Black Friday Ideas For Virtual Assistants

Posted on by Rose Odoemelam

If you need black Friday ideas for virtual assistants that actually bring in money…

Or have been wondering;

“Should virtual assistants have black Friday offers?”

“What kind of deals should I offer on black Friday?”

“How should I prepare my business for black Friday?”

This post will answer your burning questions and give you 5 black Friday ideas for virtual assistants.

Black Friday is one of the biggest sales events of every year.

It usually happens on the last Friday of November yearly. 

Many businesses want to get noticed and make sales because people are usually ready to spend some money. Virtual assistants aren’t left out in this, so putting appropriate measures in place is necessary to achieve success.

 There are two ways to profit from black Friday as a virtual assistant.

black friday virtual assistant

1.) Offer to help your clients and prospects prepare for black Friday.

This one starts even before black Friday. This is one thing a lot of VAs are not doing. Reach out to your clients, potential clients and even  past clients and ask about their black Friday plans.

If they’d need the help, offer to help them do something depending on the kind of services you offer.

Customer support, sales page design, email copy, Instagram content scheduling, community management, launch tech, online shopping etc. 

Over the years, I’ve realised that some clients want to do something for black Friday (or grab special black Friday deals for themselves) but are too busy to do it themselves.

Most of them procrastinate and do a last minute thing which does not bring in the results they need.

So if you are proactive enough to offer your services, the serious ones will jump at the offer.

You can even package it well and give it a fancy name.

For example, “get black Friday ready package for wedding photographers”. 

As someone who offers email marketing, copywriting and website design services, I could offer to do all three things for wedding photographers to help them get ready for black Friday.

That’ll increase my income for the month but to the wedding photographers I’d work with, it means automated marketing, automated sales, systems that work. And zero stress.

They won’t have to do anything to get their calendar filled with wedding bookings for the foreseeable future.

It’s always a win-win.

2.) Create your own black Friday offer you’ll benefit from after Black Friday

Firstly, to prepare yourself as a virtual assistant, you have to find out if your client is also planning for black Friday so that your plan doesn’t clash with theirs. If your client is planning for black Friday, you should start ahead of your client to prepare your offer and your marketing strategy. When you are done with yours, you can then provide support for your client. 

This is important because a lot of virtual assistants focus on client work and forget to do the boring work that keeps them in business.

To avoid feast to famine in your VA business you need to prepare for black Friday and leverage it as much as your client’s do.

Before we get into black Friday ideas for virtual assistants…

Here’s How to Prepare Your Virtual Assistant Business For Black Friday

1.) Take time to plan 

Take out a notepad and pen and think of low hanging fruits you can leverage to get a piece of the Black Friday pie.

Come up with new and innovative ideas that you are yet to explore in your business. This is necessary to avoid repeating the same kind of sales promotion every year.

The goal is for each year’s black Friday offer to be juicier than the last. You also need to work out how many new clients you can handle – especially if you don’t have subcontractors. 

Don’t be greedy or unrealistic. You will ruin your business if you take on more than you can handle.

If you do have subcontractors, you should check whether they are available to help out to ensure you are able to cope with the potential demand.

Recommended: How to manage multiple virtual assistant clients without burning out

2.) Prepare your online channels.

After deciding on what your offer would be, you should prepare your online channels for the activity spike that is about to come.

Make your contents and calls to action idiot proof. Potential client’s shouldn’t have to wonder what they should do next.

Your website server should be prepared for the influx of web traffic that will come through once you launch your Black Friday offer. You may also need new additions like sales pages,  policy pages, etc.

If you plan to include emails in your marketing, ensure you don’t send too many emails at once or you’ll piss off your subscribers. Also ensure that your black Friday sales promotion email doesn’t clash with any other emails, especially if you have automated email series set up. Segment your email list to ensure you are sending your offer to the right people.

Prepare your social media channels with social media posts, social media stories, ads, etc. 

Write and schedule your content in advance.

Don’t just wake up on Black Friday morning and send out your offer. Ensure you have been talking about it leading up to the sale day. It’s okay to send a minimum of one email daily to your list during black Friday. People may unsubscribe, but that’s also a good thing.

You want a buying audience.

Read also: How to market your virtual assistant service and get paying clients

3.) Update your autoresponders. 

You’ll have to update your online enquiry auto responders and change the expected response time. Set up autoresponder emails for enquiries that come through your website and social media channels during black Friday in order to manage customer expectations. 

For example, if you offer a 48-72 hour response time, change it to 24 hours max.

People are with their cards in hand ready to buy. Don’t make them jump any hoops to do it.

You can easily send automated responses on Gmail. Don’t know how? My email management for VAs course teaches that and more.

Recommended: Things to automate in your virtual assistant business

5 Black Friday Ideas For Virtual Assistants

1.) Offer a simplified version of your service. 

You can create a package that is a small sampling of your service. You can also create an exclusive bundle of your services by packaging your services in a limited-time special offer. This way, people who couldn’t get the full offer at premium price will get a taste and maybe start working with you full time.

2.) Offer an add-on in addition to an existing service to make a special offer

It is important that you work out the feasibility, time and even the cost implications of offering a discount before you do. 

It’s great discounting an existing package, but you don’t want to get clients – only to discover that you discounted too heavily and are actually working for peanuts. 

Be realistic.

Don’t give a discount just because the next VA is giving one.

Sometimes your business might not survive a discount sale and that’s okay. 

You shouldn’t have to burn your business to the ground to join the black Friday sale. 

Instead, don’t reduce your rates but offer an add-on to attract clients.

You can create a simple info product like templates, an eBook, a Masterclass etc.

Think about something that will help your target audience achieve something.

This way, you will only create it once but can offer it to everyone during black Friday (and then sell it after black Friday to everyone else if you want).

Pro Tip:  If you decided to give a discount, you need to set how long clients have before they have to forfeit their money. You don’t want client’s coming whenever they like to give you tasks because they paid in advance 8 months ago. Whatever you do, be super clear in your offer details.

3.) Collaborate with other businesses that serve your target audience

Join forces with other businesses in your network who serve your target audience.

For example, a course launch VA can team up with a video editor, copywriter, graphic design and social media manager to create a single black Friday offer. 

This way, they can promote it to their audiences via their independent platforms to give aspiring, new and established  course creators all the support they need to launch their course in 30 days.

4.) Don’t limit your offer to new clients

Don’t promote your services to only potential new clients. Your past clients and existing clients already know how much you can help them. So be sure to offer them a promotion as well. It could be a discount, an add-on to their existing package. Etc.

Whatever it is, make sure they get an offer as well. After all, it is easier to sell to people who are already clients than brand new people.

5.) Promote your Affiliate links

As a virtual assistant, you use tools everyday to make your work easy. Most of these tools are also used by clients. So compile a list and share it as your Black Friday offer. It could be anything from software, courses or even gear your clients will benefit from.

For example, if you are a podcast virtual assistant and know a fantastic microphone that would make your clients audio quality better, you could sign up for their affiliate program and make money when your clients buy.

Read also: Top 10 passive income ideas for virtual assistants in Nigeria

Why is that a Black Friday offer?

It is a good black Friday offer because companies will be selling at a discount so any client that gets your free list will be getting something that’ll help them save a lot of money on the tools and/or information they need to keep the lights on in their business. And you’ll get paid when they use your affiliate links.

Pro Tip: this can be a great time to purchase particular services / products for your own business.

Final words

If you’ve not been taking advantage of Black Friday or didn’t know what to do, I trust you’ll do better moving forward.

You can be booked out well into the first quarter of a new year from your black Friday offer. Found this post helpful? Share it with others.

6 Things To Automate In Your Virtual Assistant Business

Posted on by Rose Odoemelam

Running a Virtual Assistant business is no easy work. As a Virtual Assistant, you are tasked with time consuming work that requires you to pay close attention to details. You have to get things done for clients and do your personal business too. The huge workload can limit the number of clients you can handle at once since you only have as many hours in a day. But for you to succeed as a Virtual Assistant, you often need to take on and manage multiple clients. This means that you need to find ways of completing more tasks in less time. Thanks to automation, you can make this happen!

Automation can help you handle repetitive tasks and other time consuming manual processes. It also eliminates human error. If used properly, you can leverage it to take on more clients and offer value-added services that you couldn’t do otherwise. Your clients will be happy as well and your services will blow their minds. Exciting, isn’t it? 

Here Are 6 Things You Could Automate In Your Virtual Assistant Business

 

1.) Email Marketing And Lead Generation

You have to constantly market your virtual assistant business even if you are fully booked. This is because you might need to fire a client or a client might let you go at any time. It is better to have a list of warm leads waiting for an opportunity to work with you.

Lead generation is a set and forget system that I love and use in my business. One smart idea is instead of handing prospective clients your services and pricing guide. You could use it as a lead magnet.

Potential clients only have to enter their name and email to get it. That way, you can follow up, nurture them and turn them to paying clients. Email marketing tools I love are use are: Sendfox and Brevo (formerly sendinblue).

2.) Email Management 

If you aren’t already, email management is one thing you need to automate in your virtual assistant business. You can do this by setting up templates for quick responses and automating things like common question responses and forwarding of Email to appropriate clients. 

By reducing Email management time, you can increase your workload capacity and still get this done. The email management tool I love and use is Gmail

3.) Bookings 

You can use automated meeting and appointment scheduling systems to reduce this stress of scheduling appointments. To do this, you just have to configure your calendar based on your scheduling preferences including preferred times and location. This way, clients and prospective clients can schedule meetings with you without the need for back and forth emails to sync schedules. 

This takes off the stress of manually adding meetings to your schedule and worrying about notifying participants of changes to scheduled appointments or meetings. This also allows either party to cancel or reschedule meetings without needless back and forth communication. Booking tools I love and use are Tidycal and calendly

4.) Invoicing

If your clients subscribe to a monthly package. You could create a monthly subscription payment page like this, to automatically collect payments on your behalf. This way, it will be easy to charge clients when due, follow up unpaid invoices and even charge late payment fees.

You can put much of your invoicing work on autopilot by turning to an invoicing automation solution. With automation, you can send more accurate and timely invoices to clients. You can also use the accounting automation tool to remind clients of overdue bills. Handing these accounting tasks to automation can help you focus on other tasks.

Some invoicing tools I use are Paystack,  Zoho invoice, and Invoice.ng

5.) Social Media Marketing 

Social media marketing is another area you should automate in your virtual assistant business. All you have to do is pre-plan your content and create it in advance. Scheduling tools will publish as scheduled. Social media marketing tools like zoho social can do a lot more like publish already published posts, find the best hashtags, use AI to write engaging captions for your posts etc. 

This can improve your posting consistency which is key to building a larger audience and improving engagement metrics. Some social media automation tools can also help you manage follower interactions on multiple social channel.

Social media automation tools I use and love are Zoho social, planoly and preview

6.) SEO Blogging

SEO blogging can be automated to help you get organic leads. All you have to do is write and optimise your content in advance and schedule them. 

For example I am writing this post you are reading now in July and will schedule it in a few hours to be automatically published in a month’s time while I will be on maternity leave and nursing my son. This way, I can batch create content and schedule to automatically go out at a set date. So even while I am on maternity leave, my business will not close shop. My website will continue to provide help to new and aspiring virtual assistants while I am away.

Wrapping up…

Automation opportunities are not limited to these. But in all, it can help you grow your business and become more competitive. So I hope you start by automating these things today in your virtual assistant business.

How To Market Your Virtual Assistant Business And Get Clients

Posted on by Rose Odoemelam

“How can I market my virtual assistant business?”

“How can I attract clients instead of chasing them?”

“Can I market my virtual assistant business without a website?”

Ever asked any of these questions?

You’re not the only one. Most virtual assistants are usually puzzled with how they can market their business and attract quality clients. I decided to compile my list of 12 practical ways you can effectively market your virtual assistant business. A handful of these tips will work for  your whether you are an introvert or extrovert.

12 Practical Ways To Market Your Virtual Assistant Business And Get Clients

1. Create professional business profiles on social media platforms

With the information you get from profiling your ideal client, create professional business profiles on social media platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram. Consistent profiles across various social media platforms helps you establish your presence online and helps build your brand and markets you.

You shouldn’t just create social media profiles and call it a day. You have to intentionally market your services there. Creating content that positions you as knowledgeable, fun and easy to work with. Let your profile repel people you don’t want to work with and attract people you want to work with.

2. Create a Website And Take SEO Blogging Seriously

Set up a professional self-hosted WordPress website (not a free website) and a blog that will act as your portfolio. 

On your website, make sure the services you offer and contact information are clearly visible for all to see. People don’t like cluttered websites that lack the information they seek. Your site should also contain links to your social media feeds. professional photos of you, etc. 

Related: 12 things every virtual assistant website must have 

Blogging is highly beneficial for SEO purposes and is a great way to showcase your knowledge and skills to your potential clients. Use carefully targeted SEO-friendly keywords when posting content on your blog. This way, people all over the world can easily find you when they search for services related to you. 

Getting a basic website is not expensive. You can outsource it if you don’t know how to create a website or learn step-by-step how to create a website and do it yourself.

3. Leverage Email Marketing

Email marketing is essential for virtual assistants. It’s a good way to nurture leads into paying clients using lead magnets. Offering a lead magnet simply means offering them something in exchange for their email address like a freebie or Ebook.

Once they are on your list, you can nurture them with more helpful content, position yourself as an asset and introduce your paid services.

4. Leverage Content Repurposing

Content repurposing is a smart way to get your virtual assistant business in front of potential clients in various formats and on various platforms.  You can use social media posts, infographics, YouTube videos, Podcasts, Webinars, Instagram, blog posts, etc. to teach potential clients about yourself and your services. You can also use this to show off a particular type of service and get them thinking how it could work for them. Share tips on frequently occurring topics related to the services you offer. Record live events and make them available for later viewing. The opportunities with content repurposing are endless. If you don’t know how to repurpose content for your business or your clients, you need to learn how in this easy course.

5. Market Your Business Offline

A lot of new and aspiring virtual assistants under-rate offline marketing activities. I’ve had family and friends, colleagues, and church members pay for my services and refer me to clients. So don’t be shy to  advertise yourself to your family and friends, let them know the services you are offering. Even if they don’t have a business or need your services, they might know someone who will.

Sometimes your ideal client is hiding in plain sight.

It doesn’t always have to be social media or even your website. You can also market your virtual assistant business at physical networking events. Business cards are cool for physical events. Another subtle way to market your business is by wearing a statement tee-shirt to such events. They are good conversation starters.

6. Join A Strong Network Of Virtual Assistants

You can find strong and free virtual assistant platforms on Facebook, Linkedin etc. that can help each other gain clients. While in those groups you need to be useful. For example, you can refer admin jobs to a VA good at that if you are a tech VA for example and vice versa. This will also help you stay up to date with current trends and upskilling opportunities. It will also raise your profile and people you connect with may refer clients to you.

7. Get Strong Testimonials

Positive testimonials position you as someone who others are happy to work with and can get clients their desired results. Whether you like it or not, prospective clients will judge you based on what other people say about you. That is why you need good testimonials.

If you don’t know how to ask for testimonials or your clients are too busy to write or record testimonial videos for you, you can get my testimonial request kit to help you ask clients for testimonials and make them give you one even if they are too busy to write or don’t know the right words to use.

8. Ask For Referrals

You can leverage your relationship with one client into a client acquisition opportunity. Have you ever completed a project and asked your client for a referral? It doesn’t make you sound desperate. Closed mouths don’t get fed.

Asking for a referral is a no brainer when you know the referrer has a network of people that need your services. My referral request kit will help you ask for referrals professionally.

9. Showcase Your Past Work To Your Potential Clients In Your Portfolio

You need a virtual assistant portfolio whether you already have clients or are just starting out. If a client is happy with the work you display in your portfolio, they might hire you. Another thing you can do is to create a case study for clients you have successfully worked with. In your case studies, share where your client was, how you supported them and the results of the strategies you implemented.

10. Volunteer Strategically With No Expectations

When I started my VA business in 2019, I volunteered to design ebooks for an online community of bloggers. That no strings attached decision opened the doors to the business you’re seeing today. I got a couple of clients from that platform who needed ebooks once they saw what I could design.

When you volunteer to offer your services to your ideal client, it may end up in a paid work relationship if you play your cards right.

11. Use Paid Ads

You can advertise online by using paid advertising from Google AdWords to get higher ratings on search engines and social media ads. You can also advertise yourself on Facebook groups where your clients might be active and your social media circles.

Before you run any kind of Ads in your business, ensure you prepare your business for the traffic that’ll come your way.

12. Joint Venture (JV) Partnership

This simply means partnering with another service provider who has an active audience of your ideal clients on social media, their podcast, YouTube channel or even email list. Once you find a JV partner, your JV partner can introduce you to their audience via an exchange of resources.

For example, if you help realtors with admin work, you could find a coach for realtors to partner with. This way, you could share your knowledge with their community of realtors, telling them how a VA can help them with their admin work (and pitch your services of course). 

In exchange, your JV partner will have provided their community with helpful information and can get introduced to your own leads as the go-to coach for realtors. You could help your JV partner with whatever admin tasks they are struggling with. JV partnerships are always a win for all parties.

Wrapping Up

Marketing your virtual assistant business is important to be successful. You may be the best virtual assistant alive and not get clients if you do nothing and wait for clients to come to you. 

Hopefully, these tips can be helpful as you market your virtual assistant business and get clients. Found this post helpful? Let me know in the comments.

How to Identify Online Job Scams as a Virtual Assistant

Posted on by Rose Odoemelam

It is totally normal to feel a burst of excitement when you set up your virtual assistant business and are ready to start getting clients.

You’re motivated and ready to put in the work so you go everywhere to find clients.

 With a brick and mortar business, you would walk into a place, interact with staff and then make a decision.

But since your business is virtual, at least 90% of your marketing is going to be online.

What you might not know is that there are bad people on the internet looking for unsuspecting virtual assistants like you, to scam.

You need to know how to identify online job scams as a virtual assistant and protect your business.

Because scammers are everywhere. They are in different job boards out there like Upwork, LinkedIn, Fiverr, Facebook groups, Indeed, etc.

They are on social media, and they can also email you.

So today, I’ll tell you how to identify online job scams as a virtual assistant.

Here are the online scams you should look out for as a virtual assistant

online job scams virtual assistant

#1.) Direct Offers From An Unknown Source For A Job You Didn’t Even Apply For

Some months ago, I received an email from a brand offering to pay $50/hr for my writing services.

I was very excited but found out the email said I  had to accept the offer within 5 days or lose it. The email was in my spam folder so I didn’t see it until it was already way past day 10 and that dampened my spirit. I talked to my husband about it and decided to just research the company.

A simple Google search revealed so much!

A lot of freelance writers were complaining about the company and some of them even wrote articles on how the scam company operated. I could relate to their experience with the company’s offer so I deleted the email and moved on. 

Be wary of unsolicited job offers. I see them a lot on Instagram and via email. Sometimes they want you to be an affiliate or influencer Now this should not be confused with legit offers from real brands. 

I can hear you asking “so how do I differentiate what’s legit and what is a scam?”

Keep reading. 

2.) They want you to pay to get started working.

Whatever they call it, it’s the same. Training fee, application fee, registration fee, pay for something and they’ll make a refund plus interest etc. You shouldn’t have to pay to get a job

3.) They want to send you a cheque, ask you to cash it, keep some of the money for yourself as payment, and then send them the rest. 

This money is likely being laundered and they want you to take the fall for it.

I heard a story about a car dealer who had some potential buyers in his lot. They took a car for a test drive, agreed on the price and told him they’d make a transfer the next day. True to their word, they made the transfer the next day and the car dealer was happy he had made the sale. Barely hours later, the buyer called to say he had an emergency and would be unable to go ahead with the purchase. They begged him to take 25% of the money for his troubles (which was a lot), and send them the balance. 

He happily did.

Only days later, the car dealer was arrested for links to kidnapping. Apparently, they had used the car dealer’s account to collect a ransom and there was nothing the car dealer could say because it looked like he took his share of the loot with the 25% he accepted.

You need to be careful. If it looks too good to be true, it probably is.

4.) You are offered the job immediately 

This is always a red flag. A good brand would always want to recruit the best talents. They’d want to vet you and even get on a discovery call with you.

If someone refuses to get on a live call with you where you can see their face, they are probably trying to hide their identity so you shouldn’t take such offers.

5.) When There’s Little To No Job Description Provided

This is usually an easy route to get into a work relationship where they’ll give you any job that comes to mind, at any time so you can’t call it scope creep.

You shouldn’t take a job that doesn’t clearly state what is expected of you from the onset. It always leaves room for abuse.

6.) The client doesn’t want to pay a deposit until the job is complete.

I always tell people to never trust anyone that says “money is not a problem, just do the job”.

If money isn’t a problem, then they should have no issue with paying a deposit.

You can’t trust people to keep their word if they can’t trust you to deliver the job if they pay a deposit. If a prospective virtual assistant client doesn’t want to pay before service, you’re better off without them.

7.) The prospect has an unprofessional email address

If their email address is name@domain.com, you can go check out their website and learn more about them through their website. If they don’t have a website yet and a gmail or yahoo account instead, then at least check them out on social media to make sure you are not talking to a scammer.

Scammers are not always very smart. One time I got a job offer from an email marketing company. They had a custom email address and sounded professional. On a closer look, I noticed that there were discrepancies everywhere.

The custom email address used read alex(at)scamcompany(dot)com, the prospect introduced himself as Henry but his email signature had Noah. Go figure!

8.) Grammatical errors in the job listing or offer. 

This is a MAJOR red flag. I don’t know why people fall for it. Most scammers are lazy people on the dark part of the internet. They are so lazy that they either don’t have time to proofread their content or just can’t read.

Your ideal client would want to put their best foot forward.

9.) When the pay is simply amazing for little effort on your part? 

In the first couple of months after I got my first phone, I received a text message from my internet provider at the time.

The message was to inform me I had won twenty eight million naira for being a loyal customer and I should call Mr Sam to claim the money.

I showed the message to my cousin and he was happy for me. It was too late into the night to call Mr Sam so we agreed to proceed early the next day.

That night, I couldn’t sleep. I thought about all the things I’ll buy and how my life was pretty solid. I felt like I would get robbed that night and they’d take my phone and claim my price. Slowly but surely, morning came and we swung into action. I called Mr Sam to inform him I was one of the lucky winners. Let’s just say it didn’t end well. Mr Sam was a scammer.

Another one happened two weeks after I completed my NYSC orientation and left camp. I received a message from a stranger who claimed he was a fellow corp member in my camp, he said he had a few spots to offer lucky corp members at Chevron (an oil and gas company that pays very well) and the salary was about 400K.

The scammer knew my name, state code, platoon, profession and other details. The Rose of 2008 would have been over the moon but I said “not today Satan” and replied to him saying I had a few spots at shell (another oil and gas company) to offer him too. He never replied.

I later found out lots of corp members got a similar message from the scammer.  This type of scammer tries to lure you in with the money. If you get greedy, you’ll fall for it and not see the red flags.

10) There’s something weird about the job

Call it whatever you choose. Gut feeling or intuition.

When you can’t shake off that weird feeling that something isn’t right, then don’t take on that project. Don’t be desperate

In the times when I have focused on the amount of money after doing my research instead of going with my gut feeling, I have regretted it even when the client wasn’t a scam. We just didn’t align and they stressed me a lot.

Always respect your gut feeling. If you feel like it’s a scam, it probably is. If it looks too good to be true, it probably is.

Final Words

Desperation makes you vulnerable to scams. That is why I encourage virtual assistants at all levels to have a source of passive income to fall back on. When you are not desperate, you will easily identify online job scams as a virtual assistant.

Found this post helpful? Please share this post to help other virtual assistants to avoid scams and share your experience in the comments.

Virtual Assistant Website Must-Haves: 12 Things Your Website Needs Today

Posted on by Rose Odoemelam

“Do I need to have a virtual assistant website before I launch?”

“Do virtual assistants need websites?“

“What should a virtual assistant website contain?”

These are a few questions I get asked every now and then by new and aspiring virtual assistants.

Thing is, every virtual assistant business needs a website to attract ideal clients. You may have a well-designed website. But, is that website turning clicks to clients? If it is not as much as you wish, then read on.

Your potential clients will want to work with you if your website excites them. So your website has to communicate with your visitors.

Visitors check out websites the way guys check out good looking ladies. A lady may be good looking, alright. But when you talk to her and she isn’t exciting, you don’t want a date with her. You don’t want this with your website.

You’ll love your website visitors to be fascinated. You want them to learn more and go on to contact you. Won’t you be happy if they stay in touch and go on a discovery call ‘date’ with you?

So how do you set up your website to get potential clients to want to work with you?

Relax! Today is your lucky day. This post will reveal 12 things you need on your virtual assistant website to attract your ideal clients like nails to a magnet.

12 Things Your Virtual Assistant Website Must Have

virtual assistant website
Photo credit: freepik

1. A Static Home Page

A static home page allows you direct visitors exactly where you want them to go. This is because this is the only method that allows the content you put on it to stay the same.

My first website did not have a static home page. It was set to blog. So whenever I published a new blog post, that was the first thing visitors saw. Needless to say, I was leaving money on the table.

2. About Page

As much as you want your about page to be about you, make your ideal client the star. I remember my first about page, I wrote it in the third person, and used a lot of “We” and “our” even though I was a one woman show. It made me feel smart and important. So I chuckle when I read about pages that are written in the third person because most of them are typically written by the owner of the site.

That aside, your about page should be very simple and clear. Let your audience know who you work with, why you do what you do, what you offer and what they should do after reading the page.

PS: You need to figure out who you want to work with specifically (your best fit client or ideal client) before you write your about page.

Thankfully, you can grab a copy of my ideal client avatar workbook and know exactly the kind of person you should be trying to attract in your about page.

4. Services or Work With Me Page

You need this page on your website to promote your services. If you present your services neatly, your potential client will immediately know if you are the one to help them out. So when designing this, make sure you clearly outline your services. Don’t forget to add a clear call-to action prompting your prospective client to take the next step with you.

Your services page is a good place to display your rates.

5. You need a blog

My blog has been a huge part of marketing my business. Social media is not my thing and even if I know it’s importance, I struggle with it. That’s why I have my subcontractors help out with that so my clients stay happy. The organic traffic my blog generates is great.

A blog is an important part of any kind of online business. It helps you build your authority online while you sleep. Literally. It helps you create a connection with your potential clients before they even reach out to you. If you do it right, you can get lots of clients from a single blog post.

Imagine this: You wrote a blog post about ‘5 ways to design an eBook fast to build authority’.

A random person searching for ‘how to design an eBook’ finds your post, reads it and sees your call to action that says you design beautiful eBooks for clients so they click to learn more about you and eventually contact you. All this may happen while you are probably sleeping, eating or pooping. That’s the magic of a blog.

Speaking of ebooks, if you’d like a custom ebook template you and just copy and paste client text, add client branding and charge a lot of money for, then grab my Canva ebook template. You can even get social media templates to use to market your client’s ebook and charge them for it.

What can you blog about?

  • Share case studies on how you have helped clients in the past
  • Give advice that will be of benefit to your target clients
  • Blog about your services

Read Also: How to write a pillar blog post on your virtual assistant website

6. Landing Pages, Lead Magnets and Sign Up Forms

You need to have a sales funnel in your virtual assistant business. A landing page is an essential part of a sales funnel. It always has a signup/lead generation form to help drive leads for a specific reason. You need to have specific pages to promote your offers. It could be a sales pages, freebie page, thank you page, opt-in page, etc.

When someone lands on your website and reads your blog, they might want your free digital product in exchange for their email address. The digital product is the lead magnet and the person who gives their email address is the lead.

So your lead magnet has to be something that would attract leads.

To build on the example I made earlier, you could create an ebook on ‘5 free tools to create a 3D cover of your ebook in 10minutes’ and link it to the post about ebooks.

People who are interested in learning about ebooks would easily give you their email address in exchange for your list of free tools to create their book can cover.

This will help you get people who are genuinely interested in your services on your email list. So that you nurture them, build the know like and trust factor and eventually sell to them.

Here’s the link again to get my canva ebook template so that you can create your lead magnet and attract you ideal clients ASAP

7. Legal Pages

You need a privacy policy, refund policy, disclaimer, disclosure etc. Legal stuff may seem boring but you don’t want avoidable legal issues. A random person might decide to sue you because you said you make $10,000 as a virtual assistant and based on your recommendations they tried to do the same and failed. That’s one of the many many reasons why you should promise NOTHING or even imply it. Your legal pages will back you up if you imply unknowingly.

8. Testimonials from Clients And Case Studies

Your virtual assistant website needs to showcase your previous success working with other clients. That is social proof. People want to see that other people already love your work before they commit. Strong testimonials will do your marketing for you even in your absence.

The result of showcasing testimonials is that prospects will be confident in your abilities.

If you don’t have testimonial and don’t know how to get great ones then you’d love my testimonial request kit.

9. Portfolio

Your virtual assistant website is a good place to host your portfolio. If you are new and don’t have any experience to put on your portfolio, then read up on how to create your virtual assistant portfolio even if you have no experience and no clients.

10. Photos (Your Photos, not just stock)

Your virtual assistant website surely needs photos of you. Not just stock photos. As a virtual assistant in Nigeria, if you must use stock photos, try as much as possible to stay away from stock photos of white people. Instead use stock photos of black and brown people.

Make sure you a pay a good photographer to take photos of you. It is a business expense. If you need people to pay you $10,000, you have to look like you already earn $10,000. Package yourself. You don’t need expensive clothes to take photos for your business. Some of the clothes I used for my brand photo shoot were thrifted.

People need to see your face on your website. They need to see who they are working with. It doesn’t make sense when they can’t put a face to who they are reading about. Invest in professional photos.

FREE DOWNLOAD: Get a copy of my list of 70+ Website to get amazing free photos

11. Prices

Have you ever looked at something you really want and don’t have the time or heart to ask for the cost because you assume it would be too expensive? Exactly.

That’s what happens when you hide your prices on social media or on your website.

Clients would rather work with clients who are clear about their rates and packages. Be clear about your services and programs.

If you can’t state all your rates, give a range. Say something along the lines of “”starts at”. If you’re not sure how to much to charge for your services you should read my blog post about pricing here

12.) It Must Be Responsive

What this means is that it has to look good on a phone, tab and laptop. It must be easy to people to navigate to where they want within your website.

What Does Your Virtual Assistant Website Need?

You’ve seen my list of 12 things your virtual assistant website must have to turn clicks to clients. If you include all these in your website, there’s no doubt your ideal clients will reach out to you very soon. What did I miss? Found this helpful? Share in the comments.

How to Write A Pillar Blog Post in 9 Easy Steps

Posted on by Rose Odoemelam
pillar blog post featured image of black woman with a laptop and dog
Photo by Samson Katt on Pexels.com

Are you wondering how some blog posts manage to stand out from the 7.5 million blog posts published every day? Do you want to upgrade from writing mediocre posts to writing posts packed with value? If your answer is yes, then this post will guide you on how to create really good, distinct posts. They are called pillar blog posts.

A pillar post, just like the common pillar you know, are tall, broad and strong. Those kind of posts stand as the tallest around a particular topic. It is packed with so much value that google can’t ignore it in the rank of top results on search pages. This is because the content is unique, amazing and outshines other posts.

Simply put, the post is epic and meaty. It is not just a 500-600-word blog post. It is a detailed 1,000 to 2,000-word post. They are useful, actionable, well-written, engaging, filled with relevant images, audio and video to support your points. In fact, pillar posts have what 99% of other posts don’t have – longevity.

So, if you want to write a pillar blog post, you have to be ready to prove to your audience that your posts are different and outstanding. If you do this, you will show them that you are an authority on the subject. I guess you now understand that a pillar post is not one you spend 30-40 minutes writing. In fact, you need to put in so much time and effort into writing it.

When you have finished writing, you should advertise it on your blog and share links to it. Also importantly, you have to keep updating your post so that it will stay relevant. When you do this, you will notice the rush of new readers and back-links to your blog. More readers will continue to be drawn to your post over time as you and other people refer (link) to it.

Sometimes, you write articles and they become pillars when you don’t expect. Another time, you pour your heart into another article and it doesn’t generate traffic. An important question you need to ask while writing is: Will it still be relevant in 12 months?

There is no particular way to produce a pillar blog post but your content should have some unique features.

Features of a Pillar Blog Post

a. It is Long: If your normal blog posts are 500-1000 words long, a pillar blog post should be at least 1500-2500 words. If yours is 2,000 words, a pillar post should be 4,000 words. Some pillar posts even look like small e-books.

 b. It is broad: Here, you should be careful to avoid going too broad or too narrow. A pillar post can be on Facebook marketing. If you write on social media marketing, it will be too broad. If you write on Facebook stories marketing, then you are going too narrow.

c. It is a hub: A pillar post covers a topic in detail.

d. It is updated: Things change every day and the information on your pillar blog post should reflect these changes. When you update a pillar blog post, it stands out as a real hub of value and knowledge.

e. Pillar Content is better: A pillar post is commonly referred to as 10x content. It is 10x better than any other post on that topic. So, it will have a better ranking among the results for a given key-word.

With these in mind, you should also be aware of what already exists. There is no topic that has not been written on. So, you need to know what has been written about a topic, identify missing information and provide it. You may also consider thinking about topics instead of keywords. Pillar content is meant to focus on the entire broad topic, so that you can be a good resource for everything related to that topic.

Now, let’s look at the steps to create a pillar post.

How to Create Pillar Blog Post in 9 Steps

By now, you know that creating pillar blog posts requires a lot of work. Content is everything! If you want to stand out, google the top 10 blog posts on the topic you are writing on. Then, create a content 10 times better than those.

1. Choose Your Topic

This is the first and most important step. Decide what you are going to talk about. Spend some time here and don’t be in a hurry. You need to think properly and come up with s topic that your audience will like to read. Think about their problem, what they want and the type of content that would be helpful to them. You should get into their thoughts when choosing a topic. It is easier to enter into the conversation they are already having in their head than starting a new one. So, ask yourself these questions:

What conversations are my audience/prospects having in their head? Here you need to dig into the minds of your prospect. For example, what do people who want to lose weight think about? Are they wondering if it is possible to lose weight?

What are they searching for when they want to solve their PRIORITY problem? I had to emphasize on priority. Why? Because if you are creating solutions to problems/questions that are not pressing, you might be out of business before the client is ready to hire you.

That said, assuming you want to write about your email marketing service or you are selling a course on that topic. You need to figure out the kind of things people research on before they hire a VA to do their email marketing. Are they searching for email marketing tips? Best email service providers? How to automate emails? These questions need to come up during your choice of topic.

What do they need to believe? Get your prospect to believe that is possible for them to lose weight no matter how fat they are. Make them believe that it is possible even if they have tried and failed. If they don’t believe you, your post won’t appeal to them and they won’t buy your course. So, you need to educate them and answer their questions. Put up a post like: “How to lose weight even if you weigh 200 Pounds”.

What questions do they have? These questions are all important because they help you get into the mind of your prospective reader. After identifying these questions, you have to become the answer to them. This will form the base for your pillar blog post.

One topic idea isn’t enough. You have to come up with a list of about 10 content ideas. From these, coin the perfect topic that hits your target prospect and makes them eager to read more.

2. Choose your Type of Post.

Now that you know what your content is about, the next thing is to choose how to present it. There are two best formats to use for pillar blog posts: the ‘how to’ and the ‘listicle’. The ‘how to’ shows the reader how to do something. For example, how to lose weight. If you choose this type of topic, make sure you are detailed on every step so that the process is very clear to the reader. ‘How to’ articles have a way of making you an authority in your niche.

Your ‘how to’ article should be popular and relevant to your audience. You should be able to explain very well. You can tell a story if you can!

The ‘listicle’ is appropriate when there are many ways to achieve what your reader is trying to do. You simply create a list of anything (books, tools, resources) your audience finds useful. Articles with lots of list and compelling headline pull so much traffic. Lists are easy to consume, especially for people with who can’t read wordy articles. Lists also have direct actionable lessons that people love to share. So they are usually linked to by other bloggers and added to social bookmarking sites that drive traffic. Most lists that have original content, problem solving and applicable to audience become pillars.

If these two formats don’t fit, you can choose others like definition, theory argument, free-report-whitepaper or technical blueprint.

3. Find Your Angle

Now that you have a topic and have chosen a format, you need a kind of angle. This is simply a way of presenting your topic to grab your readers’ attention. Your angle is what makes them want to click and read that post. Let me remind you that there is no new topic under the sun. So you have to find a way to make yours unique by making it more interesting. Don’t skip this step! Your post may be really great and helpful but it won’t get the attraction it deserves. Why? because it isn’t unique and doesn’t grab attention.

5 post angles for your pillar blog post.

Benefits: Present your topic in a way that will be of benefit to the reader. Everything about that post, from title to layout, has to focus on the benefit. This angle is kind of straightforward and has to tell the reader what they will gain or learn. For example, Benefits: 5 Reasons why you should take a loan.

New: You know people love new and exciting things right? This angle is cool when you want to reveal a new thing or something the reader doesn’t know. It can be technology, development, announcement or something people haven’t seen before. This angle will interest even people who are well read in your niche.

Threat: This is like the inverse of benefit. This time, you are writing about ways in which not taking action harms the reader. Threat: Why your virtual assistant business will fail this year. This angle aims to help the reader avoid pain.

Piggyback: A piggy-back simply means when you use a well-known thing to add extra interest and credibility to your topic. For example: How to go from zero to 150,000 subscribers like Noah Kagan. Noah didn’t write that post but it is taking advantage of his popularity.

Curiosity: This is when you write a post that makes people curious to read more. You pique the interest of your readers without providing direct information, to draw as many people into your content. Example: How to Double Your Virtual Assistant Income (Without a Single New Client).

You can also combine some of these angles. If you combine benefit and new, you can get something like “Research shows that a new recipe reduces heart disease by 60%”.

4. Decide the Goal of the Post

This may sound weird to you but you need to start writing your pillar blog post (and basically all posts) backwards. When you do this, you keep the post focused and streamlined.

3 types of goals you could have for your pillar blog post:

Generate Leads: You should opt in for a lead magnet, register for a webinar, respond for a live event or request a coupon. Your pillar blog posts can generate these leads.

Acquire New Customers: A pillar blog post can help you get customers looking for the exact service or product you are offering.

Create Awareness for an Offer: A pillar blog post can help your readers learn more about an offer, especially for expensive, high ticket items.

After determining your goal, move to the call of action.

5. Write The Call to Action

This can come in various ways depending on the type of action you want the readers to take. E.g. Buy, attend, call, download, get more info, learn more, etc. Makes sense right? Without a call to action, your reader has nowhere else to go after reading your post. If you don’t provide a clear-cut call to action, they will simply hit the back button and go their way.

6. Choose the Keyword

Keywords are phrases people use to search for things on search engines. These words and phrases identify what people are searching for and the topic you are writing about. Choose long-tail keywords because they are more specific to what people are searching for when they dive into a google search. The fewer keywords you use, the greater the amount of searches conducted. Long tail SEO targets highly specific niche search items (long-tail keywords). Long tail keywords have 3+ words and are easier to rank due to low competition.

7. Write the Outline

So far, so strong. The pillar is almost completely built! If you want a coherent post and don’t want to leave anything out, it is good you write an outline. For a ‘how to’ post, write out all the points or steps you want to explain to readers. For a listicle, list every item on the outline.

8. Write the Pillar Content

It’s time to now write your pillar blog post. It may take your time and prove difficult, but you will be happy when the post ranks very high on google. So, get to work!

Write a good introduction that draws in and hooks your readers. A P.A.E.S opening can be used. Identify the Problem, Agitate the problem (add salt to the wound), Empathize with the reader, give the Solution. The P.A.E.S. starts out negative but turns out positive. For example, you can use the following empathy statements for your introduction: “I used to be like you…”, “I get it” etc.

Identify opportunities to add quality images, video and audio to make your post spectacular. Add an info graphic to make the pillar blog post more visually engaging. You can use screenshots to support your ideas or use a big number graphic that matches your listicle.

After writing the content, smooth out the edges, correct typos and the formatting. Make sure that your post is consumable (readable), complete and consistent with your brand or your other posts. Keep in mind that people don’t want to look at big, chunky texts to read. Your reader doesn’t want intimidating content.

9. Create a Content Upgrade

Finally, create a resource that is downloadable like a pdf. All these may take you a lot of time but the result will be worth it and far better than regular posts. It will be 10 times better than other posts.

Final Words

There are very few people willing to take these pains and those who do stand out. So go ahead, take these steps. You will be seen as an expert in your field and you will get rewarded with more leads and readers.

These are some of the tips I use when writing pillar blog posts for myself and my clients. For confidentiality sake, I can’t share content I’ve written for my clients but you can see my blog post on How to become a virtual assistant in Nigeria ranks number one. If that looks like something you’d like to have you can learn all about my SEO blog writing service.

Needless to say, if you’re a virtual assistant, you could use these tips to write content for your clients.

How to Double Your Virtual Assistant Income (Without a Single New Client)

Posted on by Rose Odoemelam

Want to double your virtual assistant income without signing on new clients? I get it.

Finding clients all the time is not fun for anyone. Time you should spend building your career or upgrading your skills can be spent chasing clients and doing everything everyone swears has helped them gain clients.

Don’t do it. You’ll burnt out.

I have never had to find clients for my VA business. They have always come to me through word of the mouth referrals. I do my best to maintain a 70% client retention rate because I understand that it is more difficult to sell your services to a new client than an old one.

Having 3 to 4 clients in a month means I am fully booked. That means 150K-400K per month and this is my side hustle. That’s just how it is for me.

So even if I have only two clients in a month, I can still meet my income goal.

How I do it?                        

Strategies, baby, strategies.

That’s what I’ll share with you in this post.

I’d say I’m lucky to have discovered this early on in my virtual assistant career. It has made me proactive when it comes to business and I don’t just sit back and wait for instructions.

I’ve had a client go from calling for a 10k service to hiring me for 100k just because I played my cards right.

Let’s dive right into it.

5 Ways To Double Your Virtual Assistant Income Without A Single New Client

Using these strategies, I get to choose who I work with and what type I work I want to do. Because not every job appeals to me (even if I can do it and someone is willing to pay me for it). Don’t worry you’ll understand why at the end of this post.

1.) Target Clients Who Stand To Gain A Lot From Your Services In The Long Run

It’s like wanting a long term relationship. If you read my blog or emails consistently, you already know I’m head over heels in love with retainers.

If you are a fan of retainers, then you should seriously consider only signing on long term clients. When I see that a brand has a lot of aspects they need help with, I know there’s room for an upsell. Even if they aren’t contacting me about all the aspects they need help with.

For example, if a brand has a website, I know that spells a lot. I can design their landing pages, write blog posts, do on-page SEO, redesign their website, create lead magnets, do their email marketing etc.

Sometimes they don’t know they need to do some of the things in the example above. So that’s where my subtle upsell pitch comes in.

And if they don’t have a website, then are they ready to?

I’m always ready to build one for clients. When I build a website, there’s potential for all of the above services I mentioned above. See where I’m going with this?

This means finding clients that I could provide more solutions to after the initial project and potentially keep working with for months/years. And rather than waiting for them to come to me for these solutions, I proactively propose my services to them.

Why?

Because most times a client may contact you and not know they need a service that works in synergy with what they called you for. And even if they do, they may not know the huge difference it will make for their business if they let you handle it.

It is in your place to let them know how much better the solution will be if they could get the add-on. Now this add-on AKA upsell never ends.

As you learn more about their business, there’ll always be something you can do to help.

I always have a brilliant idea for my clients’ business because I take time to study them.

If you want to double your virtual assistant income, you must go out of your way to find the clients who will gain a lot from working with you for the long haul, and turn down or refer the clients that will not.

Read also: How To Onboard Clients As A Virtual Assistant

2.) Make It A Habit To Learn About Your Client’s Business and Goals

If you have the employee mindset, you’ll be stuck here even if you get number one right.

I had this mindset early on in my business and it didn’t work out well. A virtual assistant with the mindset of an employee almost never takes initiative. They just sit and wait for instructions to be dished out to them by their boss.

I was this way because I was placed on a monthly salary regardless of how much work I did or didn’t do. I was complacent because I felt I would still get paid at the end of the month. It took a lot of growing to realize I was making myself become useless.

If you are really serious about doubling your virtual assistant income, be prepared to bring your best ideas to the table.

I’ve had clients ask me my opinion about a lot of things they wanted to do in their business. Because I built a relationship that brings results. Initially, I felt like my ideas were sacred and since they weren’t paying for my ideas, they couldn’t milk me for free.

I couldn’t be more wrong. When you help a client gain clarity and give advice that actually brings the results they want, you become like a sacred cow. They know you and your ideas are an essential part of their business and it is essentially a win-win.

Look at it from this angle. If you allow you clients make all the wrong business decisions while you hoard your killer ideas, you’ll go out of business too!

That’s why I take time to learn about every business I work with because I want it to grow. I read up, ask questions, search for ideas and even pray for them. Because anything that affects their business positively or negatively also affects me indirectly.

As you build trust with your client, you will soon be discussing their strategic plans, marketing goals, and other information relevant to how the projects you work on affect their business.

I’ll tell you for free, once you understand what a client is actually trying to achieve, you can now move from simply following what they think the solution is, to proposing a solution that may actually serve them a lot better!

Granted, some clients may be strong headed. I’ve had one like that. I kept telling her what needed to be done and she kept telling me what her friend did and why it was important to do exactly what her friend did. Even if it wasn’t going to bring in the results she needed. We did it her way and oh well, she realized I was right when she had spent too much time, money and energy on the wrong things.

Take the time to really listen to what the client responds with. Find out what their goals are.

Is it to increase sales?

Save money?

Deliver an amazing new product to their customers?

This does take practice. You might not have really thought too much about how specifically your services drive business results. But the great news is that you can learn just by asking the right questions and letting the client do the talking.

Some clients might claim they are too be busy to give you the information you need to get your job done.

That sucks.

I always ask for a brand fact sheet. If they don’t have one, I ask for a voice note on WhatsApp. This way it takes little time and effort to have it done and I can listen to it multiple times.

Whatever you do, be sure to make things easy for them.

3.) Proactively Use Your Skills to Help Your Clients Reach Their Goals

By understanding of your clients’ goals, you can continuously determine how your skills can help them reach their goals. Not just on the initial project, but with future projects. By practicing points one and two above.

These results aren’t impossible or something only “gurus” can pull off.  Providing real value doesn’t mean you have to spend weeks/months making it happen.

I can use one hour or less to complete some tasks because of practice/experience. They aren’t paying for one hour, they are paying for the time I spent perfecting my skills so I can solve their problems in little or no time.

So don’t let the idea of being an expert cause you to freak out.

Don’t forget that the basic skills you have now will seem almost magical to anyone.

Most people can’t use canva, design websites, or write copy.

Things that may seem embarrassingly basic for you can actually be mind-blowing for your clients.

For example, I could tell a client they desperately need to have a welcome email autoresponder and that would sound like a very huge task to them.

But it is something that takes me an hour or less to set up and earn 5 figures per month. In return, it saves them the stress of doing everything manually and helps them connect with their customers which ultimately increases conversion.

When their investment in working with you generates a return on investment for their business, it makes retaining your services a no-brainer.

4.) Raise Your Rates

If you’re doing points 1-3 above and are still struggling to get by financially, then maybe you need to raise your rates. This one way to easily double your virtual assistant income without getting a single new client.

I can hear you saying “But Rose, no one will pay more”.

Honestly, I have made peace with the fact that not everyone can afford to hire me.

You see, pricing has been a major problem since I started my business. Impostor syndrome made me price myself so low I had to constantly think about getting clients to keep up with my income targets in my business.

Needlessly to say, I was burnt out from over working myself in my 8-5job and VA business. This went on until I realized something had to give.

I was growing resentful about the work I was doing and felt cheated all the time. At a point I almost quit.

After I had a long chat with my husband, I raised my rates, I doubled my virtual assistant income and got job satisfaction.

Since making that decision, I have not had to worry about getting more clients to meet up with my income goals.

See, pricing your services is a tricky thing. While some people will not hire you because you are too expensive, others won’t hire you because you are too cheap and they feel cheap equals substandard.

A client that might have been fine with paying you 100K for a job will pay the 35K you asked for but pay another VA the full price.

It’s largely a mindset thing and I won’t bore you with the details in this post.

Want my advice?

Charge your happy price!

5.) Offer High Value Services

The kind of services you offer as a VA affects your earning potential. Sometimes you need to specialize in offering high-end services to earn more. For example, a VA who offers website design services will earn more than a VA offering data entry services. This is why I encourage VAs to constantly upgrade their skills to stay relevant. If you’d like to expand your suit of skills or learn other skills like website design, course creation etc. check out my courses.

How To Remain Top Of Mind If A Client Eventually Leaves

You might do everything in the book and the client will still move on from you. Be sure to stay in touch and maintain an open dialogue with your client about their goals. These follow-ups might be as simple as bringing information or ideas that the client might find valuable to them. That way you’ll be the first to come to mind when something comes up. Or perhaps when their friend is hiring.

I told you I have never had to find clients, right? Because I get referrals from clients all the time. At least 85% of all the brands I’ve worked with came via past and current client referrals.

Final Words

You can easily double your virtual assistant income just by targeting clients that need your services for the long haul, learning about their business and goals, connecting their business goals with the skills you have to offer. If  you do that as well as offering high-end services and then increasing your rates. So you don’t end up trading hours for naira.  As the client relationship grows, the work done can grow to many times the size of that initial project you were hired for.

Over To You

Do you use any of the strategies I shared above to double your virtual assistant income? Are there any strategies you use that I don’t know about? Kind share with me in the comment section below and I would be happy to try them out and upgrade the information in this post.

How To Get Noticed By Recruiters On LinkedIn

Posted on by Rose Odoemelam

While going through LinkedIn this morning, I saw an Ad for a WhatsApp class. The Ad was for a 2day masterclass on how to get noticed by recruiters on Linkedin and it cost 5k.

About a dozen people had shown interest and were asking for account details. So like with everything else, I went to the calculator app on my phone and clicked 12X5. The answer was 60.

That was less than 3 hours after putting up the post, so there was a possibility that more people would join the class.

After pondering on the meaning of life and how an extra 60+k would help me replace the hair extensions I lost during my wedding, I realized I could easily do any of the following:

  • Do the exact same thing and call it a ‘LinkedIn optimization class’ and have you pay me 5k for it.
  • Password protect this page and send you the password only after you pay me 3K.
  • Add it to the services I provide and charge you to optimize your LinkedIn profile on your behalf.

But because I’m a benevolent queen, I decided to teach you for free. You’re welcome.

But why do I need a LinkedIn profile?

This is one question I’ve been asked a lot lately. If you already have an optimized LinkedIn profile, this might come as a surprise to you but I got asked why it was necessary more times than I can count on one hand. I found out A LOT of millennials didn’t know they needed a LinkedIn profile in 2020. Shame on you Rapheal!

LinkedIn is one of the most important platforms out there with over 530 million members worldwide. It’s sad that a lot of millennials (including Virtual Assistants) have inactive LinkedIn accounts or don’t even have any because they are busy being savage on Twitter.

So if you don’t know why you need a LinkedIn account or how to optimize your LinkedIn profile like a pro, then keep reading. If you already have one, congratulations. Still hang around, you might learn something.

3 Reasons you need a LinkedIn profile in 2020

  1. It helps you get noticed by the right people

If you are working as a Virtual Assistant or any kind of professional, you need to make sure that when someone looks at your LinkedIn profile they clearly see what you do, who you do it for and whether you’re any good at it. Trust me, nobody will hire you if they’re not sure exactly what you do for people and how you can help them.

  1. Google loves LinkedIn

LinkedIn’s SEO is so good that if someone Googles you, your LinkedIn profile will come up at the top of page one and before your own website (if you have one). So imagine people being greeted with a fully optimized LinkedIn profile. Plus, you’d easily dominate for your name on search engine.

If you are a virtual assistant or any kind of freelancer, people will most likely Google you. PS: You should consider Googling yourself once in a while.

  1. LinkedIn is more flexible than your resume

You can write a lot more on your LinkedIn profile than you can on your resume, and you get to show exactly how you’re good at what you do and why someone might want to work with you.

Your resume is tailored to a specific job, while your LinkedIn contains all you need for a general job search. Both documents should have the same job titles, date ranges, and basic information regarding each job. However, you’ll need to present the information in different ways.

I sent a connection request to someone only yesterday and in ten minutes, he had checked out my profile and sent me a direct message recommending a job opening to me because from my profile, he saw all my skills and immediately knew I’d be a perfect fit for the job.

I however didn’t apply for the job because it is Lagos and my husband gets panic attacks just thinking about visiting the state I’m really not looking for a medical laboratory job right now.

This further expands my point that LinkedIn profile is more flexible than a resume. So I could get recommended for a job, even when I wasn’t looking for one based on that skill set. I hope that makes sense.

But what would I publish on LinkedIn?

Many people asked me this question, rightly so, I didn’t know what to publish for too long too.

I kept staring at my cursor blink when ever I tried to write a post and closed it without writing a word every time, until I noticed what others were doing. They use the platform to share professional stories, milestones and challenges they face at their jobs or while job searching.

They shared information about new skills they are learning or had learned, and every single educational qualifications they acquired. Most importantly, they were helpful and useful. Some even shared tips and tricks to help job seekers, recruiters etc. You can do any of these too. Just make yourself useful.

LinkedIn is not just a platform for those looking to get jobs, it’s also perfect for you if you have a job. It’ll be useful you ever consider changing jobs, become self employed, or something. It is no news that some countries and recruiters, now go through social media profiles before accepting people. Be useful. Package yourself. You are today’s bread so make sure your profile isn’t stale.

This post will show you exactly how to optimize your profile to get noticed by recruiters on LinkedIn.

But first….

Decide who your profile is for before you edit a word.

This is the first thing to think about. Who do you want reading your profile and what do you want them to know about you? When you know this, you can easily optimise your profile and get noticed

Turn off the alarm

There’s this annoying feature I need you to change just so your enemies don’t always know what you are up to. It’s turned on by default. You’ll have to go to settings and change what people can see about you otherwise all your connections will get a notification each time you change something and save it. It is rude to bombard everyone with your updates. You’re trying to get noticed by recruiters, not annoy your village people.

  • Go to your profile and click on the settings button located at the top right corner of your screen.
  • Choose ‘Privacy’, then click the ‘Share job changes, education changes and work anniversaries from profile’ tab and then click ‘No’ to turn off notifications.

This is important because you don’t want LinkedIn to send all your connections a notification to congratulate you on finishing secondary school 10 years ago.

Get Noticed By Recruiters On LinkedIn With These Exact Steps

These are the exact steps I used to optimise my LinkedIn profile, get it to rank number one for my name and get it noticed by recruiters. Since making these changes, I have gotten more search appearances, profile views, enquiries etc

#1.) Write a Catchy Headline:

This is the sentence that appears next to your photo which should say what you do in a nutshell as it’s the first thing people read. You only get a set amount of characters so make it snappy. I’ve found that unless you create your own Headline, LinkedIn will just bring in the generic wording from your current job which is #boring

There are basically three (3) ways you could write your headline:

List your skills as keywords:

  1. Medical Laboratory Scientist || Virtual Assistant || Blogger || Creative Writer
  2. Public Health Enthusiast || Volunteer || Social Media Manager || Author
  3. Event planner || Organizer || Events || Planner

You could write a sentence:

  1. Medical Laboratory Scientist and experienced blogger, using her blogging and creative writing skills to help clients remotely.
  2. Public Health Enthusiast currently volunteering in IDP camps in Nigeria
  3. Event Planner organizing events and managing schedules for busy marketers

You could write your strapline:

  1. I diagnose diseases and write catchy articles
  2. Helping busy entrepreneurs get their shit together
  3. Organizing events that rock since 2016

#2.) Add A Good Background Image:

It’d be really nice if you could upload a background image. It could be you at work or in a position that makes you look professional. Your logo or an infographic of what you do. You can easily design an infographic on canva in five minutes or less. Alternatively, you could use the LinkedIn background image already there until you have something really good to replace it.

PS: You can’t edit your background photo from your phone. You have to do it from a desktop and the perfect dimensions are 1584px by 396px.

#3.) Don’t look like you were attacked by white walkers

There’s a digital marketer I admire very much. And when I started optimising LinkedIn, I decided to find her and connect because you know, meaningful connections. What a disappointment. The photo she had on there was from at least 10 years ago probably when she was young and dumb. I’d talk about the details on the profile except they was nothing there.

This person was #killinit on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook but somehow didn’t think LinkedIn was worth it. It goes to show how much millennials are sleeping on LinkedIn.

Forgive me, I digress.

Please, don’t use the blurr photo you cropped from your sister’s wedding photos, group selfies, the sexy photo with pouty lips and lots of cleavage (it will do well on Instagram or tinder, though), etc.

Instead, use a friendly and professional head shot that makes you look approachable and responsible.

#4.) Complete the About section

This is where you state your value, what you want to be known for and why someone might want to work with you. Trust me, you can’t rely on people having the time to go through your entire profile to realize you are the best thing since cold stone. Forgive us all for not realizing your potential just yet.

Don’t leave the bio LinkedIn generates for you either. Every recruiter and their dog, can smell it from a mile away. You’ll need to make an effort if you really want to get noticed by recruiters on LinkedIn. Take the time to write one for yourself. This is one the most important sections of your profile and will need to be updated as often as possible. It’ll get better with time.

#5.) Give Details About Your Work Experience

Writing out only your job title is not enough. You need to give details of what you did at your job. Sometimes you’d be required to do extra work that isn’t really your thing and might gain a skill or two. You should add that to the stuff you did at that job.

Summarize the skills you used, the outcome of your efforts and any key achievements so people can see your value. This isn’t where you should lie, exaggerate or play small. You worked hard so you deserve the accolades!

You can give other details like the types of clients you worked with, the size of budgets you worked with, the number of people you oversaw and percentage of ROI you provided so everyone can see your level of experience and how good you are at what you do.

How to write each job experience

So instead of saying ‘Virtual Assistant at The Rosepreneur’ and leaving it there, give a brief intro into the company so that people know what the company actually does and then list out specific tasks you carried out.

For Example:

[Insert Company Name] is one of the best digital marketing companies in Nigeria. They specialize in so so and so. My role here involved:

– Write what you did
– Write another thing you did
– And so on etc.

This will help you get noticed by recruiters on LinkedIn and tell them you know exactly what you are doing. You have to package yourself in the best possible way.

#6.) Include your Education

This is where your university degree(s) come in. Some people add their secondary school education but I think that is unnecessary. Anything after secondary is good, except secondary school is your highest level of education.

PS: It doesn’t matter if you are in a field that is unrelated to your degree. I’ve seen medical doctors leading in fashion and all that stuff so it all depends on how you position yourself.

#7.) List out your licenses and certifications

List out your licenses and certifications. It builds your authority. If you don’t have any, there are a couple of free certificate courses you can take to boost your profile and position you as an expert in your industry. When you get these certificates, list them on your profile and don’t be lazy about it.

#8.) Endorsements are good.

Make sure you turn on endorsements if you have it turned off. Endorsements are the skills that LinkedIn suggests you have to your connections (usually from the list of skills you add to your profile) and they might not be things you actually want to be endorsed for. So instead, have a few more focused skills rather than 50 skills that don’t make you standout in any way.

#9.) Give and receive recommendations

This is 2020 so you should already know the power of testimonials. It is largely a give and take process. If you don’t have any recommendations, then you can privately ask your connections to write some for you. It is really easy. Ask them to specifically mention a skill or service you provide to highlight at least one thing instead of allowing them write a generic one.

Now this isn’t a reason for you to ask Tony Elumelu for a recommendation. Please dear, be guided. Ask people that actually know you and can write about you honestly. This will help you get noticed by recruiters on LinkedIn

I honestly wish I had known about this earlier, I’d have asked my clients for LinkedIn recommendations instead of the ones they wrote me on WhatsApp. This is because I can easily copy any recommendation from LinkedIn to my website (as a testimonial) but not from this website to my recommendations tab on LinkedIn.

You should however be willing to write some for others. You can’t keep taking from everyone without giving.

What so great about givi recommendations to others is that you can get noticed by recruiters from the recommendation you write for someone. Remember your details are there and just a click away. It’s a win-win deal.

#10.) Add media where required

You’ll see the option to add photos,videos or link to external documents, sites and presentations. Use this opportunity if you have good quality media.

#11.) Update your contact And personalize your custom URL

Make sure your email still works and your twitter account is active. Most importantly, if your LinkedIn link looks like this linkedin.com/in/your-name0965896. You are wrong.

Go to ‘settings’ and click ‘privacy’ then click ‘edit your public profile’. Now edit whatever you have there to linkedin.com/in/yourname (example: linkedin.com/in/roseodoemelam). No numbers, signs or symbols.

#12.) Hide your competition

Let’s pretend a chevron (insert your dream company) recruiter decides to hire people from LinkedIn and the recruiter stumbles on your page. They get impressed. Then they scroll down and see one of your connections that looks just as good and innocently decide to check them out. Thirty minutes later, they realize the person is much better than you and decide to hire him/her.

You want them to contact you and not run into the sunset with someone else, so seal the cracks!

Go to ‘settings’ and click on ‘privacy’ then turn off ‘viewers of this profile also viewed’. So that other LinkedIn users with the same job description as you (your competition) don’t appear when someone is viewing your profile.

That’s a mild way of putting it. You’re doing that so that no one will appear on your profile and the focus is only on you without perfect connections flaunting their certificates and flawless expertise and enticing your recruiter which will ultimately lead to stealing your dream job. You’re not being selfish, you’re securing the bag!

#13.) Make meaningful connections

In order to get noticed by recruiters on LinkedIn, your connections have to be intentional and meaningful.

You’ll only be ready to make meaningful connections after you have optimized your profile. You have to look like a serious person with a profile photo and everything. People will send you a connection request/ accept your request even if they don’t know you personally just because you share the same job, skills and look like someone that has their shit together. They know networking is important. Now you know too.

Spoiler alert: Let’s connect, I’m a meaningful connection.

Since I optimised my profile, I’ve noticed that people from my University and job easily find me. LinkedIn also recommends them to me. So don’t feel too big, sending that connection request isn’t merely a friend request. LinkedIn is serious business.

Confession: I consciously avoided checking people’s profiles for years, because LinkedIn always told on me. It didn’t make sense that everytime I checked someone out, LinkedIn told the person. So I stopped viewing profiles so nobody feels too important or feels like I’m a stalker.

Do you also feel that way? Yes? You’re happy someone finally understands, right?

Wrong. That’s just dumb. Don’t do it. Don’t be unfortunate. View anyone’s profile you want, as many times as you want with your chest up. Especially if they are doing something right and you’re trying to learn from them and optimise your profile.

#14.) Try to personalize every connection request

If you really want to get noticed by recruiters on LinkedIn, you’ll have to make extra effort. These people get a lot of connection requests every day and your request should stand out to them. It’ll only take a few minutes and you’d be happy you did.

I had a very generic one I used not too long ago. It said- Let’s connect ASAP!

On the bright side, I only sent that to really close friends and would never send it to strangers. Thankfully, I found some perfect templates you could customize and use for every type of connection request. You’re welcome

Next Steps

Check out LinkedIn profiles of others in your niche (your competitors) to get ideas and see what works and what doesn’t. Feel free to creatively optimize your profile using theirs as a template if you want to actually get noticed by recruiters on LinkedIn.

Did you find this post helpful? Have you always been active on LinkedIn? Tell me about your experience on LinkedIn in the comment section and don’t forget to share this post with one, two or twenty persons you really want to help get their shit together and get noticed by recruiters on LinkedIn.