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Dear Danielle: Should I Use the Word “Virtual” in My Biz Name?

By Danielle Keister |
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In this episode of What Would Danielle Say, Lynn wants to know if she should use the word “virtual” in her business name.

Dear Danielle:

My business name is BD Virtual. I read your blog post about What’s In a Name and the part about not having “virtual assistant” or “assistant” in your name. Is it a good idea to have virtual in your name? If not, should I consider admin services consulting like you were talking about. Is BD Virtual okay of a name? —Lynn Smith

Hi Lynn :)

If you follow me for long, you will find that I frequently advise/remind people to delete the word “virtual” from their biz vocabulary (among others).

A business is a business. There’s nothing virtual about it.

Is a business more “pretend” or of less quality if it’s run out of a home office or on the road? Is it more of a business if it’s located in a rented office?

Does an attorney who works from home and conducts most of his meetings over the phone have any less of a legal practice?

Is a doctor or accountant or designer or (fill in the blank for whatever other independent service professional comes to mind) “virtual” just because he works from his own location and/or his clients go to him, he doesn’t go to them?

By that logic, then all businesses are “virtual” in that they perform their services from their own place of operation (regardless of where that may be), not the client’s.

But we don’t qualify those businesses like that so why should you qualify yours in that way?

This is why I advise people to stop using the word “virtual.” It’s a silly word and puts a negative, subpar, “less than a real business” spin on things.

One of the challenges of a professional services business like ours (where we do not have physical storefronts that clients can walk into like brick-and-mortar businesses do) is instilling credibility, trustworthiness and rapport.

Therefore, you want your business to present itself in every way you can as no different from any other professional a client would hire to provide some kind of expertise.

Any word that detracts or qualifies your business as something “other than” or “different from” a real business and professional service like any other makes it more difficult to establish that credibility and trustworthiness.

And this is what the word “virtual” does… it says that your business is not a “real” business, it’s something “other than.”

And why do that? Why qualify it in any way except that it is a real business like any other?

This is what I mean by a business is a business. Where the business is located and/or where you work from is of no relevance or importance to the matter.

Regarding your other question, whether you should call it Administrative Consultant, that depends on whether you actually are one or not.

An Administrative Consultant is not the same thing as a virtual assistant. The terms are not interchangeable.

Where “virtual assistant” has become the proverbial junk/miscellaneous drawer of terms of anyone doing anything and everything, which is not a definition or category of anything, it’s just a gopher basically (what Seth Godin would refer to as a meandering generality), an Administrative Consultant is someone who specifically specializes in the business of providing ongoing administrative support (what Seth Godin calls a meaningful specific). That is their business category and their specialty.

The other distinction is that when you are in business, for both legal and practical reasons, you are not anyone’s assistant. Administrative Consultants are independent professionals (in the same way that attorneys, accountants, designers, etc., are independent professionals) who provide clients with the expertise of strategic administrative support. They are not day-to-day substitute employees or “alternative staff.” They are not staff in any way.

So if your specialization and expertise is administrative support and you view yourself as an independent professional (not a staff member, assistant or outsourced worker), then Administrative Consultant would fit you.

Since it sounds like you are just starting your business and still in the naming phase, be sure to also check out the Naming Your Business category of my blog. I have several posts with information and ideas to help you in that process.

Thanks for the question and I hope this provides you with some understanding and clarity. All my best!

Administrative Support Is Not General

By Danielle Keister |
5 Comments

Don’t call administrative support “general.”

You are putting it in a very demeaning, unimportant light when you say that.

Administrative support is a very specific skill, expertise and sensibility, and is absolutely one of THE most important aspects involved in a well-run business.

Administration is the very backbone of every business. The administrative engine can either make or break a business.

Therefore, you must stop talking about administrative support in such derogatory ways.

If you don’t value and honor what you do, and view it and portray it in all it’s vital, integral relevance and importance to the success or failure of a business, prospective clients won’t either.

What you need to understand yourself is that administrative support is a specialization and category of business and service in and of itself.

There’s nothing general (or unimportant) about it.

So stop saying that! Get rid of the word “general” from your business and marketing vocabulary altogether.

You Are an Administrative Partner

By Danielle Keister |
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When you are in business, you are not anyone’s assistant.

As an Administrative Consultant, you are an administrative expert clients partner with for support in that area in the same way that a client “partners” with an attorney for legal support or an accountant/CPA for financial advice and guidance, etc.

What’s In a Name, Part 3

By Danielle Keister |
3 Comments

One thing that interests me about marketing is that so much of it involves psychology, which I find fascinating. Being a student of psychology definitely will aid you in your marketing.

I’m sure many have heard the coffee comparison example:

Essentially, that people will pay many times more for a cup of coffee at Starbucks than they would for the same coffee at 7-11.

A lot of that has to do with the “experience” of getting coffee at Starbucks, which might include (among others):

  • more quality coffee (real or perceived)
  • better tasting coffee (real or perceived)
  • hip/comfortable atmosphere
  • place to hang-out, to see and be seen
  • status

All of this is related in many ways to “connotation,” which is the underlying (conscious and subconcious) thoughts, feelings, perceptions, prejudices and preconceived ideas and associations that are conjured up and evoked from a word, term or experience.

Just as context, environs and experience have much to do with how people buy and the perceptions they bring to the table, the words and terms you use in your marketing are relevant in this respect as well.

While some lofty, high-minded conversation about your title should NEVER be part of your marketing message nor your conversation with clients, the term, title and brand words you use to identify yourself to clients does matter. It will evoke certain perceptions and understanding (or misunderstandings as the case may be) in your potential clients.

You can make things easier and work more in your favor or more difficult (paddling upstream) all depending on the words and terms you use.

For more on this topic, see these blog categories as well:

What’s In a Name?

Why We Stopped Calling Ourselves Virtual Assistants

Dear Danielle: How Do I Transition from Virtual Assistant to Administrative Consultant?

By Danielle Keister |
14 Comments

Dear Danielle:

I’ve been following you for a long time and am a big fan of what you are doing!! I realize that after two years of “just barely” making it, that it’s time to make some changes to my business. I was considering changing to an OBM, but that doesn’t really fit what I do either. I can see that being an Administrative Consultant more clearly defines what I am and what I really want to be doing. So, how do you make the transition from a virtual assistant business to an Administrative Consultant business? —MD

Rather than having this question languish any longer in my To-Do list, I thought I would do a quick video for my answer.

Okay, I knew I had more to say on this, lol.

To summarize, the quick answer is that there’s nothing complicated or involved about transitioning from virtual assistant to Administrative Consultant. You don’t need to go through anyone’s course or buy “certification” from anyone’s diploma mill. It has more to do with definition and mindset.

Obviously, just changing your title isn’t going to turn things around in your business. It’s the attendant thinking patterns and changes in self-perception (as well as the changes in perception by clients) that go along with this new way of thinking and operating an administrative support business that have the most significant impact. How you see and understand yourself greatly affects your professional self-esteem, your marketing message and how you operate and go about the process of helping clients. Those shifts in perception, even if subtle and underlying, have a HUGE direct link to your business success.

There are many problems with the virtual assistant term that have very real negative impact on people’s businesses and marketing:

  1. The word “assistant” is a term of employment. There are both legal and practical implications in using that word.
  2. It focuses on a role, rather than an expertise. And when you are in business, you aren’t anyone’s assistant and you can’t be.
  3. People using the VA term view themselves more as assistants and have a much more difficult time getting over employee mindset. Consequently, they end up operating and working with clients in employee-like ways that aren’t sustainable, that prevent them from growing and earning better, and that actually keep them from helping clients better.
  4. People only understand the word “assistant” one way—that of employee. So, potential clients come to the table right from the get-go misunderstanding the correct nature of the relationship.
  5. Every day we see examples of just how prevalent the idea is that VAs are remote employees, which is why they only expect to be paying them the same wages as an employee. This is the disconnect the word “assistant” causes in the marketplace.
  6. The word “assistant” automatically puts you in a subservient position. It’s why you have such a hard time getting clients to see and treat you as a business owner and independent professional, not their personal assistant.
  7. If you are a collaborative partner and work WITH clients, not FOR them, you are NOT an assistant. And if you are an assistant, you are not a partner.
  8. It instantly creates wrong or misaligned understandings and expectations in clients and prospects that you then have to spend time correcting and setting right.
  9. It’s a vague, generic, ambiguous term that doesn’t impart any kind of clarity or helpful, proper connotations, understandings or perceptions whatsoever. It actually creates more  difficulty in your marketing, consultations and conversations overall.
  10. The VA term has become the generic, garbage dump term for anyone doing anything and everything. It has absolutely no meaning or definition. It’s why clients constantly come to the table thinking you are going to be their do-anything-and-everything-at-my-beck-and-call assistant. That’s a big problem because when that’s the perception, people only see you as a gopher. And people do not expect to pay someone they view as merely a gopher or lackey the “big bucks.”
  11. The VA industry has become branded as the cheap labor pool of flunkies, and this is the expectation it is setting out there in the marketplace. This makes your job marketing your business and expecting to be paid as a professional doubly difficult because it is juxaposed against everything prospects have overarchingly come to associate with the term. Why align with a term that only makes it that much more difficult to attract properly educated, well-paying clients to your business?

So, when it comes to definition, what we’re saying is that administrative support as a business is a specific expertise and specialization in and of itself, not a role. It’s also not “anyone doing anything and everything.” It is a very clear and distinct category of business. If you are specifically in business to provide the art and expertise of ongoing administrative support, you and your business are better served marketing-wise and income-earning wise by using the term of Administrative Consultant.

There are entirely different connotations and mindsets created when you use the term Administrative Consultant, for you and your clients. This has huge positive impacts on your view of yourself (“I’m an expert in the art of administrative support. I’m not some mere assistant; I have EXPERTISE!”) that will show up in your marketing and how it creates more positive and aligned understandings and expectations in clients. AND because they aren’t seeing you as merely an assistant, but someone with real and specific expertise, they are much more willing (and even expect) to pay professional level fees.

I hope that helps provide some clarity to things for you! Feel free to keep the conversation going in the comments. :)

How Do You Know What a Client Wants?

By Danielle Keister |
2 Comments

There’s an interesting phenomenon I’ve observed in businesses frequently over the years that I was reminded of over the past weekend.

It was beautiful weather in my part of the world, and I felt like taking a drive to this little waterfront seafood place located in a more secluded part of town. It’s a lovely area near a public park with a view of the bridge where you can sit outside and watch the boats go by.

Checking out the menu and not remembering if it was the cod or the halibut that was the bit more tender and flaky fish, I asked the server for her advice.

And instead of answering my question, she immediately pointed me to the halibut as being cheaper.

You see the problem, right? She answered a question I didn’t ask.

I didn’t ask what cost less. I wanted what I was looking for regarding flavor, texture and eating experience.

So her answer was irrelevant and didn’t help me in the least. It certainly didn’t help her employer.

It makes me wonder how many people are jumping to conclusions like this server (based on her own life circumstances most likely) without any indication whatsoever that a client is looking for cheap. I certainly see it a lot in our own industry.

If you are doing this, not only are you not really listening and paying attention to clients and instead presupposing what’s most important to them, you are shooting yourself in the foot when it comes to earning well.

Don’t assume that cheap is the first and only thing that clients care about. Write your marketing message to attract those who are more interested in the experience of working with you, how you can help them grow and move forward and how much better and easier you can make their business and their life (and weed out those who are only looking for cheap).

That’s where your value is.

Dear Danielle: How Do I Get Clients?

By Danielle Keister |
13 Comments

Dear Danielle:

Brief question–how do you get clients? I know this is on every Administrative Consultant’s mind in America whom is starting out. I know that this kind of business is referral-based, but my God! I know that you can’t just jump up and think you are going to get rich from this (not my intentions). However, it’s one person I did some donated hours for, I have tried working with another client and lowered my prices to accommodate her. Still a no-go on this one. If I would have said it was free for the service, she would have been all over it. I think if I had at least two clients, I would feel like my business is progressing forward. But not having anyone gets discouraging at times and you wonder if it’s worth it if your business is solely based off referrals, you know? –ST

(FYI: This “Ask Danielle” question was originally posted on my old blog back in March 2010.)

Well, first, I had to chuckle because there’s nothing brief about the question, “How do you get clients?” LOL. Not laughing at you, but it’s sort of like asking, “How do we achieve world peace?” It’s a BIG, complicated question with no quick, simple, pat answer.  It’s difficult to start a business, as you recognize. For a large number of people, they are not going to get clients right away. While they’re waiting, there’s a lot of learning and studying they can be doing to better understand marketing and client psychology. Here are a few thoughts to help you get started in the right direction…

1. Stop donating hours. When you give away your value (the very product you are in business to earn your living from), you devalue it in the eyes of clients. Worse, all giving stuff away for free does is attract freebie-seekers. These are not your clients. They will be gone as soon as you take the free buffet away. If they can’t afford professional services, they either shouldn’t be in business, or they should at least not expect you to subsidize their business (to your own detriment) until they can. These are very selfish, self-centered thinking people. You have your own bills to pay and people to take care of. You can’t put your time and energy into those folks. You’ve got to market to people who can already afford you and who don’t expect you to be footing the bill for their business. If you keep giving it away for free, you’re just going to keep getting more of the same. “Why pay for the cow when you can get the milk for free?” applies here. If you’re dishing it out, they’re gonna take it. You are attracting what you are giving. So stop the gravy train and get serious about serious clients.

2. I’m not sure why you think this, but this is not strictly a referral-based business. A business can become mostly referral-based once they’ve established their business, had a chance to get their foot in the networking door, and have clients and others who happily recommend them. If you’re new, you don’t have that right off the bat. But there are things you can do and ways you can network that will better draw/attract prospective clients to you. What will help here is having a target market to focus your message on and give you direction on where to find those folks you wish to be talking with and expend your efforts and energy there (which are limited and need to be conserved for the highest and best possible use). Two of the most important criteria in deciding on a target market are that 1) it must be one where the people in it generally are earning enough money that they can afford professional services, and 2) there are enough of them that it’s easy enough to figure out where they are (offline and off) and then find ways to interact with them, come up in their search terms and be found by them.

3. Never, ever bargain with or negotiate your fee. All you are doing is teaching clients to devalue you and your support. You start doing that and they forever after expect freebies and discounts and that everything is up for negotiation. You don’t even have to tell me what you’re charging. I can pretty much guarantee that you are undercharging–all these issues you describe are always symptomatic of rates that are way too low. They cater to and attract the wrong crowd. On top of that, I’m willing to bet the conversation on your site is all about cost and discounts and freebies and savings and how much cheaper and more affordable than an employee you are, yada yada yada… am I right? That’s exactly the problem. I would tell you to raise your fee. You likely will be ALL kinds of uncomfortable doing that. And while you’re doing that, you also will need to learn how to market differently and change your message. But when you do those things, you will begin to attract a clientele with an entirely different mindset and more professional business sense. Those folks are looking for skill and quality and competence, not handouts. You simply can’t waste your time and energy–and money, because that’s what it boils down to–on folks who can’t afford you and would have you harm yourself financially in order to help them.

4. Adding onto the idea of changing your message, you’ve got to frame what you have to offer in respectful ways. You’ve got to hold what you do in high esteem and talk about it in respectful terms. If you use words like “generalist” and “mundane” and “affordable” and the like, you are lowering the perceived value of what you have to offer. You are teaching prospects to look down upon your work and view it as lowly, and thus, not worthy of professional fees. And the industry as a whole has GOT to get off the cost conversation and all the employee comparisons. If you have any of that stuff on your site, take it off immediately. You are creating and attracting the very mindsets you are complaining about now. If everything you put on your website is about how cheap you are, how much they can save, how much more affordable you are than employees, save this, get a discount on that, guess what you are focusing people on? MONEY. You can’t make your marketing message about that–unless you want to continue to attract nothing but people who are looking for savings and discounts and bargains and cheap and affordable. Stop talking about costs whatsoever. That’s the last thing you should be talking about. And if you don’t have anything else to talk about with regard to what you do for your clients and your value to them (the results you help them achieve), then you’ve got a lot more work to do about understanding what you are and what you do.

Marketing and attracting clients is an area of ongoing learning and study. It’s not anything that can be answered quickly or simply in a mere blogpost, but I hope this at least gets your wheels turning. The very best way I can help you is to recommend that you get my e-book, “Articulating Your Value: How to Craft Your Own Unique Marketing Message to Get More Clients, Make More Money and Stand Apart from the Crowd.” This is a self-study guide that will help you determine your target market, define an ideal client profile, differentiate yourself with your own unique marketing message and value proposition and package up that info in much more attractive, marketable ways.

Dear Danielle: How Does the Shaky Economy Affect Us?

By Danielle Keister |
3 Comments

Dear Danielle:

What do you perceive will transpire within the VA scene with the upcoming shaky global economy? What would you suggest, especially to new VA’s such as myself? We have not acquired an established clientele yet, we are scratching to get a first client! Thank you. –Marie-Brigitte Souci

Thanks for the question, Marie-Brigitte. :)

First, I do want to gently remind that we use the term Administrative Consultants here. I’m not concerned with the VA industry. I answer questions related to those who are in the administrative support business and for many reasons, we do not use the VA term.

I want to encourage you not to be concerned about the economy. First, because things really are on the upswing, and second, because it really doesn’t need to have anything to do with you. You’re looking at things from the wrong angle, and if you’re worrying about clients who are worried about the economy, you’re focusing on the wrong clients.

Here is a post I wrote in 2011 on this topic that I think will help you see that there is a different approach and why the “shaky” economy doesn’t have to relate to your business in any way:

Dear Danielle: How Is the Economy Affecting Out Industry?

Let me know if that helps!

Dear Danielle: Do You Think Buying a Franchise Is a Good Idea?

By Danielle Keister |
2 Comments

Dear Danielle:

I was wondering why you have not considered franchising an Administrative Consultant business? With everything you have in place it seems like something you may have considered. I ask because one of my clients is a franchise person and asked me why I had not considered it. Then I thought… well, if Danielle hasn’t done it, there must be a reason why. Just curious about your thoughts on the subject. –JL

Thanks for such an interesting question! I really appreciate those. :)

This topic actually has come up before in other conversations with colleagues, but I haven’t ever posted my thoughts about it here on the blog. To get to the quick of it, I’m against franchising. It’s hard to put into words and explain all the reasons why, but I’ll give it a try.

Fundamentally, I don’t believe buying into a franchise is good for Administrative Consultants. It might be good for the seller because they make money from it, but I don’t think it’s good for the people buying into them. Sure, I could package up my branding and sell it as a franchise and make money regardless. But if my core belief is that it only really and truly benefits me, I would not feel that I was living in truth and integrity. It would not sit well with my conscience to sell people something that I didn’t believe was actually any good for them.

Here’s why I don’t think it serves you as an Administrative Consultant. First,  you have to understand that providing a professional service is not the same as making and selling sandwiches for a living (e.g., buying into a Subway franchise). You can’t franchise personality, chemistry, critical thinking, unique experience, and higher level skill and expertise. These are exactly the  things that make what we do a craft and that differentiate one Admin Consultant from another and makes each unique to his or her own ideal clients. You simply can’t bottle that.

Second, when you apply a cookie cutter approach (which is what franchising does), you turn what is a craft into a commodity. And when something becomes a commodity, it loses its specialness and uniqueness. It becomes just another identical product the customer could buy from a million other places. When everything is the same, when it’s made to look like there isn’t any particular skill or expertise required and it’s not magical and unique, the natural inclination is to look for the cheapest provider. When that’s the case, you will be stuck competing on price and that’s a death knell for any business. If you expect to command professional fees and be perceived as an expert with valuable expertise and unique delivery, then you can not allow yourself to become just another commodity.

Third, when you buy a franchise, you are only building and strengthening the value of the franchise’s brand, not your own. For all the reasons that people buy franchises (they think it will be easier to get started, market and make money), the opposite happens. You are not special and different and unique when you are just another bottle on the shelf. If you want to skip the hard parts in business, then you should resign yourself to earning poorly because it is going to be that much harder for you to differentiate yourself from the rest of the clones and command professional fees–the very things you thought buying someone’s brand franchise was going to do for you.

Plus, if I were to ever franchise my brand, in order to maintain the quality and integrity of the brand and earning power of the franchise, I would have to be really picky about who bought into it. I’d also have to put resources and mechanisms in place to monitor franchisees to make sure they were observing the terms of the franchise. All of which would require a lot of time and energy and yet more details and work I have absolutely zero interest in. There’s just not anything in any of that I would derive any positive energy from.

The flip side of that same coin that if anyone is allowed to buy into the franchise without any qualification, everything those others franchise owners do affects your business and reputation as well.

My personal values affect everything I do in life and in business. I can’t divorce them from my work or relationships. It’s why I’m simply incapable of doing business with anyone I think is unethical or associating with people or groups I’ve come to learn are dishonest and unscrupulous. I can’t wrap my brain around how that works for other people. I mean, I think people are often fooled by false veneers and seduced by pretty words, especially when they are looking for an excuse anyway. But a wolf in sheep’s clothing is still a wolf. And I think when it comes to self-interest, denial is very handy and makes it easier to rationalize and justify. But denial requires a level of unconsciousness and I am too highly conscious and uber-aware as a person. Of course, being highly conscious often doesn’t make it easy to get along in this world. But no one ever said choosing the right thing over self-interest was always the easy thing to do. (Just musing out loud here.)

At any rate, for me, values and principles aren’t things you can conveniently tuck away in a drawer just because you have an opportunity to make money or someone unethical has something you’d like to take advantage of. For that reason, I couldn’t ever be in the franchise business when in my heart, I honestly don’t believe it would really and truly serve the people who bought into it.

Sure, I could maybe make more money. But it’s not the kind of money I would feel good making. For me, making money is pretty much the last consideration. Not that I have money issues and don’t like making it. Far from it! It’s just that what energizes and motivates me primarily is the beauty and purpose of the work and engaging in my craft… practicing, honing and mastering it and doing good work for clients that really helps them move forward. I also value and respect myself and what I do and hold it in high esteem (and charge well for it) and expect clients to as well–or they don’t become clients. The money part takes care of itself after that.

What I truly think and believe is that Administrative Consultants are  much better served creating and nurturing their own strong, unique brand and identity. Buying into anyone else’s brand or franchise isn’t going to help them do any better, get ahead any faster or be more successful because skills and the ability to serve clients well and nurture relationships aren’t things that can be purchased or borrowed. They either can do well on their own, or they aren’t going to make it regardless, which brings us back full circle to the pointlessness of buying a franchise. Much better for them to invest their time and money in learning more about business and marketing and increasing their skills and knowledge so they can create and succeed on their own merits.

Dear Danielle: Do Clients Need to Know If I Am PT or FT?

By Danielle Keister |
1 Comment

Dear Danielle:

I am launching soon, but still have to work 9-5 to support myself so I don’t have to take a paycheck from the biz right away. I will cut back to part-time and give more time to the biz ASAP on my way to full-time with it. In the meantime, I don’t want to be thought of as someone unreliable, distracted, or who can’t get back to people in a timely fashion. Any ideas about minimizing how obvious it is that I am just starting out part-time? –JN

Ah, this is the beauty of making sure you don’t think of nor market yourself as an assistant, something I’m always preaching here.

I want to talk about that some more, but first here are some practical tips for being timely and professional in your business, whether it’s full-time or part-time (and really, anyone could tell you these):

  1. Only take on retained clients you can support or projects you can complete timely and professionally.
  2. Establish a communication turn-around policy and display that policy on your website (e.g., “I will return your call or email within 24-48 hours.”)
  3. Do what you say you will. This is a form of being consistent, and consistency is about reliability and dependability. So, if you say you’re going to do something, do it. If you say you’re going to do something by a certain date/time, do it by that date/time. Things come up and exceptions happen, but make sure they are RARE. Yes, life happens and by all means you are allowed and you should immediately communicate when you aren’t able to honor a commitment you made. BUT you WILL still be viewed as an unreliable flake if you constantly use that as an excuse or crutch. The solution–only make commitments that you are 99.999% sure you can keep.
  4. Along those lines, give yourself PLENTY of space to honor your commitments. Where people go wrong with making promises and commitments is that they allow clients to have wrong or unrealistic expectations and simply don’t give themselves enough room and time. Don’t box yourself into a corner. Manage expectations in clients by setting conscious, specific policies in your business when it comes to communication, work requests/management and turn-around times.

Now, let’s talk about some conceptual things that will really change the entire ballgame for you and how you approach your business.

Let’s first clarify the terms “part-time” and “full-time.” When I refer to part-time and full-time, it has nothing to do with the number of hours you put in or are available in a day or week. When I refer to part-time and full-time, it has to do with whether your business is your sole livelihood (“full-time”) or whether you are still working a job to support yourself (which makes your business a “part-time” effort/livelihood).

When you call yourself assistant, clients come to the table with the mindset that you should be doing assistant-like things for them and be at their on-demand beck-and-call.

That just doesn’t work in business (that is, if you are trying to create the kind of business where you can both earn AND live well without having what amounts to a J-O-B and having to take on hundreds of clients just to break even).

If you create a business like that and allow those kind of expectations, your daily PT or FT availability will be an issue. You don’t want your value to be dependant upon that.

So how do you change expectations around that and how you are able to operate your business in a manner more like a professional and not an assistant? It starts with not calling yourself an assistant. ;)

If you don’t want part-time or full-time status to matter, then you want to instead frame yourself as an administrative expert, not an assistant. As an adminstrative expert, you focus clients on the fact that your expertise and skills are all about administrative work, not in being an assistant. These are two completely separate concepts.

When you frame yourself in this manner, you begin to see your role in your business very differently. You begin to understand that like any other kind of professional who is hired for a specific expertise and talent, the fact that you “assist” clients doesn’t make you an assistant.

When you decide to be an administrative expert and not an assistant, you then realize that you do not need to operate and work with clients nor be available to them in the same manner as an assistant. Since you aren’t an assistant, you aren’t working with them for specified hours in a day or week.

And because you aren’t trying to be an “assistant,” clients don’t need to know whether you have a full-time or part-time business. The point becomes moot because you aren’t selling your availability of hours, you are providing a partnership of administrative expertise.

The other thing here that will change the game entirely is to sell your value and expertise, not your hours. Your value is about how your work and expertise ultimately helps clients grow and move forward in their businesses to accomplish their goals and overcome obstacles. If you keep trying to sell your time (hourly billing) or packages of hours, you will keep yourself enslaved to the clock, which will automatically put a lid on your earning potential.

When you make these shifts in your thinking about who you are and what you do in your business, you are freed from all kinds of burdens that those who are trying to be assistants find themselves saddled with. When you are not an assistant, you do not need to accept on-demand kinds of work and roles that others are enslaved by. (I always say, if a client needs an assistant, then they need to employ one. ;) )

As an administrative specialist, you can instead choose to take on only work that can be scheduled and where you can give yourself plenty of space to complete. This is the kind of business model I teach folks how to build. When you operate this kind of business, whether you are full-time or part-time in your business becomes irrelevent because you aren’t marketing yourself like someone who is going to be available to clients like an assistant and you aren’t selling hours.

 

 

 

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