Now that you are a business owner, you also get to become a professional marketing expert. Marketing yourself is very important, because this is how you will acquire new clients for your virtual assistance business. There are many ways to market a business, but there are specific marketing techniques that generally work better for a virtual assistance business than say, a big corporate conglomerate. Networking is very important! Face-to-face and online networking is a great opportunity to spread the word about your virtual assistance business and meet potential clients. The idea of "networking" scares some people, but it's not really that bad once you have a good idea of how to approach potential clients with a uniquely crafted "elevator speech." (We discuss this in our start-up kit!)

How should I market my virtual assistance business?

Sure, we know that we *need* to market our virtual assistance business, but *how* do we do this? There are many ways that you can market your virtual assistant services. Since most virtual assistants work from home, finding face-to-face marketing opportunities is very important. When you are doing home based work, you are not going to run into someone in the cafeteria that you can just casually start discussing business with (unless, of course, you are a work at home mom, but then the people you meet in "the cafeteria" are more interested in a crust-less peanut butter sandwich than anything else!) The first important thing about face-to-face marketing is that you have to find places to meet people! A good place to start is your local Chamber of Commerce. Call them up and find out if they have open networking events. You may want to join your local Chamber, or it might not be right for you (we talk about the pros and cons in our start-up kit.) There are many other networking organizations that you can join in addition to the Chamber that are a good way for your to market your virtual assistant services. We also discuss these additional organzations in more detail in our guide. Don't forget about the new rage that is social networking. You can use Linkedin, MySpace, Twitter, and Facebook to market your business as well.

How much should I charge for my virtual assistant services?

Many new virtual assistants want to know how much they should charge. This is an extremely important thing to figure out. After all, most of us work because we need to make money! While we can't tell you *exactly* how much to charge, we can give you some pointers and things to think about. When you are calculating your rate, you need to take into consideration many things - what the market will bear, how much your competition charges, and how much you need to make to stay in business and make a profit. The bottom line is this: determining your rates is best done be careful consideration of multiple circumstances. Using the pricing worksheet included in the bonus templates in our start-up kit will help you take all of the above points into consideration and is a great way to get started on determining what your hourly rate should be.

Can I start a virtual assistant business part-time?

The short answer is - you can do whatever you want when you are the boss! Your business is totally what you make of it. As your own boss, you make the rules and you set your office hours! If you are a stay at home mom and your kids have soccer on Tuesdays, then flex-Tuesdays it is! If you have a part-time job on Tuesdays and Thursdays, then you can make your regular office hours on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and work at night on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Whatever works for you, works! The important thing is that you have enough time to network and let people know about your business. Like we mentioned above, when you work at home, clients just don't walk by your storefront or happen across your business. You can actually use this fact to your advantage, especially if you want to run your business part-time. When you run a home business, you can set it up however you like. If you are starting out part-time, you can check out the market and set up shop in your living room before investing in a complete office set-up in order to make sure it works for you. Since you are providing virtual support services, nobody needs to know you aren't sitting at a mahogany desk in an expensive swivel chair. There are many things involved with running a successful virutal assitance business. You can find out everything you need to know to get started and be successful in our guide: Steps to Success - The Ultimate Guide To Becoming A Virtual Assistant.

Do you have a question? Ask us!