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-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!

Get Aggressive About Referrals

Does the word aggressive scare you? I hope not. I’m not talking about being unprofessional, annoying or offensive. And I certainly don’t want you getting involved with icky high-pressure marketing techniques.

I say aggressive because this week (well…  every week) I’m challenging you to take decisive, purposeful action to grow your business. Get ready to kick your business to a whole new level with this referral system.

Rick Crandall calls it “The Most Aggressive Referral System” in his book, Marketing Your Services: For People Who HATE to Sell, which was the inspiration for this Weekly VA Marketing Tip (scripts are taken from his book as well).

So, how does a virtual administrative assistant go about launching an aggressive referral building program?

The very first step is to believe that your virtual office assistant services make people’s lives better.

The second step — which is pretty much the cornerstone of marketing a service-based business — is to be willing to spend most of your resources (time, money, energy, etc.) reaching out to your ideal clients, letting them know how you can make their lives better.

Once you’ve nailed down those steps, you’re ready to move on.

When you have a satisfied client, make sure you tell them:

“As you know, I get most of my business from referrals. [If applicable, continue with: For instance, you heard about me through So-and-So]. Would you be willing to write a letter commenting on how I’ve helped you in your business?“

Most satisfied clients will gladly help you in this way. BUT (there’s always a but!) your well-intentioned clients are busy people and they’re not really sure what to write. If you leave the conversation at that, you may not see a letter for a long time (if ever). Don’t take it personally.

Now your job is to continue making your client’s life as easy as possible. This is where you:

1. Thank them profusely for agreeing to help you in this way.
2. Acknowledge how busy you know they are.
3. Offer to write the letter on their letterhead.
4. Send it to them to review and sign.

Tip: Interview them for 5 minutes or less (record the call) and draft the letter based on their actual words.

How do you want your referral letter to sound like? Think about the different aspects of your business:

• your personality
• your strengths
• your work ethic
• your values
• the quality of your work
• etc.

For each client, draft different questions that will cover all the benefits of working with you.

Are you uncomfortable just thinking about doing this? WAIT… I haven’t got to the aggressive part yet!

Blow this referral-building marketing strategy out of the water with this next step.

After your client has agreed to write a letter (or have you write it for them), say:

“Would you mind if I sent this letter to some people you know, rather than just keeping it as a general letter for the files?“

Ask them who comes to mind. After they give you a name or two, continue with:

“Could we go through your database to get ideas about to whom to send it?“

Aggressive, right. But for whom? Admit it, it’s only aggressive, because you’re feeling uncomfortable.

If your clients are business-minded professionals, they will admire your tenacity, drive and diligence. They’re thinking: If she’s this persistent with marketing her own business, imagine what she can do for mine!

Remember, if this tip makes you squirm in your chair, know that it’s making most other VA’s who read this blog uneasy too. What’s more, at least 80% of you will procrastinate and flat out refuse to undertake this week’s marketing project.

Are you part of  the 20% who will choose to use their discomfort as an opportunity for growth?

So… that’s your assignment this week! Get aggressive about your own business. Crusade for your own success.

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!

Nail Down Your Keywords

I want to ask you a few questions:

• How are people finding you online?
• What are they typing in Google that leads to your site?
• What keywords should you use to attract even more people?
• How many others are competing for the same keyphrases?

If you answered “I don’t know” to any of these questions, you’ll want to read this post!

I have 30 Day Challenge on the brain. In today’s marketing tip, I’ll show you a free tool to ensure the people searching for your services on the web find you — which is what SEO is all about!

If you’re NOT doing the 30 Day Challenge, you’re missing out on an entire month of training on internet and niche marketing — for free. There’s absolutely no catch. Ed Dale and his team are on a mission to teach everyday people how to make their first dollar online, without spending a dime.

You can go at your own pace. [Case in point: I'm only on training day 5!]

Market Samurai is the free tool I referred to in the introduction. It’s a powerful internet marketing software that was first introduced during last year’s 30 Day Challenge.

The guys at Noble Samurai are offering a free, no strings attached 40-day trial for 30DC participants.

It’s worth signing up for the 30DC just for Market Samurai. Within those 40 days you can play with it to drill down and discover the keyphrases that will increase targeted traffic to your site — those people who are specifically looking for what you offer.

I won’t explain how to use Market Samurai, since the 30DC training videos do a much better job than I ever could. You only need to view training videos of days 2, 3, 4 and 5 for step-by-step instructions on how to easily find your keywords.

A word of warning: Market Samurai is VERY addictive.
Once you start, you’ll have trouble stopping!!

I hope you found today’s tip useful. I know it’ll make a difference in building your VA business’ online visibility!

Let me know how you do with this week’s marketing assignment.

Have a great week!

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!

Practice Your 30-Second Intro

I don’t know if summer means more networking for you or less. In my days as a VA, summer meant more opportunities to network. I guess it was because more informal business networking events were planned (barbecues, sightseeing, etc) than during the winter.

Whatever this time of year means for you when it comes to networking, it’s a great time to practice your 30-second networking introduction. Out loud. With real people.

How do you answer the “So, what do you do?” question in the following situations:

• Round-robin style introduction at formal networking events
• At a family function
• In a check out line
• When leaving a voice mail
• One-on-one at a networking cocktail

If you answered “I usually wing it” or something along those lines, that tells me you’re unprepared. Being unprepared means you’re leaving lots of money on the table.

You never know where or when you’ll meet a potential client or referral partner.

The best way to counter this situation is to turn it around. In other words, prepare yourself ahead of time, so you’re ready to give your compelling 30-second intro.

Here are 5 steps to help you create your networking introduction (each of these steps are explained in detail in my guidebook):

1. Identify your target market or ideal client.
2. Identify your key benefit.
3. Label yourself (and I don’t just mean “Virtual Assistant”)
4. Create your call to action.
5. Put it all together to create your basic template:
   “I help [target market] + [key benefit]. I am [label] + [call to action].“

Once you’re basic introduction model is created, start testing it out — that means practicing it out loud in front of real people.

Here are some ways to practice your 30-second introduction before using it in a professional networking setting:

• Call friends (the ones you know won’t be there) and recite your networking introduction on their voice mail. When they call asking what in the heck that was all about, say you’re conducting marketing research. What did they hear you say?
• Take a video of yourself giving your 30-second self promotion, post it on your blog (or YouTube) and ask readers to leave their constructive feedback in the comment section. Make it viral by publishing the link to your social networking sites.
• Take the initiative by introducing yourself to strangers — when you’re walking the dog, running errands, taking the kids to the park, etc. You’ll be amazed how pushing the envelope on your comfort level makes those boundaries disappear.
• Come up with your own creative ideas of practicing your networking introduction.
• Finally, the obvious one, call your mentor(s) or coach, ask them to critique your 30-second pitch and to brainstorm ways of making it better.

Yes, I get that doing this is really scary. You’re already coming up with ways on procrastinating on this one, right?

Don’t.

Your 30-second intro can make or break you. You may as well practice and refine your message in inconsequential situations, so you’ll be ready for when it really counts.

So… how will you practice your 30-second commercial this week?

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!!

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!

What Will You Do Today?

It seems as if everyone is in vacation mode. So, I’m going to help you keep the momentum going in your VA business, without making it too painful.

Stop whatever you’re doing right now. Ask yourself — and answer — these questions:

What can I do TODAY to…

• grow my virtual assistance business?
• make my VA business more successful?
• make me a better Virtual Assistant?

Asking these questions make you stop and think about how you spend your time.

So, what came up for you? Invoice? Finish a small report? Write an article? Organize your files? Submit an RFP?

Here’s what you do now:

1. Write down the answers that arose from your questioning.
2. Choose one that will you do today.
3. Schedule time in your agenda to do so.
4. Do it.
5. Repeat this exercise every day this week.

If you want to be a successful VA, grow your business and be better at what you do, you need to show that you really want it by taking decisive action — TODAY and every day!

Let us know how this task works out for you and the impact it’s having on your business!

Have an awesome week!

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!

Take a 5-Minute Interaction Break

I stole this week’s marketing suggestion from Scott Stratten‘s  (@unmarketing) Twitter post this morning:

“Daily reminder to reply/retweet others for the next 5 mins. Nothing about you. Engage, interact, build.”

Of course, you can reach out and connect using all forms of communication — email, telephone, letter, and obviously, social media.

This week, make it your goal to, every hour, take a 5 minute break to deeply, purposely and personally touch a select few in your network (use a timer).

Will you make a difference by showing you care? You can’t afford not to.

Have a great week!

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!

“What Else?”

So, last week’s Weekly VA Marketing Tip was a heavy one, so I’ll go easy on you this time ’round! (Now you have more time to continue working on your small report!)

This week, it’s really simple. I want you to send an individual, personalized email message to each of your current clients (include past clients if your list isn’t long enough) and ask this simple question: What else can I do for you?

That’s it.

It’s all about creating front of mind awareness — which also goes by its ugly acronym, FOMA.

Some may have nothing for you now, but you may be surprised what comes your way because you took the initiative. If you get a positive reply, call them right away to find out more.

Why not continue the email conversation? Two reasons:

1. If your clients are lazy anything like me, they figure it’s faster to actually do the task than to type an email about it. You calling them saves them the frustration of tediously typing out their instructions.
2. Your clients are busy, that’s why they needed you in the first place. They may not have time to respond to your email right away. You calling them saves you from playing the email reply waiting game.

Pick up the phone and get them to tell you what they need help with.

Let us know how it goes!

Have an awesome week.

Click here for the audio version of this post.

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!

Create a Small Report

In order to be perceived as an expert Virtual Assistant, you must consistently provide information that your target market craves.

One of the best ways to do this is by creating information products.

Information products take many forms:

• Teleclasses, Workshops, Webinars
• Audio education
• Video training
• Ebooks, special reports, white papers, guidebooks
• Membership sites
• Ecourses
• Tutorials
• Programs
• Live or recorded training events
• etc…

The possibilities are endless.

This week, I’d like you to create an information product — a small report — no more than 10 pages, as the free offering for joining your mailing list.

If you already have a free (or pink spoon) offering, turn it into a paid product.

The key to creating a successful info product is to provide valuable, relevant, educational content! You do this by addressing a very specific burning issue for a very focused audience.

Remember the survey you conducted last week? What issue, pain, problem or challenge came up consistently? Which one will you choose as the topic for your small report?

Once you’ve decided on the topic, you’re ready for the next steps in creating your info product:

1. Choose a title.
2. Brain dump everything you know about the issues, pain, problem or challenge.
3. Break everything you came up with in step 2 down into 4-5 main headings.
4. Write 2-4 paragraph under each heading.
5. Put it aside (keep it close).

As you go through each work day helping clients this week, think of ideas, tips, shortcuts, solutions, answers, examples or case studies to support and illustrate your points. Add them to your document.

At the end of the week, you’ll have most of your information product done, or have, at the very least, a solid foundation to work from.

You could then hire a professional copywriter to add what’s missing (I personally love Jaime Lee Mann!).

Or you can add the finishing touches yourself (I’ve had great success using Small Reports Fortune tool for myself and past VA clients — you’ll love the 7-day checklist to complete your report in just one week).

Aim for completion, not perfection.

Set it up in your email follow-up program then share it with the world!

Place the “get my free report” contact form prominently on your website and blog.

If this is a paid product, set it up in your shopping cart and start promoting it.

From this one small information product, you can spin off other products and programs to fill your marketing funnel. But we’ll work on that another time!

Have an awesome week and please let us know what topic you decide on!

Click here for the audio version of this post.

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!

Just 3 Questions

What issues, concerns or problems keep your target market up at night?
What are they willing pay any amount of money to have someone solve it for them?

The only way to know is to ask.

This week you’re going to send out a 3-question survey to find out.

Create a short introductory paragraph to:

• briefly define the purpose of the survey (without going into too much detail);
• identify who should fill out your survey;
• give your deadline (if any);
• outline an incentive, if any.

Here are 3 questions to ask (run your questions over with someone first, to make sure they are clear enough):

1. What are the 3 biggest problems you are facing when …
   
2. What would be helpful for …
3. What are you missing in …

The goal is to get a clear picture of the pain your market faces so you can create a niche education marketing strategy, and give your market what they want.

NOTE: The above questions need to be about their business, not yours. For example DON’T ask: What are the 3 biggest problems you are facing when hiring a Virtual Assistant?

Select a free online survey service (I use SurveyMonkey.com). Copy and paste your introductory paragraph and questions to the survey program. Then send they survey out to:

• existing and past clients
• your mailing list
• social media sites (post the link several times during the week)

Once you review all the replies, you need to figure out:

• Is there enough of a recurring theme (problem, pain)?
• Do you have a solution for it?
• Is this a topic you’d enjoy tackling?

If you answered yes to all of the above, you’ve hit on your niche topic. Now you can create a marketing action plan to write articles, blog topics and newsletter pieces, as well as web copy, your free offering (pink spoon) and info products.

How did this marketing strategy work for you? What did you learn? Stay tuned next week, as we build on the replies you receive to create an info product.

Have an awesome week!

Click here for the audio version of this post.
[audio coming soon]

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!

Link Up On LinkedIn

This week’s marketing momentum booster is an easy one. But don’t dismiss it! It’s another way of displaying your expertise and gaining the Know, Like and Trust Factor — AND it’s free!

1. Sign in to your LinkedIn account
2. At the top of your screen, click on Answers.
3. Click on the Answer Questions tab.
4. Browse by category (right hand column).
5. Find 5 questions you can intelligently answer, directly relating to your niche market and/or your expertise.

Answer each question, with the goal of giving first. Don’t use this space as a blatant self-promotion. If you have written articles about the question at hand, you may post a link to your article.

That’s it — 5 answers. Make it a habit to repeat these steps a few times each week, and you’ll notice your visibility grow!

Let us know how it goes!

Have an awesome week.