Today is a new day. Whether it be the beginning of a New Year is really irrelevant because you can put into motion the 3 Cs on any day. All it takes is putting these 3 things into action.

No, I don’t profess to be a master teacher, by any means, on how you can achieve success this year. From looking at our own small virtual assistant business, I’ve found that for us, there are 3 Cs you can incorporate into your action plan to achieve success this year.

Communication

Communication is key to achieving success. Every day, you are working with staff, colleagues, competitors, clients or vendors. Talk to each other for heaven’s sake! Whether you use a smart phone, a telephone, email, Skype, in person or internet messenger, don’t leave room for misunderstanding which can lead to ruffled feathers, hurt feelings, or worse yet, cause you to do irreparable damage to the reputation of your business.

Don’t misunderstand. You should not have to be the only one to demonstrate good communication skills. This is a two-way street. The client also needs to communicate so we can provide them with the best service they want and expect. This, of course, would apply to the other groups I mentioned — your staff, colleagues or vendors need to speak up too.

Customer Service

I had a real dilemma as to whether to put this as the 1st C because it is so vital in order to achieve success this year, but I decided to put it second because it really only makes sense. One of the items you need in order to provide excellent customer service is good communication. You could say they actually go hand in hand.

Take the time to understand your clients’ needs. This key element pertains to whether you are in the virtual assistance industry, information technology (IT) industry or whatever other field you are in. You MUST provide superior customer service. You must provide a comprehensive customer service experience for your client!

Commitment

So based on the first 2 Cs I gave you for what you can do to achieve success this year, that brings in the element of commitment as our third C. You’ve got to be in this for the long haul. You are going to have up days and you are going to have down days. You need to be committed and work hard for that ultimate success you want to achieve. You can do it! As Margie Warrell, the best-selling author of Find Your Courage:12 Acts for Becoming Fearless in Work and in Life said, “Your failures don’t define you. Your response does.”

So repeat after me. The 3 Cs you can do to achieve success this year are communication, customer service and commitment. If you want, take each C one at a time and work on it so it becomes a habit. Then slowly incorporate the other 2 Cs so they become a way of life. Be diligent, consistent and look forward to the success you know you can achieve this year.

Pam Lokker is a master writer and proficient virtual assistant. Borlok Virtual Assistants is the place to get global expert VA services with quality and on-time delivery.

Clients are even more precious than gems. Client retention is critical for small- to medium-sized businesses.

I’ve been thinking the last few days about what attribute I would like my business to be known for. What do people think of our small business? Are we a trustworthy business? What does it mean, and take, to be trustworthy?

Trustworthy has a lot of synonyms that mean similar things; but first, let’s look at the definition of trustworthy. According to the Encarta Dictionary: English (North America) that is included in Word 2007, “trustworthy means reliable, deserving trust or able to be trusted.” Some synonyms are dependable, reliable, responsible, truthful, honest, constant and honorable.

As we work with colleagues in the industry we’re in, my partner and I would like to think that Borlok VA is a model for other aspiring virtual assistants – whether or not they are just starting out or have been in business for many years. In order to be worthy of trust, we need to demonstrate certain characteristics and traits that would show that we are dependable.

As a company that works in the highly competitive virtual assistance industry, we would hope that our friends, clients, staff and colleagues view us as being fair and dependable, that we have a good track record and that we’re knowledgeable. But, along with those qualities are the unwritten connotations that we are profitable, up to date in trends, skilled and credible.

So what are some ways that you can ensure your small business is trustworthy? Let’s take a look:

• Be honest all the time with yourself and with others – Be sincere and truthful in your dealings with vendors, colleagues and clients and friends. Go above and beyond to foster that precious relationship that you can have with your customers — and everyone else.
• Be consistent – To me, this means that our clients should be treated the same; and in our case, that means to provide global expert services with quality and on-time delivery. In addition, provide excellent customer service to ensure you don’t have issues with client retention.
• Deliver on your promise – if you say you are going to meet a specific deadline, meet it; but better yet, exceed it.
• Say what you mean and mean what you say; then follow through by walking the talk – there’s no room here for being wishy, washy, is there?
• Have an open door policy – no one should be afraid to speak with you. Foster collaboration.
• Honor your contracts – if you have a non-compete clause in your contract, make sure you honor it. The same would go for a non-disclosure agreement and all other aspects of that contract.

Becoming trustworthy doesn’t happen overnight. It takes working at it 365 days a year. The benefits of being trustworthy mean you get – and keep – more clients and build a solid reputation. So, is your small business trustworthy?
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Pam Lokker is a master writer and proficient virtual assistant. Borlok Virtual Assistants is the place to get global expert VA services with quality and on-time delivery.

Why is it that when we see a word a phrase that we really like that we grab it and use them forever? Do you ever stop to think about the words you are using in a proposal? Are they overused and full of consultant-speak speech? Well, let’s check out some words or phrases to consider stripping out of your proposals.

Overused Superlatives

What the heck are superlatives? I don’t use them. Are you sure? Do you really know what a superlative is? Let’s check out Dictionary.com for some help.

1. of the highest kind, quality, or order; surpassing all else or others; supreme; extreme: superlative wisdom.
2. Grammar . of, pertaining to, or noting the highest degree of the comparison of adjectives and adverbs, as smallest, best, and most carefully, the superlative forms of small, good, and carefully.
3. being more than is proper or normal; exaggerated in language or style.

Let me give you five examples from random sites that I looked at:

• the biggest benefit
• the best managed
• need us the most
• the most notable
• the least promising

There’s nothing wrong with using words like unrivaled, easiest, highest, shortest, unique in other types of content. You just want to try and limit your use of superlatives in proposals.

Overused Buzzwords

Buzzwords are overused a lot in proposals, and even in all types of content. Buzzwords are usually trendy words that are specific to a certain group. For example, in the Internet Technology (IT) industry, common buzzwords are SBS, MSP, VAR. In the Virtual Assistant (VA) world, one might speak of EA or VA or PA. Be careful that what you are talking about can be understood by the person it is intended for. Spell it out as I have done with IT or VA or leave it out.

Other types of buzzwords that are just used too much are popular words specific to a particular industry. Have any of these examples cropped up in your proposal writing?

• Thinking outside the box
• value-added
• alignment
• win-win

If you tend to use the words above, it would be to your advantage to leave them out of your proposal. (Buzzwords Gone Bad)

Pronoun Overabundance

There are better ways to write proposals than using an overabundance of ‘I’, ‘you’ and the rest of the pronouns. In my opinion, it doesn’t show any creativity and is extremely boring. Quit it!

One of the purposes of a proposal is to justify unspoken decisions in the preliminary stages of the sales process. Instead of using overused consultant-speak, make your proposal believable by supplying facts to back statements up. Get rid of overused superlatives and buzzwords and leave the pronouns back in your office

Provide concrete evidence that your company can solve a client’s need, but do it without saying “our company is the best qualified to provide you a variety of MSP solutions because I say so.”
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Pam Lokker is a skillful writer and proficient virtual assistant. Borlok Virtual Assistants is the place to get global expert VA services with quality and on-time delivery.

Nowadays, keeping your clients with you is critical to the well-being of Small to Medium-sized Businesses (SMBs). It’s not always easy to work with those clients that ask for the moon but give you impossible demands that eat up your time and money. So what can you do with those cantankerous clients, especially if they get ticked off at you? Let’s take a look:

Give careful thought on whether to keep them or set them free.

Sometimes, we know right from the get-go that we’re going to have trouble with a particular client. You just get this tightening in your belly as they speak with you during your free consultation that maybe they could be trouble. For goodness sake, pay attention to your intuition. Most of the time, your intuition won’t lead you astray.

If those cantankerous so-and-sos get too ornery, it’s going to take you bucking up and deciding whether they’re just too much trouble to make it worthwhile to continue the relationship with them. It’s okay – if your decision is to let them go, go ahead. Just make sure you weigh all the risks.

Set their expectations early.

Unfortunately, we’ve only had to learn this through hard knocks through the years. Set realistic expectations for them and get their expectations of what they want from you. Doing so will hopefully keep you from wanting to kick yourself in the butt because you neglected to do that.

Don’t burn your bridges.

If you decide to let a client go, or even if they decide to leave your services, make sure that it is in an equitable way. Burned bridges can cause unnecessary stress and hard-feelings that could develop into something more serious like bad-mouthing of you on the social media networks or even lead to lawsuits.

Stroke the feathers of the good clients and keep them happy.

Make sure that your client relationship management is above reproach. A happy client can be a long-term client.

To many times, SMBs will stroke the wrong feathers. What I mean is that they will bend over backwards for the brand new client while they let their old clients fall by the wayside. Folks, that’s just plain silly — your older clients are your bread and butter; they had been tried, tested and proved to be reliable. Now why in the world would you want to go mess that up?
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Pam Lokker is a skillful writer and proficient virtual assistant. Borlok Virtual Assistants is the place to get global expert VA services with quality and on-time delivery.

See how virtual assistants can get back lost customers.

An article writer has many tricks of the trade that they use to entice their readers into reading their good quality content. But do you know where they get their research from?

While we wish it were so, we’re not all able to have the gift of gab and be able to write an article or blog post on a whisper of a prayer and have it sound right. Most writers need to do some degree of research before sitting down and putting good quality content to a word processor or text editor. So here are 4 sources for research I use as an article writer.

Wikipedia

I consider Wikipedia to be my best friend. You see, I usually start with this resource first. Why? Wikipedia is my stepping stone to gain an understanding on a particular subject. It’s never my plan to rely wholly on this online encyclopedia. I can still remember my English teacher telling me never, ever use just one resource when writing. You need to make sure that your facts are accurate.

From within a particular Wiki page, I can usually gain valuable insight into locations, meaning, history and trends, all wrapped into one neat little package. After I pick and choose the information that I want to use for my notes, then I’m ready to proceed to another source to either back up or argue the points I might wish to emphasize in my article. But hmmm, what’s a good direction to go from here? Oh, I know. I can go to the web search engines.

Web Search Engines

You’re probably all familiar with the most familiar web search engine of Google, but did you know that there can be lots? For example, just from doing research for this article, I found a brand new site How Many Are There. To my amazement, just written and posted today was an article that seemed to be very apropos for what I’m writing to you about now. The name of the article is How Many Search Engines Are There? According to this article, there are over 30! Listed among them were some of my old familiar friends amongst a wide array of new ones that I had never heard of.

Since it’s never wise to rely just on one source of information, I will be checking out other sources on the Internet as well to make sure that I’m not printing information that will misguide my readers. Remember, I alluded to the fact that I want to write good quality content.

YouTube

YouTube is a resource that I have just started using. While I’ve noticed that not all videos are good quality, I have found some that can be used to substantiate a ‘how to’ process to make it easier for me to explain the different steps to my readers. A word of caution I might add here is Do Not Plagiarize. Give credit where credit is due.

Social Media Sites

Now some of you might be saying, “I can’t believe you are going to recommend using social media as resources for information. Let me explain. Especially with the social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, you can gain some valuable insight into corporate profiles, websites, missions and goals and new quality content that they are posting to their pages. In addition, you can get a sense of upcoming events that might be useful for what you are writing on.

Now I’m not suggesting that everyone use the same 4 sources of information for research in order to write good quality content. What I am saying is that these resources work for me and give me a sense of organization that I can use for gaining good quality information that I can write about. After all, I really don’t know everything there is to know about every subject. Everyone can use a little help somewhere.
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Pam Lokker is a skillful writer and proficient virtual assistant. She is co-owner of Borlok Virtual Assistants, the place to get global expert VA services with quality and on-time delivery.

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Virtual Assistants can find themselves in a bind and not be able to find the time for writing articles due to their clients’ demand on the VA’s time. Do you know any other ways to post quality content to the Web? I do. Let’s check it out.

I’m sure you have all heard me lament that I just don’t have the time to write articles anymore. You see, as a virtual assistant, my clients are my priority. With working from dawn to late in the evenings, there just aren’t extra minutes in the day for personal writing. I had to find 3 things I can do to post quality content to the Web and do it fast!

Share

Did you just read an article on the Web and really, really like it and you think your clients or colleagues might enjoy it? Share it through one of the popular bookmarking and sharing services that you can find on the Internet. There are some that you can get a share button to add to your popular Web browsers like Firefox, Internet Explorer, Google Chrome or Safari. Reading an article pertaining to your niche? Share it!

Talk it up in social media

Okay, so maybe you don’t have a lot of time to write an article. But, if you can take five minutes out of your day, you can post to LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, or some of your other favorite social networking sites. Here are a couple of benefits for doing that:

1. Increase your brand image:

It stands to reason that the more you post, the more chances you will have of having your logo, photo, business, etc. visible in the eyes of the public. Seeing can lead to their talking YOU up (watch out; it can work in reverse also) and spreading their feedback.

2. Become more widely known as an expert in your field

If you continuously offer valuable input on Facebook Pages or to your social media in response to questions pertaining to your niche, the chances are very strong that they will look to you to solve their needs in the future. You will gradually be recognized as a go to person for help in solving issues.

Offer input in forums

In my opinion virtual assistants or anyone that has a niche that they write about should have at least one forum that they are a member of. Why? Here are just three benefits of becoming part of a niche forum:

• Sharing opportunities

After all, if you like horseback riding (yup, that’s me), then you want to be able to talk with other people that have the same interests and get new content for writing blog posts or articles when you get more time.

• Brainstorming opportunities

If you have an idea, you can bounce that idea of another member or even all members of the forum and ask for advice on what the members think. It’s a great way to receive, give, exchange, recommend (I’m sure there are more words I could think of to describe this if I thought about it, but let’s go on.)

• Networking opportunities – The more people you know and like you and hear of your virtual assistant services, the more they will spread the word to their business associates. Who knows? You could gain some new clients yourself in the process as their business associates come to you for services you offer.

A virtual assistant has to be alert to new opportunities to take advantage of managing their time. There are several ways you can post quality content to the Web, even though you may not be actively writing articles or blog posting. Some of those methods can take as little as five minutes. Good luck!
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Pam Lokker is a skillful writer and proficient virtual assistant. She is co-owner of Borlok Virtual Assistants, the place to get global expert VA services with quality and on-time delivery.

A new SmartDistribution Model is here! It’s now possible to increase your brand visibility, increase SEO and increase the potential for higher sales and sign ups through your website. Check it out now!

Summary: For whatever reason, virtual assistants (and small businesses in general) come to the realization that their customer list is dropping. Are you doing all you can to get those customers to come back to you?

What we have found is that customers can and will come back to you if you follow three steps to get back those customers that seem to be lost. Let’s take a look at each of them individually.

Own the mistake

What this means is that you can’t blame the customer for a falling out. You need to take ownership (at least part of it) for what caused them to go to another provider. Were you rude? Maybe you irritated them by always pushing ‘I’ instead of ‘you.’ Maybe the customer left because of personal reasons. Trying showing a little empathy.

Do a reality check

Have you checked back with the customer to see how they’re doing? Do a reality check — ask them for their input as to what could have been done differently if they felt the falling out was due to something that you did. Clients generally are very good about giving you feedback about what ‘coulda, shoulda’ been done.

Our virtual assistant small business has come to realize that customer feedback is great because the client appreciates being included in decisions (makes them less cranky when something’s not going their way). Not only that, what a wealth of information you could receive to help you improve how you operate your business. Who knows; maybe their answers won’t hurt as bad as any solution you would have implemented.

Go above and beyond to fix what YOU did

Personally, if the customer shows you that you or your small business was the culprit in helping them to make the decision to leave, apologize. That’s right; I said apologize. Then discuss with the customer a possible action plan that you can implement that will ensure a healthy business relationship with you should they agree to return. Make sure that you are integrating a good comprehensive customer service action plan. Finally — Follow through on that action plan.

Clients (and/or customers) are the core of any virtual assistant’s or small business. Take care to provide A-1 customer service and satisfaction to those clients you have. However, if a client should tend to stray and go to another small business provider, be proactive and contact them. First, own up to any mistakes you might have made if they should suggest that you were the problem. Do a reality check and get their advice on how they think things could have gone better. As a last step, go above and beyond to fix what you did. By following these three steps, virtual assistants can get back those customers that seem to be lost. Being lost doesn’t mean they have to stay lost.
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Pam Lokker is a skillful writer and proficient virtual assistant. She is co-owner of Borlok Virtual Assistants, the place to get global expert VA services with quality and on-time delivery.

Reward your customers with comprehensive customer service tactics in order to improve customer satisfaction.

A small business might think that freelancing is a thing of the past due to large corporations outsourcing most of their help overseas. But, that’s simply not the case. There is plenty of work nationally, plus you can outsource overseas yourself by outsourcing in Canada, UK, Australia, and lots of other countries.

So is there a way a small business can benefit from outsourcing? Yes, there are three specific ways to go about it:

1. Identify the tasks you can outsource

What do you have on your plate right now that you can have someone else take care of, thereby freeing up time for you — things like transcription, article submission, copywriting or copy editing and much more. Make a list and then prioritize them.

2. Systematize tasks

Before you give work to a freelancer, you want to make sure that you write up your instructions so they are clear. One problem I see with clients all the time when they are outsourcing to me is that they skip steps. Not every freelancer will try to fill in the missing step. They will sit there and say “I can’t do that; it doesn’t work.” Be complete and concise in writing out what you want your freelancer to do and avoid any misunderstandings up front.

3. Don’t wait until your workload demands that you get extra help immediately.

The time to go through the process of finding freelancers is now before you end up with a short deadline. Check out the major freelance marketplaces. Need some more encouragement as to how a small business can benefit from outsourcing? Check out this article: What Are the Benefits of Using a Freelance Marketplace For Hiring Virtual Assistants?.

Are there other avenues you can pursue to find good, honest freelancers? Sure there are. If you travel a lot and attend a lot of conventions or seminars, keep your eye out for virtual assistants that may be there, as well. Another option would be to search the internet under keywords like outsourcing, freelancing, virtual assistants, and a wide variety of others such as benefits, freelance marketplace or independent contractors.

Being proactive and taking a look at what you can outsource now, organizing your possibilities, and then looking for good outsource possibilities now will save you time and money in the long-term. Do you need a jump start at making that list? According to this article, Outsourcing: Three Keys to Outsourcing Success by Janet Attard, “When you are a one-person or micro-sized business you not only have to create the product or do the income-producing service, you also need to answer calls from customers, make sales calls, get a website set up, get active in social media, send out invoices, do the bookkeeping, keep marketing your business, and do a whole lot of other things, too. To keep up with it all you could easily work 12 to 14 hours a day , 6 or 7 days a week.” Does that help to kick start you?
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Pam Lokker is a skillful writer and proficient virtual assistant. She is co-owner of Borlok Virtual Assistants — the place to get global expert VA services with quality and on-time delivery.

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