Positive vibes, positive life. How changing your mindset can change your life (and help in your business).

Glass half empty or half full? However you answer this is gonna determine your entire life. Having a positive mindset is everything. No, I really mean it, EVERYTHING. Noticing and focusing on the good things as they happen to you is incredibly important if you want to succeed in life and follow your correct path. And who doesn’t want to do that?

When you surround yourself with positive thoughts and energy, that’s what you’re going to be attracting into your life. And it works the other way too. If all you notice are the negatives, then you’re only bringing more of that negative energy into your reality. 

Think of it from a scientific point of view - the frequency that you give out in your thoughts and feelings will determine your body’s vibrations, which in turn attracts vibrations of the same frequency. Therefore, positive attracts more positive and negative attracts more negative. Simple! Whatever you give focus and attention to will always come back to you, usually in higher quantities too. When you put your energy into focussing on the abundance of positivity in your life, that’s what you automatically attract. 

Whether or not you believe in the law of attraction, the power of the universe, manifestation or ‘lucky girl syndrome’, you can’t deny the power of our minds. It’s a no-brainer that if you are constantly seeing the negatives in your life and focusing on them, then that’s all you’re going to see. Whether there’s positive things going on around, (which there definitely is) you’re not paying them any attention. And this is why you believe only negative things happen to you. You should, instead, be putting your time and energy into focussing on the good things and more importantly, expressing gratitude for them. 

Gratitude is like the universe's way of letting you tell it exactly what you desire and what you want more of. When something makes you happy, even the slightest bit, allow yourself a moment to feel it. I promise you, once you start doing this you start finding more and more things to feel grateful for and then every day just feels like a gift and you feel so lucky! 

In relation to your business, a positive mindset versus a negative one will determine how successful your business will become. Having read the above, why on earth would you risk attracting negative energy into your business? By starting your business with the mindset of, “this is never gonna sell’, or, ‘no one's gonna like these products’, or, ‘I can’t do all this’ - why are you even bothering? 

When you have the notion of starting a business, it’s always paired with hope and excitement but it’s really easy to lose that on the way when you start to realise how much goes into running a business. The behind the scenes work paired with the fear of rejection from society and even just the idea that you’re having to go against the norm and work for yourself can be overpowering. And if you’re someone without a strong, positive mindset, this is where you’ll probably fail. 

But we don’t want that! So what you’re gonna do when you start feeling this way is stop, take a break and remove yourself from what you’re doing, so that you can see the situation for what it is and combat it with buttloads of positivity. Start a journal, listen to an inspiring podcast, meditate or whatever it is you feel will bring more positive energy into your life. I bet you’ll start to feel better instantly. Then all you need to do is repeat this pattern until it’s second nature to you. 

Take a look at who you surround yourself with too, and if her name is Debbie and she’s a downer, then sorry but she’s got to go. The people close to you in your life will impact you tremendously, so if they aren’t contributing positively then they aren’t for you. And, of course, it’s hard to cut people out of your life, but if you’re serious about living the best life you can live, then it’s gotta be done. You don’t need negative thoughts spilling into your life and reversing all the hard work you’ve done. 

So if there’s something you want to do, something you want to start, somewhere you want to be - just go get it and keep your mind focussed on the good. You’ll get there. 

If you want to see more uplifting content like this, check out my Instagram account, I post inspiring content all the time. Or you can sign up to my mailing list as I’ll be starting a newsletter soon! Lastly, if you’re struggling with keeping your mind positive, or struggling with your business in general, reach out and let’s see how I can help you. 

Stay positive, besties! 

How are VA’s different from regular employees?

How do you choose between hiring a Virtual Assistant or a full time employee? Both have their pros and cons, both will contribute to your business well and both will carry out the tasks you need to successfully run your business. So it doesn’t really matter which you choose right? Wrong. Hiring a Virtual Assistant (VA) isn’t like hiring a full time employee. There are many similarities, of course, but here’s what makes them different. 

First of all, with full time employees, there’s a commitment. That’s not to say there isn’t commitment with a VA but it’s not the same. 

Full time employees are contracted to however many hours, typically 40 ish hours per week and will work during the standard working hours of 9am until 5pm. This isn’t always the case but mostly, this is standard.  You can, of course, also have part time workers, at maybe just 16 - 20 hours per week, all depending on the workload of the role. 

VA’s are similar in the sense that, we too are hired or contracted for a certain amount of hours depending on the workload but this can fluctuate weekly or monthly as the workload increases or decreases. Some weeks you might have 3 hours of work needing done, some weeks you might have a lot more on your plate and want to hand off much more to the assistant and their working hours increase to 8 hours per week. We also don’t always work Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm. Some might work weekends, some might work evenings and some work whenever their schedule will allow it. This is beneficial to small business owners who are building their business and, as you will know, pretty much work 24/7. It can be much easier to get in touch with a VA as you are their client and they aim to please. There is much more flexibility with a VA. 

One of the cons, however, is being able to track the work of a VA. This is true of anyone who works remotely, so that really comes down to how well you have interviewed and chatted to the person. A VA will also have previous client reviews for you to have a look at. If you have done the research and you choose the right one, the work should then speak for itself.

Aside from the contracted hours, full time workers are also entitled to benefits within the company. By hiring someone into the business instead of outsourcing, you now have certain obligations and many more expenses. These can include holiday days, sick pay, bonus plans, pension contributions, training, equipment… just to name a few. 

A VA doesn’t need any of these things as they are self employed and hired purely to provide a service. They look after themselves so you don’t have to! They have their own equipment - expense saved, they make their own schedules and provide their own holiday days - expense saved, they are already trained, they deal with their own business and bonuses and pensions - expense saved! Look at how much I have just prevented you from spending. You’re welcome. 

Another benefit of a VA, and one of the more important ones, is that we have trained and self taught ourselves to become experts in our field. That means the quality of work you are receiving is top notch and you didn’t have to worry about training at all. We also offer the flexibility of being able to multitask. We rely on ourselves to run our own business which means we have determination and passion, this is our livelihood and we put the effort in to make it work, just like you do in your business. Something you don’t always get when hiring a worker who is just passing the time until 5pm. 

So when it comes to choosing between the two, you really have to do an audit on your own business and see where and what is lacking. Do you really need someone 40 hours per week or with a bit of restructuring, can you outsource to a VA and save a ton of money? A VA will offer more expertise and save you a lot of money, whereas a full time employee is working just for you and is easier to keep an eye on. Knowing the pros and cons of both will help you to make a more informed decision.

So now that you know some of the facts, what do you think about hiring a VA? Let me know in the comments.

And if you’re looking for one? Head over to that ‘Contact’ page and give me a shout!

Why hire a Virtual Assistant?

So you’re a small business owner who does every single little bit of work themselves. Why? Because you can, I suppose. That’s true, you can do all the work yourself… but should you? Absolutely not.

Let’s think about your business. For example, let’s say you have started a cake business because baking is your passion. How exciting! Now, how much of that business is actually spent baking. Wow, not a lot, it seems! Yes, that’s your product, it’s the forefront of your business, obviously that’s what you’ll be spending your time doing right? Sure, but what about all the admin, paperwork, marketing and legalities of business?

You’ve got banking, invoicing, advertising, emailing, client accounts, and all sorts of other admin to do also, not just bake the cake and sell it! This is when you realise that most of your time is spent doing things you don’t love to do. Of course, you’ll have to learn it first. It’s a ‘learn as you go’ type deal when starting a business. Maybe you want to figure out how to invoice people and keep the records - quick jump over to YouTube and find a tutorial on this, oh and while we’re at it let’s check how to make those cool Instagram Reels everyone does! Oh but wait, I need to create my Instagram first and build a following… How do I make my profile more intriguing? Maybe there’s a tutorial on that too. Aaaand, now it’s 1am. Let’s check it all out tomorrow instead.

This is when you start to procrastinate because you don’t enjoy doing it or it’s just simply too overwhelming! On top of trying to get the orders done, you’ve to figure out your banking, or you’re trying to become more efficient. Ultimately, you hit burnout and start to lose sight of why you started your business in the first place.

UNLESS… you gave that work to an assistant! Outsource those boring jobs to a virtual assistant and you’ll then have the time to do the tasks that actually make you the money (and make you happy!).

But, what even is a virtual assistant? You don’t want to hire someone full time, the business is still small! A virtual assistant is someone who provides a whole range of services to business owners from a remote location. Traditionally, they are self employed, contracted to however many hours per week that you decide with them, and traditionally, they specialise in one area of expertise.

But with this industry growing, many offer a full range of services, so they come in handy for most things! Services can include:

- Administrative tasks, such as calendar management, to do lists, writing, invoices, etc.

- Social Media and Marketing. They can run your social accounts, help with content curation, email marketing and engagement.

- Customer support, maybe they can help with customer complaints, feedback and surveys.

There’s many different reasons to hire a Virtual Assistant, the main one being that you’re finding yourself overwhelmed or burnout. There is no reason to stay in the situation you are in if you aren’t happy. You could also just want more free time to look at expansion (something a VA can help with also), or looking for new streams of income/new ventures. Hiring a VA does the following for you:

- Gives you back your time to be the creative genius that you are.
- Gives a fresh perspective into your biz to help scale it without having to hire a full time employee.
- Allows you the peace of mind that a skilled professional is taking care of those tasks in your biz that you don’t enjoy.

You might be thinking, “If I'm serious about taking this business to new heights, can’t I just hire a full time employee to help me and only me?” Sure, you could, but think about all you would have to offer a full time employee:

- holiday days.

- benefits.

- equipment supplied by you.

- weeks of training.

- potential long term commitment.

A virtual assistant is already trained and up to speed with all the ins and outs of running a business, it’s our livelihood too! You’re looking at someone more professional, more equipped and whose passion is literally helping you be amazing! 

Think about what you could be gaining, more time to focus on baking those cakes (or whatever that passion may be), more time spent looking into new business ventures and GROWING your biz, or even just those well deserved extra days off!

What is your opinion on Virtual Assistants? Let me know in the comments below. And if you’re looking for one? Head over to that ‘Contact’ page and give me a shout!