Dear Gritty VA:
I thought I had landed two retainer clients recently. Well, last week one fell through before it started, and I just received an email giving me 30 days notice from the other. I’m so disappointed! ~ CC
Yes, this can definitely be disappointing, but don’t give up. One of the things I had to realize when I lost one of my first clients is that nothing is static; eventually there would come a day when they would not need me for whatever reason. This is why it will be important to maintain a constant marketing effort and presence, even when your practice becomes full.
There is some good that can come out of this. Use it as an opportunity to poll these two clients for their feedback. Ask the first one why they didn’t go with the service, and then get some service feedback and possibly a testimonial from the second one.
And, of course, it’s another opportunity to demonstrate your utmost professionalism, thanking them, and asking them to refer you to others. You could take that even one step further and ask them for the names of at least three people they think might be interested in your services.
This is also as good a time as any to draft a feedback questionnaire that you can send to both current and prospective clients. I have one for prospective clients who didn’t hire me for whatever reason (I want to know why and what things are important to them), and then I have another for my retained clients that I send to them every six months or so (I want to know how I’m doing, and ask for their ideas and suggestions). I also have one that is just for project clients that I send at the completion of a project. The kind of information you get from clients is worth more than it’s weight in gold.
If you’d like a really thorough feedback questionnaire that’s already drafted, check out my organization’s Virtual Assistant Business Forms store.
Keep plugging along, CC. It will happen!
Thanks for commenting. Yeah, the virtual assistant term is really completely idiotic to...
