In part 1, we looked at how clear, consistent and easy communication is key to successful client relationships.  Today, we’ll look at 2 other ways to stand out from the crowd.

Professionalism

As a virtual assistant, your clients are looking for a few key features. They want their service to be provided:

• In a timely manner
• Without excuses
• Without additional fees
• To the best of your abilities

It’s not too much to ask for. And the truth is that many virtual assistants manage this just fine. To stand out, go above and beyond what you promise, you need to give your clients a little extra.

This can mean delivering a project early, giving them a little something extra that they didn’t pay for, or offering some useful information or advice.

Get Involved

Many virtual assistants provide a great service and do the work requested. To stand out, you want to get involved in your client’s success. Send them an email once in a while to say hello. Include a link to some information you think they might find valuable. Offer them a promotion. Connect with them on social networking sites.

When you are involved with your clients and in their community, you put yourself ahead of the competition. Clients will think of you first when they have a need.

When you sit down next to review your business, take a look at what you’re doing to stand out from the crowd. Integrate follow-up methods and business strategies. Offer more value. Connect. Show your clients why they want to do business with you again and again.

What are you doing to stand apart from every other virtual assistant?  Please leave your comments below.

Getting paid for your services is quite an important thing!  One way you can help your clients to pay you in a timely manner is to make it easy for them.

Think about:

BACS (Bankers’ Automated Clearing Service)

An easy option for clients is to send a BACS payment. It is straightforward for both the client and the VA. Clients simply use their online or telephone banking service to send the payment directly to your bank account. The money usually takes two or three working days to be transferred.

PayPal

PayPal is a quick and relatively easy way for clients to settle their invoices, using a credit or debit card. The only thing you need to consider is that fees are charged for receiving payments. However, you may choose to incorporate these fees into your invoices.

Standing Order

For your regular clients who are charged a monthly fee, think about setting up a standing order mandate for the fee so that you receive it in your bank without the client having to do anything.  You can then send an invoice for any charges over the monthly fee.

If you want some help in setting up an effective finance system for your business, check out the Finance Templates Pack at http://vasuccessgroup.co.uk/products/virtual-assistant-document-templates/

Justine shares some fantastic tips on how clients can be your biggest fans and recommend your services to others.

Check out this great article about How to Turn Your Clients into Raving Fans.

Visit http://vasuccessgroup.co.uk/virtual-assistant-freebies/articles  

The virtual assistant industry is rapidly expanding with new businesses are coming on board every day.  what this means is that you are now competing to find great clients, as well as keeping them.

Paying attention to a few details can make the difference between a full schedule and having to hunt for clients. In short, you need to stand out as a virtual assistant to build and grow your business. The good news is, if you’re dedicated, a few simple strategies can make a huge difference to your life and bank balance.

Clear, Consistent & Easy Communication

Clear, consistent and easy communication is one of the most importance thing you need to do with all your clients. Think about:

• Responding to your client’s emails or phone calls promptly. Don’t let 24 hours go by without a response
• Responding professionally. Ego has no place in a client communication. Respect, get to the point, and be courteous and professional
• Respond clearly. Email communications are easy to misunderstand. If you’re unsure your message is being communicated or received the way you intend, call your client

To stand out, make sure each communication you have with your client is positive. Be enthusiastic about connecting with your clients. They’ll receive that enthusiasm and reciprocate.

How are you going to communicate with your clients? Comment below.

Please check out part 1 for suggestions of boundaries for your VA business.

Some other questions to ask yourself:

Will you only be working certain hours?

Decide what your business hours are and make sure that you inform all prospective clients what they are. Some clients may try to push this boundary by calling 5 minutes before you finish wanting work completed for the next day. Be firm and say that you will start the work the following business day – but only if you have the capacity to.

What will your work turnaround time be?

You need to decide in advance what turnaround time you work towards for routine tasks so that you can inform all prospective clients. For example, I say that I will respond to all email correspondence within 24 hours and all routine work will be completed within 48 hours.

Will you be working 52 weeks per year?

Think about what holiday you want to take now so that you can start educating your clients or getting associates on board to cover for you.

Do you want a term time only business?

If you have children, you may choose to only work during term time and spend the holidays with your children. Again, now is the time to be able to start educating clients or getting associates on board to work during holidays.

By establishing your boundaries now, it can become part of your client intake process to inform and train your family and clients about how you operate.

You must remember that you are the boss of your very own company and you can say no!

What boundaries will you set up?

What other services would be useful to them
When you have established what your clients have in common you can start to think about what other services they may also need in addition to your virtual assistant ones. Draw up a list of specialist services you would like to offer through associate experts.

Select who you want to work with
Now begin researching who you would like to work with in order to provide these services. These need to be trusted experts in each field and make sure you look for client testimonials, portfolios, etc.

Get access to the rest of these tips at: http://vasuccessgroup.co.uk/virtual-assistant-freebies/10-step-downloads/

You will hear a lot of people talking about establishing your boundaries within your business and you may think that this will not apply to you. However, this is something that all VAs need to sort out from the outset.

To identify your boundaries think about what you are prepared to do and what you aren’t prepared to do as a starting point and expand on the answers.

To give you some ideas, ask yourself these questions:

Will you accept client visits?

If you want to let clients visit, you will need to get public liability insurance. If you work from home, you need to consider if you want people knowing where you live.

Will you offer 24 / 7 service?

If you do, you will need to have systems in place to be able to accept and complete work 24 hours a day. Some people make this their Unique Selling Point (USP) which sets them apart from other VAs.

Will you speak with family and friends if they call in the day?

Family and friends can be the worst offender for distraction to those who work at home. They may feel that now you work at home, they can call you anytime for a chat or pop in for a coffee.

Explain what your hours of business are and don’t speak with them if you are busy with client work.

Do your research
When taking on an associate VA it is very important to trust the person you are going to be working with. Although there will be contracts in place to protect you both legally, you still need to work with someone you can trust to provide a professional service to your clients, so make sure you do your research.

Select who you want to work with
After having a good look through all available information about potential associates, including their websites, client testimonials, industry reputation etc. decide who you’d like to work with. If possible check to see if they already work with associates as this will give you an indication as to whether they might be open to this sort of arrangement.

Get access to the rest of these tips at: http://vasuccessgroup.co.uk/virtual-assistant-freebies/10-step-downloads/

One of the main problems that all Virtual Assistants eventually face is hitting the limit on the number of hours that can be billed to clients … we only have 24 hours in every day and we do have to get some sleep!  We also have to do the administration for our own business as well as continual marketing activities to ensure a steady stream of clients.

So how can you earn more money?  One way is to bring on board associates to undertake some of the client work so that you can take on more work.  There are 2 ways that this could work:

1. You act as Project Manager meaning all client requests come to you to delegate and then work carried out is returned to you to check before sending back to the client.  This is a very hands on role and will take up a lot of time and won’t be billable.
    
2. Give your client direct access to the associate to communicate requests and receive completed work.  This means that you can still undertake billable work without having to get too involved.

Once you make the decision to start working with associates, think about the people you can bring on board to compliment your skills and even offer new services.  For example, think about social media management, book keeping, SEO, website design, IT helpdesk, telephone answering, copywriting, audio typing, shopping cart management and graphic design. 

The services you offer don't have to be traditional Virtual Assistant services, think about what would be useful to your customers and act like a one stop shop for them so that you are earning money from it.

Want help with documents needed to start working with associates?  Check out our Associate Templates Pack available to download immediately. http://vasuccessgroup.co.uk/products/virtual-assistant-document-templates/

Part of growing a successful business means that you continually need to market as there will be times when clients stop using you so you need to be able to replace them.

There are a couple of ways you can grow your business without taking on employees:

Sub Contracting

You may do some work with a client and you don’t have the necessary skill – sub contracting could be the solution.  You build up relationships with fellow VAs to build a team of associates who you can call upon when necessary. Your clients won’t know that the sub contractor VA has completed the work as all communication is through you so they never meet.

Make sure that you get all your associates to sign a contract before sending any work for them to complete.  You will need to check the work before sending through to the client in case there are any problems – the client doesn’t want to know that the sub contractor has done it wrong, they have contracted to work with you!

Team VA

A team VA business model is very similar to sub contracting but has some small differences.

The main difference with a team VA business is that you shout about your Associate VAs and showcase them as team members.

You will have a profile of them on your website and explain to prospective clients that you have a team and will assign them with a VA most suited to their needs.

The other main difference is that the client and Associate VA have a relationship and you won’t need to check work before the client sees it like you do with sub contractors. As part of the client consultation stage, you would introduce the Associate VA and prospective client to make sure that they ‘gel’.