Nearly four years ago I worked for a client in the real estate industry managing much of their financial needs with QuickBooks online. At times I would need tocollaborate with their accountant. Eventually they hired an in-house assistant and no longer needed my services. A few months later their accountant moved to another state.

Now neither I nor the accountant worked for this client any longer. However, the accountant connected with me on LinkedIn. I accepted the invitation to connect. We both thought, “you never know when we’ll need the other’s services“. It’s been nearly four years and I was just contacted by this accountant. She needs some work done and thought a virtual assistant could do this work. Who did she think of first? Someone she already had a relationship and connection with – me.

This reiterates the fact that building trusting relationships takes time. Don’t be in a hurry to sell your services to total strangers. Take time to get to know people, Connect on LinkedIn, ask some questions, comment on their blog. Once they get to know you, like you and trust you, you’ll have something to build a working relationship on.

Last August we held a workshop in Vancouver British Columbia where we met attendee, Kathy Andrews. Kathy had found our workshop online and registered since she wanted to start her virtual assistant business. We’ve kept in touch over the past year by email and calls. Today we received this email from Kathy:

Hi Sue & Joel,

Just wanted to let you know how appreciative I am for the encouragement you gave me last year when you were in Vancouver and the few months after when I was so unsure.

I have just landed my first “big” contract.  It is for a business coaching firm in San Jose.  We got together because of a LinkedIn VA discussion.  They were asking if it was possible for their meetings to be transcribed live.  All of the VAs that answered said, no, you had to record it first.  They said their meetings could not be recorded.  Then I came on and said it could be transcribed live.  I did a test run for them to show how it could work and we are now working together several times a week.

I never would have had the courage to go to these forums let alone say I could do it if it was not for the encouragement you had given to me.

Again, thanks, and enjoy your nomad life.

Kathy Andrews

Kathy told us the company was looking for 80% accuracy and she got 90% so they were very impressed! And as Joel told her, “Real-time transcription has to be nearly unique. In cases where there’s a need, you probably have NO competition!”

We’re glad to have been a part of helping Kathy succeed as a transcriptionist. Visit Kathy’s website at http://andrewsvirtualtranscripts.com/

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

Just got word that a big project we’d invested a lot of effort into isn’t going to happen. In the past, I would have pinned a lot of hopes on that money coming in, and been in a panic when it didn’t.

These days I know better. No project is certain until the money’s in the till.

So many metaphors come to mind. Don’t count your chickens before they hatch, f’rinstance. It’s easy to say, look, we’ve got eggs, therefore, we’ll have chickens. Or, look, we’ve got hot prospects, therefore we’ve got a project.

Speaking of eggs, don’t put ‘em all in one basket. If you earn your living primarily from a single client, that client owns you. In reality, you’re en employee, not an entrepreneur. Have plenty of smaller eggs, not just one large one.

And more than one basket, if you can arrange it.

Twenty small streams of income is more stable than 2 large streams. Seems nothing is stable these days, so when you start juggling all those chickens and eggs and baskets, be prepared to lose a few.

If you’ve got spares, there’ll always be enough for that omelette.

My first post this month announced my decision to post an entry every single day in April to see if it caused increased traffic to my blog. Today’s the last day of the month and I’ve posted every single day. The results?

There was a noticeable increase in traffic, more comments, an increase in my newsletter subscription and additional connections with virtual assistants on Twitter and Facebook. There was also a noticeable increase in the number of books I sold this month.

It was a success and not as difficult as I thought it would be. Though I don’t plan to continue writing every single day, I am committing to writing at least 2-3 posts weekly. It really helped me focus on getting things done in April.

Views on the weekend were minimal so I won’t concentrate on posting on weekends. I did notice that when I posted on days I was a guest speaker on a call, when I sent out my newsletter, Tweeted and mentioned on Facebook my posts, then traffic increased. I’m going to go back and note which pages got the most attention and what entries received the most traffic to help me focus my attention in the future to topics of interest.

What small daily steps to succeed are you going to take?