Virtual assistants are busy helping their clients build and grow their businesses but don't always put into place those same systems to grow their virtual assistant business. This 3-hour workshop is designed to help you grow your business. It's not skills training but business coaching. Sue and Joel D Canfield share more than 50 years of experience working with small businesses. They love teaching others how they can have the deep satisfaction they get from their work and the life it allows them.

Special Note

This is an information packed workshop. We're aware that you can't possibly absorb it all in a single sitting. That's why the cost of the workshop includes a 2-CD set containing 5 hours of audio and over 50 pages of reference materials and notes for you to review at your own pace as often as you like.

Topics:

Marketing Your Services 101

• Basic concepts of permission marketing; Dos and Dont's

Defining Your Ideal Client

• How to identify your target market, clearly define your ideal client, and questions to ask yourself to determine if a prospect is your ideal client

Networking Creates Word of Mouth Referrals

• The importance of networking in person, how to effective network, role playing

Converting Prospects to Clients

• How to prepare to interview a prospect, questions a prospect may ask and how you can answer them, questions you should ask your prospect, questions to determine if the prospect is your ideal client

Effectively Marketing With Your Newsletter

• Various newsletter tools available and basic information about them, where to find content, what the reports mean and how you can use them

All attendees will receive these free reports:

• Identifying Your Ideal Client and Target Market
• Networking Creates Word of Mouth Referrals
• Converting Prospects to Clients
• Effectively Marketing With Your Newsletter
• Bonus Tips: Grow Your Business as a Chief Virtual Officer
• John Jantsch's 17-page report 7 Steps to Small Business Marketing Success

Bonus #1: All attendees will receive access to the Members Only Forum at no additional charge!

Bonus #2: Every attendee will receive a copy of the 72-page workbook Building Blocks: Succeed as a Chief Virtual Officer.

Cost: Early Bird Special (Register before noon June 30, 2010) $75

Regular Price (After Noon June 30, 2010) $100

Register Here: http://sacramentovaworkshop.eventbrite.com/

Our monthly group coaching calls have been great! Here are the topics we've covered so far:

• Marketing Your Services
• Defining Your Ideal Client
• Networking Creates Word of Mouth Referrals

The next call will be on June 1, 2010 and the topic is Converting Prospects to Clients.

Today I'm announcing a special promotion. Anyone who provides a meaningful comment on any one of our blog posts here at Chief Virtual Officer between now and May 30, 2010 will be entered into a random drawing to win the next coaching call on June 1, 2010 free!

Learn more here about the call on June 1 on Converting Prospects to Clients.

Do you know who your ideal client is? Below is a description of my ideal client.

Ruth Ellen Hill is 33 years old. Her husband is a fire fighter. They have two children, a boy age 6 and a girl age 3. Ruth took 2 years of community college and majored in accounting. She has 12 years experience as a receptionist, administrative assistant, and accounting clerk in small companies she's worked in since graduating high school.

After her second child was born, Ruth decided to be a stay at home mom. Three years later her oldest child is in school full time and Ruth has decided she wants to work again, part-time and from home so that she's still available to her 3 year old. Ruth wants to put her administrative skills to work, has researched the virtual assistant arena, and is setting up shop.

Ruth is not sure how to get started, where to find clients, what should be on her website or how to actually run a business. Her dad's had his own construction business for years and she's been doing some work for him such as bookkeeping, proposals and creating documents. He's offered to help her get started and give her a small loan. Ruth is looking for a coach to help her build a solid foundation for her business.

I recently came in contact with a local virtual assistant who has agreed to let me use her profile photo here. She agrees that the description of my ideal client is pretty close to a description of herself. Lisa says, "I chose to become a VA because I wanted to put my skills to use and work from home to care for my girls!"

Lisa Jacobson

Now Lisa is not my client; at least not yet. And I don't expect to find someone named Ruth Ellen Hill who is 33 years old and perfectly fits my ideal client description. However, by having a clear description of my ideal client and a photo to refer to, I can now create specific marketing messages for my ideal client. If I realize that my marketing messages wouldn't appeal to my ideal client, I can refine them until they do.

Join us on May 4th to learn more about how to define your ideal client.

Everyone I've talked to recently says they need help refining their marketing message. They want prospects to pay attention and aren't sure why they aren't attracting their ideal client.

Your marketing messages should be clear and full of value. If all you do is say, 'hire me', your message is vague and does not offer your prospects any reason to find your services valuable.

Examine each marketing message your create and include these 4 items:

1. Your ideal client should find your messages appealing
2. Describe the challenge your prospects are facing
3. Describe the solution you will provide
4. Include a story of how you've helped someone else

Once your prospects can see that you are talking to them, understand their challenges, can provide a workable solution and can back it up with a story of how you've helped someone else, they are much more likely to pay attention and ask you how you can help them.

I've been talking with virtual assistants this week about defining their ideal client. When I ask my coaching clients to describe their ideal client as specifically as possible, the descriptions are still very vague. They are something like this:

"My ideal client is a self employed entrepreneur in a service related industry."

"My ideal client is a business entrepreneur in the professional services."

"My ideal clients are solo entrepreneurs."

These are very vague and speak to a general audience. Even once a coaching client understands the need to target a very specific audience, they tend to speak to the group rather than an individual.

When my partner Joel coaches virtual assistants to define their ideal client, he helps them get very specific. Rather than targeting a general audience, we focus on targeting an individual. Here are 3 simple ways to focus your marketing messages to an individual:

1. Write a detailed paragraph of your ideal client: their gender, age, occupation, likes, dislikes, family situation and other details.

2. Name your ideal client. Make this individual real to you.

3. Go find a picture of that ideal client in a magazine. Cut it out and post it where you can see it all the time. When you get ready to send out marketing messages, look at that picture and see if the message will appeal to that ideal client.

Now that you've put a name and face to your ideal client, it will be much easier to target your audience and direct messages to the individuals that need your services.

Are you talking to a general audience or a specific individual? Would you like some assistance in defining your ideal client. Contact us for your free 30-minute consultation.