There are many reasons leads could not be converting for you as a virtual assistant., and unless you ask the question, you really don’t know the answer, so don’t guess. You are not other people’s priority, other things are happening in their lives other than receiving your email or having a discovery call with you – you really aren’t that important.
It could be your hourly rate but that doesn’t mean it’s too expensive it means it’s too expensive for them. In my experience and from speaking to business owners about their experiences, it’s actually rarely your hourly rate / prices.
It’s more likely you who can’t adjust to what you’re worth.
It might be that you just weren’t their sort of person, it happens. I had a client say that my tone was not good enough to speak to her solicitor clients. I now write a newsletter every 3 weeks for a London legal firm and one of my first clients was a Will writer!
It might be that your terms and conditions / contract are laborious and too much hassle for people, especially if they only want some ad hoc work done.
This is what I send new clients:
All I need is a £75 deposit in advance (which will then come off the first month’s invoice) and for you to reply to this email and say ‘your terms and conditions are great, let’s go’ and that’s it – we can go.
Obviously, I am not legally trained but I am aware an email serves you well in court. You will need to do your own research on this before proceeding.
But let me use this analogy, if you wanted a service provider to do a bit of ad hoc work for you how put off would you be if you had to read through and complete lengthy contracts – remembering a hairdresser is a service provider!
Tips for when you have calls with potential clients
Yes you might need the money but your client doesn’t want to know that. Come at the call from a place of helping them and showing them you’re the expert:
- Empathise and understand their problems
- Give examples of what you’ve done that they could resonate with
- Be confident. You are there equal, this is not a job interview
- Keep smiling, laugh, show your personality
- Stay focused on the screen not on anything around you
They’re giving you their business and they’ve got to feel confident they can hand things over to you – it has to feel easier than doing it themselves. You need to master being in control of what you do and what you know. You are the expert.
Put kids away and put pets away. Otherwise, what’s to say you won’t get distracted by these interruptions when you’ve got the clock on and doing work for them and their business?
Avoid mentioning that you work around the kids or around another job, instead rephrase it as ‘my working hours are between X and X’. End of conversation. You never need to explain yourself to anyone.
I’m not encouraging you to pretend the children don’t exist if you have them, but what people do want to know is that your focus is on your business and this isn’t just a hobby.