So last month we looked at who to avoid from a client point of view… But let’s assume you’ve got that sorted out and have work coming out your ears! Who do you trust with your hard-won A* clients?
When I hired my first VA, I made mistakes – BIG mistakes. It took me hours and hours and hours to set her up. It seemed like I was wasting time by explaining how to do stuff, and it would be quicker if I just did it myself. I estimate that the first VA I hired took me probably 4-6 months to get set up and working properly. Now it takes about a week to get someone working. The difference? We have a set of rules outlined from Day 1 which deselects anyone who I don’t want to work with… Therefore I don’t waste time training or talking to VAs who aren’t going to make it pay for me.
Here’s the rules:
- Anyone signing up to our client materials is automatically disqualified from working with us – we make it very clear that these are client materials and not for VAs, so anyone signing up is obviously either pretty thick or not very honest.
- Availability of at least 20 hours/week – anything less than this availability usually means they won’t be available when our clients need the work doing and I’ll spend a lot of time training them up and then not get very much work out of them as they won’t be available.
- Small office environment (no noisy pets/children) – sorry, as I’ve said many times before, being a VA is not a substitute for childcare.
- A PC with Microsoft Office installed – surprising how many people don’t think this is a prerequisite! For me, Macs are banned as we have far too many compatibility issues with them.
- A strict confidentiality/non-disclosure/non-competitive self-employed subcontractor agreement – they sign this before getting any info. If they won’t sign, that’s too bad for them, they won’t be getting work from us!
- Must pass various tests – we set these to have some real stinkers of typos which Word wouldn’t automatically pick up in them. I want to know that they’ll pick up everyday errors as a matter of course.
- Commitment to attend 1 x group meeting/week – we actually very rarely enforce this one, but I always include it as occasionally I will need this sort of direct input from the VA and it makes it easier if it’s an expectation and not out of the blue.
- Commitment to market and promote the business – I’m not asking them to pass me their entire client list, but I am expecting that if one of my clients asks them to recommend a provider for something which we do, then they recommend our service, not a competitor. As with the group meetings, I’ll occasionally require some creative input from them, and it makes it easier if this is understood upfront.
For your own rules, you can make up whatever you want – it’s your business, you make the rules. There may be a couple of questions you want to ask them – for example, what would they do if one of your clients approached them directly through their own website? Often there’s no “right” answer to these moral dilemmas, but their answer will tell you a lot about how they might react to a similar situation.
But if someone isn’t prepared to stick to the rules upfront, you really don’t want them representing your business!
PREVIOUS SVA PREMIER POSTS:
- https://www.societyofvirtualassistants.co.uk/?p=1317 August 2011 “Gut feelings about clients – danger signs!” Password: monkeys
- https://www.societyofvirtualassistants.co.uk/?p=1301 July 2011 “Summer Slumps and Winter Troughs – weathering the VA calendar” Password: firefox
- https://www.societyofvirtualassistants.co.uk/?p=1209 June 2011 “Submitting your site to the search engines” Password: freshstart
- https://www.societyofvirtualassistants.co.uk/?p=1028 May 2011 “Cash in the bank – get money in NOW!” Password: angeleyes
- https://www.societyofvirtualassistants.co.uk/2011/08/14/you-too-could-have-a-6-figure-income%e2%80%a6/ April 2011 “Earn a 6 Figure VA Income”
- https://www.societyofvirtualassistants.co.uk/?p=839 March 2011 “5 x 5-minute follow up techniques” Password: eatthefrog
- https://www.societyofvirtualassistants.co.uk/?p=391 Sept 2010 “101 Ways To Market Your Business” Password: cornice
- https://www.societyofvirtualassistants.co.uk/?p=307 August 2010 “Clients A-Z (or how to kick the Z clients to the kerb)” Password: apples