Okay, here is a question. I keep getting the message that “I am just not big enough to outsource yet,” even though they have tasks which they are too busy to schedule to do like blog writing, articles and social media networking. How does one convince an entrepreneur that they are indeed “big enough” to contract with an Administrative Consultant? –ST

The quick answer–you don’t.

You don’t want to focus on the people who think they have to do all their own admin work. If they don’t have the need or the want for what you do, you’re barking up the wrong tree.

The bottom line is those folks are never our clients. It’s a complete effort in futility and a waste of precious time and energy trying to convince them otherwise.

And the ones like that who do become clients often end up being the tiresome, irritating, energy-draining micro-managers and pains-in-the-ass that we all dread working with. Don’t do that.

Focus only on the folks who have a need/want for your support. They are the ones who are open to hearing how you can help them and have a need for what you do and will therefore place greater value on it and be willing to pay . You’ll have greater success in getting clients (and the kind of clients you want) if you do.

It also sounds like one of the reasons you’re talking to the wrong people is because you perhaps don’t have a target market. If you’re trying to talk to anyone and everyone, you’re going to waste a TON of time and energy spinning your wheels not getting anywhere.

If you don’t have a target market and don’t know enough about them to know who has the need, you’re gonna have to get clear on that. There are three first rules for deciding on a target market.

1. It must have a need for what you’re in business to offer. You’ve no doubt heard the phrase, “trying to sell ice cubes to an Eskimo,” right? Same principle. You can’t sell something to someone who doesn’t want it or need it. When they have a need, they will place great value in how you can help them and therefore be willing to pay for it.
2. It must be able to afford you. For example, I see lots of Administrative Consultants (Virtual Assistants) wanting to target “mom and pops” and “startups.” But those markets are often the least able to afford any kind of professional services. When this is pointed out to them, they’ll wail, “but they really NEED me!” Look, you gotta stop trying to save the world and “fix” people. You can’t afford to work with anyone who can’t afford you and you’ll go broke and hungry trying. Find the folks who can pay and let the others come to you when they get farther along. You can’t sacrifice your own financial needs and well-being to help them or you won’t be able to help anyone. Take that to the bank.
3. There must be enough of them that you can easily find and market to enough of them to fill your practice. I won’t say there aren’t exceptions to this rule, but generally, if the market is so obscure and esoteric that there aren’t enough to fill your practice or it’s incredibly difficult to find and interact with them, you’re really going to make your life unnecessarily hard. Find another, easier to find market.

Oh, and if you want to know why you need a target market and how it will dramatically increase the success of your business, here’s an article I originally wrote back in 2008:  Where Is Your Arrow Pointing?

Once you know who you’re talking to specifically, it becomes infinitely easier to find out when and what makes them seek out and be willing to pay for what you’re in business to do. Which is what you then tie directly into your marketing. And that begins and ends with your compelling message. It’s the very foundation of all the rest of your marketing efforts. Marketing isn’t simply going through the motions of marketing activities. Without the foundation of a resonate, compelling, attractive message that appeals to your target market, none of the actual marketing activities is going to really help you.

Learning how to market in a way that allows you to attract the right people, speak to what their emotional interests are and command professional fees is an art and science. It involves understanding your market and marketing psychology. It’s not even difficult. It’s actually pretty simple. The only thing that’s required is a) the focus and direction that a target market gives you, and b) a shift in your thinking and understanding about marketing.

You would really, really find great benefit from my guide, Articulating Your Value: How to Craft Your Own Unique and Compelling Marketing Message to Attract Your Ideal, Paying Clients. Without the foundation of a proper message, none of the actual marketing activities is going to really help you. That’s what this guide is all about–helping you craft your message which is the foundation of any marketing activities you engage in. It’s about marketing and developing not only your own unique, compelling marketing message, but one that helps you command professional level fees.

I have been toying with the idea of starting my own business for some time and recent events (notably, a layoff) have pushed this idea to the forefront.  I have purchased your business forms, contracts, etc. and have found your resources and expertise to be exactly what I was looking for.  I noted that you work with attorneys. I am interested in targeting sole practitioner attorneys as well and was wondering if obtaining a paralegal certificate would be helpful in breaking into this market?  –LP

Great question and I love seeing that you have narrowed things down to a target market. That right there is going to help you get things rolling more quickly and easily, and save you soooo much time and effort because it gives you a direction and focus.

In answer to your specific question, you do not necessarily need a paralegal certificate to support attorneys. Administrative support is administrative support. EVERY business needs it, including law offices, and you don’t need any kind of certification to do that work. However, if you plan to also do paralegal work, then you’ll need to check with your state or locality to find out the rules on that. Some states require a degree or certification to be a paralegal while others do not.

That said, if you want to support the legal profession, there are some specific skills and knowledge you will need. You’ll be more successful if you already have that kind of experience; it’ll be a harder sell if not. Either way, it’s always a great idea to take whatever kind of training or classes you can find, and read any information you can that will help you become more knowledgeable about supporting this market.

Law practice management is extremely valuable knowledge to have or obtain. Plan on keeping up on that every chance you get. It’s especially prized by solo attorneys because you are then able to help get their business organized and running smoothly so that can be more profitable and have more time for their client work (or just have some time off! These guys work like dogs, most of them).

You also want to learn about all the various legal industry specific software and tools that can be utilized so you can bring that knowledge and skillset to the table.

Getting back to the target market thing, I love that you already understand that it’s the solos who are going to have the most need and therefore are going to find greater value in having an administrative support partner.

Large firms don’t really need what we do because they have bigger workloads and can afford in-house employees required to handle it. Therefore, when you do find one that’s even interested in outsourcing, it’s only to save a buck and get it as cheaply as possible, not because they value the work and it’s important to their practice. They aren’t interested in a partnering relationship whereas that partnering relationship plays a critical role in supporting solos. This is why you’ll find greater success with them. They have a great need for what we do and therefore place higher value and are willing to pay for it. Which is one of the first rules in selecting a target market: It must have a real need for what you are in business to offer so that it values it enough to pay for it.

I would have you narrow that down even further that, though. There are all kinds of practice areas in the law and the work and processes involved therefore can vary dramatically.  By narrowing down to a solos in a specific practice area, you will be better able to learn more about the work specifically involved and see how you can support them. This, in turn, will allow you to compose a much more compelling marketing message that really speaks their language–all to your greater, faster success in attracting and getting those clients.

Once you do narrow thing down more, you can then start doing your homework by researching and talking with solo attorneys, finding out where their biggest headaches are, how they are currently managing their work and administrative and what solutions they’ve be most interested in.

If you want to learn more about how to craft your own unique, compelling marketing message, I recommend my guide Articulating Your Value: How to Craft Your Own Unique, Compelling Marketing Message (GDE-38).

Hope that helps!

UPDATE: 480 participants so far! Spread the word so we can reach goal by April 1!

I have started to support a realtor and while we are working through some of the tasks that I can support her with I was wondering if you could provide me with any other services or ideas on how I can support her further? –KA

Thanks for the question.

Good for you for getting proactive! Since I don’t work with real estate agents or that target market in any capacity (and thus have no clue as to how their businesses are run or what administrative work is involved), I don’t have much to offer in the way of specific service ideas. What I would have you do is two-fold:  1) talk to colleagues who work with the real estate market, and 2) talk to actual real estate agents to learn more about their businesses, how they are run, what work is involved and what their common goals and challenges are. Doing that kind of market research is really the only way you will truly know what those particular clients want and need.

While I don’t have much specific insight when it comes to the real estate market in particular, what I can offer you is this… Besides getting conscious and intentional about really getting to know your chosen target market, these are things you will also have to figure out together with your client. Except for the general, practical stuff that clients in a particular industry or profession commonly share, each client relationship and each client’s needs is different.

The support you provide to each has to evolve organically, at its own pace. You can’t rush it, and you’ll end up causing yourself and the client problems if you do. (And by the same token, don’t let clients rush you or your processes either). You want to allow things to grow at a measured, controlled and steady pace. You don’t want to take on too much all at once. Start with a few areas of support and as you get those whipped into shape, and as you continue to keep the conversation going with your client, you’ll find more things you can take on and help them with.

This is also exactly what my Activity & Time Analysis Tool™ helps you do as well.

Have the client keep track of their time and activities for at least a week, if not two. You can have them do this either before you begin working together or right at the beginning of your working relationship. The tool comes with a sheet for this purpose which you can either have clients fill in directly or enter the information yourself when they send it over to you. Then, once you plug the data into the automated tool, it spits out five different charts that give you a complete overview of their business and shows you exactly what they are doing in their business, what they are wasting time, where their obstacles are, where they’re doing well, where they definitely could use help and what tasks, functions and roles you could take over for them.

It’s a much more precise and “scientific” (if you will) way to get ramped up with clients more quickly. It will allow you to make more purposeful recommendations and it better facilitates the whole delegation process. I really encourage you to read the product description because I think it would help you tremendously.

That’s the best advice I can give you there. Hope it helps.

PS: Today is the last day to save…

Prices going up next year, plus select items on sale… get ‘em now before it’s over >>

How exactly do referrals work?  Does the client recommend their colleague and I call them?  Do they contact their colleague and send them my way or what?  Thank you so much for your anticipated response. –TA

Well, basically, they work any way you’d like them to work.

Referrals come from lots of different places and come in many different forms.

Sometimes colleagues will refer clients to you. According to our annual surveys, the overwhelming majority of Virtual Assistants and Administrative Consultants follow the “what goes around, comes around” philosophy and don’t charge for referrals.  Others do charge referral fees or will want a percentage of any earnings from a client for a certain time period. You’ll want to get clear with the referring colleague as to what their expectations or requirements are.

You can also formally ask clients for referrals. For example, you could make it a standard question as part of your feedback process to ask clients for the names of folks they think would benefit from your support.

Your networking becomes a sort of referral source as well in that it helps you develop your word-of-mouth recognition. As you contribute and people read your posts, you become someone they come to know, like and trust. This leads to folks referring and recommending you to others.

You might have some sort of formal referral program that rewards people for referring prospects to you. Although personally, I really don’t recommend this for a professional service practice. There’s really no need and keep in mind, you would just be adding yet another burden to your administration and management workload.

Those who genuinely know your work and feel it’s worth recommending to other will do so of their own accord. Your evangelists aren’t looking to be paid–they simply believe in what you do and they want to be a resource for their own audience. Those who do end up giving great referrals to you, you can thank by sending referrals their way as well and maybe once in awhile sending a little gift.

As you become established with a happy roster of clients, they tend naturally to refer you to others when they get a chance. This is another form of word-of-mouth advertising that leads to referrals. But I would definitely recommend being proactive as well in specifically asking clients periodically for the names of folks they think could use or would be interested in your services.

Another thing I would recommend you get conscious about is your calls-to-action. In your signature lines and in your “About the Author” text (such as when you publish articles you’ve written), include a line that says something about welcoming referrals. This puts the conscious thought in people’s head and tells them that you are actively seeking clients.

Be clear as well about who makes an ideal client for you so folks know who to refer to you. “Any warm body” is not an ideal client. Just because folks refer people to you doesn’t mean those prospects are going to be the right fit. So you have to tell people who is the right fit for you.  “I’m looking for solo practice attorneys who would like to leverage some skilled administrative support in their business.”

Prices going up next year, plus select items on sale… get ‘em now before it’s over >>

I have a client who only sells wholesale products with an occasional retail customer. I have convinced him to think about sending a mass email marketing campaign/newsletter for his wholesale customers since his previous website designer never even introduced this idea to him. His response was that he only sells to wholesale customers and is not sure what to send to them.  My suggestion was to send loyalty rewards, small one-time bonus, or a small gift thanking them for their business. Do you have any suggestions for a marketing campaign from a wholesale company to its customers? –LN

Nah, I don’t get into advising clients on how to market their businesses. That’s not administrative support and marketing consulting isn’t the business I’m in.

I might offer my views and suggestions from an administrative standpoint. I would also provide them with the administrative support related to executing and implementing many of their marketing activities and initiatives.

But beyond that, how they market their business is up to them. Or between them and their marketing consultant.

I think too many VAs are pressured into thinking that they have to fill ALL these other roles in their clients’ businesses. And that’s just not the case. The ONLY role you have to fulfill is the one you are in business to fulfill–administrative support. You will burn yourself out really quick trying to be all things, do all things, for clients, not to mention greatly diminish your effectiveness with all the constant switching of gears.

I mean, would you ask a plumber to fix your car? Of course not. They’re completely different kinds of expertise and lines of work.

Have opinions. Share ideas, resources and suggestions. Being a partner to clients means they get the benefits of your experiences and input. That’s definitely of value and they might learn or hear about something new because of that that they wouldn’t otherwise. But don’t feel like you have to take on roles you aren’t in business to take on.

And definitely don’t expend your time and energy being more invested in helping with something that the client isn’t even interested in. You can’t care more about their business than they do themselves.

I have a client who signed a three month retainer which will end next month. The client is a publicist in Los Angeles. Working with this individual has become a job. I work 50 hours a week. The reason being that I have become an assistant vs. admin support. I like this person and it is clear that she needs help. My challenge is how to steer this so that she’s working within my business model and not the other way around. I’m not making nearly what I should be. I took less to build the relationship. Is there a way to bring this around or should I just thank her for the wonderful experience (while frustrating at times, I’ve learned a lot) and move on? –TK

This is SUCH a great question. It’s a common pitfall for so many Virtual Assistants. I’m sorry you are going through this, but on the positive side of things, as you recognize, it’s a really valuable learning experience.

There are so many business concepts this touches on so I’m just going to enumerate things to consider. You may have figured some of this out having gone through this now so a lot of it may  just be a validation that you’re getting on the right track from this point forward.

1. Never bargain with your fees. You never want to make bargains with the very thing that earns your living. All you do then is teach clients to devalue the work and the relationship, and give them the idea that everything is up for negotiation.

And really, it amounts to bribery. It’s saying, “I am not worth what I’m charging so I need to bribe you with discounts and freebies in order to get you to work with me.”

That’s a horrible, powerless way to start a relationship and attracts all the worst kinds of clients. I know we see people doing this a lot, but just because we see it doesn’t mean it’s working.   There’s a whole lotta people out there who are NOT making any money and whose businesses are going nowhere due to this thinking.

If what you have to offer is valuable and worthwhile, it’s worth charging fully for right from the get-go. There will be more mutual respect, and your business and relationships will grow more successfully and healthily from there. There are other–better–ways to start new client relationships and make it easier for them to say yes that don’t entail discounting or otherwise bargaining with your fees.

2. Never take on anchor clients. An anchor client is one who ends up monopolizing all your time and energy. They are called “anchor” clients because they weigh your business down and keep it from going (and growing) anywhere.

It doesn’t help that we’ve got Virtual Assistant training programs telling folks that these kinds of clients who hire them for 40, 60 or more hours a month are the bee’s knees. If you are someone who is only doing this work as a side income and more of a hobby, then that’s fine and dandy. But it absolutely does not work at all for those who are trying to build a real business that earns a real, full-time income (and more!) that they could actually live on.

That’s because working with those kind of clients doesn’t leave you the room or energy to work with others and grow your business. I can’t tell you how many VAs I personally know who are struggling because they are working like full-time assistants to their clients. They aren’t making enough money to live on and they barely have any time to think or do anything else.  And they’re definitely not living the freedom and choice-filled life of the self-employed they dreamed of when they first started. If you have read my blog for long, you’ll frequently see me referring to this as “operating and working with clients in ways that don’t give your business room to grow.”

A good rule of thumb is that no one client should make up more than 20% of your business. If you are working with one client for 40-50 hours a week, you’ve got yourself an anchor client who is probably making up 75% or more of your entire business.

You aren’t making the kind of money you want and need, yet you haven’t given yourself room to work with anyone else.

And what happens if that client says bye-bye? There goes almost (if not all) of your entire income. On top of things, you’ve been so busy working with this one client, you haven’t had any time to market your business to keep those prospective client pipelines open. Not that you had any room to take on new clients anyway.

Quite the dilemma and not a good place to be, right? So this is what you do…

3. Recognize when what a client really needs is an employee. As you’ve stated, this has become a job and it’s time to let this client know that what she really needs is an employee, one who can be solely dedicated to that level of workload.

You want to always remember (and tell this to clients, too) that a Virtual Assistant/Administrative Consultant is an alternative, not a replacement for employees. There is naturally going to be a significant difference in the way and when you work together as well as what work you take on. There are going to be many clients and many workloads this simply isn’t a fit for–and isn’t supposed to be.

There are a lot of people out there who just aren’t going to understand this (sometimes folks have to be a little further along in their business for certain things to make sense), but I gotta say it anyway–when a client starts needing you for more than 20-30 hours a month, what they really need is an employee.

Because once you start getting into those kind of hours for one client, the work starts to require more constant, daily monitoring and it overwhelms everything else. And that is a condition that will not only lead to burn-out and keep you chained to your desk every day, more importantly it will limit your ability to work with others and deprive you of the “space” you need to move around easily in the work. Daily on-demand work causes crowding which also leads to poor performance and inconsistent delivery.

The more profitable, sustainable model that also allows you to keep the higher value, one-on-one, true partnering relationship is to work with several retained clients whose individual workloads don’t exceed 20-30 hours a month. It’s a much easier business to manage, it gives you space and leaves room to grow and offer additional services and project work. In that model (and as long as you are also charging properly), it only takes a handful of clients to really do well financially, and because you have “space,” you can supplement that line of business in many different ways.

4. YOU need to set the parameters and the definitions. This is where I’m always saying that being an administrative expert and being an assistant are not one and the same thing. And if you’re a business owner, you aren’t anyone’s assistant.

What I want those two statements to do is help people get conscious and intentionally define their role. You can be an administrative expert without having to be anyone’s assistant. Problem is most of the information you get in the VA industry today is telling people that they have to be assistants. And that’s not a new paradigm whatsoever. It’s just a different name for the same thing–employee.

When you get clear about that, you understand that your value isn’t in being and doing everything for that client. You CAN focus on just the administrative support in your clients’ businesses without being an assistant and instead being an Administrative Expert. If you want to also be an assistant, that’s up to you, but like I say, they aren’t one and the same thing. You get to choose, but understand this–your value isn’t dependent upon also being an assistant. It’s all in how YOU define the work and your role in your business.

Likewise,  you need to define what administrative support is. And the reason this is important is because so many VAs are giving everything away under the administrative support umbrella. So you want to define what kind of work is administrative support and what work logically falls into other categories of business. This will not only help you define parameters, making things more manageable and leaving you room to grow with that client as well as others, but you also create additional revenue sources by charging separately for those things that don’t fall under the administrative support umbrella.

Obviously, I can’t say one way or the other if this is a salvageable relationship. I can tell you, though, that once you’ve spoiled a client and allowed them to have expectations that you can’t sustain and that keep your business from growing, it’s often really difficult to wean them off those things. As you grow and your standards change and improve, always expect that you may lose some clients. It’s just natural that you will outgrow some.

If it’s a relationship you’d like to try to keep, all you can do is be open, honest and direct about the changes that must take place in your business in order for it to grow, and let the client know that you hope she will come with you. Don’t be invested in the outcome beyond that. If she chooses to come with you and accept the adjustments you need to make, great! You can now move forward on more mutually beneficial footing. If not, it just leaves you room for more ideal clients to come into your business.

I am just starting my Virtual Assistant business.  I am networking and setting things up, but I have a question (hope it does not sound silly)… If you could, please list and/or explain some of the duties/work you in real terms. I hear all these Virtual Assistants talk about “the work,” but I want to know the details. What kinds of things do people hire you to do? –AC

Not a silly question at all. Although I can’t say it’s the easiest to answer, LOL.

That’s because the administrative support that one VA provides to her clients can be completely different from what another VA provides.

It’s impossible to create any kind of comprehensive list because the work we do is so much more than that. More importantly, there’s no way to do that because no two clients, businesses and professions are the same. There might be some general similarities and overlap, but overall “the work” all depends on the clients, the industry they are in, the work they do and what their goals, objectives and challenges are.

So like me, for instance, I work with attorneys and business consultants. HUGE amounts of document work involved in both. I also have a lot of contact with their clients in various capacities, such as interviewing, doing intakes, making calls… I also have to interact with the courts, JAs and use the various filing systems. That’s just the teeniest tip of the iceberg.

What I do for my clients, given the professions they are in, is VERY different from the work VAs who, for example, work with Internet marketers provide. Those two markets do completely different things, have completely different interests and motivations, and the work, therefore, is vastly different.

Instead of trying to identify “the work” in only the most general sense, I would instead have you look at things from a different perspective.

1. You can’t be in business to do everything. So YOU have to define what you are in business to do. How I look at things is that administrative support is a skill, expertise and specialty all its own. As a business owner, I am not anyone’s assistant, personal valet or gopher. I am in business to provide administrative support to clients who need that expertise in their business.

2. Once you know what you are in business to do, you will have a better idea and focus about the kind of work you provide for clients. But that’s not the end of the story…

3. You also want to define what administrative support means to you. The best way I have to explain administrative support is that it is the collection of ongoing tasks, functions and roles that keep a business organized, running smoothly and moving forward. Where a lot of people get confused (including a whole lot of VAs themselves) is thinking that administrative work is simply paperwork.

And administrative support isn’t just about administration (the back-end running of the business). Administration is only one area of a business where administrative support is provided. Administrative support encompasses work in ALL four areas of a business–administration, business development, marketing and networking, and working with clients.

Take a look at the quick video below and see if that doesn’t help you understand a bit better.

4. You also want to define a target market. For the same reason that you can’t be in business to do anything and everything, it is also impossible to try to work with anyone and everyone and create any kind of unique, meaningful, resonate and compelling message at the same time.

As Seth Godin says, “You can be a wandering generality or a meaningful specific.” Once you know who it is you are intending to work with, that right there is going to hugely allow you to identify and define “the work” you want to do with and for clients and separate it from different categories of project work you may want to charge separately for.

(And by the way, when you work with a very specific target market, the work and running your business becomes INFINITELY easier.)

5. Beyond all that, EVERYTHING depends on the consultation. Everything. You can’t begin to know how to support someone or what work is involved until you have spoken at length to the client to learn more about them, their business, their values, goals and the challenges they face.

If you want to get REALLY good at doing consultations and know EXACTLY how to proceed with them (what to talk about when, questions to ask, how to ask, what to look for, etc.), then I highly recommend you get my Client Consultation Process, “Breaking the Ice (GDE-03).” It covers everything from before, during and how to follow-up afterward.

Oh, and by the way, this was made for Virtual Assistants and Administrative Consultants to use on their websites so feel free!