Business Concessions
I am mother of two little girls. They are 5 and 17 months old. I’ve made some serious business concessions due to this. The most notable is my practice does not provide phone work. I state this very clearly during the first conversation with any potential client. I explain clearly and kindly that if their business requires customer calls, I cannot do the job. It’s not because my children are ill tempered or cry too much…it’s the laughter that makes me look utterly unprofessional if I’m on the phone.
My 17 month old daughter laughs for hours on end. She finds everything in our house vastly amusing, from the dogs to the couch to the draperies. Her voice travels throughout the house. Even if she is in the far back bedroom and I’m in my office located at the front of the house the light tinkling of her laughter drifts around the corners and down the hallway through closed doors and right to the mouthpiece of the phone.
The first time I “hushed” her for laughing; I stopped in my tracks and realized a little priority check was in order.
It’s one thing to gently “sssssh” a baby that’s had attention and love and games and food and everything else and is just being a little crabby. But to quash a child’s laughter just isn’t my parenting style. As a result I had to change the way I do business.
I still make phone calls now and then, but my clients are well aware that the person I’m calling has no problem hearing children playing in the background. I make sure to warn them every time by saying, “Please remember, my five month old can be very unpredictable and although she’s asleep now that does not mean she will sleep through the entire phone call. If you hear her cry it will only be until I can pick her up and soothe her. This generally takes less than fifteen seconds.”
My honesty coupled with my client’s communication with their clients means there’s never been a problem. If there was one, I know my client would have my back.
Having clients that communicate and clearly listen when you state your boundaries can be a real relief.
Personable or Professional?
Most of the virtual assistants I know are making the most professional, polished web pages possible. They are wearing suits and have really nice headshots. Now, don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against being professional or even against a really great headshot, but in a virtual world we need to communicate more than professionalism.
When a client gets to your site s/he knows that you have the skill to write copy and put up a webpage. These are typical assumptions. The potential client then sees a picture of you and thinks, "great, what a professional." This is where opinions will begin to vary.
If the person is very professional, then by all means you’ve done the right thing. A drawback occurs if the potential client on your site is an "out of the box" thinker or is very different from mainstream people. These potential clients are going to want more than proper grammar and a nice picture. This is where you have to step up to the plate and deliver…yourself.
On a silver platter, with all the excess trimmed away, you want to let the person reading your page feel who you are. You want them to walk away from their computer and think, "wow, a virtual assistant really could help me, and that one seems really easy to work with." You have to be smart enough to be engaging…but not so smart that you appear aloof.
It’s a balancing game, and a very important one. When you look at your website, make sure that if it were you going there you’d be interested, then you’ll be more likely to find clients that have similar interests to yours and that will make communication so much easier and increase your chances of having a fulfilling, long term relationship.
How’d she do that?
A lot of people have asked me how I came up with the idea to work from home. They always look a little dissapointed when I tell them that necessity was the only reason I began the search for meaningful work-at-home opportunities.
I was working as the office manager for an insurance agency. For a few months I had been trying to get pregnant and was just thrilled (and petrified) when I found out that I had succeeded. Around this time the owner of the company decided to sell it to a larger company and we were going to be moving to the new office. I had a really bad feeling about the move and I let the owner know my concerns for him as well as his business. He dismissed my concerns as the raving lunacy of a pregnant, hormonal woman and left it at that.
The day before he was to sign the contract, he backed out. There was a problem because our salaries had already changed and we were already being paid by the new company. Now that we were staying we had to have our salaries switched back over. The owner called me in, sat me down, and told me he was going to be paying me less money because there was no way I’d be able to keep up the managerial duties because I was pregnant and wouldn’t be able to set the bar as high as he wanted it.
As I sat with my jaw on the floor being silently (but probably obviously) offended, he made sure to add, "I didn’t put that in writing so don’t bother getting bent out of shape and telling anyone."
I quit that night.
It was a little more than two months later that my husband was downsized from his current position. He quickly found another job that was much better suited to him, but it was a "pay your dues" position that he’s still working 70 hours a week at and while he will soon see great returns, as of right now he’s still working very hard for very little to show for it in the actual paycheck.
I did the only thing I could think to do…search online for legitimate work that I could do while being waddling-pregnant that I could still do once I had an infant to take care of. I checked <a href="http://www.wahm.com">WAHM</a>, which is a great work from home resource. One of the ads I found was for West Telecommunications, an inbound call customer service agency. I worked for them for a few months, until I realized that I couldn’t stay chained to a phone for eight hours a day when only two hours of calls were coming in.
During the time I worked with West, I still searched online to find something that more accurately fit my vision of working from home. I stumbled onto a VA subcontracting service provider. I signed up with them and began work almost immediately. This is when I realized that being a Virtual Assistant was my dream career, and my only regret was not finding it sooner!
While there are many ways to become a Virtual Assistant, the way I did it was by far the smoothest. It required no outlay of funds on my part (other than the computer and DSL line I already had) and I was able to learn about daily reports, invoicing and the types of small business owners that were looking for VAs. This was an invaluable education in being able to start out in the field. It also enabled me to meet people who knew other people that wanted to work with me directly and not through a subcontracting company. This was how I acquired my first client that I had to bill directly.
If I hadn’t experienced that incident at the insurance company, I would probably still be working there today and dropping my two babies off at daycare every morning. I would be making less and spending a fortune on gas. There are a few downsides to working from home, but they are minimal compared to the gains.
I’ve been fortunate enough to meet several people and I enjoyed showing them how to become a successful Virtual Assistant. The number one rule, as with almost anything in life, is to be yourself. More on that later…
Why did you choose “Atypical VA” as your business name?
I chose the name Atypical VA after about two months of brainstorming. Brainstorming with others is a fantastic way of getting new ideas and working toward something you might not have been able to accomplish by yourself.
Who I asked for help with my business name:<br>
- My husband
- My friends
- My family
- My kids
- My dogs
- People I knew online
- The door to door salesman that wanted me to purchase satellite TV
- The nice girls that came to my door trying to save my immortal soul
- The customer service person from my cellular phone company
- My husband’s coworkers
The best part? After months of on again off again brainstorming I just looked up at him from the middle of dinner one day and there it was. So simple, so perfect for me. I really don’t think I would have been able to come up with something so simple if so many people hadn’t suggested such outlandish names.
I’m not the type of person who’s personality is easy to "pin down." Everyone knows me for exactly who I am, because that’s what I like to show people. I love knowing that if someone likes me, they really like me exactly the way I am…because they’ve never met any other variation of my personality. Honesty has gotten me so much more out of life than I would have gotten by manipulation that it’s almost a form of manipulation in its own right. That circular thinking? It’s just so … me! While at the same time I’m able to be logical as a straight line.
It’s how I’m able to think out of the box. Actually, I’ve always thought out of the box, it’s just recently thanks to business books I’ve learned that’s a <b>good</b> thing!
I went to my county courthouse and I registered my name. Then I faxed that information to a newspaper and they published a Legal Ad for three weeks to make sure no one would step forward and say I couldn’t have the name. They sent me a certificate in the mail and *poof* instant business owner. Well, for a one woman non-corporation business. The process is more complicated if you’re going to incorporate, but I don’t want employees and a large practice. That’s not where my dream lies.
A final note:My business name is in no way intended to be a slam or insult to any other Virtual Assistants out there. When I looked around it seemed that so many people had real estate experience, and I don’t have a drop. My skills are more about what I’m capable of doing than what my resume says I’ve already done. I just don’t have the same background as a lot of the VAs I’ve come in contact with. That’s what makes me an Atypical VA.
