Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire!

Posted on January 23, 2009 
Filed Under Business & Startup, Rant, Virtual Assistance, Web Design

Since I launched my VA business 3 years ago, one thing has always puzzled me about others who are beginning the same journey. Why do people offer services they simply have no experience doing?

I know this article is going to be pretty unpopular with many people because they may think I am criticizing them or putting them down, but it just seems like common sense that you should only offer services you have experience with. This has always been a pet peeve of mine since I worked in the corporate world. Even there, people would flat out lie on their resumes. Notice that I did not use the word “embellish” or another fluffy term for it. It is lying, plain and simple. There is no gray area here.

Just because you’ve opened Microsoft Word before does not make you an advanced user of the software program. When someone asks you whether you’ve created mail merges in MS Word or whether you’ve created multi-table queries in MS Access and you say you’ve done these things when you don’t even know what they’re talking about-that’s lying.

Maybe those who do this feel like they can’t get the job without lying. Maybe they think they’ll learn it on the fly. Maybe they think no one will notice. I’m here to tell you that a client or an employer is much more likely to want to train someone who was honest from the beginning than to find out later that half the person’s resume was a complete lie. Trust me. I know because it happened in my office far too many times. My favorite (note the sarcasm here) was the girl who was hired to be our administrative assistant. She couldn’t even type-literally.

Back to the services you promote or tasks you take on as a virtual assistant. I have increasingly seen questions on forums from members asking how to offer services that they clearly have no idea how to perform. One of the top services I see mentioned quite frequently is web design or website maintenance. If you have to ask others how to go about maintaining websites or what kind of information to get from your clients in order to maintain their websites or what programs are needed in order to maintain websites, then it should be obvious that you shouldn’t be performing this task for your clients. The fact that you’re even considering performing a technical task such as this is completely unprofessional and immoral.

The proper thing to do in these cases is to simply tell your clients or potential clients that this is not a service you provide, but that you would be happy to refer them to another VA who offers it. Why, you ask? Because you could do some serious damage to someone’s website by not knowing everything that’s involved in maintaining it. There are so many things that could go wrong, and it is your reputation on the line.

Am I saying that you shouldn’t learn how to perform website maintenance? Of course not. If you have the passion and the ability to learn something as technical as HTML, CSS, PHP, and all that goes with it, then more power to you!  But for heaven’s sake, take the time to learn it first, get the process down pat, test yourself with your own projects, and enlist the help of your peers by offering to do a freebie web page for them. Don’t fool yourself into thinking that you can read an article or a book on HTML and then start promoting your new website maintenance services. It just isn’t that simple.

I’m not just talking about web-related services, of course. This logic applies to any service that requires a certain amount of know-how. You may be contacted by a prospect who asks you for a quote to put together a PowerPoint presentation or a client who wants you to set up a complete marketing campaign using autoresponders or another VA who is looking to outsource a copywriting project. But just because you own PowerPoint or you’ve heard others mention AWeber or you’ve written a letter before, these things do NOT qualify you to take on these jobs.

Unless your client KNOWS that you have no experience in the area AND is willing to have you trained on the subject, then honesty is simply the best policy. Your clients will appreciate the fact that you were honest with them rather than doing a lackluster job and wasting their precious time.

If you stick with what you know and do it exceptionally well, your clients will brag about you from here to eternity. Don’t get caught up in trying to provide all the services that other virtual assistants offer. Make your offerings special. Create a finished product that is better than your clients ever imagined. Make sure your reputation is highly regarded-and that it stays that way.

Similar Posts:

Comments

blog comments powered by Disqus