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Good morning Reader,

I hope you're having a lovely week. I’ve just emerged from the fog of a horrendous stomach bug that wiped out three days of work and five pounds of body weight.

To add to the fun, during a call, I mentioned that I still felt queasy, and my Mum thought it was the perfect time to tell me that my brother had come round the night before with chips and a kebab.

Apparently, 'the smell really turned her stomach.'

Thanks for that, Mum. 🤢

And on that note, it's time to settle down to this week's Coffee Break Newsletter.

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🌱 For Aspiring And New VAs: How long does it take to set up a VA business?

I get asked this question a lot, and the answer is...

It depends.

I’ve had trainees of my DIY VA course set up with paying clients within six weeks, but on average, I would say it usually takes around three months to set up a business "properly".

Because starting a business is a big deal, and it shouldn’t be rushed.

You need time to weigh up your business model, assess your skill set, identify your target client, decide which services to offer, create a marketing strategy and figure out how to manage your workload.

It also has to be financially viable (and AI-proof) so you can earn the same, if not more, than you did before. Otherwise, you'll just exchange a frustrating job for a frustrating business.

It’s better to set up correctly from the start, or you'll end up with a bit of a mess on your hands.

Here are more questions (and answers) about setting up a VA business.

🌳 For Established VAs: Refine your onboarding process

If you have my Discovery Call and Onboarding Checklist, use AI to customise it for different industries or clients.

THE PROMPT

“You are a Virtual Assistant who runs a solo business. Using this discovery call and onboarding checklist, tailor the process to work with [coaches, web designers, event managers etc]. Suggest any steps I should add, remove, or tweak to better suit this client and industry.”

Then, upload or paste the checklist and let AI tailor it to your niche.

If you're looking for more prompts and useful VA-focused AI tips like this, sign up for my Espresso AI newsletter.

No fluff, no BS, no complicated tech-bro stuff, just a monthly shot of AI tips you can apply directly to your (or your clients') business.

💥 Bonus tip for everyone

You'd think Facebook couldn't get any worse, but I recently heard from Mari Smith that it wants to automatically upload images from your phone to train AI.

It's prompting you to "stay organised" by enabling automatic syncing, but when I checked my settings, I found syncing had already been turned on.

Check your own settings on the app by going to:

Settings & Privacy > Settings > Preferences category > Camera roll sharing suggestions > make sure both toggles are set to OFF.

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💖 My Favourite Thing This Week: My Instax Square Link printer

I love technology, but I love analogue even more. I read real books, I wear a watch, I write on notepads with fountain pens, and now I print photos taken on my phone.

The biggest appeal of this is that I can share physical photos with my friends and have something real to look at rather than a ton of digital photos that could disappear in an instant and that I'm unlikely to look at again.

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I went for the Instax Square, but there are others out there.

You can even print directly from the Fujifilm Instax Mini Evo camera, which I also have my eye on, but only because it's just so beautifully retro!

See you in a couple of weeks.

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PS: Just signed up and missed an issue? Read previous Coffee Break newsletters here.​