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.

Accounting & Time Tracking Tools for Virtual ...

When you setup your virtual assistance business, navigating through the world of possible services can be time consuming, overwhelming and frustrating. There are endless options and sometimes, we can run the risk of adding way too many services to our companies. When we do this, we pay excess fees and we end up with things we may never use.

Over the next few blog posts, we’re going to explore some of the services that I feel are the most vital for virtual assistants to have in place and why.

Accounting / Time Tracking Tools

A long, long time ago, I was using a program called MyHours.com and then I switched to tracking time in Basecamp. With both of these methods, I had to export reports every two weeks (when we did billing), breakdown the report by client, add up the total hours for each client and then manually put through money requests inside of PayPal. Time consuming, isn’t it?

That was until we met Freshbooks.  Freshbooks has literally changed how I do billing and it has taken the guesswork out of where my invoicing is at, who owes me money, how many hours are billed, etc.

Freshbooks is a tool that was developed by a company located in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The tool allows small businesses (and medium-sized businesses) to setup an account, invoice their clients, track time on projects, import their projects from Basecamp, setup automatic invoice reminders, prepare estimates and so much more.

The way we handle invoicing and billing at BSETC now looks something like this. On the 15th and 30th of each month, I log into Freshbooks and choose the Invoicing function. By pulling a specific client’s hourly total from Freshbooks, I can auto-generate an invoice to them, add any other expenses (if applicable) and send it to them via e-mail or via regular mail.

I can also choose to bill the hours at a zero dollar rate if our clients had pre-paid hours or purchased a larger package. If clients make referrals to my company, I can add the referral fee as a credit to their account and apply it to their invoice. They also recently added in a budgeting tool which means you can now set a time / hours budget to each account and a pie chart will tell you when you are getting close to hitting that budget.

Freshbooks connects to PayPal and a few other merchant accounts so that you can accept payments electronically. When the invoice goes out to our clients, it automatically links to these payment options and our clients get to choose how they pay. Once payment is made, the invoice updates inside of Freshbooks and any hours that were billed get marked as “billed.”

The tool can also be used to prep quotes or estimates for clients and potential clients. You can draw up an estimate, electronically send it to the client or potential client and he / she can then accept it or modify it as needed. Once accepted, you click one button to convert that to an invoice.

Freshbooks has seriously cut down my time on invoicing and billing by at least 50% if not more. It’s also a much more professional option than sending money requests via PayPal and my clients have direct access to their time logs versus me having to summarize it for them.

If there is a tool that you would like us to explore, I’d love to hear from you. I’d also love to know which tools you are most curious about or where you feel there are gaps in your business. Leave your questions on our Formspring account!