Focus On Your Strengths To Grow Your Virtual Assistant Business

Do you know what your strengths are?

Do you know what you’re REALLY good at, what makes you unique and how you can USE that to add more value to your own business as well as those of your clients?

Many of us are pretty good talking about our weaknesses, but what about our strengths?

How much do you really know about your strengths and how to make the most of them?

Well, I believe all of us have something special. Each one of us was given unique abilities, unique talents and unique strengths that nobody else has, and everything we do, we do in our own special way.

Another thing I believe is Read more »

Is a Virtual Assistant Career Right for You?

If you think about it, this can be a controversial question, right?

Some people will automatically say yes!

Others will waver a bit before they answer,

…..and a few will admit it is not!

At first glance, many people may think virtual assistance is a simple career to break into but unfortunately, reality often proves otherwise.

Although in theory anyone with the right technical and administrative skills can become a Virtual Assistant, in practice, only a few really run a successful Virtual Assistant business.

For many, Virtual Assistance is a dream comes true, but for others, this dream sometimes turns into a horrible nightmare.

So, what can you do to ensure your Virtual Assistant business IS in fact a dream career?

Well, to start with, here are a few important questions to ask yourself before starting your own virtual assistant business:

1. Can you work independently? In a 9-5 job, you know what is expected of you and someone else determines how much work you do and when you do it. As a Virtual Assistant, you’re the boss and the buck stops with you. Nobody tells you what to do, nobody motivates you and nobody determines your pace.

2. Do you understand the VA industry? Do you understand that a Virtual Assistant is an independent business owner and what it all entails? Do you know what services you will provide and do you understand how to effectively communicate with your clients and deliver your services when you are miles or even continents apart?

3. Do you understand what it takes to run a business and are you ready for that commitment? As independent business owners, VAs run their own businesses and as such have to consider things like …

• Deciding on a Business name
• Developing a Business Plan
• Developing a Marketing Plan and Finding their own clients
• Developing a Website
• Determining a suitable rate to charge for their services
• Having an effective bookkeeping system for invoicing and collecting payments
• Developing contracts to protect themselves and their clients
• Protecting their business via insurance and effective back-up plans

4. Do you have marketable skills? If you’ve had experience as an administrative assistant, you most likely have the skills needed to get started. But you may need to add new skills to really stand out from the crowd since the number of Virtual Assistants competing for jobs has increased tremendously. Thus, in order to be really successful it is necessary to have a unique, desirable skill set. In other words, skills that are in high demand and that are not freely available. Skills which can solve a client’s needs and skills that you can charge a premium price for.

5. Can you wait for your first client? In most cases, clients will not line up for your services the minute you open your doors for business.  Growing a business takes time and often you don’t find that first client for several months. Do you have enough financial resources as a back-up when you don’t find your first client soon? Do you have your plans in place to go out FIND your first client?

***

It is important to be patient and persevere during the start-up phase and to continue marketing your business on a daily basis. Face-to-face marketing to friends, family, colleagues and new potential clients and spreading the message via “Word of Mouth” is usually the easiest and most common method of finding your first solid client.

As I already said above, a Virtual Assistant career can be a dream comes true for many, but it can just as easily convert into a nightmare for those who are not sufficiently prepared for the challenges that will come their way.

If you cannot answer positively on the questions above, but it is still your passion to become a Virtual Assistant – don’t despair. There is a lot of information on the VA industry, what it takes to become a Virtual Assistant and how to have a successful Virtual Assistant career. Read as much as you can, join VA organisations, speak to existing VAs, start your business part-time, get a business coach if you want and develop your skill sets until you feel more comfortable.

Remember: Anything in life is possible – but only you can decide how to live your dream!!

At Be Virtual Assistant Wise, we are really passionate about helping you to succeed in your virtual assistant career.  We would also love to hear about the challenges you experience in starting your VA business . You can use the comment box below to tell us more about it.

The Most Important Question

(and answer) to grow your virtual assistant business

I believe more and more Virtual Assistants are trying to “make it out there”, but are they REALLY growing their businesses into viable, profitable enterprises?

The most important Question you have to ask yourself as a virtual assistant business owner is …

Do I have a website?

The word virtual says it all.  The synonyms for virtual are:  practical, fundamental, near, effective and essential.

To be a virtual assistant means that you are not physically present in your client’s location, but you are virtually present which imply that you are almost present, effectively reachable and nearby.

In my eyes “virtually present” means that you are “present on line” and to be present on line you NEED to have a website!  Full stop. 

And if I may be particular, not only “just a website” but a professional looking one.  With a professional website, your business is open to the World 24/7, 365 days a year. 

A website is your online brochure where you are going to establish client confidence and rapport and to a great extent improve your overall business image.

When internet savvy clients are looking for virtual assistants in a VA-directory, odds are that they will be looking for website links and if you don’t have one, they will nine out of ten times move to your opposition’s listing, click on their link and never even return to yours.

Having a website means that you are not that local little business anymore.  It means that you have crossed all geographical borders and are an internationally recognized virtual assistant business.

 Can you really afford not to have a website of your own?

 And the answer is ….

…  NO!

Imagine this …

Imagine if you had a chance to build a business without spending ALOT of money on recourses.  Wouldn’t it be wonderful?

Well …

why don’t you do just that?

It’s no secret that forums are one of the most powerful business-building tools on the planet, yet we refrain from using it.

Why?  Are we scared?  Don’t we have the confidence?  Don’t we have the time?  Or are we just plain uninformed?

Building a virtual assistant business is never easy.  There are numerous things to take into consideration and sometimes money fly without being noticed.  You have to pay for this, that and the other in order to build a successful business and valuable information doesn’t come cheap.  And that is not enough you sometimes feel all on your own with nobody to talk to, to ask questions to or to share your experience with.

Put your hand up if you have ever experienced the above?   Tough isn’t it?

Well, believe it or not, you are not alone in the virtual world.  There IS a place where you can get support for FREE!! Read more »

How To Stop Marketing To “Unprofitable” Customers

Do you see marketing as a “trip to the dentist” obligation?

or

Do you see it as a powerful tool to reach your ideal client and to grow your business?

If the latter is your answer, why then do most Virtual Assistants use the “shotgun” approach when doing their marketing?

One of the biggest mistakes usually made by Virtual Assistants, is their preference to market their Read more »

A Virtual Assistant’s Most Powerful Secret to Time Management

Time Management is an important aspect in building a successful Virtual Assistant business.  But it is and continues to be a difficult thing for business owners in many industries, not just the Virtual Assistant profession. Yet it’s vital to ensure your time is spend on those things that can make a difference and have the biggest impact on your business success.

I believe the most challenging about taking control and having better time management is “Focus”.

Are you also one of those virtual assistants that tend to make To-Do lists with 100’s of tasks, ranking everything as important and trying to complete them as planned. I know, I’m sometimes like that. In reality however, between all those tasks we only lose focus. We tend to take care of the urgent matters first – even if they are not important.

Just evaluate the following scenario:

Read more »

The SMART Way to Keep New Year’s Resolutions

It’s not exactly breaking news that many Virtual Assistants fail to keep their New Year’s resolutions. But should that stop us from promising ourselves to get better each year? Of course not!

With January already good on its way … I’m wondering, how many of you have kept your New Year’s resolutions so far?

I must admit that I’ve already had a few mishaps on some of my personal ones – such as keeping a lid on my food intake. But then again – losing weight is one of the most broken New Year’s Resolutions ever.

So, what is the magic recipe it one wants to keep a New Year’s resolution

If you listen to the gurus, they will tell you that New Year’s resolutions do not last and that you rather need to set goals. But really, it does not matter how you look at it, it is in actual fact pretty much the same thing. The gurus will also tell you to set SMART goals – to make it specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and timely – and this usually works for most successful business people.

So, if you take this SMART principle of setting goals and shuffle it around, you can come up with another SMART way of keeping that important goals.

My SMART Way to Keep New Year’s Resolutions

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The Benefits of Online Marketing | The Virtual Assistant Yellow Pages

Making use of the benefits of online marketing is a sure way …

to create visibility for your virtual assistant business and to reach more well-informed, motivated clients.

The challenges of becoming a virtual assistant never stop.   This is why VAs should constantly be looking for small home business ideas to grow their businesses.

I can still recall how my parents tend to use the yellow pages when they were looking for a certain product or service. Nowadays we have various “online yellow pages” to our disposal by the click of a “mouse”.

Online directories are one of the most cost effective ways available for marketing a virtual assistant business.

There are numerous benefits of online marketing through directories, but for now I am only going to highlight four:

Read more »