1) Thou shall not take on a new client without a deposit and a signed contract. Period.

2) Thou shall be tolerant when viewing a $4.00 an hour overseas virtual assistant advertisement. Plenty of work is available for all VAs at every rate.  Establish yourself as an expert and you will attract those clients willing to pay your rate.

3) Thou shall be patient when applying for a VA position through a Request for Proposal (RFP) particularly when the potential client never acknowledges the submission. Follow-up once with a PC (potential client) and then move on. Early signs of poor communication may be a red flag that the client may become difficult later on.

4)  Thou shall not believe thyself to be an employee of the client. If the client treats you as an employee, set the record straight immediately. If this explanation does not change the relationship, then terminate that relationship. As difficult as it may appear to lose the income, there is nothing worse than feeling miserable having been labeled as subordinate. You are a business owner and you are in business to partner with clients. You are not an employee. You set the rules.

4) Thou shall take not plagiarize another virtual assistant’s website. Period.

5) Thou shall join an industry-related forum such as Virtual Assistant Forums and participate frequently to help others. Note to new VAs: before you post your questions to any forum, use the ‘search’ feature first. Your question may have already been asked and discussed. Using ‘search’ is a time saver too!

6) If thou finds that thee does not have any clients, this is the time to look up and forward and NOT down and out. Use this slow period to redo a website, create a blog, and engage in social media discussions or better still…

7) …volunteer your services. There is no better means to gaining experience and exposure than to offer your time to other virtual assistants and/or non-profits while expecting no reward in return.

8) Thou shall set a goal that thee will, in 2012, do the work thee only truly LIKES to do. For new VAs, if you are  performing uninteresting client work, as only a primary means to ‘pay the bills’, use this time to garner testimonials and referrals from those clients.  So do your best work!  Your goal is to eventually take on only the work you will enjoy.  This may mean ‘biting the bullet’ at start-up and accepting work that is not interesting but always do so with a positive attitude knowing in the end you will eventually accept projects that are enjoyable.

9)  Thou shall hang a sign above thy computer with the name of the target market thee wishes to reach.  Remind yourself daily that your blog posts, your social media posts, and your discussions will be geared toward the interest and the needs of that particular market. Your client base will increase.

10)   Thou shall ask for help. There is no shame in asking another VA to assist, however, first do the legwork yourself. Check Google, YouTube and industry sites for answers.  If you just want other VAs to tell you what to do, you will never learn. Clients want to partner with VAs who are willing to dive in deep, find the answers and make the suggestions. This is how VAs build long-term, trusting relationships with clients.

Have a great year in 2012!

Interested in learning how to write the Winning Request for Proposal (RPF) that will land you the virtual assistant job? Sign up for details of my new program and be a part of the launch. Learn How to Write a Winning RFP

By far the most difficult aspect of being a virtual assistant is working with a client who does not communicate.

I shake my head in dismay.

Clients want the help…they seek the assistance of a virtual assistant but some fail to recognize that good relationships take work.

I emphasize the need for communication in the consultation call. I include an entire page in my Welcome Packet explaining the importance of communication but after a week of working with new clients, old habits die hard.

The Scenario

It is Monday morning and I am ready to work. But I can’t. The client has not responded to last week’s email asking for an updated service list. The client has not responded to questions regarding last week’s work so even that effort remains unfinished.

So I put in a phone call but the client is not available.

Tuesday morning…still no response. This time I am asking if something is wrong. That happens. One of my clients fell off a ladder and I didn’t hear from her for several weeks.

Finally on Wednesday afternoon I receive a reply to last week’s emails but some of the questions were left unanswered. By now, I’ve ventured onto other client work and am engrossed because these clients are responding and thus they receive priority attention.

So I reschedule my work for Thursday to play ‘catch-up’ for the client who has now decided to respond with several apologies and excuses as to why my communication has gone unanswered.

I write a quick aggravated-infused email and then decide not to send it in the annoyed tone in which it was written. (A tip I learned years ago…write out how you feel and then hit delete.)

(Sometimes a client may sign on late in the week and we finally begin to get caught up on last week’s work but alas we are in the middle of an important discussion and I receive, “I am signing off for the rest of today and I won’t be back in my office until Monday.” )

Yes, that did happened…but I digress…

Friday I send out another email and put in another call to discuss the problem(s). I receive no response thus the following incommunicado-cycle begins again for the following week.

This has to stop. Something must be done. Shall I cut the client loose? It crosses my mind several times.

Here’s what I do:

• I ask to speak to the client and make myself available after hours if needed to rectify the situation.
• I explain in that call how difficult it is for me to efficiently book client time while ‘left in the lurch’ without the proper responses.  I need to make the client see that I am business owner myself and that my time is valuable too. I say this in the call (nicely).
• I ask the client what we can do better to ensure that I receive the information in a timely manner. Although I prefer to receive service-related work requests the week before so I can plan accordingly for the following week, if Sunday afternoon is the only time she can answer my emails, then I can work with that.
• I set up a shared calendar so I can see when the client is available. (I do that for everyone now.) But again, this is part of the communication process and has to be maintained by the client.
• I summarize and confirm the discussion in a written email.

In some cases, this method solves the problem. But in other cases, we have a few ‘good’ weeks and the non-responsive cycle begins all over again.

Nothing is fail-proof; either you want to work with a virtual assistant or you do not.

I understand that some clients have full time jobs. But if a client is on a tight schedule for communicating with their virtual assistant, then some effort needs to be made BECAUSE I cannot do the work alone.

I’m here to partner with a business owner and like all collaborations good communication is key to success. Without an exchange of ideas, I am unproductive.

When I am ineffective, the client is wasting my time and their money.

I am here to help the business owner succeed. If they do not realize my purpose, I turn them loose.

It happens.

Blogging is a great tool for companies in very exciting industries.  Great examples of this include musicians, writers, lifestyle mentors and other personality-driven businesses.

However, most industries are a bit more boring and don’t lend themselves as well to this type of blogging.  This was a problem that I first ran into when I started my cleaning company.

I opened up a blog, and began writing about the core of our business.  This one is commercial cleaning.

As you might imagine, the content was pretty dry and unoriginal.  We would write articles on subjects such as “how to clean carpets”, “how to clean patios”, “how to clean tiles”, etc..This was very similar to what every other cleaning company and the world had been talking about.

It wasn’t very exciting and it didn’t attract people from our local business area. In order to fix this, I had to step back and think about the goals we were trying to accomplish.

My 2 main objectives were:

• to gain exposure for my company within our community and
• build relevant links to our website

Rather than just recycling the same boring old themes on our corporate blog, I decided to reach out to the local business community and lend my expertise to other blogs.  This had the combined effects of exposing us to new audiences while giving fresh and new insights on other blogs that were in need of inspiration.

For example:

• We might write an article for a local accounting firm’s blog about how to negotiate better prices on cleaning contracts.
• We might approach a local health food company and provide insights into how to clean in such a way that it helps people with allergies.
• We might approach a local business that markets to parents, and give them handy insights into   how to keep children safe from hazardous products.

As the specialists, we found that we had a lot of insights to offer that many of these other local businesses may not have thought of.  Customers who frequented their blogs often found this advice very helpful. It was a win-win situation for all parties involved.

If your company is having trouble keeping its blog fresh and interesting, you may want to consider contributing to other people’s blogs rather than maintaining your own.  It’s a great way to build relationships with complementary businesses while gaining exposure to new audiences that would have otherwise never heard of you.

About The Author: Ontario Cleaning is one of Canada’s top cleaning services, with cleaning customer in Mississauga, Oakville, Brampton and Toronto.

About The Author: Paul Rudo has been a freelance business consultant for over 5 years. He specializes in B2B marketing for technology companies and organizations targeting geographically local clients. For more information, you can visit his web site at Paul Rudo.

1) Stay on topic – If the topic is about blogging, comment about blogging and not about your business or personal affairs. Those who do not stay on topic break the rhythm of the thread, waste valuable space and cause difficulty for readers trying to follow the conversation.

If you have another topic you would like to discuss, create a new thread. Try to keep ‘side conversations’ off main threads.

2) Sign your name – Some blog and forum sites do not offer areas to clearly identify the poster. On those sites without a designated spot to sign a name and company name, please type-in this information within the post for better SEO and for self-identification.

If you create a username which is different from your real name and do not sign your post, people will not know who you are.

Replies to your own entries will typically be returned using your name which personalizes the responses and engages continued conversation. Using your name in a post also makes it easier for you to search out any direct responses to your own posts.

Your name is your unique signature which sets you apart from other posters. Be proud of what you comment. Use your name.

3) Use back links which are useful for several reasons. Back links support a posting; provide easy clickability to the readers as well as confirm to the readers you have topic expertise. Back links will also help you to get the google juice for the sites you link.   If the site on which you are posting does not automatically link urls (Biznik is one such site) you can use code to make your links live.

HTML and Markdown Language (lighter version of HTML) are two code choices.

Example:  HTML <a href=”www.yourlink.com”<Your Site Name></a>

Example:  Markdown Language [Your Site Name](http:*//*yourlink.com) *Do not type in *characters. Demo purposes only.

4) If you provide back links in your posts, make those links relevant. Do not just put your website address or your blog address. Link back to the referred post URL itself or a document which is relative to what your post is mentioning. You will receive a high bounce rate on your blog or website if you are not using direct links to specific posts because folks will be frustrated when they cannot find what it is you might be linking and will quickly leave your site.

5) Try not to comment for the sake of commenting or agreeing. If you want to say ‘thank you’ to someone for offering valuable information or if you find someone’s post to be helpful, say ‘why’ it was helpful or how you can apply this newly found information.

6) Try to summarize your posts into an easy-to-read format. If you have a lot of information, try to breakup your thoughts into paragraphs or use bullet points.

7) Before you post, check first to see if someone else has made that same post. So if you are on a social networking site, do a search of keywords. If there is a previous post on your topic, do not start a new one; add a relevant comment to that particular post. Blog and forum posts have infinite lives. Adding fresh and relevant information to an already birthed thread brings the full string ‘out’ for new readers to view.

Janine Gregor