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Mindset Virtual Assistant

One Tip to Explode Your Virtual Assistance Success

Give yourself the credit you deserve!

Many people doubt their self-worth. This is the case especially for woman. That can even be increased for female entrepreneurs.

“Will people buy what I am selling? Might they think I’m a fraud? Who am I to try and be successful in business?”

Let’s stop right there! If you have such feelings of self-doubt, it is important that you believe the next fours words in this article. YOU ARE THE BOMB! End of story.

Of course it is not that easy to dispel negative feelings that may have deeply entrenched roots. But, I want to help you to start realizing that you can overcome such feelings. In fact, it is a MUST if you are to be a successful entrepreneur. So, where might those feelings of low worth come from? As an administrative assistant in the work force, you are used to being at someone else’s beck and call. Clearly, that is the main function of an administrative assistant. Run here, run there. It never seems to end. That type of employment forces you to answer to every whim of other people. What is more, it may even be hard to make decisions without the approval of a superior.

Now that you seek to be a successful entrepreneur, you may find it difficult to take the first, second or even third step towards accomplishing your goals. How can you combat low self-esteem?

The key is to learn how to pat yourself on the back as you take steps towards building the business that you desire. When you learn to gain your own approval, you will find it refreshing. You will also realize that the pressures imposed upon you by other people will dissipate. Become proud of your accomplishments in everyday life, not just in business. As you become more adept at building up your self worth, you will see your level of accomplishment skyrocket. Start now by repeating this phrase, “I am the BOMB. I am SMART. I am SUCCESSFUL in all that I do.”

Feel that positive energy and allow it to boost your self-worth, your personal productivity and your Virtual Assistance business.

Mindset

3 Easy Tactics for Enrolling New Clients

call meI think it’s safe for me to assume that it’s a no brainer that you want more clients. That is why you are started a Virtual Assistant business in the first place, to make a living, helping others while working for yourself. If you are struggling to enroll your first few clients have no more fear. The answers to your business prayers are right here. I am going to teach you three simple tactics that are easy to implement, effective and comes directly from the heart.

When you come into contact with new business owners, you never quite know who may be a prospective client. That is why you need to be on top of your game when you are discussing who you are and what you do as an entrepreneur.

Here’s what you do:

  1. Talk About The Benefits of Working With You– Just the other day I went to get a massage. (I absolutely LOVE massages by the way :-). After this relaxing experience I thought about the many benefits that I received (release of tension, rejuvenation, etc.). So, I wondered if my therapist highlights these wonderful benefits when she speaks about her business. If not, she should, because it’s the reason why her clients come to her. I didn’t go to get a massage because I needed a massage therapist. I went because I wanted to treat myself and feel good. Imagine for a moment that you met her at a networking event and asked her “What do you do?” She might say:a. ‘I am a massage therapist.’
    b. ‘I liberate people from tension, stress and anxiety.’Now if you heard either of those responses, which one would make you want to learn more? EXACTLY!  I chose B as well. Can you see how powerful that is? The same applies to your business.

    The people who need your help aren’t looking for a Virtual Assistant. But they would like to feel less frazzled, more organized and to make more money in their business. When people ask you about what you do in your profession, make sure to highlight the benefits so that your prospects can see themselves experiencing the results from working with you. If you say, “I’m a Virtual Assistant”, you are likely to receive a confused look in response. Instead, focus on the real benefit clients will enjoy in working with you so that your conversation partner will want to learn more about you and even refer you to others who may need you.

  2. Ask to Keep In Touch – As you progress in the conversation about the wonderful work that you do for your clients, this next tactic becomes very important. Simply say, “I’d like to continue this conversation with you, when would be a good time for us to connect again?” Then capture their contact information and let them know you’ll confirm the appointment shortly. When you receive this information, move along to easy tactic number three.
  3. Follow Up Quickly – Please don’t allow more than 48 hours to pass before you contact the person. I know that you are quite engaging and very interesting, but you have to remember that everyone has a terribly busy lifestyle. With all of the gadgets and activities, people are more distracted than ever. Make follow up your #1 Priority. Let the person know how much you enjoyed meeting them and the conversation you had. And that you look forward to continuing it on DATE/TIME! Your diligence in following up shows your contact exactly how serious you are about your business and how serious you will be about theirs.

The three steps I shared with you are simple to implement, quite effective and are focused on you being of service. The People will be so impressed with the way that you express yourself. They will be excited to work with you and find it easy to say yes to what you have to offer them.

How will you apply this strategy to your business? Share your thoughts with me on the blog or in the LinkedIn group and I’ll offer you some additional support.

Mindset

Turn Your Trial Into Triumph

try and try againAs you strive to build a successful Virtual Assistant business, I encourage you to not hold back from acquiring new skills and knowledge. Because you are an entrepreneur, you are likely hesitant to experience failure. Those feelings are completely normal.

What will help you to not allow that fear to hold you back is to understand that there is really no such thing as failure. Even if a situation or opportunity doesn’t turn out as planned, there are valuable lessons to be learned. Plus, if you never try, you won’t really know what’s possible for you.

Does the thought of failing prevent you from progressing beyond your comfort zone? Don’t fret, I’m going to help you S-T-R-R-R-E-T-C-H those ‘comfort muscles’ and branch out into new territory.

I am sure that you are familiar with the expression ‘trial and error’. That is the process of experimenting with various methods of doing something until you find the one that’s most successful. Think about this for a moment. Should your business building efforts be considered trial and error? It may be better to consider them ‘Trial and Triumph’?

Let me give you an example. Imagine you are looking to use new software to organize your business accounting system. So, you download a 30-day trial of Quickbooks. You have never used Quickbooks before, but you know that you must organize your money matters. During the 30 day freebie, you decide that this software is a bit more complicated than you expected. That is a triumph for sure. You gained new knowledge and decided that you want to go in another direction. Now you have some experience and a better understanding of what you need to build the business that you desire. The time spent can hardly be considered an error. Are you still with me?

This principle should be applied to everything that you do in your business. As you try new software and new marketing strategies you will continue to increase your effectiveness as an entrepreneur and be more valuable to your clients. My goal is really to help you avoid being ‘stuck in time’ due to fear of failure.

You are not a “bad business owner” if you try something new but do not obtain the intended results. Use that new knowledge as fuel that will propel your business forward to prosperity. If your mindset is right, you can turn ‘trial and error’ into trial and triumph.

Achieving Goals Mindset Networking

Getting Clients When Working Full-Time

We received this question on the LinkedIn group recently:

When a VA is working full-time and starting her business at the same time, what is the best way to follow-up and/or get leads (clients)? Also, how do you convince future clients that you can still do the work, just at a different time in the day?

Excellent question and if you are facing a similar challenge, here’s is the first part of my answer:      Continue Reading>>

Achieving Goals Business Management Mindset

Go Get’em!

Remember this simple yet profound notion: If you are not where you want to be, you have not done what you need to do.

When you entertained the idea of running your own Virtual Assistance company, you likely enjoyed the dream of firing your boss, making your own schedule and getting paid what you actually deserve. You, of course had even grander hopes than the few things mentioned. My question to you is, have you reached your potential. As you reflect on the time that has passed from whence you entertained the thought of creating your own definition of success until TODAY, what type of results have you developed?

If you are not where you want to be, you have not done what you need to do.  There are not enough excuses in the world that can negate that fact. Some roadblocks may have come up. But a roadblock does not have to be a deal breaker unless you allow it to crush your dreams. Track back to when you first began to dream big about starting your own successful Virtual Assistance company. If you have already created your business but have not yet reached your definition of success, do not give up.

Figure out the steps that you have not yet taken, and go to work on accomplishing those tasks.  Armed with your goals, never stop pursuing them until you have reached them.

GO GET’EM!

Marketing Mindset Networking Target Market Virtual Assistant

Marketing Mentality

Take a look at your client load right now.  Are you satisfied with the number of clients that you have?  If not, why not?  The number of clients that you have or do not have is directly related to your level of marketing.  Why not examine all of your marketing activities and strategies and measure how well they are working for you.

Developing the marketing mentality will help you to focus on opportunities that come your way.  Additionally, this mindset will motivate you to set up systems to support each of your marketing strategies.  Take as an example, networking.  What is your system for meeting new people, gathering business cards, and following up?  When you follow up, do you send one email or make one phone call?  Or do you attempt to contact the person until you get an answer.

Think about reaching out to your warm market.  That is the group of people who already know, trust and like you.  To some extent they even know the level of skill and knowledge that you bring to the table as a service provider.  So, do all of these people know about your Virtual Assistance company?  If not, send them a professionally written letter that details the important information about your company.  Tell them about the services that you provide, the target market that you serve, the problems that you solve and the benefits that clients receive from working with you.

If you develop and maintain the marketing state of mind, you will see plenty of opportunity that surrounds you every single day. So, start reaching out to the people that you know you need to contact. Follow up and make your voice heard.  There are a lot of people who need the services that you are offering.  Use these two marketing strategies immediately.  They are free and easy to implement.

Business Management Mindset

Be Honest

How important is honesty to you?  I hope that you are not a person who would get involved with shady business dealings.  If honesty is not very important to you, then be sure to make it important to your business.  You want to have a great deal of integrity when dealing with clients, colleagues, vendors, strategic partners and everyone else with whom you come into contact.

An elementary topic?  Indeed.  Vital for long-term success?  Oh yeah!

Have you ever seen a dishonest person get away untarnished from underhanded activity?  At the very least, his conscience will be damaged.  How can you be honest in your business dealings?  The key is to avoid lying in any way.  If you have an interview with a prospective client who needs a skill that you do not have, would you say that you can accomplish that requested task in order to obtain the contract?  Maybe a person in that situation could reason, “I will simply learn the skill and then get the work done.”  This is dangerous for her reputation and business.

How much better would it be to tell the prospect, “Well, I don’t have any experience in that, but I am willing to learn it on my own time.”  Your prospect will have a great deal of respect for you because of your honesty and straightforwardness.

Thinking long-term about your business has to include a mindfulness towards integrity in all of your work.  This is a sure way to build a lasting business.  One lie could lead to the downfall of a business!

Business Management Marketing Mindset

EAT MY DUST!

You are unique mainly because you are a human. No other person in the past, present or future will ever duplicate your fingerprints or dental impressions.  I mean NO ONE!

But, what sets you apart as a Virtual Assistant.  Why should I partner with you instead of the seven other Virtual Assistants that I have interviewed?  Whew! I’m so glad that I don’t have to answer that question.  I will, however, have to make a decision that is best for my business, my goals and my investment.

What skills, personality traits or knowledge do you have that sets you apart from the pack of client-hungry Virtual Assistants? If you make those points stand out to your prospective clients, you will have a full practice of clients.  Your competition will have not choice but to eat your dust!

Achieving Goals Mindset Virtual Assistant

Are YOU Afraid of Success?

If your Virtual Assistance business is not yet successful, what is the reason?  Think about how long you have been in business.  What are your responses to the following:

1) I have been in business for ___ years (or months).

2) I (have/have not) reached the level of success that I envisioned when starting my business.

3) ______ is holding me back from reaching my definition of success.

When it comes to running your own business you either will or will not accomplish your goals.  No matter the outcome it is really easy to track your level of accomplishment or lack thereof.  So, whether you have reached your goal or not, determine what has prevented you and GO GET’EM!

FEAR of success might be a major factor for unsuccessful people. Here are a few reasons why many people are afraid of being successful:

1. It takes a lot of hard work. (Or, “I want success to be easy.”)

2. Some may be concerned about other people viewing their success negatively.

3. Fear of failure.

4. Fear of more responsibility.

5. They don’t feel comfortable being in the spotlight.

There is a plethora of reasons  and excuses that people have for being afraid of having a successful business.  If you are afraid of being successful, I challenge you to dig deep inside your mind and find the reasons.

Whatever you learn about yourself and your own mindset issues if perfectly fine.  Believe me, it is okay!  But, would you not rather know why you have such fear so that you can make the choice to either stay in a place of fear or actually conquer it?

The choice is yours. I wish you MUCH SUCCESS!

Achieving Goals Mindset Organization Time Management

What Activity is Most Important to YOUR Business?

The misuse of your time is probably the greatest disservice to your as a business owner. How do you manage yourself within the time that is afforded you? Just like me, you have 24 hours every single day. Time is just like money, the way you spend it proves what activities are important to you.

I am sure that you engage in different activities every day. But, are those activities your MOST important ones? Are your activities building the business of your dreams or tearing it down? I will put you to a time challenge and ask you to track the time that you spend every day. Keeping this simple log will show you exactly why your business is in its current condition. Now, I want to assist you a bit further in analyzing how you spend this precious commodity.

Subtract 9 Hours

Right off the top, I will shave off nine hours for your sleep. If you do not sleep well, it does not matter how you spend your time because you will not be able to put forth your best effort anyway. That leaves you with 15 hours.

Subtract 5 Hours

I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt and say that you are a person who loves to spend time with your family and friends. You also deserve some personal time each day so that you can reflect on your life as to what you have done and what matter you still need to care for. This time slot will also give you some time for personal care. You have 10 hours left.

Subtract 2 Hours

Likely you will need to run errands and care for other matters that pertain to your business or personal life. This is a giveaway of time that may be planned or unexpected. These two hours may or may not benefit your business but will certainly vary from day to day. Now, are you ready to get your business day started? You have 8 hours left.

Subtract 8 Hours – Time is UP!

In this very important time slot, you must decide how best to build your business. There are two very important activities that will boost your income. That is client work and marketing. There is so much that is involved with both of these activities. How are you spending your stipend of time? How many clients do you now have? How many of your hours each day are allotted to each client? After you have done the math on that, you need to wisely consider how you will shell out the remaining hours.

If you do not have a full practice of clients, it only makes sense to spend as much time as possible on marketing your business. Your marketing efforts today may not produce results until three or more months from now. Consistent marketing is imperative! You never know when your marketing efforts will yield results. The worst time to do marketing is when you are thirst for clients

I ask you, on what activities are you spending your TIME?

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