I know I’m going to get people arguing with me on this one but hear me out.

If you’re running a Virtual Assistant business then you are servicing clients who need your help.  Those clients come from all walks of life and not all of them live on the internet as many VAs do (me included).

So, to get in front of them we have to go out and meet them. That means doing face-to-face networking and meeting people in person.

Yes, we have the avenues of the internet, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, industry based forums, hobby based forums and all sorts of other discussion groups.  Yes, we have online advertising, ezines, newsletters, articles, blogs and so on. And yes there are a multitude of millions of people online.  And along with that you also have a multitude of millions of other sites to compete with, other people networking also.

But… what about your neighbour and the person across the road? What about the business owner down the street or around the corner? What about the local business person who attends business networking events and never even heard of a Virtual Assistant let alone know what one is? What about that business operator who cannot type over 10 wpm or doesn’t understand how different software programs work, let alone know how to use the internet?  Aren’t they missing out on knowing about how you can help them?  And you have a much smaller number of people to compete with and sometimes not even one. The odds for getting new clients are increased considerably.

There are many places to meet people offline.  Business networking groups is just one option. There’s the post office, supermarket, library, church, sporting club, school – wherever you go and wherever people congregate.

Check locally where you live – chambers of commerce, BNI, rotary, school groups, clubs, anywhere where groups of people get together. And volunteering can help – it definitely works. I’ve volunteered (given back to community) in some way or another most of my business life – I’ve been in business over 16 years. It definitely pays to be out there amongst people who will notice you and tell others about you.

If you choose to market only online you stand to miss a good percentage of potential clients who look elsewhere for the type of services you have to offer.

Make sure you ALWAYS have business cards with you.

I currently run my site on WordPress with Wishlist installed to manage members of my network. I want to bring onto my site a suitable mail list option for my members to use, instead of an external service. This is what I perceive is needed:

• Messages to be archived so that members can view past messages at any time they login
• Messages can be sent from any member to entire list via email (as in yahoogroups)
• Multiple lists able to be set up for smaller groups (as can be done in ning)
• The main list to have the ability to grow to well over 1,000 members
• The ability to send email from Outlook or any other program without having to login to the system (as in yahoogroups – ning doesn’t let you do this)

I want to be able to run the mail list on my own server and under my own domain name rather than use an external service.   However, if there is potential for webspace or bandwidth problems, I do need to know about that.

What can you recommend?

One of the VA groups I belong to was discussing limiting sales pitches to seminars or webinars and how did members feel about it?

My response was:

I think that people who come along to promote/sell something at a list that doesn’t belong to them are being presumptous. I have a problem with it personally. You spend time building a list and then they come along and think it’s their right to pitch to that list – without having anything to do with building it in the first place.

My own opinion and probably one that’s going to cause people to feel strongly one way or another, but as a moderator of two fairly large VA forums I find it very cheeky, or perhaps rude, to assume it’s their right without asking permission of the moderator.

I try to be nice about it and email them offlist if they keep doing it, just letting them know that I’d prefer they were more involved with the group and joined in, rather than using it for promotions only. If they persist but don’t join in, I usually remove them from the list.

Another member came along and apologised as she felt the discussion was aimed at her.  I responded with:

My own thoughts weren’t about you but a VA forum I moderate where one lady in particular has consistently just posted promotions for webinars and events but has not participated in any discussions of that group. So when the owner here posted that was very fresh in my mind and is something I feel strongly about. I moderate/own two VA forums with well over 1,000 VAs in each group (and only a handful are in both groups) so it does annoy me when someone joins purely just to promote. After all they gain financially when they promote events but they ask nothing of the moderator/owner for permission and do nothing to help encourage the group, build it, or nurture it.

It is good to have a discussion about this because it is something people should be mindful of and to me it is a matter of ethics too.

I might add I have emailed one VA in particular who has posted to one of the forums I manage several times promoting events but only once responded to a discussion and even then it was just to promote another event.  I told her if she would participate in the discussions and join in, then the promotions would be ok but it’s not appreciated if that’s all she’s joined the group for.  That was a few days ago now – no response as yet.  But since the weekend has been taking place I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt and wait a little while longer before deciding whether or not to remove her from the list. For now she’s on moderation.

If you belong to a forum of any type, be it a VA forum or another business forum, be mindful of the rules of that forum and who owns it or runs it.  Some forums are ok for promotions and have been developed for that reason but others have been set up to help people relating to a particular theme or topic and that needs to be respected.  When you’re new just lurk for a bit, read past messages and get a feel for the culture of the group and then join in and let people get to know you.  Don’t start promoting from the start. If in doubt, seek permission of the moderator before posting.

I’ve mentioned from time to time the various VA forums I belong to.  It’s where some of my material comes from to share on this blog. Today I want to share on the benefits of forums like these.

If you are a VA and if you are working alone, then becoming a member of 2 or 3 VA forums would be very beneficial to you.  Don’t mix up the forums with the networks.  Many networks have forums attached to them but not all forums are attached to a network.  The forums are usually free to join and some have a few hundred, others have a thousand or several thousand members. Even with that larger number that doesn’t mean there are thousands of messages every day, usually just a few hundred a month and it’s often the same people who get involved with the chats.

The great thing about these forums though is that you’re learning from the best in the industry. Those who have walked their talk and have the experience to back up what they write about and share.  As a result these forums are often to new VAs as honey is to bees and they are well worth joining.  Of those connected to VA Networks it also gives you some insight to the culture and benefit of those networks before you decide to invest in a paid membership with the networks.  It gives you an opportunity to get to know some of the members and find out what they get out of the paid memberships.  You get to mix and mingle with their members.

What if you aren’t a VA but perhaps a client who uses a VA?  Are there forums out there for you? Most likely. There are thousands upon thousands of forums out there on almost any topic imagineable.  You can join forums based on your industry, your personal hobbies and interests, family needs and so on.  Yahoogroups.com is probably one of the more well known facilitators of such groups but there are heaps of other forums, many that aren’t email based but perhaps operate via a board type forum with email notification of answers.  Why not do a search to find something you like?

And for those of you interested in joining a VA forum here’s a list of both networks and forums to get you started.  Perhaps I’ll see you online at some of them sometime soon.

At one of the VA forums I belong to a member asked if someone could explain how a small home transcription business can grow their business using Facebook, Linked-in or Twitter or is it more for the merchant business?

My answer was brief – there’s a lot to cover for each of these tools, but hopefully this will help answer it for others thinking the same thing.

Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter work quite differently but often with similar results.  I’ll try to explain briefly here:

Facebook helps give a ‘face’ to those you connect with, you can create Fan Pages for people to follow what you have to say and if you’re promoting a product, service or event, Facebook is a great way to be able to send out invitations to people to get involved and it’s permission based.  That means they’ve already connected to you so they’ve given you permission to send things to them via Facebook.

LinkedIn is probably the most professional of business networks I’ve seen – more business than ‘social’ although it is often lumped into the social networking category.  Strictly speaking you should only send invitations to people you know personally to join you, but once you’re involved with it you’ll often get invitations from others you don’t know. This is because they’re trying to build up their numbers.  There is a Q&A section there called Answers which is the best place to go – to ask questions and/or to answer them and get people to notice you exist. Their recommendations section is excellent for building up testimonials from peers and clients.

Twitter – Both Facebook and LinkedIn have adopted the small 140 character type set up – what are you doing now? function that works so well for Twitter (although Facebook allows you to have a lot more characters).
Twitter is about following people – anyone who interests you and having people follow you.  There’s no need to know them personally.  It’s a good way to ask questions, get answers and promoted products, services and events.

What is most important and many people forget this.  It’s more important to give than to get.  The more you give of yourself (information, assistance, just for the sake of helping someone) the more others will take an interest in you and what you do.

So with all three, and with any other networking type tool (even this forum for example) it’s important to build relationships and the best way to do that is be involved, be engaged, take notice of other people and when you are able, offer assistance.

Hope this helps.

I had a problem with one of my Telstra accounts. I’d inadvertently made a payment on the wrong account and I didn’t pick it up till after I’d made the same mistake the following month.

I couldn’t figure out why Telstra was saying I was in arrears when my bookkeeping program told me I was all paid up. I logged into my bank account and found the error.

Do you think I could get Telstra to do something about it?  I’d spoken to 3 different consultants over a period of a week and each time got told it would get sorted.  I even emailed them via their website and I got a reply email to confirm the payments had been located.

The last consultant I spoke with was a bit on the arrogant side and she told me they couldn’t do that – shift the payments to the right account.  I got very annoyed and demanded to speak to a supervisor (3 times as the consultant was ignoring my requests on the phone).  Eventually she went away and then came back to say the supervisor was in a meeting but would call me back.  I hung up in disgust and wondered what would have happened if the ‘wrong account’ had turned out to be another person, and not my business account. Would they have still refused to shift the payment to the right account?

So, what does any annoyed person do today when they have social media at their fingertips?  They tweet about it.  And very quickly someone at Telstra picked up on it and contacted me.  The guy got my problem sorted very quickly, followed me up by email and by phone and I’m now happy.  Perhaps I should have tweeted earlier!  Oh, and did the supervisor ring me back?  No but in fairness they have may learned that Twitter and @Telstra were sorting it out for me.