5 Reality Checks for a VA

How do you stay in a strong, productive, and long-lasting business relationship with American clients?

As a Filipino VA, your ultimate goal is to work long-term and to become an indispensable asset for your client, where you become their right hand in handling their business. Suppose you are working with a coach, a trainer, a speaker, an author, or any American client who is setting up and growing their business. In that case, you, as the VA, can do many things for them to help in the back end of the business, behind-the-scenes operations, or on their social media platforms.

Make sure you know these five reality checks you need to be doing when working with American clients.

1. Consistency is key — This is the most important one because it’s the foundation everything else is built on. We say that consistency is what transforms the average into excellence. There should be consistency in your communication, where you talk about when you do your work, how you do it, and what you expect of each other. The more consistency you can build up together, the more successful you will be working long-term.

You want to show your clients that you can work autonomously and independently. But that won’t happen overnight. Learning how to do things will take a lot of effort in the first couple of weeks and months. Continue to be consistent in delivering results, consistent in communicating, and consistent in giving an impact to your clients. Strive to be excellent by being consistent.

2. Be on time — VAs should show up on time, which also applies to your client. Time is valuable for both of you, and you must respect that. Most Filipino VAs on my team are moms and breadwinners. Most of them used to have corporate jobs and are now working from home to look after their families while having a consistent source of income.

You are looking for consistency that will allow you to show up every day and do your job as a VA. This is what your clients or American business owners want. They want people they can count on, and that is dependable. Accountability and dependability go both ways for you and your client. It would be best if you were on the same page. On the other hand, your clients should allocate time and show up on time to have regular meetings with you and discuss how you are expected to do the work. And eventually, you will be able to work automatically on clockwork with less supervision from your client.

3. Time to up your game — We’ve been through world crises, global economic slowdowns, and climate changes for the past couple of years. The reality is these changes brought a lot of significant impacts on the way we work remotely. It created opportunities for VAs with the skill set to work when and where they want.

On the flip side, American business owners launching or growing their online businesses are trying to exploit the online space and the new normal to their advantage. That’s where you, as Filipino VAs, come and up your game with your skills and help these business owners. You should be able to fill the gaps and augment your clients’ skills with the skills you can offer. Help your clients sort things out. Do tasks that take too much of their time, and they can delegate those tasks to you.

4. Be the client — This is what I call ‘in thy own name’. In other words, you, as the VA, should learn the clients’ business and understand each other from each other’s perspective. Know your clients and build a good relationship with them. Let them know both your work style, a little background of yourself, and your home life. Share some challenges that might pop up in the long run as you work with them.

This will allow you to be part of the business and be someone your clients can depend on. You don’t want them to spend too much time managing you, so learn from each other. Eventually, your client won’t have to give their full attention while you do the job. But again, this doesn’t happen overnight. Be the VA who can contribute to the success of the business and be able to see through your clients’ eyes.

5. One voice — Speaking in one voice extends to knowing ‘thy own name’. This is more of becoming the client or business owner. You believe in their mission and vision, and you share their values. You speak in one voice with your clients across their social media platforms that your customers cannot tell the difference, whether you have answered the concern or query as the VA or the client. This kind of synergy is essential to making a seamless experience for your clients’ customers.

The goal here is to replicate or duplicate the client in you by empowering you to do and say things the way they do them. This can free your clients from having to do these things themselves. This shows how invested you are in their business and will stick to the client for a long time.

If you’re a Filipino VA, do these five reality checks and become more successful in your business relationship with American clients.

Found this article helpful? Follow and subscribe to my YouTube channel for more tips on how you can excel as a VA and land American clients.

Dan Meyer Sonic VA, which specializes in matching Filipino Virtual Assistants with American Small Business clients and has been a leader in the outsourcing industry since 2011.

Dan is also one of the top experts in Virtual Staffing and has personally trained over 10,000 Filipinos in areas such as virtual assistance, data analytics, business process outsourcing and social media marketing & management.