UDMA School Open House: You're invited to a LIVE Open House for the Unicorn Digital Marketing Assistant School on October 8th at 12 PM est. This is your opportunity to explore everything my job training program has to offer. Join me for a Q&A, get a detailed course walkthrough to explore the comprehensive materials and program structure, and hear from past students. Come find out if UDMA School is the right next step for you!

If you want to present as a service provider who's a go-to expert who charges more than $25 an hour, it starts with this one thing: the Services Guide. This is essentially your pitch when you're reaching out to apply for any contracting job. Think of it like a modern cover letter—only we don't really use resumes anymore.

Gone are the days when you need a linear list of every job you've ever held. Honestly, nobody cares that you worked at Carrabba's back in 2004. Sure, you can highlight the customer service skills you gained, but those details aren’t what clients are looking for today. What you truly need is a well-crafted services guide and a strong portfolio that showcases your expertise and value.

Listen to learn more about

• the main differences between a Services Guide and a Portfolio
• why having a clear value proposition is essential for standing out to potential clients
• the common mistakes made with Service Guides and my advice for creating strong headlines, clear calls to action, and effective pricing strategies
• networking, collaborations, and effective ways to market your business to turn prospects into clients

Tune in because by the end of this episode, you'll have the tools to craft a Services Guide that doesn’t just tell your clients what you do – it shows them why they need you. 

Sponsored by the UDMA School: Join the Unicorn Digital Marketing Assistant School. This course covers in-demand, highly sought-after digital marketing implementation skills for freelancers to be able to help online business owners build their businesses. Learn the mechanics and strategies of digital marketing in a 12-week online group coaching program and course. Get on the waitlist here! 

Links mentioned in the Show:

• Book: You Are a Badass at Making Money: Master the Mindset of Wealth by Jen Sincero
• Watch the Infosession Replay: How to Become a Virtual Assistant

Connect with Emily:

• Facebook Community: Emily’s Unicorn Digital Marketing Assistant Lab
• Instagram: @emilyreaganpr 
• Facebook: @emilyreaganpr

3 ways we can work together: 

1. Get on the waitlist for the Live Unicorn Digital Marketing Assistant School. My signature course on digital marketing implementation will give you the confidence and teach you HOW to do the work that’s in demand and highly marketable. This is the secret weapon to getting booked out. Or get started now with the Self-Study version of UDMA School here.
2. Got the skills but need help getting your digital marketing services business to take off? I’ve got an advanced tight-knit referral and networking community that can help and I would love for you to apply here for the Digital Marketing Workgroup. You’ll get the latest updates and trainings, networking opps and job leads from online business owners who are looking to hire digital marketing implementers and assistants.
3. Looking for a fast way to get your foot in the door with up-to-date skills? Take my 2-hour Quickstart to Facebook Community Management workshop and learn how to help online business owners like course creators and membership site owners manage and engage their community

>>> Download my Top Ten Most Requested Digital Marketing Tasks & Services 

I think deep down we're talking about the impact on freelancers. This fear of not finding clients, this burnout from constantly chasing clients or worrying where the next project will come from. So this is what we're going to do. Ooh. Hello. Welcome back to the show. I am your host, fellow freelancer, Emily Reagan. I have been doing the work since 2008 when I said yes to my first freelance client project not knowing what the heck I was doing.

And now I'm here in the spot where I have taught over 450 men and women and unicorns how to start a business and how to have a digital freelance business, how to offer a digital service. As a freelance business, it wasn't always my intention to start out and be a business owner. Just knew I liked doing the work, I was good at it, and people could pay me money, and voila, here I am. I started teaching my friends when I saw a huge gap in the market of what clients needed help with and what virtual assistants actually knew. Fast forward. The date of this podcast is 2024 and things are a little different. Things are a little different when I started and there's new ways of marketing yourself, getting clients. There is a new.

What do I want to say? There's new economic uncertainty. There is this perception that the online bubble has popped when and that, and that things have gotten competitive. And yeah, some of these factors are at play, but this cannot change the fact that there is still plenty of work out there. Businesses will always need marketing help. They will always need to augment with contractors. They will always need people who have the ability to follow through and execute. And having any kind of mindset of scarcity where you feel like there's just a limited pool of clients and there's no more opportunities is never going to serve you in this space. So I want to start off really quick like that.

I've been reading Jen Sincero's book, you are a badass at making money. I highly, highly recommend reading that. There's some people in my workgroup I need to read it because if you're constantly thinking of things negatively, you are going to see that your brain is going to reinforce it and you're not going to grow from that. We need to operate not from a place of desperation, but hope, abundance and positivity. Like there is so much freaking work out there. I see the numbers. I know you don't see it, but I'm getting tons of job requests from hireaunicorn.com dot. I'm talking to lots of other business owners who are looking for their next right fit.

A lot of them are becoming quite well aware that the low level VA is not up to snuff, is not up to snuff, is not helping them move forward in their business, and they're looking for a higher quality teammate, somebody who understands online business marketing, who can be organized, project manage and see the next step. So I talk about that a lot on the show. The show is dedicated to helping you up level. What a dumb word. Get to that next level in your business. It's really about being the premium service provider here. And part of being a premium service provider where you do charge higher rates is presenting yourself well from start to finish. It's really easy to go into a situation and put any kind of seed of doubt with your client if you're not showing up confidently and organized from the beginning, from the moment of that discovery call.

So there are certain things you just have to do. And we talk a lot about this in unicorn digital marketing assistant school over in my work group. We don't need to harp on that here. What I really wanted to harp on here was presenting yourself professional. Last week we talked about being self managed. I tried to delay this podcast because I have a little bit of a cold, so I'm sorry, you're going to listen to me nasally. It is not going away, but this conversation needs to happen and it's about putting yourself out there. And it starts with this one thing, the services Guide.

If you want to present as a service provider who's a go to expert who charges more than $25 an hour, it starts with your services guide. And I had somebody ask me recently about, hold on 1 second. So let's clear up what I'm talking about here. Inside the workgroup and inside Udma school, we share job leads. Some of these are personal connections clients were passing on things we see, but a lot of them are also coming from people who have filled out the form and are looking for a unicorn service provider. Whether it's an assistant, a creative specialist, a manager level of some sort, a strategist, we get all kinds of jobs. And this services guide is the thing that you so we share their job, we share what they're looking for. It's informal, but some people will have a job description, some people will have an application process.

Just like a little funny word here. As a contractor, I talk about that a lot here on the show. But putting your name in the hat, let's just call it what it is. You're pitching yourself so you get their email. We share the things they're looking for. It's up to you to figure out, do I do one, two, all or none? Am I interested in this person's mission, their business? Are our values aligned? Is this where I can provide value and impact? And then we have unicorns put their name in the hat by reaching out. It's much like a cover letter would be with your resume. Only we don't use resumes anymore.

We don't need a linear projection of every job you've ever had. Nobody cares that you worked at Carrabba's in 2004. Now you can bring the soft skill of customer service to conversations, but it's just not relevant to today. So resumes are passe. What you need is a services guide and a portfolio. And I talked about this on the how to become a virtual assistant info session just a couple weeks ago, but you can always go get their replay. If this is new to you and you want to know more about what do I need to begin? Go check that out. The services guide is typically a detailed downloadable document, a PDF that a service provider shares with prospective clients, especially when they express interest in learning more about their offerings.

It's comprehensive, it's a structured presentation, and it includes a couple high level things. And it's different than a website, it's different than the work with me page. The work with me page is very public. It's a public facing overview of your services and offerings. Its purpose is to introduce a website visitor and how they can work with you. They encourage and then this page encourages you to, and this page encourages them to take the next step to book a call. And we go over all of this. And my bonus, the freelance business Kickstarter.

This whole process is there for you and you do have to tailor it to yourself, but this is just generally what happens. So the work with me page is more high level summary of the services, but it cannot be broken down in the granular detail that a website can hold. Like somebody cannot be scrolling on forever. And so it's written more in a way that's enticing but not overly detailed. Does that make sense? It's peaking the interest of the website viewer. This is usually a client who is stalking you out or found you through social or found you through an Internet search. They're making sure they want to talk to you. And so your services got your services work with me page.

Your website work with me page is going to have a call to action, which is essential. Focus is that call like getting on a call but you're not going to disclose much pricing. Minimal. Minimal pricing here. Okay. So it's very like meet me. It's very concise, it's visual, it's more pretty, it's optimized for mobile. Mobile can't show that much anyway, so that's what that is.

The format is a webpage, and a lot of us don't have to start right away with a webpage. One of the biggest questions I get from anyone newer or already been working a little bit is this fear of what do I have to do to get clients? How can I get, how can I make sure I'm making money, I'm booking clients and that there's work. Do I have to do social media? Do I have to dance on TikTok? And there are so many different ways you can get clients. There's so many ways you can network with your right fit golden ring client. I've talked about that here on the show. We've talked about networking in Facebook groups. We've talked about paying to play memberships. You can market yourself in so many ways outwardly, you know, it starts with a strong personal brand.

You need this portfolio, this services guide. You can leverage social media. You don't have to be on there. But you know, LinkedIn is a great place for service providers. You can build a network and make relationships in person and online. There's so many different collaborations you can do with other service providers. You can optimize all of your platforms from Fiverr to your website. You know, doing SEO, you can start doing email marketing.

It's a little bit of a longer game for a service provider. You can start with your own content marketing. Again, a little bit of a longer game. You can cold outreach. Nobody wants to do that. But it can work if it's done in the right way. You can get visible, you can do guests blogging, you can do podcasts. Again, a longer road there.

So what's the quickest way to make sure you can get clients? What's the quickest way that you can book a client is getting somebody who's already looking for you, getting somebody who already knows they want your service, instead of you having to go into the cold pool. Let me rephrase that. Instead of you showing up at a big party and trying to figure out which one person's hiring there and trying to talk to everybody, it's easier if that person finds you like you have a big neon sign, right? And all of this works. It's all part of prospecting and lead generation. And it is a longer game. And the cool thing is, the stronger your brand is, the more you work with clients, the more you have case studies and testimonials and you get results, it will start getting easier. It's just that first client can be the first hurdle. It's that second client, it's getting out of the baby clients to the more meatier clients that let you do more, that pay you more, that value you more.

Like, that's the hard thing here. So always be asking yourself, where can I hang out? Where all I have to do is share the easiest piece of content ever, and people just find me. And that's your services guide. Where are the people just looking for this? And that's where you find your first clients. Not first clients. That's where you find your clients. They're coming to you as an expert, and so you want to. What I want to say, they're expressing interest in you, and you want to be able to just, like, go right into the presentation.

And this is what the services guide does. It's the presentation before the discovery call. It's so much further along on that buyer awareness journey. You're not trying to convince anyone they need a VA to save their problems. You're not trying to convince anyone that they need better marketing to make more sales and make more money. They already know these problems. They're just looking for the right service provider. And your services guide will attract those people.

So what's in your services guide? Okay, I'm gonna. Before I go into this, let's talk. Okay. Before I go. Okay. So, real briefly, what's in the services guide? It's a detailed service description, in depth breakdown of what you offer with each service and all the specifics of scope, deliverables, timelines, results nailed down. And if it's not nailed down, it doesn't look like you know what you're doing. You don't come across as a seasoned professional, an expert.

I. You need to have pricing information, pricing tiers. You can go so much more in depth than you can on the website, but you also can have options, and you can also have starting at prices. You need case studies, you need testimonials, examples of past work, success stories to demonstrate your expertise, to demonstrate what you've been able to do with other clients. This is also a good opportunity to show your process or your. Oh, my God, Emily. To show your process or methodology how you do things. What is the Emily way of helping a freelancer? What is the Emily way? For example, what is your way of doing Pinterest yeah, you've done training with other people, but now you've seen what works.

You're putting all your own spice on your service. You're really walking through the client. You're really walking the client through how the work will be executed. And then there's the option for custom packages, which, you know, everybody always wants it tailored to their specific needs. So letting that know and there is. So it's just more meatier than the work with me page. Does that make sense? The call to action is not just an inquiry or discovery call, it's booking you. It's further down that pipeline.

That journey, as shared with the audience, is different than the webpage. Right? You're sharing with potential leads who already have interest and you're taking the time to go more in depth with them. So what we teach our unicorns to do is when they do this initial outreach email to attach the services guide and present themselves. It can start out as a one sheet, but the goal is to grow it to multiple pages and have different sections in it. I including, you know, those testimonials, you know, how I work, frequently asked questions, all of that. It's really an opportunity to stand out in your branding, show your skills. You're probably asking, how is it different than a portfolio? A portfolio is more for someone who has visual visual work to show. It's demonstrating that they can do do that visual work for multiple clients with multiple brands.

It's proof of your capability, it's showcasing your results. A portfolio is demonstrating your skills. It has screenshots, it has descriptions, it has strategy and insight and metrics. It can be tucked in your services guide, which is really smart, is building credibility and is showcasing talent so it can be a section in your services guide. I think this is where people get confusing, confused. Whereas the services guide is really trying to persuade a potential client that your specific offering to help them understand. Whereas the services guide is going into detail about the scope, the pricing, the process, the deliverables, it's really informing, it's really persuading clients about what you do. It's helping them understand what they will get if they choose.

It's helping them. It's helping them understand what they will get if they choose to work with you. Services guide is for potential clients who are seriously considering working with you. The portfolio can be a little broader, but when tucked in the services guide, it can be kind of both. So I hope I didn't confuse you there. I think we struggle to create these services guide and this is why it's so nice to have somebody eyeing it to pull out the best of ourselves. I think we struggle to come up with a strong and clear value proposition that communicates well what we can do for our clients, like how we can help them transform in general. It's really hard when you're starting out and you have a lack of clarity on what to offer.

And then how do you put that in the services guide when you don't really know? And it's hard when you're transitioning from hourly to project work to be clear on what's in those projects, what you should offer. It's overwhelming. And then of course, this brings up feelings of imposter syndrome, like not feeling like you're expert enough to do this, doubting your abilities, worrying that you don't have the authority to offer this as a package. I think that's why a lot of freelancers hesitate and procrastinate with this. Then there's this whole issue of fear of pricing and undervaluing ourselves, deciding what to charge and how to present pricing in the services guide. It's just a major sticking point. Even at this higher level, when I'm talking to business owners about what to charge for courses, what to charge for group coaching programs, there's always this fear of pricing. And you can see why people come together and talk about it because it helps.

We're scared we're going to charge too much. We're scared we're going to lose the clients. We're not going to charge too. We're going to charge too little. We won't be seen credible, more or less. We'll lose our profit margin and it won't be worth it. Might as well go back to a nine to five. All this uncertainty makes us avoid even doing this, putting ourselves out there.

The format's the easy part. I can give you a template for that, you can google that. But making it you unsure of how much detail to put in it, writing it, what language to use, how to make it look professional, that's, that's hard. And we don't even need to talk about perfectionism. I think we all agree, like, let's get the first version out and refine it, but let's not let perfectionism halt any kind of progress here. One thing I'm really adamant about is that all of my unicorns who come out of the unicorn digital marketing assistant school understand the true value that they're providing to their clients. Within a marketing department, it's hard to translate that into benefits for our clients. It's hard when some of them have been looking for cheap help and don't really get it.

And the truth is, those are not our dream clients. But it's on us to communicate the value of our work. And I think that's really what freelancers struggle with. So if you can find a place where you can gain clarity, you can build confidence in your skills. You can learn how to price correctly and package your services in a way that communicates your value. If you can overcome those obstacles, you can make the most beautiful services guide ever. But then you got to get it in front of the right people, the people who are looking for help. And you don't just dance in an Instagram reel and your dream client finds you and books you.

That's just not how it works. I think the services guide will fall into place when you're very clear with your value proposition. What is the product? What's the service you're offering? Who is it for? What problem does it solve? What are the benefits? Why is it? Why are you better? And this needs to be customer centric, not you centric. You need to focus always on what your clients gain by working with you. So if I am promoting my course, let's just use that as an example. Since we're about to open the doors, my value proposition would be to, well, there's like four main things in there. Skill development, confidence, proven path to learn marketing and direct feedback world real world application. So my value proposition is really like learn to confidently offer high demand marketing services, build solid technical and hard skills and get the feedback you need to attract top paying clients.

So you can work from home, dot, dot, dot, something like that. So you can have a flexible work life balance, something like that. Right? That's a value proposition. So you have to figure out what that is for you. I think that's the beauty of taking a training like Udma school where you get to sample different things and really get it and understand it and see where you will best fit. So you have a starting place because your services guide will change, you will evolve, you will need to update it, but you need to stay on top of it. And here's why. That dream client who is ready to hire somebody who wants the skills and services you offer, it's just around the corner.

And if you're not prepared, if you haven't done this foundational work to market yourself with the most important marketing asset you could have. No one cares about your instagram. Nobody cares how many followers you have. Nobody cares about your logo. This dream client cares about this this little services and pricing guide that will show that you know what the f you're talking about and you can do the work. So what do you need to do to learn how to do the work? To be fully confident in the words that you put on this PDF. So that dream client who has a business you're so passionate about helping will pick you, will want you be ready for it. This opportunity is coming and you can't delay.

You can't delay and not do it. Don't let fear of pricing. Don't let overwhelm with the format. Don't let perfectionism or lack of clarity stop you here. I'll tell you a few mistakes people make in services guide because I audit these all the time in my program. We did a whole challenge in the workgroup to get people to get our work group members up to snuff with their services guide. I'm going to go through them really quick. This is your first impression.

You're sending out an email and you're like, look at this guide and then book a call here. This is your first impression. You better have some strong headlines that are very clear, bold introductions of yourself that communicate your offer upfront. Right away. You already know I don't like the title va your value proposition. We just talked about it. Very clear how you help the client. Visuals and design.

If you do not have a pretty design, that tells me you're not in this 21st century, in this year and you understand what's trending and that's going to be a big flag for me. White space organization doing things in order. It's going to give me a big key. If you understand keeping fonts and colors and icons all together without breaking design rules. I'm probably pickier than the most than the average client. Being specific in your packages and your services. Again, all things that can help in UdMa school. But really being clear about that.

When I see a package, when I see pricing that is vague, I will never refer that person. It just shows me they don't know what they're doing. You need the testimonial. So many people forget those, but then they don't pull out the key takeaways. Within the testimonial, you have to highlight the best part. Bold as a headline with a highlight marker going through it, something so someone could skim it. You can also even include videos if you have video testimonials. The clear call to action.

You don't need a lot of outward links. You need somebody going straight to your book call page. And then you need to inject your personality, your unique strengths, your personal quirks, your values you have. You cannot be a faceless person out here. Clients want to hire you for you. They want a teammate. They want a strategic partner. In the long run, they're hoping that when they bring you on their team, their business grows so much they'll give you a promotion and you can just run with that.

So those are just a few of the mistakes I see there. When you have a really confident, when you have a really clear, beautiful services guide, you're going to feel so much better about raising your hand for the jobs, for emailing back with these warm leads that we share. When a fellow service provider does an intro email and you can just shoot back with your services guide, the busy client isn't going to go stalk your website. They just want your services guide. The busy client with a marketing budget, they want your services guide. So if you need to learn how to do the work, you need to learn how to price it. You need to learn how to pull it all together. For this services guide, I've got you with udma school.

Between the workgroup and Udma school, that's the place to hone your skills. That's the place to create this services guide. That's the place to start pitching these clients who are eager to work with you. I hope you found this podcast helpful. I hope it was a little bit of a tough love to get your butt in gear. I don't want it to overwhelm you. I know I touched on it inside the info session. How to become a virtual assistant.

It's okay to have the first version. It's okay. You're gonna grow, you're gonna evolve. You're gonna gain so much clarity. You're gonna gain experience. You're gonna learn who you work well with, and you're gonna update it, and then you're gonna update it, and it's gonna keep happening. But it's gonna be fun because it's a sign of your evolution. It's a sign of you getting smarter.

It's a sign of you being bolder and boundaries and what you'll put up with and what you want with your clients. This is how you attract your better. This is how we attract and work with the clients that value us, that don't want to pay $10 an hour, that want more from you, that want to give you responsibility and autonomy. This is what we're after. Challenging our brain and being part of something bigger than us. I didn't have a services guide. When I started, I didn't even know. But times have changed.

It's competitive out there and I just gave you the key to standing out and looking like you know what you're doing. And if you need my help learning more of the marketing skills, you know where to find me. Sign up for open house. We're going to walk through UDMa school, but more importantly, we're going to talk about how to show up feeling qualified and confident when your dream clients knocking on your door, ready to take you on, needing your help because there's so much work out there, you're gonna have your pickup the litter. All right, I'll see you next week. Thanks for joining me. Love to hear your feedback on this one. Thanks for putting up with my cold.

Do I sound a little sad? Do I sound different? I'm sure I do. I know I do. Have you seen that meme where it's like the highest form of self love is accepting your voice? That is me today. That is me today. All right, let's get out of here. P's if you're already doing the work, you got the clients, you got the business set up. Apply for a digital marketers workgroup. We'll be enrolling some members soon.

And if you need to hone on those skills, Udma school, the unicorn digital marketing assistant school is opening very, very soon. So make sure you join the waitlist. So make sure you sign up for our open house. We'll talk more about it. I do want to say if you have any questions about the services guide, will you hit me up on DM? Will you hit me? If you have any questions about services guides, I want to know what's sticking you. I want to know oh my God. Let me try this again. Oh, and ps, if you have any questions about your services guide, will you send me a DM on Instagram? Emilyraganpr I'd love to hear the sticking point for you and maybe I can provide some clarity.

And I also am cooking up an idea. So dm me and maybe I'll invite.