On 20th August, I was excited to be interviewed by Robett Hollis from Today FM on the RobettLive show. It was an excellent opportunity to represent the Virtual Assistant community and discuss a few nuances of the industry. This interview inspired me to write this article.
I remember reading this quote.
“If people like you, they will listen to you, but if they trust you, they will do business with you.”
Zig Ziglar
Imagine you are a business owner. Until now, you have managed most of the day-to day running of your business yourself. Now, as your business is growing, so is your workload. This means increasingly more time is required by you, either in the evenings and/or on the weekends.
You decide the time is right to hire a Virtual Assistant (VA) to help you with your administration requirements, allowing you to free up more of your time.
Hiring a VA is a cost-effective decision for your business. You can then focus on what matters most in your business, enabling you to strive for that work/life balance.
But there is doubt at the back of your mind – can I trust an outsider with my business? Will they handle my business and my priorities the way I do?
Once you have decided that a VA ticks all the boxes and would suit your requirements, you realise you need to start letting go of things that you have always done. But the whole process of letting go is not that easy, and the mere idea of handing over the reins feels a little like walking blindfolded toward the edge of a cliff.
So how do you build that relationship with your VA? How does hiring a VA work?
A huge concern some people have when considering working with a VA is TRUST. This is understandable, considering you have to hand over critical aspects of your business for them to work with you and share your workload. One of the ways that you can handle this issue is by ensuring that there is a valid contract in place between you and your VA with a robust confidentiality clause. Another good way of building trust is to “START SMALL AND SLOW”. To start with, ask your VA to do one or two minor tasks. This way, you get to learn about your VA and vice versa – their working style, personality, quality of work etc.
Passwords are another big concern as many of the tools needed for a VA to be able to support you requires that you share any passwords you have with your VA. Thanks to today’s technology, a fantastic solution to this is any password management software. I trust and use Lastpass extensively in my business. Lastpass is a secure and convenient software that can securely store your passwords in an encrypted database. The best thing about Lastpass is it can generate secure passwords. You no longer need to rack your brain for a new password every time you sign up for a new application, or worse, you use the same password for everything. If you struggle to remember passwords and have one or two passwords for all your applications, this is very risky. A password management solution means you can stop using the same password for all your applications making everything much more secure.
Another great feature of Lastpass is that you can easily withdraw access to any shared passwords. Not only that, but this clever tool has an option to share a password without the recipient seeing or knowing what the password is. By using a handy Chrome extension, recipients can autofill a password and never know what it is. This means that if you and your VA part company for any reason, there’s no need to change all your passwords. Modern technology definitely makes a difference in taking the concerns about security out of the decision-making process when hiring a VA, therefore, making it easier to trust the person you’re bringing in to work with you. There are many other password managers available, just do your homework before you choose one to suit your business needs.
Another great tool to work with your VA is a file collaboration tool, like Dropbox, Onedrive, GoogleDrive, Teams etc. You can share documents with your VA and decide the permission level on the files, i.e., whether they have access to just read the file or edit it.
Communication is another crucial aspect of any business relationship. Giving clear instructions, allowing your VA to ask you questions, being accessible, responding on time and setting clear expectations with your VA will help build that trust and rapport. Be transparent and clear in your communication. Clear communication will also help you keep track of the progress of anything you’ve assigned to your VA. When you’re starting out together, make a plan to catch up once a week until you’ve got the foundations in place, then you can reduce that as time goes on if you need to.
Time is the most significant factor that will allow you to build up trust with your VA. There is no shortcut to this. Trust is something that is earned over time and is a two-way street. Trust built up over time together with good communication will set you on the path to a great business relationship with your VA.
Ending this with another great quote I read.
“Professional trust is a process, not a state”.
Andy Hargreaves
I would be very interested to know your thoughts about this article and your best tips for generating that trust with your clients. What has worked for you? What made creating that trust between you and your clients easier?
