Judith Morgan, Wealth Coach for Entrepreneurs

Create an online VA business to fit your life!

Among the many opportunities for online businesses there are a few that really are potential winners.  As a Virtual Assistant (or VA) you can utilise the administrative skills gained in the”real-world” as a PA, Executive Assistant, Secretary or Office Manager, transferring them to provide remote administrative services to clients from the comfort of your own home-office.

How do you make the shift and learn the skills necessary to run a successful business?  It takes more thought than simply setting up a computer with broadband connection!  Kate Bacon of Pier to Peer Coaching, who has run her own VA business for 5 years, has created a unique, specialist training programme for individuals wishing to turn their secretarial skills into a viable business. 

Graduates of the VA Business Start Up Course (the virtual group training programme) talk about how they’ve each created their own VA business for very different reasons. To read their inspiring stories, click here.  Pier to Peer are offering their next course, commencing Saturday, 3 May at 11:00am BST, as a Spring Special Offer.  To take advantage of this reduced price, click here remembering to insert the Reference Code: JM on the secure payment page!

Listen to me interviewing Kate to hear more about it.

The Elite Entrepreneurs Make Me Cry

During last week's Mastermind meeting of the Elite Entrepreneurs Club, I had to reach for the tissues not once, but twice!   One of my clients, with whom I have been working for a couple of years, came up with his best idea for his business yet.   An idea so stonking and so brave that I was in awe and the tears came quickly.   Another client managed to do the same thing to me, her achievements are awesome.   You both know who you are - thank you for making me cry, no really!

I wonder if anyone else other than a coach could know how precious it is to be present when your client emerges as an even better version of themselves?   More confident, more successful, more energised, more powerful.

One of the team even said to me "are we doing this next year?"   With results like that?   You betcha. I couldnt stop this work now if I wanted to.   Just to be present to the magnificence of my clients is a unique honour.   Not to mention the fun we had at the party the night before!

The Elite Entrepreneurs Club will indeed start again in September 2008 when we will re-convene a Wednesday Group and a Friday Group.   If you would like to talk to me now to make sure you get one of those precious seats in one of our EEC Mastermind Groups, then please don't delay, email me today.

Sharing the Dream with new Entrepreneur Lorraine

Today I enjoyed a very surreal day out.   I was invited to be the guest of Lorraine Armstrong, the new owner of Share the Dream as she went to present an award at The Wedding Awards 2008 as a proud sponsor.   Lorraine recently acquired this business from Money Gym client Debbie Bissett.   Debbie and her partner Claire are serial entrepreneurs who have decided just to focus on their own recruitment business and thus divested themselves of their online wedding dress exchange.

WOW!   What an eye opener.   The wedding industry is HUGE.   I sat next door to two sisters who won the best wedding venue for the second year running for their Leez Priory in Essex.   My table also included a shoes lady, a wedding planner and a dress designer, but none of them won sadly and I was feeling part of their teams by then!

The Wedding Awards 2008 was a very pink event - yay!   The champagne reception was OK, the lunch OK but the highlight of the day was the awards ceremony itself, and my favourite bit was when Lorraine was on stage!   Let me share the story of Lorraine, who I was thinking about as I drove to the gig this morning...

Entrepreneur People - Real Stories

I was interviewed this evening by Sherry Borzo for her show on BlogTalkRadio called Entrepreneur People - Real Stories about real people that teach lessons in business and in life.   I am proud to tell you I was Sherry's first Brit!   Sherry is based in Iowa which reminds me from one of my favourite quotes from Field of Dreams..."is this Heaven?   No, it's Iowa".   Should have asked Sherry if she'd seen Kevin and his field.

Anyway, I digress.   Sherry is looking for Entrepreneurs the world over to be interviewed on her show and share their real story.   If you fancy it, contact Sherry directly at dsmBuzz and mention my name.

Here's my interview.   She says I was awesome and wonderful but you know how those Americans talk. Gee!   Actually she was delightful and so if you love to talk and talk about yourself and your entrepreneurial tendencies and your business, get on down to Iowa, virtually.   Ain't the web wonderful?

Another Fantastic Entrepreneurial Idea

A wonderful thing happened today (and a very bad thing too, but that's another story) and the wonderful thing started off quite badly.   A parcel arrived.   From my accountant.   It was a calendar.  Yawn.   But no!   It's wonderful, its from a company called I Name It and each month has a seasonal photo on it with my name as part of each photo.   January has teams of skiers ranged up to form the words JUDITH and MORGAN and so it goes on throughout the year.   July has my name printed through a stick of pink rock, February is my name written in snow on a car windscreen, April I'm on the side of two one pound coins... you get the picture?

OK, so you have to either love your name (which I do) or be a monumental egotist (which I might be) but either way, you've got it admit its a FANTASTIC idea for a client gift, don't you think - ESPECIALLY FROM YOUR ACCOUNTANT?   Well done, Roland!

I think this is the best news I've ever received in the post from my accountant, especially in January, when you are expecting his bad news about the size of your tax bill.   Inspired.   

Well done also to I Name It.

Talking Business - radio phone-in callers required this Sunday!

It's your fourth and final (for the moment) chance to hear me on the radio this coming Sunday morning at 10 a.m.   I know, clashes HORRIBLY with The Archers!   The only programme on the radio I listen to every week, and now I am on at the same time - doh.

I've been having a blast in Golders Green on Jcom radio over the last few Sunday mornings.   I was invited to co-host Talking Business with Mike Segall.   It has been an eventful couple of weeks.   The first week the entire building was evacuated at 10.15 in the middle of our show as it was discovered to be live - electrically live, the building that is, not the show which was always intended to be a live small business phone-in.

The second week I was a minor guest on the Mike Segall show and the third week I came storming back and with a vengeance, I am the woman who bought Santa Claus to Golders Green! Apparently those of the Jewish faith do not have/believe in Santa Claus - who knew?   How naive of me and ill researched, mea culpa.   Happily they smiled at me in a beautifully indulgent and gentlemanly way.   Bless them, the Jcom boys.

Entrepreneurs, will 2008 be YOUR year?

Is yours a Great Little Business that's not yet working like the well-oiled machine you know it COULD be? 

Are you still chipping away at the coalface but not really making much impression where it counts - in your bank account?

Are you working all hours but exhausted and poor, fearing burnout but too terrified to stop?

But most importantly of all, are you ready to stop the rot and DO something about it?

Talking Business on Sunday Mornings

Jewish Community Radio launches this week in Golders Green and guess who is going to be on it on Sunday morning!   Yes!   That's right, it's me... isn't that exciting?   Well, after all, Judith does mean Jewish Princess.

I am going to be part of the team presenting Talking Business at 10 a.m. for four consecutive Sunday mornings starting Sunday 28th October and you can listen live at www.jcomradio.net and if you live in North West London, Jcom will also be broadcasting on 101.4 FM.

Here's the pre-publicity from the radio station itself - and it's a phone-in so do ring in on 0208 905 5505 with all your questions about wealth creation for entrepreneurs, small business success and the joys of self-employed life.

And very good luck to JCom on their worthy mission:

Successful Business Entrepreneurs sought by Channel 4

Entrepreneurs, are you ready to hire your first PA who might support you in your business and personal life? Would you like to be the subject of a Channel 4 documentary?   Would you like to combine the two?

I have been contacted by a television production company and here's what they are looking for:

Reduce Stress at Work - Go It Alone!

It's official - it's better for your health to work for yourself!

According to a little piece in The Times today about Office Health in Ten Easy Steps:

"Ok, so it's a big step, but research indicates that people who take the plunge and become self-employed report a higher level of job satisfaction and less stress. A study last year in the Journal of Occupational Health Psychology found that self-employed people had greater autonomy and less job pressure than those in big organisations."

Not that you need to be a rocket scientist to work that out!   But anyway, it's nice to have it confirmed.

Bureaucracy Stifles The Entrepreneurial Spirit

Red tape does my head in, but the very wonderful man who helps me with keeping on track with the legal requirements of being a limited company has emailed me this week with news affecting all business owners, especially if you have a website.

First of all, read this, if you have the stomach.

I tried to read it, honestly I did - twice!   But it did my head in.   In the end I wrote to Brian (the wonderful man who is good at this stuff) saying...

10 Steps to Entrepreneur Heaven

This week sees the end of a group business coaching teleclass series I have been hosting called 10 Steps to Entrepreneur Heaven.   I have been joined by some truly inspirational businesswomen, what Nicola calls ordinary people doing extraordinary things.   They have been a joy and, as ever, I have learned much from them.

The 10 Steps are:

Entrepreneur Success Tips

Following on from my previous posting, here are a few success strategies which I have seen my clients use in their businesses to good effect.   People work in myriad different ways which is great, and I get to observe other people doing it their way and to see what works for them so I can share it with you. 

Although the control freak in me often erroneously thinks my way is best, happily clients prove me wrong all day long and equally I am happy just to have faciliitated their success.   It doesn't matter how they get where they want to be, just so long as they do.

These tactics have mainly been exhibited by business owners I work with in The Cleaning Biz where I help them to achieve the results they want financially by running their own small business which also just happens to be a branch of mine.   And I see these success strategies replicated all over in all types of business.   They will also work in yours.

Entrepreneurial Doubts

Do you have doubts?   Do you doubt that you can pull it off, make your business successful?   Yes. Me to, even though I've been doing it for thirty years!   And have built and sold several successful and profitable businesses.   Weird.

So it must be part of the human condition then.   What makes us doubt?   Well, I've just had a rather meaningful exchange with Nicola on IM and here's our consensus:

Making Money Online - Internet Entrepreneurs R Us

I've stumbled upon a rather useful resource this week.   An easy-to-read and digest manual plus 4 CDs which teach you a few very simple ideas about how to make money online.  Accessible and do-able by Brits, what's more and written in English English!

Of course, they make the usual extravagant claims about £30,000 a month in only one hour a day, and that may indeed be true.   But for those of us with a life and lots of other stuff to do too, I imagine it might take a bit more than that to get into this, at least initially. But you could definitely read the manual in an evening, and listen to the CDs in the car - they just repeat what it says in the manual anyway, by and large.

However, if you are interested in making money online and looking for a good place to start which will  teach you how to do it quickly without having to create a product of your own, then you could do a lot worse than this. I have purchased a copy myself and read and listened and whole-heartedly recommend this common-sense approach.   If we don't make a decent chunk of cash out of this it will be our own fault because we haven't made the time available or followed the instructions!   It's all very easy, can't stress that enough - we've been guilty of overcomplicating the online stuff.

This could be a 4-Hour WorkWeek product!   I'm off now to put it into action myself and I will let you know on this blog how I get on.   Anyone fancy having a go and becoming an infopreneur too?

All the details here.   The Million A Month Club - July 2007.