Working With a Variety of Clients

As Virtual Assistants, most of the time, we work with people we’ve never met. It took me a while to get used to this, particularly since different people can have very different work and communication styles. In this episode of The RocketGirl Show, I'll share some tricks that I've learned along the way on how to work with a variety of client styles.

TRANSCRIPT 

My name is Belinda Wasser, also known as RocketGirl. And today we're going to talk about how to work with a variety of client styles. 

When you're a virtual assistant, you are working with many people at one time, and most of them you've never met. They could live halfway across the world. So figuring out their management style, their communication style, it can take a little work. So today we're going to talk about just a few things on how to manage that. So first, let's look at communication styles. Alright? 

Some people like email, other people like phone calls, project management software, text. I don't like text. Slack. Voxer is the worst. I definitely do not recommend giving your clients Voxer access to you. And then whatever new thing has just been recently invented. Right? So communications are coming at you from all over the place. And I didn't even say in-person meetings, right? So some clients are in-person meetings, so it's not uncommon for them to be miscommunication in a situation like this, right?

So many different styles. So let's talk about how to handle them. When I'm talking to a client on the phone or in Zoom, I take notes. I take very detailed notes. I'll tell you why, because it's possible that I might not do the work for a few hours or a few days. In some cases, it might be something that's going to happen in the future. And there's no way I'm going to remember all the little details. So I take copious notes. I use Evernote for that. I love that. And before we hang up or say goodbye, I go through my to-do with the client to check-in and make sure I'm on track. 

Before I jump into a project I think through or make a plan for what I'm going to do, make sure that I understand where I'm going, what the objective is, because that's really important. You need to know where you're headed, right? If you're going to hit the destination. I ask questions. I try to answer all of the questions myself. 

Let's say I've worked with the client on the phone. I've taken notes. I'm working through the task itself, and I have some questions. First, I tried to figure out the answers. If I can't figure them out or it's definitely input I need from the client. I go back and I ask them the question. And it's important when you're doing work, that as a virtual assistant that you understand the what and the why? Because sometimes that helps understand the process that you're going to go through to solve the problem.

Suggest improvements. One of the reasons that being a VA is so great for our clients, us being a VA, is that we're inside all different people's businesses. So we might see a solution that we've helped with for one client that could work with another. And they know this and they are hoping that you're going to leverage this with them. So suggest improvements when you see them.

Speak what's not being said. And here's what I mean by that. If they don't mention the deadline, ask them for the deadline. If they didn't say, here's the login for my account, ask them for the login. So think through what's not being said in order to make your project a big success. Okay, it can be tricky to manage a lot of different people. But if you go through these steps and you think about it, it can really be successful. 

So before we go, I just want to invite all of you to my free online classroom. It's on Facebook. It's called "The Virtual Assistant Connection". You can find it by typing "The Virtual Assistant Connection" in the search bar right at the top. We have over 12000 members, and I'd love to have you join us. There is tons of community and friendship and information about being a virtual assistant. Whether you're just starting out or you've been one for a while, like me. So come on over. My name is Belinda Wasser, RocketGirl signing off until next time. Bye bye.