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Laura Nicole: 0:02

Welcome to your Virtual Assistant Coach, the podcast for moms who want to make money from home on their own terms. I'm your host, Laura Nicole, a successful six-figure earning VA and coach, who replaced my college professor salary in just five months back in 2020, after my daughter was born, and I have never looked back. I'm here to help you build a profitable, flexible VA business that fits into your family's lives, so you no longer feel like you're living just to work. Let's dive in. 

I currently work as a virtual assistant as well as coaching women on how to become virtual assistants, so I'm still actively supporting clients, and I just took an eight day family vacation to celebrate my and my husband's 10-year wedding anniversary, and on that trip, I worked maybe a total of 60 minutes across the eight days. In this episode, I'm going to share with you the three things that you need to do in order to prep to take vacation as a virtual assistant, because it absolutely is possible to do, as indicated by my experience this past week and many, many times before in the previous five years. So, when you're working as a virtual assistant supporting clients and you know that you are going to travel or take a trip or you have people coming to visit you and you want to be able to take time off. You really have two choices: you can choose to work like a reduced workload or you can be completely out of office and truly fully take the time off.

Laura Nicole: 1:32

I have done a mix of both over the past five years. There's a lot of times that I travel, especially if we're going to see family, which we do often because my husband and I especially now, we live in different states from both sides of our family, and so, since my work is so flexible, right, I will travel. I'll be able to take my daughter with us and we go spend one to two weeks at a time visiting family in different states, and so in those scenarios I take my work with me. But there are also trips that we have gone on with family where I will want to work a reduced workload. I still take my phone and my computer because you still have downtime, even on trips, right, you still have those little pockets of day, either on the travel days where you can knock out a ton of work or, after you know you get your kiddo to bed for the night, or when people are just having downtime or nap time throughout the day. Just because you're on vacation doesn't mean that you're busy 24-7. And then I've also taken trips where I want to be completely out of office. I want to turn my work brain off, 100%. So you have that choice. It just depends on what kind of trip you're going on and where you want to be able to like have your brain while you're on the trip. Right, so it can go either way.

Laura Nicole: 2:44

Regardless of which approach you're taking, whether you're happy to be doing some work while traveling or you want to be completely out the very first thing to do when you are planning travel or you know you're going to be out for a set period of time is to communicate with your clients. I cannot stress this enough, but that needs to be the very, very first thing that you do. Number one it's just the professional, courteous thing to do to give them as much heads up as you possibly can. And number two, the more heads up they have right, the more that y'all can work together to make sure that everything is taken care of and planned out and worked on ahead of time so that things don't fall between the cracks just because you're out. And while I do not want you scheduling your life around your client and their business.

Laura Nicole: 3:31

It is important to be mindful of your client's business and their schedule. So an example of this is this past Christmas. We traveled to Colorado to spend Christmas at my mom's house, and then my daughter and I stayed a little bit into January to get some extra time. But one of my main clients, who I've worked with for years, does what her biggest launch of the year mid January, and so I know that right, I know that her most massive launch of the entire year is going to happen mid January, and so I made sure that I was home and back and fully operational and in my routine before that launch kicked off. Right, because I play a pretty integral part in that launch and so I needed to be a hundred percent for that. So again, I'm not saying that your life has to be run by your client schedule, but especially if you've been working with a client and you know that they have certain times of year, that client and you know that they have certain times of year that are incredibly busy, or they have certain times of year that they always launch, and it's this whole big thing.

Laura Nicole: 4:31

Be conscious of that right, be aware of that. Talk with them about dates so that, as long as you have the ability to, you can make it work right. I will say that I have never in five years had a client say, nope, sorry, no vacation for you, you can't take time off, I need you here, like that's not going to work, it's not going to happen right. But we do just need to communicate efficiently, effectively and early. As soon as you possibly can, communicate with them the dates Also, letting them know like, hey, this is a trip, that I really want to be fully out of office. Or hey, I'm taking this trip, but I am taking my computer, I'll be plugging in for 30 minutes every night, you know, for things that need to get done. Just giving them a heads up of what your expectation is and how you're wanting your workload to look while you're traveling. Okay, so that was step number one of three is to communicate.

Laura Nicole: 5:24

Step number two of three is to then work ahead and get as many things done, as many of your responsibilities complete, before you travel, so that, regardless of if you're working at all while you go or not, as much of it is done as possible prior to being out. A lot of times there are things that you can do ahead for your clients, like scheduling out emails or if you're scheduling their content on socials. If they have it ready for you, you can get it scheduled ahead of time. You can do things like writing their newsletters or creating Canva graphics that they need that stuff that you can get done ahead of time. But again, you're only really able to get it done ahead of time if you communicated in a timely fashion so that they can get what you need to you earlier in order to get it done before you're out.

Laura Nicole: 6:10

What I like to do typically once I know I have certain dates that I'm going to be out is I will go through my normal work for the client, plus anything that will be coming up in that time frame, and do like a brain dump of all of the things that are my responsibility in that time frame and then go through and highlight all of the things that are my responsibility in that time frame and then go through and highlight all of the things that I can do prior to leaving and then, if I am taking my work with me, if this is a trip where I'm going to find those pockets of time while traveling, to keep working even though I'm not at home. Now, by working ahead, I have minimized and reduced my active workload for the time that I'm out by a lot, and so I'm actually able to optimize the time that I'm out and traveling and get to focus on that and then just fit my work into the pockets. And then step number three to being able to take time out, go travel, take vacation as a VA is that if there are things that cannot be scheduled out ahead, right, some things need to be done in real time. Some things like running weekly reports for your client on the numbers of their business. You can't do that ahead because the data doesn't exist yet, right? So for those kinds of tasks that have to be done in real time, have a chat with your client about delegating those specific tasks to someone else. This is obviously more important if you plan on being fully and completely out of office, because those things still need to be done. They just will get done by someone else for that time frame.

Laura Nicole: 7:36

I have had experiences in the past where it's literally just me and my client, like there's not a team, there's no one else, and so in that instance my client has just taken over those tasks for the time that I'm out or in a couple of occasions they've just said like, hey, it's fine, you can just do it when you get back, like it's not that urgent that it has to be done while you're out, you can just do it once you get back into office. And I've also had times where I work with clients who we do have a team and there are other people and so we're just able to hand that task off to one of their other VAs or their OBM and someone else on the team can just take it over for that bit of time that I'm out. It truly is that simple. It's not this big complex thing. You don't have to put in PTO, you don't have to get time off approved. You really just need to be clear and communicative with your client and then be proactive, work ahead, get as much done as you possibly can before you go and then go.

Laura Nicole: 8:31

Enjoy the hell out of your time off. I know I did. This trip that we just went on was like the best freaking family time. So many core memories were made. It is a trip that I, my husband and our daughter will remember honestly, I think, for the rest of our lives, and I was able to do it with zero guilt, any worry about what was happening at work, because I was proactive and I handled my shit ahead of time and was truly able to check out. Hopefully this is helpful to you. I know we are early in the summer right now and that tends to be a time where a lot of family vacations are taken and whatnot.

Laura Nicole: 9:07

So if you are actively working as a VA right now and you have trips coming up, make sure you implement these three steps.

Laura Nicole: 9:14

And, on the flip side of that, if you are not a VA, if you are someone who has been really curious and learning more about virtual assistants but you still feel a little uncertain as to what skills you have that would be really valuable as a virtual assistant, then I want you to take a second and pop down into the show notes and grab my career switch cheat sheet.

Laura Nicole: 9:33

It's a downloadable resource that will help you identify the things that you're already doing every single day at work and yes, that includes stay at identify the things that you're already doing every single day at work and, yes, that includes stay-at-home moms, because that is a job and it will show you directly how those skills transfer into virtual assistant services. Just to kind of get that ball rolling in your head and help you see those connections of what you already do and how those would be incredibly valuable and make you successful as a virtual assistant. Just click the link in your show notes, pop in your name and email address and you will get that cheat sheet sent directly to your email inbox. 

Thanks for hanging out with me today on your Virtual Assistant Coach. If you loved this episode, be sure to share it with your best friend, your sister or even your favorite coworker who you know wants to start making a flexible income. I'll see you all next time.