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

Aw... Thanks!

Nothing does my heart better than to hear about how the products and information I've provided to the Virtual Assistant industry are helping folks. I get lovely messages all the time and I thought maybe I would start sharing those occasionally.

The other day, I got some nice feedback from two new Virtual Assistants who purchased the Virtual Assistant agreement templates.

Melody Hufford wrote...

"The Virtual Assistant Retainer Agreement saved me much time in creating my own. The client was pleased with the professionalism and clarity of the contract, and I appreciated the layout and presentation."

Natasha Rubin wrote...

"It was all laid out for me and I did not have to create something from scratch. I also took the forms to my attorney for feedback and he thought they were the best he had ever seen!"

I am so pleased to hear that, ladies! I wish you all the success in the world!

Client's Guide to Virtual Assistants

One of the #1 complaints Virtual Assistants commonly commiserate with each other about are clients who think they are their employers. This leads to all kinds of problems in the business relationship because the expectations each has of the other aren't aligned when this is the case.

This can result in, for example, a business owner who thinks his or her Virtual Assistant should be reporting hours or available every hour of the day, while the Virtual Assistant is justly indignant that the client thinks she or he is at their beck and call.

Virtual Assistants are administrative experts, and not every Virtual Assistant is necessarily skilled when it comes to marketing. For this reason, they often find this situation difficult to navigate. They want to properly educate clients about what they are, what they do and how they work with clients so that they are setting the right expectations from the start--which is critical to the success of the relationship. However, they often struggle in articulating that information without feeling like they are coming across harshly.

We at the Virtual Assistance Chamber of Commerce are helping to solve this problem of misaligned expectations and better educate our marketplace with our Client's Guide to Virtual Assistance.

This online guide explains the benefits of support, and gives business owners the skinny on how to work with a Virtual Assistant, how to hire a Virtual Assistant, understanding the difference between an employee and a contractor, and a wealth of other helpful information and resources.

Business owners are also provided a platform to tell us about their needs and perceptions with regard to Virtual Assistants, as well as any unsatisfactory experiences. This information is helping our industry improve its services and better understand its marketplace.

If you are a Virtual Assistant who struggles with educating your clients and prospects, send them over to our Client Guide. We say the tough stuff (in a professional way, of course) so you don't have to.

Give Yourself the Gift of Business Knowledge & Success

Are you an experienced administrative professional exploring the idea of working for yourself?

Are you a new Virtual Assistant just starting your new Virtual Assistant business?

Are you an established Virtual Assistant looking to improve your business and run more profitably?

Did you know you can lay a strong foundation in your business just by purchasing the business forms and guides from the VACOC Virtual Assistant Business Forms store?

You won't find one ounce of fluff in our Virtual Assistant business forms and guides. Every single one is designed with intention and comprehensive detail so that you not only have the best starting point, but also learn more about the business concepts involved in running a successful and efficient solo/small business Virtual Assistant practice.

You can also purchase educational recordings from our Guest Expert Teleseminar Library, and listen to some of the most inspirational and educational experts in the business world over and over. You'll learn something new each time.

And don't forget that your purchases are a tax-deductable business expense. Get your purchases in now--write them off for 2007 and make 2008 your best Virtual Assistant business year ever!

Do You Have a Business Plan?

Often, new Virtual Assistants will ask questions on the various Virtual Assistant listservs and forums that  indicate they haven't done any business planning at all. Like with most small business owners, many have never run a business before and are really learning things from the ground up.

Luckily for them, ours is a very welcoming industry and there are always lots of folks ready with helpful guidance and advice. One of the things us veterans are always repeating like a mantra is "Do a business plan!"

A business plan isn't just for securing loans and finding investors. It's foremost value to you is in helping lay the groundwork for building a successful business.

This is one of the reasons I created the Virtual Assistant Business Plan template (FRM-32 in the VACOC Virtual Assistant Business Forms store.)

I first want to say that you should NEVER just buy a template and think it's going to do all the work for you. That defeats the entire purpose of doing a business plan! And that's certainly not what our Virtual Assistant Business Plan is for.

The point of doing a business plan is to go through the exercises of mapping out the details and strategies for your business success. The problem for many people, however, is that they don't know enough about business, or perhaps even how one should look, to know where or how to even begin.

I created the Virtual Assistant Business Plan to help with this. What my plan gives you is not only a template for how a good business plan should be put together and look, but also many concepts about business and marketing strategies that have proven very successful for solo-run businesses such as Virtual Assistance.

The idea isn't to do the work for you, but rather to give you really detailed, in-depth information to get your juices flowing, and get you excited about the process of mapping out your business' strategies for success.

For example, many people don't realize that there are huge differences between a retainer-based Virtual Assistant business model and a project-based one. But when you sit down to do a business plan, diagram the processes and crunch the numbers, you begin to realize that there are different operational and resource necessities involved with each. Each has different cashflow models, administrative demands and profit margins. And they necessarily have to operate and grow in different ways from one another in order to attain the owner's income objectives.

But you would never begin to learn and understand these things without going through the actual process of completing a business plan. And the VACOC Virtual Assistant Business Plan helps you do just that.

New Activity & Time Analysis Tool: Introductory Price Expires Monday

Just wanted to let you know that the introductory price for my GDE-37 Activity & Time Analysis Tool will expire on Monday, August 20. If you want to get yours at a greatly reduced price, purchase now while it's still at $27. After Monday, it's going up to $60.

This is one of my most proprietary tools. I actually went back and forth quite a bit as to whether it was something I wanted to share. But after continually reading post after post from my Virtual Assistant members of their struggles with "leading" their own process and getting clients to delegate, I realized that it could really be of great service to my colleagues and the industry overall if I were to make it available.

This tool really puts you in the driver's seat of your own business. Once you have a client complete their activity tracking, this tool then gives you the information YOU need to "see" what's going on in their business, develop your recommendations, and manage the delegation process--which is something clients desperately seek guidance on from their Virtual Assistants.

And this isn't just some simple Excel worksheet. Several months of in-depth research and study and critical thought went into developing the formularies that result in the automatic analyses and charts.

Here's what a couple of Virtual Assistants have shared with me so far:

"ALL of my clients were highly impressed with the Activity & Time Analysis Tool that just came out and absolutely loved it!! They felt it was a great way to figure out what they did throughout the day! I think every Virtual Assistant should invest in this form!" -- Alicia Rittenhouse, MMR Business Solutions (http://www.mmrsolutions.com)

"This tool is, in my opinion, absolutely essential to a Virtual Assistant's business. It is extremely well thought out and concise. The conversion chart at the end is also very invaluable." -- Cindy Clark, CCDesignz Business Services LLC (http://www.ccdesignz.biz)

You can get more info and purchase yours in the Virtual Assistant Business Forms Store at http://www.virtualassistantnetworking.com/virtual-assistant-business-forms.htm

Fabulous New Virtual Assistant Tool

One of the most difficult parts to getting started with new clients 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, that exercise just didn't cut it for me. I wanted something with more intention behind it. So I created a proprietary system for myself that took a more methodical approach that would not only yield critical info I needed to ramp up with clients, but also give clients an actual end product they could hold in their hand. This resulted in my Activity & Time Analysis Tool.

As I continue to watch so many Virtual Assistants struggle to manage their client workloads and get past employee mindset, I decided I could do a lot of good by sharing this tool with my colleagues.

This tool is evolutions beyond the notepad exercise, and takes your 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 business!

Not only does this tool help you more quickly and effectively ramp up with new clients, it gives clients 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. Knowing what a client's true needs are also allows you to better negotiate the terms and control the pace of the work you take on for clients

This tool will be available at an introductory price for a very limited time. You can get more info and purchase yours in the Virtual Assistant Business Forms Store here:  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!

You're Invited to a FREE Teleseminar on May 17 How to Avoid Becoming a Commodity

My organization, the Virtual Assistance Chamber of Commerce, sponsors a free teleseminar each month with a different guest expert talking about business and marketing issues of interest to Virtual Assistants, small business owners and independent professionals.

This is my personal invitation to you to be there or be square!

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.

For Virtual Assistants and other professional service providers, there's little more frustration than offering a high-value service that's measured as a commodity--a service offered by many and compared by price.

Newcomers and offshore companies add to the frustration with discounted offers and low-cost operations. The temptation to lower your prices is great. Some days it feels like discounting your service is the only thing you can do to protect your business.

In reality, you have lots of options to discounting your service. You don't have to be a low cost provider to attract new cleints or protect your customer-base. That's a fool's game you can't win.

Join me to discover how you can protect your position in your market, insultate yourself from common competitive pressures, avoid the pressure to compete on price and discounted services, and how to attract your ideal client. On this call, you'll learn how to avoid being viewed as a commodity and stand out from the crowd, resulting in higher margins, better clients and greater satisfaction in your work.

Several things we'll discuss:

• The three things your prospective clients consciously or subconsciously think about when deciding whether or not to purchase your services;
• The most important thing to highlight when describing your service;
• Why the least valuable thing you have to offer your customer is your time;
• How to increase your hourly rate without billing by the hour;
• How to differentiate your service from your competition and attract your ideal client;

And much more!

Register Now:  http://www.virtualassistantnetworking.com/teleclass-registration.htm