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My whole work situation makes me want to just yank every freakin’ hair out of my head. Every time I say “Screw it, I give up, I’m just going back to working in some stupid cubicle job with fluorescent lighting and bad coffee” something or someone tells me to hang in there, it gets better. And it does…for a week or so. Then I find myself right back at Square One. I hate Square One.

Here’s where I’m at. As you know, I started my VA business back in July with the intention of putting my background in the legal field and my passion for setting up and writing blogs to good use. I wanted to help attorneys with both their administrative stuff and their marketing stuff. But its just not happening. It seems like all of the attorneys I come across either don’t want a VA, they want to set up their blogs by themselves, or they already have a VA.

Somehow most of my work ends up being projects, mainly WordPress installations and customizations or writing press releases which is fine because I like doing both of those. The only problem is once a project is done, its done. Then I find myself scrambling for another project, trying to keep the money coming. In order to do that, I’ve been spending a lot of time trying to market myself, get my name out there, get referrals, networking, etc.

Two days ago, someone who I really admire and whose opinion I value suggested that, by doing that, I’m doing myself more harm than good. By doing all of this stuff, it looks like I have too much going on and potential clients are going to think that I won’t have any time for them because I’m too busy doing “my” stuff.She suggested I get rid of NAVLA and all of my other blogs, even though they are just “hobby” blogs about things I am passionate about like mental health and custody issues. Oh and my theme on my VA website sucks too. Ah, Square One, we meet again, you sonofa#$%$*.

Well….that pretty much flushes everything I’ve learned so far right down the toilet. Everywhere else I’ve looked for help - blogs, forums, newsletters - says I need to be blogging, I need to be doing a newsletter, I need to let people know that I’m available and capable. So how do I do that without marketing myself? Apparently its done by getting referrals from existing clients or people who are familiar with my work. Ok, great, I’ve been doing that. But there’s that stupid Square One again. Its just random projects.

Classic chicken/egg stuff here. If I had clients, I wouldn’t need to spend time doing all of that networking/marketing stuff. But if I don’t do that stuff, I won’t have clients. Believe me, I would MUCH rather be spending time earning money than going around leaving comments on blogs and trying to think of newsletter topics.

I’m a single mom. I can’t live on random projects. If I had a full time j-o-b (yuck!) or a husband (double yuck!) and these projects were just additional income, it would be awesome. But this is my only source of income. Making $100 a week just doesn’t cut it. Making $100 a week gets my phone, heat, and electricity shut off. Making $100 a week barely covers gas and groceries. What about rent?

I had hoped to have retainer clients by now because not only would I be able to spend my days actually working, I’d have a consistent income. Consistent income = That Crazy Mom isn’t quite so crazy. Being broke is depressing and humiliating. I’m one of those people that, if I won the lottery, I would still work or volunteer or do something because, well, I need to be doing something!

But what kind of “something” am I going to do now? I even asked Lynn Terry during her webinar this morning “What do you do when what you really want to do isn’t where the money is? I’m tempted to throw away the VA business and personal blog and just do affiliate marketing since that’s where everyone seems to be making the most money.” (She said use my personal blog and my VA business as platforms for the affiliate marketing.)

Honestly I don’t know what to do and I don’t even like to talk about it anymore. I have well-meaning friends who will try to help by spreading my name on Twitter but that just makes me feel like a charity case. One person even used my situation as an example to start a series on one of my favorite blogs about teaching people how to fish instead of just throwing them a fish. That crushed me. How would anyone else feel about being made the poster child of Doing It Wrong? And it wasn’t even me that had done it. It was based on someone else writing a post about my situation which made it look like I was looking for sympathy and begging for clients. Thats not even close to the truth. Maybe it seemed like that to other people but, believe me, that’s not what I was doing. Venting my frustrations, yes. Begging for help? No. Not my style. I’m too stubborn and independent to rely on other people. My mother is the only one I will ask for help and even then I don’t like getting it.

Anyway, this post is getting too long and I’m running out of things to say without turning it into some crazy, rambling mess. Just please don’t go around sharing this with your friends with comments like “Oh that poor girl!” This is my blog. This is where I get my thoughts and feelings out. I even have a category called “This is My Therapy” because that’s all this is.

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