I couldn’t help but laugh the other day when I was telling a friend about the new book I wrote for Virtual Assistants - “Virtually Successful: 8 Simple Ways for Virtual Assistants to Find (and Keep) Clients”. He asked me “Why would you give away all the ’secrets’? Are you not afraid of competition?”

I laughed. I laughed because I know the opportunities for Virtual Assistants outweigh the competition between VAs.

In the last 3 years I’ve had the opportunity to speak with over 450 business owners who were looking for a Virtual Assistant. Many of these business owners expressed extreme frustration in finding a VA with the skills they needed. In fact, my partner Tina Forsyth held a teleseminar with details on what potential clients shared with us about the Virtual Assistant industry. Visit www.HotSkillsVATraining.com to download the audio recording.

As Virtual Assistants it’s our responsibility to TELL our potential clients more than what they’re just asking for. In many cases, the business community views the VA professional as admin assistants or ‘glorified’ secretaries. This is not the case .. but in order to change this assumption, we need to stand up together and appropriately demonstrate our expertise and potential.

Virtual Assistants who stand up tall and clearly communicate that they understand the client’s business and what they want to accomplish will stand apart from other VAs. In addition, Virtual Assistants that go one step further by TELLING the client exactly how they can contribute to building their business, based on their goals, will stand apart even more.

So are Virtual Assistants really in competition with one another? I truly don’t believe so. Do you?

In just a couple of days my oldest son will be starting Grade one. I’ve already thought of the homework assignments, class projects and everything else I’ll be helping him with after school for the next 12 years. Although I’m glad I don’t have homework to do every night, I was thinking about how I apply ‘homework’ to my typical day as a Virtual Assistant.

Homework - as I call it, is essentially taking the time to research information about your prospective clients before you speak with them. For example, with the Multiple Streams Team, when a business owner completes our Client Application Form, I schedule a time to speak with them to learn more about their business. However before our scheduled call, I do my ‘homework’ and gather as many details as I can about this potential client.

To me, this means more than just visiting their website and taking a quick look around. I do start with reviewing their website and reading various details such as their services and bio. Then I typically Google their name and see if I can find anything else about them - articles published, press releases submitted, joint ventures they may already have, organizations they participate in, awards they have won, etc. By taking this extra step, I am more equipped with details about who this business owner is and whether I am interested in what they do and who they work with.

On a teleseminar I recently gave through a VA Organization, a participated asked me why it was important to me to go beyond just reviewing a potential client’s website. The answer was easy to me - by learning more about them than was on their website, I was able to:

1. Demonstrate my ‘mindset’ - letting them know I had used my initiative to learn details about them that were beyond their website
2. Determine how involved this person was in their expertise as well as which marketing strategies they actively used for their business
3. Understand more clearly who they worked with and exactly what they offered
4. Get a better sense of their style and personality
5. Consider potential ways I could support them - both short term and long term
6. Determine whether I was interested in working with this person or if I was the right person to support this business owner.

If you can demonstrate to your potential clients that you’ve taken the time to learn about them - and have gone beyond visiting their website - their interest in you will peak. Clients WANT a VA who uses their initiative ….. this is an easy way for you to demonstrate this from the very beginning.

In my book “Virtually Successful: 8 Simple Ways for Virtual Assistants to Find (and Keep) Clients“, I go in to much more detail on how you can get ready to meet new clients. Visit www.GrowYourVABiz.com for more info.

An interesting topic came up recently when I was speaking with a business owner - she had just recently started her very first relationship with a Virtual Assistant. Sadly, it was somewhat of a negative experience … this business owner now had a sour taste in her mouth about working with a VA.

It seems the main issue behind this business owner’s frustration was the lack of responsibility the VA took on items that she completed incorrectly. The VA simply dismissed these items, gave excuses or avoided responding to them all together.

The end result was that the business owner could no longer trust the VA and the relationship fell apart. The business owner felt that the VA had not honoured their relationship. Had the VA simply stood up and said, “I’m sorry, I messed up”, the business owner would have considered the issues as mistakes and learning lessons that each person could learn and become better from.

This made me think back to the *few* times that I’ve messed up. One time in particular that I remember hitting my head against the wall was when I sent out an ezine on behalf of my client but included the incorrect link throughout the copy. I was so upset at myself but I knew I had to come clean so I phoned my client immediately and told him what happened. His calm response shocked me … he said, “Well, these things happen. Don’t worry about it. If you can send an email out right away to make everyone has the right link, that would be great.”

When I called to confess I was expecting the worst. I mentioned my surprise and my client laughed - of course he wasn’t happy with the mistake but the fact that I came forward and took full responsibility for the error is what made the difference.

We’re all human and we’re all going to make mistakes or have things happen beyond our control that may result in an uncomfortable situation, however it IS our responsibility, not just as Virtual Assistants, but as people, professionals and partners to our clients to come clean and take ownership for things that we have done incorrectly.

Next time you make a mistake, be sure to take ownership and claim responsibility - it may not be comfortable but it will likely turn in to a positive lesson learned rather than a negative ending to a client relationship.