When your work relationships are virtual, you miss out on the body language and in person contact that help you know if you are doing your job well. Text on a screen can only convey so much, seeing a relieved smile on a client’s face after completion of a project can be more immediately reassuring as to the value you are providing. Still the right words, especially when the feedback is fairly immediate, can help you be sure you are achieving your goal of easing the burden off the shoulders of your customer. When one of my lawyers tells me how impressed they are with the speed at which I complete a task, I know I have exceeded their expectations – and made their day go a little more smoothly. These are the metrics that matter to me – satisfying the people I work with and for. I don’t need hundreds of customers, I don’t need to have a million twitter followers or to have people post links to my blog. That’s the beauty of owning the size and type of business I do. I just need to make my clients happy so they can keep their clients happy. It’s as simple as that.

Laurie

A year in business has taught me a lot though, and I think it’s time to put a small clarification in place. I am still going to be easily available by email and I will still work somewhat irregular hours, but as far as phone calls go I will only be available from 9am to 3pm MST. I also prefer to arrange telephone calls in advance (via email) whenever possible, otherwise calls may go straight to my voicemail and be returned within one business day.

If you are just starting out with a home-based business, whether you are a a virtual legal assistant like me, a lawyer, or any other small business owner, I highly recommend you think carefully about what hours you will make yourself available to clients. It’s easier to start out with a clear policy than to change in mid-stream! And whether you have children or not, phone calls can be very distracting and take away from your focus on your current and much-valued clients.

As I get busier and busier though, I am faced with the types of concerns that plague work from home parents everywhere. How do I manage things like phone calls when I have a toddler underfoot? I’m lucky in that my older two kids will be in school shortly and that gives me 2 days a week where it’s only the toddler at home with me. I’ve even, finally, begun the process of finding some childcare for him, but full-time care isn’t really in my plans right now and that means there are going to be times when I must either find a way to keep him busy while on the phone with a client or during an interview, or risk looking very unprofessional.

Thankfully the same beautiful internet that offers me so many opportunities and so much information doesn’t come up short with suggestions for how to work around this problem. There’s the list of 94 ways to keep kids busy over at Sparkplugging, 15 activities from the At Home Mom Blog, 10 independent play activities from About.com and a great general advice article on working from home with kids from Jonathan Lane at Canada.com.

Of course if I could ever just find that mute button that actually works on kids, that would be the ideal solution….in my dreams anyway!

I like something with color, rather than a plain silver mug, as I think it may be slightly more attention grabbing!