From my experience and from what I hear from others, the hardest thing about starting a virtual assistant business is capturing clients without having any referrals or previous clients to refer them to.  As a virtual assistant, you are a business and not an employee.  So your resume means nothing to them.  Most prospective clients prefer to talk to someone else who’s worked with you in the past so they can build a level of trust and comfort with you.

So it seems like a never-ending circle that you can’t get out of, but I have some advice and tips that worked for me.  And I hope they will help you get your “foot” in the door.

First, talk to people from companies you’ve worked for in the past.  They don’t have to be immediate supervisors, but people you built a rapport with that you know really liked your work and liked working with you.  Explain to them what you’re doing and ask if you can use them as a reference for your work ethic.

Then when a prospective client asks for references, you don’t have to go into the detail of “I’ve never had a VA client before,” unless they directly ask (never lie!).  But you can word your references as, “Here is a list of my references that can vouch for my work ethics and/or my skills and knowledge.”

You will be delighted to find this works very well to appease those who want to hear about you from others, and will often be the difference between getting your foot in the door and getting a toe broken in it as it closes.

Also, when in doubt and the situation feels like it’s drowning, explain to the person that you don’t have references yet.  You are a new business, but you are determined to stay in business long-term and have the ambition and initiative that it takes to work independently from home.  Give them some examples of independent assignments, tasks, or projects that you’ve had to take on in the corporate world where no one was there to oversee you each step.

Also give examples of things you’ve done that involved research or discovering out the information on your own, because this carries a lot of weight with people looking for virtual assistants.  They want you to find out the answers and not always bug them with questions you can find the answers for on your own.  So now go get ‘em!

Keep moving toward success!

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