The bonus of being a Virtual Assistant is that you are your own boss and it is you who determines how you want to run your business.

This means that you can choose the type of client you want to work with.

You need to determine your niche market and create a profile for your ideal client (see marketing chapter for more information) in order for you to filter out those that you don’t want to work with.

The bonus of using a client consultation is that you can determine in advance if you would be a good fit before starting work and shows that you are a serious and professional business owner.

Don’t go through the information as soon as someone calls with an initial enquiry, have set times each week where you conduct client consultation sessions and schedule them into your diary. This then makes the potential client realise, sub consciously, that you are not an employee but in fact a fellow business owner.

Prepare your process and questions in advance as this will make you come across as a true professional who knows what you are doing.

You may want to consider some of the following questions when drawing up your own client consultations.

Contact information
You need to ask for telephone numbers and email address before your scheduled consultation so that you can contact them if they don’t call.

Business type
What industry do they work in? What products / services do they provide? What types of clients do they work with?

What are your goals / vision?
What are their goals for the next 5 years? This is a good question as you can tell them how you could help them to achieve their goals.

What are you struggling to complete in your business?
Some prospective clients may have an idea of areas they could use some help.

After I have ended the consultation, I ask all prospective clients to keep a list, over the course of a week, of all the tasks they haven’t got time to complete or don’t like doing. I then schedule a follow up call in 1 week to go through the list to see where I can help them.

Describe a typical day for you
This will reveal some details about their personality and work style which is a great question to see if you want to work with them.

Have you worked with a PA or Virtual Assistant before? 
This is an important question as you can ask further questions if the answer is yes to see if the relationship worked / didn’t work etc.What information you would like to reveal about yourself?

What information should your prospective clients be told about you?
Do you want to tell them you still work full time, work around children, work term time only? Establish what you want to share now so that you don’t forget on the call.
 

Networking is a great way to get clients for your Virtual Assistant business but it is really important that you take time to plan in advance what you are going to say so that you can make perfect presentations every time.

Investing a few moments every time you attend a networking event will help you to achieve far better results that just showing up and ‘winging it’.

Take time to think about what exactly you want to say about yourself and your business.  What needs to happen to achieve your BIG business goals? 

Having a plan is key, so ask the following questions:

• What are my goals with this business? 

• Who is your target audience? 

• Who do you want to sell to? 

• Who do you want to work with?  

• How many new customers do you need?  

• What contacts would it be useful to have to achieve that? 

• What product or service are you going to provide?

• Is there a busy period in your business?  

• Do you require additional support?  

Whilst you are preparing your presentation, you may want to consider how you are going to grab people’s attention and remain remembered long after the meeting.

How can you make your message memorable?

• Some successful networkers employ the use of props at meetings

• Other ways to grab people’s attention could be to deliver your presentation in rhyme 

• Come out with some kind of ‘shock’ statement to wake people up!

• Use your strap line