Support For Entrepreneurs - an Interview with Elizabeth Gore From Hello Alice

One important way to grow as a military spouse entrepreneur is to learn from other successful entrepreneurs. We’re especially lucky to hear from Elizabeth Gore, the Co-Founder and President of Hello Alice because she is in the business of supporting entrepreneurs. 

Hello Alice helps business owners launch and grow. They are a free resource that connects entrepreneurs to capital, resources, and networks. Their goal is to ensure all entrepreneurs, especially those in the military-connected community, have an opportunity to meet their visions.

Elizabeth worked with the United Nations for a decade before jumping into tech. She saw that when individuals had the ability to start their own businesses, no matter how small, they were able to change their lives and impact their communities. That observation inspired her to help as many people, especially women, start their own businesses through Hello Alice. 

Looking back at when she first started as an entrepreneur, Elizabeth wishes that she would have trusted herself to make decisions faster. From a technical standpoint, she wishes that she would have understood more about finance and accounting. 

Many entrepreneurs reach a point when it’s difficult to keep going due to burnout or setbacks. We have to find the one thing that keeps us going. For Elizabeth, that spark comes from Hello Alice’s community of business owners. Those entrepreneurs work hard in their companies, and their work inspires Elizabeth to work even harder. She shares, “My long-term career goal is to ensure my family is financially sound while making an impact. The two stinkers that are my kids motivate me to push forward.” 

The Hello Alice team and community believe that communication is more critical than ever in a virtual world. To foster connection, Elizabeth encourages a mashup of older practices and new technology. She says, “I push our team to go old school and pick up the phone more. We are big fans of Slack instead of email.”

Hello Alice partners with AMSE because Elizabeth is the proud daughter of a U.S. Air Force veteran turned entrepreneur.

“Military families are near and dear to my heart,” she states. Hello Alice has a special interest in supporting military-connected entrepreneurs, so partnering with AMSE was a natural fit. She further explains, “Developing a partnership with AMSE seemed like a great opportunity to broaden our reach with the military spouse community and provide the tools and resources for these founders to succeed.” Hello Alice values this partnership because AMSE “provides valuable insight on the needs of veteran and military spouse entrepreneurs.”

Elizabeth’s advice for military spouse entrepreneurs is, “Go for it! No matter where you are in the world because we live in a digitally connected time, launch and grow your business!” She also encourages entrepreneurs struggling during COVID-19 to find support at www.covid19businesscenter.com. 

If you’re looking to cut down on the noise so you can focus on what’s important to your business, be sure to set up your free account with Hello Alice. You’ll answer a few questions about yourself and your business to set up a personalized experience. Then you can plug into informative guides, location-based ecosystems, or supportive communities where you can find your people. You’ll even have opportunities to apply for grants. 

What do you wish you would have known when you started your business? What inspires you to keep going?

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As an AMSE member, you receive support not only from Moni and Flossie - there is an entire community of milspouse entrepreneurs here to cheer you on, offer advice, and collaborate with you to build your business. To learn more about membership and how to get started, please follow this link!

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For over 20 years, Kimberly Bacso has driven organizational success by leading educational and wellness initiatives. Highly skilled in creating digital content strategies, she’s grown communities with word-of-mouth, grassroots approach. She is a proud U.S. military spouse who has founded thriving brands, transformed struggling outreach efforts, and catalyzed a group of 150+ writers from the ground up within the health and wellness space. She is the managing editor of Legacy Magazine and an experienced registered yoga teacher. When she’s not working, you can find her trying new plant-based recipes or traveling off the beaten path with her husband and teenage daughter. 

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Why You Need to Hire a Virtual Assistant ASAP

Twenty-four hours. That is all the time there is in a single day. While it may sound like a lot of time, in truth there’s only so much you can fit into it. Sometimes, it can feel completely inadequate!

This is especially true for small business owners.

Each day brings a whole lot of things to be done and decisions to be made. Whether you work with an actual checklist or a mental to-do list, getting these things accomplished doesn’t necessarily mean that you’ve been productive. Working hard is different from working smart. When you do certain tasks, you will obviously neglect other responsibilities. Every work you do involves a trade-off. 

The question is, “Are you making the right trade-off?”

There might be some legwork that you shouldn’t be doing and it’s robbing you of your best time of the day. It may even be draining you of your creative juices. 

But there is something you can do about that—hire out. Virtual assistants (VAs) help business owners by helping them get their time back. By taking repetitive, boilerplate work off your hands, you get time back. This time can be cashed out, either to work on more important projects or spent relaxing at home!

But how do you know when you need to hire? Here are 5 clues you should look for:

1) You Work For More Than 10 Hours a Day

Small business owners tend to work longer hours than most. You’ll often find yourself taking work you couldn’t fit in during the day home with you long after closing of business. This can often lead to 10-hour (or more!) workdays. One of the biggest culprits is repetitive work such as administrative work, bookkeeping, and responding to emails. Not only is this type of work boring and time-consuming, but it’s also never-ending. The result is a time-poor, overworked business owner.

By handling these repetitive jobs to a virtual assistant, you stand to save considerable time. This translates into less work on your shoulders and more manageable, smarter workdays.

2) You Do Everything—Even When it’s Not Your Thing

As a small business owner, you’ve got it in your mind that you need to be a jack-of-all-trades, competent in everything that occurs in your business. Although that’s admirable, there’s just one problem: you might be out of your wheelhouse. If so, my advice is to step back and let somebody else do it for you.

As VAs perform your non-core activities, you have more time to focus on growing your business. Rather than wasting time and resources in doing day-to-day operations, you can invest it to think strategically about the business from a long-term perspective. This helps you to set goals that guide your company for better performance and long-term success. Sure, you might lose a bit of control. However, the time you get back (not to mention, reduced risk of mistakes) more than makes up for it.

3) The Work is Piling Up

No matter how hard you try, as an entrepreneur, the work never stops. The moment you finish one task, another pops up to take its place. And once you finish that, another two pop up. And it repeats itself over and over.

Sound familiar?

If the tasks keep piling up, it may be time to hire a virtual assistant. Virtual assistants specialize in taking work off your hands. And it’s not just the mundane items. VAs come with many skills and many specialize in everything from finances to travel arrangements. 

4. You Need to Improve Organization.

It's often difficult to identify areas where there may be a repetition or glaring gaps in daily operations. Depending on their individual areas of expertise, a VA can help pinpoint inefficiencies and streamline procedures that can help everything run smoother and increase productivity.

While you probably have the skills to do all or most of your administrative and specialized tasks, you should take an inventory of your day and decide what is the best use of your time. When we are stressed or not at optimum energy, our executive and critical thinking skills suffer. It is more important to work smarter and devote your workday to the areas of your business that require your full attention and energy. 

Make a Change 

When you are ready, there are many resources to help you make the right decision for you. I suggest reaching out to your business networks, such as the Association of Military Spouse Entrepreneurs, which is filled with those who have been there and can give you advice and recommendations. You can also try working with an agency like Wise Advise + Assist and Instant Teams. 

You should approach hiring a VA like any other employee, complete with a detailed job description, interview, references, and a trial period. Do not cut corners—this person will be vital to growing your business. 

No matter what your business size, investing in a VA can be a small amount to pay in order to help maintain a stronger work-life balance that benefits both you, your company, and those in your personal life.

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Join AMSE today and get all the tools, resources, and community you need to succeed as a milspouse entrepreneur! We also have a Slack channel for members to ask for advice and support, or utilize our member directory in the newest edition of the Military Spouse Entrepreneurship Guide!

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Noralee Jones is a MILSO of 12 years, mom of 4, and writer/creator at Mrs. Navy Mama. Having experiences with 7 deployments, 4 PCS moves alone and the author of the Self-Care Guide for MILSOs, she is an expert on the importance of taking the time to focus on filling our bodies, minds, and souls with our individual needs in order to make the most out of our lives. She is also the Co-Author of The Newbie’s Guide to Military Life and focuses on supporting MILSOs through the ups and downs of military life through Mrs. Navy Mama. You can find her on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

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Dubsado: More Than Just a CRM

Eighteen months ago, I jumped the corporate ship into the entrepreneurial waters of owning my own business.  It didn’t take long for me to realize I had too many project spreadsheets, communication apps, forms for every possible situation, and no way to track invoices and payments.  During one late night of playing processes catch-up, I decided I needed a Customer Relations Manager (CRM) before I blew up my business with an unorganized mess.

I found Dubsado.  

It came highly recommended, but I was skeptical.  Did I really need a full CRM as a startup business?  I signed up for the free trial (up to three client projects) and discovered that Dubsado was not just an amazing CRM. It offers so much more.

Before I tell you all about my favorite features, here are three things you probably didn’t know Dubsado could do.

1. With a paid account, you can have multiple business portals under one login or team with other Dubsado users on a project and have separate branding incorporated into each one. 

2. You can activate a client portal and offer your client access to all of their contracts, invoices, uploaded documents, and more in one place.  The client portal can be password protected and offers file uploads to make it even easier to share documents, images, forms, and files.

3. Dubsado’s contracts are electronically delivered and electronically signed!  Congratulations on saving trees and eliminating paper copies.  PS.  These are accessible from the client portal!

Is your interest piqued? Let’s dive into more of the fun features offered by Dubsado.  

When you first log in, you’ll find yourself at the dashboard - a customizable overview of your financial goals, outstanding invoices, contracts, calendar, and project workflows. You can sync multiple calendars in Dubsado and even link video conferencing tools like Google Meet or Zoom to schedule invites directly from your account. I visit my Dubsado dashboard daily to remind myself of workflows, tasks, and to keep myself accountable for the revenue goals that I’ve set for my business.

I also spend a lot of time on the projects tab.  This big picture of your current workload is the jumping-off point to access detailed project-specific information including email correspondence, forms, and contracts, invoices, workflows, appointments, tasks, and notes.  

As a growing business, I found Dubsado’s reporting functions to be exactly what I needed for simple bookkeeping tools to track my income and expenses.  The customized breakdowns helped me with tax season and marketing strategies and as my business and bookkeeping needs grow, Dubsado will integrate with more robust programs like Quickbooks.  

Remember my messy processes?  Dubsado offers both a task board and workflows. 

The task board is helpful when you have a to-do list, but it is not automated.  You do have form templates and canned email responses created for any number of business management needs, but the real power comes when you incorporate Dubsado’s workflow.  

Once you have set up the workflow process, Dubsado can run automation from lead capture to proposals to project completion. This is arguably the most impressive of Dubsado’s features. It sends emails, creates invoices, applies for payments, changes a project status, and more.  Each completed step sets off the next part of the workflow process, but it’s only activated when you apply the workflow to a project so you can change and revise as much as necessary. 

Clearly, I am a Dubsado fan.  

It has changed my messy processes into streamlined automation processes.  All my projects, invoices, and contracts are housed in one place where I can find all the information I need through reporting functions.  A year after using Dubsado, I’m still discovering new ways to save time in my busy entrepreneurial schedule.

But don’t just take my word for it. As an AMSE member, when you realize you can’t live without Dubsado, you get a 15% discount each month or from a yearly purchase. Find the discount in your membership dashboard!

Want to learn even more about Dubsado?

AMSE is proud to host a Masterclass with Dubsado in March! Hosted by Cameron McBeth, we will be learning about how to save time by using Dubsado so you have more time for what matters. This Masterclass will be held on March 2, 2021 at 1:30 PM EST - sign up for it in your membership dashboard!

Not a member with AMSE? There is no better time to start! Click here for more info on membership!

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Anna Larson is a 15-year military spouse, entrepreneur, and homeschool mom of 2 amazing kids + 1 fur baby.  She started her own business after nearly 20 years in marketing and program management.  NomadAbout offers comprehensive marketing solutions, website design, copywriting, and social media management.  

She contributes monthly to a number of publications, hosts a weekly podcast and live stream business show called 15ish Minute Coffee Chat, sits on a board as the Director of Operations for a non-profit that offers support to cancer patients, and co-leads the Fort Hood chapter of the Association of Military Spouse Entrepreneurs.

In her spare time, she likes to travel the world and have amazing adventures with her family.  She can’t decide if exploring glaciers in Switzerland, standing in the shadow of Burg Khalifa, or zip-lining at Victoria Falls is her favorite so far. You can also find her with her nose in a book or sitting poolside for relaxation.

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Crafting Your Elevator Speech: What Inspired You to Do What You Do?

Oh, the Elevator Speech!

At some point in our entrepreneurial journey, we are told we must develop, refine and utilize our specific Elevator Speech if we are to get people to understand what our business does. If you haven’t heard of this term before, Balance.com defines the Elevator Speech as “a quick synopsis of your background and experience.” I can’t think of a business owner training I attended in the last few years that didn’t reference the Elevator Speech. 

Bottom line: it is an important tool to use to get our business and brand into people’s consciousness.

No matter how well-crafted your Elevator Speech is, you risk it sounding hollow and canned if you don’t understand why you do what you do. When you are able to fully embrace and own the “why”, then when you are then asked “what do you do”, your answer will sound much more convincing and true than if you respond with some bland lines. As a customer, wouldn’t you rather hear someone tell you about their business with excitement in their voice rather than just a boring explanation?

MY WHY

I am an Accredited Financial Counselor and have been since 2012. I am the least likely person I know to have chosen a career in personal finance.  When I was growing up in a single-parent home, I struggled in school but especially with math.  So when I went to college, I picked Political Science and not anything math-related as my major. My college education did not prepare me to get involved in financial education and counseling.

Several years later, I was now married and living in Hawaii while my husband was on active duty with the US Coast Guard. I was a graduate student at the University of Hawaii and hoping to use my graduate degree to become a public sector mediator. As a way of getting more experience in the field, I signed up for a course in community mediation. For the practical experience part of the course, I was assigned as a volunteer mediator in Honolulu small claims court. My job was to help plaintiffs and defendants come to a mutually agreed upon, written resolution so that they could avoid having the judge decide who would win and who would lose.  It was not an easy job.  

What surprised me was how many military service members I met as defendants. 

Before working in the court, I had assumed that all military members received financial education in boot camp. After mediating several cases, I quickly learned that this wasn’t the case. Also, I was doing this work in 2005 at the peak of the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts. The saddest conversations I had were with service members trying to get their court cases resolved before their imminent overseas deployment because they didn’t want to leave any loose ends for their loved ones to deal with in case they themselves didn’t return. 

My work as a volunteer court mediator changed my life completely. 

I decided that I needed to do something about the financial illiteracy I saw in many of the people who appeared in court. I didn’t know what exactly I was going to do, but being a mediator was all of a sudden off the table. I couldn’t forget the suffering I saw in the faces and voices of people who had made bad choices partly because they didn’t have the proper information to begin with. 

I made a determination that I would change the trajectory around discussing money openly and do all I could to make sure that all who needed financial education received it. I still carry this determination today, and it informs all the decisions I make about my work and my career progression. For example, I am not willing to sell financial or insurance products as some financial advisers do, as it does not align with my values and goals for my business.

You can clearly see with my description, why I am so motivated to work in financial counseling.  I was so passionate about taking on financial illiteracy that years ago, I ran for a contested seat on my local school board in my small Massachusetts town on financial literacy education for high school students platform, and I won the seat after a vote recount!  

You don’t have to run for elected office though to demonstrate your passion for your work.  You just have to remember and remind yourself what your passion and motivation was, what your “why” is, and then bring it back to the forefront of everything you do in your business. This should give you the perfect starting point on crafting your elevator speech.

You are the best champion of your business, and your elevator speech should reflect that. 

People need what you have to offer, but they won’t know it until you tell them about it including why it’s valuable and important to them. Choose to be your biggest cheerleader because as the line in the poem Our Deepest Fear by Marriane Williamson says, “We are all meant to shine!”

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Dawn Torres-Gale is an Accredited Financial Counselor® and the Single Owner-Member of Our Money Goals, LLC. Our Money Goals mission is to help individuals and couples build their household assets through the identification of specific financial goals and the creation of detailed action plans in support of those goals.

In 2008 Ms. Torres-Gale was chosen by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) Foundation to be part of a select group of military spouses who received FINRA sponsored training from the Association of Financial Counseling, Planning and Education to become an Accredited Financial Counselor®. Ms. Torres-Gale received her certification as an Accredited Financial Counselor® in February 2012. Since becoming an AFC®, Ms. Torres-Gale has worked as a Personal Financial Counselor with the Massachusetts National Guard and the Naval Operational Support Center in Portland, Oregon. In 2018 she spent three months providing financial education and counseling services to soldiers stationed at US Army Garrison Wiesbaden in Germany.

Ms. Torres-Gale has a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science from San Francisco State University and a Master of Public Administration degree from the University of Hawaii, Manoa. Ms. Torres-Gale has served as a district court mediator in Honolulu, Hawaii from 2003-2005 and as an elected member of the Wachusett Regional School Committee representing the Town of Holden, Massachusetts from 2009-2012. She is the spouse of LCDR Christopher A. Gale, USCG (Ret.), and the mother of three daughters, ages 28, 18, and 15 yrs. old.

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