On Monday I started working with a personal trainer to help me meet my fitness goals. I know what I need to do to get in shape and be healthier, but I made the decision to hire a professional to give me the motivation and tools I need to actually do those things!
I realized this is not unlike an entrepreneur deciding to work with a Virtual Assistant.
Everyone is feeling the pinch. Even if you’re projecting more prosperous times, there remains a dilemma over how to sustain key operational and marketing activities when cash is tight. And if you have a virtual assistant or other contractor on the team, you’ve no doubt considered cutting them loose so you can breathe a little easier at month end.
This might seem like an obvious way to lighten your budgetary load, but what of those prosperous times you’re planning for? If you permit the fundamentals to deteriorate (marketing, operations, customer care, etc.), what will be left when opportunity comes knocking (and it will come knocking again)? Will you be ready? Will you be sane?
So you have taken a step towards truly growing your thriving business and hired a Virtual Assistant, here are seven ways to ensure your partnership will be a success:
Some people hunt animals, some people hunt ghosts. Me? I hunt typos. Picking typos out of a published book, newsletter or sales page is something I’ve always loved doing. It’s a twisted little habit I just can’t seem to shake. This of course, is a good occupational hazard to have in my line of work and I’m sure comes as a relief to some of my clients. I do feel bad however, for those people who are consistently putting out work that has not been properly proofread for these types of errors.
“Success, or failure, very often arrives on the wings that seem mysterious to us.” ~Dr. Marcus Bach
I’m not sure if Dr. Bach ever had a virtual assistant but I like his thought process. Bach made it his purpose to increase his appreciation and understanding for those he had interactions with. This makes me think about how cultivating creativity in business allows open discussions of any and all solutions.
Congratulations to Regina Brown of Brown’s Professional Services, who is the recipient of this week’s VAccolade Business Entrepreneur Award.
Regina holds a Quickbooks Pro Advisor Certification and is trained in tax preparation. She also offers such services as property management, human resources, and office management. Regina has been a valued member of VAnetworking since November 2008.
Whether you have an established VA or are looking to hire one; you must always be thinking forward; what type of work you will assign, how you will communicate the tasks and how the work will be done. You want a VA you can easily communicate with. A VA who can follow directions accurately, written, oral or through an instant message system, is vital to a successful VA-client relationship.
Hiring a virtual assistant can help your business succeed in so many ways it’s hard to imagine why anyone would not at least give outsourcing careful consideration. Then again, why take bold and strategic steps forward with your business when you’ve got things like status quo and been-there-done-that to keep you warm and comfy? Just in case you’re running out of excuses though, I’ve come up with a handy little list of trite excuses for not hiring your own VA today.
Print this list off and tape it to your desk. You just never know when you might have to turn down another opportunity to grow:
