Virtual Assistant – THE Blog About Our Industry

About the Virtual Assistant industry for VAs and for clients

Monthly Archives: October 2006

What’s in a Name?

It could be the difference between whether or not you get the client!

I’ve lost count of the number of times that people spell my name incorrectly when responding to an email I’ve sent – either directly to them, or via a discussion forum. And many of these people are VAs – it makes me wonder how much care they take in their own business practices.

People’s names are so important to them and when someone cannot spell their name correctly (not just a typo but an outright incorrect spelling) it can make people wonder about the other little details that are missed and not addressed.

There are many different variations to my name: Cathy, Cathie, Kathy, Kathie – the latter is correct for me. I even get people addressing me as Katie – both written and verbally. Makes me wonder if the ‘h’ has become invisible?

I challenge you to consider your email responses carefully – just as you would a written letter on letterhead (I hope) before hitting send. Otherwise you might just disgruntle the prospective client or have them back off before you’ve even gotten to know them. And don’t be afraid to ask them for a correct spelling if speaking to them on the phone or in person. Whenever I’m managing an event and doing nametags I always ask callers to fax or email me their RSVPs and I tell them the reason is I want to get both their name and their business name correctly spelt on their nametags. They always seem to appreciate this. KMT

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Subscription Not Working

It’s often easy to forget the lessons you learn along the way that others may not yet have come across. The beauty of someone being just that bit further down the road than someone else beginning their journey.

Recently a VA tried to subscribe to my new site VA-Announcements but her address was knocked back as potentially fake by the subscription service. I tried but had the same problem so contacted the people who run the service and they sorted the problem out.

The VA in question emailed me thanking me for going above and beyond on assisting her. My response was this:

You’re most welcome. If you had a problem then others might too, so I like to get things like that resolved.

I also know that info@, admin@ and sales@ cause problems with services like yahoogroups as they are potential addresses for spammers to try.

Perhaps you need to try va@yourdomain.com or similar and that would be fine I’m sure.

Her response was:

That’s an excellent suggestion for an email address! And thank you for the info about those other formats. Newbies such as I need to know those things!

So, something for you to think about when planning your email addresses. KMT

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The Right Client Mix

Around a month ago I gained a new client – she is in a different country to me and working in an area that interested me. I’d been engaged to manage her email lists, monitor her website and eventually set up her shopping cart with a well known shopping cart system online.

However, two things worked against us. My daughter’s wedding took place shortly after we had connected and I had several days when I was unavailable online – she had been informed but it was very early in our new relationship and didn’t help instill confidence in my abilities. The other is that we both have very different workstyles. She was looking for someone who would just run with the information she’d given, whereas I felt there wasn’t sufficient information provided and I kept going back with questions – I wanted to ensure that I was proceeding in the manner she wanted and as I don’t yet know or understand her likes, dislikes, patterns of behaviour, I am reluctant to just go ahead and do something without checking that it was the right thing. There is, after all, a period of time for learning and discovering how a client wants things done.

So, we agreed to part ways – I would have liked to continued for another month or so but I guess she felt she didn’t have time for me to get fully on board. A shame really because it might cause her view of VAs and how they operate to be warped – or perhaps her expectations were just unrealistic. I don’t know her very well and don’t know anyone else who knows her, so hard to determine.

The purpose of this post is for you to realise that not all clients will work out. Some get very impatient and expect a magic wand to be waved but aren’t prepared to spend time to allow you to get fully on track with their work. Some just don’t understand what can and can’t be done. I had one client for several years and when I suggested he get a computer so he could do some of the basic stuff he immediately thought that he’d lose me because he’d be doing all his own work. I smiled and told him ‘no, but it might help you to realise that I can’t wave a wand to make something happen magically – you will develop a greater appreciation for what can and can’t be done’. I knew this client quite well and what I’d told him turned out to be true.

We can’t be everything to all clients and need to accept that there will be some we lose along the way because timing was wrong, because workstyles are different or because expectations couldn’t be met for whatever reason. If this was my first client it would dishearten me and make me wonder if I’m doing the right thing – building a VA business, but fortunately she isn’t and while I’m saddened I didn’t get to prove myself and my abilities to her, I am comforted with knowing I have several other clients who do appreciate what I do for them and they keep coming back. KMT

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VA Announcements

I notice on many of the VA forums that there are VA trainers and coaches, and other list owners, keen to promote the teleseminars, coaching sessions and other things they have happening and they want to let the VA community know.

Some may feel they have a right to cross promote across the various lists as much as possible so they can get as many VAs involved as they can. Others might feel that it’s not appropriate to do so on lists that aren’t moderated or owned by them – personally I’m in the latter category. Permission should be sought. After all the owners/moderators are getting nothing out of these ‘advertisements’ – particularly if those promoting are making some kind of living out of the events they are running.

The various VA networks and forums haven’t been set up to be advertising boards but rather discussion lists for learning about the industry. However, many of the things being promoted ARE designed to help others learn about the industry.

So, what to do? It occurred to me this morning there needs to be a central place where there can be VA Announcements for things of this kind. So, enter www.va-announcements.com – a brand new site designed to be a promotion/advertising board for that very reason. The site is being run for the benefit of the VA industry and there will be no charge for listings to be added. A form will be made available – all entries must be made via this form as I will not be spending vast amounts of time trying to reformat items sent to me via html email or document attachments. PDFs may be sent to be attached to the listing but including a website with full details of the event should be included at all times.

The site will be up very shortly – please do come back and visit. This blog gets thousands of visits a month so many will learn about this site very quickly and it will be promoted via other sites that I own and operate, plus the lists that I personally run. KMT

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