Today was the final session of our Hot Skills Virtual Assistant Training program. Over the last 6 weeks my partner Tina Forsyth and I have met each Tuesday and Thursday morning with a great group of Virtual Assistants to train them in the essential skills required by online based business owners.

The training includes:

• Developing Your Marketing Mindset

- Clients want to hire a VA who is willing to take initiative and play more of a ‘partner’ role vs. simply taking care of administrative tasks. We shared how a Virtual Assistant can her Marketing Mindset and attract (and retain) high-level clients.

• Setting up the Shopping Cart -Setting up any of the 1ShoppingCart systems from scratch including client preferences, merchant accounts, customizing the look and feel, setting up autoresponders, broadcasts, ad trackers and much more.
• Completely Automating a Teleclass - setting up a seamless teleclass process - from the beginning to follow-up.

This is just a small sample of what we covered. Participants continously shared their enthusiasm during the program and we have already received many kind and sincere comments from the group.

As much as we’re sad the program is over, we are excited to see how these Virtual Assistants will implement various strategies to create a rewarding, flexible and successful business.

Stay tuned for the next program this fall!

Nothing disappoints me more than hearing a Virtual Assistant say she needs to give up her VA Business and “go back to the real world.”

There is more work and more opportunities for Virtual Assistants than ever before. Books such as The 4-Hour Workweek have educated professionals that they don’t have to do it all - instead they can hire a Virtual Assistant to help them.

Here are 3 simple, yet essential keys to consider when operating a Virtual Assistant business. Without these you may not generate enough revenue and be forced to “go back to the real world.”

1. Select Your Target Market
If I had to start all over again, the one thing I would do different is select a specific target market. I used to think “everyone can use my services, I don’t really need to pick a target market.” Think of it this way - how can you possibly market your services to all professionals in a way that will peak their interest in you and what you offer? How can you identify your prospects specific challenges when you don’t have a specific group you are targetting?

2. Share the BENEFITS you offer, not the features of the Virtual Assistant Profession.
When a potential client says “How will I benefit from working with you?”, do you respond by telling them the features of working with a VA? These include:

It’s important for our clients to understand these features of working with a Virtual Assistant but what they really want to hear is how you are going to benefit THEIR challenges. For example, if their goal is to create information products but they are struggling with understanding the technology required to do this - by identifying how you can help them eliminate this frustration, you will be sharing specifically how you can benefit them. This will peak their interest in you and give you a better chance of working with them.

3. Get Trained
There are lots of training programs for Virtual Assistants but I have found very few that actually prepare a Virtual Assistant with the skills needed to support a specific profession. Learning how to operate a business, create a website, design your business cards etc. are important when it comes to the administration of our business. However when it comes to the development of a VA and a VA business, training in specific skills is essential.

I’m not talking about how to use Microsoft Word or Excel, I’m referring to how to use online technology, such as the shopping cart and autoresponders to help clients create and deliver their information products, how to set up an affiliate program and how to help with generating traffic to a website to support in building a database, just to name a few. In the Hot Skills VA Training Program, my partner Tina Forsyth and I train Virtual Assistants on how these specific items and much more.

These and many other strategies are outlined in my new book Virtually Successful: 8 Simple Ways for Virtual Assistants to Find (and Keep) Clients which is coming out soon. Members of the Grow Your VA Biz 10 Critical Skills ecourse will be the first to hear about the release of this book.

If you have not already selected a target market for your Virtual Assistant business, I challenge you to take time out to confirm this within the next two weeks.

“ListBuilding” was the topic of one of our recent Hot Skills VA Training classes earlier this week. My business partner Tina Forsyth shared various strategies Virtual Assistants can use to help their clients with attracting people to their website and convert them in to database subscribers.

What was really interesting about this discussion, and many others we have had, is that we are so geared to gathering this information to help our clients when really these exact same strategies also apply to our own Virtual Assistant businesses. I’m sure many Virtual Assistants would agree that they work hard to make sure their client(s) needs are looked after before they take (or even considering taking) the time to market their own business.

“Marketing is an ongoing process, not an event.” is one of my favourite quotes written by my client Stephen Fairley. The reality is we will often make time to market ourselves when we are in need of new clients and additional revenue but when things get busy, we slide the marketing over to the small corner of our desk and rarely make the time for it.

Here’s a challenge for any of you who are reading this blog post. Each and every morning, before you even open up your email program and download new emails, take 20 minutes to do something that contributes to the growth of your business. It may be writing a new blog post, starting a new article, posting an article online, writing a press release, connecting with a potential joint venture - whatever it is - but have it be an action step towards your own marketing.

I have accepted this same challenge from Tina Forsyth. I too get caught up in the hundreds of new emails and priority tasks each day and have a hard time making time for ME and MY business.

If you’re willing to accept this challenge also, let me know … I’d love to hear about what steps you are taking to make your business development a priority.