What is up with self-appointed "industry leaders" teaching your marketplace to think you should charge less if you are a "new" Virtual Assistant?
For the most part, the folks who enter this industry (and what the rest of the industry expects) are highly skilled, vastly experienced and led accomplished professional lives in the workforce (our survey indicates an average of 15-20 years in upper-level administrative positions) before opening their businesses.
That qualification doesn’t disappear just because you open a business. In fact, it’s generally the reason you felt qualified to open your business in the first place. Just because you are new to the industry does not diminish the skill, talent and expertise you offer one bit. The value of the support you provide to clients and what it helps them accomplish in their businesses has nothing to do with the age of your business.
It’s a crock and you should be outraged by any "leader" who is telling the marketplace that "newbie" Virtual Assistants should charge less. Those people aren’t looking out for your interests or the profession’s.
And by the way, "newbie" is such a disrespectful term. If you’re a Virtual Assistant, you might be a new business owner, but you ain’t new to the work. At the Virtual Assistance Chamber of Commerce, if we have to make distinctions at all for the sake of a conversation, we prefer "freshman."
Thanks for commenting. Yeah, the virtual assistant term is really completely idiotic to...
4 Comments
Love this post, I couldn’t agree more. I’ve experience this myself and I charge what I believe I’m worth.
Hi, Beverley
Would you mind elaborating on your experience with this issue?
A VA commented that my fees were too high, and I thought that they didn’t really know the kind of experience I have just because I don’t have 20 years PA experience and starting out as a new VA. At times I do feel there is a certain kind of snobbery around or is it just me. I wanted to get away from the kind of authority that exist in the corpoate world. however I do understand there needs to be a certain standards. Thats just my gripe.
Oh brother! I’m so sorry to hear that, Beverley, but I can’t say as I’m surprised in the least.
One thing you might have already figured out is that there is always a large faction who will want to keep you down at their level.
These are often new people who offer nothing but opinion and have absolutely no business education or acumen on which to base their input.
Sometime this stuff is from folks who lack confidence in themselves and what they offer and who operate out of scarcity mindsets and fear-based thinking.
And sometimes it’s just plain jealous people who can’t stand that someone else has the confidence and business smarts to do what they wish the could.
I’m so glad you dismissed such input and I hope you are surrounding yourself with people who are both business and success-minded. Never, ever base your business policies and practices (or your life, for that matter) on what the lowest common denominator thinks.
Check out Mikelann Valterra at http://www.womenearning.com... she runs the Women’s Earning Institute and writes a fantastic blog. Her “stuff” is awesome and will support you in your path to business pricing that honors your value and expertise.