First thing then I would like to mention here is that you should never wait for anything, especially for clients. That most virtual assistants are doing. They think that they are fishermen, who just going out in the middle of a lake of potential clients, bait the hook and hoping someone will bite.
The main problem with this is if you don't understand who is your target market and where they are hanging out. You might spend an entire day wasting your time and energy only to come home empty-handed.
So, how can you find your clients successfully?
#1 Go where they really are.
You can only go where you know exactly who those clients are and where they are. That's why figuring out your target market is so important. Once you know all these things, you have direction. You know where you need to be.
Where you need to go to find clients?
Run a simple Google search for certified training, workshops and networking events in your town, city or somewhere nearby. Also, you can search for relevant Facebook and LinkedIn groups, leave comments and start a conversation. Then make a list of prospects and reach out to them either via messenger or email.
#2 Keep the conversation alive.
Find successful authors and entrepreneurs and them to a list of prospects so you can add them follow them on LinkedIn, Facebook or Instagram and keep the conversation alive. These tactics are for VA industry for any specific niche but the networking tactics above could be replaced by any industry.
#3 Tell everyone you know what you're doing.
Tell everyone to put you in touch with anyone that may need your services and get them your business cards. Also, go out and talk to people and see how you can help them to grow their businesses. Do detailed research about every potential client that you talked, write up a proposal that talks about the problem and your solution and send to them.
The smart way to do this would be to form a relationship with a business owner that has the clientele in your target market. But, if you live in a small town, It's time to use the benefits of the internet.
#4 Start writing about ways to solve potential clients struggles.
If you have a business website, open a blog page and start writing. If you have a blog, check out the date of your last published post. Write about your unique system of keeping an email inbox organized. Or about your best practices of calendar management or about using DropBox for better document organization. If you offer email marketing services, write about benefits of sending the newsletters to subscribers. Write about all the amazing services out there that solve problems that your target audience doesn't know about.
When the day of the call comes make sure you don't have noise in the background. Take the call in a quiet place so you can give your full attention.
I suggest you to not spend 15 minutes talking about nonsense. It's better to spend 3- 5 minutes getting to know them.
The more you let someone else talk, the more you listen and give them space to talk about themselves, the more they will feel connected to you.
When client tell you what he or she need help with right now you pull out your research and tell them that you've taken the liberty of reviewing their online presence. Politely and professionally tell them about your findings and this is important – tell them exactly how you are going to fix it for them.
Give your client a starter plan. This is the best way to show you're willing to help and explain to them that you will start off with one small project. Then the both of you can get a feeling of working together to see if it's a good fit. Based on how that goes, you can move forward to something else.
I prefer to charging up front and a to starter plan would be approximately 4-5 hours. That's not a lot of time but it's just enough for you to prove yourself to your clients and for them, it's not a huge financial investment.
Building trust is the secret sauce in this relationship. If you can persuade your prospect to put their faith in you for just a few hours and see how things work out, you can get them to hire you for more and more work so long as you do great work.