Career Relaunch®
Joseph Liu
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Getting the Help You Need with Norma Kimber
Leaving a corporate job behind to start your own business is never as straightforward or simple as it may seem. Norma Kimber, an operational excellence director at an established, global financial services firm who pivoted to become a virtual assistant and business owner shares her journey of walking away from her stable, senior role in the corporate world to start her own business. In episode 86 of the Career Relaunch® podcast, we also discuss what impact organizational politics can have on your psyche and the relationship between your own health and your career decisions. Norma and I have crossed paths a few times in the past because she’s joined some of my virtual firesides, and I’ve also personally chatted with her about some of her virtual assistance services when I was exploring the idea of hiring a virtual assistant myself. She shares some of the realities of not only leaving a full-time job behind but also the impact it can have on your psyche when your spouse still works at the well-known, global company you left behind while you try to build your own business from the ground up. Key Career Takeaways When you’re in a corporate environment, it’s very natural and almost expected to keep up with your peers and climb the corporate ladder. Consider how much you thrive on or get disillusioned by the politics of your organization. Delegate a task when doing it detracts from your ability to focus on what you’re uniquely good at or from your income-generating tasks. Finding the right assistance isn’t about identifying someone who not only has the skills necessary to do the job but also a work style and approach that clicks with you. Tweetables to Share Find the right people to support you, and ask for help when you need it. Norma Kimber Tweet This Hiring the right people to help you is an investment that often pays off. Joseph Liu Tweet This Freelancer Resources Mentioned Virtual Assistance: check out Norma’s profile on Pink Spaghetti. Business tasks & projects: I use Upwork (for longer-term projects) and Fiverr (for simple executional tasks). I’ve also used Squadhelp for naming ideas and Crowdspring, 99Designs, and DesignCrowd to crowdsource creative assets. In-person help: I’ve used Taskrabbit for help with tasks that require in-person assistance. Task list management: I use ToDoIst. Scheduling, I use OnceHub. Social media management: I use Vista Social to manage all my social media accounts in one place. I’ve used Buffer and Later in the past too. (note, affiliate links above) Listener Challenge During this episode’s Mental Fuel® segment, I challenged you to think about one time consuming task you’ve been doing that detracts from your ability to focus on one of your other professional or personal priorities. Or something you feel someone else could just do more effectively and more efficiently. Delegate it. This way, you can can take that time and instead focus on something you’re uniquely positioned to do. About Norma Kimber, Virtual Assistant & Business Owner Norma Kimber is a business owner and virtual assistant. After a varied start to her career, including office management and accounting software management, she moved to Brighton, England in 2003. Then, a couple years later, she started a 16-year career at an international financial services company, initially as an executive assistant. She took on several internal roles and promotions and ended her corporate career as a Director of Operational Excellence. She then left the corporate world behind to start her own VA business as a Pink Spaghetti franchisee. Follow Norma on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram. Did You Enjoy This Episode? Please Let Us Know! Tweet: If you enjoyed this episode and have a few seconds to spare, Tweet to let me and Norma know! Tweet a thank you! Review: I’d also love for you to leave a positive review and rating for the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, which helps my show reach more people who want to relaunch their careers. Follow: Be sure to follow Career Relaunch podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, or Android to automatically get each new episode on your device. Full instructions. Stay in touch: Follow Career Relaunch on Twitter and Facebook. You can also follow host Joseph on LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. Comments, Suggestions, or Questions? If you have any lingering thoughts, questions, or topics you would like covered on future episodes, record a voicemail for me right here. I LOVE hearing from listeners! Leave Joseph a Voicemail You can also leave a comment below. Thanks! Thanks to Namecheap for Supporting the Career Relaunch® podcast Thanks to Namecheap for supporting this episode of the Career Relaunch® podcast. Namecheap is an affordable, trustworthy domain registrar that offers free privacy protection with every domain registration. Claim your unique website domain today to start building your brand by visiting CAREERRELAUNCH.NET/NAMECHEAP. Interview Segment Music Credits Thanks to Reeve for producing the music in this episode. Episode Interview Transcript Teaser (first ~15s): You do lose a lot of your identity when you move away from an organization, especially if you’ve been in one place for a very long time. Then, when you move out of that and you’re suddenly just on your own, and it’s just about you and the services you can offer, it is kind of a scary place. Joseph: Hello, Norma. Welcome to the Career Relaunch podcast. It is great to have you on the show. Norma: [02:26] Hi, Joseph. Thank you for having me. I’m very happy to be here. Joseph: I would love to talk with you first about just setting the scene and getting a sense from you of what is keeping you busy in your work and in your life these days. Norma: [02:40] In my life, these days, my almost two-year-old is what keeps me most busy, I think as most people with small children would appreciate. Then, with work, I have fairly recently started my own business. Building that up is my main focus at the moment from a work perspective. Joseph: I am also the parent of a very young child, and I’m just wondering what’s that balance been like for you between running your own business and also, motherhood. Norma: [03:10] It’s fairly challenging to manage a small child and starting a business. But it all came about at the right time because I think it would have been far harder to try and manage a corporate career with a small child. At least, I’m only answering to myself and my very selective clients, as opposed to the corporate organization that probably doesn’t have that much sympathy for a small child needing your attention. Joseph: I can relate to the idea of the flexibility being invaluable once you become a parent and being able to control your own schedule. Also, can you just tell me where are you based and where are you originally from? Norma: [03:56] I’m based in the UK in Brighton of South London. I’m originally from South Africa, but I have moved here in 2003. It’s almost been 20 years that I’ve been in the UK. Joseph: What originally brought you to the UK from South Africa? Norma: [04:12] I was very interested in traveling in Europe. Europe is far away from South Africa. At the time, when I came over, we had a working holiday visa scheme. I was lucky enough to be able to come over on that. The intention was to stay for two years, see a bit of Europe, and then, probably, head back to South Africa. But I met my husband here not long after, probably about three months after arriving here. I just got stuck here. Joseph: It does happen. Before we go back in time, could you give me a snapshot of the work that you’re doing right now at Pink Spaghetti? We will get into more details on that later. Just real quickly, what’s an average day for you right now? Norma: [04:57] It’s very varied. That’s actually what really attracts me to this type of role. So it’s a virtual assistant services business. Every day looks really different depending on what my clients effectively have on. It range from having a day of research or networking or general administration, sometimes, calls, luckily, not too many calls. Every day looks different, which is really what keeps me interested in doing it. Joseph: We’re going to come back to the VA work, the virtual assistant work that you do. I would love to get into more details on the exact types of tasks you help people with. Before we do that, I know you haven’t always been a business owner, and you haven’t always been a virtual assistant. You spent 16 years working in the financial services industry. So I was wondering if you could tell me how you got started in that industry. Norma: [05:50] I fell into it, more than anything else. When I moved over to the UK, the intention was, as on the two-year working holiday visa, to do fairly limited work and do traveling. The intention was really to end up going back, of course. At the time, when I started there, I didn’t have a clear idea of what I wanted to do. I started initially as a temp, doing call center work. Then, when I was hired as a full-time employee, I started as an executive assistant. It’s kind of gone full circle a little bit. Then, I just worked my way up really through the business. I moved from being a virtual assistant into a re-engineering type role, doing a fair bit of training on Six Sigma process engineering type activity in the services industry, and then, from there, eventually, ended up in operational risk management. It was just a case of being there. Initially, I was very happy there. It was an exciting place to be because a lot is going on in the financial services industry. I got to see a lot of the world traveling and lots of exciting things
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