Particularly Virtual

The holidays are approaching with the accompanying greeting venues, both snail mail and email. Do you think the holidays is the best time to make contact with a former client?

If you’ve not had contact with them over the past few months, is there a chance that your communication will be lost in the rush of many others?

How close to the actual busy holiday time is the risk highest for your communication becoming lost? Actually, I think your happy former clients will be glad to hear from you. The greeting should be soft; not a big hit for using your services. This is a respectful reminder that you are still around and available. The soft approach can be a useful marketing tool. Suddenly that client remembers how much value you brought to their business. If they don’t have more work for you now, maybe they know someone else who could benefit from your services.

The client may be ‘former’ because their work load has not required you. But you are still a recognized valuable colleague. The holidays are a perfect time to make contact without making the heavy marketing push. No matter how much complaining you hear about the load of holiday cards or newsletters, people do like to have the attention, especially at the stressful time of the holidays.

The winter holidays are during the low-light time of the year. They come at the end of the business year for many. There is extra expense just operating households and offices in cold weather. There is a great deal of commercial pressure for over the top gift giving. The season is complicated by flu, colds, pneumonia and chapping/chaffing to name just a few burdens. This list is only a few of the stressers that work on people during the holidays:

• light deprivation,
• facing the truth about the business for the year,
• getting all the paperwork under control to close out the year,
• higher utility bills,
• gifts,
• seasonal illness.

Again, I maintain the complaining is simply more noise. People really do need some attention during the holidays and your friendly contact with former clients can make the difference in how you are regarded and where you are on the list when they do need outsourcing services like yours. Contact for present clients with gift ideas or contact processes to use is often discussed among virtual assistants at VAnetworking.com. You can learn a lot about working with clients; best practices, experiences of others and more as a member of the free network for people who are working virtually. Check it out today.

At Particularly Virtual or on @ Bar JD Virtual Professionals, VAnetworking.com is an acknowledged valuable network that offers information, inspiration and encouragement for virtual professional members.

Dana Fortier wrote about Milestones in her life at LegalVAs (blog) recently. Her milestones have often been on the same date in this October season of harvest and planning. In the post, Dana asks readers to consider Milestone facets for their virtual assistant business in particular and share them with her.

I see professional virtual assistance often being the result of being ‘painted into a corner’; unemployment, lack of employment, necessities of family care, desire to be more mobile at peak times of life yet earn. These and other ‘conditions’ stimulate professionals to figure out how to utilize their present skill set with some hope of profitability.

These conditions were all strong in my decisions and response to the first information I ever read about virtual assistance in November 2003. That day was my “aha moment”…here was something I could do and I jumped right in with the skill set I had at that time.

My progress in terms of being steadily profitable and busy has been spotty. But the lure of being able to work in my own office, on my own equipment and the Internet has never faded. Steady development, expansion of skills, interests and contacts have all been part of the progressive plan. It all could have happened faster, I’ve sometimes thought. But, remaining in that painted corner has given me the drive and time to learn more about systems that I want to work with.

In August, 2005, I found an internet based network of Virtual Assistants, VAnetworking.com, that has been invaluable to my progress and survival. In the time since that first summer day, I’ve been intrigued to view the evolution of my virtual practice and those of others who began to participate in the network at VAnetworking.com at about the same time.

Of all the things a person could be doing, I feel working virtually is my ‘working’ destiny beyond family care that has been a major part of my life, in response to Dana’s question because it meets the criteria for my lifestyle. I would crave an office environment as a pleasure no matter what type of employment I might take on for money. Maintaining a virtual business permits me to justify the equipment as ‘way more than toys. I enjoy mastering new equipment and software–time and energy spent in my own business permits me to indulge in those pleasures beyond the toy phase. I believe I can provide a useful, valuable service beyond my typical ‘working days’ because my own office doesn’t push ‘retirement.’ I truly enjoy the mobility…there have been many times when I’ve been working for clients in a location away from the physical office. The service was still what the client needed, but when the task was completed, I was in a pleasant location visiting family or learning more history. The potential for that mobility has been mirrored in the times I have had to leave employment when other family duties called louder or when I moved to a different part of the country. Working virtually part time during those instances meant that the virtual productivity went with me.

At Particularly Virtual and on @ Bar JD Virtual Professionals I encourage virtual working. I congratulate Dana in her accomplishments and realization of the milestones in her life. I encourage you to visit her blog at LegalVAs to read her story.