By Tina Hilton of Clerical Advantage
Ok, my reference to Shakespeare in the title of this post is corny. What can I say? My two kids say the older I get, the cornier I get. I offer my apologies for subjecting you to it. But it just fit so well with the context of my post today.
As a frequent ‘tweeter’ on Twitter , I followed a short conversation (can they be anything but with only 140 characters?) concerning virtual assistance. One person inquired concerning it and the other stated that if the first party were considering becoming one, that they might rather use another designation. Has the designation of ‘virtual assistant’ become so overused and non-specific that we need to rethink calling ourselves as such? Does adding the term “Virtual Assistant Services” to my website cause possible clients to turn off whereas using terms such as ‘blog or social media consultant’ ‘business transcriptionist’ or some other designation might garner more attention?
Granted the term ‘virtual assistant’ holds a broad spectrum, but hey, some of us have a broad spectrum of expertise to offer. I personally have a lot of experience in the mortgage/ real estate law office arena. Yet, I’ve been maintaining websites since my ‘PTA’ days when I was a scrapbook consultant and began blogging when it was called an ‘online journal’, designing my own templates for blogger and personalized headers for ’stock’ Wordpress blogs. I have designed brochures, business cards, letterhead, etc for both myself and former employers for years, transcribed countless documents from both verbal and handwritten form. On top of that, I’ve got a certificate in Health Claims Processes that includes medical transcription and processing health insurance claims among other medical office protocols. And these are just the things that come to mind immediately. So if using the term ‘virtual assistant’ is shooting myself in the foot, just what other designation should I use?
It seems ironic just as virtual assistance is starting to become more widely recognized, that we have reason to question the marketability of designating ourselves as such. Or perhaps I’m just super sensitive given my recent posts here on the definition of a virtual assistant. What do you think?
If you have questions concerning virtual assistance or have an interest in working with a virtual assistant you can contact Tina Hilton or visit her business website for Clerical Advantage.
I think the problem is with all of the different types of services and niches of which VAs are capable and we want to showcase those without limiting ourselves. But if someone has a very limited range of abilities, they might want to research the industry to find out if they’re really a VA.
For example, my career background and education is in the legal field so I started out intending to be a VLA and I’m even working on a program to provide certification for VLAs.
However, as I started advertising my business, I got requests for other types of services, particularly in the marketing and website maintenance areas. When a potential client asks me if I can do A, B or C and I am capable of doing those things then of course I’m going to take on that client. Should I turn them away because I’m supposed to be a VLA? No.
So after doing a lot of this type of work and talking with my coach, instead of deciding if I wanted to work with one type of client or the other, I decided on both.
So now I offer legal support services to attorneys and I offer website and marketing assistance to people who own an online business.
But if marketing or website maintenance or even bookkeeping was all I knew how to do, I wouldn’t call myself a Virtual Assistant.
That’s probably the biggest problem facing the VA industry especially since its going through some kind of growth spurt. There really is no clear definition of it and there’s a risk of being either too broad or too limited.
In my readings I’ve seen a lot of talk on marketing blogs and in marketing books about specialization and differentiation.
Basically, when you’re marketing to someone, the more closely your message matches their need “in their own words”, the more likely they are to choose you.
I suppose there’s a list of “needs” you might fill, like (as examples only):
- I sure wish someone could help me write content for my web site
- Bookkeeping is taking too much of my time, can someone do that for me?
- I’m disorganized. I need help with contact management and appointment setting.
- Could I find a professional to proof-read my press releases?
- Filling and faxing these insurnce forms is getting overwhelming. Who can help?
If someone visits your website or reads your profile on an outsourcing site, seeing something like “I can use a computer, I’m smart, and I can do all these various things …” doesn’t hit people as clearly as “Let me fill in and fax insurance and medical forms for you” if that’s exactly what they are looking for.
I know I recently hired a virtual assistant of sorts to help write the terms of service (ToS) for our web site, and although there were a variety of qualified-looking candidates, I went with the one who had recently done a few other ToS and who listed that specifically in his profile.
Is he actually better at that task? I have no idea, but it seems *likely* that he is if he’s specializing in that.
If a particular type of virtual assistant work could generate enough business for you, it’s possible that by specializing in that part of it you’ll be able to focus your marketing efforts, and as a result possibly increase revenues overall. For example, ranking for “medical transcription” on google is probably less competitive than “virtual assistant”.
Anyway, that’s my 2 cents …
The moniker of Virtual Assistant has been adopted by anyone offering services online. Speaking for myself, I desire and need to differentiate myself from those who call themselves virtual assistants, but in reality, do everything but administrative work. I also feel the need to differentiate myself from those who charge so little for their services that it devalues the service in the eyes of the public.
I haven’t come up with an alternate title, and I probably spend too much time thinking about this, but it saddens me that the moniker, Virtual Assistant, has come to mean cheap labor of questionable quality. Personally, I don’t want to be lumped into that definition.
=>Donna Caissie, Virtual Assistant
ExtraOrdinary Assistance
http://www.extra-assist.com
dcaissie@extra-assist.com