If you’ve hired a virtual assistant to help with your publicity campaign, or for any other tasks you don’t like to do or don’t have the talent to do, Tough Love & Accountability, or Four Golden Rules for Working with Your Virtual Assistant is must reading.
Denise Aday of Aday VA Solutions, a Dallas, TX based virtual assistance firm, reminds us to:
1. Pay bills promptly.
2. Respect procedures that our VA has put in place
3. Remember that we are the VA’s client. The VA is not our employee.
4. Communicate, communicate, communicate. That means picking up the phone and calling my own VA, Chris Buffaloe of Serenity Virtual Assistant Services, if I get the feeling that our email communication just isn’t working. She does the same.
If you haven’t hired a VA yet, what are you waiting for? During the telseminar I conducted on “How to Hire a Virtual Assistant to Help with Your Publicity Campaign,” VAs Cindy Greenway and Diana Ennen, both excellent VAs, said the VA and the client are responsible for building the relationship. They stressed that VAs must set boundaries right at the beginning and let clients know when they can and cannot call, when they are available to work on projects, and how much lead time they need.
Publicity Hounds can hire VAs to write press releases, update their online media rooms, manage social networking duties, and write how-to articles.
A tip of the hat to Chris, my VA, for alerting me to this. (Chris, are you trying to tell me something???)
Working with a VA is one of the best things I’ve done for my business, particularly as a musician and an author with little time to eek out for the necessary blogging and posting. Chris of Serenity Virtual Assistant Services is a gem, and she comes with knowledge about the Internet that I just don’t have.
Anne Roos
Celtic Harp Music
http://www.celticharpmusic.com
Author of “The Musician’s Guide to Brides: How to Make Money Playing Weddings”
As a productivity consultant I’m thrilled to see you post these guidelines. There are so many people that miss out on good working relationships because they don’t keep good communication in line.
I partner with 3 different VAs for my business. They are all experts in their respective areas and my business has grown because of it!
Those are excellent recommendations! Parterning with a virtual assistant can be one of the best things you can do for your business and when it works, it WORKS so well. And it normally does work!
You hit on many of the points that virtual assistants struggle with. Communication is the biggie. Most of the time once the client and VA talk things over, it works out even better as they have a better understanding of what needs done.
Most virtual assistants strive so hard to do a good job too that when you respect them with the tips you mentioned, they will be there for the long haul and be such a valuable asset.
Great job!
Diana Ennen
Your comments are right on point. I particularly like #3. It is difficult dealing with clients who think I am their employee and therefore presume that on occasion they have the right to call other of my clients with whom they are familiar to say they have me tied up for a few weeks. Either that or they have a rush they will be feeding me in parts and while I’m sitting here waiting for the next part of the job, they let interruptions sidetrack them repeatedly. The job then becomes a panic which I am expected to pull out of the hole. Were it not that this is an exceptional client, I would have dropped her long ago.
We are not your employees. We are your equal and have every right to be treated that way. I do everything possible to provide excellent, timely service. I expect the same in return.
The majority of my clients are wonderful. And I truly love what I do. By following a few basic rules, the world improves for all of us.