This question was received from Lewis Beman, of ValueAdded Paralegal and Notary Services, LLC, through my article posting on ezinearticles.com, Common Questions About Setting Your Virtual Assistant Rates (also posted below):

Subject: virtual bankruptcy assisting

Pam, Thanks for posting; very helpful article. My major issue so far is, when a potential attorney-client’s first (& maybe only) question is how much does my service cost, and expecting a definitive answer before inquiring anything about my services. What measures could I take to possibly “weed out” this type of inquiry and more effectively reach the clients for whom quality of the work product trumps price?

Thank you for taking the time to post this excellent question to my article, Lewis. I’m posting my answer here because this is often a dilemma that many (if not all) VAs face at one time or another in their prospective client conversations.

I think the first important step to take is to determine your ideal client.

Your ideal client is determined by identifying specific types of people – personalities and traits – that you prefer to work with. It’s those clients that you tell yourself, “I can’t believe I’m getting paid to do this.” And these are the types of clients you should be pursuing.

One of the best ways to do this is to go back into your client base and think about who is your perfect client? Who has retained you and your services? Who’s been consistent with you? And that comprises your ideal client profile. Find out as much as you can about that person – what do they drive? Are they married or single? Do they have children? What’s their religion? Everything that you could possibly know about who your ideal client is. And that becomes the person that all your marketing is targeted to.

Here’s something that I’ve found most helpful. Once I determined my ideal client’s traits and learned everything I could about her, I gave her a name.

For example, Melissa is a 45 year old small business marketing coach, who has been in business for 8 years, and has an income of $180,000 per year. She is not overly tech savvy and outsources her website, membership site, ezine creation, and blog writing needs. She’s married to her high school sweetheart and has a couple of kids, a boy and a girl, both in their early 20′s and both in university. Melissa understands the value a virtual assistant can bring to her business and is just looking for the right person to partner with in order to help her in her business. She’s at a point in her business that she can grow but she knows that she can only do this with the right support to help her move forward.

Then create your marketing message just like you’re talking to Melissa (or whatever you’ve named your own ideal client). Make it conversational and speak directly to her and her situation. And have her in mind when you create or rework your website and network on the social media sites as well.

Just doing this exercise will help you to attract the types of clients that you want to work with and those who’s first concern is not your rate.

Now, to more directly answer your question, when the prospect goes straight for the jugular, so to speak, gently steer the conversation toward the VALUE you can provide to them. Tell them, “I’ll speak to that question in a moment, but first I’d like to learn a little more about you and your business.” Ask them questions about how they’re handling fulfillment of the tasks currently, and how freeing up their time (or the person who’s handling the projects now) will benefit from gaining more time to concentrate on more of the revenue generating tasks that need to be done in their business, and so on. You want to ensure they’re fully aware of the value you can bring to the table and how you can benefit them and their business.

Be confident when stating your rates – something that’s easy to do when you’ve already explained your value proposition, and don’t waiver if they ask you to reduce your fees. Remember, your services and your time is valuable.

I hope this answers your question Lewis, and I’d love to hear how you make out with your next prospective conversation!