Sorry....may rant a little here.

I am still in the early days of my business (so far only sent out some letters to local businesses - 100 letters = 1 reply). A follow up letter going out as soon as I can afford it. I am on facebook, linkedin and twitter but again targeting is difficult.

My dilemma is, I am a single mum who has two primary school age children and a FT job while trying to build my PT VA business. How can I attract clients within my target market when I can't get out there and interact with them?

Most don't have websites and email addresses aren't readily available in their listings. My options seem to be further mailouts and/or cold calling (which I hate). I hate getting random calls from companies so am loathe to do it plus I'm not comfortable with that kind of unsolicited contact.

Any advice is or stories on how you have overcome this would be great!

Cheers

Fiona

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Samurai Office Services - Cutting your office time in half.
www.samuraiofficeservices.com. au

Fiona, your concerns are so normal with all the tugs on your time. Here are a couple of suggestions:
Make a list of what you want to do and assign time to each. Prioritize the list and begin implementation of those tactics.
Carry your business cards with you and leave them with businesses you frequent...or ask to leave several for other customers to take.
Set aside one night a week to attend a networking event to market your business to those you meet. Take their business cards and ask to put them on your mailing list.

In general, focus on what you CAN do rather than what you can't. Just chip away at the list you've made, even if it's one thing a week. The sense of confidence will really help you overcome the concern about not having enough time.

I sure do sympathize with you, especially with the little ones to care for. But the fact that you have the website and the social marketing tools demonstrates your ability to take the next steps. BTW, how did the 1 reply go for you? You must have done something right to get that response.

Others will probably have even better ideas, so I am looking forward to reading more.
Trish

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Trish Hallmark
www.thvaonline.com

Hi Fiona -

You have pretty much sumed up my life...I am trying to balance out everything so that I don't stress too much and/or strain myself and hurt my business before even starting. Word of mouth is a great marketing tool. Make sure you tell everybody you know and who will listen that you have opened your doors and give them cards and flyers. Go through your phonebook and your e-mail contacts find your business friends (other people who own businesses or work in client oriented locations such as the mall, wireless stores those places are bursting with potential clients so if you know people who work in those types of places make sure they have your marketing material in hand.) Little things like that can go a long way. Even though you will be hitting more than your target market it is easier to weed out what is not for you in a basket full as opposed to holding an empty basket.

Trish has given some good advice which I appreciate greatly. I believe slow and steady is the way to go.

Fiona,

I volunteer at my son's school and it never seems to affect my client work at all. I wrote a blog about volunteering here.

At the end of the school year, a volunteer breakfast was held along with business partners who contribute money toward student programs. Most schools have this because of so many cuts to school budgets that it has become impossible to pay for music, arts and after school program without businesses purchasing the instruments, uniforms and snacks.

Anyway, when I least expected it...I met many business owners at the breakfast and exchanged business cards. In fact, even on the evenings when I volunteered at the school book fair, I handed out cards to parents who were business owners (if they asked).

My point being...you can still network even with small children and a full-time job. Consider every event you attend with them to be an opportunity to let people know what you do. Now, I'm not saying to make that the point of conversation because people don't like the 'salesy stuff' but when it comes up in conversation (and it will!), be ready with your elevator speech and business card. In fact hand out a few.

When school starts, there is typically an open-house. Ask if you can leave your flyers at the door. Offer to volunteer; even if you can work from home to help out a church or a school. It's a great way to network with people.

I know you have a FT job but many of these events are held in the evenings and weekends to accommodate working parents. Churches or synagogues need help on the weekends and often have child care available.

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New VAs: I personally recommend Become A Virtual Assistant to Get Started!

Thanks for all your tips.

Yes I already do some volunteer work for a local special school and will be participating in their golf day with flyers etc out.

I will endeavour to be more diligent on my action lists. It is difficult to maintain direct marketing output when there is no money coming into the business.

I will have to find some local networking events that I can attend of an evening.

Cheers

Fiona

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Samurai Office Services - Cutting your office time in half.
www.samuraiofficeservices.com. au

Another thought, which is passive advertising is to consider using some type of advertisement on your car or on a tee-shirt (homemade is fine).

When I attended sports games in the past, I always 'read' people's tee-shirts if something caught my eye.

Sometimes when I go to the supermarket, there is a car that is parked in the lot that advertises pet grooming with a little picture of a poodle. Now I know that may be a bit outlandish but I have to say that I jotted down that website address. In speaking with some of my friends, everyone has seen this car.

Can your friends help you? Do they have websites? Perhaps they would consider posting a banner ad that is clickable back to your site?

Janine

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New VAs: I personally recommend Become A Virtual Assistant to Get Started!

Hello Fiona,

You seem to have a really good foundation to build your business. Beautiful logo and website; catchy tagline... I don't have much in the way of advice, but hang in there

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Melissa Rahko
www.offsitesecretary.com

Thanks Melissa and Janine

Just needed some support I suppose. Alot of stuff going on at home so I must admit I have lost some of my focus in the last couple of weeks. I had thought of the car advertising but have had to hold off as its a little expensive. But I really like the T-Shirt idea.

Cheers

Fiona

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Samurai Office Services - Cutting your office time in half.
www.samuraiofficeservices.com. au

That magnet idea is a good one. And I know that Vista offers one for free and you only have to pay for shipping.

Don't forget online networking, too. I am involved with bookkeeping groups, entrepreneur groups, etc. here, on linked-in, startup nation, etc., etc., etc.

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Lily Chambers, The Virtual Office Goddess, LLC
Author "How to Do Your Own Small Business Bookkeeping"

Online networking is definitely something I would encourage you to do. Its the ONLY way I have promoted my business and it works!

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Alyssa Avant
http://creativevapartner.com

Hi Fiona,

I see you are based in Australia. Tough we all have similar issues and questions along the way, sometimes those problems are different according to where in the world we live. I would suggest you also join the group VAIG ... Virtual Assistant International Group. It's a Yahoo group run by Kathie Thomas of A Clayton's secretary. Kathie is a veteran VA based in Australia and many of the members are Aussie. Perhaps introducing yourself there and asking questions will help you with Australian demographics.

But don't go away and keep us posted! VA Forum is the best on the net!

Good luck.

Lynne

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The Wordpro Wizard
www.wordprowizard.com

Hello Fiona...I hope things have gotten a bit better by now. Everyone here has said some great stuff. I have been trying to figure out how I will be able to get what I need done for my business while I continue to work full time, keeping up with my teen, etc.

Some ideas that I have had are:

Dedicate one day a week to just working on starting my VA business. (already mentioned)
Setting up pages on various social networking sites, aside from the usual like, MySpace, face book, and twitter.
Keeping fliers and business cards on me at all times.
I even talk to the parents of my daughter because some have their own businesses and can use me.
Some cities have calendars or event sites and I use them to post what I am working on.
Blog Talk Radio is an internet radio site where you can start your own show for free, I thought it may be beneficial to not only start a show on there but also reach out to other hosts and see if I can get onto their show to talk about my business.
There are free conference call numbers that may be helpful for you and enable you to reach out to more people.
Creating webinars for your business could be helpful as well.

I am convinced that everything I need is right at my fingertips; I just have to look at it differently.

Hopefully something I have mentioned will help. And thanks to everyone who responded, your advice has helped me as well.

I also work full time, have a preteen daughter and am in the start-up phase of my VA business. It's definitely a challenge. I joined my local Chamber of Commerce and attended my first Business After Hours networking event last week and handed out business cards and brochures. I've already received a call from a local business owner who I met there. They hold these events once a month and they seem to be well worth time invested.

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Carol Aldridge
www.ProgressiveBusinessSolutions.net

Originally Posted by MarindasBookkeepingServices

That magnet idea is a good one. And I know that Vista offers one for free and you only have to pay for shipping.

I saw free sign from vista also. I was thinking about ordering one myself. Thanks for letting us know that they can work.

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Teressa@Reese Virtual Assistant
www.reeseva.com