I'm definately always on marketing myself. In the past year, I've seen highs and lows, and I need to know that on the lows, I can be proactive and contact everyone that I has shown interest and market to them. If you look at some of the big companys like Coke, who have been around for years, they are still marketing themselves. So why should we any different. You can always sub the work out to some of your peers.

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Bette Creek
http://bettecreek.blogspot.com/
www.ashbusinessservices.com

Thanks you guys, as always this forum is very supportive!

I do want to clarify my question and that is I tried another business and in order to make any money I'm constantly looking for the next customer to sell to. I'd feel alot more comfortable knowing I'll have a pretty consistent base with an open door to new clients.

Thanks again everyone!

The consistency of your client base all depends on your initial marketing efforts as well as your ability to maintain longevity in existing client realtionships. The only guarantee of that is you as an individual, as a service provider - and the quality of your work as a virtual assistant - wow the clients and they'll stick around as well as refer you to everyone they know (you can imagine the other side of the same coin).

One thing you can do to try to maintain that comfortable base of work hours each week, once you're established with a few clients is continue to find ways to offer them new services - virtually guaranteeing their need of you. By staying on top of what your client's business is doing, what their industry as a whole is doing, staying aware of new developments on the net (new products, services, trends, etc.) and learning new skills and technology youll remain indispensable to your clients. When you see a gap or potential problem area in your client's business that needs to be filled or addressed - step in with a few good options or solutions, explain how you can help implement them, share the details, etc. When a client sees you're on the lookout for ways to make *their* business better, they've no interest in going elsewhere. Simply investing yourself in each client's best interest and working from that angle will do so much to ensure that base you're looking for - but again, it's totally dependent on *you*.

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Thank You Tess - I couldn't agree more! And my business model will be built around those principals.

You never know what great advice you'll find on here. Marketing is one of the areas I truly want to work on every day. Thanks for some great insight!

Becky

Hello

I know of a business coach that charges Over $1500 for his boot camp and that's per person. Have that person pay you what you're worth. He is his making his money for sure.

Phyllis L

I agree 100% with the others. You should never undervalue your work. In my opinion, we should always be marketing. You just never know when or if your current client would stop needing your service.

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Brenda A. Jones
www.brevos.com

Very good responses here. It is always good to keep prospective clients in your sales "pipeline". Sometimes new client or established clients have needs that change which could resort in you having some open time slots available.

I work with a business coach and we have a referral arrangement in place whereby he gets a percentage of the first month's invoice for his referral to me. You could always suggest that type of arrangement and see where that takes you!

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Doreen R. Patrick, MVA, ACS, CIVA
www.virtualbusinesspartners.net

Another perspective on this is the direction in which you want to take your business. I think in any case, it's important to continuously market, but you also don't have to limit your client base on what you can handle by yourself. If you want your business to grow, consider letting it expand and hiring staff to accomodate that growth. In this case you could be marketing, marketing, marketing and growing, growing, growing.

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Sarah Bernstein
Jackson Administrative Outsourcing
www.jacksonao.com

"Know your worth", "never undervalue your work", double check. Thanks for the great advice here. Keep it up.