Virtual Freedom. Chris C. Ducker
What Is “Good” Content?
The P2P (People-to-People) Philosophy
Case Study #9: Joshua Van Den Broek, Fitco Health Technologies
The Importance of Being Remembered
Getting Your Virtual Team to Do (Almost) All the Work for You
Freedom Spotlight: Natalie Sisson, The Suitcase Entrepreneur
SECTION SEVEN: Time to Get Started
Your First Six Months
Conclusion
BONUS SECTION: Top 10 Virtual Team-Building Mistakes (and How to Avoid Them!)
Resources
Gratitude
About the Author
Index
A radioactive spider accidentally slipped into the backpack of high school student Peter Parker and delivered a life-changing bite. Peter didn’t know it at the time, but this moment was the birth of the Amazing Spider-Man.
At first, Peter’s gifts were nothing more than a novelty, allowing him to become a quasi-television star and make some easy cash. But as he soon discovered, with great power comes great responsibility. As an entrepreneur, the same is true of you.
You and I may not know exactly when it happened, but you, too, were bitten. Chances are the bite wasn’t from a radioactive spider, but it was just as potent—and just as transformative. It was the bite of the entrepreneurial bug.
For some of you, this bite came in the form of a life-altering event, such as accidentally creating a new product or service, inheriting a family business, or getting laid off. Whatever happened, you developed powerful skills and abilities as a consequence.
Your superhero powers probably consist of
• the ability to see opportunities that others don’t
• the drive and energy to work fourteen-hour days
• the courage to approach strangers and share your ideas
• the dexterity to morph into the different roles your business needs
These powers are a blessing because you have the potential to impact countless lives with your vision and innovation. At the same time, your powers are a curse because you can easily be deceived into thinking you can travel down the entrepreneurial road alone.
Welcome, my friend, to superhero syndrome. Your symptoms will no doubt include the following:
• If there’s any money to be saved in doing something yourself, you’ll do it.
• If you don’t know how to do something, you’ll teach yourself.
• You may have the inability to take criticism of any kind.
• You’ll believe that your ideas and concepts are far greater than anyone else’s.
• The word “recharge” will only apply to your cell phone.
After all, your business is your baby, and who better to take care of that baby than the person who gave birth to it—you! However, this will all eventually catch up with you, and the strength that you possess as an entrepreneur will start to backfire. Your superpowers will ultimately begin to control you, eating away at your energy levels and stumping any potential for freedom in your life. They will leave you stressed and overworked, and ultimately you will be no good to anyone or anything—including your business.
You might assume that as an ambassador of virtual staffing, my professional journey has always been lined with an army of virtual assistants (VAs) doing the work while I strategize and delegate from a remote location wearing flip-flops and a Tommy Bahama shirt. As sexy as that may sound, it is not my story.
Reaching Burnout
In 2008, I started an outsourcing call center in the Philippines. Live2Sell, Inc. focused on outbound lead generation and inbound customer support for small- to medium-size businesses. By the end of that year, we had grown from a small provider with just seven staff members to a full-fledged call center of seventy-five full-time employees.
My workdays had progressively risen from eleven hours to sometimes sixteen hours a day. Even that amount of work and energy dedicated to the business wasn’t enough to keep up with the workflow demands—and that’s when my own superhero syndrome began to kick in. I believed I could fill every role in my growing business. No matter how much time, energy, or talent something required, I was up for the challenge. I thought there was an unlimited supply of time and energy within me.
At this point in the story, my wife gave birth to our son, Charlie—making us a family of five. I did what I could to help out with the daily responsibilities at home while carrying on working long, crazy hours. In late 2009, I found myself burnt out and stressed like never before. I woke up one day and realized something startling: I really didn’t have a company. I was the company!
Something needed to change.
Firing Myself
The Greek philosopher Plato said, “Necessity is the mother of invention.” If you think about it for a moment, that statement can clarify a lot:
• It’s the reason that people miraculously get work done at the last minute—because they need to.
• It’s the reason that some of your best ideas surface when you’re faced with a do-or-die situation—because you must come up with something or face terrible consequences.
• It’s the reason that my good friend Pat Flynn, creator of the online brand Smart Passive Income, found success as a digital entrepreneur after being laid off from his job as an architect—because he had to.
And it’s the reason that yours truly, Chris Ducker, chose to fire himself from the role of burnt-out micromanaging CEO—because I needed to. It was the best thing for me and the best thing for the business. The simple fact was that I could no longer work such crazy hours while also maintaining a healthy role as a husband and father of three. So I fired myself.
I fired myself from thinking that more of my time and energy was the solution to every problem. I fired myself from being a micromanager, which was causing a bottleneck in a lot of our day-to-day operations. I fired myself from building the business on my shoulders and instead chose to build it around a system of highly skilled local and virtual employees.
I’m not saying I fired myself from working, nor am I saying there’s anything wrong with work. What I am saying is that I fired myself from specific roles within my organization—roles that were better suited for someone else. This also meant I had to resign certain ways of thinking.
I had to stop believing I would somehow work my way to freedom or that I was only being productive if I was busy doing something. My own superhero syndrome had gotten to the point where I realized that I had to start believing in my staff more in order to allow them to do their jobs without my micromanaging getting in the way of their personal development.
The reality is that work and success only create more work and success, so I devised a plan to become a virtual CEO by the end of 2010 and decided to blog about my journey on a regular basis under the banner of Virtual Business Lifestyle, which is now ChrisDucker.com.
I began with small steps, such