If this sounds familiar to you, it’s because you’re making the same mistake many Virtual Assistants make. You’re only prospecting when you’re hungry for business. And when the business comes, you get stuck into it… and stop prospecting.
The only way to end the feast-or-famine cycle is to always be prospecting… constantly. You have to keep a steady stream of new work coming into your project calendar.
But that’s easier said than done. It requires consistency and an iron discipline. And it’s far too easy to let things slip… which can be fatal to your VA business.
Here’s the problem…
Your first concern – as a VA business owner – is always cash flow. Quite simply… if the job isn’t finished, you don’t get paid. And if you don’t get paid, you can’t eat. But this forces you to think in the short term. And if there’s ever a choice between working on a project and getting it finished, or prospecting for new work… you’ll pick getting the job done every time. This is why feast-or-famine is such a common problem in the world of Virtual Assistance.
Here’s what you need to do:
You need to be ALWAYS reaching out and generating new prospects. This could be through social media – which is what I specialize in – or it could be through some other channel.
You need to qualify these prospects quickly… and get them on a consulting call. I usually produce pre-consultation questionnaires for my clients… which we use to qualify their prospects before they spend any time talking to them. (You can’t afford to waste your time speaking with prospects who are obviously a bad fit. So don’t bother.)
You need to agree on a deal, collect your fee … and book the work into your project calendar.
If you work the system consistently and keep it running like clockwork… your sales pipeline will be packed full of well-paid work.
And do you know what the best part is? You can systemize almost ALL of it. All you need to do is show up for the free consultation calls. Work will just appear in your project calendar… and cash will just flow into your bank account.
Trust me, it’ll feel weird at first. But you’ll have the freedom of mind to focus on what you do best: using your unique gift to help your clients.What Virtual Assistant wouldn’t want that?
If you feel that you are ready to step up to the next level in your Virtual Assistant business, stop trying to figure it all out on your own.
I invite you to take advantage of a FREE special “VA Business Breakthrough” coaching session where we’ll work together to…
=> Create a crystal clear vision for your “ultimate VA business success” and the “perfect lifestyle” you’d like your business to provide.
=> Uncover hidden challenges that may be sabotaging the growth of your VA business and keeping you working too many hours for too little pay.
Just click the link below, let me know a couple of things about your VA business, and then we’ll have a strategy session.
It’s a sales funnel. It’s just a matter of filling it up with leads and then having those leads turn into drops of water coming out of the business end of the funnel. I usually use the first hour of my day to schedule cold call emails. That’s usually over breakfast and coffee. I then put all of those leads into Zoho (free) and follow up in 2 weeks. Then it’s ‘work’ time followed by warm follows ups usually from 2:30-5ish.Everyone is a bit different though. But you need to keep that funnel full so that the leads keep dripping onto your sales plate
Thank you for your comments, Mike. Follow up is the key … vital for EVERY business. I make it my practice to follow up three times on every proposal I send out, as that often is the magic number for the recipient to take action.
As I was reading this post, I thought, “Hmm, I’m going to comment and ask about seeing a sample of a questionnaire,” and then I got to the end of the post and checked out the Needs Assessment you use for your own business–very helpful!
I like Mike’s idea above about taking an hour each morning to do some canvassing for leads. I used to do a lot of cold calls via email and have slacked off lately, but the truth is that the more I put out there, the more business comes in. I think I might start a little file on my computer called Successful Leads to remind myself of the business that *has* come from the work I’ve done in sending out emails, doing more social media, etc.
Jill, thank you for your comments. I’m glad you were able to see how a Needs Assessment form (or any type of questionnaire) is helpful in qualifying prospects. It’s a small investment of time for a prospect to check off a few boxes and it’s a valuable tool, in preparation for the consultation, to have an understanding of their’pain points’ and how you can help to allievate them. Wufoo.com is my favorite tool to create these types of forms. I use several of them in my business. I use them for “Getting Started Steps”, Payment Authorization, etc. Each can be either embedded on your website (as I have) or you can send as a custom URL.
To your point on tracking (successful) leads, I use an Excel Spreadsheet called “Prospects” with columns to include name, email address, date of consult, type of business, phone #, city/state, referral source/where we met, and results. Then when they become a client, I simply cut and paste this info into another sheet called “Clients”. This way I can keep track of all the people I have consulted with and those who took action to work with me.
To take it all a step further, I created a ‘step-by-step’ checklist which has check boxes and fill-in-the-blanks (name, date of initial contact, date of consult, date confirmed by email, date proposal sent, follow Up #1, follow Up #2, and follow Up #3). I then staple this checklist to a prospects Needs Assessment along with the notes I took during our discussion. If I don’t have any response by my final follow up, I simply file it away alphabetically by last name. If they decide to contact me again in the future, I have all our history in my filing cabinet. This same step-by-step checklist also includes a section for me to fill out if they do decide to work with me. This section lists all the items to include in my welcome kit and the steps I have to take to set them up as a client.
It’s so valuable to have a system in place for managing prospects. And for those who DO become clients it makes it a ‘breeze’ for expediting the getting started process, both for my client and for my tracking.
That is the best advice I have heard all day! I just left my “real” job to pursue my own endeavors and it’s just like you said, feast or famine. Some weeks are so busy that I am struggling to keep up and others are so slow, that I finally get to relax a little, but it’s very stressful not making as much profit.
I can definitely relate to this post. During the times when my sales are low, I do my best to advertise and implement some promotional strategies. Then the sales will grow, giving me sleepless nights but nice income. After I finish delivering orders, I find my list blank again. It’s quite funny but it’s hard for me to promote while I’m busy with the current orders. I know that there are ways in which I can promote even if I’m busy and I would love to know what those ways are.
This article has some good solutions for quickly finding and maintaining a consistent base of clients. I’ve had this issue in the past with some freelance writing gigs I’ve worked on. One week I would feel overpowered and bombarded with work, but the next it would seem that I’ve worked my way through everything and now have nothing to work on. In some ways, this isn’t terrible when work slows down, so long as it picks up again. That said, I like the final point you make addressing outsourcing. And this is something I’ve been considering doing myself. When I have so much work to do and do it all myself, it can be overwhelming, and indeed, it is hard to keep up with trying to get more work when I have so much already. At this point in my freelance career, it would make sense to bring some other people into the circle, because this would (hopefully) allow me to get more clients and feasibly make more money and pay out others in the process. Interesting to think about, and maybe one day soon apply to my own business life!
Hi Jamie
Yes, you’re so right, consistency is key as I learned the hard way! LOL
For me, because I group my activities by the type of energy they use (massively increases productivity), I don’t do this type of work every day but each week for a longer period. I find that works better for me.
Have you heard of Insightly CRM? I use the free version to manage my contacts and communication. One thing that is really great is that it allows you to create different pipelines and stages so that you can see where along your ‘buying process’ a potential client is, run reports to help with forecasting etc.
You can also bcc the emails you send to automatically add/create a contact too. It works even better if you use Google Apps for Business as it integrates in Gmail.
Hi Una,
I’ve not used Insightly CRM. As I been seeking this a good CRM program, I appreciate your sharing this resource. I’ll be looking into using it for sure and I’ll share with others as well.
Wishing you all the best!
Jaimie