The Gritty Virtual Assistant

I was reading an ezine recently where business owners were advised to offer a variety of ways for prospects to contact them. The reasoning was that if prospects can’t reach you the way they prefer, they’ll call someone else.

And this might be good advice at a very general level, particularly if you are in a commoditized, project-driven business that requires a great deal of volume in order to be financially successful. You aren’t in a position to turn anyone away when you’re in that kind of business and you are more or less forced to be at the whim and dictate of customer preferences.

But solopreneurs can be more choosy. In fact, their survival depends on being choosy about clients because a professional service business filled with unideal clients who negatively drain the solopreneur’s time and energy will take down said business faster than a cheetah felling an antelope.

This is very true in our business as well. If you are in the business of administrative support (not project work), you don’t need to work with everyone in the world. It only takes a handful of ideal retainer clients to be financially successful.

So what I was thinking as I read the aforementioned advice was how I actually use limited communication methods as a way to weed out unideal clients. For me, one characteristic of an ideal client is that they are very adept and comfortable with technology and particularly with communicating by email. I’m not interested in taking phone calls all day from prospective clients, 99% of whom I will never work. I couldn’t if I wanted to or I’d never have any time to get any work done.

Therefore, I have a very specific path set up for consulting with me. When I hear from a prospective client who has completed the consultation form on my website, I know that there’s a 50/50 chance they’ve read a fair amount of information on my site. This is where I want them educated first about what I do and they can weed themselves out if there’s not a fit.

When they complete my consultation request form, that also tells me this is someone who isn’t going to be a pain in the ass by sidestepping my processes and, thus, more likely to be the kind of client I can work with easily and happily. I have no interest in clients who have been to my website, but instead of filling out my consult form, email or phone me instead. I know from past experience that those are the folks who are almost always going to be difficult to work with moving forward. I don’t return those phone calls and those who email me, I refer to my VA organization instead.

Is that a head-spinner for you? I know it shocks a lot of people. But you see, you don’t have to be at the mercy of the rest of the world. (And personally, I think the business culture today breeds and enables a lot of really childish, indulgent, self-entitled behavior in our society that does NOT make the world a better place. I refuse to participate in that, but that’s a whole other post.) Getting back to the topic at hand, your business and the clients you work with have to be a fit for you, too. It’s not just about what clients what. It’s about what you both want and need from each other. There has to be a mutual fit for anything to work moving forward.

I realize a lot of new Virtual Assistants who don’t have clients yet or who are still growing their practice will think this is crazy talk, LOL. They are still in scarcity mindset so this won’t make sense to them at all. But if you are further along in your Virtual Assistant practice, you know a bit more about what I’m talking about. You’ve worked with more than your share of clients who turned out to be completely difficult and energy draining. If you are looking to work with more ideal clients, the ability to follow your protocols is one of the telltale clues you can use to establish whether a prospect is someone you will be able to work with well or not.