Sue Canfield, Virtual Office Administrator and Owner of
Awesome Assistant, hails from Roseville, CA. An administrator for over 25 years, she specializes in helping small business owners. Since 2005, she has had her own operation, working with over 30 clients to help them grow their businesses, specifically by using online marketing strategies such as email newsletters, blogs, articles, and social networking. Her mission is to partner with her clients to work together to create and implement strategies to promote their businesses. Sue and her husband are presently writing a book about how to succeed in the virtual assistant business.
Hi Sue! Your very first post on the Virtual Assistant Forums says you started up as a VA in 2005. Give us the whirlwind tour of your progress: what made you decide to go into the business, and what has your experience been like in the past 4 years?
Since I was very young I wanted to be the "world's best secretary" and have always loved helping a variety of business persons with a variety of tasks. After 25 years as an administrative assistant in the 'real' world, I was asked by my husband's colleague if I wanted to be her assistant from my own home office. At the time neither of us had even heard of a virtual assistant. I took this opportunity to start working from home for friends and business colleagues and then decided to make it formal in 2005. I love it!
What would you say is the biggest change you and/or your business have experienced since the beginning?
The biggest change we've faced is the tremendous growth in the last year. We've had to continually make adjustments and put processes into place to handle the growth. Managing team members has been fun and challenging though, and quadrupling the business is the goal this year.
What do you know now that would have been helpful to know when you first started out?
Many virtual assistants need to know how to run a business. I was fortunate because I already had experience helping my husband with his business. However, more detailed information on how to handle tax issues would have been helpful. I strongly encourage anyone starting a business to get some professional guidance on tax issues.
What types of clients do you currently work with the most? Are any of them local to you, or do they mostly come to you through online contacts?
Most of my clients are solopreneurs and operate as service providers. They include authors, speakers, writers, coaches, professional organizers and other solo professionals. Though I have some clients that contacted me online, most are from local networking groups I attend or word of mouth referrals.
Are there some tasks you like better than others? Please describe.
I love working with a client's website updates, online social networking updates, blogs and ezines. Bookkeeping tasks are low on my list of favorite things to do even though I do basic bookkeeping for clients.
What marketing tactics have worked especially well for you? In what ways do you market on a regular basis? How much of your time is dedicated to marketing?
The very best marketing tactic is: Go out and network in person! I attend at least two networking meetings each month and follow up on each referral immediately. Another marketing strategy I implement is online. I'm active on several social networking sites and spend time each week networking on these sites. I'd estimate I spend about five hours per week marketing online.
How much are you actually working with your 'ideal client?' What advice would you give about identifying and marketing to a specific target market?
My ideal client is a solo professional, working mom, who provides a service. That describes about half of my clients. The other half of my clients are solo service providers, whether a working mom or not.
One of the most important things a virtual assistant should do is target to a specific market so that prospects know that you are the person they are looking for.
I believe you work closely with your spouse. Perhaps others on the Forums do the same, and would appreciate any tips you may have about keeping an even keel in such situations.
My husband, Joel, and I worked together long before we were married. That's probably one reason why we work so well together. I can't imagine working with anyone else, nor can he. In fact, we have a very hard time understanding why it's so difficult for some people to work with their spouse. He's my best friend.
You write many articles, put out a monthly newsletter, and keep a blog. Please discuss your involvement with each of these, and how they help your business.
I subscribe to several weekly newsletters about the industry, marketing, and small business. These give me ideas for articles and blog posts. I personally write all my articles, and newsletter and blog posts. My daughter and team member, Rachelle S. Ashman, is being trained to take over posting the articles, blog entries and sending out the newsletters. However, I'll always write the content.
One client hired me because she read my blog posts and articles and liked the way I write. The articles have added 'credibility' to my business. My newsletter helps clients and others stay in touch with what's happening in my business and I always try to include tips that can be used in any business.
Favorite resources: what equipment in your office, or software on your computer, or books on your nightstand would you recommend right now for fellow VAs?
I'm a big reader and fan of everything Seth Godin has ever written. My husband and I model our businesses after many of his ideas. I recommend that every VA read all his books in order to best understand how to run a business in today's market.
The Northern California Association of Entrepreneurs is your own organization, founded in 2007. Please tell us about this group: why you founded it and how it operates.
When my husband and I started working full-time for ourselves, we met with a business colleague at her kitchen table to discuss business challenges since we didn't have colleagues in an office that we could exchange ideas with. After a couple of months we went public and have held monthly public meetings since then. It's an organization for local small business persons to network and exchange ideas and get feedback on business challenges. At this time there are no dues and it's one more place local business people can share ideas.
VAs serve such a huge variety of needs, and we are so new to the world of commerce, that many don't know well how to work with us. What words of wisdom can you share regarding customer relations?
Under promise. Over deliver. Talk at length with a prospect and new clients to get to know them. This also gives them an opportunity to get to know you and get comfortable with you. I ask this question: What are the things you do that drain you of energy? Once a prospect starts talking about all the things they have to do that they dread, I start strategizing with them on how I can help them with those tasks. Communication is vital every step of the way.
Do you have grand plans for the future? What is your ultimate dream manifestation of Awesome Assistant?
We do plan on quadrupling the business this year and have already doubled it the first quarter of this year.This will always be a family-owned business. But we already have several team members that assist as necessary. Ultimately, I'll be a project manager, signing on new clients, while my team does the majority of the hands-on work.
Sue, your About page says straight out that you plan to move to Ireland. Where'd that come from, and is it really true?
It's been my husband's dream for years and I fully support it. We had an opportunity to spend five weeks in Ireland in 2005 and loved it. It's our intention to grow our businesses to the point where we can move to Ireland and maintain our client base wherever they are in the world. We're in the process right now of talking with online contacts throughout the world about how we're going to do this within the next two years.
Please give us your take on the explosion in online social media – both for its own sake, and for marketing. Do you use online social networking for business, and if so, how does it benefit you?
It's no longer the wave of the future. It's the here and now. As technology and business continues to evolve and grow, we need to evolve and grow with it. Online social networking is great when used effectively. As with anything else, it can be abused and can be overwhelming. I've found it to be one of the top ways I market. However, I always try to use it to provide education to prospects, not to directly sell to them.
We'd like to know about your favorite off-hours involvements. You're not a total workaholic, are you?
When you love your work, it's not work anymore - it's fun! However, I do other things too. I have a five-year old daughter that I spend time with. I love to do puzzles, read books, crochet and take long drives with my husband listening to our favorite CDs.
May we hear a little testimony about the Forums? What has your membership here meant to you over the past many months?
I spent several hours on the Forums the first day I came across it. It was wonderful to find a place where you could ask questions and get valuable answers about running a VA business. I've made some great contacts here and refer people to the Forums constantly. I've actually met in person another VA local to my area who has done some work for me and we originally met on the forum. I'm in the process of mentoring an aspiring VA that I encouraged to visit the Forums. It's great to find a group of people within the industry willing to share their knowledge instead of trying to keep it to themselves or charge exorbitant prices to gain that knowledge. Thank you to VirtualAssistantForums!
Interview with Sue Canfield of Awesome Assistant
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