Finding or Expanding Your...

© 2 0 1 2 C o p y r i g h t C l o n t z B u s i n e s s S e r v i c e s , L L C

http://www.VAbizcoach.com

A Virtual Assistant’s Guide

to Finding or Expanding

A Niche By Jeannine Clontz

Your Virtual Assistance Business Coach

A VA’s Guide to Finding or Expanding a Niche $77 Report

© 2 0 0 9 C o p y r i g h t C l o n t z B u s i n e s s S e r v i c e s , L L C P a g e 1


By Jeannine Clontz

Your Virtual Assistance Business Coach

If you’ve been in business for several years, I’m sure you’ve heard about niches before. You either have

a niche or have decided whether or not having a specific niche is right for you. Perhaps you’re looking to

reinvent yourself and your niche, so revisiting the process will lead you to the most logical niche. Is this

where you find yourself right now?

I was resistant to niche when I first started my business. Through this process I will share the fears and

triumphs that establishing a niche can provide, and introduce you to several options to finding and

promoting yourself through an established niche.

The first thing to discover is why a niche is so important. While I’m certain I won’t mention everything

that makes a niche important, I will focus on the top five:

• Establishes you as an expert;

• Allows you to charge higher rates;

• Reduces marketing expenses;

• Helps focus your marketing message; and

• Creates a specific area of software needs and required proficiency.

You Become the Expert!

When we first start our Virtual Assistance practice we usually believe it’s best to market to everyone.

Couldn’t everyone use our services? Why wouldn’t you want to market more generally?

By not finding a niche, or target market, you are simply throwing your marketing message at a wall and

trying to figure out what sticks. It’s throwing you in a ‘generalist’ or ‘me, too’, business model. This will

make it difficult for you to differentiate yourself from all the other Virtual Assistants out there.

Virtual Assistance has come a long way since I started back in 1998, and I was one of those people that

believed being a generalist was really the way to go. I went into my niche initially, kicking and

screaming. I liked being a generalist. I liked being able to offer different types of services to different

types of people and industries.

I prepared resumes, did transcription for focus groups, helped REALTORS post their listings online and

create flyers, prepared legal documents, and more. I absolutely LOVED what I was doing.

Unfortunately, at a time when the industry was just taking shape, I was making it extremely difficult for

myselfto find clients. No one exactly understood what I was doing, and honestly, I’m not sure I did,



either. I was barely paying the bills, and certainly wasn’t able to take any sort of an income. By my third

year in business I figured I’d better do something and do it quick.

I had already been working with several REALTORS and liked what I was doing for them, and everyone

had been bugging me about finding my niche, so I took a chance. I transitioned the content of my

website to focus on services to REALTORS.

I had started getting involved and researching what Virtual Assistants could do for REALTORS. I had

already achieved my CRESS (Certified Real Estate Support Specialist) designation through the

International Virtual Assistants Association (www.IVAA.org) and had met several other real estate

support VAs by participating in the REVA Network (www.REVAnetwork.com).

That led to being approached by one of Michael Russer’s Virtual Assistant’s asking me if I would consider

flying out to San Francisco for the NAR (National Association of REALTORS) Conference to participate in

a round table discussion that would give me access to potential clients. Michael Russer is a residential

real estate coach and a champion to virtual assistants. Many of his programs support and elicit the use

of virtual assistants.

What the heck? I liked San Francisco, what did I have to lose? I had ‘sort of’ decided I’d give the real

estate niche a try. What happened next was astounding to me.

While I didn’t get an immediate response, my business doubled in four months. I started picking up

more REALTORS as clients than I’d ever thought possible. Suddenly, I was getting referrals to more

REALTORS nationwide. At that time I never dreamed that more than 80% of my business would come

from outside the State of Missouri.

My main reason for not wanting to niche was that I feared I would ONLY attract clients in that particular

niche. What actually happened was that I had placed myself as an expert in real estate support, and in

doing so, also connected to referrals in other industries, and was able to ultimately transition into a

Multi-VA practice pretty quickly.

Charging Higher Rates

After my trip to San Francisco, and participating in industry conferences, I began to realize another very

nice benefit – now that I could place myself as the expert, I could also charge higher rates, something I’d

struggled with for some time, and something I think most business owners, and women in general,

struggle to do.

Once I had established my niche and focused my training, certifications, and marketing on that niche, I

was able to build a more profitable and successful business, and in record time. By charging higher

rates, I was able to bring more money into my business, maintain and expand my client base, and almost

guarantee that I would be able to sustain the business and take an income. I do believe that finding a

niche is very, very important if you want to take your business to the next level.



Focus Your Marketing Message

Minimizing your marketing costs, especially in the early or lean years, is vital to staying on track in your

VA practice. Focusing your message to meet the needs of your niche, and the problems they need us to

solve, allows you to remain focused on and marketing to one group, and in the process may help you to

find other industries that need and want the same support, or possibly even more.

Just using my metropolitan area as an example, there are approximately 2.5-million people in the St.

Louis area. It would be very expensive for me to market to 2.5-million people, effectively, on a tight

budget. However, if I’m only looking to market to the 20,000 REALTORS in that same market, I would

find it much easier, and far less expensive.

Rather than spending thousands of dollars for ads in business newspapers and small business

periodicals, I am able to expend much less by marketing in real estate newspapers and periodicals, that

help me focus the message and budget towards the specific problems and challenges that particular

industry faces.

It is much more economical to market to 20,000 people than it is to market to 2.5-million, or more.

Establishing where your niche ‘hangs out’, which we’ll discuss later, will help you to find the most cost-

effective options for your marketing message and dollars.

Expertise and Education

Fortunately, as independent contractors, we are not required to hold specific certifications to provide

business support to any specific industry. I will say however, that having established yourself as an

expert, will also expose you to specialized training in software and online technologies specific to the

industry your niche will support.

Proficiencies in these technologies will allow you to differentiate yourself from the ‘generalist’ VA, and

even from others working within the same niche.

When I first started out, just about every single client I signed worked from some specialty software

outside of what we all had from Microsoft. Without the focus of your niche, you could easily end up

spending thousands on software, and training, and not be able to use that expertise with other clients.

If you’re working the real estate niche and are proficient in a real estate specific technology, chances

are, you will be able to attract new clients who use the same technology and have similar needs, again

allowing you to create a more focused technology-based message that will be well received within your

niche.

Achieving industry specific certifications and designations takes things up a notch. Not only do you save

on costs for more industry specific certification programs, but, you develop a single message to a

smaller, more focused group of people, who need what you have to offer.

You also take some of the fear and objection away from prospective clients. Being virtual doesn’t allow

us the freedom to meet and build an in-person rapport with all of our clients. Presenting your



experience in technologies and showing your willingness to achieve industry related certifications allows

the prospect to connect to you beyond the barriers of our virtual nature, and helps to establish trust and

loyalty with the prospect.

Doing What You LOVE to Do!

So the real estate niche worked very well for me for five years. My business flourished and I was

keeping three subs relatively busy while I was able to handle the marketing, networking and having an

actual life.

Then the real estate market took a dive. I quickly made some key maneuvers to tap into the commercial

real estate market, but about six months later, I realized that the commercial market was going to catch

up to residential really soon.

So, I wondered, can I add another niche to the one I’d already established and been working for several

years? What other industry needed the types of services I was providing and could I tap into several

targets at the same time?

I began to take a closer look at the industries shared by my clients who were not directly connected to

real estate. I found that most of my other clients were women, and they were either speakers, coaches,

or consultants.

I began to make lists. Lists of the types of services I enjoyed providing to REALTORS, and whether or not

there were any similarities to the needs of my speakers, coaches and consultants. Once I identified the

similarities, I started connecting individually with my speaker, coach, and consultant clients and asked

them about what other challenges they faced to see if there were other services I would provide to

them, to expand more easily into this new niche.

Like my real estate niche, I needed to get up-to-date with industry trends and technology to add these

segments to my niche and expand my business even more. I call it one of my many reinventions.

The next step is to figure out how to establish, refine and research your niche, and determine the best,

most cost-effective ways to market to them.

If you have a business plan in place, you’ve probably tackled a big part of what we’ll need to consider

which niche would be best for you. Take a moment and think about the types of services you absolutely

LOVE to do. What services are they?

• Bookkeeping

• Database management

• Word processing

• IT support

• Shopping cart support

• Social Media support

• Website design and maintenance



So let’s say you want to offer bookkeeping services. Bookkeeping is a pretty good niche; but let’s add

another layer. Look at your current bookkeeping clients and the industries they represent. Is there a

pattern among them – do several of them belong to the same industry? Within that pattern, are there

clients that seem to be very well suited to your type of business style and personality?

Let’s say you find that you enjoy working most with speakers and coaches. By doing this we have

refined our niche to be bookkeeping support for speakers and coaches. It does not mean that you will

provide bookkeeping services to ONLY speakers and coaches, just that this particular industry seems to

be suited well and has a need for this type of support.

By targeting and focusing your message and services to this niche, you will establish yourself as an

expert, which will bring prospects clamoring to you to hear more about your products and services,

whether they are speakers and coaches, or not.

As you focus on this particular industry, you will also become familiar with the inner workings of this

type of business and be much better equipped to respond to their needs. This will allow you to build

close partnerships with your clientele, which makes it more difficult for them to want, or need to

consider working with anyone else. Taking us back to that differentiation we’re looking for so that

you’re not one of hundreds or thousands of competing VAs who do the same things you do.

Soon you will have learned the industry lingo and will be able to speak intelligently with them about the

overall industry and their standards. This will make you far more attractive as a provider than someone

who simply does bookkeeping. Suddenly, you’re a bookkeeping expert to speakers and coaches.

And guess who speakers and coaches know? Other speakers and coaches who will face the same

challenges they do…can you say, ‘referrals’? You’ll be amazed at how quickly you will create a buzz and

expand your database to be able to reach and support more and more clients.

No matter what, it’s still about, ‘knowing’, ‘liking’ and ‘trusting’ you! That’s ultimately what you’ll have

to achieve with each client in order to expand your reach to others in their industry. Building strong

relationships within a focused niche takes your expertise to an even higher level.

The Ideal Client Profile

Now that you’ve established who it is you’re looking for, let’s take that a step further. In addition to

looking for speakers and coaches who need bookkeeping services, we need to establish other traits that

will help us determine our ‘ideal client profile’ – having one will help you to develop a more focused and

targeted search for the prospect that will most benefit from your skill set, expertise and business style.

Once you implement your ideal client profile, you will find that you avoid a lot of client objections and

difficulties in dealing with clients who do NOT fit the profile. It’s important that you put steps in place to

make sure you are working with the people that fit your personality and business practices.



Negative Positive

It’s important that your profile be created in a positive vein. You want clients that pay on time, not

clients that aren’t slow pay. Can you see the difference? Here are a few more examples:

Which type of client do you want? Working with clients that aren’t ideal brings you down. If you feel

down, it will infect everything you do. Your work won’t be its absolute best; your interaction with

clients and others could be negative; and if it happens during a time when a prospective client comes to

call, it can be disastrous. Having even one client who doesn’t fit your ideal client profile can

contaminate your business.

What we may learn in this exercise is that we are sending out bad or negative vibes and attracting the

wrong type of client. These are clients you will definitely want to remove from your book of business so

that you can clear the way for more positive relationships.

The next step is to include some that are industry related, too – those that will fit within your niche.

Back to our previous example, we are looking for speakers and coaches that need bookkeeping skills.

The next level could be we are looking for speakers and coaches that need QuickBooks bookkeeping

support.

So the industry and software specific to people within that industry can be a part of your ideal client

profile, too.

How To Connect to The Industry

Let’s talk about industries and niches – who am I looking for to attract my ideal clients? If your niche is

REALTORS, you won’t be marketing JUST to REALTORS. You will want to figure out who REALTORS work

with in order to expand the target you will be looking to connect you to REALTORS.

Using this as an example, if you happen to meet mortgage lenders; real estate attorneys and coaches;

appraisers; inspectors; feng shui consultants or home stagers, it’s probably a good bet that they also

know several of the top REALTORS in the area.

• Don’t believe in me

• No loyalty

• No budget

• No fun

• Micromanager

• Indecisive

• Needy

• Trusts & believes in me

• Loyal

• Has money or budget

• Fun

• Gives space to perform

• Decision maker

• Supportive & supportable



Don’t limit yourself to looking for only those people who exactly match your niche client, but those who

will easily connect you to them. If your target market is attorneys, then CPAs and financial planners are

probably good people to target, since they work with lots of attorneys.

It’s much easier to close the sale if you’re connected to the prospect through someone they already

know, like and trust. Word of mouth and referrals are probably the most effective ways of marketing

your business. Find those connections to others that serve the same target.

You should now have a pretty good idea of your ideal client profile and even the industry in which they

work. Take a look at your current client base and make sure that everyone fits the profile, if not, you

may need to do a little house cleaning, or consider utilizing sub-contractors to handle the business

needs of those clients who are not IDEAL for you, if not, turn their business over altogether.

Where Will Your Find Them?

The next step is trying to figure out what their needs are and where they hang out.

Do some research to find out what associations or organizations serve their industry. What magazines

do they read? What software is created specifically for their industry? What types of continuing

education do they take?

Checking your current client base is a great way to find out more about your niche. Simply ask! Your

current niche clients are a great resource and by asking, you will help make them feel important and

knowledgeable about the industry, which will help deepen your relationship with them (also not a bad

thing).

You might also check for list serves or eZines that specifically support them. Can you submit an article?

Do they have a classified section or reasonably priced ads? Is there software specific to their industry?

Where do they go for continuing education? Do they hold yearly industry conferences? What

sponsorship options can you find? Where would they go if they had a question?

So What’s the Problem?

Now we need to determine what their problems are and how we can solve them. Look around those list

serves and check out the classes and topics they’re interested in to begin to see what their needs are.

Survey current clients within your niche and find out what their challenges are that you may be able to

help them solve. This could lead to more business from current clients, too.

Social media is very hot right now, and most people know they need to be involved, unfortunately they

don’t quite understand the benefits, and they fear they would never have the time to be effective in this

medium. Could they use social media training or support? Do they need shopping cart support? Who

handles the implementation of their marketing initiatives? Do they have in-house IT support? Is the

accounts payable gal maintaining their website?



Determine why they have these challenges, why it’s so painful to them, and what type of support they

would require to delegate these tasks to you for completion. As you establish their needs, you establish

your value to them.

This information will assist you in creating a focused marketing message that will effectively reach your

niche prospect and help them create a demand for you and your expertise, many times without the

concerns and objections you face with more general prospects.

Go back to your Business Plan, you will want to look at several things very closely – your mission and/or

vision, and your brand. If you don’t have a mission or vision, create one. No time like the present.

Include Your Brand Elements

Now that you’ve pretty well established what your prospective client will look like, what their problem

is, and where you will find them to entice them to connect to you, we need to establish you as the

perfect fit for their need.

If you have a well-developed brand, you can easily add these elements to your message to create

urgency in connecting to you; establish your expertise to their challenges; and differentiate yourself

from other solutions available to them.

You will want to take a look at your 30-second and/or 60-second infomercial. Are they focused on your

target market and ‘what’s in it for them’? What personal and professional traits do you possess that will

connect you to that ideal prospect? Things like reliability, honesty, integrity, knowledge and talent

would be some easy ones to consider.

Can you see how this information will help you to develop your marketing message? These are traits

you have that will transition well into a prospect’s need and your value.

Same goes for your tagline – to continue to build your brand around your tagline, you should include it,

or some portion of it, in all your niche marketing efforts. Again, you want them to see you, your name,

your logo, your tagline, and all your other brand elements.

They say it takes seven touches for a prospect to recognize your name (or company name) and twelve

times before they feel comfortable enough with you to consider doing business together. Incorporating

all these elements into your niche and your marketing message to that niche will continue to help you

expand your relationship and become the obvious choice for their needs.

These are some of what you will be using to differentiate yourself from the competition – things that

you will be focusing on that others will not, and things that will tip the scales when prospects are looking

to make a decision as to who their service provider will be.

Create the Marketing Plan

Now we can start to piece together our message. We know who our target and niche is, where they

hang out, what their problems/needs are, what other industries will connect us to them (like our



example about looking for attorneys and connecting to them through CPAs and financial planners) who

we are, and how we can piece together the focused message that will attract this ideal client to our

business.

Now let’s look at how we can market to our niche. One more time I’d like to reiterate why it’s so

important to have a niche, especially as it relates to marketing. It’s much less expensive to market to

1,000 businesses than it is to market to 500,000 businesses. If I need to touch them twelve times, in

order to close the sale, can you imagine how expensive and time consuming this could be? Trying to

reach ‘everyone’ is much more difficult than trying to reach a targeted focused prospect.

There are lots of ways to market to your niche. First, let’s look at many of the mediums available to us:

• Website

• Business cards – brochures – letterhead

• Postcards/letters (snail mail)

• Email (including eZines, blogs, and blogs Emails)

• Yellow Pages

• Newspapers/magazines/event programs

• Press releases

• Article writing

• Speaking

• Sponsorships

• Referrals

• Networking (local and online)

• Social media marketing

• Other – what others can you think of

Now that we’ve established some of the areas where we can deliver our message, you’ll want to attach

some prices to those that will have to be expensed by your company. Make sure that you have the

money available to you (through a marketing budget) to be able to follow-through on your plans.

Armed with our message and all the data we’ve collected about our target and where they hang out, we

can now develop a plan of action.

You will definitely want to key in on the many low to no-cost options that are listed there and make

them part of your everyday marketing plan (I suggest a minimum of 10-hours a week to market your

business). Here are some with little to no cost:

• Email (including eZines, blogs, and blast Emails)

• Yellow Pages (just using your free listing)

• Press releases

• Article writing

• Speaking

• Social media marketing

© 2 0 0 9 C o p y r i g h t C l o n t z B u s i n e s s S e r v i c e s , L L C P a g e 1 0


To create your marketing plan you will want to establish a ‘system’ for each type of medium, and

determine how often you will market to them. Consistency is vital – remember, your prospects want to

know, like and trust you, so they’ll be watching you closely.

You will also want to make sure it’s something you are able to do regularly. Don’t announce that you’ll

be writing two articles a week if that’s not possible with your current schedule. Don’t create a blog and

not post to it for more than 3-4 weeks.

Creating a plan goes a long way in establishing an intention. It will also help you to plan your month,

week and day so that you will be able to effectively keep up with your marketing efforts, client work,

business functions and actually have a personal life.

You will find that it’s much easier to stay focused on your marketing if you put it in writing and make it a

part of your business throughout the week. You don’t necessarily have to market every day, but at least

10-hours a week is a good place to start.

Don’t forget to shake things up a bit. You should give different mediums a try, and also utilize those

options that have little to no cost. It’s all a numbers game, the more times your message and brand are

seen, the more people will begin to recognize you and want to find out more about you and your

offerings.

Make sure as you develop your marketing pieces that you include some call to action. Something that

the prospect will want to do that will help you to capture their information, allowing you to market to

them regularly.

There are many ways to do this; an eZine sign up; a free report or CD; gift certificate for responding to a

survey; etc. Be creative and try to do something no one else is doing. And don’t forget the call to action

– either make it clear that you will be contacting them in the near future, or give them something of

value that will bring them to you.

Track Results

Those ‘calls to action’ are also a great tool for tracking your marketing results, or ROI (Return on

investment). When someone contacts you for the report, or free CD, you’ll know exactly which

marketing piece caught their eye and returned a prospect. Do the same with your postcards, articles,

eZines, blogs, etc. Offer something different each time so that you know for sure what medium and

which message is getting the best result.

This is probably the most important part of your marketing plan and one everyone usually forgets. If

you don’t track this, you are throwing your time and money away. I keep a small note pad by my printer

and whenever someone calls (and I always ask how they found me) I make note of which article, CD, or

consultation they are looking for, which immediately tells me where and how they found me.

You will want to at least try something for 3-6 months before making the decision to dump it, twelve, if

at all possible, again, going back to knowing that it could take up to 12 times before someone will

actually feel they know you well enough to consider contacting you about your services.

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I will also caution you about eZines and article postings to blogs and free websites. You must be

consistent. Nothing says ‘you can’t trust me to do what I say I’ll do’ than to announce that you’re going

to do a monthly eZine and there be a three month gap in anyone actually seeing one. Same with articles

and your blog – if someone finds your blog and you haven’t posted anything to it for two to three

months, they’re not going to think you’re very reliable.

And finally, I’d like for you to also think outside the box. Many of you are going to look at that list and

see article writing and speaking as something you KNOW you’ll never be able to do – and maybe you’re

right, but then find something else.

Do your research, hone your niche and marketing message as much as possible so that the message you

are delivering speaks to ‘what’s in it for the client’ – what problem or pain will you solve for them, and

shake things up. Do something you’ve never done before. You’ll be well on your way to building a

profitable virtual assistance practice with your newly developed or re-invented niche.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

I hope you’ve found this information beneficial to helping you create a solid VA practice. If you find

establishing your niche and/or a plan to market to your target, consider purchasing several 30-minute

one-on-one coaching sessions to kick-start your success, or check out our group coaching teleseminar

schedule to see which sessions might help provide the knowledge and motivation you need to better

design your business to support increased success and profitability. Find more at:

http://www.VAbizcoach.com.

Check out some of our group coaching options:

1. Jeannine’s Virtual Assistance Inner Track program – monthly teleseminars, private coaching,

access to recording, and more, get your first teleseminar FREE. Once you join there are

additional benefits including access to our extensive membership site – take a peek at:

http://jeannineclontz.icmembershipsite.com/ Register for your free month here:

http://vabizcoach.com/inner-track.html

2. Business Essentials For a Virtual Assistance Practice – 10-week; 90-minute a week program

utilizing our wildly successful book and workbook (www.entrepreneurialfreedom.com)

Entrepreneurial Freedom - http://vabizcoach.com/starters.html

3. Consider our One-on-One Coaching options - 30-minute or 1-hour sessions available. Find out

more here: http://vabizcoach.com/programs.html

4. Looking to ‘Go Global’, or need help creating a ‘Marketing Plan System’ – check out our

Products… http://vabizcoach.com/products.html

Jeannine Clontz, owner of Clontz Business Services, LLC, operates a successful VA practice, is an author, writer,

speaker and Virtual Assistance Business Coach specializing in providing professional business coaching to

established and start-up virtual assistants (VA’s). For more information or for a FREE trial in Jeannine’s Virtual

Assistance Inner Track group coaching program, visit: http://www.VAbizcoach.com; or contact her at:

[email protected].

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