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Laura Nicole: 00:02

Welcome to Your Virtual Assistant Coach, the podcast for moms who want to make money from home on their own terms. I'm your host, Laura Nicole, a successful six-figure earning VA and coach who replaced my college professor salary in just five months back in 2020 after my daughter was born, and I have never looked back. I'm here to help you build a profitable, flexible VA business that fits into your family's lives so you no longer feel like you're living just to work. Let's dive in. This week's episode is piggybacking off of last week's episode, episode number 48. So if you have not yet listened to episode 48, go do that right now. Because without that context, this conversation today is probably not going to make a whole lot of sense to you. So pause, go listen, come back. And if you have already listened to last week's episode, number one, thank you for listening. I appreciate you. I hope you found it helpful. I hope you went out there and gave a business owner the chance to reject you. And I hope you continue to do so because the yes is coming. The right person, the right yes is coming your way. I know it as long as you continue to make connections and network and put yourself

Laura Nicole:  01:23

 out there. But today I want to talk about the other side of that coin, right? We talked last week about you putting yourself out there for a potential business owner to either be able to say yes or no to working with you. But a really, really, really cool thing about being a virtual assistant is that you also have the opportunity to say no to a potential client. Maybe someone reaches out to you on your Instagram, or maybe they find your website and put an inquiry through your website form. Or maybe you get connected to somebody through a connection in your personal network and you come to the conclusion that it's not a good fit for you, right? Even if the other person, even if the potential client is excited and they're on board and they want to get rolling and they want to work with you, if you don't want to work with them, you can tell them no. You can reject them too, because you're your own boss. You're a freelancer as a virtual assistant. And so you have control over who you work with, over what clients you bring on to your roster. And this is something that while I think a lot of women in their logical brain know that like they could tell somebody no, it's very rare that women actually will tell a potential client no, especially if the client wants to hire you. And that's because it is super common, especially early on, right? Especially as your first kind of getting your feet under you, you're trying to fight sign your first couple of clients. It is exceptionally common to get stuck in the mindset, just like my girl Jenna did, who is uh an accelerator and a member of the Superstar Assistant Academy, just like she did. A lot of y'all will work with anybody. You'll work with anybody, anyone who wants to pay you, anyone who wants to hire you, even if you're not aligned with them, even if you don't particularly enjoy them as a human, even if they want you to do certain tasks or services that you're not stoked about, a lot of y'all are gonna say yes to that client because you just want someone to hire you. You just want to work with someone. And I'm not faulting you for that. It's

Laura Nicole: 03:52

 very common, right? Because the fear of not finding a client is so big that it's very, very easy to settle. And I had a conversation with Jenna today about the topic of being rejected by potential clients, and then on the flip side, also being the person who's saying no. And she messaged me saying that she just rejected someone today. And it was because that potential client was just not a fit. They wanted services that Jenna wasn't excited about offering, they wanted to negotiate on her rate based on the services that she was going to be doing, and she could just tell that like the communication was not the style that she was looking for in working with clients. She knew, like, she just didn't pass the vibe check, right? She didn't pass the vibe check. And Jenna, admittedly, a year ago when she started this, she would have probably signed this client. She would have, because it was someone who wanted to hire her and pay her. And so she would have done it. But she told me today, she said, I'm not going to downgrade or lower on my prices for someone else. That's what I kept trying to do when I first started out. I would want to work with anybody. And now I'm like, no, I don't want to do that. Because now I see what I do and I don't want in a client. And yes, Jenna has had success as a VA in the last year. She has signed a couple of clients. She has one client on her roster who she's obsessed with and her clients obsessed with her. She has learned through experience by actually taking the time to find aligned clients what it is that she does and does not want in a client, not just related to the work and what services she wants to do, but in the communication style and the personality and the vibe. I know that sounds cheesy as hell, but like there is a vibe when you find a client that you know you're going to be excited to work with. I was just so proud of Jenna today when we had that conversation because I know that that is growth. And I know that it's hard to convince yourself, especially again at the beginning of this process when you're looking to sign a client. It's really hard to convince yourself that you could say no to somebody. And I learned the really hard way at the beginning of my journey. I wish I had known I could have said no to a client, but they wanted to hire me. They were offering me a shitload of money. And I was just so desperate to actually sign a good client and to get the ball. Like I was so desperate. I was willing to work with anybody to make it happen. And it was a catastrophe. Like it was awful. And then on the flip side of that, I learned, right? I learned through the trial and error, through the gong show that was working with that client for a year and a half. And that's how I figured out that I actually need to be and get to be picky about what clients I move forward with and I pour my time and energy into.

Laura Nicole: 07:18

 And that truly, y'all, like that's the whole point of this. The whole point of this is not to continue to be miserable to make money. The point of this is to get to make money in a way that feels good for you and fits your life. And a big part of that is actually just liking your clients. And so even if someone is stoked on working with you, I need you to give yourself permission to turn that person down if they are not a good fit for you, whether it's a logistical mismatch or it's a personal vibe alignment mismatch. And I need you to trust that if you turn that down and then you continue to network, you continue to give people the chance to reject you, that the right yes is going to come along and you are going to find a really aligned client to work with. And I just want to save y'all the trouble. I want to save y'all the time. Jenna would probably say the same thing to you. She'd say, save your time. I know it's tempting to take the client, but if it doesn't feel right, you need to listen to your gut. Trust it, and then continue to put in the work. Don't say, oh my gosh, that was terrible. And now I'm just, I know I'm never gonna find somebody who I'll actually want to work with, so I'll give up. No, that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying go continue to network, connect, build conversations and relationships with people that you know are dream clients in alignment for you and what you're looking for in this. And then circle back to the topic from last week's episode 48 and continue to give people the chance to reject you, knowing full well that you also have the power to reject them if it's not a good fit for you. 

Laura Nicole: 09:25

Thanks for hanging out with me today on your virtual assistant coach. If you love this episode, be sure to share it with your best friend, your sister, or even your favorite coworker who you know wants to start making a flexible income. I'll see you all next time.