Confused with marketing your VA business?

If you’re not clear on what it is you do, or perhaps not clear on how to explain it, it will show, both in your vocalisation and your written word.  Recently a new VA went to a networking event and she was unsure how to explain what she does. The people she was meeting with made some assumptions based on what they think an Assistant is and it confused her. They’d not heard of a Virtual Assistant before so she came to ask questions about what she should do and got a number of responses which included having a list of items on the back of her business card, and developing an elevator speech.

I felt she hadn’t mentioned what type of networking meeting she went to and explained something of my own knowledge of a particular group I meet with.

If the networking group you went to is like BNI and they focus on one representative per industry in their chapter, then you will have to choose which aspect of your business you want to focus on and talk about that. For example, I also do websites, web-hosting, provide bookkeeping support and a myriad of other things but because we have a web designer and a bookkeeper in our chapter I cannot promote those things. I tell them I provide admin and business services as a Virtual Assistant and then focus on data entry, database management, word processing and social media support. Then when I get a chance to meet with them individually I tell them about the rest of my services in the course of our conversation. It is important not to try and tell them everything at the start – focus on one or two major core offerings and let them get to know you gradually over time.

I should add that I rotate a number of ‘elevator’ speeches that cover one of the items I mentioned above and, as the group I meet with, meets regularly, over the course of a few weeks they get to hear them all and then I start all over again.