If you have virtual assistants working as part of your business team, do you trust them? How much do you trust them? And just as important, do they trust you? Let’s not forget that trust is a two-way street. And truth be told, it’s probably more important that there be a healthy amount of trust between you and your virtual assistants than is required for your employees. Why? Because with employees, who work in the same office as you do, you can regularly walk by and check up on what they’re doing. With virtual assistants, this isn’t usually possible.

So I’ll ask again: Do you trust your virtual assistants….how much do you trust them….and do they trust you? Let’s look at each one of these questions.

Do you trust your virtual assistants? Maybe you think this is an irrelevant question. After all, it’s not like virtual assistants can steal office supplies or inventory. But they can “steal” from you in other ways. For instance, if you pay your VA by the hour, he could be dishonest with the number of hours that he reports that he worked. Or if you’re hiring someone to do some writing or graphic design for you, she could demonstrate dishonesty by outsourcing this to someone else, and then turn the work, all while insisting she did it herself. Incredibly, some VA’s have even gone so far as to pad their qualifications by either lying about their previous experience or even turning in someone else’s samples and claimed that they were their own. So how about it: Do you trust your virtual assistant?

How much do you trust your virtual assistants? There are degrees of trust that matter. It’s one thing to trust a VA enough to allow them to tell you how many hours they worked. It’s quite another to trust them with the business’s confidential information. You must be very careful about giving company account information, client contact details, and trade secrets, to a VA. Never gamble; only entrust such things to someone that you know is trustworthy.

Can your virtual assistants trust you? This is just as important as whether or not you trust them. After all, you’ll never get maximum performance from a virtual assistant who doesn’t trust you. If they can’t trust you to be concerned for their interests, and to always pay what they are worth, without taking advantage of them, their motivation will wane. They’ll spend much time meditating on how you abuse them—and they might even make this public to others. The successful entrepreneur discovers early in his career the value of building loyalty among his team members, including his virtual assistants.  When a person feels like he is being rewarded for his hard work, he spends time trying to figure out how to benefit the business—and you, the owner. As soon as you shatter the trust he has in you, you shut off that flow of creativity.

Now that I’ve presented to you the challenge of building trust, let’s look at some solutions. First, of all, you need to realize that you build trust with for your virtual assistant over time and here are three strategies that you can incorporate that will allow you to begin the process of trusting your virtual assistants:

• Screen them well before hiring them. This prevents a whole host of problems. Part of this screening process should be having a conversation with the VA and asking what their policies are about keeping your sensitive material confidential. Also in this conversation, try to get references so that you can find out from former clients if the person has ever betrayed someone’s trust.
• Include a confidentiality clause in their contract. Make it crystal clear that if they divulge sensitive materials to someone outside of the company, they will be terminated, and possibly face a civil lawsuit.
• Set up an online time-clock and project management program. While you don’t necessarily have to dictate their hours, this will at least call their attention to the fact that you are monitoring how much they’re working on your project. Do a Google or Bing search on “online time-clock.” You can also make use of project management software (preferably an online one) so that they can enter in details of what tasks they are working on for you and each milestone they have completed. This is help to build trust with your virtual assistant and also gives you a means to verify their work; hence “Trust but Verify.”

So how can your Virtual Assistant trust you? Again trust is a two way street and I won’t be finished with this blog post until I talk about how you can get your virtual assistant to trust you more. One of the best ways to do this is to ask them questions about your business and really listen; their opinion is valuable. They are the ones who get the work done and they might just have a better way to complete the tasks, hence allow them to use their initiative. Try being less formal; call them by their first name instead of last. Send an email occasionally just to check up on them personally, with no work-related discussion. Be generous with your praise; everyone like to be encouraged, so whenever they do an outstanding job tell them that you like it and why. As they see you taking an interest in them, they will start to trust you more.

Questions for you:

• What is the one thing that would make you not trust a virtual assistant?
• How have you built trust for those whom you currently have working for you?

Visitors who read this post also read:

• Cloud-Based Telephone and Voicemail Services for Your Small Business
• Social Media Marketing Tips for Small Business Owners – part 3
• How to Maintain Privacy and Security on projects that you Outsource to a Virtual Assistant

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