You’ll find here the overview about my second interview with Stefan.
Stefan is a friend and fellow entrepreneur, only that he moved to Thailand to learn about and experience the 4 hour work week.
Virtual Assistant for Small Business
Reader Interactions
Why Outsourcing Fails and How to Prevent It?
Why outsourcing fails is part-7 of the second interview from Stefan from Germany, who lives the Four Hour Work Week lifestyle in Thailand.Click here to read part 6 – Asking your virtual assistant for his previous work samples
Summary:
- In the initial phase of outsourcing, you might get a feeling that it’s rather not cost efficient and therefore often you decide to quit it.
- For successful outsourcing results, it’s recommended that you hire one main virtual assistant who looks after most of your work.
- Finding one perfect assistant is however not easy, you will have to invest a lot of time and money in training to make him perfect for your needs.
Start of the Interview:
Francis:
I want you to gain back the trust into the idea that outsourcing works.
Stefan:
I know this works but the problem is I experienced that it is on the verge of not being cost efficient anymore. When I put everything inside – my time, my nerves. You know, everything that I put inside, the money there that I put inside, everything.
If you combine all of that, it goes over this cliff where this is the safe border on the side where there’s good and productive and everything. There’s the cliff where those just says “Just do it on your own.” No?
Francis:
Okay. I think you are on a very delicate point here. In my opinion, if you pass this situation where it’s on the cliff even if you, for a few weeks, are not money efficient. It only goes up from there.
As long as you continuously learn from your failures and implement steps to eliminate the failures in your future. It can only go up. And after you pass the situation where you are, sort of, not cost efficient; you come in to the area of its being crazily time and cost efficient.
Stefan:
Okay.
Francis:
So I think coming to that point is worth it, at least for me personally. I think over the cost of the time, I might have mentioned this in the other interview already; I have invested a few thousand dollars in outsourcing. I have received quite some results.
I did many, many different projects and I learned tons of stuff. Most of all goes in to this website so that others don’t need to invest same money to learn the same lessons. But now that I have learned all of these, it’s really easy for me.
I have one assistant who is perfect and if some point in the future he decides to change his work situation; I am confident that I will be able to train and form a new person almost as perfect as the old assistant in a quite short amount of time.
So, this takes away the fear of the system not functioning anymore for me. And I think that’s priceless. Now that I know how to do this, I can be very confident in working a lot of different projects at the same time.
Stefan:
I didn’t know if I want it hand drawn because I knew also that this is time consuming.
Francis:
Yeah, yeah.
Stefan:
I agree that it’s definitely possible and definitely cost efficient at some point. But for small jobs and for just outsourcing occasionally, it’s a very delicate situation.
Francis:
Yes. If you don’t outsource on a regular basis, I wouldn’t recommend – how do I say this? – going into contract outsourcing. I propose that if you say, “Well, some weeks I don’t have anything to do and some weeks I have something to do.”
That you get one do-it-all assistant, train him for whatever comes up but tell him beforehand, “Well, on average, it will not be more than 10 hours a week” so that this assistant can also go out and get other jobs. This would be fair.
But then if you have something to do and if you have established a good working relationship; he knows that it’s fun working with you and he gets well paid then he will come back to you whenever you need him. But it’s not as efficient as having someone dedicated to you.
Stefan:
Yes.
Francis:
But that only works if you have a lot of work for him.
Stefan:
I assume that I would have a lot of work and give him that. What do you mean dedicated like 40 hours a week or 10 hours a week or whatever’s possible?
Francis:
At least 20 hours a week.
Stefan:
Okay. So that’s a full time assistant or a part time assistant.
Francis:
Exactly.
Stefan:
Okay.
Francis:
That’s the most efficient way to do it.
Stefan:
From myself, I would say that if I have someone who’s working for me 20 hours a week, I would definitely find enough work for him to do. Given that he could do it because the stuff that I would tell him to do would be such a wide range.
It could vary from graphic design to layout to web design to web formats to websites or to just somewhere and do some specific tasks. Very different things but actually someone who is web affinity, you know?
Francis:
Yes.
Stefan:
Has some web affinity and can grasp these things. And is basically a new pair of hands for me. Just do stuff while I don’t do stuff.
Francis:
Work while you sleep.
Stefan:
Yeah, exactly. That would be a lot when I don’t feel like working.
Francis:
Yes.
Stefan:
Then I have a motivation low, I can be at least reassured that stuff is done.
Francis:
Yes.
Stefan:
And I learned that if I would need a full time or a part time assistant or only a web designer or only the data entry guy.
Francis:
Yes. If you want to go this way, to have someone working much for you; there is no way around efficient communication in the first time.
So at the beginning, you let him only do one job and do it well until he understands how you think and how you want it. Then you expand to the next job. You cannot start with 10 jobs at same time. That’s not efficient. I don’t recommend it.
Stefan:
How do I find someone who can do potentially everything? Who is just an online nerd who learns and then loves stuff like that and can do so many things?
Francis:
By being very careful in the interviewing process and finding the person who for the right price for you has a lot of availability. So, does not work for 10 other projects but says okay I have 40 hours a week shows you in his portfolio and in his application that he’s very smart and very skilled; and shows you within the interview process in the first test task at the beginning that he’s a problem solver and a quick learner.
If you have such a person on your hand even if is he’s not very skillet yet then you have a winner. Because you can always train him, if he’s a quick learner and doing whatever he needs. If he has, for example, basics of graphics design down.
Stefan:
Yeah.
Francis:
I think that’s really the most difficult step where there’s a little bit of luck involved. But if you asked the right questions, if you’ve given the right test tasks, really closely consider how fast he’s learning and how fast he’s implementing stuff on his own.
If you really screen for such people, then earlier or later you find that person who is self motivated – self learner – and whom you can give lots of different tasks overtime.
But to find that out, if you need to be closely tuned in to your applicants and assistants. And here I would really want to go back to the sort of point where I talk about the communication.
Stefan:
Yes.
Francis:
If that’s okay with you…
Stefan:
Yeah, totally.
Continue reading part 8 – Establishing Effective Virtual Communication with Your Assistants
Outsourcing Case Study 1 – Picture Research
This Outsourcing case study – Picture research – is part-19 of an interview from Stefan from Germany, who lives the Four Hour Work Week lifestyle in Thailand.
Click here to read part 18 – Mastering the art of having a self-motivated virtual assistant
Summary:
- The biggest dream for every entrepreneur is to have one full time virtual assistant that says, “Yeah don’t worry about it. I’ll get it figured out. I’ll research it. I’ll figure it out, you don’t have to worry.”
- Always start any outsourcing work with a very small amount of work, preferably in patches let your virtual assistant to work on that, provide feedback on his work and then ask him to resume the work.
- Doing this will enable your virtual assistant to think more like you. As he will be receiving regular feedback from you, this will enable him to know what and how you think, how you want to get the work done and what’s in your mind.
Start of the Interview:
Francis:
Perhaps, for the last part with more outsourcing case studies on how to train your assistant to be more self motivated and self organized. Perhaps, let’s talk about some specific examples. What we can do.
What work example we can give an assistant so that they are more self motivated like we wanted -more of a problem solver.
Perhaps, the first step is really at the beginning of the working relationship, openly communicate that this is your dream. Tell your assistant “Well, we work together. I’ll train you.
But my big dream is that after some time, you will be a person that says, ‘Yeah don’t worry about it. I’ll get it figured out. I’ll research it. I’ll figure it out, you don’t have to worry.’” This will set up the expectation at the beginning.
But now to more specific outsourcing case study, let’s talk about picture research as an example.
Stefan:
Let me quickly ask you something.
Francis:
Yes, of course.
Stefan:
Would that be advised to write “This is my dream. I’m searching for a full time assistant who performs all my wishes that I ask him to do” in the job description at the end, for example?
Would that be advisable?
Francis:
No. I wouldn’t do it. I wouldn’t do it because it’s discourages the work at the beginning. At the beginning, your job is to find a person who is willing to work with good ethics and smart enough to learn new stuff.
Then as you get more and more trust, they know you pay them well then you can make your wishes bigger. And if you encounter a person who says “Yeah, I really want only to work on instructions and I’m not comfortable with opening myself up to a failure.” Then you can know that, perhaps, he’s still a good worker and then it becomes a tier 2 person but not your #1 assistant.
Examples of pictures research. You have the situation that you wanted illustration for your E-book. And for your assistant to know what sort of pictures you’re looking for. The best idea is to get through several training loops so that he learns to know how you think. So using video recordings a lot, you show him what you would like.
Do the basic research on one example and let him then do more researches on other examples. First, the easiest sorts would be Google images. All of that is, of course, copyrighted, you cannot use it. But it’s a good start for him to know what you want.
Stefan:
Yes?
Francis:
When he then knows what you want in principle then we can continue to the platforms where you actually can use the pictures – Flickr creative commons, Stock photo banks.
Stefan:
Maybe, we talked about this last time because my idea was to just research because of the picture and copyright problematic.
Francis:
Yeah.
Stefan:
Actually, I didn’t hire anyone but I got together with an applicant on oDesk wrote back and forth. With that, I did it differently because you said that the idea was I find picture that I find attractive and I hire an artist who just redraws them in their own style.
Francis:
Okay. Yeah, I remember that. This was just an example for “How to Train Someone to Think More like You”. Give him a basic task. Tell him how you like it and then he will understand how you’re thinking.
Stefan:
When I contacted instead of illustrators and layout people and graphic people, when I went to artists who are more into drawing and painting and stuff; they were way more susceptible. They could understand what I’m talking about way better than the other people – the graphic people or the Photoshop people.
So it seems also to depend on what the expertise of the person is whom you’re talking to.
Francis:
Yes, it is so true.
Stefan:
Because they could understand what I’m talking about, they were like people who draw Manga and stuff, you know? And who would draw with pencils and stuff. And who have no idea about Photoshop or anything but they can draw on paper and scanning.
So they understood what I was talking about. Whereas, the people who use Photoshop and graphic design and lay-outing, they didn’t get it. They use their Photoshop tricks and it didn’t work out the way of what I imagined.
Francis:
Yeah. In other words, the big investment was if you’re looking for recreation of pictures; it’s better to find actual artist who draw on paper than people who are experts on Photoshop and layout, editing, etc.
Stefan:
And even the bigger lesson would be change of skills or expertise or knowledge of the person changes how he understands what you’re talking about – what you want because they understand by the way that you want instead of the other people.
Francis:
I think this outsourcing case study a good lesson. Well, I didn’t know much about graphics design but I definitely learned something. Let’s take another another case study .
Continue reading part 20 – Outsourcing case study 2 – Traffic generation
Outsourcing Case Study 2 – Traffic Generation
This Case study ‘traffic generation via outsourcing’ is part-20 of the second interview from Stefan from Germany, who lives the Four Hour Work Week lifestyle in Thailand.Click here to read Part 19, Outsourcing case study – picture research
Summary:
- One very simple platform for traffic generation is StumbleUpon, if you want to generate some quick traffic to your website. It’s like liking or disliking on Facebook and shows great and quick results.
- Ask your VA to research a few other social bookmarking sites. Explain to him that how to research best social bookmarking sites via Google, he will receive a lot of posts with lists of hundreds of bookmarking sites.
- If he does it right, give him good feedback and tell him he was very good at finding out how it was. If he doesn’t do it right, show him to these resources he can read on his own to learn how to do it right like tutorials, YouTube videos, forums.
Start of the Interview:
Francis:
The previous example was pictures research. The next example is traffic generation.
A basic example for a very simple technique that might be interesting for scaling up depending on which traffic strategies you’re searching is Social Bookmarking.
There exists many social bookmarks and they have the reasons or not for traffic generation based on what your website is and what your strategy is.
One very simple platform for traffic generation is StumbleUpon. My proposition is if you want to generate traffic to your website which might be a content website, for example, you take your most popular site and edit to StumbleUpon. It’s like liking or disliking on Facebook.
If it’s new, it will get entered into the database and needs a little bit of description and a tagging. If it already exists in the database, in other words, if someone has already added it to StumbleUpon then it will just receive the “Like”.
Explain to your assistant how to do that – the description, the tagging and the liking. Then to prevent your profile from looking like a spammer, search a few other interesting sites in your niche and like or dislike them accordingly. Then and only then add the next very popular site from your website.
This way you will generate a few instant traffic surges. In general, if a good site is submitted to StumbleUpon for the first time, I always receive about 100 visits for 1 day. And then very, very little visits in the future.
So that’s only one traffic building step. Then, you can explain everything with this one platform to your assistant using video instructions, using text and voice explanations and then have him do it for the rest of your sites.
Then, let him research on his own a few other social bookmarking sites. Explain to him that if he Google the best social bookmarking sites, he will receive a lot of posts with lists of hundreds of bookmarking sites.
Then explain to him how he can find out the best of them – the highest PR, the highest traffic generation using web research.
And then, he should attack, for example, 2 other bookmarking sites Digg, Diigo, Reddit and others. As he does it, he should create a manual explaining how he does it. An alternative is he uses screen recording and you just watch him do it.
This reporting on how he does the task on his own is very, very important. We don’t want him to lose time by the doing the task inefficiently. When you watch the video, you will see immediately if he does it wrong. Then you can correct him.
If he does it right, give him good feedback and tell him he was very good at finding out how it was. If he doesn’t do it right, show him to these resources he can read on his own to learn how to do it right like tutorials, YouTube videos, forums.
And if he still cannot figure it out after a fixed amount of time which you tell him then he reports back to you and you decide if you want to give him close instructions or if you don’t want to use this system.
This would be positive in 2 ways: you generate traffic as you go for your site and you teach your assistant to think more on his own.
There’s not much attitude.
Stefan:
There’s not much to say about it. I would say that what could be a problem here is that you could lose time.
That’s a possibility because it would be only unless if you have someone who’s doing that job once. Instead of permanent assistant.
The problem resolve itself if it’s a permanent assistant because even if you would potentially lose a little bit of time, you would gain in the long term. So it shouldn’t be a too big of a problem.
Francis:
There is always the risk of you losing your assistant one way or the other. In cases like these, it’s very useful for your assistant to record what he’s doing anyways.
So that if you change your assistant, you have all the training materials you need to accelerate the training of the next assistant. It will not be a replacement immediately because all the communication cannot easily be replaced.
But at least the teaching can be fastened up by your assistant doing, writing down what he has learned in many words or videos for the next person in line and for important purposes.
Continue reading part 21 – How to keep your virtual assistant motivated
Short Term Vs Long Term Virtual Assistants
Short term vs long term virtual assistant is part-12 of the second interview from Stefan from Germany, who lives the Four Hour Work Week lifestyle in Thailand.
Click here to read part 11 – Preventing failures from your workers
Summary:
- For an assistant, a position where they have a reliable source of income and a reliable contact partner is much more attractive than running from one project after the other.
- You should convey your VA from time to time that you do have a plan for him and he will also get an increment after one year based on the performance. These sort of commitments always enhance the trust and confidence of your VA and he will work with more motivation.
- Going for a long term virtual assistant is working up way better than going for short time employment.
Start of the Interview:
Stefan:
I have the impression that going for a long time employee is working up way better than going for short time employment.
Because when we compare my experience and your experience, I basically only had more or less short time or project based employees and you basically only have long-time or part-time or whatever.
Francis:
I totally agree.
Stefan:
And this is such a drastic difference then it seems like the way better approach is the long-time commitment to something.
Francis:
I think that’s a win situation for everyone. You have one person to go to which you trust, which you trained, which knows you in and out.
That person has one person who pays them, who is nice, who is reliable; and they don’t, I mean as an assistant, if you are hunting for a new job all the time, this is a lot of time lost. If you could work instead of running around a new job, that is a much better position for the assistant.
Also, if the assistant gets better and better and if you perhaps give them a raise after a year, that’s also a very nice perspective for an assistant to work with you.
Stefan:
That’s rather a full-time job – a couple of jobs.
Francis:
I think for an assistant, for a freelancer, a position where they have a reliable source of income and a reliable contact partner is much more attractive than running from one project after the other.
To be honest, I think people do project work only at the beginning to build their portfolio and to build their oDesk feedback score. After that, in principle, most of them dream of having one nice position and you only dream of having one nice work result.
Stefan:
I would agree because I know of people who are working on oDesk also on the other site and they also don’t apply too much anymore only in the beginning.
But You know what I don’t understand? There’s one thing that I don’t understand because if I’m doing the work for someone else, I deliver on period.
Francis:
Yeah, that’s your German work ethics. I have a page about German work ethics – the good and the bad sides of it. And there’s a cultural difference between our work ethics, we are both from Germany, and the work ethics of someone in another country.
Stefan:
And that’s the thing that I don’t understand. It seems to me, I don’t know, I don’t have too much work experience with Americans or something but this seems like an Asian problem, I would assume. It’s an Eastern Asian problem.
Francis:
I wouldn’t call it a problem. I would just it a difference or a challenge. Because a problem makes it seems like we are right and they are wrong. Here’s the other way around, perhaps, for them our direct and sort of “we say it like we mean it” communication style is rude.
So I know this from the Chinese culture. For example, if I tell a Chinese guy “Yeah, come over to my house we will have dinner sometime.” Then I expect the dishonest. I mean it like that.
If someone in the Chinese culture knows you and talks about you and your family and then they say “Yeah, please come have dinner.” This is sort of a polite gesture. They don’t expect you to show up at their house and eat with them directly. Only if they repeat the invitation three times that they mean it like that.
There’s a clear difference. And this is also a big problem in big corporate meetings. If a big enterprise works together with another country in China, In India or somewhere else then all these communication details come into play.
So for a Chinese person, if you show up after one invitation; you show up at the house with their family and say “Thanks for the invitation. Here I am.” They will think “Are you stupid or what?” You are totally rude. Perhaps, they will smile and invite you but they will think you are rude.
Continue reading part 13 – Real life experience about Asian work ethics
Keep Your Assistant Motivated To Increase His Self-Confidence
How to keep your assistant motivated is part-21 of the second interview from Stefan from Germany, who lives the Four Hour Work Week lifestyle in Thailand.
Click here to read part 20 – Outsourcing case study about traffic generation
Summary:
- One concern every employer has that how many time virtual assistants need to learn new skills and what if they lose focus while doing a task and not completing it.
- The best way to keep your assistant motivated and loyal to you is constant and well meaning communication.
- Don’t communicate with your virtual assistant while you are angry or you shout at your assistant. He will be scared, he will leave immediately and thus all money you invested in his training is in vain.
Start of the Interview:
Francis:
The big question was we are afraid that the assistants use too much time while learning new skills.
Stefan:
And lose focus while doing the task and not completing the task.
Francis:
Yes.
Stefan:
That would be the problem.
Francis:
So against people losing the motivation, there’s not one big cure. Although, we have discussed on our site different topics on how to be more productive and efficient; it’s still different from each person when they lose the motivation.
The best way to keep your assistant motivated and loyal to you is constant and well meaning communication. This doesn’t mean that you are now all errors, it only means that you communicate openly about everything.
This means that the daily updates to which you should reply at least two times a week. This means you reviewing their work and telling exactly what is good and what is not so good. This also includes you not frightening your assistant.
So let’s, for example, say your assistant gets out of his way and does his research on his own and the results were very bad. Please don’t record a video while you shout at your assistant. He will be scared, he will leave immediately.
So always, if you have to get angry, don’t record it and send it to your assistant. Get angry with your wall or with you’re with your friends in a forum. And then calm down.
Think about how it would be for the assistant to receive the communication and then calmly say to them “Okay, this was not usable at all and I don’t want you to do this like that again.
It was good that you tried it but you tried it in the wrong way. Now you know how not to do it, please do it like that in the future. And, although, you didn’t do it right; you don’t let this stop you from having your own initiative again.”
You appreciate that he tried it. Give him the feedback without being angry that he didn’t do it right. You give him a little bit of pointers or sources where he can learn to do it right. Then, you encourage him to do it at another time again.
The strategy to immediately communicate if something is wrong minimizes the time and money lost. There will at least one working day of time and money lost because the assistant works one day; you review the screen shots; you receive his daily communication; and, only then you can react.
There’s a possible time lost of about 8 paid working hours if for 8 hours he does nothing right. But if you manage your assistant at the beginning of the work relationship so closely, this will not happen very closely.
Stefan:
Yes because hopefully it already paid out itself. I mean, I don’t know, it might be over expecting but I would say 1 working hour should at least pay out double or 150%. And for every hour he works, 1 hour can be lost theoretically and used to even. You know what I mean?
Francis:
Yes, I know. So if you talk about money revenue, I think this is not realistic. But if you’re thinking about time revenue, this is very realistic. So my assistant when he works, I pay him his rate for one hour and I’m not thinking about the money that I don’t receive back immediately.
I think about the work he does within 1 hour and think he’s so productive; I know I couldn’t do it in 1 hour myself. I wouldn’t be as disciplined and I still just don’t have the time to do the work. So the work he does in 1 hour equals, at least, 1 hour in my work even more.
Stefan:
Let’s say if he works 40 hours a week or 20 hours a week, if he produces 10 of my hours; that would be good.
Francis:
I think that’s expectable, at least. That’s about it.
Stefan:
Yes. Because I would cost way more from two points of view – from the financial point of view and from the motivational point of view. Because as you say I am not always motivated to work and my assistant provides that motivation because he is maybe more motivated to work than me.
Francis:
I think your assistant should be clearly motivated to work because if you work on your own, you don’t receive money compensation immediately.
So you have to draw your motivation from your dreams – your planning, your business plans. Your assistant gets paid immediately after he works so he should draw his motivation from the payment and the possibility to learn new skills and the possibility to build out his portfolio for future works. So, it’s clear that your assistant is more motivated than you by nature.
Assuming all the topics we’ve talked about in this interview and all the challenges and fears you had regarding ‘is outsourcing worth it?’
Don’t I lose too much time? Assuming you would be able to implement all these tips, are you less afraid or less anxious to give outsourcing another chance?
Stefan:
In the next time, I won’t give outsourcing a big chance in terms of single small projects. I think that it would take too much time and I rather do it on my own.
Francis:
Yes.
Stefan:
That is more efficient and more cost and productive. The other thing is the semi long term, let’s say, the next 4-5 months would be definitely the ideal to find a solution to hire a part time assistant in one way or another. That’s a long time goal of mine.
That’s a long goal of mine to do that. But I haven’t had any success in that yet maybe because I didn’t invest enough time. It takes way longer than 1 month or 2 months.
And I’m still not very sure if I could achieve that yet so it will take time to figure that out but eventually it’s the only reasonable thing to do. You need someone to do the work for you.
You can’t do it on your own.
Francis:
I think so too especially if you have big ambitions like you and I. So the main goal of this website where this interview is standing on is for people like you who are motivated and interested in outsourcing to shorten their learning period.
Continue reading part 22 – Concluding the big outsourcing interview
International Cultural Differences Between Eastern and Western Countries
International cultural differences is part-16 of an interview from Stefan from Germany, who lives the Four Hour Work Week lifestyle in Thailand.
Summary:
- Cultural differences and work ethics are often come into play, especially when you are outsourcing to the other part of the world.
- You will need to handle these international cultural differences very carefully for a successful course of outsourcing.
- It takes two hands to clap and same is the case for outsourcing. A successful outsourcing cooperation is a win-win situation for both parties.
Start of the Interview:
Francis:
Okay. Let me turn the situation around. What would happen if you were the German virtual assistant working for an Indian employer? He gives you a job. He gives you clear work instructions- what you have to do- and expects that you do it like that and not different.
Then you start responding to him every day because you think that’s the correct way. He thinks “What a jackass! He’s writing me all the time. He’s impolite. What’s this guy?”
Then, you start taking initiative. You make the work better than his instructions and say, “Hey Boss, I did it even better than you asked it. Isn’t it this good?” And he thinks, “No. I did want it exactly like I wanted it; like I described it because I have some plans in mind; because I wanted someone else to do the different task, for example.”
And you over delivering by your own standards is under delivering by perhaps the Eastern Asian standards. I know that this example is stupid but I think it shows what I mean, right?
Stefan:
Actually Yes.
Francis:
If you were the German cleaning person in a Thai house and you come on. You hammer against the door so that everyone hears you and you’re not over here and then you enter the door before anyone says “Enter”. And the family looks at you shocked, “What is this cleaning person is doing?”
And you say, “I’m here because I want to clean. It’s my job. So don’t talk to me now. I will do the job. I will be very clean.” You might expect that. You would find it very cool. They find it horrible, perhaps.
Stefan:
Well, maybe.
Francis:
So are you right or are you wrong?
Stefan:
You have a point there, of course.
Francis:
Thank you.
Stefan:
Let’s just be fair and say that you are a little big exaggerating.
Francis:
Of course I’m exaggerating. I’m just trying to illustrate that these international cultural differences are not necessarily black or white.
Stefan:
Sure, they aren’t. When it comes to work, I think, the results justifies the means always. That’s my impression. What do you think?
Francis:
I don’t think so. I think in some cultures, the means are more than the results.
Stefan:
Okay.
Francis:
I think we should keep it up that we have different beliefs and different.
Perhaps, My virtual assistant could leave a comment here in the interview what he thinks about this whole exaggerations – the politeness versus effectiveness issue.
Stefan:
I would love to read that. Vice versa
Virtual Assistant:
I think Stefan is right and every employer thinks in the same way and expects a bit more from his employees (as every employee expects a bit more from his employer, it’s a human nature).
Being specific about Stefan’s cleaning lady case as I said in an earlier post…
Click here to read his complete overview about this discussion
Francis:
I also like in some of my sub-parts of the site, I have little comments by my assistant in a different color or in a highlight box. I had one big ethical discussion where I really ask him to write his own opinions.
Because it’s very charming to see how the other side of the world thinks of that. Perhaps, I should put this even more often on my site.
Continue reading part 17 – Tips for Improvement of Your Virtual Assistants
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