At What Point Should You Grow Your Team?...

Question: What do you do when you’re asked to do something but you don’t know how to do one part of it? If I don’t know how to do something and what I’ve done in the past is I’ve turned down the job and I’d rather not do that if I can do 80 percent of it. What’s the best way of filling in the gaps when you need them fast? How do you find other great virtual assistants?

Answer: That’s a great question! What I’ve done in my business in the past , if there were things that I didn’t know how to do and I was asked to do them right away, I would say “yes” to everything and then I would figure it out once I said yes. That wasn’t always the most stress-free way to do things!

What I would do now is:

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Are Your Virtual Assistant Rates Crazy?...

In my previous post, I was discussing pricing strategies and pricing your services to attract the customers you want to have in your business.  As a follow-up to that, I also want to talk about the flip side of that and discuss pricing your services too high.

As a virtual assistant coach, I spend a lot of time talking to new virtual assistants as well as virtual assistants who have been in the industry for a long time.  One thing that naturally comes up a lot is the subject of pricing.  For new virtual assistants, it’s a struggle to determine where is a good place to start and for industry veterans, it’s an issue around pricing their services too high.

My rule of thumb is this.  Do your research and ask some questions.  Take a look at other virtual assistant websites and see what they are charging for their services.  If a VA that has a similar skill set to you is charging $25/hour (let’s say that’s primarily administratively based) and you’re charging $75/hour, you may want to rethink your rate.  Here’s why…

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Branding Yourself as the Most Expensive… Good or...

I’m not a Wal-mart, I’m a Holt Renfrew.

That’s the one statement that started off this blog post.  I was thinking the other day about pricing and branding and how we turn ourselves into exactly what we decide we want to.  What I mean by that is that your pricing strategies, your branding strategies, etc. define you in a simple yet powerful statement.

My statement is the first line…  I’m not a Wal-Mart, I’m a Holt Renfrew.  Now, let me explain what I mean by that.  The first part about not being a Wal-Mart means that I am not setup in such a way to cater to everyone’s needs.  I’m also not here to serve the masses.  Instead, I run my business selectively.  I price my services so that only serious entrepreneurs will move forward with our company.  For me, serious entrepreneurs means that we’re going to get focused on the core issues around delegation and why they need a VA more quickly.

Setting yourself up to serve the masses may be appealing because that might lead you to think that you are going to get more customers.  While this might be true, can you truly serve that many people in a service-based business (trading time for money) and do it effectively?  That answer may be no.  If it is, consider setting yourself up to serve fewer people in a more niched format.  You could do this via pricing, you could do this in terms of what services you are going to provide or you could target one particular industry or a subset of people.

Now, let’s examine the second part.  I’m a Holt Renfrew.  For those of you who are not Canadian, Holt Renfrew is the equivalent in most cases as Barney’s or Saks Fifth Avenue.  It’s the department store for the elite and the wealthy.  They have limited product, high price tags and pride themselves on over-the-top customer service and overall customer experience.  When I was thinking about the differences, this is where I wanted to fit into.

So, I’m making it my goal to make my company the equivalent to a Holt Renfrew and I’m going to work really hard at upholding these standards in my business.  Catering to fewer people means that I’ll have less stress and be able to do a super stellar job for those people who become our clients.

What’s your business motto?  Do you have one and if not, create one!  Think about what you want in your business and what you want in terms of a lifestyle.  Decide what is most important and write it down!