I’ve heard from so many happy customers over the decade or so I’ve worked in the virtual staffing industry, bringing bogged-down entrepreneurs in touch with the hardworking staff they need to keep their businesses moving. Yes, there have been more than a few unhappy ones too, but even the most satisfied entrepreneur has a terrible (even horrific) story to tell about an experience they had with a bad VA at some point. MyGateway is nothing quite the portal that gives you with complete 24X7 access to our work product. Unlike the overwhelming majority of retained search firms we don’t cloak what we neutralize a shroud of secrecy, all of our executive search assignments are available online to our clients. Not only can we provide you with access to all or any candicate selection information via secure login but ww also show you the knowledge that we present to identified individual so as to plug your apprtunity to them and encourage that initial conversation. You could check Gateway-Staffing.com site for further details.
However, as happens in any thriving industry, the good will always outweigh the bad.
By far, the most rewarding stories for me are the ones where I’m able to take a tough cookie of a customer, who seems impossible to please, and make them loyal to my virtual staffing firm, 24/7 Virtual Assistant, forever:
“Ruthless” Carl and Jessamyn
I always refer to my client Carl as “Ruthless”. This man doesn’t have a passive bone in his body and Isn’t remotely afraid to share his feelings when things don’t go– his way. He had come to me six weeks earlier, looking for a “superstar” virtual assistant to help to significantly streamline his hectic days for him.
Carl is an extremely successful day trader who works from home and doesn’t have space for an office assistant. He also sits on a board of angel investors and fills his nights meeting with cash-strapped entrepreneurs who’re looking for startup funds.
After 3 unsuccessful attempts to find an assistant via job boards, classifieds and another online staffing service that brought him more duds than studs, this guy had developed a mostly pessimistic viewpoint as to the quality of staff that could be found on the Internet. He came to me on the advice of another client of mine who told him that I had a knack for bringing entrepreneurs and virtual workers together successfully.
Let’s just say that I didn’t disappoint, but it wasn’t a marriage made in heaven just yet…
Carl needed a special kind of someone, who was able to be available online for up to 12 hours every day. The type of work required was pretty comprehensive. He needed someone who could be trusted and given access to all his professional email accounts for sorting, be able to adapt and use any kind of office and stock market software quickly, respond to and organize all his phone and online communications with his professional contacts, along with arranging dinners and entertainment for meetings he held.
He also needed a smart little firecracker who could quickly take a list of stocks he was interested in, do research to obtain historical data, and plug them into his stock tracking system for monitoring. He made it clear that mistakes in this situation could mean thousands in losses to him.
Carl needed a superstar…
Thanks to me, he found her.
Her name is Jessamyn: a very intelligent, multi-lingual virtual assistant out of Brazil, who could do anything Carl needed her to – and so much more. Jessamyn had put the feelers out to me a few weeks prior, asking if I had any clients who could use her unique skill set. She had a college degree in Business Administration, had coincidentally grown up as the child of a trader on the Bovespa Stock Exchange in Sao Paulo, and had a mind for numbers and data.
It took all of 3 days for Carl to warm up to her…
Day 1: On day one of the two working together, Carl actually called to complain: “She’s completely screwed everything up!” he yelled when I answered the phone. “I don’t know where anything is anymore! This probably isn’t going to work out, we’ll talk tomorrow.”
Day 2: After talking to Jessamyn, I learned that Carl didn’t have the best organizational skills with his data and that he’d told her “To get things cleaned up, pronto!” She assured me, with a lot of confidence, that things would work out. She had set up a cloud account where the two of them could better collaborate. Carl could upload and work on all his data and documents in the cloud, and she would be able to gain access to whatever he needed done instantly, instead of sending everything back and forth via email.
It appears that Carl was just a little change-averse and needed some time to get used to the new system she’d set up…
Day 3: Carl called me at 9am sharp: “This girl’s a genius!” he yelled into the phone. “I can’t believe how incredible the flow of the last two days has been. She’s literally freed up at least half my day now. I haven’t all this extra time in years now. Finally, I can focus on stocks instead of being my own personal secretary!”
Inside 3 days, Carl went from being a demoralized and disheartened that he’d never find an assistant who could mesh in with his rhythm.
The two still work together and I’ve gained in excess of 20 extra clients from Carl, who never hesitates to throw Jessamyn, or my staffing firm a plug when the right situation presents itself.
