The Virtual Assistant Blog » virtual business assistant

15 Tips to Build Your Newsletter Subscriber List

Justine Curtis — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 09:53:42 +0000

We all need to fill our marketing funnel with the contact details of potential clients and referrers of our business services. The following series gives you some ideas about how to collect contact details, and in particular email addresses, so that you can begin to build relationships with your prospects.

Put an offer on the back of your business card to get people to sign up for your newsletter. For example, “Visit www.mywebsite.com/freereport to download 20 Top Tips for Outsourcing to a Virtual Assistant”. When they land on your page, ask for their email address in order to receive the free report.

Expanding Your Virtual Assistant Business with Associates

Justine Curtis — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 10:15:54 +0000

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/

Virtual Assistant Tips – Getting Those First Clients

Justine Curtis — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 10:03:05 +0000

Our final tip in this series is a short but vital one. Above all, keep marketing as a continual process and recognise that although you may not get clients immediately from you efforts, in time your consistency will pay dividends.

Virtual Assistant Tips – Getting Those First Clients

Justine Curtis — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 10:01:14 +0000

When you have decided on your target market, or niche, think about how you can reach them. Do they belong to particular organisations, read certain publications or as is the case with one of my niches, do they all drink on a Thursday afternoon in bars within a square mile of a certain point in London?

When you know where to find them, consider how you can get your message to them. While advertising in general is expensive and often pointless unless you can afford to take out a run, perhaps you could write an article for a trade publication, or give a presentation at an event your ‘suspects’ will attend. Think outside of the box for some interesting and inexpensive ideas that will have impact on your particular target market and keep you stimulated and motivated.

Virtual Assistant Tips – Getting Those First Clients

Justine Curtis — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 10:58:20 +0000

Next in our serries of Getting Those First Clients – take stock of all the skills you have and the industries you have worked in or that interest you. Consider what services can you offer and to whom? If you have been a book keeper with an IT firm for many years, you are going to find it far easier to offer your virtual book keeping services to other IT firms as you know something about their market and their ‘language’. If you target an industry or sector you have experience of, you will be seen as the virtual assistant who is an expert in this field and have an advantage over any other VA.

Managing Your Virtual Assistant Workload – Tip 14

Justine Curtis — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 11:26:42 +0000

Keep on networking
This is often the first thing that gets dropped when you become busy with clients work. I know; I am guilty of it myself. But when you suddenly disappear from groups in you have been a regular, the assumption can be that you are no longer in business. Accept that networking is part of the ongoing development of your business, choose one or two groups in which you will remain a regular, and keep going. Even if you are not looking for more clients, you will still establish relationships from which you will benefit later on.

About the Author:

Justine Curtis is the director of her own successful virtual assistant business My Virtual Assistant Limited http://www.my-va.com which is now recruiting a team of virtual assistant licensees and founder of The UK Association of Virtual Assistants (UKAVA) which offers free resources and information to its subscribers. Justine is the author of Setting Yourself Up As A Virtual Assistant and is proud 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

Managing Your Virtual Assistant Workload – Tip 13

Justine Curtis — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 11:24:46 +0000

Happy New Year!

A very apt tip for the New Year today. All about reviewing and setting your activites for the coming year.

Review your marketing activities
Set aside time each month to review your marketing activities. How many enquiries have you had in the previous month and from where have they come? Have a look at what is working for you and what could be improved.

Managing Your Virtual Assistant Workload – Tip 12

Justine Curtis — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 11:23:58 +0000

Social networking
If you have a profile on sites such as Ecademy and LinkedIn, it is easy to spend hours each day responding to requests to link. Set aside some time each week for social networking and respond to invitations then. Also, use this time to seek out new connections of your own, join and post to groups, etc.

Managing Your Virtual Assistant Workload – Tip 11

Justine Curtis — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 11:22:57 +0000

Writing your blog
The same advice applies when writing blogs. However, the advantage with blogs is that you can schedule your posts in advance. I am actually writing this on 30th October but you will be reading it weeks later!

Managing Your Virtual Assistant Workload – Tip 10

Justine Curtis — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 11:22:07 +0000

Writing your newsletter
If you write a newsletter, be it weekly, monthly or whatever, try to write in blocks. It can be hard to find a quiet time to sit and write, but, when you do, you often feel like you could write for hours. Do it whenever you feel inspired, and then split the content over several newsletters.