Packages: How They Educate Your Marketplace...

I go back and forth on packaged services for a virtual assistance business. Sometimes I think they are helpful and valuable and other times, I feel that they are difficult to navigate as they have no real end date and clients often lose track of where they’re at.

There is one specific application of the packaged service that I do like however: the education aspect.

Putting together packages of your services basically means grouping together like services and setting one price for all of those services. For example, you might have a social media package that offers Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn setup as well as on-going maintenance.

The package is great because it can lock in recurring revenue for your company but more importantly, it educates prospective clients.

When clients land on your website, they are going through a process of educating themselves about what it is you do, how you can help them specifically and how they can engage your services easily. A list of possible services can sometimes be overwhelming to your prospective client.

By putting together packages that speak to your target market, you will help educate them on how they can engage you and work with you immediately. You remove the guesswork out of the delegation process.

Packages also let you be more prepared on the backend. You can create forms and systems and put them in place so that when a client purchases a package, he/she is put through your system. You could even build in some additional education along the way so the client feels even more helped.

So, if you haven’t already, consider putting together some packages that suit your target market and add those to your website alongside your list of general services. See if that helps prospective clients get more clear on how they can hire you.

How to Increase Your Rates in Your Virtual Assista...

Increasing your rates is sometimes a very scary idea for virtual assistants. By increasing our rates, we risk scaring away potential clients and upsetting our existing clients. However, if we do not raise our rates, we may be underpaid and we may devalue the service that we offer.

What I want to encourage you to do today is to take a good, hard look at your rates. What do you feel about them? Are they priced fairly or do you feel that you are under earning your potential?

If you have any doubt at all about your current rates, I want to encourage you to increase them starting immediately.

There are two phases to a rate increase. The first phase is for new and potential clients. This phase is easy as it merely means updating the pricing on your website (if it exists there) and letting potential clients know, in your calls with them, about your new rates.

In the past, I would increase my rates incrementally by $5/hour with every new client. I did this until my rate was at an acceptable level for what I needed to earn.

The second phase is for your existing clients. In my business, for existing clients, I increased their rates twice per year until they hit the same acceptable level. You can do the same by issuing a notice a few weeks or a month before the rate increase. Let the client know that you are bringing their rate up to stay competitive in the marketplace and if they have any issues, to discuss them with you now.

If there are specific clients you really, really can’t afford to lose and they provide you with a lot of your income / revenue, you may want to keep them where they are and just apply the rate increase to new clients.

Either way, increasing your rates means you will earn what you are worth and be much happier providing the services you do.

Social Proof: Use it to Gain New Clients...

Make some noise about your business!

How often do you let your potential clients and website visitors know what other people in the universe are saying about you? Often times, we forget to add this vital information to our websites and it can actually prevent us from converting prospects into sales.

Social proof means having feedback and testimonials from people who have raved about you via social methods – generally, social media. For example, if a client posts a very positive Tweet about you, he or she has just given you social proof.

Written testimonials posted on a website are not as powerful because there is not always a real person attached to the other end. These testimonials can appear fake and thus decrease their effectiveness. Social proof, especially unsolicited, is much more powerful.

To encourage your clients to sing your praises socially, invite them to share a few words on Twitter in exchange for a link to their website on your testimonials page. You can screenshot the testimonial from Twitter or direct people to the Tweet itself which will create a more powerful testimonial.

You can also mark Tweets as starred on Twitter which adds them to your Favorites section. You can then compile a list of positive feedback which people can go and check out at anytime. Again, this is more powerful because each testimonial or raving note is attached to a person that they can connect with.

So, if you haven’t already, begin marking positive Tweets as favorites and invite your clients to share their experience with your company on Twitter or Facebook in exchange for publicity. Remember, you have to make it a win-win or some people won’t act.