Podcast episode (Secret Sauce of Outsourcing, Ep. 101) by John Jonas exploring whether virtual assistants (VAs) can meet with clients. Jonas and a guest argue that with proper culture, systems, and training VAs can handle client-facing roles, benefiting business owners, VAs, and clients; the episode also previews ready-made OFS trainings to be offered in a future episode.
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Welcome to the Secret Sauce of Outsourcing podcast that's dedicated to making you better at working with online Filipino specialists. This is episode 101. Can a VA meet with clients? So this is an interesting topic because it's so polarizing. Like so many people say, no, a VA cannot meet with clients. That can never happen. VAs are only good at working on the backend tasks. Like you sell something to a customer, you do the selling and then you pass the actual work off to a va. But that VA never talks to the customer. Where I've heard from other people, like, oh no, my VA is like, they manage the account or they communicate. I do the sale, they take over the management of it, and yes, they're also doing the work. Or I have other people that are like, oh yeah, no, my VA's do the lead generation for that customer and they pre sell them and then I sell them and then another one manages the account. Like, I got all kinds of the spectrum going on here, right? Or other people think like, oh no, they just couldn't do this. You've never actually done it. But they think, oh, they'll mess it up or the clients won't like it, or the clients will see the backside of my business and then they'll know that I'm just using VAs. And then they'll be mad. And really none of this is true. So many people are using VAS to do so many different things. So check this out. Ruben sent me this video recently talking about how his VAs, not only can they do back end work, but they're meeting with clients. So listen to this.
And a lot of people have these limitations, limiting beliefs on VAs. And I've been able to, you know, just empower them. And you know, they're holding meetings with my clients. Like, you know, a lot of people like, oh, you can't do that with vas. Yes you can. With the right culture, with the right systems, with the right training.
So, so your clients know the difference between you and your va. They recognize that your VA is your employee. They're not likely to try and hire that person away from you. That's not realistic. Especially when if you train a VA well, they're doing their job well. That client might learn to really like interacting with that with your va, because they'll recognize, hey, this person gets stuff done and stuff is getting done in my business. On the other side of it, Filipinos value their jobs. Like when they get a full time job, they value that job and they're super loyal and they know that making a client happy keeps the business running, keeps your business running. So their goal is to make that person happy. So your business runs, so they keep their job. So this is really a win, win for everybody. It's a win for you, it's a win for the va, it's a win for your clients. So how do you get someone, an ofs, a specialist who can meet with clients, who can handle that relationship? The answer is training. When you provide an OFS training, a new person, an old person, it doesn't matter. A newbie or a super experienced person, when you provide that training, they recognize that you care about them. They recognize that you care about them succeeding in the job that you gave them and in your business. They recognize that they become more loyal to you because they know that you're going to take care of them because you care about them. And they recognize the potential for growth in their current job because they're learning something new. They really want to do a good job for you because when you provide training, they see this is a good job. Training in OFS makes them become a rock star. In an upcoming episode, I'm gonna talk about how you can get the trainings that I have created for my team done for you. Trainings that you will hand off to your ofs. So you don't have to create the training, but they feel it's coming from you, so that they see you care, they know that you're willing to help them, they become loyal to you, you hand it off to them. It's your training given to them. But I created it for you so that you don't do the work that's coming up soon. It's trainings that will make your VAs more productive, more loyal, more effective, guaranteed.
