Why you should never give 100% as a Virtual Assistant

Is your VA business hanging on a knife edge? Like, could you lose EVERYTHING very quickly?

Last week, in my VA Facebook group, I saw too many comments from Virtual Assistants who felt they were in a similar situation to the VA who posted - 'I've got one client who takes up X hours. If I lose them I am in real trouble'.

This is sooooo common and it's one of the main reasons some VAs have to ditch their dream for a better working life, and also why other business owners don't last past a year or so.

Early on in my business I allowed one woman to take up too many of my available hours. When we stopped working together I had suddenly lost revenue that was equivalent to my monthly mortgage payment. I panicked.

I did have other smaller clients but they weren’t filling enough hours.

And what if I lost those too? CHRIST!

I was worried, I knew it was likely to take me a while to refill her hours so I found a temp 9-5 role at the local council, to tide me over and stop me worrying.

I hated it. Equipment not working, dictated lunch breaks, dirty toilets, colleagues eating loudly, others tapping their keyboards too loud. I got dobbed in for reading the BBC website during a meeting, told off for an out of office referencing me going to Ikea…. I swore to myself then that when I refilled my available hours I was NEVER EVER going back to an office. EVER!

I shared the devastation of my predicament with one of my other clients who, at that time, had been in business ten years! I thought she’d be able to advise me on how to avoid this happening again.

'That's just how it is running a business, you go through feast / famine' was her nonchalant reply.

I thought to myself, well Bill Gates doesn’t get papped outside a foodbank every few months. No idea why I picked Bill, but… I was right. He doesn’t. How come?

And anyway, if that’s ‘just how it is’ then no business would ever grow, would ever evolve, would ever make any decent profit.

💡 Light bulb!

Back in 2015, just before I started my business, I'd attended the Innovate conference in London. One of the original founders of Innocent Smoothies, Richard Reed, was a speaker.

I don’t know why I chose to sit and listen to him. I’m am absolutely rubbish at listening. I probably thought I might get some free smoothies.

But immediately I was hooked because he started with some drama.

Ten years after they’d launched they almost went out of business. Overnight.

🤔 Why?

Because they’d relied on one thing that had the power to bring everything to a halt.

‘...we had a call from our manufacturer saying 'I'm really, really sorry, we are going into receivership at 5pm today, so this is the last production run we can do for you'. And at the time it was making 100% of our product.’ Richard Reed, BBC 2018

No manufacturer = no product = nothing to sell = no income

Even if they’d have outsourced 50% of their manufacturing to another company, who’s to say they wouldn’t suddenly go down in a few weeks?

You know the saying; ‘don’t put all your eggs in one basket’? Well, it’s relevant in business.

🤦🏼♀️ It seems so obvious, right?

But we often get comfortable, we think nothing will change, everything will stay as it is, why worry about what ifs?

Because it can mean your life will change overnight in a way you never want.

I had never stopped marketing my business, I had never stopped building my audience, so luckily (for them and for me) I didn’t have to stay in that temporary role for long.

I replaced the lost hours with 3 new clients and true to the promise I made myself I have NEVER been in a position where I’m concerned about the financial impact of losing a client, or even losing two, since.

✍🏼 How?

Because I vowed never to give any one client more than 20% of my time.

The 20% Rule: Never let any one client take up more than 20% of your time, or your income.

Hell, I even went on to write a bestselling book of the same title, which is filled with other business sustainable tips!

Science bit:

To ensure you can replace lost clients quickly you should NEVER stop marketing and audience building. There really is no reason why anyone should go through famine.

If you’re brand new in business you’re definitely allowed to break that rule. It’d be impossible to achieve it immediately. But please, have it as a goal for not too far in the future.