First published on LinkedIn on March 31, 2021
(https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/covid-induced-diversification-virtual-assistant-services-rachel-byne/)
Last week marked a whole year since we first went into lockdown.
For all of us, the last 12 months have been pretty tough, both from a personal and work perspective. A number of industries have been heavily impacted by the restrictions, and amongst these, the event and hospitality industry, which I have considered my focus for over 20 years.
My Covid year
For a while, I juggled work within the events industry with my new role as Chief Homeschooler (with no previous experience), learning about fronted adverbials, relative clauses and the like.
My kids had their year turned on its head, spending 12 weeks in school, and 40 weeks at home over the year. A stark contrast to the complete opposite in a ‘normal’ year. Despite the ups, downs, and rock-bottom moments, I now reflect that it was an absolute privilege to have that time with them in such a daunting world and to be so involved in their learning.
Make a choice to take a chance to make a change
Now that the kids have returned to school and are, quite rightly, enjoying valuable time with their friends, I have been able to reassess my service provision, focusing on being a natural-born organiser with a love of admin, spreadsheets and people!
Many of my more recent contacts will know me from GPJ and ExCeL London. However, in lieu of live events, I am excited to diversify and promote a number of my transferable skills: organisation, attention to detail, initiative, problem solving, administration, professionalism, strong work ethic, desire to provide assistance and improvements, and communication skills to a wider audience.
I have rebranded my skills and I am promoting my company Lime Pi which was set up in 2018. To highlight the transferable skills I have gathered and polished over the past 20 years to provide small business owners, professionals, contractors, entrepreneurs, authors and creatives with efficient Virtual Assistant support, enabling them to:
- utilise their time more effectively
- be more organised
- and, ultimately focus their attention on what matters – be that business development or creating a better work-life balance.
It has been the beginning of a fascinating journey and I have benefited from a number of fantastic Virtual Assistant (VA) support groups and communities including the VACT run by Amanda Johnson.
