Lead Like A Queen Coaching and Consulting, LLC

Tag: leadership

  • VA Training and Internship

    VA Training and Internship

    [UPDATE: Program is no longer available, but I have other good news for you… read below. ]

    I am truly grateful for my experience as an administrative assistant over the past 20+ years and as a virtual assistant (VA) in the marketing arena over the past decade. It has enabled me to continue using my marketing skills and to keep learning and improving because marketing changes pretty much every day due to constant technology changes. This has helped me in my business as a coach and consultant. I have been able to train other entrepreneurs and support them with moving their projects forward [See testimonials].

    [UPDATE FOR 2022]

    And now I am using my VA experience as a coach for VA’s and a mentor to remote workers. I am no longer doing any VA training, just VA coaching, but I can refer you to an awesome ~VA certification program that can support you with actually gaining clients.

    Old News

    Starting Tuesday 9/21, I will be starting the first weekly VA training with my VA interns who will reimburse me for their training by working as unpaid interns. This is a great way for them to get experience as they learn, while also helping me to keep improving my business without continuing to do everything all on my own. This is the manifestation of something that’s been in my heart for years. If you cannot tell, I am very excited about this and looking forward to building my team of interns.

    If you’d like to apply for an internship position, please go to my one page profile and request an appointment at this link:

    AuthorDonnaMarie.com

    Frequently Asked Questions:

    • Is there a fee for the VA training program?
      • VA Interns, after agreeing to do unpaid work for an hour for every hour of training they participate in, will receive a 100% coupon discount for training.
      • If non-interns want to attend the training, yes there is a fee.
    • How do I apply to be a VA intern?
      • Schedule an interview appointment with Donna.
      • This internship program is no longer offered, please see the VA certification link shared in the article above.
    • What kind of work do VA’s do?
      • In general, a virtual assistant (VA) can do a variety of things from replying to emails to searching google for information and more.
      • Specifically, my VA interns have the opportunity to get training and do work that aligns with the work that I do. At this time, my focus is on the volunteer work I am doing as a support group founder for spousal caregivers.

    DISCLOSURE – AFFILIATE LINKS

    *Note: Affiliate Links are included in my website so that I can be compensated for referring my audience to awesome services, books, and products that I have used and that I have received value from. If you choose to click and use them for yourself, thank you in advance for trusting me and for supporting my business.

  • Why Do You Keep Insisting on Doing It All By Yourself?

    Why Do You Keep Insisting on Doing It All By Yourself?

    Help is available when you’re ready. VA Support: I am available for about 20 hours per week to provide virtual assistant support, especially for implementing your marketing tasks or doing your market research. I also have supported clients with editing and publishing via Amazon Kindle. I no longer offer VA services, but I know who does certifications for VA’s (~click here). I also coach VA’s to support them with developing their leadership skills.

    Marketing is easier with help.
    I learned a BIG lesson: get. help. ASAP

    So many leaders, especially women leaders, keep learning about all of the latest and greatest marketing tips, tricks, and tools AND then trying to do most of the tasks on their own. They aren’t being taught how to start incorporating the new things with what they’re already doing in business and at home. So, they either end up stressed and overwhelmed OR totally sidetracked from the main thing they wanted to do to help their clients. I know because, in the past, that was totally me.

    So my answer to the question in this article title comes from own experience:

    I used to keep trying to do everything on my own because I kept going to free webinars that kept telling me that I could do it all on my own. But those people teaching me didn’t have several kids and a disabled adult at home to take care of. All of the free trials and all of the free basic accounts I kept getting access to did not fully help in my unique situation.

    So then I hired a team of folks to help me support my clients, and then I couldn’t grow my business because of my limited business knowledge. So, I chose to close things down and go to business school at a Christian university.

    The motivation for going it alone was sometimes due to feeling like I needed to prove myself as an entrepreneur. As a stay-at-home mom and a spousal caregiver, I just can’t try to keep proving myself. Being in school has boosted my confidence as a business leader, and has helped me to develop my spiritual life more. I truly have greater trust in the Lord to help me with my career and business aspirations.

    So, the need to chase all of the free marketing tool webinars is gone… the temptation is always there because I am constantly getting invitations, but now I just say no with ease. And the temptation to try to walk in the pride of looking like I can handle everything on my own is also gone because it exhausts me to even think about trying that again.

    Also, in the past, when I was neglecting to expand my team, sometimes it was just a cost savings measure. Sometimes it was a trust issue thing because I knew that I could do some things better on my own and didn’t want to have to go behind someone to fix or redo the work. But now, with learning from my coaches, I know how to pick and choose which tasks I should and shouldn’t be delegating. There are some things that I just cannot let anyone else do because they’re my strengths.

    Honestly, I finally got to a place of being burnt out and stressed out and snapping at my loved ones. I got tired of going through the cycles of burnout. I learned that I didn’t have to run my business or my life in burnout mode. I finally started getting the coaching support I needed that was more relevant to my lifestyle as a mom who’s constantly facing the struggle of the juggle… managing multiple roles at home, in addition to my academic career and my business.

    RESOURCE REFERRAL: WHO HAS BEEN HELPING ME MANAGE THINGS BETTER?

    One of my business coaches actually gets what the struggle of the juggle is like. She was a brand new mom when she started building her new business. She’s a pro that rejects all of that free bad advice that is not relevant to the kind of lifestyles that mom entrepreneurs lead. I watched her free webinar*, and it is full of pretty much everything you need to thrive in your business even though you have so much going on at home. If you watch it, let me know how it helped you.

    DON’T KNOW ME, YET?

    Use my one page profile to learn more about me at:

    AuthorDonnaMarie.com

    Donna Marie Johnson, @leadlikeaqueen
    Donna Marie Johnson @leadlikeaqueen

    KNOW ME AND LIKE ME?

    If you already know me and are ready to get started getting virtual assistant support with marketing tasks, go to this link:

    VA Services Page

    (See the link I inserted near the top of this article for a VA certification that could help you become a sought after VA and/or can help you find a certified VA.)

    ~Note: Affiliate Links are included in my website so that I can be compensated for referring my audience to awesome services, books, and products that I have used and that I have received value from. If you choose to click and use them for yourself, thank you in advance for trusting me and for supporting my business in this way.

  • I Can See the Light

    I Can See the Light

    The light at the end of the tunnel is getting brighter and brighter for…

    *finishing degree

    *finding new team members for the personal care side of our team

    *revamping and rebooting the Lead Like A Queen events (after the New Year)

    As I said in the previous article about my New Season of Service in Newnan, this has been a good time for growing trust in Divine Guidance every step of the way with each area of life and business. In the past, I’ve been very impatient with my process, and it has ruined my enjoyment of my journey. So, I am enjoying the journey this time, and it’s very refreshing.

    Trusting Divine Guidance helps me give myself permission to rest, and this restfulness mindset infuses a different flavor into the journey this time around. God is good to me, and it tastes so good. I am grateful that not only am I seeing the light, but I am feeling lighter, too.

    One part of my process that’s different is that I have a rest coach who has been helping me to develop my restfulness mindset. As a caregiver, I have learned that neglecting myself and not getting enough rest is not just unhealthy, but deadly. Unfortunately, I have watched other caregivers literally work themselves into their early graves (this includes my own father). I made a decision to learn from their mistakes.

    In the future, I hope to share more about my journey as a young spousal caregiver and to encourage other young spousal caregivers, especially those who are also still raising children. There are so many dynamics at play when you’re still raising a family while you’re caregiving. This is not the time for me to get into that, but I plan to share more in the future.

    Finally, because I am in the home stretch to finish my degree, I will not be posting as much online for the rest of this year. However, I plan to come back next year stronger and with much more focus. So, for now, check out the archived blog articles, past videos and podcasts, and follow me on most social media under the alias @leadlikeaqueen and on LinkedIn under my name. To make it easy to find my social media pages, use the one page profile I created at the link in my signature below.

    Thank you for reading. God bless you.

    ~ Donna Marie Johnson

    AuthorDonnaMarie.com

  • New Season of Service in Newnan

    New Season of Service in Newnan

    Looking back over the past several years, if you have been following me, you would have seen my progression:

    • 2012 – Incorporating my company and running the Market Like A Queen digital marketing and coaching agency with a small virtual team based out of the South Fulton region of Metro Atlanta
    • 2014 – Founded the Lead Like A Queen seminar and event series to help turn the conversation about marketing towards improving our leadership as marketers
    • 2017 – Being accepted into Liberty University’s Business School and taking hiatus from business to focus on full-time graduate studies
    • 2018 – Becoming a full-time caregiver to my husband while taking graduate classes and dropping to part-time graduate studies
    • 2019 – Relocating family and business to Newnan, Coweta County, Georgia USA
    • 2020 – Took forced hiatus from the Lead Like A Queen event series due to pandemic lockdown and unavailability of our normal local venues and sponsors
    • 2021- Building new team as I finish my degree in 2021 (MAEL, Masters of Arts in Executive Leadership), including caregiver jobs

    Honestly, I was not sure I would ever complete graduate school because it has taken twice as long as what I originally thought, but it has been a blessed journey and I am grateful. I also never imagined that I would move my family and my business to another region of metro Atlanta, even further south, to Coweta County’s capital in Newnan. I am grateful to be here in this beautiful, diverse community, and to now get to know the community (post lockdown) and how I can serve them well in the areas of career coaching and leadership development training, along with supporting small businesses and solopreneurs with marketing. I also am learning how I can find others to serve alongside me as part of my new team, starting with the focus towards professionals who would serve as personal care providers in our home.

    My work is intellectually and creatively intensive (research and writing), so I minimize distractions and temptations for multi-tasking by delegating most caregiving tasks and home chores. Currently other family members fulfill some of these tasks and chores, but, after the new school year starts, their availability will be more limited. So, our goal is to hire and train two part-time caregiving professionals during the summer so that we will have consistent reliable support available in the Fall and Spring. Even though that’s our goal, current labor market trends are just not cooperating. So, basically, we are just relying on God to answer our prayers and send us the right people when we need them.

    Truthfully, that’s the best way: to just depend on God, and stop trying to control everything on my own. This means that I do the work that is mine to do, and leave God’s work to Him. I have my part, and He has his part. This is all part of me staying divorced from perfectionism. I do not want even a hint of that creeping into my hiring activities. I refuse to let the work of hiring take over my life. I have hiring work to do, and I am doing it, and I am keeping it within the schedule I have set aside for it. The outcome of this work is up to the Lord, and I trust Him with that. He is faithful to answer our prayers and honor the work we’re putting in.

    I am truly honored to have a season of my life to serve as my husband’s main caregiver as we enjoy living, learning, working, and serving in Newnan. I humbly admit that I am only “adequate” at this caregiving job. I look forward to him having caregivers who are excellent at it and passionate about serving. As we continue our search for professional caregivers, we have adjusted our expectations and our job listings to help make these jobs both meet our needs and attract the type of professionals we need. That’s part of my work in the hiring process, to research and learn how to hire, including how to write the job listings and how to set the pay rate scale, etc.

    The original job listing was just for one full-time caregiver, but now it has been split into two positions. The first job listing has now been shifted into a weekend position for an entry-level care provider who is also available on-call/PRN for week days when the main care provider is not available. The newer job listing is a lead caregiver position for a more experienced professional who is consistently available on most week days. As a small business owner, I recognize the importance of having a well-built team and support network with experts who use their strengths to serve in areas where I am not as strong. So, I view caregiving professionals in the same way, as strong experts who are part of my team and support network. I also view both caregivers as a team that can support one another with continuing to grow in their careers and with providing full coverage of all the days to ensure my husband has enough help. The pay scale has also been adjusted to attract more experienced professional care providers with a scale of up to $16 per hour for up to 15 hours per week in the lead care giver position. The weekend PRN (on-call) entry-level position will pay up to $16 per hour for up to 10 hours per week.

    My job as the hiring manager for my own company is to ensure that the recruiting process is sound and the marketing of the job listings is appropriate and targeted towards professionals who want to work in this region of Coweta County. My job is also to pray and keep God at the middle of all of my relationships, including starting new relationships with new people. Since I know that I am called to love God and to love people, I am encouraged in my journey as an employer and looking forward to being a blessing to my new teammates.

    Clarification: When I say that God is in the center of all of my relationships, I mean that the unconditional love of Jesus is what motivates me to do all that I do, for the benefit of all, not just for my own benefit. I have shared about the spiritual side of my business journey in previous blog articles, videos, podcast interviews, and in my book. I pray that my authentic spirituality will be evident to everyone who meets me, and that there will not be any fear of self-righteousness nor of religious fakeness. Simply put, I live to serve like Jesus would serve if he was standing right here with me in the flesh. I truly believe He is standing right here with me in the Spirit.

    So, if you’re a potential client or a potential new team member, I hope this new article sheds some more light on who I am, who I serve, and how I serve here from my business headquarters in Newnan.

    God bless you and yours.