This is a continuation of a Cross-Blog-Conversation with good friend Kelly McCausey. She wrote a wonderfully insightful post in reply to my last question. Loved it. Kelly – let’s just say I’m very, very glad to know that you do it despite the anxiety and you do allow yourself time to ache over a project that is going bye-bye. Now I won’t feel so bad when I do!

Now on to the question she asked me in return it’s actually two parts so let’s tackle the first part:

Part One: So many people rely on you for your tech expertise. How are you going to balance helping others with growing your own business projects in the new year?

Years ago, very early in my business, I decided I was not taking in new clients. Looking back, I’m not entirely sure why. That’s how inexperienced I was. All in all, it worked out great. I charged enough to keep money coming in but high enough that I didn’t exactly need a gazillion clients who’d take up all my time.

This was great because it allowed me time to give the handful of clients full focus when I was working on their projects – this is important to me as I’m sure it is for them – at the same time, it gave me more freedom to work on my own projects. Since my own projects and client work are closely related it also allowed me to create synergy.

Here’s what I mean. Often, when working on a client project, I’d have to dig deeper, learn new techniques, write new code or simply discover different more effective ways to do things. This information, I could later use to post on my blog or teach in classes which are part of ‘my business’.

In reality they are ALL ‘my business’. Client work, my own projects. All one and the same, all working together, one big beautiful cycle. This way, I’m not grudgingly working on client work, in fact many days I’m energized when we have client work because they all feed one another. I doubt I’d feel the same way if the client work and my own projects were worlds apart.

This leads me in to the second part of the question:

Part two: What advice do you have for service providers who are getting burned out on trading their hours for dollars?

I loathe to use the word ‘luck’ but I am fortunate because my client work and other business ventures have the same over-arching topic. Marketing technology. Fortunate or not, it was not by chance. There was a time years ago where being an affiliate manager was the hot thing. It seemed like everyone was teaching that, seemed like lots of people were making big bucks being an affiliate manager with massive overriding commissions. There have been many, many times I’ve wished to offer that as part of my services. At the end of the day I never acted upon it (sometimes inaction is good) because I knew where my strength is, I knew where our brand stands.

That wasn’t the only thing there have been a lot of different shiny objects along the way. Some days it took everything I had to sit on my hands, to not go down that road and just focus on tech. I think it has paid off. Long story short. If you can, try to find synergy between paid work you accept from clients and your own projects.

Even with a nice symbiosis going on there are times your work load is higher than usual. You need to set aside one day of the week at least that you don’t work for clients. You can do that internally or let clients know. Schedule both types of work with equal importance.

Also if you can or are able to, charge what you’re worth, watch out for a handful of good clients who pay well, you work well with and treat them right. Drop everyone else. With the time freed up from smaller one-time clients, work like crazy on your own projects. When client work is taking up all your time give them your all and stash up the extra cash to tide over slower times. When work is slower, sieze that opportunity to work hard on your own projects that could build passive streams.

Here’s my next question for you Kelly.

When you start a new project, what is your process? Do you sit down to list the things you need to do and pull out the stuff your VA can do? Do you give yourself so much time a day or week to work on it? What happens to the other (older and ongoing) projects while you focus on the new project?