{"id":309,"date":"2017-04-01T12:30:41","date_gmt":"2017-04-01T12:30:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rossstreetagency.com\/?p=309"},"modified":"2017-04-02T03:14:44","modified_gmt":"2017-04-02T03:14:44","slug":"ross-street-agency-celebrating-a-3-year-milestone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rossstreetagency.com\/?p=309","title":{"rendered":"Ross Street Agency ~ Celebrating a 3 year milestone."},"content":{"rendered":"

Thirty six months in business: \u00a0Thirty six lessons learned.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

As I start my third year in business, I am taking a few minutes to reflect back and see what lessons I have learned in starting this exciting venture.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Not everyone works the same hours as I do. A 9-5 mindset is limiting. Creativity has no set time.<\/li>\n
  2. Most people don’t know what a virtual assistant is or what I do.<\/li>\n
  3. A solid internet connection is critical to my work.<\/li>\n
  4. Tracking hours religiously is very important.<\/li>\n
  5. Small business owners have to pay CPP deductions both as the employer, and the employee. (Silly CRA rule).<\/li>\n
  6. Some clients don’t need me every day, or week, or month. But they will need me again.<\/li>\n
  7. Securing government contracts is very helpful for business growth.<\/li>\n
  8. Some people don’t read their emails every 10 minutes like I do.<\/li>\n
  9. Set aside a specific time every month to do your billing.<\/li>\n
  10. Have a separate bank account to pay yourself and your HST.<\/li>\n
  11. Computer back-up hard drives are very important.<\/li>\n
  12. Always, always have business cards with you – no matter where you go.<\/li>\n
  13. Don’t forget to ask for a referral; if you forgot, just ask later.<\/li>\n
  14. There is always something to learn every day.<\/li>\n
  15. Some people still want to mail you a cheque. Be accommodating.<\/li>\n
  16. Sometimes you have to give something away to get people to pay for your services.<\/li>\n
  17. Finding others who have similar goals as you is who you should work with.<\/li>\n
  18. No job is too small<\/li>\n
  19. Create a system that works for you to track receipts and expenses and stick to it.<\/li>\n
  20. Try and stay up on what is new in your industry via blogs, magazines, social media.<\/li>\n
  21. Remember to take time to rest and take care of you. You can’t work 24\/7.<\/li>\n
  22. Outsource smaller jobs to focus efforts on larger, more complicated jobs.<\/li>\n
  23. Leave the house regularly, go work in a coffee shop or library.<\/li>\n
  24. You will need a good accountant.<\/li>\n
  25. Find your best working time and be super productive during these hours; leave the menial tasks to less productive time in the day.<\/li>\n
  26. Accept help; you can’t do everything yourself.<\/li>\n
  27. Monitor your competition.\u00a0 They are probably doing some things better than you.<\/li>\n
  28. I am not great at everything; there are some things I am going to fail at. Accept it and move on.<\/li>\n
  29. I can’t make everyone happy all the time.<\/li>\n
  30. My time, experience, and education all have value and I am worth what I charge.<\/li>\n
  31. Find a support system – you will need to vent and bounce ideas off of people.<\/li>\n
  32. All connections will eventually lead to business, just not when you expect it.<\/li>\n
  33. Sometimes I need a kick in the butt to get motivated.\u00a0 It’s hard when working at home alone.<\/li>\n
  34. You need to take the time to celebrate the little successes along the way.<\/li>\n
  35. In order to grow your business, you have to spend a little money on improving it.<\/li>\n
  36. Hold yourself and your clients accountable. Have a clear process and deliver value for money.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

     <\/p>\n

    Looking forward to adding many more lessons to this list.<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    Thank you to everyone who has supported me in this journey.\u00a0 I couldn’t have done it without you.<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    Lisa Jibson,<\/p>\n

    Owner and CAO – Ross Street Agency<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Thirty six months in business: \u00a0Thirty six lessons learned. \u00a0 As I start my third year in business, I am taking a few minutes to reflect back and see what lessons I have learned in starting this exciting venture.   Not everyone works the same hours as I do. A 9-5 mindset is limiting. Creativity […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-309","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rossstreetagency.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rossstreetagency.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rossstreetagency.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rossstreetagency.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rossstreetagency.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=309"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.rossstreetagency.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":311,"href":"https:\/\/www.rossstreetagency.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309\/revisions\/311"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rossstreetagency.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=309"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rossstreetagency.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=309"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rossstreetagency.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}