3 Ways To Generate Leads With A Virtual Assistant

Last updated on August 13th, 2024 at 01:31 pm

Can a virtual assistant help you generate leads for your business?

Today we are going to discuss what you should and shouldn’t expect from your virtual assistant.

We will also share three ways in which your virtual assistant can help you bring in more leads.

What is a Virtual Assistant?

A virtual assistant is a remote worker that helps businesses with various repetitive tasks.

Typically, this person is a freelancer, though sometimes they might get hired as a part-time or a full-time employee. 

Usually,  businesses in high cost of living countries such as the United States hire virtual assistants in places where the cost of living is much lower. South Asia is the most popular region for that.

That being said, sometimes companies choose to hire virtual assistants from the same country that they are based in since that helps avoid timezone differences, language barriers, and cultural misunderstandings.

What Should You Expect From a Virtual Assistant?

It’s important to understand that you need to provide training for whatever task you want your virtual assistant to do.

You should create a standard operating procedure (SOP) for that task, set clear KPIs for evaluating the virtual assistant’s performance, and make sure that they know what is expected of them regarding this particular task before you leave them to it. 

We want to emphasize the importance of managing expectations, providing training, and communicating clearly because all of that is crucial when working with virtual assistants.

Now let’s get into the three ways in which virtual assistants can help you generate leads…

#1: Ask Your Virtual Assistant to Help You With Customer Research

We always say that you need to understand your dream customers better than they understand themselves.

And the only way to get to that point is to conduct extensive customer research. But the problem is that customer research can be tedious!

That’s why you might want to outsource some tasks to your virtual assistant.

Ask them to compile a list of:

• Online forums that your dream customers participate in
• Subreddits that your dream customers are subscribed to
• YouTube channels that your dream customers watch
• Podcasts that your dream customers listen to
• Blogs that your dream customers read
• Books that your dream customers read
• Social media accounts that your dream customers follow

Your virtual assistant should also include the top ten most popular pieces of content for each item on this list.

If it’s a subreddit, they should link to the ten most popular posts on it, if it’s a YouTube channel, they should link to the ten most popular videos, if it’s a blog, they should link to the ten most popular articles, etc.

Use this document as your customer research jumping-off point – going through all the content on that list will help you to quickly get the lay of the land.

Then you can start exploring that niche further – check out less popular content, read comments, see if you can identify any market gaps, etc.

Note that this approach is most useful when you are going into a niche that you aren’t familiar with yourself.

Meanwhile, if you belong to your target audience, then you probably already know what’s what and can dive into advanced customer research straight away.

#2: Ask Your Virtual Assistant to Create a List of Potential Customers

Nowadays online businesses tend to automate lead generation because that allows them to scale it.

However, when you are just starting out, you might need to do things that don’t scale, such as sales prospecting.

Meaning, you might need to start by manually reaching out to potential customers, then pitching them your product if they express interest in it.

But searching for potential customers that meet your dream customer criteria, obtaining their contact details, and creating a spreadsheet with all the relevant information can be extremely time-consuming. 

So why not outsource all that to a virtual assistant so that you could focus on cold outreach?

Here’s how you can do it:

1. Clearly define who your dream customers are.
2. Create a spreadsheet with fields like company, name, job title, email address, LinkedIn, and phone number.
3. Create a standard operating procedure (SOP) for finding potential customers. Typically, the greatest challenge is not finding people that fit your dream customer criteria but obtaining their contact information. Make sure that your SOP covers that.

Then set a daily quota:

Say, ask your virtual assistant to find 10 potential customers each day.

At that rate, you would have a list of 100 potential customers in two weeks, at which point you should start firing off cold emails or making cold calls.

#3: Ask Your Virtual Assistant to do Cold Email Outreach

Are you doing cold email outreach?

Then you might want to consider outsourcing it to your virtual assistant.

Simply provide them with a cold email template and ask them to reach out to everyone on the list.

Here’s a QVC cold email formula that Justin McGill, the founder of LeadFuze, used to grow his company to  $30,000 in monthly recurring revenue in just one year:

• Question – “Most people try to lead in with some sort of introduction and this just tips off the prospect that they don’t know you. Instead, try to lead in with a question that pertains to your business.”
• Value Proposition – “This is where everyone gets it wrong. Instead of going on and on about how great your service is and ALL that you offer, try to get the core message out and highlight what makes you unique.”
• Call-to-Action (CTA) – “Don’t end the email weakly, with a “Look forward to hearing from you” type closing. Instead, ask directly if they can speak in the next few days OR give them some sort of closing question that begs an answer in order to elicit some sort of response.”

Here’s a sample cold email:

Justin also advises giving people a way to opt-out of follow-up emails:

Create your own cold email template that follows the QVC formula, then hand it to your virtual assistant.

You might also want to create a sequence of follow-up emails.

Here’s one that Justin used:

1. QVC Email
2. Case Study
3. Value Add (recent blog post link, relevant news article, another case study, etc)
4. Break-up Email (letting them know you won’t be following up anymore)

Your virtual assistant should keep emailing the potential customer until they get a response, whether a positive one or a negative one. 

And if they get a positive response, they should introduce you to the potential customer, so that you could take it from there. 

We recommend setting up a system for tracking your cold email outreach – a simple spreadsheet could work, but using proper CMS software would probably be better.

Want to Learn how to Convert Leads Into Paying Customers?

Virtual assistants can help you get more leads. 

But you need a system for converting those leads into paying customers and then into repeat customers. 

Our co-founder, Russell Brunson, has developed such a system – it’s called the Value Ladder sales funnel. 

And in our 5 Day Challenge, he will walk you through building one for your business step-by-step.

You will learn how to:

• Generate unlimited leads
• Create your first lead magnet
• Build your first sales funnel
• Create a simple 6-email follow-up sequence
• And launch your funnel

…in just five days!

So don’t hesitate.

Join our 5 Day Challenge. It’s completely free!