Being Honest About Your Skill-Set: Can you do the job?

Many internet business owners worry about the quality of assistance they are receiving. When hiring an on-site employee, business owners are able to evaluate an employee by their performance. Like whether they are late to work, chat too much on the phone, and complete assignments in a timely manner. A realistic view of said employee is easily achieved within the first month, but with a virtual assistant, this process of evaluation isn’t so easily performed leaving business owners feeling vulnerable in many ways.

Part of our job as a virtual professional is to behave as a professional. This starts by being honest about your level of expertise and not misleading a potential client because you “think you can” learn what they are asking of you without them realizing it. There is absolutely nothing wrong with admitting that their will be a learning curve to achieve the results a client asks for, however, this should all be explained prior to committing.

Understand your client’s expectations. Open the discussion with asking questions and expressing an overall concern that you can meet all of their expectations from the computer to the desk of the company’s project manager. Leave no stone unturned.

Communicate well in written form and verbal form without making promises you cannot deliver on. Here is where your contract is crucial. By taking everything you’ve discussed and outlining it in your contract you are communicating the project needs and how you will deliver it. A potential client’s signature on the dotted line confirms they accept how you perceive their project and how you plan on delivering results.

Eliminate common misunderstandings by offering to complete a test run of your service. A simple test run can save hours of aggravation. True you are giving of your time but the overall benefits are to your advantage because you not only test driving the assignment you are getting a feel for the relationship before committing to a long term contract.

The key here in all of this is getting the job done and doing it right. It’s okay to want to make those expert dollars of $25 to $35 an hour. We all want to achieve that and believe we are worth every penny of it. But with the hourly rate comes a much higher expectation. Your client will expect results and if you do not deliver it could hurt the reputation you are whole-heartily attempting to achieve.

So, can you get the job done? The answer should be yes!

Keeping Company & Personal Ethics In Tact

Our ethics whether business or personal should stay consistent through-out. Often, we innocently cross the line and do not realize the consequences of our speech and actions until it is too late. A tarnished reputation due to poor ethical practices can devastate both business and personal relationships.

In business, you are truly in for trouble if you cannot apply a few simple principals that I refer to as the 4S’es:

Stick to your word: If you promise someone something, make sure you carry it through. Know your boundaries in your business performance and don’t take on too much work. You will ultimately not be able to stick to your deadlines and disappoint clients or colleagues.
Speak only kind words: Too often we get caught up in gossip. Our speech creates a visual picture of the person we are, especially when you are working virtually without that fact to face contact. I know this from personal experience that my words lead to negative actions, and then those actions lead to misunderstanding and disappointment. Remember the old saying our mother’s use to tell us, “If you don’t have something nice to say, keep your mouth shut!”
Stop, listen and don’t react: When we are wronged, our human response is to lash out to the offender. Online that can be in the form of opening a Blog about that person, listing negative responses about a business or person online, or even IMing a network of friends and business associates with the entire story. Stop and think about what you are about to do. Listen to others who have been through what you’ve experienced. Most importantly don’t react in the heat of it all.

Settle your differences: Being the bigger person in any area of your life makes existing easier. In the event that you’ve lost a client due to a colleagues lack of experience or inability to conduct work as you do, see how you can help them instead of criticize what they do. Send a message that the relationship is more important then a minor misunderstanding and be the peace maker first.

Perhaps connecting the concept of how ignoring these simple points can result in a tarnished reputation and deem you as an unethical person aren’t quit clear to you yet. Be that the case, read on.

In business you will come across all types of people who are either aggressive, meek, go-getters, or under achievers. With each person the fit (how you work together) may or may not work. A lot depends on how much you will put up with personally. Will you bend to please them? Will you expect them to bend to please you? Somehow someone will need to balance things out so business can flow properly and work can get done.

As the owner of a business, you cannot tolerate individuals that don’t have the compassion for others. The words and actions of any colleague or associate you have on your team can easily affect your business and personal relationship. If not by what is said or done to a client, then by what is said or done to the team.

Things happen. It is how you handle them that really matter. You want people to know you as ethically sound. What does that mean? It means that you settle your differences with others privately and between only the two of you. It means that you offer up positive words of encouragement instead of negative words that lead to judgment. It means simply that you put your attitude in check and be accountable for your actions first.

Being ethically sound in business and your personal life takes practice. No one is perfect! We should never think either that even the most ethical person cannot make a mistake. Simply regroup and practice harder to keep your ethics in tact.