Monday, June 18, 2012

I Can't Believe Some Business Professionals and Owners Still Don't Know, "What's A Virtual Assistant"?

Firstly, I must apologize for not blogging for May; I was networking heavily. I attended a networking meeting three days ago, and I was surprise to find out that there are still business professionals and owners who don't know, "Who are Virtual Assistants' or What services we offered".

In 2009, I offered a free webinar to address the questions of, "What Is A Virtual Assistant". Response were overwhelming, but most of the slot were reserve by other Virtual Assistants' what I was looking for were Business Owners and Business Professional not affiliated with the Virtual Assistants industry to attend the webinar.

In October 2012, we will start our registration for another Webinar, which will be held for Business Owners and Professionals only; and it will be a paid Webinar. The actual Webinar will be held in February and June 2013 each with 100-space availability.

I will invite Virtual Assistants’ with niches, in Web Design or Development, Accountant, Bookkeeping, Recruitments, QuickBooks, Desktop Publishing, Ecommerce, Legal, Researching and Investigations, Event Planner, etc. This list is not inclusive; I will add more niches as we approach the date. The concept of this webinar is to have Business Owners and Professional asks questions of Virtual Assistant that specializes in our field and must operate as a Full time Virtual Assistant. All Virtual Assistant must be a business which is Incorporated or is a LLC or a Sole Proprietor to answer the questions. Some VA will walk away with new clients others will not. Those are the break, so VA get your elevator speech together. I will start registration for VA’s after more than half the spots have been sold.

Remember we’re all in this together, if one Virtual Assistant perform work that is unsatisfactory for a client, it will reflect badly on our industry. Lets’ help the Business world find out who and what we are in a positive light and show them how we can become an efficient, effective and valuable part of their business. We Are A Business Professional and Owner Valuable Asset, We Are Virtual Assistant.

Phyllis L Jackson
Ms. Evas' President
Uniquely40's CEO/ Founder

MS EVA
Multi Service Excellent Virtual Assistant
Your Outsourcing Professional Assistant
Supporting Business Anywhere, We're Wordlwide
http://www.excellentvirtualassistant.com/
718-673-9223

Uniquely40
http://www.uniquely40.com/
We Do More Than Just Typing
800-648-1093
Skype: uniquely40

Sunday, April 15, 2012

ACCOUNTABILITY. INTEGRITY. LIABILITY (A.I.L.)

Accountability. Integrity. Liability.

Okay, one of my clients needed a PowerPoint Presentation, he wanted it nicely done. He send me notes on how it should be prepared and how it should look, but he didn't send the topic of the PowerPoint. I spoke to him over the phone about this and he told me to pick a SUBJECT. I was stun and my jaw dropped. I said, "Did I hear you correctly, you want me to pick a topic." He said, "Yes". I told him, I could prepare anything with that answer. He later told me, he’s in school and he couldn't run his business and prepare presentations for school. I found out his major, along with his notes I took it from there.

And, yes he is a long standing client and he understood that this was outside his retainer and will be invoiced differently. I am very honest with my clients, I could have done the presentation without the knowledge of his major, but I did not want to think about the end result. At least now he had a chance to get the grade he deserves, don't worry he was involved in this; we’re talking about a college degree and not a high school diploma. In this business, it is not always about money but integrity.

Integrity is missing from some inner being; sometime it is about going after that dollar and not giving a damn who gets hurt in the process. Accountability is also missing, wrong deals mostly ends up hurting individuals and some have been driven to suicide; prime example, the mortgage scheme perpetrated in the early 2000's. So many individuals lost their homes and ended up homeless. The companies and individuals that created this problem were not held accountable for this deed.

Okay, I am getting off the subject again; accountability in a Virtual Administrative Assistant business is very important. A virtual administrative assistant is sometimes the first person a clients’ customer comes in contact with; you must have the knowledge, compassion or the right answers to get that customer attention. Anything you say to the clients’ customer makes you liable, anything you do for your clients’ customer makes you liable. If you do not believe this, ask your clients who he or she will blame if a deal falls through and you were involved in all the proceeding. To all administrative assistant, may you be virtual or not, make sure your have your professionalism entact. This will make all the differences in the world, and you will be able to work any profession. (A.I.L.)

Now back to my original story, my client needed a PowerPoint presentation prepared, because it was under special circumstances (college presentation that will be graded), my client needed to be involved. I could have ran with any idea and created a great presentation but in the end would he have passed the course. ACCOUNTABILITY. INTEGRITY. LIABILITY. (A.I.L)

Phyllis L Jackson
Ms. Evas' President
Uniquely40's CEO/ Founder

MS EVA
Multi Service Excellent Virtual Assistant
Your Outsourcing Professional Assistant
Supporting Business Anywhere, We're Worldlide
http://www.excellentvirtualassistant.com/
718-673-9223

Uniquely40
http://www.uniquely40.com/
We Do More Than Just Typing
800-648-1093
Skype: uniquely40

Monday, March 12, 2012

MY CLIENTS - WHAT I HAVE LEARNT

WHAT I HAVE LEARNT

I have learnt, my clients now are the best. They’re professional and they know exactly what they type of work they want performed. We don’t go back and forth with questions that have been asked a million times before. Why you ask I could say this, well I have instituted a better way of communicating with my clients.

My first initial contact with my clients is a free consultation which is recorded; the client is informed of the consultation being recorded. From that a proposal, retainer or project agreement is prepared. One is email along with the recording to the client. Whatever is said or negotiated on in the free consultation is mentioned in the contract. If the client requires a second consultation before the signing of the contract, that client must first set up a special consultation with me which could be a paid or not paid consultation. It is that simple, I hate stress so I have instituted a better way to service my clients.

What I give back, is my attentiveness to their projects and my availability beyond my office hours. I have extended office hours, Monday to Thursday from 5:30 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.and two (2) after hour voicemails which operates Monday to Thursday from 8:00 p.m. to 11:30 p.m. EST. One for the East Coast and Central time zones and other for the West Coast and Mountain time zones. I have also added an onboard client’s only voicemail, if I am unavailable for a length of time my clients can call and leave detail instructions of what needs to be done in the next 12 to 24 hours. This number is made available only to my onboard client’s. This is the first thing I check at the beginning of my day, along with my task board.

During the course of my work day, my workspace is opened to the project (s) I am working on; I am either emailing, texting, chatting with my clients, via Skype or our website customer service chat app. I rarely answer the phone; my system is forwarded to my back up.

You might say I am leaving myself available at all time for my client, I don’t think so; I am giving them the service they requested. If an emergency arises, I’ll notify my clients and my back up handles the assignments for the day. Also, my clients know that after 11:30 p.m. Monday to Friday I am no longer available.

With each signed contract, I enclose the day’s I will not work, my vacation for the year and my terms and policies. Each year onboard clients receive my schedule. To some it may sound that I am to organized, but chaos ruled the day before this was instituted; this has worked for the last three (3) years. I LOVE what I am doing. This is not a job, but my AMBITION.

Phyllis L Jackson
Ms. Evas' President
Uniquely40's CEO/ Founder

MS EVA
Multi Service Excellent Virtual Assistant
Your Outsourcing Professional Assistant
Supporting Business Anywhere, We're Wordlwide
http://www.excellentvirtualassistant.com/
718-673-9223
http://www.uniquely40.com/
We Do More Than Just Typing
800-648-1093

Monday, February 20, 2012

Elderly Comic Relief !!! - Have You?

ELDERLY COMIC RELIEF

I am on my computer more than 10 hours a day; my computer is my world. I have my clients' project, names, schedule on my computer. They projects are organized, sometime mine are not and I am slowly begining to realize that. Let me share this with you, my nephew have started laughing at me because, I have started calling him by his sister's or cousins' name. It was just a short while ago, I starting laughing at my mom's for doing the same thing, she is 77 years old and I am still being called by my siblings name. Now I am going through ELDERLY COMIC RELIEF!!! What a pay back. But what he fail to realize is, it will happen to him and I gonna to be laughing, of course, I'll be a 104, but it will be worth it. (LOL). So read on, if this is you, laugh at yourself because someone eventually will laugh at you.

Have you ever wonder why you've forgotten where you placed things? Is senility setting in or is it just carelessness? Have you ever wonder why you've walked out of one room into another and you can't remember why you've entered the room?

Have you started a conversation with someone and forgotten what you were talking about? Have you started driving and forgotten why you are in the car and where you are going; so you continue to drive hoping it will come back to you? Have you walked out of your house without your keys, close the door, and start looking for the keys because you know you have them?

Have you started calling relatives, friends and your kids by someone else's name and get angry because they wouldn't answer you? Have you went to the grocery store, started shopping with a cart, went down the aisle to get an item and returned to your cart, and you couldn't figure out which shopping cart was yours because you couldn't remember what items you placed in the shopping cart? Is this stupidity or a no care attitude?

NO, IT IS PAY BACK TIME, YOU HAVE AGED (LOL) WHEN YOU WERE YOUNGER YOU SHOULDN'T HAVE LAUGHED AT ELDERLY PEOPLE WHEN THEY'VE FORGOTTEN THEIR WAY OR CALLED YOU BY YOUR SISTER OR BROTHER NAME. NOW YOU HAVE BECOME THEM (LOL)