Welcome to this edition of Weekly VA Marketing Tip! This series is specifically designed to help virtual assistants avoid marketing insanity.  Every Monday, my posts will prompt you to accomplish one specific marketing action to promote, brand or position your professional virtual business.

Implement these tips each week and I guarantee you’ll sustain your marketing momentum, increase credibility and visibility in your field, build stronger relationships, boost your ‘know, like and trust factor,’ get more ideal clients looking for you, and have a consistent marketing game plan for your virtual assistant business.

You might even start to like marketing!

Bundle Up

Bundling is a marketing strategy where you offer 2 or more products, and present them as one package at a discount, bonus or flat fee.

Bundling is a brilliant strategy to marketing your virtual assistance services, especially if you’re constantly justifying your hourly fee or defending the hours you spent on a project.

For starters not many Virtual Assistants are doing it. This positions you as an appealing alternative from all the other hourly-fee-only VAs — a welcome and refreshing change, indeed.

Secondly, it can turn the most hesitant of prospects into paying clients. A few reasons (benefits?) are:

• They no longer fret or fear about how many hours you’re spending on their tasks.
• They know exactly what they are getting and how much it’s going to cost them.
• It gives them a sense of security and will be more willing to send work your way.
• It’s a more tangible getting-to-know-you offering (as opposed to a dollar amount or percentage discount).

Finally, you don’t have to punch the clock. As you get better and more efficient, you’ll spend less time and get the same fee.

So how exactly does a Virtual Assistant go about bundling her services to attract new prospects or keep existing clients? Here are a few bundle ideas to get you started:

• Pre-pay a 3-months retainer, get 1-year SpamArrest (or other software subscription) free.
• First-time clients securing 5 hours or more, get a $25 Amazon (or other popular) gift card.
• Pay for three teleclass transcriptions, get the fourth free.
• Buy business name + logo + tagline, receive 1000 business cards for $50.
• Purchase a WordPress blog upgrade, get your choice of 3 new plugins installed at no extra charge.
• Update 4 social media profiles, get a 50% discount on a custom Twitter background.

The secret to making bundles work is that all parts of the bundle must be of value to your audience. Don’t give away something they could have received for free elsewhere.

You can also try packaging your services for a flat fee. For example, how much would you charge a client for doing the following:

• Submit 7 articles (or press releases) to the top 10 online article (or press release) directories
• SEO package (come up with your own variations)
• Social Media package (come up with your own variations)
• Branding package (come up with your own variations)
• Create, submit and track 3 Google Ads
• Schedule publication of up to 25 pre-written blog posts per month
• Solopreneur 6 month bookkeeping package (come up with your own variations)
• Pre- and Post-Teleclass package (come up with your own variations)
• Media kit package (come up with your own variations)

In my opinion, packaging your VA services is a key element to “tangibilizing” what you do. How?

Instead of trying to come up with clever ways to answer the what-does-a-Virtual-Assistant-do question, you can say something like: “I can build a professional-looking website and blog from scratch AND teach you how to do your own updates for only $800.”

Isn’t that easier than trying to explain how you can handle all their admin tasks for less than an employee would cost?

Now it’s your turn:

1. Come up with three bundles or packages you could offer today.
   Hint: Choose three things you love doing the most.
2. Define exactly what is and what is not included.
   Hint: Spend more time on what IS included.
3. Crunch your numbers and come up with a flat-fee for at least one.
   Hint #1: Give yourself a raise FIRST, then crunch your numbers.
   Hint #2: Add a 25-50% time buffer.
4. Spread the word. Call or email past and current clients to let them know about your “new” services, talk about them on your blog, add them as a news items in your newsletter, add them to your Services page on your website.
   Hint: Create a product page per offering, add a Buy Now button for each and send people to those specific pages.
5. Test and tweak to find the perfect combos.
   Hint: ‘Perfect’ means it’s a win-win for both you and the client.

There you have it. I could go on, but it would only keep you from getting on with this week’s marketing tip.

Let me know how this one works out for you!!

Today’s post is wraps up my notes to the interview I had with Kevin Boyle, based on his book  The Secrets to Sales Mastery.

Sales Mastery Secret #5 is: The only objections that challenge you are your own.

Did you do the short assignment I gave you in my last post? If so, take it out. If not, take a minute to write down all the objections you get that give you the greatest difficulty.

…

Sales Mastery is based on how you feel — about yourself, your company, your product or service, your job, etc. The biggest objection you need to overcome is your self-doubt and lack of confidence in what you’re offering.

When Kevin hears clients say they struggle with overcoming objections over price, he digs a little deeper. What usually comes out is those people don’t really see the value in what they are providing.

The way Kevin helps these customers overcome this challenge is all about perception and belief.

For example, a large company with an equally large sales staff had salespeople struggling with pricing objections. Kevin reminded them of the five thousand clients who had bought, paid for and currently enjoying their service. Kevin had each sales rep call some of their existing clients and ask “Do you feel you are paying too much?”

That simple exercise changed their entire perspective.

What’s one way of changing your belief system? Affimations (not à la Law of Attraction, as he explained on the call).

This is done in 2 steps.

First, make strong statements about things you and your subconscious know, without a doubt, are true. For example:

I know absolutely that my name is Cristina Favreau.
I know absolutely that 2+2=4.
I know absolutely that there are 7 days in a week.

Say as many of these affirmation as you need to build momentum and excitement.

Finally, take a questionable belief you currently have about yourself, your services or your company and turn it into a strong affirmative statement. Like:

I know absolutely that my services are worth double what I charge and that all of my clients and customers are getting a real deal.

This is more powerful (and more convincing) than using affirmations about things your subconscious know are untrue (I have millions of dollars in my savings account and I have a waiting list of clients eager to hire me.)

Kevin’s book, The  Secrets to Sales Mastery, goes into each of these points in lots more detail. So if you enjoyed what I’ve shared from our telephone interview, you’ll want to get his book.

Well, I’m almost done sharing the notes I took during my Sales Mastery Secrets interview with Kevin Boyle. Can you believe all this info fit into an hour-long call? Do you see why I had to write it here…

So, Kevin’s Sales Mastery Secret #4 is: Feelings, not facts, drive the choices we make.

This isn’t anything new — we understand this truth when we observe our own buying habits. But when marketing, we often forget that our potential clients are the same.

To quote Kevin:

Imagine your customers are bees. You are not going to attract them with chicken noodle soup! You must find the honey that attracts your bees.

Actually, that’s Kevin’s specialty — helping his clients find out what their “honey” is, the honey that irresistibly attracts the best “bees” to them.

Attracting them is only half the battle. Once you attract them, you need to know what language that “bee” speaks. Your customers and prospects must clearly understand what it is you do and they must clearly understand why they must buy from you.

You achieve that with questions. Questions, by their very nature, control a conversation. But the trick lies in knowing the RIGHT questions to ask.

For example, grab a piece of paper and pen and write your answer to this question: What is the meaning of life?

…

Not easy, huh?

Now, answer this next question: What would give your life meaning?

…

Notice the difference! Did you experience a shift? Did the answers come flooding in?

When you know the right questions to ask, you can create that same kind of reaction — that shift — for your clients. Kevin calls them Power Questions and he teaches theses in his 21 Days to Sales and Business Mastery Program, where you’ll learn how to use questions so your prospective clients practically close themselves.

Become a magnet for change and a solution to a problem that they may not have fully thought out the consequences to (which, of course you have, because you’re the expert!).

Here’s some field work to do until the next installment: Take 2-3 minutes and write down all the objections that give you the greatest difficulty.

Stay tuned as I give you the details on the 5th, and final, sales mastery secret Kevin shared with us.

In continuing my interview with Kevin Boyle, he gave us the cold truth about sales — a reality that no one else wanted to hear, but needed to be said.

Sales Mastery Secret #3 is: Your best clients are using someone else right now!

Ouch! Does that sting? It hurt me.

He drilled the point home with these simple illustrations:

If someone prefers drinking bottled water, are you going to spend tens of thousands of dollars in advertising, trying to convince them to drink pop?

If someone needs a courier service and you are in the courier business, chances are your very best clients, and the ones who are going to generate the most revenue for you, are already using someone else right now.

Simply put, that means you need to sell and market to people who are already known to be buyers of your product or service.

This is where people struggle, because it’s easy to sell to someone who needs what you’re offering. These are the people that fall into your lap — Don’t we love those?

But the truth is, someone who needs your product or service is most likely using someone else right now.

Check out this number: 90% of your future business is somebody else’s business right now.

Pause right here and let that number sink in a little. 90%!!!

…

That means the business you have now only represents 10% of your potential. Could you do with 90% more business? What about just 30%, 40% or 50% more? I know I could!!

Therein lies the challenge for business owners. THAT is why we call it selling.

Enter the Compelling Offer. You know your competitors are doing it. It’s also known as a sample …, free …, introductory …, no-charge …, complimentary … (enter one of these words):

• session
• assessment
• orientation
• consultation
• evaluation
• appraisal
• interview
• etc.

That’s when you use the “Your supplier must be doing a really good job for you,” statement and listen for the dissatisfaction (see Sales Secret #2 for more on this method).

Tomorrow, I’ll share with you Sales Mastery Secret #4.

Until then, have a great one!

This is part 2 of my notes from my interview with author of The  Secrets to Sales Mastery, Kevin Boyle.

Sales Secret #2 is this: Sales is a contact sport.

Kevin came out with all the clichés on this one, like “Sales is a contact sport,” and “Go out there and touch someone.” His take is that selling is proactive and marketing is reactive (I don’t entirely agree with that… but I’ll save that for another blog post!)

This is where having a proven sales and marketing system comes into play. Without a system in place, you’re more like to miss steps and lose business as a result.

Kevin often gets asked “Does that mean I can’t make a mistake?”

His answer is “Yes!” As cruel as it sounds, your prospects are looking to spend their hard earned money on you — they can’t afford to make a wrong choice, essentially throwing their money away. You convince them to spend their money with you by being impeccable.

That’s why you must have a system in place to help you move a prospect through the sales process without mistakes and without pressure.

Your goal in having a system is to build rapport and start a conversation. Remember: Sales pressure leads to sales resistance.

Kevin then gave an example of how to turn a cold-call into a warm call.

First, you want to start with an open ended question like:

I’m just curious Bob, how are you currently handling [enter what it is you do]?

For example, if you were a printing company you could say: I’m just curious Bob, how are you currently handling your printing needs?

Next, ask questions and listen for the dissatisfaction. Instead of asking them if they are happy with their current supplier, say something like:

It sounds like you are really happy with the service you are getting.

Once you’ve found their point of dissatisfaction, you can follow up with a question such as:

You know, I could should you how to [enter what it is you do]. Would you be interested in meeting with me for 10 or 15 minutes and we can go over what I can do to help you?

We could spend weeks discussing cold calling techniques, but this is not the forum for it (which I don’t really “do”).

However I do see the value in using this marketing strategy to infuse “new blood” in my own business. Kevin teaches this in his 21 Days to Sales and Business Mastery Program.

Come back tomorrow to read all about sales secret #3 (it’s a tough one!).

During my interview with Kevin Boyle, author of The Secrets to Sales Mastery, he shared the 5 elements that every entrepreneur and sales person needs to master in order to build relationships and make yourself attractive to potential clients.

Here they are:

1. Attitude (aka: Become a networking resource). People who complain that networking doesn’t work for them because they aren’t getting any business have the wrong attitude. The basic premise for your entire business is to help others. When you go to a networking function, your sole purpose it to help others — give without expectation of what you will receive.

Kevin suggests using this conversation starter:

Hi. My name is ______. What would make a great business referral for you?

Notice the difference in people’s reactions to you. They will perk up when you approach them, “you’ll become the honey that attracts the bees.”

When sitting down with people tell them:

I really care about my clients and I love helping people, especially when it comes to you having the success you deserve in your business. Tell me, what are some of the challenges you’re having right now? I might actually be able to connect you to someone who could really help you.

When you say something like that — and it has to be your genuine attitude — you have just changed the dynamic of how you do business and how you become a magnet… You are now a valuable resource to everyone in that room.

2. Building rapport (aka: Sell yourself and the relationship NOT your product or service).  “Money doesn’t grow on trees, it comes from people.” If you want to be an effective salesperson, you must improving the way you relate to people (oh yeah, you can cross out the title on your business card and replace it with ‘Salesperson’ — see point #4 below).

Building rapport means being genuinely interested in other people (I like to say be interested, not interesting.)

When your goal is to build rapport first, you have a major advantage over those who don’t — You now have a great reason to follow up!

3. Confidence (aka: Never give up). One of the biggest problems Kevin finds with those who are struggling with sales is that they do what’s easy and comfortable, instead of doing what leads them to success in their business — Cold calling is the big one!

In Kevin’s 15 years of sales experience, and contrary to what other ’sales experts’ are saying, sales is a numbers game — you never know what lies beyond the next door, what opportunity awaits you. So don’t be afraid to pick up the phone or knock on doors.

Building confidence will help you step outside of your comfort zone and do things you may not necessarily want to do.

4. Desire (aka: You are the best and only option). This is the part where Kevin convinced all who were on the call that, despite what our business card title is, it really should read as Salesperson.

If you’re struggling with your business or you need to more income, what do you need? To increase sales! How do you do that? By getting more sales!

For the past decade, selling has been pretty easy, but things are a lot harder now so you need to, first and foremost, be a salesperson in your business.

You increase your sales by sharing your intense desire to help others and then make yourself know as the best option money can buy.

5. Expertise (aka: People like to spend their money with the best). Consumers are very cautious, so being a perceived expert is not good enough anymore. You need to BE the expert and put yourself out there as the expert in your field.

Why would someone spend their money on someone they don’t see as an expert? Show your expertise and don’t be modest about calling yourself an expert!

So, there you have it — the 5 elements to selling yourself effectively, per Kevin Boyle, as shared during his interview with me!

Stay tuned tomorrow, as I share with you Kevin’s sales secret #2.

In Kevin Boyle’s book, The Secrets to Sales Mastery, he teaches that the first principle is this: The customer always buys into the salesperson first. He went into detail during my interview with him.

What does that mean for you? As you’ve heard me say before, it means building the know, like and trust factor with your potential clients. Relationship-building is the cornerstone to successful sales and marketing.

This is really good news because it gives you the edge over large companies — You can personalize your relationships much easier than they can.

If you’re struggling for business, this is generally the area you need to work on.

Kevin shared with us one of the hardest lessons he’s learned in asserting his independence as an entrepreneur:

I have to be careful not to assert my aloneness to the universe.

What he means by that is the life of an entrepreneur or sales person can get pretty lonely. You need to connect with people. People who can be an objective eye, pointing out what you’re missing. This could be a colleague or a coach.

The point is: Invest in yourself and get support.

There are 5 elements to putting this secret into practice — elements that go into selling yourself effectively.

Before going on to Sales Secret #2, check in tomorrow as I share the 5 elements with you.

I had the immense pleasure of interviewing Kevin Boyle, coach, speaker and author of  The Secrets to Sales Mastery. His say-it-like-it-is approach was a refreshing change from the usual “pitch-fest” I hear on most teleclasses.

Kevin packed so much information into one hour, I needed a place to save my notes so I don’t forget all his nuggets… With Kevin’s permission, I’ll be sharing my notes right here in a 5-part blog series I’ve prepared.

The 5 principles to sales mastery are:

1. The customer always buys into the salesperson first.
2. Sales is a contact sport.
3. Your best clients are using someone else right now (you’ll learn why that’s good news).
4. Feelings, not facts, drive the choices we make.
5. The only objections that challenge you are your own.

Stay tuned as I give details on each of these points.

Applying these powerful principles to your sales strategy will give you the edge you need to set yourself apart from your competition.

8 Steps to a Profitable Teleconference
By Kathleen Gage

Teleseminars are likely one of the most effective methods for promoting a product or service, building an opt-in subscriber list, increase credibility and establish your expert status.

However, to achieve optimum results you must have your systems in place. It takes more than simply hosting a call to make this work.

Countless individuals have attempted teleseminars as a route to business success, yet failed miserably when they have attempted to make money from teleconferences. Often it is because they have not been trained in how to position the call, create enough of a market demand for what they are selling, there is no call to action, nor do they have a solid follow-up plan.

With the right vision, planning and action steps, you can do extremely well with teleconferences. Here are a few of the steps involved in successful teleseminars.

1. Decide on the purpose and topic of the call. Is it to inform, educate, motivate, inspire or promote?

A simple way to determine the topic (and purpose) of the call is to address a problem your market needs a solution to. Ask your market using an online survey or even by sending a fax or letter to a portion of your market to receive great input.

2. Pick a suitable date and time based on your market. For some markets, daytime works best. For others, evenings. Find a time that works best for your audience.

3. Secure a bridge line. A bridge line enables callers to dial a single phone number and hear each other as if they were in the same room. There are numerous services available ranging from free to very high fee. I use Instant Teleseminars for my primary service.

4. Market the session. How you do this will be determined on whether or not the call is open to the public or only a select group of your current clients are invited.

5. Host the call.

6. Develop support materials. You may want to consider providing a handout or learning guide for the call. This allows listeners to easily follow along, write down points that are especially important to them and refer back to the notes long after the call is over.

Additionally, you can use the learning guide as a promotion piece for other products and services you have available.

7. Record the session. There are software programs available that allow you to record from your phone and computer. Some experts prefer this method while others prefer to outsource all the recording, editing and distribution of the audio file and call transcripts.

8. Follow-up. After the call you should have a definite plan of when and how you will follow-up with those who were on the call and those who were unable to make it. If you are selling a product or service, sales are often made hours, or even days, after the call is over.

Access the FREE report, The Truth About Making Money with Teleseminars.

I’m a major sucker for reality shows like CBC-TV’s Dragons’ Den, a show where entrepreneurs pitch a panel of five potential investors, for a stake in their company. I guess I like to live vicariously through the Dragons’ who get to tell awesome entrepreneurs how great their idea is, and tear into the ones that just don’t get it (I’m more like Arlene, though, not a hard-ass like Kevin).

Plus, I love hearing each business’ pitch. Most of of them are absolutely horrendous (you’ll often hear me say “What in the heck were these guys thinking?“).

For example, a presentation this week, where the company, Bandthology, Inc., was asking for one-hundred-fifty-thousand dollars for a twenty percent share.

The problem was their business and offer was all over the map. Their pitch started something like “We’re a company specializing in music games and live entertainment for corporate and live events.”

OK, let’s just stop right here… (are you ready for it?) How can you say you SPECIALIZE in something, then sprinkle the word ‘and‘ all over your pitch??? If you SPECIALIZE in something, that means you’re really good at ONE thing…

Moving on…

As the presentation went downhill on, the Dragons’ failed to grasp what they were selling, exactly. They were talking about a music-themed board game, a digital version of the game (in development) for mobile DJ’s and other forms of events, a live show… and I can’t remember the rest…

That’s the point, isn’t it? If, at the end of a presentation, I (the pitchee) still can’t tell what in the heck you’re selling, how can you expect me to take action? Much less hand over hundreds of thousands of dollars of my money to finance your company.

Robert Herjavec summed up what everyone in the room (and watching) was thinking:

I’m completely confused. I hear you talking about a board game, a live show, I hear you talking about intent of a software product, then you’re talking about a DJ. Like, I’m really confused. This is all over the map.

But, Arlene Dickinson said it best:

Why aren’t you focused on doing one of those things extremely well before you go into other markets? Because, really, I think by diversifying so quickly and being underfinanced to do it, you end up doing a lot and doing nothing very well.

Sound familiar???

I’ve said it hundreds of times before: If you want to make your mark in this great big entrepreneurial world, you’ve GOT to stick to ONE thing — the one thing you’re really good at, the one thing no one else does as good as you, the one thing you want to be remembered by.

What’s your thing?