I posted a new job lead to my team of VAs and one of the responses I got both surprised me but also made me realise that perhaps some VAs (particularly newer ones) probably thought it was ok to do this. Make the client wait. The response was: Could you kindly forward on his details to me and I will contact him within 24 hours. My reply to her was: I strongly suggest you reply to him today, sooner rather than later. Clients will rarely wait 24 hours before hearing back from someone - … [Read more...]
Email – it is an advert for your business
Email, for Virtual Assistants, is often our first point of contact with potential clients. It works like an amabassador for our businesses. Many experienced VAs, like myself, get a lot of emails from would-be VAs wanting to get work outsourced to them, or wanting to find out if they can work with us as a sub-contractor or similar. We are, in effect, a potential client for them. So it concerns me considerably when they don't take care to read their emails properly before hitting send, … [Read more...]
Protecting your accounts
At this time of year (Christmas/New Year) scams will be on the rise and so will phishing emails with promises of all sorts of things through bogus promotions. One of the VAs from my team posted a warning about a phishing email supposedly from her bank the other day. A day prior a client forwarded to me an email she got from Paypal (supposedly) but I was soon able to detect that it was not a genuine email. Here are some ideas to get you looking. 1. Usually not personally addressed. Banks … [Read more...]
Email peeve
I wrote a little while ago why I prefer email and this post covers a pet peeve of mine relating to email. I know that not everyone who uses email is a 'professional' online and many don't understand the use of it. But it does concern me if a client consistently responds to my emails without including anything of the previous email sent to them. I find a few people do this and it's very frustrating. The reason why it's frustrating is that often their replies are several days later and their … [Read more...]
Email and Forum Etiquette
There seems to be an increasing trend of replying to a personal email or forum based email and not include the message being responded to. I find this rather annoying to say the least, not to mention time wasting. Email is still not 100% proof as we all know and if I'm interested in seeing what someone is responding to, but they haven't included a portion of the originating email, it means time is wasted trying to find the original email or be forever in the dark if the original email wasn't … [Read more...]
Dates – write them in full
When dealing with people from other countries via email, make sure you spell dates out in full. Instead of putting 1/21 or 12/5 why not put 21st January or 5th December? Or in the case of the second one it could be 12th May, depending on who wrote it and where they live. In some countries the day is written first and the month second, and in others the month first and then the day. If dates are important in the communication don't assume that the recipient is on the same page as you with … [Read more...]
When someone wants to become a Virtual Assistant
I received an email via my contact form during the week from a lady who wants to become a virtual assistant. Rather than fill out the application form, she wrote to me first as she wasn't sure if she had what it took. Her email was badly typed with misspellings, caps missing, and so on. However, I recognised that she probably didn't see this in the same way as she might writing a letter of application to an employer. This was my response to her: To be truthful, if the typing you sent below is … [Read more...]
Keeping your email address updated
Have you changed your email address lately? Did you notify those whose lists you belong to? I manage a network of Virtual Assistants and periodically I'll send out an email to the list and get many bounce backs. There is considerable time spent tracking down each individual, either ringing or faxing them, or finding an alternative email address so I can let them know the important piece of information I was trying to get to them. When you change your email address you need to ensure that you … [Read more...]
Mail delivery failed: returning message to sender
550 Mailbox quota exceeded Is this something you're in danger of sending to prospective clients and others who email you? This is a message I periodically get faced with when emailing people and it makes me wonder how they run their business online if people cannot contact them because their mailbox is full. If you have had this challenge then it's time to look at increasing your mailbox or changing the mail service you use for something else. Or, look at how you're set up. Do you have your … [Read more...]