Virtual Moxie - The Cure For The Common Virtual Assistance Practice

Turning a client around

I got a terrific letter from a VA in Canada who is deeply niched, has high standards, and who happens to work with many clients in the US. Some of them, she says, absolutely know they need her, yet aren’t thrilled about paying her fee, which, while not at all outrageous at $75/hour, seems to give them some pause.

Her question to me was how to, in a moxie-filled fashion, address that pause in a way that would turn them around.

I have a moxie-filled answer, but not the one you asked for.

Bit O’Moxie: Last week I wrote about resigning as mother of the universe, and on focusing on ease by paddling downstream more than upstream.

Trying to turn a client around about your fee is folly. It’s absolutely paddling upstream. Wanting to turn a client is a cross between mothering, and wanting the client to get your value (or like you, possibly)—but if you do a good job of expressing your value to begin with (as I assume you do given the state of your practice), then to want to do more is pure overkill, in my view.

Listen--clients either absolutely get your value, and immediately say yes to working with you, or they don’t get it, and they hem and haw about something, and very often it will be your fee—‘cause it’s flat out easy to focus on.

It’s not about your fee. Truly. It’s not about you at all. And that’s really why it’s probably wise to simply remove yourself from the conversations and let them go find someone who fits more into their comfort zones—monetary or otherwise.

But let’s pretend for a second that it is about your fee. So what? It's ok to have fees not everyone can afford. After all, you can't afford to work with everyone, either, you know? You have to be choosy about who you work with, and having clients self-select out based on anything that isn’t a fit for them is gooooooood. It simply leaves space in your practice for more fabulous clients who want to work with you and know it’s the right thing for them to do.

So, please, stop worrying about the economy here in the US, or people who walk away, seemingly due to your fee or anything else. Focus on your work. Focus on yourself. Focus on helping and delighting your current clients. The rest—all of it—will take care of itself.

Say "no" to no fit

In a comment about my Believe What You See post, Lisa Humphries wrote (in part):

"I think it's helpful to keep in mind that people can be thoughtless and self-centred and have different values to us, and we aren't going to be able to change them, so it's best leave them behind."

Yes, yes, yes!

Knowing who you are, having high standards, knowing what’s ok with you and not ok—all the “stuff” I write about week after week is what allows you to really get that there are just some people it’s best to leave behind.

And it doesn’t matter, does it, what circumstance in which we find someone with whom we don’t fit—whether that’s a colleague, a new friend, a love interest, or even someone following us on Twitter.

No fit, is no fit. And trying to fight that is tantamount to rowing against a strong tide. You can row and row and row, never get anywhere, and end up incredibly tired and frustrated.

It’s so much better to be willing to just surrender to the fact that there’s no fit.

Covey originated the concept of win/win—situations where everyone wins. He also talked about win/lose, where one person wins, and that win necessitates the other’s loss. And there’s also no deal. What I’m talking about today is no deal. It’s where you really get that there’s no need to even start the “game.” Where you refuse to play because you know there’s no point.

No deal is actually win/win. And that’s because both people get to walk away, whole and complete, without having been made to feel like a change was required, or that either of them was wrong, not good enough, or any other feeling that people often feel in situations where they try too hard to make things work with people they shouldn’t be trying with.

It’s not your job to fix or change everyone (or worse, change yourself to fit what they need). And, in fact, the more you struggle with people who don’t fit (with you or in your practice), the less time you have to do billable work, or spend free time any way you choose. So if you see yourself in this, stop it, will ya? :)

It really is perfectly ok to not fit with people.

Bit O’Moxie:Two quotations for you:

Resign as Mother of the Universe. – Me :)

And…

"Everything we want in life is downstream. Drop the oars. Stop trying to push the river." —Sister Cathy Beckley

All of your life and work doesn’t need to be hard. Take it easy.

Say no to no fit, and in the process, say yes to more of what you deserve!

Is niching no longer smart?

I admit, I’m starting to wonder about niching, and how smart it really is.

For many years, I've been a huge advocate of VAs working with niches they felt passionate about supporting (and to be clear about my language, to me, a niche is working with a specific group or profession, vs. a specialty, which is about focusing on one specific sort of work--being a VA is a specialty, so is bookkeeping, so is social media support, etc.).

From a marketing perspective,niching is smart because it absolutely allows a person to focus time, attention, energy, and learning in one direction—that of a particular client group or profession. With that comes expertise, branding, and often, a steady referral stream of clients. What's really not to love about that, huh?

But from an income perspective, where it used to be a great way to increase earning potential because of the expertise gained in such tight focus on the needs of one particular group, that may no longer be the case.

While I don’t generally focus on the “down economy,” what I am noticing are some interesting shifts. First, of course, we’ve been experiencing for years a shift from security being found in a job, to security being found in self-employment. And now, the shift is even bigger—because although jobs have been disappearing all along, industries/professions had been fairly stable. Now, there are even industries that are disappearing, or on the way.

There was, for example, a time, when no one could have ever imagined the newspaper industry suffering. But today? Newspapers are going out of business left and right, and new media—social media, and increasingly available hand-held and mobile technologies are turning the average person into a citizen journalist who not only gets, but gives information to and from others far more quickly and easily than he could if he were reading a newspaper.

The same sort of thing with the traditional publishing industry, the magzine industry, the record industry…it’s really happening all over the place, and for millions of people, it's truly scary.

Those who had skills that were specific to only one group or one profession or one industry—they’re the ones who will likely have a hard time of it if that group/profession/industry tanks.

You can't bet on your job, and you really can't bet on your industry anymore, either.

And that leads me to wonder if niching makes the kind of radical sense it used to make, or if being a generalist—with skills that will work for many different types of clients, regardless of industry/profession/group, makes more sense.

If all of your skills focus in one direction, what would you do if that particular well dried up? How would you quickly move to something else--especially if your skills didn't support your doing that?

No moxie here today, per se…but the questions: What do you think about this? Is niching no longer smart?

Believe what you see

I recently went to see the movie, “He’s Just Not That Into You.” Loved it. L-O-V-E-D it. Had a huge AHA! Moment at the beginning of the film and that's what formed the basis for this post.

By way of explaining the AHA!, and in case you’ve not seen the movie, it starts out with a little girl on a playground, and a little boy picking on her. He pushes her, calls her names… and ultimately, she runs crying to her mother who wipes away her tears, gets up close to the little girl’s face, and gently says, “You know why that little boy picks on you, don’t you?” The little girl sniffles and shakes her head. Her mom continues, “It’s because he secretly LIKES you!”

And as you see confusion and disbelief running all over the little girl’s face, you hear the narrator say, “From childhood girls are told that boys who treat them like crap secretly LIKE them. No wonder women are fundamentally screwed up.”

And there is was…my AHA!

We (or at least I, and my girlfriends, and even some of my favorite guys) have been screwed up by having been taught that being treated badly by a member of the opposite sex (or whatever sex we’re attracted to) is secret code for “Hey, I really like you!”

Not for nothin', but I think every young person should be shown this movie when he or she gets interested in romantic pursuits—because it clearly shows that what we’re told to somehow make us feel better about having been mistreated, is a lie. Think how much heartache a young person might actually not have to experience by being taught THAT lesson!

And think how many of us, if we'd seen this movie at a young age, may never have then grown up to not only be trampled on by our love interests, but also by bosses or clients!

In my work with Virtual Assistants, part of what we do is look at their clients—past, current, and future. It’s helpful to look at who they’ve worked with before and now to get clear on who you want--or don't want--to work with in the future.

And often, after listening to a VA’s heartfelt annoyance with some client or another, I’ll ask, “Why did you choose to work with this person?”

Usually, I’ll hear several things, not the least of which is some version of, “I noticed that he was/wasn’t very ________ , but I thought things would be different with me.”

”…but I thought things would be different with me.”

There are many variations on this theme, but inherently, it’s the business version of where we’ve learned to go in our heads as a result of learning the, “…it’s because he secretly likes you” lesson.

We don’t want to believe that people are rude, obnoxious, or inappropriate. We’ve learned to look beyond the bad behavior, behind the insensitivity, behind the mean-spiritedness, behind the flat-out inappropriateness that, if we’re honest, throws us for a loop (and should!), to somehow get to the, “Oh but…” place.

“Oh, but I bet he’s a different person when he’s not stressed.” “Oh, but I bet she really didn’t mean that the way I heard it.” “Oh but, he probably would be different once I put some systems in place to cure his overwhelm.” You’ve probably heard hundreds of these lines from your VA and small business owner pals, if you’ve not used them yourself.

And in reality, people…whether little boys picking on little girls, or PCs being obnoxious in an interview/consultation, are who they are…from the get go. And we need to get to be ok with that, and even more ok making quick decisions that we don’t need them in our lives or work.

Bit O’Moxie: Absolutely believe a person when s/he shows her/himself to you for the first time, and be rapidly guided accordingly. No excuses. No “Oh, buts.” One plus one always equals two, you know? It’s folly to think that someone capable of behaving that way to you shortly after meeting will behave any differently if given a place in your practice. So just walk away, and don’t look back. I'm betting--no, I promise--you won’t miss the person, ever.