How We Work

As a potential new client of Michelle Ulrich & Company, you are taking an innovative leap and a new approach to getting your tasks completed with a Virtual Professional team.  We would like to take this opportunity to share vital information with you that will help make our new relationship run like a smooth, well-oiled machine from the beginning.  Working virtually may have its challenges; however, if we keep in mind the following items, we will have a wonderful and enriching relationship.

Clients
We love all of our clients!  Really!  We have fun, laugh and of course, we do a lot of serious work, too.  It is important to us to build a solid rapport with each and every one of our clients.  We need to feel connected with you in order to keep up our excitement for helping you reach your goals, whether personal or professional.

Communicate
There are very few occasions where working together virtually, instead of in the same office space, will pose difficulty.  On those occasions, if we communicate regularly each week or at the least, bi-weekly, on the telephone at a predetermined day and time, and then email in between, we will find solutions to any of our remote office issues.  This consistent interaction will help us get to know each other and share not only business, but personal as well.  Our relationship will flourish and become the partnership you sought out in the first place.

New Ideas and Being Open
In any partnership or team, being open to new ideas and suggestions can lead to higher productivity and greater efficiency.  Sometimes, this means learning new ways of working and communicating with each other.  Think of us as your very own resource center.  In the Virtual Professional community, we are well known and respected.  We have built a vast network of business relationships with clients and colleagues across the US, both online and in our local region.  Even though our business experiences in these areas are diverse, not all our suggestions will be practical for you and your business.  Being open to the possibilities will help us to establish a healthy and friendly relationship.

Trust
Building trusting relationships doesn’t happen overnight, but as your Virtual Professional team, it is vital that you trust us 100%.  We may see sensitive information and you need to feel comfortable with this in order for us to work toward your goals.  You’ll need to trust us enough to talk with us about any concerns you have (i.e. your weaknesses, including financials, organizing, and much more).  Our business agreement discusses confidentiality in detail.  If you need to read it again to feel confident in our relationship, please do so.  Remember, we are here to help you grow your business.

Delegation
Delegate, delegate, delegate.  Delegation does not mean you give up full control of your business, it just means you are open to attract more clients, have the freedom to work ‘on’ your business rather than ‘in’ it, and so many more possibilities.  This may sound difficult at first, but in doing so, you will be freeing up your valuable time to focus on the most important aspects of your business and your life. As your virtual team, we will be handling many of your day-to-day operations, allowing you to focus on tasks that generate new income for yourself.  You’ll be able to work toward creating that smooth, well-oiled machine in your own business by working with us.

Patience
Clients utilizing a Virtual Professional for the first time will certainly experience a learning curve.  As your Virtual Professional team, we will help you learn how to effectively delegate by taking small projects in the beginning, and adding more as we continue moving forward.  Of course, your comfort level will be of utmost importance during this process.  In addition, we will need to learn your business—the business you’ve possibly been working on for years.  Patience is essential to this learning curve.  We will need time to learn how you like to operate your business, nuances of operations and procedures, including your ‘Big Picture’ goals.  Working from the same vision will lead to a great partnership with us as your virtual team.  Remember, our goal is to assist you with your goals.

Questions
We have a lot of experience and a diverse work history, but we still have questions.  We ask a lot of questions in the beginning of our working relationship so we can get to know your style and specifics on certain projects.  We have many resources to tap into—including you, and we’ll also be there for you should you have any questions or need additional resources.

Honesty and Integrity
Honesty and integrity are values we rate very highly.  In this day and age, these values are becoming scarcer, but we find them vital to our personal growth and expect the same from our clients.  This also means that we can’t participate in anything illegal or that violates our values, and we’ll let you know at once if we believe something is not in alignment with these values.

Values
When starting a new relationship, it is vital to share our values with one another. This begins the process of connecting in a positive, like-minded way. This facilitates the growth and learning process for our relationship and your business. Our values are:

• Passion - enthusiastic, excited, and crazy about life, business, the people we work with and everything in it!
• Fun - what's life or business without some fun now and again?
• Being connected - we are highly in touch with our families, friends, colleagues and ourselves. This is the essential link to all things for us. Without it, we cannot share our passion, share in our fun, or share our awareness with others.
• Being awake - that means we are spiritually awake and also aware of our environment, both online and offline

Standards
We have high standards and expectations and hold ourselves accountable to these.  We are detail people by nature and may be more meticulous than even you, at times.  We may not agree on every aspect of every project either.  We each bring our own experiences and skills to the table, but one of the reasons you chose to work with us is because of our uniqueness and skill set.  Let’s remember to be open to new ways of communicating and ways of doing things.  If you have a particular way you like things done, let’s discuss both our ways and see if we can work together to create higher efficiency and production.  Remember that our goal is help you realize your vision.

Responsibility
As business owners and professionals ourselves, we will accept responsibility for the projects you’ve asked us to handle.  If we make mistakes, we will own up to them; however, we will not accept blame for mistakes we haven’t made.  If something isn’t our fault, we will let you know.  We have high standards and expectations of ourselves; however, even the best of us make mistakes and have accidents--it happen to all of us.  When things come up, let’s just remember patience and gentleness in our approach to correcting any errors.

Partnership
As Virtual Professionals working with you toward realizing your ‘Big Picture’, it is important to remember that we are professionals with a practice including many clients.  At times this may mean that we are not available at the exact moment you need us.  We will get back to you as soon as we are able and within our normal office hours.  Through our mutual respect of each others time and personal lives, we create healthy boundaries, thus healthy work/life relationships.

Technology
With technology, as well as human intervention, glitches and mistakes can happen.  If we are working on a project involving internet technology (i.e. email, shopping carts, website maintenance, etc.), there will be times when our Internet Service Provider (ISP) may go offline.  These are certainly not common occurrences; however, we just need to keep in mind that ‘things’ happen sometimes that are out of our control.  We will do our very best to alert you, have a back up plan, or just keep our sense of humor about it all if we cannot do anything else.  So, keep in mind, we have your best interest at heart.

Support and Encouragement
Everyone needs a little encouragement once in awhile.  Sometimes things happen in our lives that impact us in ways we aren’t prepared for; we are here to help and support you should you feel the need to share both personal and professional difficulties with us.  We’ll do our best to be gentle or hold you accountable, whatever your preference.  Other times, we need someone to share our joys and optimism.  We will help you celebrate the triumphs in your life, too.

The Details
The details of how we work is just as important as the services we provide. To reduce or eliminate surprises later on down the road, we want to provide you with some vital information.

• Turn around times can vary depending upon your specific projects. Most turn around times are between 2 days and up. We do not do rush jobs as that is not our business. If you know you have a project coming up that is really important, please let us know right away so we can schedule this.

• Telephone and email can be a big time hog. We all know it, yet we can't get away from it either. It's a major part of doing business virtually. We generally check telephone voice mails and email about three times per day due to our increased volume. We must have time to work on your projects.

• Boundaries are important for everyone. We run a business and also have families, so the balance can become blurred if we do not put boundaries in place. We will respect your boundaries and expect you to respect ours, too.

So, let’s have some fun creating the successful business you love!