Fresh out of college I moved to a new town and stumbled into the underwriting department of an insurance company. I was nervously excited to attend my first “official” meeting in corporate America. The entire team of underwriters and assistants (me) met with our boss, the VP of Underwriting.
Here’s the scene. Windowless room, long table, cushy high back chairs. We sit down. Idle chatter amid the underwriters. The Veep comes in, sits down and looks around. “Well?” he says. The underwriters look blindly back at him. “What are we here to talk about?” Again, blank stares and stumbling of words. This is when it got interesting. Now, this isn’t going to be an exact quote, but I think I remember it pretty well:
The Veep yells, “You all wanted this expletive meeting! YOU called for it. If you don’t know what the expletive you need to talk about, and you can’t put together a simple expletive list of things you need to talk about, why the expletive am I here? I am not coming to another expletive meeting unless there is a expletive agenda!!!!”
That was the end of the meeting. 45 seconds by my recollection. (And just for personal clarification, this was truly one of the best groups of people I ever worked with, Veep included. You were a great boss, Craig!)
People get into ruts with meetings and become slaves to Outlook and its calendaring and reminders. “It’s on my calendar, I have to have a meeting!” I also tend to think people have meetings either to get away from their desks for a while, or because they have nothing better to do. That is not right.
And without a solid agenda, your meeting will become 20% moderately important information and 80% wasted time. If you can’t write out a list of topics that you need team input on, don’t have a meeting. Also, if you have fluff topics that can be solved with a phone call or email to one person, don’t have a meeting. There is nothing worse than calling a meeting and only needing to speak with one person. (This is especially annoying when you walked across a street and through three buildings to get to the meeting, only to leave five minutes later.)
Let’s recap: #1 – If you want a meeting, have an agenda. #2 – If you can’t add anything of value to build an agenda, don’t have a meeting. #3 – Don’t let recurring calendar announcements dictate your productivity!
Recently, and quite unfortunately, we discovered a mouse problem in our house. You know – you see the “signs” of a mouse. So, we set out a trap, and the next day, Mr. Mouse was on his way to mouse heaven.
Then we saw more signs, and set out more traps. One morning I walked into the kitchen to see a little brown fluff peering out from beneath my stove. At this point I started to get angry. Not only because I had a nasty rodent in my house, but because, no more than 15 feet away, my two cats were sitting. Hello, cats? Isn’t this your job? Of course it was, but they didn’t know because they really hadn’t been introduced to Mouse #2 yet.
I picked up Othello (who is our best hope for mousing issues because he loves to catch and eat bugs!) and pointed him in the properly direction. As soon as he caught one glimpse of the mouse, he ran, pounced, and had a plump little mouse in his mouth. Hooray!
Since finding that mouse, Othello has changed. He patrols the kitchen like clockwork, scanning the floor, smelling all the corners – he’s looking for signs of a problem. In the meantime, I work on the bigger picture – looking for holes, scanning the basement and foaming/caulking as necessary, cleaning and organizing.
A tiny mouse showed up by the fireplace. Othello was on it. And now he patrols the fireplace and living room with as much vigor as the kitchen.
So, why am I telling you the sordid details of mousing in my household? Because this mouse problem isn’t any different from any other problem that comes up in your life. And when it comes up, you have to know how to handle it. And when you have a series of problems, sometimes you just can’t handle all of it at the same time. That’s when you need help. And that’s what having a virtual assistant is all about.
Little problems pop up, little inconveniences that you need to take care of but can’t get to, because you’re working on the big picture. Hiring a virtual assistant for the small tasks is a great way to keep you forward-focused because you don’t have to worry about missing an issue that pops up. Your VA is there to back you up and take care of things.
Everyone needs a virtual assistant. Even me. And here he is.
 Othello the Cat. Master Mouser and personal VA to YGF.
Honesty is a crazy thing. We all expect each other to be honest, but only to the point where the truth doesn’t hurt. Back in college I took a course in Photography. (Yes, besides being an English major, I’m also an Art minor. Please stifle the chuckling.) Each week we received an assignment, went forth and snapped photos, and spent time in the dark room developing them. (Remember film cameras?) At the end, our photos would be pinned to a large wall in class and we would begin “critique mode.”
Only it never was critiquing. It was a group of people saying things like “Well, I like it but maybe, if you thought it might work, you could…” or “It’s nice.” These were unhelpful. I would be frustrated having to listen to my classmates skirt around the truth. Where was the honesty in it? It would be nice to think that all my photos were gems, but they weren’t.
One day I was fed up and after class I took my photos, went to the professor and said, “Please give me your real opinion.” Without even pausing, he told me that the photos were dull and unimaginative. They weren’t good. And I thanked him for his honesty. I was happy. Why? Because, for the first time I got constructive criticism. I was doing things wrong, and no one else had mind enough to be honest with me. If you can’t tell me what I’m doing wrong, how will I ever learn to do it right?
When we do something wrong, we need to be told that we’ve done wrong. If we do something incorrect for our clients, we should expect them to tell us we messed up. Employer-Employee honesty is critical in having a successful relationship and getting the job done right. It doesn’t feel good when someone points out your errors. But it feels even worse when you find yourself in a bad business relationship because no one’s willing to be honest and talk.
Sometimes a client will ask me to do something, and then he’ll say “I know it’s not much,” or “it’s really boring stuff to do – I’m sorry.” And my reply is “no problem.” Because really, it’s not.
Over the course of years I’ve been working, I’ve always been amazed when I come across people who have a list of what they will and will not do at a job. I’m not talking about what they can and cannot do. If you ask me to do sales calls, I’ll tell you no – not because I won’t do it, but because I can’t – I’m horrible at it and you’d be better off burning your money than paying me to do it. I’m talking about people who refuse to do work because they feel it is beneath them in some way.
Once I was working on several projects with my manager. One project was tied to reams of legal paperwork. I was busy with something else at the time, so my manager gave a task to a co-worker to do for this legal project. She needed stacks of documents three-hole punched, put into binders and divided appropriately based upon document numbering. Now, I’ll admit, it wasn’t the most exciting job in the world to do, but it was critically important to the project because these binders were needed by the legal department to proceed with their filings and such.
A day or so into it, this co-worker stopped by my desk and began to complain about what an awful task it was, and she shouldn’t be doing it because she had a Masters degree. I let her rant, and let her walk away. The next week my manager came up to me and asked if I would work on the binders. The co-worker had set in the paperwork backward, upside-down, and labeled everything incorrectly. (She no longer had a job as of that week.)
Whatever the job you do, shouldn’t you do it well? Isn’t it a reflection of your work ethic and the type of person you are? Who cares if you have fifteen degrees and speak 24 languages? If your boss asks you to make a copy – make a copy…highlight those documents…refill the toner! My husband and I laugh sometimes because we believe that if someone paid us $100/hr to staple paper together, we wouldn’t be complaining! Everything is important to getting the job done. Data entry, research, management, printing, emails, invoices…bringing in the occasional box of doughnuts!
Bring me your boring, dull, have-to-get done tasks and I’ll do them with a smile!
“If you are called to be a street sweeper, sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. Sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, 'Here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.” ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.
Some employers can work with a VA, and some need traditional help. Which is best for you?
This may seem to be a foolish blog to write. After all, I want your business. But honestly, I only want your business if you need me. I can help you if you need me. I can’t help you if you only think you need me.
Working with a virtual assistant is very different from working with someone in the office. In the office you can walk up to the person and chat. You can look over her should onto her screen and discuss things. You can leave her sticky notes with information all over her desk. You can see her functioning, so you believe that things are working. And when you see she’s winding down, you give her more work.
With a virtual assistant, you give your list of tasks to a computer screen via email or chat. And then a few hours or a few days later all of the work is done and you have your deliverables uploaded or in your email. You don’t know how it got done or where, but it’s done and you can move forward with what you need to do.
You, the employee, need to determine what kind of person you are. Do you need to have visual confirmation of an
assistant? Does it make you feel better to be able to see someone at a computer, at a desk, on a phone? Do you need to micromanage?
If any of these apply to you, you should probably work with a traditional assistant. When you hire a VA, you send
her work and put it out of your mind until the deadline appears. Of course you can check in and see how things are going, but for the most part, you know she’s independently working and you can work on your own tasks. When she’s done, she will wait for you to give her more work.
Virtual Assistants are task driven. Once the task is done, we cannot busy ourselves filling the copier with paper and cleaning up the break room to pass the time until the next round of work happens. We have to wait until you supply us with another task.
We would love to be able to help your business, but make sure choosing us is the best thing for you, because in the long run, it will benefit us both.
Even before you hire your freelancer, you should have asked him what his bandwidth is for being able to help you. How many hours each week can he devote to your business? Of course, there are many freelancers out there that will commit and tell you exactly what you want to hear because they want your business.
Unfortunately, not all of them can deliver on their promises. But, you don’t have to go too far into the work relationship before you discover if your freelancer was honest or not. Make the first project something simple, but with a definite turnaround time. Did they commit to that time and follow through? Was it an hour late? Several hours late? A day late?
Also, connect with them via phone or chat or email. How quickly do you get a response back? Now, I understand that if you’re in California and it’s 10pm and you’re sending an email, your New York freelancer is fast asleep. But during the normal business hours, you should be able to get in contact with your help.
You should be first in your freelancer’s life, even if he has twenty other clients he’s working with. For me, that is an important aspect of this business. If I was physically working at your office, you could walk right up to my desk and talk with me. You should still be able to do it virtually.
If you’re not getting quick responses and agreed-upon turnaround for your projects, your freelancer has taken on too much responsibility and it’s probably time to start looking for someone new.
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