Virtual Moxie - The Cure For The Common Virtual Assistance Practice

Dealing with trust and safety in virtual relationships

Trust, and feeling safe is HUGE in working virtually—we all know it.

The challenge? How long it takes different people to develop trust and the feeling of safety with others, and what the words “trust” and “trustworthy” and "safe" mean to different people.

That’s why I always encourage the AssistU Virtual Assistants and those non-AU VAs I coach to not only get to know themselves very well, but to also become more relationally mature, so that they can build conscious relationships with clients, and even go more consciously in to those relationships to begin with. One way that they do that is by engaging in a very specific interview/consultation process which, as one part, has them discussing all sorts of extraordinarily relational things meant to discover and uncover places where they match, and places where there are disconnects that need discussing. The goal is to do more work on the front end of things, to prevent running into horrid problems, conflicts, and betrayals of trust once the relationship begins.

And even when they go through this process, sometimes they do run into those exact things—although rarely. Rarely is good. It’s very good. Relationships should be, for the most part, incredibly easy and effortless. People in relationships need to fit together well. And when they do, the ease makes it far less difficult to deal with unpleasant relationship stuff when it comes up. And it does come up.

Bit O’Moxie: What matters most is not that conflict, problems--even betrayal never happen, but how you and your client deal with them when they do. Working through the situations can (and often will), in fact, make a relationship far stronger, and deepen the trust the two of you share. In truth, it's far easier to bail on a relationship than work things out, but it's easier to work things out when you've chosen the client well to begin with.

SOBCon--lessons I learned

I attended SOBCon a few weeks ago. And I've only just now really finished processing all the goodies I got while there. Some of them were pretty moxified, so I thought I'd share a bunch of them with you.

1. On arrival at O'Hare, I went to the Hyatt Regency nearby to have lunch with fabu gal pal and VA, Ali Rittenhouse (@alirittenhouse) who was there spending the day at the Kennedy-Glazer Superconference. An impressive set-up, that was, with a veritable who's who in attendance. From just the bit I observed, and then the experience I had at SOBCon, I told Ali that she needed to go to events like the Superconference to connect with high profile potential clients, but then go to SOBCon to nurture her inner geek (and her soul).

I'd say the same thing to all of you. You need to hang out and know the people with the money to easily afford your fee and who absolutely get the value you create in their lives, and you need a tribe to help you grow and become ever more you. In some cases, those two groups may be the same, but in general, I’m doubting it.

After lunch, I headed downtown where my SOBCon experience began. The rest of today’s yummymoxie comes from there.

2. Lucretia Pruitt (@geekmommy) said of Social Media: “The power of connecting with SM is that it’s WOM (Word of Mouth) with a record.”

Bit O’Moxie: What she means is that what you do in the SM space never goes away. It becomes a permanent part of the web. In that context, it’s better than F2F conversations. Consider that (and all its implications) as you use SM in your business, or help your clients get more into the SM space.
Resource: www.geekmommy.net

3. David Bullock (@davidbullock) said of Social Media: “Have an identity first. Otherwise, nothing will happen. Always bring them home to your content.”

David went on to say that it’s one thing to have stuff all over the place (article banks, guest posts, etc), but that you should always have your own asset (like your blog), and drive traffic there.

Bit O’Moxie: If you're using SM, or helping your clients, figure out who you are, first, and what you want to accomplish. Drive people to your content, rather than trying to get them to see you everywhere, or building someone else's asset with your material.
Resource: www.davidbullock.com

4. Kali Evans-Raoul (@theimagestudios) on your presence had these two amazing things to say:
* “Unless you are a spy, there’s no reason to walk in to a room and go unnoticed.”
* “The Holy Shit factor = What if you look like, talk like, and behave like who you say you are online.”

Bit O’Moxie: Kali was talking about your in-person presence, but I think it’s absolutely carries over into our virtual work. Authenticity rocks!
Resource: www.theimagestudios.com

5. Katie Paine (@kdpaine) said about measuring:
* “Research without insight is just trivia.” (Knowing what’s going on doesn’t matter if you don’t know why what’s going on matters)
* “The old way was to measure your messages out to the customer. The new way is all about listening to the conversations your customers are having, and seeing what they’re doing with your messages.”

Bit O’Moxie: You can’t manage what you can’t measure. We should all be measuring more. Nothing is about one-way communication, anymore. It’s about listening to your customers. All that research and measurement are about is listening better to the people we should be listening to in the first place.
Resource: Katie's presentation on Slideshare

6. Chris Brogan (@chrisbrogan) and Julien Smith (@julien) said these things about becoming Trust Agents:
* “Outsiders do not influence insiders.”
* “Reputation comes from empowering others.”
* “Be helpful. Be humble. Share.”
* “If you have two groups of people… those who need help, and those who can give significant help, there will always be more people who need help.“
* “Make your own game. Stop playing by the rules of other people.”

Bit O’Moxie: Authenticity rocks. Find your tribe. Help others.
Resource: Their book, Trust Agents: Using the Web to Build Influence, Improve Reputation, and Earn Trust, is being released in August, and is available for pre-order on Amazon (run, don’t walk, to get it)
Resource: www.chrisbrogan.com   www.inoveryourhead.net/

7. Brian Clark (@copyblogger) said on positioning:
* “It’s not enough to differentiate yourself, it’s what people say about you that matters.”
* “SEO is getting harder and harder to get right. Start focusing on valuable content now.”
* “Google will love you if people love you first.”
* “Positioning is the most important part of your strategy, especially if you’re trying to get people to pay for your information. There are three ways to do that: Persona positioning (positioning yourself based on the extreme(s) of your personality), crossroads positioning (where you connect the dots for people between seemingly disparate things), and metaphorical positioning (where you come up with a concept that creates instant understanding—like John Jantsch’s Duct Tape Marketing).”

Bit O’Moxie: Be who you are, know who you are, and position yourself in the world accordingly. Have great content of your own that supports your being that person. Share valuable content with others.
Resource: www.copyblogger.com
Resource: Brian is co-author of a really cool free report called “The Outsourcing Conspiracy.” Every VA should read it. No VA should bang on Brian about it. His model is valid. Instead, consider how YOU can fit the model, cause you absolutely can (and some of you already do!).

8. Lucretia also shared this during the conversation about video as the new hot thing: “One media doesn’t kill another. There is always going to be an audience for what you’re doing if you’re doing it really well.”

Bit O’Moxie: You don’t have to do it all, you just have to do well whatever it is that you do.!

9. And about video, everyone agreed that poorly done video isn’t better than no video.

Bit O’Moxie: Don’t do video unless you’re going to commit to really learning to do it well. It’s like anything else—just because you can do it, doesn’t mean you should!

10. David Bullock said this: “Find out what people are talking about and turn it into income.”

An example…David is the author of Barack 2.0, a book he wrote about Obama’s social media campaigns during the election.

During the election, he tracked Obama’s SM campaigns and wrote about them in his blog. But then took the blog posts and turned then into a book, which he then self-published.

He said that the real question is whether any or all of us are going to become the expert, or let all the stories pass by us. Every one of us saw Obama using SM, but none of us DID anything with it. And we could have.

Bit O’Moxie: Pay attention to what’s right in front of your face. It might lead to something big for you!
Resource: www.barack20.com
Resource: Buy the Barack 2.0 book on Amazon

11. Liz Strauss (founder of SOBCon) (@lizstrauss), said these:
* “Be suuuuuper clear about what you want to do.”
* “Know who you want to reach, do research to find out who they are, make sure you can reach them and then listen deeply to what they’re saying. Figure out how to use SM to engage them (maybe Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook). Use a variety of tools to search and figure out who's there.”
* “If you were those people, imagine what would move/be important to you. Consider what would make you irresistable from their points of view--from head, heart, and vision in terms of what would make things easier in their lives." 

Bit O’Moxie: Think specifically about why and how you make things better for the specific people you want to market to. Telling folks how you can generally be helpful isn’t actually helpful.
Resource: www.lizstrauss.com  www.successful-blog.com www.sobevent.com

So there you are…some of the moxified sound bites from SOBCon. I couldn't share them all--there were simply too many! I learned so very much—some of it not even to do with information shared, but with relationships, and the ability to have people of differing opinions and thoughts sharing a single room and every conversation without anyone getting hurt.

A whole lot is still rumbling around inside of me. And I love that. I didn’t have that adrenaline rush I’ve had before, coming home from big, hyped-up conferences. What I had was deep thoughts, and new ways to think about the work I’m already doing. And relationships. New ones, rekindled ones, and improved ones. Yum. :) Can’t wait for SOBCon 10!

Hope this has been helpful. Leave me a comment if you have a question or a thought to share!

Help get hugs and money delivered around the world

I’m interrupting our regularly scheduled Bit O’Moxie to share an event I’m super passionate about. It’s a shameless plug, really…because I’m hoping that in introducing you to it, you’ll become passionate about it, too, and will join me in lending your support.

My friend Gail Goodwin and her husband Darryl leave this September on a verrrrrry small single engined plane to fly 31,000 miles around the world, stopping in 50 cities, and in each place, delivering 2000 hugs to local residents, and money ($20K) to one local charity. This is the Global Hug Tour (http://www.globalhugtour.com).

You have to admit, there’s some pretty awesome moxie wrapped up in this!

The way they’re raising money for the charities is by asking people like you and me to sponsor hugs. Each hug is just $10—something just about every single one of us can afford, even today.

At first, I couldn’t imagine what such a seemingly small amount could do, but then Gail clued me in that, for instance:

* One hug will feed three homeless people in Chicago
* Two hugs will help educate a child in Cambodia
* 100 hugs will pay for heart surgery to save the life of a child in India

It’s really heartwarming to think about all the good that the sponsored hugs can do. And then there’s what the hugs themselves can do---imagine being on the ground in one of these stops and getting hugged…just because. If you’ve seen the “free hug” video, you can see what hugs given to complete strangers can do. If you haven’t seen it, watch it (http://www.freehugscampaign.org/), and then imagine being a part of making something wonderful (and even maybe more wonderful because of the charities that will benefit) like that happen!

In her own words, Gail shares this about why she and Darryl are doing the tour:

"In this time of doom and gloom when it seems the whole world is struggling, we choose to change that focus by inspiring humanity to trust in what is good and what is possible. We believe in a message of hope, change, responsibility, and commitment to others."

I’m amazed by what Gail and Darryl and all the folks now associated with the Global Hug Tour are doing for the world. And in reality? The world needs more of this stuff. I think every one of us needs more of this stuff.

I’ve decided to help in two ways, and I’d love to ask you to join me in either, or both—or something else entirely that would feel like a better contribution. I’m even ok if you give nothing. We’ll still be friends…yanno?

1. I’m wanting to get 100 of my friends and readers to sponsor at least one hug. I’ve given ten…are you in for at least one? If so, please go donate (https://www.inspiremetoday.com/globalhugtour/hug_order) all you can (you can even choose the city your hug will be delivered to/which of the charities you want your money to go to!), then come back here and leave me a comment to tell me what you’ve donated (just so I can keep track and let Gail know!). If you’d prefer to share less publicly, send me a note to stacy at virtualmoxie dot com. I’ll keep your secret. Pinky swear.

Then…would you ask ten of your friends, family members, colleagues, anyone you like, really, that you think would resonate with what’s happening on the tour, to donate a hug? Pretty please? If we did that, from just this little moxie-filled corner of the planet, we’d enable Gail and Darryl to impact the world in a pretty big way.

2. I’m joining forces with fabulous VAs who have some time to donate to the tour, and we’re doing all sorts of amazing things to support what’s happening. Whether you’re a VA, or not, if you’d like to like to join the team and help out, again, please email me. Doesn’t matter if you have two hours to donate, one time—or two hours to donate each week for the next five months. I’m happy to have you on my team, helping to make this fabulous event a smashing success. Even if you just want to talk about it, be in touch.

Something else of note, ‘cause I know this matters to me—the charities being given money absolutely have to have a stellar record of giving the vast majority of every dollar to the people they serve. No charity will be supported where they money mainly goes to administrative needs, or padding the CEO’s pockets. I love the commitment Gail has made to that, and it’s another reason I so passionately support her and the Global Hug Tour.

One last thing...Gail and her pals are trying to raise one million bucks this week alone. If you're feeling moved to donate, I'm happy (as is Gail, I'm sure) to have you do it any time you like, and if you can make it happen this week, that would be super fantastic. Truly.

Questions? Thoughts to share? Please leave a comment so we can start this conversation.

Be in integrity. Have credibility. Know the difference.

I'm often asked what the most requested skills are for a VA to have. The underpinning of that question, when I probe, ends up being about fear. Fear of not getting clients, fear of not being successful as a VA, and fear of having to go back to "work."

As with everything else, my answer revolves around foundation. With a strong foundation, you can build on it and do well. Without a strong foundation, it will never matter what skills you have, because something about your weak foundation (or as I call it, the wobbly floor) will cause you to mess things up.

There are many foundational items to think about in business--whether we're talking about being a Virtual Assistant or anything else. Two with the highest pay off are integrity and credibility.

Integrity is about being whole and right with yourself. It's a code you follow that has meaning for you, is an internally perceived estimation of yourself and is rewarded by self-trust.

Credibility, is the estimation of trustworthiness made about you by others when you are in integrity and it is rewarded by their trust in you.

When integrity is high, usually so is credibility. Integrity on your part will help your clients see you as credible. The more highly credible you are to them, the more likely they are to talk about you at every turn, and recommend you to their peers and colleagues. And there's the ultimate business payoff: I think there’s absolutely no finer thing than to have a practice built 100% on referral. What would you need to do to (or, for those of you whose practices have been built solely on referral, what do you do) to have that happen?

What Bit O’Moxie of your very own do you have to share with me, this week?