Dear Gritty VA:
I am very interested in becoming a Virtual Assistant and want to focus on schools in my city. There are many private schools here that operate the choice (or private) school program and need lots of information from the state and Dept. of Public Instruction. Would you advise offering these potential clients newsletters prior to offering services to them? I want to offer them information on what they need from the state, mini reviews of educational programs, etc., until I am able to properly offer them Virtual Assistant services. I read your post on not giving anything away for free, but would this count as a free service or as a client builder? School starts in about four weeks and I’d like to get started on this yesterday. Thanks for the help! –KM
Oh, client builder absolutely! Don’t confuse marketing and networking and creating your client pipelines with free service. When I talk about not giving away free service, I’m talking specifically and precisely about actual services… what you are in business to offer… the thing that earns your income. You never want to make bargains with your value.
Be a resource. Be a fountain of information. Freely and generously share with your target market your insights, opinions, helpful advice and resources on things that are of value and interest to them. If you ever worry about where to draw the line in making sure you aren’t giving away the farm, a good general rule of thumb is this: Share with folks the “what” not the “how.”
I really like seeing how you have applied some thinking about your target market. I always tell Virtual Assistants to be sure to do some critical analysis in making sure a market is viable and is going to even have a need for the type of solution we provide. It looks like you’ve done some deliberation on that by distinguishing private schools from public schools.
It also sounds like you have some inside knowledge and experience about what information will be useful to this market. And you can never do too much homework. Go out there and talk to some of the people who would be your clients. Ask them what information would be valuable to them, what would make them sign up for your newsletter.
While you’re at it, find out what would make them consider working with an outside administrative expert. I can imagine that one selling point might be that they can streamline and pare down their administrative operations, have you get that work done more effectively, thus allowing them to put more in-house staff focus on community outreach and relationship-building with parents. Learn as much as you can about what kind of administrative work they do so you can hone your message and offerings to them in a way that will clearly and meaningfully resonate with them.
As far as when to do your newsletter, you might want to weigh that with how soon you think you might be ready to open your doors. On the one hand, now is as good a time as any. It takes a while to build up a subscriber base so you probably have plenty of time to before anyone contacts you about actual services. But do have a plan for how you’d handle it if someone did want to talk with you about your services before you were ready to take them on.
One thing you could do is set a “my doors are open for business” date and then promote that in your newsletter. Encourage folks to get on your waiting list and maybe even conduct some consultations in advance for anyone who contacts you before the date. Meanwhile, your newsletter will be working to build the anticipation while at the same time helping establish the know, like and trust factor and start those relationships growing.
Keep in touch and let me know how it goes. I love seeing smart people entering the profession! 
