Seeking Recommendations for a Business Consultant to Launch Virtual Assistance Agency

Two huge ones: > Confusing activity for results. Many older entrepreneurs haven't learned the lesson, either. You can 'be busy' into oblivion. > Confusing social interaction for prospecting and sales activity. Talking =/= Qualifying. You should not be trying to let "everyone" know you exist. Find your target market and focus your effort there. Otherwise, you'll waste your energy.

Assuming you are qualified to create this kind of offering, I think you can safely determine that there is need for this service. I know many doctors who struggle with the business of their practice and could benefit from coaching. That being said, if you believe this is an area you want to devote years of your life to, I would consider the infrastructure that will be required to support your success. Over time, you're going to want to build out the following (or a version thereof): Creating your brand identity Building your website Developing your funnel to generate leads Developing your pricing model Inbound marketing strategy and execution Social media strategy and execution Sales strategy Long-form content creation for email capture Short-form content creation for traffic generation SEO for organic traffic Advertising for paid traffic Presentation planning and coaching Possibly a book I would recommend thinking about as much of this ahead of time as possible to give yourself the greatest chance for success.

1. Have very high expectations that they will be your coach, not necessarily your friend (though many of my clients have become my friends, my first responsibility is to be their coach and focus on their business growth). 2. Ask around to the people you know who have a coach, Google "business coach in (your city), or RSVP to the many coaches who have posted answers here (myself included: I offer a free strategy session to see if we're a fit, email brad@bradwarren.com) 3. Ask what their business background is, and are they a "pure" coach (who only asks you questions and never gives advice) or are they a hybrid coach (like me. I make a distinction between coaching, consulting, and training, and I do all three depending on what you the client needs). 4. Depending on whether it's by phone or in person, the frequency, their level of expertise, etc., the fees can vary from $400 to $2000 or more per month. Hope that helps. Again, email brad@bradwarren.com for a no-obligation session with me over the phone.

If you spent that money on Clarity ($200 with an expert) and you didn't get value, email support@clarity.fm for a full refund. We offer 100% money back guarantee. Alternatively, you can sort by ratings and price. If you want a great coach - call John, he's awesome https://clarity.fm/johnramey Also, Marcy if you can afford her https://clarity.fm/marcyswenson

Growing up from 1+subs to a team like you're saying is a classic problem in consulting. The financial math is not in your favor until you get a consistent team. Here's an article of mine detailing the issues and also detailing solutions: http://blog.asmartbear.com/consulting-company-accounting.html Having said that, I would also say you're trying to do too many things at once with not enough resources, which means the chance of being successful with each one is diminished. For example, you could focus on consulting revenue so you can build up your bench, so that you truly can self-fund the development of a product without distraction. Or you could focus on product, investing time/money there with consulting only to pay for that, even using subs for that, until the revenue there gets to the point that it's scaling (which will be hard, as you can already see). Building a product or a successful consultancy is individually very hard -- most fail. So trying to do both at the same time means you'll almost certainly fail. Which is a shame, because that's "failure due to time-management / strategy" as opposed to actual market forces. i.e. something fixable! I hope some of this helps, although I agree with you that talking through the details would probably be more helpful. The specific details of your situation matter.