfully making the transition. The problems are abundant though. You need to make an awful lot of money to be able to pay your own health insurance, retirement benefits, vacations, self-employment taxes...I would not ever recommend that you quit your job to become a virtual assistant. The odds are stacked against you – way against you.

If you are a single woman with a family, the odds are even worse. You will need to keep you day job – but it is still possible for you to be a self-employed virtual assistant. As I previously said, I know several colleagues who are successfully making this transition. It's just taking them longer.

If you have a spouse with adequate income and benefits, you may be able to make the transition sooner. The important thing to remember is that there are only so many hours in a day and you need to know you have the emotional support of your spouse.

I also want to briefly touch upon a few of the more common problems associated with not being in your office in the daytime. Who will answer your phones? Can you afford a business line with voice mail? Are you able to check your voice mail from your office? How about your email (people can and do get fired for using work email for personal/non-employment related reasons)?

The next article is going to be a follow-up to this one. I will present how some VAs are currently running their businesses while still working outside the home. These VAs have not yet made the transition to full-time, self-employed status (as Lorrie and Shane have). These interviews will help you more to learn how to deal with the practicalities and logistics of being a full-time employee/part time VA.

©2002. All rights reserved. No portions of this article may be reproduced without written permission from author.  Previous installments from Jackie Include:

"Learning the Profession"

"Introducing the Virtual Assistant"

  "So You Want to be a Virtual Assistant, Creating a "Real" Business"