Virtual assistant target market
So your virtual assistant target market is actually very diverse and wide. Our specific job allows us to work with a small business down the road through to a doctor in another country. Everywhere I go and whomever I meet, I always have my virtual assistant target market radar out. Local papers Grab your local paper and you will be surprised how many jobs in there can be performed by a virtual assistant. Find a suitable job advertisement, which will no doubt be advertising for an onsite permanent or part time person. This company is definitely a virtual assistant target market, so don't discount it. Answer the ad with a letter introducing yourself, your services and your business. Explain that you believe the company would be better served by using the services of a virtual assistant instead. Explain the benefits of this. Well the obvious ones are cost savings on their end with no need for hardware, space, etc for you and no messy paperwork headaches associated with employing onsite staff. Explain that you can provide solutions that a permanent staff member cannot. Offer to work on site for a few hours a day or so until they are comfortable with your services. You never know, they may get wise to the idea. I did just that - I was perusing the local paper thinking to myself the words virtual assistant target market, and answered an ad in my local paper. It was a micro business who wanted secretarial and accounts payable support. Difficult to get one person experienced in both these areas, but I applied. I explained to him that I am a virtual assistant and that I work remotely. I explained that I invoice monthly and am an independent contractor, so he would just pay my invoice and that's it. He loved it. I solved a massive paperwork and employing staff headache. I did spend time onsite doing his accounts payable and then when I got comfortable with it I did the majority of it out of my home office.
Employment websites Again same as above, there are gems waiting to be found here too. Check out the major online employment websites in your area for businesses advertising for permanent jobs. Then ask yourself if that job can actually be performed by a virtual assistant. Do the same as you would for the example in the local papers. Employment websites are also advertising for independent contractor jobs anyway on an adhoc basis. So your virtual assistant target market is already coming to you in this instance. Do key in the keywords 'work at home' or 'work from home' or 'home based', but more often than not these jobs are actually scams. Be very very careful with scams. But like I said do key them in as legitimate businesses may use these phrases. Good keywords to use are: and of course other relevant keywords that you can think of specific to your niche.For Aussie Visitors try:
Work at home job boards There are reputable work at home job boards like HomeJobStop which is a leading work from home job bank. They are offering a lifetime membership of US$18 to access the job bank at the moment. There is also Virtual Assistants who have a great up to date job bank with legitimate virtual assistant jobs. They too have a fee and you can join by the month or by the year. Or Go Freelance, Freelance Work Exchange - Start your work-at-home career today. Get direct access to thousands of freelance jobs for just $2.95.. Click here to find work now.
And finally
Jobs-From-Home
is another job bank to have a look at.
Virtual assistant and work at home message boards and forums These working from home message boards are a great source of information on all areas of working from home and some can have job leads posted on the board or forum. Or a member may be seeking assistance with work and will sub contract out work or be seeking a virtual assistant to assist in their working from home business. Employment agencies
I'm not sure how employment agencies work worldwide, but some agencies do actually have independent contractors on their books for temp work. In this instance if you are accepted as an independent contractor and you do get the temp job it will no doubt be an onsite job. But you are able to educate that business on your virtual assistant services. Now this is a dicey area, because you cannot 'steal' that company as your client off the employment agency. There is always a period of time that you cannot approach the company after you have completed an assignment with them. I did just that, I secured a temp job for six weeks with a major corporate company as a temp on their premises, and as an independent contractor through the employment agency. I spent those six weeks educating all levels of management about my services. A department unrelated to the one I worked in wanted to use my services as an independent contractor, but for onsite work. Ok it wasn't for virtual work, but it was a start. I got the word out to big business. I half succeeded, I was paid through my business at least. Virtual assistant employment agencies Say what? Yes they do actually exist. Go to
virtual assistant employment companies
for a list of such virtual staffing agency. Some are free, some are paid services, some have job boards as well. You also need minimum requirements to be able to register, but great to kickstart your client base. Virtual assistant networks Individuals or businesses approaching these networks are already warm to the idea of using your services. So in essense your virtual assistant target market comes to you. People, either individuals or businesses approach the virtual assistant network for your services. So many virtual assistants secure clients through this avenue. A prospective client may either email a virtual assistant direct who is listed in the network or he may put in a specific request through the network for certain services and location (people are still very location specific when looking for a virtual assistant) and the job lead is broadcast out to the virtual assistant members. Your current employer or former employer(s) This is the easiest virtual assistant target market to approach as you are knowledgeable of them and they of you. So a major virtual assistant target market is actually your current or former employer(s). The first place to begin looking could be right under your nose. It's your current employer. Let the company know about your virtual assistant business. Write a proposal outlining how a particular job can be performed using your virtual services. Explain the benefits to them. Use this approach with former employers too. A big virtual assistant target market is law firms for legal administrative assistant work. So many of these jobs can be performed out of a home office. Even if you are currently employed there full time, see if you can go part time and work remotely. You may have to go onto the premises once a week or so to collate documents, etc. Say you did this for three days a week to start with, you then have two other days to dedicate to finding other clients to grow your virtual assistant business. The same can be said for accounts payable, bookkeeping jobs, etc. The more you think about it the more jobs can come to mind that can fit in with your specific niche. Even if you work as a secretary that does a lot of transcription work onsite, you may have that outsourced through your virtual assistant business instead. You may go part time and again dedicate the other free days for more clients. [Remember to be an independent contractor you must find more clients, otherwise you are still deemed to be an employee of that company]. So naturally you would change your situation from being their employee to being their contractor and be paid through your business instead.
eg: Google or Yahoo can bring up some good results when identifying a virtual assistant target market, so give this avenue a go. I only learnt this recently whilst building this website, how silly am I. When keying in a keyword, put it in quotation marks (ie: " " ) as by doing this your keywords shows more specific search results. You will not be shown a whole heap of irrelevant websites. Example: "virtual assistant" will bring up those words apppearing together in all relevant websites, whereas virtual assistant without the quotation marks can eventually bring up references to virtual in one section of the sentence and the word assistant at the end of the sentence. Do you know what I mean? Give it a go and you'll see what I mean. All these years of surfing and I only found that out now......I feel so you know....stupid. Freelance websites These are a good virtual assistant target market, because people posting jobs want the jobs performed by a contractor such as a virtual assistant. Now some freelance websites are structured where you bid on projects posted on the websites by individuals or companies. If your bid is accepted you will be awarded the project. This is a great way to get work, however from my experience I've seen jobs bid down to ridiculously low amounts. I just don't know how people make money sometimes. These sites are free to join I believe from my experience. Then there are other freelance websites structured more like job boards (refer to my section above). All sites are different, but you may be able to connect with your prospective client directly or the website administrators will send details of a few people to the prospective client.
allfreelance.com is a freelance jobs directory listing heaps of freelance sites.
Networking networking networking This is vital for a virtual assistant to put her name out there. So networking is basically talking to everybody in your everyday life about your job as a virtual assistant. Everybody is a virtual assistant target market. Firstly it's always recommended to carry business cards in your wallet, because you never know who you bump into that may ask for your business card. Always remember to stock some in your wallet. They are so cheap to purchase these days. You also look much more professional when you are able to hand over a business card immediately. Vista Print
iPrint for cheap office stationery sent worldwide
Word of mouth Word of mouth is excellent. It's like a snowball gathering momentum and size really. One of your clients may be speaking to another of his clients and you may secure a new client through that avenue. One real life example was the managing director of a research company that I did work for was married to a psychologist who worked out of her home office a couple of times a week. I secured a new client through this form of word of mouth. Joining associations and organisations This is another way to network. There are so many virtual assistant specific networks as mentioned above, but there are also other associations and business networks, women in business networks and small business networks. Bartercard or trade exchanges A virtual assistant target market is barter or trade exchange organisation like Bartercard as an example, where you provide your VA services and receive barter dollars in exchange. You can then spend these barter dollars at other organisations for personal or business items. A lot of companies that are members of companies such as Bartercard are constantly looking for VAs who accept barter dollars. I have received many many inquiries and as I am a member of one such organisation. I have gained a couple of long term clients through this avenue. I couldn't accommodate many other inquiries though as I was just too busy. Go to virtual assistant accepting bartercard for further information on this area. Locally in your area You would be surprised of the leads you will find in your local area. Your virtual assistant target market is everywhere. Individuals in your area This encompasses a diverse range of people who are really excellent virtual assistant target market candidates. Some may require your services where previously they haven't been able to identify anyone else to perform those tasks for them. So your virtual assistant target market is all around you and examples are. You name it, there are possible clients everywhere.A case scenario is my son was playing at a friend's house and when I picked him up I learned that his dad was writing a book and needed the transcripts typed up.
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