All businesses should know their points of difference; what sets them apart from their competitors in the market. Big companies call these points of difference/unique selling propositions (USP’s), where they often appear as company tag lines, such as M&M’s wildly successful one-liner: “Melts in your mouth, not in your hand”.

If you are a small business owner, do you know your USP’s? We sat down and had a wee brainstorming session to discover the things that set us apart from our competition, and as “your business support specialists”, these are three of the things we identified.

F U L L    F L E X I B I L I T Y

VA businesses often offer a combination of casual hourly rates and service plans with a set number of hours you pay for each week/month. The more hours you commit to, the cheaper your hourly rate becomes. While we can see the merits of this system and do offer both casual rates and several great value service package options, we don’t lock our clients into anything! Yep, they only pay for what they use. “How the heck does that work?” You might be asking.

Well, let’s say a client comes to us and says they want help with social media management, bookkeeping, and blogging. We work out that this will be five hours per week, so they sign up to our excellent value five-hour per week plan. Our VA’s still track their time, so if that client only uses 4.5 hours of their five-hour plan, they only pay for 4.5 hours! If they only use 2.5 hours another week, they only pay for 2.5 hours.

If the plan that our client is on, no longer suits their needs, we will switch them to another more suitable option; however, it’s nice to know that as a client, you’re not locked into paying for something that you’re not even using!

C O N T R A C T O R S    N O T    E M P L O Y E E S

Rather than hiring staff as permanent employees, we enlist all our team members as independent contractors. Why? Because experience has taught us that people working as contractors are more engaged, responsive, and hardworking when their name and reputation is on the line.

Additionally, we live and breathe outsourcing, so using contractors for client work is a natural extension of this. You don’t have to pay for office equipment or dead time, where your VA is taking an extra-long break or when they are chatting to a colleague, and neither do we! #smartbusiness

I N – H O U S E    V A    T R A I N E R

Virtual Assistants uses an in-house VA trainer, which we think is pretty incredible and out of the ordinary for a Virtual Assistant business! Our in-house trainer works with all core contracted team members to ensure they are well-versed with the latest apps, programmes, and technology. Their primary focus is building the capability of our team through targeted professional development, although they also liaise with our clients to check-in and see how they are getting on with their VA’s. If a client feels a VA is not performing at the level they require, our VA trainer will swoop in to remedy the situation with tailored training solutions.

The in-house trainer role has become a vital position in our business as it is an excellent way for us to keep our finger on the pulse with regards to both our VA’s and clients needs.

If you’re wondering if we have more than three unique selling points, yes we do. However, we think these three above are particularly notable! A few of our other drawcards include:

• Having a well-developed network of professionals we can call on to complete client work at great rates (or refer our clients on to work directly with)
• Employing VA specialists and generalists, including several degree-qualified contractors, means our team has a skill base so diverse; we can assist our clients with almost everything! (From legal and HR admin, through to event planning and web design!)
• Being an extremely tech-savvy bunch, we are able to go above and beyond the call of duty to help our clients with IT-related issues, which is something we know not all VA businesses can say!

If you or someone you know is looking for a VA service, why not give our talented team here at Virtual Assistants ago? We aim to please and think our points of difference help us do just that!

What do you think about our USP’s, and if you have your own business, how do you ensure your business stands out from the competition? We would love to know what your points of difference are.