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All about being a Virtual Assistant and how clients can use VAs.
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Recent Posts Tagged With 'operating a va business'
Message for those wanting to be a VA
I often get requests via email from people who want to become a Virtual Assistant. Sometimes via my VA forum, sometimes via my website contact form, sometimes by email and sometimes by phone. It’s generally the written requests that concern me....
Is there room for me in your network?
I recently met a copywriter at a business breakfast I was speaking at and she was keen to talk to me after the event. She was looking for more ways to get clients and was wondering if I accepted copywriters into my Virtual Assistant network. I to...
Looking for a standard rate…
I often get phone calls from prospective clients or emails from new VAs asking what the ’standard rate’ is for carrying out particular jobs. I do understand their question but they haven’t really thought about what they’re a...
No. 8 Mistake VAs Make
Continuing on in our recent series… Using free accounts such as hotmail, yahoo, etc for their email address. Domains are very cheap to purchase and even if you don’t yet have your own website, there is no reason why you can’t have y...
1,000th Member Joins the ACS Team!
Well, it finally happened, our 1000th member has joined the ACS team! I can’t reveal who they are yet, until they’ve received and acknowledged the notification. But just to remind you what they will receive. The gifts will be their choi...
Number 3 Mistake New VAs Make
Thinking that all clients have to be virtual. Just because you are a Virtual Assistant and can work virtually does not mean all your clients have to come via the web. Many do not realise that they have potential clients next door, down the street...
Getting past the no.1 mistake VAs make
Further to my previous 2 posts, I have more to add and Tracey’s comment included some of what I wanted to say. When a client contacts you for a quote you need to project confidence and telling someone nervously that you are new and you’re...
Start With What You Know
I was speaking to a prospective VA on the phone the other day. She had been researching the Virtual Assistant industry and my name kept popping up everywhere she looked. She is also an avid reader of my blog (hi Helen!). During the course of the co...
Include your currency when quoting
Recently a team member quoted a client for a job and she secured the work. However only a couple of days later another member advised she’d also quoted for the job but had been told that someone else had given a much lower quote and secured t...
What does your voice say about you?
I’ll probably get a bit of ‘hate mail’ for this one, but I’m going to say it here anyway. I received a phone call from a lady who had seen my advert in the Yellow Pages and she wanted to know how she could become one of the pe...
Self employed or employed?
Periodically on the Virtual Assistant forums we discuss items that relate to how the tax department would view us if certain scenarios arise. One of those is the number of clients we should have or the how much we’re earning from clients. Whi...
How do I know it’s genuine?
Today Virtual Assistants are often approached by scammers to do things that relate to nothing more than money-laundering or passing on parcels that are illegal in one way or another. It means we need to keep our wits about us as we assess each approa...
Should I be paying someone to get work?
This is a common question amongst VA forums and one that many new VAs ask. And somewhere along the line, the thought and responses have become slightly skewed with responses like ‘you should never pay for getting work’. Whilst on first ...
Make sure you have systems in place
Regular readers and many others know the family loss I’ve recently experienced. I want to highlight some things that I do and which you may need to think about as a Virtual Assistant/business operator for times when emergencies arise and you ...
VA Communities provide support
Today, on our forum at ‘Virtual Assistants International Group’, a member shared some challenges she was having in getting her business off the ground. This wasn’t a rare comment, we’ve had others say similar before; theyR...
Building email lists for your clients
We had an interesting conversation at our VA forum a couple of days ago. A man who had placed a job request with our team, seeking Aussie based VAs a couple of weeks ago, then proceeded to email all those who responded, plus others from our team, w...
Are you a Virtual Assistant who wants to blog?
Blogs are a great way for sharing information and encouraging interactive discussion with your audience but many new VAs find the concept daunting and see it as just one extra thing in a long list of things they need to learn and get up to speed with...
I must be mad!
Have you noticed that when you plan to make changes to something, and I mean big changes, that suddenly everyone else (read clients) have projects on the boil too? For months I’ve been planning a shift from the shoppingcart service I was using ...
Marketing Your Virtual Assistant Practice
Have you thought about all the ways you market your business? I was recently chatting with a group of women in a mastermind group I belong to and we were building a list of the ways we promote our individual businesses. I was quite surprised when...
Interview at Virtual Assistants Forum
Periodically I get asked for an interview with a VA forum and I’d like to share with you one from early this year. Virtual Assistant Forums has over 1700 members from all around the world and is a lively board forum for those who want to know...
Do You Have Enough Clients?
Saw a post on a forum where someone posted about VAs developing a niche and he sent a post with the subject heading above and included the following line: A Virtual Assistant who doesn’t have a clearly defined niche is a poor virtual assistant....
Pick up the phone!
I forget that new people coming along all the time won’t have the knowledge or experience I have and so, sometimes I need to repeat the same information because there is a new audience. A new VA contacted me recently because she was concerned t...
Seek a professional when you need them
I can’t emphasise it enough. So many VAs come seeking advice at the VA forums that really should be taken to their Accountants, Solicitors or others. I agree it is good to learn about what others are doing and how they’re set up but eac...
What You Think About…
… you are drawn towards. I had this told to me by a doctor in Psychosomatic medicine many years ago, prior to starting my own business. Peter told me that this can work for both good and bad. It’s also known as the RAS, or the retic...
Those Work At Home Jobs
Virtual Assistants have become the target of many scammers and we are aware of it. Seasoned VAs work to help newer VAs open their eyes to this fact when they join VA forums and networks (just one good reason for not going it alone and making sure yo...
What program should I use for a website?
Many VAs on forums are found to be asking about what programs they should be using to develop websites. As beginners they frequently don’t have the funding to pay someone to do it for them, but also they feel that they should be learning about...
The Importance of Commitment
Periodically I get emails from VAs who have sought the assistance of other VAs only to be let down by them due to a lack of commitment, understanding of time sensitivity or simply just not taking the work seriously. They accept the job and then conta...
That’s right! I can outsource!
I had an epiphany recently. Here I am, a VA of many years standing and I own and run a network of VAs. But I still try to do everything myself! A few nights ago I had dinner with a possible new client. I say ‘possible’ because I actually...
Benefits of Virtual Assistant Networks - Do the Research
There are so many networks out there these days that it’s hard to decide which ones to go with, or should you join any at all? Many people are now entering the Virtual Assistant industry, having read about it in news articles, magazines and blo...
Taking Your Business To New Places
As your Virtual Assistant business grows and develops a routine you will begin to wonder where else to take it. You will be feeling confident in what you are doing and looking for opportunities to add to it. I have done this over the years. They migh...
