The Virtual Legal Assistant, Inc. - Aretha Gaskin

Who's the Boss?

When you’re a VA, or any kind of solo entrepreneur, you sometimes feel like you’re in a bubble.

You may have everything running smoothly, your clients are happy and productive, but there are days when you just need . . . . human contact.

Like most VAs who pay attention to the other full-time job, i.e. marketing, I attend seminars and conferences from time to time, and of course, there are necessary client meetings, too.

But some days are just too quiet.  And I was thinking about this when I read this interesting little article in the New York Times about Congressman Anthony Weiner, a serious candidate for Mayor of NYC, and in the meantime in the running for Most Demanding Boss.

Now, I give the congressman credit for a certain amount of self-awareness, but when Marines start to quit on you, maybe you should try easing up a touch.

When I finished reading, I felt a lot better about being my own boss.

Virtual Law Firms

In a world where so many handle their financial matters completely online, never setting foot in a building, the concept of a virtual law practice is no longer exotic or unworkable.  Add the ability to assure absolute security and confidentiality in communication and 24/7 accessibility, and the virtual shingles are starting to pop up everywhere.

One of the latest I’ve heard about is Virtual Law Partners (VLP), a group of 14 lawyers have come together to change the status quo of prestigious-looking offices, high billing rates and the traditional law firm appearance.

VLP is setting out to replicate the service a large partnership provides, without the offices.  Some in the legal community say the concept can only go so far, because the biggest deals require the staffing and facilities of the biggest firms.

Others see a decline in the number of face-to-face interaction during the typical engagement of a larger firm, and are attracted by the savings.

At the least, firms like VLP will no doubt be a welcome alternative to the soaring partner rates that are an obstacle to quality representation for firms working on somewhat smaller matters.

The co-founders of VLP, RoseAnn Rotandaro of Armour Legal Counsel and Andrea Chavez of Lion Tech Law—both virtual law firms—partnered with Craig Johnson, creator of Venture Law Group to make VLP a virtual reality.

Johnson, a venture capitalist, thinks he’s backed a winner.

“The thing that makes it almost a slam dunk is the incredible price umbrella from the big firms," Johnson said. "When you charge $400 an hour and have clients think it's a bargain, how could you not succeed?”

One More Campaign

He did it!

Not many thought he could prevent Hillary and the Big Dog from taking the nomination, but here he came, on June 4, bouncing up on stage in St. Paul, in the very room where the Republicans will convene in months to come, fist-bumping lovingly with his wife, and letting the cheers soak in.

Barack Obama brings so much to the general election.

He is the hope of generations of African-Americans that finally the USA has turned a corner and is ready to proudly display its diversity to the world.

He is a symbol of the young enfranchised, who seem ready to make a serious impact on the direction of the nation by turning out in decisive numbers in November.

He becomes, after a meteoric career-rise, the standard-bearer of a Democratic Party eager to refurbish its image, and provide an alternative to the Republican definition of security and prosperity.

He becomes the newest champion of collective rights, of democracy as shared success and freedom, rather than the Republican reliance on the individual’s well-being and the sanctity of corporate rights.

How can anyone be prepared for a walk down such a path, at the end of which are the gravest responsibilities coupled with larger expectations than any recent candidate has been burdened with?

His campaign correctly understood that what America wants is change, because we all agree things are not going well.

What kind of change will Barack Obama bring, by symbolism, by force of character, by skills we haven’t seen yet?

We will know soon enough.  In the meantime, it is a special time in the USA.

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Some Days Are Weirder Than Others

Idly surfing the waves of the internet the other day, I realized that while we were all looking away, every single day of the year has been designated for something or someone. 

I’m not at all sure this is a good thing.

Today, for example, as I write this, is May 30.  This used to be known as Decoration Day every year in the US, a day when Southern women “decorated” the graves of fallen soldiers.  It was commemorated every May 30, no matter what day May 30 happened to be.

Then, at some point, holidays like that got nudged to Mondays, and became the final piece in several yearly three-day weekends.  (When they move the 4th of July, we’ve got real problems)

But then, someone got the same notion that has swept through the food industry and many other product categories—if the original was good, 26 variations on it have to be better.

So now, in addition, to more varieties of Coke than anyone can keep track of (“I told you to get me Diet, caffeine-free, zero cherry, not vanilla!), we’ve got Decoration Day becoming Memorial Day, and landing on the last Monday in May and in its place on May 30 we now celebrate Hug Your Cat Day and the ever-popular Compact Disc Day.

It doesn’t stop there.  You should also be aware that this is Good Stewardship Week, and lest you labor under the delusion that May is just simply the part of the calendar that comes between April and June, I will inform you that it is also officially known as Better Sleep Month, Egg Month, Salad Month, Hamburger Month, Barbecue Month, Strawberry Month, High Blood Pressure Education Month, Date Your Mate Month, Military Appreciation Month, Older Americans Month, Photo Month, and of course, Salsa Month.

Confusing, huh?  Not for me.

I happen to know it’s also Peace of Mind Month.

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Rules? What Rules?

Life is a funny thing.  Yes, I mean that the ability to express joy, laugh at yourself and recognize absurdity all point to someone who has a good grasp on reality.  But life is funny also because when it seems to teach you one thing, it rewards you for just the opposite.

School for example, society’s model for life training, is all about conformity.  And yet it is very often the nonconformists who succeed because they are the innovators, the first with the idea, and the gutsiest in promoting it.

In business, and especially for entrepreneurs like Virtual Assistants, and most especially at times like these in America, the only sure thing is a rock-solid belief in yourself.  Which may very well mean saying “yes” when everyone says “no”, and then taking action. 

“…[E]veryone said Sam Walton was crazy to build his stores in small towns.  Almost everyone who has had an idea that’s somewhat revolutionary or wildly successful was first told they’re insane.”

This is a quote from a Fortune interview with Larry Page, Google co-founder, who bemoans the small percentage of risk-takers even at his own forward-looking company.

“Honestly, I’m a little baffled…My experience is that when people are trying to do ambitious things, they’re all worried about failing when they start.  But all sorts of interesting things spin out that are of huge economic value.”

Not only economic, but social, too.  The biggest problems on the planet can be addressed.  It calls for determined risk-takers building momentum with their persistence and eventually, as with the Japanese and the reliable automobile, others are inspired to copy the success.

Who can do it?

“If you look at the people who have high impact, they have pretty general knowledge.  They don’t have a really narrowly focused education…You’d want to be more like Edison.  If you invent something, that doesn’t necessarily help anybody.  You’ve got to actually get it into the world; you’ve got to produce, make money doing it.”

OK, all you virtual Edisons, let’s think big and make everybody’s life a little better.

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Trust

Trust is in the headlines again.

The recently-departed Governor of New York is recently departed because he betrayed the trust of his State and his family.

The newly-arrived Governor of New York, one day after his well-received and rousing inaugural speech, tells the voters through a series of newspaper interviews that both he and his wife have had extramarital affairs.

Yet another author of a best-selling memoir is exposed as a fraud.

The beginning of the major league baseball season brings with it the off-season stories of steroid use and Congressional testimony and public apologies.

A climate of this kind invites and encourages cynicism, and when that is the prevailing attitude, it is hard to make a convincing case for integrity and quality.

There is always skepticism inherent in the initial negotiations of a service provider like a virtual assistant.  You can display your past performance in an expensive website and offer a page full of referrals, but as in most walks of life, you only truly prove your professional trustworthiness by repeated good performance, every single day.

Integrity is the habit of honesty and fairness, thoroughness and striving for excellence.  And it gives you the ability to stand proudly and comfortably behind results that not only benefited your client, but are the best possible proof that you will perform as advertised.

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Obama and the Racial Divide

With the eloquence we are all now used to, Barack Obama’s recent speech in Philadelphia gave yet another indication that he intends not to walk away from the challenges of our time.

Faced with the incendiary remarks of his pastor, and their instant dissemination in the press, he used the opportunity to present himself and his campaign as a new response to the need to close the racial divide in America. 

Many before him have been able to paint a clear picture of the problem without offering a workable solution.  Indeed, he also characterized himself as an “imperfect” vessel for the task.  But he did admonish both sides to look at the mistakes in their positions and assumptions, and in so doing realize the common ground that has always existed, and the exploitation both sides have been subject to.

One can only hope that such a stance will propel a more meaningful dialogue in this area, because fresh approaches to cooperation are as desperately needed as the solutions themselves. 

That is the real excitement of this campaign.  Critics talk about rhetoric being the engine, but it’s really the idea that we all can come up with a different and productive way of running our country, and presenting ourselves to the world.  Nobody’s talking about a world or a country without problems, without arguments, just without needless deaths, and conflicts with no end, and where an effort to get at the root causes of intractable situations can be made.

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It’s All in the Details

As the Democratic candidates for President debate endlessly, the headlines always concentrate on broad themes.  Who won?  Did either one make an inappropriate remark or show an embarrassing lack of knowledge?  What was their body language like? 

Then we get the sound bites, and by this time, most of us are wearily familiar with the Need For Change vs. the Need To Be Ready on Day One.  But the truth of a candidate’s positions is never found on a carefully lit stage for one place, it’s found on the campaign website where you might find out just how the grand plans we hear about health care and immigration and national security are going to translate into action after the inauguration. 

They say life is in the details, and it’s no less true for the virtual assistant and the small businessman as for the big time politician.  And not only in the sense of doing thorough work for clients, error-free and double-checked, but in the human sense, too.

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Mrs. Obama

I wanted to watch Larry King Live the other night, because the guest was Michelle Obama.  After all the coverage of her husband recently, I was interested to hear her views on an election that, at the time of the interview, was clearly turning in her husband’s direction.

She is a hospital executive and a Harvard law graduate, a protective mother of two who has her children enrolled in a private school very close to her Chicago workplace, and who, at one point, tried to talk her husband out of the enormous step of running for president because “that’s my job.”  Speaking with a gentle lisp and a confident manner, she showed a strong grasp of the realities of the political life and was convincing when describing herself as facing many of the same struggles as any working mother.  She says that when she addresses campaign audiences, she focuses on the “unfairness” and “inequality” that cry out for the kind of change her husband represents.  She was also complimentary toward recent rival John Edwards in a way that suggests Edwards might again be on a Vice Presidential short list.

When asked about her husband’s personality, she admiringly called him “consistent”, noting his perfect attendance at parent-teacher conferences and how he makes time to be with her and their children despite a campaign schedule that would almost preclude it. 

Relaxed and direct, Mrs. Obama said she “looked down every dark road” before the Obamas decided to venture toward the presidency, and so she doesn’t dwell on “what could go wrong.”   She said that one of the beauties of an Obama presidency would be that her husband is a person who is open to change when he recognizes he has made a mistake and does not follow a leadership pattern that stubbornly holds onto bad decisions.  Which she knows from wifely experience.

“Can his mind be changed?” asked King.

Michelle Obama was quick with a smile.

“Hey, I change it every day,” she said.

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Personal Speed Limits

Most of us who enter the entrepreneurial life (sound like a religious experience when you put it that way—well, it IS a calling!) are doing so because we’ve got the energy and desire to take the wheel in our careers and get where we’re going now.  So, here comes a post about. . . . .slowing down.

Have you ever been en route somewhere, making good time and suddenly you find yourself at the end of the world’s longest vehicular conga line?  We’ve all been there.

The first five minutes go pretty well, but after that, it’s fairly normal for the nervous twitches to start:  look at the watch, stare out the window at the side of a factory building or the superstructure of the bridge you’re on, then comes a mild invective under your breath, radio gets turned on, only to tell you that a truck spilled something really messy on the road you’re on, which prompts some muttering, followed by another look at the watch, the radio going back on, and at some point, some genuine, audible curse words….

Well, I’ve been realizing it’s all about as helpful as wishing you were dry while you’re standing in the ocean.  Face it—you’re going to need a towel at some point.

I try to look at the unexpected delays that try to poison your entrepreneurial plan of productivity as timeouts.  A little breather on the sidelines to think about the next play, or just a time to pat yourself on the back for the last business touchdown or bit of career progress, no matter how small.  Just like the traffic situation just beyond your windshield, you should be thankful for even the merest movement forward.

It’s also a time to resolve to keep our cars within speed limits. Remember:  It’s carrying pretty important cargo, and there are so many tragedies that occur on our roads because somebody thought they were losing a race against the clock.

So be safe and happy.  That’s the fastest way to the success you’re planning on.

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