setting your rates

Podcast: The Truth About Billing Your VA Clients By The Hour

Today’s Quote: From the law firm’s perspective, billing by the hour has a certain appeal: it shifts risk from the firm to the client in case the work takes longer than expected. But from a client’s perspective, it doesn’t work so well. It gives lawyers an incentive to overstaff and to over-research cases. – Robert Pozen Welcome to another episode of the podcast that teaches you how to be a ridiculously good virtual assistant. Today I am going to share the truth about billing your VA clients by the hour. I’ll tell you why all VAs should be doing it – no matter what their invoice looks like each month. Click the play button above to tune in, or choose… Read More »Podcast: The Truth About Billing Your VA Clients By The Hour

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Help! How Do I Fix Scope Creep in My VA Business?

Quick question: do you love everything you do every day for all of your Virtual Assistant clients? Many VAs I talk to can’t say they love everything they do. Some of them don’t even LIKE what they are doing. It is so important for the longevity of your VA business (and you as a business owner) that you make it a priority to enjoy what you are doing every day. Ask yourself why you are doing things that aren’t really your specialty, or that you don’t really like to do. Is it because you are their ‘assistant’ and so you think you have to do whatever your client asks you to do? Is it because you are afraid that the… Read More »Help! How Do I Fix Scope Creep in My VA Business?

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The Best Way to Charge Your Clients for Virtual Assistant Services

Setting your rates as you get your VA business started is always a challenge. You don’t want to overcharge, but you also need to be very cautious not to undercharge. You also need to be sure to provide the right amount of value for your client, while making sure that your business is profitable. Easy, right? It actually is easier than you think, once you have a strategy for charging your clients. Calculating your billable rate is important no matter how you charge your clients, but it’s also essential to figure out the best way for your clients to pay you. When you start out, hourly rates are a great way to charge clients. Often you will be doing tasks… Read More »The Best Way to Charge Your Clients for Virtual Assistant Services

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3 Easy Steps to Creating Packages for Your Virtual Assistant Services

Do you want to create packages for your virtual assistant services, but don’t know how? If you don’t know how to do it, it’s time to learn! It’s vital to create packages of virtual assistant services for your clients. It helps you to manage their workload, it allows you to set appropriate pricing instead of working by the hour, and it helps you avoid a laundry list of service offerings, to name a few benefits! It’s a tricky thing, to estimate how much you will charge for a certain amount of work. No one wants to lose money by undercharging. And no one wants to have a conversation with a client about increasing rates, especially if you have just moved… Read More »3 Easy Steps to Creating Packages for Your Virtual Assistant Services

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What is Billable and What Isn’t?

One of the things I find comes up often in VA conversations is what you should be billing your clients for and what you should absorb as your own expenses. For me it’s a simple answer (everything you do for a client is billable), but I’ll get into some detail to help you navigate through this issue for your own business. First of all, it’s important to remember that when you start working with any client, you are an independent contractor. You are not an employee and you should not act like an employee. Although this gets said very often, it can be difficult to do in everyday practice. It is simply our nature in a support profession to …… Read More »What is Billable and What Isn’t?

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Does This Bother You?

One of the most important decisions you will make in your business is what you charge. Revenue is what drives your business. Without money coming in the door, your business can not sustain itself. But what is the right rate? What is enough, but not too much? What takes into account your value, without being exclusive? What are you and your clients comfortable with? These are the questions that you need to consider when setting your rates. But many VAs don’t have the confidence to simply make that decision. They have to ask lots of others what their opinion is. And that’s okay, don’t get me wrong. Advice is good! But once you ask around, you still have to be able… Read More »Does This Bother You?

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Pricing Your Virtual Assistant Service Packages

We have talked before about how to make up service packages for your clients. Service packages help you to get paid for your expertise, they help you to specialize your services for a select group of clients, and they help your clients know exactly what they will get for their money. It can be a challenge to nail down your packages if you offer a wide variety of services, but once you do, the next step is to price them accordingly. If you are accustomed to billing by the hour, then you will actually be able to do this part more easily than you think. To set your rates, you first have to determine a billable rate. Your billable rate… Read More »Pricing Your Virtual Assistant Service Packages

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How Much Should You Charge as a Virtual Assistant?

Probably the most asked question in the VA industry is ‘how much should I charge?’ Whether you are starting out, or you have been in business for a long time, the struggle around rates always comes up. I think there are a couple of reasons for this – mainly we have trouble seeing our own value, and also we have even more trouble asking people for money. It’s not a flaw in our character, it’s actually very natural. To be apprehensive about setting our rates is perfectly normal. So I try to take the emotion out of it and explain the logic behind setting your rates in this week’s training video. In this Back to Basics training session, we look at rate… Read More »How Much Should You Charge as a Virtual Assistant?

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