The first challenge to getting new clients is getting them to trust you with their businesses and their money. It’s not an easy challenge to overcome. That’s why the technique I’m going to share with you in this article WORKS and works well. What I’m suggesting is … working for FREE (do I hear a big gasp of horror from the audience?).

Why work for free? Well, it makes sense. Many virtual assistance companies offer a free consultation where the client can ask questions and you can explain your process. You need to stand out from the crowd and win the business.

Here are two reasons why offering a free sample of your services works:

It eliminates the risk factor. Business is risky from all sides of the fence. It’s risky for you and it’s risky for the person doing the hiring. He or she will be trusting you to work for his or her business and get results. They’ll be taking their valuable time and money to invest in your services and they want to choose wisely. You help them not waste their time by proving yourself before they ever pay a penny.

It builds the relationship. Working well together is all about having a good relationship. It’s really hard to do great work for someone who doesn’t like you and vice-versa. If you offer a little sample of your work you can create an instant relationship and they will usually like you already! That’s a great start.

Before I get the fifth degree from some die-hard virtual assistants, I’ll admit that this technique of getting new clients is risky. You just need to be smart about what you’re doing and you’ll eliminate a large part of the risk.

You’ve probably heard the saying “Why buy the milk when you can get the cow for free?” Yes, some unscrupulous marketers may go around getting freebies and never be willing to pay, so that’s why it’s your responsibility to do your research and hand-pick the clients you want to work with.

That’s right. Don’t just take any ol’ Billy-Bob who comes to hire your services. Make sure she is the kind of person you want to work with, will most probably love to work with and who you can create a rewarding relationship with. When I used this technique for my own business I went to online marketers who I already had a relationship with and whose business models I greatly admired. This allowed me to know exactly who I was going to be working for. It also gave me the added bonus of learning what they did in their own businesses to make them great successes!

If you’re thinking giving a sample of your work away for free might be a good idea for you, here’s a bit of a game plan:

 Offer a small sample of your work; one or two hours would be good.
 Offer the work with no-strings attached; they’ll hire you if you’re needed.
 Only offer to people who are interested in hiring and who need the help (research).
 Do an amazing job.
 Ask for referrals and/or testimonials in exchange for your free work.

Finally, this isn’t a technique to do all the time. It’s one you will use for a hand-picked group of highly sought after employers. Try it once and see what happens. You really only need one good high-profile client who loves your work to get great referrals for a long time coming.

I have done this both with great success and the expected wasted effort, you might say.

I love to proofread and edit so did this for several web sites with just the promise to have the caption “Edited by Jan Tallent” with a link to my VA site. So far, of the 5 or 6 I did this for, only one has kept her word but we do live and learn AND I know that I did it.

Plus, to be honest, I turned 2 of them down later for paid jobs because the trust factor was destroyed when they did not keep their end of the bargain and that is the biggest thing with me – my word and yours 

Wishing you all of the best in your client-getting goals.

Remember, I am a Virtual Assistant who LOVES to do editing and proofreading
assignments along with research, blog posts, article submissions
and social media maintenance!

Why not Schedule a Project now?

One of the things that I do as a Virtual Assistant is help other VAs.
I happen to be a member of Sophie Zollman’s team. She is a very savvy
business woman and here is one of her great articles from her ezine.

VA Tip: Are You Doing What You Love?
Guest Post by Sophie Zollman
of SophieZo, LLC Virtually There For You

Many business owners start their own business to do something they love, something they have great passion for. Those same business owners end up spending more time running the business instead doing the part they love. Why? They try to do it all. When they do it all themselves, they spend more time on running their business.

Many of the tasks required to run a business are difficult, time consuming and even a drag. When you get mired in that, you lose focus on your passion. You can no longer do what you love. You are too busy doing the “daily grind” stuff. One of the best ways to get out of that “mess” is to hire a Virtual Assistant or Online Business Manager.

VAs and OBMs are not employees. They are independent contractors working from their own home office. In many cases, they are small business owners, too, but running a business is their specialty. They can generally do those things faster, more efficiently, and they actually enjoy doing it, too. You don’t pay them for vacation or sick time. They have their own equipment. The best part of this is that you only pay for the work they do. They are not on the clock from 9 to 5 waiting for work to come in when things are “slow.” You have less overhead and better productivity.

If you are in business to do what you love and find yourself NOT doing what you love, it’s time to talk to a Virtual Assistant or Online Business Manager. By delegating the business tasks to a VA or OBM, you can return to doing what you love. When you’re doing what you love, you’re growing your business, making more money and enjoying life again. You will have more time for everything you love both in your personal and business lives. Talk to a Virtual Assistant or Online Business Manager today and get back to doing what you love most!

Thanks, Sophie, for both this wonderful information and for allowing ME to be a happy member of YOUR team.

Remember, I am a Virtual Assistant who LOVES to do editing, proofreading
and transcription assignments along with research, blog posts, article submissions
and social media maintenance!

Why not Schedule a Project now?

Frankly, I have to admit I did not really know the difference between copyediting and proofreading.

When I proofread for my clients, I make the needed changes – be it spelling, grammar or slight revisions to make things sound more clear – and did not realize I was also copyediting! I just called it “editing” and figured that covered it.

One of my very favorite ezines for writers is Daily Writing Tips, and this is their last article, which I just had to share. (Yes, I got permission months ago to share these with the promise to always point back to them.)

The Difference Between Copyediting and Proofreading from Daily Writing Tips

Many people confuse these two distinct editorial skills, but it’s important to recognize
how they differ, and why. The most obvious distinction is the form the medium takes.

Copyediting, once performed by making marks and writing revisions on a typewritten manuscript, is now generally carried out by entering changes in a word-processing program like Microsoft Word.

Proofreading, by contrast, is done on a facsimile of the finished product — a proof, hence
the name. Proofreading is usually still completed on hard copy with a pen or pencil, but it’s sometimes accomplished by electronically marking up a PDF (a file created with Adobe’s Portable Document Format; that’s where the initials come from).

But that’s just the beginning. The copy editor’s task is to finesse a writer’s prose so that
it observes all the conventions of good writing. A writer may be skilled at explaining a procedure or verbally depicting a scene, but the copy editor is the one who makes sure
the manuscript’s syntax is smooth, that the writing adheres to the conventions of grammar,
and that wording is proper and precise and punctuation is appropriate and correctly placed.

The copy editor may also do or suggest some reorganizing, recommend changes to chapter titles and subheadings, and call out lapses in logic or sequential slip-ups. This attention is especially important when the content editor — the person who helps the writers shape their prose — has minimal time (or skill) or is absent altogether.

All the while, if the project is a book manuscript, an extensive report, or something else of significant length, the copy editor compiles a style sheet, a statement of overall editorial policy (serial comma, or no? numbers spelled out, or in numeral form?) and a record of idiosyncratic word usage.

(Just how do you spell fuggedaboudit? According to the style sheet, just like that — every time.) Many style sheets also list all proper nouns to make sure names are always spelled and capitalized consistently, though search functions and spell-checking programs have rendered that usage somewhat superfluous.

The proofreader, by contrast, is assigned to check a reproduction of what the finished product will look like. And the task is not revision, but correction — making sure that no typographical errors remain from the manuscript or were introduced in the production stage.

New text, such as captions, for example, is often entered separately and may not have been edited. Alternatively, an element — anything from a letter to a paragraph or more — may have been inadvertently omitted or repeated, or misplaced. Because most text is copied and pasted directly from an electronic document, this mishap is unlikely but not unknown.

Then there are esthetic issues: too many end-of-line hyphens in a row, or a word broken in half at the end of a column or page, or a widow (a very short final line of a paragraph at the top of a column).

The proofreader is also the main beneficiary of the style sheet’s compilation.
Hey, it’s fuggedaboutit on page 37, and fuggedaboudit on page 59. Which one’s correct?
The second spelling, according to the style sheet.

Proofreaders are also expected to check page numbers or recurring copy at the top or bottom of a page that identifies a section in a periodical or a chapter or book title.

They make sure the font and type size and weight for one text element matches another element of that class.

They double-check that photo captions match the content of the photographs or that when text refers to a table, a chart, or a figure, the graphic element consists of what the text says it does — and they proof that element, too.

Proofreaders may also catch grammatical errors or inconsistency of style, and they are often given some leeway to change or at least call out egregious errors, but they’re generally constrained by not being permitted to revise the text in any way that adds or subtracts the number of lines on a page, because doing so may adversely affect the graphic design.

In summary, copyediting is a more qualitative skill and proofreading is more quantitative, though there’s quite a bit of overlap, and someone who does well at one often succeeds at the other as well. Proofreading usually pays less and is a pathway to copyediting, but many editors (myself included) do both.

To save time or money or both, many print and online publishers alike have curtailed or abandoned either stage (or, worse, both stages) of the editing process — and it’s almost invariably obvious. But there are still enough people out there who value rigorous attention to detail in written expression that the copyediting and proofreading professions aren’t going anywhere, and adept practitioners will remain in demand.

Well, I understand the differences a bit better now. How about you?
I would love to hear your comments!

Spelling & Grammar Errors Are Costing You Business! – I can help and this is what I absolutely LOVE to do!

Remember, I am a Virtual Assistant who LOVES to do editing, proofreading
and transcription assignments along with research, blog posts, article submissions
and social media maintenance!

Why not Schedule a Project now?