We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Marcy Swallows a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Marcy thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. What do you think matters most in terms of achieving success?

To be successful, I think you have to be willing to constantly learn and ask for help. You have to be willing to fail. You need consistent drive to move forward, even when you really want to quit. I had never really thought about owning my own business before I found freelancing as a virtual assistant. I never would have gotten where I did as fast I did if I hadn’t stumbled across The Free Mama group. I purchased Lauren Golden’s course and it walked me through everything from what service I wanted to offer, to how to file for an LLC, to training on common online programs to utilize.

In the beginning, I offered a huge variety of administrative tasks to clients. I wasn’t always great at everything, but it gave me an opportunity really figure out what I was good at and what I didn’t want to continue to offer. After my first bookkeeping client I quickly realized that wasn’t what I wanted to offer. Whereas, I started to have fun and get in my groove when I got into CRM set ups for clients.

When I’m not meeting my goals, its often because I’m not networking and marketing my business enough to bring in the new leads. I’ve found that consistent networking is a non-negotiable if I want to grow my business.

There have definitely been times when I’ve felt I’m just spinning my wheels and not getting anywhere and I’ve wanted to quit and throw in the towel. Then I think about what I love the most about it and it far outweighs the negatives. I love my clients. I love making a difference in their businesses and their lives. I love challenging myself and watching myself grow as I succeed. I especially love that the possibilities are endless. I know the only thing that can ever really get in my way is me. I don’t want to look back and regret that I didn’t give it my all, so I strive to make it better every day.

Marcy, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I started my business as a Virtual Assistant a few years ago to make some extra money. I didn’t realize at the time, how much it would end up changing me. It forced me to get WAY outside of my comfort zone and do things I’d never even thought about before. From creating my own website, networking both online and in person, to learning new skills. I had never set high goals and objectives for myself before, but I found it essential to building a business.

With my first few clients, I did a variety of tasks, including bookkeeping, email management, form creation and CRM set ups. Once I got started with CRMs, I found Dubsado and soon started specializing in the platform. I loved the ability to create beautiful forms for clients, but I didn’t realize how much creating the strategy and workflows in their business would really light me up.

As a Certified Dubsado Specialist, I develop detailed workflows to help women break down the operations of their business that are causing frustration and put them into an organized system that uniquely fits their needs. These beautiful systems are used to onboard clients and make the day to day operations run seamlessly, all while being mindfully branded and providing a white glove experience for their clients.

I work with mostly online women business owners who are solopreneurs or have small teams. Most of these women are creative service based businesses (such as photographers, videographers, copywriters, website designers, marketing specialists) who have a passion for what they do as well as a desire to carve out life on their own terms. While they have immense talent and drive, they don’t always love the behind the scenes nitty gritty operational aspects that running a business entails and often struggle to stay on top of their follow ups and client processes.

I find that they often gravitate towards Dubsado for their CRM (Customer Relationship Management tool) because they don’t want to just organize their clients and create automation, they want to do it in a way that aligns with their creative and often visual business. They don’t want to just create forms to get the information they need, they want to create beautiful forms that follow the branding on their website and also showcases their work. They want their clients to feel pampered and informed throughout their entire client journey, while also saving themselves time and energy through the workflows.

While they want all this, they often don’t have the time or desire to set up all of this on their own. That’s where I come in.
Once I started working in Dubsado and realized there was such a need to help them strategize and implement, I went all in on it as a service.

I love working with a client and seeing her face light up during our strategy call when she realizes what the processes and system we’re creating together will do for her business. I can see the relief when she see’s how she’ll be able to manage their sales and onboarding process so much easier and quicker than before.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

I went the first 8 months of my business without a client. I was starting from scratch and had no idea what I was doing. What helped me to get through that period was to pour myself into learning, setting up the back end of my business and networking. I took a course that was instrumental in teaching me the fundamentals of starting a business from the ground up. I had always worked in operations, but I had never owned a business myself, so it was completely new to me. I spent time trying to figure out what Administrative services I was going to offer to clients, how I was going to structure my business, building a website. I found that online businesses were using different programs than I used in my 9-5 job, so I learned various online platforms to make my skill set relevant.

The other half of my time was spent talking to people and networking. I had never had to promote myself in this way before and to build business relationships to bring clients in. Doing it all in the online space was even more of a learning curve. This was before covid and I had never heard of a Zoom call. Even though it was all new to me and definitely out of my comfort zone, I just kept digging in. I did online coffee chats regularly, group coaching calls and networked in multiple business FB groups. I finally started getting some traction and got referred to my 1st client. Even after that client, however, it was another 2-3 months before I got my 2nd client and close to 6 months later when I got my first retainer client.

I got into a pretty good groove and had 3-4 consistent clients, then I shifted my business from general VA work to focusing on just Dubsado set ups for clients. This again, put my business into another slow period. The main things that I’ve learned is how important consistent marketing and networking is in building a business. With never having to focus on those aspects before when working for someone else, that has been the most challenging aspect of running my own business.

I’ve learned the more I talk about and share what I do, the more my business grows. I now set aside time everyday to focus on this area as it is just as important as the actual client work that I do.

Where do you think you get most of your clients from?

I have found almost al of my clients through Facebook Business Groups. The course that I took has a large FB group community and from there, I found and learned how to find other groups that match my client profile. While I do have an Instagram presence, I’ve found that it is so much easier to interact with other business owners in Facebook groups. Once in the groups, I participate in the daily threads and conversations, set up coffee chats and build a referral base. Group members will post job openings or ask for advise on their own business. When my skills align with what they are needing help with, it allows not only them, but also other group members, to find out what I do and how I can help them. Referrals, of course are also a very important source of new business.

Contact Info:

• Website: http://www.crossroadsvirtualsolutions.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/crossroadsvirtual/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/crossroadsvirtualsolutions/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcy-swallows/