Why finding a good VA is a lot like dating
By: Terri Zwierzynski (see my bio) | Leave a commentMore posts by Terri Zwierzynski | Follow Terri Zwierzynski on Twitter
Your business is overwhelming you — it’s finally time to hire a VA (virtual assistant). You hire the first good candidate, and start training them and delegating tasks. Only to find out that they don’t have the skills promised, aren’t available when you expect them to be, or they like order where you live and thrive in chaos.
In some ways it’s a lot like dating. You meet a girl in a bar; she expected you to call her the next day, while you thought Thursday was soon enough. Or he still expects to play poker with the guys every Saturday night — or maybe he IS a successful computer programmer, but still lives with his mother.
It all comes down to differences in expectations. And we often don’t do a good job of sharing our expectations upfront, sometimes because we don’t even know what they are! Melanie Benson Strick’s recent blog post, 5 Key Elements to Quick-Start a High Payoff Virtual Team, provides the groundwork to setting and sharing expecations so you can get off on the right foot with your next virtual hire.
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About the Author
Terri Zwierzynski, MBA (UNC-Chapel Hill) became a corporate refugee in 2001, after 15 years of employment with technology companies big and small. A non-conformist at heart, Terri Z is now The Solo-CEO: a self-employed internet marketing consultant to solo entrepreneurs and a grassroots promoter of the "solo entrepreneur lifestyle". She runs Solo-E.com, the resource website for solo entrepreneurs which attracts thousands of visitors monthly from over 100 countries on six continents.
