Critical Skill #1 - Your Marketing Mindset
The first and most critical skill that any Virtual Assistant can have is what we call a ‘marketing mindset’.
Together with Andrea Lee, author of Multiple Streams of Coaching Income (www.msoci.com), Tina Forsyth has been servicing a variety of clients virtually for almost 6 years now… and along the way one thing has become abundantly clear.
Clients want to hire a virtual assistant who can help build their business. Someone who is willing to take initiative and play more of a ‘partner’ role vs. simply taking care of administrative tasks.
A VA with the ability to play this bigger role is a hot commodity. And to be honest, we’ve had a hard time finding these people to hire for ourselves and for our clients.
(Which is the reason we created the Multiple Streams ‘Dream’ Team, to train VAs and match them to clients looking for this level of assistance… but more on that another time.)
Why is it so tough to find VAs with this skill set?
Because many VAs don’t have a ‘marketing mindset’ (yet).
Coming from various administrative roles in the offline world, many of us are used to *doing*… we were given a job with very specific tasks, and would simply do what needed to be done.
As a VA our clients often call upon us to *think* along with the doing, relying on our input and advice as well as our ability to “get stuff done”.
With a marketing mindset you are able to see the big picture of your clients business, and can essentially become a profit center for your clients instead of an expense (as most VAs are).
You have an understanding of your clients business model, and take the initiative to make suggestions and recommendations for the business.
You keep the customer in mind with each task that you do, always asking yourself “how will this attract new clients or service current clients”?
As an example, a client recently asked us to set up a webpage for a new Academy program she was offering.
Instead of putting this page up as an extension on her main website somewhere like www.MakeMoneyinMLM.com/Academy, we instead recommended that she buy a separate domain name for the new product. We choose www.SavvySponsoringAcademy.com, which is the name of the product.
This way our client will be able to easily say to potential clients “go to www.SavvySponsoringAcademy.com” vs. trying to spit out a longer URL with slashes and such. This domain will also be easier for clients to remember when they are looking for her product, as it matches the name of what she is offering.
Do you see the difference in thinking here? It is a small thing that can have a big impact. That’s the marketing mindset.
Once clients realize that you have this ‘marketing mindset’ they will literally be beating down your virtual door, I assure you.
So let me ask you…
How do you currently use a marketing mindset with your clients?
If you aren’t using a marketing mindset yet, what is preventing you? (fear, doubt, uncertainty as to what a marketing mindset is)
What could you do with your life and business if you had the marketing mindset clients want to pay big bucks for, and could build the VA business of your dreams?
