An important thing to know about working with an AssistU VA is that we’re all taught the concept of “standing for the client.” Let’s define that.
Who wouldn’t want someone on the team with that attitude?
When you’re the client, this might take the shape of:
- Sticking up for you
- Saving you money
- Helping you be goal congruent
- Charging you fairly
- Referring you elsewhere
There are many more, but let’s look at each of these.
Sticking Up For You
No one contends that being an entrepreneur is easy; quite the contrary. Sometimes a business owner experiences self-doubt, especially if she has just had an unsuccessful launch of a new program. The entrepreneur might start second-guessing herself and focus too much on the recent business setback.
This is where the VA comes in. She knows your gifts, strengths, and value because the VA selected you as an ideal client. Standing for the client, in this case, is the VA helping you to get perspective, reconnect with your value to the business world, recall your past business successes, and helping you to focus on your unique brilliance that only you can offer the world.
Saving You Money
Ways to save you money, sometimes at the VA’s expense, often present themselves. Here are some examples:
- You present a new project without time-sensitivity at the end of the billing month. The VA inquires if the project can wait a couple of days so that you don’t go over your retained hours for the month.
- The VA is doing a manual process that takes longer than a newly available automated process, so the VA suggests the time-saving method that will result in fewer billable hours.
Every time a VA acts on your behalf to save money, the VA is building trust and providing value.
Helping You Be Goal Congruent
You’ve heard of “shiny object syndrome” in which so many opportunities present themselves that an entrepreneur follows one after the other never fully committing to any of them? This happens to everyone as we get distracted with what everyone else is doing.
During the initial VA-Client brainstorming and strategy sessions, yout will have elucidated your goals. If the VA sees the client veering off course from those goals, it’s an opportunity for the VA to gently clarify the approach. The VA might ask: “I see that you want to do a Facebook ad that links to your sales page for your $2,000 coaching program. Earlier, we talked about your marketing funnel and how evidence shows that giving away a free offer, such as an ebook, to woo potential clients on your mailing list is a more effective strategy. Since email marketing is the best way to make sales, do we want to reconsider the approach?
You may intend to go forward with the new, altered strategy, but the VA will have given you something to think about.
Charging You Fairly
Of course, a VA should charge you fairly, period, but sometimes this isn’t obvious. A VA could charge you for every minute that she works on the client’s business, but that may not be fair.
Let’s say the VA needs to learn a new online software program for you and it could be very time-consuming. If the VA is sure that she’ll be able to use this new program for her other and future clients, she might decide to turn the clock off during the time she gets familiar with the software. Fair.
Let’s say that a work task is taking longer than it normally does for the VA on a certain day because the VA doesn’t feel on top of her game. Rather than billing the excess time, the VA may adjust the time clock to what the usual time frame for the task is. Fair.
Standing for you, in these cases, means putting oneself in the point of view of you and her pocketbook.
Referring You Elsewhere
Sometimes, the best way to serve you is to refer you elsewhere. Although this can be hard, it is always better to do this than it is to be working in a difficult relationship.
Sometimes this happens before you and the VA decide to work together, which just emphasizes how important those initial interviews are.
In conclusion, if the VA chooses her client carefully, one who is an ideal client with a business that she can be a part of as if it were her own, then standing for you, the client, becomes second-nature, and becomes a happy benefit, even though you may never have considered the ways a VA might stand for you.
About our guest blogger: Prior to happily retiring, Kristy Schnabel had been a VA, Online Business Manager, Social Media Manger, Facebook Ads Specialist, Online Marketing Consultant, or whatever you want to call her, with It’s Virtually Done, LLC for close to 20 years. Now she spends her time swimming miles for her next open water swim vacation, hiking in the forest with her dog, Aubrey, or walking at the Oregon Coast with her husband of 30+ years, Larry.
