Virtual Assistant – THE Blog About Our Industry

About the Virtual Assistant industry for VAs and for clients

Monthly Archives: February 2009

Has the spammer done me a favour?

I noticed this afternoon that someone has chosen to use my old email address to spam people. I got the first hint when a bounce back came to me saying it was stuck in a loop – it was addressed to my old address. Checking my spam filter shows there are heaps of returned messages there. Such a pain because it wasn’t me sending them and I hate people thinking I’m responsible for them.

I was checking my stats for the day and noticed a big spike in hits today – I wondered what brought that on? I checked the links and find that a large number have called up my old domain – which is housed with this current domain.  Perhaps people are checking out the domain of the email address to find out who was emailing them.

I haven’t seen the content of the email and perhaps I don’t want to, but hopefully those checking my site out will realise I don’t have a connection with whatever was sent to them. Who knows? It might bring some new clients!

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1,000th Member Joins the ACS Team!

Well, it finally happened, our 1000th member has joined the ACS team!  I can’t reveal who they are yet, until they’ve received and acknowledged the notification. But just to remind you what they will receive.

The gifts will be their choice of the following items (and they may choose more than one item – if they don’t yet have that item then they are welcome to it):

  • 1 year’s membership to the “A Clayton’s Secretary” team valued at $187AUD (the amount will be refunded to the lucky new member or they can choose to extend to two years for the price of one)
  • 1 year’s web hosting valued at $149.50AUD
  • Choice of ebook from my VAShop
  • 1 hour of my time as a mentor or coach valued at $97AUD
  • A Mousepad

But don’t despair – all members get a lot of benefits from joining and we’d love to have you join us too!

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Would you like to attend my book launch?

If you are in Melbourne on Wednesday evening this week you could come along!

Wednesday 11th February, @ 6pm.  The Foyer, Bayside Church, Argus Street, Cheltenham (Mel78:C12).  Opening by Rob Buckingham who wrote the Foreword with an appearance by fellow author Charles Widdowson (of ‘Our Favourite Hymns’) from Radio LightFM.

Bookings essential.  Please fill out the contact form to register your interest in attending, or reply to this email.

Refreshments will be provided and autographed copies of the book will be available for sale at $19.95.

A percentage of proceeds will be given to the Bayside Forever Home, “Acres of Love”

Numbers are limited so please get your bookings in soon!  We look forward to seeing you there!

Kathie M. Thomas
“It Happened By Design”
Ph: 03 9585 5780
Fax: 03 9585 3785
RSVP: COB Monday 9th February

How much should I charge?

Regularly on the VA forums, and sometimes via direct email, I see this question from new VAs.  They have worked out what services they are going to provide, have begun seeking ways to network and find new clients but then when they get asked ‘how much?’ they get stuck.

That’s ok, we’ve all been there in some form or another.

What did I do when I was treading this same path 15 years ago?  I looked at what I was earning the previous year in a corporate job.

I knew that if I was going to make this business work and not have to go back to a ‘job’ then my goal would have to be to earn a similar income.  I was aware that I would have more taxable expenses and because I was now working at home I’d have less travel expenses and wouldn’t have to keep buying new clothes or even lunch.  So I could probably get away with earning a bit less per week and still be ok.

I created a budget for the type of income I would need weekly and used that as a guide for what I could not go below.  Then I created a spreadsheet and looked at what my projected annual income would be.  From there I counted up the amount of public holidays and leave days I was entitled to.  I deducted this from the number of working days in a year and then broke that down to the number of working hours.  I then divided this figure into the annual income to come out with a base charge rate for my business and rounded up to the nearest dollar, or more likely the nearest $5 or $10.  Periodically I review this and increase it as my expenses increase.

This is just a very simplified way of doing it. I have a formula in my book “How To Become a Virtual Assistant” that is more detailed in Section 4 on “How Do I Charge and Where Are the Clients?”

After going through that formula and setting your rates, it’s probably a good idea to do a bit of market research in your area to find out what the ‘going rate’ is for similar services nearby. It’s important that you don’t set rates that are too low as this can cause damage to your business and the industry.  Make sure you read my article about this from a couple of weeks ago.

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Number 7 Mistake VAs Make

Not keeping the client in the picture.

Some clients will get very anxious if they don’t hear from you within an expected time frame and will either go off and find someone else to help them or get very annoyed when they do connect with you.

Always a good idea to ask what the time frame is and make sure you report back regularly if a large or long project or regular ongoing work.  And particularly for new clients – they won’t know what to expect and for many, using a VA for the first time can be an unknown event for them – they may be expecting it to not work, so why not surprise them?

I know there are clients who don’t respond to your emails or phone calls and that is very frustrating.  But it is best that you make the attempt than have them complain because they don’t hear from you.

I have weekly phone meetings with one client and then report back via email throughout the week as I progress her work. Another client and I are in contact almost daily via email, again simply reporting back.

A client of one of my team was recently anxious because she got no responses to her emails or her phone messages and contacted me to find out what was going on.  24 hours, 2 days, 4 days, can seem like a long time when the client expects to get a reply email or return call on the same day and it doesn’t happen.

To save any misunderstandings, make sure you maintain regular communication with your client and diarise it if you need to until it becomes a habit.  You’ll be glad you did.

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