Everyone has a story about how they got into business, I’m no different. It isn’t glamorous and possibly not evening interesting, but one year later here I am still tapping and and busily beavering away for clients, new and old!
Just over a year ago I was a Director of a small Virtual Assistant company based in Essex. I owned 49% of the company and things were “ok” and we plodded along contentedly for the first year, building the business, making new contacts, the usual businessy things you do in the first year. The main problem was my business partner was my ex boss. I don’t really need to say anymore than that, I’m not one for putting people down, let’s just say we came to blows over some very important issues about a year into the business which signalled to me I needed to get out as soon as possible and go our seperate ways.
It actually took me longer than I thought – I was incredibly unhappy but I couldn’t abandon the clients, so continued with their work and my ex business partners work for his other businesses, running myself into the ground. Christmas ’09 came and went, it had been two years and took a lot of courage on my part but I finally did it. I walked into the office, handed in a letter, packed my things and went.
Starting a new business after spending two years building up one already was more difficult than I had remembered, perhaps because I was now on my own, but I persevered. I contacted clients to let them know what was happening, all of which surprised me by saying they still wanted their work done by me and were happy to cut any ties with QVA and move with me whereever that may be.
There is a lot more to the story but you don’t need to know the gory details – just that this past year IMVA has gone from strength to strength and welcomed on board many new clients from a wide variety of industries. Most importantly along the way I have met some incredible people, supportive, clever, funny and grounding. Valuable friends and business associates for life. I enjoy every day working with the people who have supported me along the way and in return I do all I can to help them succeed too.
This has been the first year of many, an exciting milestone which I hope proves to anyone if you are unhappy and want to do something, if you really believe in yourself, work hard, do all you can to prove to people you are what you say you are, you too can acheive your goals. I’m far from done with my goals, this year will be even better than the first. New services, refined processes, a new team of VAs and a new “budget” side of the business for certain industries will see IMVA go from strength to strength… watch this space….. 😉
P.S. There a few special offers coming up this month to celebrate the first year including half price Facebook packages, Elements of SEO and a prize draw to win an SEO package (details still to be finalised). Stick around for the ride, it is going to be fun! 😀
