website | VA Directory

Do I need a website as a VA?

Simple answer is ‘yes’ – if you’re going to operate a business virtually, it is important you have a web presence. I mean, most other businesses have websites don’t they? So why not you too? Clients will want to check you out and also, once the search engines have got it listed, people should be able to find you when seeking out your particular type of service. I was asked this question and below is the answer I gave that new VA.

However, if funds are tight you can choose to do some other things:

Make sure your LinkedIn profile is always up to date – have a look at others (even mine) to see what they do. Keep it as complete as possible. Chances up if people Google your name this will come up on the first page. Try and get some testimonials from people you’ve done work with – this will mean you’ll need to be connected to them first. Try and build your connections to at least 501 people so that it shows 500+ when people view it.
Create a Facebook page and name it your business name. Post on it from time to time (say at least 2-3 times a month) letting people know about projects you’re working on.
Create an About.me page – but if you have either of the two above then this isn’t necessary.

Whatever you choose, make sure you include the URL for it in your email signature block, on your profiles at Facebook, Twitter and wherever else you might have a social media presence. Help people to find out about you – make it easy on them. Also on your printed business cards.

Make sure you also join our Facebook group or the yahoogroup, if you haven’t already, to keep in touch with your peers and the industry. It’s a great way to learn as well as share.

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Kathie Thomas

Kathie is the owner of VA Directory and is former past President of the Australian VA Association. She founded the Virtual Assistant industry in Australia in the mid 90s, having already been operating a home-based secretarial service. Today the VA industry covers a multitude of office-based services for clients worldwide.

Do they know how to contact you?

I’m seeing an increasing trend of people creating brand new websites for their businesses but neglecting to put the most important information on their sites!

Namely, how to contact you.

Personally I don’t like doing business with people who only have a contact form and no other form of contact on their site. Makes me wonder what they’re trying to hide. I know, from personal experience, that many prospective clients like to pick up the phone and talk to me. Why wouldn’t clients want to do the same with you?

The various rules of marketing I’ve read over the years have also indicated you should provide several forms of contact methods for your business. Here is a list of things that you can choose from and you should have at least 3 of these on your site.

Phone number, with country and state codes. Remember that your business is global when it’s on the Internet so treat it accordingly.
A form that leads to your email account – especially if you don’t want to have your email address listed. Or there are codes you can use to help protect your email address from getting picked up by harvesters.
A postal address, but if you only have your home address, then your city, state and country. Don’t leave people guessing where you might be. Some clients like to know they’re working with a ‘local’ even if it is virtually.
Fax number if you have it.
Social media account links – let them find you in other places too!

Make this information easy to find. For example, you might want to have it all on the contact page BUT having a phone number in the very top of your site will increase the number of calls you receive – this has to be a good thing! Also having your social media links visible on the home page works well too.

Additional items that I feel are very important:

Your name – let people know who you are and who they are addressing. Not just your business name.
Currency – if you’re going to list rates, then include your currency. Clients like to know what currency they’ll be paying in.
About information. Don’t hide behind a business name. Use your own name and list your experience – let clients know why they should be using you based on what you have done in the past. Anyone can say they’re a premium service or provide fantastic support. Back it up with your knowledge, experience and background.

If you want people to do business with you then make it easy on them to learn about you and how to contact you.

Kathie M Thomas

Let them know your number!

Does anyone else find it annoying that business people just sign off their emails with their name and no contact details whatsoever? Just sometimes, I’d like to pick up the phone and I have to do a search through previous emails or a Google search to find it. My next pet hate are websites that have no phone numbers on them.

Perhaps they don’t know how to set up an email signature block, but if that’s the case, why not ask someone to help them? An admin assistant or a VA can definitely help.

Let me give you some examples:

I’ve been receiving emails for some months from someone I’ve been gradually getting to know. Whenever we’ve chatted on the phone it’s always because he’s rung me. The rest of the time we email back and forth. Yesterday I was at a business event and met a man that would be an ideal referral for this person. So I began typing up an email with them both included and also to share their phone numbers. One, I had a business card for and that was easy, but the other who’s been emailing me for months, has no phone number listed in any of his emails – and I have a lot of them. He uses a hotmail address so no website address either to look up. I resorted to Googling his name+number and finally found it after about the third site I visited.
Chatting with some business people on a Facebook group. One was asking for information and if anyone knew someone who did…? I do, so I messaged them to let them know and then proceeded to write the details down to give to the person I’m seeing tomorrow. But this person asking doesn’t have a phone number on their profile that is viewable. I tracked down 3 different sites they’re listed on but none have a phone number at all however I was able to track down an email address.

I’ve had many more experiences of these types of things over the years. I wonder why people in business make it so hard for others to contact them? If you have a website, a contact form is not sufficient. You should have a phone number, mailing details (many business cards I’ve received haven’t had mailing details and that’s another pet peeve) and any other contact information that would make it easy for people to do business with you. Business cards and websites alike should have more than one form of contact information to make it easy for prospective customers to make contact. Not everyone likes to converse in the same way and we need to make it easy on all – otherwise they may well give up and go off to your competitor’s site.

So, when emailing people make sure you have a signature block that includes your business name (if you have one), your phone number, suburb or postal address and your website. And on your website you should have similar information.

Make it easy on everyone who would like to contact you and let them know your number.

Kathie M Thomas

When flattery will get you nowhere (and cost you money)

When you have a presence online there will come a time when the thieves come out of the woods and make themselves known. More like wolves in sheep’s clothing. They will butter you up and tell you how fantastic you are and convince you that you should part with your hard-earned money to invest in their project. In this case a ‘who’s who directory of people’ from some unknown but impressive sounding company.

When you get approached by someone to list in a Who’s Who Directory it would be well worth your while to research that directory first. And there are things you should be thinking about, like ‘why you?’ What have you done that is exceptional and to get yourself into the public eye? Have you been the first to do something? Or have you got a big following in whatever you do? Are you ‘famous’ in your industry or your part of the world for achieving something? What is your exposure like online and in print?

If the reality is that you only occupy a very small section of your industry, you don’t write articles, haven’t made it in the newspapers or magazines, been seen publicly at events as a speaker or presenter, haven’t written a book, or anything else that is going to truly put you in the public eye, then chances are it’s a ‘con job’ and they just want to rip you off.

I can tell you I am listed in a Who’s Who and I’m not saying that to brag, but rather to tell you from personal experience I did not have to part with hard-earned money to get a listing in that book. It was because of things I’ve done and achieved that I had earned the privilege to be invited for entry. The invitation came by letter on really nice letterhead from a genuine company some years ago but I do have to admit I thought at first it was some kind of joke and not real. I had to do the research to make sure it was genuine. And I have paid for a copy of the book and have it on my bookshelf. I get invited to update my listing every year, by printed letter and I fill out the form and send it back by the due date. The approach was not via email or website promotion and I was not asked to pay to be in the book at any time.

So, next time you get an approach that butters you up first before asking you for money, think carefully about it and do the research. Have you earned the right to be listed in something like that? It might be genuine, but then again, it might not.

Kathie M Thomas

Creating a Virtual Assistant business

If you’re a regular reader of my blog you would have seen last week the post about a VA who had infringed upon two of my trademarks (my business name and my catch phrase) on her website. Her response had been she didn’t know and had engaged someone else to do her site for her.

Unfortunately ignorance is not bliss in this situation, as in many situations. The reality is she owns her website and is responsible for what is put on the site and even the business name she elects to use. In her ‘innocence’ she had breached the Trade Practices Act here in Australia.

If you are a new Virtual Assistant just setting up your VA practice there are many things to do to get started, and sometimes handing something over such as the creation of your website and even a decision on a business name (which is what happened in this case) can feel like a relief – until it all goes awry.

As the owner of your business you are responsible for every aspect of the business and all decisions should be made by you. It might seem time consuming and overwhelming at times and there’s nothing to say you have to have a website and a business name straight away – those things can come over time, but when they do, you must have complete control over the process. There are simple ways of ensuring an online profile until such time you decide upon a business name and have a website created. Here are some:

Create a profile at LinkedIn.com and use that as your professional bio. It is created under your name, not a business name and you can personalise the profile address just as I have: http://au.linkedin.com/in/kathiethomas

Create a profile at Facebook and use that for your business connections. You can personalise the address after you have a number of connections or simply purchase a domain and point it to your profile page as I have with www.kathiemthomas which leads to my Facebook page.

Register with VA networks that provide a profile page for you. Again, this can be under your name, it does not have to be under a business name. Depending on the network you may have some control over how the page looks or you simply might just have your services listed. See http://vadirectory.net/vadirectory/victoria/selby/ for an example.

In all cases you can use these page addresses as your webpage until such time you’re ready to get a website set up. If you’re planning to provide website maintenance as a service then it’s important you do your own site so you understand what’s involved. Be prepared for a big learning curve. But if you don’t plan to do that, you can engage someone else to do it for you. And it might be a good idea to engage an experienced VA to do the site for you as they have good knowledge of the industry, especially if you have no real idea yourself. An experienced VA can help guide you as to what is appropriate to put on your site and will definitely steer you away from copying content or other items from existing sites. This is something that should be obvious but if you haven’t had much input to the site and you’ve just handed it to someone else to do, the chances are you could run into trouble.

If in doubt, ask questions at the VA forums and make sure you do your research.

Kathie M Thomas

Do they know how to contact you?

Let them know your number!

When flattery will get you nowhere (and cost you money)

Creating a Virtual Assistant business

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