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.

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 5th, 2008 at July 5, 2008 - 11:31 am and is filed under Marketing Mindset. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.