You are excited, exhilarated! You have found yourself THE ideal Virtual Assistant!
You did due diligence; you and your new VA talked extensively about each both, yours and her, requirements and how you both will start to design your partnership. You digested and responded to her Welcome Packet and started sharing your workload with your VA.
Then, all of a sudden, fear sets in. You now not only have to organize your own work, it’s also your VAs work, for this week, this month. You experience a sense of overwhelm. “How do I decide what work to give her?” Or “Will she be able to do this? What if it doesn’t work out?”
We all know and dislike the “What if’s.”
The little devil on your shoulder is laughing; he is winning again as he has managed to instill doubts in you.
I call this the Quicksand Syndrome. This is the phase where, as quickly as sand runs through the hourglass, you experience another fear.
The start of a new working relationship is most crucial time in the client relationship; open and honest communication on both sides is very, very important. It’s here that your VA can gently coach you through the rising feeling of panic; she’s seen it many times before and is a master in supporting you through this phase. You are a team, and as team mates you communicate about your feelings, your concerns, your fears. Being able to voice your anxiety helps you sort through it; it helps you build trust, and it helps your VA understand you better; she is able to show you that she is there for you and can ease your pain. It’s a win-win situation when done properly.
This happened recently, again, with one of my clients. When I realized the Quicksand Syndrome, I encouraged her to tell me about her thoughts, and listened with an open mind. At the end of our conversation, she was at ease, her questions had been answered, and we had worked out how to proceed in our working relationship without her feeling overwhelmed; she had turned from fearful to fearless!
When a VA is committed to a great client relationship, it’s not only the back-end work she does for the client that is important; as important are caring, being compassionate, loyal, and honest. It shows in little things, such as an email to say “I am thinking of you” when she hands over her children to her ex-husband for the week and feels lost; or it’s the unexpected snail mail card reading “Just saying Hi” that she finds in her mailbox one morning.
“Great, lasting client relationships are created by having the clients’ best well-being in mind at all times, and by working from the heart!”
Are you working with a VA? How did she help you through the Quicksand Syndrome and what makes your relationship with her special? I’d love to read your thoughts.