The difference between perfection and excellence is perspective. If you strive for perfection, you risk never producing anything, because perfection can be easily redefined by every person who looks at the work. The risk is that you will never see your work as perfect enough, so you never release it to help others.

Excellence, on the other hand, requires only that your work is produced with the highest of standards. A spirit of excellence says, "I will work to produce material that makes my client happy." To produce with excellence is to work with an eye toward what your clients desire, what they prefer, and what they measure as "excellent." In other words, the virtue of excellence is about pleasing your client and exceeding their expectations and standards.Your client should never have to ask you to redo something because it was done sloppily. If, and when, your client asks you to redo something, it should be a matter of preference – they want something changed, because they prefer it this way.

A great example of the difference between perfection and excellence can be demonstrated by pointing to my own work here. When I write for a client, I normally produce the work in a Times Roman 11-point font. I do this, because this particular setting is a publishing industry standard. So is double-spacing the page content. This is what my industry considers "perfect." However, a number of my clients ask me to change the font, size, and spacing to meet their standards or reading convenience.This change is a request to meet their preference, and is no reflection of the material content I produce. In a similar manner, you want to make sure that what your Virtual Assistant business produces for your client pleases them at the core. Any changes should simply be adjustments that reflect preferences – this is the virtue of excellence.

What Sets You Apart

A virtue of excellence will set you apart from your competition, but it is a quality that must be proven out, over time, as your clients experience you and your company.To jump into the Virtual Assistant business with a bang, you will need other things to help set you apart from your competition.

Some things that will help you distinguish yourself from others may include any or all of the following:

• Unusual work hours – This could include a night service or 24-hour service; a company that operates outside of traditional business hours.
• High-end service – If you insure and bond your employees, then you will gain access to high-end clients; those with assets at risk.
• Specialize in a particular profession – If you have a paralegal background, you can focus on catering to attorneys. The same is true of any profession – the more insights and connections you have to that profession, the better suited you are to become specialized in serving that profession.
• Certified VAs on your staff – If your workforce is certified by leaders in the industry, or if you offer your clients a specialty group, then your employees become qualified and specialized -- tailored for their industry.
• Punctual workers – Today's workforce is generally so stressed out that punctuality has hit an all time low. The "flex-schedule" has become part of the work place, primarily because of worker stress. However, your clients will still appreciate punctuality. If you can motivate your workers to be punctual on all assignments, your company will stand out in the eyes of the client. A simple "punctuality bonus" can be implemented rather easily; consider a percentage base, say 10 percent more per hour. You can also build in an additional monthly or quarterly structure that would motivate workers to consistently be punctual in all of their assignments. Punctuality is both easier to monitor with online services, such as VA businesses, and it is easier to justify lag time. After all, systems do go down, including Internet service, and clients are used to having to adjust to these incidents. But if you can find an effective way to produce the most punctual workers, you have set yourself apart from your competition.
• A pre-order interview – Take the time to sit with your prospective clients before you ever assign anyone to work with them. If you cannot go into their place of business, because of location, then take the time out of your day to spend at least 30 minutes on the phone getting to know them. You will want to know their temperament, their expectations, their flexibility, their past experience with other VAs, and what your company can do to make them happier with you than they were with the last company/worker.

Which Services to Offer

To better understand which services to offer, let's take a look at how a profession may translate into Virtual Assistant work. For example, if you have a career as a court reporter, then you can consider creating a VA service specialized in transcriptions work. A court reporter has the skill, experience and connections to create a successful VA business specialized in transcriptions services. The market for transcriptions services is pretty large when you look across the range of companies served. Life coaches, professionals who teach on a subject, ministers, and anyone who regularly gives speeches of any type, needs and wants the services of a transcriptionist to convert their speeches or classes into written material.This opens a door of marketing for them, and helps them increase their sales.Transcriptionists are also used to help write books of all types, including eBooks.

The downside to opening a transcriptions-focused VA business is that traditional court reporting-type transcribing is being replaced in the marketplace by software that can do their jobs. The truth is, if you want to change your court reporting profession it into a VA business, you can focus on small businesses and small volumes, and still come out ahead of the competition and the software. You can purchase the software that threatens to put traditional transcriptionists out of business and run it from your office with a handful of competent VAs who understand how to run the program. So, you provide the service at a fraction of the cost of traditional transcriptions.