Posts made in May, 2009
Financing Your Virtual Legal Assistant Business
The startup phase of business is hard, and it will be even harder if you haven’t planned properly for your expenses. Whether you, like me, are running a virtual legal assistant business or you are opening your first law practice, there are a number of things you need to consider when you sit down to establish your start-up budget.
Clients
I’ve been in business for approximately 9 months. I still am nowhere near full-time billable hours – and billable hours are the key, as you aren’t being paid for all that marketing time!! You may already have leads on clients, but in all likelihood you need to give yourself at least 6-12 months to really build up a decent clientele.
Also in relation to clients, you need to realize that funds will take time to start flowing. You may choose to invoice on a weekly basis to have some cash in hand, but many virtual legal assistants bill on a monthly business. Once you send out the invoice it may take a week or two to receive funds.
Startup Expenses
You will always have some expenses, but never quite so much as at startup. You may need to invest in equipment like a good computer, a printer or a scanner. You will want to consider adding specialty software like accounting software or graphic design programs. Then there is the cost of your website, hosting and the design of a logo or marketing materials. For some more detailed info about start-up costs for a virtual assistant business check out this article I wrote for Virtual Assistant Hub – there’s even a spreadsheet to help you plan!
Money in the Meantime
Once you’ve spent some time planning how much money you need to start your business you’ll want to spend some time planning where you are going to get that money. Maybe you have personal savings you can access, maybe you have family willing to loan or invest in your business, maybe you can talk to your bank about a small business loan. According to this article, lack of sufficient start-up capital is the cause of more than 70% of business failures. Even if you have a supportive spouse, family or friends to back you financially, you will need to keep a close eye on your income versus your expenses, to make sure your new venture does not become a money-sucking pit.
It is wonderful to have a positive attitude and a strong belief in your ability to succeed when you embark on the adventure of entrepreneurship, but don’t let financial issues drag you into reality. Be prepared and know exactly what it’s going to take to help you truly succeed in building your business!
p.s. this post was inspired by a great article at Law Practice Today written by Erik Mazzone. His tips are well worth checking out, especially if you’re starting a law practice. Erik is an experienced practice management advisor who blogs over at Law Practice Matters.
Laurie Mapp, Owner Halo Secretarial Services Contact us for more information on virtual legal assistance!
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Working Vacation
Mostly this is just a note to let you know that I’ll be taking a quick vacation at the end of this month, just for a week! It should be a wonderful time, we’re travelling as a family to California! It’s the first time on a plane for two of my boys, and the first plane trip my oldest will remember. He went to Mexico when he was 13 mos old, but of course doesn’t recall anything!
This will also be a first for me – the first time I test working while being so far from my home base. I think it should go well, I’ll have internet access at the hotel and plan to be in early most nights so the kids can keep to their general sleep routine. This should give me a couple of solid hours of worktime at night, and I can definitely squeeze in a bit of time in the morning to check on email etc. I don’t really spend more billable time than that yet, so mostly I’m reducing (or oh my goodness eliminating) my networking/socializing/blogging time. Yes, that’s right, I’ll barely be seen on Twitter those days! Normally I could easily twitter from my phone, but unfortunately Canadian cell phone rate plans don’t carry over to the US, so while I will of course have my phone with me I won’t be using it for fun activities like Twitter!
While considering my options for work/vacation, I was reading blog posts and saw this one about answering emails on vacation over at BlogHer. I actually am happy to keep up with my work while on my vacation, I would definitely find it a little stressful to think about being completely unconnected while away! The ability to work anywhere was something I was excited about when first starting my virtual legal assistant business up after all!
I also read this post about going on vacation in a wired world. It has some great tips and I’m trying to follow many of them! For example, I’ve already let my clients know that I’ll be away, shared what I could handle and suggested that I won’t be able to do “extra” work that week above what has been agreed. I wanted to give them plenty of warning so that I could do any work needed ahead of time.
I’ll be taking a couple of other mini-vacations this summer, but only for 3 to 4 days at a time, hopefully this longer first time goes well and doesn’t leave me anxious about the other short trips!
Laurie Mapp, Owner Halo Secretarial Services Contact us for more information on virtual legal assistance!
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When To Partner With a Virtual Assistant
I think one of the most commonly asked questions about virtual assistance, particularly virtual legal assistance, is when is the time right for a business owner to start partnering with the VA. There is no wrong answer to this question, as ultimately the time is right when you are ready to start alleviating the administrative burden.
Still, I would say the earlier you are able to start the relationship the better. You may not need a lot of help early on in running your business, or at least you may feel like it’s an expense you aren’t ready to take on. Really though, a virtual assistant can cost a very small amount, especially at first, as you do not have to use a lot of their time initially. You may choose to partner with a virtual assistant who will work with you on an hourly basis with no set time commitment or a very small retainer of say 5-10 hours per month. Even at $40 per hour (just an estimate) you might only pay $200 to $400 per month to have someone who can really help you stay on top of things!
A good reason to partner with a virtual assistant sooner rather than later is that you will be able to get a good system and processes in place so that as your business grows and you get busier and busier you already have a reliable relationship in place and you aren’t then trying to start a search for some help when you can’t find the time at all. I know finding time is often an issue, and was reminded of it this morning when I read Nicole Black’s post at her Sui Generis blog about Saving Time and Money (she offers one solution for this via lawtechTalk, might want to check that out too!)
Don’t worry if you are already busy running your practice and you realize that maybe you should have found a virtual legal assistant a few months ago. It may be hard to fit in the time for researching and beginning the relationship, but it will be time well spent. Just remind yourself that an investment of say 3 hours now to find the perfect virtual assistant for you should pay off in many saved hours almost immediately and on an ongoing basis. And definitely don’t think it should take you a lot of time to find the perfect person to collaborate with – start with my series on partnering with a virtual legal assistant (link is to part 4, and that link contains links to all articles in the series) and honestly you should be able to make a choice within a week or so, just split the search effort up into a few days and you will be ready to go sooner than you thought.
Well, what are you waiting for? Go find the help you need now!!
Laurie Mapp, Owner Halo Secretarial Services Contact us for more information on virtual legal assistance!
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Law Practice Magazine Mention
I received an exciting tweet from @SteveMatthews this week, sharing an article from the current issue of ABA’s Law Practice Magazine (the innovation issue), in which he mentioned Halo Secretarial as an example of the innovative possibilities of virtual legal assistants for law practices. What an honour!!
There were several fascinating articles in the issue actually. Innovation is an interesting topic in law, as so often innovation simply means catching up to the mainstream! I highly recommend you check out some of the articles, you can see the index here to see what topics were covered.
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