Small Business Online: Thriving in a Virtual World

How to Manage a Virtual Team Member

One of the biggest struggles for small businesses or solo entrepreneurs looking to outsource is how to work effectively with a virtual team member who is not an employee.

This person might be a web designer, virtual assistant, programmer or bookkeeper, but the key is that although she is paid for her services by your company, she isn’t an employee, doesn’t work on site, and often doesn’t even work during the same hours you do.

The good news is that in most cases you’ll be working with another business owner who understands that her own business will grow as a result of having a positive impact on yours.  So at least you’re properly aligned.

But that doesn’t mean you can just abdicate responsibility for your project to your team member without putting a certain structure into place.

Here are some basic principles for working with virtual service providers from our experiences:

1. Figure out what your goals are.  What concrete results or outcomes do you need, want or expect from this working relationship? Why are you getting help for this project or business function?  How will your business or life be better as a result?

For example, if you’ve assigned a writing project, like new copy for your website, you probably are hoping for improved conversion rates and more sales.  Or when contracting with a bookkeeper, you’re really just looking for a trustworthy, accurate, effective management of your financial records, to save valuable time for you.

2. Clearly communicate those goals, then measure the results. One of the biggest problems I see with outsourcing of any kind is that the business owner fails to actively communicate what’s important, and why.  Specific tactics or details will change over time, but your goals will typically be stable.  Being able to communicate those effectively can go a long way towards keeping virtual team members on track.

For example, if having a writer work on web copy for you, and your goal is improved conversion rates, you’ll need a way to test that, and to give feedback to the writer.  A subjective “this looks good” probably won’t give you what you need, and more importantly, without testing, you won’t know if it’s effective than what you previously had.

Similarly, for something like a bookkeeping service, your goal might be to have up-to-date, accurate records, no older than 7 days.  How can you verify that?  You may need to track the records yourself for the first month and compare to make sure things are going smoothly.   Are you finding mistakes constantly, or having to spend extra time explaining things or tracking things down?  If your goal was to save the 2 hours a week you spent before, but now you’re spending an hour and a half with the bookkeeper, maybe you’re not getting what you need.

3. Ask Good Questions. One good question is “How will you keep me updated on what you’re doing? When can I expect these updates?”  If you like the answers, it may save you the trouble.  Your writer may want to send you a first draft, get your feedback, then submit a final draft.  The bookkeeper may want to send a monthly financial statement.  If you prefer to get a weekly update, that would be the time to mention it.

You’ll also want to ask questions if you’re confused or surprised by the work a virtual team member produces.  I hear from some providers that clients sometimes stop working with them, but never bothered to complain during the project.  Often a simple question like “Didn’t we agree you wouldn’t use overly salesly language in that web copy?” might clear things up.

And finally, it’s very helpful to providers when you tell them what they’re doing right.  As specifically as you can.  Tell your writer: “Great job on that web copy -the tone is exactly what we wanted.”   Or tell your bookkeeper - “Thanks for suggesting that new account category, I never knew where to put those weekly massages!”

For many small business owners, being too busy is the main reason they considered outsourcing. But being too busy to manage those providers is a recipe for disaster.

It  takes clear communication up front, a means of objectively measuring the results you’re looking for (more free time, improved sales, better customer service, etc.), and proactive, ongoing conversation about anything thats not going well, and reinforcement of things that are.

3 Tips for Managing Multiple Clients and Projects Effectively

Managing multiple projects for multiple clients can be a little daunting for new or even experienced solo and small business professionals. Without a system for keeping track of deadlines, client feedback, and team activity, you might quickly find yourself on the other end of an angry phone call with an unhappy client.

Here are three tips to help you work more effectively with multiple client projects:

Communicate More Efficiently
Clients are like everybody else, they get stressed and uncomfortable when they don’t hear from you. But they don’t want to hear from you just because of your charming wit and soothing voice, they want to know the status of their important projects!

A weekly status call or email might be sufficient when you have just a couple of low-key clients. However, when your client and project load increases, you could quickly find yourself spending precious hours on the phone just to provide status updates.

One easy solution is to keep task information online so that clients can login at their convenience (even at 3am) to find out the latest status of their tasks, and even more detailed information (optionally) like time tracking information or how much retainer time they have remaining.

Keep Files and Comments in One Place
Another simple way to keep things organized is to gently move your clients towards accessing files and giving feedback in a central location. Online project management software can help your clients easily upload or download project documents that you’re collaborating on, as well as make comments on a specific project or file without sending dozens of emails back and forth.

The key advantages of this approach is that your responses won’t get lost or misplaced - you’ll have a clear, coherent record of your project conversations. You’ll also be able to reference the latest version of your files in a consistent way.

This winds up saving lots of time that might otherwise be spent with a client providing feedback about the wrong version of a file, or missing your response to a query.

Track Deadlines Proactively
Even with the above measures in place, you still need to keep an eye on the dates you’ve committed to clients. At a minimum, you can adopt a simple system to prompt you about upcoming deadlines, and also to update clients if you are unable to meet those due dates.

One way of doing this is to keep a project or task calendar for each client that shows each upcoming deadline. You can refer to this calendar once a week or more frequently as needed to make sure you’re clear on client commitments. If you have a team, you can also add their commitments for more timely followup.

If you are using an online project management system, you can also have the system remind you and your team of upcoming deadlines by email a couple of days before the fact. You can also monitor the status of tasks across all projects, clients and team members, or check just the work assigned to a specific person.

By staying on top of deadlines, you can also pro-actively notify your clients if things start to slip. Most clients will not only be understanding of an occasional delay, but will appreciate the early notice so that they can adjust. Not that you want to make a habit of missed deadlines, but at least by monitoring them carefully, you can still provide excellent customer service by informing clients early and giving them options to reschedule work.