VAs who are paid hourly will work for a couple hours and then let their computer run the rest of the day rendering, uploading, and doing other things— while billing us the time.
It’s a great way for them to make a lot more money, since they can start that process at the beginning of the day and knowingly get the rest of the day to spend with their family, do errands, play video games— and know they’re making money.
It’s not “dishonest” in their mind– but it’s also not ethical. So the bounty (per task) model will create incentives for them to do the rendering/uploading at the end of the day, while they’re sleeping. And as they earn more money, they can invest in having a second computer.
I’ve made the mistake of buying equipment for people who then run off with it. And even with an agreement that this is company property they need to return– usually they hold onto it.
One even has a couple thousand dollars of camera equipment I bought him– with his repeat insistence that he would create training videos with it. He’s sat on the equipment for a year and hasn’t done anything.
Strong, internal people who have proven their value could get a computer from the company, but it’s far better for them to just earn it by making more money with us. Even virtual assistants can make more than enough to get a big Mac in 2 months of good work, since we’d really be overpaying on performance.
Interesting to see the entitlement mentality– the employee versus founder mindset.
Not something for us to get mad at, but instead, understand and build gamified systems that work to everyone’s advantage.
My friends who work at Facebook gave me access to their onboarding training, since we are tuning up how we hire up new account managers.
What I’ve learned……
– Role playing is critical to being good with clients, so trainees take turns practicing as the client, account manager, and observer, grading the role play across key factors.
– They’ve left nothing to assumption— thick workbooks spell out the fundamentals of digital marketing and the steps of booking client calls— before, during, and after.
– Practice what we preach. New Facebook team members have to create a business page and know how to run ads, so they have empathy from the client’s point of view.
– Humanity is critical. It’s not enough to have product knowledge or be able to blindly follow a script with robot precision. Teach active listening skills— listening to understand instead of only to sell.
While a consultative sale does require product knowledge, more important is building empathy with the client— showing we care and being reliable with frequent, lightweight touches during the relationship.
As we hire up account managers (a lot of moms, it’s starting to look like), I’m building in soft skills to be honed via role play and testing for EQ.
I’ve found that the technical execution of driving more patients for chiropractors is far easier than finding and teaching the relationship side of things.
Thus, a successful account manager is not a call center employee, VA, or technical specialist, but an intrapreneur who cares deeply for their clients as quasi-children.
Warning: it’s raw and technical, but for systems builders (even if you’re not an engineer), you’ll get a sense of what scaling up systems and people entails.
Being able to map out how your company operates in detail, whether you are a small or big company, selling services or products, is key to getting out of the weeds of doing the work all by yourself or having to deal with people failures and exceptions.
