Guide to Employee Mentality or Business Owner Thinking?

What kind of help can they expect?

What should they expect help with and what should they be doing on their own? The key word here is ‘expect’. In an employee world we get everything given to us in relation to our employment - we’re told how much we’re going to be paid (unless we’re in the fortunate position of asking for a particular rate of pay), we’re told what the contractual basis of our employment is, we’re given the materials to work with - in other words we do as is expected of us by our employer and we get what we expect of them.

I recommend: But when we are working for ourselves, the reality is there isn’t anyone to tell you what you should be charging, what your contracts should consist of, how your brochures should look, and so on, and if we don’t have any prior experience and no knowledge at all, it is hard to make decisions about these things.

The shortcut? Why not ask other VAs if you can use what they’ve already spent time putting together? Saves you time, saves you effort, saves you having to think about it right? Wrong!

The Process

The process of putting these items together, doing the research and the sums, working out what’s right for us, finding out our legal obligations in relation to our geographic location for our contracts, and working out our rates based on our skills, experience AND geographic location (cost of living) is all part of developing the image for our business, and building and moulding what it will be.

I recommend: Connect with discussion forums in your industry and learn from those already 'walking the walk'.  Learn from their mistakes but don't make the mistake of copying their materials for your own use.  You need to develop your own style and personality for your business.