freelancejourney

Words can either encourage or discourage a virtual worker, so as an employer you have to choose your words wisely.  You have the power to show your worker what he lacked to perceive and overtime, this experience will hone your worker to understand your preferences.

This is important in building a long term working relationship.  As you take on a virtual assistant, the person you hired does not automatically understand your likes and dislikes.  He or she needs to deduct it from your daily interactions and these learning process will make them a better assistant for you in the long run.

On some occasions that your assistant blew it big time, don’t try to put all the blame on him or her.  Remember that the full responsibility still lies on you, and every work that your assistant has completed should be checked by you.  Your assistant is responsible to you, but you are responsible to your client.  That’s just how it should be.  Don’t make your assistant responsible directly for your client.

The power of positive approach is a lot lot better than threats.  If your assistant commit a mistake, talk to him or send him an email that deals directly with the mistake and please – don’t generalized.  Don’t try to tell your assistant that he is ALWAYS making these mistakes, because you know that that is not true.  Instead just focus on what he did wrong and make recommendations on what can be done to improve that weak point.  You’ll find that you’ll win your assistant, and he’ll do better next time.

One time I had to create a shopping site for a client.  From the start I have recommended that we use a paid plugin for the project since free plugins aren’t as customizable and are not as good as paid ones. Later on we encountered problems and he was blaming me for not foreseeing it happening.  We were talking on skype and he was really angry to a point that he was using hurtful and degrading words already.  He even went as far as telling me that I am only a paid worker and that I should do as he please.  This really ticked me off and I shut my skype off.  Later I banned him from my contacts as I do not want to ever talk to him again.

Could this have been prevented?  Yes it could have been.  If he only owed to some of the fault for the failure of the project and does not throw it all at me and gave me a way to rectify or solve the problem – it should have been a good experience for both of us.  But no he did not.

A virtual assistant (although paid by you) is not a robot.  They have feelings and sensitivities that you also have to take into consideration.  There are many work available outside of what you offer, and finding someone you can work with long term is a benefit, not only to your worker but also to you.  So the next time when your assistant has done something terrible – try to go for a positive approach.  Doing so will solve the problem at hand and most importantly, you will win the heart and loyalty of your assistant.