Monday, July 20, 2009

Work at Home Moms

To me there is a good reason why we are called Virtual Assistants, the last thing we need to tell prospective clients is that we work from home, so having this title describes what we do and who we are, we are assistants to clients and work virtually.
Never tell clients you are a work at home mum, rather let them know you work from a virtual location in an office, this sounds better and makes what you are doing to be more real to the client. Work from home mums are not taken serious and surely if you are running a business you must be taken serious by other clients, business people, corporates etc.
Never tell the clients you cannot meet a deadline because your child is at home sick, the client is not interested, that is your business, all they want to know is can you do the work, can you meet the deadline, what happens in between this is not the clients business. Tell them a problem has arose that you need to take care of, they don’t need to know what it is.
Home, children, dogs, husband is your responsibility and not the clients so don’t tell them about these things.
Your office and company documentation must be professional, keep it fresh looking and your content and graphics business/company orientated.
Your aim is to project how professional you are in your business environment all the time and not to portray yourself as a work at home mum who plays at typing to earn extra money.

2 comments:

DIane Murray said...

I couldn't agree more. When I first started as a VA I made the big mistake of saying to a potential client that I worked from home. From the moment I said it he seemed to treat me differently and with less respect. I learnt my lesson quick! Working from home can be isolating though and I've found VAnetworking.com a really usefull site for 'meeting' with other VAs and sharing experiences. I'm not sure if you've come across the site.

amftyping said...

Hi Diana yes I know this site and the many others, please join Tavasa http://www.tavasa.co.za and you will not feel lonely at home again.
Ali

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