As you’re marketing your virtual assistant business and having conversations with potential clients, you may notice that you run into some resistance.
Your skills and expertise are clearly listed on your website and you might even have some testimonials up there as well. But somehow, you just don’t seem to be able to take the conversation further or sign someone on as a client.
One of the biggest reasons that this might be happening is that you’re not removing all of their objections. You have to tackle all of the reasons they may think of NOT to hire you in order to move forward.
In this episode Alicia is going to cover some of the most common objections with you and how to handle them.
[transcript follows]
Hey, it’s Alicia here from VA Helper Blog and Podcast. This segment is called removing the doubts so they will hire you.
As you’re marketing your virtual assistant business and having conversations with potential clients, you may notice that you run into some resistance. Your skills and expertise are clearly listed on your website and you might even have some testimonials up there as well. But somehow, you just don’t seem to be able to take the conversation further or sign someone on as a client.
One of the biggest reasons that this might be happening is that you’re not removing all of their objections. You have to tackle all of the reasons they may think of NOT to hire you in order to move forward. I’m going to cover some of the most common objections with you today.
The first is, “I don’t know what I would hire a VA to do in my business.”
Here’s what I recommend to people when trying to decide what kinds of things a VA can do for them.
I suggest that they take a two week period and document everything that they do in their business. I mean every single detail down to checking email and the time spent on Twitter and Facebook. Ask them to document it all. I recommend doing it for two weeks, because it’s likely they may miss certain things to write down at first because they’ve become second nature.
Now, ask them to take a good, hard look at that list. What things do they absolutely despise doing? What things take them far too long and get them frustrated? Also, what things are unique to them and their mission that only they can do in their business?
It’s likely that all of the things you noted from the first two answers, things they don’t like to do, aren’t necessary and take too long, are things that a virtual assistant can handle for them.
Those are the things that they can delegate to you so that they have time to focus on the tasks that only they can do to advance their business.
The second common objection to hiring a VA is cost.
This is a big one.
First, like anything else that you embark upon to advance your business, if you’re not willing to invest something then you’re not really committed to taking that next step.
You also want to remind them about all of the hours that it’s taking them to do all of those tasks we just mentioned. They should look at the rates they charge for what they do. If they do the math, is it really worth their time dealing with all of those other things?
That being said, it doesn’t always have to be a huge upfront investment. I would suggest starting small. They could hire you to do one or two of the tasks that they dislike the most. See how that goes.
Most people start this way. Once they realize that things are going well and they see how relieved they feel, they will start sending more and more things your way.
I also recommend that people start looking for help before they get to that point where things are so bad and they’re buried in work. They can hire you for some one-off tasks if that’s all they have at first. But they’re setting up their business with room to grow. If they already have a relationship with you when things are a little slower, then when they’re super busy with all of their fabulous clients, they can start outsourcing tasks to you as the need arises.
Here’s the final objection that we’ll cover today. People will say, “No one can do these things like I can. No one else will understand.”
People often have an issue letting go of control. But you will never get further and advance if you don’t take on some kind of help.
You might suggest that they document processes and procedures for everything that they do. These could be things like the steps they go through to launch a program or each thing that happens leading up to hosting a webinar.
They can set you up for success right out of the gate if they provide you with those documented processes. They’ve noted exactly how they want things done. Now they will hand that over to a professional, you, and you will take care of it for them.
Those are some of the biggest objections you may come across when attempting to sign on new clients.
Now, how do you take this new knowledge and share it with potential clients to remove their doubts?
- Add some of this wording into your marketing documents.
- Display it on your website on a FAQ page.
- Take the objections and create a free report to be added to subscribers of your website.
- Keep some notes on your desk so that when you’re having a conversation with a potential client, you have some pointers to help with these objections.
I hope that you’ve found this information helpful. If you have any questions, just leave them in the comments section or leave us a voicemail message by clicking on the big purple tab on the right-hand side of the web page.
Have a great day and go out there and rock your VA biz!
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