We recently connected with Kellie Batts and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Kellie thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Naming anything – including a business – is so hard. Right? What’s the story behind how you came up with the name of your brand?

The story behind the name of my business was quite simple, of course, I wanted it to be catchy, and given that I already work in the admin field for my normal 9 to 5. I thought to myself about what people typically would do first thing in the morning while getting ready for work, along their commute, or once they’re at work. Then the words “first coffee” popped into my thoughts. I loved the name, and my business was born from those words.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I’m Kellie, I’m from the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area – more specifically Maryland and currently reside in Baltimore. I’m a wife, and have a lovely husband and bonus son. I’m also a plant mom, I never thought of myself as someone who has a “green thumb”, surprisingly my plants are still alive. Lol! I got them during the “stay at home” order when the pandemic began. I also have a chronic illness called Multiple Sclerosis (MS) that I’ve been living and thriving with for 6 years.

How I stumbled into the world of virtual assistant wasn’t long ago, the driver was my MS. With this illness, you can experience a lot of uncertainty about how well you’ll feel from moment to moment. Given how MS has impacted me over the years and knowing what triggers my symptoms. I realized that I should think about my future and what I will do if the day comes when my body won’t allow me to work a traditional 9 to 5 job.

Wanting to venture into the world of being a virtual assistant was a no-brainer, and figured the skills I’ve learned and developed over the past 14 years working as an administrative professional in the government would easily transfer well as a virtual assistant.   After doing some research, I decided this was definitely something I can do and even develop my skills further since the capabilities of a virtual assistant are so vast.

As of now the services I offer are calendar, email, and social media management, as well as proofreading. Given I have more skill sets than those, starting out I wanted to focus on what I believe most entrepreneurs/small businesses would need. What was helpful in narrowing down my services to what I currently offer is my husband. My husband is an entrepreneur and of course, I sought out his input given he handles all aspects of his business.  As a virtual assistant, my goal is to help other entrepreneurs/small business owners, especially those with a disability to focus more on the bigger scope of their business.

You can’t be fully creative and focus on the main aspects of your business when you’re also focusing on the small yet big things. An entrepreneur can easily miss a business opportunity by overlooking an email, missing an important meeting, not being consistent with posting content, or even not grammatically writing in correspondence to partners. In today’s world, all of those things matter in doing business, and I believe with my help those things won’t be overlooked and a business will see a positive impact once they’ve focused on the small things.

What I’m most proud of is I took action when the thought of being a virtual assistant came to me. I didn’t know how to start or how I was going to build my clientele, but I knew I needed to start. One of my passions in life is to help others, thankfully so far I’ve been fortunate enough to do that with my current client.

Are there any books, videos, essays or other resources that have significantly impacted your management and entrepreneurial thinking and philosophy?

There are tons of free resources for being a virtual assistant online. I started out looking at virtual assistant videos on YouTube. I looked at everything from what I needed to do to start from what applications/software were used in performing various projects and services. Later, I began following the people I most connected with either on YouTube or Instagram. Although I’m still a newcomer in the field I’ve learned that with the services you offer you don’t have to be an expert, just put yourself out there and try something, and keep trying until it sticks and you enjoy that particular activity.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

The lesson I’ve learned so far is that you don’t have to have everything in order to start your business. What I mean by that is, if you don’t have a website, a social media platform page(s), business email, or even registered your business with your state. Don’t let not having all those things in place make you feel as though you can’t act on the idea you have. All of those things will come in time, and a lot of those things take time.

I almost let those things stop me from acting on my business idea. I’m learning that my business doesn’t have to be perfect and neither do I in order for me to be impactful to someone else and their business and dreams.

What I’ve also learned is that it’s ok for you to be authentic and show parts of yourself with your client(s). Being authentic builds trust and gives your client the comfort of being authentic with you in return. Establishing trust is what builds business relationships. Always remember, people want to work with the real you and not the perfectionist you.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://firstcoffeeva.wixsite.com/firstcoffeevirtualas
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/firstcoffeeva?igshid=OGQ5ZDc2ODk2ZA==
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kellie-batts-414a67142
• Other: Schedule an Intro Call: https://calendly.com/firstcoffeeva

Image Credits
Profile photo by Quraishia Ford of QT Photography Studio.