Reinventing Your Virtual Assistant Services + Business To Meet New Demands In Difficult Times

Reinventing your Virtual Assistant services may be necessary during a crisis, like for example Covid-19. During difficult times one of my favorite quotes becomes even more relevant “necessity is the mother of all inventions”.  Because we need to look at different ways for us to pivot or change our business in order to meet shifting demand.

Crisis = New Opportunities

Let me start by sharing this, please don’t assume that your clients or people, in general, don’t want to buy from you during a crisis. That’s a money mindset thing which I’ll talk more about in a moment. I know that during a crisis there are a lot of people out of work, and doing their best to survive the storm.

But there are others that are looking for help and want to invest to keep the economy going and moving forward. The question to you is, how will reinventing your Virtual Assistant services or yourself help you meet the demands and the opportunities that are there?

There are lots of opportunities and different ways for you to serve, either your core audience or an entirely new market. The landscape of how people are working, not just online but in the corporate world. I believe that more people are going to want to make the transition to not only working from home but working for themselves!

Now, if you’re thinking I can’t possibly pitch my services during a crisis – it feels icky or that nobody’s going to buy anything, we’re back to a money mindset issue. Your mindset governs everything you do in life, especially your business.

Work On Your Money Mindset

I’m a big believer in creating a healthy money mindset. I’ve seen what it’s done for myself and my own business when I learned to change how I was thinking about money.  The most important lesson for me was to realize I was coming from a place of lack instead of abundance. (I know I used to roll my eyes at this stuff too but it works).

I used to focus on things like “I’m going to run out of money” or “I’m going to run out of clients” or one of my favorites was “no one is going to pay that rate to do X”. But then I learned to focus my thoughts on abundance, that there’s always more opportunity, more money, more clients, etc. And it changed my life.

If you’re coming from a lack mindset, it’s very, very hard to get out of it without some kind of help because there’s usually something underneath the surface that is causing it. You need to find out what it is and clear it. One of the best books that I found is Denise Duffield-Thomas’ book called Get Rich, Lucky Bitch (sorry but that’s the official title).

It helped me realize my thinking patterns but also helped me uncover all of these self-sabotaging behaviors when it came to money. Things that I was doing without even knowing I was. After reading this book and doing the exercises I cleared many of my money demons and everything shifted.

I can’t recommend her, her programs and her resources enough. If you find yourself having a hard time focusing on opportunity, then you might consider investing in her book. You can get a copy on Amazon, Audible, and probably even eBay. She has great free resources on her website too!

Provide More Value Or Bundle Your Services

There are people that are looking for help even during a crisis. People that will buy and invest, in not only themselves but their business as well. If you’re like, “Okay, well what can I do?” First of all, don’t work for free or for testimonials. I don’t advocate working for free.

If you don’t value what you bring to the table, nobody else will. Plus, you get all the freeloaders, no offense, but you get people who are just looking for free stuff. And in my opinion and experience, those people are much more difficult to work with.

Instead of giving something away for free, maybe look at how you can bundle or package what you’re doing or offering. For example, if a client buys a 10-hour retainer, maybe give a bonus hour – buy 10 get 11. If somebody buys your WordPress website package, throw in a month or two of maintenance for free.

Look at ways that you can provide more value for your clients. Consider doing a two-for (2 for 1). Buy this, get this for free. Find ways to bundle or package your services. Give them something additional to give them more bang for their buck. Here’s a challenge for you – step back and look at your services to see how you can add more value to your retainers or packages.

Reinvent Your Virtual Assistant Services

If you’re finding clients aren’t buying what you’re selling, maybe it’s time to re-invent yourself. What I mean is that business owners are cutting expenses but NOT assets. If you’re someone offering mainly admin skills it might be time to invest in learning strategic and technical skills.

Clients can do their own admin work but many don’t know how to keep the automation, integrations, and techie tools running. You become an asset to your clients because they need you to keep their business running. Have a look at my Ultimate VA Success Guide: 4 Truths About The Most In-Demand VA Services to get more ideas.

Create A Product

And one more idea, create a simple product to sell to your audience. The wonderful thing about products is it’s a new revenue stream and once it’s created it keeps making you money!

I hope this post has given you some ideas about reinventing your Virtual Assistant services and yourself. Feel free to post below and let me know what actions you are going to take in your business – I’d love to hear from you! All comments and questions are welcome.

Thanks for listening and reading – Susan