The Sounding Board

What is an ATM VA? Quite simply…an ATM VA is a per transaction or per project business model. You send work, they get it done, you pay, and you’re done. Kind of like making a deposit through your bank’s ATM. You enter your card, tell the machine what you want done, it does it; you get your card back. Then you both move on to the next thing on your list. Sounds pretty simple, doesn’t it?

It is simple. But is that the kind of support you want for your business? I know I sure wouldn’t want to trust my business to someone who doesn’t know me from Adam’s housecat. I don’t want to be just another account number on somebody’s desk.

The way I see it, I’m much more comfortable doing business with people rather than businesses. I know my pharmacist by name. I have only one insurance agent who handles all my business and personal insurance needs. I have one attorney (whose administrative assistant knows me just by the sound of my voice!) and he handles any and all legal needs I have – business or personal. I have one mechanic who’s the only guy in the world I trust to touch my automotive babies – both new & classic. Do you see a theme here?

I do business with people – people I have come to trust because of the relationship we have built over time. I know my mechanic would never steer me wrong when it comes to what my Jeep or my old Chevy step-side might need. He knows I trust him, I know he can do the work. I like the fact that I can just pull up, hand over my keys, say “fix it,” and he’ll call me when it’s ready. Simple. Uncomplicated. It’s amazing what having someone who knows you, someone who you can trust, handle certain aspects of your life. It sure does make juggling all the minutiae just that much easier.

I run my Virtual Assistance practice much the same way. I build relationships with my clients, rather than base everything on single transactions. I find it’s much more rewarding for me, and more beneficial to my clients. The way I see it, if you’re going to bring someone in to help you, shouldn’t that relationship grow over time so that you both instinctively know how to handle a particular situation when it comes up? If you build a good relationship with your VA, they should be able to gain insight into you and your business as you work together towards your business goals. They can then use that to be more intuitive to the needs of both you and your business. Over time, there’s less and less need to communicate the minutiae of the tasks you need or want to delegate. Your VA will know that sometimes you need to be reminded to follow up on this or that. They’ll know it takes you two or three drafts before a document is ‘finished’ to your standards. They’ll know which of your clients’ communications warrants immediately notifying you and which ones can wait until the end of the day. They’ll know these things instinctively because of the relationship you’ve built together.

Let me give you an example. My mechanic knows one of my pet peeves is dealing with those irritating little paper mats they use to protect the car’s carpeting while it’s in the shop. While I appreciate my carpet not getting damaged by greasy mechanic boots, I hate having to clear that clutter out when I pick up my car (high-heeled shoes and thin paper on carpeting don’t usually get along well.) So, rather than finding myself trailing paper ‘decorations’ on my heels like toilet paper into my next meeting, my mechanic removes those little paper mats when he parks my Jeep (or the Chevy) over on the ‘ready for pick up’ side of his parking lot. It’s a simple thing, to be honest. But it’s those ‘little things’ that remind me why I do business with him in the first place – not because he’s the best mechanic in the world (although he is a great mechanic) or because he’s the cheapest. I do business with him because he knows me, he takes care of me, and he is interested in keeping me happy. The same is true of my pharmacist, my attorney, and my insurance agent.

Shouldn’t your relationship with your administrative support person be the same? I think it should. At least that’s how I run my practice. J

Wow! Did Monday really come and go that quickly yesterday? Somehow, I think I overslept & woke up to a Tuesday rather than a Monday! J

This week’s link love goes out to a special client. She’s been with me since Day 1. She’s my favorite client and a real gem to work with. Not to mention, she’s done a lot to help me brainstorm my own business decisions…even critiquing my new business name choices back in 2006 when I organized my practice as an LLC. She’s a talented professional, but always goes the extra mile to give her own clients 110%. She regularly reminds me that no matter how skilled or professional you are, the most important part of any B2B relationship is STILL the relationship.

We all have boundaries and policies for our businesses. We have to have those to prevent feeling like a doormat. There are things you simply won’t do, or won’t do a certain way. We all have those. They are necessary. However, if you get too rigidly ensconced in your boundaries, you’re liable to push clients away, rather than making it easier to serve them. Micki reminds me on a regular basis that while though it’s important to have and respect boundaries, to be successful you always have to be client-centered, to put your clients’ needs ahead of your own. Boundaries are important, but so is plain old good customer service.

It’s that little reminder to stay down-to-earth and reachable that makes my working relationship with Micki so wonderful. I see how she works with clients. I see that “Don’t worry. I’ll take care of you.” kind of approach to her business that reminds me what it is that works so well with my own business relationships. There are real people behind the businesses I serve, and those people need to feel cared for and supported by the businesses they choose to work with. It’s that personal aspect, that partnership-type relationship that is the basis for a good Virtual Assistance practice…and Micki helps to keep me focused on that approach.

Thanks, Mick…you’re the best, girl!

Micki Silver, owner

Sign Advantage

Business discussions aside, I thought I’d share a couple of resources that I use to help manage day-to-day household kind of stuff. These two resources have absolutely nothing to do with business, but they sure do make my two most hated chores - menu planning and grocery shopping - a lot less cumbersome. (I love to cook, just hate the planning & shopping you have to do in order to be able to cook!)

Allrecipes.com is my favorite, and the one I’ve used the longest. Not only can you find great recipes for everything from breakfast to midnight snacks, but they have great time-saving features on the site too! For example, if you find a great recipe you want to try, you can add it to your online recipe box with a simple click. Then it’s easy for you to find later. To make it even better, you can also add the recipe ingredients to your shopping list, also with just a simple click. The shopping list takes all the ingredients from all the recipes you tell it to add, and breaks them down into an isle-by-isle kind of list (at least a department by department list, anyway…bakery items, canned foods items, deli items, etc. You get the idea!)

I love this site, I have to say. It makes menu planning a breeze! I let my kids go online to the site & pick out what they want to have for breakfasts, lunches, dinners, etc. They find something they think sounds yummy, they add it to my recipe box, and move on. When I’m ready to go shopping, I pull up my recipe box, see what the kids added, click the link to add it to my shopping list & off I go. It takes me less than 2 minutes to pull together our menu for the week & get my list ready. (My daughter - the budding chef in our house - prints out the recipes later & puts them on the fridge. When the kids ask ‘what’s for dinner?’ I just point to the fridge and tell them to pick something!)

Recipezaar.com is another site, similar to allrecipes.com that I’ve just recently found. Rather than having your own ‘recipe box,’ you can set up your own unique ‘cookbook’ from the recipes on their site. From there you can create a shopping list, plan a menu, etc. I haven’t completely explored all the features of the site, as I’m still kind of biased towards Allrecipes, but I’m playing around & having fun. I can definitely see it becoming another favorite.

The way I see it, anything I can do to help simplify or automate various aspects of my life, (like the chores I hate) the more time I have for other, more important things…like planning my next get-away with my favorite sexy Italian man (you know who you are, sweetheart!) or spending some much-needed down-time with my family, or working on the next big project for Virtually Yours. If I can save time somewhere, or make something easier, be it business or personal tasks, then hey! I’m all for it! When you wear all the hats (business owner, marketing department, bookkeeping department, personal assistant, mom, girlfriend, chauffer, referee, handyman, counselor, coach, writer, advocate, ad hoc teenage psychologist, chef, maid, butler, linguist (who hasn’t felt they needed a translator when talking with their teenagers!), and all around ‘hold that’ girl) anything you can do to make things work better, stronger, faster, or more efficient is a huge plus in your own favor.

Have a great resource to share with other business owners? Feel free to post it here in the comments section, or shoot me an email at sandi@virtuallyyoursllc.com & I’ll post it for you!