As a Virtual Assistant, you want to be as helpful and valuable to your clients as you can.

A good communication system will help you work with ease and impress your clients.

It builds trust and ensures your client receives a premium experience.

So if you’re ready to give your clients an awesome experience working with you, then keep reading!

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1. Have goals

Start with getting clarity on your goals together with your client.

Clearly define

• what your goal is
• when you will work on it
• how you will approach getting it done
• and why you want to achieve this goal.

It helps to discuss the above points over a brief meeting.

It will set the tone for your client-VA relationship.

Make sure you note this down in your project management tool.

I love Notion for this!

For instance, let’s imagine you are working on content marketing for your client.

The best way to go about it is to start by understanding your client’s goals for content marketing, then create sub-goals and then step-by-step tasks in order to achieve the bigger goals.

You can set goals like:

1. Build a habit of posting each day.
2. Put high-quality content in front of people daily.

These actions are going to compound as you do them daily and help you achieve your bigger goals.

I love to use the S.M.A.R.T. acronym for creating goals.

If you have never heard of this approach before, here is a quick rundown:

S. Specific - Be as specific as possible to get to the heart of what you are aiming for.

M. Measurable - Measurable goals help track progress and get you to the finish line.

A. Achievable - Be realistic with your goal-setting. Don’t bite off more than you can chew.

R. Relevant - Think about the big picture and whether or not your goals make sense.

T. Time-Bound - When you put a deadline on a goal you ensure that you stay on track.

However, don’t go building a super detailed plan for the entire year.

To make it to the top, embrace pivots, chance, and randomness.

Have a plan.

Have milestones.

Don’t hesitate to change them when data or feedback suggests doing so.

2. Do what it takes to achieve those goals

The majority of people I know fantasize about things that actually can be accomplished.

They just never get started.

Creating goals is not enough. Taking ACTION is the be-all and end-all of it.

The 2nd biggest difference between success & failure is persistence.

Building habits and systems will help you with persistence.

Read Create Simple Systems For Success As A VA.

Habits are the backbone of systems to achieve goals

To make life and business easier, build habits around the small tasks you need to do each day or each week for your client and for your own business.

This will create a system that will help you run your business more smoothly.

Let’s say you are helping your client with blog management, Youtube, and social media.

Build a publishing habit for each platform to create a cadence for your content marketing.

For example, publish:

• A blog post every Monday
• A YouTube video every Tuesday and Thursday
• A LinkedIn post 5 days a week Monday through Friday

Once you have this planned out, you will get into a cadence to deliver them.

Your client will get used to communicating with you on those particular days too.

It will create a trustworthy bond between you and your client.

Set Goals > Take Action > Build habits > Achieve goals > Build Trust = Successful Virtual Assistant Business

Additional reading:

One of my favorite books on creating habits is called, The Power Of Habit, What We Do In Life And Business by Charles Duhigg.

In this book, Charles lays down the basics of how habits become ingrained (whether good or bad). Essentially, understanding how habits work is the key to exercising regularly, being more productive, and achieving success.

By harnessing the power of habit, you can transform your businesses, your community, and your life.

3. Build a habit of communicating with your clients.

In your VA business, communication will make or break your relationship with your clients.

Remember, there’s no such thing as over-communication.

Clear communication is crucial to working together.

Always better to ask what’s on your mind, suggest that idea you think will help your client, or talk about rescheduling a call if you think you can’t make it, right away!

Your client will appreciate you.

Creating a habit of regularly updating your clients regarding your deliverables will ensure there’s no ambiguity.

Regular communication builds trust.

A good VA will make her client’s life and business feel super smooth and easy.

She will make sure the client knows exactly where and when to look for updates at their convenient time.

For example, build a habit of updating your client every Friday about the work done that week. Your client will rest assured that their business is running well.

It will help save their time by giving them a glance at the entire weekly workflow in a couple of minutes.

They will get used to looking at your updates every Friday and thus build a habit for themselves.

Sounds like a smooth system, right?

Habits culminate into systems.

When you persist with the system you succeed in achieving your goals.

I have seen the most success with building good client communication habits with clients happen when you properly set expectations during your onboarding process.

You should let them know upfront what your current communication process looks like (which should be around what is important to you in life so you’re not stuck taking calls during your normal workout classes or time with your family for example).

You can let them know how long it will take you to respond to a given request or inquiry on a project and agree upon a regular time for status meetings each week.

This saves precious time for both of you while ensuring that you communicate effectively.

4. Use the right tools

Decide the communication tools that you will be using.

The game-changer is to use a collaborative tool with your clients that can be perfectly tailored for your VA services.

I have been loving Notion lately. 

It is simple, sophisticated, and super easy to use.

For instance, if you’ve set goals to publish blog posts, Youtube videos, and LinkedIn posts, simply use the ‘Content Calendar’ template on Notion and collaborate on it with your client.

It’s got all the features that you could need.

Plan and execute your strategies while being in perfect sync with your client.

No emails filling up your inbox, no missed communication, no wasting time hopping from one link to another.

Keep all you need in one place.

Set up your own system for a smooth communication system.

It can comprise of a

• Project management tool (Notion, ClickUp, Asana)
• Quick communication tool (Voxer, Telegram, Whatsapp)
• And good old email.

Create a communication cadence.

For example,

• A weekly status email/meeting
• Deliverable updates on the project management system
• Quick messages on Telegram for emergencies or questions

Update them often and they’ll be at ease working with you.

Simple and effective, you will make sure your client has perfect clarity on all the ways you are adding value to their business.

Hope this helps you run your VA business more smoothly and keep your clients happy!

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