Specialist Are Special!

I had a conversation with a friend of mine yesterday that bothered me a bit. She is a virtual assistant, administrative support. She has been working with a barter client on some mail merging, and this client has asked if she can export text from Adobe InDesign to Microsoft Word.

This astounded both of us! Normally a virtual assistant doesn't work in software such as Adobe InDesign; rather, this is a software a graphic designer would work in. My friend did go the extra mile and download a trial version of the software but it did not have the export functionality she needed from a full version of the program. My friend was not about to purchase a full version for only one client and once a month, 5-minutes' worth of use. I was able to give her a couple of options to suggest to her client, and their relationship has progressed nicely.

A specialist works with certain tools within their trade. If you aren't sure what those tools are, ask. Please don't assume you know what tools the specialist works with. It's always better to check than to make a very silly -- and costly -- assumption.

Happy designing!

Cheers,
Lisa