When Virtual Assistants come to me and say they are having trouble finding clients, I always ask them who their target market is.
Many times the answer is ‘I don’t have one’ or ‘I haven’t narrowed it down yet.’
If you have not chosen a target group to market your services to, you are making things much more difficult for yourself to grow your VA business.
Narrowing down to serve a target market is an important part of your business planning. Without knowing who your customers are, it will be naturally harder to find them.
Think about the places that you shop or go to. Who are their customers? What are their products and services? Who do they cater to? What do you know about them? What do they promote or advertise? How do you know that this is a place that you want to shop (or not?)? They are targeting certain customers (and leaving others out).
McDonalds sells fast food, mostly hamburgers (and really good coffee!). So if you are looking for a dining experience, if you are vegan (or if you prefer to spend $7 on a coffee!) then you know McDonalds is probably not the place you want to go. McDonalds has apparently served billions of customers.
The French Laundry is a famous prix-fixe restaurant that offers a $350 per person dining experience. They take reservations two to four months in advance, and you don’t even know what the menu will be when you book. At that price, it’s definitely not marketing to the McDonalds crowd, but they know exactly who their clientele are. Their restaurant only seats 60 people, but they are in high demand by their audience.
These two companies are not marketing their restaurants to the same people, but they both do the same thing in the end… they serve people food.
Sure, it’s a simple comparison, but you get the picture. They may not be the right option for everyone, and they know it. They market their business to the people that they know want (and will pay for!) their products and services.
The same is true for any business – including your VA business.
Can you help everyone? Depending on your service offerings, possibly.
But are you the BEST choice for certain business owners? Definitely. These are the clients you should focus your marketing on.
The more focused you get in connecting with and converting a specific group of people, the more success you will experience.
Choosing a target market just means that you find a big pool of people that all have similar needs, and then you connect with them.
This makes your marketing efforts SO much easier, because you are talking to a lot of people at once about your services and how you can help them.
It’s much more difficult trying to find a client here or there – like trying to find a needle in a haystack.
Your business can grow very quickly when you surround yourself with potential clients. You might only need to market your VA business in one entrepreneur Facebook group to get a full roster of clients (yes, really!)
When you network with potential clients, ask a lot of questions about their business. It’s how to learn about what they do, how they work, what they think is important, and whether you can help them or not.
Selecting a target market TODAY and starting to make daily connections in a focused place could help you get a new client THIS WEEK. It really can happen that quickly. Ask any VA who has built their business by doing this.
The only ones who don’t think choosing a target market works are the ones who aren’t doing it – or who aren’t doing it well.
Here are three reasons that focusing on a target market right now is essential for your VA business:
- You will be connecting with your best clients in the right place(s). Limit the number of places you are networking, no more than three, and make sure they are full of great potential clients. Make connections in the group every single day. Focus on being helpful, not salesy.
- You can sculpt your services to support them. Ask lots of questions. When you are really clear on what they need support with, you can start to speak very specifically about how you can help them.
- You can produce better content for your website, blog, and social media. When anyone connects with you online, they will check you out to make sure that you are the best person to help them with what they need. Clarity in your messaging spills over into your content.
It’s not about trying to be McDonalds or The French Laundry – it’s about knowing who your best customers are (who you are the BEST support for), so that you can connect with them and sign them as clients.
So who is your target market?
The Inspired Action VA mastermind is a small group of supportive VAs who work together through the day to day issues that crop up just like this one. If you are struggling through your VA business, check out this group to see if it’s the right time for you! Our daily and weekly support is just what you need to get things done, and to keep yourself in a positive frame of mind so you can reach that success!