When Stacey first contacted me, she was unfamiliar with newsletters,  blogging, mass emails and social networking. Stacey needed to educate her prospects and clients about what she could provide as a corporate tax software expert. She wanted to give her prospects value and build her business.  And she needed someone to help her put processes in place so she could use her time more effectively.

I  set up a blog for Stacey, started her email campaign and created a newsletter template, and integrated social networking as an additional piece of marketing puzzle. In a short period of time, Stacey started blogging, contacting prospects via email and growing her business. She now has processes in place so she can easily and quickly use these tools to help grow her business. Read what Stacey herself has to say.

“As a corporate tax software expert, I knew nothing about Blogging, Newsletters, Professional Mass Emails or Social Networking. Thanks to Sue Canfield, you’d never know it! Sue and her team did an amazing job setting up my blog so that I had the highest opportunity to capture prospective client information and direct them to my company’s website! She also effortlessly put together a coordinating professional mass email system for me to promote my business. She gave me a fantastic education on using blogs, newsletters, professional emails and social networking to add value to my prospects and build my business at the same time!

“It is delightful to have Sue on my team, because as an entrepreneur herself, she always has her focus on building my business and getting a great return on my investment! Sue makes it so simple and easy for me so that I can focus on my business! When I began searching for a Professional Assistant, the one thing that was important to me was to find someone who could ADD VALUE to my business from an administrative perspective; not just “do my to–dos” for me–and I got MORE than that with Sue! She is the ultimate in professional assistants and her team is fantastic! If you are a professional who needs to “follow the profit” by spending your time on what really adds value to your business, then don’t hesitate for a second, hire Sue Canfield, or as we call her in our office, Sue Awesome!

“Working with Sue has saved me 15 hours a week in administrative tasks that I no longer have to do and 15 hours is worth $3,750 to me! Thanks Sue, for putting $3,750 dollars a WEEK back in my pocket!“–Stacey Martino, CFO Martino IT, Pennsylvania

Calling all new and aspiring virtual assistants!

• How do you find your first client?
• What are affordable and effective ways to market your services?
• How can you attract and educate prospects with your website?
• How can you develop a business plan, blogging strategy and article writing strategy?
• How do you determine your rates and pricing structure?

Chief Virtual Officer offers an intensive 5-month course customized to your specific needs. Each month focuses on a specific area of your Virtual Assistant practice. Each week you will receive homework with specific strategies to implement in your business right away. In addition to two monthly coaching sessions via telephone, we will reply to all your questions via email as often as you like.

We are currently taking on new clients. Use the Contact Form to schedule your free 30-minute coaching session so you can determine if this is the right program for you.

Get all the details on our Coaching page.

The Client Communication Clinic in Vancouver Canada on August 6, 2010 includes some special bonus items. In addition to a Grand Prize to be announced shortly, there are two additional bonus items.

Shout outs to Vickie Turley and Christine Giri for donation these bonus items. Thank you both!

Read all the details here.

Grand Prize! To be announced shortly. We will have one Grand Prize Winner!

Bonus #3: Drawing for copies of the book What’s Love Got To Do With It? How to Have the Perfect VA Client Relationship by Vickie Turley. There will be 7 copies to give away! ($19.95 Value)

Bonus #4: Drawing for copies of the ebook on CD Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn – A Quick-Start Guide for Virtual Assistants by Christine Giri. There will be 5 copies to give away! ($49.95 Value)

Earlier this week a fellow virtual assistant asked what to do when you lose a client due to an error. I replied, “even if you’ve already lost the client, apologize and do what you can to fix it and make it up. Use it as a lesson for your business. Be open and honest about it. People appreciate that. Then move on. Don’t dwell on it. Use the experience to make your business even better.”

Other comments included:
1. Do all possible to correct the situation.
2. Ask the client what you can do to make things good.
3. Learn from the mistake and think of ways to avoid it in the future.
4. We all make mistakes, that’s how we learn.

This virtual assistant has done all she can and is moving on. This is exactly the right thing to do. Though it’s never easy to lose a client, once we’ve done all we can it’s important to move on. We don’t want to allow negative energy to be drawn away from our existing clients.

Thoughts, comments, suggestions?

We work hard to prepare to work with with our clients. Yet it’s difficult to prepare for every contingency. A recent experience of a fellow virtual assistant brought this to my attention. It helped me realize one more thing we might want to prepare when working with our clients.

This virtual assistant had a client and a large portion of her income was received on a monthly basis from this client. Then unexpectedly the client passed away. Fortunately she is in a position where the loss of income is not a severe blow to her business. However work is left hanging and the virtual assistant is not sure what to do with the website she was in the middle of working on for the client.

So here’s a suggestion for anyone in business. Make sure you have an ‘emergency’ contact, someone you can contact if for some reason you are unable to contact your client or something happens to your client. On the flip side, you should provide your client with an emergency contact so that if something happens to you, they have someone to contact to get their project work done.