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100 Conversations to Grow your Business

This month I started taking part in a great challenge that my friend Sally Guest is doing in one of her Facebook groups. It’s called 100 Conversations in 100 Days and it’s basically a challenge to grow your business. Since I teach people to network by talking to 2 people each day about your business, I thought it was a great idea for me to do it for 100 days myself. And it’s only one person per day, so it’s ridiculously manageable. We are already almost at Day 10, and it’s so easy. I challenge you to start too – try it. Think about one person every day that you can speak with about your business. Maybe it’s someone who could… Read More »100 Conversations to Grow your Business

5 Tips to Selecting the Perfect Coach for You

5 Tips to Selecting the Perfect Coach for You

As people start to realize that I offer coaching services to Virtual Assistants, the question always arises: how do I know who is the right coach for me? This is great question. First of all, it’s important to realize that your coach has to be a good fit for you. Just because someone is a well-known coach does not mean that working with them will be a good investment for you. You need to make sure of several things before you take the plunge. 1. What is their area of specialty? It’s essential to know what they offer as their specialty – because if it’s not a fit for what you need right now, then it might not be the… Read More »5 Tips to Selecting the Perfect Coach for You

Your VA Mentor: How to Get 3 New Clients in 60 Days

How to Get 3 New VA Clients in 60 Days

I am halfway through my Earn 50K as a VA Bootcamp and in our lessons we have arrived at Getting Clients. This is such a big part of being in business, but yet a lot of VAs just don’t know where to go to find clients. In fact, it’s one of the questions I am asked most often in my networking circles – where do I find clients? It’s not as hard as you think, but it has to start out with a plan – and a strategy. First of all, you know you should also be networking. You should always be connecting with new people (who could potentially be your clients) and you should always be following up with… Read More »How to Get 3 New VA Clients in 60 Days

Are You Still Charging by the Hour as a Virtual Assistant?

When you started your Virtual Assistant business, it was probably easy to charge your clients by the hour. But in order for your business to grow and be successful, the ‘trading time for money’ model quickly falls short. Why? For one thing, there are only so many hours in a day/week, so you can quickly max out the amount of money you can make in your business. For another thing, it’s much harder to raise your rates with your current clients. And that means if you get so busy that you need to bring on subcontractors to help, you may not be able to earn enough to keep your business successful. These are just two simple reasons why charging by… Read More »Are You Still Charging by the Hour as a Virtual Assistant?

5 Great Questions to Ask in a Consultation Call

When someone contacts you to ask about how your Virtual Assistant services can help them, how does the conversation flow? Do you tell them about your service offerings? Do they ask how you can help them? How often do you sign the client when you are on that consultation call? All the time? Most of the time? Only some of the time? Hardly ever? If you are not closing the sale all or even most of the time, it could be your approach that’s the problem. I teach my students that it’s more important to listen than to talk on consultation calls. The client will let you know what they need if you ask them the right questions. Here are… Read More »5 Great Questions to Ask in a Consultation Call

Do You Recognize Your Own Value?

I have been reading Harvey Mackay‘s new book The Mackay MBA of Selling in the Real World. It’s a terrific, easy-to-read book that takes you through the various components of how to sell effectively – by being you and by knowing what your customers want. That is some serious paraphrasing, but you get the point! One of the chapters in particular spoke to me and I wanted to share it with you. It’s called Sell Yourself. Harvey talks about the three toughest sells being Company, Product and Self. As a small business owner and a mentor, I know how difficult selling yourself can be. Selling yourself can be one of the most difficult things to do, if you do not… Read More »Do You Recognize Your Own Value?

Do You Know Your Magic Number?

I once took a course that helped me to see how I was interacting with potential clients, and how I was attempting to convert those potential clients into actual clients. It introduced me to my ‘magic number’ – my conversion rate of prospects. What does that mean? Well, simply put, that means how many people I actually convert to clients while on a sales call. I realized that I was converting at about 40 per cent, which would mean that for every 10 people I talked to, 4 would actually sign on to work with me. (Note: that’s not a very good conversion rate!) Think about it … if you are working at a 40 per cent conversion rate, and… Read More »Do You Know Your Magic Number?

Exactly what do you do? (Hint: I’m a Virtual Assistant is not the right answer!)

So you are probably out there, doing some networking, and getting to know people. How do you respond when people ask you what you do? I have seen this handled many ways, but mostly this is the response that VAs come up with: I am a Virtual Assistant. And then you sit back and wait for them to ask you what that means. You have already confused your prospect. Being a Virtual Assistant is what you do, but it doesn’t tell anyone what you actually can do for them, which is really what their question is all about. So what you need to do is to craft a more succinct message that explains what you do without being the dreaded… Read More »Exactly what do you do? (Hint: I’m a Virtual Assistant is not the right answer!)