Originally Posted by Eternal VA

Hi Paul I am based in Leeds, West Yorks. I launched in January, and have one client although I'm desperate for more. How long have you been operating?

Tracy, hello. I'm still in the setting up phase so not got that far yet. Are you finding it tough to find new clients?

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Paul
Virtual Office Heroes

Originally Posted by totalvirtualassistant

Hi paul, again not from Essex (although I was born in Chelmsford!) now live and work out of Pontypridd S Wales ! Recently left my full time job to concentrate on building my VA business except the part time work I have taken on to pay the bills seems to be taking over!! How have things been going for you? ~James

James, still setting up. Still got quite a bit to do so probably won't be ready to launch for a couple of months. How about you? How are you finding things?

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Paul
Virtual Office Heroes

Hi Paul

I am finding it tough to get clients to be honest. I do have a day job and in a way that is getting in the way (it's sapping my energy levels), however it does pay (most of) the bills so I can't afford to leave it.

I get the school holidays off though so I will soon have the 6 weeks to try to land some clients. I need to market myself more consistently I think...

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Tracy
Eternal VA

Hi Paul, just setting up myself trying to get everything sorted and learning a lot, especially from the others here! Think I'm ready for my first client(s) so am now going to start networking locally. My aim is to work with SMEs to let them get on with making money whilst I do their admin so local companies are going to be a big part of my business plan. Will drop you an email so you have my direct contact details for the future. Hope everything goes well and who knows we might be able to work together at some point?

~James

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~ James Barnett, TotalVirtualAssistant.com

Hi Tracey - Gave up my full time job a couple of months ago now to concentrate on building my business! I was lucky that I could rely on part time work I was already doing to pay the bills as I don't think I could have given the time to build the company whilst working full time! Hope you manage to get going soon - I'm sure the kids will give you plenty of space to work during the holidays!! haha.

~James

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~ James Barnett, TotalVirtualAssistant.com

Originally Posted by totalvirtualassistant

Hi Paul, just setting up myself trying to get everything sorted and learning a lot, especially from the others here! Think I'm ready for my first client(s) so am now going to start networking locally. My aim is to work with SMEs to let them get on with making money whilst I do their admin so local companies are going to be a big part of my business plan. Will drop you an email so you have my direct contact details for the future. Hope everything goes well and who knows we might be able to work together at some point? ~James

James, I plan to sub-contract a lot of work, so if you're interested in taking some of that on, please let me have your contact details. I'm still a little way off that stage at the moment, but hope to be up and running soon.

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Paul
Virtual Office Heroes

Originally Posted by Eternal VA

Hi Paul I am finding it tough to get clients to be honest. I do have a day job and in a way that is getting in the way (it's sapping my energy levels), however it does pay (most of) the bills so I can't afford to leave it. I get the school holidays off though so I will soon have the 6 weeks to try to land some clients. I need to market myself more consistently I think...

Tracy, sorry to hear that. What kind of things have you been doing to market yourself and how frequently?

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Paul
Virtual Office Heroes

Hello all,

Marketing as a new VA can be the most difficult part of getting started. Lets throw some ideas around.

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Telephone Answering virtual assistant
alldaypa.com

Hi Paul

Sorry for delay in replying. Day job has been manic for last few weeks, but now I am officially on school holidays! YAY!!

In terms of marketing, I've got a LinkedIn profile, and I'm on twitter. I find LinkedIn to be full of spam stuff really though, so I'm not venturing in there very often to contribute although I do check the threads.
I also have a twitter account but I sometimes feel I spend more time on the net than actually doing anything constructive.
What do you do in terms of marketing?
I'm thinking that maybe sub-contracting would be a better option for me but then it seems it is also difficult to get those types of jobs too.
Anyone like to throw in ideas of what I/we can do to improve our chances of finding work?

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Tracy
Eternal VA

Originally Posted by Eternal VA

Hi Paul Sorry for delay in replying. Day job has been manic for last few weeks, but now I am officially on school holidays! YAY!! In terms of marketing, I've got a LinkedIn profile, and I'm on twitter. I find LinkedIn to be full of spam stuff really though, so I'm not venturing in there very often to contribute although I do check the threads. I also have a twitter account but I sometimes feel I spend more time on the net than actually doing anything constructive. What do you do in terms of marketing? I'm thinking that maybe sub-contracting would be a better option for me but then it seems it is also difficult to get those types of jobs too. Anyone like to throw in ideas of what I/we can do to improve our chances of finding work?

Tracy

Thanks for the response. I’m still setting things up, so haven’t got to marketing yet, but I am putting a marketing plan together.

I will be using Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and Google+ to make regular posts on subjects related to the services we will be providing. I’ve found Hootsuite to be a great tool for this. It saves loads of time. You need to be careful to plan your time with this stuff though, as it’s easy to get side-tracked and end up spending far too long on the social networks. They are a good way to market yourself, but are by no means the only way of doing it. It sounds like you’re finding this out for yourself. Set yourself targets and be strict about what you want to achieve and how long you want to spend doing it and then stick to it rigidly.

Once my website is finished I will spend time each day on SEO to get my site to the top of the search engines. Part of that involves posting articles and participating in discussion forums. I will also be marketing the business using traditional methods, such as newspaper adverts, local magazines, flyers, mailshots etc. I also plan to join the local business networks and begin marketing the business face to face with other business owners. I’m also thinking about holding some kind of seminar locally, aimed at showing local business people what they can do to cut overheads and improve productivity.

My particular niche is Business Intelligence, but we are also offering general admin and a range of other services and we plan to sub-contract that out to a team of UK based VA’s. If you’d be interested in joining that team and taking on some work from us, I’d be happy to discuss this with you in more detail. Please let me know.



Kind Regards
Paul

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Paul
Virtual Office Heroes