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In The News… Back to Archive
Expanding Your Virtual Assistant Business with Associates
When you have filled your virtual assistant business with clients, you will soon run out of time that you can sell to new prospects. After all, you only have so many hours in the day that you can work. So how can you expand and take on more business without the overheads of getting an office and taking on staff?
It’s time to introduce you to the Virtual Assistant Associate.
Working with associates is a very popular business model in several industries as it works in much the same way as working with a virtual assistant. When there is work you don’t have the time to complete, your clients outsource it to you. When you have an excess of client work you don’t have time to complete, you outsource it to an associate.
Associates work at a reduced hourly rate to that you have charged your client, as they have been handed the work ‘on a plate’ without having to do all the marketing and relationship building associated with bringing that client on board.
You also continue to manage the client relationship and invoicing and the client remains a customer of your business, rather than becoming a direct customer of your associate.
It’s imperative to have an Associate Agreement in pace so that everyone understand the boundaries of the relationship. For more information and a selection of templates you can download and adapt for your own business go to: http://vasuccessgroup.co.uk/virtual-assistant-document-templates/
Your can work with Associates in one of two ways, or indeed, a combination of both.
Firstly you can retain all the client contact so that he/she never knows that the work they are sending you has been completed by a third party.
The plus side here is that you will never have to worry about unscrupulous associates who may attempt to take the client from you, or underhand clients who think they may save a pound or two if they cut you out of the equation and work directly with your associate.
The downside is there will be inevitable delays as you send work back and forth, and you will have to be not only very aware of every peace of work as you will have to discuss it with the client where necessary, you will have to double check everything that goes out. All this additional admin can become very time consuming.
The second way to work with an associate is to effectively pass the client over to them and allow direct communication.
This frees up much more of your time as all discussions about the tasks performed are direct between the client and the associate. However, do make sure that you have very solid contracts in place with both your associate and your client to prevent them working directly together.
Also bear in mind that associates will not be with you forever so make sure you keep yourself up to speed with the clients account information, that you have access to all their files and the work completed by the associate, and that you maintain a relationship wit them have contacting them regularly to check in and see how things are going.
It’s imperative to have an Associate Agreement in pace so that everyone understand the boundaries of the relationship. For more information and a selection of templates you can download and adapt for your own business go to: http://vasuccessgroup.co.uk/virtual-assistant-document-templates/
About the author:
Justine Curtis is the director of her own successful virtual assistant business My Virtual Assistant http://www.my-va.com and founder of The UK Association of Virtual Assistants (UKAVA) which offers free resources and information to its subscribers – sign up at http://www.ukava.co.uk. Justine is the author of Setting Yourself Up As A Virtual Assistant and is delighted to be able to pass on the benefits of her vast experience of the VA role to aspiring and progressive virtual PAs as a co-founder of the VA Success Group. If you are thinking about starting a virtual assistant business, visit http://vasuccessgroup.co.uk
In The Spotlight:
Client File-Sharing Made Easy
As a virtual assistant you need to share files in some way with your clients. Often you will find your clients are happy to email latest versions of documents and spreadsheets backwards and forwards and some even have a file-sharing system in place that you can have access to.
But what happens if your client doesn’t have their own systems and you will be both updating a ‘live’ file such as a contacts database or an expenses spreadsheet? How do you both have access to the same current version of the file? You can purchase file sharing software such as Microsoft’s Sharepoint, or you can use free software such as Google Docs which, not very helpfully, interferes with the formatting of some documents and limits the size and/or formats of the files you can upload.
Well now, there’s a free option that not only works brilliantly, but also has many other features including access to 30 days worth of back up copies, in case you accidentally delete or ruin a file. You can also access your files remotely when you are out of the office so there’s no longer a need to take that laptop on holiday!
For more information and an extra 250MB of space free, click here
Effective Marketing for Virtual Assistants
Would you like to fill your virtual assistant business to bursting point with clients you love to work with?
It’s a familiar story, you’ve set up your virtual assistant business, you’ve got everything you need and are all excited waiting for the clients to come knocking down your (virtual) door! And you wait, and wait. The phone doesn’t ring; there aren’t thousands of enquiries flooding your email inbox. Yikes! Now what?
The VA Success Group has put together this practical online course that shows you how to effectively market your virtual assistant business so you have more than enough clients and can pick and choose who YOU want to work with.
As this is an online course, you can study in your own time and at a pace to suit you – get started now!
Click here for more information
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