Dear Gritty VA:
How can I find better clients? I’m highly skilled and do great work, but I only ever seem to attract the cheapskates who drive me insane. They’re never satisfied, even when they tell me how awesome of a job I’ve done, and ALWAYS want to take more and more from me without paying. I’m about ready to quit this business. –SM
I see the beginnings of some excellent, original copy on your website (website address not provided to preserve confidentiality). I can see your intelligence at work, how you’re starting to really intellectually grasp what you do, who you do it for, why you do it and how it helps your target market.
I can definitely see your onward and upward path as you continue to grow in your understanding and command of these concepts. Fabulous!!!
BUT….
On every single page of your website, you talk about money.
Save money on this; get a discount on that; here’s what you’ll save here; how to get 50% off… and the list goes on.
And guess who that attracts?
Clients who are focused on price. Clients who are always wanting to negotiate down your price, even with all the discounts and freebies you’re already offering them. Clients who always want something for nothing. Clients who would love to pay nothing if they could get away with it, who are demanding, needy, and will always try to get work beyond the scope of their agreements…
Are you getting the picture here?
If you focus your prospective clients on money and price and discounts, that’s exactly what they’ll be focused on. The first initial expectation that you yourself are setting is one of incentivization and paying less. You’re telling them to focus on cheap and getting discounts. So it should be no wonder why they are focusing on exactly that. You are training them to do so!
The mistake here is thinking that money is the only thing that will grab your market’s attention. And when you focus on that, those kinds of folks are exactly who you’ll attract.
Stop talking about money and trying to bribe and incentivize people to work with you.
Instead, focus on the benefits and results you achieve for clients. Talk about the problems and challenges your market faces and the reasons they are seeking administrative support in the first place so that they will recognize themselves in your copy. Explain your approach, and the ways you’ve helped past and current clients, and how you can help them, too. Give them facts and figures, testimonials and case studies.
Business owners truly do place value on those things and will pay handsomely the Virtual Assistant service providers who can deliver real quality, competence, and consistent solutions.
To those business owners, money is the least important thing–if your assistance helps them get more done and ultimately make more money without their having to lift another finger, most of them will pay just about any price you name!
