Do I Have To Do Any Cold Calling?

I recently had a new VA contact me, asking for advice about cold calling. She was quite nervous about it and whilst she could psych herself up at night and write out scripts, she just couldn’t get herself to follow through the following day.  So she contacted me for advice. This is my response:

Hi, I’m so happy you contacted me.

You should never have to do cold calling – I never have.  I spend time networking and getting to know people – much, much easier.  Always carry business cards with you whenever you are out and about. If you find out about different business networking groups, go along to meet people – if you feel shy of talking to them about you, ask them about them.  You’ll nearly always hear something that will prompt you to tell them how you can help them.

Many people don’t know what a virtual assistant is and you’ll nearly always get asked about this. Just tell them it’s like a personal assistant, only virtual, and then tell them what you do.  Once you are mobile you can get into this but one step at a time. However, I’m sure you must go out sometime – even to the shops or post office, and opportunities will arise.

Check your local paper and if you see adverts for office staff that might simply require what you can do, then write a letter to those people suggesting that if they don’t find the right person, they might like to try a virtual assistant instead and tell them the benefits, i.e. just $$ per hour for the work done, no downtime, no sick leave, no holiday pay, etc.

When responding to job requests, always type your email professionally – and in fact, it’s really important to always be typing properly. I know how easy it is to fall into the SMS type chatter but clients won’t understand that and will assess your ability based on what they can see in front of them.  Always provide some background information, i.e. your years of experience (it doesn’t have to be just your own business experience, but your corporate background experience can be included) and stick with what you know you can do.  Over time that will increase.

So, I hope the above advice helps you also, particularly if you felt you had to do cold calling to get business happening!