Episode 8: How to Market Your Virtual Assistant Business (This Actually Works)

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How to Market Your Virtual Assistant Business (That Actually Works)

Are you trying to figure out how to actually market your virtual assistant business without feeling spammy, desperate, or invisible?

If you have ever applied to a job and seen 40 or 50 other comments…
If you have ever posted “I’m interested!” and heard crickets…
If you have ever wondered why other VAs land clients quickly while you feel stuck…

This episode breaks down what truly works.

Abbey Ashley shares the exact strategy she used to sell out her services in 30 days and build a six figure agency in 90 days. She also explains what she looks for when hiring and why most applicants eliminate themselves without even realizing it.

Inside this episode, you will learn:

• Why commenting “me” or dropping your website is hurting your chances
• The biggest mistake new virtual assistants make when applying for jobs
• How to stand out even if you have less experience than other applicants
• The importance of doing real research before pitching
• How to personalize your proposal in a way that creates instant connection
• The Value First method that instantly separates you from 90 percent of applicants
• Why culture fit often matters more than your resume

If you are serious about landing clients, especially your first one, this episode will show you how to move from blending in to standing out.

📌 Free "Become a Booked Out VA" on-demand video training (pure gold ✨)

📌 Record video applications with Loom (affiliate link)

Transcript

 Hey, hey, you are tuned into Work From Anywhere with the Virtual Savvy, where you learn how to launch and grow your virtual assistant business because you deserve work that fits your life, not the other way around. All right, friend. Let's get started.

Have you been wondering how to market your virtual assistant business? Maybe you've seen other virtual assistants find clients super quickly and you were wondering, what am I doing wrong? Well, in this episode I'm gonna be sharing with you my top secret hack for finding clients. This is the exact same secret that I use to sell out my services within 30 days and how I built a six figure agency within 90 days.

 I'm gonna be sharing with you my free training all about marketing. So if you want access to that, make sure you stay until the end.

Hey there. My name is Abbey Ashley, and here on this podcast , we talk all things virtual assistants, how to launch, how to grow, and scale your own at home. Be a business. So if that's something you're interested in learning more about, make sure that you subscribe to be notified when I release new content. When I first started my virtual assistant business back in 2015, I remember one of the top places that I heard about finding clients was Facebook groups. And I heard how other VAs were finding so much success with finding clients in Facebook groups, and I thought, well, how does that actually work though?

So I joined a few entrepreneurial Facebook groups. I started seeing, oh, there really are job opportunities a lot of times posted in these big entrepreneur groups. As I'm looking through these Facebook groups, I stumbled upon this one job and I thought, oh, this is it. Yes, this is perfect. This is the job that I want to go after.

But then. I looked at the comments and there were over 80 comments. Turns out I wasn't the only person who wanted this dream job. My heart sank. I thought, how in the world am I gonna stand out as a brand new VA amongst all these other people? And maybe you've thought that too. Well, here's what I did. I used these three simple secrets to not only land this job, but to land job after job.

After job after it, I'm gonna share those same secrets that not only help me sell out my services, but build a six figure agency inside of this video. I also want to note that I've been on the hiring side of this process as well, and I've seen the difference that really making yourself stand out amongst the competition can do for your proposal.

I remember once when I posted a job for a Pinterest manager and I had 40, 50 emails come into my inbox literally in one day, and I thought, oh, how am I gonna sort through these? But it was actually quite a bit easier than I thought because so many of the individuals didn't do the secrets that I'm going to share with you today.

In fact, out of 50 people, there were only three that actually did the things that I'm sharing with you today. It might be difficult when you see 40 or 50 comments on a Facebook post or a job opportunity posted on a platform, and you think, man, there's so many other people who have replied to this, but I promise you, if you use the secrets I'm gonna share with you today, you will.

Stand out. I also wanna note this before I jump into those three secrets. I know you're probably on the edge of your seat. I want to emphasize what you should not do whenever you see a job posting like this. What I don't want you to do, especially inside of Facebook groups, ugh, and I see this all the time, is I don't want you just to go into the comments and say, me, I'm interested.

I would love this job. No, no, no, no, no, no. This is not what you want to do. If you're just saying me and not linking to any kind of value first, not actually showing them how to connect with you via a website, not giving this potential client any action steps or any reason to choose you among anyone else, you're actually making it harder for them.

They would literally, if they wanted to hire you, they would have to figure out who you are. They would've to click on your Facebook picture, try to figure out if you have a website, how to get in touch with you. See if you're even talented enough to do the. Position, you're putting the ball back in their court.

And what you really wanna do when you're applying for one of these positions, or putting in a proposal, is again, make yourself stand out. You wanna be different. You wanna rise above the rest, and you wanna make it easy for this person to say yes to hiring you. Now, this might seem controversial, but I also don't think it's a good idea, just.

To simply post your website. Now, maybe you worked really hard on your website and your website really does show off your skills and your services, but again, what you're doing there is putting the ball back in their court and making them go the extra step to really research you and decide if you're a good fit, especially if you're a new VA and you're really.

Struggling to get clients, you wanna do something that puts the work right in front of their face so they cannot deny the fact that, yes, this person is for me. The secrets that I'm gonna share with you here are ways that you can wow your clients. And if you're just starting out in your virtual assistant business, this is a thing that can actually put you above your competition, even if they have years more experience.

You want this potential client to look back and go, wow. Who is this person? I have to find out more about them. They've actually already like pre-fall in love with you before they get on the discovery call or before they go to your website. This is how you're going to nail that sale. All right, so I know that you're probably going crazy like Abbey, just tell me the secret.

So let's go ahead and jump into them starting with secret number one. All right. Step number one is to do your research. I cannot stress this enough. If you see a job opportunity, whether it's posted on a website or in a Facebook group or you hear about it. Somewhere online or from a friend, please do your research so you know who you're talking to.

Whoever is hiring, I want you to go to their website. I want you to go to their About Me page and learn who this individual is. They're not just a business, it's a person that's gonna be hiring you and you wanna know about that person and why they're passionate about the work that they do. You wanna go to their social media.

You wanna follow them on social media, especially if they're active on Instagram. Stories you can really see the real person behind the brand and getting to know that knowing who this person is and their personality is really gonna help you tailor your pitch. I would also suggest subscribing to their newsletter if they have some kind of an opt-in or a freebie.

Again, you can see how they write. You can see what their backend systems look like, what their graphics look like, potentially on an ebook. You're just gonna get to know more about the business by following them across their social platforms. Subscribing to their newsletter, checking out their website. Do your research before you ever start pitching.

Yes, this step may take you 20 or 30 minutes to complete, but if this is your very first client, it's worth the extra work. I would rather you do this really intense work for one or two potential clients a day than randomly reach out to 10 with no real response because. Didn't take the time to research them.

Now that my business has grown and expanded and we have multiple team members and we're hiring all the time, people reach out to me all the time wanting to be hired, and I can't tell you how many people start the email with. Hello Ashley. My name is Abbey. My name's Abbey Ashley, which I know can be confusing, but still, you obviously did not put in your research.

If you're coming into my inbox and calling me Ashley. Sorry, soapbox. Now you might hear this advice and think, well, Abbey, I want to be one of the first people to post though, right? If somebody posts a job opportunity, I don't wanna be number 40 on the list of commenting. I wanna be one of the first five or 10 people to really get in there and put my application or put my portfolio in there at the very beginning.

I wanna stress to you, you don't need to be the first in the game. You need to be the best in the gate, right? Most small business owners aren't gonna be hiring within the first two hours of their post being live, right? They're actually gonna take the time to sort through the different comments, through the portfolios and the websites.

They're gonna take the time because this hire, it's important to them. So it's okay to breathe. Do your research and take the time to do this. Well, secret number two is to personalize your proposal. You just did all this research, you might as well put that research to work. I highly recommend adding something personal inside of your email pitch or inside of your video.

Pitch your proposal to this individual. People. Connect with people much more than people connect with businesses. Think about this. Have you ever gone to an event or a party and you strike up a conversation with a stranger? You're talking back and forth and you say, hi, this is my name. This is my name.

Here's what I do. Here's what I do. The conversation is just happening casually. When they happen to mention that they went to school in Florida and your eyes light up and you go, oh wait, I went to school in Florida. Where did you go? Oh, I lived in Fort Myers. I lived in Fort Myers. Right. There's an anticipation.

People literally lean forward when there's a connection point. There's something psychological that happens that connects you with the other person and draws you in when you have some kind of a personal connecting point. So maybe you see on their Instagram that they love dogs and you love dogs. Also mention that in your email, maybe you saw that they have two kids, a girl and a boy, and you have two kids, a girl and a boy sympathize about how different your two children are.

Right? And say, is that the same for you? You wanna have some kind of a connection point, if at all possible. With this individual because again, that's gonna draw them in and attach them to you even before we get to work. All right, and secret number three. Now this is the big one. If you don't listen to any other secret that I shared in today's episode , listen to this one.

It's our signature method we teach here at the Virtual Savvy called Value First. You have to remember, this person who is hiring is likely hiring for their business, which they consider their baby, right? I mean, I literally consider my business sometimes my third child because I've worked so hard on it, something that I love and that I'm really, really proud of, right?

The individual who's hiring wants to know that you're gonna do excellent work for them. And if you're the kind of person that goes above and beyond, even in a proposal, you're likely gonna be the kind of person that goes above and beyond in your day-to-day work. So the idea of value first. Is simple. You wanna do something that goes above what they asked you to do.

I saw this exemplified when I was hiring a Pinterest manager for myself. Yes, I was just asking for people's portfolio and many people sent me their portfolios, although some didn't even send a portfolio, even though I asked for one. So people would send a portfolio. But out of the 40 or 50 people that applied to my job, only three people did.

Anything that went above and beyond one individual actually created. Five social media images for me, Pinterest images that they had created that were personalized to my brand. Now, I didn't ask for those images, right? But this is something that they did that went above and beyond and out of 50 applicants.

This was one of the people that I said, I have to get on a call with this person. You don't have to be the person in the gate. You just have to be the best in the gate. So what could you do to make yourself. Stand out. That's what we call value First. It could be proactively creating social media images.

It could be that you shoot a Loom video, LOOM loom.com. We're obsessed over here at the Virtual Savvy with Loom. Maybe you shoot a Loom onscreen video going through their site and talking about, here's what I love about your site, and here's what I would tweak. Maybe you're gonna be answering customer service emails, and so you write three example questions that you're assuming that they get asked in their business and how you would respond to those answers.

Now this individual may or may not ever actually use what you provided for them. It's just the simple act that you took, the time and effort to go above and beyond and show them that you're the type of person that goes the extra mile. That's what's gonna make you stand out. That is value first. One of the biggest fears that new virtual assistants have is that I'm not skilled enough.

I don't have as much. Experiences as other bas. I've been on the hiring side many, many times, and I will tell you this, the person that goes above and beyond who shows value first, I tend to hire over the person with a bigger resume or a longer skillset. For me, it's so much more about culture than skill and many other individual.

Least people that you probably wanna work with really value that culture, fit over the skill fit as well. So if they see man, we connect on a personal basis. This is the kind of person that goes above and beyond, even though they don't have quite all of these skills that I'm asking for. I just love this person.

That's what you're going for here and that's how you can win proposals. Even if you were the least experienced person applying for the job. Now you might be thinking, now, Abbey, this sounds an awful lot like you are asking me to work for free. Don't you tell us not to work for free. That's correct. I actually cringe when people tell me that they're working for somebody for $0.

It just, oh, I hate it. You should be paid for the work that you do. But I'm not talking about signing an agreement or having an ongoing relationship with someone that you're just giving them free work over and over. I'm talking about a one-time event, a one-time project that they didn't even ask. For that, you're going above and beyond so that you can land this paying client that's gonna pay you over and over and over and over, right?

I'll say this as well. You don't always have to do value first, especially once your business grows to a point where you're getting referrals. Most virtual assistants who have been in business for five or 10 years, if you ask them what the number one source of marketing is for them. They'll just say referrals.

You do great work for your clients and they're gonna refer you to other people, and your business can start to grow in that organic method. However, when you're first starting out, you don't have a long list of referrals, and what you do have is time. And if you're gonna be using one or two hours a week, or one or two hours a day to market again, I would much rather you do high value value first posts for one or two individuals a day, or one or two individuals a week, then trying to shoot out a hundred.

Hey. Me, I'm available. Here's my website. Just isn't gonna be as effective. Alright. I've shared with you my three secrets.

And, I did say that I was going to disclose the link to my secret marketing training. This is a free training where I dive into all the ways that I marketed my business. What I've shared with you is just one of the ways, I have many more secrets inside of this free training. So you can go to the link in the show notes to check it out.

Alright Savvies, that's all I have for you today. Let's market, Savvies! I'll see you in the next episode!