Today, on our forum at ‘Virtual Assistants International Group’, a member shared some challenges she was having in getting her business off the ground. This wasn’t a rare comment, we’ve had others say similar before; they’ve come to seek help.

What was really special, and important, is the way the community rallied round to support and encourage this new VA during her time of feeling fragile and unsure.

That’s what I love about our industry. The way everyone gets together to encourage, support and motivate their peers. I know of no other industry like it although I’m sure there probably are.

I love how many VAs, who have only been in business a short time themselves, step up to help others newer than they. There is something about being able to help others that helps you as well. It is as though it moves you along the road of experience – just being able to share experiences you’ve already had.

I loved watching the conversation as it unfolded and so many shared something of their lives with others on that list. It makes me proud to be a member of this industry and know that there are always many available to help, whether they’ve been involved just a few months or several years.

I’m usually up early checking for messages that have come in overnight via email, whilst having my breakfast and first coffee for the day.  However, it’s rare I answer client emails early, preferring to keep them within business hours, so I can spend time networking with forums and friends during my reading time instead.

However this morning proved an exception as I received a ‘help’ message from a client at 6.46am.  He’s a business coach and speaker and he’d left home without his memory stick.  Aaaggh!  Disaster – he didn’t have his presentation and neither did the IT folk at the event.  Enter his VA – me – who saves the day!

He sent a message via his blackberry saying:  If you are at your computer, can you send me the powerpoint I did for the xxx conference?  I answered straight away and sent it to him.  He was due to begin his presentation only 15 mins later.

A speaker’s nightmare – not having your electronic presentation with you.

Just another demonstration of how a VA can save your day!

VA saves the day, virtual assistant, business coach, speaker, Powerpoint

I was attending a meeting one evening and it was brought to the attention of the audience from the stage that I run a VA network.  I was thrilled and got a number of people asking for my business card afterward and wanting to know more about the services we (VAs) offer.

Then one lady sought me out before I left the room to tell me she had three VAs but it wasn’t working for her and she wondered if she just had the wrong VAs supporting her.  Her concern was that all claim they can do everything but she’s fast finding out they can’t and then she looks to put another one on to try and fill the gap, which explained why she now has three.  She asked me what she should do?

This is a hard one because it’s a situation she’s allowed to arise and the VAs may be under the perception that all is ok, when in reality it’s not.  What will happen is she’ll locate a VA or two who really can do all of what she needs and the others will have lost a client.

It is really important that VAs do not take on work they are not experienced in, or equipped for.  Start with what you know to do and know to do it well. Do not take on something because you ‘think’ you can do it – especially if your VA practice is very new.  You will get disillusioned quickly and begin to think ‘it’s all too hard’ and it doesn’t have to be, if you are kind to yourself.

Don’t try to be everything to your client, tell them what you can do and help them to find someone to assist in things you can’t do.  With the number of VA networks these days, there really isn’t any excuse for a VA not to be a member of at least one network which would provide a ready supply of back-up support when you cannot fulfill a need.

There have been times over the years when I have taken on something I didn’t have experience in but usually that has been after some considerable time with a client and they have learnt what my abilities are and are prepared to allow me time to learn and explore.  Such was the case when I began setting up a blog for a client in 2005.  I was learning on the job but the client knew that and she specifically asked me to do the research and learning for her as she didn’t want to seek another person to do it.  However, that only occurred because I’d already been servicing that same client for several years and we had a good working relationship. There is also a trust factor involved here and that takes time to build.  I would not dream of learning to do something for a new client as they would very quickly lose their confidence in my abilities and would assume that I knew nothing at all.

The lady I mentioned above will be contacting me to secure a new VA who does have the skills to match her needs and it’s a shame for her existing VAs but hopefully they’ll be able to work out what they need to do to keep their clients and learn from the experience.

For clients who are worried about this happening to them, the best way to avoid this is to have a clear idea of what you want to get done and don’t assume that one VA is the answer to all your needs.  Few VAs can do everything from basic wordprocessing to bookkeeping to desktop publishing to database management. Some will be able to do a combination of some of these things but it would be rare for them to do it all.

It is important to recognise that a lot of VAs specialise in particular skill sets because of their experience and knowledge in those areas and whilst they might explore other avenues on your behalf periodically, for the most part they will concentrate on what they know best and help you to outsource the rest.

We had an interesting conversation at our VA forum a couple of days ago.  A man who had placed a job request with our team, seeking Aussie based VAs a couple of weeks ago, then proceeded to email all those who responded, plus others from our team, with a promotion for a new product coming into our country. The ‘meeting’ date online was the following night.

It took a while before we realised that it was this guy – we wondered who was spamming us but knew the name seemed familiar to some of us.  There were a number of things here that were not done in the correct manner and it put many of us offside and not interested in his new product promotion.

1.  He should have advised those he’d already had email contact with, how that took place, i.e reminded them they had already connected via email before.

2. He should not have been going through websites collecting email addresses – this is known as email harvesting and breaks the spam legislation in both our countries.

3.  If he really wanted our attention and attendance why didn’t he make the effort to contact the moderator of the list or the owner of the network and ask permission to send his information out to the list?

4.  And why leave the notification to such a short lead time?  Less chance of a good outcome.

I emailed him and his VA (who had made the initial contact) outlining to them some information about the legalities relating to email harvesting and spamming people.

The list then began to chat about when you can do email promotions or what is legally allowed.  It is really important that as VAs, we make sure we are familiar with what can be done on behalf of our clients and be aware that if they ask us to do something that isn’t legal or ethical, we should be saying ‘no’ and explaining why.  There is information online that you can look up for your country – it’s very easy to Google that.  Make sure you check the source of the information too. This is just one listing I found:

Legality
In Australia, the creation or use of email-address harvesting programs (address harvesting software) is illegal according to the 2003 anti-spam legislation.. The legislation is intended to prohibit emails with ‘an Australian connection’ – spam originating in Australia being sent elsewhere, and spam being sent to an Australian address.

In The United States of America, the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 made it illegal to initiate e-mail to a recipient where the electronic mail address of the recipient was obtained:

Using an automated means that generates possible electronic mail addresses by combining names, letters, or numbers into numerous permutations.
Using an automated means to extract electronic mail addresses from an Internet website or proprietary online service operated by another person, and such website or online service included, at the time the address was obtained, a notice stating that the operator of such website or online service will not give, sell, or otherwise transfer addresses maintained by such website or online service to any other party for the purposes of initiating, or enabling others to initiate, electronic mail messages.

With respect to us supporting clients, it is really important we do the right thing.  I have a client who did get reported for possible breaking of the spam legislation in the early days of the legislation, by people who got annoyed by their regular emails.  In both cases I had to deal with the legislative authorities on their behalf as I’m the one that sends out the emails.

I was able to prove that these people had signed up over a year prior in both instances and had been receiving the emails regularly since then, and additional to that, there had always been an unsubscribe link on the emails.  The matter got dropped both times but the fine costs can be exorbitant if the owner of the emails are found guilty of doing the wrong thing.  And as their support people we lose a client and their business and we could possibly be affected financially ourselves.

I hope this helps you if you are asked to start collating lists of email addresses online.

Here are some more links for you:

Understanding Spam in Australia (Aust govt site)

CAN-Spam ACT USA (Federal Trade Commission)

By the way – if you are registered with any of my sites for whatever purpose, I do not sell or share your address with anyone else.  Just thought I’d let you know that!

Blogs are a great way for sharing information and encouraging interactive discussion with your audience but many new VAs find the concept daunting and see it as just one extra thing in a long list of things they need to learn and get up to speed with.

I’ve recently written a book called “Blogging Basics” and it is exactly that – the basics of how to blog and why you would want to blog.  I’ve made it available at my SOHO-Life blog for all subscribers.

If you pop over there you can read the table of contents to see if this is something you’d like to download and read.

I wrote this simple book to help answer the questions I am often asked about blogging, both by clients and by VAs so here’s a quick simple answer to the most basic and often asked questions in an easy download PDF format.

learning to blog, blog basics, WordPress, Blogger, benefits of blogging

Have you noticed that when you plan to make changes to something, and I mean big changes, that suddenly everyone else (read clients) have projects on the boil too?

For months I’ve been planning a shift from the shoppingcart service I was using to another one, for a variety of reasons.  One of those being the affiliate program which I wasn’t convinced was working the way it should be. Turns out it was dependent on tracking cookies and if people switch them off, then the affiliate who referred the client loses the benefit of the referral as there is no way of knowing who referred who, or even if they were referred. The new affiliate program I’m using works in a different way and tracks who referred who from the sign up process. And in fact, the shopping cart company who provides this service wrote the program because I asked for it.  They are making it available to their other clients as well.  Now, that’s what I call service! And it also shows that if a service you’re exploring doesn’t show everything you are looking for but it has most of the items, then why not ask them if they can provide…?  It may just pay off, as it has for me.

There were other things that troubled me too, like adding a list of pre-approved people to my newsletter list only to find that the service I was using had a requirement to send out an email asking people to click on a link to approve them being added to the list  a list that was already pre-existing – one of the quickest ways of losing subscribers because not everyone responds to those emails.

So I had initial meetings with the owner who runs this service (Contact Point and eNudge) I’m shifting to and over the past couple of months she and I have both been very busy but the changes are now visible – right in the midst of one of my clients launching a brand new makeover of her business and me trying to complete a book I really wanted to get finished in July.

Nothing like having a few things on the boil, hey?

‘Do you need a VA’ do I hear you say?   Very funny but yes, I have had two VAs from my team join me on my client’s project as I didn’t want to put in more hours than I already was doing so I could look after my other clients and still get my own stuff done.  Makes for an interesting life and one that is definitely not boring by any means.

Anyway, if you did not receive my latest newsletter a week ago, you will need to resubscribe and I apologise for the inconvenience.

If you are interested in becoming an Affiliate for my products then you are welcome to sign up on the new form.

If you haven’t visited our VA Shop for awhile (or ever) then it’s worth going to visit – you never know what you might find!

And if you see any dead links, please let me know – I’m gradually going through them all!

Have a great weekend everyone!