clients – Virtual Assistant Success Strategies

Wil Hart on November 8, 2013

5 Steps To Starting A Virtual Assistance Business

You are likely reading this article because you have a vast array of skills as an administrative professional. In a previous time, you may have been an executive assistant for a large company. Or, you developed your skills supporting a wide range of professionals who needed help with their administrative tasks.

Now, you are looking for another option. The possibility of using your admin support skills to start your own business has become very appealing to you. There are probably 100 reasons why you are interested in started your own Virtual Assistance business.

To name a few, you may desire to:

1. Dictate your own schedule and income
2. Work for the best boss in the world – YOU!
3. Spend more time with family and friends
4. Take better care of an aging relative
5. Retire with grace

The list can go on for miles. The important thing to keep in mind is the motivating force for you. Why are you driven to learn more about building your own business? Your reason is important to me as well. It is so important that I want to share with you 5 keys to keep in mind when starting your VA business from scratch!

The fun part about the steps that I am going to share with you is that you can do them in any order. You have to take the lead and decide which is the next best step for your current circumstances. Heck! You can even do two steps at the same time!

Step 1: Set Up Your Infrastructure Continue Reading>>

Wil Hart on June 15, 2010

Showcase Your Expertise: Solve Problems On Your Blog

One of the best ways to showcase your expertise as a Virtual Assistant is to create and maintain a blog. As a VA, you want to show potential clients you hold the key to the solutions they’re looking for.

Now admittedly, one of the first concerns you may have about writing a blog is figuring out what you will write about. One way to create highly useful, relevant content is to answer questions or solve problems in your posts. Prospective clients (and even current clients) come to you for assistance because they are struggling with particular problems. So use those situations as your inspiration! If a client doesn’t mind, you can even use them as an example (with a link back to their website, of course) so that you can demonstrate your expertise and how you add value to their business and their life.

For example, let’s say one of your clients’ websites was hacked and they “lost” their website. This is a scary thing for business owners but that’s why they’ve hired you as the expert, right? So, in your blog post, you can detail how this “problem” was minimized because you create weekly backups. Your blog post can then detail 3 or 5 tips on how and why to run weekly backups and maybe even provide some solutions on what to do if they did not backup their site and how they can fix it.

As you see in this example, you offered a specific solution to a specific problem. Not only did you solve it for your existing client, but you also provided resources for other people to solve the problem on their own, or better yet, gave them concrete examples on why they should hire you to solve the problem for them.

There are 3 main goals of your blog:

1. Maintaining it as a marketing tool to attract prospective clients
2. Showcase your expertise and build your credibility
3. Encourage participation through comments and suggestion to build your community

By using examples from your own experiences, you can provide countless solutions to problems that you are already solving. All you are doing now is taking the time to document the problem, the solution and recommendations for avoiding the problem for someone else. Using this as a method to keep your blog posts fresh will help you avoid the “what do I blog about” mind block.

What other ideas do you have for keeping your blog posts fresh and up to date? I’d love to hear your ideas – please post them below so we can talk about them!

Wil Hart on April 25, 2010

Need More Clients? Fish Where the Fish Are!

The number one question I get asked about Virtual Assistance EACH week is: “How do I get clients?”

The answer is very simple. You have to “fish, where the fish are!” And you have to “fish” consistently.

Many VAs find it difficult to market their services and thus struggle to consistently attract clients. This has mostly to do with one’s mindset, because we can often hold ourselves back from success because of limiting beliefs, fears or doubts. Have you ever thought to yourself:

“I can’t charge that much!”
“No one is really going to pay that for what I do.”
“Marketing is too hard and I’ll never be good at it.”

If you tell yourself things like this you’re right. But if you tell yourself:

“My time is worth X and I deserve to be paid that much!”
“There are plenty of people who need my services and I’m going to find them!”
“I can learn how to market my services in an authentic and comfortable way!” Continue Reading>>