Category: VA Training

Become a VA: Step 2 – Identifying your Niche

Finding the right clients for your business, means that you will need to market yourself and your VA business. The businesses you ultimately work with need to know, like and trust you – in the same way, it is important for you as the VA to know, like and trust your clients.

Identifying your Ideal Client and Niche

Marketing your VA business is basically relationship building – getting businesses to get to know, like and trust you. As part of your brand awareness you are allowing businesses to witness what you are all about, what you can do, what you help businesses to achieve and where you add value. Marketing is also about ATTRACTING the IDEAL client who has a NEED and WANTS your services.

Who Needs And Wants Your Services?

Well, you may believe, as many do, that all businesses need a VA!!!!  However, it’s important to close the net and start to focus on specific businesses so that you have more of an opportunity to stand out from other VAs. This is where having a niche comes in.

Have a Clear Message

It is better to communicate a very clear message direct to certain businesses which connects with what their particular needs or concerns are, so that you can actually provide the solutions for those particular needs and concerns.  In addition, it can cost you a lot of money trying to market yourself to every business, however, by having a niche, it means your marketing efforts can be much more cost effective, more targeted and consistent and achieve better results.

Your Niche

IMG_1056The majority of VAs launch after working with a particular industry and so choose this to be their niche, as they already have a working knowledge of the issues that clients in these areas face – BUT – I know this isn’t always relevant or right for you. Take me…. My background was over 22 years in the military, the military doesn’t use external admin support (apart from government contracts) and so I needed to think about the skills I had and niche that way.

You don’t have to niche on day one – it can help, but sometimes working with lots of people initially can help you determine the niches or the areas you want to work with (or not as the case may be).

Once you have a clearer idea, step into the shoes of your potential clients and think like them. What support would you find useful? What would you want your VA to know about you? What challenges and concerns do you have that a VA could create solutions and results to?

Research You could also do some research and find out from them what they actually want and need, because once you have identified these points you will then create the service that fits as well as a marketing campaign that creates awareness that you are the solution to those needs.

Don’t worry, identifying your niche can be a pretty hard thing to do, personally it took me nearly 12 months. So don’t let it stop you launching your VA business!

Next week – we talk about Mastering the Art of Sales.

VACT-Logo-Green_png-250pxAmanda Johnson of Your Executive Secretary Limited is a licensed Trainer of the VACT.  If you would like to book yourself on the next Taster Session in your area then please click here or if you would like to book a free 30 minute breakthrough call then click here. 

 

Become a VA – 7 Steps to become a VA

Are you looking for an alternative to life in the corporate world? With many PAs looking for an alternative to working as a PA, to enable them more of a work-life balance and stress-free existence, or facing redundancy what is the answer?

Naturally, like many PAs who have made the transition to Virtual Assistant (VA), you, of course, will want to ensure you have your questions answered and do it all right.

Training VAOver the next 7 weeks I am going to be sharing with you the 7 steps to launching and boosting your VA business so that you can confidently hit the ground running and start seeing results.

In some cases, its not so much a step but a mistake to avoid that will allow you to successfully launch and grow your VA business.  The thing is you must stand out from the crowd, if you do what everyone else is doing, you will just blend in.

This is about working on you first and then helping your prospective clients to notice you – so that you can command the fees you are worth and create a business which earns you the income you want and work the hours you choose.

YES this CAN be achieved.

Step 1. Vision – start with the end in mind

If you don’t know where you’re going, how are you going to get there? You’ve probably heard this many times but have you applied this wisdom to your business lately?

With the need to bring in business, keep clients happy, chase invoices and keep the wheels of business turning, it’s really easy to forget why you’re doing it and what you’re aiming for. The simplest way to re-energise your business is to work out what you’re aiming to achieve and GO FOR IT with laser focus!!

Ask yourself the following questions:

  • How do you want your business to look in a year, two years, five years?
  • What are you aiming for?
  • How many hours do you want to work? Who would you like to be working with?
  • How will your business fit into your life, going forward?
  • What’s your exit strategy for your business?
  • Will you sell it, shut it down, get someone else to run it, franchise it? Have you even thought about it?

And once you get clear on how you want your business and life to look, you can make decisions based on it. You can decide what is ‘good business’ (ie takes you closer to your vision) or ‘bad business’ (takes you further away from your vision). But if you don’t know how you want your business to look, how can you make decisions? How will you know if something is just a distraction?

Get really clear on how you want you life to look – how much you want to earn, how many hours you want to work, how many holidays/ vacations you’d like, when you’d like to give up work – in as much detail as you can. Then see how your business can help you achieve that.

Next week – we will clarify who are your ideal clients and whether you need to have a niche market.

VACT-Logo-Green_png-250pxAmanda Johnson of Your Executive Secretary Limited is a licensed Trainer of the VACT.  If you would like to book yourself on the next Taster Session in your area then please click here or if you would like to book a free 30 minute breakthrough call then click here. 

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