I have a question for you. Do you remember your first website? I do! I built my first site using Microsoft FrontPage. My first online venture was called WomenInBiz.net (yep, dot net). The year was 2003, I remember it like it was yesterday.

Women In Biz was geared towards you guessed it, women starting a business. I even mailed out a “hard copy” monthly newsletter, which my subscribers paid for.

I worked this business for six months before it proved to be too much. I LOVED producing the newsletter, but, I was losing money. You see, the subscribers (all three of them), paid a yearly rate of $20.00. I thought that because it was a paid newsletter, it was my duty to give them a full color, 12 page, 8 1/2 x 11 newsletter every month. The problem with this brilliant idea? $60.00 a year did not even put a dent in the cost of producing my newsletter each month.

You see, I had to print out at least 15-20 copies a month. My subscriber copies, free copies to advertisers (when I had them), and free copies for marketing purposes. Heck, I even sent Oprah a copy….nothing ever came out of the Oprah mailing though, but I was hopeful.

Printing expenses were not my only expense when it came to the newsletter, I also had to purchase the ink, the paper, envelopes, and stamps. It just got to be unrealistically (is that a word?) too expensive for me. So after six months, I stopped production, closed down the site and refunded my subscribers.

Why? Because I started out in the hole. I was losing more and more money as the months went by. Sure, I could have hung in there for another six months to see what happened, because I loved what I was doing, but in reality, I knew what was going to happen.

I was using money from my full time job to fund this business venture. In my opinion, that was not a good decision. I know it takes money to make money, but at what cost? I guess I could blame my failure on a lot of things; lack of funding; inadequate advertising; bad networking, etc. Oprah was my biggest marketing tactic it’s sad to say.

Now If Oprah had actually read my award winning newsletter and featured it on her show, then I wouldn’t be typing this post. I’d probably have my own show, and be on the New York Times Bestseller list by now But alas, Oprah never gave me a shout out, so here we are now.

I don’t know what made me think back to Women In Biz. Maybe it’s because I’ve been doing a lot of soul searching lately in terms of my business, you know……where I should be, where I want to be, and what I need to do to get there.

Five years ago, I thought I’d be making six figures by now! Guess what? It hasn’t happened, not even close. I feel as If I’ve been spinning my wheels for the last five years and I’m tired of it. Oh, I know that it takes time to build a business and make a living online, But I also realize that there are some business models that take A LOT of work and take up A LOT of your free time.

My Virtual Assistant business is part time, I’ve wavered between keeping it part time and going at it full time. I’d like to work at home full time, but not as a Virtual Assistant. Why? Well, even though I LIKE WHAT I DO and I enjoy making money from home, I DON’T LOVE WHAT I DO.

So now I’m at a crossroad. Do I keep my VA Biz because I like what I do and it does bring in income OR do I build a business model based on what I LOVE TO DO and tackle it full time?

There are several things that I LOVE DOING.  I love creating, teaching, talking, and nurturing.  Can I make a viable business model out of these things?  Well, you’ll just have to wait and see.

What about you? Are you doing what you love? If so, are you making any money at it?

Trackback URI | Comments RSS