Having clients come and go is not a sustainable business plan. No matter how good your services are and how happy you make them for your services if they don’t come back, then it’s all worthless. Not knowing when you’ll have a new client again is one of the worst feelings you get.
Hence, you need to conduct business with your clients long-term not just short term to ensure your sustainability as a Virtual Assistant (VA). You need to know just how you can market and offer your services to them in a way that they’ll keep coming back to you whenever they need you.
Here are some things you can do to ensure you get a steady stream of loyal clients who will come back to you:
Offer them a package deal
Upon sending your final output to your client, don’t just stop there! Give them an offer to set up a package deal with you and tell them how fortunate their timing is and how much they’ll miss out if they refuse today. Of course, you need to sweeten the deal and tell them how much money and convenience they can save by having a package deal with you. Even better if your package deal is available for only a limited time because scarcity drives up value.
Build relationships
Don’t look at your clients as cash cows. Looking at them from this perspective ruins the way you deal with them without you even knowing it. Remember that your clients are human beings with needs that must be met. You are the one responsible and are being compensated to meet it and as such, you need to build a harmonious relationship with them if you want to be able to meet their needs perfectly.
Identify their future needs
Speaking of meeting their needs, you need to always conduct interviews and ask the necessary leading questions to get them to talk about what kind of project they really need to be done and how they want it to be finished. Encourage them to communicate with you on a regular basis as well.
In addition, you can also give them an offer or some ideas about their future endeavors and how you can help them. This gives them more time to think about their future projects and how you can be the perfect person to help them with them making your future job with them a lot easier. By giving a proposal, you are making them an offer that they can’t refuse.
Follow up regularly
Speaking of communicating regularly, you need to check in with your client on a regular basis when working on a project with them. Most of the time though, they’ll get too busy to even reply to your message. Don’t take this too personally. It does not mean that they don’t like working with you. It most likely comes from the fact that they are working on multiple projects at the same time.
Communicating with them helps you make sure that you’re doing your job the way they want it to be done. This will help them and yourself more in the long run and establish a better relationship between you and your client.
Set your boundaries
You don’t want to bite off more than you can chew. So, don’t accept all one-time projects that may seem appealing that come your way. Always check whether you have enough time and resources available to actually execute it and deliver satisfactory performance to your client.
Remember that it’s all about quality rather than the number of clients. You want to make sure that most if not all the clients you take in will come back to you sooner or later!
Conclusion
The competition out there is tough. There are many just like you who can do what the client is requesting. Hence, if you want to have a client that keeps coming back to you, then you need to walk the extra mile.
You need to be careful in accepting jobs, communicating, and convincing your clients to stay with you and your service. In this way, you can definitely get some more loyal clients at your doorstep.