Why New VAs Should Not Start With Packages

You will have seen the advice from other VA Trainers telling you to package your services from day one. Bundle up your tasks, put a price on the bundle, and clients will know exactly what they are getting. It sounds tidy, and for an established VA it can work well.

For a new VA, I think it is the wrong place to start. I have been training VAs since 2014 and my advice has not changed: do not start with packages. Start by charging for your time.

First, what I mean by a package. I mean a bundle of services sold for a set price: a list of tasks or deliverables, one fee, however long it takes you. I do not mean a retainer of 10, 20, 30 or 40 hours a month. A retainer is the client reserving  your time, and I am all for those.

You cannot price what you have not timed

A package is a fixed price for a fixed piece of work. To set that price you need to know how long the work takes you. Not how long it took in your old job, with your employer’s systems and a colleague down the corridor. How long it takes you, in your own business, for a client whose set-up you have never seen.

New VAs do not have that information yet, so the package price is a guess. Guess high and nobody buys. Guess low and you are working for far less than you planned.  I have a lot of Virtual Assistants reach out to me who say they have started with packages but cannot get clients, that potential clients don’t understand what it is they are buying.

Say you charge £35 an hour and you sell a package at £350 because you think it is ten hours of work. It turns out to be sixteen. You are now earning under £22 an hour, and you will be doing it again next month because that is the price you agreed.  Eurgh, please don’t sell your services this way.

You cannot sell what you are not sure of

There is a second problem. Clients ask questions. How long will that take? What exactly is included? What happens if I need more?

If you do not know how long the work takes, you cannot answer with any confidence, and clients can tell. You hesitate, you over-promise, or you drop the price to make the awkward moment go away.

You also do not yet know what clients want. A package designed at your kitchen table, before you have worked with a single client, is built on assumption. You end up selling what you think people ought to need, not what they are asking for.

Two more traps

Scope creep. A package is only as good as its edges. “Inbox management” means one thing to you and something quite different to your client. Experienced VAs hold that line with clear terms and the confidence to say “that is outside what we agreed”. Most new VAs have neither yet, so the extra work gets done for free.

Hiding. Designing packages feels like work. Naming them, pricing them, building the web page for them. It can fill weeks. None of it is finding clients, which is the job that pays the bills. If you have spent a month on your packages and have not had one conversation with a potential client, the packages are not your problem.

Where packages do work

Let me reassure you – contrary to belief, I am not against packages. They have their place, and that place is the defined project with a clear start, a clear finish and a clear result:

• Running an event
• Setting up a CRM
• Setting up a new piece of software
• Building a website

Even then, you can only price them properly once you have done that kind of work enough times to know what is involved. A good package comes out of experience. It is not a substitute for it.

Where they do not belong is normal monthly support. Ongoing support changes from week to week. One month it is mostly inbox and diary, the next there is a deadline, a launch or someone off sick. Put a fixed price on that and one of you loses out every month. General monthly support should be charged by time, and that is the job of a retainer: 10, 20, 30 or 40 hours a month, with the client able to see where every hour went.

Some regular services are ideal to package in time. Read those final two words again – in time! Email marketing, social media management, content creation, bookkeeping and website maintenance all repeat month after month with a clear output. But in time, not when you start out. Do them on your hourly rate or within a retainer first, track every minute, and package them once you know exactly what is involved and how long it takes.

What to do instead

Sell your time. You can do that ad hoc, by the hour, or in retainer packages of 10, 20, 30 or 40 hours a month. Ad hoc is the right fit for:

• One-off tasks
• Clients who do not have the budget for a regular commitment
• The first month with a new client, while you both work out what they need and when

That first month matters. Track your time on everything. By the end of it you know what the client uses you for, how long each job takes you and what it costs them. So do they. Whatever you agree next is based on facts, not guesswork.

Once you both know what is needed, move the client onto a retainer package of 10, 20, 30 or 40 hours a month. You are still selling time, the client can still see where every hour went, and you both know what the month will cost.  This is where tracking your time is important too – please track your time to the minute and do not round up to the nearest 15 mins or hour!  Here’s a blog about my favourite time tracking softwares you might like to read. 

It matters to clients as well. Money is tight for a lot of businesses, and clients want to know how long something will take and where their hours are being spent. An hourly rate with a time log shows them exactly that. A package price hides it.  I loved to use a time tracking software that allowed clients to log in and check how much time I had used (or not used!)

You will hear that hourly is risky because you do the work first and invoice afterwards. That is a reason to have a signed contract, keep a clear time log and invoice promptly. It is not a reason to fix a price for work you have never done.

I have written a separate blog on how to invoice for ad hoc work and retainer packages. You can read it here – it’s all about invoicing in advance or in arrears. 

You will also hear that hourly penalises you for being good at your job: the faster you get, the less you earn. That is true, and it is the best argument for packages there is. But it is a problem for later. In month one you are not fast yet. You are learning a new client, new systems and a new way of working. Get quick first, with the time records to prove it, and then package the service so the client pays for the outcome and not the minutes.

Charging by the hour does not mean you lack ambition. It is how you gather the information that every later pricing decision depends on.

Get the basics right first

Packages are not where a VA business starts. Start with your time, track it, and let the packages come later from what you have learned.

If you are setting up as a VA and want straight answers on pricing, finding clients and getting the foundations right, the VA Momentum Course is where to start. No waffle, just what you need to do and in what order.