1) Thou shall not take on a new client without a deposit and a signed contract. Period.

2) Thou shall be tolerant when viewing a $4.00 an hour overseas virtual assistant advertisement. Plenty of work is available for all VAs at every rate.  Establish yourself as an expert and you will attract those clients willing to pay your rate.

3) Thou shall be patient when applying for a VA position through a Request for Proposal (RFP) particularly when the potential client never acknowledges the submission. Follow-up once with a PC (potential client) and then move on. Early signs of poor communication may be a red flag that the client may become difficult later on.

4)  Thou shall not believe thyself to be an employee of the client. If the client treats you as an employee, set the record straight immediately. If this explanation does not change the relationship, then terminate that relationship. As difficult as it may appear to lose the income, there is nothing worse than feeling miserable having been labeled as subordinate. You are a business owner and you are in business to partner with clients. You are not an employee. You set the rules.

4) Thou shall take not plagiarize another virtual assistant’s website. Period.

5) Thou shall join an industry-related forum such as Virtual Assistant Forums and participate frequently to help others. Note to new VAs: before you post your questions to any forum, use the ‘search’ feature first. Your question may have already been asked and discussed. Using ‘search’ is a time saver too!

6) If thou finds that thee does not have any clients, this is the time to look up and forward and NOT down and out. Use this slow period to redo a website, create a blog, and engage in social media discussions or better still…

7) …volunteer your services. There is no better means to gaining experience and exposure than to offer your time to other virtual assistants and/or non-profits while expecting no reward in return.

8) Thou shall set a goal that thee will, in 2012, do the work thee only truly LIKES to do. For new VAs, if you are  performing uninteresting client work, as only a primary means to ‘pay the bills’, use this time to garner testimonials and referrals from those clients.  So do your best work!  Your goal is to eventually take on only the work you will enjoy.  This may mean ‘biting the bullet’ at start-up and accepting work that is not interesting but always do so with a positive attitude knowing in the end you will eventually accept projects that are enjoyable.

9)  Thou shall hang a sign above thy computer with the name of the target market thee wishes to reach.  Remind yourself daily that your blog posts, your social media posts, and your discussions will be geared toward the interest and the needs of that particular market. Your client base will increase.

10)   Thou shall ask for help. There is no shame in asking another VA to assist, however, first do the legwork yourself. Check Google, YouTube and industry sites for answers.  If you just want other VAs to tell you what to do, you will never learn. Clients want to partner with VAs who are willing to dive in deep, find the answers and make the suggestions. This is how VAs build long-term, trusting relationships with clients.

Have a great year in 2012!

Interested in learning how to write the Winning Request for Proposal (RPF) that will land you the virtual assistant job? Sign up for details of my new program and be a part of the launch. Learn How to Write a Winning RFP

I have had the opportunity to work on virtual assistant teams with clients and I have engaged with other virtual assistants heading up their own teams.

And although a gathering of the minds at a physical table setting is an ideal arrangement; permitting the participants to interpret each other’s facial expressions and body language, leading a virtual team via a conference call is much more complex simply because the participants cannot see each other.

We are social beings. When meeting someone new, we receive cues and make judgments using our five senses to assess individual attributes. When using only our ears to assess one another, our minds pass judgement with considerable limitations. So it is important that rules and code of conduct are stated ahead of time by the leader of the teleconference.

Rules allow us to view each other on the same playing field.  Rules also creates boundaries for behavior and protocol.

When we know the rules, and what is expected of our behavior, we can respect each other and not be so quick to judge.

The success of any virtual team requires a strong, diplomatic leader. Without these personal qualities the group will not be cohesive.

Here are my suggestions for a successful team leader:

Dial-in early on the virtual or teleconference call before everyone else appears. This will give the leader time to chit-chat before the event occurs. A little round of social activity helps participants to ease into becoming more comfortable with people who cannot be seen and who may be complete strangers.

Create rules and announce these to the group before the teleconference begins. Such as:  No private conversations between members on the group call.

Specify a timeframe for the call (one hour, half hour, etc.) and stick to that time. Watch the clock. If you run over the time, say so and ask if anyone wants to stay on to finish up. This shows the group that the leader respects the participants’ time.

Introduce the participants to each other preferably with a little blurb about each other. For example, “This is Janine Gregor of Your Virtual Wizard. She is a marketing virtual assistant and I welcome her to the group.”  This action also sets the tone for the call and clearly states who is leading the call.

Ask the participants to briefly say ‘hello’ and announce where they are from. Introductions help break the ice.

Have someone take notes and send out a ‘minutes of the meeting’ when the call has commenced. Provide a recording link after the meeting and send that within 24 hours thanking everyone for their participation.

If you want to initiate a Q & A after the topic is discussed, say so. If you want to elicit questions during the call, then advise participants how comments can be made.

If a question is asked during the call which is not relevant to the topic, tell the participants to send you an email and you will be glad to respond to that question.

If an individual’s work is to be reviewed during the call, ensure that the comments are constructive and not critical. There is nothing worse than having a team member publicly criticized by a peer.

Create an outline of the teleconference topics to be discussed and distribute this before the teleconference so that everyone has a copy. If you assign a particular topic to a participant, include their name on the outline so that they can prepare ahead of time and not be caught ‘cold’ on the call.

The most important aspect to running a successful team call is to make it clear who is the leader on that call. I once worked with a coach who assigned the conference calls leadership aspect to an online business manager (OBM). The problem with this set-up was that the work that I did was for the coach so when I contributed my thoughts to the group call, the OBM actually acted as the interpreter between myself and the coach. That made for a very uncomfortable and odd arrangement.

My rule of thumb…if the team is working for you and you pay their wages, you are the leader and therefore, you run the virtual group call.

Janine Gregor

As a virtual assistant, I am often asked, “What DO you DO?”

With about 5 seconds to capture the asker’s interest before succumbing to the ‘glazed over-deer-in-the-headlights-look’ with my traditional, boring response, I decided to shake things up a bit…and respond with a question instead.

Now I know this goes against what my mother taught me, “Don’t answer a question with a question” but she’ll forgive me for breaking the rules!

You see, as a virtual assistant…these are two words which do not really mean much at all to folks outside of the coaching, speaker, author or real estate professional industries, which tend to utilize my services more often for administrative and website work.

Explaining to folks what is I do through running off a list of services I offer rarely works either. And, when individuals learn my office is based out of my home that is the trigger that maybe I do not have a ‘real job’.

Even my best elevator speech does not seem to get my point across.

I have an identity problem.

So confusion sets in and I still have not really explained what it is I do for a living.

So when I am asked, “What DO you DO?” I answer instead with, “Have you ever?”

So, Janine, “What is it that you do?”
Have you ever sat down to create a blog using WordPress and realized you did know how to upload the theme to your website?

Answer: Well, I create blogs for customers who want to promote their services online to a broad audience. I also write blog posts, offer up ideas for those who wish to write their own posts and edit those who send me their posts to upload.

So, Janine, “What is it that you do?”
Have you ever looked at stacks of business cards and wondered who within those cards is waiting for a sales call?

Answer: I can take those cards, update your client database so we can collaborate and send out email messages, ezines and events notices to your clients via autoresponder programs.

So, Janine, “What is it that you do?”
Have you ever written articles and wondered what else could be done with them?

Answer: Well, I can post your articles to varying ezine sites. I can repurpose your articles for blog posts and archive those articles on your website for your visitors to download.

Using Have you ever to explain what a virtual assistant does is so much easier when the services are broken down in small bites. Rather than explain what a VA does, I explain what it is I have done and what I can do for them through examples. Clients see more value in this type of explanation…and no one has, thus far corrected my manners.

In my last post, Cut That Client Loose…It Happens!, I offered tips for VAs whose clients are non-communicators and slow-payors. Should the VA’s best attempts to communicate with a difficult client result in an impasse, the best (and only!) solution may be to simply release the client from the service contract.

Always plan to save the account instead of giving into frustration.

When a client shows signs of waning, I immediately draw up a plan to salvage the souring account.  All that is needed is time, patience and the wherewithal to recognize that a client entering ‘salvagable territory’ is really just another opportunity to grow your virtual assistance business.

My 5 tips to help any virtual assistant save a worthwhile client account.

1) Have a policy in place FIRST to protect yourself from non-communicators and slow-payors.

Collect a deposit from the client before work begins or expect to deliver only with a pre-paid retainer plan. I have a minimum per week plan and state in my contract that I bill that minimum time regardless if I have worked that week or not.

So if the client ‘falls off the face of the earth’, send a reminder that you have not heard from them and will be billing that minimum amount of time and making a draw from the pre-paid retainer or the deposit. Sometimes that is the jolt they need.

Understand that implementing business policies is not a form of retaliation against a disappearing client. I have found that clients have more respect for me because I have business policies in place. I do not hesitate to enforce those policies if needed.

If your client ‘disappears’ try to find out what the problem may be and offer solutions.

2) Begin by emailing the client with polite inquiries. If you do not receive a response within 48 hours, then email again that you wish to speak to them on the telephone. In some cases, they are receiving your emails but not responding (because they can do that…not respond…without consequence) however, when you make an effort to make the contact more personal, clients will respond. Have that conversation and offer solutions to whatever the problem may be.

3) Send a handwritten postcard showing empathy and set up a time and a date in that postcard to have a conversation. “Dear Client, I wanted to connect with you to see if everything is all right. I had not heard from you for a few weeks and I wanted to discuss what I can do to help you. Please call me on Tuesday afternoon between noon and 2 pm.”

4) There may be a personal problem with the client that you don’t know about – so don’t become aggravated right away. Life happens, people are hospitalized…so give a client the benefit of the doubt. I recently instituted a back-up system. If something should happen to me, I give my clients a number to call for updates. Ask your client for a back-up phone number to call if you have not heard from your client for a few weeks. In some cases, you can help the client while they are indisposed so your services become more valuable. Offer to put the account on hold until such time they can work with you.

5) If a client ceases to pay or begins to become a slow-payor, try to work with them first in a manner which does not affect the operations of your own business. In other words, I once had a client who kept missing weekly payments, so I offered to put her on a bi-monthly payment plan. At the time, this was not an issue but over time as more clients were added to my roster, I was spending more time performing non-billable accounting procedures than were necessary. Eventually that client went on a monthly retainer plan but instead of getting annoyed right away, I tried to work out a payment plan that suited her situation. She appreciated that and thus the account was salvaged.

In summary…create business policies and stick with them. Don’t go with your first instinct to become frustrated or aggravated with a non-communicator or a slow-payor. If emailing, calling and making accomodations for the client becomes more work than you can handle, then consider whether that client is your ideal client. If not, then ‘cut them loose’ and move onto marketing your business to your ideal client, which most likely includes a target that can afford your services and understands that communication is vital to working effectively with a virtual assistant.

Janine Gregor

A colleague emailed me that he was terminated from a social networking site on which he had been a paid member for more than three years.

There was no real explanation given for the termination other than “…[his] style of participation … [and] … contributions to the community are not moving it forward, and have begun to harm its reputation. “Consequently, we have terminated your membership…”

His profile consisted of hundreds of network connections, forum posts, compliments, and event postings.

I personally could find no reason why this occurred as I found him to be a reputable sales person whose postings were continuously professional. But it does not matter why he was bumped from the site nor does my opinion matter. The site does have the documented right to do whatever they want with posted information.

This blog is a reminder to keep copies of all the contacts you make on any of the social networking sites including the content because once someone is terminated, everything is removed from the site. I suggest keeping a spreadsheet with contact information and copies of your posts.

This brings up an interesting point about who owns the digital intellectual content on any one of the social sites. Of course the fine print (that very few really read) on numerous social networking sites states that once an account, paid or free is terminated every contact and post is removed. So the rules to ‘play’ are apparent but I wonder if this is just.

I see two sides to this argument. When an employee leaves a company most are allowed to take their personal items with them. Although many companies do not allow employees to take client contacts with them if they are terminated even though that employee might have nurtured those contacts. But typically the latter rule is in place to protect the company as usually both the employee and the company are in the same business; governed by a disclosure statement.

In the case of a social networking site, which is merely a platform to post digital material and not a direct business competitor to the user, I question why the information is inaccessible for use by the terminated user.

What do you think?

Janine Gregor

Occasionally, I receive emails from virtual assistants seeking advice regarding how to start their businesses. I suggest the usual; create a good website, craft a solid business plan, open up social networking accounts and have concrete business policies and contract documents in place but my main piece of advice is to join Virtual Assistant Forums (VAF) www.VirtualAssistantForums.com

And that suggestion is often met with surprise!

My reasoning is simple. When a new virtual assistant joins a community specifically designed for the virtual entrepreneur she/he will find all of the necessary answers to starting a new business. However, VAF is not only a ‘think tank’ for virtual assistants. Through participation, a new virtual assistant will receive the personal and professional support so necessary when jump-starting any new business.

As there is no ‘magic bullet’ to being a successful entrepreneur; there is certainly no reason for a new virtual assistant to go at it alone.

A winning virtual assistant business needs a strong starting point. VAF is available to all virtual assistants right out of the gate; from the sound of the starting bell to the finish line.

Most importantly, VAF is as vital to the continued success of a virtual assistant’s business even when the practice has been established. As the entity grows, an entirely new set of business situations occur. A concrete foundation is key to maintaining the momentum. So a VAF membership is beneficial long after that first client has been signed.

By nature, we are social creatures seeking out others with the same common interests.

Just by ‘being’, we are automatically part of a community called the human race. Within that structure we are part of other communities which centers around being a part of a family. As parents, we become constituents of the clubs we join such as PTA/PTO or Scouting groups. Many are members of our homeowners associations, of weight loss groups, the local gym and of chambers of commerce and hobby clubs. If we patronize stores we become members of a store’s reward and coupon programs. When we own pets we are members of pet-owner communities. It is our nature to gravitate toward each other when we find commonalities.

You may have heard that, “The whole is greater than sum of its parts.” Groups are often capable of producing higher quality work and make better decisions than an individual working entirely alone. So when a virtual assistant posts a problem or a need on VAF, often several members will offer an array of solutions.

Noted American psychologist, William Schutz introduced a theory of interpersonal relations called Firo: A three-dimensional theory of interpersonal behavior, which defined three reasons humans join groups: inclusion, control, and affection.

Without sounding terribly scientific here, a membership to VAF fulfills all three of these needs. VAs can feel included by participating in discussions. VAs feel in control when he/she offers expert advice while the need for affection is fulfilled when a member compliments another for a job well-done.

Any virtual assistant who wants to start their own business needs the support of those who have been in this business before. There are no better teachers than those who have spent nights wondering where that next client will come from. Virtual Assistant Forums is THE community where a VA can join and participate at any stage of progression.

And, we have fun on VAF. So it is not all about being so serious.

For example, Virtual Assistant Forums currently is celebrating its 3rd year in the virtual universe. Boasting more than 3000 members, several associates have joined together to form a planning committee to facilitate contests for all to enjoy. This year’s birthday theme is “Best of…” so members can nominate the ‘Best VA Business Blog’ or ‘Most Helpful Member’ or ‘Friendliest Member’. And, the prizes are phenomenal! Need an iPod Shuffle, a Genus Mouse Pen Graphic Tablet, a copy of The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur by Mike Michalowicz, a new Facebook Fan page, a new WordPress blog? This is just a small sampling of the great prizes to be presented to the winners. During VAF Birthday Bash Week, scheduled for April 19th to 23rd, three prominent authors and speakers will join members for free chats where drawings for even more prizes abound.

Another great reason to join Virtual Assistant Forums is to market your business even when you are not online to actively promote. Potential clients have access to the forum and can read the posts the virtual assistants create. If a client is seeking a WordPress virtual assistant and you have answered a question about WordPress, a client may find you and decide to make contact.

And there are the many virtual friendships formed on VAF….

Virtual Assistant Forums is a community where friendships are made every single day. Join a group such as Florida Virtual Assistants or the VAF Mentoring Group and now you have entered a subgroup of virtual assistants with whome you can have even more in common. Many VAs schedule to meet face-to-face through these subgroups.

If you have an e-newsletter there’s a VAF thread for that. Would you like to take a class but do not know which one is best for you, there’s a VAF thread for that.

Interested in live chats from expert bloggers, authors and social media experts? Check the VAF calendar and log on for that.

The absolute easiest way to become involved is to simply sign onto Virtual Assistant Forums and introduce yourself. Tell us about your business. You will receive a warm welcome and links to some of the best ‘getting started’ threads. If you have a specialty, we would like to hear from you.

Virtual Assistant Forum members are there to share, to learn and to just be ourselves. A few minutes a day and your VA batteries will be recharged.

And no doubt, one of the best perks of all to join is that Virtual Assistant Forums is that the membership is completely Free!

Lately, I have had to practice a bit more open-mindedness when using email to communicate with non-email users. These are folks who are experts in their own industries but do not use email as a major means to communicate.

In my virtual assistant-world nearly all of my communication is through email but ‘on the outside’ I know there are many who are not familiar with email protocols. And that is OK.

After receiving several ‘iffy’ emails of late, I needed to rethink my reaction to non-user correspondence and view these messages from a special perspective. In other words, I did not let a ‘knee jerk’ reaction prevail when email etiquette was not applied.

Language is a learned skill. We speak what we have been taught to articulate. Vocabulary improves and increases as we age. Understanding and using proper email etiquette is no different than learning a language. Email users learn what is correct to communicate through practice and experience. Crafting a good email, which gets a point across in a manner that is pleasant, respectful and clear is a learned skill.

Lessons Learned

1) Appreciate first that people are experts in what they do for a living. Everyone has a specialty. A business owner may not use email as their main means of communication and without practice, they might not understand email protocols.

If you receive an email from a business owner who sends the message in ALL CAPS, I say, ‘let it go’. I tend to believe that the individual most likely does not know that ALL CAPS means ‘shouting’ and should not be used in an electronic message.

I received a notice from my Home Owner’s Association the other day written in ALL CAPS. The information was a directive so I only envisioned while reading the document that the sender was standing at a podium with a megaphone screaming this message to the entire neighborhood.

I am sure that was not the message this person wanted to send but it came across that way. Unfortunately, I do not remember what the message was about but I do remember the use of CAPS. Not only is this format difficult to read and interpret but the message can be lost through the use of CAPS.

Most know that CAPS is shouting but never assume that everyone understands this very basic rule.

2) People who do not use email might not understand that body language, facial expressions, fluctuations in voice and in tone can not be sent through an email.

For example, I emailed someone in academia who is best at being a teacher. I asked her about a date for a project and expressed my concern about this date. Her reply was, “I am not concerned about that date!” When I first read the reply, I read this as a negative message. However, after careful thought, I gave the teacher the benefit-of-the-doubt. I believe she was being matter-of-fact which often is the type of message better expressed verbally than through email correspondence…

Some messages should not be sent through email and it is best to pick up the phone and have a good, old-fashioned conversation.

Unfortunately her response left doubt in my mind which is what any good communicator does not want to do.

When objecting to a point through email it is best to qualify the message, first, with a positive thought. She might have said, “I appreciate your concern for this due date being so late but such-and-such date might be a better choice to finish the project.”

3) Using the standard true type fonts such as Times New Roman and Verdana are standard for a reason. Not only are these fonts simple to read and easily interpreted by most word processing programs but they are less distracting than fonts such as Comic Sans or Scrap Kids.

I received a business email in the form of a quote from a pool dealer written in Scrap Kids. The font was changed to red which also meant that I had to strain my eyes as the color was an enormous distraction. Red means ‘alert’ or ‘hot’ but the contents of the message did not match the urgent nature of the font color.

I suspect that this business man thought that by adding color and design to his emails, I would be impressed with his creativity.

That was not the case at all and I ended up contracting with another dealer because even though his quote was competitive, I felt his presentation was unprofessional.

My Own Lesson Learned

Even with my many years of email experience, I am still learning to fine-tune my own electronic correspondences. I found that I needed to be more aware of who I was emailing before I hit send.

Several months ago, I was corresponding with an expert blogger. This individual reads many, many blogs per day and writes as many blog posts. Blogging is his livelihood. I was sending him details in an email I carefully crafted because I wanted him to know everything contained in one document. I did not want to repeat myself later.

After I sent off my detailed explanation, he replied with a nice ‘thank you’. Well, the time came for me to work with him and he sent me several emails asking questions about the information I so carefully composed in my original text.

He did not retain any of the detailed instructions I sent to him.

I realized later that this person reads emails by scanning them for keywords. He reads quickly. As a blog expert, he leaves himself no time to absorb detailed information. What I should have done was to bullet some of the major details in a scanable format. I know now to think about by whom my email will be received and adjust my message to be better served with a different reading format.

As a virtual assistant, I have to be ready to receive and send communication in ways that I least expect. I made myself more aware that non-email users do not always know the rules of email etiquette and have made behavioral adjustments accordingly.

I am often asked for my opinion about how to do something. It is the nature of the virtual assistant business. Having worked on a variety of projects, people believe I can either answer a question or at least give them the tools to find the answer themselves. I’m OK with that. I like to help.

I opened up my email Inbox today and found seven emails from people looking for an answer about how to do something. It took about an hour to get through all the responses and I was pleased to have answers to everything asked.

Of the seven, two responded with a ‘Thank You’.

Was I looking for a ‘Thank You’? Well, yes. It would have been nice. It would have been a validation of my efforts. Given the low response to the favor, a ‘Thank You’ from anyone actually would have helped that person to stand out from the crowd. This small gesture might have helped them receive future favors from me on a priority-status. That’s not to say I will dismiss their future requests but I might put the favor on a ‘low flame’ given the limited hours in my workday.

So why did only two people take the time to type two simple words and hit the ‘send’ button?

5 Reasons Why People Do Not Send a Thank You

1) They simply do not have good manners.
2) They take my good will for granted. They got what they wanted and as far as they are concerned, the query has ended.
3) They can not find the time to thank me.
4) They do not realize the value in a Thank You.
5) They forgot or they do not care, or both.

5 Reasons Why People Should Say Thank You

1) A Thank You shows appreciation for the time I took to handle their question. Very simple and very obvious.
2) They have good manners and their mother taught them well. A Thank You is automatic; without a second thought as it should be.
3) A Thank You is remembered by people who, in turn, are more likely to help them out in the future.
4) Finalizing an email with a note of thanks is indeed the proper way to actually end an email. It is a way to leave an appropriate ending to a piece of correspondence. A favor which is not ‘settled’ with a Thank You is the same as telling a story and not having a final solution or an ending to the tale.
5) The absence of a Thank You can mean that the efforts were not appreciated. You may have appreciated the favor but no one will ever know.

However, the bonus reason why people should should say ‘Thank You’ (drum roll, please!) is that performing this simple gesture is nearly FREE to accomplish which could reap benefits that might become profitable in the future.

The next time I open my Inbox and find several inquiries, I will respond to them but tucked in the back of my head will be the names of those who took a moment to appreciate my time. I might not spend an inordinate amount of time answering their questions because my time is valuable. I might steer them in the direction where they can find their own answers or I might wait to respond and do so only when my work hours are light.

Those who thanked me though, may get a faster response.

It’s human nature.

One of the services I offer as a virtual assistant is blogging and article marketing. It is a valuable resource that is in great demand in our virtual industry as more clients understand the potential for good SEO.  As article marketing increases online presence it also helps to classify the client as industry experts.  Additionally, articles can reap a ‘better bang for the buck’ as they can be repurposed into blog entries, newsletters and press releases.  Strategically placed, one article can have many lives.
 

I recently had a very intuitive consultation call with a potential client who is interested in blogging and article marketing. The client asked an interesting question, “How do you create topics for articles [when the virtual assistant is not familiar with the client’s industry]?”

I have been asked this question on previous occasions by other virtual assistants as well, so I created a client questionnaire for VAs, which is available for download here . (Click on the star logo). 

Ideally, a virtual assistant partners with a client on an ongoing basis to develop a relationship where communication between the parties is regularly maintained.  If the opportunity for a good partnership develops, the best way to write thought-provoking articles for a client is to be privy to their business happenings. This occurs only through good, two-way communication.  It is not unusual for a client to ask a question or share a piece of information with me, which can easily be turned into an article. Consequently, I’ll often reply with, “This can become a good blogging topic”. 

Another means to develop good article topics is to ask the client to check his Sent Box. What kind of questions is the client answering to his own customers?  Whatever information the client’s customers are asking certainly makes for great article topics.  Give the readers what they want to know… write about what your client’s customers are asking.

VAs, ask the client to send you urls to the online newsletters which are relative to your client’s business.  I often subscribe to the same blogs, newsletters and ezines my clients read. This is another means to find great ideas for articles and blogs. One long-term client regularly sends me real estate articles from which I have been able to construct good articles.  Keep them in a folder in your favorites entitled, ‘Blogging Topics’.

I often find subject matter on other people’s blogs which I send to my clients requesting that he respond with a brief reply.  Sometimes the answers are a few lines which I can expand upon, while others are complete responses which I can post in varying blogs or article marketing sites.

A long forgotten source for good article topics is the local public library.  I will often visit the library and sit down with several magazines and publications related to my client’s businesses. I jot down the publication name and look it up online when I return to my office.  Ask the librarian for other sources such as newsletters and flyers which are not available online. The librarian is another valuable tool to good research…and, the librarian’s services are free!

If a virtual assistant is not familiar with a client’s industry, there are numerous means to learn about his business. Asking questions, creating Google Alerts with keyword relative to the client’s business and keeping abreast of the client’s products and services are other important options to good article marketing as a virtual assistant.  Download the Questionnaire for Virtual Assistants to Ask Their Clients Regarding Article Writing and Blog Ideas for more options.

 Janine Gregor

Recently, I have ‘been on’ a few back-to-back consultations with potential clients. Each conversation had to be fine-tuned on the spot depending upon the clients’ expertise with working with a VA and in regard to his/her use of the internet.  Since consults are not ‘one size fits all’ this post can help VAs to customize the conversation to achieve maximum results.

*note RFP used herein is a Request for Proposal. This is the form that potential clients complete with information regarding their virtual assistant needs.
*Letter of Intent is the reply letter a VA writes in response to the RFP.

1)      Research, Research And More Research – If there is any tidbit of information you will take away from this post this will be it:  Research the client’s website and business as much as possible before dialing the phone. I suggest going one step further and research as much as possible before hitting the send button to reply to the initial RFP itself.  Although each Letter of Intent should be customized to the client’s requirements, take more time than usual to know the client because you may not have much time to do the research between the time you hit send and the time the client replies back to your customized letter of intent.  I have been in close-timing situations and have had mere minutes to vamp-up my research before I called the client back. Being prepared ahead of time will thwart being caught off-guard because you may need to book an immediate consult. It happens.

2)      Be Careful How You Phrase Your Opinions – Before making the consult call (and creating the Letter of Intent), make a list of what you think can be improved on the website or blog but do not come forward right away with a critique while on the phone with the potential client. Wait until the client asks for your opinion and phrase your critique as such, “If your website heading is decreased in size you can offer more information about your business above the page fold” or “If you add your social marketing badges to your home page, you can increase your membership”.  Making suggestions as opposed to saying, “The header is too big” or “The web page is messy” may make for bad vibes during the consult. Diplomacy is key.

3)      If the client indicates that they do not know how to do something while you explain what services you can provide, offer to show them how to do it. You may think that offering to train a client, for example how to post a blog will take away work from you; I actually believe that this leads to more work, which is what we all really want as virtual assistants.  I believe in offering to share my knowledge with a client for three reasons:  First, you will get paid for training; Second, once you spend more time teaching the client a task, this helps to build a relationship and solidifies you as the expert and, Three, these tasks lead to more work because then you can make suggestions as to how the task can be fine-tuned. The latter is much easier to do when you have built a rapport with the client.

4)      During the consultation call, be keen and listen to the client as they speak. Clues to how much expertise they have will be apparent just by listening. It can be embarrassing for the VA to review services the client is already familiar with.  In fact it is a waste of time.  Some clients know what ftp might be, while others have no idea.  Do not assume a client knows the entire internet ‘lingo’ so it pays to be clear during conversation without being too ‘techie’. It is easier to consult with client who has already worked with a VA so be sure you know this information in advance. 

5) If the client is seeking to replace their VA, it pays to know why but never be intrusive by asking outright. Most clients will say if they are replacing their VA upfront.  Use that information to your advantage.  For example, if the client states, “My VA does not know how to post a blog”, that would be your cue to indicate this is a service you offer (if you do, of course). But do not ask why the VA is being replaced. Only use the information if offered to indicate what you can offer to fill that hole.

Finally, evaluate each consultation call immediately after hanging up.  What could you have done better? What did you do well that you can use for the next call?  Consultations calls can improve over time.

Janine Gregor