Lead Like A Queen Coaching and Consulting, LLC

Category: remote work

  • What Makes Me Nervous? Remote Work is H.A.R.D.

    What Makes Me Nervous? Remote Work is H.A.R.D.

    Daily writing prompt
    What makes you nervous?
    View all responses

    Why Am I Continuing to Be a Remote Work Entrepreneur Despite It Being H.A.R.D.?

    Even though entrepreneurship as a remote worker scares me and makes me nervous, I am continuing to do it anyway because:

    • The success is mine all mine, just as much as any failure or hardship is mine when it happens.
    • My personal and professional growth has been accelerated by the constant challenges I face – facing my fears breeds growth. That’s very personally satisfying for me.
    • I am constantly learning and growing, and as a naturally curious person (aka a nerd), this is ideal for me mentally.
    • My time is mine all mine, sort of, I have a bit more flexibility than I would have as a new person in a new job.
    • I love being supportive as a coach/mentor to new agents and seeing their transformation and growth as they overcome their own fears and go after their goals. Honestly, this was one of my goals before I ever started this work, so fulfilling the goal of being a coach/mentor has been a win for me.

    Why does remote work entrepreneurship make me nervous?

    Remote Work Entrepreneurship is H.A.R.D. Everything falls on your own shoulders, both the good and the bad, the success and the failure. You are responsible for

    List of Responsibilities for an Entrepreneur:

    • license, registration, or certification: if you do not remember to register, to renew, to re-certify, or whatever’s required for your business structure or contract, then your business could be in jeopardy
    • taxes: no one pays your taxes for you but you, and if you don’t pay now, you’ll pay a lot more later
    • invoicing: to make sure you actually get paid by your clients you have to do the work to submit the invoices to them in a timely manner
    • assets, equipment, and inventory: you have to make sure everything you need to keep the business up and running is taken care of or purchased in a timely manner to meet business needs
    • insurance: you have to make sure your business is protected in case of disaster or crime
    • bills: if you don’t pay them, they won’t get paid, and then your business could suffer and/or be shut down

    Are you interested in a more detailed list of my actual bills, taxes, expenses, and other responsibilities as I continue my journey with a micro-small business as an Independent LiveOps agent? If you want to give me quick feedback, use this survey to give me feedback:

  • Free Business Tips for Remote Workers

    Free Business Tips for Remote Workers

    If you look in the menu bar area of this blog website (or click here) you can grab a free copy of my business tips document. It was created to help support new independent LiveOps agents who have been coming on board to work as part of the team I am on. I wrote this because I am a successful remote worker who has been mentoring other remote workers to help them become successful, also.

    If you choose to share the business tips document, please remember to share the whole document so I can receive proper attribution for my work. (This document contains a Creative Commons share-alike license.)

    NEW JOURNAL NOW IN ONLINE STORE! You can also now purchase the Transformation Journal for Remote Workers, which contains more than just tips, it gives you guidance for goal setting and planning your independent remote worker business.

    ~ Coach Donna Marie

    I am still enjoying my work as an independent LiveOps agent, and it still comes with its challenges, like every other part of life. One of the most recent challenges was that I had some health challenges I was recovering from, and this interrupted my work schedule. I made the mistake of not tracking my time properly… but not anymore. I developed a tracker to help me do better.

    While recovering my health, the main challenge I had was being able to sit for more than an hour. So, I had to stagger my shifts more so that I could take more frequent breaks. This was devastating for my ability to keep track of my hours in my head like I used to do. I had to pivot to using my own tracking system so that I could compare my records to the client’s records to ensure none of my very scattered disorganized shifts were missed.

    Now that I am feeling better, I am using the tracking system to help me ramp up my work more so that I can achieve higher goals. So, the tracking started as a necessity to prevent a crisis, and now I have been able to pivot it as a planner to help me be more proactive with goal setting. If you’d like a copy of the tracking template, let me know so that I can make that available through my online store, also.

    Would you like more content about remote work? I also have provided some of my insights about remote work on my medium blog which is at LeadLikeAQueen.Medium.com

  • Finally! I Updated My LiveOps Testimonial

    Finally! I Updated My LiveOps Testimonial

    For those of you who may have been interested in my updated testimonial about my experience of becoming an Independent LiveOps Agent, the original testimonial from last year is at this link. And the newly updated story from after I was an agent for over 1.5 years is at this medium link.

    In both articles, I shared my genuine testimonial of my own experience. And in the newer article, I also shared a testimonial from someone else who I referred that was accepted by a LiveOps client and has been working in her very own Independent LiveOps Agent business for a little while now. I would love to share more details like the names of the people and of the clients, but I am maintaining professional confidentiality.

    If you register to become a LiveOps agent (use my referral link if you like), then I would be able to share more details with you as a fellow agent and can introduce you to other agents. The most important thing I love about LiveOps is that I am part of a real community of real people that I know care about me. They show me each and every weekday. I am so very grateful. Have a look at that new article to see more about why I say this.

    ENCOURAGEMENT FOR REMOTE WORKERS AND SELF-EMPLOYED

    If you’re a person who has been experiencing some type of trauma, crisis, or hardship, and you refuse to give up hope that you can still set big goals for yourself and even have your own business to work from home, you might also enjoy hearing my podcast to learn more about why I chose this kind of work. The podcast is called “Plant Your Seeds of Transformation” and is on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and most other podcast platforms. In one of the episodes, I shared about what you can do to let go of money shame so that it won’t keep making you feel bad about yourself and keep you stuck in bad cycles.

    When you’re starting a new venture or an unconventional type of work, like remote work, sometimes you need as much encouragement as you can get. I hope you’ll check out the podcast show, check out the new article, and share if you find value in what I’m sharing through my writing and podcasting.

    I hope all is well for you and yours. Thanks for reading.

    ~ Coach Donna Marie

  • [FALL WINTER UPDATE – TESTIMONIAL] Becoming A LiveOps Agent

    [FALL WINTER UPDATE – TESTIMONIAL] Becoming A LiveOps Agent

    Why and How I Became a Product Coach & Remote Customer Service Agent

    SCROLL DOWN FOR MOST RECENT UPDATES ABOUT MY JOURNEY AS LIVEOPS AGENT

    REFERRAL LINK FOR JOINING LIVEOPS*: CLICK HERE

    FALL-WINTER UPDATE 2022

    NOTE – What to expect in 2023: I will be incorporating more content related to the topic of remote work/business in my YouTube channel and podcast. Also, I will be adding some exclusive remote work content to my Patreon community for patrons only.

    I have been very busy training and working with a new client so I just was not able to really update this blog very much. Also, now I’m waiting to hear if I am going to be picked up by a second client.

    So things are going well and moving forward for me. I also have referred at least three new people who have applied because of what I have been sharing.

    Everybody’s process with developing their own remote customer service independent business is different. What I am sharing here and also on my Instagram videos (@LeadLikeAQueen) is to give you a little bit of insight into my journey, but you will have your own journey. If you connect with me on Instagram, I hope that you will share about your journey.

    MY BACK STORY

    After I finished my master of arts in executive leadership in 2021, I could see so many different paths to take with my career and my business, and that plethora of options actually became overwhelming. I applied for a lot of jobs in different industries with different titles, and where all could use my skill sets as a coach and a small business owner. I will say that I wasn’t extremely excited about many of those jobs that I found, but at the very least, I tried to target the companies that I liked the most in terms of their corporate culture and corporate responsibility.

    Why did I choose to become a remote customer service agent with LiveOps?

    Initially I wanted a remote customer service job simply because of the flexibility and freedom of doing my own business from home and getting paid by a major corporation. During and after the actual training for the job it became more about helping people, and less about the money, even though that financial piece is still high on my list of priorities.

    Because I’m already very familiar with their product, I felt very confident that I would be able to learn well during the training and use what I learned to help their customers with excellence. Also, prior to choosing to work for this client, I had an opportunity to preview their training and knew the quality of the training was on par with what I needed and expected. I did my own due diligence before choosing this path because this was not my first time choosing a remote customer service position. I was with a previous remote customer service company, and the training was not as good as this training, so I felt like I wasted my time with the other company and didn’t want that to happen again.

    Please note that the training for this type of position is not paid, but it is lengthy, detailed, and rigorous, so if you’re not confident that this is the work you want to do, that training period could be very frustrating.

    After actually getting on the phones with the customers, I can see how my skills as a coach are coming into play. I am very happy that this particular client is very focused on soft skills, which is an area of strength for me. It feels good to be valued for my strengths. Similar positions I’ve sought in the past were very focused on the products and the technology, and not as much towards helping people as towards selling. So, it was a pleasant surprise to see that it is different here.

    “I love that I’m being rewarded for focusing on people and helping them, and not just for trying to get them to purchase more products.”

    ~ Donna Marie Johnson, Product Coach / Customer Service Agent

    When I’ve interviewed for lots of different jobs and applied for lots of different jobs, it always felt like I was just tweaking my resume to fit into whatever container they wanted me to fit into, instead of me just highlighting what I’m already strong in that would align well with the position being offered.

    HIGH-QUALITY TRAINING

    I would say that I also came to respect their training process and trust that they care about me as a person enough to give me the support I need for improving over time. I feel like they have realistic expectations that I can fulfill now and can improve for going forward. So this also speaks to my own mental health journey, which I’ve shared about in my blog, podcast, and interviews. It’s important for me to stay away from toxic perfectionism, so having work that aligns well with this part of my priorities is super important to me.

    The care that this corporate culture shows towards the customers is extended to the agents and I appreciate that. And this culture is very balanced with a rigorous environment that expects us to set high standards for our own performance, while at the same time, we are provided with the training and metrics reporting we need to continue improving our performance over time.

    Furthermore, they are super committed to also keep improving the training process and the way that they run this program. Seeing their devotion to an iterative (or continuous improvement) process gave me confidence to know that this is the right kind of company with a good culture that cares about the people and about excellence, but not at the expense of the people.

    The process of training and doing this work is very rigorous, and in the midst of it all they show they care by making sure that I and fellow agents have what we need to do our best and I appreciate that. Even so, the handholding here is limited and so anyone who is not able to stay self-motivated and to continue improving their own performance will not do well here. The other agents are often very supportive, and so we come together in groups to chat and help each other and give each other advice and encouragement, but these groups are comprised of individuals who have their own businesses that literally have to compete for some of this work. So, if you happen to find a good group with people that are good-hearted and willing to help you, you need to reciprocate and be willing to help in that group, as well. It’s not good to just get in these types of groups to get support and never offer support, it needs to be reciprocal.

    Again the training is very rigorous and not everyone responds well to this type of rigor. Also this client is very popular and so agents have to compete to get the work. Not everyone is up for this type of competitive situation.

    So I would never set you up to think that this is a perfect situation for everyone, however I am sure it’s a great situation for a lot of people because I am only one of many happy new agents, and that doesn’t even include those agents who have been doing this work for over 20 years. I have been so blessed to get to know some of the more senior agents.

    I am a person who is well known for keeping personal and proprietary information confidential. I have worked in the mental health arena, in corporate executive headquarters, and of course in my own business for clients. Therefore I cannot talk details about my work, but I am sharing transparently on the things I can speak on without breaking confidence.

    UPDATE (8/21/2022)

    I am, as always, going to share the authentic truth and reality with you, without disclosing proprietary or confidential information. So, to be honest, even though the hot season for the client was lucrative for me, things quickly cooled. As a result, despite my performance and being praised by management, I was removed from serving that client due to lack of hours which is a breach of contract. CAVEAT: No work was available to me for at least two months (not my fault). Despite this, I continued to check in and check for hours, but nothing was there (absolutely nothing … and they know that and they warned us of that). I held onto the position thinking that things would be picking up in the fall, but now that seems to be out of reach due to the removal. I feel that removing me is short-sighted and unfair because the lack of hours was not within my control, but, alas, it’s all about that contract. This is a business, after all, so I get that. However, I am a human being and would love to know that other human beings have their eyes on the situation and will give me some consideration. So, I await a response to my email. I will update this if I hear back.

    Just be forewarned that if you decide to work with a client, be careful about attaining the required hours as listed in the contract, even if there are little to no hours available. And if there are none available, you may want to move on to another client, instead of sticking around to wait for another peak season, as I have done.

    Regarding moving on to other clients…

    I did try to get in with many other clients, and, unfortunately, they just did not have enough spaces for all of the applicants (the CEO told us this himself). So, then I had to move on to other things, like getting back in school to finish my MBA in Executive Coaching. I also had to make a shift in my schedule due to a shift in my family’s schedule. So, after the first several tries, I was no longer able to commit to a new client due to the rigorous unpaid training requirements conflicting with my new schedule. So, again, I was waiting to due another bout of seasonal work for the same client, but now this looks unlikely.

    LIVE UPDATES VIA INSTAGRAM (@LeadLikeAQueen)

    For the most current updates, connect with me on Instagram and check my stories/reels. Here is a live I did recently about what’s been going on:

    Next Steps…

    Now that my summer semester is finished and my family’s schedule seems to be more predictable, my next steps will be to start applying for new clients (and re-apply for the old one). I will be able to fit a two-week unpaid training into my schedule now, so I am optimistic about this. Also, they recently announced that they’re expecting a lot more work to become available this Fall. If you’re interested, use my referral link below… and stay tuned for my updates.

    If you want to apply for a remote customer service job*, use my referral link below:

    (*Note: This is a 1099 contract job.)

    WOULD YOU LIKE SUPPORT FROM COACH DONNA MARIE?

    If you want coaching support as you move forward with your life, career and business, use the links below:

    VA and Remote Worker Coaching | Lead Like A Queen | Lead Like A Queen