I’m so glad you found my post helpful. It really is easy to understand once you can get people to separate their personal emotions and start thinking logically and rationally.

I think in a lot of respects the problem is that this is a female dominated industry. And whenever you get females together, instead of business, they think it’s a club or a clique they are being excluded from (“Don’t tell me I’m not a Virtual Assistant; I can call myself whatever I want.”)Which is just ridiculous. This is business. And whenever you can give a concept definition and greater clarity, the industry and the business owners in it will have an easier time of marketing.

Jim, one thing many of the people I have mentored have found helpful in helping their markets understand what they do is by not leading with the term “Virtual Assistant.” From the market’s perspective, that’s industry jargon. And in this industry, the confusion between what a VA is and isn’t further muddies things up.

Instead, talk to your market from the perspective of their administrative pains and what problems they want solved (e.g., “I’m a solo and don’t want staff, but I still need a great assistant to support me.” or “I’m a solo overwhelmed with all that I have to do in my business.”). You relate all this to the right-hand administrative support that you are in business to provide and things are much easier for them to understand. It’s not til later in those conversations that you give them the name for what you do.

So in a nutshell, don’t lead with the name. Give them the understanding first, then the name later to act as a mental coat hook.

It was hard enough for me to define myself as an executive assistant when I was working in offices. For some reason, my CEO or C level would leave and his/her subordinates would take that as the signal to have me move furniture, take out trash and do any other task that you could not have the female EAs do.

Now as a VA, I have people that do not understand what I do even after I explain it, send them to my website and let them speak with my clients.

Recently, I fired a client because he refused understand that I was not an administrative whipping post for his irrational calls and requests nor was I a resource for one of his managers to ask me read through hotel reviews.

Virtual Assistants are a highly skilled resources that specialize in the field of office administration. We are not the office b*tches…nor are we stupid.

We actually manage people’s lives…we are their resource to bring balance on their journey to success.