The topic tonight at my regular “Starting a Business” workshop (I am enrolled in Program with CEED), was Marketing.  It was presented by Louisa Horne, who has her own consulting business as well owning the Sylvan Learning Centre here in Halifax.  I have been finalizing the business plan for my Virtual Assistant business, and had finished my marketing plan, or at least, I thought until tonight’s class.  Ms. Horne had many great ideas that I had not thought of before and I will probably go back and tweak my plan a little now.

The biggest revelation I had was when we were discussing the Product section of the four P’s of Marketing (you know those famous word – Product, Price, Placement and Promotion). I was really stumped by one of the questions she had for us, “What features and benefits of your product are better than those offered by your competitors?”

I know I addressed this in some manner in my marketing plan, but not this specifically.  It was one question needing an answer and it was hard.

My product, essentially, is me.  How are my features and benefits better than those of other Virtual Assistants.  This is much harder to answer when you are not talking about something tangible, like those widgets, we always discussed in marketing class.

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