The Gritty Virtual Assistant Blog

No, I’m serious…

When you make decisions about your business, are you constantly looking for the free ride?

How do you choose your vendors and service providers? Is your initial inclination to weigh and examine quality, benefits and advantages? Or is “cheapest” and “free” your primary criteria?

If it’s the latter, you’re killing your business.

And not for the reasons you think.

While there absolutely is truth in the adage “you need to spend money to make money,” I’m not talking about that.

I’m referring to something that’s fare more insidious and damaging to your business. And that’s the poverty mentality.

If you are a laws of attraction/abundance type person, or more of an intentions person like me, you are familiar with some form of the saying “you attract what you put out.”

If you are operating with a cheapskate’s mindset, guess who that’s going to attract to your business? Yup, you guess right–cheapskate clients. And that’s because your own mindset will permeate the current of your written and verbal communications.

Be honest, how many times have you complained to yourself or commiserated with colleagues about cheapo clients who want everything for nothing, who think you’re in business to work for free?

Now think about this:  How many times have you operated the very same way when you purchased services or products?

If you want to be approached by clients who respect and value you as professional, you have to be that way yourself. That means, you have to stop trying to nickel and dime your fellow professionals. Stop expecting everything to be free and “cheap.”

I’m not saying that you have to spend what you don’t have (although something worth having is worth saving for or moving mountains to get if need be), nor that the highest priced product or service is necessarily always the best and what you should choose every time.

That’s not what I’m saying at all, whatsoever.

It’s all in how you think and choose, regardless of whether the best is the most expensive, the least expensive, or somewhere in between.

When you stop being a cheapskate yourself and instead make your purchasing/hiring decisions based first on quality, skill and ROI, you are putting out into the world that which is going to come back to you. When you start operating in that manner, you will consciously and unconsciously begin to understand and attract clients who base their purchasing/hiring decisions the same way.

When your mindset shifts in this manner, something even more important happens. You also begin to better understand your own value. In turn, new ways for articulating that value will come to you, almost by magic it will seem. And transformation is magical. But then again, it’s not–it’s all about intention and consciousness.

Look at this press release: http://www.emediawire.com/releases/home_bu…prweb821374.htm

Notice what the quote box says:

"Virtual assistants are the low-cost, low-commitment way to start getting some of that suffocating, time-sucking work off the desk, and into the hands of a professional who is trained to get it done correctly in the least amount of time."

In the very same breath, this guy says we’re "low-cost, low-commitment" while at the same time calling us professionals.

If someone is a professional, who is "trained to get the job done correctly," guess what? That’s going to cost something.

And working with clients who don’t make a commitment is one of the quickest ways to drive your business into the ground. I don’t know about you, but I save my efforts for those who understand that a commitment is necessary for our work together–they are the most profitable clients to work with, and the most gratifying.

This industry has GOT to get off the pricing conversation. Every single time you focus your marketing message on how "cheap" you are, on how much money client’s will save over employees, you are focusing them on money.

Look how that message has educated this fellow. And now he–an industry outsider–is in turn educating your marketplace to expect you to be cheap and expect no commitment.

Is that really your message? Is that really all your solution has to offer? Is that all your services do for clients–give them a cheap way out? Do you really have to "bribe" people to work with you like that?

If you focus your message on "cheap" and "low-cost" and "low commitment," guess what kind of clients you’re going to attract? You think you’re gonna make any money to keep you in business that way?

This industry really needs to change the conversation it has with our marketplace. Here’s a shocking revelation for you:  You don’t need to talk about cost whatsoever in your message.

Instead, start thinking about what your services do for clients. What results does your working together bring to their business? How might their business growth and profits be positively affected? What does that mean to their life?

That’s the conversation you want to focus on.