17 years ago, I set out on a wonderful journey and started The Virtual Alternative. Working at home alone isn’t for everyone, but I had other colleagues going through the process and a business manager with whom I met monthly.
Then I didn’t. Then I did the wrong thing – I thought I could do it all by myself (except the bookkeeping, never do the bookkeeping).
As my children got older and started taking on jobs I couldn’t imagine or explain, I would talk to them about my challenges. Olivia in particular would give me great ideas on how to deal with clients, even how to write emails to clients I was finding difficult.
So, starting years ago, Olivia really became my business manager – from afar.
In the fall of 2019, I was fortunate enough that Olivia came on board full time. Now, that happened almost organically. She started looking at my social media presence and became a bit of a tyrant: why did you do it his way, have you thought about using this program, etc. She also continued to provide a daily sounding board and strategist around client management, especially comforting during this pandemic (I’m not in it alone). She has taken my social media presence from essentially zero (I had a static, 16 year old webpage) to vibrant and solid.
She has put in processes and tracking mechanisms so that not only we know where we are but clients can keep track as well.
She offers these and other new services to clients including business set up, management, social media and sparkle. Again, during this pandemic she has offered services that I could not that has led to client retention.
But the proof is in the pudding. In the months immediately following Olivia’s jump on board, I had the best billing months in 17 years! Billing increased between $1500 and $2000 per month – and she was only just getting started!
I’m looking forward to a number of prosperous and happy years working with Olivia.