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D works as a network administrator at a hospital here in Baltimore. They’ve created an email naming convention that, for me, is beyond stupid. It’s a person’s first initial, and then up to seven characters of the last name. And this works well for Dominic Brice whose address becomes dbrice@thehospitaldomain.com. But let’s say I were unmarried, my name were still Stacy Wiedenhoeft, and I worked there. I’d be unpleasantly stuck with swiedenh@thehospitaldomain.com. Can you imagine? Cant' say it out loud, and can't really spell it in any way that makes sense to someone listening. It's just stupid!
I rib him about this naming convention all the time because he doesn’t get why it’s archaic and crappy.
Fast forward to today. He just built a computer for his mother, set it up, and signed her up for a Gmail account. And when he was creating an address for her, what email address did he give her? Well, to protect her from being written to about this, let’s pretend her name is Erika Landry. He created ErLandry@gmail.com, Now, that wouldn’t be stupid if anyone called her Er…but they don’t. Which makes it stupid, especially since ErikaLandry@ was available, as was ELandry@ and a variety of other creative, smarter choices.A Fergie lyric comes to mind: “I’m so two-thousand-and-eight; you’re so two-thousand-and-late.”
We (and the tech we use) has moved so far beyond the days when it was “strange” and “uncommon” to have an email address or a domain. So why are people still stuck thinking with minds that still see things that way?
But it’s not just D, or the place he works. I see entrepreneurs (including VAs) create lousy email addresses all the time.
And what, in my opinion, would make them better is today's Bit O’Moxie:
1. Stop truncating. It’s unnecessary. Although it may be necessary for a corporate entity running some old version of an email program, it’s not necessary for almost anyone reading this blog.
2. Create something easy to spell/type, easy to remember, and easy for another person to understand if you have to say it aloud. I dare say that if I had swiedenh@thehospitaldomain.com and I had to verbally share that over the phone, it would take several tries before the other person would actually have it. And for what? Trust me, wasting time and dealing with high frustration are not high on the list of things that leave me feeling energized and happy.
3. Wherever possible, don’t use dashes, underscores, or periods. The brain can more easily take in “stacy brice at gmail dot com” than it can take in “stacy dot brice at gmail.com” or stacy dash brice at gmail dot com. If you have to use some punctuation because there's no other imaginable choice, choose a period.
4. Also give up punctuation when choosing a domain name, because, not only will the domain be difficult to understand, but an email address attached to a difficult-to-understand domain becomes increasingly difficult to understand. swiedenh@the-hospital-domain.com would be beyond ridiculous for people to have to deal with. If you’re in the process of choosing a domain—especially in connection with the process of naming your company or product--please, do yourself and your markets a favor and choose based on ease, rather than on your attachment to something specific.
Don’t register www.where-the-silly-eyes-live.com because you like the sound of it, and you’ve become attached to naming your kids’ book, Where The Silly Eyes Live, when www.sillyeyes.com is available. And if what you want isn’t available in any easily created version? Change the name. Being found is important. So is being remembered. If “silly” eyes didn’t work, change it to “squggly” eyes, or “kooby” eyes (or any short made up word that no one will have taken the domain for).
And a funny company name-related story came to mind just now so I'll share it. My friend Lee owns Greased Wheel Virtual Assistance (a fab VA she is!). Appropriately, you'll be glad to hear, her domain is www.greasedwheel.com, and she's "lee at greasedwheel dot com" (yay Lee!).
But her biz credit card company, with only a certain number of characters available to print on the face of a credit card, put this on the front of her card: Greased Wheel Virtual Ass. Honest.
And I was thinking that that's a perfectly good example of something truncated that's just ... well....for me it's funny (and sad). Now imagine if Lee had been crazy enough to register that as a domain? What image would she create with www.greasedwheelvirtualass.com? Seriously. Just think about it.
I really do hold the space for there to be people who have really good reasons for having difficult or stupid email addresses or domains. I just also think that the numbers of those are infinitesimal. With creativity and a willingness to find something good and easy, it really can be done.Be smart. Create smartly. Make things easy—on yourself and your clients.
That same thing was further driven home for me today when my friend Marcia wrote to me and let me know she’d posted this open letter to VAs on her blog (read it, then come back).
I turned around and wrote this to Marcia:
It's a beautiful letter to them. And it echoes what I've been saying for nearly 13 years.And as soon as I’d sent that, I realized there was more I wanted to say, so I wrote again:
Obviously, some of them have listened. And the vast majority have not; they don't believe they "need" to. And so they continue to struggle, and struggle.
So, Miss Marcia...is there something we might do together, or in tandem, to get them to listen more?
And, how do we get the client population to listen, too? They, if anything, are even more stubborn about refusing to believe that they don't get it.And as I finished that paragraph, what Abraham had said plopped itself into my head, and I finished with this:
Oh, wait. I just answered my own question. We don't. We don't do it for either group. They don't get it because it's not time for them to get it. They're having wondrous experiences of not getting it. And to try to help them get it would be to try to deprive them of those experiences that, for whatever reason, they've decided they need to have, *and* it would be folly for us to spend our time trying to do what can't be done anyway.And my reason for telling you this today? It's certainly not to convince you to be more active in learning from me. No; it’s to offer it all up as a Moxie-filled Bit O'Wisdom for you and for me (as I need to really heed this myself):
We can only impact the people who are really ready, and the people who are right on the edge of readiness.
THOSE are the ones I want to reach.
You, me, Marcia, governments, even God simply cannot (not even through billion-dollar ad campaigns launched by brilliant ad and marketing folks) bring those who aren’t ready, to something they aren’t ready for. It’s just impossible—not to mention frustrating. It’s most definitely an example of rowing upstream, with no good outcome. As my friend Wayne always says, “Never try to teach a pig to sing. It’s a waste of your time, and it tends to annoy the pig.”
So if you feel like you’re paddling upstream, spending time trying to talk people into understanding who you are, what you do, why Virtual Assistance is a kick-ass profession that makes gobs of difference for people, how you can help, why you’re worth the fee you charge—any conversation like those--just stop. You can’t move them beyond where they are, and, as I said in my email to Marcia, your working to do that deprives them of experiences they clearly are meant to have.
Instead, keep talking with people, but with a new mindset and focus. Now, walk away from those who aren’t ready (maybe offering them a site like AssistU or Virtual Moxie where they can learn more if and when they’re ready to, or send them to buy Marcia's fabulous e-book--but spending no more time on educating than that).
Talk more with those who are ready. You’ll recognize them because when you start to talk, their eyes won’t glaze over (you know the look I mean!), and instead, they’ll perk up and get super interested in hearing what you have to share. And you'll find that as they perk up, you'll feel more confident, and will be able to connect more deeply and share how you can make a difference in their lives and work from a position of strength. Which will have them connect more deeply and show more interest. Which will have you connect more deeply and be able to share more with more confidence. Which will have them connect more deeply and show more interest, you see?
As you talk, they’ll ask good questions that show that they get it (or are on the edge of getting it), and get you. They are the ones more likely to say, “Hell, yeah—when do we get started?” They're the ones who are going to focus on you and starting the co-creative process, rather than telling you all the reasons working with "someone like you" would never work for them. They are the ones who won’t try to make you justify yourself to make them feel better about what they are incapable of understanding.
Just be you. Feel great about you. Be happy with you. Do what fills you with joy—whether in business or in your personal life. And spend more time talking joyfully with people who are doing the same kinds of things.Yours is not to convince. It’s never to convince. Yours is to simply feel great, love your life, follow that energy, notice the good people when they show up, connect, and see what happens.
I look forward to seeing what happens for you!
This is your world. Shape it or someone else will.
I most often think of it with regard to two different things.
First, our profession. I’ve long said that our leaders’ disagreement about what we do and what we are is ultimately going to cause the public to define us—and we’re not going to like it. Even now, you see where coaches (the main culprits) often try to tell VAs what they SHOULD be doing to be great VAs. And I think it’s only going to get worse over time. Just sayin’. I mull it over and over. I have no specific words of wisdom about how to impact it any differently than I already do.
So it’s the second context that I really wanted to write to you about today, and that’s this:
The Universe abhors a vacuum. That’s why when you finish a big project (in business or life) and think that you’re finally going to have some breathing room, something shows up almost immediately to fill that space.
You can absolutely consciously create your world. Minute by minute, you have the power, and the choice. You can fill it just with what you want to fill it with. Say no to things that you don’t want so that you have more room for what you do (but remember to choose it or the Universe will fill it!). Ditch the crappy clients so you have room for the great ones.
But you do it, y’hear? Because if you don’t, it will get done for you—and you’re most certainly not going to like that as much as what you would have chosen for yourself.
What parts of your life and work do you shape, and what parts do you feel are being shaped for you without your input?
They want VAs with low associative borders. Sounds like a mental health term, doesn’t it? What it refers to is someone who easily connects the dots between seemingly unconnected things. The “border” between her associations is low.
In other words, a VA who hears a need—and not just what’s said, but also what’s not said, who instinctively understands the top five things that might have to go along with what’s said and unsaid, and who can then effortlessly work through a process of collecting all the information necessary to make the need a reality, without dumping the project back into the lap of the client.
This is in contrast to someone with high associative borders—one whose border between things that need to be associated is high, and she can’t “see” them, so doesn’t know they’re there.
I’ve mulled over and over in my head as to whether this is a quality or skill, whether one is born with it or can develop it over time and with practice, and if it can be learned, how might I go about teaching it.
What I know for sure is that people with low associative borders are often amazed that the rest of the world doesn’t easily do what they can do. This makes me think it’s a quality one is born with, rather than a skill one learns and develops.
It’s also my observation that VAs with low associative borders do both implementation and strategy super well, but at some point, come to crave doing more strategy and less implementation. VAs with higher associative borders seem to prefer implementation with very clear direction.
If you believe you have low associative borders, I’d like to talk with you. If you’d be willing to be interviewed by phone, please be in touch (stacy at virtualmoxie dot com). Thanks in advance—I look forward to creating something from all of this pondering that will help us all be better and stronger at what we do!
But for those of you who aren’t AssistU-trained and picked the concept up from other VAs, there’s a piece of the bigger picture that I want to make sure you get. It’s this Bit O’Moxie:
In order for it to be a genuine partnership, your clients must give to you, as well.That giving can come in the form of referrals, of giving you full and complete access to all the intellectual capital and resources they have at their disposal, in showing up and caring about how your business is doing, in making great suggestions for ways you might move your business forward, in keeping you and your business top-of-mind all the time, and of being whatever help they can be.
Sounds a lot like some of what you give to them, yes? Well, it needs to come back to you, too! You deserve it, and it makes sense, doesn’t it, that if you’re going to put time, energy, commitment, and focus behind someone else’s success, you deserve to have the same done for you.
Without this giving back piece, what you have isn’t a partnership in any real sense. Instead, you have a transactional relationship where you work, and the client pays. It’s no different, really, than the relationships people have with other vendors they use regularly, like the dry cleaner, or massage therapist. These relationships happen as needed. And although the same vendor is usually chosen for a single type of work (people go to the same dry cleaner, and the same massage therapist, for example), the “transaction” is around exchanging work for money. The client doesn’t give anything else to the vendor. The client doesn’t help the vendor in any real way (other than by being a customer).
If that’s really what you have in your relationships with your clients, and it works for you, that’s ok—and don’t kid yourself that you’re working in partnership. You’re simply not.
Do you really want transactional relationships, or partnerships, with your clients?
I could be cavalier and say, “If you want clients who will pay what you ask, only talk with people who can afford your fee.” And I’d be spot on with that.
But that’s not very helpful to most people. And I genuinely want to help.
So first off—remember that when people don’t want to pay you what you’re worth, it doesn’t necessarily mean they don’t see your value, or that your fees are set inappropriately. It could (and probably does) mean that they have assigned a different value (or budget) for the work in their own minds—and your fee is simply outside that.
So, first and foremost, don’t let clients walking away because of “price” shake you. Instead, keep looking for clients who have assigned higher value to their work, and to the role you’ll play in their work.
Bit O’Moxie: Before you let clients walk away? Consider what else you might have that could be helpful.
For instance, do you have any resources you could offer the client that, given what he’s shared about his business, he might find useful? Have you created any info products (or are you an affiliate for any) he might find appealing? Do you know the perfect VA for him? Or do you know of a referral service that will take great care of him as he continues his search? Is there anything that you can share with him as he leaves you that will show you off to be someone who cares and is into giving?
Doing this--offering products—your own, or an affiliate product you genuinely believe might help—can allow you to still profit from the time you’ve spent with the client. Helping to find another VA is a kindness long remembered because you didn’t have to do it.
All of those things can help keep you in the client’s mind long after he’s moved on. You don’t want to close the door behind him—trust me--I’ve seen more than my share of clients move on from VAs whose fees were “too high,” then return with their proverbial tails between their legs when they don’t find what they really wanted elsewhere.
What can you offer, just because, that will be valuable and long-remembered?
Our happy, chatty conversation was interrupted by his strident accusation: “YOU put one of my KNIVES in the DISHWASHER!”
Important backstory: Many years ago, D got serious about cooking. And baking. And he wanted some more-professional tools to help him make the yumminess he was seriously enjoying. One of the things he coveted was a set of high-end Henckels' knives. So one day, I surprised him with the set he so very much wanted. And although Henckels says these things can go in the dishwasher, D was adamant that they shouldn’t. And being that they’re his knives, and he’s made that specific request, I’ve worked very hard to remember it every single time I’ve done the dishes since. And to my knowledge, I’ve never put one in the dishwasher—but he has.
So, when he flat out blamed me for the knife’s being in the dishwasher utensil basket, the obnoxiousness and arrogance of his assumption weren’t lost on me.
“Why do you think I did it?”
“Because I didn’t.”
Ok, then.
You might imagine that, at this point, things could have so easily gone from bad to worse. And they might have, except for the fact that I absolutely didn’t want them to.
I said, “Listen, I’m sorry your knife ended up in the dishwasher. I know how important it is to you that the Henckels get hand washed, and I know seeing that bothers you. Let’s both promise each other to be super mindful—even MORE mindful than we already think we’re being about this, ok?”
So what does my having taken the high road do for you?
Well, it models something really important. Several things, come to think about it. It models:
1. Relational maturityAnd what did D model? The opposite of everything I did.
2. A commitment to the relationship and to D that was far bigger than my need to be right
3. Responsiveness, not reactiveness (on my part)
4. Compassion/seeing my partner as innocent
Depending on many factors (like tiredness, hormones, illness, stress—on the one side—and rest, love, reserves, centeredness—on the other) which modeling a person does could be like mine or D’s. True, that. In our case, he’d had a really nasty day at work. I’d had a really lovely one. He’d not slept well the night before. I had. He was stressed. I was centered.
Had I not been? My response could have been pretty nasty. Had D felt better, he probably wouldn’t have come at me the way he did. He would have instead said something like, “Dang! Another knife ended up in the dishwasher. Let’s both be extra careful about them, ok? It’s really important to me.”
No blaming, no needing to be right, just the fact, and a reiteration of a request that showed he knew that the knife ending up in the dishwasher could have just as easily been his doing as mine.
Bit O’Moxie: The more self-care you engage in, the better prepared you are for lifes tiffs, or whoop-dee-doos. Also, having reserves of things like time, money, love, community, space, and opportunity makes you infinitely more present to yourself, which in turn makes you more responsive (rather than reactive) to others. So even if something goes awry, you’re more likely to handle it with ease, rather than freak out about it. You’re more able to see many options, rather than none—or just one.
What self-caring things do you need to add into your life? What reserves are depleted and need building up? Obviously, self-care and building reserves doesn’t happen overnight. So while you consider those questions, let me tell you the thing I try my darndest to hold on to—no matter what (and do better and better with over time). It’s a promise I made to myself to always try to actively see the person/people I’m dealing with as innocent. I don’t mean (necessarily) innocent of wrong doing. I mean pure—like a baby.
When I have access to that, no matter the circumstance, it helps to quiet and calm me, and brings me back to center before I need to respond to whatever’s being thrown my way. It allows me to immediately shift to a place where I can give someone else the benefit of the doubt. Where I don’t jump to conclusions. Where I’m willing to ask, rather than assume. And where I can bring love and compassion into the mix to look for options and solutions.
Try it (if you can) the next time you’re in a situation like I was with D—even if your reserves are depleted. And let me know if it helps.
Lots of people do. But when I have a coaching client who’s been in business for more than a couple of years who hasn’t really kept hers up to date, and feels badly about that, I tell her to forget about it.
Just forget about it.
And instead, I suggest she create what I call a “Fairy tale business plan.” You can do it, too.
What you want to do is summon the vast knowledge you've gathered every second since your business launched-what you love, what you don’t, what’s working well, what you wish worked better, and then lay it out in fairy-tale format.
It might begin this way:
”Once upon a time there was a pretty girl named Anastacia. She lived in a beautiful cottage, close to the sea, in a burg called Baltimore.
Anastacia loved helping people. And the more success they saw, the happier she was. Every day she would go into her office at 9am, after a lovely and healthy breakfast and a walk among the fields outside her cottage where she would revel in the feel of the sunshine on her skin, and the sound of the birds singing in the trees.
Once In her office, she would choose a happy playlist on her iPod, turn on her computer, and get to work. Her clients were all women whose work and lives made a difference. She loved working with them because they were gracious, fun, smart, up to big things, and always clearly showed how much they valued her and the contribution she made to their businesses…
You get the idea.
Bit O’Moxie: The point is, in writing a fairy tale, where, of course, everyone lives happily ever after, you focus on very happy, positive details—and that focus shifts your vibration, your energy, and as a consequence, who and what you attract.
It’s also a great deal of fun to write; something, I'm sure, that will be far easier to get into, and actually complete, than redoing or creating from scratch a business plan!
Elyse wrote to me to ask me if I could teach her more about the old adage, “Fake it till you make it.” You see, Elyse is new to this whole VA thing, and has those feelings of being an imposter—you know, the ones just about everyone has when starting something new.
Here’s what I shared:
When you’re new at something, like being a VA, it’s natural to feel like you don’t have the “goods” to help clients. What I’d love for you to remember, Elyse, whenever you doubt yourself, is that you do.
You’ve been an admin for 20+ years, and you’ve supported your senior-level boss remotely for the past three years, doing everything from scheduling, to undoing messy situations, to making complex travel plans, to helping him get started with social media—all very much things that a VA might help her client with. And those aren’t your only skills, are they? I imagine that in the past 20+ years you've amassed a wide range of skills that you can parlay into remote admin skills. After all, sitting down the hall from your boss isn't that different from sitting half way across the country from a client. Whatever you've learned to do without being face-to-face are absolutely the goods you think you're lacking. That's really good news.
And based on what you shared with me, one thing you are lacking is the business know-how to run your own business. And that’s something that you can learn, for instance, through the VTP at AssistU.
So, “Fake it till you make it” in your context would be meant to remind you to act “as if” you are already doing the thing you want to be doing, to the degree that you can. And Elyse, to a great extent you aren’t faking. You’ve been doing the work of a VA, only without being in business for yourself. And as soon as you get that piece nailed, you’ll wake up to realize that you actually aren’t faking any of it any more, but you’re actually doing it, with great skill, finesse, and grace. And your clients will delightedly thank you.
And I have only one cautionary bit of advice for today’s Bit O’Moxie. Whatever you do fake--make sure that it's attitude, and confidence, rather than know-how. You don't want to lie to clients about what you can do for them. When you don’t know, don’t pretend. You can do lasting harm to the clients or their businesses and end up in a lot of hot water. Instead, approach literally everything with great confidence, and let the client know that although you haven’t ever done THAT before, you believe that you can figure it out (for instance), and you’d love to try. A can-do attitude can get you much further along than almost anything else.
We’re driving way out in the country last weekend, Dominic and I, when I went over a series of smallish dips in the road that made the car bounce like crazy.
“Love those whoop-dee-doos!” D sang out gleefully.
“Whoop-dee-doos?”
“Yeah… whoop-dee-doos. What do YOU call ‘em?”
Well, at the time, I would have called them “a series of dips in the road that made the car bounce like crazy,” (go figure) but now, I mean, how can I resist calling them whoop-dee-doos?
So what does this lovely tale have to do with your business? Glad you asked, my friend.
It’s cause business is just like that. You’re cruising along, doing your stuff, and everything’s fine, and suddenly, without warning, you hit whoop-dee-doos that make you bounce like crazy.
Some people, when hitting whoop-dee-doos, get stuck right there. Rather than dealing with the few seconds of bouncing, they behave more like what they hit was a bloody sink hole. They exclaim and exclaim about the bouncing and the dipping, and it goes on and on for so long that they’re incapable, really, of noticing that road is again flat and smooth.
Bit O’Moxie: To survive, and more importantly, to thrive in business, long-term, you can’t be one of those people. Whoop-dee-doos can’t (and don't) last forever. And they don’t come so frequently as to be the norm. They are, in reality, just little bumps in the road, to be ridden over and forgotten. So instead of going to a place of upset (or drama), be the person who, like Dominic, exclaims, (c’mon…do it with me) “Love those whoop-dee-doos!” and smiles and laughs before getting on with the smoothness that’s returned. It will quite possibly change how you experience challenges forever!
When you call a plumber to fix your toilet, your sink, or whatever you’re having a problem with, he arrives at your house, listens to the issue, and gets to work. You sigh in relief and go back to watching TV with the family.
What you don’t do is tell him how to do his job, or dictate to him which tools he’s going to use to do it. If you want to hang out and watch him work, he might tell you that info, but really, what he does and how he does it is up to him.
So it should be with you and your clients. You need to figure out what tools, processes and procedures make you most effective and efficient, and then tell the clients (should the clients care to know) what you’ll be using.
It’s not up to you to fit in to the clients' systems and processes, much less conform to their tool sets, unless they work for you.
Look, no matter what they say they want, clients are expecting you to be the expert. They came to you believing you know more and better than they do. And if you're playing your best game, you should absolutely be the expert. You cannot be the expert and morph yourself into something you’re not, using tools and playing with P/Ps that you know won’t work. The two simply aren’t compatible, and will probably lead you to a rocky relationship with an unhappy and fairly quick ending.
Bit O’Moxie: So pick the tools that you prefer, that you know work best for you, and that allow you to look like a super hero. Tell the clients what you'll be using. And when it comes to tools you need to share, be willing to strongly suggest, (or require, if you’re super moxie-full) that the clients use the tools that work best for you. Chances are, whatever the clients are using isn’t working well for them to begin with, and they’ll be open to what you suggest. And if not, and you know what's being used won’t allow you to do your best work, be willing to walk away from the engagement. Remember, not playing is still a win/win.
From Twitter, @scottpalmer tweeted: "Knee-jerk support interactions aren't effective for me - but they're still the norm. Do they work? Do cookie cutter answers satisfy anyone?"
My response? “Cookie cutter answers, like cookie cutter people who can't think critically for themselves/have no power, & satisfy no one."
When Scott tweeted this, I connected some dots that weren’t there, and I’m now happily blogging about them.
He, clearly, is talking about customer support—probably from people in call centers. My brain, OTOH, moved directly to Virtual Assistants, and how what he said applies here, too.
In our case, it’s more that soooooo many VAs sound alike. Randomly compare a couple VA sites and you’ll likely see what I mean.
I’m guilty of supporting that, to a degree; in the Virtual Training Program at AssistU, we want to make sure that our trainees are prepared, soup to nuts, to strongly start their new VA practices, so we give them some great language to use for a variety of circumstances, and we share some marketing materials they are free to customize and use in their practices.
What I know is that, when starting something new, it’s impossible to have great language for those situations, and there's next to no way to create truly unique marketing pieces, because there’s not enough knowledge or experience to do so.
So copying, or mimicking, or using templates are all very good ideas for newbies, because it gives them a way to make a strong start, and a way to think about working into having their own thoughts about those same topics. The problem I’ve seen is that many far more senior VAs are still copying, mimicking, and using templates--whether AU VAs who have gotten them from us, or non AU VAs who have gotten them elsewhere. What’s up with that?
In conversations with VAs over the years, some have told me they can’t think of how to express things better (the “why reinvent the wheel” argument). Others have said they know they should come up with their own stuff, but can’t get around to it (the “I’m too busy to worry about my presence” argument). Still others say their PCs seems to like what they read and they don’t see why they should change it (the “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” argument). None of them hold water. Really.
Be yourself. Speak for yourself. Do you. Everyone else is already taken.
Bit O’Moxie: If you’ve been in your business for more than a year, you really owe it to yourself, your VA colleagues, and the client population to find your own voice and talk about what you do and offer in your own unique way. Continuing to copy, mimic, or use templates makes you look untutored, and unable to critically think for yourself. And while that may be fine for a newbie, that’s absolutely the wrong way to go for you.
Another item from the AssistU community…
One of our VAs writes a blog about being a mompreneur and is pretty darn open about the challenges of balancing her family and her business.
She recently talked with a potential client, who, interestingly, works with families trying to achieve balance. Instead of being wildly attracted to her, the PC questioned her ability to get her work done if she was really balancing her family life.
I shared two thoughts that I want to share with you, too, in case you find yourself in a similar situation during a client conversation.
First: Remember that's it's better to be hated for who you are than loved for who you aren't. Authenticity and transparency matter most--in relationships of all types.
The clients you need are the ones who read your blog and say, "Wow...a woman who manages her family and runs a successful biz is JUST who I want working with me!"
Don't stop showing yourself. And don't censor your voice. You're not trying to attract the whole world--just a few, choice clients.
And second: You know the phrase..."Them that can, do; them that can't, teach?" It’s shocking to talk with a potential client who should get it and should be attracted to you.
But maybe he doesn't/can't walk the talk. Maybe he's a "them that can't, teach" person and he doesn't know how to walk it. There are a bazillion of 'em out there, and I'm sure you're likely to run into some of them while interviewing clients.
Just know that you're not alone, and that this is absolutely not about you!
Bit O’Moxie: No matter how centered and sure of yourself you are, there will always be people who can, momentarily, throw you for a loop. In those moments, really hold on to the fact that it’s not about you. No matter how much it may seem to be about you, it’s really about the other person.
The VAs with the absolute best practices (in this context, meaning most fulfilling) I’ve ever seem have fundamentally found their clients organically, while walking through their lives and taking advantage of opportunities that present themselves to talk about what they do. They don’t worry about who doesn’t like them, or doesn’t “get” them, because they know that those people simply don’t matter.
They just don't.
So the next time you run into such a person, remember that he doesn’t matter more than your own vision. He doesn’t even matter as much as your own vision. Keep your eyes on your goal, take every step in the direction of it, and you will not fail to reach it—no matter what anyone says to you or thinks of you and how you run your business and life.
I’ve been thinking about what I wrote last week. It occurred to me that it may have sounded as though I thought there was something wrong with people who could teach things they couldn’t do well—which really isn’t the case at all.
And so I wanted to share this: I really believe that each of us usually does the best s/he can with what s/he has.
I also believe each of us is wounded in some way; that belief comes from never ever having met someone without a wound or 20. And it's ok to be wounded.
Wounds, themselves, are almost never visible--they're usually locked up tight. But there is always a manifestation of a wound. Some manifestations are visible to others. Others are carried deep inside, where only the wounded person can see them. Often, the wound is something that one sees, understands, and, try as s/he might, can’t mend—even with help. Unfortunately, often, those are the wounds that hold people back, and that there’s shame around (as in, “Why can’t I FIX this—I SHOULD be able to fix this….there has to be something wrong with me that I can’t FIX it!”)
I learned the biggest lesson of my life around wounds of the internal and external sort a few years ago.
I had (still have) an almost perfect friend. At the time, I really believed her to be absolutely perfect. She was bright, beautiful, thin, successful, and marrying the “IT” guy…who was also bright, buff, built, successful. And most of her friends (I knew a bunch of them, albeit virtually) were the same.
So when the invite to her wedding showed up, I was paralyzed. See, in my mind, I wasn’t any of those things. And I was fat, to boot. And so going to the wedding, and having to show up as my absolutely imperfect self was nearly impossible for me to contemplate.
For weeks, I tried to find the outfit that would make me feel most like I thought they felt in their own clothes. I think I even pushed Dominic into doing the same thing—all out of my absolute certainty that I didn’t want my friend, or her friends to look down on either of us.
And, girding my emotional loins, we went to the wedding. Once there, I immediately saw one of the perfect friends walking in my direction. He wasn’t walking over to see me—heck, I’d never even shared a pic of myself, so I knew he wasn’t coming to see me. He was just walking in my direction on the way to something else. As he got to me, I reached my hand out, touched the sleeve of his immaculately cut Italian suit and spoke to him.
He stopped, and said, “Have we met?” I told him who I was, and as I did, he smiled at me. A big, toothy grin of delight.
It's only been in retrospect that I realized his delight. At the time, though, I was terribly busy noticing that he didn’t really have great teeth.
Yeah. Mr. Perfect was imperfect.
And it was that in that exact moment I got on a deeply profound level that we all have SOMETHING. Something about ourselves that we don’t like. Something we’re ashamed of. Something that holds us back. Something we wish were different. Something that points to a wound we haven’t yet healed.
And right then, I stopped being ashamed of my fat, imperfect body. And I stopped looking at my friend, her husband, or their friends as perfect.
We were all the same, actually…just people, doing the best we could with what we had.
In the years that have passed, I’ve become very successful. I’ve grown internally in exponential amounts. Some people would tell you I’m one of the smartest, wisest women they know. I’m still fat, but as my friends would point out to you, they’ve never seen it seem to matter—to me, or anyone else.
In truth, to a great degree, it wasn’t that I’d made peace with the wound that was keeping me there. It was that I got good at not focusing on it. It’s not that I didn’t still try to work on it, and to heal it. But I didn’t blast myself all the time for being wounded, or for the resulting outward sign of the wound—my weight. I also tried to make the weight different—trying every diet known to man, each with greater or lesser success.
And then last year, I first decided that I wasn’t going to allow anyone to get close to me who didn’t see me and treat me as precious. That was huge—and some people had to leave my life, but other truly beloved people showed up. And the wound healed a little bit. Then, my mother died. The perpetrator of the wound was at last never again going to be in a position to hurt me. And the wound healed a little bit more. At the end of the year, my friend Jess, in a conversation, said some magic words to me. She said, “Struggle is part of my DNA.” She said them about herself, but I could have said them myself.
It was one of those profound life teachings I wasn’t expecting to get out of a regular conversation, but that landed so strongly I couldn’t ignore. It resonated because, although I never would have had the language to say it, it was the truth for me, too. Having my childhood, where my biggest struggle was trying to get my narcissistic parents to see me and love me led me to absolutely absorb struggle into the core of my being.
When Jess said what she said, and I realized how true it had been for me my whole life long, and then realizing that I had no more reason to struggle, the wound healed even a bit more.
Very shortly afterwards I saw this video on the Abraham-Hicks site. And although, coincidentally, it happens to be about weight, I saw it as a message for me about struggle in general, and decided that 2009 would be “The Year of Ease” for me. And the wound kept healing.
And so this year has found me focusing on not paddling hard upstream, and turning my boat around to float down whenever I saw myself struggling. Every time I did, the wound healed more.
In May, at SOBCon, Kali Evans-Raoul—a fabulous image consultant, said to a room full of bloggers, “What you all need is the Holy Shit Factor. That’s where what you say, how you sound, and what you look like match who you claim to be online.”
Another profound life teaching for me, because it pushed me to come face to face with the fact that what I look like doesn’t match the rest.
A month later, at FoVA, Dawn and I were leading a session fondly referred to as The Cabana Boy session. It was all about having high standards for your business, and Dawn and I were going to point out that people really didn’t want a business that resembled Homer Simpson, but one that resembled a hot, buff cabana boy.
And that caused me to look at the fact that my wound—and my resulting fat, left me out of integrity with the absolute foundation of what I teach—that having high standards and a super-strong foundation, leads to stronger businesses and higher-quality lives.
In every way, save this one, I am a person who absolutely lives what I teach. I’m not the person who teaches because I can’t do the thing I’m teaching—but even if I were, so what? If what I teach rocks, what difference would it make to my students, really, that I wasn’t doing it myself?
As we did our session, smack in my face, was a profound teaching. The wound wasn’t completely healed, but I felt clearly that it was time for some very decisive action to move me away from staying stuck with the fat, and stuck with the thing that kept me from the Holy Shit Factor.
I came home, and did the one thing I’d resolutely told myself I’d never do (because, bloody hell, I oughta be able to lose weight it on my own!). I called a bariatric surgeon, made an appointment, and scheduled myself for surgery—to have a Sleeve Gastrectomy.
Five weeks post op, I’m without 80% of my stomach. I’m 35 lbs lighter. I feel amazing. I’m on a new journey of discovery that is very difficult to describe. And I know a reformed (or reforming) person is just the worst, but I’m not here to preach.
I’m just here to offer this Bit O’Moxie: Whatever your thing—whether people can see it (like weight or bad teeth), or it’s invisible (like having been abused as a child), and whether you can heal it or not, don’t let it stop you in the here-and-now, from being the absolute best you that you can be. Do the best you can with what you have. And whatever you absolutely don’t like—change it. There’s a solution or work around to just about anything. Be willing to find it, and to let other people help you get there.
Healing my wound completely would be oh-so nice. But I think that maybe some wounds take a lifetime to heal. In the meantime, rather than letting it run my life for the second half of my life, I’m going to run the show—the whole show. And if I can do it, you can, too.
With regard to the specific point of this blog, you can have the practice you dream of. You can work with ideal clients. You can be paid what you dream of being paid. You can climb out of your financial hole. You can be who you most want to be. Just start moving in the direction you want to go, today. One step, then another, then another. Get coaching. Get training. Ask me to work with you, for golly geeze (I know more about this VAing stuff than anyone, and soon, I’m gonna have the Holy Shit Factor, to boot! What’s not to love about me, huh?). And watch for the lessons. They’re everywhere. They’re oh-so good, and they will help you make radical differences in your life and work. Just be awake and aware--and willing to take inspired action. :)
This recently came up in the AssistU community forums, and I wanted to share it with you.
A VA’s coach had suggested to her that she create a marketing piece that would tangibly show prospective clients what she could get done in an hour. The point was, I believe, to help clients who can’t really imagine how much can get done, and whose minds spin wildly as, instead of thinking about how productive that hour would become, they think about how much money they’re spending.
My answer in the thread was this:
Not for nothin', but this is a verrrry slippery slope you're all walking on. I wouldn't suggest using such a marketing piece, because the minute you DON'T do what a client thinks you SHOULD do in an hour, you're gonna be screwed.
This is exactly why I've never mentioned (much less advocated) our considering using the Industry Production Standards manual--which has existed longer than Virtual Assistance has (being used by the BSS industry to price their services long before we showed up). For those of you who don't know what this is, it's a manual that gives "average" operator times for document production and non-keyboard administrative services. It might tell you that, an average operator's time to type a one-page document is three minutes (I'm obviously making that up, but you get the idea). The premise is that then you can tell a client that you'll charge three minutes of your time to do the work.
The problem is that it's not always going to take you three minutes. And when it doesn't, for whatever reason it doesn't, you deserve to be paid for your time.
Stuff takes you as long as it takes you. Clients have to trust that you're not screwing them on time. That's just the way this works.
If you (any of you) feel like you may be too slow at certain things, ask your VA pals who do those things how long it takes them--but just to get a sense of whether you are, indeed, underperforming. And if you are, consider either letting a client know that there are things you can do, albeit slowly, if they like, OR you can find someone to do those things more quickly.
But never get yourself caught in the "I can do this much in an hour" trap. It's one you can't get yourself out of once in it.
Bit O’Moxie: Better...stop playing this game. It's not your job to teach the world WHY what you offer is a good thing. Instead, look for the clients who wouldn't think to ask, who aren't working on a tight budget, and who can easily afford to work with you long-term. Play to the strong, not to the weak, and your whole practice will change.
My pal, Tim Milburn (@timage), tweeted this one day last week:
Authority over doesn't always mean competence in. Good leadership always looks for the best people for the job.
Business owners—in this case, I’m talking about your clients--are the leaders of their own stuff. They make the decisions, the choices, and the buck absolutely stops with them. They have ultimate authority over their businesses.
But having the authority over their businesses doesn’t even often mean they have competence in every area. Chances are great they don’t have any competence in administration. And that’s why it’s so important for you to be the expert your clients turns to for administrative guidance.
I think you should absolutely should be, as a practical matter, the CAO—Chief Administrative Officers for your clients, and everything administrative in nature should be running over your desk for comment, strategy, and to be dealt with in execution. If they are smart leaders of their companies, they'll see the rightness in this, and get out of your way, and let you do what you came to do for them.
Bit O’Moxie: Be the best person for that particular job. Show yourself to be an indispensable partner for the business’ success. Just in the same way your clients don't try to be their own lawyers, and seek out expert guidance in legal matters, present yourself in such a way that your clients see you in that same light with regard to the nuts and bolts of how their businesses run!
I just read another post about how to organize email, and decided to share with you my story, in case it helps you—or helps you help a client who might be like me.
I was the person who kept everything in my Inbox because I hated to file. I hated taking the time to figure out where something should go, and in truth, I never found an email filing system that really worked for me. I’d tried filing by name, by project, by keyword, by client—sometimes putting things in multiple places, just in case I couldn’t remember where I’d put it. I even tried creating filters that would automatically file things for me. That ended up being a nightmare as my life got more complex and I became a filter-creating freak!
Ultimately, the Inbox seemed like just as good a place to stash stuff as any.
I remember doing a work weekend with Dawn, who hates having stuff in her Inbox. She likes it to be all cleaned out, as, in part, it lets her know that nothing’s outstanding. I remember thinking that my inbox with thousands and thousands of things in it would have put her right round the bend.
I wanted control of my email, too, but simply wasn’t finding a way to achieve that. I assume many people stuggle with this—because if they didn’t, no one would still be writing about it.
And then I bought a fabulous book that I simply can’t recommend highly enough, called Upgrade Your Life. It’s a compilation of efficiency tips from the oh-so popular Lifehacker blog.
Tip # 1 made the purchase price of the book all worth it for me. The upshot of it, for me, was this:
Don’t file your email. Just archive it. Get it out of your inbox so it doesn’t take up mental space, but just throw it all together in one big archive. Then, when you need something, search for it, and it will be there.
Omgosh…it was like someone had handed me the simplest, most elegant solution to my email challenge. Just archive it? Really?
So I did. And in one fell swoop, went from 5,000+ pieces of email in my Inbox to zero. I remember looking at the empty inbox and feeling a tad uncomfy with that too, but I gotta tell you—I got over it pretty quickly.
That was a couple of years ago, and like any system that gets tweeked to the individual using it, this one is tweeked to me.
I now have a one/two punch for email. I look at new mail, delete any I know I don’t care to read, and then read what’s left, one at a time—afterwards taking whatever appropriate action needs taking (replying, forwarding, etc.), and then either leave it in my Inbox (I use my Inbox to hold anything I need to do. I could have created folders for stuff to be done, stuff awaiting reply, etc., but I keep the number of things in my Inbox so low, that keeping them right in front of my face is just as easy for me), delete it, or archive it.
I originally started creating the occasional folder for things I needed to collect—like registrations for teleclasses. And then I realized that Search would gather them all up for me, anyway, and I stopped.
So email comes in, and gets dealt with and moved out of my way. It really is that simple—and that easy!
Bit O’Moxie: I’m asked every day about my systems, as well as systems I know about for any number of things that need to get done. And while I know a whole bunch of systems, what I know for sure is that what works for one person may not work for another. There is no magic bullet (not even this ultra-simple email system will work for everyone!). What ultimately matters most is that your systems work for you. Keep looking at other systems, but when you find something that works for you, and works well (my definition of that is that it’s intuitive for you, not time or brain consuming, and easily repeated—every time) stop looking for something bigger or better. Be happy with what works—too few people ever really find something like that, and spend countless amounts of energy in pursuit of the perfect system. Sometimes good enough is actually so!
I’d been thinking that I could write Moxie on Tuesday, as usual. I mean, it’ll be the day after surgery, and I’ve been thinking that, at the very least, I could lay in bed with my Air on my lap and pound out a post.
But then I thought about something Dawn said to me last week as we talked about my schedule, and my anticipated downtime (I’ve only planned for a week—my Moxie post notwithstanding). She said to me, “Well, you’ll probably be ok, but remember to be gentle with yourself, and give yourself the time you need. Ahhh.. I know you, and I know that if you need more time, you’ll simply tell people, and reschedule stuff.”
And she’s right about that—I have absolutely no problem telling people I can’t do what they are expecting me to do. Crap happens to us all, and sometimes things need to be shuffled around a bit. Life’s like that.
And that—that it’s really ok to change your mind, change your schedule, change your plans—could very well be this week’s Bit O’Moxie. But it’s not.
Instead, I’m sharing this:
There a wall that each of us has within us. It’s the wall that each of us sometimes runs face first into while trying to get it all done, or get it all done in a certain arbitrarily defined time. This wall is called "capacity," and it shows up when we over do and things start falling apart as a result of the overdoing.
It’s smart to know where that wall is, and it’s beyond smart to stop yourself when you see it coming, but it’s not quite smashing up against your nose.
For me, it’s right here, right now—Sunday night, T-8 hours. I’m looking at tomorrow, when I’ll be having bariatric surgery and ridding myself of 4/5 of my stomach in an attempt to lose a ton of weight so I will no longer be diabetic. No small adventure, that. But I deserve for it to be an easy adventure. I deserve, then, to be able to get discharged from the hospital on Tuesday, and rest. Just rest. No computer nearby, and no Moxie post needing to be written.
So I’m writing tonight to say that there simply won’t be a Moxie post this week. And there may not be one next week, either, depending on what happens with me this week. I’m thinking good thoughts about being back here with all of you and posting. But if not?
Yeah… life’s like that. And I’m happily giving myself, and all of you, permission to do what you need to do, and to not give a fig what people think about it.
If you're interested, you can follow my journey on my personal blog, and on Facebook.
Until I’m back… :)
One of my coaching clients has a husband who has been out of work for some time, and he’s really feeling the strain of it. Her concern was how to stay focused on her VA practice and upbeat, while trying to support him with a situation she’s helpless to fix.
It’s a story I’ve heard (in one form or another) since the new year. In case you find yourself in a similar place, here’s a Bit O’Moxie for getting through it.
It’s easy to get pulled down with someone who’s struggling. And to do that would be a travesty. It’s unfortunate enough that your husband is struggling. You don’t need to join him in that—or the misery that’s probably accompanying the struggle.
So, first, simply decide that you won’t go there. Refuse to join the pity party. Remember that this isn’t YOUR situation—it just seems to be yours because you’re in a relationship with him and you care about him, and your family. In truth, the situation belongs to him. And, as such, it’s not yours to fix in any context. He has to fix it. Your “job” (assuming you want it) is to be supportive.
Before you begin that, though, it’s most important to remember that you absolutely have to take great care of yourself, first. As with an emergency in an airplane where you’re cautioned to put on your own oxygen mask before helping your child with hers, you have to be sure that you’re super well before you can even think about how to help with a situation like this.
And you have to stay super well. So eat well, and exercise, and get plenty of sleep, and focus your thoughts and your self on happy things, and things that make you feel good.
The happier you are, the better you feel, the better your business is doing, and the more forward you’re moving, the more hopeful a picture you portray to others—including your spouse. And it should be noted that it’s really hard for someone to stay down in the muck and mire when surrounded by people who refuse to be. So continue to refuse to be, no matter what.
In short, the very best thing you can do for your spouse is be the best you can be to yourself—and taking care of your practice is no small part of that. What you do internally will radiate out and impact him…even if seemingly slowly, or in small measure, making him ultimately far more attractive for whatever job(s) he decides to go for, and far more available for good jobs (it’s hard to be available for good when you’re feeling down and out).
By focusing on being good to yourself, you will absolutely also be able to focus on helping him be good to, and for, himself.
In my view, the “juice” is in the relationship. That’s where every bit of real goodness occurs. And that’s true regardless of whether we’re talking about the relationship between a man and wife, or brother and sister, or two friends, or colleagues, or doctor and patient, or plumber and home owner, or VA and client.
The work is important. I will never say that it’s not. But the work itself is only rocket science if it’s pretty much rocket science, you know? Otherwise, it’s stuff that can done by countless people.
So where you’ll have the biggest opportunity to stand out and make a difference as the sole business expense your clients can’t live without is in the relationships you have with your clients, and the investments you make in those.
There simply is no other you, and there will be no other relationship like yours for each of your clients. And in the relationships, you will either make it or break it for the clients who are really understanding of the reality that what they’re getting isn’t a commodity from you (the others will never get it, no matter what you do).
Bit O’Moxie: Do the work. Do the work fabulously. But focus more on the development and longevity of the relationships you form. Say “yes” to the relationships, even when you can’t do the work. Be as, if not more, committed to the well-being of the relationship than you are to doing the work. Otherwise, you'll have well-done work, but lousy relationships that won’t last, and you’ll begin to question whether you’re in the right business. And that’s not the question you ever want to have to ask yourself.