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How's lockdown been for you?
Kristie Norris • Jun 08, 2020
How’s lockdown been for you?
It’s a very strange time for all of us whether you are out there with key services on the frontline or at home, working or with the uncertainty of a job to go back to.
It’s a very strange time for all of us whether you are out there with key services on the frontline or at home, working or with the uncertainty of a job to go back to.
My work as a Personal Travel Consultant abruptly stopped, but my passion to connect and support people remains and when, prior to Lockdown, an amazing lady organised a team of volunteers to support the vulnerable in our local community, I didn’t hesitate to do my bit. I thoroughly enjoy the activity and it gives me the opportunity to use my communication and admin skills.
In more normal times I work with quite a few Networking groups and am the co-founder of our own group, Network & Thrive (N&T), so it was particularly important to me that this activity continued to maintain dialogue and those social and business connections that will be so important in the future. It is especially important in these uncertain times to support everyone, colleagues and clients who are suffering through lack of the usual personal interactions, so without hesitation our meetings went online, and a new routine was established.
We didn’t leave it to just routine meetings, prior to the lockdown we had been planning to host an event to raise funds for the amazing children’s charity, The Movement Centre, and to maintain that commitment we utilised the 2.6 Challenge, which was established to replace the annual fundraising usually generated by the London Marathon and set up a meeting to discuss the opportunity and options available. The N&T guys are a lovely bunch of people and there was no question, time was allocated to make it happen, the challenge was met with individual’s party pieces completed live on Facebook on the 26th April. I duplicated this process with my local Rotary club and we came up with a challenge that made it possible for contributions from any member in the area, no matter their age or capability to submit front line heroes artwork to raise funds for various charities and formed the basis for reconnecting members online to re-establish our meeting.
With newly developed online meeting skills I reached out to connect to friends old and new by using Facebook to issue a general invitation for a ‘Virtual Coffee’ every Monday afternoon at 3pm. Open to everyone, not just those in business, it has led to people meeting friends they haven’t seen in years as well as people that they would probably never have met in normal day to day life.
It’s been brilliant!
Throughout this very peculiar time I have supported and been supported to keep a positive mindset by my family and close friends, my amazing N&T group, and the lovely people from BNI Darwin.
I’d love to know if you’ve been able to keep contact with your business connections and how, and indeed, who has helped you through this difficult time. If you’re looking to connect with new people, please feel free to take a look at my Facebook or LinkedIn pages and join me for a ‘Virtual Coffee, every Monday for the foreseeable future, at 3pm. I am there for the hour and you are welcome to join anytime in that hour for however long you are free.
If Monday at 3pm doesn’t work for you, I ‘m very happy to look at opening another session that makes more sense for you, either way I’d love to hear from you. In fact, if you have a business need to arrange on-line meetings and struggle with the technology, don’t hesitate to contact me and we can discuss how I can help.
In these very uncertain times, it’s difficult to see any positives, but I have come across people who have found some positives to hold on to and sustain them. My most significant positive has been overcoming the nerves associated with initiating, managing, and hosting video calls, and now it’s a daily occurrence and has expanded my circle of contacts, meeting some very interesting and engaging new friends. It’s also given me the time to focus on my website and now have this great site live, thanks to Sarah Hepburn at Sezza Design.
What positives have you found, and will you endeavour to maintain them in the future, when this is over?
I’d love to hear from you and look forward to your comments.
Kristie Norris
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A VA is generally self-employed and provides professional administrative, technical, or creative (social) assistance to clients remotely, usually from a suitably equipped home office. VAs come in all shapes and sizes, there is no one size fits all, we all have good general admin. skills but always specialise in one or two disciplines for our own satisfaction and sanity, and provide the expertise that most benefits our clients. The best service isn’t provided by a ‘Jack or Jill of all trades’, clients come in many different forms and have diverse and varied needs and expectations, so it’s better to provide a focused and bespoke service, and adapt to the real needs of the customer. It’s always good working with someone who loves what they do and isn’t bogged down or stressed by a workload that doesn’t provide any form of stimulus or engagement. VAs give you time to concentrate on what you do best None of what I do is rocket science, but it does one very important thing, it gives you access to a range of expertise and experiences that you may or may not have, an extra hand without all the rigmarole and costs associated with employing and integrating a new member of staff. VAs release time for you to concentrate on what you do best, your business, we can provide a listening ear and sounding board for your issues and ideas, and when you work on your own that’s a nice thing to have. As a VA, no two days are the same, and I’d like to share what I’ve been doing for my client’s and give you an insight into me and what it’s like to be a VA and the unseen background work that makes the service worthwhile. A Typical day for me Here’s a typical day for me, hour by hour, calls, contract preparation and estimates for new clients, marketing, networking, writing newsletters, keeping website up to date, billable client work, etc..
I’m not one of those people who is blessed with oodles of confidence, despite any outward impressions some people may form, I am on the other hand someone who has always been there for others, a friend, a confidant and support. I’ve always found it difficult to move outside of my comfort zone and be a self promoter. That doesn’t mean that I’m a pushover or inadequate, I’m strong willed, positive and a happy workhorse.
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