How I Found the Confidence to Start My Own Business
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When I lost my job back in March 2020, with a 4-month-old at home, just before the height of a pandemic that proceeded to shut down the entire country, I wrestled a lot with the potential options for my future and what working was going to look like… or what I wanted it to look like. Aside from the days of my youth and being a teenager in high school, i’ve never known a life without working. I have always found some level of purpose in what I did… especially my recent job in ministry and working with people in a support role. I loved what I did.
But all of a sudden, I had to face the reality that I could no longer do what I loved… and also had to figure out what the future would look like raising this cute little human being. Many people reminded me that while lots of people can apply for and be hired for other jobs, I’m the only one that can be “Mama” to this sweet little boy. There’s no argument from me on that point, but it wasn’t as simple as that… I NEED a job. Financially, we need the income in order to pay our bills and survive as a family of three (plus one dog!), especially if we don’t want to end up moving in with our parents (which certainly isn’t the worst thing in the world, but it is not sustaining!).
As I was now navigating trying to find a job in the midst of the Coronavirus pandemic, I kept wrestling with what I felt I was “supposed” to be doing. How do you move forward from your dream job? Where do you go next? And how do I support my family AND raise my family at the same time? I’ll be honest… I wrestled with this for MONTHS. I found plenty of local jobs that would have been perfectly fine - in office, standard hours, decent benefits, maybe slightly lower pay… but I wanted MORE. I didn’t want to have to find the money to get my child into daycare (because that is not cheap!) and I didn’t want to be sitting in an office all day anymore. I wanted more for my life… I still want to work hard, but I also want the flexibility to be able to raise my son and be available for my husband and his crazy schedule in ministry.
Finding the Best Way to Work from Home
I can’t tell you how many times I googled “how to work from home without joining an MLM” - or anything along those lines! If you can relate, I want to share with you two tools that helped me to find the confidence to start my own business:
Tool #1: HireMyMom.com
Through months and months of job searching, I eventually just started browsing Google for “legitimate work from home jobs for moms” and came across a website called HireMyMom.com - a job board that promised legitimate remote jobs for moms to work from home. The site name sounded hilarious enough, but I was getting desperate and felt like it was worth investing a little bit of money to find more realistic job opportunities that would have a smaller pool of candidates, rather than the thousands that I was up against with every other remote or virtual position that I was coming across through large job boards.
One of the kickers for me was when I read all about the woman who started this company and her purpose for setting it up - a Christian woman who had a desire to work from home back when she started to have kids and saw a need for creating a platform for other women with the same desire to be able to find realistic remote jobs with flexibility to still be a mom! This lady was speaking my language!
So I took the plunge and subscribed as a Job Seeker through HireMyMom.com. This allowed me to see more information about jobs that were posted by small businesses or entrepreneurs that are seeking remote workers. I set up my profile, imported my resume, and started applying to any/every job position that seemed reasonable enough within my skill sets and experience and seemed like a company that I would want to work for.
I lined up one phone call through this platform to interview for a position, but then started to recognize that a lot of these companies are seeing “Virtual Assistants” - as I continued to do some digging into this type of position, I eventually came across the second tool for building my confidence to start my own business.
Tool #2: The Virtual Savvy
This second tool has been the real game changer! I stumbled across The Virtual Savvy because I found a post somewhere that she was looking to hire some employees for her business. I got SUPER excited about the job descriptions for her positions and applied right away. But as I was researching more about her business and learning more about who she was, I couldn’t help but feel like she was speaking exactly to who I am and my current situation… being a new mom and wanting to use my skills and experiences to be able to work and provide for my family, but still be around to watch my boy grow up! Abbey Ashley and her company The Virtual Savvy is all about teaching others how to set up and start their own Virtual Assistant business. Abbey has a very down-to-earth style and is so passionate about what she does and is so incredible at explaining things with realistic expectations and encouraging you to find that confidence that you already know you have… find your value and your worth!
After many conversations with my husband and lots of prayers, I took a big leap and made another investment by signing up for The Savvy System - an online course that is all about walking through the steps to Launch, Grow, and Scale your own business as a Virtual Assistant. I originally bought her package for legal document templates, which gave me an immediate “in” for the business course The Savvy System.
Typically, the enrollment for this course only opens a few times a year, but with my link below you can jump in anytime!
I seriously can’t talk about this course enough and all of the practical information that it walks through to just think about creating a business, figuring out your own rates, how to brand yourself, and start looking for clients.
One of the most encouraging things that I heard through Abbey Ashley was that if I felt like this was going to be my next step and something that I wanted to pursue, then I should just take the jump and start calling myself a Virtual Assistant! Don’t hesitate or wait for some magical door to open… find that confidence in yourself and then take the appropriate steps to get yourself set up legally as a business, and start networking and looking for clients! Even if you are just CURIOUS and want to learn more about what a Virtual Assistant even is or if this could be something you are looking for, browse The Virtual Savvy website and watch as many of the free videos or read the blog posts to get some encouragement from Abbey Ashley!
There is still so much for me to learn and I haven’t gone through all of The Savvy System course or landed a specific client through HireMyMom.com - but it has opened doors that I never would have found if it wasn’t for these two tools! After only a little over a month, I have completed several one-off projects for friends, shared about my new business with everyone I can all over Facebook and Instagram, have had dozens of Discovery Calls with potential clients, and have already landed FOUR regular clients for monthly Virtual Assistant work and several design projects on top of that!
God is so good and is continually directing my steps in this new chapter as a work-from-home mom, but I could not be more excited about what the future could hold! I love being in a support role for other people and businesses and I love that I get to take my work with me wherever I go! Just 6 weeks ago when I was wrestling with whether or not to accept an offer for a local office position, I just felt God asking me to “wait” - and I’m so thankful that I did and that I came across HireMyMom.com and The Virtual Savvy and am able to jump into the “work from home” world and find value and confidence in my new career path and business!
If I shared anything that resonated with you or you have more questions, please feel free to reach out to me - I would love to give you more of my honest feedback and opinions of what it has looked like to start my own business from scratch, what it even means to be a virtual assistant, and how to network and find clients!
