Three Ways to Be Visible When You're Virtual
A big part of being a Virtual Assistant is building relationships with our clients based on trust and respect. One important way to do this is to make it easy for your clients to contact you.
In this episode of The RocketGirl Show, I'll share three of the ways I stay visible and accessible to my clients.
TRANSCRIPT
I'm Belinda Sandor, also known as RocketGirl. And today we're going to talk about three ways to be visible when you're virtual.
When you're a virtual assistant, you are in a service industry, right? We are working in service of our clients. We're helping them with what they need help with. And it's very important to think about that from their point of view. And something that I think that's overlooked a lot by virtual assistants is when we're not in touch with our clients when we're not communicating with them on a regular basis. What does that feel like to them? And as someone who's been in those shoes worked with someone virtually who's not updating me, who's not letting me know where we stand, who's not responding to my emails, it feels terrible. It feels like I want to find a replacement for them, honestly.
And I want to make sure that you don't fall into that trap a lot of times I think we're afraid of overcommunicating, but unless you're kind of crazy, you really can't do that. So let's talk about three ways that we can be visible and ways that we can make our clients feel supported in their relationship with us. All right.
The first one is the phone. Now the phone is kind of an old-fashioned thing. I know. So these days, but what I do with my phone is all my clients' phone numbers are in my phone that way. If they are contacting me, I can see their name come up. It's not some random number that I'm not going to answer because it's a robo call. So make sure all your clients' phone numbers are in here. As part of my onboarding process, I ask them for their preferred phone number because sometimes people have more than one. So that preferred phone number goes into my phone, and when they call, I can't always answer, but I know they call. So I registered with me. I asked them to leave a voicemail. I check the voicemail and I get back to them. So really important to have as many channels open as you can to communicate with your clients.
The next one is the calendar. So I have a calendar scheduling software. I use Acuity. You can use Calendly, Schedule Once or whatever you want, and I have that available. There's a link to my calendar in my email signature in my email newsletter, on the bottom of every page of my website, and probably some other places. I want to be available to them. I want to give the it's not an impression because I am available, but I want to reinforce that impression that they can get on my calendar. Now I block my calendar off when I'm not available, and I'm very careful about what time stops I offer because I want to have time to do my work and take care of the other things in my life. But by giving them some options to get on your calendar when they think about it instead of do you have time tomorrow at three? It's really more at 07:00 on Tuesday, they think, oh, my gosh. I need to talk to Belinda. Let me just jump on our calendar and they know this. That's acceptable. And that's an option. So the calendar is a great way to do that.
Now, emails and texts. I'm not a huge fan of, good morning. I'm not a huge fan of text messages, mostly because what happens is I'm not on my walk. It's 06:00 at night. Client text me by the time I get home, I see it. But to tell you the truth, by the time I get home, I probably received three more texts. It's at the bottom of the thread or a one in the unknown for some reason. Is it unknown? Unrecognized text message part of my phone and it's gone. It's out of my brain. It's totally gone. So I request the clients don't text me with work. I will say if there's an email that you're sending me, that's important and you are feeling on fire, text me. There's an email. But the truth is, I look at my email every ten or 15 seconds, so I see the email honestly, before the text.
Now, when a client emails you, it's important to acknowledge it. Every client has a different temperature. So, for example, yesterday I had a client. We've been working together on a PowerPoint presentation, and she is coordinating this presentation with five other people for whatever reason, she's anxious about it. So she's sending me messages, emails that say things like, if I get you the edit by 05:00 today, can I have it by 10:00 tomorrow morning? And then I'll have the revision Friday for you at 08:00. Can I have them by noon? She is very time-sensitive about this. Okay, so I don't just ignore that email and get them to her. When she asked, I say yes, I can do that. And then I do it. Because if I don't do that the whole rest of the day, this poor woman is thinking, Did she get it? Is she gonna do it? What? Fidel. Can I relax about it? But just with those probably five words. Yes, I can do that. Thank you.
She's calm. She's having a good day and she feels confident. And that's a lot of what we give our clients is confidence. Like, okay, she's got that. So be sure to think about this, Isabelle. Great information, Mrs. Sandor. So many have proven practices to make professionals more effective. Thank you. Hello, Isabelle. I'm glad you're here. It's nice to see you.
So you really want to think about it from their point of view. And I have I was not great at this in the beginning. And the reason I was not great is I was worried that I was worried that I would look too available. Like, look at her she can email me back in 13 seconds. She must not be doing anything, which I don't think they mind that actually. And you know, the other thing that happens is when you start to email people back and forth, you get into a routine. And the best best best clients are the ones that are responsive. They're the ones that you're working on their project. You send them an email, they email you right back the answer. So you don't miss a beat. And clients feel like that as well. They're at their desk. They want to move on to something else you just acknowledging. I got your newsletter. I'll send you a test by the end of the day tomorrow. They love that. They're like, oh, she's got she's got me. So anytime that you can create that feeling of I've got you in confidence and let them know that you're on. It just exponentially transform your relationship with your clients. So please do that now.
In the meantime, I want to make sure that you guys all know about my free online classroom, because we are streaming on Twitter and YouTube and my Facebook business page and all over the place. If you're not a part of my online classroom, please join. You can find me at The Virtual Assistant Connection. So we're on Facebook. Just type The Virtual Assistant Connection in the search bar at the top. Click the join button. There's three quick questions to answer so I can properly bring you into the group and give you what you need. So please answer those and come on in. And we are starting something very exciting. On October 11, it's The VA Client Kickstart Challenge. So if you want to have a steady stream of clients in your business, I want you to sign up for this and join me. If you're in the Facebook group, scroll up to the top. It's an announcement with the link you can join. If you're not, you can go and you're not into Facebook. That's okay. You can do this without Facebook.
It's theVAconnection.Com/Kickstart. So join me. It's going to be five days of training. We're going to have a workbook and homework. There's going to be points and prizes and all kinds of things, but mostly you're going to have what it takes to get clients. We're gonna talk about how we're going to talk about services to offer. Specifically, we're going to talk about how to talk about your work, which is a huge, huge gap for VAS. It's something that we are not good at doing. And I learned the hard way. So I'm going to teach you how to do that. You're gonna have that nailed on Tuesday. Wednesday, I'm going to talk all about where to get the clients. Where are they? Because they're everywhere. You can trip on them. They're so everywhere. All right. And then we're going to talk about supportive systems on Thursday and then Friday, Q and A. All kinds of Q and A. And if you sign up, you're going to be notified of bonus sessions. We're going to keep as soon as the next week. It's going to keep going because it's just going to be packed with information. So sign up for that. I'd love to have you there. All right? So in the meantime, I am Belinda Sandor, RocketGirl signing off. I'll see you in the Facebook group and at the VA client Kickstart challenge. Bye bye.
