This post comes as the result of reading a sad story from a new VA who had purchased items on the behalf of a new client, who then paid her back with a bad check. Had I heard before this was to happen I would have told her “don’t do it!”. This is a common scam and unfortunately the poor VA has lost a couple thousand dollars for this learning exercise. Whether she’ll get her money back is an unknown. Depends on the legal system in her country and if the police get involved.
Never accept a cheque/check from a brand new client, no matter what they say. And definitely do not purchase items on their behalf with them offering to send a cheque/check to cover the cost. This is definitely a scam and not real at all.
You should be in charge of how you accept payments, direct deposit or some form of credit card processing service such as Square, Stripe, or similar. Clients need to prove themselves to you as being trustworthy and able to pay – same as you need to prove to them you are trustworthy and worth the payment. So start off small, if you do secure a client with lots of hours, invoice them weekly from the beginning to develop a pattern of payments and habits and, once they have proved themselves, you can move to monthly invoicing if that suits you and them. Definitely don’t pay for things for clients if you have no history with them. While I have two clients I do pay for things, on their behalf because they don’t have a credit card, we do have a long-term working relationship and I know they’ll pay me by direct deposit into my bank account as soon as I ask for the funds (usually before I go and make the purchase).
Be careful, be aware, do your research and ask for advice in the VA forums if something doesn’t seem right to you, or strange.
Folding and stuffing letters into envelopes
If you’re like me and starting to have regular online meetings, you may find yourself doing far too many, in too little time. I’ve heard some are spending hours every day in online meetings.
While the media has made it seem like the entire world is on the brink of complete disaster, that’s not the reality with all businesses. Most businesses that were already working online, like us, can pretty much continue on as we always have done. This puts us in a fairly strong position. We haven’t had to uproot from business premises somewhere else to set up at home. Working at home isn’t strange to us – it’s a normal activity. And we’re already used to working remotely, and productively, even if there are family members at home.
All VAs should be marketing online but if you’re not, time to start. So, look into what you are doing and where. Most of you will have clients that won’t go out of business – some may close their office for a while, or cut down their hours, but most will remain in business and you can help them with this. Perhaps show them how to do more online, how to be more reachable, and how to use online tools such as Zoom, Asana, Trello, Slack, Dropbox, Skype and so on. Now’s a time for you to reach out and offer help to your existing client base and to others too.
I’d like you to consider that a Virtual Assistant can be long-term use, not just short-term. Why engage lots of different VAs when you can keep one or two (or more if needed) as permanent support?
