There’s a group in my area for caregivers of children aged 0-5 that meets once a week. It’s called “Baby Steps” and last night the discussion was around separation anxiety.

Through our chatting, we struck on a very interesting point. Separation anxiety happens to parents just as much or more than to children. I, for example, started my business to allow me to be at home with my children, and it took my little girl’s own prompting to make me register her for preschool (today was her first day). I had big-time separation anxiety and had to get out of my comfort zone to do what will certainly be best for my daughter.

I only have to think back to the day I moved away from home to know that my mother experienced some major separation anxiety when her eldest child was leaving the nest.

Separation anxiety is basically what happens when you’re forced out of your comfort zone.

I learned last night that separation anxiety is most common with babies aged 10-18 months when they gain the ability to recognize people. They know when someone holding them is not their mother, and most children that age make their anxiety known. But I don’t feel like that anxiety ever really goes away. It just changes depending on our situation in life.

I was thinking about comfort zones when I was brainstorming topics for this blog post, and I thought about my friend Sally Kuhlman’s newest endeavor. Sally has been a virtual assistant for years, that’s how I know her, but she recently launched a new blog “Sally Around the Bay” where she blogs about her adventures around San Francisco Bay. She says that one of the reasons she decided to do this was to force her outside of her comfort zone to try new things.

I think all entrepreneurs can take a cue from Sally.

When’s the last time you separated yourself from yourself? What’s keeping you in your comfort zone? What will it take to force yourself out of it?

Are you afraid to start a blog because you’re afraid of how your thoughts will be viewed by the world? Do it anyway. You know, in this day and age you can hire someone to write your blog posts

Have you been meaning to launch an info product but keep getting in your own way?

Is there a brilliant tele-seminar sitting in your brain waiting for you to get the guts to go ahead and do it?

I was terrified before I first spoke to a group about writing better copy. The first time I got a booth for my business at a trade event I was scared. When I released my second ebook I was no less nervous than I was with my first one. It’s hard to put yourself out there, but you just have to go for it if you want to grow your business and if you want to grow as a person.

Ever since I was a little girl, I wanted to be a writer and to me, having someone value my work enough to publish me is the ultimate marker of my success. I’ve gone way outside of my comfort zone and have started pitching magazines on article ideas. Guess what? An editor has responded to me. They loved my query and it looks like I will be published in a magazine this fall.

Sometimes you’re not getting what you want most because you simply aren’t stepping outside your comfort zone and asking for it.

What would you do if you stopped listening to that voice in your head telling you you’re not good enough, or that everyone will laugh at you?

What if the only thing stopping you from being a brilliant success is you?

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If you live on PEI, you will see that the feature article by Mary MacKay in the Guardian today is about the virtual assistance industry. It’s impossible to miss the huge picture of myself and my daughter, Casey.

When I started my business in June of 2006, I sent a press release to the local paper. It was picked up, but it was not printed in it’s entirety, and it was just a tiny little piece in the paper – nobody would have noticed it. I also received press in the Eastern Graphic later that year, but it didn’t attract any new business, and it focused more on me than what I do for my clients.

Forging ahead, trying to educate as many Islanders as possible about the VA industry, since there are so many small businesses here, I kept writing the Guardian.

Back in late September, I sent an email to one of the reporters to pitch a story about virtual assistance. He put me in touch with Mary and finally…the article is in today’s paper.

I hope that many business people will realize that there is another option if they don’t have the means to hire a full time employee.

I’m very pleased with the article. If you are interested in reading it, the electronic version is here.

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Last night I had a most enjoyable consultation call with what is now my newest client.

This team of agents was referred to me by a current client, Larry Hann, and I really appreciate the referral.

I received my first email from them a couple of months ago, and I diligently followed up with them. They were very interested in my services, but needed time to get organized enough to decide how they would best use their Mann Made Time.

I did not wait for them to get back to me. I emailed them every couple of weeks to see how they were doing. My last email to them was sent yesterday, and it resulted in them contacting me to have a phone discussion last night.

Want to see the fancy message I sent them? If you aren’t following up because you think you will be nagging people, think again:

“Hi (name)

Just checking in to see if you’re ready for that phone call! Hope all is well.

Jaime”

Would they have contacted me yesterday had I not sent them a follow up email?I’ll never know, unless I ask them, but I highly doubt it.

I wrote a book for VAs on the subject of following up, called ‘The Art of Follow Up‘. In that ebook, (which retails for only $24.95 ) I tell my readers that rule #1 of follow up is to never wait for the potential client to contact you first. Busy people are simply too busy. You must keep your name in front of them so when they are ready, you make it that much easier for them to contact you.

There are many reasons for not following up with leads, but none of them are excuse enough not to do it. You’re literally halting your own business’s growth if you fail to make contact again (and again) with these people.

If you have any questions that I can answer, feel free to post comments. I love talking about follow up!

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I wonder…

When Oprah was a little girl, did she have any inkling of what the future held for her? Did she have any idea when she started her career that she would become a household name?
When Phil McGraw started his practice, did he think he would encounter Oprah and become a household name himself?

What about Martha? Did Martha think that she would build an empire around her domesticity?

Donald Trump. A real estate investor with his own reality show where he has thousands of people rallying to be employed by him. When he was a little boy, did he see gold covered walls and the best of everything in his future?

These people are celebrities of our time…granted it doesn’t take much to become a celebrity these days…but these four individuals are not going to be forgotten anytime soon.

What sets them apart? How did they get where they are? Is it just pure hard work? Is it luck? Is it brilliant marketing strategies and business sense? Probably a combination of these things. One thing is for absolute certain. They are hard working (maybe not so much anymore!), passionate about what they do, and they definitely have drive.

I was watching Dr. Phil today which is something I never do because with a toddler in the house, if it’s not animated it’s not being watched by anyone! Anyway, he was on the TV and I started thinking about this.  Is it so crazy to think that if a real estate investor, a journalist, a homemaker and a psychologist can reach such heights of fame the same might happen for a virtual assistant?

Now I’m not saying that I want a TV show or a ‘Tower’ or anything, but I am allowed to dream that someday, when a person hears the name “Mann Made Time”, they will recognize it as a virtual assistance firm. Or, if someone starts a discussion about virtual assistance, the person they’re speaking with will say, “Oh yes, that’s what Mann Made Time does.”

Heck, at the very least, it would be nice if one day I could tell people that I’m a VA and they wouldn’t just nod and smile!

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How do you measure success?

That’s a question all business owners should be asking themselves.

Is it the awards you win? The money you make? The people you help?

Sure it can be all of those things, but sometimes it’s the smaller things that make you feel like a true success. Sometimes it’s as simple as making someone proud.

My brother is taking a college course and he was asked to interview a successful entrepreneur. He chose me. It might be because he knew it would be easy to ask me, but I believe he feels I am a success.

I was extremely touched that he chose to ask me. I answered his interview questions. I’ve done a couple of similar interviews in the past, but for some reason, having this request come from one of my little brothers (he’s not so little, I guess, he’s 21) meant a lot to me.

Sometimes when I’m knee deep in client work, changing diapers and trying not to burn dinner, I don’t feel like that much of a success.

I won the Janet Jordan Achievement Award last year which was a HUGE honor, and that gave me my first real feeling of ’success’. I’ve had a couple other moments like that in the past year, but being asked to answer some simple interview questions by my brother gives me almost the same feeling I had on the day I found out I won.

Thanks BJ.

How do you measure success?

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