You all know that asking for business referrals is good thing, don’t you?  But how to go about asking for them can be an entirely different kettle of fish.

One of the most simplest, yet most effective, ways of increasing the number of referrals from existing clients is to stop asking:

“Do you know of anyone who may be interested in what I offer?”

and start asking:

“Who do you know who may be interested in what I offer?”

The simple change of emphasis on the word “who” opens the person’s mind up and they start searching for an answer.  “Do you know” is a classic closed question which only gives you two answers:  yes or no.

“Who do you” is an open question which allows the person to think about an answer.

And if they can’t think of anyone at the time, there is a greater chance of them thinking of a name at a later date.

I was interviewed a while ago by Carmen MacDougall, one of the leaders in the UK Virtual Assistant industry.  She was putting together a book for VAs looking to build up their client list and wanted to find out how I went about hiring my first VA.

It was many years ago that I took on my first VA – someone who helped me with my business remotely, without the need of coming to my office or offering an employment contract. (And no – a virtual assistant is not one of those virtual animated people who pop up on websites to offer assistance as one person admitted to thinking!)

The interview reminded me of the struggle and confusion I felt when I first decided to take the plunge.

You see, I bet we are alike.

You run your own business.  And you probably are, like all good entrepreneurs and business owners, a bit of a control freak!

When it’s your business … your clients, your blood, sweat and tears … it’s really hard to start handing over some of that responsibility to someone else.  Someone who – let’s be frank here – you are not sure you can really trust.

What happens if they send out the wrong email to the wrong person?   What happens if they end up offending a new client which results in them cancelling the contract you’ve just agreed?

What happens if they lose all your files and mess up your accounts system?

All over-the-top, drama-queen emotions – yet perfectly reasonable thoughts from a business owner like me and you.

But if you carry on running the business in the same way you are at the moment, you probably know that you are going to drop some balls yourself.  Trying to do it all by yourself is guaranteed to result in you being the person who sends out the wrong email and messing up your invoices.

So when is the right time to take on some extra help and hire a VA?

Here are some of the danger signs:

• You have become a slave to your inbox.  Every time you respond to an email another 5 magically appear, which means you never have a chance to get on with business development.  Or writing that book you’ve promised yourself you are going to write!
• You are missing messages on your phone.  You are out with clients and it takes you at least 3 days before you manage to phone someone back … and you are losing potential new projects on the way.
• You are spending hours sending out information to clients such as training packs, terms of engagement letters, quotes and proposals.  You sit by the printer waiting patiently for everything to come off before you dash to the post office to get it in the last post of the day.
• You have projects such as “set up email newsletter” or “get Facebook Page sorted” on your to-do-list for week after week.
• You find yourself sat at your desk on a Saturday morning working out the last 6 months of business receipts whilst your family go out for a day trip to a local park
• You are missing out on having that “every other Friday” that you promised yourself to spend with friends – working for yourself meant that you were you own boss … but it feels like you are chained to your laptop and can’t get away.
• You forget to send out this month’s invoices … because you are too busy!  Cashflow starts to look a little tight.
• You are frustrated by your website as several of the pages are so out of date that you have stopped sending potential clients there to look at it.
• You struggle to find the time to book plane and train tickets and often find yourself missing out cheaper seats because you’ve left it too late to organise.

And the reason why I know these danger signs is because I have had them all at some point in my own business.  Got all of those T-shirts!

This was one of the big things that I shared during the interview with Carmen earlier this week.  By the time I came round to getting someone in to help with my business, I was in such a whirlwind of thoughts and big ideas that trying to explain what I needed help with was tough.

When it’s all in your head and you’ve trained yourself to think “it’s quicker if I just get on and do it” – you know you’ve got to slam on the breaks and take the time out to get some help.

Because if you don’t you will only end up suffocating your own success.

So when is it the right time to get a VA?

Before you begin that new project.  Before you decide to launch that 6 month VIP programme.  Before you launch yourself in to a frenzy of project juggling.

Break off one small part of your business – such as your live events, book project or new product you’re planning to launch – and focus on getting help on this.

If you do, you will find it far easier than trying to get help with that whole mountainous business of yours.  And you will have stronger foundations to take on more clients and projects without taking more of your precious time to do it.

It can take 3 or 4 months to establish a good working relationship with a VA but once it’s there, the sense of freedom is wonderful.  Knowing that there is someone else to do the things you hate to do and not able to do so you can concentrate on what really matters.

And you never know – you could find yourself working that 3 day week after all.

When you want to make an offer to your client, it feels easier to make a soft approach.  You don’t want to scare them off so you decide to outline what your services or your products are and finish off with a “If you are interested, why don’t you get in touch?”

After all, you don’t want to come across like a double-glazing salesman, do you?

But unfortunately, not being specific enough about how someone can get in touch with you, can actually be one of the reasons why somebody doesn’t get in touch.

Are you asking them to e-mail you?  Are you asking them to pick up the phone?  Are you asking them to put their name and e-mail address into an opt-in form?

And when are expecting a response from them? Today, tomorrow, before next Friday?

The more explicit you are with your call to action – the reason why a potential client should be in touch right there and then – the easier it is for your client to know what to do.

So forget about being softly, softly.  Forget about trying to let them make the choice; give them the choices available.  Be explicit with your telephone number: call me now on 01…  or E-mail me at …

Make it easy for your clients to know what the next stage is and how they should be communicating with you, and the more likely they are to take the next step towards spending money with you and order your products or services.