Why Trust Matters in Your Virtual Assistant Business

As you can tell from my last post, and the title of this one, I've been thinking a lot about trust lately...

Part of the reason for that is I've been reading a book by Stephen M.R. Covey called The SPEED of Trust: The One Thing That Changes Everything. Covey's premise is that when you earn trust, everything in a business relationship runs more smoothly and quickly.

When things go wrong, you're more apt to give the other party the benefit of the doubt when you trust them. You will listen to their advice more closely, and be more willing to tell them what you're really thinking.

Covey cites several real-life, big business examples of how trust has sped up contract negotiations and mergers compared to expected timelines. Even though he writes about large corporations, everything he says can also be applied to small business - and, in fact, to almost every personal and professional relationship you have.

According to Covey, trust is built one small step at a time.

Earning credibility with others begins with trusting yourself, and believing you're deserving of other people's trust. He offers several practical examples of small steps you can take to learn to trust yourself (which might be why I found this book under the Self-Help, not Business, section of my local bookstore - his points hit a little close to home at times. Speaking of which... did you know, when you push that snooze button every morning, you might be undermining your credibility with yourself?).

In your virtual assistant business, that small step could be as simple inviting someone to sign up for a free gift on your website, and then actually sending it to them. Most of us do that anyway, for various reasons, but what you're really doing is building trust.

You build trust by showing up at your blog once in a while, if you have one.

By responding to an email inquiry in a timely fashion.

By having a resource box in your article, with a link that is related to the topic of your article.

By participating in a forum, offering solutions to your target market's problems.

By publishing your newsletter when you say you will.

Each thing very small in itself, but all leading towards the ultimate goal of creating trust with your client.

Here's a link to The SPEED of Trust: The One Thing That Changes Everything if you want to check it out for yourself.

Learn HTML Tricks, Quickly and Easily

The Virtual Business Startup System (a highly recommended resource for any aspiring or experienced virtual assistant) comes with several easy-to-use website templates.

But even "easy to use" requires some knowledge on the user's behalf to get the most out of them.

When I created my first website using the templates, I had worked with basic html before, and I knew how to use an html editor at a beginner level. To get the most out of my templates, though, I wanted to learn more. I read (or tried to read) several tutorials to ramp up my knowledge, but technical how-to's are not my favorite kind of reading!

I then turned to my library and took out every book they had on html, hoping that something would appeal to me, and finally make sense to my creative, but non-technical brain. :)

That was when I discovered the book HTML: Top 100 Simplified Tips & Tricks (Visual Read Less, Learn More)

It's a friendly book that you don't really have to read - just follow the brightly colored illustrations to accomplish your goal. The difficulty of each task is easy to determine because the book uses symbols to point out new spins on common tasks, tasks that require multiple steps, and tasks that require extensive skill and may involve other technologies.

With these easy-to-follow instructions, I was able to perform even some of the most complex tasks to get my site working just like I wanted.

Some of the tasks covered in this book are:

• Using style sheets
• Creating forms
• Arranging objects using tables
• Working with JavaScript

I forgot to mention that the Virtual Business Startup System includes a 2 hour coupon for Website Design, so you don't need to do any of the work yourself. However, as a new virtual assistant, I wanted to take advantage of this learning opportunity so I could work online more efficiently, and offer web editing services to my clients.

Here's the book again: HTML: Top 100 Simplified Tips & Tricks (Visual Read Less, Learn More)