Virtual Assistant – THE Blog About Our Industry

About the Virtual Assistant industry for VAs and for clients

Monthly Archives: November 2009

Email peeve

I wrote a little while ago why I prefer email and this post covers a pet peeve of mine relating to email.

I know that not everyone who uses email is a ‘professional’ online and many don’t understand the use of it.  But it does concern me if a client consistently responds to my emails without including anything of the previous email sent to them.  I find a few people do this and it’s very frustrating.

The reason why it’s frustrating is that often their replies are several days later and their reply email often doesn’t even include what the original subject heading was. So I’m left scratching my head trying to work out what they are talking about and having to delve through past emails I’ve sent to them to put the pieces together.  This wastes such a lot of time – time that I don’t charge them for but perhaps I need to reconsider that.

Perhaps to them it’s fresh in their minds because they’ve just read and replied to an email I’ve sent but for me several days have passed and often several hundred emails I’ve read and many I’ve written since that time.

If you are one of those people who do not include the previous email when you reply, please take some time to consider the person you are responding to.  If the email program you use isn’t set up to automatically include the previous message (and subject heading) then please take the time to find out how to do it.  Find someone who uses the same program you do and ask for advice or research it on the web.  It’s amazing how many ‘how-tos’ are available online.

Make it easier on all of those whose emails you are responding to, especially if there is a continued discussion, and make sure you include the questions you are answering, or the bit that you are adding to, to keep the conversation fluid and not disjointed.

Does anyone else feel frustrated by this or is it just me?

Whatever happened to ethics?

On some of the business forums I belong to (not just VA forums) I see discussions amongst members who sub-contract work out to other service providers.  One of the big turn-offs for some in using a sub-contractor is that some of the sub-contractors overstep their boundary and show no respect for the original relationship between the client and the person sub-contracting the work out.  They make direct contact with the client seeking continued work.

In the corporate world contractors or staff, when leaving that role, are required to sign a non-compete contract which lasts for anything from 6 months to a couple of years.  It’s to help prevent that very thing to happen.  And most people I know wouldn’t even dream to overstep that mark.

I know in my early days of business I was also keen to gain clients of my own but I was very careful not to actively pursue as clients, those I was engaged to provide support to through a temping or contracting role.  It didn’t feel ethically right to do this and I knew that if I was doing this I would have lost the temping or subcontracting role very quickly.  It just wasn’t done.  It also meant that to get continued work would have been very difficult because word gets around very quickly. And so it does in the VA industry and any other industry for that matter.  Why risk ruining your reputation as a service provider?

So, what has changed? Has people’s ethics? Are they so desperate for work that they just don’t care about how the original working relationship began? Do they not see it as unethical to cut out the very person who introduced them to the client and work to undercut that person?  Or is that we are so desensitised by all the things we see on TV and read in the papers or online that these days it no longer seems a big deal and we’re all out to get what we can without any thought for the person who originally brought us into the equasion.

Our consciences should still be working actively and it’s important to survive in an industry to do the right thing. Those who provide good work and act conscientiously will get more work simply because a good word is put out about them.  I’m a firm advocate of ‘what goes around comes around’ and that works for both good and bad. What do you think?

Introducing the new Coaching Club

I’ve been working on a project in the background for some months, as if I need something else to be doing!

Many of you will know that I’ve been running the VATrainer.com Virtual Assistant course for a few years now and I’m thrilled that we have many graduates now having gone through that program.  However I do get requests from those looking to become VAs, who can’t afford the training course fee, for assistance and I hate turning people away.  So I’ve been developing the Virtual Assistant Coaching Club, which is to be launched next month.

Yesterday I put out a call via a couple of the VA forums to source a half dozen potential or very new VAs to test the program and the response I got has more than confirmed my thoughts that there is a need for something like this.  I was stunned by the numbers contacting me and still more are coming through.

Of those who have responded to date, I plan to give 6 lucky people 3 free months of the program to help me iron out any bugs and get it going but I don’t want to turn away all the others that have responded.  So I’m offering 12 month membership (paid monthly) at a discounted rate (70%) to any who respond to this post over the next month.

To give you an idea of what will take place, this is taken from the site:

The VA Coaching Club is designed to give you the knowledge to help fill in the gaps and move forward with your plans.

1. One monthly open call session on a set topic for discussion.

2. Periodic guest speakers on topics relevant to the VA industry.

3. Occasional one-on-one private coaching call sessions for 15 mins.

4. MP3 recording of the monthly call sessions to listen to and review.

5. Access to articles and materials for members only.

6. Discounts on products and services.

For only $39 a month you can get coaching and mentoring through the VA Coaching Club.  Once signed up you don’t have to do anything to maintain your membership – it will be charged automatically to your chosen form of payment (Paypal, Amex, Visa or Mastercard).  If you decide to cancel you simply need to email to arrange for the payments to be stopped.  Payments are made via a secure server.

However, if you want to benefit from the discounted rate of $25AUD for the first set of members then please click here.

By the way, location is not important, you will get to benefit from all there is to offer.

Back online

Our new internet connection didn’t happen when it was supposed to and, as a result, it’s nearly a week longer than I anticipated being fully back online.  Somewhat frustrating when you’re running an online business.

Our move from the old home to the new one went relatively smoothly but I have no idea how we accumulated all that stuff.  The new place has heaps of storage but I don’t want to be filling it all up.  Need to try and live more simply somehow.  I have an ‘opp box’ at the moment where I’m putting clothes I no longer really need and just today a flyer was put in the letterbox for a local CFS fete coming up – they’re seeking stuff to sell at the fete. Reckon we can help them!

The kitchen was finished first and then our bedroom for the most part before I tackled our office.  I knew I had 3 or 4 days to get sorted but it was worrying to find that the plans we’d had in place for connecting our new DSL service did not happen in the way we had hoped, even though we had booked it a month in advance.  When it came down to it, Telstra told us our internet service provider had to connect the pole to our house but the service provider told us it was Telstra’s job. We got stuck in the middle and sought advice. In the end we located a private technician who was qualified to do the job and he got us connected.  I believe this guy has a niche business and I’ve since heard horror stories from other VAs and small business operators with similar tales to tell – sometimes waiting many more weeks.

If you live in Victoria, Australia and you’re suffering this same fate, send me an email or fill out the contact form and I’ll put you in touch with this guy.  He was worth his weight in gold.

I am grateful that my clients were patient due to the extended delay and I look forward to getting stuck back into work this week on my regular basis.