I recently had a revelation about Virtual Assistants and how they track time.
I talk to a lot of VAs in my circles and one of the biggest discussions remains how much to charge for something.
The answer to that is usually centred around how long it takes you to complete a task – whether you are quoting an hourly rate or a package rate.
But I didn’t really stop to think about the vast parameters of that thought: how long it takes you to complete a task.
What I realized is that everyone works at a different speed. And there is nothing wrong with that.
But are you working at the RIGHT speed?
If you aren’t, you could be wasting your client’s money.
When we are working as an employee in a job, there is often no reason to watch the clock for the tasks we complete on a daily basis.
We might have a list of things to get done, but there’s usually no one watching over our shoulder to time how long we are taking to do things (and that’s a good thing!).
Yes we have deadlines and sometimes short timelines to complete things, but did you ever really track how long you were spending checking emails, or preparing a newsletter, or making document edits – when you were in an admin job?
Probably not.
But when you transition to working as a contractor this is something that becomes extremely important.
If you are working as a VA at the same pace as you would have in an office setting, my message is clear – that’s not good enough.
Time is important. Time is money. Because it’s not your money that you are spending.
And one of the biggest differences between having a job and being a VA is that the client is only paying for a VA to complete specific tasks.
An employer is paying for someone to be available full-time to complete whatever work they need completed.
This is a crude comparison I know, but you see what I mean.
If the client is paying just for certain tasks, then you should be devoting your full attention to them and getting them done in a timely fashion.
When you are working as a contractor, the clock is one of THE most important pieces of your business.
I wrote a blog post once of a VA who worked on some PDF edits for a client of mine. There were just a few changes to make, but neither my client nor I had the ability to edit a PDF, so we outsourced it. The VA came back and told us it took her 2 hours to make the (very minor!) changes. She did work that we did not ask for, and she charged my client for it. Read the story here.
She WASTED my client’s money.
I had a subcontractor a few years ago who worked at a very slow pace (but I didn’t realize it!). What I knew took me just 15 minutes to do, the VA was taking up to 30 minutes to do. Newsletters that took me one hour to do, she was spending over two hours doing. And billing me for the time.
She was wasting MY money.
When I addressed my own situation, I developed step by step procedures for the tasks that the VA was doing. And I assigned her a time to complete the task, so that she knew what my expectations were. Clear communication like this is very important in virtual relationships.
For my client’s problem, it was a one-off, so we never really addressed it. We just didn’t work with that VA again. But we certainly would have shared clear expectations with someone if we ever had to seek out someone to do a similar task.
But one thing that never really entered into the equation was the speed at which both of these VAs were working.
It was obviously MUCH slower than I worked at. I’m quick, but I don’t rush my work. I am very aware that the client is paying me well for my time … as VAs we talk about only why hiring a VA is so much smarter because the client is only paying for the time on the task.
But if you are not stepping up your game and really paying attention to how much time you are spending on the tasks your clients needs, you could be wasting their money.
What kinds of focus tools are you using in your business? If you are not focused on the task at hand, you could be spending more time completing it than you should.
What types of routines do you implement into your workday? Routines help with productivity. Forming good habits helps you become more efficient.
Perhaps the most important thing that you need in your business is procedures. By knowing the steps you need to do to complete something, you will be sure to do it the same way every time. You should develop procedure documents for every task you do, and use them every time.
Billing by the hour is a very common way for Virtual Assistants to charge. And there is nothing wrong with that. But you have to make sure that you are working at the RIGHT pace.
Of course I would never suggest that you work faster than you feel comfortable (mistakes are even more expensive!). But you do need to really be aware of how long you are taking to do things.
It’s a matter of money. Your client’s money.
If you want some help getting your processes in order, check out my free VA training videos on my Youtube channel.
