I was part of a panel discussion this week for Melanie Benson Strick’s Virtual Team Building Telebootcamp and the question came up:
How do I know if the person i’m hiring can actually do the job?
This got me to thinking – alot of virtual hiring seems to go on ‘blind faith’… we connect online somehow, have a conversation or two and decide to work together.
And then we wonder why so many working relationships fall apart – causing loads of headache on both sides! And leaving business owners feeling ‘gun shy’ and not sure who to trust when they need to hire again.
So how do virtual support professionals – Online Business Managers, Virtual Assistants and the like – prove that we are actually great at what we do and worth hiring?
Think about it – if you can prove that you are great at what you do in a clear and concise manner then you will make it really easy for clients to make a decision to hire you.
A few ideas that come to mind:
- Get testimonials from our clients – we don’t do this enough as virtual support professionals. When you do great work for your clients be sure to ask them for a testimonial that you can post on your website and use in other marketing materials. A tip to make it easy – draft the testimonial and give it to your client to edit (makes it much easier!)
- Keep track of our own successes – what successes have you helped your clients create? Those are your own successes as well, and are proof of your contribution to the business. Start keeping track of these successes so that you can share these stories/examples when talking to new clients. Create a portfolio of your work so people can see what you do. This is also a great confidence builder for YOU, to see how much you actually do contribute to the success of your clients.
- Date your clients first – there is no better way to prove yourself then to actually do some work for the client. Offer to do a bit of work with them first – what I call ‘dating’ the client – before you ask them to commit to longer working relationships. Make it clear that in the dating stage there are no strings attached – either you or the client can decide to discontinue at anytime during the dating stage without any hard feelings. And if things go well, you can both jump into a longer term relationship with confidence.
I’d love to hear from you – what else can we do to prove that we are great at what we do and worth hiring? Please share your thoughts here on the OBM blog.
And for the business owners out there let me ask – what would give you peace of mind in knowing that you are hiring someone who can do the job? Would love to hear from you as well!
Comments, thoughts?