I must be mad!

Have you noticed that when you plan to make changes to something, and I mean big changes, that suddenly everyone else (read clients) have projects on the boil too?

For months I’ve been planning a shift from the shoppingcart service I was using to another one, for a variety of reasons. One of those being the affiliate program which I wasn’t convinced was working the way it should be. Turns out it was dependent on tracking cookies and if people switch them off, then the affiliate who referred the client loses the benefit of the referral as there is no way of knowing who referred who, or even if they were referred. The new affiliate program I’m using works in a different way and tracks who referred who from the sign up process. And in fact, the shopping cart company who provides this service wrote the program because I asked for it. They are making it available to their other clients as well. Now, that’s what I call service! And it also shows that if a service you’re exploring doesn’t show everything you are looking for but it has most of the items, then why not ask them if they can provide…? It may just pay off, as it has for me.

There were other things that troubled me too, like adding a list of pre-approved people to my newsletter list only to find that the service I was using had a requirement to send out an email asking people to click on a link to approve them being added to the list a list that was already pre-existing – one of the quickest ways of losing subscribers because not everyone responds to those emails.

So I had initial meetings with the owner who runs this service (Contact Point and eNudge) I’m shifting to and over the past couple of months she and I have both been very busy but the changes are now visible – right in the midst of one of my clients launching a brand new makeover of her business and me trying to complete a book I really wanted to get finished in July.

Nothing like having a few things on the boil, hey?

‘Do you need a VA’ do I hear you say? Very funny but yes, I have had two VAs from my team join me on my client’s project as I didn’t want to put in more hours than I already was doing so I could look after my other clients and still get my own stuff done. Makes for an interesting life and one that is definitely not boring by any means.

Anyway, if you did not receive my latest newsletter a week ago, you will need to resubscribe and I apologise for the inconvenience.

If you are interested in becoming an Affiliate for my products then you are welcome to sign up on the new form.

If you haven’t visited our VA Shop for awhile (or ever) then it’s worth going to visit – you never know what you might find!

And if you see any dead links, please let me know – I’m gradually going through them all!

Have a great weekend everyone!

Marketing Your Virtual Assistant Practice

Have you thought about all the ways you market your business? I was recently chatting with a group of women in a mastermind group I belong to and we were building a list of the ways we promote our individual businesses. I was quite surprised when I saw my own list. I thought I’d share it with you all.

Newsletter – I’ve been publishing one since 1995, originally in print form, but now by email. It is often being passed on to others and it brings me new contacts.
Yellow Pages – the nature of my services mean that people will look for me in the printed Yellow Pages. I get enquiries every week – often many.
Google Adwords – brings in both new clients and new VA members.
My blog does the same – new clients and new VA members. Also sales for my products.
My website – found easily via search engines – has been online since April 1996. I use both old and new terminology (secretary, virtual assistant) for keywords.
Networking – always produces results but usually after building relationships and attending often so people get to know me.
Word of mouth referrals from current and past clients and others who know me.
My husband – he carries my card around, as do my daughters.
Seminars, teleseminars and conferences – I speak at events these days and this helps too.
Article writing – printed and online publications help also

We also talked about quantifying the results. I haven’t quantified mine, that is I have no way of knowing how many people might see our listing in the printed Yellow Pages or how many people I’ve spoken to or might have seen me, or read things I’ve written.

But on my Google Adwords I’ve had click through rates varying from 10.97% down to less than 1% on the top 25 keywords. I have 17 words above 3%, 7 of which are above 5%.

While I haven’t yet worked out the $$ for the clicks that I’m getting I can say that I’m gaining more new Virtual Assistant members to my network, more client job requests and more sign ups for my newsletter and blog.

What kinds of things do you do to promote your business?

virtual assistant, marketing, quantifying, click through rate, newsletter, networking, promotion

When a new client doesn’t respond

Recently one of my VAs asked me what to do when she’d responded to a job request and hadn’t heard back from the client. This is something I get asked periodically. They don’t want to make a nuisance of themselves but don’t want to lose a potential client either.

I was asked if that is a normal occurrence and I had to answer yes, unfortunately for two reasons:

Sometimes the client is so overwhelmed with stuff to do that they lose sight of where they’re up to next – which is why they need you.
Sometimes it’s lack of manners.
Actually, there is a third – they often scribble your details down on a piece of paper or print off the email and then promptly lose it!

I would definitely encourage VAs to follow up again – I’d say leave it for 2 days after original contact, then make contact again. Sometimes email goes astray (don’t forget my previous post about that) so a phone call is a good thing to do – or perhaps both.

Then again a few days later. I’d try about 4 or 5 times spaced over 2 weeks and then if no response, give it up as a lost cause. Often clients will let me know when a role has been fulfilled, or even the VA who has received it, and then I let my team know, but that isn’t always the case.

client response, job lead, job request, new client, virtual assistant

My First Business Card

Alister Cameron did a post about his first business card which took me down memory lane. My first card came out of a MyCard machine at our local shopping centre. Pop in 4 x $2 coins, punch in the details and out popped 40 business cards – black print on white card. Expensive way to get cards I guess but that was in 1994 and I was just starting out, not even sure what I was going to call my business nor had I really defined what I was going to do. So I just had cards with my name and my contact details on it. I didn’t even know if I’d go through all the cards – little did I know!

My next card (sample below) was designed on my computer with Microsoft clipart and very basic information. I’d learnt not to put my home address on the cards by then so I didn’t get uninvited visitors. I like to know when my clients are coming to visit – at a time that suits me. Pretty shocking hey? The card I mean. I’m glad the success of my business wasn’t dependent on the look of my business cards back then. They were purely just a way to give contact details to people. I did understand the power of networking even in those days and this was pre-internet so cards were very important for providing contact information.

Don’t underestimate the value of business cards. They should be carried with you every where you go. You can come across clients and contacts in the most unexpected places – even funerals, but that’s a story for another day. Better yet, come to a seminar where I’m speaking and you’ll get to hear that story then!

I have 3 cards these days – one for my VA business, one for my coaching practice and another for my speaking profile. I carry them all with me and give out whichever one is appropriate for the hat I’m wearing at the time. I find this better for not confusing the person who receives the card, rather then promoting everything on the one card. But that’s my personal preference.

The card below is due for an update – my mobile number is no longer active and I’m breaking in a new logo for my business. That will happen soon!

In the meantime if you’re looking for some ideas for your next business card, why not get a copy of “It’s in the Cards” by Ivan Misner (founder of BNI).

virtual assistant, business cards, business networking

Social networking for VAs

The world of networking is forever being redefined, reshaped and reborn online. And it’s easy to form opinions about one particular group or another and then change your mind later down the track.

That’s what’s happening for me. Originally I saw Facebook as a tool for family and friends but not for business, however that is changing a great deal now. There are people like Mari Smith with WhyFacebook? and Jason Alba with I’m on Facebook, now what?, along with many articles about using Facebook for business. Some of them are:

Once again, it was at a client’s prompting that I started to look further into this because of coaching she is receiving. Her coach uses Facebook for connecting all her coaching clients and I believe has a closed ‘forum’ at Facebook. My client needed me to help her get set up and connected at Facebook.

One of the great things about having a VA is that you can get them to research things for you and set up accounts and profiles for you at the various networks. Just for the benefit of my readers – I just do the set up and tweaking – my clients do their own networking but I can give them guidance on ways to do that. Which is why it’s important I have some idea of how the networks work in the first place!

I’d originally kept my Facebook profile for family and friends and rarely connected to anyone in business but after about a year of ignoring it I’m now going back to re-explore and have set up a new profile specifically for business. And I’ve discovered you can set up a page – which is different to a profile and there are heaps of applications you can add such as RSS feeds, Twitter feeds and other things. Yes, you can do this in your profile too but there are apparently different ways of doing things and there appears to be no limitation on the number of ‘fans’ you can have compared to the number of ‘friends’ you can connect to or send invitations to.

If you read my blog at SOHO-Life you’ll notice that I’ve written a lot about Linkedin.com and have recently begun focussing on Yahoogroups.com. I plan to explore a few networks there as I often get asked about the various ones I participate in.

So, for my business Facebook it’s early days yet and I’m still learning – not everything shows up on my page where I told it to so I have to keep exploring. I’d love to hear from you if you’re using Facebook for business and how you’ve found it to work for you. And perhaps any hints or tips you might have for the readers here.