Grow A Small Business Podcast Making $250k USD pa in 2008, 3 years in as a virtual assistant, after pivoting from selling Egyptian rugs on eBay. Second pivot in 2010 pivot added online courses & team members - sales now 60% courses, 30% services & 10% affiliates (Michelle Dale)
In this episode, I interview Michelle Dale, the Founder, and CEO of Virtual Miss Friday and 1nSourcing™, the alternative virtual assistant service for digital entrepreneurs. Virtual Miss Friday is an online business consultancy and academy with built-in virtual assistant services while 1nSourcing is a service that specializes in serving 6 and 7 figure business owners. Originally from the UK, Michelle traveled a bit then settled in Cairo, Egypt. Aged 24 in 2005 and sick of selling Eqyptian rugs on eBay, she pivoted to become a virtual assistant. 5 years later, earning $500,000 a year as a virtual assistant, she pivoted again to online courses and now teaches people to create their own online businesses, and build and leverage remote teams for 1nSourcing social media, website building and maintenance, customer service, and content creation.
By the end of 2010, 10% of revenue came from training courses which is now 60% with 30% coming from services, 10% from affiliate revenue, and the rest from her team. With her team having once peaked at 25 full-time employees, she now has 10 and has grown the business purely from profits. Michelle says she felt she has succeeded when people were asking her for help and advice. Trying not to give up at the toughest times is what she finds to be the hardest thing about growing a small business. The one thing she says she would tell herself on day one of starting out in business is, "Don't give up" Ladies and gentlemen, please help me welcome Michelle Dale.
This Cast Covers:
- From providing virtual assistant services to teaching people how to create online businesses or take their existing businesses online.
- Selling her services through a role-based system that ensures business owners get all the support they need to succeed.
- Training people to become virtual assistants, build their own team, go into consulting, and sell digital products and services.
- Transitioning from getting all her revenue from services to create new income streams from training, affiliates, and her team.
- Booking a one-way ticket from the UK and settling in Egypt where she built an online business and eventually got into virtual assistant services.
- Starting from $0 to hitting 6 figures, scaling fast, and hiring full-time team members.
- Focusing more on digital products to get more flexibility and streamline operations.
- Earning $20,000 a month as a virtual assistant while traveling all around the world and how that inspired people to become virtual assistants.
- Achieving happiness and fulfillment as a small business owner.
- The importance of personal one-on-one interaction in marketing.
- How using Bonjoro to send customized video messages to her customers has helped her grow her business.
- Plowing back profits to build the business without external funding.
- Growing during the recession by maintaining a positive mindset.
- Navigating the tough business environment brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic and thriving through it all.
- Working on herself, her mindset, and her confidence to add the greatest value to the business.
- Overcoming stress from making mistakes and learning from those mistakes.
- Learning that sometimes one can't control everything.
- Advising every small business owner to maintain a good self-development ritual.
- Hiring and training different types of people from different countries.
- Putting pride aside and asking for help from more experienced people.
- Traveling, running the business, raising a family, and still achieving work-life balance.
- Going from $0 to $20,000 right after completing Yaro Starak's Blog Mastermind Course.
Additional Resources:
Music from https://filmmusic.io "Cold Funk" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com). License: CC BY (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/