The Gritty Virtual Assistant

Virtual Assistants: Are You Earning What You'd Like to Be?

As Virtual Assistants, I think I can safely say that most of us LOVE, LOVE, LOVE our work.

We love helping people. We love working on computers and using technology tools. We love our craft and putting our administrative talents to use. And we really love when we can actually see our clients grow as a direct result of our support and administrative expertise. We know we are making a real difference in our clients' lives and businesses.

But running a business isn't all peaches and cream, is it? Marketing can be a chore and daunting task. It's often difficult to get clients to understand what you do and why they should work with you. Finding the right clients isn't always easy. You might even be wondering, "Freedom? What freedom? I barely have time to sleep at night with all the work I have to do."

Perhaps the biggest frustration of all for Virtual Assistants is that they can work like dogs and still not make any more money.

At the root of all these issues is the fact that Virtual Assistants are still trading hours for dollars. Part of the reason they stay stuck there is because they don't know how to articulate the true value of their service to clients. They end up using the same, ineffectual script on their Web sites that everyone else in the industry does. The problem with the "script," however, is that it only emphasizes money:

"Save money on this..." "Get a discount on that..." "Here's what you'll save..." "You won't have to pay for..." "Do this and get 50% off..."

Do you see what this tells clients? It focuses them on nothing but cost. It says to them, "My service has no other benefit except that you can get off cheaply." These are the tactics of those who don't have an understanding of the very real value they offer beyond mere time and think clients must be bribed into working with them.

If you remain stuck on the idea that you are selling hours, and incentivizing on top of it, there most certainly will be a cap on how much money you can feasibly make because you only have a finite number of hours to sell. Plus, the better and faster you get, the less money you'll make -- while none of the value and benefits the client receives from your work is reduced. Is that profitable or fair to you?

If any of this is speaking to you...

If you would love to stop watching the clock and make way more money than you are now without having to work harder or longer hours...

If you have difficulty finding your own creative voice and articulating the value of what you offer in a way that is entirely unique to you and your business...

If you are ready to take your business to the next level and learn of a better way of operating, one that allows you to create a smoother-running, easier to manage, more profitable business that requires far less administration than you ever imagined possible... then my latest workbook is for you.

In this 21-page tutorial, "Understanding Your Value: How to Craft Your Own Unique Value Proposition and Cash In on Value-Billing Methodologies" (WBK-38), I will help you identify and gain a deeper understanding of what it is you really offer your clients and the greater implications of that value in their businesses.

Step-by-step exercises will walk you through the process of crafting your own unique value statement, one that will have more attractive, tangible meaning to your prospective clients and have your message standing heads and tails above the crowd. You'll also get easy-to-do, practical ideas and how-tos for implementing value-billing methods and strategies that frame your service in new ways and allow you to work less while making more money.

==LIMITED TIME INTRODUCTORY OFFER==

Regular visitors to the Virtual Assistant Business Forms Store will purchase this workbook at the introductory price of $47. However, you can get this guide at an additional 30% off the introductory price for a limited time until midnight, July 31, 2008, by signing up for our VIP Status mailing list. Simply fill out the form below. Once you verify your subscription, you will be sent a message containing the special discount code.

I can't wait to share this with you and watch the revolutionary changes that can take place in your practice!

Back By Popular Demand

After much deliberation and your very persuasive appeals, I've brought back one of my most proprietary premium tools, the Activity & Time Tracking Analysis Tool (GDE-37) for Virtual Assistants. Plus, it's improved and more streamlined than before.

One of the most difficult aspects of getting started with new clients in your Virtual Assistant practice is the time it takes to get a feel for the client's business and all that they have on their plate. Most often, we simply ask clients to keep a pad and pencil with themselves for a week or two and write down their activities.

Well, this tool is evolutions beyond that, and takes your Virtual Assistance consulting with clients to an entirely different level--one that puts you in control of the delegation process and your role as the administrative expert in your own Virtual Assistant practice!

Not only does this tool help you more quickly and effectively ramp up with new clients, it gives them a clearer, more "scientific" visual of their business and activities. It helps you analyze their time and energy busters, see where their core strengths and weaknesses are, identify where key systems and processes can be developed, and allows you to make more informed recommendations about where your services can be most strategically utilized as you begin working together.

The Activity & Time Analysis Tool will add value to your processes and systems, and clients will be "wowed" by the invaluable, eye-opening business data and charts you will be able to present to them.

==LIMITED TIME OFFER==

From now through July 4, you can get the Activity & Time Analysis Tool for a discounted price of $49.99. After that, it goes back up to its regular price of $64.99.

Order yours now at  http://www.virtualassistantnetworking.com/virtual-assistant-business-forms.htm

Press Release Writing Guide is Out

Virtual Assistants and other solopreneurs are masters when it comes to do-it-yourself enterprise. Though blessed with flexibility and agility, as small business owners, they often must make do with much less than their larger business counterparts. Sometimes that means venturing into territory in which they don’t necessarily have experience--such as writing press releases.

I want to help demystify the process of writing press releases with my latest Virtual Assistant Guide, “Press Release Writing Guide & Style Template.” This 5-page guide is intended for Virtual Assistants, clients and any solopreneur or independent professional who wants to write better press releases using my simple, effective formula.

The guide includes:

• press release template with editable form fields,
• press release guidelines and tips,
• list of all the parts of a press release with descriptions and instructions for each,
• sample press release exampling the formula used for effective press release writing, and
• press release writing resource list.

How to write a press release is a question that is constantly asked by the members of my Virtual Assistant association. We end up repeating so much information and correcting bad advice that I decided a single resource would be of great benefit. In this guide, I share the simple, effective formula I have used to get great results.

The guide is instantly downloadable and available for purchase at the Virtual Assistance Chamber of Commerce’s online forms store at http://www.virtualassistantnetworking.com/virtual-assistant-business-forms.htm in the Virtual Assistant Guides section.

If writing is not your strong suite, this guide will make it a snap!

Teeny Bit More Room at the Teleseminar Tonight!

My organization, the Virtual Assistance Chamber of Commerce has a fantastic turnout for today's free teleseminar with marketing consultant Jim Logan. We've got a teeny bit more room so there's still time for you to register if you haven't already.

Here are the details:

How to Insulate Yourself from Your Competition, Protect the Price of Your Services and Avoid Becoming a Commodity

Presented by Jim Logan, Marketing Consultant

DATE: Thursday, May 17, 2007
TIME: 5pm PST / 6pm MST / 7pm CST / 8pm EST
LENGTH: 60 minutes (please call in 10 min. early)
COST: FREE!

This class is open to all Virtual Assistants and Independent Service Providers. Feel free to invite your colleagues and clients.

Gritty Business Buzz--Coming to You Weekly

Gritty Business Buzz, the ezine my Virtual Assistant organization publishes has gone from monthly to a weekly format!

Our publication is produced by our member Virtual Assistants specially for the gritty, resourceful, fiercely determined small business owners and independent professionals they serve--YOU!

Each week is full of advice, tips, reviews, news and interviews on how to more efficiently manage your business, increase profits, reduce stress, and learn about the best tools for getting things done.

If you haven't yet, go subscribe right now: http://www.virtualassistantnetworking.com/subscribe.htm

Did I mention it was free? Yup, no excuse not to subscribe.

2007 InnoVAtive Award Winners

My Virtual Assistant association had its virtual one year anniversary party yesterday. The party was fabulously fun, and at the end we announced our 2007 VACOC InnoVAtive Award recipients.

The InnoVAtive Award is an honor given by the Virtual Assistance Chamber of Commerce to Virtual Assistants who have demonstrated high standards of excellence and inventiveness in the industry and in their business. For those who weren't able attend, it's my pleasure to announce this year's recipients:

InnoVAtive Award for Business Inspiration:  Vickie Turley, Elite Virtual Assistants, awarded in recognition of her tremendous growth as a business owner over the past year, and her continuing effots to motivate and encourage her Virtual Assistant colleagues.

Vickie has just blossomed over the last year. It was like watching a switch that she decided to turn on and then Wow! She was and continues to be on a roll! I'm so excited for Vickie. The other wonderful thing about Vickie is that not only is she an inspiration and role model for new VAs, but she always makes an effort to encourage and motivate her Virtual Assistant colleagues.

InnoVAtive Award for Virtual Assistant Business Education:  Stacy Brice, AssistU, awarded in recognition of her exemplary industry leadership and vision for the Virtual Assistance profession.

As far as I'm concerned, there still is nothing in the industry to rival the brilliance, wisdom and caliber of the AssistU business training and its leader Stacy Brice. But hey, these awards aren't just my picks, or of the Steering Committee. We received numerous nominations, both AssistU grads and non-AssistU grads so it sure was an easy selection. Congratulations, Stacy!

We also had a surprise honor this year for Joy Slaughter of A Capital Solution, and Laura Lee Sparks of The Simple Solution, my partners in crime at the VACOC.

They had no clue and we totally caught them off guard by announcing, due to member demand, that they be honored as our Members of the Year!

It's always been our policy at the VACOC that anyone on the Steering Committee would necessarily exclude themselves from any awards the VACOC sponsors. When I originally asked them about their feelings on this, both immediately just tossed it out of hand. For them it was a total non-issue, and they reminded me that they aren't in this for awards and accolades, especially self-appointed ones.

Of course, that just made me love them all the more! And since it was coming from the membership, and they had no clue, and the fact that this was just right--to recognize them for all the hard work, commitment and dedication (oh, you all just don't know how much they do behind the scenes!) they have put into building the organization--I allowed this exception to be made.

So, thanks, Joy and Laura Lee for all your tireless efforts and unflagging commitment and dedication in helping build the Virtual Assistance Chamber of Commerce into an organization which honors high standards of professionalism, excellence and integrity.

And thank you to everyone for your nominations, donations and generosity of spirit!

New Virtual Assistant Business Forms Packages

To all my Virtual Assistant friends and colleagues, just wanted to let you know we've got more new Virtual Assistant Business Forms sets to give you even greater savings.

One nice change I've gotten great feedback on--the Virtual Assistant Business Plan template is now included in the Virtual Assistant Business Forms set.

We've got new price breaks and sets include the whole Virtual Assistant Shebang and "I Want Them All."

Go check it out:  http://www.virtualassistantnetworking.com/virtual-assistant-business-forms.htm

My Interview on The VA Podium

Last week I was interviewed by the lovely and talented Katrina Chesney of The VA Podium.

Katrina is an AssistU graduate and owner of the Virtual Assistant practice, Portable Hands. (Love that name, by the way!).

Katrina recently began producing a new Internet radio program, The VA Podium, dedicated to empowering Virtual Assistants to success one podcast at a time. She contacted me to discuss my guide, "How to Hire a Virtual Assistant: Your 10-Step Guide to Finding the Perfect Fit."

Katrina is a skillful interviewer, and I had such a lovely time talking with her, both on and off the air throughout the process.

We both thought it turned out very well--take a listen!

The VA Podium Interview: How to Hire a Virtual Assistant

John Jantsch and I Featured on PayPal

Hey, I'm sharing the spotlight with John Jantsch of Duct Tape Marketing on PayPal's Online Merchant Network through January 2007.

Here's the link:

http://www.OnlineMerchantNetwork.com/inform/

You do have to create an account, but it's free, and a really neat new avenue to connect with other business owners and vendors. Check it out!

End to Net Neutrality?

You can help save the Internet!

Please take a moment to invite your friends and colleagues to sign MoveOn.org's petition here: http://civic.moveon.org/save_the_internet/

Protecting Network Neutrality affects nearly everyone--online activists, Google users, Ipod listeners, work-at-home parents, small businesses, economic innovators, and others.

Together, we can STOP Congress from selling out the interests of the public!

You can also forward the sample message below to your friends.

Spreading the word is critical, but please only pass this message along to those who know you--spam hurts our campaign.

Subject: Congress is selling out the Internet

Hi, _____,

Do you buy books online, use Google, or download to an iPod? Everything we do online will be hurt if Congress passes a radical law next week that gives giant corporations more control over what we do and see on the Internet.

Internet providers like AT&T are lobbying Congress hard to gut Network Neutrality--the Internet's First Amendment and the key to Internet freedom. Net Neutrality prevents AT&T from choosing which websites open most easily for you based on which site pays AT&T more. BarnesandNoble.com doesn't have to outbid Amazon for the right to work properly on your computer.

If Net Neutrality is gutted, many sites--including Google, eBay, and iTunes--must either pay protection money to companies like AT&T or risk having their websites process slowly. That why these high-tech pioneers, plus diverse groups ranging from MoveOn to Gun Owners of America, are opposing Congress' effort to gut Internet freedom.

You can do your part today--can you sign this petition telling your member of Congress to preserve Internet freedom? Click here:

http://www.civic.moveon.org/save_the_internet

I signed this petition, along with 250,000 others so far. This petition will be delivered to Congress before the House of Representatives votes next week. When you sign, you'll be kept informed of the next steps we can take to keep the heat on Congress.

Snopes.com, which monitors various causes that circulate on the Internet, explained:

Simply put, network neutrality means that no web site's traffic has precedence over any other's... Whether a user searches for recipes using Google, reads an article on snopes.com, or looks at a friend's MySpace profile, all of that data is treated equally and delivered from the originating web site to the user's web browser with the same priority. In recent months, however, some of the telephone and cable companies that control the telecommunications networks over which Internet data flows have floated the idea of creating the electronic equivalent of a paid carpool lane.

If companies like AT&T have their way, Web sites ranging from Google to eBay to iTunes either pay protection money to get into the "fast lane" or risk opening slowly on your computer. We can't let the Internet--this incredible medium which has been such a revolutionary force for democratic participation, economic innovation, and free speech--become captive to large corporations.

Politicians don't think we are paying attention to this issue. Together, we do care about preserving the free and open Internet.

Please sign this petition letting your member of Congress know you support preserving Internet freedom. Click here:

http://www.civic.moveon.org/save_the_internet