🚨 MIND YOUR WORDS: Stop Saying You're NEW

Two years ago I was in excruciating pain from a toothache. I rushed to a local dentist office I'd never been in before but they took me in cause they saw how bad I was feeling. After I was prepped, the dentist walks in and says: “Hi my name is Dr blah blah. Don’t worry, I’m a new de…” I didn't hear anything after the word NEW.

😳 EXCUSE ME? New to dentistry? New to this procedure? New to this office? Sir, CLARIFY! 😩 As much pain I was in, the moment he said he was NEW I had a panic attack and I nearly got up from the chair ...

I later learned he was NEW to the practice and was a dentist for like 20 years! 🤦🏽‍♀️ To his defense I was in full panic mode from the pain and couldn't hear anything. LOL

STOP SAYING YOU'RE A NEW VA!

I 100% understand that this is an innocent application for new VAs. But I want you to think of this from the vantage point of a business owner. Unfortunately, and due to various reasons & factors we can discuss in another conversation, by the time a lot of us come to our clients they are in overwhelm mode. They realized they needed HELP like 5 years ago and many of them don't have the energy, bandwidth or time to take on a NEW anything. They need relief.

So on the approach, from their vantage point, when you say 'I can help you with your business I am a NEW....... " it's like uuuuuggghhh more work when they want to do less work or offload work.

PUT YOURSELF IN YOUR CLIENTS SHOES and UNDERSTAND THEIR STRUGGLE.

When you lead your VA pitch with: “I’m a new VA” It makes potential clients hesitant.

What YOU mean is that you launched a new business offering virtual services. Which is celebratory and super great!

But when they hear “new” they think:

❌ I’ll need to train her

❌ She might mess this up

❌ She doesn’t really know what she’s doing

The thing is you are NOT NEW. You are experienced and you are pivoting to providing services in the virtual setting. You have experience from your previous retail job, teacher job, office job, whatever it is... and you’re now offering your skills to the right people in ways that they need.

Providing these services virtually is an instant save for a business owner:

* No employee overhead

* Increased productivity for them

* Little to no training required

When someone asks: “How long have you been a VA?”

✨ “I’ve spent [X] years doing [insert skill] in [insert industry], and now I offer that expertise directly to business owners.”

✨ “I’m not new to the work, I’ve made it official in the virtual space. I’ve been doing this behind the scenes stuff for years.” Shift the focus from the timeline of your business to the pain points you are going to solve for them and how your transferable skills relate to that.

Own your experience. Celebrate it even!

⤵️ This exercise is a work in progress for me still. But below are other words I make a conscious effort to shift from. I instead try to be very specific in what I'm trying to relay to the person.

words ending in -ly

New

Just

Hopefully

Trying to

I think I can...

A little experience

Basic knowledge

Kind of

Recently started

Beginner

Learning

Light admin

Please

Sorry

Try it out! Good luck!

💡I help women get paid for boring admin work by teaching them how to build a Virtual Assistant business using skills they already have.

I do this inside my Skool community, Do The Boring Work - where I give the exact steps, scripts and strategies I've used to land paying clients for over 15 years.

You don't have to figure out all this stuff alone! 

https://www.skool.com/dotheboringwork

Stay Curious, Stay Connected,

💫 Chastity

Do the Boring Work is a community for women ready to turn their skills into a profitable Virtual Assistant business. Whether you’ve worked in corporate, retail, health, food service, etc., your skills can support businesses that need help. Flexible hours, steady income, working from anywhere, it all sounds great, but most aspiring VAs get stuck before they start. We work on real, actionable steps to build your business. Inside you'll learn tactics to land clients, price your services confidently and generate income