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It’s Not All About the Money

By Danielle Keister |
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It's Not All About the Money

Saw a headline the other day: Rihanna is NOT happy with people playing Pokemon Go during her concerts.

Some might say, They paid their money. Why should she care whether people are paying attention or not? She’s raking in the dough either way.

Because it’s the same for any of us who give of ourselves to people and care about our craft and what we deliver, whatever our business may be:

It’s not all about the money.

We care about our work, about connecting and helping.

We’re not mindless robots or vending machines. Each of us is a feeling person playing our heart out for clients.

We want to be valued and treated with human dignity and respect and shown some courtesy and appreciation, regardless of the money.

No amount of money is worth playing for an unappreciative audience.

We all deserve to be paid and have clients who always remember that there is a person on the other side of the computer.

(And every client would be smart to avoid the person who is just going through the motions for the money.)

Here Is How to Stop Spinning Your Wheels in Your Search for Clients

By Danielle Keister |
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Here Is How to Stop Spinning Your Wheels in Your Search for Clients

So I saw this question fly by in my Google Alerts:

“I am still working on getting my business off the ground and feel like I’m still spinning my wheels. I need to get clients so that I can invest in more learning and certifications and such. I keep researching, but I’m starting to come to the point that I don’t know what I’m looking for anymore. What daily tasks should I be doing every day???”

One of the most common problems in getting clients that I see in our industry is that people jump into business without doing any of the necessary business planning and foundation work that is key to moving forward smoothly and successfully.

They slap up a website (or worse, a mere Facebook page or LinkedIn profile) thinking clients are going to magically rain from the sky.

They then proceed to go about things as if they were looking for a job.

That’s simply not going to get you clients. That’s not how business works.

I mean, sure, if they’re lucky, they might get some nibbles here and there. But generally speaking, they only ever earn spare change from those types of prospects.

Getting clients — real, honest-to-goodness clients willing to pay the kind of real bones you can actually live on — requires more methodical and intentioned approach and set-up.

You simply can’t skip the parts in-between.

If you do, and you happen to hit upon a piece of real business, you aren’t going to be set up with the proper infrastructure to keep that business.

That’s why one of the most important steps in your business planning is deciding on a target market.

(For those who are confused, a target market is simply an industry/field/profession that you cater your administrative support to.)

This question about what they should be doing every day wouldn’t even arise if this person had a specific target market to give direction to her actions and thought processes.

That’s what a target market does: it gives you direction for your message and marketing efforts, and informs all your next steps accordingly.

If someone asks where should they look to find clients, the answer is “Well, where is your target market?”

When you know who your target market is, you can then research where they hang out online and off and go to those places and get active and involved.

If they ask what they should write about, again, you look to the target market.

What are your target market’s common pains, challenges and interests? What problems can you help them solve? What questions do they commonly ask? What can you educate and inform them about related to these things?

When you know who your target market is, you can more easily identify those things and then speak to and write about them.

If you don’t know who you’re writing for, it’s much more difficult to figure out what to write about because your looking at some nameless, faceless void.

Every single question you have in your business can be answered if you first decide on who you intend to cater your administrative support to (i.e., a target market).

Here is a list of how a target market can help you establish your business and get clients more quickly and easily:

  • A target market simplifies and streamlines everything in your business:  operations, marketing, administration, work processes, billing structures, policies… everything!
  • It’s much easier to systemize and manage your business when you cater to a specific clientele.
  • Your expertise in serving that market increases, allowing you to command higher fees, work with fewer clients and make more money.
  • When you know who you’re concentrating on, it’s easier to learn everything you can about a particular market and its common needs, goals and challenges.
  • When you know who you are talking to, you can create a message that will be music to their ears.
  • You’ll be able to tailor your solutions in ways that are more attractive and meaningful.
  • When you have direction, it’s far easier to identify what marketing actions to take and where.
  • It’s easier to find your would-be clients, online and off.
  • With a target market, you can extend your reach beyond the local/in-person market.
  • Instead of trying to be everywhere, talking to everyone (and reaching and resonating with no one), you can focus your efforts on just those places where your target market is found (online and off).
  • In turn, you’ll have far more time and energy for actually working with clients once they start coming through your doors.
  • You’ll get more and better referrals because people find it much easier to send business your way when they know who you specialize in supporting.

If you haven’t yet, be sure to download our free guide on How to Choose Your Target Market

Dear Danielle: What Is the Best Approach to Physically Obtain Quality Clients?

By Danielle Keister |
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Dear Danielle: What Is the Best Approach to Physically Obtain Quality Clients?

Dear Danielle:

I am very new to the Administrative Consulting business although I have almost 20 years of experience supporting senior-level executives. I agree with you that we are so much more than “virtual assistants” and I would like to attract customers who understand that and value what we bring to the table, if you will. Therefore, my question to you is now that I’ve created a website and all other social media accounts, what is the best approach to physically obtain quality clients? Eventually, I may narrow my target but for now, my target is Small Business Owners. Thank you. —ND

Hi, ND. Welcome and thanks for reaching out. 🙂

Sounds like you’ve got the perfect background and a solid body of experience to offer clients. Wonderful!

Of course, there’s much more to business than simply knowing how to support clients and do the work, as you realize.

Learning how to run, manage and market a business and get actual clients (much less good ones) is a whole other skillset and area of education in and of itself.

This is why your question is more of a training one, rather than something that can be answered in a simple blog post.

It requires a more in-depth, systematic process of learning to understand the components, dynamics, and psychology involved.

To get that kind of knowledge and learning, I will refer you to my step-by-step self-paced training guide I created specifically for that purpose: How to Build a Website that WORKS!

This guide is centered around your website because your website IS the critical link in connecting your marketing and networking to actually getting clients, and not just any clients, but the kind of clients you want to reach: quality clients who understand your value.

This involves pre-educating your site visitors so they are in the right mindset, setting the right expectations, and prequalifying clients to help ensure you are productively spending your time in consultation with your most ideal and likely client candidates.

In the process of going through the steps and exercises, my guide also gives you a crash-course in inbound marketing because the two go hand-in-hand. You can’t set up an effective website and conversion system that gets results unless you understand all the components and mechanics involved.

Another thing I show you how to do in my guide is how to articulate your value and write your marketing message (and I have a clever system that helps you do that, no writing talent required; couldn’t be easier).

This is where having a target market is absolutely vital.

If there are any “secrets” in business and getting clients (and there aren’t), this is it.

And that’s because it’s not so much a “secret” as it is an area of misunderstanding and resistance for so many people.

You mention that right now your target is “small business owners.” But that isn’t a target at all, you see.

“Small business owners” is merely a demographic, and a very vague, general one at that which isn’t going to be helpful to you in any meaningful way whatsoever in creating a compelling marketing message and getting those ideal clients who value what you do.

It’s like saying “people” are your target market. That’s literally anyone and everyone in the world — which is the opposite of a target market (which by definition is a specific market).

A target market is simply an industry/field/profession that you cater your administrative support to. That’s it. However, it’s a vitally important component in getting those quality, ideal clients who understand your value that you wish for.

And this is where people struggle because they resist the idea that they actually expand their attractiveness and opportunities if they narrow their focus to one specific group.

Because here’s the thing: you can’t articulate your value in any truly meaningful, compelling way until you know who it is you are providing that value to. And that requires you to decide what industry/field/profession that will be.

Because it’s all relative.

Your value — what you provide, the solutions you offer, how you deliver those solutions and the results you create — all depends on who your audience (i.e., target market) is: who they are, what their commons interests, needs, challenges and goals are, what work they do in their profession, how their businesses are run, who their clients are, how they get those clients, and so much more.

You have to decide who it is you specifically intend to help in order to identify, understand and articulate your value in a way that speaks to these things as it relates to them. Otherwise, all you’ll ever accomplish (by trying to create a message for anyone and everyone) is being generic and forgettable.

To stand out, to create real meaning, to get focus and direction for your message and your marketing, you need specificity.

That specificity (i.e., deciding on a target market to cater your administrative support to) is what is not only going to get you more ideal clients who value what you do, it’s also going to make your business and marketing easier, you’ll have an easier time charging higher fees and making more money, and you’ll be able to get more clients more quickly and easily.

If you haven’t yet, be sure to download my free guide on How to Choose Your Target Market.

Start there, decide on a target market and then get my marketing/website guide, and you’ll be well on your way to getting those ideal, quality clients who absolutely understand how valuable you can be to them.

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