Back when I was working in my nine to five job as an Executive Assistant, my boss would often say, ‘Marion, I reckon we could do this stuff from home!’

He figured that both of us could work remotely and just catch up for a couple of hours each week so he could sign off on any projects I was working on. And as much as we both quite fancied the idea, that’s as far as it went.

It wasn’t until my boss left the company and I resigned from my job not long afterwards, that I started thinking a bit harder about the conversations we used to have. The more I thought about it, the more I was sure that a lot of the things I did in the office could actually be done ‘virtually’ (apart from making the coffee, that is!)

After a series of unforeseeable events, I launched My Virtual Assistant in March 2009 (slap bang in the middle of a worldwide recession!)

At the beginning I was full of enthusiasm, ideas and excitement.  My business cards were printed (not really necessary these days!), my office was set up, my website was up and running and I was ready to get stuck in.

Only one thing was missing:  Clients.

My first 12 months was spent doing bits of work here and there – most which came from a few supportive friends and some ex-bosses.

I worked harder in that first year than I had ever worked before.  I spent heaps of time doing online research and promoting my business anywhere and everywhere I could think of.

At one point I was so desperate to get things off the ground, I seriously thought about hiring a Wonder Woman costume and marching into local businesses wearing my bright red cape, shouting ‘YOU NEED ME!’ Of course, there was no way in the world I would ever do that, but that was the extent of my frustration.

Back in those days, Virtual Assistants were just beginning to pop up in the UK, USA, and Australia, but nobody in New Zealand had ever heard of the term, let alone wanted to work with one!

After a serious talk with my partner, we agreed things really weren’t working how we expected and once Easter (2010) was over, I should start to look for a job back in the ‘real world’.

Then, out of the blue on a Friday afternoon, I got four phone calls, three of which turned into long-term clients.  Everything started on that one day, and now, over 17 years later it hasn’t stopped!

Turns out that all that research and work I did to get myself noticed in that first year, actually paid off and somehow, I was generating credibility along the way! I attended a couple of business events in Auckland, and when I introduced myself, people would say that they had heard of me and that I had a really good reputation – which was absolutely crazy to me, because I was still finding my way and really only had a very small handful of clients.

Why I chose the name ‘My Virtual Assistant’

Whenever my ‘real world’ CEO boss needed something, he would shout out, ‘Call my accountant!’, ‘I need my marketing team!’, ‘Where’s my property manager?’ – you get the picture!

So, when I was trying to think of a business name, all I could envisage was him standing in the middle of his office, shouting out, ‘You need some help? Call My Virtual Assistant!’

(And just for the record, he wasn’t a ‘shouty’ boss! He’s a great guy who gave me quite a bit of work in the very early days of starting my business.)

At the beginning of my business journey, I had pretty much no budget.

I knew how important it was to have a business website, but I couldn't afford the prices that website companies were asking.

I knew there was only one thing for it - I needed to teach myself how to build and maintain my own website, something I had zero experience of.  A good friend in IT pointed me in the right direction, however I had no idea what I was doing, knew nothing about coding and had never heard of a style sheet.

After a large amount of trial and error (mostly error!) I managed to get a bunch of content onto my website.  It was pretty much the worst website ever - nothing lined up and the general layout was pretty awful, but at least I was online.

My favourite colour is electric blue, but it seemed like every business used blue for their corporate colours. 

So, to be different, I chose orange and green for my brand colours – simply because I happened to have a block of orange and green Post It notes sitting on my desk that day!  Post It notes became a ‘thing’ on my website too – I created images out of them to use as links to other pages, and to help get my message across.

My first selfie video

One day I turned my video camera around and made an extremely corny ‘selfie’ video to introduce myself (this was long before mobile phone selfies existed).

I had to film it in one go because I had no access to, or experience of video editing.  Consequently, it took me around 30 very frustrating takes to film that one intro vid! 

If that wasn't frustrating enough, it then took me FOUR WHOLE DAYS to get that video onto my website, and even when I managed to get it up and running, the sound wouldn't work!  Aargh!

I kept that video on my website for 12 years or so, and in a love/hate sort of way I guess I was rather fond of it because it reminded me how far I had come.

I kinda liked that it was a bit cheesy, because it showed me as a 'real' and perfectly imperfect person.  My thoughts were, if a someone watching that video decided they didn’t like me, then that was fine because we probably wouldn’t work well together.

And do you know what... that cheesy li'l video actually brought in quite a bit of work for me over those 12 years!

Click here to watch my cheesy intro video from 2009.

My first website

I lived with my dodgy first-attempt-website for quite a few months, then one day, whilst browsing on Twitter I stumbled across a post about template websites.  After a bit of research on various website companies (now known as ‘platforms’), I found one that gelled with me and immediately set about completely rebuilding my website.  At last, all my funny little Post It notes lined up and everything sat nicely on the pages.

Not long after that, a lovely lady in my networking group mentioned that she had been quoted more than $3,000 to have a website built.  She was importing beautiful handbags, and she was also told she would have to pay $80 to add a new handbag onto the site - and believe me, she had a lot of products.

As a start-up business owner, she simply couldn’t afford that much money.  I told her how I had recently built my own website and suggested she could have a go at building one for herself.

To my surprise, she asked me if I could build it for her.  I explained she would be a 'guinea pig' because building websites wasn't something I usually did, and she said 'go for it!'

Well, she absolutely loved what I came up with - and most of all, I loved doing it!

I tried to be ‘all things to all people’. 

I read a lot of articles which had been written by some of the very first Virtual Assistant’s in the UK and the USA – they all said ‘narrow down your services and be good at what you do.’ 

Of course, I thought I knew better and carried on aimlessly.  Even though work had started to come in, I spent much of my time doing internet research, compiling large databases and even creating CVs for people – all of which I found extremely uninspiring.

I’ve always enjoyed art and design, and if my seventh form art teacher hadn’t told me I would never work in a creative industry because I was too much of a perfectionist, I would have probably gone down a design/branding/marketing route when I left school.

Instead, I became a Travel Consultant and worked in the travel industry for 16 years.

Working as a Virtual Assistant a few of my clients asked me to design brochures and flyers.  I simply I loved doing this type of work because it allowed me get my creative juices flowing.

And at the same time, something else was also happening... I was getting more and more requests to build websites, many of which were word-of-mouth referrals.

The more website work I got, the more it started to take on a life of its own ... and I was loving every minute.  Plus, receiving awesome feedback from my clients is something I could have only dreamed of (take a look at the Testimonials on my website, if you have a spare moment).

So, after 17+ years working as a Virtual Assistant, am I doing what I set out to do…?

Nope, not by a long shot!

But what I am doing is way more interesting, far more rewarding, and a huge amount of fun!

Back in 2009/2010, if you had told me my primary focus would become creating websites for start-ups and small to medium sized businesses, I would have spat out my coffee!

My advice to any new business owner is:  Put in the ground work, stay focused, do what makes you happy, stick with what you are good at, disregard anything negative your school teacher might have said to you, and you might just be surprised at what happens next!

Dedication:  My Virtual Assistant Story is dedicated to Josh, for pointing me in the right at the start; to Maria, for being my first website guinea pig; to Jenny, for inspiring me to write this story; and to my partner, Roger, for believing in me, encouraging me to have a go, and for being the ultimate cheerleader. xx