64: PIVOT by Adding Services to Grow Your Business with Gina Horkey

How can you pivot in your business to ensure that you are adding value to the services you are giving to your clients? Keep listening for highly-recommendable strategies shared with us by Gina Horkey, one of my favorite freelancers out there.

Gina Horkey is a married, millennial mama to two precocious kiddos from Minnesota. Additionally, she’s the founder of several websites, which now includes GinaHorkey.com. Gina specializes in helping everyday folks learn hard digital marketing skills to launch their own service-based businesses online, working from the comfort of their own home (or anywhere!). Her background includes making a living as a professional writer, an online business marketing consultant, and a decade of experience in the financial services industry.

She has helped me elevate my business from the ground up. When you hear me always talking about “I used to follow what other people were doing in the freelance world”, that was Gina who I was following.

How to Pivot in Your Business

In this episode, we talk a lot about some effective ways to pivot in your business. Of course, I am thinking the Friends episode here 
To pivot in your business doesn’t mean giving up the writing, rather, it’s about adding value and services for your client.

• Gina talked about why a lot of people are looking for online work during this pandemic
• She thinks a lot of people they’re learning about working virtually remotely for the first time because of COVID-19.
• Horkey hand book , which is Gina Horkey’s main website, was born in May 2014 for the purpose of housing her freelance samples. She figured out on to build this website herself.
• It may not be an overnight process when you pivot in your business. When you get rejected, it’s all part of the process. People have to think about it because you have to stand up for a lot of things, you’ll probably get rejected most of the time, and then eventually you land something, which is usually how it goes.
• One of the first steps you can take to pivot your business is you need to be creative in marketing your services. You need to do some research for the people that you’re pitching to. If you’re not willing to do that, then I think this isn’t the right business for you.
• You have to break down the writing process. So when you think about the writing process is everything from figuring out the topics and outlining the blog post or whatever type of writing you’re doing.
• For the virtual assistant side of things, certain things are also very creative. Like creating images, it may bring a creative type of thing. Add customer service or email management work if you want.
• You’re already a VA just because you’re like that writer, you’re already doing it. Once you figured out what your thing is, then you’ll call yourself an affiliate manager, our podcast producer, a virtual bookkeeper, etc.

If you’re a writer and you’re looking to pivot in your business, or you’re finding other means to grow your income, again, you’re already a VA being a freelance writer, and you can add on some services so that it’s a go-to place to get clients.

Lots of resources are in this episode, including:
John Akuff’s Book Start
Tim Ferris
paidtoblog.co
And Gina’s Website: Horkeyhandbook.com

Jumpstart Your Virtual Assistant Business (In 4 Quick Steps)

Other tips if you’re looking to pivot and grow your business:

Episode 43: Your Profitable Market with The Stay At Home Nurse, Deanna Gillingham, RN

Episode 51: Working Full Time? Here’s How to Launch a Successful Business!

Episode 55: Becoming a better leader and Business Owner with Antonette Montalvo