The Gritty Virtual Assistant

The most ridiculous thing I read today in a post to Virtual Assistants is that in managing clients expectations and helping clients establish trust in you, you shouldn’t “disappear, even for a day or two.”

So let me ask you this:  Do you want a job or a business?

There are lots of way to manage expectations and instil an ever-growing trust in clients. None of it requires you to operate like an employee.

Attorneys don’t operate like that. Accountants don’t operate like that. Other solo professionals don’t operate like that. And Virtual Assistants don’t need to operate like that either.

When you read books like Gerber’s “The E-Myth Revisited,” you learn that the idea is to create a business that operates by system and doesn’t necessarily require you to be the one doing the work.

However, there’s nothing wrong with you being the one doing the work. Many (perhap even most) people go into self-employed business to practice their craft for reasons beyond money. It has just as much to do with soul. They get a kind of deeper personal satisfaction they just can’t experience in any other situation. Doing work they love and enjoy brings them a richness of meaning and purpose and spirit in their lives.

Even the rich will tell you, you can make all the money in the world and not have to work another day in your life, but it’s an empty, joyless existence without the purpose and fullfillment of actual, meaningful work. God bless those who love to pull up their sleeves and make their living in a more direct, one-on-one, hands-on way.

But that doesn’t mean they have to sacrifice the desire to have the same kind of freedom and earning potential that other businesses strive for. There is a way to be a solopreneur where you can do the work, but do it in a way that doesn’t require you to be at the daily beck and call of clients. You just have to make some mental shifts in your thinking and understanding about what you are and how you work with clients.

The first of these shifts is getting out of the thinking that the only way you are valuable to a client is if you are there to deal with their every need, every whim, day in and day out. You have to get out of the stuckness that says your value lies in being in daily, constant contact with clients. There’s a word for someone like that: it’s called an employee. And you DON’T have to operate like that.

If you are operating no differently than the secretary who sits outside the boss’ door, only virtually, you are going to be in for one rude awakening.

Because not only will you drastically inhibit your earning potential, you will learn just what a predicament you set up for yourself and your clients. Eventually, when you start to want to enjoy the fruits of your labor, and not be tied to your desk and phone because some untidy little client need might arise, you realize you have created a dynamic, no matter how loudly you shout about standards, that just doesn’t leave you much room to get away.

And funny thing about standards… they actually have to work well in actual, practical application. They can’t be some lofty theory dreamt up by someone who isn’t doing the same work you do every day of the week. Stop killing yourself trying to live up to that crap.

Your value is not dependent on whether you don’t disappear for a day or two. That’s crazy! Who wants to live a life as a business owner and independent professional being held hostage to their phone, desk and clients? There isn’t a single other solo profession out there that tells its denizens they have to operate like that in order to be of value or service. You only put yourself in that prison if you believe there is no other way to operate or be of service and value.

Your value is in your administrative skill and expertise. It’s in the results you achieve for clients and how your work helps them achieve objectives and move forward in their business. None of that requires you to necessarily be in daily contact (if it’s not your wish to be), and you don’t have to take on the whole kit and kaboodle to do that. You can be of tremendous value and service taking on just a very specific cross-section of the administrative load that clients carry.

I’m also not sure what makes people think that you can’t have a close, personal, connected relationship with clients without being at their on-demand beck and call day in and day out. Attorneys do it. Accountants do it. Millions of other solo practitioners have real, meaningful, very connected relationships with their clients without being joined at the hip on the daily basis. And so can Virtual Assistants.

The trick is to 1) establish policies, systems and processes that give you lots of room to move around and not be at the beck and call of clients, and 2) only take on clients and work that are the best fit for those policies, systems and processes. This is what will allow you to control what expectations clients have while at the same time under-promising and overdelivering.

Part of putting order to chaos and managing client expectations is setting up a system and a promise for how things work consistently and reliably so that clients know what to expect ahead of time, each and every time. You don’t set expectations that will fence you in or that you can’t sustain and you do set expectations that you can realistically, consistently and reliably live up to. It’s really as simple as that. And setting those expectations does NOT have anything to do with nor require you to be under any client’s thumb on a daily basis.

This is what allows you to build freedom, flexibility and space in your practice which in turns truly does serve clients much better.

By taking even just a few specific tasks or areas of work off their plate, you are allowing them to grow their business, move forward and get things done. That isn’t dependent on whether they hear from you each day or not. It’s all in how YOU decide what expectations to set and how YOU want things to work in your business. You can do all of that without being forced to be at your desk, in your office, each and every cotton-picking minute of every day under the thumb of clients. For God’s sakes, what other profession in the world sets that kind of ridiculous expectation of its business owners?

Let me tell you how I do that in my practice (and let me point out that while I do advise Virtual Assistants in business, I have continuously operated my business since 1997 and never stopped evolving as a business owner and expert at the Virtual Assistant business).

First, when I consult with clients, one of the things I discuss with them is making sure they are 100% clear that they are not hiring an employee. If they want or need an employee, that’s exactly what they need to hire. I tell them that a Virtual Assistant is an alternative for folks who for whatever reason can’t have an employee, and we simply aren’t going to work with them or be available to them in the same way as an employee.

That’s setting expectation #1–making sure the client understands the nature of the relationship, how it’s going to work and how it’s not going to work (I’m not going to be their “secretary sitting outside their door only virtually”).

Next, for setting expectations #2, I talk about how our communications will work. They can email any time of day or night, but I let them know upfront what my formal business hours and days are (so that they don’t expect that I’m going to be dealing with anything outside those times or on days that I am closed) and when it is my usual practice to answer their messages (midday and again at evening time).

(By the way, one of the things I do in my business is set aside one day a week for MY business and my business only. For me, that day of the week is Monday.)

I promise that they’ll get a response to every communication they send me within 24 business hours, even if it’s just a “received” or “gotcha” or “will do.” And then I follow-through on that promise. That way they aren’t left scratching their heads wondering if I got the message and it keeps the line of communication flowing. That’s the kind of thing that grows trust.

I explain that all work requests must be in sent via email because that is the sytem which best allows me to track and prioritize and schedule things. They can use whatever tools they need to in order to submit their requests as long as they result in an email in my IN box.

I don’t care if a client doesn’t like that or can’t operate within my framework or doesn’t want to use the tools I need them to use to make our work together easiest and most efficient. I don’t work with them if that’s the case. Stop investing so much in clients who can’t go with your flow. Work with and focus only on those who can.

For setting expectations #3, I explain my 3/7 guide. My 3/7 guide is how I set their expectations with regard to turnaround time.  Within that framework, simple tasks that can be accomplished easily are done within a 3 day turnaround.

Most often, things are done far more quickly than that, but I don’t want clients to start expecting that I’m going to instantly respond to each and every thing immediately. That’s not an expectatation that anyone can promise and deliver consistently, and I don’t want to live or work that way. It’s a recipe for unhappiness and unsustainable promises.

The “7″ part of my guide is for larger, more complex or ongoing projects and work. This is where the client and I regroup every 7 days at our regularly scheduled weekly one-hour meeting. During this meeting, I give them status updates, we talk about progress, new goals, brainstorm, you name it. Sometimes we just shoot the breeze.

I think it’s important to note that I only do client meetings on the same day each week. I don’t hold them willy-nilly throughout the week. Like any other professional, this is how I decide it works in my business. My business, my schedule. It gives me the time I need to focus on client work the rest of the week without interruption to my concentration, and it gives me the space I need to move around as I need to in order to stay energized.

This system gives clients a tangible, reliable idea of how things will work consistently. It manages their expectations in a way that leaves me great freedom and space to enjoy my work, enjoy them, and get things done far better than I ever could working lucy-goosey at the whim of clients. And I end up serving them far better in the process. That constancy, that reliability and predictability is what gains their great trust–all without being joined at the hip.

Throughout this process, clients and I are having all kinds of fun, productive and effective email communications. There isn’t any lack of connectedness, but they don’t get all up in arms if they don’t hear from me for a day or two because they have been informed about how things work in my business. In other words, they know what to expect. This is what the business concept of “managing expectations” is about.

If you need help understanding what setting expectations is really about and how to do that in your own practice, post your questions here or email me privately. I’m absolutely happy to help in this area because I think it’s a great disservice to Virtual Assistants to let them think they have to operate like employees in order to have value and be of service, which deprives them of the freedom they could enjoy that every other business owner is told to seek.