Did you know that the VA Industry has existed in Australia since before we got Internet? Yes, people ran businesses before we had the world wide web that we now rely so heavily on every single day. *gasp!* They either posted or delivered work to be completed – an activity which some people still utilize for certain tasks. In the early dial up internet days, we didn’t have a gamut of CRMs, websites, social media platforms, VOIP and other tools to make running a virtual business easy. We had email. And we had slooooow email at that. And we didn’t have it on all the time – only when we needed it because sometimes using the internet meant you couldn’t receive or make phone calls. Remember that? Over the past 10 years, the number of resources and the speed at which we can use them has absolutely sky rocketed.

Why am I telling you this? Because I have not seen a direct correlation between the advancement of technology and the increase in awareness of the VA Industry here in Australia. We, as an Industry, need to be LOUDER. And the better you are, the louder we need you to be.

Personally, I don’t want to encourage low quality, low standard VAs to be loud. That doesn’t really work for me. But the VAs who are really skilled and professional are often working in and on their business and not participating in larger scope activities which educate our country about what our Industry can do. And we need to work on that. It’s not possible for just a handful of VA businesses to promote the entire industry. Perhaps if we have an association that was flush with funds we could do a lot more promotion, but at this stage, real money just isn’t being invested in the 2 associations which exist.

So what can we do about? What can YOU do about?

Here’s some ideas I had:

  1. I’ll be running a webinar to talk about what you could say if you had the chance to speak at a networking event or webinar. Come along!
  2. Talk, write, sing about the Industry and not just your business. Your business will benefit either way, but the Industry will be stronger together if we all talk about it.
  3. Get involved financially and physically with the Associations. Don’t rely on the same people to push shit uphill for you – get in there and push that shit too! Be a pusher! *oh dear – maybe I need another coffee*
  4. Be clear on why you and your business are unique and who your avatar is. Why? Because once you all realise what you represent and who you want to work with, you’ll realise we are ALL different and we don’t need to compete. Become a team. The strongest industries refer to each other and support each other. Actually do it – don’t just say you will.

 

So there you have it. They are my tips for getting LOUD about VAs in 2017. Do you have any other tips you can share with us?