Archive for March, 2008

Virtual Assistant Marketing: Reaching Prospective Clients

Monday, March 31st, 2008

When it comes to virtual assistant marketing, it’s important to recognize that it is essential to let your prospective clients understand what it’s like to work with a virtual assistant. In other words, you need to market your services in such a way that your best prospects will know what to expect when they work with you.

It’s based on the ways in which you are able to market yourself and your services that your prospective clients will understand that you work collaboratively on different projects and therefore that you want to be sure that you’ll have a good fit.

Another important component of virtual assistant marketing is helping your prospective clients to understand the value of your services. You won’t be doing yourself any favors if you set your prices too low; therefore you need to make sure that your prospects understand what they will be paying for.

Finally - at least for now - you need to be sure that you’re targeting the right people with your VA marketing materials. If you want to establish yourself as a legal virtual assistant, market yourself to those in the legal profession rather than to real estate agents.

Keep in mind that virtual assistant marketing is all about forging relationships and showing that you know what you’re doing. Focus on getting the word out about what you do, who you work with and what your services will do for your clients.

Virtual Assistant Marketing: Making a Tough Task Easier

Sunday, March 30th, 2008

Virtual assistant marketing is interesting. On one hand, the way in which you market your VA business is going to shape your ability to attract clients. On the other, it’s going to affect the services that your clients look to you to provide.

Part of virtual assistant marketing, therefore, should be able what services you can provide: the answer to your prospects’ question “what’s in it for me?” You might make the choice to talk about the ways in which working with a VA can free up a clients’ time and make the work day go by smoothly. You might make an effort to discuss the ways in which your prospects could quickly discover - if they were to take a step back for perspective - that they are their own assistants.

The other part, however, may be more important. When you’re creating virtual assistant marketing materials, you need to be sure that you’re putting your best effort in. Keep in mind - especially if you offer marketing services - your prospects are going to judge your abilities based on your marketing materials. If you offer logo design and don’t have a logo, you won’t attract many clients; likewise, if you advertise writing services you’re likely to find that a website, blog or brochure with a number of typos is going to be a problem.

Virtual assistant marketing can be a tough task, but there are ways of making it easier:

  1. If you have weaknesses, find someone else who has strengths. If you’re a great writer but don’t have graphic design skills, try to barter services with another virtual assistant.
  2. Focus on learning as much as you can about marketing techniques and tools that are available.
  3. Make a commitment to your marketing efforts.

These simple tips can help you to ensure that your marketing efforts are a success.

Virtual Assistant Business Training: How You Can Get to Where You Want to Be

Saturday, March 29th, 2008

When you’ve made the commitment to becoming a virtual assistant, you won’t find that you need a lot of training - at least not to develop the key skills that you’ll apply to your business. What you might want to do, though, is to look into getting some great virtual assistant business training.

VA business training isn’t about training to become a virtual assistant - it’s the training that you need to run a successful business.

When you take part in VA business training, you’ll be able to get to where you want to be because:

  1. You’ll be able to learn about marketing - online and offline;
  2. You’ll be able to learn the key elements of getting and keeping your clients satisfied;
  3. You’ll be able to stay on top of internet marketing trends so that you can be sure you’re up to date - and applying the best practices for your clients;
  4. You’ll be able to focus on learning to maximize your productivity.

As a result, you can be sure that you’re moving forward and that your business is continuing to grow; isn’t that training something that’s worth investing in?

Starting and Running a VA Business: What’s in Your Business Plan?

Friday, March 28th, 2008

When you’re starting and plan to run a VA business, one of the most important things that you can do is to create a great business plan. Your business plan, after all, is going to serve as a guideline for what you’re going to accomplish and it’s going to help you to get financing along the way if you need it.

So what should the business plan for running your VA business include?

Your vision: Where do you see your VA business going?

Legal and financial information: Budget information and permits are the type of things that you’ll want to include in this section.

A sense of your services and pay structure: Your business plan should contain information about the VA services that you’re going to be providing. It should also have information about how much you are going to be charging for the services that you offer.

Information about the office that you’ll be running your VA business from: whether you’re going to run your VA business from your home or you’ll be renting office space, it’s good to have it on paper. It’s also a really good idea to keep track of the information that you have about equipment - your computer, software, fax machine, etc.

The service agreement you’ll present your clients with. When your service agreement is a part of your business plan, you’ll be making a commitment to yourself and your clients - a commitment that you will be in a better position to follow through with.

When you’re going to be running a VA business, it’s a really good idea to get your plans out of your head and onto paper. A business plan is an ideal way of making sure that that happens.

Becoming a Virtual Assistant Is Not the Same as Starting a New Job

Thursday, March 27th, 2008

When you make the decision to become a virtual assistant, one of the most important things that you’re going to need to consider is that you are not just applying for a job; you are opening your own business.

Because of this, it’s essential to remember that becoming a virtual assistant isn’t just a matter of creating a website that serves as - in effect - your resume and cover letter, though it is important to make sure that your prospective clients know who you are and what you can do fir them.

It’s important to recognize that even though there are skills that you have, therefore, and even though there isn’t a lot of on the job training that you’ll have to participate it, you may want to look into business training.

With the right business training, becoming a virtual assistant is simplified because you’ll learn what it takes to being in charge of your own career. Better yet, in the process you will be able to network with others who really understand what it’s like to become a VA because they are doing it too.

In other words, when you decide to become a VA it’s important to remember that there are going to be things that you need to learn and, unlike simply getting a job, there’s going to be attention that you need to pay throughout the process.

When You Are Running a VA Business, Should You Hire a VA?

Wednesday, March 26th, 2008

When you are running a virtual assistant business, one of the key components of your marketing strategy is going to be telling prospective clients what you can do for them. You’ll talk about the importance of having someone else who is better at certain tasks than they are so that they can get more done. You’ll talk with them about the fact that, as a virtual assistant, you can do the things that they don’t really enjoy like keeping up with paperwork or accounting.

But what about those tasks that you don’t really enjoy that are a part of running a VA business? What about the time that you spend working late just to get caught up? What about those things that you know that you don’t do as well as others?

As you tell your clients, if you don’t have an assistant you are one.

When you’re running a VA business, therefore, keep an open mind about hiring a VA who can help you to take control of your workflow. Focus on finding someone who can make your business run more smoothly - ideally someone with whom you can barter services as that will be the most cost effective option for each of you.

Running a VA Business: Should You Add Services?

Tuesday, March 25th, 2008

When you’re running a VA business, the first thing that you’re really going to want to do is to work on your marketing materials and to bring on a few clients who will take advantage of the core services that you offer. However, there’s probably going to be a point in time when things get comfortable and you are ready to grow your business.

When you run a VA business and you’re ready to grow, you’ll find that there are a number of options available to you. While you could go ahead and bring more virtual assistants into your practice, it may be better to start off by adding another service to what you offer.

If you’re thinking about offering additional services, the first thing to consider is whether or not your current clients have been asking about something and you’ve had to say no. In other words, if in the past you’ve had clients ask if you can book travel for them and you’ve had to say no, you may want to go in that direction.

Another way to look at it is to consider the services that you have always wanted to offer but that none of your current clients take advantage of. When you’re adding these services to your virtual assistant business, one of the things that you’ll want to do is focus on marketing those services.

If you’re still not sure of whether or not you should add services while running a VA business, maybe the best thing to consider is talking with other VAs to get their opinions - that’s an essential way in which for you to make the right choices for your business.

Virtual Assistant Marketing: Are You Writing Articles?

Monday, March 24th, 2008

When you are working as a virtual assistant and focusing on virtual assistant marketing, one of the things that you are sure to discover is that writing articles can help. Obviously, I’m not talking about writing for a magazine (though that could have its benefits as well); instead, I’m talking about those articles that you submit to web directories.

With article marketing, virtual assistants are able to get their names out there. By focusing on creating articles that address the type of work that you do - and why that work is remarkably beneficial to your clients - you can create links back to your website, encourage those who are looking for those services to visit your site and to contact you to see whether or not they will be able to help them out.

Article marketing allows you to focus on what you do. It allows you to tell your prospects about what you are able to do for them. But most importantly, it allows you to create content that others are able to reproduce. Think about it: wouldn’t having others publishing links to your website within their blogs help you to market your services?

Of course it would. That’s probably the greatest benefit that article marketing offers: the chance to allow others to market your virtual assistant business.

Virtual Assistant Marketing: Because Clients Won’t Just Come to You

Saturday, March 22nd, 2008

When you’re working as a virtual assistant, it’s important to remember that you aren’t just going to be an employee anymore, you’re going to be running your own business. Running your own VA business means learning more about marketing.

Unfortunately, when you’re working as a virtual assistant - regardless of what your specialty is - clients aren’t just going to be coming to you lining up to take advantage of the services that you offer. Understanding virtual assistant marketing will allow you to build your business.

Virtual assistant marketing is, on one hand, all about understanding the services that you’re offering and how they will benefit each client that you’ll be working with. It’s about knowing how to take advantage of print marketing, internet marketing and networking.

It’s also about knowing that you’re going to be able to provide the services that your clients want in such a way that they will be sure to give you referrals.

In other words, virtual assistant marketing is about two things: it’s about choosing the right message and making sure that the word gets out and it’s about doing your best job every time.

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Saturday, March 22nd, 2008

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