How to get people to take you seriously
Do you want a successful Virtual Assistant business? One where you’re fully booked with clients, have complete flexibility over your schedule, work from home and can replace your corporate salary?
Erm……..yes please!
It may seem like a pretty basic question, but it’s one worth asking. Because if you DO want all those things, you of course need to find and sign clients. And to do that, you need people to take you seriously. We need clients to:
Trust that we’re legit
Trust that we know how to do the work we say we can do
Respect you, your boundaries and your business
All these are important things for jobs too, but they are especially so when it comes to running an online business. We’ll probably never meet our VA clients in person, so helping them trust us and take us seriously is key to signing them AND having a good working relationship with them.
Right, let’s take a look at how you can make that happen.
Take yourself seriously
If you want people to take you seriously, you need to take yourself seriously first! You’re starting (or already running) a Virtual Assistant business, and that’s an extraordinary thing. Yes, you want to find clients and make money, but you have oodles of skills and general amazingness that clients would be lucky to have in their lives! You’re incredible, so do yourself a favour and take yourself seriously.
So that means doing things that probably take you out of your comfort zone (like talking on Stories, showing your lovely face on your social feed, sending a follow up message to a potential client). It also means committing to being consistent, doing the work and investing time in your own development AND your business’.
Be confident
Imagine going to a new hairdresser and asking for their advice on a style that might suit you.
‘Um, I guess I could try cutting an inch off here? Or maybe less than that. Erm, or maybe it doesn’t need to be cut at all? Let me ask someone else’
We can tell when someone’s not confident, can’t we? And when that happens, we don’t feel confident hiring them. In fact, I’d have left that hairdressers pronto!
But when someone’s confident in themselves, we feel confident hiring them - and that’s exactly how we want clients to feel when looking at our social media accounts, website and on a discovery call with us!
So ask yourself, what will make you feel confident? Is it memorising your elevator pitch? Getting some lovely pictures of you taken? Dancing around the living room before a discovery call? Do whatever it takes to boost your confidence, and do it daily.
And while you’re at it, be proud of your business, even if you’re just starting out. You’ll absolutely ace it, I have no doubt. Oh, and announce what you’re doing. More than once. To everyone.
Have boundaries
If you have no boundaries, clients will assume you’re happy to work late, work for free, turn things around within an hour…..the list goes on. But if you have clear boundaries in place from the beginning, clients will know what you’re happy to do and when you’re happy to do it, and therefore take you seriously as the business owner you are. So try these things:
Set an out office response on your emails so people (including clients) know how long you take to reply (especially helpful if you’re building your VA biz on the side of your job)
Have clear guidelines laid out before you start working together around how you work (you can even attach a ‘boundaries’ style document to your contract so everything’s crystal clear)
Don’t reduce your rates because a client has asked you to. Period.
Say no when you need to. Saying no to some things means you can say yes to the things that matter!
Use your social media content strategically
I see this A LOT: Virtual Assistants posting content for other VAs, not their ideal clients.
It’s a natural thing to want to connect with other people in the same position as us, but there are Facebook groups for VAs and they’re an excellent place for asking questions, getting and giving advice etc. Use your own social media accounts to show your expertise, build new connections, show how you like to work, etc.
It’s ok to show different sides of yourself online but don’t say how hard you’re finding it, or perhaps asking for advice on your marketing. Social media is your shopfront, not an agony aunt’s noticeboard.
Summary
Unless your VA business is a hobby, you need to take it (and yourself) seriously. You’re not going to feel like a success every single minute of the day and that’s ok! But the more seriously you take yourself and your business, the faster you’ll get real, tangible results.
