Hiring or sourcing a service is a question of confidence. Confidence in yourself, that you will be able to meet the requirements of the arrangement. There are a lot of cloud-based tools out there designed to make admin a lot more bearable and less time-consuming, but the truth is that with even those tools at your disposal, in order to make use of them, you require time. Time that you do not really have.
Some years ago, Robert and Dwaine, began a telecoms business in Johannesburg. The primary focus was raising enough capital to sustain their business through the inception phase. Two young men, highly driven and highly capable, took on a small industry that is saturated with players, but they believed in their product and in their ability to meet the end user’s needs. They worked well together, fed off one another’s energy and drive in order to advance their initiative. With every new client that they won, work increased, and therefore admin kept piling up. Like most start-ups, the two made a mistake that most new companies make, they sought to employ an ‘admin lady’.
Two months down the line, it became apparent that the quality of the admin work did not match the expected standard. Lots of irregularities and stuff not done as requested. Their solution fast became a liability to the young firm that could not afford mistakes. The two entrepreneurs lacked the confidence to appoint a professional VA the first time. They were really good and driving their business forward, but clearly, the taking care of the other stuff was not their cup of tea. Even the smallest tasks took time to do. With a VA, they could have created groups or a group for a specific admin task by giving that particular VA access whenever needed to certain files and documents. There would be able to measure both the work done and the changes made to the overall document or file. Every time-consuming meeting that they had with the ineffective employee could have been just an email to a VA if ever there was a case of misunderstanding or dissatisfaction with the effort.
The same confidence needed in closing a business deal or convincing a potential client while having coffee some place fancy that you are the company that they should trust with their business, is the same confidence that you need to show in making decisions and finding dynamic solutions for you own firm.
“It feels like a mountain has been lifted off my shoulders as I can trust that my admin is getting done, on time.” – All Things Authentic
The same confidence that we have when handling our customers business is the same one that we wish them to have when hiring a Virtual Assistant. That confidence has yielded unexpected results for our clients, and we look forward to the second half of the year.