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

It goes without saying that lying is unethical and immoral. Eventually, the truth will be told. If you must be untruthful, do not involve your virtual assistant in your misdeeds. Do not ask your virtual assistant to fudge any numbers, reword documents with falsehoods or use a different name if she is to make calls for you.

Do not ask your VA to post positive comments on a blog about you or your business if your customers or employees have posted negative comments with the intention of marring your reputation. Take care of the problem yourself.

Do not ask your VA to lower her rate. If you are committed to paying a specified rate for a specified period of time, find a way to meet that commitment. Negotiating rates with a virtual assistant after the contract has been signed is bad business practice and shows disrespect for the virtual assistant’s value. If you find you are unable to pay for your virtual assistant at the rate agreed upon, give the virtual assistant 30 days notice of your decision.

Do not send work to your virtual assistant before the upcoming monthly retainer has been paid. In most cases, the virtual assistant will bill on a timely basis allowing for the retainer payment to be paid in a seamless manner for work to continue. However, if you have received this invoice but have not paid this bill, do not forward work expecting this to be completed before payment has been received.

Do not ask a virtual assistant to use unsolicited email addresses for unsolicited email. Although this is not illegal, personally, I feel this is a waste of your money and your virtual assistant’s time. No one likes to receive unsolicited email. This is spam. Do the right thing… for your business and your reputation and realize email addresses for your prospects in a double opt-in, organic manner.

Audio Testimonials

Google Voice is a free service used to receive audio files which can be copied to a website or blog.

“That’s so 80′s, Janine!” was the retort I received from a long-term client during a discussion about the importance of encouraging employee and customer feedback to improve business processes. I cited one of my favorite business books written in 1982 by Tom Peters entitled, In Search of Excellence to back-up my claim that employee and customer feedback is an enormously useful business tool.

Peters believes that companies could make vast improvements in their products, services and public image simply by ASKING employees and customers for feedback.

Who better to know the inside operations of a business than the employees and customers who work directly with the company’s processes?

Employee and customer feedback and suggestions are one of the most economical resources to make improvements in any business. It costs nearly nothing to ask and often the improvements can be low-cost to implement.

I rarely see any suggestion boxes in company store fronts nor do I see any suggestions on any online business sites.

I am reminded of former NYC mayor, Ed Koch (1978-1989) who would often say to his constituents, “How’m I doin”?  This was his self-check. He encouraged citizens to voice their opinions about the work he was elected to perform. It became his mantra and opened up communication with folks who might not have ever uttered a word about this great city.

So, why aren’t feedback requests used more often?

It is my contention that business owners may be afraid to learn what it is that their customers really think. Or, perhaps they do not want to spend the time dealing with negative comments.

But feedback should be viewed as a positive source of information. Microsoft’s Bill Gates is quoted, “Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning.”

So why don’t businesses ask the unhappy customers and employees what can be done to make improvements?

As a young manager in my 20′s working at a large (blue) health insurance company, we were given copies of Peters’ book and asked to implement the varying steps leading each department ‘toward excellence’. It was my responsibility to eek out the problems in my department and then ask the staff for suggestions.

My assignment staff consisted of 30 union employees who processed employee health insurance enrollment forms.

I asked the staff to list difficulties within the department which affected their productivity. We then brainstormed for ANY idea which could improve upon a particular problem. No suggestion went unnoticed. I could not write down the ideas fast enough! The results were astounding.

One problem in the department was that the telephone would ring endlessly and no one knew if the receptionist was too busy to pick it up. (She was not visible from the department floor and the phone system was not terribly sophisticated. This was the 80′s, you know!)  It was suggested that if the phone rang 3 times, that this would be our clue to pick up the phone. Simple.

Another problem was that the door to the lunchroom, which swung in an out, meant that folks often were hit with the swinging door hurting a hand or an arm. Employees then had to visit the medical department for treatment and in some cases were sent home to heal. This meant down-time in the department and lost productivity. So we brainstormed about making the door swing only one way or even just eliminating the door all together. But in the end, just adding a small window to the door to make it easier to see to the other side became the obvious result.

From this task-solution exercise, productivity increased, customer service response time improved, employees felt empowered and people felt valued.

And, when people feel valued, they work harder.

This concept can be applied to my own virtual assistant business. As a result I placed a Google Voice number on my site that anyone can call and leave an anonymous suggestion. I want to know how I am doing. Am I meeting expectations? What can I do better?

Let me know.

In my last post, Cut That Client Loose…It Happens!, I offered tips for VAs whose clients are non-communicators and slow-payors. Should the VA’s best attempts to communicate with a difficult client result in an impasse, the best (and only!) solution may be to simply release the client from the service contract.

Always plan to save the account instead of giving into frustration.

When a client shows signs of waning, I immediately draw up a plan to salvage the souring account.  All that is needed is time, patience and the wherewithal to recognize that a client entering ‘salvagable territory’ is really just another opportunity to grow your virtual assistance business.

My 5 tips to help any virtual assistant save a worthwhile client account.

1) Have a policy in place FIRST to protect yourself from non-communicators and slow-payors.

Collect a deposit from the client before work begins or expect to deliver only with a pre-paid retainer plan. I have a minimum per week plan and state in my contract that I bill that minimum time regardless if I have worked that week or not.

So if the client ‘falls off the face of the earth’, send a reminder that you have not heard from them and will be billing that minimum amount of time and making a draw from the pre-paid retainer or the deposit. Sometimes that is the jolt they need.

Understand that implementing business policies is not a form of retaliation against a disappearing client. I have found that clients have more respect for me because I have business policies in place. I do not hesitate to enforce those policies if needed.

If your client ‘disappears’ try to find out what the problem may be and offer solutions.

2) Begin by emailing the client with polite inquiries. If you do not receive a response within 48 hours, then email again that you wish to speak to them on the telephone. In some cases, they are receiving your emails but not responding (because they can do that…not respond…without consequence) however, when you make an effort to make the contact more personal, clients will respond. Have that conversation and offer solutions to whatever the problem may be.

3) Send a handwritten postcard showing empathy and set up a time and a date in that postcard to have a conversation. “Dear Client, I wanted to connect with you to see if everything is all right. I had not heard from you for a few weeks and I wanted to discuss what I can do to help you. Please call me on Tuesday afternoon between noon and 2 pm.”

4) There may be a personal problem with the client that you don’t know about – so don’t become aggravated right away. Life happens, people are hospitalized…so give a client the benefit of the doubt. I recently instituted a back-up system. If something should happen to me, I give my clients a number to call for updates. Ask your client for a back-up phone number to call if you have not heard from your client for a few weeks. In some cases, you can help the client while they are indisposed so your services become more valuable. Offer to put the account on hold until such time they can work with you.

5) If a client ceases to pay or begins to become a slow-payor, try to work with them first in a manner which does not affect the operations of your own business. In other words, I once had a client who kept missing weekly payments, so I offered to put her on a bi-monthly payment plan. At the time, this was not an issue but over time as more clients were added to my roster, I was spending more time performing non-billable accounting procedures than were necessary. Eventually that client went on a monthly retainer plan but instead of getting annoyed right away, I tried to work out a payment plan that suited her situation. She appreciated that and thus the account was salvaged.

In summary…create business policies and stick with them. Don’t go with your first instinct to become frustrated or aggravated with a non-communicator or a slow-payor. If emailing, calling and making accomodations for the client becomes more work than you can handle, then consider whether that client is your ideal client. If not, then ‘cut them loose’ and move onto marketing your business to your ideal client, which most likely includes a target that can afford your services and understands that communication is vital to working effectively with a virtual assistant.

Janine Gregor

Have you thought of using videos to promote your business? Just the mere thought of creating a video stops even the most creative best business owners in their tracks.

If you want to move your company name to the top of the Google searches using video can be a viable option. But if you think that creating a video will take too much time or will not give you the SEO you are looking for, well I have an easy, fun and quick solution.

Every Monday afternoon, I log onto a sales call with a terrific sales consultant, group trainer and entrepreneurial junkie, Howard Howell, also known as ‘That Sales Guy’ of Sensible Selling. Howard demonstrated a fairly new and fun technique to promote a business using Google Search Stories video creator.

(You may remember Google Search Stories being advertised during half-time on this year’s Superbowl.)

The requirements: You must have a story you want to tell about your business. Your story needs to be told in less than one minute using the search feature in Google. You will also need to open a YouTube account.

The Google Search Stories program is designed to create the video for you and upload it automatically to YouTube. The program also provides a code which can also be embedded in your site or blog to get more bang for your efforts.

Here’s an example of the one I put together. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9OR1WmUAuUQ

Here is the link to make your own Google Search Story with instructions on how to do so right on this site.

http://www.youtube.com/user/SearchStories

But there is More! Here’s How to Get SEO for Your Company Name!

I can take this useful tool one step further and offer other video tips on getting more SEO for your company name using the YouTube platform.

Once you have completed your Google Search Video and have uploaded it to YouTube, do a search there using your keywords. For example, my keywords are ‘virtual assistant’. I then find other people’s videos whose keywords appear in the search. I then select the top 2 or 3 viewed videos from this search.

Every few days I leave a comment each one of these videos with a good, well-crafted, meaningful observation. What will transpire over time is that when someone types in your keywords into Google, your keywords will appear higher and higher in the searches with your website name and your YouTube profile.

To explain this in greater detail, I found a great blog by Paul Rudo B2B Marketing Specialist of Small Business SEO who has written How to Get SEO Value from NoFollow Tags .

Rudo writes, “Increasingly, it’s getting harder and harder to find sites willing to give you high-quality SEO links. Instead, most web sites today will only give you links that are blocked using a NoFollow tag.”

The author continues, “However, despite the fact that their [YouTube] outbound links are worthless, there are 2 interesting things about YouTube (and other sites) that SEOs should consider:

• Google considers YouTube to be a very high-quality and authoritative site
• Internal links within the site are DOFOLLOW (Google considers these to be of value in the SEO ranking process)”

“In crafting your SEO strategy, your main goal should be to get your company to the front page of Google. And your web site is NOT your company. (Stay with me. This will make sense in a bit.)

So Here’s The Plan

For this concept to work, you’ll need to think a bit outside of the box.

The first thing you’ll want to do is create a YouTube profile name containing your important keywords. If, for example, you sell goods made from extremely rare “unicorn leather”… a good YouTube username would be UnicornLeather.

This will help you rank for that specific keyword.

Now, you should create a few high-quality videos that showcase your company and make a strong call to action. Your new YouTube channel will be the landing page that you hope to get listed highly in the search rankings.

Finally, try to find every single video that is remotely relevant to your subject matter, and make a well-thought-out, insightful comment that contributes to the content of those videos. It’s EXTREMELY important that these comments be of high-quality. Do not spam YouTube or you’ll run into problems.

With every comment you make, YouTube will add an internal DoFollow link… using your keyword (UnicornLeather)… and pointing to your YouTube video channel. Now, when people look for “Unicorn Leather” on Google, they’ll be directed at the most authoritative page on this topic… at the most authoritative site… which is your YouTube channel.

This Won’t Happen Overnight

Another tip would be not to overdo it. Search engines take timing into account when evaluating your links. If you come out of the gate with guns blazing… blasting out 1000 comments in the first week… you’ll be labeled as a spammer and sent to the penalty box.

Instead go slow and steady. No more than maybe 3 or 4 comments a day… and keep doing this steadily for months. Eventually, you should notice your rankings start to improve.

And another interesting side benefit that you’ll notice will be a gradual snowball effect… where all of these comments will start producing more and more referral traffic to your channel and your main web site.

If you do this properly, you can make it so that the top 2 results for your keyword are your web site and your YouTube profile. This strategy can also be applied to other social networking sites until you own every result on the front page for your keyword.”

Read Paul Rudo’s full article here http://www.smbceo.com/2010/05/10/nofollow/

Be sure to read a poster’s comment on the referenced article link above that offers yet another SEO tip.

I offer the tip to use Google Search Stories to get you started but you can also create great videos using PowerPoint and then convert them easily to vide to be uploaded to YouTube. Rudo recommends creating a few high-quality videos.

Creating easy PowerPoint video:

• Open PowerPoint; create your slides with text and images.

• Save the project.

• Download TechSmith’s Camtasia http://www.techsmith.com/camtasia.asp for 30 days. Use this program to create the video using your PowerPoint slides.

• Upload to YouTube and add these videos to your YouTube account.

• Follow the instructions above to creating effective SEO in YouTube.

Janine Gregor

About The Author (quoted in this article): 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.

A colleague emailed me that he was terminated from a social networking site on which he had been a paid member for more than three years.

There was no real explanation given for the termination other than “…[his] style of participation … [and] … contributions to the community are not moving it forward, and have begun to harm its reputation. “Consequently, we have terminated your membership…”

His profile consisted of hundreds of network connections, forum posts, compliments, and event postings.

I personally could find no reason why this occurred as I found him to be a reputable sales person whose postings were continuously professional. But it does not matter why he was bumped from the site nor does my opinion matter. The site does have the documented right to do whatever they want with posted information.

This blog is a reminder to keep copies of all the contacts you make on any of the social networking sites including the content because once someone is terminated, everything is removed from the site. I suggest keeping a spreadsheet with contact information and copies of your posts.

This brings up an interesting point about who owns the digital intellectual content on any one of the social sites. Of course the fine print (that very few really read) on numerous social networking sites states that once an account, paid or free is terminated every contact and post is removed. So the rules to ‘play’ are apparent but I wonder if this is just.

I see two sides to this argument. When an employee leaves a company most are allowed to take their personal items with them. Although many companies do not allow employees to take client contacts with them if they are terminated even though that employee might have nurtured those contacts. But typically the latter rule is in place to protect the company as usually both the employee and the company are in the same business; governed by a disclosure statement.

In the case of a social networking site, which is merely a platform to post digital material and not a direct business competitor to the user, I question why the information is inaccessible for use by the terminated user.

What do you think?

Janine Gregor

Lately, I have had to practice a bit more open-mindedness when using email to communicate with non-email users. These are folks who are experts in their own industries but do not use email as a major means to communicate.

In my virtual assistant-world nearly all of my communication is through email but ‘on the outside’ I know there are many who are not familiar with email protocols. And that is OK.

After receiving several ‘iffy’ emails of late, I needed to rethink my reaction to non-user correspondence and view these messages from a special perspective. In other words, I did not let a ‘knee jerk’ reaction prevail when email etiquette was not applied.

Language is a learned skill. We speak what we have been taught to articulate. Vocabulary improves and increases as we age. Understanding and using proper email etiquette is no different than learning a language. Email users learn what is correct to communicate through practice and experience. Crafting a good email, which gets a point across in a manner that is pleasant, respectful and clear is a learned skill.

Lessons Learned

1) Appreciate first that people are experts in what they do for a living. Everyone has a specialty. A business owner may not use email as their main means of communication and without practice, they might not understand email protocols.

If you receive an email from a business owner who sends the message in ALL CAPS, I say, ‘let it go’. I tend to believe that the individual most likely does not know that ALL CAPS means ‘shouting’ and should not be used in an electronic message.

I received a notice from my Home Owner’s Association the other day written in ALL CAPS. The information was a directive so I only envisioned while reading the document that the sender was standing at a podium with a megaphone screaming this message to the entire neighborhood.

I am sure that was not the message this person wanted to send but it came across that way. Unfortunately, I do not remember what the message was about but I do remember the use of CAPS. Not only is this format difficult to read and interpret but the message can be lost through the use of CAPS.

Most know that CAPS is shouting but never assume that everyone understands this very basic rule.

2) People who do not use email might not understand that body language, facial expressions, fluctuations in voice and in tone can not be sent through an email.

For example, I emailed someone in academia who is best at being a teacher. I asked her about a date for a project and expressed my concern about this date. Her reply was, “I am not concerned about that date!” When I first read the reply, I read this as a negative message. However, after careful thought, I gave the teacher the benefit-of-the-doubt. I believe she was being matter-of-fact which often is the type of message better expressed verbally than through email correspondence…

Some messages should not be sent through email and it is best to pick up the phone and have a good, old-fashioned conversation.

Unfortunately her response left doubt in my mind which is what any good communicator does not want to do.

When objecting to a point through email it is best to qualify the message, first, with a positive thought. She might have said, “I appreciate your concern for this due date being so late but such-and-such date might be a better choice to finish the project.”

3) Using the standard true type fonts such as Times New Roman and Verdana are standard for a reason. Not only are these fonts simple to read and easily interpreted by most word processing programs but they are less distracting than fonts such as Comic Sans or Scrap Kids.

I received a business email in the form of a quote from a pool dealer written in Scrap Kids. The font was changed to red which also meant that I had to strain my eyes as the color was an enormous distraction. Red means ‘alert’ or ‘hot’ but the contents of the message did not match the urgent nature of the font color.

I suspect that this business man thought that by adding color and design to his emails, I would be impressed with his creativity.

That was not the case at all and I ended up contracting with another dealer because even though his quote was competitive, I felt his presentation was unprofessional.

My Own Lesson Learned

Even with my many years of email experience, I am still learning to fine-tune my own electronic correspondences. I found that I needed to be more aware of who I was emailing before I hit send.

Several months ago, I was corresponding with an expert blogger. This individual reads many, many blogs per day and writes as many blog posts. Blogging is his livelihood. I was sending him details in an email I carefully crafted because I wanted him to know everything contained in one document. I did not want to repeat myself later.

After I sent off my detailed explanation, he replied with a nice ‘thank you’. Well, the time came for me to work with him and he sent me several emails asking questions about the information I so carefully composed in my original text.

He did not retain any of the detailed instructions I sent to him.

I realized later that this person reads emails by scanning them for keywords. He reads quickly. As a blog expert, he leaves himself no time to absorb detailed information. What I should have done was to bullet some of the major details in a scanable format. I know now to think about by whom my email will be received and adjust my message to be better served with a different reading format.

As a virtual assistant, I have to be ready to receive and send communication in ways that I least expect. I made myself more aware that non-email users do not always know the rules of email etiquette and have made behavioral adjustments accordingly.

I am often asked for my opinion about how to do something. It is the nature of the virtual assistant business. Having worked on a variety of projects, people believe I can either answer a question or at least give them the tools to find the answer themselves. I’m OK with that. I like to help.

I opened up my email Inbox today and found seven emails from people looking for an answer about how to do something. It took about an hour to get through all the responses and I was pleased to have answers to everything asked.

Of the seven, two responded with a ‘Thank You’.

Was I looking for a ‘Thank You’? Well, yes. It would have been nice. It would have been a validation of my efforts. Given the low response to the favor, a ‘Thank You’ from anyone actually would have helped that person to stand out from the crowd. This small gesture might have helped them receive future favors from me on a priority-status. That’s not to say I will dismiss their future requests but I might put the favor on a ‘low flame’ given the limited hours in my workday.

So why did only two people take the time to type two simple words and hit the ‘send’ button?

5 Reasons Why People Do Not Send a Thank You

1) They simply do not have good manners.
2) They take my good will for granted. They got what they wanted and as far as they are concerned, the query has ended.
3) They can not find the time to thank me.
4) They do not realize the value in a Thank You.
5) They forgot or they do not care, or both.

5 Reasons Why People Should Say Thank You

1) A Thank You shows appreciation for the time I took to handle their question. Very simple and very obvious.
2) They have good manners and their mother taught them well. A Thank You is automatic; without a second thought as it should be.
3) A Thank You is remembered by people who, in turn, are more likely to help them out in the future.
4) Finalizing an email with a note of thanks is indeed the proper way to actually end an email. It is a way to leave an appropriate ending to a piece of correspondence. A favor which is not ‘settled’ with a Thank You is the same as telling a story and not having a final solution or an ending to the tale.
5) The absence of a Thank You can mean that the efforts were not appreciated. You may have appreciated the favor but no one will ever know.

However, the bonus reason why people should should say ‘Thank You’ (drum roll, please!) is that performing this simple gesture is nearly FREE to accomplish which could reap benefits that might become profitable in the future.

The next time I open my Inbox and find several inquiries, I will respond to them but tucked in the back of my head will be the names of those who took a moment to appreciate my time. I might not spend an inordinate amount of time answering their questions because my time is valuable. I might steer them in the direction where they can find their own answers or I might wait to respond and do so only when my work hours are light.

Those who thanked me though, may get a faster response.

It’s human nature.