Caroline Wylie, Co-Founder of the Society of Virtual Assistants provides insightful thoughts for VAs
Congratulations you made the short list of the UK Virtual Assistant Awards. Your entry made it past the first hurdle. Give your self a pat on the back for getting here. All that hard work you put in to make sure your entry stood out from the crowd, paid off. Now you are in the finals and have a chance to win the award.
So what can you do between now and the final event? Well here are a few suggestions.
You can use this time to work on marketing your virtual assistant business:
First of all, find out from the organisers if you are allowed to use the event in your marketing. If you are allowed, you can put something like “virtual assistant awards 2018 finalist” with the awards logo on your website along with a short post about your journey so far. Don’t forget to update your social media accounts, and any other marketing material you may have.
You can use this time to prepare for the virtual assistant award event:
Pre-write an acceptance speech – it’s good to be prepared. Also prepare your social media announcement of the winner, do two versions:- one if you win, one if you are a finalist, have them ready to go live on your website.
On the day of the event, there are also a few things you can do to make sure that all goes well. First of all, make an effort to get there early. Leave home with plenty of time to spare so you are not rushing or late for any of the preliminaries of the event.
When you get to the virtual assistant awards presentation, remind yourself to relax and enjoy it. Network with as many people as time allows. Recruit someone to take photos and ask for copies of any official photos which are taken.
Say thank you to the judges and organisers for considering you, if you get the chance. You can use it as a learning process. Take any feedback you get from the panel and use it to make your VA business better.
In conclusion:
Regardless of whether or not you go on to win a virtual assistant award, entering an award has many benefits for you and your VA business. It gives you an opportunity to market your business and benchmark it against your peers. Being nominated by leaders in the VA industry gives you validation that you doing the right thing and can also act as a stamp of credibility for your brand.
If at the end of it all, you enjoyed the whole experience you can always enter again next year. Who knows – it may end up becoming part of your annual calendar of virtual assistant related business events.
