This morning I had some downtime so I decided to read my emails, written by my intern, and should not have been send. I went into draft and it was empty. Umm, I wondered what happened to the emails, so I called her, she said she send them all. There were about roughly 30 to 40 emails. I asked her if she proofread them, she said yes. I was fine with that answer.

I went into my inbox, and I received an email for someone who left a comment on one of my blogs. The person was upset because the email had typos and asked to be removed from my mailing list. I was fine with that; I don’t apologize for what happen in my business I take full responsibility.

Now to my intern. After years of being an employee, my intern who is training with me wants her own business. She does not desire any employment in the private sector because of the uncertainty of having and keeping that position for the next ten (10) years. Her passion is to start her own Virtual Assistant Business. In her previous career, she was the Lead Administrative Assistant or Project Manager and she assigned the task. The supervisors for each team answered to her, so by the time she received documents to review, the proofreading and revision were done. She would either sign or send back the document for additions. She explained this to me.

She is being mentored by me, she needs to start doing and thinking like a business owner and not like an employee. This is one of the problems I run into, when someone wishes to
start a business. I mentor anyone that has the desire to start a business. She delegated tasks but didn’t perform the tasks herself. She was trained as a Administrative Assistant at the beginning of her career, but it was taken away by delegation. It is great that she knows how to delegate and manage a team, but she is a startup and she must do this herself. She needs retraining, which is much easier than starting from scratch. At the beginning of her mentoring, I told her about Virtual Assistant companies, which could gladly use her services as a subcontractor; she rejected the idea. Her goal is to perfect (pər-fĕkt) her business ownership ethics and open her business to other business owners.

To be a business owner, you must first learn how to become an owner and run a business. I took business administration courses in the 1980’s (okay I am telling my age) and went to classes before and during the startup of my business; the mechanics are still the same but they are new tools, added to the workings to accomplish this.

She apologized for the mistake. I told her there is no need to apologize; as long as you know that you are responsible for the mistake then no apology is necessary. I made her see that as a business owner you must take responsibility for any problem that happens in your business. In the Virtual Assistant industry your client will “depend” on your help in moving “their” business forward or getting a project done on time; they will need a team player with spirit and spunk.