You bring up an excellent point as well–unless you get clear about the work you provide, clients will start to make up their ideas and you can fall into doing things you never intended and have no desire to do. Great learning experiences.

This reminds me so much of myself when I first started out. I wanted to be everything to everyone, thinking that that would surely mean MORE business. Um, no, it doesn’t work that way. Targeting your business and being targetable are extremely important.

I had a client one time, a lawyer who hired me to assist him with his database and other administrative needs. It evolved into taking his car to the mechanic and giving his cat its meds to writing completely made up letters to auto body repair shops to get money from them. It was after those experiences that I developed a very clear path as to my ideal client, and the type of support that I would provide.

That is so true. We cannot project ourselves to others if we cannot explain what we do. It is an unfortunate need, sometimes, to label ourselves, but if we do not project what we do in a clear and direct way, we cannot expect to have clients. On the other hand, as you presented, it is impossible to work with a client who really has no definition of what they do. A clearly defined label is what draws clients. That is what gets a VA the job.

If the client can clearly state what they do, the VA can do a great job. If the VA has no tools from the client to work with, it is impossible to do the work. How in the world did this “non-labeled” client expect to project his business? How could his business be so unique that he could not explain it?
Likewise, the VA should clearly state what they do so clients will know at the beginning if the VA can, in reality; complete the job. Being able to show a specialty with expertise is a productive flag to fly. To do otherwise, is like flying a flag without anything on it. Those little “tag lines” is what brings attention to what we do. Clients want to know we are professional and can do what they need done, not that we can “flair” the uniqueness of what we do. What we do is not unique–it is a specialty. Who we are is unique and our ideas are unique. We are selling our unique talents and ideas that are different in each of us. We need to focus on how we can make that uniqueness work for each client’s needs.

Joy Pipes