The Gritty Virtual Assistant Blog

Dear Gritty VA:

I am starting out my business and I am not sure what my focus should be and how to market myself. I have several skills/abilities that are not exactly in line with each other. 1. I worked as an executive assistant through college for high ranking military officials so I know that I can do great administrative work. 2. I graduated with an MBA and my emphasis was on project management. 3. I currently work as an education project manager (since 2006). I design training curriculum and online classrooms for a hospital. I am also involved in employee development (an additional duty as assigned) so I personally train most of the hospital staff too. 4. I am qualified to translate medical and legal documents (Spanish/English). Now, I would like to offer my skills (and education) to clients, but I’m not sure which way would be the most effective since not all clients will use all skills and I certainly don’t want to deter someone from working with me because of an expensive hourly rate. My husband says I’m stepping out of the virtual assistant realm and it seems to be more consulting because I can tell someone how to run their business. I somewhat disagree, hence the reason why I’m asking the question. I would really appreciate your thoughts on my little dilemma and I trust your advice. Thank you! –DL

This is where it is important and helpful to keep in mind what a Virtual Assistant is and what it is not. A Virtual Assistant isn’t someone who does piecemeal tasks and projects. A Virtual Assistant is someone who specializes in providing ongoing (month-to-month) administrative support. Administrative support is a skill, specialty and expertise in and of itself. At the VACOC, we are actually moving away from the term Virtual Assistant and transitioning over to Administrative Support Consultant. This term more clearly and readily identifies to clients what we are specifically in the business and profession of doing, where our expertise is, while at the same time setting more correct perceptions and understandings about the nature of the relationship. Namely, that we are not “assistants.” We are experts in our own right with our expertise being administrative support.

Getting clear about what you intend to do and be will help you answer these questions yourself. From the sound of it, my guess is that you are looking at things from the perspective of selling individual services. But that is not a Virtual Assistant business. That is a secretarial service. If your intent is to provide ongoing administrative support, on the other hand, I can see all of these being excellent supporting skills that would enhance your value and benefit to clients. However, do be clear–as a Virtual Assistant/Administrative Support Consultant, it’s not your job to advise clients how to run their business. If that’s the work you want to do, then you should look toward becoming a business consultant of some kind.

Now, where I think you’re really going to run into trouble, no matter what profession you end up deciding on, is this thinking you have when it comes to money. Your job as a business is not to be cheap or affordable. You will never ever win that rat race. There will always be someone else ready to undercut you even further. And then where do you go? No, you can’t make your value proposition about money or cost whatsoever. And ask yourself, why would you cater and slant your marketing right from the get-go toward people who can’t afford professional fees in the first place? What do you think is an “expensive” hourly rate? Why is that? Where does that thinking from come from?

If you don’t work to overcome employee mindset and the poverty mentality when it comes to money and charging professional fees, you will not be successful. And you won’t be in business long unless you are profitable. In fact, I always say that charging well is actually a service to clients because you can’t serve clients well unless you are served well and have your needs taken good care of first. And that includes being paid well so that you don’t have to burnout and overwork yourself just trying to make ends meet because you haven’t charged enough.