Welcome to another episode of the podcast that teaches you how to be a ridiculously good virtual assistant.
Today I want to talk about being your own first VA client.
Today’s Quote: Some things cannot be taught; they must be experienced. You never learn the most valuable lessons in life until you go through your own journey. – Roy T. Bennett
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Connect with Tracey D’Aviero, VA Coach and Trainer
Episode Notes:
Starting your Virtual Assistant business comes with so many things that you don’t know how to do.
Maybe you aren’t sure what to offer as your services.
Maybe you aren’t sure what to charge.
Maybe you aren’t sure where to find clients.
But many of you are also aren’t sure about how to do the actual work you need to do – and how to charge properly for it.
I see Virtual Assistants every single day who post in the groups asking for advice … ‘a client needs me to do this (or that), how would you charge for something like that?’
I cringe every time I read that, honestly.
First off, if you don’t know how to do something for a client, you shouldn’t be doing it.
At least not if you are just getting started as a VA.
Don’t get me wrong, you can learn on the job, sure, but the issue with this kind of post is the not knowing how much, or how to charge for it.
That’s the thing that makes me cringe.
Why? Because you are operating a business – offering services. You need to know how much the services will cost the client in order to run your business professionally.
If you don’t know, you aren’t ready to work with clients yet (for that task).
Harsh, perhaps, but I have GOOD news too – of course!
You CAN figure this out pretty easily. So you can work with the client.
When you are first getting started, it’s completely normal to not know how long something takes.
I tell you all the time that we don’t really get taught to manage our work pace in a corporate job. We aren’t working against a clock in a job (not really), at least not in the same way that a Virtual Assistant does.
Yes, we trade our time for dollars, Even if you aren’t charging your clients by the hour, you are still doing a certain amount of work for the client’s money.
It’s completely normal to feel ‘I don’t know how long this is going to take’.
The advice I will always give you is – ‘Then, do it.’
How can you know how long something is going to take until you actually do it?
You know who never asks how long something should take to do? Someone who has already done it at least once.
Maybe it doesn’t work the same way every single time, but the person who has done the task at least ONE time has SOME idea of how long it should take to do.
I see this all the time and while it might seem like a simple message to do an entire episode on, I’m going to give you some examples, and how to handle them.
It is by being your own first VA client.
We learn everything by doing – so we need to do it!
It’s kind of funny how Virtual Assistants are surprised by this when I give them this advice.
How can I figure out how long it takes to do x? Um… do it.
Let’s check back in on this episode’s quote: Some things cannot be taught; they must be experienced. You never learn the most valuable lessons in life until you go through your own journey.
I really like this quote because it describes what learning does.
Yes, we find out how to do something when we learn it. But when we experience it, we go through all of the steps and we actual learn how to do it by going on the journey ourselves.
So how does this help us as a VA?
Let’s talk about a few specific scenarios:
Onboarding
Setting up an onboarding procedure for your clients is pretty easy.
You can Google or Chat GPT how to do it. That’s great, you can figure and maybe write down the steps.
One of the most important parts of actually learning something is … writing it down.
To retain the information you learn, writing it down is highly recommended.
So don’t just create an onboarding sequence. Walk yourself through it. Like I mean actually do it (don’t just read through your steps).
How long does it take? What does the customer or client experience as they go through it? What can you do to make it more personal? more efficient? Make changes or adjustments as necessary.
Don’t ask someone how much time their onboarding procedure takes. Create your own and then walk through it.
Your own journey will show you what your clients experience – and you can make sure you bill accurately (yes, your onboarding with your clients is billable time!)
Your onboarding process should be documented with the each step required, what information you need to collect from the client, what you need to do with that information, and how long it takes you to do it (including communication to request it).
Remember always that everything you do for your clients is billable time, and that includes your communication.
If you do an onboarding meeting, make sure you also put that in your process – how long is the meeting booked for and what do you do on it?
If one of the things you cover is going through the client’s stuff to prioritize tasks with them, be sure to hold them to your process.
When you document your processes, that’s when you can allot the time required to do each step. And then – and this is important – it is always your responsibility to make sure that the task or step gets done in that allotted time. Whatever your estimates are must be accurate.
Don’t give away your time because you have a chatty client or one that loves to screen share, and so your meetings take 4x as long as someone who doesn’t do that.
That’s why I say be your own first client. Do the onboarding yourself. When you know how long it should take, you can then keep your clients on target to complete theirs in a timely manner.
And if you do get a chatty client, then you can build in pieces to your onboarding process to expedite getting things done on time.
Remember, they are retaining you to do their work, not spend hours and hours onboarding them!
Research
Virtual Assistants LOVE to do research. In fact, I speak with very few VAs who don’t tell me how much they love to do it.
Another very popular question is the VA groups is how to charge for research.
In this case, yes, it’s important to know how long it’s going to take, but being able to define what you are looking for in the research is where it starts.
When a client asks you to do some research, it is really important to know that they don’t expect you to charge them for 10 hours of research.
Like I said, VAs love their research and I know several of them who would spend 10 hours doing it.
Don’t get me started on the VA that I hired who did 8 hours of research for me, which was only supposed to be a part of a 10 hour project. She did so much ‘research’ that she had no time left to do the actual project using the data. Okay so I got started myself. Ooops!
While you may not be able to do the actual research for a client first to figure it out, you can actually create a research ‘service’ for your VA business that has some structure to it. And I highly recommend that you do!
Here’s what I mean: if a client asks you to research CRMs for them, find out from them what the end goal is. Do they want 3? 5? What are they going to do with the information? Do they need you to set it up or move their data? When is their deadline to make a decision on which one to choose?
These are the kinds of questions that you need to ask a client when you are going to do research for them.
So you know the questions you need to ask. Ask them of yourself.
It’s actually a common kind of research project that clients might ask you to do.
So do it – for yourself.
Be your own first client. You can actually go through the process or choosing one for yourself, or just do the project as practice.
How does that help you?
Well setting up the process of: a) these are the pieces of information I need from the client first; b) what their end goal is; c) how many pieces of results they need; d) what their budget is for the work helps you figure out how to manage your time.
Research should NEVER be open ended. You should always have a structure and a time limit.
For the VA that I hired, I told her my budget was 10 hours for the project to collect a bunch of information, create a Google sheet to compile the data, and then start doing initial reach out by email to the people whose information was collected.
That VA spent 8 hours on research, and after she started doing the research, I never heard from her. I had to reach out to her to ask how it was going, a week or more later. Only then did she tell me she was struggling to find good contacts – that she had done 8 hours so far, but still had more to go.
I choked. I had been very clear with the project from the beginning, my whole budget was 10 hours, but the VA didn’t feel the need to give me any status updates after she started the project. No way she was going to have the time to do the actual work within my budget.
What should she have done instead? I told her. And I’ll tell you.
She should have started the research, documented any questions or issues she was having, and then at the 2 hour mark, she should have checked in with me to update me on how it was going.
If she was struggling, I could have given her some pointers. Or maybe I could have started to use the data she HAD collected to do what I needed. I definitely would have been more involved in how my money was being spent.
If a project is not going according to plan, you should always communicate that to your clients. Especially when it’s costing them money.
Research is a really big topic, not just because of this VA and how she botched the work for me.
It’s big because I see soooooo many other VAs tell the same story about work they have done for their clients that goes wrong.
That’s why I suggest creating a research process. It helps you keep on track, keep the client’s end goal in mind, and work as efficiently as possible. And if you describe how you will handle a 10 hour project for your client in the way that I described above (I’ll start, and at the 2 hour mark I’ll check in with you to make sure that we are getting what you need…), your clients will be thrilled.
Time is money, and the money is always your client’s.
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
I love talking about KPIs.
These are the numbers that can tell you what the status of different parts of your business are.
When you want to be able to show your clients that working with you is a good decision, KPIs can help you understand that.
Being your own first client helps you understand exactly what your clients experience when they work with you.
It helps you figure out issues that might arise before you even start working with someone, helps you get processes in place to streamline your own operations, and helps you to set times and rates to specific tasks because you have actually done them.
You may have been told to create an SOP but you think you don’t know where to start. Start with being your own first VA client and you will figure it out!
KPIs can be different for every business, but the principle is the same.
You create a report that you update weekly or monthly and then you compare the numbers from the previous period to see what kinds of adjustments you might need to make to your strategy or deliverables.
If that sounds techy, it’s not.
Here’s a simple example: how many discovery calls did you do this month? what was the result of each of those calls? how many did you do last month? what was the result of those? What does that tell you? Is your conversion rate going up? down? If you do more calls will you get more clients?
A lot of people track numbers like email subscribers or email opens, even though they may not be actionable enough as a KPI.
In the example I showed you about discovery calls, that’s super simple. How many clients did you get from your discovery calls? If you did 10 calls and got 2 clients, what can you do differently on this month’s calls so that you can get 4 or 5 clients from 10 calls?
See how that’s actionable?
KPIs is really the new way of saying reporting, at least that’s what I think.
But you don’t have to report on everything. That’s actually a big mistake people make. They create reports that are so indepth or take so much time to populate regularly, and then they don’t use the data in them.
By being your own client you can see what might be valuable. It may not be discovery calls for your clients.
They might want to know what their member retention is on a membership, or how many clients buy their training program after downloading a certain free offer.
You don’t have to track everything, that’s the beauty of it. You can track the things that they can actually use to affect their business. When you do that for yourself to start, it makes it really easy to explain to your clients.
Reporting is a great service to offer as a VA too, because it can provide ROI.
KPI reporting for your clients can be an excellent way to show them how investing in your services can actually help them build their business. You don’t have to figure out how to get more of their email subscribers to open their emails, but you can report on the things that they can easily make adjustments to, to grow their business.
Being your own first VA client by creating KPI reports that are useful is very easy. A simple spreadsheet and some valid numbers, with a schedule to update and then assess. Easy peasy!
As usual, let’s circle back to today’s quote: Some things cannot be taught; they must be experienced. You never learn the most valuable lessons in life until you go through your own journey.
I hope you see what I mean when I say that being your own first client can help you do everything better.
Instead of just making a list or guessing, you actually experience it. You can adjust it, you can see what your clients go through. The most valuable lessons you will learn going through your own journey.
Do You Need Help?
If you need help getting your pieces in place to start working with clients, get in touch with me. I’m here to help.
It’s the only reason I’m here at all, as you know. To help you become a ridiculously good VA.
I have helped hundreds of VAs who are stuck get moving through private coaching, group coaching, and live and self study trainings. If you want to talk about how we can work together, let’s connect on a Cut to the Chase call. You can book yours at YourVAMentor.com/chase
Thanks for tuning in this week! I’ll see you next time!
What You Need to Do Next:
Let’s work together privately to get you to your really big goal. It’s the fastest way to get results and we can start right away. Learn more about private coaching here.
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Click here for more tips to help you with your productivity and time management in your Virtual Assistant business.
Reach out to me if you need to talk about where you are stuck and what the right option might be to get you moving. It’s literally all I’m here to do is help you get to where you want to go. Book a complimentary Cut to the Chase call with me here.