September – 2010 – The Gritty Virtual Assistant Blog

Monthly Archives: September 2010

September 8, 2010 – 10:00 am

Dear Gritty VA: How Do I Know Who To Refer To?

Dear Gritty VA:

Love your blog. Just one question: In terms of finding other administrative consultants to refer clients to that I cannot or will not serve, how do I know who is good or not? Is there a way around shooting in the dark? –TJ

Great question! Here are a few thoughts and ideas for ya:

1. Don’t feel like you have to refer to actual colleagues if you don’t know anyone yet. If you are new to the industry, it will simply take time to get to know others well enough to decide who you’d be comfortable referring prospective clients to. As you recognize, your reputation is sort of tied to the referrals you make, too, so you want to make sure you only refer to those who are competent and professional. You never want to make a recommendation willy nilly.

2. Getting involved in industry organizations, forums and listservs is really the only way to get to know colleagues. As you interact with others, you’ll begin to notice those folks who really stand out in terms of demonstrating their competence, professionalism and knowledge.

3. Taking that a step further, make a point of establishing relationships with those folks and become referral partners for each other.

4. Another way to help those clients out that you can’t or don’t want to work with, when you don’t have a specific person to refer them to, is to simply provide them with a link to an industry directory or two. That’s a perfectly helpful gesture as well.

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September 6, 2010 – 10:00 am

Happy Labor Day!

Happy labor day! I sure hope you are appreciating all that you bring to work, your clients and the world.

I think Virtual Assistants/Administrative Support Consultants totally embody what Seth Godin spoke about in his blog post today: Whatever Happened to Labor?

With so many businesses merely commoditizing work, the humanity of it, the skill and craft of it, gets lost and trivialized and dehumanized–thus devaluing it. But with us, the relationship is our product and the work our craft. We are in business exactly as Seth states it: to use our hands, our backs and our heads to do work that helps our clients move forward and do important things in the world. Our work is not menial. It’s not mundane or trivial. It’s important and requires skill and expertise and craftsmanship.

Having fun on a day like today is an expression of gratitude for being able to do just that. So go express yourself!

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By Danielle Keister | Posted in Personal Musings, Virtual Assistant/Virtual Assistance | Tagged Labor Day | Comments (0)

September 3, 2010 – 9:52 am

Client Profile Sheet

One of the tools I offer in my Virtual Assistant Business Forms store is the Client Profile Sheet (which is offered individually and also as part of the VA Business Pack) . What this form does is create a central library of all the bits and pieces of info you would want to collect from clients, both business info (such as passwords you need to work with, for example) and personal info (such as birthdays, special dates, etc.). On this form, I include my personal recommendation that you fill this form out instead of having clients do it.

Today I received a great question about this product:

“Hi Danielle. On your (FRM-06) Client Profile Sheet, you stated that ‘this isn’t a form I recommend that you have clients complete.’ So my question is, have you created one that we can give to clients to complete?”

This is a great question so let me elaborate on that…

I don’t have separate forms (one that clients fill out and one that you fill out). You can have clients fill out the form if that’s what you choose to do. Or you can split the form into two parts–the business section for the client to fill in and the personal section for you to fill in.

My recommendation was related more toward the personal info and what I meant was that you want to collect the personal information on your client behind the scenes. It sort of forces you to take an interest and look for opportunities to learn about your client personally.

For example:

Getting a birthday card from someone because they asked you to fill out a form so they could perfunctorily send you a card or gift isn’t nearly as delightful or fun or meaningful as receiving a card or gift from your Virtual Assistant/Administrative Support Consultant because she made the effort, quietly, behind the scenes, to learn and care about when your birthday was, what kind of things you enjoy, and then remembered.

See what I mean? It’s all about the red carpet treatment. Remember, it’s the small things that can mean so much.

When I work with a new monthly retainer client, I keep that sheet out whenever we have our weekly phone meeting during those first months of working together. During that phase, you are both learning so much about each other and this is the time to keep your ears perked for those details and write them down.

Hope that helps everyone!

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By Danielle Keister | Posted in Business Savvy, Virtual Assistant/Virtual Assistance | Tagged Client Profile Sheet, Virtual Assistant Business Forms | Comments (3)

September 1, 2010 – 10:00 am

Dear Gritty VA: How Do I Find Virtual Assistant Jobs?

Dear Gritty VA:

How do I find Virtual Assistant jobs? –SH

From your question, I’m thinking you might not be understanding what Virtual Assistance is. Virtual Assistance is a not a job, it’s a business. As a Virtual Assistant, you don’t look for “jobs,” you look for clients. And you do that like any business does–by marketing and networking. To be sure, this is no small task. It’s a process and area of ongoing learning. But that’s where everyone has to start once they decide to go into business for themselves.

Your question may also indicate that you really haven’t done much or enough reading and research yet on your own. So where I would recommend you start is by reading everything you can about Virtual Assistance, including the back posts on my blog here. Once you do that, it should become clear where you need to adjust your understandings.

Of course, you may actually be talking about work-at-home jobs. If that’s the case, what you are talking about is telecommuting, not Virtual Assistance. Two completely different things.

Using the proper terminology is very important, as you can see, because if you don’t, you won’t be understood, you’ll ask the wrong people the wrong questions and you won’t find the right answers. Which is the situation here since my blog is specifically focused on helping Virtual Assistants/administrative experts grow stronger, more financially successful businesses. I can’t help with you with telecommuting since that’s not what I discuss here.

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