How Long Can I Expect My Virtual Assistant To Stay With Me?

That?s the number one question I?m asked by clients, future clients, and interviewers. So how long can we expect virtual assistants to stick? My answer is always the same: ?it depends?. It depends on many things. But first we need to realign our thinking a little bit and better understand today?s workforce.

As a small or home-based business owner, are you basing your perception of how long a worker stays in a position on your own work history? Yeah, me too. Big mistake. Personally, when I take on a position I intend to stay with it ? I don?t give up. I?ve enjoyed lengthy tenures at my places of employment throughout my career. All except one and that?s a story for later.

What we need to remember though is that everyone is not like us. Especially the current workforce. I mentioned in a previous article (http://www.teamdoubleclick.com/news/free_articles/workingwithnewgeneration.html) that the days of staying in your job for the rest of your life are long gone. As business owners, we tend to forget that and we are frustrated by it.

Let me say it again in this article: A recent study said that the average tenure in a job for Generation Y is 18 months. That?s realistically the max you can expect someone ? anyone, bricks-and-mortar or virtual, to stick with a job. Let?s leave that thought to stew for a while and talk about the ?that depends? I mentioned earlier.

Depends on what?

Things change in people?s lives ? everyone?s lives. Mine and yours and your virtual assistant?s. Think back to the reasons you have changed jobs in the past. What things in your past have caused a need for job changes? Pregnancy, sudden depression, death in the family, shift in financial obligations, relocation, change of career goals, a decision to go back to college, ill parents, ill children, ill spouse? Of course, and there are many more. Your virtual assistant is a human being too and they?re also subject to all of these normal human occurrences. Any one of these or many more reasons are cause for a virtual assistant to move on elsewhere or even stop working altogether.

Job likeability. You?ve got to like your job. I hope we can all agree on that. If you don?t like what you?re doing you?re not going to do your best and you?re always going to be shopping for a better job or better opportunity. Virtual assistants, as with bricks-and-mortar assistants, are not immune. I?m not talking about being a virtual assistant in general ? though that happens too ? where a virtual assistant decides she can?t handle the isolation and hangs up her computer. I?m talking about all of the tasks a virtual assistant does on a daily basis. For one client she may answer phones, for another she may do data entry, and for yet another she may be asked to cold call. If she doesn?t like those duties she?s not going to like the job and will ask for reassignment or quit entirely.

Boss likeability. For me, the only one I didn?t stick with for a good length of time was one where I was treated like a prisoner in a concentration camp, neck breathed down and so on. I left one day for lunch and never looked back. Have you ever had a boss you just couldn?t stand? How about one with whom you just couldn?t see eye-to-eye. Or maybe there was the one you always thought was creepy or shifty. Would you stick with a boss that gave you those feelings? Certainly not! Yet we expect our virtual assistants to do that and we can?t. With 6.6 billion people in the world every one of them is not going to like each and every one of us. And you?re not going to like every one of them either.

Then of course there?s Big Bad Team Double-Click?. At Team Double-Click? our job, as we see it is this: to help you determine your needs in a virtual assistant; to locate the best virtual assistant for you, our client, based on your personality needs as well as your skills needs; to locate problem virtual assistants and send them packing before they do damage to you; to nurture the relationship between you and your virtual assistant; alert you to potential problems with a virtual assistant; to stand by what we do and what we offer; and locate a new virtual assistant for you should things not work out. Now, sometimes the virtual assistants we contract don?t like this. This is when we become ?Big Bad Team Double-Click??. You see, we?re the good guys when we?re offering work to virtual assistants. However, when we have to take that work away or ask a virtual assistant for reimbursement for a client due to negligence in their actions, we?re no longer popular with that virtual assistant. This quite often causes a virtual assistant to quit. In order to protect you, our client, sometimes we have to tick people off to do it.

Theft. Yes, theft. Team Double-Click? is a virtual staffing agency ? we?re the middleman. We work hard to do the best by our clients and locate quality virtual assistants for them. And theft does happen ? even from virtual assistants who?ve shown no signs of being anything but above board. If finances get tough, the first thing most people want to do is cut out the middleman. Why? Usually to make more money of course! While we do our best to prevent it from happening it does from time to time happen that a virtual assistant will attempt to steal a client ? to make more money. I?m sure you can see how this opens a whole can of worms here and can easily mess things up for other clients. My question to you: would you want to directly hire a person with that kind of track record? Could you really trust they wouldn?t try to steal something from you later on down the road? I wouldn?t. In fact, this brings me to an interesting story. A virtual assistant (let?s call her Jane) recently successfully stole a client (let?s call him Dick) from Team Double-Click?. In this instance, rather than enter into a lengthy legal battle with Dick and Jane, we let it go. We of course discussed with Dick the potential for Jane the Thief to repeat her history again in the future. Three months later Dick came back and said ?Gayle, Jane just stole from me ? she embezzled my funds in fact.? While I felt badly for Dick we predicted that this could happen which is why we?d warned him. Dick chose not to listen to our years of experience and the information we had available.

Popularity. Team Double-Click?s virtual assistants are contracted ? not employed ? by Team Double-Click?. As with most contractors (think home builders, highway builders, and other competitive bidders) we too impose restrictions, benchmarks, and even penalties on our contractors for lack of performance. Again, this sometimes makes us unpopular and can cause a virtual assistant to quit. Would you want us to do anything less in the name of protecting our clients?

Knowing what causes people to leave should help you better understand how long a virtual assistant may stay in a position. About 25% of our virtual assistants have been with us and the same clients for well over a year and many more approaching the one year mark. In fact, earlier this year one of our virtual assistants retired from Team Double-Click? and the client she was assigned, after being with him for more than three years.

So when asked ?how long can I expect my virtual assistant to stay with me?. I always say ?It depends. As long as nothing goes wrong and there is no reason for the virtual assistant to leave, she will most likely stay.? As one of my daughter?s teachers used to say, ?It?s all about cause and effect.?

This article?s goal was to give you a better perspective of what to expect in this day and age of hiring and some insight into what can go wrong. I hope I?ve accomplished that. And with a better understanding maybe we?ll all be less shocked and better prepared when one of our workers ? bricks-and-mortar or virtual – departs.

Team Double-Click?The original and still the best:? Team Double-Click?s thorough virtual assistant screening process, outstanding customer service, and innovative approach to virtual staffing has earned the company mentions and features in such esteemed media as Entrepreneur Magazine, Staff Digest, CNN Money, NBC News, and even Woman?s Day magazine.? Team Double-Click? is truly setting the standard for the virtual assistant industry.. To find out More about our virtual assistants and service click on following banner:

So I’m a Control Freak

Yep, that?s right, I admit it ? I?m a control freak. I wonder if there?s a 12-step program for that. I wanted to bring this issue up as a benefit to all of those poor people out there (virtual assistants especially) who work for people like me. And for the benefit of all of my partners in making the misery ? my fellow control freaks.

Being a control freak isn?t as bad as it sounds. You just have to realize where your limits are and of course, it?s best if you can admit it so that you can begin to deal with it. And if you?re working with or for a control freak, you just need to know how to deal with us. Really, it is possible to overcome some of your control-freakishness and it is possible to work with us.

I?m going to wager that most control freaks are A-type personalities (or if you prefer to talk in terms of D.I.S.C. profiles – high Ds). That?s not all bad. It means we?re the ones who put ourselves out there on a daily basis, are driven, and make the world go ?round. We?re also very task oriented (e.g. get it done!). We?re usually very successful and we don?t give up until we?ve got what we want and then some.

So how did I get over my freakish side? Well, I didn?t and I don?t know if you ever really can ? it?s part of who you are. What I have done though is learn how to tame it so others can live with/around me. So how do I handle my freakish side? For one, I like lists. I make lists like you wouldn?t believe. Here a list, there a list, everywhere a list list. In fact, I?d be happy make a list for you now.

Tips to overcoming a little of the control freak in you:

1# It always makes me feel better, when giving instructions to someone, to write it all down. Every last detail of how I want whatever it is done. Then I feel that nothing is or will be missed.

2# Make your instructions clear and to the point. This should give you piece of mind that whomever you are delegating tasks to understands what you want done and how you want it done.

3# Take it one step further and have your virtual assistant repeat back those instructions. This is your assurance that s/he understands what you?re after and will help you trust him/her more.

4# Learn to trust. Okay, maybe not the first time you delegate a task to someone new. But certainly, after that person has successfully completed the tasks you delegated, and completed them to your wishes, you really CAN begin to let go and trust that they?ll do it ?correctly? each and every time.

5# Write it down. Write it ALL down! I?ve found that writing everything down helps me feel more like I?m in control so that freakish side doesn?t need to bare itself to the world quite so much. Take notes on your phone conversations, list out what you need to accomplish, write your instructions out, and so on.

6# Learn to let go. Really. Other people CAN do things as well as you can and sometimes even better ? even if they?re not an A-type, High-D, control freak!

7# Find a complimentary assistant. Find someone who is good at and enjoys the things you hate.

Working with a control freak:

1# Realize that we can?t help it.

2# Realize that we do our best to overcome.

3# Ask us for a list of what we need to have done.

4# Ask us HOW we?d like things done.

5# Write it down for us. If we give you a whole bunch of random stuff that needs to be done, write it down and email that list back to us. This way we can look it over, change our minds, add, and subtract and send it back to you.

6# Ask us questions about what we want and how we want it before we flit off on another subject. Keep asking until you have enough information from us to understand what we want.

7# Do what you say you are going to do. Nothing makes us run away faster than not doing what you say you are going to do.

8# We have to be able to trust you. You need to be honest EVERY time ? even if it means telling us what you think we don?t want to hear.

These tips should help you, the control freak, overcome that freakish side and for those of you working with us, maybe this will make it easier. We control freaks really aren?t as scary as it may seem.

Team Double-Click?provides professional virtual office assistants and professional real estate virtual assistants for small and home-based businesses. We are a virtual staffing agency, working with thousands of the best professional virtual office assistants the world has to offer. Team Double-Click? offers its clients cost-effective solutions to inflexible bricks-and-mortar staffing by staffing virtually. To find out More about our virtual assistants and service click on following banner:

Key #2 – Delegate!

For many clients, getting started with a virtual assistant can be difficult. Many of my clients are solopreneurs and small business owners who are used to doing everything themselves. They tend to want to maintain doing things for typically one of two reasons: either they have fears that someone else isn?t capable of doing what they do as well as they can, or they fear that the time it would take to teach someone else how to do it would take more time then them doing it themselves. Let me ask you this. Now that you have a virtual assistant, doesn?t this defeat the purpose? How can anyone expect to grow a business if they hang on to those time draining administrative tasks?

Let?s address the first hurdle of delegation. Can someone else do what I do as well as I can do it? The answer is yes. And the reason I say yes is because what we are talking about is not contract negotiations or other business building activities, but rather administrative support. Hiring a virtual assistant is all about giving you more time so you can focus on your area(s) of expertise; building your business. A virtual assistant isn?t there to take over the operation of your company. She is there to offer you an extra set of eyes, ears and hands so that you can gain more valuable time for either business or family matters.

The first step in moving forward and getting started with delegating is to start making a list of everything you do in your business. Have a notebook or mini-recorder and take notes of everything you do for a full week.

At the end of the week separate the tasks into two categories;

#1 ? those tasks that must absolutely be done by you and

#2 ? those tasks that someone else can do for you.

This seems simple and it actually is. Once you have your list sorted, take a look at the list of tasks that someone else can do for you and prioritize that list either by your sense of urgency or that which will free up the most of your time quickly. What is it that is going to help you the most? What will give you the most immediate benefit? Once you determine your starting point, call your virtual assistant and get started. Talk to your virtual assistant about your list. Discuss the individual tasks and also the big picture of how you see things down the road. Give her something to work on first. Please be careful not to give her the entire list of tasks to do all at once, as that may totally overwhelm her. Start off slow by giving her one or two tasks to work on. Once she completes those tasks, add something else. Before you know it, you?ll wonder what you ever did without her!

So, what if you are struggling with the thought of training an assistant? While initially it can take a great more time to train someone else, think of the big picture. Yes, it most likely will take more time than doing it yourself. Spend the time up front and train your virtual assistant to do it just like you do, then let her do it next time by herself! Once you experience the freedom of having someone else doing that task, it will be much easier next time. You won?t need to worry about how much training time is necessary. You?ll have real confirmation that this is of great value to you.

Speaking of training, I can?t stress enough the importance of documentation. As you start to train with your assistant, make sure that she documents the step-by-step instructions for each and every procedure. Have her email you each set of instructions. This gives you the chance to check for accuracy, ensuring all of the steps are included and in the proper order. Have your assistant compile each procedure into a single document, using a table of contents or index, essentially building you a training manual. This is such a great tool, that I can?t emphasize enough the value you will get down the road. In the future when your virtual assistant needs to take time off or is ill, someone else can fill in for her and everything is that much easier for both of you.

If you have any further questions about how to delegate to your virtual assistant, please give me a call. I?m happy to go over the steps or discuss any other aspect of working with a virtual assistant with you.

Team Double-click?The original and still the best:? Team Double-Click?s thorough virtual assistant screening process, outstanding customer service, and innovative approach to virtual staffing has earned the company mentions and features in such esteemed media as Entrepreneur Magazine, Staff Digest, CNN Money, NBC News, and even Woman?s Day magazine.? Team Double-Click? is truly setting the standard for the virtual assistant industry.. To find out More about our virtual assistants and service click on following banner: