Why Expert Help For Your New Business Is Critical

Posted by Denise Griffitts on Aug 30, 2009 in Entrepreneurism, Virtual Assistance Industry | 1 comment

Growing a business is very much like raising a child. Both require lots of love and care, sleepless nights, excessive worrying and far more money than you originally envisioned. However, both are infinitely rewarding. Except, of course, that a business is not really your child. Or is it? Let’s do some serious comparisons and ask some pointed questions.

Proper care of a child begins at the prenatal stage when the mother is informed of both detrimental and positive courses to take during the pregnancy. After the child is born you take him to a pediatrician, not to a friend of a friend who finished a couple of years of medical school. When your child starts walking, you look for just the right shoes, not for the cheapest or cutest ones. Your child needs good supportive shoes that will protect the little one’s foot from the hazards of the outside world. And when it’s time for the child to start school, we oftentimes move to a new neighborhood simply because it is in a great school district. We do everything we possibly can for our children without being told to. It is human instinct to want the best for those you love.

Sadly, this is not always the case with our business needs. For all the comparisons, when people start new businesses, they often make a mistake of going to sources that are grossly inadequate or simply not the best. When planning a family most people sit down and map out just what needs to be taken care of from prenatal care to a college savings plans. They have huge expectations for their family and strive mightily each day to realize those expectations. So why in the world would a new business owner not exercise the same due diligence with the very thing that will allow their family to prosper financially as it grows?

Is self employment right for you?

Working for yourself, much as starting a new family means that ALL responsibilities rest on your shoulders.

Do you have a support system in place?

If this was a new family you were planning instead of a business you would naturally enlist the support of family and friends. Have you created a strong support structure for those times when you are overwhelmed, need assistance, or even financial help? Plan on hiring or retaining professional service providers such as a bookkeeper, a virtual assistant, or a business coach and make sure that you educate your family about the help you will need from them.

Do you have a strong business concept and a business marketing plan in place?

Have you clearly defined who your market is for your product or service? Is your business plan actually written down on paper and includes start up and operating cost projections? Do you know how many employees you will need? How about insurance, office furniture and supplies, software, web development, social media marketing?

Why you absolutely need to hire professionals to help you.

One of the biggest and most costly mistakes that home-based, or small business owners make is trying to do it all themselves. By not concentrating on the core activities that only you can do and by trying to wear all hats at all times, you completely lose control of your own schedule. Some tasks demand your personal attention but others do not. In fact, outsourcing many tasks such as information technology tasks (social media marketing, web or blog development, etc.) to an outsourcing partner such as a highly technically savvy virtual assistant saves your company money by saving time.

Elena M. enlisted the help of her cousin to design a website for her business. She bought a template for a simple brochure-style website. The cousin was enthusiastic about this opportunity, yet life kept getting in the way. It took 2 months to launch the site and every time Elena needed to make changes, she had to wait for days. The site is not particularly professional in appearance and is almost impossible to update in a timely fashion.

Aaron B. wrote a sales letter for his technology start-up. He asked an old college friend to edit it because he remembered the guy getting As in English Comp class and on his term papers. The results were less than compelling, down to a few grammatical errors that weren’t caught by word processing software.

Ken Z. felt overwhelmed by his new business’ to-do list and needed to make more room for networking when he hired a virtual assistance company. Unfortunately, he decided to go with a lowest bidder whose work was unacceptable because of low quality and had to be redone by another multi-VA company. The time and money wasted was considerable.

These business owners went through significant issues and ended up paying a lot more than originally expected because of their choices. Why didn’t Elena M. hire a professional web designer and Aaron B. – a copywriter? Why did Ken Z. go with the lowest bidder? And why do hundreds of fledgling entrepreneurs repeat these mistakes every single day?

The first reason that comes to mind is money. When you contact a friend or a relative or select the lowest bidder, you get work done for free or incredibly cheaply. But when true costs are taken into account, it really gets to be very expensive. Some of these costs include:

Your time – a friend you enlist to help you has only limited experience with projects similar to yours. As such, she doesn’t have tools and processes in place to efficiently keep track of every aspect of the project. As a result, you will end up spending too much time overseeing every single detail of your request.

Delayed launch – when you don’t get paid for your work, you tend to put it on the backburner. Elena M. found it out the hard way when her cousin kept apologizing for not getting work done because of various events in his life, including a birthday, several holidays, and a weekend out with friends and a few evenings spent working on paid projects.

Poor quality – grammatical errors in Aaron B.’s copy did nothing to help him win customers. In this case, his friend had no quality control processes in place other than running a simple spell check, which proved woefully insufficient. Of course, grammatical errors can be corrected and a website can be redesigned. But by the time these problems are discovered and taken care of, you might lose a few clients or damage your company’s reputation. You have lost both time and money.

Additional costs – Ken Z. ended up hiring a new vendor that spent time undoing all the mistakes the lowest bidder made which made Ken’s project that much more expensive. He learned that it would have been much more cost effective and less time consuming to get it right the first time by a professional.

Damaged relationships – involving close friends and relatives in your business is in this way may lead to arguments and open or hidden resentment. It is one thing to “fire” a contractor since most of the time she can be replaced fairly easily. It is quite another thing to “fire” a close friend.

The sad thing is that for all the trouble you put yourself through, the end product – whether a website, a sales letter, or a data file – is barely above average and that’s if you are lucky. If you expect outstanding results, you need to hire the best help, not the cheapest.

There is, of course, an upside to this situation – you learn a heck of a lesson. The downside is you lose time, money, opportunities, potential customers, and quite possibly damage great relationships with friends and family.

Instead of calling in favors and looking for the cheap solutions, recognize that what your baby – your business – needs at the moment is the right start in life. It needs the best expertise, advice, assistance. Look for help accordingly to your business needs.

**You have permission to reprint in your publication or to your website/blog any articles by Denise Griffitts found on this Website as long as Denise Griffitt’s name and contact information is included. Denise Griffitts, Virtual Assistance Industry Expert, http://internetmasteryblog.com, info @ virtualassistantindustry.com, 888-719-6711.

Ask Denise Griffitts Teleseminar

Posted by Denise Griffitts on Aug 25, 2009 in Virtual Assistance Industry | 0 comments

Ask Denise Griffitts Your Virtual Assistant Industry Questions

Do you struggle, strive, work, and wish for more virtual assistant clients, better paying clients… and still not have as much as you need and want? With the economy failing, companies making cutbacks, and your financial future at stake, you might be feeling pretty grim. But don’t even think about throwing in the towel. There are plenty of opportunities out there – opportunities to attract the type of clients you love working with and who love working with you.

If you had 60 seconds to ask Denise Griffitts one question about the virtual assistance industry what would it be?

Join us for a LIVE 60 minute teleseminar Tuesday, August 25, 2009 5 pm PST/ 6 PM MST / 7 PM CST/ 8 PM EST.

This call will be recorded but will not be made available for download so to speak directly with Denise you must be on the call.

We look forward to “seeing” you on the call!

**If for some reason you do not immediately receive the call-in information be sure to send me an email at info @ virtualassistantindustry.com.

Why Customer Service Is So Critical For Virtual Service Providers

Posted by Denise Griffitts on Aug 21, 2009 in Virtual Assistance Industry | 0 comments

Customer service is a powerful differentiator that can set a virtual assistant apart from her competitors. This translates directly into more new clients, more work from existing clients and ability to charge higher professional rates.

And yet for all its potential benefits, some virtual assistants believe that simply being polite, professional, and accommodating is enough. In other words, they seem to confuse customer service with “being nice”.

The truth is a business cannot be grown on “nice” alone. The most common complaint that I hear from people about their FORMER virtual assistant is not that they weren’t “nice”, but that they didn’t communicate, didn’t respond to calls or emails and never let the client know what was in the pipeline or where there might be problems.

So if you are a virtual assistant and an overall nice person, but have a problem retaining clients and getting repeat business and word-of-mouth referrals, ask yourself if you’re making any of these mistakes.

Being a VA first and everything else second

This mindset is the luxury only employees have. When you work for someone, you have a well-defined job – an administrative assistant, a sales rep, an editor. Now that you are a business owner, you are first and foremost a marketer and a customer service manager.

Not listening to your client

Take time to understand each client’s communication and work style and preferences. This includes how often should you contact them and by what means; how detailed should your reports be; what are their procedures for handling problems; even file-naming conventions and use of proper software versions.

Some clients might find it hard to let go when it comes to delegating work to a virtual assistant and will require frequent and detailed progress reports. Others will find such updates unnecessary and distracting. Some will be ok with just e-mails while others will be more comfortable with regular phone calls.

Not managing client’s expectations

Just like their clients, virtual assistants have different capabilities and limitations when it comes to skills, availability, and work styles. It is absolutely critical to match client’s expectations to your capabilities even before the retainer agreement is signed.

For example, if you do not work early morning hours or weekends, state it clearly. If there are hours when you’re offline or unable to answer the phone, let clients know. If you will be out of your office for any period of time, be sure to provide your client base with a cell phone number where they can reach you in emergencies. Be crystal clear about the length of time it will take you to respond to client’s messages.

Be upfront and honest about your skills and experience. Clients are not guinea pigs. Taking on projects that require skills you don’t have or for which you only have theoretical knowledge is a guaranteed way to lose a client and begin the slippery process of earning a bad online reputation. You can be assured that your name will come up in conversation with the next VA or an online friend or colleague. And not in a good way!

Not turning down prospective clients

Turning down clients doesn’t seem like a good idea, especially if a prospect is a good fit for your skills and work style. Yet having too many clients or too many projects means your efforts are spread too thin. Setting aside the issue of quality, taking on more work than you can handle will have a major negative impact on your customer service efforts.

You have a couple of choices in this situation. You can hire a sub-contractor VA to assist you with some of your projects, thereby beginning the process of building and growing your own practice into a multi-va firm, or you can refer the client to another virtual assistance firm that you know and trust.

Ignoring client’s need for transparency

Transparency is a popular word nowadays. But all it really means is simply showing your clients what it is that you do for them. This includes letting your clients see work-in-progress as well as tools and procedures you use when working on their tasks.

There are plenty of options that allow just such information sharing. It can be something as simple as sharing documents through Google Docs or as detailed as creating a client-specific wiki to hold all the documents, links to resources and standard operating procedures. We use and recommend ClientSpot which allows our team to collaborate with the client on projects, share files, and keep track of assignments and deadlines.

Not dealing with problems and ignoring emergencies

It’s ok to make mistakes. Most business owners understand that occasional mistakes are unavoidable. What matters is the way you handle the errors and emergencies. Handled correctly, even a bad mistake can turn into an opportunity to build client’s trust and loyalty.

When you do make a mistake or face an emergency, let the client know right away. Apologize and own up to whatever you’ve done wrong. Then throw all your resources into making things right. And when it’s all over, apologize again and let the client know how you plan to avoid similar issues in the future.

Not rewarding your clients

Sometimes business owners get so busy following up the leads and chasing potential clients that they forget about their existing ones. Go beyond thank you notes and season’s greetings cards. While I am not a fan of offering discounts for your hard work, I do recommend doing a little something extra or “lagniappe for a client as a gift every now and then. What is lagniappe?

Something unexpected – the extra benefit or gift should be a surprise. It is a “bakers dozen”, something thrown in for good measure that surprises and delights the recipient.

Relevant – the item or benefit should be of value to the recipient. Has your client ever had a Squidoo lens built for their business? Take an hour and put one together as a gift.

Authenticity – it is more about “how” it is given, as opposed to “what” is given. The small gift or lagniappe communicates that you care about your client and that you appreciate their relationship with you.

Committing any one of these customer service mistakes will slow down your virtual assistant business growth as you will not be in a position to ask for, or receive referrals. Consistently committing several is a quick form of business suicide.

Your ability and willingness to provide sincere “added value” will set you apart from your competitors, cultivate your niche and develop your professional reputation. Your satisfied and happy clients will be more than happy to refer your services to their sphere of influence.

Have questions about the Virtual Assistance Industry? Email them to me at info @ virtualassistantindustry.com

**You have permission to reprint in your publication or to your website/blog any articles by Denise Griffitts found on this Website as long as Denise Griffitt’s name and contact information is included. Denise Griffitts, Virtual Assistance Industry Expert, http://internetmasteryblog.com, info @ virtualassistantindustry.com, 888-719-6711.

Ask Denise Griffitts Your Virtual Assistance Industry Questions Tomorrow!

Posted by Denise Griffitts on May 12, 2009 in Internet Mastery | 0 comments

**Ask Denise Griffitts Your Virtual Assistance Industry Questions**

Tomorrow is the 3rd in the “Ask Denise Griffitts Your Virtual Assistance Industry Questions” conference calls and takes place Wednesday, May 13, 2009 at 7 pm Central. Please check http://time.gov/ to calculate the correct time for your time zone.

If you plan to EVER attend this event LIVE, this is your penultimate opportunity to do so. We will only have one more of these conferences and remember, these will not be made available for download. If you want your virtual assistance industry questions answered, you must be on the call with Denise.

We interact, laugh, learn and grow together. There is a lot of learning, masterminding, and huge “Ah ha” moments in just 60 minutes!

When: Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Time: 5 pm PST / 6 pm MST / 7 pm CST / 8 pm EST
Where: Your home office telephone
Dial-in Access Number: 1-218-862-7200
Conference Code: 596414

I’ll see you soon and I am very much looking forward to your participation in these final two conferences.

Warmly,
Denise Griffitts

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PS… If you have not joined our Virtual Assistance Industry Community please do so and create your professional profile where the only currency required is ideas. This is where online entrepreneurs meet and collaborate. Please join us!

The Science of Getting Rich – Is It In Your Library?

Posted by Denise Griffitts on Aug 23, 2008 in Internet Mastery | 0 comments