So I’m conducting my first-ever business class for Virtual Assistants and Administrative Consultants next week on February 18 and I’m really excited. It’s taken me a long time to get over my aversion to offering classes. It seems like so many VAs open their doors and two seconds later they’re coaching other VAs. What is up with that? Especially when so many of those folks have no clients themselves and are making diddly squat–exactly what can they offer anyone else if they haven’t succeeded in their own businesses? I just did not want to add to all the noise and crap out there.

My business is administrative support to clients, not coaching other VAs. I freely share my knowledge and guidance in my blog here, in my Virtual Assistant forum, and I often talk with VAs on the phone. I have my own business to run and I can’t help everyone so I’ve packaged much of what I have to teach in my Virtual Assistant business forms and self-study guides. But I’ve come to realize there are just some things that are best taught and learned in a training-type platform.

I’m not interested in offering certifications and “coaching.” Blech. If you are a highly skilled and experienced administrative professional, you don’t need anyone’s certification to prove your worth. But I see all these women struggling so much in their Virtual Assistant practices… they come into the industry with all these hopes and dreams for earning a living and having a new way of life. And then they are immediately taught by our industry how to run their business in ways that allow them to do anything but earn a real living and have time and money for the things they dream of. Most of them are barely scraping by and making under $10,000 a year.

I know it’s not fun to hear that, but it’s the God’s-honest truth of the matter. And as Dr. Phil says, you can’t fix what you don’t acknowledge.

You know exactly what I’m talking about, don’t you? You know I’m speaking the truth.

This is what drives me to want to help. As I see survey results come in from our Virtual Assistant survey, I see the same issues over and over and over:

• VAs not being able to find clients and not knowing how to attract and connect with them;
• VAs finding clients, but working with them in ways that don’t leave them any room for growth and making more money whatsoever. Forget about any kind of freedom;
• VAs working with 10 clients on up… slaving away around the clock yet still making $10,000 or less a year!

It’s absolutely crazy and it doesn’t have to be that way. They just haven’t been shown or given the right tools and knowledge in order to change this path to burnout and the poorhouse for themselves. And look, turning into a multi/team VA practice isn’t going to change anything. If you couldn’t do it as an independent consultant, it’s going to be 10 times even more undoable for you as a staffing agency.

So that’s what I want to do… share with you a completely new and different way of thinking about what you do and give you the tools and knowledge you need to turn your practice around. I’m going to be offering three very targeted learning modules–I’m calling them Biz Smart Intensives–the first of which is how to price and package your support based on value and expertise, not selling hours.

You may be going, “Wha?! Not selling hours?” Yup, not selling hours. I’m going introduce you to the concept of VALUE pricing and show you several ways you can package your support in innovative ways that don’t have anything to do with tracking hours. Really. It’s going to blow your mind and, if I can be cliche, revolutionize your business. There is so much I’m going to share in this class… it’s going to be really interesting, fun and a radical departure from everything you’ve learned before in our industry.

I am offering an early-bird registration special, but it ends Sunday, February 14, so you’ll want to get registered right away to get in on that savings. Learn more and register here for my “Pricing & Packaging Your Support” class on February 18, 2010.