Virtual Assistant – THE Blog About Our Industry

About the Virtual Assistant industry for VAs and for clients

Category Archives: Business Networking

Who do you know?

Over the years I’ve  become known as someone who knows someone when someone might be looking for someone.  Are you still with me? ;-)

I believe in networking – it has helped build my business and builds the business of countless others around the world. There are some really good business networks out there that really work, and BNI (www.bni.com(.au) is one of them.

This morning while I was at a BNI meeting one of the members passed a referral on to our business coach and when she read out the name it was a member of my VA team.  oops!  I immediately wondered if I’d slipped up and my team didn’t realise I could help them source services and products when they have a need.  But perhaps my name wasn’t on this member’s mind when she was thinking about ‘who would know someone…?’ and she may have recently been doing business with the lady from my chapter (through previous promotions I’d done).

So, when you are looking for a referral for a particular service or product, think about the people you already know and ask them ‘who do you know…..?’  There is sure to be someone you already know who can recommend someone they know through personal experience and connections.  After all, word-of-mouth referrals are something we all appreciate, aren’t they?

Two Wonderful Web Women meet face-to-face

Recently I had the wonderful privilege of meeting Janet Beckers, Founder of Wonderful Web Women face-to-face.  We’d spoken online before and on the phone but had never met face-to-face until a few weeks ago in Melbourne.   Funny really, we’ve known each other for a few years. So strange to not have met before.  Janet had her video recorder with her and we did an impromptu interview so here I am unmade up and in the natural so to speak.

Actually there were three of us there that day.  Charly Leetham, another Wonderful Web Woman, was holding the video but we had both met face-to-face before so it wasn’t a first this time round. But it was the first time the three of us were together.   Janet and Charly had been visiting Melbourne for an awards night for their businesses, and of course, with some success too.  Below this photo was taken by Charly’s husband.

It’s not cool to ask

In fact, it’s rather rude.  What? you say.

I’m talking about those who beg for work at Virtual Assistant forums.  They join and then start sending PMs (Personal Messages) to members at the forum, or email them, or ask on the forums itself for work.

This is not what the forums are for. They are about learning and sharing information and over time people get to know each other. It’s what networking is really about – developing relationships.

When you’re at a face-to-face networking event you wouldn’t just rush up to someone and ask them for work would you? I hope not!  And neither should you at an online forum.

Spend time getting to know people, and the culture of the group. And better yet, join in the conversations and allow others to get to know you. Then, if the occasion arises for them to outsource work to another VA, they might just call upon you for help. But they won’t if they don’t know you and haven’t had the opportunity to get to know you.

So, stop asking for work and start networking instead!

How many clients do you need?

A chance comment at a VA forum made me realise that a new VA was using the scatter gun approach to finding new clients and was, therefore, trying to prevent travelling all over the countryside and use cold calling instead. Except she was unsure how to go about it. She’d obtained (legally) a directory for her target market and wanted to approach them all to introduce her business and was seeking advise about this.

I’d made comment that face-to-face was more personal and why didn’t she just go along to the industry association networking meetings put on for her target client base.  She then said she didn’t know how much fuel she’d use and the cost involved in going all over the place.  Bingo!  The thought hit me ‘how many clients did she really need?’ and I responded by saying that she really only needs to go to the one event to meet possible clients and once she gained one client, if they’re happy with her, they will refer her.

Now, I should clarify here – I don’t mean attend only one meeting, period. I mean, find one local network that is close by and attend their meetings regularly, whether it be weekly, monthly or somewhere in between.  Building relationships is important but once you get past first base and people get to know you it’s so much easier to move to the next base and gain new clients.

It’s important to know when you’re first starting out in business that you don’t have to get everyone’s attention.  You can’t possibly service everyone with a need, but if you gain 1, 2 or more clients from that source it will build from there and as you gain confidence, the more attractive your service will be to others as they learn about you.  You only need one to get the ball rolling!

Should a Virtual Assistant Network For a Client?

I saw an interesting article today titled “Take Advantage of Social Networking with a Virtual Assistant“  so of course I went and read it straight away.

I have very firm ideas about what a VA should and shouldn’t do for a client and networking is one of those things I don’t believe we should be doing.

I agree we can set up profiles for clients and hold their hand and help them through the process of learning to use tools such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and others but I strongly believe we shouldn’t be in there doing the connecting for them.

Why? Because those people we’re connecting with will assume that we are the person we’re representing and they’ll be forming a false ‘relationship’ with someone who isn’t who they appear to be.

I believe that our clients really need to be doing the networking. They have their own personalities and interests and will be drawn towards certain people that have an instant rapport with them.  Unless our own personalities closely match that of our clients, that really isn’t going to work.

I found the last paragraph of this article interesting:

So save yourself the trouble of running all these online accounts and hire a virtual assistant to do all the online work for you. You will definitely reap the benefits of getting on these online networks and actively build relationships with the people on the networks.

Who is building the relationship in this article? Not the client but the VA.  If the client doesn’t have time to build relationships with others then how are they going to grow their business? They can’t remain isolated from people for too long as networking and marketing go hand-in-hand and are an important part of business development and relationship building.

So while I agree that Virtual Assistants can set up profiles, upload images, add bios and even send out invitations to existing contact lists the client has, I don’t agree that the VA should actually be doing the tweeting, connecting, replying and responding – the client needs to take ownership of that part of the networking and do it for themselves. What are your thoughts?