200th Episode Special! We’re hitting a huge milestone—200 episodes of and to celebrate, I’m hosting a special Q&A session where I’ll be answering your questions about some behind-the-scenes insights and expressing my gratitude for all the amazing support from you, my listeners! Thank you for being a part of this journey.

 200th Episode Special!

Your Qustions

 

Audience Question about Podcast Inspiration

What inspired me to start a podcast? Podcasts have intrigued me for years. I’ve been an avid listener and have joined online groups discussing how to start a podcast. Back in the early 2000s, I had a Blog Talk Radio show. You would log in to Blog Talk Radio, go live on the internet radio station, and the show would be saved for later listening. That’s what we called a podcast back then.

Evolution of the Podcast Today, podcasts are done very differently. You record your podcast, upload it, and it gets distributed to various podcast directories for people to download and listen to. It was more like internet radio in the early days, but that’s where my journey began.

Faith Leaps Radio Show I called my show “Faith Leaps Radio Show,” although I can’t recall the exact year I started. You’ll never believe this, but I found all the episodes of my first Blog Talk Radio show. I’m excited to share a snippet from episode one of Faith Leaps Radio Show from 2013, more than a decade ago. Here’s a brief segment:

Hey there, everybody. This is Alyssa Avant, and I’m so excited because today is the very first episode of Faith Leaps. Faith Leaps is all about the Christian mom entrepreneur and taking that giant leap of faith. Today, our show is entitled “Leap of Faith,” our very first inaugural episode. I have with me this afternoon Trish Adams, who has worked for 10 years in the healthcare industry and left because she knew God had something greater for her to do.

Joining the Christian Podcast Community My interest in podcasting continued. After the radio show, an online friend created a group for Christian podcasters. I joined that Facebook group, learned from them, but took many years before I started my podcast.

The Christian Business Advantage Podcast I officially started my podcast in August 2020, right after the pandemic began. I attended SPARK, the Christian Podcast Conference, in February 2020 and decided to start my podcast. Shortly after returning home, I got the flu (which might have been COVID), and my entire family was home for months due to the pandemic. Recording the podcast was challenging initially because I didn’t have a dedicated office. I used a corner of my bedroom, which was chaotic.

Initially, the podcast was called the “Virtual Assistant Advantage Podcast” because I am a virtual assistant. I hope this answers your question about how the podcast got started.

Rebranding to Christian Business Advantage

My team and I work with Christian authors, speakers, and coaches. Over the years of having the podcast which will be almost five years in August. I’ve noticed that a lot of my clients listened to my podcast. It wasn’t just virtual assistants who listened to the podcast. I ended up changing the name and rebranding to the Christian Business Advantage and that has been the case for a little over a year now, I believe. Going on close to two years, I rebranded in July of 2023.  Now I am celebrating the 200th podcast episode.

If you have listened this whole time that I’ve had the podcast, thank you. I really appreciate all of my listeners.

Question about my Favorite Thing About Running a Business

The next question that came in was, “What is your favorite thing about running your business?”

Hopefully, if you’re listening to me, we’re all business owners. You know what it’s like to run a business. I’ve had my business for 17 years; it will be 18 years in October 2025. My favorite thing about running a business is the flexibility. I can say that without a doubt because it has helped me to be able to be a present mom to my kids, even though they are now 17, 16, 17, and 21.

I started my business when my children were a toddler and a preschooler.  My youngest child was not even born yet when I started my business.  I have had children of all different ages through the time. My business has definitely grown along with my children. That is my favorite thing because it is flexible even though I do stick to a pretty strict schedule. I work specific hours of the day. It hasn’t always been that way. In the early days of business, I worked during nap time and in the pockets of my day that I was able to as a young wife and mom. Now, things look a lot different than they did in the beginning.

Your Question on Finding Clients

The next question is, how long did it take you to find your first client?

This may be a little bit different for me than it would be for someone who decides to start a business and then has to go look for clients. My business was started differently. I was, a mom to a toddler and a preschooler when I started my business. My daughter was a baby if I think about it. She was born in March, and I started my business in October, my son was three years old.

I was at home and looking online for ways to make an income from home, and I joined what I call an old-school forum.  They’re kind of like Facebook groups, but they were on their own platform back then. It was called Mom Masterminds. Shout out to anyone who’s listening, that was a member of Mom Masterminds. I was recently on the new podcast, Mom Masterminds, she’s bringing it back and I’m very grateful for Mom Masterminds. I posted in this old-school forum that I was looking for a way to make income from home.  One of the ladies there called me on the phone. This is how long ago that was, before text messaging and all of that.  She had gone to my website and for whatever reason I had my phone number on my website. I had a mom blog, and she had gone there. She found my phone number and reached out to me. She liked my writing style, and would I be willing to ghostwrite articles for her?  I said yes and began to go to write articles for her. She told other members of Mom Masterminds, and I began to promote it online. I got a website and all the things, and that’s how I found my first client.

So, it was very different back then if you tried to set up a business and go looking for clients. That’s just how it worked for me, but everybody’s experience will be different. I was really excited, and it worked very well for me. God blessed my business, and I’m grateful.

Your Question on Promoting Your Business

Okay, the next question is, “What are your favorite ways to promote your business?”

You’ve probably heard me say this before, but my favorite way of marketing is what I call relationship marketing. You build relationships with people, and either they become your client, or they refer others to you who become your client.

It’s very much about networking, whether that’s online or offline.  For many years I’ve networked online. I have attended some business conferences over the years that were in person. This past year, I was able to attend a couple of events and meet people in person, which is so much more enjoyable.

I’m not always able to do that. And when my children were young, I definitely was not able to do that. In just a few weeks I will be attending, NRB, which is the National Religious Broadcasting Convention in Grapevine, Texas. I’m excited about that, building relationships and having referrals, and things like that, is my favorite way to market my business.

Your Question on Finding Clients as a Virtual Assistant

Where to find clients?

On the virtual assistant side of things, I hopefully still have virtual assistants that listen to my podcast. I think that this can apply even if you’re an author, speaker, or coach. Having a business that you promote online means you do the same types of things to promote it, no matter what your business is. It might be a little different if you’re an online boutique owner or something.  But a service-based business like a coach or virtual assistant is going to be primarily the same type of task.

One of the best ways to promote yourself and to find clients for you is to establish yourself as an expert in whatever it is that you’re offering. For example, I’m going to use this as an example because I had a friend come to me yesterday and ask a question. She asked if she wanted to start a business creating policies and procedures and SOPs for companies or business owners. The first thing I told her to do was to decide who she wanted to work with, and who is her target market.

Benefits from your Service

Think about who it is that your service would be beneficial to, who your target market is, and who would benefit most from your services.

She said that she loved writing work instructions, training videos, and SOPs and was thinking about starting a business. I said that’s fabulous, and then I said, decide who your target market is, who you want to serve, and who could most benefit from your services. And then you go about finding those people online or even in person.

Share with them your expertise. Now, that doesn’t mean selling to them initially. It just means sharing your knowledge and expertise with them. That might look very different depending on what your expertise is. That is one way to do it. I don’t do this as much anymore because I have a team and my business looks a little different than it did in the beginning. What I would do is, I would go to Facebook groups and answer questions, not necessarily questions like I’m looking to hire questions, but more like questions about specific things.

Say you were offering email marketing services and they were asking about the best email marketing software, or you were offering, like my friend SOPs and they were asking. How do I set up processes in my business?  Those are the types of questions that you want to answer and establish yourself as an expert. They will see she knows what she’s talking about.

She knows what she’s doing. She can help me. Then when they, you know, ask for someone or they’re looking for someone, they’ll look to someone like you. Who they see as knowing what you’re talking about. Share, share, share, don’t be afraid to share your knowledge and expertise.

Avoiding Scams

This is the second part of the Question. How do you keep from getting scammed? Well, you don’t answer a bunch of job offers.  I’m not sure what even to call them, but when people say that it looks like a staffing agency or something like that. It is looking to hire all these people, don’t answer those offers. Go out and build relationships with people and look for ways that you can sell yourself as a virtual assistant by establishing yourself as an expert and not answering a bunch of job ads that you can almost spot as a scam.

Because they look too good to be true. You can get that feeling in the pit of your stomach when you read it. This doesn’t sound real.  I would do this in a very different way, than answering a bunch of ads.

Your Question on Goals and Time Management

This brings me to my final question, and we’ll wrap things up. One listener mentioned they struggled with time management and asked for advice.

Setting a Schedule

Creating a schedule is essential, and it can vary for everyone depending on their life circumstances. I know this person doesn’t have small children at home and can make their own schedule, so that’s what I would recommend.

Create a flexible schedule or routine. It doesn’t have to be rigid, but having a plan helps. I stick to my schedule nine times out of ten, and it has become a routine. My office hours are from nine to three, Monday to Friday. I share these hours with my clients, so they know when I’m available, and I try to stick to them. Setting office hours or specific times to work on your business is crucial, and sticking to that time takes self-discipline.

Time Blocking

Another suggestion is time blocking. During your scheduled work hours, allocate specific blocks of time for different tasks. For example, you might work from 9 a.m. to noon, dedicating one hour to task A, 30 minutes to task B, and so on. Remember to schedule breaks too.

The Pomodoro Method is a great technique for this. Work for 25 minutes, then take a 5-minute break. After four cycles, take a longer break. This method helps maintain focus and productivity.

Conclusion

Those are the questions from my listeners. I hope this advice helps others as well. I’m thrilled to be celebrating my 200th episode of the podcast. I haven’t decided on the topics for the rest of this month’s episodes, so join me next week to find out. It’ll be a surprise, and I look forward to many more podcasts to share with you. Thanks for listening!


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