From Classroom Teacher to Full time VA with Michelle Walker | 49
This week’s inspiring teacherpreneur journey is with Michelle Walker. I loved chatting with her about her virtual assistant business and how she got started. We had such a great convo about teaching, running a business, and even becoming a mom during the pandemic.
Michelle is a teacher turned Virtual Assistant. After her maternity leave, she decided to start her freelance business in the midst of the pandemic while still teaching remotely full-time. Her goal was to be able to work from home and be with her son. She began her business journey working with TpT sellers and other teacherprenuers. Now, Michelle has officially left the classroom and is close to being overbooked in her business, providing virtual assistant services to a variety of different clients.
We chat all about…
how Michelle got started
what it was like teaching remotely and balancing her business
how she became a first-time mom during the pandemic
And so much more! This is an inspiring story you don't want to miss!
Connect with Michelle Walker
Instagram: @heymichellewalker
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Episode Transcript:
Hey there, I'm Jenzaia and this is Market, Scale, Grow. A podcast created for ambitious teacherpreneurs looking to have a bigger impact on the world, achieve freedom, flexibility, and ultimately make more money with weekly strategy sessions and inspiring stories from fellow teachers just like you, my goal here is to help you create a customized marketing strategy so you can grow your teacher business beyond your wildest dreams.
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Jenzaia: Welcome to market, scale, grow today. I'm talking with Michelle. She is my podcast VA manager. I don't think we have an official title, but, um, I'm excited to have you here. Hi.
Michelle: Hi Jenzaia. I am super excited to be here. Thank you for having me.
Jenzaia: Yay. So, can you tell everyone a little bit more about who you are, where you're from and if you are still teaching, if you're in the classroom, what's happening there?
Michelle: Sure. So I'm Michelle Walker. I am a virtual assistant and I actually work with Jenzaia, which is super exciting and a reason why I am very happy to be here. I help out with the podcast. So extra special to be on market scale, grow today. I live in Massachusetts with my husband and my son and our rescue dog.
I have been a teacher since it feels like forever, but I'm actually not in the classroom this year. This is my first year not returning to school other than my maternity leave last year, but I actually resigned from my teaching position over the summer. And I had started my virtual assistant business earlier this year, which I'm sure we'll dive more into, but that's where I'm at.
I am no longer a teacher, just a business work at home mom.
Jenzaia: Yay. When you were teaching, I don't actually know the answer to this. What did you teach?
Michelle: I was teaching third grade for the past four years. I was a regular education teacher, but I also had the special education inclusion students with me.
Prior to that, I worked as a special education teacher for a year, grades two through four, in a. pretty unique, setting. It was a substantially separate classroom. Um, and then prior to that, I was actually an instructional, paraprofessional for four years in another district. So I've been in several grades and have worked in a few different schools and I've always loved teaching and working with.
Jenzaia: What made you decide to leave the classroom starting this teacherpreneur journey?
Michelle: Yeah, so I have a pretty neat story, I guess maybe it's just neat to me, but I had been, you know, kind of wondering if there was ever anything else out there prior to these past couple of years with the pandemic and stuff.
Last summer, my son was born. And that was obviously during the pandemic. So this previous school year I was working virtually from home teaching live on zoom every day. But I was home with my son, so I essentially got to be with him for his first year of life. And in that time I realized that I did not want to miss a thing in his life.
So it was actually earlier this year, about halfway through the school year, I started Googling ways to work from home, and long story short, I kind of stumbled upon this world of freelancing. I found a course, uh, Overwhelmed to Overbook by McKayla Quinn. Fabulous course, all about freelancing, all about starting your own business.
And I decided to dive in headfirst while I was teaching full time. Learned the ins and outs of freelancing and running your own business and how to land clients and that sort of thing. So I actually. Started my business while full-time teaching with the ultimate goal of being able to leave the classroom and launch my business full-time.
So my son is my reason for doing it and being able to be with him, and have a more flexible and free kind of lifestyle. And, you know, that's kind of why I went this route.
Jenzaia: I love it. I love hearing these stories and of like the, how the pandemic affected you and having your son. When was he born?
Michelle: June 27th. My little summer baby.
Jenzaia: Because my daughter was at the end of May. I believe are our little ones are close in age. Yeah. So having that pandemic baby. That’s totally a thing.
Michelle: And he was my firstborn. So
Jenzaia: my goodness, I'm sorry.
Michelle: Well, I mean, as I said, I guess it's my silver lining with COVID and such is I got to be home with him, whereas otherwise I'd be in the classroom and I wouldn't have gotten that time with him.
Jenzaia: How has your business changed since you decided to start? And now I would still say we're probably in the beginning phase. But like, how has it changed and grown in these past few months for you?
Michelle: Yeah. So just like a quick timeline, I bought the course to learn to freelance at the end of March. So we're at the time of this recording, about six months out from them.
And I started landing clients with a lot of TPTers in June and July. I landed my first retainer client. which is pretty neat. Since then, I've actually landed more of those monthly retainers, which has really allowed me to put in my resignation with teaching, go full-time with my business and, I'd say we're still kind of in the starting phase, but I also feel like I'm growing in the sense where I'm getting close to maybe booking out and, or looking at like, what are some next steps that I'd like to do with my business?
So we're like somewhere in. In that middle area, but I'm definitely happy with where I'm at, as far as the timeline of how everything went down for me in those six months. And, um, you know, prior to that, not even knowing what a virtual assistant was and now being a virtual assistant and being super happy with what I'm doing. I'd, I'd have to say I'm happy with how it's changed and evolved over those six months.
Jenzaia: Is there a service that you're leaning towards? That you like doing better, or this is a surprise question.
Michelle: So it is a surprise question, but I've, I've done so many different, you know, tasks as a VA. You know, I've worked with your podcast. I do a little help with another client's podcast. I've helped with, you know, TBT resources. I've done social media, I've done, you know, a lot of general admin stuff. And, you know, I'll go into it one day and be like, gosh, I really love the podcast stuff. Maybe I'll niche down to that. And then the next day I'll be like, but you know, I really love this kind of behind-the-scenes general admin.
So I really, you know, I love social media. I love all I've been moving and other clients, you know, course from one platform to another, I like a lot of the behind-the-scenes stuff. And I feel that kind of really. Everything that I'm doing. So no great answer here. I kind of like everything. So I think as I keep working with my business, doing different tasks with clients, maybe that'll become more apparent, apparent, but I'm happy with the work I'm doing now.
So there's no real niche at the moment. It's good that you're enjoying everything though, and trying a little bit of everything. So. You can say like, yes, I like this, or no, I definitely don't want to ever do that again. Exactly. And I'm learning so much in the process, different software, different tools.
I'm learning which ones I like more than others. So it's been actually really beneficial and, you know, working with TP tears, but then I've also, I'm also working with clients that are in the wedding industry, which is super interesting to me having planned my own wedding a couple of years ago. Um, I help another client.
She fosters dogs and I help her on social media, get the dogs adopted. So like that's a really neat thing to do. Yeah. So it's hard for me to, pinpoint what I like doing the most when I'm honestly enjoying it all.
Jenzaia: As I said, that's such a good place to be where you're actually enjoying what you're doing and you have a good life work-life balance, and yeah.
What have been some of like milestones or challenges that you faced along the way?
Michelle: Gosh, I guess when I signed up for this route of being a business owner and running my own gig here, I knew it wasn't going to be easy by any means, and that has held very true. Um, but as far as milestones, I think just actually.
Investing in myself and going forward with it, right. Starting my own business. Getting that business certificate in the mail was probably the coolest thing. Um, being able to resign from my teaching position, was a huge milestone for me. It was kind of a leap of faith at the time because I wasn't exactly where I needed to be as far as income, you know, to continue supporting my family and such, but.
I took that leap of faith. I knew what I was doing. And since then, I think I landed four retainer clients. So that leads me to my next milestone, which is being one client away from either matching or surpassing my teacher income, which obviously was one of my goals going into this. Right. And. At this time of recording, right?
We're almost at the end of September. And I'm exactly where I want it to be. So that was a huge milestone for me to meet.
Jenzaia: That's amazing. That's so exciting. And I think sometimes that like jumping in. Our plan without parachute forces, you to do all of the things and sign those clients and make it happen because you don't have any other choice.
Michelle: Exactly. I kind of went by this motto and dash, whoever said this quote originally, I'm sorry. I'm probably butchering it, but. I kind of went by this, want it so bad that it's not an option to fail mentality and it's served me well because I'm exactly where I need to be
Jenzaia: since this is a marketing podcast. How, if at all, because I don't really, but how, if at all, are you marketing your business?
Michelle: So you're probably not going to like the answer to my question, but I actually have not marketed At all. But there's a reason for that. So let me explain when I decided to start my own business, I kept it a secret from everyone except my husband and my mom.
So sorry to my brother, sorry to my dad. You know, the rest of my family, actually, a lot of my family probably still might not even know, but I'll tell them. My dad knows. Now my brother knows now it's okay, but I didn't tell anyone. So I wanted to feel comfortable and confident in what I was doing before I put myself out there.
So I had started my Instagram business page. I had started my Facebook business page, but I never actually got to publish it or like go public. Because I had not gone public with it to some of the most important people in my life. I was, you know, just hustling, hustling to get my business going. And, um, I kind of, it kind of just worked out for me that I had, you know, kind of kept my eye on positions that were going up and putting myself out there.
So I never actually needed to market for where I'm at now. Being that I would like to see my business grow in the future. I'm sure that stage will come and at least I'm lucky enough to know you and exactly where to come when it comes to the time to market.
Jenzaia: I think that with service-based businesses, it's very common to not do any marketing, to not have that social media presence, to not have an email list because. Referrals are huge. And then that hustle mentality that you're talking about, just putting yourself out there for jobs that come up in Facebook groups, um, and other positions, like other places like job boards and stuff. So I don't think that it's actually that uncommon or that crazy that you have been able to almost get booked out completely without doing any real type of marketing.
Michelle: Yeah, it was kind of surprising to me actually, because I thought I would have to use that in order to gain those clients, to get to where I needed to be, but for where I'm at and for what I'm doing, it worked out just fine. And I know enough now that when the time comes, if, and when I do need to market, I have a little taste of knowing how and who to connect with and. You know what I should be doing.
Jenzaia: Absolutely. And like you said before, being able to interact with a whole bunch of different software and platforms, being able to say, like, this one really works with my brain and this one doesn't or whatever this one has the features I need. So you'll have a little bit of an up on the market when it does become time.
Michelle: Exactly. And like I said, I'm lucky enough that I've worked. With these different clients and have gotten experience in a lot of that different software
Jenzaia: Rapid fire. Ooh, favorite social media platform either personally or professionally.
Michelle: So, you know, and I knew these questions were coming.
If you asked me a year ago, I probably would've said Facebook, but I got to go with Instagram. I just, I love kind of like seeing the day in the life of people and connecting with people that way, but I also can't get enough of the reels.
Jenzaia: There's so addicting. It's bad. It's bad, but yes. I agree. I will. I have timers on my phone and, well, sorry. I have a timer set on Instagram. It's the only app that I can get sucked into for hours and hours and hours. And I'll be like, okay, you have 15 minutes to find a music recorder reel and publish it. And then you can have another 15 minutes to do all of the like interacting and stuff.
Yep. 15 minutes will go by. And I'll still just be scrolling and I'm like, how did you waste 15 minutes just scrolling through reels. It doesn't feel like 15 minutes. It feels like 30 seconds every time.
Michelle: If only I could limit myself to 15 minutes.
Jenzaia: Oh, I don't. I just press it says like your time's up. And I go, okay. Extend time. Another 15 minutes on limits for today. Let's stop this nonsense.
Michelle: Oh my God.
Jenzaia: what's your favorite tool or software to use in your business?
Michelle: I guess I'm a little bit old-fashioned. I love pen and paper, but if I have to talk about a, you know, tool with technology, I like to organize myself with Trello. I like Voxer for communication, and I also like old-fashioned. Zoom's pretty handy. I really like Asana. I can't pick a favorite. I don't, I actually, I really like it. I like the way it's organized? I like the ease of the checklist. It's all in one spot. It works with. It really works with my brain too. And I've tried a lot of them. I tried Trello, which I like the visual of travel that you can put images in there and that you can see the image. I really liked that, but other, I don't know, there was something, it was just missing.
Jenzaia: I've tried Click Up for like two days and I don't think I gave it enough time, but I don't, it didn't work for me. I tried monday.com. Didn't work for me. Um, there was one more, 17Hats. But I just keep coming back to Asana.
Michelle: Just for the overall picture storage, everything can go in there. It's all in one spot and it gives you the notifications you need, which I like Trello doesn't, or at least I, well, no, you can set deadlines in Trello too. They're both good Trello and Asana.
Jenzaia: And then what advice would you give to someone who is just starting out on this.
Michelle: Oh, gosh, honestly, I would say just keep pushing, um, for someone who I guess is still newer to the journey, imposter syndrome is real self-doubt is real. Um, but if you keep going and keep pushing, you know, remember your why, why you started doing this and you'll, you'll get there. It's all so possible. Um, and if you go into the mentality of it not being an option to fail, keep pushing, keep pushing. It will come to you. It will work out.
Jenzaia: I love that answer, so good. Okay. Thank you so much for joining me on the podcast. If people would like to find you, where's the best place?
Michelle: Well, you can find me on my Instagram, which is now reminding me that I need to do some social media for myself.
I'm @heymichellewalker.
Jenzaia: Awesome. Well, thank you again.
Thank you for listening to this week's inspiring story. If you'd like to share your story with us, then head to marketscalegrow.com/journey and complete the quick application form. Then, head to our community at marketscalegrow.com/community so you can join our group of inspiring teacherpreneurs who are working on growing and scaling their businesses, too. See you soon.