About:

• Carrie Flynn, the Founder of Virtual Simplicity, has dedicated her business to helping other entrepreneurs with launching online programs, setting up funnels, designing sales pages, converting leads, and all of the pieces that go into the puzzle of creating an online course.
• In a similar vein as ​​Colleen Kochannek (a recent guest on the Doctor Entrepreneur Podcast), Dr. Glenn Vo and Carrie are in the same mastermind. Likewise, Glenn has been inspired by Carrie’s story. He’s also enthused by what her business does to help entrepreneurs “get out of the weeds and get things done.”
• Someone looking from the outside might see all the strides Carrie is making and assume such success to be unattainable. But nobody is an overnight success, and Carrie is no different—she had to put a lot of work in to get where she is.
• Believe it or not, Carrie was a Public School teacher who transitioned into being a Virtual Assistant. As a “VA,” Carrie gained extensive expertise before learning about the process of creating online programs. 

“Big Entrepreneur 3”

1. Put Anything You Have to Do On a Calendar—Digital or Paper, Professional or Personal.
   1. This tip is “big” for Carrie as someone who has worked a job for many years that was very structured. Thus, she was hyped up about having a “really good routine.” Once she left teaching, however, she experienced the “rudest” awakening ever. It was a totally different world without someone to tell you where to be and what to do. 
   2. A calendar seems obvious, but it can be extremely helpful. For Carrie, everything that has to happen ends up there. Carrie prefers a digital calendar, but paper planners have the same effect (it depends on your preferences). 
   3. Some people make the mistake of only throwing business stuff on their calendars. It’s important you put everything on there, though—personal or professional. 
   4. This is especially helpful for Carrie because she’s constantly on calls. Thus, it’s easy for her to slip into calls and put personal things on the backburner (going to the gym, eating lunch, etc.) if she’s not careful. Blocking off the time she needs helps her remember what she ought to prioritize.
2. Schedule Zoom Meetings Directly From Google Calendar; Download ClickUp or Asana for Project Management.
   1. This goes off that last point about using a calendar for both personal and professional obligations (Carrie wanted to give a shoutout to Doris Clark for the tip about Zoom meetings).
      1. Add Zoom to your Google extensions so that, when you’re scheduling appointments in Google Calendar, it’ll automate the process of setting up the Zoom meeting. You’ll save time by avoiding the process of going to your Zoom account, pulling your link, putting it in the calendar, and so on.
   2. Downloading ClickUp or Asana can do wonders for project management. If you’re somebody who does bigger-planned projects like they do over at Virtual Simplicity, it turns the workflow into a well-oiled machine. Nothing gets lost, deadlines are front and center, and projects remain in your sights.
3. Read The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks or Atomic Habits by James Clear to “Find Your Balancing Act.”
   1. Carrie loves The Big Leap because she’s a big believer in balancing mindset and physical productivity that may not be mindset-related. She’s listened to it a couple of times on Audible. 
      1. Hendricks says that, as you grow—both as a person and growing your business—you’re going to hit different “upper limit levels” mentally. He tells the reader how you can deal with them, what to expect when they arrive, and how to overcome them. You’re bound to experience those moments in your life and they’ll never stop. 
      2. Carrie herself has learned, as a business owner, that those moments will keep happening as you grow. She’s thus found this book to be a great resource to refer back to. When she thinks she’s spinning a bit, she recognizes that she’s likely going through an upper limit moment then and there.   
   2. Carrie also loves the business and productivity teachings that stem from Atomic Habits by James Clear. Mostly, her fondness grew because she found herself living a habitual life prior to her entrepreneurship. She was teaching, running a business, and mothering two kids while her husband would travel for work; there was hardly a moment she wasn’t in a rush. The lessons in this book were so easy to absorb and implement quickly, and it became immensely helpful for her to develop good habits as a result.
      1. For Glenn, the book’s lesson on Habit-Stacking “changed his life.”

 

Learning From the Past

To Carrie, not all money is good money—not every client is ideal for you, your business, and your team. While Carrie wishes this mistake was a one-and-done, she learned this lesson (the hard way) multiple times in business—she believes this mistake is especially easy to make as a service provider.

The issue was that she’d bring on clients who she knew, in her gut, were not good fits for her nor her business. Both as a solopreneur or when her team was involved, there were a few times when she’d notice red flags during a discovery call. Carrie is an empathic sort of person, and so she’d sniff out some personal disturbances right off the bat. Despite that, she’d ignore it in order to meet certain income goals or to make up for slow business during the holidays. 

No matter the reason, it always ended up being a bad idea. In one case, she ended up terminating the contract within three weeks and refunding the client. That wasn’t the only time, either. Sometimes the time and energy Carrie and her team spent became much more costly than any money such clients could offer. 

If Carrie could talk to the younger version of herself, she’d tell her that she was enough just as she is. It’s a lesson she had to learn the hard way, over the course of getting older as well as becoming more confident in her own skin. While she was never “flailingly” insecure, she never felt like she quite had “it” or that she was enough. That’s how she ended up getting a Master’s Degree, chasing more certifications, and trying to prove herself in some way. Now that she’s 40, she realizes she has all the stuff (and had it all along, too) to help the people currently in her life—it all comes down to mindset. Sometimes that internal peace just comes with age, but she wishes she didn’t take 20+ years to absorb that lesson; if only she could tell her younger self it’s okay to just chill out a bit. 

 

Don’t Stop Here!

Entrepreneurs always need to trust their instinct, whether it comes to a new business idea or a client. Carrie learned some lessons from the past that can apply to us all. Sometimes the voice in our head can weigh us down from shooting for the stars, but sometimes that voice comes from other people. 

There are consequences—good or bad—to almost everything. It reminds me of my relationship with my young, young self and my mother. I’d go to do something and she’d say, “Okay, do it at your own peril. I know you’re not going to listen to me.” But, hey, moms are always right, aren’t they?

Once upon a time, someone asked Carrie, “What if I could do what you do?” When you go from teaching and suddenly leave the profession to earn six figures, people get curious. Carrie has a simple response: “What are you naturally good at? What is something you’re strong at?” It doesn’t mean that’s the area you have to stay in forever, but it’s a great way to figure out how you should get started—especially if you aspire to venture into the online business space.

Contact Carrie on Instagram at Virtualsimplicity. Otherwise, you can find her on the website at virtualsimplicity.co (not .com).