Working with A Virtual Professional? Avoid These Costly Pitfalls

I work with a lot of virtual professionals (VPs)  on a variety of different web projects. Most of my VP clients have their own team of other VAs/VPs that provide a range of services for their clients. The multiplicity of similar working environments provides a lot of experience to draw from when sizing up the effectiveness of the VA team scenario when providing client services.

Inevitably, this produces a lot of water-cooler chat.  One of the themes that often comes up is how to efficiently provide services to clients when the client is either brand new to working with VAs, or frankly,  just not that good at it.  In all the chatter one conclusion emerges:  clients could save significantly on virtual services costs if they just were more effective at accurately communicating their needs.

Very often, miscommunication between client and VP happens innocently – an email written in haste (lacking important detail),  suggestion of an “emergency” (that really isn’t), or just careless writing.  Not that goofups are always the client’s fault, but there are good strategies to adopt that will increase the efficiency of the working relationship – and yes, reduce your virtual services bill!

So, what can increase your costs when working with a VP, VA or team? Here’s the top-5 cost-inflating pitfalls and how you can avoid them:

1.  Not taking the time to write a clear or complete e-mail. Everyone is pressed for time. It’s understandable to not want to write a novel when requesting work from your VP.  However – if the provider has to request multiple clarifications, that’s just time wasted – and time the client gets billed for.  Worse, your VA/VP acts on incomplete information, thus requiring the task to be redone or adjusted. This alone is the biggest cost-inflator there is.  Avoid wasted time and re-dos by taking the extra few minutes to flesh out the request with any necessary files or details.

2.  Suggesting or communicating urgency that doesn’t really exist -  Generally, VAs/VPs will “batch” work. As an example,  current tasks for client A get put on a punchlist and completed on Tuesdays & Thursdays, etc..  If we get an email with “ASAP” and lots of “!!” and no date deadline – we may,  if possible, drop what we’re working on and tend to the apparently urgent request.  When not included in the usual batch, some minimum time would apply – even if the actual task only takes 5 or 10 minutes.  This doesn’t sound like a big deal, but done repeatedly, all those incident minimums will add up and inflate your bill.  If something is truly urgent, be sure to mention that it cannot wait for the next batch of tasks.

3.  Penny-wisdom & pound-foolishness -  This is common with web services, especially.  For example, websites that are too old or just not built well take longer to update.  Sometimes springing for a new, updated website (in WordPress) will make updating easier – or even do-it-yourself, saving the client big money on services in the long term.

4.  Agonizing and indecision – Details are important in any project. However, the saying “don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good” applies here. Endless rounds of micro-nudging won’t improve things much – but will run up costs…. and sometimes a LOT.

5.  Not asking for input – This is a biggie. Ask your VP if there’s a better way to approach  something that you want to get done. Chances are, she knows of a product or person or method that can save time and effort. We VPs live online – we probably can make some money-saving suggestions…just ask!

TIP:  Erin Blaskie of BSETC is hosting a free webinar on this very topic on Wednesday, November 18th… highly recommended!