Carrying Capacity Part II
In November of 2005, I wrote a post called “Fall & Carrying Capacity.” (You can look at that article for a definition of carrying capacity if it’s unfamiliarâ€â€?as a former science teacher, I find many science concepts that pertain to my business life and I toss them around with impugnity.) In that article, I compared the term as it applies to habitat to that of the independent contractor who finds his or her business somehow out of whack.
Then, I was observing that if you find your practice is continually swamped, you may be experiencing a decline in quality of life. Ironic, since control over your existence is likely something that attracted you to entrepreneurship in the first place. I originally suggested that a problem of too few resources (such as outmoded equipment, employees or subcontractors) or the wrong clients (those that are a mismatch for your skills, workstyle, or personality) could be remedied, restoring your work life to a more healthy balance.
While I think those are important issues to track in a growing VA practice, a conversation with a valued client has lead me to amplify my views on the issue of carrying capacity. According to her, the industry has been in place long enough that many business owners are on board with how a VA can support them.
However, she suggested that a growing problem she sees with many VA’s out there is the tendency to take on more clients than you can effectively handle. Here’s a common scenario: the practice gets off the ground slowly, and then builds momentum, and before you know it, you’re regularly getting new leads. There’s a rush that goes with every new inquiry and then maybe an inner voice says, “Wow! I landed another one!”
After a few solid growth years and good publicity for the field of Virtual Assistance, we may be facing a new challenge: the public, our clients, beginning to perceive VA’s as biting off more than they can chew, leading to an image problem for our industry. Bad for everyone! Worse, leads to entropy (another great science term!).
Predicting when you’ll have reached your maximum client load is not an exact science. I argue that you will only know you’re there when you’re there. At that point it is imperative that you take corrective action fast.
Here are some hints:
1. If you are dropping the ball on a project by letting some things fall behind or, worse, through the cracks, you have too much on your own plate. In fact you might be too busy to recognize this and you’ll need to listen carefully to your clients to know if you are in that “red zone,” like Cesar Milan, the Dog Whisperer, refers to this state.
2. If you’re routinely working nights and weekends, I surmise you have too many clients as well. Your life needs balance and if all you do is work for weeks on end, I doubt you have things under control.
3. Unless you just launched your business, if you accept every project that comes your way, you are probably beyond your limit. You may need to be more discriminating.
As for remedies? That’s easy. Get some sub contractors to help you out if you don’t want to hire employees. Refer work to other trusted VA’s. Only accept work that falls into your specialty areas so you aren’t working all hours of the day and night trying to figure out how to accomplish something in which you are not an expert. Make sure your equipment is up to the task, whether hardware or software. Or, finally, just say “I’m sorry, I’m not taking new clients at this time.” And then refer them to IVAA!
Think I’m off target? I’d love to hear comments from veteran VA’s and clients of VA’s to help sort out the size of this problem. Maybe there really isn’t even a growing problem. Let’s sort it out to make sure the VA industry stays strong.
Comment // September 15th, 2006 // 6:51 pm
Hey Katie, great topic. The first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem. I know several VAs who will take on any job even if their schedule is full – and new clients are s great, but at what expense? The expense of your personal time? Your family time? Your sleep time? I think every VA at one time or another falls into the trap of overbooking…and these are usually the same VAs who really have no organization going on in the office. I cal l this working through e-mail – there are no task lists, no calendars with your tasks/to-do’s and probably not a good filing system (check for large stacks of paper on your desk if this sounds like you! ha ha). Balance and organization is the key and believe me after a few years of being self-employed I thought, my goodness, I wanted to work from home but not 24/7. My personal solution: I fell back on my skills in marketing. Since I have a pretty good skillset under my belt, I decided to niche in internet marketing, I raised my hourly rate and now I only take on clients that (a) can afford me and (b) who I ENJOY talking and working with. Things are much better now, I’m making more money than I used to and I’m only working 1/2 the amount of time that I used to and as a result I’m having quality time and my husband is no longer jealous of my computer.
) PS…managing subcontractors just isn’t for me – they usually overbook their schedules and I end up waiting on them! I don’t need more headaches so I nixed that a long time ago….. have a super weekend Katie!
Comment // September 15th, 2006 // 6:57 pm
I think this is a problem not unique to the VA industry. When any business is overworked, something is going to suffer. Usually, that thing is customer service. For a VA, this can result in missed deadlines, slow response time, and a host of other problems. Something similar happened to me in the spring of this year. All of a sudden my client load (and income) was booming, but one of my big-project-clients kept falling to the bottom of my to-do list. I immediately realized this wasn’t acceptable, and farmed out some other work to two, and sometimes three different subcontractors. I was also very upfront with my “neglected client”. I told him that I was overcommitted and I would be fixing it soon. In the meantime, I tried to get some work done for him late in the evenings or on weekends. He understood, I kept my promise, and he’s still an occasional client.
If this capacity issue is truly a problem in the VA industry, it’s because some VAs are being too greedy. I can’t think of any other reason you would do this. You only have so many hours in your day or week. If you want to keep adding new clients, you need to add more staff, find reliable, good quality subs, or clone yourself. haha. If you don’t want to be managing staff or subs, you’re going to have to limit your clients or put them on a waiting list.
Katie, I haven’t heard from clients that this is a big problem in the industry. I will certainly follow this thread with interest though.
Lauren Hidden
Comment // September 16th, 2006 // 11:17 am
Hi all,
It’s interesting to read Lauren’s post because from my standpoint, VAs taking on too much work IS becoming a problem. In fact, it’s becoming so much a problem that many of my entrepreneur peers regularly discuss “alternatives” to VAs, such as students. Why? Because many of us shell out a substantial amount of money each month to a VA and then not have things done. Firing VAs is commonplace, and going thru several VAs happens more often than not.
For my part, I’m sad to see this. I love the idea of VAs. I’m not a micromanager so the idea of having an admin team virtually based who simply get things done without me managing them is wonderful. But I too am hesitant about hiring more VAs because I’ve seen too many of my peers have problems.
However, the good news is this is still fixable. I don’t think the VA reputation has been tarnished beyond repair, just a couple of easily fixable dings. Even though we talk and look for VA alternatives, we still consider VAs for our teams.
But I do think this is enough of a problem that as a VA you should be aware of. We hire VAs because we have all these pesky tasks on our plate we neither have the time nor the inclination to do. But they need to be done. And we also don’t have time to constantly check up on you to see if those tasks have gotten done, we want VAs who when they tell us it will be done, it’s as good as done.
I hope this is helpful. Like I said, I firmly believe in VAs — i regularly talk about hiring VAs in my articles and have an article devoted to why entreprenuers should hire a VA. So if this post can serve as a wake up call for VAs to seriously consider how much is too much work, then that will make my day.
Pingback // September 17th, 2006 // 7:32 am
[...] Her post claims that some clients are getting fed up with VAs because some have taken on more clients than they can effectively handle, or have exceeded “carrying capacity”. [...]
Comment // September 17th, 2006 // 7:48 am
Michele,
I appreciate your comment. I’ve added this discussion to my own blog. My question is, what can we do to lessen this impact? From your experience, what can clients ask a VA that will tell them if that VA is too busy for them? What could a VA do to realize his/her limits?
Comment // November 16th, 2006 // 5:37 pm
Hi Katie,
Just wanted to share my experience about the REVA (Real Estate Virtual Assistant) I am currently working with to help others not make the same mistake. I made sure to ask when interviewing VA’s how many clients they have and how many they will take to avoid being overlooked. My REVA said she only works with 10 clients and had 9 at the time, therefore appearing to manage her workload.
I have been let down as she over promises and under delivers repeatedly. If she would just communicate with me the status on the project and not give me false expectations, I wouldn’t wonder what’s being done. I don’t feel she is overbooked with me, just needs to work on putting herself in the client’s shoe and communicate better. I truly hope this helps build better relationships between VA’s and their clients.
Thanks for the opportunity to share!
Pingback // October 18th, 2008 // 10:04 am
[...] Speaking of this, here are some related posts from the Loosely Speaking archives: Carrying Capacity Carrying Capacity II [...]