We are almost at the end of the Top 10 countdown of the most useful things I have learned being a VA. Number two on my list is Clients are Gold.

This one should be fairly self explanatory. After all, clients are a VA’s bread and butter. They pay our bills and keep our businesses running and therefore our livelihoods. But it is amazing how many VA’s I have come across who still don’t get this. Subcontracting to another VA is a prime example.

These are my tips for happy clients = happy VA practice!

• Always make time for your clients and give them personalised attention.
• Try to always add value to what you are providing to clients.
• The client is always right and even when they are wrong, they can still be made to feel they are ‘right’.
• Respect your clients time.
• Find reliable subcontractors who look after your clients to the same standards that you expect, or be prepared to check their work so the quality is consistent
• Remember your clients at Christmas, anniversaries and thank them in a meaningful way if they refer other clients to you.

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Setting goals for the New Year is something I always do at Net Secretary whenever January 1 rolls around. Thanks to Chris Brogan I have learned about a new technique for goal setting and developed three words for 2010 to guide me on how I should approach their implementation. The three words I have chosen are: Balance, Authenticity and Value.

1. Balance - Our goals should achieve balance in every aspect – balanced with the clients needs, balanced with our mission, a balance between quality, price and service – as well as the all important work/life balance and a reminder to strive for it at every opportunity.

2. Authenticity - Our goals should be authentic in line with Net Secretary’s vision and be true to its mission, as well as authentic in their delivery and their value (see next goal word).

3. Value - Do our goals add value for clients? Do we need to explore additional technologies, new media/social media and other emerging technologies? In what other ways can we achieve and demonstrate more value to our clients?

I’m planning to use this technique every year, thinking of new words to keep motivation high and inject fresh energy and creativity into our day to day tasks.

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As you may recall, the Net Secretary team successfully completed a huge but very interesting transcription job earlier this year for an Australian production company. Here is the latest update from them on the progress of the film:

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

After so many months of production and the challenging post production process, we are pleased to be near the completion of the film.

The exciting news released today is that the film has been been invited to Premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City in January 2010. It will be a great showcase for the film and reflects on the great work that so many have put into it.

The film will be presented in glorious 3D. Hopefully in a few weeks we will have a confirmed the dates of the screening. For up to date news, photos and information about the film, please check out the film website at www.canetoadstheconquest.com.

We hope you are all well and productive, and gearing up for a great Christmas. We’ll keep you up to date when we have more news about the festival or future screenings.

If you’re keen, you can even buy a live cane toad from the website as a pet! (Australia only – Not available to SA, Vic and WA)

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Reprinted with permission – Lyn Prowse-Bishop of www.execstress.com

One of the most frequent enquiries I receive in my practice is for transcription services – digital, microtape, standard tape – not just from potential clients but from new VAs wanting to ‘get in on’ what seems to be a burgeoning niche in the Virtual Assistant industry. So, here are a few tips and facts to help clients understand the costs of providing transcription services, and ‘newbies’ who want to add this service to their practice.

A: Not all transcriptionists are alike

There are varying typing speeds, varying levels of expertise – both with WP software and with PC-based player software – and as a result, varying charge out rates. If you are a client looking for transcription services who cares about the resulting product without having to do too much post-transcription checking, you need to find a professional service. The skills of a transcriptionist vary from a typist. According to the Industry Production Standards (IPS) Guide:

“Tape transcription is a specialised service, very different from general text keyboarding [which] relies on visual processing and can be measured as words or characters per minute; then corrected for accuracy. Transcriptionists however, must rely on aural processing, and the rhythm of the work depends on the person doing the original recording. The keyboarding portion of the tape transcription process includes a certain amount of editing ‘on the fly’ by the transcriptionist – ie paragraphing, insertion of punctuation, capitalisation, correction of grammar (in non-verbatim transcripts) and sometimes aural identification of speakers”.

So what should you look for when assessing candidates?

1. Someone with at least 2-3 years of business, office or secretarial experience;
2. Keyboarding speed of around 70 words per minute (wpm);
3. Good language/grammar skills;
4. The software skills to handle the project;

PLUS:

5. Someone with a minimum of 2-3 years basic transcription experience;
6. Mastery of advanced language skills, including grammar, punctuation, spelling and sentence structure;
7. Exceptional level of accuracy;
8. Excellent independent judgment and decision making skills;
9. Superior on-screen proofreading and editing abilities;
10. Ability to recognise errors and inconsistencies in dictated material while transcribing;
11. Proficiency in clarification of dictation without altering meaning or style;
12. Hearing acuity and language discrimination skills, including familiarity with and understanding of accents and dialects, and recognition of voice inflections within a document.

What?! I hear you say. Indeed, these are the identified requirements of a professional transcriptionist. If you do not partner with an operator with this skill set then you can be assured that not only will transcription time be longer, but your post-transcription proofing and editing of the document will defeat the purpose of outsourcing the job in the first place.

B: Transcription Time Determinants

Understand that transcription time is determined by the quality of the audio – any noise, accents, multiple speakers, poor tape quality, or poorly positioned recording device, will increase transcription time. If you have an hour of audio it is NOT going to take an hour to transcribe – even for someone with a typing speed of 120wpm. Conversational English is in the vicinity of 200 to 250wpm – add to that relistening to identify speakers in multiple-speaker audios or any undue background noise and things start to slow down.

The IPS place transcription time for a straightforward, single person, clear audio file (think, dictating a letter) (Class 1) at 1:3-5 – ie for very minute of recorded audio it will take approximately 3-5 minutes to transcribe. This means an hour of audio will take approximately 3-5 hours to transcribe. The range covers things like complexity of the recording, whether it contains jargon or technical language, if the speaker has an accent, and whether there is any looking up of addresses, internet searching and so on. This range goes up to 4.8 to 8 hours for a Class 5 file.

Clients can decrease the amount of the final invoice by ensuring that their audio files are recorded in the best possible circumstances: better quality = less time to transcribe.

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Net Secretary is almost ready to offer web hosting and domain name registration at competitive prices. We are currently in the process of changing over our server and this should take another week or two before everything is live and operational. I’ll be sending out an email broadcast when its all finalised.

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Yesterday and today, I have been busy packing up my main street office in readiness to move it back into my home. I am moving to a new home in a few weeks time which has an ideal outside room which is going to be converted into office space for Net Secretary and I am very excited about that. Having premises has been good for me and Net Secretary and a welcome learning experience for me – but I don’t require it to do what I do best. Most of my clients are virtual anyway and I’ll be saving on overheads, as well as regaining some of the flexibility I have lost in having an off-site office. I think it will allow me to concentrate better on my new business model also, that of Online Business Manager, and in the end provide better service to my existing clients.   I have gone full circle – virtual business to bricks and mortar business back to virtual business – and I like that.

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Facebook | Erin Blaskie’s Notes

Today I purchased this book – Becoming an Online Business Manager – as recommended in Erin Blaskie’s Facebook blog. It was a timely purchase as I’ve already been thinking about the direction I want to take my business in next year. An Online Business Manager actually aligns with the thoughts I have for Net Secretary and its future direction so I am eagerly looking forward to receiving this book and absorbing the information within. Net Secretary has transitioned from a Virtual Assistant business to more of an online management business, where VAs are provided for clients to help manage their business and myself as the Online Business Manager overseeing the performance of the tasks. I am very excited about this new phase in my business and I look forward to sharing more of my discoveries.

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Bookkeeping services were not something that Net Secretary offered previously, although a lot of virtual assistants do. I had previously not had formal training in bookkeeping and to be frank, it’s not really an area I was greatly interested in, having disliked Accounting at high school. However, times do change and the first inkling of change was getting my own books into a different bookkeeping system, having out grown the Tax Office’s E-record. Also, a local client approached me to do his books in Quickbooks, among other secretarial services for him. So that is the programme I have chosen to go with.

I am currently completing a bookkeeping course so that I have the basic knowledge behind it all. The Quickbooks programme itself is easy to pick up.

So there you have it, another virtual assistant service added to Net Secretary’s already wide range of services.

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I recently had to spend a few days in hospital with a serious infection. As a normally healthy person, this was a complete shock to me. The onset of the illness was quite sudden and I was very unprepared for managing my business during this incapacitation. This experience has taught me that one’s health is so very important but also the importance of having contingency plans in place for one’s business. Luckily, I was able to enlist the assistance of my cousin to email my clients and let them know what had happened and that I would be out of action for a week or so. My photographic memory enabled me to remember most of the email addresses off the top of my head and a little research by my cousin found the ones I could not remember. For the most part this worked quite well, but it also was a timely reminder that I need to finish putting together my business manual so that this information can be easily accessed in my absence. Good planning can avoid this type of stress during an illness or while on vacation, times when one needs to be relaxing and not thinking about the business.

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Recently a client asked Net Secretary to undertake the compilation of a database. This entailed telephoning a number (100+) of government and hospitality contacts gleaned from the internet and asking for permission to place their HR manager on the mailing list to receive emailed information about a seminar the client is providing. For the most part, I would say 90% of respondents agreed to be placed on the list and were therefore emailed the information.

In effect, I believed this was cold calling and therefore fell under the auspices of telemarketing. After an exhausting few days fulfilling this request, I advised the client that we could no longer provide the service as VA’s are not sales people or telemarketers and we did not have expertise in this area. I felt strongly that we didn’t want to waste the clients time or money, given that none of my other VA contacts were willing to undertake this work in a subcontract capacity (the original subcontractor was called away on urgent family matters). They all pointed out that it was telemarketing and not within their scope of services.

I have no such issue with calling a client’s customer and confirming an appointment for the day or following up on outstanding work, unpaid invoice or whatever. However, I believe that Virtual Assistants should concentrate on what they do best and that is providing administration support. To me, asking a VA to undertake telemarketing is like asking an accountant to give legal advice. They may have some knowledge of the matter but they are by no means an expert and are likely to give misleading or just totally incorrect advice, therefore wasting the client’s time and money when it could be better spent on an expert in that field to give them results they want and deserve.

I would be interested to hear any other opinions or thoughts.

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