When working with AWS Lambda, users often struggle with accessing other AWS services like S3, RDS, or Transcribe due to permission issues. To resolve this, a Vonage API account is required, which includes an API Key and Secret, as well as a virtual phone number. A new IAM user should not be created for the Lambda function, but rather environment variables `AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID` and `AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY` are set in the `.env` file, which gets generated by Lambda during deployment. The role permissions must also be set during deployment, with all AWS services handled directly within the Lambda function instead of an IAM user. To achieve this, a partial YAML example using the Serverless framework can be used to deploy an AWS Lambda function and set the required permissions. Upon successful deployment, the active permissions of the function can be viewed in the AWS Console, allowing for a more detailed breakdown of how they are set.