The reality is that getting to actually work with retained clients takes a bit more effort. You have to get at least some small idea about the new client’s business. You have to gain some insight into their challenges and goals and where your support can best fit in with those things. You have to be able to articulate your value in a way that makes sense to them so that they aren’t asking you, “Why should I pay you $X when I can pay bozo over there $5/hr.

Am I right?

So I’m curious about where VAs are finding trouble spots in their consultation process. Do you have any particular stumbling blocks when it comes to conducting consultations? Are there any areas of the consultation process you’d like to be better at? Or maybe you feel like you do well in your consultations, but the clients aren’t signing on or calling back. Is that the case?

Whatever the issue is in your consultations, I really, really want to hear from you. Shoot me an email (or use the submission form here) and let me know where you feel you are getting stuck and what you’d like to improve.

If you are a Virtual Assistant/Administrative Support Consultant still growing in your consultation skills and would welcome some additional hands-on help, I need to get a gauge about where you are specifically getting stuck. Do you feel like you’re doing well in consultations, but then not getting the clients? Are there particular parts or topics in the consultation that you struggle with? Is lack of confidence your stumbling block?

Please email me at [danielle at virtualassistantnetworking dot com] with any of your stumbling blocks and where you’d love to get help. I’m working on something really great for you!

Is Your Consultation Converting Prospects Into Clients?

Presented by: ME!

DATE: Thursday, September 17, 2009 (this Thursday!)
TIME: 5p PT | 6p MT | 7p CT | 8p ET
DURATION: 60 minutes (call in 10 min. early to secure your seat)
COST: Absolutely Free!

For Virtual Assistants Only!

Do you wish you made more money in your Virtual Assistant practice? Are you having trouble getting the kind of clients you’d prefer to work with? Is your current process failing to convert prospects into clients? These are just a few of the issues we’ll explore in this intimate, informal business salon just for Virtual Assistants this Thursday, September 17, 2009.

Bring your questions and your curiosity. I’ll share with you some of the reasons you want to have a consultation process in your practice, how long a consultation should be and the three primary goals for your consultation to achieve. If you want to increase your success in converting prospects into clients, you won’t want to miss this teleseminar!

REGISTER HERE…

Don’t forget to take the 2009 Virtual Assistant Industry Survey. Please retweet!

Dear Gritty VA:

What do you do in those situations when a client wants to jump ahead or step over your processes in a consultation? –MO

Ideally (meaning “in a perfect world” LOL), your qualifying and preliminary processes and your marketing to your ideal clients and target market would attract just those who are the right fit. Those folks tend to be really serious about getting your help, committed to doing whatever it takes to get there and trust that you as the expert have a reason for doing things the way you do. Because of this, they aren’t as likely to try and take short-cuts with your steps.

But nothing is foolproof. All we can do is the best we can to make sure our time is reserved especially for the best qualified client candidates. You should expect that there are always going to be a few who aren’t quite a match who make it through and put a wrench in the works. They aren’t bad people or anything like that. They might just have priorities that aren’t fitting with ours. They might not understand the value of going through the process. Whatever the reason, it is what it is. Nothing is going to follow your script exactly like you want or intend, every single time.

But it’s always our job to help our prospective partners better understand. We have to be able to think on our feet and do our best to rein the conversation back into the order of our processes and standards. This is so that you and the client can make the best-fitting decision possible for both of you. When that’s not possible, you have to just chalk it up to not being right for each other at that place in time.

My best advice is to help these clients better understand the reasons for your process. Ask them to trust in it and explain that you will fully and openly talk about what it is they want to jump ahead to when you get to that part. If they are impatient with that, it can mean that they will be difficult to work with anyway.

It can be difficult to resist the urge to cave-in here, but I’ve found this to be a really important standard to maintain. The good news is that most of the time, people just need a little reassurance that you recognize the importance or relevance of the thing they want to get to and that you will get to that part of the conversation and pay special attention to it. How you give that reassurance and guide the conversation back on track is going to be up to your own unique voice and style.

PS: Don’t forget to take the 2009 Virtual Assistant Industry Survey. Please retweet!