How to Identify Your Virtual Assistant Hotspots

Being a virtual assistant can be a very rewarding and lucrative career. However, finding clients who are interested in partnering with a virtual assistant and that are a good fit for your particular business can sometimes be a challenge. Depending on how you promote yourself, you may be sending out the wrong message as to the skills and abilities that you offer.

Instructions

Difficulty: Easy

1. Make time for details.
   Setting up a new business can be exhausting, but it's worth putting some time aside to identify your core objectives and to ensure your website accurately portrays your business.
2. Don't list each and every service that you could offer; focus instead on just six or seven hot spots. These would be the areas where not only do you have the most experience and expertise, but they are also the kind of tasks you enjoy the most.
3. Begin with your complete list. No doubt, it stretches the term "multi-tasking" to the extreme! Take a long hard look at the list and separate the services into two additional lists: one for the tasks you love, the other for the tasks you hate.
   Perhaps you love word processing, proofreading and bulk mailshots, but you hate to crunch numbers, and mathematical or accounting spreadsheets give you nightmares!. That definately describes me.
4. The next thing to do is take the love/hate lists, and from those you can decide what you're good at and what you're not so good at.
   Can you see the hotspots emerging? Any common tasks in the "love" and "good at" lists are definate candidates!
5. Now go and do a little bit of research online. Enter a search for VA services - using whatever criteria you like - and find out what kind of services other virtual assistants are offering. Join forums and ask questions of other VAs: "what's your most popular service", "what do clients least require" and so on. There are many areas where virtual assistants are in high demand and the stronger your advertised skill set, the more likely you will be to get assignments.
6. So, match the results of your research with your emerging list of hotspots and identify the areas you are going to specialise in and advertise on your website. Remember, if you have specialist skills such as shorthand and transcription, these should clearly appear in your hotspot list. Event management is another popular task often assigned to a competent virtual assistant.

Tips & Warnings

• The most important thing is to make sure you can deliver what you promise. If you make claims that you can't live up to, it will most certainly undermine your credibility and you will be viewed as unprofessional. You know how quickly good news about your business can spread through referrals from satisfied clients? Well, remember that the bad news can spread just as quickly, creating a negative reputation and loss of business. No self-respecting VA wants that, right?
• As more and more businesses are realizing the dramatic benefits of partnering with a virtual assistant, the industry is becoming more demanding. Identify your own hot spots and focus on keeping up to date with any new developments in your specialized areas in order to stay at the top of your game.
• Play It Smart. Virtual Assistance is a great career that allows you to work from home in your own time and on your own terms but just because you can go to work in your pyjamas if you so choose, it doesn’t mean you can be anything less than professional at all times.