Marketing – The Gritty Virtual Assistant Blog

Category Archives: Marketing

October 11, 2010 – 10:00 am

What Is a New Client Welcome Kit and What Goes In One?

Working with clients is a relationship. Sometimes it’s a very close, ongoing one. Sometimes it’s an impersonal or one-time encounter. Either way, it’s a relationship and it’s important to set the tone that best serves your interests as a business while serving your clients successfully. This is where a New Client Welcome Kit comes in handy—it’s a red carpet that guides clients where you need them to go.

What Is a Welcome Kit?

A welcome kit is a packet of information you give to new clients to help ensure you both get the relationship off to a great start. A really important function of the welcome kit is to help set proper expectations moving forward. When clients know what is what and how things work in your business upfront, they aren’t left to form their own (probably incorrect) ideas which inevitably causes problems in the relationship.

When Do You Give a Welcome Kit to a New Client?

Some might feel giving a welcome kit to every client with the smallest of projects is a bit overkill. However, I like to give all new clients my welcome kit because it’s not just good information for them, it’s also sort of a marketing piece. It’s a visual demonstration of my company’s professionalism and attention to detail. Sort of like dressing well for a first date. Sometimes I provide the kit to clients once the contract is signed; other times it makes sense to give a PDF copy to them in advance.

How Do You Present a Welcome Kit to a New Client?

I do this a couple ways: both hardcopy and PDF. I only work with clients in an ongoing retained relationship. Those clients represent the largest earnings in my business. Therefore, I don’t spare expense on making sure my welcome kit is as beautiful and professional as it can be. It shows respect and appreciation for the client, and it demonstrates the excellence of my company.

My retained clients get a hardcopy welcome kit which is mailed to them. This kit consists of a high-end folder with contents that have been professionally or laser printed. My retainer clients also get a complimentary virtual office when they work with me. So for those clients, I always set up a special folder for PDF copies of invoices, receipts and such and include a PDF copy of my welcome kit here as well for their added convenience.

For smaller clients—that is, clients I might only do a small, one-time project for—they are provided with just the PDF version of my welcome kit.

What Goes In a Welcome Kit?

Once you are at the welcome kit stage, it’s time to stop selling. That is, I often see folks including all kinds of marketing collateral in their welcome kit and it’s really not the time or place for it at that point. Your welcome kit provides information about you and your company, but you want to focus your mindset on the idea that the kit is for the client’s benefit. It’s about making sure clients have everything they need to navigate your services and processes easily and ensure that the working relationship gets off to a successful start. At this stage, it’s about nurturing the relationship, not continuing to pound them over the head with your marketing.

Since your kit is a reference and guide for new clients, you want to very clearly spell out how things work in your business. Don’t gloss over anything—that’s not helpful to you or the client. But do keep the tone light and upbeat. Inject some personality. There’s no need to be dry and monotone.

So here’s what I suggest you put in your welcome kit:

A bio about you (and no, not your life story, but some interesting facts, stories or life experiences as well as your values about the work you do and working with clients and what’s important to you about those things. The idea here is to help clients to get to know you a little more and give some insight into your belief systems and philosophies about the work and relationship).
Your office hours (the days and times your office is officially open).
Your communication policies (Do you require appointments for phone calls? What is your turn-around commitment for responding to calls and emails? How often do you check emails and voicemail?).
An overview of your operations and work processes (How do you manage your workload? How are requests prioritized? What turn-around time may clients expect?)
Instructions for submitting work requests. Once you have been in business for even a little time, you realize that you can’t accept work requests willy nilly. You realize that you simply must have a system and protocols in order for you to do the best job you can for clients. So be sure and explain specifically and clearly how you need them to submit their work requests to you.
An overview of your services and any other divisions in your company. Obviously, you’re in business to make money while doing good work. That means that different work will naturally fall under different categories and you presumably would charge separately for these different services. You can’t work or give everything away for free, right? So make it clear what work falls under what categories and how and when you charge separately. For example, if you provide administrative support and also web design, you would want to make sure clients understand what is included in administrative support (and what isn’t) and what would fall under another umbrella that you charge separately for.
Your expectations for working together. Clients have expectations of you and so should you have expectations of them. This is where you want to let them know how you expect to be treated, how quickly you expect them to respond to your questions, feedback and input, how you expect upset to be handled, etc. Of course, none of this should be put in an accusing or defensive way. You want to always frame it from the perspective that these things are necessary in order for you to give them the best support possible, which is absolutely what all this is ultimately about.
Your ideal client profile. This is something you would also include in your referral kit, but I recommend you keep your referral kit and your welcome kit separate and distinct from one another.
A list of frequently asked questions.
A copy of the contract.
A completed IRS Form W-9 (or your country’s equivalent).
A Credit Card Authorization form.

There are all kinds of things you could include. A good rule of thumb is if it’s something that will help clients and will underscore information you need them to understand, go ahead and include it. And for retained clients, I recommend scheduling a new client orientation to go over all this information with them.

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By Danielle Keister | Also posted in Business Savvy, Virtual Assistant/Virtual Assistance | Comments (2)

October 6, 2010 – 10:41 am

Dear Gritty Virtual Assistant: I’ve Got a Bunch of Questions!

Dear Gritty VA:

Thank you so much for all of your offerings through the Virtual Assistant Business Store! Getting my company planned and put together has been much easier thanks to you than it might have been. I just need some clarification:

How exactly do referrals work? I am giving a two-hour free referral bonus to any client that refers another paying client. What do you think of that idea?
What marketing tools have you found the most effective? I am on unemployment which is not enough to make ends meet, and I have had to get things for my business by raiding my grocery money (maxed out credit). I am trying to get a micro-business loan, but have not done so yet. Are online directories and search engines the way to go?
How did you find your industries small prospects for sales calls? Do we have to worry about “Do Not Call” lists if someone uses one phone number for everything? How much “cold calling” did you do to get started?
About your website screening intake form: I could not find your business website, only the Gritty VA, nor could I find anything in the store about an intake form. Is there another resource or should I just pull together my own and tweak it through experience?
If a client asks for a particularly dicey project that I am not sure I can handle, how do I address that without looking incompetent, undersupplied technologically, or setting myself up to fail?

I apologize if you have already addressed these issues. Thanks for your help! –AJ

Whew! I’ll do my best to answer these, keeping ‘em short and sweet…

1. I’ve written a couple things on the topic of referral recently: “Dear Gritty Virtual Assistant: How do I Advertise for Referral Partners?” and “10 Tips for Harnessing the Power of Referrals.” Those should cover your questions on this topic (particularly the part about paying for referrals–not the best thing to do and unnecessary).

2. It’s helpful to be in directories, if only for the added SEO, but in our industry, hands down the most effective marketing strategy is networking. Not ads. Not cold calling. Not direct mail. The great thing is that networking doesn’t cost anything but your time. And the reason it’s so effective is because people look to work with those they have established some kind of relationship with, that they feel some kind of rapport with and have come to know, like and trust because of it. Every opportunity you glean that let’s a group of people get to know, like and trust you is going to make it that much easier for you to attract clients.

3. How did I find my industry’s small prospects for sales calls? I didn’t look. I never did cold calling. People don’t like to be sold to; it’s completely the wrong strategy. Professional services are a bigger ticket item and require more relationship building that that. And I can just about guarantee you, you don’t have the kind of money and energy to ever make cold calling a worthwhile ROI. Even if you get one project, it isn’t going to come close to covering all the time, energy and effort you put into getting it. And think about it–you really think you can keep putting in that kind of work just to get one or two measly nickel-and-dime projects? There are MUCH quicker, more effective means to getting clients and that’s by deciding on a target market to focus on and then getting involved with that group in any ways you can (online forums, business groups, events, etc.). The more you interact, the more they get to know, like and trust you.

4. My own site is undergoing an overhaul (although to be honest, I haven’t had time to deal with it lately), but I think you are referring to the online form to request a consultation. If that’s the case, I’m not sure specifically what your question is on this, but I use this form on my site to help screen and pre-qualify prospects. I can’t work with everyone and as a Administrative Support Consultant, I’m not looking to work with anyone and everyone. I want to make sure they understand what I’m in business to help people with, that they belong to the industry/profession I focus on and whether they are ready to find a support partner (or only looking) and can afford it. These are the kind of things that inform me as to what my next action with them will be. That is, if someone is only “browsing,” you don’t want to waste time and effort on a consultation. It’s the wrong approach at the wrong time and you want to reserve those things only for those who are ready. Instead, you’d want to refer folks in that category to a white paper or video perhaps and then ask them to contact you again when they’re more seriously interested in working together. You could also invite them to subscribe to your ezine or mailing list so that you can keep them in your pipeline. The fact is that most clients are not ready to work with us immediately. It’s all a process. But you can read more about the consult form and pre-qualifying clients here: “One Way to Sort the Ideal from the Unideal.” Oh, and I would HIGHLY recommend you get my Client Consultation Process as it walks you through ALL of these things and gives you a system from start to finish for targeting clients, prequalifying them, going through the consultation and all the kinds of questions to ask and how to follow up afterward.

5. Well, first you have to distinguish what kind of business you are in. Are you in the secretarial business where you’re simply doing one-off, transactional, piecemeal project work? Or are you in the business of administrative support? Because the two are entirely different things and once you answer that question, it will help answer subsequent questions about what kind of client needs that work, what work is entailed and so forth. When you know what you do and who you do it for, this kind of thing isn’t as much of an issue. However, let’s say you are in the administrative support business and the client asks if you do X. Honesty is always best so tell them if that isn’t something you know how to do. However, you can always let them know (that is, if you are even interested) that you are willing to learn how to do it. Otherwise, you might look at the thing and realize, you know, this really doesn’t fall under administrative support at all and they really need to be working with an “X” expert. In that case, you might offer to help them locate that kind of expert who is in business specifically to do that thing. Or, you might have a separate division in your practice that does “X” in which case you could charge them separately for that project work. You have to always remember, Virtual Assistance is not a catchall term for “anything and everything.” Just because a client asks doesn’t mean anything. YOU have to decide what administrative support consists of in your business and what it doesn’t. When you have that clear idea yourself, you shouldn’t have any qualms about letting clients know when something doesn’t fall under that umbrella, that you don’t do it because of that, or that you are willing to learn (and maybe charge separately) for it. Always be honest about what’s what; you’re not going to look bad at all about not doing or knowing how to do something if that’s not the business you’re in in the first place. I mean, if you’re a plumber and someone asks you to fix their car, they’re the ones not making sense and you would naturally explain to them that you are a plumber, not a mechanic.

Your thoughts? Post a comment!

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By Danielle Keister | Also posted in Business Savvy, Dear Gritty VA, Virtual Assistant/Virtual Assistance | Tagged Danielle Keister, Gritty VA, Gritty Virtual Assistant, referral marketing, Virtual Assistance, Virtual Assistant, Virtual Assistants | Comments (0)

September 29, 2010 – 10:00 am

Dear Gritty VA: How Do I Advertise for Referral Partners?

Dear Gritty VA:

I am new at publishing e-newletters and blogs, however, I know these are great tools to get the word out about my company and to attract new clients. I plan to create a monthly e-newsletter and I want to be able to add great news about my referral partners. However, I want to know what is the best way to get the word out that I am looking for referral partners. Should I add it to my website or make a note in my e-newsletters. I have already signed up to become an affiliate with VACOC and will be adding the link to my website and newsletter etc. Thanks for your advice. –GD

I think that’s a terrific idea–to spotlight your referral partners in your blog and ezine! Because if you’re going to be referral partners with someone, it’s the “partner-y” thing to do to actively promote them in the same way you hope they are doing for you.

So often we see folks becoming referral “partners” and it becomes a one-way street with one person doing all the referring and the other person not making an equal effort. That’s not cool, and if that’s the case, they don’t deserve to be referral partners with you. What they fail to understand is that one of the best ways to get referrals is to give them.

For those who don’t know what we’re talking about, a referral partner is someone in the same or similar business or complementary field that you refer business to. There a lot of reasons you would refer business to someone else. It could be because your practice is full. It could be because the client just isn’t your cup of tea, but might be perfect for that other person. It might be because the client is seeking a service that you don’t offer. Or it might be because you like to be a resource to your current clients whenever they seek services that aren’t related to what you are in business to do.

Printshops offer a good example of the complementary referral relationship. They always know of several designers and photographers they can refer their customers to. They are all in different kinds of businesses, but the work is related and they all serve the same sort of market. So they complement each other in that way. It makes perfect sense to refer to each other, and being a resource who can refer others and make qualified recommendations is HUGE help to clients and customers.

Referral partnering is an informal, but intentional, relationship where one business owner approaches another and says, “Hey, I think you’re awesome and you do great work. If you feel the same about me, let’s refer clients to each other when those opportunities arise. Maybe we can even meet once a month or so to brainstorm ideas on how we can promote and refer business to each other.”

Now while I think it’s absolutely wonderful to promote your referral partners whenever you have the chance, I do have a few thoughts about the rest of your question. First, I don’t know that I would necessarily advertise for referral partners. That is, if I advertised for referral partners, do I really want to receive what might be tons of emails to wade through and create for myself the extra work and burden of basically interviewing people?

And second, how substantive and authentic would it be for me to refer to folks I really don’t know much about or have actual experience with? I would prefer to find and nurture those relationships more organically, and selectively choose or approach potential referral partners based on the fact that I’ve developed a relationship and gotten to know them to some good extent over a period of time. I don’t want to just have people I can refer to. I want to refer to people whose talents, work and reputation I have absolute confidence in and will be a good reflection on the recommendations I give. I want my word to mean something. A disingenuous, unsubstantive referral is not helpful.

One last thought, while you are helping give back to your referral buddies, think about also devoting a separate space or blurb about what makes an ideal client referral for you. Those who are reading your blog and ezine might not be ready to work with you, but they might know of someone who is. So make it really clear about who you are specifically looking to work with (your target market and ideal client) and you’ll get many more referrals because you’d made it easy for them to do so.

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By Danielle Keister | Also posted in Business Savvy, Dear Gritty VA, Virtual Assistant/Virtual Assistance | Tagged Danielle Keister, Gritty VA, referral marketing, Referral Partners, Virtual Assistance, Virtual Assistant, Virtual Assistants | Comments (2)

September 23, 2010 – 11:56 am

Only Two Days Left to Save

Virtual Assistants and Administrative Support Consultants:

Just a quick reminder–only 2 days left to save $50 on my brand new Value-Based Pricing & Packaging Toolkit!

Until midnight Saturday, September 25, I’ve reduced the price of the Value-Based Pricing & Packaging Toolkit to $97 (a savings of $50). What’s also cool is that I’ve added a ton of new information to the product so you’re getting the benefit of all the added resources I’ve realized people need in implementing this new methodology in their business.

You’ll get:

2 videos where I walk you through the entire presentation.
Written guides to teach you how to implement value-based pricing in your practice.
Success and profitability tips.
Visual illustrations and graphics to make the concepts crystal clear.
A diagram of my own successful business model.
Samples and templates to use in your own practice.

I’m probably leaving something out. The product page will give you the full low-down. There’s just so much I’ve included that you will get with this product. And be sure to read the reviews from folks who attended my original clinic and purchased the product. I’m telling you, this is REALLY good stuff and I hope this price break will help give you access to it.

Virtual Assistants and Administrative Support Consultants: get ready to toss those timesheets out the window once and for all!

If you have any questions at all, please do email me. I’m always happy to help.

Your thoughts? Post a comment!

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By Danielle Keister | Also posted in Business Savvy, Cool Stuff, Pricing and Getting Paid, Virtual Assistant/Virtual Assistance | Tagged Administrative Support Consultants, Value-Based Pricing, Virtual Assistant, Virtual Assistants | Comments (0)

September 21, 2010 – 10:00 am

A Little Marketing Imagination

I was catching up on some ezine reading over the weekend. Judy Murdoch always has great stuff, and one of her recent articles inspired an idea I thought I would share.

In this particular article, she talked about working with a client who designs children’s clothing using vintage fabrics and patterns and how retailers were extra picky these days about taking on untried vendors due to the ecomony. Although neither she nor the client had much experience in retail marketing, she very handily relied on a tool from her advertising days with great success: the customer profile.

(Excellent stuff; be sure and read the article in full.)

Before I’d even finished reading the article, my mind was racing with ideas. One in particular was a riff on the old “trunk sale.”

Don’t know what a trunk sale is?

Back in the day, I knew someone who was friends with Tarina Tarentino. Maybe you’ve heard of her? She has a makeup line in Sephora now and is getting her finger in all sorts of other fun things. But her main claim to fame is jewelry design. Lovely, sparkly, wonderfully imaginative little beauties.

When she was first starting out, she would have trunk sales at high-end retail stores like Nordstrom’s. At a trunk sale, what you do is set up a little display (sometimes even literally out of a trunk), and the store makes a special event of it. If your sales and products go over well with customers, the store buyer may decide to officially pick up your product line. It’s one of the ways folks get their foot in the door of selling their products at retailers.

My first thought was how Judy’s client could do trunk sales with great results. After coming up with the customer profile and using that to determine the best retailers to focus on, she could propose the idea of putting on a special trunk sale and making an event out of it.

It would give the retailer an opportunity to promote their own business in the process by contacting their customers and giving them a fun reason to come into the store. They could provide drinks and refreshments, maybe come up with some interactive activities and giveaways. And they could be sure to give folks a reason to leave their email addresses (such as a giveaway or contest) so they could be added to their mailing lists.

So not only would Judy’s client be creating an opportunity, in a fun way, to get her foot in the door of these retailers, she would also be helping them market their businesses at the same time. If I was a retailer, I can’t think of anything that wouldn’t be irresistible about that.

Well, there’s no reason you couldn’t do a version of the trunk sale in a professional services business–live or virtual–with a little imagination. Put together a little presentation, combine it with some fun, interactive games or contest, and make sure there is a call to action and some way of capturing email addresses. Fun and interactive would be the keys here. Organize it like a party or a shower, not a self-serving promotion. Propose the idea of having a client or another business host the event and you’re giving them an excuse to get in front of their audience as well.

Put those thinking caps on!

Your thoughts? Post a comment!

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By Danielle Keister | Also posted in Business Savvy, Fab Ideas, Virtual Assistant/Virtual Assistance | Tagged Marketing, trunk shows | Comments (0)

September 16, 2010 – 10:00 am

Get Ready to Toss Those Timesheets Out the Window for Good!

I know buying business products can be tough. The really good stuff does cost money. There’s just no way around it. But it’s an investment in your growth and success. And those of us with the really good stuff to offer can’t devalue ourselves and the knowledge we share. That’s a really poor business example, and none of us should help others at the expense of our own interests. Right?

I also know that cost can sometimes make great tools and training inaccessible for a lot of people. Which is why I price my products at a range I feel honors the value and expertise I offer while still being accessible to a large number of people. Internet marketers charge literally thousands of dollars for the kind of learning, knowledge and guidance I offer in my products.

That’s why occasionally I offer a sale to make it a little easier for those who are still struggling financially. I really want to help this profession grow and succeed to the next level. I have heard from many of you who would really love to get my new Value-Based Pricing & Packaging Toolkit, but the regular $147 price tag was still a bit out of reach. Sooooo, I’m going to open a window here to give you a really great savings…

From now until September 25, I’ve reduced the price of the Value-Based Pricing & Packaging Toolkit to $97 (a savings of $50). What’s also cool is that I’ve added a ton of new information to the product so you’re getting the benefit of all the added resources I’ve realized people need in implementing this new methodology in their business.

You’ll get:

2 videos where I walk you through the entire presentation.
Written guides to teach you how to implement value-based pricing in your practice.
Success and profitability tips.
Visual illustrations and graphics to make the concepts crystal clear.
A diagram of my own successful business model.
Samples and templates to use in your own practice.

I’m probably leaving something out. The product page will give you the full low-down. There’s just so much I’ve included that you will get with this product. And be sure to read the reviews on the product page from folks who attended my original clinic and purchased the product. I’m telling you, this is REALLY good stuff and I hope this price break will help give you access to it.

Virtual Assistants and Administrative Support Consultants: get ready to toss those timesheets out the window once and for all!

If you have any questions at all, please do email me. I’m always happy to help.

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By Danielle Keister | Also posted in Business Savvy, Cool Stuff, Great News, Pricing and Getting Paid, Virtual Assistant/Virtual Assistance | Tagged How to Price and Package Your Support, Value Pricing, Value-Based Pricing, Value-Based Pricing & Packaging Toolkit, Virtual Assistance, Virtual Assistant, Virtual Assistants | Comments (2)

September 15, 2010 – 10:00 am

Dear Gritty VA: Do I Need an Address on My Website?

Dear Gritty VA:

There’s a conversation going on in another forum regarding addresses. Some people think it’s important to have one on your site and others think it’s unnecessary. What’s your opinion? –KH

Oh, I’ve talked about this before on more than one occasion. Let me take the slightly longer road in answering because it’s important you understand the psychology behind this.

One of the reasons we talk so much about standards and serving ourselves first in business is because the Virtual Assistant industry continues to really, really struggle in this area. I think a big part of the problem is the term “Virtual Assistant.” When you keep calling yourself an assistant, it’s hard to look upon yourself as a business owner. And many people in this industry literally don’t understand that they are business owners. They really do think they are simply assistants only working virtually. And like good little assistants, they let clients tell them what to do in their own businesses. They think it’s all about the client and whatever the clients want and need. <Give that good little girl who knows how to follow orders a pat on the head.>

And that just doesn’t help anybody. It certainly doesn’t help those Virtual Assistants grow successful businesses. And whether they understand or realize it or not, it doesn’t help clients who much prefer not to have to shoulder the burden of leading everything in the relationship. Um, that’s what they come to professionals for. But if they aren’t looking at you like a professional, they’re looking at you like a trained monkey. And we’re back to square one.

You don’t have a business if you aren’t leading it and aren’t making any money.

And so we talk constantly about getting over employee mindset, remembering that you are a business owner, having standards and making sure the business meets your needs first and that you get to say how it all works and how it doesn’t. You’ve heard the saying, “You can’t care for others unless you first care for yourself.” That’s exactly what all that is about.

But then there are some folks who get carried away with all that to the point that all they think about is themselves in business. They think (and we’ll use the topic of the question here), “Well, I don’t want to put an address on my website. I don’t need to–I’m virtual!” To that I say, what on earth does being virtual have to do with anything? A business is a business.

They forget that being in business is about being in a relationship with clients. And a relationship is a two-way street. It’s not all about you and what you want and what works for you. Me, me, me, me, me.

Sure, you get to say how things work in your business. And you get to have high standards around the kind of work you do, the kind of clients you work with, and the kind of money you charge. You can not truly and superbly help clients without those things.

At the same time, there are some considerations you must be willing to extend to clients–because you don’t have a business with them.

So having an address on your site isn’t about what’s important to you. It’s about what’s important to the clients visiting your site. It’s about helping them view you as credible and legitimate. It’s about trust and and helping them feel safe about potentially doing business with you. It’s not for you that an address should be on your site, it’s for your would-be clients.

Long story short–yes, it’s absolutely vital to have an address on your website. It doesn’t have to be a physical address–and if you run a home-based business, I would absolutely tell you NOT to use that one. It’s unsafe, and you do not want clients or anyone you don’t know showing up on your doorstep one day out of the blue.

Get a post office box instead. My PO box costs me $36 every six months. And I can format the address to the physical location instead of using “PO Box X.” If a post office isn’t close to you, businesses like Mailboxes Etc. come to mind. Alternatively, you can get a mailing address with a service like Earth Class Mail (which is a phenomenal service, by the way).

I would add that besides an address and phone number, put some kind of photo of yourself on your site, in your email signatures, in your forum profiles. Get a gravatar so that when you post comments to blogs, people see your smiling face. Being able to “see” who they are talking with goes a LONG way in establishing rapport and facilitating conversation. It helps folks see you as a person–not a nameless, faceless entity–and they’ll remember you much better when they have a face to go with the name.

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By Danielle Keister | Also posted in Business Savvy, Dear Gritty VA, Virtual Assistant/Virtual Assistance | Tagged Danielle Keister, Do I need an address on my website, Gritty VA, Virtual Assistance, Virtual Assistant, Virtual Assistants | Comments (3)

September 13, 2010 – 10:00 am

10 Tips for Harnessing the Power of Referrals

One of the ways you will get new clients in your business is through simple word-of-mouth. What’s wonderful about referral-based business is that when you are referred by a happy client or business associate, they are giving you an automatic seal of approval. People trust the recommendations of their friends and business associates. You can’t buy better advertising than that! Here’s how you can help nurture your referral-based business along…

1. Create a hardcopy referral kit. If you do an in-person business of some kind, create a referral kit that you can provide to clients and associates. Collateral you might include are:

Ideal referral profile
Business cards
Brochures
CDs
Mailers
Sign-up forms (to capture email addresses)
Case studies
White papers
Promo items

2. Create a “virtual” referral kit. It’s a virtual world anymore so make things even easier by creating an online referral kit (similar to an online media room). Items you might include are:

Ideal referral profile PDF
Case study or two PDF
Brochure PDF
White papers in PDF
Ad graphic that referrers can place on their site
Links to specific pages you want prospects directed to
Links to your social media profiles

3. Solicit feedback from clients on a regular basis. Always ask clients for their feedback at the end of every project. Don’t be afraid to hear anything negative. You can’t grow unless you know exactly where your shortcomings are. If you work with retained clients, get their feedback every six months to see how you are doing.

4. Include testimonials on your site. Besides clients actively referring to you, you can also use their testimonials to refer business to yourself. Ask happy clients for testimonials. If they’ve providing a glowing review on a feedback form, ask if you can use it in your marketing.

5. Provide full client profiles. Testimonials have more meaning when the visitor sees they are from real people. Provide the full name and business of the client with a link to their website. Better yet, include a photo.

6. When you make it clear, you make it easy. You notice I mention “ideal referral profile” up in #1 and 2. Here’s what that means: You can’t work for anyone and everyone, and you can’t be in business to do anything and everything. The more narrow and specific you are about who your target market is and how you help them, the easier you make it for others to refer to you. And they’ll do so more often.

7. Buddy up. Become referral partners with several other colleagues, vendors and professionals. That way, when you each have clients you can’t work with or work you can’t or don’t do in your business, you can refer to those people and vice versa.

8. Join forces. Sort of like co-branded advertising and marketing, you get referrals at the same time someone is referring you.

9. Say thank you. It really is important! People like to be acknowledged for their help and they like to keep helping those who remember their manners. Make it job #1 to let the person who referred that recent new client know how much you appreciate them.

10. A quick word about paid referral programs: don’t. When it comes to professional services, my advice is don’t pay for referrals. Not with money, not with free time, not with free services. You don’t need to and it really casts the referral in a less than authentic light and makes it suspect. You don’t want prospective clients to think the only reason someone is referring you to them is because they’re getting paid in some way. On top of that, you just create more administration in your business and work and accounting you have to keep track of. It’s an unnecessary headache you don’t need.

People like to help. They like to help their friends, clients and colleagues. They love it when they can be a resource and font of information. Help them be a resource to others by providing them with fabulous service and work and giving them the tools to spread the word about you—and they will!

RESOURCE: What are clients really thinking about your work and service? How well are you meeting their needs and expectations? The Client Feedback Form gives you the tool to really find out with a combination of quantifiable measurements and free-form responses. The information this tool collects is like gold and will help you create before and after case studies and turn feedback into testimonials while capturing referrals at the same time.

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By Danielle Keister | Also posted in Business Savvy | Tagged referral marketing, referral-based business, Referrals | Comments (0)

August 26, 2010 – 10:00 am

Might be a Great Target Market for an Enterprising Virtual Assistant

I love listening to NPR in the evenings. This week, they’ve been doing a three-part series about doctors in primary care. In this series, they reported on the catastrophic shortage of primary care doctors who provide basic health care (they make around $150,000 a year compared to the multiple six-figure incomes of specialists), and took at look at primary care doctors who were opting for solo practice.

As all of us solopreneurs know, going solo comes with some special challenges. We have to be more concerned about profitability and leverage. At the same time, as I’ve long been saying, small is the new big. Nothing wrong with those folks who want to be a big as they can get, but at some point, “big” begins to lose it’s structural and quality integrity. The left hand too often doesn’t know what the right hand is doing or thinking. And people become numbers and transactions instead of, um, people.

So anyway, in listening to this series, it occurred to me that primary care docs in solo practice might be a perfect market for an enterprising Administrative Support Consultant (Virtual Assistant). Some kind of knowledge or past background and experience in healthcare or family practice is likely to provide an advantage.

Big companies and corporations don’t really need what we are in business to do because their workloads are so big they really need in-house, dedicated staff–and can afford it–and because when they are interested, it’s more in the vein of impersonal, commoditized, transactional outsourcing as cheaply as they can get it. That’s not an easy way to make a living for the provider willing to offer that kind of service, and it inherently requires a much bigger business model that depends on volume business.

It’s the smaller companies and solos who really make for the best fit because they place more value in having a more personal type of ongoing support relationship that allows them to stay small (which many of us do by choice) while being as profitable and efficient as possible so they can give the best quality care and service to their clients. They see, understand and appreciate the value much more easily so it’s a much easier “sell.”

If I was someone interested in this market, what I would be doing is calling up a few of primary care solo doctors, taking them out to lunch (individually) and picking their brains about how they are running their practices, what kinds of administrative work are they fielding, who is doing what now and what areas might they see as not needing to necessarily be in the office, and offer up ideas and get feedback on other areas the doctor didn’t think of. Said enterprising Administrative Support Consultant (Virtual Assistant) could in turn, armed with this intelligence about how these businesses are run, what work is involved and where the doctors’ interests are, build a whole compelling message and practice around administratively supporting this very specialized target market. I see all kinds of potential and opportunity here!

It’s a group that certainly meets the first three criteria of a target market: 1) must be able to afford, 2) must have a need for the solution you’re in business to offer and 3) there must be enough of them that you can find them easy enough and there are enough to fill your practice. And because they are consciously and intentionally interested in being small, they are going to be very interested in your support because it will help them keep the quality of their practice while allowing them to be more efficient, streamlined and profitable.

Heck, I go so far as to say for any of our clients, we offer them an opportunity to actually improve or increase the quality of their own businesses because they can be more profitable and get more done with our help. On top of that, it will allow existing in-house staff to focus more on their core work, all of which again helps streamline and increase efficiency and quality. Just think of how much more and better patient care in-house staff can focus on giving (“practicing at the top of their license,” or doing what they are most trained to do) when they are freed from back-end administrative work that an Administrative Support Consultant can take on for them.

Here’s a link to one of the articles (which also provides an audio recording if you prefer to listen): http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129422386

Happy enterprising! (I’d love to hear from any of you who are already targeting this market or who are interested in looking into it. Let’s hear your success stories!)

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By Danielle Keister | Also posted in Business Savvy, Virtual Assistant/Virtual Assistance | Tagged Administrative Support, Doctors in Solo Practice, Primary Care Doctors, Virtual Assistance, Virtual Assistant, Virtual Assistants | Comments (4)

August 3, 2010 – 10:00 am

NEW Value-Based Pricing & Packaging Toolkit Available

Whew! What a hectic last two weeks it’s been. I am always energized when I get to talk with fellow Virtual Assistants and Administrative Consultants, but I tell ya, putting on live events is a LOT of time and work. My “Value-Based Pricing & Packaging” Biz Intensive went really well AND I was able to package it up as a self-study course even quicker than I imagined! (Of course, I’d been working on it since February but I hit a block and had to set it aside for awhile. Once I took it back up again, everything fell into place.)

For those who missed the live class, you can now purchase it as a self-study guide from the store (includes 23 page PDF guide of tools, info, exercises and samples and two MP4 presentation videos). Plus, I’m going to give you a HUGE discount for the next few hours only! There’s no special code or anything to enter. Just purchase the product and you’ll automatically get $50 off if you purchase by midnight, August 5 (that’s this Thursday).