Leveraging Collaborative Virtual Office Technology for Virtual Assistants and Solopreneurs

Presented by Shahab Kaviani, HyperOffice

DATE: Thursday, July 19, 2007
TIME: 5pm PST / 6pm MST / 7pm CST / 8pm EST
LENGTH: 60 minutes (please call in 10 min. early)
COST: FREE!

This class is open to all Virtual Assistants, virtual service providers and solopreneurs. Feel free to invite your colleagues and clients.

Faced with increasing competition from offshore and commodity service providers, Virtual Assistants and other independent service providers must find ways to deliver more value while differentiating themselves from the emerging competition. Leveraging virtual office technology is an increasingly popular method by which Virtual Assistants and independent professionals are growing their businesses.

Virtual office technology allows Virtual Assistants to free up more time while deepening the client relationships they have worked so hard to establish. It allows them to work more collaboratively with clients while reducing time and resource costs. By providing a shared collaborative environment, Virtual Assistants can improve their clients’ experience and give them instant access to critical information any time, any place.

In this webinar, HyperOffice Vice President Shahab Kaviani will walk us through the HyperOffice virtual office technology. Participants get a tour of the HyperOffice collaborative workspace, and learn how to grow their businesses by streamlining operations without increasing overhead, improve client retention, and deliver more value. They’ll also get to hear from Virtual Assistants who have successfully leveraged HyperOffice virtual office technology in their practices to distinguish their services and streamline their operations.

Information to be covered includes:

• What is virtual office technology?
• Key considerations to take into account when choosing a virtual office technology provider;
• How to streamline operations to support clients without increasing overhead;
• How to store all customer information in a single place with permission-based customer access;

And much more!

A fellow Virtual Assistant posted a question on the VACOC forum today. It went something like this:

My business is growing but I’m overwhelmed with daily requests from clients. I also have a hard time concentrating on larger projects, although they always get done on time.

What do you consider “expedited work” and do you charge more for it?

This is what I said:

When I first started my practice, my policy was a 24- to 48-hour turnaround for work and anything that needed same-day turnaround would be charged at one-and-a-half times the normal rate. Fortunately, I never had to implement those policies because if I had, I would have been pulling out my hair. I’ve learned, in the last year, that there has to be order. I can’t provide order to anything with constant 24- to 48-hour turnaround or same-day delivery policies. Order is a hallmark of virtual assistance.

I’ve also learned that multi-tasking, of which I was so proud to be proficient, doesn’t work for a client-based business owner. The best service I can give my clients is focused time and that doesn’t happen in spurts and starts. Focused intervals of time are scheduled to be at least one hour in length. That’s how I can legitimately charge in 15-minute increments. I don’t bounce from one client’s work to another or try to do both at the same time. That’s not an efficient use of my brain or talent nor is it fair to my clients because it will cost them more money. Efficiency is also a hallmark of virtual assistance.

Concentrated time on a task is more effective because interruptions cause the thought process to break and then it takes 15-20 minutes to recapture the same thought process. I know that wasn’t part of your original question but it goes to the same issue. If you’re allowing clients to interrupt you with same-day requests, you’ll find it increasingly difficult to get those big projects done.

It’s time to set a new policy in motion.