Virtual Moxie - The Cure For The Common Virtual Assistance Practice

Raise standards to help with juggling

I came home from vacation to find ten pieces of email from Virtual Assistants who, really wanting to up their standards, found they just couldn't get the juggling piece nailed. Just how do you manage multiple clients, to-do items, and deadlines?

There are, actually, many different ways. The key is to find the one that works for you. And that may take a lot of time, and effort, experimenting with different systems and ideas (folders vs. binders, for instance)—but the end-result is absolutely worth it.

The key ingredient, though, to keep in your head is that the ultimate end-game for most Virtual Assistants is this: Fewer clients, using more hours, for higher fees. When you have that in place, you'll make the income you want/need, while having fewer clients, which means fewer people (and their expectations) to manage (the piece I think is hardest for people in the juggling equation), and less to juggle.

If you're not there, getting there is what you want to work toward. Today's Bit O’Moxie gives some ways to do that:

1. Stop working with pay-as-you-go clients. Work on retainer only.
2. Raise the number of hours in your retainer to 10+ per month. If you want to change what's happening in your practice more quickly, do 20+ per month.
3. Raise your fees. Raise them significantly with new clients. Raise them appropriately with existing ones. Be willing to let go any clients who won't fit your new model.
4. Schedule everything. You cannot manage things that don't correspond to a date on the calendar and a time on the clock. "I'll have that for you in a few days" does nothing to help you organize, plan, or juggle priorities. It also doesn't allow you to manage client expectations.
5. Learn to be fully present in everything you do. Contrary to popular belief, multi-tasking isn't a good thing, and decreases your productivity and quality of work. To be fully present, learn to be mindful. If you want help learning to do that, I heartily recommend this book: Staying Focused in the Age of Distraction.
6. A good course for managing multiple projects and deadlines is offered by Fred Pryor seminars. You can get info about it and see if it's coming to your area, here. I've taken it, and it was very much worth the time and money I spent.

Ahhhh...sweet vacation!

So, yeah... I'm on sabbatical for three months. But that's not all fun and games, you know. :)

Vacation, on the other hand, is. And that's where I am today, and will remain until 10/30 at 9am.

As you know (and if you don't, read about it here), I feel oh-so strongly about a person having standards that allow her to go away from her business without doing extra work before going, or worrying about stuff while she's away. And in that light, I'm not really writing Moxie this week or next.

What you can do, if you want a bit of fun, and will miss your doses of Moxie this week and next, is read some of the best posts from the past nearly two years. You can find all of them here.

For some pointed reading, consider:

Practice Management:

• Silence is golden
• Necessary information
• Action, not ideas
• Choose the third option
• Virtual Assistance wasn't designed to be inexpensive!

Client Management:

• When is a partnership not a partnership?
• Hold my seat, please!
• No groups!
• Don't tell me what to be happy about!
• Life's too short

Personal Management:

• The right attitude
• Don't be a moxie moron
• Only the present is perfect
• What's the gift?
• No one knows "perfect"
• Yes, Virginia (and Laura, and Sue!), you really DO need a web presence

Enjoy! See you on the 31st! :)

Need a kick in your passion?

Oh, my... breaking my once-a-week formation here feels oh-so naughty ;>

My pal, Curt Rosengren, is doing a free teleclass about passion in work next Tuesday, and I just wanted to be sure you all knew about it.

Feel free to pop over to Virtualosophy and read more about it!

See you again on Tuesday :)

Get what you want and deserve

I had lunch with an old pal on Sunday. We hadn't seen each other in quite some time, so it was good to be getting together.

I ordered the Chicken Peppercorn Salad, but I wanted it with blue cheese dressing rather than the usual parmesan peppercorn. One of the things I love most about this salad is that it's tossed in the kitchen, so it all yummy when it gets to me and I don't have to deal with the dressing on the side. I was really looking forward to enjoying it!

When our server returned to the table a few minutes after our ordering, our conversation went a little something like this:

She: With your salad, the dressing's going to be on the side. Is that ok?
Me: No, it's really not. Why can't they toss it in the kitchen?
She: Because the bowl they use for tossing salads has the peppercorn dressing all over it from tossing the salads as they are usually made.
Me: It's a professional kitchen. Please go back and ask them to find a different bowl in which to toss my salad.

She toddled off, and returned to say that the restaurant manager was going to take care of it. The restaurant manager had to get involved? Wow…sad kitchen, that.

In the meantime, G grinned at me and said, "You've become something of a diva since the last time I saw you!"

I looked at him askance and said, "No—I just believe that if I'm paying for something, it should be as I prefer it."

It's true. I do believe that, as long as what I'm asking for isn't unreasonable. If I had asked for her to provide me with a salad dressing they don't offer, that would be an unreasonable expectation, and my having a tantrum over not getting it would be just… well…ick. But to ask, and expect to get, something that should be easily handled? That's about seeing yourself as important as everyone else in the world, and having the moxie to get what you want.

I've known many Virtual Assistants who are categorically unable to make very clear and strong requests—whether for themselves, or on behalf of their clients. And, to me, it's a skill that needs to be practiced and nailed.

Bit O’Moxie: Sure, sure, most of us have been taught to not rock the boat or make waves. But the next time you are inclined to sacrifice what you want or need just so that the boat isn't rocked, ask yourself what the benefit of that is to you. I'll bet you a Moxie magnet that you can't come up with a truly valid benefit (and if you think you have one, just email me. If you're right, I'll send you a magnet!)

So, if you know, for instance, that you would have said ok to the dressing on the side when what you really wanted was for it to be tossed for you, you're the perfect person to practice and build this skill.

Here are a couple of ways you can do that. Just pick one and try it out and see what happens. The more you practice, the easier it will get to ask for what you want.

1. Ask for something you've always wanted, but have never asked for because it's "different." Examples:

• Most restaurants automatically serve lemon with water now. If you don't want lemon, order water without it.


• Dawn and I like water with lime, and always request it.


• Whenever I drink Diet Coke in a restaurant, I ask for "a lot of lime."


• If you don't want a child-proof cap on your medications, as the pharmacy to give you a different type.


• If you take clothes to the cleaners and want them done earlier than the time they suggest, tell them when you need the clothes returned.

2. Whenever presented with something (usually this will be something you're getting from a service provider) that isn't what you ordered, isn't the way you asked for it, or simply isn't to your liking, say so, and ask again for what you want. Examples:

• If my server had simply brought me the salad with the dressing on the side (pretend we didn't have the conversation we'd had), I'd have asked her to take it back to be tossed.


• When Dawn and I ask for lime with our water, and the server brings lemon, we ask again for what we want.


• When a server brings me lime, but not a LOT of lime, I ask for more.


• When flying, if you really want a window seat but were assigned an aisle seat when you made your reservation, ask for that to be changed when you arrive at the gate.


• At a hotel, if you check-in and find the room isn't as you expected, for whatever reason (you asked for a king and were given two double beds, or the room smells funny, or was supposed to be non-smoking but you can tell it's been smoked in), request another.

Is any of this too much? Some might think so. I think it's exactly right.

Take this example: I have a friend who HATES lemon, but loves iced tea. When he orders, he always stresses the request for tea without lemon. If the server brings it, he points out her error to her and asks her to bring him a whole new glass of tea.

Some would say, "Geez, don't be a baby…just remove the lemon yourself and set it to the side!"

If he were being a baby, I'd agree he shouldn't do it. BUT…

My friend would say, "I so hate the taste of lemon that I don't want even a lingering bit of it on the rim of my glass, or in the tea itself (in the case where the server actually drops the lemon into the glass)."

Given that, is it unreasonable for him to request a new glass? Nope!

And the bottom line is this: You deserve to have what you want, within reason. Ask for it, and expect to get it. When you have asked, and you don't get what you asked for, ask again until you do. If you can't get what you want from one company, consider moving on to another.

So, what does all this have to do, really, with your VA practice and your standards? It's simple: The better you are at requesting and getting what you want/need for yourself, the better you'll be at doing that for your clients. They need that from you.

Go back to my original story about the salad I ordered, but this time, think of the job of the server—she is there to care for me and my interests. That's also what my VA should be doing. If I've asked her to get something for me, and she puts in a request that she's told cannot happen, I don't want her coming back to me with a sob story about why they can't give me what I want. I want her to use her head, realize there's really no reason why my request can't be handled, and have enough backbone to try to get it to happen (assuming the request is reasonable). And if it genuinely can't be done by the people she originally asked, I'd want her to come back to me with other options that give me what I want (a different vendor, perhaps).

The best way to do that for a client is to first learn to do it for yourself.

Be a Legend

Oprah did a special event last year that she called the Legend's Ball, to honor a group of African American women who had paved the way for others. Among the "Legends" were Maya Angelou, Coretta Scott King, Rosa Parks, Alice Walker, Lena Horne, and Toni Morrison. Among the "young 'un's"—the younger women who were paying tribute to the Legends—were Phylicia Rashad, Angela Bassett, Judith Jamison, Anna Deavere Smith, and Iman.

Author Pearl Cleage had written a poem for the event, called "We Speak Your Names." That poem has been released in book form…I suggest everyone reading this go to Amazon now and buy it (you can do that easily by clicking on the book cover over there in the side bar to the right).

In part, it reads as follows (about the Legends):

"You change the world around you with such fierce determination,
effortless style, and unshakable grace
that we never suspected how hard it was to be out
there in the real world,
where sisterhood sometimes seems an abstract idea
and not the living, breathing thing we know and
need and want it to be.

We have sometimes shivered at the edges of a very
cold place,
where people do not always see our beauty
or understand the rhythm of our song.
At those moments, we whisper your names as a
talisman and a touchstone,
so we will not forget who and what and why we
are here."

Bit O’Moxie: If you've been a VA for some time, it's your example others look to when they are "coming up." The higher your integrity, the better run your business, the stronger (and higher!) your standards, the more fabulous your success, all says something to the "young 'un's" about what they can possibly accomplish in their own lives and work.

It's not enough to sit in your own little corner of the world, doing your own thing (although in your own little corner of the world, do what you do better than anyone!). You've already been a trailblazer. Now, have the moxie to be a Legend.