Greet everyone with warmth.

Because you never know where a meeting is going to take you, your business and your colleagues.

Five years ago a wannabe VA connected with me as she began her journey into our industry, taking the plunge and leaving her senior salaried role. She was looking for an insider's view, hints and tips for progression. I don't think I did a great job during our first conversation.

A little while later we offered her some work and she did a fantastic job for us over many months.

Our friendship blossomed because we are very like minded and we had several gossipy lunches at a favourite eatery on the Exe estuary.

Months turned into years and my VA colleague got very busy with her own business. She's damn good that's why! We caught up perhaps once a year but one day not long ago she called to chat about an offer of employment she had received. Without hesitation I said "grab it" but we pondered and chatted about the opportunity some more. I waited for news of her jumping ship!

Long story short she went back to the land of employment - a truly excellent move for her. It wasn't long before she invited us to provide an assistant for business support and we helped for several months with an excellent EPA team member. But then, she offered our team member a job!

I view this as an excellent news story for the client and for the team member but not such a great story for our business as we lost a customer and a team member!

And just recently the EPA team member who accepted the offer of a permanent job has now asked us to support her and her new employer. So again, we have provided a great EPA team member for the role of minute taker. She'll be very busy assisting multiple committee meetings.

So, if you're still with me at this point that's basically a huge amount of paid work for several VAs all because we had a chance meeting with a lovely lady I am pleased to call a really good friend.