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Community and Collaboration with Upsource

Welcome to our new newsletter!

It’s a real ambition of mine to build up the Virtual Assistant industry, to raise our profile and build on the wonderful community we already have. My intention with this newsletter is to share industry news, resources and to be a safe place where we can all celebrate, commiserate and connect with our community.

Stick around for the industry gossip, first leads on when Upsource is recruiting or to see yourself credited (keep reading!)  I’ll be dropping into your inbox monthly, you can unsubscribe (or share 😉) at any time, and please, let me know what you want to talk about.

Speak soon,
Caroline x

Points of business:
VA or OBM? The online debate

What is the distinction for you? There’s a lot of talk at the moment about the term ‘Assistant’ and the way we, as assistants, are perceived. 

Ask any Assistant, Virtual, Personal or Executive, and they will tell you that they are an integral part of a business. Not only do we organise the day to day, we are key sounding boards, forward and strategic thinkers; we don’t just make things happen, we are innovators too.

Ask anyone else? The public perception of what we do is…limited. Day to day admin. Task orientated, rather than big picture, proactive and strategic work.

Sound familiar?

This is a huge bug bear for me. My personal experience, my team, my clients, they all say that a VA is so much more than ‘just admin’. But online, hate to say it, and see it, some online service providers are actively devaluing the services that we provide in order to boost their own sales.

And it’s just not necessary.

Listen, I get that we all want to make the sale. But let’s do it by focusing on our positives, rather than decrying other people’s skills and businesses. If you have the chops, you’ll get the clients; this isn’t an ‘Us’ v ‘Them’ situation. The right clients for your skills and experience will find you. 

The focus of your marketing should be you, not your peers. Because VAs, EAs, OBMs in the support industry, we are colleagues as well as competitors.*

Assistants do not make the money that they do, Upsource does not charge the fees that we do, by being someone to delegate to. People looking for cheap admin do not come to us. And they should not be coming to you. 

An Assistant is not someone who is going to follow a process, or complete a task without knowing exactly the whys and hows and, knowing my team, without making a suggestion to improve it.

Assistants have always, and will always, be right hands: partners to, extensions of, and key decision makers for, their clients and bosses.

How do you feel the VA industry and wider professional support industry values your skills? I’d love to hear some suggestions on how we can shake things up and build our profile. Let me know if you have ideas!

*More on competition next month 👀

Actions: 

• Book tickets to the PA Show 15th October. I’ll be speaking on a panel about networking (my absolute fave!) And use the code NETWORKING5 for £5 off every session you book!

• Message me if you’re going to the VA Conference 11th October? Let’s go for coffee on Thursday 10th? 

• Get the London VA Network drinks in your diary if you’re within commutable distance

Next Steps:

• If my little rant about the term ‘Assistant’ struck a chord, you should definitely follow Lucy Brazier  and read these posts:

• From Fiona Young (if you’re interested in AI, definitely worth following!)

• Candice Burningham ‘We’re not assisting anymore

• 5 responses to ‘what do you do?’ with Jodie Mears’

Questions/comments:

I want this newsletter to be as useful and interesting as possible, and I’d love your help with that! If you have questions about the VA industry, tricky client situations, how to set boundaries when you’re an associate (with clients and your agency!) how much to charge, I am here to help! Let me know in the comments.

Suggested reading:

How to become a VA if you’re new on your journey. And please, let me know if you want any tips!

F*ck up of the month:

Something we’re really trying to cultivate at Upsource, is that it’s OK to make mistakes. It’s how we deal with them that counts.

We all do it, some more dramatically than others, but hey, that’s how we learn. I want to hear how you’ve f*cked up lately and the best (?!) missteps will be featured in the newsletter and go into a little prize draw, voted for by you! 

I’ll go first: this month we lost a client as they closed their business.

I dropped the ball on offboarding as we realised a team member hadn't followed the process to the standard we expect here at Upsource (for another newsletter!)

When you are a business owner this is your responsibility right?

So I found myself doing client work, for the first time in a long time, over two very late nights.

Was it my mistake? Yes. I’m the business owner and consistency of service is always my responsibility. 

Share your f*uck up by clicking on the button below. I want to hear from you, no mistake too big or small!

AOB:

Thanks for making it to the end of our debut email! Now, tell me, what do you want more of from us? Let me know your suggestions or leave a note in the comments.

Back next month, can’t wait to hear some of your f*ck ups!

Speak soon,
Caroline x