Are You Making the Most of Your Virtual Assistant?
Someone forwarded me an email this week which he’d received from Milana Leshinsky, a very successful coach who recommends the use of VAs so that the coach focuses on what he/she does best. Her income has doubled three years in a row, and says that her biggest secret to coaching success is delegation without hesitation. Because some coaches don’t have that level of confidence in their virtual assistants, she has developed a special training program for VAs who support coaches, called Send Your VA to School.
I’ve been very fortunate to attract clients who support my professional development. Last fall, a certified Strategic Attraction Coach who is one of my clients offered me a spot in his six-week telecourse on using the Law of Attraction in your business. More recently, other clients have invited me to a two-day live conference and a series of teleseminars to be held over three days.
Although a VA is an independent contractor, and not your employee, it may be worth looking for ways that you can help him or her to become even better at what they do - it’s a win-win situation!
Perhaps a VA coach who has worked with coaches as a VA for several years might also be the answer for these VAs?
Comment by Kathie Thomas — March 25, 2007 @ 3:17 am
I checked out this program. There is absolutely no way you can train a VA to do everything they promise in 3 short calls–especially if the VAs she is targeting are not excatly aggressive by nature. This is just another example of someone who is not truly an expert in the field of virtual team building and VA training, trying to profit on an emerging market of small business owners who don’t know any better.
Rebecca Trelfa
Virtual Support Teams Coach
Comment by Rebecca Trelfa — March 25, 2007 @ 8:55 am
The course includes several hours of recorded lessons in addition to the teleclasses, but I wasn’t necessarily endorsing this particular program, just the concept that a VA’s client can benefit by supporting the VA in his/her professional development.
My own upcoming learning opportunities are not geared towards VA’s but are specific to my clients’ industry. By knowing more about what they do, I will be better equipped to support their businesses.
Comment by Janet Barclay — March 26, 2007 @ 5:30 am
Milana is extremely well known and her products are good - I’ve seen some of them and one of my own clients (a business coach) has learnt much from Milana too. I believe that what she has to offer would be good for those who are already experienced VAs looking to add value to the client who is a business coach - I just don’t know how intense it would be. All the same, as I mentioned above, a VA coach who services this industry could also add value to VAs who want to learn to service business coaches.
Comment by Kathie Thomas — March 27, 2007 @ 4:20 am
I have to agree with Kathie on this topic.
While Milana is a wonderful business owner and is very savvy, I think the copy on her new website is a bit demeaning for VAs. Would you want to be asked to participate in something in which the opening line is “Is your VA holding you back?” I don’t think it’s empowering but rather demeaning and I would frankly be embarrassed to be one of the VAs in the program. By being asked to participate in this program, it would feel like your client doesn’t think you are good enough.
I think a VA coach could bring a lot of value to another VA as we know the exact challenges and skills that are required and generally, most VA coaching programs are intense and over a longer period (as we all know we didn’t start, grow and succeed in our business in 3 hours…)
I’m not trying to ‘cut up’ the idea - I think it has some value - I just think it needs to be positioned differently and the copy definitely changed to HELP rather than HINDER.
Erin
Comment by Erin Blaskie — March 30, 2007 @ 9:06 pm