Watching My Clients’ backs

A somewhat unpleasant thing happened today that started me thinking about what a VA can do for her/his clients.

Many years ago, when I first went into business for myself, my brother who is an electrician was one of my clients.  All these years later, he is moving in a different direction and asked me for help figuring out how to use the computers at the Toronto Public Library to access his email.  So we met at the Pape and Danforth branch, figured it out together and decided to go to the local Starbucks for coffee.

As I had to put more money “in the meter”,  I suggested that I would do that, he could head straight to Starbucks and I would see him there.  As I retrieved my ticket from the machine, I looked up and he was walking across the parking lot towards me.  Somewhat confused, I questioned why he hadn’t gone directly to Starbucks.  To my horror, he told me that my ex-husband had passed me on the street within about 10 feet of me, seen me, recognized me and followed me up the road towards my car.  Then he stopped and watched me as I cut through the parking lot.   My brother has heard some of the awful stories about my ex-husband and the way he tormented my children so was worried that after witnessing this somewhat creepy behaviour, I might be in jeopardy…so he followed my ex-husband as my ex-husband followed me.  Fortunately, nothing happened and I was completely oblivious that this had transpired.

Wow, when he told me what had happened was I glad my brother had my back!    Later in the day, as the discomfort of what had happened passed, I started thinking about how, in many ways, this is exactly what a Virtual Assistant can do for her/his clients on a daily basis.  I do a lot of customer support, act as the point of contact, book the appointments and various other things that might otherwise distract, interrupt or waste the time of my clients…my clients don’t need to deal with sales calls for advertising, web design (especially to the web designers) or other generally annoying phone calls.   In most cases, my clients remain completely unaware of the phone calls because they don’t need to know – as long as their lives and businesses run smoothly, there’s no need for them to know.

So, much like my oblivion earlier today (and I think I’ll ask my brother to keep me oblivious if it happens again), my clients can continue to work on their businesses rather than in them, grow their customer bases and make money – while I watch their backs.  A very comforting feeling.