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
Importance of Communication Between Employers and Virtual Assistants
Importance of communication is part-10 of the second interview from Stefan from Germany, who lives the Four Hour Work Week lifestyle in Thailand.
Click here to read part 9– A comparison between verbal and written communication
Summary:
- Nothing is more important than communication. More specifically, how often you communicate with your virtual assistants.
- A virtual assistant should report to you about his work of that day daily – even if he does’t work on any particular day.
- Make it clear at the start of the cooperation, even in the job description and in the interview process that daily communication is a must.
Start of the Interview:
Francis:
One important detail about daily communication, it has happened to me in the past that I was expecting daily communication and, perhaps, asked it. I propose that you definitely ask for daily communication in the interview process already.
When the assistant does not do daily communication, make it clear that he is not annoying you. Even if he has to communicate, “Okay, today I was confused. I couldn’t do anything. Sorry.” Tell them that they can write exactly that.
Stefan:
Yes.
Francis:
Tell them the bad example, sort of, the worst case scenario. Tell them okay in some cases, you have the birthday with your brother and have family party.
Therefore, you cannot do anything. Then please at the evening write me “I had birthday party with my family, I couldn’t do anything. Sorry.”
Stefan:
Okay, just a quick idea here. Because whenever I did that, as you suggested, it was basically the invitation to be lazy. I have the feeling and because of the situation that whenever I showed the person who was working for me that it’s okay when something comes up just tell me. It’s okay. Just tell me. I have to know stuff.
Francis:
They always took the easy way out when you gave them the easy way out.
Stefan:
Exactly. The problem was whenever I showed it’s like showing weakness, in my opinion.
Francis:
Yeah.
Stefan:
At least that’s my experience. Whenever I showed it’s okay when something comes up, just tell me, we can work that out. The only thing that matters to me is a good relationship, a good work flow. And one day lost, it’s not a broken bone. No problem.
We make it up the next day or the next two days or whatever. But once they see that it’s easy to work with me and it’s an easy-peasy thing, I have the impression that they assume they can pull this off whenever they want to go out instead of working.
Francis:
Okay. In principle, many freelances have very motivated work ethics because they wouldn’t be freelancing if they didn’t need the money and the work. So I assume a base level of motivation to work.
Assuming that the first trust building steps have been done and they are the right person for the job and daily communication is established. It is a difference between being a human employer so being a nice person, a nice boss than being a lenient employer meaning being a boss that you can do everything with.
So there’s a clear difference between that. I think that I’m a rather nice person, if I may say that. I believe that you might be a more strict person, if that’s okay to say.
Stefan:
Actually, I think I’d rather go into the opposite direction. I’m a true easy boss.
Francis:
Okay.
Stefan:
Because I tell my employees that the only thing I’m interested in is that the job is done and if they take 1 day, no problem; if they take 2 days, no problem. It takes as long as it takes.
Francis:
That’s perhaps not the best way to attack this sort of work.
Stefan:
Yeah but then on the other side, I wanted to compensate this behavior with that employees give me feedback at all the time. Like every day or every 2 days.
Francis:
Yes.
Stefan:
But they still lack in that aspect.
Francis:
Yeah. So as I said, make it clear in the job description and in the interview process. Daily communication is work. If they don’t do daily communication, you assume this is not like it was decided in the beginning and then they fail.
So it is just as important daily communication as the actual work. Make this clear that this is no joking matter. You understand jokes; you understand human weaknesses. That is okay. But on daily communication, there is no playground.
If on some evening they fell sick, I mean if they’re sick then just write. They write you one line “I’m sick” and you understand that. That’s okay. If they’re sick all the time then you have a problem. Either you have a very sick virtual assistant and you have to decide if you want to work with him or you have a liar.
So assuming that we don’t have the sickness excuse and you will see that over a long time how often a normal person is sick. If they don’t communicate to you in one evening, tell them “Okay, you might miss out occasionally and, I’m telling really occasionally, to communicate to me at the end of the day.” But if you miss that, communicate to me the next possible point in time so next morning.
Next morning, you write “Okay, sorry last evening I couldn’t write so I’m writing you this morning. This and that…” You expect that if there’s a miscommunication there will be some sort of compensation for that.
Stefan:
Yes.
Francis:
I tried to point them out in our mastermind group which we have which is closed so I won’t link to it. But unfortunately, Google plus deleted somehow my comment when I pressed enter and I didn’t want to write it again.
How To Motivate Employees to Increase Their Self-Confidence
How to motivate employees is part-15 of the second interview from Stefan from Germany, who lives the Four Hour Work Week lifestyle in Thailand.
Click here to read part 14 – How to improve communication skills with your virtual assistants
Summary:
- If you need an employee who can work independently with minimal supervision, its very important that you motivate your employee to increase his self-confidence.
- After one year of service, do give them a monetary bonus. If they work for some amount of money, give them some money as a bonus, perhaps, on Christmas.
- Give them freedom of opinion, appreciate their work and feedback, this will boost up their inner confidence and they will not hesitate to take an initiative at their own.
Start of the Interview:
Francis:
Okay. Let us continue because our interview is even longer than the past one. Let’s assume we have established basic trust and basic communication skills on both sides of the party.
Let us go to the actual topic of what we wanted to do the interview on How to motivate employees to increase their self-confidence and Initiative.
Assuming that the basic work is done – you tell them, they do it. They report regularly. When you give them instructions, they fulfill the instructions correctly. Assuming this is in place. How do we get them to take initiative and improve on your instructions?
For example, you asked them to do something in the design. They do the job. And in addition, they do something else and present you an alternative. They say, “Okay, I did the job and I thought this would be nice because I saw this in some forum. What do you think about it? Is this even better?” I think that’s a place where we want to go.
This is the next step. The previous steps have to be fulfilled – what we talked about before. If your assistant is working in a good way, doing what you tell him. After some time where you invest a few months, give him some sort of bonus.
At the beginning it can only be something written like “I really approve how you work and I really see something going in the future. Please stay motivated.”
An email like that goes a long way. They often will write to you something like “I’m so thankful you think of me that way and I really enjoyed the job, etc.” Some positive communications, just once or twice, every 2 months.
And then perhaps, after half a year – latest of the year- do give them a monetary bonus. If they work for some amount of money, give them some money as a bonus, perhaps, to Christmas. Tell them “You worked so hard and so nice. And I want you to have a little Christmas present.”
It’s not much, $10, $20. Not much but it’s a gesture and it tells a lot. It tells that you care. It tells that you see that they are working hard. And it tells that you’re happy with how they’re working hard. This opens their mind so that they can, sort of, give up a little bit of fear towards you.
And then after a little bit of time has been passed where they worked on your instructions and they work correctly on your instructions; let them know that in addition to working on instructions, you really appreciate on working on own initiative. Give them a little example and let them do it.
Let me take the example of research. You have a research task for them and they know exactly what blogs to research on and they do it. And you say, “The research is great. We could expand the research but I haven’t given you step by step instructions for that.
If you feel up to it, you can investigate yourself on how to research on forums. If you want and if you feel motivated, you can create an account in these forums. ” Show them a few examples and to other forums which you research yourself. “And then you ask questions there to get even more research done.”
Let them do it and see how well they do. If they have problems, give them a little video instruction and let them do it better. And then you tell them, “Okay. In addition to the normal research, I really appreciate you going out of the way into doing the additional research.” This is a very easy example but in their mind, it will teach them it is a good thing to go over the instructions given by you.
Stefan:
Yes. I would, normally, always want them to do more.
Francis:
That is an expectation which is not realistic at the beginning. It is the same thing than the “knocking on the door” example.
Stefan:
Why not? How can I only hire people that are willing to always work more?
Francis:
I think that’s a cultural thing and perhaps, difference between a freelancer and a professional assistant which you’ll pay $100/hour. You might be expecting.
Stefan:
So we’ll never find someone who would do that on his own in the beginning?
Francis:
I believe it is very difficult.
I think that’s my honest opinion from the, perhaps, 50 assistants which I have worked with until now within the last, I don’t know, 5 years. I think there’s been no one who from the beginning was like “Oh, this is a cool task. Do you know what’s also cool? This and that.”
I think no one and I think I was rather thrilled especially at the end hiring the right people. So I think this is not a realistic expectation for you to have.
Can I ask where you got this expectation from? Did anyone tell you when you do outsourcing, everything will be like that? Or did you read it in a book? Or did you just think it would be like that?
Stefan:
From my own experience when I worked for someone in the past. Because I worked since I was 19 as a freelancer in various jobs. When I accepted the job, people are telling me you have to do this.
And the first thing I do, “Don’t care about it. I take care of it. You hire me to take care of business. I do it. No problem. I am the expert here. I handle this stuff.”
You know that is my work ethic. That is how I work. Okay, that is again a Westerner German thing. But I don’t know. Is this only in Germany? Is this only in the West? Does this exist nowhere else? Because I know a lot of people work that way.
Francis:
Yeah. I think I cannot answer this with “Yes, it’s only like that” without being politically incorrect. So I think it depends on the individual.
And I think many people from Eastern cultures think they work like you just described. But the result comes up on your end are different.
Stefan:
Okay.
Francis:
Perhaps, people who write regular emails to you and do the work as they were told, already think they have very high work ethics. And you perhaps think “Hey, they have low work ethics. I do this different.”
I think there’s no one answer to say if they lower or higher work ethics. It’s only they have different work ethics. Everything else would not be fair.
Stefan:
You think so?
Francis:
I think so.
Stefan:
Because if someone hires me in the past for a consulting job and he hires me for whatever.
I’m responsible for this aspect now. I finish it. I make it good. I take care that this aspect for what I was hired is perfect, is done. It’s 100% done. It’s no problem.
Continue reading part 16 – International cultural differences
How To Improve Communication Skills And Communicate Better With Your Virtual Assistants
How to improve communication skills is part-14 of the second interview from Stefan from Germany, who lives the Four Hour Work Week lifestyle in Thailand.
Click here to read part 13 – Real life experience about Asian work ethics
Summary:
- If your virtual assistant does not communicate regularly, just tell him clearly that you need daily communication if he doesn’t work on a day.
- Try to get them in the position where they are at. You have to have a little bit of empathy when working with another human being especially from another culture.
- This is a lifetime investment. You cannot say I haven’t gotten anything so I will not invest. You have to trust that you will get something in the future and, therefore, you invest.
Start of the Interview:
Francis:
I think being in contact with other cultures also opens you up a lot and you learn a lot. And that’s an experience which is not to be paid with money.
So if you see “Oh, this is a misunderstanding.” Take it with a grain of humor, “Ooh, aren’t the Asians different from us? Ha-ha” – like that.
And, perhaps, also explain to the other party “Okay, we had a misunderstanding. Our country when we do it like that, we mean it like that.”
Then, everyone can laugh and then she can learn or the cleaning person can learn and you can adapt. And then you get everyone, sort of, happy, I guess.
Stefan:
That’s the idea, at least. Now it worked out, let’s see what’s happening in the future, in real life. But this is also a very good example for what’s happening in outsourcing.
Basically, same stuffs happened actually.
Francis:
Yeah. And so if your virtual assistant is knocking too silently on your door, for example, with the daily communication then you have to tell them. This is not impolite; I want it done.
I think the big issue with providers from Asia is that they don’t assess themselves with a lot of force like you would expect it from our culture. So they won’t hit on the table and say “Okay, now we’re doing this!” – like that.
They will be passive often, in general, if I make stereotypes here. They will be more passive and see what happens. And you have to adapt to that. You tell them what they think.
You tell them, for example, “Okay and know that if you don’t do your job or if you cannot do your job; you might feel unworthy or you might feel embarrassed. And it’s okay to feel embarrassed but please still write me. It’s worse if you don’t write me and feel embarrassed than if you write me and feel embarrassed.”
Try to get them at the position where they are at. You have to have a little bit of empathy when working with another human being especially from another culture.
That’s also part of your job if you are an employer. As much work as it does sound, that’s still also your responsibility.
Stefan:
That’s a responsibility of wealth as when you already have something out of this employee. On the beginning of a relationship, most of the time, you don’t have anything from that person at all. So why should you care?
Francis:
Because you want to have the results in the future. Therefore, you should care.
Stefan:
But he didn’t deliver any result yet.
Francis:
And he will not until you adapt you communication style.
Stefan:
Okay.
Francis:
See, this is an investment in to the future. You cannot say I haven’t gotten anything so I will not invest. You have to trust that you will get something in the future and, therefore, you invest.
I know this is a difficult subject.
Stefan:
This is difficult. Yeah, totally.
Fixed Price vs Hourly Rate, Which One Is More Beneficial And Why?
Fixed price vs hourly rate is part-2 of the second interview from Stefan from Germany, who lives the Four Hour Work Week lifestyle in Thailand.
Click here to read part 1– What to Look For In a Virtual Assistant
Summary:
- Sometime providers do not work for exact hours they have committed at the time of hiring, often they work less than that.
- You should check the profile of your contractor to know that how many active jobs he is having at the same time.
- If you have an agreement of 10 hours with a provider and he is continuously failing to meet this limit, then this is a clear breach of the contract.
Start of the Interview:
Francis:
Okay. I have a question to you first. It seems to me that you are paying your worker based on a milestone agreement. In other words, you are paying him on a fixed price schedule. Did you ever employ someone with an hourly pay?
Stefan:
Yes.
Francis:
What was your experience with fixed price vs hourly rate?
Stefan:
What my experience was when I paid my workers hourly was they still did less often after a while. But to me, it seems like they don’t care if they earn less.
They just work less hours. And if I ask them, “What’s going on? Why are you not even working the 10 hours per week?”
Francis:
Yes.
Stefan:
You just work 4 hours per week. What’s going on? They will just say, “I couldn’t do more.”
Francis:
Didn’t you ever check out the profile of your worker in oDesk and see how many other actual contracts they had going on at the same time? Sometimes people work into several employers at the same time.
Stefan:
Yes.
Francis:
Was this perhaps the reason that they could not work more for you?
Stefan:
Can’t give you a feedback on that, I think, because I don’t know too much about that.
Francis:
Okay. Sometimes this happens and then of course you have to talk about this. And say, “Well if you work for 10 other people, it’s clear you cannot work 10 hours per week for me.”
Did you make an agreement beforehand that they have to work 10 hours a week for you?
Stefan:
When we had a contract for time, yes.
Francis:
Okay then, in my opinion, that’s a breach of the contract. And that in my opinion you can tell them square and fair, “Well, we had an agreement 10 hours per week, you’re not delivering. What would be the next step?”
Stefan:
Leaving the job. That’s my experience. That’s what the workers are doing.
Francis:
Okay. So clearly you have a problem setting up the initial trust.
Stefan:
Because just leaving the job seems easier. It seems like an easy escape, “Oh, there’s a problem. I just flee.” You know?
Continue reading part 3 – Virtual Assistants retention problems
Voice Or Text – Which is Most Effective Type of Communication?
Verbal or Written type of communication is part-9 of the second interview from Stefan from Germany, who lives the Four Hour Work Week lifestyle in Thailand.
Click here to read part 8 – Virtual communication between you and your virtual assistants
Summary:
- Voicemails are much faster and effective ways of communication.
- Video communication is also good mean of communication, but If you make video without voice then don’t make video at all.
- You can make one instruction in the evening, talking about everything takes half an hour of a video then post it to your assistant and this will be sufficient work for your virtual assistant for the following day.
Start of the Interview:
Stefan:
Would you, which I in the past never did, go with the voice orders in the video or would you go text based?
Francis:
Definitively with the voice. That’s the whole point. If you make video without voice then don’t make video at all.
Stefan:
Yeah. I mean the voice instructions or if you had to chose.
Francis:
Yes?
Stefan:
And let’s say because for me taking a voice recording is more difficult than writing.
Francis:
Okay.
Stefan:
Because when I’m doing voice recording I have the problem that I don’t know if I told everything, you know.
Francis:
Okay.
Stefan:
If I had everything that I have to say so the person understands what I’m talking about. If I write it, I can review it. I can read it again and find out that I put everything in that – yes or no.
Francis:
Okay. So this is a question of style. I hate writing. I’m very write-lazy. That’s why I use transcription all the time including this interview. And that’s why I love video transcriptions. On the other hand, I have no problem talking. You probably hear this when I’m talking with you.
But if I have the feeling that I might have missed something at the end of the video I would say something like “I tried to explain it to you as best I could in the video but I feel I am missing something. Can you explain back to me what you have understood from my video?” Sort of make your assistant make the written instructions.
And then you review the written instructions perhaps with screenshots from your video and then you will know, “Oh, I missed this important part.” So your assistant takes away the work from you working out the written part.
Stefan:
Okay. Yes.
Francis:
This is only if, of course, you are okay with your assistant investing time and therefore your money to do this. You say this is not worth it then write your instructions yourself. For me, the missing element is time.
I think for many people who work day jobs… at the same time they don’t have the time. Normally, I make one instruction in the evening. Talking about everything takes half an hour of a video then I post it to my assistant.
He works the whole day while I’m at my day job. And when I come home, I get his feedback and I make a new video. So it goes from day to day, in general.
If you, for example, have a lot time but not have a lot of money to invest then it probably make sense for you to create written instructions with bullet point format and screenshots.
This takes a lot of time but you don’t need to invest money in him watching the videos and understanding these things. And if you have made them once, you can reuse them for any other assistants you might hire in the future.
Stefan:
That could be useful.
Continue reading part 10 – Importance of communication between you and your virtual assistant
A Real Life Experience About Asian Work Ethics
Asian work ethics is part-13 of the second interview from Stefan from Germany, who lives the Four Hour Work Week lifestyle in Thailand.
Click here to read part 12 – Short term vs long term assistants
Summary:
- There are differences in the world and you cannot expect people in Asia to behave like people in Europe.
- When in Rome, do it like the Romans. Similarly when working with Asians, do it like the Asians.
- Work ethics from Asian countries can be very surprising.
Start of the Interview:
Stefan:
I would like to give you a real life example about Asian work ethics because I live in Asia.
Francis:
I would love that. Go ahead.
Stefan:
This is from my perspective and maybe from yours too, this is completely and utterly insane behavior. We started here with a cleaning lady, okay?
We moved in and our landlord knows someone and he sent these people to us and they cleaned here. And we told those people, we need every week – Sunday at this time. Every week.
Just every week. No questions. You come every week. Knock on the door. Come in. Clean everything, just everything. Dirty? Clean it and you get paid for that. Very good. Very good. This is the job. You know what happened?
They came the first time. They got told come every week and whatever. They came the next week. They didn’t come the next week because we didn’t say it again. You have to come because we just said it the first time – every week. I said it like a hundred times.
The first week I said it a hundred times and I said, “Do you understand?” And they “Yes, yes, yes, we understand.” Then the second week, they didn’t come. Then we contacted them to come and then they came. And the next week, they didn’t come again. But we said it a hundred times.
We have now a new cleaning lady and last week, she seemed very good because she understood that she has to come every week and she has no questions just clean everything.
Last week, she didn’t come and we were already looking at each other thinking “Oh, this is again the old Asian thing.” We contacted her and it turned out she was here.
But she knocked on the door and nobody opened which is crazy because we told her that we are always here and we already had missed her almost because she knocks very soft and it could be the tree outside. You don’t know when…
Francis:
Oh my God, I can not understand what happened.
Stefan:
You know, I mean, we are there. She can knock as long as she wants to just get our attention. Or just open the door because the door was open. Because we are here at home, we don’t close the door.
We don’t lock it. We don’t need it. So she could just come in. Instead, she decided to knock like silently as she does and then nobody is opening and then leave.
But the funny thing is when she was knocking on the door, I was inside and I wasn’t sleeping or anything. I just didn’t hear her.
Francis:
Okay. So this was different between their levels of politeness. I mean, she did knock as you’ve said so she did her job but knocked very quietly because that’s her nature. She didn’t want to wake you.
Then you would have to adapt and say, “If you knock, you can enter. Then just open the door and look into and see if we’re there.” Something like that.
Stefan:
Yeah. We told her now but…
Again, this is the problem because in my perspective the cleaning is the more important thing than the politeness. I don’t care about politeness. I assume most of the Western people don’t care if you say or behave very polite. The very important thing is the job.
That is you can be rude, you can be whatever as long as the job is done, whatever I don’t care.
I think that is more important for Westerners. Am I right?
Francis:
If we want to say something global like that, I might agree. But don’t you see that it might be important for people from other countries that politeness is like the most important thing in the whole world?
Stefan:
I can see that but I don’t agree.
Francis:
That’s okay. But you have to agree that there are differences in the world and you cannot expect people in Asia to behave like people in Germany.
If you live there, you cannot expect people to live like. Then you would have stayed in Germany, if wanted German behavior.
I have asked my virtual assistant to comment on your experience as he is also from Asia, and here is what he wrote:
Virtual Assistant
In my opinion, Stefan’s cleaning lady is totally lying (with due respect) that she came and knocked the door, but nobody opened the door.
I think it’s a lame excuse, actually she didn’t come at all and when Stefan asked her why she wouldn’t come, she pleaded this lame story.
It’s just like that someone bunked from college and the teacher asked ‘where you were last day’ and he replied that I wanted to come but I missed out my bus, therefore I couldn’t come.
Although I live in Asia, but this is not something new for me, even I face this problem very often.
Stefan:
But I could assume, at least, if I state my wishes. For example, you come every week, you do this whatever happens. I mean, that they fulfill my wishes.
Francis:
Nope, you cannot.
Stefan:
Okay. But that’s the universal thing that I would expect from every human being. If I express my wishes, I want them fulfilled whatever is necessary for that.
Francis:
Are you a King Stefan 🙂 That sounds very one sided – “I expect every human on the Earth to respect my wish and to fulfill my wishes.”
Stefan:
Yes. If I have a job, a task, that is to be fulfilled. That is the job of the employee is to fulfill the task. I put the task very high.
Francis:
Yeah. But I think here this is a communication thing, you have to adapt to the situations as they are. When in Rome, do it like the Romans. If you are in Asia and people behave like that then you have to adapt.
Else, you will not get your job done. You will stay unhappy and there’s nothing you can do about it. So either you buckle up on the debt or you don’t get the job done. Your choice!
Stefan:
Yes. That’s the sour lemon, I guess.
Continue reading part 14 – How to improve communication skills with your virtual assistants
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