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Tweetables:
Specializing makes it easier because you’re totally focused on that area. #vatip 
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A VA can just do the work or offer a little more by making suggestions. #vatipGotta Tweet!
Staying on top of your game includes knowing the beginning and end of what you provide. #vatip Gotta Tweet!
In Words:
Hello and welcome to today’s show. I am your host, Tiffany, and we’re going to talk about how to stay on top of your game and pretty much know the ins and outs for yourself, of the services that you provide.
Not too long ago I sent out a short email to a select group of virtual assistants, and these were VAs that had participated in a free webinar that I did. It was a look over your shoulder type webinar where we went through writing proposals for Elance. So I sent out this email and I talked about the difference between being a VA that just does the work and a VA who could offer a little more and give an opinion or make suggestions.
You will come across different clients who are looking for a certain type of virtual assistant, whether they know it or not.
Some clients will want you to just do a certain thing. For example, there will be a client that is looking for help with social media, and they may just be looking for you to post. They may not want you to offer an opinion or suggestions or any thoughts about what they’re doing. Just posting only, which is perfectly fine. Of course, you want to have a clear idea of that up front because your rate will reflect that difference.
If they’re just looking for you to post, say using Hootsuite, they just want you to post for Facebook and Twitter and just use Hootsuite. In that case, you are a poster for social media for that particular project.
Another client may come along and they want you to post as well, but in addition to posting on Facebook and Twitter for them, they want you to take the initiative and recommend posts that would fit their audience. They may also want you to keep up with trends on Facebook and Twitter.
These two different examples, one based on just do the work, you know, it’s done. You have no thought or opinion. Versus you are doing it but you are also making a contribution through suggestion and recommendations.
It’s always good to be able to do the posting plus. Plus being able to offer suggestions. Plus being able to offer a recommendation. Whether you do or don’t, it makes you well rounded in the service that you provide because you then know the ins and outs of your service.
Whether your client wants you to do more at the beginning, it doesn’t matter. But you want to know for yourself, for future, and for your own VA business.
Let’s take another example. Let’s say you handle newsletters and you send out newsletters in AWeber or MailChimp, you know, whatever email system your client is using, and so your job is setting those up and sending them out. What would be helpful for you is to know the ins and outs of AWeber and MailChimp and what they’re capable of, what all you can do with those tools.
There may be a time where your client does need a suggestion or recommendation for something beyond just their newsletter. Maybe they want to add now and have you help them with their opt-in form or setting up their free offer and autoresponders. If you are strictly focused on sending out the newsletter and nothing else, even though the tool stretches beyond that, it limits you.
Now, you may have heard me say specializing is good, and it is. You definitely want to specialize. But this speaks beyond that, in that your focus would then be on the tool itself. That you are exceptional in AWeber or MailChimp, that you know what all the ins and outs of it. Or like for social media in the previous example, your specialty is social media for clients and you know the ins and outs for that.
Another example is if you help clients launch products, and I love this particular service because it touches on pretty much every aspect of an online business. Because to launch a product, they’ve got to have a website that has that sales page. They have to have a product. The product has to be sold in some way, even if it’s free, even if it’s just in exchange for name and email.
There has to be promotion for it, whether they’re sending it out to their email list or using social media, and then there has to be the product itself and getting it set up. Whether it’s a report, a video course, whatever it is, that product launch encompasses everything, just about, that you can do in an online business.
If you help clients launch a product, but you aren’t clear on the beginning to the end and you are waiting to be told what to do, it makes it more work for your clients.
Many clients coming to you are looking for you to tell them or to do it for them. They’re creating the course but they need you to put all the parts together and let them know what parts they need.
I can recall getting an email from a prospective client looking for a VA and she wanted someone who could just take the reigns and go, and that didn’t mean write the course for her, but it meant letting her know what she needed. She needed to write the content for her course, to write the content for promotions, the content for her sales pages, and so on.
Staying on top of your game as a VA includes knowing the beginning and end of what you provide, knowing the ins and outs, knowing the changes and updates that take place.
By specializing, this makes it a little bit easier for you because then you’re totally focused on that specific area. As you get more knowledgeable in that area, you may find that you want to expand further out. Like if you are doing social media, you may find you want to expand and move into maybe ads or helping with groups, different things like that.
Or in the example of newsletters, you want to expand and now help with opt-in offers and setting up your opt-in offer and the follow-up messages. So you’re more than just somebody who can do the work.
You want to be able to use your mind and give suggestions and recommendations when asked. All clients won’t want it, but be ready in case they do.
This will help you also increase your confidence in what you do and make it so that you become the expert in that service, and your clients will see you that way. When they are speaking with their friends and peers and giving referrals, they’ll talk in that manner because of their experience with you and what you’ve demonstrated that you know.
Today is just all about knowing the ins and outs of what you do. If up until this point you’ve just been doing what they ask you to do, take it a step further. Take the initiative to learn more about what your thing is, based on whatever service you provide.
In all instances this may not fit, but I think in most cases it does. I can’t really think off the top of my head where it does not fit.
Now, if you’re not interested in the service that you’re providing, you’re just like, look, I just want to do it, I don’t want to learn any more about it, it’s probably time to change the service that you provide if it’s not something that you want to tinker with further, long after the project is over.
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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