Profit Growth Strategy #6 for Virtual Assistants

Leverage Your Highest Priced Billable Skills

One of the fastest ways to grow your revenue and profits is to leverage your highest billable skills. Most entrepreneurs—including virtual assistants—overlook this simple strategy. It will save you time and energy while increasing your profits.

I am often asked how to set your prices. This is a quick and rough way of doing it, but it can also be effective. First, follow yourself around for a few days or even a week. Keep diligent track of the things you do, how long you do them and how much you enjoy them. For this latter point use a scale of 1 to 5. This list will help you identify at what level you are working and should reveal why you have a specific type of emotional engagement with your work.

Next, research the rates firms charge for each of these services. Call a temporary agency, contract service or even review Salary.com. This will give you a ballpark estimate of what it is worth. Once you have these hourly rates, list them next to each skill. Do some simple multiplication to find the product of the hours and the hourly rate. This will tell you what you should have charged for the week you tracked.

Most people stop at this step. They will raise their rates according to their estimate of one week and assume that every week is like this. Experts take it one step further.

Review the list. Look at those things you love to do. See what you get paid for doing them. Those are the skills you should sell today because your passion for them allows you to do them well and to work long hours if required. Then look at those skills which pay the most. If you don’t like them, reflect on why you don’t like them. If it is a matter of lack of skill, then resolve to focus on growing in these areas and seek expert advice and mentoring. As you build a new expertise, you will want to move your business toward these higher priced billable skills.

Tomorrow we will discuss what to do with the skills you don’t like. These can be excellent profit centers and help you build a valuable network.

If you are interested at all in building and growing a recession-proof Virtual Assistant practice, I urge you to join our mailing list now.

**You have permission to reprint in your publication or to your website/blog any articles by Denise Griffitts found on this Website as long as Denise Griffitt’s name and contact information is included. Denise Griffitts, Virtual Assistance Industry Expert, http://virtualassistanceuniversity.com, info @ virtualassistantindustry.com, 888-719-6711.