A few weeks ago I found myself, along with another Virtual Assistant on my team (hereby referred to as VA#1), in a “no-win” situation. VA#1 had been working for XYZ Company for quite sometime, and was doing an excellent job. Because of her excellent work, she was offered a position that she felt she wasn’t qualified for. Kudos to her for acknowledging this up front. We all know our own personal limitations, and understanding and clarifying those limitations initially can avoid a lot of headaches down the road.

Wanting to build our business, she explained to the CEO of XYZ, that although the position wasn’t right for her, there may be areas of the job that our virtual assistant business could help with if she could not find someone to fill the overall position.

Now here’s where I come in… The job position was referred to me. I also declined the position since it required a background in a particular field that I had no experience in. After declining, the CEO asked if I could take over a small part of the job - the task of scheduling/calendaring for her XYZ Company. I was told the current Assistant didn’t have the time to maintain that part of the job. VA#1 was to be my backup during the times that I could not fill the position, since there are days that I’m out of my office.

Sounds pretty simple right? For 10 hrs a week (not nearly enough time to do the job correctly – my first sign of trouble), for $xx (here’s my second sign of trouble – I’m being told what I will make per hour, as if I was an employee) I was to do follow up calls, and schedule phone appointments for the CEO, assisting the current Executive Assistant with overflow. Now, under normal circumstances (note the emphasis on the word “normal”) this job position is something that I could have done.

This was anything but normal.

By the end of the day, and without officially saying “yes” I would take the job, I was given access to the Web based email account, and was told that I had “urgent” follow up phone calls to make. At this point, there had been no mention of pay, I hadn’t been told what phone number I was to leave if I reached voicemail (Here’s my third sign), I wasn’t given any training on how the client likes the job to be handled, and wasn’t given access to one of the calendar’s I was suppose to maintain (that was the last straw).

The list goes on and the drama gets more intense, but to make a long story short, within a 24 hr. period, I’m declining the position, and the CEO has cut all of VA#1’s work hours to try to force us into keeping this job! Makes you wonder why she keeps trying to fill the position huh?

Who’s to blame? In my opinion, everyone, myself included. So here are some of the lessons I’ve learned from this experience.

• First, regardless of the outcome, always make sure you are professional with your actions because this is your business and life. Despite all of the soap opera like drama, VA#1 and I remained professional and polite – even when I received an email from the CEO telling me I shouldn’t be a VA and need to stop offering services. lol

• Make all attempts to please your client within your means of being able to provide the quality work you are offering. I’m a firm believer that if you are not able to go beyond what services you are qualified for, then DON’T DO IT! I think that if you are upfront and honest about what services you CAN and CANNOT provide, then the client should NOT be offended by the ‘No’ they may receive if an impossible request comes up. With our particular situation, we were upfront about this in the beginning, and didn’t take on anything we couldn’t do under normal circumstances.

• You are a partner, not an employee! This is your business, so run it like a business. I mentioned earlier that my first mistake was being told what I was making, as if I was an employee. I knew better. My gut told me “no, this is wrong”, but my mind was saying, “it’s slowed down a bit, even if it isn’t your normal rate, some work is better than no work”. I’m not saying you should never negotiate prices, but I don’t know of any service oriented business that lets the client determine their rates, so why would you?

• Don’t go into a job without all the details. Make that phone call to get all your questions answered before starting. There was a complete breakdown in communication with the CEO of XYZ Company. All correspondence was done via email, and many times this works. But in this instance, we were not on the same page. What she thought was clear instructions weren’t. She also assumed that I could jump right in and start where the last person left off, without having any background on the company and services it offered.

• Find and define your niche. I’m working on this now. The goal of any professional Virtual Assistant is to create a lasting relationship with a client. This is what sets us apart from temp and secretarial services. By defining your niche and offering services within that niche, you can avoid the mindset I had of taking on any and all types of work. I was qualified to do the job for XYZ Company, but if I had defined my niche, this job wouldn’t have fallen into it, and I wouldn’t have considered attempting it.

• The first impression is the most important one. I didn’t leave a good impression with the CEO of XYZ, and likewise, she didn’t leave a lasting impression with me, and it’s really unfortunate. Overall, I have to look at the entire experience as a positive one. Without having gone through it, I wouldn’t have slowed down to see what we could improve upon in our Virtual Assistant business. I believe that in any business, regardless of what it is, everything is a trial and error and you basically learn as you go. Experience is the key and knowledge is power.

To your success!