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Hey Biz Bestie!
I’ve finally created my first YouTube video! I am so excited because I have been wanting to create a channel for what seems like forever. And finally, it is happening!
I watch YouTube like it’s TV, and I have so many content creators that I admire.
They really inspired me to want to do the same and see what I can bring to the table.
I really want to share my tech knowledge and get to know YOU better.
I created my first video which you can watch below, as an introduction to my channel, as well as a little storytime on how I got where I am today on my entrepreneur journey.
I’m Chada (sha-day) Johnson and I am a Tech Strategist for women with online coaching businesses.
I focus on helping non-techie Coaches with the behind-the-scenes systems and automation in their businesses so they can get more clients with ease.
Although my entrepreneur journey started online about five years ago, it really started when I was a kid because I always wanted to have my own business. I just didn’t know what I wanted it to be.
I ended up going to college, and that whole time I was really in survival mode.
That could be a storytime for a whole nother day!
Since I was in survival mode that whole time, I wasn’t really thinking about building a business. I was just thinking, OK, how can I get and keep a reliable job so I can actually survive and pay my bills?
Knowing what I know now, that was a complete scarcity mindset. Do not do that by the way. We want to have an abundant mindset, but again, that could be a whole video on its own for a different day.
Then about five years ago, I was actually laid off from one of those reliable jobs that I had, and it was a layoff that came out of nowhere. I had never been laid off before, but the company all of a sudden got shut down.
So I was thought, OK, what do I do now?
And while I was at home, obviously I had a lot of time on my hands because there’s only so many jobs you can apply to every single day. And I just decided, Ok, how can I make money online?
I’ve always heard that that’s a thing, but never really looked into it.
So I started doing some research and I came across the term Virtual Assistant and thought that sounds like something I could do, but I don’t know what it is.
I looked into it, and it turns out it’s basically a person that completes tasks for businesses, but virtually.
So it’s essentially like being an employee, except you’re considered a freelancer or contract worker and you’re doing all the things a person in an office would do, but you’re just doing it virtually.
And the cool thing is that Virtual Assistants specialize in anything. The most common ones are general administrative tasks, but now they specialize in tech, which is what I had started doing. Or they can specialize in Pinterest or social media management.
There’s a whole list of things you can do as a virtual assistant, which was awesome.
I decided I like the sound of this. I’m going to be this amazing Freelancer doing all of these tasks on Fiverr and Upwork.
But I barely made any money.
BUT when I made my first dollar, oh, I felt like I was a millionaire.
Something lit up inside of me and I was like, oh my goodness, I just made my first dollar without having a job, without having to show up someplace. I literally just made this happen on my own.
And this was not a scam. I legitimately spent hours doing data entry as my first gig. And got paid very little, but I still got paid and I was ecstatic.
So from then on, I was like, ok, this is it. This is what I’m going to do. I’m going to be this amazing freelancer and make a ton of money.
Well, I couldn’t quite figure out how to make a full-time income with that.
Not to say it’s not possible because it is. Now I know that. But at the time, I just could not figure out how to make it work, so I ended up going back to work. But I still kept doing the virtual assistant thing on the side.
It was a part-time side hustle, which I needed because unfortunately, when I went back to work, I had to take a pay cut.
But being a V.A. definitely helped me to make ends meet.
So after doing that for a few years, I ended up taking a break, a small break.
Because, for one, I still couldn’t figure out how to make being a V.A. work for me making a full-time income. And by full-time, I mean, for my needs, I would need to be making a minimum $5,000 plus per month, especially after you consider taxes.
I live in California, which is one of the most expensive places you can live.
Plus, I was doing all of these tasks that I wasn’t really enjoying doing. It’s one thing to know how to do something like data entry, like transcription, social media stuff, but it’s another thing to actually enjoy doing it.
And my thinking was if I’m going to create a business where I can eventually quit my job and do it full time, I want it to actually be something that I enjoy doing because the last thing I want to do is just create another job that I want to quit.
What sense does that make? I want to want to be one of those people that’s like, Oh, you know, I make so much money and I would do my job even for free because I love it so much, which I always thought was ridiculous.
But now I get it because I found something that I actually like doing. And I mean, I’m not about to do it for free, but I understand the sentiment. 🙂
In 2019, I took a break because I just needed to regroup and figure out, okay, Chada, what is it that you actually like doing?
You’ve done a million different tasks for people.
Let’s search within and figure out what you actually want to do.
So in 2020, I decided, OK, I really love all the techie things that come along with having an online business.
So I’m going to be a Techie V.A.
At the time, this was at the beginning of 2020, I thought, Oh, I’ll just do all the tech things.
But eventually, I figured out, OK, that’s super overwhelming because there are so many different tech avenues you can take.
And that made marketing myself really confusing because if you just say, Oh, I’m a tech V.A., I mean, some people are going to get it and still want your services.
But I found it to be way easier if I niched down to just one platform or one piece of software, so I decided, oh, I really love WordPress, which is a website platform and people, according to the Facebook Groups I was in, tend to have problems using it because maybe they’re just not as techie as me or some people just don’t want to deal with it.
They may know how, but they’re just like, yeah, I don’t wanna deal with that. I’d rather hire someone to do it for me.
So I decided, ok, I’m going to be a WordPress Virtual assistant, and that actually worked out well for me because niching down to something that the market actually needed was ideal.
It made my marketing way easier, and it was how I became known for something in these internet streets and specifically on Facebook.
So I was a WordPress V.A. for a while and then came 2021, which is where we are today.
I had been taking on a bunch of clients and I was realizing, OK, the people that were coming to me, some of them were ideal clients and those were the ones I worked with.
But a lot of people…OK, looking back, this also could just have been my marketing messaging, which I’m still working on, it’s a whole work in progress, but a lot of people are always coming to me to build their website or for some sort of development or website designer thing.
And it’s understandable because if you have WordPress in your title, of course, people are going to think, oh, you must create websites.
But really, what I was falling in love with was more of the behind the scenes tech in online businesses, which involves maintenance of a website and updating it when it needs to be updated for a launch that you’re having or a new product that you’ve added, a new package, whatever. But I wasn’t really in love with the design aspect or the complete building a website from scratch.
Yes, I know how to do all those things, but I wasn’t wanting to actually sell those things and do them on a regular basis.
I kind of evolved from WordPress Virtual Assistant in that title, and I thought, OK, what could I call myself that would just more so fit this thing that I’m trying to do, which is help coaches with the behind the scenes tech in their business, and that’s when it dawned on me.
I should call myself a tech strategist. Yay!
So as of this year, I’m a Tech Strategist and it’s basically where I help coaches, specifically nontechie Coaches, with the different tech pieces, helping them to decide the different tech pieces that they need to use in their business to achieve their goals.
So that is where I’m at right now.
As far as how I picked wanting to work with coaches, that is actually a really important part of my journey because in 2020, that is when I decided to hire my first business coach because after I took that break, I thought, OK, I’ve been at this for freaking almost five years now.
Obviously, I like it, but clearly, I don’t know what I’m doing because I have not figured out how to actually get consistent clients, consistent income, all this stuff.
I don’t want to say I broke down, but at the time it felt like I broke down and hired a Coach.
And when I tell you, I should have literally done this from the second that I even figured out what a virtual assistant was!
It would have saved me so much time, so much heartache, so much money, so much all of the things because when you hire a business coach it is life-changing.
For me, it was life-changing.
For one, we worked on my mindset, which I wasn’t even expecting. That was the crazy part.
I didn’t even realize that I had a terrible mindset. I thought, Oh, well, I’ve always wanted to be an entrepreneur. Ever since I was a little kid, this has been my dream.
Of course, I want to make money. Why would I have an issue receiving money?
This is when I learned about the scarcity mindset situation and all the limiting beliefs that I actually had, which are like a subconscious thing that we’re dealing with based on the way we were raised and the influences we’ve had in our life.
Just a whole slew of things. I thought, Oh, I’m just signing up to learn how to run a business. No.
Well, yes, I did learn how to create my business and all that, but I was not expecting the mindset aspect.
And so that was really what was so transforming for me and learning about mindset and how important it is to actually recognize what limiting beliefs you may have so you can always kick those to the curb and really up level to your next level.
Learning that lesson has been priceless.
Once I had that experience with that coach that I hired, I decided I need to work with coaches because coaches are phenomenal.
They changed my life. I want to be a part of what they are doing.
I had started talking to more coaches and I became friends with a few of them. I knew that doing the techie stuff in their business was literally the last thing that they wanted to deal with.
Some of them happened to be techier than others. But when you’re a coach, you’re focused on the outcome for your client.
You’re focused on creating the right programs for your client. You’re not focused on setting up an email sequence or adding a page to your website or uploading a blog post or any of that.
Your main concern is your client. And so I figured, ok, I have the skill, I have this connection with coaches. This is just a match made in heaven.
This is now my passion, and I actually feel like helping coaches is my way of helping the world be a better place.
The coaches I know are working with women and working to make women feel empowered to start their businesses and become millionaires.
And I thought, if I could be a part of that behind the scenes, I’m all for it.
So that is why I chose my niche.
That is my journey in a nutshell of how I went from a general Virtual Assistant to a WordPress Virtual Assistant to now a Tech Strategist for Coaches.
Right now, I do technically still have a full-time job, which I am working towards leaving.
I’m not one of those people that hates my job, but I’m one of those people who have now found their passion.
And you know, my passion is this. It’s not having a job.
Therefore I’m going to have to quit that job eventually.
You can come along with me on this journey.
And here’s what you can expect from my YouTube channel:
One is I’m going to be giving you tech tips for all the systems that are in a coaching business and what I think you need to succeed.
Two, I’ll be giving you some inspiration!
And I mean, I’m not one of those people that’s like, Oh yes, I’m just so inspirational and people should look up to me.
No, it’s not like that. It’s just, I’m going to be sharing my entrepreneur journey along the way.
And any tips I learn along the way. And I’m hoping that that will be inspirational for you in case you are looking to do the same thing.
And lastly, you can expect high vibes.
I know that’s such a cliché millennial thing to say, but it’s true.
I’m all about being high vibe, having high vibes. And honestly, I’m just one of those naturally positive people, but it’s not like I never have a bad day.
Trust me, I do have those days when I get down in the dumps and I’m just like, Why God? Why? What is this? Why me?
But I’m also blessed to be one of those people that can always see the bright side of things. Sometimes it might take me a day or two, but I am a very positive person and I like to surround myself with other positive people.
So if that is something that you’re looking to surround yourself with then you’re in the right place.
I cannot let you leave without giving you a free gift as a thank you for supporting my YouTube channel.
Definitely make sure you subscribe and share this video with anyone you think would resonate with it.
And the gift that I’ve created for you is a checklist which is called the Behind-the-Scenes Tech Checklist for Coaches.
It’s going to walk you through all the tech tools that you need in your business so you can start getting clients or continue getting clients.
You know you may be a seasoned coach, you may be a beginner coach. This checklist is for everyone who is now working online and is curious am I using the right tech tools? Which ones should I be using?
Maybe, you’re using a few and don’t even know that I should be using some other ones.
It’s all going to be on this checklist so you can download it for free at https://www.chadajohnson.com/checklist.
Also be sure to join my free community on Facebook, which is called Behind-the-Scenes Tech for Successful Female Coaches.
It’s where I go live with my Behind-the-Scenes Tech Talks, and it’s also where we just have fun and network with other biz bestie Coaches.
Thank you so much for joining me for this first video and/or reading this blog post!
I cannot wait to get to know you better.
Let me know in the comments if you are a coach and what tech tips you would love to hear about on this channel.
Your Tech Strategist & Biz Bestie,
Chada (sha-day)
