The Business of Virtual Assisting – Part I
Topic Objective: Is a Virtual Assistant Business right for you?
Someone once shared this with me; they saw it posted on an internet message board:
“I’ve tried several VA’s … and they were all unprofessional. They weren’t rude; they just weren’t real business owners. They were people who seemed to have decided to become a VA and didn’t know how to run their businesses, let alone help me with mine.”
Often people convince themselves that having a business is easy – you don’t need a plan, just Do It! They only think of it as a job, freelancing, or being an independent contractor – those aren’t really businesses, right? Well, no. Not if you want to have a long term, sustainable and successful profession. You have to kick it up a few notches!
In The E-Myth Revisited by Michael Gerber, he talks about what happens when employees have “entrepreneurial seizures”. You’ve had one, that’s why you are here. Your prospective clients have too. That’s why they are your prospective clients. They understand their product or service but they need help with the “rest of it” because if the rest of it isn’t done it doesn’t matter how many widgets they sell, they won’t have a business.
Let me tell you about my own entrepreneurial seizure. It was the mid 90’s and my kids were in pre-school. I was looking for a way to stay home but still have a professional life and bring in some income. A friend saw an ad in a tech magazine looking for people to start businesses refilling toner cartidges. My husband and I thought we could do this. I would run the business and he could do the refilling work in the evening after our kids had gone to bed.
The challenge hit when we became successful. I know, it sounds a bit strange but the problem was there weren’t enough hours in the day for us to each do what we needed to do to sustain the business and certainly not enough to grow. I floundered because I just didn’t understand how to tie the various “departments’ into smooth running systems. I understood the trees but I didn’t have a clue about caring for the forest. If I had understood the value of systematizing, not just organization, I would have been able to accomplish a great deal more. I would have been able to hand off some, if not all of the work to someone else.
When your client comes to you, it is because they have had an entrepreneurial seizure. You can help them design and implement systems so that they don’t have to go through what I did. You can use what you learn here about business foundations and systems to not only build your own business but to help them build theirs.
Realistic Unrealistic Expectations
There is so much talk today about “life balance” and we all seem to understand intellectually what this means and why it is important. The challenge seems to be in the execution. What kind of lifestyle do you want? What are your priorities? Soccer Practice? Car Payment? Savings? Choose the work you want to do, whom you work with and when you want to do it.
It is very important that you ask yourself if work is what you do or who you are. I’m fairly certain what you will answer but beyond your answer, you need to make yourself a promise – to yourself and for yourself – to enjoy your work. Do something you find fun and makes you proud. You are the only person who knows what this means and you alone are responsible for making it happen.
What is the difference between a successful VA and one who gets by? Or worse yet, gives up? It’s the difference between a job and a business. A successful VA owns a business and the difference is in mindset and business structure. You need to have not only the business structure but also the mindset of a business owner. You need to be proactive and develop a partnership with your clients. Structure and market your business so that it attracts the type of clients and work you want and meets your needs.
Understand that you are not going to get rich overnight. You have to lay the foundation to build on, and then do the business. Repeat. Again…
Virtual Relationships
Is your virtual business image professional?
Maintaining a professional image at all times is vital. Your client doesn’t want to hear that the baby was throwing up all night. Clients want to build a relationship, yes, and it doesn’t have to be rigidly formal but their priority is still their business. Follow their lead and use a healthy dose of common sense.
Conflict and Resolution in a Virtual World
A major key to the success of any relationship is communication. In dealing with your clients, you do not have the benefit of body language and you often don’t have voice tone and inflection either. While written communication helps to create a virtual paper trail conflicts may still arise. Don’t hide from them, meet them head on. My motto has always been “fair, firm and friendly”.
So, do you have what it takes?
I’m not talking about your tech skills – like do you know MS Office or how to use a CRM. Those are skills that can be learned. What I’m talking about here are your natural abilities and personality.
Are you enthusiastic? Are you detail oriented and organized? Do you enjoy assisting others and being helpful so that they succeed? Can you stand up to the naysayers and dream stealers? Are you willing to step out of your comfort zone? Do you understand that your success comes from their success? Are you willing to be fearless and to be proactive? Can you be a good listener and ask questions? Do you have focus? Are you confident in yourself and your abilities? Are you persistent and tenacious? Will you be dedicated and loyal to your clients? Do you have integrity and are you willing to be held accountable? Do you have good communications skills, relationship skills and emotional maturity? Are you willing to learn, improve and grow? And, most importantly, I think – do you have a sense of humor?
Does this sound like you? Be really honest and do some deep soul searching. Don’t talk yourself into this.
Clients know their product/service but they don’t know (or don’t want to spend time doing) what you know. With ProVA you are learning not only how to establish your own business systems but theirs as well. You will know how to help them set up their own foundation. Share what you learn here and increase your value to your clients.
This course will help you develop your systems to be cost effective and time efficient but you must have good work habits – structure your day and do it. My father used to say, “There is always something to do.” If you don’t have work to do for a client but it is your scheduled work time, then work on your marketing or take a training course! You must take this seriously or you will not succeed. You can bet your clients are serious. Remember the message on the internet board? If you don’t run your business as a business, your clients will not trust you to help them with theirs.
Skills and Abilities
Now that we have explored the difference between working as a VA and owning a VA Business – let’s take a deeper look at the work side.
Once you determine this is what you want to do and any gaps in skills you need to fill, then we will set up your business. As with a job there are certain skills required. If you don’t have them you can learn them – but should you?
Make two lists – right now. Take out a piece of paper and jot down a list of things you are good at doing. Now make a list of things you like to do. Are they the same thing?
If the lists aren’t the same, what do you need to do to make them the same? How do you get to one list titled Things I’m good at that I like to do?
For example, did you list bookkeeping as something you are good at but list customer service as something you like to do? Maybe you need to work as a bookkeeper while you get training and experience in Customer Service.
What skills do you need to learn or improve? Take a look at your resume. What is missing? What skills need to be updated or polished? Check out Training.com and consider making an investment in yourself.
Whatever you want to do, whether it is general administrative assisting work or a specialty such as bookkeeping, you need a strong foundation of the basics: XP (and soon Vista will be the industry standard) the internet, and MS Office. From this foundation, you can learn specialty applications. You also need to have good general business skills.
To grow your business you must have goals, direction and focus, strong business systems and be willing to learn and grow both personally and professionally. In every industry, continuing education is vital but even more so in an industry so tied to technology that is literally changing every day.
Once you have listed skills you need to develop, don’t let yourself get overwhelmed. First of all, you don’t have to know it all. You need a basic familiarity and know where to go to find the answers. All of these applications have help files. There is also training offered at Community Colleges and online. I mentioned Training.com before and I highly recommend their programs. Take a look at my review in The Business Boutique. And don’t forget that you can also ask for help here in The VA Watercooler Forum. Don’t look at the other VA’s here as your competition. Together we are better, the industry is better and we all succeed – we are all connected.
So – is this for you?
Next up: From employee to Business Owner
Good article! I can see were it would be easy to say I only want to work when I want to not the desired time frame by the person who hired me to accomplish a specific task. It is important to remember that being a VA is a business but if you want to succeed, you need to treat it as a real business. When you treat it as a business and act professionally everyone else will see you the same way. I guess it all boils down to when you talk the talk, you need to walk the walk.
Absolutely Jo-Ann. The challenge comes in that fine line between being treated like an employee and being an independent business owner. But if I went to a restaurant and the owner said, “I’m not your employee, I’ll make your meal when I want to.” – Well, we know what would happen to his business, don’t we!