Have you taken the leap and started your own Virtual Assistant business? You have, that’s great congratulations! It can be a very daunting process especially if VA work is your only source of income. I thought I’d try and share some insight into my business that has now been running for over 3 years.
For me after not being able to find flexible employment so I could spend time with my daughter, I did a bit of research and stumbled upon Virtual Assistants, I decided that I would give it a go especially with my admin background. It doesn’t happen for everyone but after 1 month I signed up my first client and a couple of months after that my second (whom to this day I still work with). I currently have over 15 regular clients and have worked with many more over the years.
I see some people not only VAs struggle trying to find clients and they get disheartened when they can’t find work. You’ve probably heard it a lot ‘find your niche’ well I didn’t really know what my niche was when I first started I only knew how to do admin work there wasn’t anything specific that I thought I was good at. Finding your niche does take time and you will probably be able to define it more once you develop new skills. For me it was social media, animated videos & affordable WordPress Websites.
I’ve been to a few networking events now and all I have to do is introduce myself and I get called the ‘social media girl’ so it’s good to be known for something in particular.
Ok so how did I start, with a website. It wasn’t the most glamorous of sites, but it served its purpose. If you don’t have a website I believe you are doing yourself an injustice. Your clients want to know you are a credible business and you have the info to back it up.
Secondly as a must I made sure that I had a Facebook account and a LinkedIn profile, I do have a Twitter and Google+ account but as a start up business they are not essential it depends on what you are going to use them for. Google+ is great if you have a website and you will be blogging as anything that you share to Google+ will help your website rankings.
Social Media is a powerful channel all on it’s own but team that up with your website and you are bound to get more traffic directed to your website where you can show people what you do. Posting to your Facebook & LinkedIn accounts will not only help you to be found online but will also help build a following and bring in potential customers.
Thirdly, place an advertisement on all the free sites. There are so many out there but here are just a few.
Gumtree
Truelocal
HotFrog
Locanto
IBizProfile Australia
YellowPages
What you need to do now is utilize the Business groups on Facebook, there are heaps. All you need to do is either type the suburb and the word business or just business and you will find a long list of them that you can join. Create a unique advertisement, create a schedule and then share regularly to the groups to build brand awareness. You can just share your Facebook page and add some wording, but you will more than likely have a better response with an image/advertisement. Don’t forget you are trying to build your brand.
And lastly network, network, network. Your potential clients want to meet you. Yes, you may be a Virtual Assistant but that doesn’t mean you are stuck behind a desk isolated from the world. Join your local chamber of commerce search through meetup to find some groups but most of all just get out there. You will meet a variety of business owners and not all will be interested in your services however by planting that seed in their mind especially if they have not heard of a virtual assistant this can help you in the future. They may not need your services today, but they might 6 months down the track.
Tammy is the owner of TLB Admin Support and Online Biz Connect. With years of experience with administration she helps business owners grow and build their business by focusing on what’s important.
With so many products out there these days it can be difficult to make a decision and you tend to search Google for reviews before purchasing. Cloudwards takes the hassle out of finding those reviews, they are independently owned and the reviews they provide are based on their experiences.
Social Media Marketing can be confusing at the best of times, with so many platforms at your disposal. However Facebook is one of the most used platforms for small business owners.
Here are 5 marketing do’s and don’ts for Facebook.
Does your job require you to track the time for tasks and projects? As a Virtual Assistant this is how I generally bill my clients based on an hourly rate or project. So how do you keep track of it all? There is a program called Toggl, Google it if you’ve not heard of it, it’s brilliant. I’ve been using Toggl for nearly 3 years now and it hasn’t let me down.
Toggl is a free program allowing you to set up projects, and clients helping you manage your time effectively and account for all your time. One of the reasons I have stuck with Toggl for so long is it’s capability to work with so many different programs.
With the free version you can;
Track time
Delete time entries
Bulk edit
Add time manually
A timeline or you time worked
Autotracker
Add tags
Use Keyboard shortcuts
Idle detection
Different time formats
It has an offline mode
Pomodoro timer
CSV imports
Summary, detailed, weekly reports
Easy to use dashboard
Archive projects
Different project colours
Unlimited projects & clients
Team dashboard
Mobile app IOS and Android
I use Asana for managing my projects and tasks, with the Toggl Google Chrome extension I can time directly from my task, no having to type it in and I can time directly from the Google Chrome Browser bar as well when needed.
Another bonus is if you use Gmail within Google Chrome you can time directly from your emails especially if you have a client that has sent you a task to do, when you open up an email you will be given the option of the toggl timer button. There are so many integrations for this great time tracking program and it will make you be accountable for all your time.
If you want to see what other programs Toggl integrates with have a look at this page, you will find more than 85+ integrations.
I hope this helps you stay accountable for all your time and it makes it easier to track.
Not everyone knows the in’s and out’s of Facebook especially for those just starting out using the platform to boost their brand awareness. One of the more simpler practices for building brand awareness and advertising your products and services on Facebook is to promote in the groups. If you are new to all this you’re probably thinking what groups are they? Well on Facebook there are various groups – Business Community groups where you can promote your products and services, it’s really an online directory like Gumtree and other sites except there are over 2 million users on Facebook.
Before promoting yourself in the groups you need to take note of the rules that state the do’s and don’ts as some groups are more relaxed than others and may have a strict 1 advertisement per week only rule. The best way to find some groups is to;
Type ‘business community’ into the Facebook search bar this will generally bring up a list of Business Groups.
Try typing in the suburb this will also list any groups with that suburb name in it.
From your news feed on the Left Hand Side click on ‘Groups’ under the Explore heading
Here it will list your favourites, groups you manage, groups you’re in
Click on the next tab over which is ‘Discover’
Along the top you have the option of a few headings as well as groups your friends may be in, local, recent interest, business, buy & sell, professional networking and many others.
Click on the join button to join. Most groups you will need to be approved by an admin first some will accept you straight away.
From time to time you may want to tag your own business in a post or another business so I’ll explain how it works. Tagging a business in a post brings that particular post to the attention of the person/business you are tagging. e.g. Someone is asking for a painter and you know of someone and want to bring this post to their attention. You can write you post like you would but include the @theirbusinessname, make sure to leave no spaces when typing it. You can either start to type their business name which will normally bring up a drop down list from you to choose from or if you know their tag you can type that. For instance this is mine below. So as you can see my username (tag) is below the profile picture on my page.
Tagging a business in a post also allows others to click on that tag to take them to that businesses page to have a look.
If you want to put your business page link in the post then you need to type the address which is usually www.facebook.com/tlbadminsupport. You can find this by checking the address bar once on your page.
I hope these facebook tips help you with creating a simple yet effective post next time.
