Insights

How Documents Reflect the Type of VA You Are

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Documents will be part of a virtual assistant’s life. These serve as means for clients to provide their requirements, whereas VAs use documents to submit their output. Regardless of the format, documents will represent whatever accomplishment you had for the day. This is the reason why one should not neglect the proper presentation of documents, no matter how comfortable you are with your client.

Primarily, documents show how organized you are a virtual assistant. You could begin with the formatting. A simple act of ensuring that the font type or font size of the texts in your document is not varying from one section to another is already a way of showing how coordinated you are. There are virtual assistants, who fail to do this. As a result, they present a clutter instead.

Moreover, you have to consider the preferred formatting of your client. There are those, who could be very keen in detail. Thus, discussing this prior to the accomplishment of a document is a necessity. If they did not provide any specifics, then you have the green light to format the spacing, font size, font type, and sections of your document at your notion.

Did you know that even the naming of your document matters? If you do not want to be tagged as an unorganized employee, avoid file names that are way too complicated. Make sure that the document name specifies its contents clearly. If including a date will make it more helpful for your client’s file management, then add it accordingly.

In preparing documents, as well, you have to select the correct format to present depending on what is required. If your client simply needs a research work with excerpts from various books, then a simple text document would work. On the other hand, if figures are involved, it is best to at least present your document in Excel or sheets.

By keeping the pointers provided, you will be able to show that being a virtual assistant does not make you less of an effective employee; that you can still offer high-quality output regardless of how simple the requirement is.

Are Virtual Assistants Difficult to Work With

Are Virtual Assistants Difficult to Work With?

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You may be among the business people, who are still hesitant to hire a virtual assistant. This is probably due to the speculations that you would encounter a lot of issues in having one. For instance, you may think that virtual assistants would not be similar to office-based workers in many ways, such as in productivity or performance in general. This is understandable since not all entrepreneurs or executives are still open to the idea of remote staffing.

Despite technology advancements, there are still businesses, which are behind what is expected of them. They will still prefer to stick to their traditional ways than go paperless. However, if you are among these companies, do you think that your conventional operations are still benefiting you or it simply got you stuck where you are since the beginning? If it is the latter, then a change in your firm may be the solution for progress.

With companies considering the use of digital solutions for their operations, they become more competitive in their industries. Additionally, they tend to simplify their once difficult activities, such as sales and marketing.  As a result, they save more and earn more. Why deprive yourself of the same leverage opportunity?

The savings in hiring a virtual assistant is given, but in terms of the difficulty in handling one, the whole picture may still be unclear to you.

Primarily, you should know that virtual assistants are not less competent compared to office-based workers. The truth of the matter is, some of them are even office employees previously. In other words, they are aware of how things work regardless of the environment. Furthermore, if being qualified is what you worry about, then you should know that virtual assistants are not short in degrees or fields of expertise. Due to lots of experience, some could even handle both administrative and technical work simultaneously. Conclusively, you will not have an issue in working with them if performance is your concern.

Moreover, virtual assistants will never be difficult to work with since communicating with them could be seamless. You simply have to open doors to make this happen. Apart from e-mails, you can simply allow your VA to get in touch with you even through messaging platforms. You could also set up a conference or direct mobile calls, when necessary. Hence, seeing them face-to-face would not be even difficult to achieve.

In the instance of ensuring they do not abuse their freedom of working without you being there to supervise them in the flesh, then you could simply rely on an agency or a supervising company. This virtual assistant firm will allow you to have peace of mind since they will guarantee your VAs will be supervised accordingly. In other words, every minute you pay for will not be wasted.

Furthermore, virtual assistants have the initiative to report their progress frequently. This is to give you assurance that they are delivering what is expected of them.

For the case of time differences, a virtual assistant is honed to work based on the time zone of his or her client. This is how the online industry works in order to provide the employers the utmost advantage. If you want to work hand-in-hand with your VA even if it is nighttime on his or her end, then it could happen.

With the aforementioned facts above, would you still think that virtual assistants are difficult to work with? Hopefully, your doubts have now dissipated, and you are now ready to take in remote workers.

Why Teamwork Should Mean No Credit-Grabbing?

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Even in the online industry, there will be cases that you would work with a team. Despite the lack of personal interaction, be reminded that you should still initiate teamwork. Otherwise, you may end up suffering from consequences, which could be as serious as losing your job.

When working with a partner or a team, you should remember that the client considers you as one unit. Thus, regardless of the differences with your tasks, you will likely be considered liable for the failure or success of your team members. Apparently, you have the obligation to check on your colleagues, as well. Take note that each of you has a contribution to make. It is not all about you. Even if you are done with your part, there is no project completion unless your other team members meet their requirements.

Credit-grabbing is a workplace disease that one should steer away from. Indeed, it may look good that you finished first or that you are the sole member, who managed to handle your tasks effectively. Still, this does not imply that you have the right to say that the success of your project is due to your efforts. Be reminded that as a team, you should have at least offered your assistance to your team members, who are struggling to finish their part.

No client would think that you are good enough if you ended up brushing aside your team members’ need for help, despite them not voicing it out.

Furthermore, take note that in a team, the success of one is an achievement for all. This should be a sufficient encouragement for you to ensure your team members are doing well.

Your client has his or her discretion if you are better compared to your team members. If your purpose of showing off is to climb up the ladder, kindly take note that your employer can assess a person’s capability. It is also better for you to show professionalism and care for your colleagues, which are pluses for your reputation score. A client is more critical in an employee’s personality than his or her skills. Why? Apparently, you cannot always train someone to be a good co-worker. Most of the time, it just comes out naturally from a person.

If you are confident that you are good enough with what you do, make it a reason to share your knowledge and guide your team members. This will make you a better employee.

Stop the habit of competing for yourself when in teams for this would only lead to your downfall. Instead, start appreciating the pleasure of working with people when everyone’s concern is each member’s welfare.

Overconfidence Can Ruin Your Reputation as a VA

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There are virtual assistants, who are way too confident about what they can do, that they did not notice that this trait of theirs keep clients at bay. Why? This is due to the fact clients are not impressed by what you say but by what you do. You cannot state that you can perform well and make him or her believe right away. Most of the time, an employer would tell you to prove it first through works, then he or she will see if you are stating a fact.

This is when trial comes in the scene. Have you ever wondered why clients request for a trial period? Be reminded that they are aware that they cannot surmise the performance of an employee by depending on his or her background, previous experience, and interview.

Virtual assistants should remember that no matter how good they think they are, staying mum is the best option to do. It is more impressive to make your performance speak for itself. Indeed, during the interview, you must share what you can do and what you have accomplished previously, but this can be done without a tinge of being improperly surefooted. You can simply say you have experience in this skill number one and number two. You do not have to say that you are the best the client could find out of all the applicants simply due to what you believe in.

Take note that clients steer away from forwardness. They would rather work with someone, who is obviously accepting the fact that he or she is not perfect and there is a lot of growth to reap out there.

Overconfidence should also be avoided at all costs in the instance of accomplishing a certain task. If you keep this trait, you may end up overestimating what you can do. One good example is when you provide a tentative date of completing a certain work. There are virtual assistants, who miscalculate their productivity due to their extreme reliance on their skills. Be reminded that during the process of finishing an activity, requirement changes may be on the way. Always consider, as well, that you may commit mistakes, resulting to repeating the work. Stay on the safe side and provide a workable end date of your project.

A client will be more disappointed if you have not met your guaranteed accomplished date of the task. On the other hand, he or she would find you admirable if you have given a feasible end date and you have submitted the work earlier than the said period.

Keep your feet on the ground and you will positively influence what your client thinks about you. It is simply normal to aim for your employer’s approval, but this can be done in the right way without ruining your reputation.

Accomplishment Reports and How These Help

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Being a busy-headed person means that you would not be able to handle all of the tasks in your company at once, which could include human resources. This may include the fact you will not be able to check the accomplishments of your people on a certain day.

Relatively, this may be the reason why you would likely be skeptical of getting a virtual assistant. You may be thinking that checking on the remote staff from time to time is imperative. However, it is not.

You should be informed that a virtual assistant is trained to work with minimal supervision. It became a norm in the online work industry that as a VA, you have to work independently.

Nonetheless, if you are still apprehensive about how things would work out between you and the VA effectively, then you should know that there are accomplishment reports.

What are accomplishment reports? These are reports sent out in a document or via e-mail, which provide details on what your virtual assistant has accomplished for the day. Instead of checking each of the assigned tasks to the VA, you can simply depend on their daily report in the meantime. This works perfectly if you do not have easy access to your workspace or you are preoccupied most of the day. Take note that each of your VAs’ activities may require the use of a different software application. Thus, it is virtually impossible to access everything instantly.

The said reports are also most helpful in cases of disputes. First, it could be your virtual assistant’s reference whenever you are looking for a certain activity that should have been accomplished on a given date. There will be probable instances that you may miss out the updates from your VA, resulting in you thinking that he or she has not done anything. The report somehow gives the virtual assistant security. Second, you may also take advantage of the reports to gauge if your VA is being productive in a day or otherwise. If the latter is ascertained, then you could at least solve the issue immediately.

Accomplishment reports could be a list of tasks done during the day. Alternatively, it may also include the documents related to the completed activities, such as a spreadsheet or word file. You may freely set a format of the daily report, if you prefer.

From the given facts above, you could already see that virtual assistance may work for you regardless of your hectic schedule. In remote staffing, communication is a foundation. All it takes is making use of it in the most efficient ways.