What I Believe About Building Client Relationships as a VA

Before I became a VA, I spent a year behind a coffee counter chasing a promotion that kept moving further away. Every time I got close, the finish line moved another year back.

That's where I learned the difference between building my own future and building someone else's dream while mine waited.

In October 2022, I started working with a client in the US. Almost four years later, we're still working together. These are the beliefs that got me here.

01Get hired as yourself

I walked into that interview as myself. No script. No polished version of me built to impress. I answered honestly, and it turned out to be the best interview of my life.

Then we found an unexpected connection. Years earlier, Rich Dad Poor Dad had completely changed how I thought about money, work, and sales. My client turned out to have a personal connection to that same book.

I call that moment our neural handshake. Two people on opposite sides of the world, connected by the same book.

My client hired the real me, not a performance. I believe that's the only kind of hire that lasts. If you get hired as someone you're pretending to be, you'll have to keep pretending.

02When the work gets easy, bring more

People expect a client relationship story to be about friction. Honestly, there wasn't much.

The work itself was never the hard part. That became the real challenge: once the tasks were running smoothly, I had to figure out how to bring more to the table.

So I went looking. I kept asking myself how I could be more valuable, not just to my client, but to the whole team.

My client taught me a lesson I still use. When you ask for something, like a raise, it has to benefit three parties: the owners, the staff, and the company. If it only benefits you, it isn't ready yet.

I also studied how my client's mind works: what he cares about, what he notices first, and how he makes decisions.

And I made one choice early that I've never broken. I never take anything my client says negatively. I treat his words as a guiding light for growing his business, and every time his business grows, I grow with it.

03Trust someone first

When I started, I was very vulnerable emotionally. And I trusted my client with that.

I don't recommend this to every VA. Vulnerability with the wrong person can cost you. But I chose to trust first, and that choice became part of our foundation.

The other half of trust was output. For my first six months, I worked like a horse. I still work hard, but once I found my rhythm, the work became easier to carry.

That rhythm came in my first few months, when I found common ground with one of the managers on the team. Once we understood each other, everything moved more smoothly.

I believe good working relationships come down to common ground.

04Ask, and keep track of the answers

I ask, and I keep asking.

I believe asking is never the problem. Not keeping track of the answers is. When I ask something, I keep tabs on what I'm told, so no one has to explain the same thing twice.

When something is confusing on my end, I clarify it. That's my responsibility, not theirs.

Assuming and then cleaning up the mess is far worse. Some messes are very hard to clean.

05Always ask how you can add impactful value

There were moments I felt like I had nothing more to add. The tasks were handled. The systems were running. That's exactly when one question saved me: How can I add impactful value?

That question pushed me into things I had never done before. I started with admin and operations support. Today, I build with AI: websites, staff forms, a monthly team newsletter, a culture points tracker, and the company's own AI tools.

My client once told me my value isn't just in the tasks I finish. It's in how I think and solve problems. Hearing that meant more than any single project.

In my first year, he spoke in front of a room full of business owners and mentioned that hiring a VA had really helped his business. I was still new. I was still learning. But hearing that told me I was already delivering.

06Grow on purpose

Years ago, I quit my first VA job because taking phone calls scared me. I thought I needed to feel confident before I started.

I was wrong. Confidence shows up after you do the thing.

Being yourself doesn't mean staying the same person you were five years ago. It means growing on purpose.

If you want to feel valued, you have to invest in your PR skills, the way you relate to people. And I mean invest your time. Read.

The book that did this for me is How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. It changed my life. It taught me to give genuine compliments, to listen more than I talk, and to see things from the other person's point of view.

The biggest growth isn't something people can see. They see the websites, the systems, the AI. They don't see the hundreds of hours of reading, practicing, failing, and trying again behind them.

I'm no longer waiting at a counter for someone to hand me the next step. I'm building it, and my client is building with me.

I believe the work I put in today is how future me gets choices. That's why I keep building.