February – 2007 – The Gritty Virtual Assistant Blog

Monthly Archives: February 2007

February 16, 2007 – 8:50 am

How Do I Sign Up For a Virtual Assistant Position?

Dear Gritty VA:

I’m interested in becoming a Virtual Assistant. I have many years of experience as an executive assistant, and would like to try working from home. I’ve set up cross-country conferences/events, traveled to those events, prepared/monitored budgets and performed other routine administrative functions. Please provide me information about what is required to sign up for a position. –BT

I’m not sure why this misunderstanding continues to persist, but I welcome the opportunity to clarify whenever it arises.

Virtual Assistance is not a "position." Telecommuting jobs are "positions."

Virtual Assistance is a profession. It’s a business that one decides to enter into.

The Virtual Assistance Chamber of Commerce is not in any way associated with telecommuting (work-from-home) jobs. Virtual Assistants are independent business owners who work for themselves and market like any other business to attract their own clients. My organization is an association of these professionals to support them in those efforts and help them build smarter, more successful businesses.

If you are interested in Virtual Assistance as a profession, there is a wealth of information on our Virtual Assistant Association website. Spend some time reading all the information presented. That will give you a good initial primer on what Virtual Assistance is and whether it is a profession you’d be interested in pursuing.

Your thoughts? Post a comment!

Like this? Share it!

By Danielle Keister | Posted in Business Savvy, Dear Gritty VA, Virtual Assistant/Virtual Assistance | Tagged telecommuting, Virtual Assistance, Virtual Assistant, Virtual Assistants, work-from-home | Comments (0)

February 15, 2007 – 7:24 am

Where Are My Reports?

Dear Gritty VA,

I hired a Virtual Assistant and in general, I am satisfied. However, I am dissappointed about the lack of follow-up and progress reports. Is this something that you train your Virtual Assistants how to do? I don’t want to micro-manage, but I do expect reports, and what is being or not being accomplished without having to ask what is happening. –PD

Thanks for contacting me, PD. I’m always happy to provide clearer understanding so that business owners (both clients and Virtual Assistants) can negotiate mutually happy business relationships.

The first thing that is important to understand is that Virtual Assistants are not employees. They don’t "report" to their clients. Virtual Assistants are independent business owners, and how they run their business and what services they provide to their clients is up to each of them individually.

Looking at it another way, would you have this same "issue" with your attorney or accountant or bookkeeper? It is entirely reasonable that you would expect some kind of regular updates from those professionals, but you understand that you aren’t their "boss" and they don’t "report" to you. That is the same understanding you should have with your Virtual Assistant.

What I mentor Virtual Assistants to provide clients with at the start of the business relationship is clear communication about what her (or his) business standards, policies and processes are, so that clients know what to expect and how things work. That communication should continue throughout the relationship with regard to staying in contact and keeping clients up-to-date.

It does sound as though the Virtual Assistant you are working with has not offered you a system of communication that is meeting your need for a bit of "progress pulse." I encourage Virtual Assistants to provide monthly retainer clients (clients they are working together with in ongoing collaborative partnership each month) with a telephone meeting each or every other week. This helps keep communication lines open and allows you to stay in sync with each other with regard to projects, goals, upcoming work and events, etc.

I’m not sure what other kind of "reporting" you feel is necessary, and that will need to be discussed and negotiated between you and your Virtual Assistant. Trust and communication are critical to any relationship, and without those elements, there’s no basis for doing business together. I would encourage you to open up the dialogue and give your Virtual Assistant the opportunity to improve her business and services to you.

Your thoughts? Post a comment!

Like this? Share it!

By Danielle Keister | Posted in Business Savvy, Dear Gritty VA, Virtual Assistant/Virtual Assistance | Tagged Business Owners, collaborative, partnership, relationship, Virtual Assistance, Virtual Assistant | Comments (0)

February 14, 2007 – 10:14 am

How Do You Stay Connected to Clients?

Dear Gritty VA:

How do you stay connected to clients? –DR

It’s important to maintain contact with your retainer clients. What I do is conduct a weekly telephone meeting where we check in, review goals or projects, talk shop or just chit chat.

I reserve one day out of the week for this, and have each client scheduled for the same time each week on this day. This is a effective policy because it helps eliminate and control disruption you can have with phone calls at different times of the week, and at the same time systemizes it.

I use this day for any other virtual meetings or consultations I might need to schedule as well (although when you’ve got a full practice, you’ll find the occasional consult will simply need to be scheduled on a different day).

I then have the whole rest of the week to work on projects and my mind can dive into my work and concentrate fully knowing I don’t have anything that will interrupt me.

Your thoughts? Post a comment!

Like this? Share it!

By Danielle Keister | Posted in Business Savvy, Dear Gritty VA, Virtual Assistant/Virtual Assistance | Tagged Virtual Assistance, Virtual Assistant | Comments (0)

February 13, 2007 – 11:56 am

5 (Okay 6) Things You Might Not Know About Me

Godsofmars I’ve been tagged by several people on a network I read to tell 5 things about myself that others might not know.

I thought it would be fun to share on my blog as well. I’d love to know 5 things about you–feel free to tell me in a comment.

1. I love science fiction and named my daughter for an Edgar Rice Burrough’s character–Dejah Thoris, Princess of Helium.

2. I was a private investigator for four years, and boy-oh-boy, the hilarious, crazy adventures I could tell you about. I still do some investigation wearing my paralegal hat for law firms.

3. I became a young widow at age 30 when my husband died suddenly. Going through something like that really puts life in perspective. My husband’s last gift to me, through his death, was the acute understanding that life is but a moment of time, and not a drop should be wasted. Once I emerged from my grief, I resolved from that point on that I would never live my life on anyone else’s terms again. It was the catalyst that set me on my journey of self-employment and business ownership, a move that has brought me more joy and fulfillment than I ever could have imagined.

5. I am a high-maintenance, fashion-conscious girly-girl, which always throws people given my love of nature and the fact that my nature-boy boyfriend has gotten me to hike mountains and camp. Outside. In an actual tent. And I enjoy it. Go figure.

Extra Fun Fact: I have never changed a tire, filled fluids or touched anything under the hood of a car ever in my life. At age 43, I only just learned how to put air in my tires myself for the first time (I have a phobia that they will blow up on me).

I hate anything to do with cars (except driving them), and would actually consider paying someone a $100 bucks to add oil or water to my car rather than do it myself.

Of course, that’s what I keep my man around for (among other things), LOL.

Your thoughts? Post a comment!

Like this? Share it!

By Danielle Keister | Posted in Personal Musings | Comments (0)

February 12, 2007 – 9:16 pm

Tone Down the Perkiness

Perkypup I’ve finally started reading a Barbara Ehrenreich book I’ve had on the backburner, "Bait and Switch: The (Futile) Pursuit of the American Dream."

You get Ehrenreich’s wry humor early on in the book. In one of the first chapters, she remarks that a coaching session, meant to inspire, has left her drained and exhausted due to the coach’s terminal enthusiasm, remarking that if she had it her way, she would "throw in a major serotonin antagonist to damp down the perkiness" and "find a tactful way to suggest that she chill."

ROFL.

I so totally identify with her feelings, but I’ve never been able to put my finger on why "perky people" can be so annoying.

Is it the seeming denial of allowing themselves to feel real feelings? Is it the inappropriateness of this denial in certain situations? Is it the sense that "perky people" are not real or honest (either with themselves or others or both)? That they present a masked, unbalanced personality to the world? Is it the implication that they think anything opposite of exceeding "positivity" is necessarily "negative," as if so-called "negativity" (or even simply facing reality) has no place or purpose in life?

I am an upbeat, positive, optimistic person. So what gives? Anyone else feel me on this?

Your thoughts? Post a comment!

Like this? Share it!

By Danielle Keister | Posted in Personal Musings | Comments (0)

February 9, 2007 – 2:32 pm

MY Business Mondays

I was chatting with a newer client the other day, and she asked me about my Mondays off.

You see, my posted office hours are Tuesday through Friday. I’m not "open" on Mondays. She imagined I was doing all kinds of fun stuff, and fantasized about being able to do that herself some day (with the great help of her new, trusty Virtual Assistant).

I told her that while it is sort of a "fun" day for me, it’s really more what I call "MY Business Mondays."

I could "see" her quizzical look through the phone, and explained that Mondays were the day that I work on nothing but MY business. It’s the day where I work ON my business performing administration, sorting through things that can be delegated, and so forth.

It’s also the day that I work on my business development. One Monday, I might be simply thinking creatively; imagining and drafting out ideas for my business. Other Mondays, I’m finetuning my systems, writing, or putting some automation to use. Others, I might be concentrating on learning a new skill.

This was a completely novel idea to my client, and confessed she had never thought of doing that before. A whole day devoted to her own business? What a luxury!

I suggested that while doing everything herself might have contributed to not having enough time for business development in the past, she could still make it a standard for herself and simply decide to set aside one day each week in the same way I had. Hey, you can’t have time for what you don’t schedule.

And for some, this might sound like a stretch, but I believe it with every fiber of my being–setting aside time to work ON your business is actually critical to taking good care of your clients. The better your business runs, the more you can improve your services to them.

You simply cannot continually improve your services if you don’t allow yourself the time to examine your business, fine-tune processes, learn new skills, create new service offerings and information products, and work on automating, systemizing and documenting your operations.

So you see, it’s not really a luxury (although it might feel like that). It’s really a necessity to create time to work ON your business, as much as it is to work IN your business.

Are you setting aside time to work on your business?

1 Comment

Like this? Share it!

By Danielle Keister | Posted in Business Savvy | Tagged working IN the business, working ON the business | Comments (1)

February 8, 2007 – 2:45 pm

Free Teleseminar: Using Radio PR to Promote Your Business

My organization, the Virtual Assistance Chamber of Commerce, hosts a monthly Guest Expert teleseminar. Each month we host a fabulous business expert who talks to our group of Virtual Assistants and other independent professionals about how to improve their business, marketing, work life and skills.

This month, Pat Lynch of WomensRadio is sharing her insider expertise on Using Radio PR to Promote Your Business.

Our webinars and teleseminars are always free and open to all business owners–Virtual Assistants and independent professionals alike. Here’s the scoop and registration information…

Using Radio PR to Promote Your Business

with Pat Lynch of WomensRadio

DATE: Thursday, February 15, 2007

TIME: 5pm PST / 6pm MST / 7pm CST / 8pm EST

LENGTH: 60 minutes (please call in 10 min. early)

COST: Free!

Reserve Your Spot Today! Register here: http://www.virtualassistantnetworking.com/teleclass-registration.htm

Patlynch You know you need to employ PR (public relations) to promote your business, but it was not exactly your major in college, so to speak.

Besides, you are busy just handling the details of your business.

And then you have those snooty people in the media who make you feel like a pebble on the beach. You’re not even sure what to do first or how much time and money to spend to get it done. You’ve heard you can get publicity for free, but that assumes you know something about publicity, PR and the media. Where do you start?

Start with this one-hour teleseminar!

Pat Lynch started her own PR, advertising and marketing firm in Atlanta at the age of 25, and was the first women to do so in the South. Pat is going to share some:

practical advice on getting started
methods of ramping up to be the media expert, and
taking advantage of on-the-ground radio as well as the new Web world–Web radio and blogs, too!

No matter what your level of media sophistication, you’ll get something from the fast-paced trip to help you use radio PR to promote your business.

About Pat Lynch, WomensRadio

During her 34 years in advertising, marketing and public relations, Pat was an innovator in the use of media. She began a media company for women in 1996. The first project was WomensRadio. In 2002, she launched WomensCalendar and WomensCalendar eNewsletter that reaches some half million women leaders each week.

In 2004, her company launched two new media services: Press Your Point, a powerful, yet inexpensive press release service; and AudioAcrobat, a unique and very easy-to-use audio recording and streaming service. In 2005, her company launched the all-new Women’s Radio with it’s "hub" of 30 minute-long programs.

Pat is a frequent speaker at women’s events, not only about the use of media, but more importantly, about her favorite subject "Speaking Up."

Reserve Your Spot Today! Register here: http://www.virtualassistantnetworking.com/teleclass-registration.htm

Your thoughts? Post a comment!

Like this? Share it!

By Danielle Keister | Posted in Don't-Miss-It Events, Virtual Assistant/Virtual Assistance | Comments (0)

February 7, 2007 – 10:41 am

Are You Stuck at the Office?

Dear Gritty VA:

I would like to know how do you handle days when you need to be away from your home office for a long period of time, and still try to be there for your clients? Do you transfer calls to your cell phone? Do you carry a Laptop computer with you? –MM

I don’t do on-demand work or work that requires me to be in constant, on-demand contact with my clients.

Remember, they are clients, not employers, and we don’t need to be at their beck-and-call. Do you think they expect their accountant, business advisor or attorney to report to them and account for every second of their day?

Of course not, and as independent professionals, we shouldn’t allow clients to form that expectation of us either.

The way I’ve set up my operations and standards, as well as how I clearly communicate that information to my clients, allows me to have a practice where I have a ton of flexibility with regard to when I work and time I take off. My clients still get taken care of (in fact, I venture to say I have some of THE most well-cared for clients in the Virtual Assistant world), and I get to live a life that makes me joyful.

If I’m taking time off longer than a few days, I do let my clients know so that they can plan ahead. If I’m out of the office, but want to stay in touch, I use a remote access program like LogMeIn which allows me to work as if I was still right there.

With regard to phones, that’s really a personal preference. However, I will say that I don’t see any good reason to forward phones (unless you are expecting a REALLY important call) or giving clients your cell phone number so they can chase you down (and overstep boundaries) any time they please. Why encourage that?

Clients are informed of my normal operating hours, and they are aware of my return communication practices (e.g., that I check emails and voicemail at certain times of the day, and they can expect a response within 24 hours). That’s all they need to have.

Being a doormat doesn’t make you a good (or happy) service provider. How well you live up to the standards you set and the expectations you create is what will make you a great Virtual Assistant with very satisfied clients.

Your thoughts? Post a comment!

Like this? Share it!

By Danielle Keister | Posted in Business Savvy, Dear Gritty VA, Virtual Assistant/Virtual Assistance | Tagged Virtual Assistance, Virtual Assistant, Working with Clients | Comments (0)

February 7, 2007 – 10:39 am

Is This Too Good to Be True?

Dear Gritty VA:

I’ve got a potential client who is looking for people to work from home cold-calling a supplied list of potential clients to arrange appointments for a personal visit. He will only pay for appointments made, but he is quoting $50 per lead. It sounds too good to be true, which means it probably is, right? –CF

Hmm, let’s look at this…

You have no guarantee as to how many people will sign up for an appointment. Yet he expects you to invest hours and hours of your business resources and billable time (not a limitless commodity) for the promise of $50 if you can get at least one person to commit.

Too good to be true? You tell me.

Do you want a work-at-home job (one that will barely net you any money, but squander a ton of your time), or do you want to be a Virtual Assistant?

Virtual Assistants are professionals who get paid for value according to their own terms and rates. Clients don’t tell us what they’ll pay; that’s an employer.

This isn’t a potential client–this is someone looking for a sucker willing to devalue themselves. I would tell him to take a hike (in a "nice" way, of course).

Your thoughts? Post a comment!

Like this? Share it!

By Danielle Keister | Posted in Business Savvy, Dear Gritty VA, Virtual Assistant/Virtual Assistance | Tagged Virtual Assistance, Virtual Assistant, Virtual Assistants | Comments (0)

February 6, 2007 – 2:55 pm

Quality, Price and Value

Someone posted this quote on a listserv I belong to, and I just have to say here, here! Truer words never spoken…

Quality, Price and Value

It is unwise to pay too much, but it is more unwise to pay too little.

When you pay too much you lose a little money, that’s all. When you pay too little you sometimes lose everything, because the thing you bought was incapable of doing the thing you bought it to do.

The common law of business balance prohibits paying a little and getting a lot–it can’t be done. If you deal with the lowest bidder, it’s well to add something for the risk you take. And if you do that, you will have enough to pay for something better.

There is hardly anything in the world that some men cannot make a little worse and sell a little cheaper, and the people who consider price only are this man’s lawful prey.

–John Ruskin (1819-1900)

Your thoughts? Post a comment!

Like this? Share it!

By Danielle Keister | Posted in Business Savvy | Tagged John Ruskin, paying too little, paying too much, price, quality, value | Comments (0)

The Gritty Virtual Assistant Blog

Monthly Archives: February 2007

How Do I Sign Up For a Virtual Assistant Position?

Where Are My Reports?

How Do You Stay Connected to Clients?

5 (Okay 6) Things You Might Not Know About Me

Tone Down the Perkiness

MY Business Mondays

Free Teleseminar: Using Radio PR to Promote Your Business

Are You Stuck at the Office?

Is This Too Good to Be True?

Quality, Price and Value

Recent Comments

Copyright Notice

Users

Twitter Updates

Let's Connect

RSS Feeds

Virtual Assistant Resources

Topics

Archives

February 2007
M	T	W	T	F	S	S
« Jan				Mar »
			1	2	3	4
5	6	7	8	9	10	11
12	13	14	15	16	17	18
19	20	21	22	23	24	25
26	27	28

Monthly Archives: February 2007

Never miss another post!

Recent Comments

Copyright Notice

Users

Twitter Updates

Let's Connect

RSS Feeds

Virtual Assistant Resources

Topics

Archives