Following redundancy at the beginning of 2010, I decided to take my destiny into my own hands, not look for another employed role & instead, become a Virtual Assistant. It was a steep learning curve & after I discovered I’d need something called a domain name in order to setup a website, was faced with a dilema.
What name would I choose?
I secured nancybenn.co.uk & nancybenn.com straight-away, but just wasn’t confident enough at the time to trade under that, my own name!
Madness?
Maybe, but although I knew I had the skills, experience & knowledge to effeciently support clients as a virtual assistant, I balked at doing-so as Nancy Benn.
In employment, I was used to being the strength in the back-office, keeping everyone organised but leaving the promotion & forward-facing roles to the executives I supported. Therefore, although I was a sole-trader, I decided I needed a business name & settled (not entirely happily) with Direct PA Services.
Bye bye Direct PA Services
Being new to social media, I soon realised that maintaining two profiles was lots of work & actually totally uneccessary, so stuck to posting as Nancy Benn. However, I continued to run my business as Direct PA Services – until this month!
I started the nancybenn.com website as a blog (for family & friends) writing about my plans to leave the UK & travel Europe so most posts to-date are very personal. For someone who was afraid of standing proud to be Nancy Benn, Virtual Assistant, I actually enjoyed documenting our journey & experiences. If this helps others with their decision to travel, or even deters them, great! I’m more than happy to have a conversation with would-be nomads too.
Our original plans to travel Europe more widely were halted by needing to Brexit-proof ourselves. So despite never planning to settle in Spain, after falling in love with the country & finding the people so welcoming, we bought a car, became residents & I began trading as an Autonomo (Spanish sole-trader).
Direct PA Services then became irrelevant, especially the .co.uk website as I was no longer in the UK, so this month I ditched it! I updated this nancybenn.com website from a blog to include details about the services & support I provide.
Therefore, the blog posts will now include business & productivity hints & tips in addition to more personal updates.
All posts are categorised so select ‘Personal Story‘ or ‘Business Posts‘ to filter out those which may not be of interest to you.
However, I hope you’ll continue to enjoy the information that I share. Don’t hesiate to let me know &/or follow me on social media too.
I’m really excited about this next stage in my life & it feels so right & a relief to be Nancy Benn, transitioning from a Virtual Assistant to an Online Business Manager 