Loading ...I received an email today from a Virtual Assistant looking for work (I get a million of these every week, it seems):
"I have been in the business since 2005 and had established relationships with a number of clients in the different states. However the last few months has seen loss of clients due to their financial constraints. I’m reaching out to you, fellow Virtual Assistant for any overflow work you may have. I do not wish to steal clients; I’m simply asking if there are projects or areas of projects you need assistance with to consider my services. You would get to review whatever I do before forwarding it to your client and so you would maintain representation of your work quality and standard. Also, if a new client contacts you and you are not able to take on their project please pass on my information."
She included her resume, and has apparently sent this message to a huge list of Virtual Assistants whose email addresses it appears she’s gone to great effort to harvest off the Internet.
My colleagues and I were discussing this on our Virtual Assistant networking forum, trying to decide if it was legitimate or not.
If it is legitimate, I am sorry for her predicament. However, even so, she is sure going about things the wrong way.
To create a successful, profitable, sustainable business, she needs to do what the members of my Virtual Assistant association do every day on our forum: Become students of business and learn how to be smarter, savvier, more knowledgeable business owners.
What does that mean?
It means learning how to:
- Get over employee mindset
- Start thinking (and marketing) like a business owner and master of your own ship
- Charge properly and stop giving away your time, expertise and the value of your work
- Define a target market for greater clarity, focus and results in your marketing messages and efforts
- Create systematic, methodical and intentional standards, processes and policies in your business
- Focus on core offerings, ideal clients AND ideal work
- Gain deeper understanding of the real service you offer as a Virtual Assistant
Plus, most Virtual Assistants are not going to entrust their work to strangers. We are more likely to refer or subcontract to those we have come to know through networking and have built relationships with.
And personally, while I can certainly feel sympathy for her, as a business owner, I’m not attracted to anyone who resorts to business begging or wears their desperation on their sleeve. It’s a signal to me that there’s a high level of business sensibility missing and makes me also question their competence. I simply would not entrust my important client work, much less my own business work, to someone who doesn’t inspire anything but the highest confidence.
Who knows… she might land a few small gigs from her email blast. But that isn’t going to tide her over for the long-haul or contribute anything to the foundational changes that need to take place in her business so that she isn’t ever in this predicament again.
I do wish her well, and hope that she will have the wisdom to invest the same kind of time and energy she did in harvesting our email addresses toward overhauling her business and educating herself on the points I’ve outlined here. Her business survival will depend upon it.
3 Comments
You make a good point about ‘desperation’. I wrote similarly on VAs canvassing other VAs for work – they are looking in the wrong places.
Like you I get a lot of these too every week and have some standard information I send back to them to help them on their way.
I read your Gritty Virtual Assistant blog often, but sometimes I am shocked by the “tone” of your response Reading your last submission really made me reel in disbelief
This VA seems to be making an honest effort to network with those of her kind…other VAs. Your response seems to be callous and a bit rude. While I assume that you posted a partial piece of her email I was really taken aback by the derogatory tone of the title “Business Begging”…which implied that she was expecting something for nothing when she contacted you for guidance. However throughout your blog you appear to be talking down to your emailer. You then go on to say you get a million of these a week which indicates that this is a common question that you are simply tired of being asked.
I contend that there is no reason to further demean the emailer by telling her she is going about things the wrong way. At no point do you put a positive spin on things. Yes you do bullet point out areas where she should place her focus as an entrepreneur, however, I feel your response didn’t follow though in the way that it should have to promote your organization and its resources. In short, your response left a bad taste in my mouth.
There are so many other positive ways this email could have been taken, however, I’m hoping I just misread the “tone” of the blog and my picture is all wrong.
Very interesting point and helpful for myself. My niche in being a VA is subcontracting to others. Just a few weeks ago I was interviewed and discussed this topic. Yes I want to find subcontracting work but feel the same way you do. I can’t beg others I have to prove myself and get out there to show what I’m worth. It’s really great to find out how other VAs feel about this type of so called \networking\.