Wow! Woke up to several messages from folks that ranged from honestly curious/confused to downright snotty and accusing. It occurred to me that if these people didn’t get the memo, there may be others who didn’t either, but just aren’t speaking up. So I thought it might be helpful to post a general announcement to shed some light on things.

On August 18, I sent an email to all my affiliate members letting them know that my old e-junkie affiliate program was being canceled as of Sept. 1 and asking them to be sure and sign up at my new store so they could continue to earn commissions on their referrals of  my Virtual Assistant business forms and tools.

Now lots of things happen with messages. Sometimes they end up in spam/junk mail folders. Sometimes they get glossed over and deleted. Sometimes ISPs, in their overzealous spam-fighting measures, block perfectly legitimate mail from reaching intended recipients. Sometimes people use spam-blocking programs that prevent email from reaching them. There are all kinds of things that happen beyond the sender’s control. If you didn’t get the message, I’m sorry about that but short of having a magic wand, I’m not sure what more I can do.

The other thing that I didn’t realize is that with e-junkie, when an affiliate is removed, an automatic message is sent to the affiliate letting them know they have been removed. The exact language it sends is apparently this:  “Your affiliation has been removed on [date/time]. Your affiliate links will not work any longer.”

Some people felt this was curt and were offended. To them I apologize, but all I can tell you is that I didn’t send this message, e-junkie did. I wasn’t aware that it sent a message like that. If I had been and it allowed me to, I would have edited it to include the reminder about why it was being canceled and a link to sign up again at the new store.

At any rate, below is the body of the message I sent to everyone on August 18. I’ve had record sales these past few months and I would love to be able to share the wealth with you and give you a little sumpin’ sumpin’ back for those referrals and recommendations you would be making anyway so be sure and sign up to be an affiliate at my beautiful new store!

IMPORTANT NOTICE TO AFFILIATES

Hi there!

Hope you’re having a lovely, productive, summerful week.

I won’t take up too much of your time–just wanted to send a quick, but important, note to all of you who are signed up for my affiliate program. First, I want to officially let you know that my new store is now on its own website at http://www.virtualassistantbusinessforms.com. Which means that I will be discontinuing my e-junkie store as of September 1, 2010.

If you wish to continue earning great commissions from your recommendations and referrals of my products to others, you’ll need to get a new affiliate link from the new store. It’s super, super easy–all you have to do is register yourself at the new store and then simply replace all your old e-junkie affiliate links (which won’t work after Sept. 1) with the  new one that will be automatically displayed in your account. You can get a clear and complete walk-through here: http://virtualassistantbusinessforms.com/affiliate-program

Also, in case you weren’t aware, I have a new premium product out called “How to Price & Package Your Support Based on Value & Expertise–NOT Selling Hours” (abbreviated title is “Value-Based Pricing & Packaging Toolkit”). It’s priced at $147 so your commission on each sale of that product would be $36.75. I could really use your help in getting the word out–this product is really going to help so many people. Of course, I never want anyone making recommendations unless they really believe in the quality of the products (particularly if they’ve used them themselves), so if that’s the case for you, nothing would make me happier than to be able to give back to you in this way for referrals and recommendations you would make anyway.

If you have any questions about anything, feel free to shoot me an email.

Many thanks!

I was just listening to a podcast and something that was said reminded me of an Internet marketer who contacted me awhile back. She sent me a message on Twitter asking to talk with me. She didn’t say what it was, and I’m not interested in talking to just anyone, expending my time, unless I know what it’s about and I’m interested in it. Duh. So I replied with something to the effect of “Possibly. What is it you want to talk about?”

Never got a response.

Lord, I hate it when people do that. Don’t fricking waste my time asking me a question if you’re going to ignore me when I reply.

So whatever. Didn’t give it another thought until my phone started ringing off the hook a few weeks later. And I’m talking literally every single day, at least two calls or more from the same phone number, never once leaving a message.

Can we say I-R-R-I-T-A-T-I-N-G?!

Well, I don’t answer the phone. I simply don’t. I don’t need to. I’m not looking for more clients at the moment and if I were, I only talk to the ones who come through my website and go through my consultation form. And I’m sure as heck not answering anyone who refuses to leave a message. It’s phone harassment, plain and simple. If you don’t want to leave a message clearly stating your intentions–who you are and what you want–then I’m not interested. Simple as that. I might be running a business, but I’m a human being first and I refuse to deal with anyone who thinks they can treat people like a number and expects me to prostrate myself for their purposes. Have more respect for those you are calling and, gasp, you might get some back.

Well, after literally over a MONTH of this, whoever is calling from this number FINALLY leaves a message. At the same time, I get an email from this person. She states she is the Virtual Assistant to So-So Internet Marketer and launches into a short spiel about some program this Internet marketer is gearing toward Virtual Assistants, yada yada. Blech. I HATE those things because they are just exploiting Virtual Assistants. I absolutely detest those people. NO ONE has any business teaching VAs anything about Virtual Assistance except other VAs (and then, only the successful ones who have actual experience and substance to offer).

At this point, I’m thinking, how many hundreds of unanswered calls does this person need to get the message that “I’m not talking to you unless you tell me who you are and what you want.” And this is besides the fact that I’m really annoyed at this point and definitely not interested in speaking with anyone who engages in phone tactics like this.

So I reply to the email in the most direct way I can: “Not interested.”

And do you know they still continued to call me several times after that?!

This is all neither nor there. Just musing out loud. But it sure does bring me some feelings of gratitude today:

• Grateful that I have absolute clarity about what I am in business to do (and what I’m not).
• Grateful for my standards and boundaries.
• Grateful that I make a lot of money and get to say “no” to crap (and people) I disdain or have no respect for.
• Grateful that I’m not the poor schmuck having to take on that kind of work and make those kind of calls to people to earn a buck.
• Grateful that I don’t have to be a telemarketer to make a living.
• Grateful that I work with clients I love and respect (who do work I love and respect).

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!)

One reason I think administrative expertise has for so long or so often not been given the same kind of respect as other expertise is that it is/was always paired with being an assistant, which is automatically/inherently subjugating.

You don’t have to be an assistant to be an administrative expert. Beware of Virtual Assistant “gurus” (many of whom weren’t successful in their own businesses or who haven’t run their own practice in decades–or worse, ever!) and training programs that are simply training people to be glorified assistants who only call themselves business owners. That’s not a new paradigm; it’s just another name for the same old thing.

I see so many Virtual Assistants struggling because of the very fact that they’ve been taught to be “assistants.” Which is exactly what limits their earning potential and creates practices that enslave them. It’s why we see many of them turning into virtual staffing/multi-VA businesses or starting their own training programs or professional organizations instead of supporting and collectively strengthening the established ones already in existence for the betterment of the profession. They think that’s the only way they can begin to earn better and not be buried in the work. But it’s a lie.

If you are running a business, you are not anyone’s assistant. The term “assistant” itself causes all kinds of problems, misaligned expectations and confusion about the nature of the business relationship, which forces you to do double-time in educating clients. Our lives could all be a lot easier without it. It’s why I’ve moved on to the term Administrative Consultant/Administrative Support Consultant.

Being an administrative expert and being an assistant are not one and the same thing. Pick one. Or do both if you choose. But know this–you absolutely do not need to be an assistant in order to deliver value and expertise and have very personal, collaborative relationships with clients. I know I certainly didn’t go into business for myself to continue to be anyone’s assistant, but instead to provide my administrative skills and talents to help people and practice the craft and expertise of administrative support.

Dear Gritty VA:

I finally have a new client (who has signed the Virtual Assistance Retainer Agreement I ordered from you and customized for my business–thank you!). However, the client emailed me wanting me to sign a confidentiality/non-disclosure agreement which the owner forgot to give me at our meeting. Would that be necessary to do? –ST

Having a client ask you to sign a confidentiality agreement is a normal, reasonable request. And here’s why:

When working with clients, especially in our line of work, we are often privy and have access to their intellectual property and other proprietary knowledge, processes and information. Naturally, they wouldn’t want you to be taking their intellectual capital and proprietary information and using it for your own benefit, making derivative use of it in your own business, or in any way sharing or disclosing it to others. So the idea behind a confidentiality/non-disclosure agreement is that you’re basically making a legal promise that you won’t do that and if you breach that promise, they can seek injunctive relief and damages against you.

The reverse can also be true. You might have intellectual property and proprietary processes and information that clients become privy to that you wouldn’t want them sharing with others or repurposing for their own benefit. If you have any intellectual capital or proprietary information you want to protect, you might have clients sign your own confidentiality/non-disclosure agreement before working together.

But, as with any kind of legally binding contract, you want to be sure you know what you are signing and not signing away any reasonable right or recourse or be held to any unreasonable standard or liability. One thing in particular you want to look out for is any language that talks about you not working for anyone else doing the work you do. This is usually associated with terms like “non-competition.” (You’ll see this kind of language especially if they are using a generic agreement like you get at OfficeDepot or something—very, very bad idea as those things are fraught with terrible legal languaging and loopholes that expose both sides to liability.) If that kind of language is in there, you want to ask them to take it out before you sign anything. You’re a business and no one has the right to expect you to not work with other clients doing the very thing you are in business to do.

Another thing I want to mention that I see all the time in the VA world is this silliness about automatically providing clients with a confidentiality agreement. This is not your responsibility. That would be like a tenant providing the lease agreement to the landlord. Or a policyholder providing the insurance policy to the insurance company. The party with the confidential information at stake is the one who writes the instrument protecting and explaining the relationship, not the other way around.  So, if a client has IP they want to protect, it’s up to them to hire their own attorney and provide you with their own agreement. It’s not your job to do that for them and you could be creating more liability for yourself than is necessary.

And as the saying goes, I am not an attorney. This is not to be construed with legal advice, just my knowledge based on 14 years in business. I hope it helps, but when it comes to legal matters, you should always, always seek the advice and guidance of an attorney.

Saw another idiotic post about Virtual Assistants come through on my Google Alerts. Articles like these are responsible for miseducating the marketplace into thinking Virtual Assistants are some kind of substitute employee–which they are not.

It’s also why we have so many new VAs coming into this profession thinking they are substitute employees filling a position. Just about every freaking article they read anymore talks about Virtual Assistants as if they were still working for bosses. They use terms like job, position, interview, resume…

These people are such morons. Once and for all–Virtual Assistance is NOT a job. It’s not a “position” on your “team.” It’s a business. And it’s not any client’s place to be providing job descriptions. If that’s what they’re doing, then that person is an employee–a telecommuter–not a Virtual Assistant. Virtual Assistants are service providers who run their own businesses and specialize in administrative support. They tell clients how they can help them and what they can and will do for them (as well as what they can’t or won’t), not the other way around.

And Virtual Assistants and clients had both better get it straight because the IRS will get to you sooner or later if you don’t. (I’ve known about this coming and have been telling people so since 2005.) Getting people to work for you from home is not a license to misclassify employees and be tax cheats. Virtual Assistants: run your business like a business.

And by the way, contractor, subcontractor, independent contractor… those are all terms that mean the same thing–business owner. There is absolutely NO third classification where an employer gets to hire someone to work like an employee but not report them as such nor pay taxes on them. NO SUCH THING whatsoever. Someone is either an employee or they are a business owner, regardless of the term they use (e.g. freelancers, independent contractor, subcontractor). And any business that farms out workers, virtual or otherwise, is called a temp agency or staffing agency and those workers they loan out to people are employees.

Here’s an article published this week in The Portable Business™, which you can subscribe to here.

Did you realize that your pricing sends a million messages to your prospective clients? Pricing is every bit a part of your marketing strategy. And no, I’m not talking about being the cheapest provider—that is always a losing proposition for both you and your clients. And here’s why:

1. What is your pricing saying to clients about you, your skills, your services and/or products? If you price too low, clients will view you as merely a commodity they can get from anyone, anywhere else. Low-ballers think that by pricing low, they will create even more opportunities to find clients. However, what it really does is open them up to an even bigger pool of competition–and not particularly good company (remember what they say about the company you keep). It’s a losing game and they have to work doubly hard just to get noticed and break even.

On the other side of the coin, clients correlate higher fees with higher skill and expertise. They expect to pay professional level fees where that’s the case. If you aren’t charging professional level fees, they innately think the skills and experience must be sub-par.

2. What kind of clients does your pricing attract? Cheap prices are a lightning rod for cheap clients. And cheap clients are the very worst clients to work with. They don’t value the work, they’re constantly trying to get something for nothing, and they nitpick and find fault with just about everything you do for them. Cheap clients are unprofitable and energy-draining to the extreme and cost you far more than you realize in your business.

You want to market to clients who have foresight and seek to invest in quality and expertise. These are the clients who understand that quality and expertise are far more valuable to them—and ultimately cheaper in the long run—than short-term cheap prices. They value the work and skills because they know how those things, in turn, help their own business move forward.

3. How does your pricing affect your operations and systems? If you have a complicated pricing structure or turn everything into a transaction, it makes it more difficult for clients to deal with you. And difficult, complicated and confusing is not good marketing. When your pricing and, thus, billing structure and procedures are complicated, you create even more administrative work for yourself. Whenever you have overly complicated, burdensome overhead and administration, that ultimately ends up detracting from your client service in one way or another. Simplicity is the name of the game. When you make your business easier to run, you make it easier for clients as well—and you have more time to serve them.

Likewise, if you aren’t charging enough, your business will not survive. You simply must charge profitably in order to stick around and continue to serve the clients who come to depend on you. You aren’t doing anyone—not you and not your clients—any favors by not earning well. Because your money problems will eventually affect your business and trickle down as service problems for clients. Pricing well is imperative for your business survival and the ability to create conditions that allow you to provide superior service to clients. And you can’t buy better marketing than the kind of word-of-mouth that is generated from that!

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).

Ever hear a client utter these words? It’s probably the most grating sentence in the Virtual Assistant world today.

But what if you knew exactly how to respond… what if you offered your services in a way that didn’t focus whatsoever on hourly rates? Wouldn’t that be a total game changer? It’s not so annoying when you actually begin to love responding to that kind of question (or when you don’t even get it in the first place).

…If you frequently encounter price resistance with clients and want to know what to do about it;

…If you have trouble getting clients to commit;

…If you struggle with articulating your value to clients, talking about your fees and feeling confident in them;

…If you find the whole topic of pricing difficult, I can help you!

Today is the last day to register for my Value-Based Pricing & Packaging Biz Intensive. I have just a few spots left. What I will teach you in this clinic will help you:

• Attract more clients, more easily;
• Make more money;
• Create an easier business to run;
• And toss out those time sheets forever!

…all without discounting, negotiating or justifying your fees whatsoever!

Learn more and register by midnight tonight >>

I’d love to “see” you there!

]]> http://www.grittyva.com/2010/07/19/why-should-i-pay-that-when-i-can-get-a-temp-or-offshore-va-for-5-bucks-an-hour/feed/ 3 http://www.grittyva.com/2010/07/16/this-is-all-a-journey/ http://www.grittyva.com/2010/07/16/this-is-all-a-journey/#comments Fri, 16 Jul 2010 17:12:11 +0000 Danielle Keister http://www.grittyva.com/?p=4310

Starting a Virtual Assistant business, or any business for that matter, is going to be a journey. You won’t just open your doors overnight and bam! you’ve got clients, you’re making money and all goes perfectly, smoothly. It will not all fall into place and come together neatly with a bow on top without any glitches or stops and starts along the way.

You will grow in stages. Your learning and business evolution will be ongoing. What you know and understand now will be nothing compared to what you come to know and understand a year from now, two years from now, and so forth. After five years, you’ll look back and marvel at how much you didn’t know (but thought you did). You may even chuckle and feel a little sheepish about how you railed at and resisted the advice of those who have gone before and, as you realized later, actually knew what they were talking about.

Not that any of this is a bad thing. It’s all a normal part of the process. It’s also why these kind of conversations exist on blogs and forums and so forth and are beneficial to your growth. People naturally want to help others. So even though you are not going to know everything right off the bat–and no one expects you to–they will raise your business consciousness. You might never have seen a path otherwise without it having been brought up in a discussion. Or things might have taken you much longer in business than need be without hearing about the mistakes of others. Without these conversations and help from your colleagues, you might keep banging your head upside the same old walls. Likewise, some things might not make sense to you in the beginning, but you come to understand them more clearly later after you’ve gained some experience under your belt. You suddenly “get” it.

Part of what got me to thinking on this was some recent correspondence with a colleague I hadn’t heard from in awhile. She related how she was agonizing over perfecting things. She was also so busy that she’d finally gotten to the point where she was actively seeking her own VA. She lamented that a few recent prospective clients she had consultations with weren’t so ideal. And while another one was really great, she still wasn’t happy with her consultation process and felt she could have done better.

And while she was angsting over all this, I’m seeing nothing but marvelous stuff! She’s established a pipeline and is getting consultations! She’s also got a way better idea where she wants to head with them than she did a year ago. She’s fine-tuning things to suit her needs and she’s able to more quickly identify who is right for her and who isn’t. These are all signs of business maturation and growth!

So many people who play it safe, who are so afraid of failing or making a mistake they never try anything new, who never open their minds to advice that goes against the idiotic status quo, never, ever reach these stages. Which is really sad.

So you’ve got to remind yourself now and again that growing in your business isn’t necessarily always going to be comfortable. You are going to agonize and twist and turn as you hone your processes and try new things. You simply aren’t growing without some discomfort and mess. And you will make what you feel are mistakes and gaffes, but they really aren’t. They are merely learning processes.

And honing is something that will occur throughout the life of your business. That is, if you’re doing it right. You will never reach “perfection.” I think it’s entirely the wrong word to be associating with in the first place. I like to think of business as an artwork in progress. And “progress” is something that is always evolving, forwardly and upwardly.

So embrace these things! What you’re going through is absolutely normal. You’ve got to pat yourself on the back for stepping up and allowing yourself to make mistakes and feel uncomfortable! Be proud about where you are now compared to where you were when you started!