What’s next?
Remember, as a business owner you are in sales. Each month you need to be looking down the road at the next several months to determine how you are going to gain new clients and/or manage the clients you have. It is your job to project and then plan accordingly. Your bottom line depends on it. Growth requires a plan.
What was your biggest challenge this month?
This doesn’t have to be business related. We have personal lives and families. Whatever challenge you have, you need to address it. Trying to dismiss it won’t make it go away. Do you need to cut back your workload? Do you need to raise your prices and reduce your client work? Make the hard decisions now while you’re in control of the situation. If not, the situation will take control of you.
What was your biggest win of the month?
If you don’t take the time to celebrate your wins, you are hurting yourself. Being a business owner is not always easy, and your clients may not validate your work in the way you want them to. Celebrate yourself! Even if it was getting out of your comfort zone to make a sales call, sending a proposal for work you’ve never done before, reaching out to your potential dream client, or breaking even for the first time. These are things to celebrate. You are winning! Every month you can look back at your achievements, you’ll be able to track how far you’ve come. It’s a wonderful feeling!
How do you become an elite VA? Well, you don’t copy others. You have high standards and keep growing them. No elite business ever kept banking hours. Think about that. Now this doesn’t mean you are on call 24/7 unless that is your business and you are being appropriately compensated. How much can you really charge when you are doing what everyone else is doing and not providing anything extra?
Why can some retailers charge more than others? Service. To go above and beyond for a customer is included in a business’s service and price. When I worked at Nordstrom, I was allowed to do whatever I wanted to make the customer happy. To some companies, that is scary. To Nordstrom, it is their policy. This included hand-delivering packages to the customer’s home. Bringing a pressed tuxedo shirt to someone’s car after taking the credit card information over the phone. And, yes, it also meant accepting returns.
Working at Nordstrom was a lot like waiting on tables when I was young. The better service I gave, the more money I made. As a waitress I made $2.10 an hour (the legal minimum wage for servers) and the rest came from tips. You’d better believe I was doing everything I could to get a good tip. As a salesperson at Nordstrom, I worked on a commission-only basis. I was frequently the best salesperson in my department and among the top ten salespersons in the store. However, I couldn’t sell just anything—only what the customers needed and wanted. Remember, they can return anything, and then my commission would have been taken away.
If you can’t provide five-star service and work outside of regular business hours to serve your client from time to time, you are not ready to grow. The CEO of a company with 10,000 employees and the CEO of a company with 30,000 employees can’t operate the same. Throw in an international presence, and now you’ve just upped the stakes. I can also assure you these CEOs are not compensated the same either.
To be clear, when I talk about growing your business, I mean an elite business. I don’t mean growing it like a McDonald’s chain. The world doesn’t need another McDonald’s. I’m talking about growing a business the same way you would a fancy boutique retail store—one that is located in only certain cities. Sure, you could open another McDonald’s anywhere, and people will come in to grab a bite. Or you could open the equivalent of a boutique store and have customers seek you out and plan their shopping trips around your business.
Client Referrals and Gifting
Some of the most iconic and high-priced brands don’t participate in traditional advertising and marketing. They don’t need to. Their businesses are based on their current client base and referrals. People aspire to be able to afford these brands because it means they have reached a certain status. For others, like myself, it means I get to have the experience of shopping with that company. I want that level of service, and I literally can’t wait to write a blog post or share it with the world.
If you have grown your business and aren’t receiving client referrals, there is a reason. It could be as simple as not asking, but there is always a reason.
Client referrals and gifting go hand in hand. You don’t do one to get the other. This isn’t scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours. It is how you keep and retain long-term relationships. It’s what separates you from the competition.
You want to do gifting because it’s how your clients know they are appreciated, long after money has changed bank accounts. Referrals are what clients send your way for not only what you do but how you do it. We love and dream of the coveted referral and yet can repel it at the same time.
When someone receives a referral from a friend or colleague, she is expecting to be treated as a VIP. That’s the point of being referred— so you don’t get treated like everyone else. Who doesn’t want to jump to the front of the line, bypass paperwork and forms, or be offered a service while you wait? Think about how often you give referrals. Why do you give them? How excited are you to share a great service when someone asks?
If you’re like me, you don’t give them all the time because not every service deserves them. I only give referrals when I have received exceptional service. The opportunity to share a referral happens quickly through a tweet or a reply on Facebook or LinkedIn. However I share a referral, the point is I feel like I’m about to make someone else’s life easier or better. If someone came back to me with an awful experience about my referral, I would be extremely embarrassed and most likely never refer the business or service or again.
Referring isn’t just about putting the business’s reputation on the line. You are putting yours on the line as well. If the level of service doesn’t meet someone’s expectations, they may not tell the business, but they are very likely to share it with the person who referred them. No one wants to be on the receiving end of that conversation.
Searching out and hiring a virtual assistant is no different. It is a very personal matter, even though it’s business related. A business owner is about to let someone they will never meet into their daily life, their means of supporting themselves and their family, something they’ve been building and growing. Receiving a referral relieves some of the anxiety of finding a VA on their own.
We are in the virtual assistance business. Often we forget what it is like to be an outsider to our very familiar world. Having someone referred to you doesn’t make their fears, worries, or doubts go away. It only lessens them. Client referrals are a way for you to show someone how having a VA can still be personal and tailored to them.
Notice I used the word “can.” It’s because you are given the opportunity. Too often I see VAs miss the mark on referrals. The way we all want to get our business is exactly the way you are losing out on business.
Be sure you’re not doing these four thing that can ruin your referral business:
You can ruin the experience when you think the referral is a slam dunk.
What happened to the personal service? Where did the excitement go? Whoever referred a potential client to you most likely listed these traits as what attracted and keeps her using your services in the first place. So treat your potential clients as you would every other person who reaches out to you (assuming you do this well). Give her your undivided attention. Treat her as if she’s the only one who matters right now. Don’t cut corners and assume the person who referred her has done all the work for you. What that person has done is conveyed an experience—an experience the potential client also wants to have. Provide the same tailored experience, and she’ll say “yes” to becoming one of your clients.
You ruin the experience by taking a long time to respond.
When you wait too long to reach out to a potential client, you have j
ust made the person feel like another number. They can get this type of service anywhere. The reason they are even looking for referrals is to skip this feeling altogether. You are also assuming this person hasn’t contacted anyone else.
Respond right away to any request from a potential client, if not immediately. Even if it is to say you aren’t free until next week. If someone is looking for virtual assistance, you can bet they have a busy schedule too. Get on their calendar before someone else does. A slow response brings no hope for the future. Show how thoughtful you are and how much their time means to you. In doing so, they can feel valued and appreciated from the beginning.
You ruin the experience by not showing gratitude.
Someone went out of her way to not only compliment your work but to send a potential client your way. If the same person sent you a check in the mail, would you not so much as send a thank you card? Even if you don’t end up working with the person they referred, you should express some form of appreciation. It is basic common courtesy.
Send a thank you card or pick up the phone to express true gratitude. If the potential client is a great fit for you, encourage the referrer to continue sending similar clients your way. Should it be a wrong fit, let the person know how much you appreciate the thought and who would make a good referral going forward.
After you sign the potential client, send a gift to the referrer. It could be a percentage of the contract you signed or lunch, dinner, or drinks on your dime. The list is endless. The point is, successful referrals should never go unnoticed. Most importantly, don’t forget to ask how you can help the referrer in return. Don’t assume you know their needs. They might be starting a new venture or looking for a service or product completely unrelated to what you offer. Do you have a contact in your network they want to be introduced to? This is an opportunity for you to build on your relationship and grow trust. Give back!
You ruin the experience by not marketing your services and being visible.
Just because someone referred you doesn’t mean the potential client isn’t going to look you up. When they do, what will they find? Are you a blogger who hasn’t updated your own blog in months? Is your website outdated? No one wants to find out a potential virtual assistant doesn’t have enough time to maintain her own information. It inspires no confidence.
Keep your website, social media presence, and blog current. You never know who might come across your work, but you can determine what they find. Be proud of what you are sharing and posting online.
Client referrals could be the best thing for your business. As with all things in your business, you should have a plan—a plan for handling referrals, conducting follow-up, and attracting more referrals. Gifting and referrals go hand in hand.
Gifting should never be confused with SWAG (stuff we all get). Never give promotional gifts with your logo on them. And most importantly, don’t give gifts expecting to get something in return. John Ruhlin is the gifting expert. Read his book Giftology to find a complete list of items never to give, even if you follow these rules. You can also check out the link in the Resources section of your workbook.
No matter how much you’re making, you should have a budget for gifting clients. Think about every element of the gift experience—the way the client will receive the gift, how it will look when the client opens the gift. Is the card handwritten? Did you ask for a referral or include a business card? Don’t! This means it’s no longer a gift.
I challenge you to take your gifting offline. Be different. Receiving an e-card and a physical card aren’t the same. Know your audience. If they do their best to be a completely paperless company, a physical card might not be the best fit. Also, be different by staying away from business products. If you have absolutely no budget, there is still a way to gift. You could offer a service free of charge. You could donate your time to their favorite charity. Create a special thank you video for them. There is a way to show your appreciation.
Don’t Duplicate Yourself. You Need to Complete the Puzzle.
In conversation, something that often comes up is the desire to duplicate ourselves. “If only there were two of me. I could work twice as much, make twice as much money, come up with twice as many ideas, work twice as many hours.” This is not at all appealing to me. The last thing I need is another me, and the last thing you need is another you.
Here’s why. Another you only creates more work. Another you would only have more great ideas, see more opportunity, and willingly seek out new clients. And in the end, you’ll still need help getting it all done. Ideas need to be refined, tested, and systematized to work. Opportunity takes time and money and uses a lot of your critical thinking to determine the real costs. Sure, clients bring in more money, but they take up more time as well. You have to devote quality time to their needs as well as follow-up, surveys, programming, and so on.
No one ever says, “I wish I could duplicate myself so the first me could make the money and strategize so the other me can do the paperwork, manage the details, and create a system.” More importantly, no one ever says the duplicate version of themselves would take a vacation and spend more time with family, take a day off, relax. And dare I say have a lazy day?
The idea to duplicate one’s self is often premature. First, you need to complete the puzzle. Where are you coming up short? Where is your time being wasted? What do you simply not want to do? What keeps you from your genius zone, your writing, your clients? What is keeping you up at night? What piece of the puzzle do you need to find to pull everything together before you duplicate?
Think of duplication as franchising. You franchise a business after you have put an exact system and process in place. The customers are purchasing the company’s method of success. A guarantee. Are you franchisable? What guarantee could you give someone if you offered them a duplicate version of yourself? As Michael E. Gerber—bestselling author of The E-Myth and what The Wall Street Journal calls the No. 1 business book of all time—says, “A business’s mission is always to create the system.”
This is a very common reason clients hire me—to find a virtual assistant who can help them create a system. A funnel system. An email drip system. To write out a process for what it is they do exactly. Business owners go from helping one client to helping many. Then they realize they don’t have a failproof system. Something is always falling through the cracks. Nor is there a timeline to complete the tasks. If it’s a good week, they can take care of things right away. If it’s a busy week or if they are traveling, emails get pushed off and lost. They scramble to find what they need to send, let alone have time to create something new. Don’t think because you are a VA and specialize in these things that you are immune from them.
Think of yourself as the CEO of your company because you are. Now imagine you have a team working for you. Who would be the first people to hire as your top executives? Who would be your first hire not on your leadership team? In what areas could you use another person’s assistance? Everything you tell your clients applies to you. You can’t do it all yourself. You shouldn’t be doing it all yourself.
When Is It Time to Hire Support? Watch for the Signs
Knowing when to hire support seems easy enough. Most people would recommend hiring help when you no longer can do everything yourself. Of course, the help would be valuable at the time. However, you’re late in hiring and you’ve already cost yourself a lot of undue stress.
Think about it. You would never tell someone to start exercising after their physician prescribes medication. Changing your diet isn’t best after you’ve already taken a scary trip to the emergency room. The best time for help is before you need it. Preventative maintenance.
As VAs we can be the worst offenders. We want to do everything ourselves, learn all the ins and outs, be the expert of everything. Sometimes it is to your benefit to do this, but most of the time it isn’t. You need to think like a CEO. If you were building a brick and mortar business and could save mone
y by doing some of the manual labor yourself, are you really saving money? Did you take into consideration the cost to rent the location, the expenses being held, the delay in being able to promote the location, being sidetracked with different work, and ultimately not bringing in a dollar? Hiring is investing. Sound familiar? Is this an investment in your business or a “nice to have?” If it’s a “nice to have,” then yes, you should consider whether or not to pay someone else.
I couldn’t wait to hire VAs to help support my business. I, like my clients, want to throw money at problems because we want to see them fixed now. Any problem I have is a direct roadblock to a client reaching me, to an experience I can give to a client, to money in my bank account.
I knew from the beginning who my first hire was going to be. A bookkeeper. After that I had some ideas, but I was open. At any given time, I have two to five VAs working for me. When people ask how I get so much done and how I can achieve so many goals in a single year while traveling the world, I tell them that I take my own advice and hire VAs. Remember in the beginning I told you to create mile markers? This was one of mine. When I reached a specific point in my business, I was going to hire a bookkeeper. And I did!
Once on a call with a client, we discovered that his time was worth about $800 an hour. He was giving an hour a week to a client who was only bringing in $5,000 a year. He was losing over $40,000 a year, one hour at a time. Now we don’t all make $800 an hour (yet!). But what is costing you an hour at a time over the course of a year? Who could you do what you’re doing for less money?
Become A Successful Virtual Assistant Page 15