[OPENING]
4-25-2013 3-20-59 PMAs I was sitting at one of my offices away from home (Brig O’Doon), I decided to ask a gentleman sitting next to me if he knew what a Virtual Assistant was. He didn’t (AND he worked for Hewlitt Packard). Perfect opportunity. I told him a virtual assistant was anyone who assisted someone virtually. He said that made perfect sense. Smart guy – not everyone clicks on the idea right away. Great person to ask what he would want in a Virtual Assistant.
First thing was
[Memorandum of Understanding – see last post, Part 1]
Next
[Time Zones – see last post, Part 2]
Communicating
[see last post, Part 3]
Feedback
Also important to him would be to have a feedback loop, or way of communicating how things are going. That is actually one of the toughest things I deal with in my business, so I was thrilled to see that someone was interested in this.
I find that people generally don’t like to give criticisms or discuss things they’d like to see improve. They sometimes would rather just move on to someone else, and the VA is left wondering why. This is not only counter-productive to the client, but is like re-training employees, one after another, instead of working with the current employee to train them the right way.
Don’t get me wrong – I’m not saying that VAs are employees or necessarily need to be ‘trained’ with technical issues, marketing, social media, etc. – but we are not clairvoyant, either. Without learning your business, how you work and your expectations, we are left guessing and learning at a much slower rate than if you would just communicate what you’re thinking and what you want!
[final Q&A coming up next]
Nickey Hollenbach Personal Touch Concierge Service, LLC info@ptconciergeservice.com 484-919-0637 www.ptconciergeservice.com
Virtual Caffeine 