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Test out a new service on yourself first to make sure it works. #vatip 
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Watch to see what people are doing online and where you can offer a service. #vatipGotta Tweet!
Test a small group to get some feedback and see if people are interested in the service. #vatip Gotta Tweet!
In Words:
Hi, you’re listening to episode number 56 and I’m just excited to share with you what I have started testing out. I’m just going to jump right in and go right into today’s topic.
Really, this is a case study, a behind the scenes of how I’m testing out a new service with my clients. What I did was send out an email, asked who was interested, and got some testers. I’m going to take you from start to now, because it’s not finished, but start to now and how to introduce a new service.
A new service would be one that you want to get paid for and it may be something that you have done for yourself but not been paid to do it for somebody else, or even something you’ve never tried before but you want to try it, and you’ve never been paid for it but eventually you want to get paid for it.
Here’s what I did. You’ve seen – I call them the shorts on Facebook. They are the mini videos. They might be 6 seconds, 15 seconds, or 30 seconds. Well, 30 seconds wouldn’t necessarily be a short video. But let’s just say 16 seconds or less short videos on Facebook, and they have text on it. Sometimes, you know, things are moving, and it’s just pretty interesting, a quick way to grab someone’s attention. It’s not like videoing yourself doing a recipe or something like that. But instead of having a – I’m having to pause for a second to enter in my password for FaceTime and iMessage so this screen will go away, so let me pause.
Okay, so you see these short videos and they could be used to give an inspirational message, to launch a product, to market a business, to just share behind the scenes. I mean, pretty much anything that people can use a graphic for they can do these mini short videos and use them in its place. For a while I’ve been looking at them and wondering how is it done. I’ve seen people ask how is it done.
Finally this week I figured out how I could do it and provide it as a service for clients. I did a test video for myself, and you may have seen it on my Facebook page. I don’t know. I’ll link up the first one that I did in the show notes so you’ll have that to peek at. But I did a test run to make sure that what I thought would work would actually work. It did work, so I was like, oh, this is cool.
Well, I could have easily just grabbed my own content and got to work and done some mock videos to create a portfolio. But I wanted to make it a little more interesting than that and a little more challenging than that and have different people give me their information and come up with something. This required me to be creative and just to see what I could put together.
I sent out an email to my list and I told them that I was introducing a new service and I was looking for five testers and I gave them instructions on what they needed to do. It was the first five who replied with their content. I did it that way because a lot of times, even with paid projects, it takes a while to get the content. So I’ve made it important that that information be provided first before any project starts.
Say, if it has five different parts that I need, I don’t take part three and five and start with those and wait for the other three. I used to do that, but then I spent more time hunting and trying to find all these different emails and it’s so much easier when it’s all given at one time.
Now, I don’t know on their end, they may be collecting a piece one day, another piece another day. It doesn’t matter how they’re doing it on their end as long as when I get it, it’s all packaged in an email. It can be all different attachments but one email so it’s for easy reference.
For my test, that was the thing, the first five to respond with their content based on the criteria I had given them, and I was going to give them a free 15 to 20 second video. I got everyone’s information. I got my five probably in less than 30 minutes of sending the email and I was excited. Oh, great. I set a personal for deadline for myself as to when I wanted to have all of them done and send them out to everyone at the same time so that I’m getting feedback at the same time.
I had so much fun doing this because it challenged me to be creative in different areas.
All five are in different niches. Like if I created my own, then it’d be just the same five from the same niche. But these were five different niches, so it was perfect, five different business personalities, and so that made it fun and exciting in creating the shorts for them.
I sent it to them and I did it for free. Yes, it involved time. Yes, it involved a little money, but so what. I needed it because I wanted to have my test group to get some feedback and also to see if this is something that people would be interested in having as a service. I knew I had seen the videos on Instagram and Facebook, but I didn’t know if this was something that people would be willing to pay for or want it for themselves.
What I learned is that there is a time factor involved. If someone were to do this for themselves, it takes a lot of times to do one video that’s even ten seconds. In this test group, not only did I get to pull out my creative side and ended up having eight test videos that I can use as part of my portfolio on my services page, but it also gave me an idea about how long it would take if I’ve got a client’s project. With doing something for myself, I already know me and I have an idea so it wouldn’t take as long because I already have a sense of what I want, you now, all these things. But someone else, I have to create it from zero to the end.
It did take up a lot of time. If a client wanted to do this themselves, they could but it’s going to take a chunk of time out of what they’re already doing in their business if they’re going to do this for themselves, and that’s just for one really short video. I thought they were going to be a certain amount of time. They ended up being less. Learned that you need a little more content to make it longer, obviously.
Anyway, got the feedback as soon as I sent them their videos, and I decided a system for sending it to them so that I didn’t have to worry about email, the files being too large in email, so I put everything in Dropbox and sent them their link so they could download it in Dropbox. You can even watch the preview from Dropbox. Dropbox is wonderful.
That was on there, so they got their videos. I got their responses. It’s so funny, I was at the hairdryer and I take my laptop with me everywhere I go except to family functions. So I was at the hairdresser and it worked perfect because everybody and their grandmother was there for Mother’s Day to get their hair done.
Anyway, I’ve got my laptop and I’m getting the responses back and I’m so excited. There was one common tweak that I would say half requested. Since it was half of them I was like, well, let me just update the other one that I know would need this change as well, so it was a common thing. But overall, everybody loved their videos. They’re excited about it. One wanted to know how to do it. Is this a service I’m offering?
The exchange is it’s their video. They can post it on social media, wherever they want. It doesn’t have any watermarks from me. It doesn’t have any of my information on it. It’s their video, their information, and I was grateful that they were testers, and of course certainly thank them. Let them know they can use it wherever, and if they know anybody who would be interested in this type of service to send them my way.
They were also made known at the very beginning, the first email, that their shorts would be used as part of my services page, as part of the portfolio. Now, I’ll probably mark it all up with my watermark at that point just so that no one can come and download it from my page or whatever. I don’t know.
But anyway, I was so excited about this test project and getting the feedback and I was really open to whether the Feedback was positive or negative. I just really wanted some non-biased feedback.
This is something that you can do as well. If there is something that you want to provide for your clients, you’ve never done it before, it may be something new that’s come on the scene, you want to provide it for them, or you see a need, this a way to jump in and have a small test group to see how long it takes you, to see what’s required, to see if they’re interested, and to get their feedback.
It was an invaluable experience because now I know. It’s like having them in my little laboratory. Now I know. So guess what? I know how much I would charge for a bundle of the videos. I know how much I would charge for one video. I know that it is definitely something that people are interested in, and I know the time it takes and how valuable it would be to someone to relieve them of this and just send it back to them.
Now, my service is just creating the short videos for their visual marketing. I’m not scheduling or posting it or anything. I’m giving it to them and they can use it on Facebook, on Instagram, wherever they put their videos. They could even put it on YouTube. I mean it doesn’t matter. Sky’s the limit as to where they could use their videos, which is, oh, amazing and valuable in and of itself. Of course, they all have their branding and everything.
I couldn’t wait to share with you this exciting thing. This tip is actually something I gave – I think it was two years ago, we did the Virtual Assistant Summer E-Boot Camp, and this was one of the tips on introducing new services and even getting new clients. This was an example of one of those things, and it’s been a while since I’ve introduced something new. I’ve been providing the same services. It’s probably been almost two years since I introduced something new.
I’m always watching to see what people are doing, how they’re using their social media, their websites and different things, and seeing where I can fit and my company, Virtual Hired Hand, can offer a service. So you want to be doing the same thing too.
Look at what’s going on in your area of service and see what else can be added, or look in your email inbox. What are people asking you for? It needs to be something you’re excited about, that you like, that you would be willing to do for free, that you would do for yourself, and you’re going to enjoy the project.
When you’re doing your test group like I did, you may not know right away if you’re going to really enjoy it, especially when you’ve got so many. It’s one thing when you have the one that you do for yourself as a test to know what all is involved, and then it’s another when you have your test group and you have to get it done, you have to meet the deadline that you set for yourself. Since it was free, nobody set a deadline or anything. You set those rules because you’re giving something of value to them.
But it was awesome. It was awesome. I’m looking forward to seeing where they put their videos. Hopefully, I’ll see them on their Facebook pages soon.
But anyway, I just wanted to share that with you on the podcast. It’s something I’ve never talked about outside of the Summer E-Boot Camp, and so I wanted to share that with you. That particular course is archived. It’s not available now, and I actually need to peel through it and see if it’s something that we want to open up, and of course if we open it up out of the archive I’ll just offer it at a reduced rate compared to what it was when it was live. But anyway, wanted to share that with you.
This is the advantage in having your own virtual assistant business where you can pick and choose what services you want to provide, and pick and choose the clients that you want to provide it to. You set the rules. You set the tone. You establish it for your business.
Thanks so much for tuning in. If you like what you heard, stay tuned. We’ll be back. Tell me what’s going on with you. Come on over the Facebook page: facebook.com/tiffanyparsonbiz, or if you prefer a little shorter message, come on over to Twitter: @tiffanydparson.
See you next time!
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