Custom Payment Pages at PayPal...

I believe US folks have had this for awhile but PayPal just unleashed custom payment pages for us Canadian users!  To set them up:

• Login to your PayPal account and click on “Profile”
• Click on “Custom Payment Page Styles”

• Click on “Add”
• On the next screen, you can add in custom colors, logos, headers, etc. to fully brand the checkout experience.

• Click on “Preview” or “Save” once you are done
• Now, you can choose to make this new custom payment page your primary checkout page by choosing “Make Primary” on the page screen

The custom payment page will extend your branding throughout the checkout process versus customers seeing the PayPal logo as the primary logo.  It will keep your customers knowing exactly where they are, who they are buying from and will do wonders with giving online purchasers peace of mind.

Payment pages now look like this:

How to Invoice in a Multi-VA Business...

Regardless of which business model you choose, your goal is going to be to be able to work less and earn more. To do so, you need to charge your clients one rate and pay your virtual assistants another, lower rate.

Now, this isn’t about finding the cheapest VAs you can or about demanding a specific rate out of your team members but you do want to make sure that at the end of the day, your marketing efforts, your sales call time, your time spent managing the projects and managing all of the other pieces of your business is paid for.

My rule of thumb is to always try and locate assistants who are at ½ of what I charge my clients. Now, my rate is a lot higher than most virtual assistants so I can do that and still afford to pay my team the rate that they specify. That’s the beauty of everyone being virtual and of everyone being business owners. We get the opportunity to ask what their rates are, honor their rates and treat the relationship like a business-to-business relationship as opposed to employer/employee relationship.

Some multi-VA owners will specify the rates they pay to the assistants or start them at a rate and move them up over time. This is also perfectly acceptable if your own rates are a little lower right now. This gives you the chance to increase your rates over time and pay your assistants more over time.

The best thing to do though is to have this conversation about rates and rate expectations in your discovery / interview call with the team member. You want to be sure that both of you are perfectly clear about what the relationship will look like and how, moving forward, you will handle things such as rates.

Like this post? We have an event happening on the subject of building a multi-VA team! Learn more here.

Handling a New Client in Your VA Business...

These clients have just been hired by you to help them in their business. It is important to have a system in place so that you can be organized and efficient in your methodology. The first thing I recommend doing is creating a checklist so that you can make sure you are getting everything you need to the client and from the client.

The second thing would be to set yourself up with a service such as Basecamp. Basecamp is my saving grace and is how I can effectively manage all of my client projects with my team. I can delegate bits and pieces to them, my client can see what is done and what isn’t and it’s a great way for me to stay really organized and provide maximum efficiency to my clients.

The third thing is to create a welcome package for your clients which explains how your business operates, who your multi-VAs are, your policies, your hours, etc. Anything that your client is going to need to know about how you work and what you do.

You want to eliminate misunderstandings early in your relationship so that you can both prosper and flourish together. You also want to make sure that you are staying in line with what makes you happy as a business owner and solopreneur. Don’t fall into the trap of doing what other people think you should do but instead, do what you want to do.

The fourth thing to do is establish an action plan early on for that new client. I don’t mean this in terms of the work you will do for them but rather how you will process them over time. Track their starting rate, when they started, when it makes sense to increase their rate in future and anything else that may be of importance for you and that client in the future.

I recommend doing rate increases for existing clients every year if your rate is not already set fairly high. Otherwise, you can look at a year and a half into your relationship or two years into it. There is no real science to this but rather finding a time when you feel comfortable increasing their rate.

The biggest thing you will be doing with a new client is educating them on what it is you do and how to work best with you. As we all have different working styles, this will be solely connected to you and your business. You want to take the time to nurture your relationship with them and build a great, long-lasting relationship.