Sign up below to subscribe to the V-Scoop...
and get immediate access to our current issue.

Welcome to the first video in the ‘Virtual Assistant Marketing Mistakes’ video series.

In this video I ask you to consider and possibly change your perspective of marketing.

When you think about marketing your business … what comes instantly to your mind?

Too often I hear Virtual Assistants say they dislike marketing because they feels like they’re pressuring someone in to making a sale.  I’d like to squash this mindset and encourage you to think of marketing as a way to educate, share and help business owners.

Watch the video below to learn more.

What action steps you will take to eliminate this mistake from your business?  Please include your thoughts and comments below.

Virtual Assistants … are you frustrated with the results you’re getting from your marketing efforts?

I’ve put together a video series on the top 7 Marketing Mistakes in the Virtual Assistant industry.  I’ll talk about the mistake and give you a few tips around how to avoid this mistake in your business (each video will be only approximately4 minutes).

Interested in being notified when the videos are ready?

The series launched Wednesday, July 27.  Sign up below  to immediately watch the first video in the series, “Changing Your Perspective” and to be notified when each additional video is ready.

I’m somewhat chuckling at the title above because it seems rather harsh, but I couldn’t think of any other wording to get my point across.

It’s a conversation I want to have with the Virtual Assistant community.  Because it’s time for us, as an industry, to step it up and demonstrate that  we are professionals and offer incredible value.   Let’s start with getting our websites looking sharp.

Join me for another Livestream (live video) chat as I share:

• Why so many VA websites are useless
• What VA websites MUST include
• How you can clean up your website without requiring a big huge design overhaul

Your website may look beautiful … but if you’re missing these critical pieces I’m going to share, then it’s really no good to you.

Because we’re virtual, your website must be a great representation of you and interact on your behalf with people who visit.   Don’t let this key piece of your business give off the wrong image to people who could really use your help.

Join me on Tuesday, July 26th at 8am Pacific / 11am Eastern via LIVESTREAM (live video) to watch/hear about what you need to do to your website to ensure it’s connecting with the business owners you want to work with.

Simply fill out the details below and I’ll send you all the details you need to join me on July 26th.

Perhaps you can relate to this scenario:

You attended a single networking event and connected with all kinds of great people – some who went as far to say that they’d be contacting  you soon to learn more or to set up a time to speak about how you might be able to help them.

The next day your phone doesn’t ring, nor do you receive any emails from your new prospects.  Another day and then a week go by and  nothing.  You’re disappointed and think “networking isn’t helping me find new clients.”

or how about this one:

You create your social media accounts with Twitter, Linkedin, Facebook and even create a Facebook fan page.  You follow and friend some  people, post a few updates, even retweet a few people but nothing happens.

You’re frustrated and think “social media isn’t helping me find new clients.”

or maybe even this one:

You decide to participate in a few online discussion groups – hoping to connect with business owners who need your help.  You contribute to various discussions, make sure you include your website URL and then wait … no one from the group contacts you asking for more  information about what you do.  You figure “this strategy is a waste of time”.

I’ve heard these exact stories (and many more) from Virtual Assistants who are beyond frustrated with marketing their business.

Why is it that we expect immediate results from our marketing attempts?

Because we’ve forgotten the three main principles of marketing.  Marketing requires sharing.  Marketing requires relationship building.  Marketing
requires consistency.

It goes like this.  Consider your marketing to be about sharing information about what you do, how you help business owners and the results people can achieve from your support.  Through consistent interaction and participation, a relationship starts to grow.  Of course you assume other  strategies to support the ongoing follow up and connection to encourage additional growth of the relationship.

There are other pieces to this puzzle … but only once these items occur, do we start to see a return on the time, effort and commitment we put into the  marketing strategies.

“How long does it take, Cindy?“, is a question I often receive.  While I wish I could come up with the magic formula on how long it takes before you start  to see results … I can’t.

But I can tell you it takes more than a few tries, longer than a few days, possibly more than a few weeks or months.  But it’s all worth it and  ultimately – with consistency and sharing of value – it will benefit you and your business.

What marketing strategies have you tried and expected immediate return on?  Any stories you’d like to share (positive or learning lessons)
that others can learn from?

I’d love to hear from you — simply fill out the fields below.

It’s coming … starting Tuesday, August 23rd.

A hands-on, get-it-done program, (with some 1-1 mentoring too!) specifically to help Virtual  Assistants with marketing their business to find great clients and build their business (while making generous revenue).

The details will be released very soon, but  if you’d like to be amongst the first to know all the details, simply enter your name and email address info.  As soon as I have all the info finalized, I’ll be in touch >> promise!

Go ahead, check out the fields below and enter your name and email address now — I can’t wait to connect with you soon!

Let’s say you’ve had your first meeting with a really great potential new client – either in person or via the phone. You took inventory, you  demonstrated your business mindset and also your marketing mindset.

They were impressed by you and are now eager to get started. You are excited about working with them also (you didn’t feel the pit of the stomach feeling and didn’t have to exercise using the word No.)

How do you get started? Where do you even begin?  (Once all the contract details are looked after of course.)

Well, see the great thing is you took inventory (right??). So you have a great place to start.

If they answered your questions, then you know what some of their immediate priorities are and you also know what their long term goals are.

So here’s what I would say “in our call, you mentioned one of your biggest priorities was to do ________________. How about we start with this?”

And because you know how to apply your business and marketing mindset, you can TELL them how to get started.

You can say something like “You mentioned you want to finish your ebook. Well how about we create a deadline together. I can help with keeping you accountable to that deadline – I’ll check in with you every couple of days to see how you’re doing. If you get it to me by DATE, then I can review it, format it and get it back to you to finalize. In the mean time, why don’t I connect with a few graphic designers to have a book cover designed. And we should also confirm how you’re going to sell the ebook – and confirm you have all the technology in place to automate the process so it’s really professional.”

If you have this kind of discussion with a new client, immediately they will get excited about how you can help them. Just look what you’ve covered in a few minutes!

The other nice thing about this is you’ve given your client a ‘safe’ place to get started with you. By starting with a project like this, you’re offering to support them in finishing something they’ve been wanting to do, you’re using your initiative (rather than waiting to be delegated to) and you will not be interacting with any of their clients/customers etc. This gives them to get to know, like and trust you a bit more before you have a ‘presence’ within the business.

Another piece to this challenge is to consider other ‘starting’ projects that may attract your potential clients. Remember, business owners “don’t know what they don’t know”. Many business owners in different professions don’t even know what a Virtual Assistant is. If they have heard the term, they may not really understand what one can do. And even if they have a general idea of what a VA can do, they don’t really understand how it will help their business.

So if you know of some ‘easy’ projects that allow you to easily get started with a client – items they often struggle with, have sitting on the side of their desk (or in a big pile in their office!), then you make it even easier to connect with them and likely get started!

I’d love to hear from you … how do you get started with a new client? What has worked well for you.

Value. It’s what business owners want from their Virtual Assistants. It’s a quality that we provide through our expertise, our mindset, our initiative, and our genuine interest in best supporting the clients we work with.

Do you know how you provide value to your clients?

The story below describes how one business owner experienced tremendous value from her VA. And it really wasn’t that hard … it just took a certain level of skill.

I encourage you to read through, reflect on your client relationships and share how you provide value to your clients.
—–

I’d like to share with you a quick example of a very real situation (based on a true story).

Natalie, a very busy online entrepreneur, had a great business. However, she knew her websites could be working better for her and she continuously struggled with writing new content to post to her blog and send out to subscribers and followers.

She hired Monica, a Virtual Assistant who offered advanced skills in the area of WordPress to help her out in these areas.

With just a few simple additions and changes, Monica helped Natalie:

• better leverage the content she posted to her blog,
• add various plug-ins to better evaluate and enhance the blogsite pages
• implement simple SEO tactics within the copy to make it more effective,
• revise pages that needed tweaking in order to provide better results
• find ways to reuse and recycle previously written content to alleviate the pressure of creating new content week after week.

Natalie couldn’t have been happier with the return on investment she was receiving from Monica’s expertise. Monica was helping her save, leverage, recycle, provide more value and so much more … all because of her Advanced WordPress expertise. (Here’s a sample image of Natalie’s excitement! >>>>>)

It was proven that Monica’s recommendations and revisions had made a successful impact on Natalie’s blogsite (and business!)

Do you want to provide more value to your clients with Advanced WordPress skills?

The Advanced WordPress program starts Monday … hosted by me, with Sandra De Freitas (WordPress guru) as our lead trainer.

Head on over to http://www.HotSkillsVATraining.com/advanced-wordpress to learn more and hold your spot for Monday.

It’s my 36th birthday today and while I don’t typically celebrate ‘virtually’, I thought this year I’d do something a little different and combine a bunch of my ‘loves’.

I love to have some fun. I love the VA industry. I love training. I love to help VAs find great clients, build a great businesses and achieve their goals.

So I thought it would be fun to offer a discount on a few items – one that connects with my special number – in hopes that it may YOU move forward in your business.

The 36% savings can be applied to any of the following.  Enter the coupon code BIRTHDAY in the coupon code field when you check out and the shopping cart will automatically apply the discount.

Hurry because the discount ends when my birthday weekend ends — Sunday morning!

Get Clients Club Annual Membership

Boost Your Confidence, Easily Find GREAT Clients, Stand Out and Generate Serious $$. Meet with me each month to uncover a hot topic to support you in finding great clients and building your business.  >>>Learn More …

******

Virtually Successful: 8 Simple Ways Virtual Assistants Can Find (and Keep) Clients Book

Each year thousands of administrative professionals leave their employment in search of a better and more flexible life as a Virtual Assistant. Once the office is set up, the website is created and the business cards are ready to be handed out, the realization and struggle of finding ‘good’ clients and earning a decent living is experienced by (too) many.

Learn the specific steps to help you find great clients and build the business you want. >>> Learn more about the book

******

Membership Specialist Self-Study Program

Membership Programs are one of the most popular and successful revenue streams for online based businesses.

This program will give you the tools to create and customize a membership program as well as the essentials to managing it, protecting content, integrating it with payment processors and more.

Effective Membership System + Ongoing Member Support = Lucrative Revenue Stream. The number of business owners who need this support far exceeds the number of Virtual Assistants who specialize in this area.  >>> Read More

******

Publicity Specialist Training Program – Self-Study Program

Every business owners wants to be the called-on expert from the media. They crave the right kind of publicity to build their credibility, exposure and expert status.

Business owners desperately seek the support of someone who can manage publicity efforts on their behalf … they simply don’t have the time to do it themselves PLUS they don’t even know where to begin.

In this program you will learn hot publicity skills clients want wand will pay generously for. >>> Read More

******

Website & Blog Design Basics Training Program – Self-Study Program

You don’t need to be a designer, but as a Virtual Assistant, you really should be able to provide basic website maintenance support to your clients.

This 5-session program will show you exactly how to make simple changes to existing webpages, how to set up lead generation opt-in webpages, developing a simple sales page, creating a newsletter template and more. Plus you’ll learn how to install and setup a WordPress blog, how to customize a theme as well as installing plug-ins and widgets.

There’s no need to wait days and days for the web developer to make a simple change … this program will provide you with the tools to do it all yourself. >>>Read more

Ever wonder how you can really help your clients with LEVERAGING their WordPress blogsites?

More and more business owners are using WordPress blogsites (if they’re not, they’re waaaaay behind the times).  Would you be surprised to hear that WordPress offers much, MUCH more than what is typically implemented on to the average site?

Business owners are realizing that they can leverage WordPress and their blogsites much more — to attract more attention, create more credibility, build more community and generate more money.

Whenever I have questions related to WordPress I turn to my friend, colleague and WordPress Diva, Sandra DeFreitas.  Now that WordPress is essentially the ‘norm’ … I’d like to know what business owners really need from the Virtual Assistant community that is beyond the basics of developing a WordPress site.

Would you like to join me on a fr-ee call with Sandra on Wednesday, June 29th at 10am Pacific / 1pm Eastern to learn what Virtual Assistants need to know beyond the basics of WordPress?

On this call Sandra will share 5 hot ways to help your clients with their WordPress blogsites.

These are advanced items that will help you help business owners with creating more valuable content, leveraging from their valuable content, creating more community, monetizing more and so much more —- all ways that a VA can provide even more value to their clients and monetize more themselves!

Fill out the form below and join us for this advanced call.

When you’re asked ‘What do you do?’ How do you respond?

I know for a fact that so many Virtual Assistants respond with “I’m a Virtual Assistant.  I work from my home office and provide administrative support to other business owners.”

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.  (Can you hear me scream?)

When I first started my business in 2003, I used those EXACT words at my very first networking event.

I very walked into a business filled attorneys, financial planners, mortgage brokers, realtors and other professionals.  I  was scared … but somewhat confident at the same time.  I had always done well in my years of work and this was no  different other than it was now my business I was going to be talking about.

I nervously walked around the room, made eye contact and smiled at new faces … and happily extended my hand when someone introduced themself to me.

But then it happened and it was a moment I will NEVER forget.

A very nice lady shook my hand, told me her name and a little bit about her business.  Then she asked, “Cindy, tell me  about yourself; what do you do?”

I smiled … excited to tell her about my brand new business.

So I did … I said “I’m Cindy Greenway and I’m a Virtual Assistant.  I have my own small home based business where I provide administrative support to small businesses.”

Then there was the awful pause and somewhat of a blank look on her face.  She looked uncomfortable but then slowly smiled and said “That’s great … nice to meet you, Cindy.” And then she moved on.

Can you relate?

This exact same situation happened a few more times in the same evening.  Some went one step further and asked me what a Virtual Assistant was.  But overall the night was horrible … but good enough that I’m still here today to plead with you —- if you’re using this introduction (or anything remotely close to it) at your networking events or anywhere else, please, PLEASE stop.

Networking – of any kind is not about you. It’s not about your ‘Virtual Assistant’ title. It’s not about you working from your home office, and charging for only the time you spend one your client’s work.

It’s about the people you’re there to network with (hopefully your target market).

It’s about knowing about them, asking them questions, sharing with them how you can help THEM … using specific terms that you know about their industry or about their individual challenges.

It’s about THEM and how you can help them with solutions to the pain they experience.

How will you take action on this immediately and tell them what’s in it for them?

Stay tuned … there’s more to come on this topic in future issues of the V-Scoop.  In the meantime, I’d love to receive your comments below.

Can you relate to the article above?  How did this experience change your future networking?  I look forward to your comments!