Meet Suzanne

My name is Suzanne Bird-Harris and I’m the coach / web designer behind vAssistant Services and the @SuzanneBHarris Twitter account. I help entrepreneurs like you create or improve your web presence so you can use the web to make money doing your thing – in this lifetime!

Websites in WordPress is the WordPress web design part of vAssistant Services, and the part where I get to let my creativity and geeky-ness run with wild abandon. I l-o-v-e WordPress, and have yet to be disappointed in it as a web design platform. Once your website is built, you can create and manage your own content as well as reach and interact with your target market in an authentic and personal way – all without being tied to or having to wait on a programmer-type (like me) to do it for you. Awesome, huh?! I know!

The Mom/Grandma

I’m a single mom of three – two boys and a girl – and a grandma, already, too! My office is my home, so if you call here outside my business hours (9am-3pm CT M-Th), you’ll hear kids and dogs and all manner of other racket in the background. That’s why I have published business hours – to spare you all that drama. If you need to talk to me outside of those hours, consider yourself warned, and you’ll have to schedule it ahead of time.

As chaotic as this entrepreneur-single-mom life of mine is, being self-employed is the only way my life works. Trust me, when your kids are 6 years apart in age, it’s almost like having 3 separate families to take care of and having to show up 5 days a week at an office somewhere to do the 8-5 thing just does not work for me. There’s just not enough me to go around. The last year I was employed (2002), I had a kid in high school, a kid in elementary school and a toddler. All these years later, I still have a kid in high school and a kid in elementary school, but the toddler is my granddaughter. If having a job in the face of all that isn’t a recipe for insanity, I don’t know what is!

I’d like to tell you that I made my grand exit from the corporate world on my own terms, but no…that’s not how it happened. I worked for two companies for ten years each and was downsized out of both. (2009 Update: If you’ve lost your job during this recession, I’m here to tell you that it might just be the best thing that ever happened to you, no matter how dire things might look to you now.) When it happened to me the second time, I decided – all the way to my very bone marrow – that I’d never have another job again. So far…so much better!

So, I “get” how important (and sometimes difficult) it is to grow a business in the face of the rest of your life. I’ve done it, and I’m here to apply my skills and experience to your plans and dreams so that you can use the web to make money doing your thing – in this lifetime!

The Coach/Web Designer

I always love the surprised reaction I get from people when I tell them what I do for a living. Coaching and web design seem like opposite ends of the spectrum to many people, but they’re the perfect blend for me. Successfully using the Internet to grow your business isn’t just about having a great website, although I’ll give you that’s an important element. There’s a learning curve involved, and I cover that in the other half of my business.

Websites in WordPress

This is the geeky, technical, but very creative part of my business. There’s nothing I love more than creating the juicy, awesomeness of your site built in WordPress. I don’t believe in reinventing the wheel, and with WordPress, I don’t have to! To keep your costs down, I always start with a theme and work from there. Which theme I start with depends on what you want as an end result, but why pay me to write code that’s already been written? I’d rather write code that makes your site unique to you.

Tweet Me @SuzanneBHarris

Following me at Twitter will get you tweets about projects and posts I’m working on here, tips about making your life online a little easier to manage, cool new tools and resources I find in my travels around the web, all peppered with glimpses inside my wild and crazy life as a mom, grandma and entrepreneur.

Life is nothing if you’re not having fun, so follow me, if you aren’t already, so we can have fun together.