Virtual Assistance and You

Increasingly, I’m aware that the field of virtual assistance – in its broadest scope – includes anyone who is offering help to others via online channels. We use the web for research, communications, sales, and an enormous number of other business applications.

And the field of virtual assistance – whether you offer transcription, coaching, client-specific software design, or anything in between these extremes – has its own set of rules and requirements,  some of which radically depart from tradition.  Take, for instance, the meaning of time, online.

Not only have computers and the internet made business astronomically faster than it was 50 years ago, but this increase in velocity has carved its effect in the individual’s experience of time as well.

Because this can be a source of confusion for noobs, I list below a few cautions.

• If they don’t respond to your email within 24 hours, they’re not going to respond.
• If they haven’t opened your newsletter within 24 hours, they’re not going to open it.
• If it wasn’t tweeted within the past hour, it’s passé.
• If it’s an article about a social media tool that was published last summer, don’t bother to read it.
• If it’s a blog with no dates displayed, it’s not a blog but rather a collection of articles. No need to read it now: put it in the folder for later. (Along with all the other articles you’re planning to read later.)
• If you like the look of the Twitter background at very first glance, they’re probably someone you want to follow.
• If you do something stupid and it goes viral, you’re a villain overnight: if you do something brilliant and it’s viral, your future may be instantly assured.

It’s a precarious existence; one in which fate can hang a hard left at any given instant. Therefore, the development of a spontaneous relationship with the web is really the best practice. You have to be ready, alert, tuned in. You have to grab ‘em with a glance. You have to be eminently responsive.

It’s is a new and different rhythm of life, to be sure, for anyone over 50 and perhaps for many less aged. But this post’s theme occurred to me because I ‘met’ a client, quite suddenly and serendipitously, online five days ago and immediately we struck up a delightful and rare harmony.  I could easily have missed this opportunity, but I didn’t. I was there and I responded.

In my earliest days of web exploration, I read an article that said internet success involves staying open, being willing to try things, suspending doubt. Way back when I studied theatrical improv, one of the rules was, ‘Say yes!’ That’s how you make interactions work.

The web is sudden, and fast, and improvisational.  Assimilating its rhythm is a big part of finding its treasures.