Virtual Buzz Assistant

Just in case you are not able to make your new year goals, we have assembled a list of possible resolutions for virtual assistants to choose from.

1. Follow up with clients more
2. Document things better
3. Give 111%
4. Insist on clear objectives before beginning a task
5. Meet someone new every day
6. Speak at 3 local business events
7. Network with new people
8. Write 250 blog posts for my virtual assistant blog
9. Increase my billing rate
10. Become an expert in 3 new skills I can offer
11. Have a great attitude
12. Add 5 new products to my income stream that I can sell via the web.
13. Get testimonials and publish them online
14. Dominate search engines for my chosen keywords
15. Make two new friends that have nothing to do with my business
16. Increase my income by ____%
17. Read one business book per month
18. Do 2 important tasks every day before I start chatting on twitter.
19. Go on a trip to someplace I have not been
20. Create a process I follow that generates leads for me.

On this Virtual Assistant Blog I argue that you cannot be successful as a general virtual assistant.  We help people become much more targeted in their skill set and become Virtual Marketing Assistants – or Virtual Buzz Assistants, as we call them.

But even that is rather broad.

You can specialize in just one expertise and be very effective, and very valuable to your clients.

For example, what about becoming a Virtual Affiliate Manager?

Affiliate programs are easy to set up, but not easy to make successful.  You have to create all the affiliate tools, interact with the affiliates and keep motivating them.  You are a marketing expert, sales coach and community manager all in one.

The upside of having a dedicated virual affiliate manager is that they will be responsible for many activities that will directly impact a client’s online income.

If you want to make good money from home as a virtual assistant, think about specializing in being an affiliate manager and it will only take a few clients to keep you busy full time.  And they will not dare part with your services if you are getting results.

The problem with a trend becoming popular is that everyone starts doing it.

For example, I liked Shakira before she ever did an English song.  Years before.  With Hips Don’t Lie how can anyone not like her?  I am just a part of the masses now.

Virtual Assistants have been around for a long time.  However, with the The 4-Hour Workweek, hiring virtual assistants became in vogue.  The company specifically mentioned in that best selling book became so busy that they could not handle the rush to hire their services and lost a lot of opportunities.

Now I see a trend for Virtual Assistants, and if you are one of the pre-4 hours work week virtual assistants, you should be mad as hell.  (Although maybe not, since you cannot do anything about it.)

Everyone is a virtual assistant.

Here are just a few of the careers of people that I know that are calling themselves virtual assistants but still doing the other work as well.

• Business Consultants
• Life Coaches
• Business Coaches
• Freelance Writers
• Internet Marketers
• Graphic Designers
• Web Designers
• Accountants/Book keepers

I am sure the list is much bigger, but you get the idea.  If you are a Virtual Assistant and that is all you do, you are now competing with everyone.  You might ask yourself WHY?

The answer is simple.  Virtual Assistants are people that work remotely and help businesses or people achieve particular goals by completing specific tasks.  Many activities can be done virtually, including most of the jobs I mentioned above.

The reason that people are calling themselves virtual assistants is because it is a gateway into a client.  In Internet marketing, we know that a client that is willing to pay $10 today has a good chance of paying $100 tomorrow.  So a business consultant or coach may begin by assisting a client with a few tasks, all the while offering valuable advice.  Later, that client may chose to upgrade and become a coaching client.

For this same reason, general Virtual Assistants should specialize and up-sell their specialized skills.  For example, a virtual assistant might do general tasks at $25 an hour, but charge $50 an hour for copyrighting or website design.

Oddly enough, a VA that has specialized skills will find it easier to sell their services as well.  Sure, not everyone will need the specialized skill, but when someone does, it is much easier to get that work.  Think about it from the client perspective.

Client: Do you do Internet Marketing?

VA: Sure, we do everything.

- Yeah, I am going to hire this VA.  NOT!

Client: Do you do Internet Marketing?

VA: Absolutely.  That is my specialty.  I help people with adword management and conversion analysis.  I am also quit good at SEO (Search engine optimization).  I do not design HTML, but I have a partner that does that.

- Wow, that VA has got her act together.  And yes, I will pay her much more per hour than the generalist.

So let me propose something.  The term Virtual Assistant is dead.  It is as general as saying you are a Worker.  Imagine someone asking what you do and you replying, “I am a worker.  I work.  I do whatever I am told.”

The good news is you just have to become good at something by focusing on it for a while.  Here we do Internet Marketing and call the virtual assistants Virtual Buzz Assistants.  You could also do accounting, technology, design, sales support – there are a ton of things.  But don’t try to do them all.

This builds on the Virtual Assistant Jobs article.

How do you improve your chance of getting a virtual assistant job that you see on a virtual assistant job posting?  These tips for getting the job are valid for the virtual buzz assistant network job postings as well as virtual assistant job postings at places like odesk.com, guru.com and elance.com.

Tips for Rocking Virtual Assistant Job Postings

1. Watch for opportunities every day and contact people right away.
2. If you have a phone number, call them and discuss what their needs are.
3. Focus on the client’s need and how you will meet them in the call and email.
4. Find virtual assistant job opportunities that are great fits for your specialization.
5. Follow up quickly.  If you send a proposal, make sure you follow up to see if they got it and if they have questions.
6. Use testimonials from past clients.
7. Have professional contracts prepared.
8. Have a system for managing projects and let them know how the system works before you ever close the deal.  This builds confidence in your professionalism.
9. Have a blog to demonstrate your skills in writing and other tasks.
10. When talking about a past project, word it in such a way that you say, “When I was helping xyz grow his business, we …”
11. Talk 20% – 30% of the time.
12. Ask good questions.
13. Know how to look for someone that has unrealistic expectations and decline to work with them.
14. Have a system that you follow daily for checking for new Virtual Assistant Job Opportunities among the places that post virtual assistant job postings.
    Example: a) Log into Virtual Buzz Assistant Network and Check Job/Project Postings.  b) Search oDesk.com and bid on at least one project daily.  c)  If you are technical, look for opportunities as a more technical virtual assistant on guru.com each day.
15. Have professional profiles online like LinkedIn.
16. Have a clean and professional website.  Do not make things blink, multi-colors, etc.
17. Write and communicate with the intention to get the client and make money.  This is not a personal call/email.
18. Follow up when you do not get a project and offer to help if the person selected does not work out.  Keep in touch if you have built a relationship with the person and look for future opportunities with them.
19. Do not respond to virtual assistant job postings that are asking for people to do unethical things, like fake reviews or spam message boards.
20. Be confident about your offer, your pricing and your results.
21. Do not put the burden on the client to take the next step.  After a conversation, say…”I will send you the contract with this outlined.  All you need to do is review it, sign it and send the charge card information and we will get it scheduled….”  Or something like that.  Clients hire a virtual assistant so that they have less work, not more.
22. Send support materials.  If you are waiting on a project to close, go find some articles of other companies in the potential client’s industry that are doing similar things and send them the link along with a note saying, “Thought this might interest you….”
23. Stay engaged until you get a yes or a no.
24. Put a reasonable deadline/expiration date in your proposal.

To get better results when responding to a virtual assistant job posting, you must understand that the job posting is not for a virtual assistant to fill a vacant virtual seat that the client has.  It is because they need help executing their plan and building their business.  If you approach the client as if you are interested in helping them solve problems and execute thier plan, then you are going to get a lot more clients from the virtual assistant job postings and make a lot more money.

Join the Virtual Buzz Assistant Network to access members-only project requests

I’d love to say that most of the time Virtual Assistants are a great buy.  The fact is, it is a lot like hiring a normal employee.  You get better at it over time.  You learn what to look for and what to ask.  And you eventually realize that you have to manage them, not just tell them what to do and hope it turns out OK.

Here are the 10 top reasons a project with a virtual assistant will fail:

1. Poor definition of tasks the Virtual Assistant must do.
2. Hiring the VA for a big project without first doing a small project to test the Virtual Assistant.
3. Not setting clear outcomes that you expect from a group of tasks.
4. Hiring the cheapest Virtual Assistant.
5. Not monitoring progress and setting milestones.
6. Having unrealistic expectations of the outcome (especially with internet marketing)
7. Hiring a virtual assistant that tries to do too many different things – they will not be very proficient at any.
8. Failure to cut project quickly.  If things are not going well and you are spending more time with the virtual assistant than it would take to just do it yourself, cancel the project and move on.
9. Assumptions – Failure to carefully explain each thing will doom your project.  Assume nothing and document everything.
10. Forgetting about the VA over time and not giving them encouragement.  It is easy to forget they are out there doing tasks for you and they may not stay enthusiastic if you do not connect with them occasionally.

Really all of these items can be summed up into this.  You need to carefully hire, train and manage a virtual assistant if you expect them to preform well for you.  And if you do not succeed with the first one you try, don’t give up.  Assess what went wrong and hire a virtual assistant that is better the next time.

Internet Marketing Assistants are in hot demand.  The problem is, everyone thinks of themselves as an Internet Marketing Assistant even though they are not offering anything that is special or highly skilled.  Read this post about hiring internet marketing assistants from oDesk.

John Cow is a good group of Internet Marketing Experts and they are desparate for some quality help.  The problem is, finding quality help amoung the multitude of people claiming to be internet marketing assistants is difficult.

The fact is, once you get really good, you make more money doing the marketing for yourself.  So to find a good internet marketing assistant, you need to find someone that is experienced, but not so good that they do not need the work.

Another solution is to hire different assistants for different tasks.  For example, instead of hirning an internet marketing assistant, you may want to hire several people and each specializes in one task.

• Blog Writing
• Online Advocacy
• Online Contest Manager
• Editing
• Social Bookmarking
• Newsletter Management
• Help Desk

These are just some of the ideas.  If you hire individuals to run one area well, then it is easier to assess their skills and less likely they will become good at overall internet marketing and start doing things for themselves.

What is a Virtual Assistant and how is that differnet from a Virtual Buzz Assistant?

Virtual Assistants are people that work Virtually and assist you with tasks.

I started this network because I saw so many virtual assistant sites advertising a laundry list of things they would do.  Website Development, Search Engine Optimization, Blog Writing….

The fact is, if you are hiring a traditional virtual assistant to do these kinds of marketing tasks, you are probably not getting a good value.  There are all different levels of skills with these kinds of internet marketing skills, and a virtual assistant that is willing to book your airline ticket, do data entry and order flowers for you is unlikely to be really good in internet marketing as well.  It just requires too much experience and constant learning to do those things well among other things.

So, if you would like to hire a virtual assistant that does general tasks, that is great and there are lots of places to do that.  If you are interested in hiring a Virtual Assistant that is Internet Marketing Savvy, you need to know what you are looking for and submit your project here.

A Virtual Buzz Assistant is very different.  They often do their own internet marketing and continually sharpen their skills by selling their own products or affiliate products.  They watch videos and read information on how to be a more effective blog writer, buzz marketing expert, etc.

A Virtual Buzz Assistant also will usually turn down those tasks that are more general.  They are focused on becoming the best Internet Marketing Professional that they can be.  That is why they will charge a higher hourly rate as well – because they provide more specialized skills.

Keep in mind that there are some similarities of a Virtual Assistant, an Executive Assistant and a Virtual Buzz Assistant.  You would not hire the Executive Assistant and ask them to be the CEO.  They assist the CEO.

You should not hire a virtual assistant and put them in charge of hiring.  However, you might hire one so sort through resumes and look for particular criteria.

And you should not hire a Virtual Buzz Assistant to write your buzz marketing plan.  They help you do the tasks to make your plan successful, but you have to have at least a simple plan with goals to begin with.

Virtual Assistants, whether doing internet marketing or other tasks, can be a very effective way to grow your organization.  But remember that you are in charge of strategy and you have to develop the working relationship, not just tell them to go create internet buzz for you.

Does working at home the hours you want sound appealing?

The Virtual Assistant Lifestyle is great, but it is not for everyone.  Here is a list of virtual assistant lifestyle benefits and another list with virtual assistant lifestyle drawbacks.

Virtual Assistnat Lifestyle Benefits

• Work from home
• Flexible Hours
• Tax Benefits of having your own business
• Work for clients you want
• Earn more than many entry level jobs – see virtual assistant salaries
• Develop skills that can make you a better marketer and lead to you having passive revenue.

Virtual Assistant Lifestyle Drawbacks

• It is easier for a client to not continue a virtual assistant contract than it is for an employer to fire an employee.
• No benefits
• No guarantee of hours
• You need to do a lot of business management for yourself
• You have to be able to sell your services
• You have to spend your own time sharpening your skills.

Being a Virtual Assistant is excellent as a second income that you can grow slowly.  If you are really good, a company will often try to cut a deal with you that could lead to long term stability.  If it is your primary income, you really need to have a team that you use.  Only by developing a bigger book of clients can you hope to have some form of dependability with your virtual assistant business.

The Virtual Assistant Lifestyle is excellent, but you have to plan ahead and be realistic.

I had lunch today with a friend that runs a successful PR and Marketing Agency.  We were discussing how to use Virtual Assistants to grow her agency.

Here is the primary issue.  When you get clients, you could put them with a virtual assistant, but that is risky because you do not know their skill set or dependability.  So you end up fitting those tasks into your full time staff’s schedules, even though it would be more profitable if you knew the Virtual Assistant could do the job.

So what is the solution to effectively growing your marketing agency with virtual assistants?  Simple.

1. Hire them on a small monthly retainer to market your marketing agency.  This way you have an existing relationship in place and you know the quality of work.
2. Communicate in advance when new opportunities are upcoming.  Make sure you know if they have the time to take on additional hours.
3. Get them accustom to your culture and expectations.  Be tough in these small projects, so they do not think you will be easy to work with on client work.

If you just do those things, you can have one or even a few virtual assistants waiting to take on additional work when the need arises.  Plus you will be doing a better job of marketing your marketing agency.

This approach will keep you lean and help you scale to meet fluctuating demand.

How do you assess the value a virtual assistant network provides and how do you know if the VA network is worth paying for?

Here are some tips to help you think about whether to pay for membership in a Virtual Assistant Network.

1. First assess your own needs. What do you want out of the network?  For example, you would not want to join the Virtual Buzz Assistant Network if you are just looking for basic information on becoming a virtual executive assistant.
2. Assess value to needs - How much is a solution to your need worth?  In our case, is becoming an Internet Marketing Assistant worth $99 per month?  Depends on your goals.
3. Job Leads – A Virtual Assistant Network will probably not provide you with 100% of your work.  Instead, figure out how many new clients per year you would need to be happy with the network.  Networks are usually only going to provide leads, and your ability to offer a service and close the deal will be critical.  Some of our Virtual Assistants have reported making a profit within the first month, but some have never gotten a virtual assistant job.
4. Commitment – Is the Virtual Assistant Network trapping you into a long term commitment?  Do they require monthly payments that you cannot cancel?  We allow people to cancel any time and offer a $9 trial membership that is good for 7 days.
5. Virtual Assistant Network Cost – Money and Time – If you invest your money and time into the network will it help you grow your organization?  What are the key values they give you to grow your Virtual Assistant Business?

You might think I am all about talking you into joining a Virtual Assistant Network.  I am, if you are serious about growing your virtual assistant business.  But it is an investment and if you are just going to dabble, you should stick to the free virtual assistant message boards out there.

You  should join our Virtual Assistant Network only if you understand that long-term, you will be a better asset to your clients and worth more because of your Internet Marketing skills.  It does not happen overnight, and you have to learn by doing marketing for yourself as well.  But it is a great long-term investment in your Virtual Assistant Business.