What Do You Own?
I just got off of a Skype call with one of my longtime transcription clients who is now looking for a virtual assistant, and it made me think of something that I feel is very important. Do you take ownership of your clients’ businesses as well as your own? I don’t mean you want to become the CEO and take over their company. I mean that you are proud of their business, their product, their services, and you want their business to be presented in a good light.
Take Pride in Your Client's Business
This means that any product or service you provide to your clients must be of the highest quality–something you would be proud to present as your own. A transcript should be accurate and contain proper grammar, spelling, punctuation, good formatting, et cetera. If you’re a virtual assistant, say, dealing with your client’s clients through a help desk, you want to make those clients happy, and you want to present your original client’s services in a positive light at all times. That’s taking ownership.
You should want the same things for your clients’ businesses as you want for your own: Success. Growth. Happy Customers. Established. Trustworthy. You should be proud of the business they’ve built, and you should be proud to help them succeed. The services you provide could be helping them to get ahead, while at the same time helping you to get ahead because you are providing a great service! This means referrals from your happy clients.
Think about it this way: It’s not just your name on the line; it’s that of your clients as well. They have people relying on them, just as they rely on you. Take responsibility, making sure your services or product are second to none. There’s enough bad service out there; let’s not add to the junk pile.
What do you own? You own your business, your services, and your product, but you also own your clients’ reputations, their success, and the happiness of their clients as well.
Under Promise and Over Deliver
You have a new client and you’re eager to impress her. The material she is asking you to work with is brand new to you, on a subject you’ve never heard of before, but you know that with a little research, you’ll be able to tackle it. She asks you how long it will be until the project is ready? You want her to know that you’re fast, so you tell her 2 days. You start the job and realize it’s going to take you longer than 2 days to complete. What should you do?
If you’re like me, you will fret about it and probably stay up day and night until it’s finished so you don’t have to go back on your word. Or you could risk a bad first impression and tell the client you’ll be needing more time. What a pain! You have other projects that are being neglected just because you’re trying to save your own butt and potentially keep a new client happy and wanting to use your services again. The dog is begging for supper and your husband is wearing dirty clothes to work because you haven’t had time to do laundry as all of your waking time has been spent working on this project!
Here’s an easy solution: under promise and over deliver. Take some time to make accurate calculations on how long it will actually take and add 50%. Will the project take 4 days to complete? Tell your client it will take 6 days, then…here’s the kicker…deliver it in 4 days. Can you complete the task in one week? Tell your client it will take 10 business days and deliver it in half that time. Think about how happy you would be on their end of the project: “She told me she’d have it ready by Friday and here it is Wednesday and it’s already finished!”
Don’t think that you need to offer quick service to everyone. If he or she asks for it, be realistic and let them know if you can handle the job in the amount of time they request. But if you know you would need more time, BE HONEST with your client and yourself and tell him so. Maybe the job isn’t as urgent after all and the client is able to give you the extra time you need. It never hurts to ask.
By using this method of calculating job turnaround times, you will always have happy clients. True, sometimes you need to use all of the time to get a project done, but if you don’t over promise, you’ll have the extra time you need. The project will still be on time and your client will still be happy.
Why Pay When it Can be Free?
My client sent me an audio that I could not use with my transcription software. Did I panic? Not too much. I just went to my favorite software developers to see if they had something I could use to convert his audio into a usable format. Same with video–sometimes I don’t need the video content, just the audio, so I have software I can use to extract the audio as an mp3 and just load that file into my transcription software. All of these options have been free.
A lot of software creators offer free trials–try before you buy. Some have limited functionality; others offer the full program. Usually the free version suits my needs, but occasionally I need an upgrade to do more advanced things, so I’m happy to pay $20 or $30 for a lifetime license of the particular program. I had a client who would send me his video files on DVD. I needed to extract the videos quickly and efficiently, so I paid around $30 for some software, mostly because the project I was working on would pay for it with just one file and I’d still make a hefty profit. Now I have the program in case I need it in the future.
The bottom line is: Don’t pay for software if there is something free out there that will do the job. I always search for free programs first, or at least free trials. Sometimes I only need to use a program once and if the free trial will do it for me, there’s no need to pay for it. I’ve found a lot of free software at http://www.download.com. They also offer reviews and a star rating, which is very helpful. I also look at the number of times the program has been downloaded because if it’s worked successfully for a number of people, it may work for me as well. They’ve also got a forum and you can sign up for a free account so you can track your favorites.
What to Do if Your Client is a Bully
If your clients are all wonderful, kind, understanding folks, then you might want to read this just in case one of them pulls a Jekyll & Hyde…
We all have our fair share of “difficult” clients. Some want constant updates, some don’t pay their bill on time, others are hard to get in touch with, but rarely does a client exist who is just plain mean, a bully. I had a client who was very friendly, willing to work with me, seemed to trust my judgment, and everyone in his office that I dealt with was the same way. We had a great working relationship for over a year, until one cloudy, wintry afternoon, when everything changed.
This client told me he had a large project coming up. It’s always nice to be forewarned so as to plan ahead. When the project finally arrived, it was twice the size he had originally promised. Wanting to please him, I scrambled to find enough help in order to complete twice as much in the same amount of time. We got an early start and were working ahead of our usual pace.
All of a sudden, this client decided to send me a list of the order in which to turn in each separate component of this project, which was different than the order in which he sent them to me in the first place. All hell broke loose. I was trying my darndest to keep him happy and switch gears to match the new list. He became demanding of my time, wanting constant updates, wanting me to call him. (I don’t do phone calls, especially when someone is trying to dictate to me how to do my job.)
I had been in constant communication with this client, sending updates, sending files as they were completed. Well, come to find out, he had been promising his client things that were not possible, and had not checked with me first to make sure they could be done. So he had himself in a pickle and was trying to project it on me and have me take the blame for what he messed up.
This situation got so bad, my physical health was being compromised, and I “fired” my client. I sent what I had completed to date and said, “I’m sorry, but I am no longer able to offer my services on this project.” Did I think I’d hear from him again? No, but if this was the way he was treating me under the pressure that he created, I didn’t need that in my life. That’s why I’m working for myself–I don’t have a boss to dictate how I should be spending my time. I know best how to get my job done.
He sent me an e-mail saying something about my “lack of communication,” when all along, I had been communicating to him as I always had, probably even more, bending over backwards to try and accommodate his project. Nothing I did made him happy. I choose to not be treated that way. I don’t need any more drama in my life, and no bullies allowed!
The moral of my story is that if you are self-employed and have your own business, don’t feel as if you have to pander to difficult clients. Hopefully your great clients vastly outweigh your not-so-great ones, and you can afford to cut off the bad ones and leave the good. It’s not worth your health or happiness to cater to mean, abusive people. Maybe your rejecting them is what it takes to make them realize their wrong ways!
I was a bit worried at first since this client gave me a large percentage of my income, but things have worked out very well. Work has been steady and I’ve even gained a few more great clients that I might not have had time for if I’d continued with the bully. I have peace of mind and I know I made the right decision. Never let anyone try to take over your operation! You’ve been successful and you know how to make things work to your advantage, so keep up the great work.
Use Your Talents to Earn Money as a Freelancer
I’ve read in so many places, questions from people who don’t know where to begin when they want a work-at-home opportunity. There are so many scams out there, and even when an opportunity sounds legitimate, there’s always a catch. I joined one group that said there were no strings, but I found out later that I needed to charge things to a credit card, so I got out of there quick.
You should not have to pay for a legitimate job online. You may be required to have your own equipment, such as a computer, fax machine, or other office supplies, but no one should be charging you any type of fee to get started. If you are taking a class online to learn a skill, that’s a different story. Be sure to research online schools before you send them any money however, because there are good and bad online schools too.
To get started, think of things you like to do when you’re on your computer. Do you like surfing the Net? There are people looking for folks to search for certain things online, so that might be something you’d enjoy. Do you like to write? People sometimes look for ghost writers for their e-books or articles, so if you’re a good writer and have a strong grasp of your native language, punctuation and page formatting, this could be your niche.
Do you just like typing in general? You could do data entry, transcription, customer service (such as answering customer e-mails), or word processing. There may be businesses in your area that are in need of someone to type letters and dictation, or who need mailings sent out on a regular basis. This is where you’d do some offline work first, and then use your computer to complete the tasks. Many documents don’t need to be printed in your home office; you can send them via e-mail as Word documents or PDFs and your clients can print them on their end.
Are you a talented artist? If you don’t know how to already, learn to use graphic design software like Adobe Photoshop. There are always people looking for website graphics, book illustrations, logos, and pictures. I have a friend who tapped into a popular website where people could put in their own banners on personal pages. She is a super graphic designer and offered to create banners at a very reasonable price and was able to pay her mortgage payment with her first month’s worth of orders! That’s creative thinking.
In whatever area you decide to offer your services, don’t offer unless you have bona fide skills. Don’t accept a job not knowing where to begin and then not finish it. That will just make your client angry when they have to find someone else to do it. Plus, that ruins things for fellow freelancers out there who may know what they’re doing and can’t find any gigs–because people who do that are ruining everyone’s reputation, not just their own.
Use the Internet or your prior experience to do research on prices you should set, the time each project should take, how to deliver the finished product, and so on. When a potential client asks a question, you need to know the right answer. Even if you think you know everything about your particular industry, do more research and learn more! Nobody knows everything, so show some humility and make yourself teachable.
Most importantly, learn how to give good service to your clients and customers. Treat them as you would like to be treated. Always be fair and open-minded. Aim to please your clients so they will return to you for their next project. Happy clients means more happy clients, because they will tell their friends and colleagues about you. Word of mouth is one of the best, of not the best way to gain new business. Never be a flake! It can be so easy to disappear online and leave someone in the lurch, but never, ever do that.
With this information, how would a person get started finding gigs and clients once they’ve honed in on their talent and selected a service to offer? Stay tuned!
Is Working Online the Wave of the Future?
In my world, working online is the past, present and future. I first started surfing the Web around 1993, when my parents bought their first computer. It came with a free trial to AOL, so I hooked us up! The Internet was nothing then like it is now, where you can find information on just about any topic. I spent my time online playing games and visiting various chat rooms, interacting with the other people who were just discovering this technological monster.
Jump ahead 17 years and who would have guessed that I would be running my own online business that has been successful and growing for over 5 years? It’s a whole new world, this space of working with people online. I’ve got two contractors working with me now that I have never met in person. One has been working with me ever since I started online, more than 5 years ago. I’ve only met one of my hundreds of clients in person as well, and that’s only because he’s a local businessman whose office is about a mile from my house. All the rest have hired me sight unseen, except for a digital image on my website.
What I’d like to reveal in my blog and eventually workshops, webinars, videos, and much more, is how you can find your own online niche and build your business so that it’s like mine–successful and profitable. It takes a special kind of person to conduct their business completely online. You need a certain tenacity, drive, and willingness to learn, but you can make it work.
So welcome to my world–the world of a genuine online business that you can build with the skills and tools I’d like to share with you.
