The Biggest Challenge With Being A Virtual Assistant And What You Can Do To Fix It

Everything in life has pros and cons; taking your career into your own hands as a virtual assistant included.

In all my years of experience, the biggest challenge I believe you will face as a virtual assistant is finding clients. 

Why? You might ask.

The answer is simple. Although you might be a talented executive assistant, office manager, bookkeeper, or administrator, you may have never needed to combine this with running a company and generating business as a salesperson.

Sales. It brings up frightening thoughts for people as it opens the door wide for rejection.

Cold calling angry people who hang up on you, sending emails and never hearing back, or sounding like a used-car salesperson.

No thanks!

So, what can you do?

Take it from me; as someone who has tried and failed, then picked myself up and tried again and again until I succeeded, you can trust that these tips I have put together work.

Save yourself some of the struggles, kick-start your virtual assistant career, and don’t learn from your own sales mistakes, learn from my proven success!

EDUCATE

To get comfortable with sales, the first thing to do is to learn, learn, and learn, and quickly.

There are countless sales technique videos on YouTube. Set aside a few hours and watch a few until you find some ideas that resonate with you, that you feel confident trying.

Take notes and create a killer sales technique that feels natural to you. (You may also want to check out my blog post on my killer sales meeting process)

There are videos on everything from overcoming client objections, ways to close a sale or upsell, how to sell yourself with confidence, to guides to writing winning emails or phone sales scripts.

Almost anything you might struggle with in the sales/client generation space, you'll be able to find great free resources to help.

NETWORK

Challenge yourself to build relationships in a variety of ways and don't shy away from introducing yourself to new people.

Practice your elevator pitch (a short, compelling introduction to you and your business and services) on friends and family and get them to ask you questions so you can rehearse succinct confident responses. That way, when people ask about your business during a networking event, you will feel comfortable sharing information and will come across calm and knowledgeable.

PLAN + RESEARCH

You need to get clear on exactly who your target market is.

As a virtual assistant, what are your strengths, and who are you going to seek out as a client? Small business owners? Tradies? Solopreneurs?

Do your research and start to build a list of people/businesses/contacts you could target to offer your specific services.

DRAW ON YOUR SOCIAL CIRCLE FOR SUPPORT

A great place to start selling is in your social circles. (Not necessarily selling to them but through them) 

How many Facebook friends do you have? How many friends and extended family members can you rustle up?

Get your name out there and tell everyone you know what you are doing now.

One thing to be careful of with this tip is not to bombard them. Send a personalised email message out to everyone when you launch, and post stuff on your business social media pages, sure, but don’t continually push things onto your friends and family.

Also, remember not to take it too personally if your nearest and dearest are not as enthusiastic about your new venture as you are.

The real goal of reaching out to friends and family is for them to be aware of your new career, in the hope they will refer your virtual assistant services on to people who could start to form your client base.

At the end of the day, no magical fairy can send clients your way.

It is one of those things that you have to get out there and do! So dig deep, get out of your comfort zone, and find the confidence you need to grow your business by building relationships and trust with people.

If you feel like you could use some extra guidance on growing your virtual assistant business and finding those first crucial clients, check out the finding clients for introverts masterclass we've designed to help you get started.

~ Jo