Have you ever looked at someone like Tina Turner perform? She’s a singer who has a serious WOW factor when she works, her job is to perform on stage and her aim is to have people captivated and taken with her – to sit up and take notice of her and go – “Oh WOW!” If you have no idea what I mean, check out this performance of her below singing Nutbush City Limits… It’s a WOW factor performance, especially at the age of 57, when this was recorded.
The VA industry is growing, and people are becoming far more aware of Virtual Assistants and what they can do. But, how would you like to be able to see someone you would like to work with online, approach them and have them instantly WOWED by what you have just shown you are capable of doing? I’m going to show you a technique which I call, “The Virtual Cold Call” technique, that will do just this, with almost anybody. So if you see the potential to secure a client who you really want, or are itching to really impress, take the time to invest the extra effort, and go for it!
Working on the Internet means you are exposed to some very interesting people, many of which you may look at and think, “I would really love to work with that person.” Well, if you can think it, then why couldn’t it happen? The types of people I personally am attracted to as a virtual assistant are ambitious, cutting-edge entrepreneurs, I enjoy working with these types, and I like to show these potential clients what VA’s are made of, so let’s base this example on approaching one of these clients.
The Virtual Cold Call Technique
This technique is about approaching the potential client with the virtual equivalent to a “cold call.” But it has to be done correctly or you could end up at the bottom of a “pile” which is a complete waste of time, so we have to make an impact here, a serious impact… But first let’s give this some context and explore the old-fashioned approach to connecting with someone you would be interested in working with.
The Old Way
I get approached almost every week by at least 1 or 2 VA’s looking for work and to join my team. I have to admit I have a predefined reply that I send out, redirecting them to alternative options, because a majority will not make an impact on me. This is my business and I am looking for extraordinary people to work with me in it. Generally they make 2 mistakes…
Mistake 1: They will draft a cover letter like they are applying for a job, to begin with, I don’t advertise jobs, so why are they sending me that?
Mistake 2: They will attach a CV – quite frankly CV’s mean very little to me, I find them boring, and one of the reasons I went self-employed was so I didn’t have to think about CV’s ever again. I used to keep them ‘on file’ but that’s where they stayed…
There may perhaps have been other mistakes, but by the time I have seen the generic cover letter and CV I have already clicked to send on my canned reply… Case closed.
So now we have gone through the “old style way” of approaching people, which doesn’t work with me, and I am sure not with other people who are busy and looking for extraordinary people to work with in their businesses either, so you need to keep 2 things in mind. When you’re approaching someone randomly, first off, you are not applying for a job, and second, they have no interest in you as it stands now, so you have to arouse an interest in them to actually take notice before it’s too late and you’ve ended up in the trash, so to speak. You need to be extraordinary in your approach to them. Give them something no other Virtual Assistant Business has ever done before…
The New Way
In comes a “New Style Approach” to doing a virtual cold call, now you have to think like the virtual assistant equivalent of Tina Turner singing Nutbush City Limits rather than Sheena Easton singing Morning Train… First off, you need to consider a few things because this technique is a “3 step process.”
Step 1. Your Pitch. If you can’t think of a reason why that individual would hire you, then it’s unlikely they will either. You need a solid pitch.
Step 2. Your Presentation. The pitch needs to be delivered effectively, and it’s all about the presentation.
Step 3. Your Delivery. This needs to be simple and clean enough to make an impact and get the desired result, and around 2 minutes, like a short song 
The Pitch:
Go and find out what you can about the client and how you can help them. I once was dealing with a company who had the most awful customer support, they literally didn’t have a clue and had no idea what they were doing, I sat there thinking, we could do the job so much better, I would of seen that as a good pitch, telling them that I have first hand experience of using their customer support, the quality of it could potentially be losing them customers, or stopping repeat business — enter the pitch for my company to take over their customer support services, improve their prospects of securing and maintaining customers, and I am sure save them money in the process too. How could anyone possibly ignore that issue, with a clear and simple solution immediately on the table?
It doesn’t have to be big like that, have you looked at their social media? Could you improve on their Facebook fan page design, or Twitter background? If you can’t find any social media, could you potentially introduce them to the benefits and how it could impact their business? Offer a retainer? Do they have a video blog, could you offer to transcribe their videos and then turn them into articles? Get your thinking cap on! Create your pitch, it needs to have a “What” and a “Why” – what is it, and why are you pitching it? The reason, the outcome or the benefits had better be good, really good…
The Presentation:
Now you need to take you pitch and turn it into a presentation, the presentation needs to be ‘embedded’ onto your website on a web page, as ideally, this is where we want the potential client to end up.
There are several ways you can create these presentations, here are a few for you to think about:
Video: Ideally you will stand in front of a camera (not reading from paper, you need to know what you are going to say, even if it’s raw and you make a mistake – it’s still better than reading from a prompt), and tell the potential client the pitch as if you were talking to them, remember to keep it under 2 minutes, get straight to the meaty bit. You’ll have all the details about yourself and your company and contact info underneath the presentation on the web page, the most important part now is that you capture their attention and keep it. This option is the most likely to obtain the desired result – it’s human.
Motion Presentation: You could use some form of moving automated motion presentation, using services such as Animoto or Prezi.
Slides or Flip Books: You could use a service like SlideShare to make a presentation, or Yudu to make a flip book or short proposal brochure. Remember it needs to read in under 2 mins…
Whatever you choose, you need to address the individual, keep it under 2 minutes and make sure it’s “straight to the point,” which is your pitch.
Example Pitch Page
The Delivery:
Once you have your presentation you need to then package it for delivery. Create a hidden web page (I call this a ‘pitch page’) on your site or in a console such as Adobe Business Catalyst. This way you’ll be able to use templates to set these pages up in literally no time at all! I have included the tutorial in the top right of the screen, here is a link to the free trial, if you have any questions regarding this tutorial or you require additional support when creating your pages, please consider joining The VA Passport where you can request help in the support forums. Place your presentation on it, with the title at the top containing the person’s name. Then under the presentation, put all the details, this could be how they contact you, what they need to do next, how it works etc… Tailor the details to your pitch and to the person, and keep them simple, a maximum of 2 options, e.g. click here to email me or schedule a consultation.
Then you need to send this email, appealing to their curiosity, containing the link to the webpage with your pitch presentation on it. This is an example of what you need to send:
Hi [name],
My name is [your name] and I am from a company called [your company]. I currently follow you on [enter how you found them e.g. LinkedIn] and I was really impressed with your views on [enter something topical from their blog or website, something individual to them e.g. Marketing for small businesses based in London].
I have taken a significant interest in the work you are doing at [their company website], I am hoping that you will be able to spare under 2 minutes of your time to watch a proposal I have created for you via an online media presentation.
[enter link here to your presentation page]
I very much appreciate your time, and I hope to hear from you soon.
Best Regards,
[your name]
How could anyone possibly ignore that, it’s awesome… 
Then wait… Hopefully they’ll get in touch with you or book a meeting, the only reason they wouldn’t is if they had absolutely zero interest in your pitch, or it never reached them, or they were mega busy. If you haven’t heard from them in 7 days, send a good old-fashioned follow up email.
The Follow Up Email:
Hi [name],
My name is [your name] and I am from a company called [your company]. I contacted you last week with a proposal in regard to [their company].
I am following up to see if you have any questions, and if this is of interest?
[enter link here to your presentation page]
I very much appreciate your time, and I hope to hear from you soon.
Best Regards,
[your name]
If you still don’t hear back from them after this – then move on.
There you have it, how to make a virtual cold call with a little bit of preparation and a lot of WOW! This can also work with potential clients who have contacted you — and when you particularly want to secure their business, you can use the pitch pages to create all sorts of proposals and presentations, go that extra mile to make people think to themselves, “If this person can be as impressive servicing my business as they are in their own, then I would be totally bonkers to not hire this innovative, clearly extraordinary individual.”
As always I welcome and appreciate your comments below, how do you approach clients?
