Originally Posted by VBP

Hi Lidia, One VA had sought me out. In the beginning, she was very responsive and timely and at times exceeded my expectations. Then I never heard from her again. She left me hanging with one of my biggest clients. Another time with another VA, she agreed to the project and I sent it to her. After repeated attempts to contact her and requests from my client for an update. I had to explain to him what had happened. Thankfully, he was very understanding and has been in business a long time who also has had several unfortunate episodes himself. Even though he pulled back on the project, that did not affect our working relationship. I have spoken to potential clients that have told me that they have worked with VAs who were great in the beginning and then for whatever reason chose not to complete projects or ceased communication altogether. So this only compounds the problem. It's like the old saying, "A bad apple spoils the bunch". There are a lot of hard working VAs out there! We all need to do our part in not tarnishing the value of our services and that of our industry!

These almost sound like situations where the VAs in question were thinking of what they were doing as more of a hobby, something they could just quit doing if they didn't feel like doing it. It doesn't sound like they cared enough about their "good name" or the fact that they were letting everyone down...you, your client...

On the other side of things...as the lead VA, how do you sub-contract? Does the client pay you and then you pay the sub-contractor? And, how does tht pay work? Do you keep 10% for you and the rest goes to the sub-contractor or what?