Virtual Moxie - The Cure For The Common Virtual Assistance Practice

The "juice" is in the relationships

Rebecca wrote the other day to see if I had any idea why so many of her relationships were ending soon after they’d begun. After some back and forth in email, it became clear that Rebecca very much wanted to do the work, but wasn’t so invested in the relationships with clients—she very much just wanted then to give her work, and then leave her alone to do it.

In my view, the “juice” is in the relationship. That’s where every bit of real goodness occurs. And that’s true regardless of whether we’re talking about the relationship between a man and wife, or brother and sister, or two friends, or colleagues, or doctor and patient, or plumber and home owner, or VA and client.

The work is important. I will never say that it’s not. But the work itself is only rocket science if it’s pretty much rocket science, you know? Otherwise, it’s stuff that can done by countless people.

So where you’ll have the biggest opportunity to stand out and make a difference as the sole business expense your clients can’t live without is in the relationships you have with your clients, and the investments you make in those.

There simply is no other you, and there will be no other relationship like yours for each of your clients. And in the relationships, you will either make it or break it for the clients who are really understanding of the reality that what they’re getting isn’t a commodity from you (the others will never get it, no matter what you do).

Bit O’Moxie: Do the work. Do the work fabulously. But focus more on the development and longevity of the relationships you form. Say “yes” to the relationships, even when you can’t do the work. Be as, if not more, committed to the well-being of the relationship than you are to doing the work. Otherwise, you'll have well-done work, but lousy relationships that won’t last, and you’ll begin to question whether you’re in the right business. And that’s not the question you ever want to have to ask yourself.

Are there more outlaws out here than in the corporate world?

Jennifer just wrote to me about something interesting she’s facing. It was so interesting that I decided to stop writing what I’d planned for Moxie this week and address Jennifer’s question, instead.

Jennifer is a corporate EA who is working as a new VA as well. She’s helped some of her managers with side work from time to time, and was recently introduced to a man who was juggling several businesses and seriously needed her help. But when she met him, there were all kinds of red flags she saw—mostly around his lack of ethical behavior in his businesses. She decided not to work with him, but is now a little bit gun shy—wondering whether he’s just the anomaly, or if he’s the norm in the solopreneur world.

Jennifer—first, I want to congratulate you for listening to your gut and not working with that client. Don’t stop letting your gut give you precious information as it will keep you safe a great deal of the time.

I think you raise a really great question—that of whether there are more outlaws out here in the solopreneur world than there are in the more tightly-regulated corporate world. In truth, I don’t have a stat to share on that, and I doubt if you’ll ever find one. But we know, even from solely looking at recent events in the financial sector, that regulations don’t stop people from behaving in shady or despicable ways.

And I’m certain that other VAs—even VAs who have trained with me at AssistU—have stumbled across potential clients very much like the guy you talked with.

What’s most important is knowing who you are, what your business standards are, and then living them. The more that you do that, the less of these people you’ll run into, and the faster you’ll be able to move away from them when you do.

This remains, by the way, a huge lesson for VAs everywhere, and at all experience levels.

Maya Angelou said, “Believe a person when he shows himself to you, the first time.” You did just that, Jennifer, and trust me—you absolutely saved yourself a lot of heartache as a result.

Interviewing, and starting the right relationships the right way is so important. Moving slowly, interviewing/consulting in such a way that it takes time (I recommend at least three very different conversations) before a decision is made about working together, being committed to listening deeply, asking questions to uncover meaning when hearing things you don’t really understand, and paying attention to the other person and to the relationship you want to build will make it more likely for you to choose better clients, form better relationships, and have fewer conflicts along the way.

But it all starts with standards.

Bit O’Moxie: Stand for something, or fall for anything. It sounds like you’re well on your way to knowing just what you stand for, and as a brand new VA, that’s a terrific place to be. Don’t be afraid of what you’ve found out here. Just be resolved to walking away from those people, and to only working with people whose ethics and business values resonate with your own. Those people are more fun, anyway. ;)

FoVA debrief

Two weeks ago, as I prepared to leave for Canada to attend FoVA, I wrote the “buff” post. Here’s part of what I shared:

And the reason that I’m writing about this here on VMoxie? It’s because I see so much derision in our profession toward those who do things differently, or who are the VA equivalent of the kids with pants hanging off their asses, or those with green hair. And I wanted to say that I think there’s value in seeing the buffness of others, even if we don’t all share the same view of what’s buff.

In this way, for instance, I can still embrace every single thing I’ve developed, lived, and taught for the past 12+ years, and you can do your thing, and that person over there can do her thing, and so on…and we can still agree that we all contribute to a wonderfully diverse and rich landscape that didn’t even exist just a short time ago, and will probably look very little like it does today in another decade.

Maybe if we start noticing the buffness of everyone around us, we’ll find out that we actually don’t disagree on as much as we may have thought. And in learning that, we might actually reach consensus on some of the issues we go round and round about.

So off Dawn and I went, and although a small group, it was a very powerful and committed group of VAs of all ages, and experiences. Industry leaders were there, learning, growing, and playing with people, some of whom haven’t even really yet figured out how, or if they fit into any VA model. And no one was catty. No one was superior. Everyone shared. And everyone honored and respected the opinions put forth by everyone else.

I came home with new professional contacts, some new friends, updated and upgraded friendships with people I’ve known for some time, and an absolutely renewed faith that we are not as different, or as far apart on important topics, as I once thought we seemed to be.

There is absolutely plenty of room for every training, every certification, every organization, and every tradition. We are all, in our own ways, those kids with the green hair and our pants hanging off our asses. We’re all rebels. We’re all making our way. We’re all radically buff.

Bit O’Moxie: I think it does us well to recognize that in each other in a “hey…you’re one of my peeps” sorta way so that we can work together, and celebrate and promote one another, rather than pushing against one another.

In this year that, for me, is all about ease, I am delighted to have learned this particular lesson. I am beyond grateful to every single VA at FoVA for his or her personal contribution to my fabulous and never-ending education.

Tell the truth about who pays for your benefits

I’m home from FoVA, but not really ready to write about the experience (all good, though—I promise!). Next week, I’ll be much more ready. :)

Today, I’m all about dispelling a myth that is widely put forth in our world. It’s often expressed like this:

An employee will cost you 2-2.5x her hourly rate of pay because you pay for things like benefits, sick/vacation/personal time off, health insurance. You don’t pay a VA’s benefits so it’s less expensive to work with a VA!

I tried to dispel that myth in another post, but I think my specific message about this got overrun by what I was saying about something else. And I’m now seeing the myth so often that I thought I’d take yet another end run around it and see if I can make it clearer.

If your fees are set appropriately (read this post about how to set your VA fees), then part of what’s covered are your indirect expenses, which include the benefits you have to provide for yourself. As a result, every client absolutely DOES pay a portion of those expenses for you. He doesn’t pay the full amount of benefits you get, as he would likely if he were your employer, but he does pay. So it’s inaccurate (a lie, actually) to try to spin it to look as if he doesn’t.

So stop it, will ya? ;)

Virtual Assistance was never designed to be the low-cost alternative to hiring employees. And this conversation doesn't even take into considering ROI as it pertains to costs.

Bit O’Moxie: So, it’s far better to tell clients the truth about what your fee includes (if asked!), than to spin it so that he has an unrealistic view of it.

In reality, a VA’s hourly rate is significantly higher than an employee’s (even including benefits and such). Where the cost effectiveness factor comes in for clients is in paying only for the amount of time he needs, and it’s 100% productive time.

A guarantee of 40 hours/week at $29.70 ($22/hour plus 35% for benes) is $1188, which is significantly more expensive than 15 hours/month at $55—where every second is productive.

Seeing the buffness in one another

I’d originally written this as a comment to a Twitter pal’s blog post, but I started to think about the story, and wanted to share it with you.

When I was training to become a coach, I had to take a teleclass I didn't want to take. It was called the "Buff It Up Program" and it was all about being buff and living a buff life. It was the brain child of the now late Thomas Leonard, and my problems with it (the reasons I didn't want to be there) were two-fold. First, the class didn't at all reflect my view of what buff was at that time in my life. It was all about what Thomas believed, and it seemed there was no room for interpretation. And in my life, then, getting massages every week, drinking only filtered/purified water, sleeping only on Egyptian cotton sheets—none of that was realistically “buff” for me. Second, I’d worked with Thomas shortly before taking the class, and I could actually hear him in my head in a way I wasn’t digging. So, taking this class, which was a requirement for graduation, wasn’t happy making for me.

But I dialed in, chip on my shoulder, and there were my fellow students and a teleclass leader (a more senior coach, too) I didn't know. And as I dialed in, the folks on the call and this leader were just doing that gabby thing people do before a teleclass starts, and so I settled in, waiting for the class to really begin.

That's when I heard the leader. She was slurring her words like a drunk. And my first thought was, "WTF?"

I couldn't imagine that Coach U would let a drunk lead a teleclass, and I ranted and fumed most mightily on my side of the phone line, trying to decide what to do.

And then she introduced herself—slurring all the way. “Hi… in case some of you don’t know me, and are wondering why I sound this way, I have MS, and sometimes I don’t have good voice days. This is one of ‘em."

I burst into tears. I was SO ashamed for how I’d judged her without knowing what was really going on.

And I kept crying as I listened to her say that in HER class, we were each going to figure out what was buff for us. Because, she shared, buff can’t be one size fits all. In fact, for her, buff was often something like getting from her bed to her wheel chair without falling on the floor.

I felt positively horrid. I wanted to hang up. I wanted to go hide. Instead, I stayed. And I learned. And I grew. And I developed two things that I have done ever since—immediately after I hear myself thinking, “WTF!”

They are:

1. I realize I don’t know the story. I realize that the person may have a very, very good reason for whatever I’m experiencing that seems wrong, or odd. And I remind myself to back off, unless I want to go over and find out that story so that I have enough information for an informed personal view.

2. I’ve learned to look at people who aren’t like me…like the kids with pants hanging off their asses, or the ones with green and orange hair, and exclaim in my head, “How BUFF!”

You see, what that leader taught me in the class is that we’re all buff in our own ways, all the time. And although we can’t always see someone else’s buffness, it doesn’t make it inherently any less buff. So, the pants hanging, or the green hair…they’re both buff in their hangingness and their greenness.

If I were braver, perhaps my response to those people would be something like, “Hey, dude…those pants falling off your ass are REALLY buff!” Or, “Wow… that’s some really buff green hair!” I’m not that brave. Or maybe I’m just not that girl, even with regard to things I like.

Maybe, one day, I’ll get to the place where I consciously think something’s buff before I do the “WTF” thing. But for now, I’m happy that I do it shortly thereafter.

:)

And the reason that I’m writing about this here on VMoxie? It’s because I see so much derision in our profession toward those who do things differently, or who are the VA equivalent of the kids with pants hanging off their asses, or those with green hair. And I wanted to say that I think there’s value in seeing the buffness of others, even if we don’t all share the same view of what’s buff.

In this way, for instance, I can still embrace every single thing I’ve developed, lived, and taught for the past 12+ years, and you can do your thing, and that person over there can do her thing, and so on…and we can still agree that we all contribute to a wonderfully diverse and rich landscape that didn’t even exist just a short time ago, and will probably look very little like it does today in another decade.

Maybe if we start noticing the buffness of everyone around us, we’ll find out that we actually don’t disagree on as much as we may have thought. And in learning that, we might actually reach consensus on some of the issues we go round and round about.

That’s my hope, anyway, and the attitude I’m carrying with me into FoVA this week. As I meet Virtual Assistants from different backgrounds, experiences, and understandings about our profession, I look forward to sharing, learning, and growing from everyone I meet. And I look forward to openly and unabashedly admiring the vast buffness around me, and hopefully, to bringing back great stories and lessons, and maybe even, a genuinely buff meeting of the minds.

Bit O’Moxie: If you’re coming to FoVA, I invite you to join me in this. If you aren’t able to be there, I look forward to sharing my experience. It’s destined to be a buff one, no matter what!