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Slow down! 

I’ll say it again: slow down! Are you skimming? Really? Some things are too important to rush through.

As a virtual assistant or administrative consultant, your role is to support your clients and their businesses by taking on a variety of administrative, marketing, and management tasks. Digital communication often plays a huge role as you have to communicate not only with your client (who is paying for your services) but often with your client’s clients, colleagues, and employees.

Read (Do Not Skim) Every Message You Receive – Twice!

This is what I tell my mentees. If you want to keep your clients, and if you want to impress your clients, you should make it your mission that your client never has to explain something or ask something twice. Ain’t nobody got time to go repeating themselves constantly, and they shouldn’t have to!

Here’s what happens when you skim: Your client asks three questions, but you only answer two. Your client gives you answers, but you waste an hour searching for the information yourself. Your client gives you scheduling parameters, but you miss one of them and set the meeting in the wrong place/time and have to fix it. Your client then has to call you out, repeat himself, and have you (or someone else) fix your mistakes. No good. Client is unimpressed, disenchanted, and unlikely to stick around unless you get your crap together.

Read Every Message You Write – Before You Hit Send!

You may think you know what you’ve written because, after all, you’ve just written it. However, re-reading your writing can reveal all kinds of errors. If you’re like me, often you will write fast because you’re trying to keep up with your own thoughts.

When you write fast, its easy to a word here and there miss out on some punctuation or make a silly speeling misteak.

You may be brilliant, but your client won’t think so when he reads THAT sentence. You don’t make mistakes because you’re stupid, though. You make mistakes when you rush.

Read back what you write. Ideally, read it out loud. It takes an extra minute or two, but it can save you.

Quality ALWAYS Comes Before Efficiency

I know you are worried about efficiency. You have a lot to get done. There are a thousand things vying for your attention. So, I’ll say it one more time: slow down! Give one activity your full attention. Read and re-read. Focus on quality first. Efficiency – I promise you – efficiency will follow.

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