This isn’t the Sims.
You are real.
Your business is real.
The work you do, which is also real, creates real benefits and results for clients in their businesses and their lives.
There’s nothing virtual about any of that, and those are the only things that matter.
A business is a business.
So stop using such a ridiculous, superfluous, attenuating word as “virtual” in your biz name and marketing.
I was reading a blog post from a fellow talking about how he communicates with his assistant. It amounted to what I call being grunted at. One or two word commands and directives.
I would never allow a client to talk to me like that. And you couldn’t pay me to work with anyone like that. Not for any amount of money. Because it’s demeaning and dehumanizing.
Countless people in our industry have written to me over the years about feeling demoralized working with clients who treat them like nameless, faceless robots.
Here’s how this happens:
They come into this industry and start their businesses with this crazy idea that they’re supposed to be good little assistants, seen but not heard, doing everything they are told, practically the family dog who’s supposed to fetch and shake and rollover on command.
They work with clients like they’re on an assembly-line, like they’re still that employee waiting to be told what to do, letting clients tell them how their business is going to be run and how things are going to be.
But you are NOT an assistant.
You’re running a business to deliver a specific professional expertise, no different than a doctor, lawyer, accountant, etc.
You are someone with special skills, talents and experience in the art and craft of administrative support. An expert. A specialist.
If you want a happy business and life, put your name and face on your business. Be the expert.
YOU tell clients how you operate and how you will work together. YOU tell them what the policies, procedures and protocols for working with you are. YOU tell them what your standards and values are, where the boundaries are and what the rules and guidelines are.
And in having standards, that includes expecting and informing clients that you expect to be treated with the dignity of a human being and spoken to in complete sentences.
You’re not a robot or a vending machine they are barking orders at or punching orders into.
Don’t allow them to view you as their personal assistant/servant/gopher or substitute employee.
I always use the example of attorney and accountant because that’s exactly how I want clients to equate the nature of our relationship, that it will be like the one they have with their attorney or accountant. How they work together and speak with them is the same way they will be working with and speaking to me.
Dump any client who can’t get with the program. If they want an employee, that’s who they need to hire.
And then, when you are left with the ideal clients who treat you with the proper manner and respect accorded to professionals who are helping them, treat each and every one of them like the VIPs they are.
That doesn’t mean being obsequious and subservient. It means making each one feel special, important and valued. And you’ll be able to do that at a high level for those clients because you aren’t allowing yourself to be demeaned and having your morale and energy zapped by crappy ones.
Oh, and stop calling yourself a virtual assistant. You call yourself an assistant and then are shocked/irritated/perplexed when they treat you like one.
Assistant is a term of employment. Stop using that word. It’s ridiculous in this day and age of business to be using that word.
This is why we are the ADMINISTRATIVE CONSULTANTS Association.
In this episode of What Would Danielle Say, Lynn wants to know if she should use the word “virtual” in her business name.
Dear Danielle:
My business name is BD Virtual. I read your blog post about What’s In a Name and the part about not having “virtual assistant” or “assistant” in your name. Is it a good idea to have virtual in your name? If not, should I consider admin services consulting like you were talking about. Is BD Virtual okay of a name? —Lynn Smith
Hi Lynn 
If you follow me for long, you will find that I frequently advise/remind people to delete the word “virtual” from their biz vocabulary (among others).
A business is a business. There’s nothing virtual about it.
Is a business more “pretend” or of less quality if it’s run out of a home office or on the road? Is it more of a business if it’s located in a rented office?
Does an attorney who works from home and conducts most of his meetings over the phone have any less of a legal practice?
Is a doctor or accountant or designer or (fill in the blank for whatever other independent service professional comes to mind) “virtual” just because he works from his own location and/or his clients go to him, he doesn’t go to them?
By that logic, then all businesses are “virtual” in that they perform their services from their own place of operation (regardless of where that may be), not the client’s.
But we don’t qualify those businesses like that so why should you qualify yours in that way?
This is why I advise people to stop using the word “virtual.” It’s a silly word and puts a negative, subpar, “less than a real business” spin on things.
One of the challenges of a professional services business like ours (where we do not have physical storefronts that clients can walk into like brick-and-mortar businesses do) is instilling credibility, trustworthiness and rapport.
Therefore, you want your business to present itself in every way you can as no different from any other professional a client would hire to provide some kind of expertise.
Any word that detracts or qualifies your business as something “other than” or “different from” a real business and professional service like any other makes it more difficult to establish that credibility and trustworthiness.
And this is what the word “virtual” does… it says that your business is not a “real” business, it’s something “other than.”
And why do that? Why qualify it in any way except that it is a real business like any other?
This is what I mean by a business is a business. Where the business is located and/or where you work from is of no relevance or importance to the matter.
Regarding your other question, whether you should call it Administrative Consultant, that depends on whether you actually are one or not.
An Administrative Consultant is not the same thing as a virtual assistant. The terms are not interchangeable.
Where “virtual assistant” has become the proverbial junk/miscellaneous drawer of terms of anyone doing anything and everything, which is not a definition or category of anything, it’s just a gopher basically (what Seth Godin would refer to as a meandering generality), an Administrative Consultant is someone who specifically specializes in the business of providing ongoing administrative support (what Seth Godin calls a meaningful specific). That is their business category and their specialty.
The other distinction is that when you are in business, for both legal and practical reasons, you are not anyone’s assistant. Administrative Consultants are independent professionals (in the same way that attorneys, accountants, designers, etc., are independent professionals) who provide clients with the expertise of strategic administrative support. They are not day-to-day substitute employees or “alternative staff.” They are not staff in any way.
So if your specialization and expertise is administrative support and you view yourself as an independent professional (not a staff member, assistant or outsourced worker), then Administrative Consultant would fit you.
Since it sounds like you are just starting your business and still in the naming phase, be sure to also check out the Naming Your Business category of my blog. I have several posts with information and ideas to help you in that process.
Thanks for the question and I hope this provides you with some understanding and clarity. All my best!
There’s no such thing as “general” administrative support.
Well, there is, but if you are only providing something “generally,” you deserve to be low-paid.
Administration is the backbone of every business in the world. Without proper, attentive administration, a business flounders and fails.
Administration, therefore, can only be provided—properly—when it is uniquely geared for that client’s unique business set-up, needs, challenges and goals.
And when that is the case, it is anything but “general.”
So stop using such a derogatory, devaluing word in reference to your administrative expertise and support. What you do makes all the difference in whether a client’s business succeeds or fails. There’s nothing general about that.
When you use the word “general,” you create a subtext that sabotages and contradicts your efforts in attracting well-paying clients who value your expertise.
What you are telling the world and your prospects, in between the lines, is that the support is “less than” and less important than other things they could be spending their money on.
So you are telling them to devalue it at the same time that you are trying to earn their business and be paid properly just by using the word “general” in reference to your administration and support.
Shift your thinking about what you do and it’s value in the world. What you do is vital, it’s important and it’s specific.
Here’s another word to delete from your business and marketing vocabulary: staff.
From both a legal and practical standpoint, unless you are on their payroll as an employee or you are running a temp/staffing agency, you are not any client’s “staff.”
Using that word miseducates clients and sets the wrong understandings and expectations.
Don’t call administrative support “general.”
You are putting it in a very demeaning, unimportant light when you say that.
Administrative support is a very specific skill, expertise and sensibility, and is absolutely one of THE most important aspects involved in a well-run business.
Administration is the very backbone of every business. The administrative engine can either make or break a business.
Therefore, you must stop talking about administrative support in such derogatory ways.
If you don’t value and honor what you do, and view it and portray it in all it’s vital, integral relevance and importance to the success or failure of a business, prospective clients won’t either.
What you need to understand yourself is that administrative support is a specialization and category of business and service in and of itself.
There’s nothing general (or unimportant) about it.
So stop saying that! Get rid of the word “general” from your business and marketing vocabulary altogether.
Marketing Tip: Don’t call yourself a WAHM anything.
(For those who don’t know, WAHM stands for work-at-home-mom.)
No one cares that you “work from home” or that you are “mom.”
It’s completely irrelevant and (worse) detracts from the kind of professional image that allows you to command respect, credibility and professional level fees.
Business is business. Your parental status and where you happen to work is of no import to anyone else whatsoever.
Not that there is anything wrong with either of those things.
The problem is one of connotation.
What people picture when they hear the term WAHM is someone distractedly sitting around in her pajamas with a squalling kid on each hip rather than a competent, highly skilled professional and expert who is working in a committed business.
You wouldn’t go to a job interview in your sweats, would you? The image that would project would not be at all suitable and would not show that you took the matter very seriously.
Well, the words and terms you use to to market your business are the same thing.
They are your dress in print and need to reflect and elicit the kind of image in clients that they can trust and feel confident in.
Instead, focus the attention on the needs, goals and challenges of your clients and their businesses.
When you are in business, you are not anyone’s assistant.
As an Administrative Consultant, you are an administrative expert clients partner with for support in that area in the same way that a client “partners” with an attorney for legal support or an accountant/CPA for financial advice and guidance, etc.
Two more phrases to delete from your biz vocabulary and website content: “work-from-home” and “home-based business.”
You are sending out the wrong signals and setting wrong perceptions in your potential clients with these phrasings.
“Work-from-home” is a phrase that refers to telecommuting—both of which are terms of employment, not business.
The fact that you run your business from home is completely irrelevant. A business is a business, period.
Even thought it might be true that you technically are a “home-based business,” that phrase detracts from your professional image and has a subtle, subconscious implication that it is somehow different or less than a regular business.
I’m not suggesting you lie about it; you merely don’t need to point it out or emphasize it or focus on that detail whatsoever.
(By the way, this is also the reason the word “virtual” is completely ridiculous to be using in business. It’s a completely superfluous, inane, irrelevant detail that doesn’t need to a part of your title, marketing or business conversations whatsoever.)
Dear Danielle:
Hi! I often get asked by clients how to put together a “media kit” to get the word out for their events and what-not. While I am good at some marketing things, this stumps me with the overwhelming, not so helpful examples and opinions on the Internet. If you can, please shed some light on this brain thumper for me. Thanks so much! —Chrissy Ford, Organized Resources, Etc.
Hi Chrissy! Thanks so much for the question.
Rather than getting into the ingredients and mechanics of what goes in a media kit, I want to talk about some business concepts and mindsets involved in this kind of situation.
As you mention, marketing is not your field of expertise. And of course it’s not. Because you’re an ADMINISTRATIVE consultant, not a marketing consultant.
So the first concept this brings up is the idea around hiring the right professional for the job.
What I mean by that is, for example, if you’re a plumber, it’s not your job to become a mechanic just because a client needs his car fixed. You’re a plumber. Fixing cars is not the business you’re in and not your field of expertise.
See what I mean?
Now, people aren’t going to be calling a plumber when their car breaks down because they know what a plumber does and what a mechanic does. We all understand the distinctions.
But the problem in our industry, particularly for those who call and market themselves as “assistants,” is that these distinctions are not as clear. And that’s because people see and understand assistants as gophers, not as experts in one particular anything.
For those calling themselves assistants, this is why they not only have a much more difficult time commanding professional fees (because gophers are not highly valued experts and people accordingly don’t expect to pay them well), but it’s why they are frequently asked to do things that have nothing to do with administrative support.
So the second concept has to do with business mindset and understanding that you are not a gopher, you are an administrative expert. That is your field of expertise. You need to lead and focus on a clear-cut definition of what you’re in business to do and what your expertise is so that clients easily see and understand what your professional role is.
This also entails that you stop calling yourself an assistant. If administrative support is the business you are in, call yourself an Administrative Consultant instead and see just what a difference it makes!
These concepts also directly relate to managing your business and productivity as well. You can’t be in business to do anything and everything. Those who try are spread really thin, really quickly, all the time. If you want to have a productive business that leaves you plenty of time for life, you can’t let yourself be led down rabbit holes by taking on work that you consider outside your field of expertise or is not the type of thing you’re in business to do. Let clients hire the right professionals for those other things.
So when you are asked by clients to take on something that isn’t your role in your business to do, you can handle it one of several ways:
I know that doesn’t answer your direct question, but I hope it brings up some other ideas that are helpful to you in your business. If you have further questions on any of this, please do post in the comments. I’m happy to continue the conversation.
