Growing Your VA Business to the Next Level Pt. 2

Growing Your VA Business to the Next Level Pt. 2, we’re going to share how to create a path moving forward that doesn’t include paying your dues…again. 

In Part 1, we discussed how to know if your floor has become your ceiling as you’ve grown your business. 

When your ceiling becomes your floor and you start again, this time in search of your new ceiling the floor isn’t the same. You’re building a new floor on the next level of your business foundation. It’s not starting over so you’re not paying any dues you’ve already paid before. Instead, you’re starting fresh and you get to start again but this time with a secret weapon. Experience.

Have you ever wished you could go back and do some things over in your business? This is your chance! You can apply the same business principles you already learned growing your business the first time to this new next level business you’re creating now. With all that, you learned the first time around how can you move through those steps more quickly and move into this next level phase? There is no one size fits all answer, but that’s okay because you already know what the answer is for your business. 

Step 1 Create a new life plan. 

Remember we’re talking about a ceiling that has become your floor and a floor that has been raised to your ceiling. Your life has indeed expanded and it’s time to reimagine your future lifestyle and then plan for it. 

Business growth is often so fun and exciting that we ride the wave and don’t understand the point at which the waves will crash down around us. You have the ability to grow a business as large as you like, which is a blessing or a curse if the business you build doesn’t support the lifestyle of your dreams. 

If you want to maintain your freedom and flexibility, then you must create a new life plan and work all your other plans and goals around it. 

Step 2 Create a new business plan that integrates your new life plan and current business. 

It’s easy to get caught up in the fun of creating a new business plan, especially when you already have one successful business under your belt. However, don’t forget you must consider how your current business will impact your new business and integrate with your lifestyle. This includes operating under one business name and developing another income stream. 

Key areas to consider:

• Describing your company and how the different income streams, products, and services integrate with one another. Or, more importantly, understanding now if they don’t at all. If they don’t integrate, that is completely fine, but you want to know that going forward so you don’t try jamming a square peg into a round hole. 
• Set S.M.A.R.T. realistic goals. This is not a place to limit yourself although it is exactly the place to understand how you will measure the goals and understand the time commitment they take. You may find to hit your goals in the timeframe you have stated that you’ll need to hire an assistant or OBM of your own. 
• Describe your products and services and whom they are for. Most VAs when they first started their business, didn’t know how to pitch their services or who their clients were. Having gone through that once, and now understanding the process – don’t skip this step. As the service provider, you will naturally jump to the goals and expectations achieved easily in your mind. That doesn’t mean it makes sense to others just yet. Remember you can’t skip steps in business, but you can move through them more quickly. 
• Create your marketing and sales strategy. We’ve covered the differences between marketing and sales in previous blogs. You know now what a necessary and exciting part of your business plan this is. Don’t forget to consider the time it will take to develop it and how it might be in addition to your current marketing and sales strategy. 

Step 3 Choose to commit to the process. 

Building a second, third, or fourth business isn’t necessarily easier each time when it comes to its development. How serial entrepreneurs make it look easy is by the way they choose to respond. You, like them, will have ups and downs. You’ll run into challenges and have problems to solve. It’s not because you don’t know what you’re doing, it’s because that is the nature of business. You can choose to see yourself as starting over again and this is the part where you are paying your dues. Or you can choose to believe that you have conquered problems and challenges in the past and this is just another day at the office. You’re starting fresh, but you’re not going to pay, let alone overpay, for any more dues in your business. Choose to commit to the process – a process that doesn’t have to be hard even with its challenges. 

Now that you have a path forward, you can be certain you are on the right track to grow your VA business to the next level!

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