Virtual Assistant – THE Blog About Our Industry

About the Virtual Assistant industry for VAs and for clients

Monthly Archives: November 2007

The Importance of Networking… or putting your eggs all in one basket?

As I meet more and more business owner/operators the thing that tends to separate the successful from the not so successful, it seems to me, are those who understand the value of networking. Many talk about it but not all walk their talk.

Being in business means having to do more than just supply services or products to clients, but rather it is important to make connections, get to know people, and let others know about what you have to offer. After all, we are the best salespeople for our own businesses and no-one knows what we’re about like we do. This applies to anyone – not just those in the VA industry.

I often encourage those I meet on the VA forums, and in other business forums to explore and see what other groups they can find that might introduce them to their target audience and/or introduce them to peers who can teach them more about running their business. What concerns me is that many join only one networking group (online or offline) and then expect that group to be the answer to all their needs. That is often not the case at all. In fact, I believe that they still very much have an employee mindset – they feel that others should be doing for them, what they really should be doing for themselves.

Belonging to several local face-to-face networks, as well as a good number of online networks, has given me many opportunities and I’ve met some really interesting people, and occasionally some who have been of great value to my business. And wherever I go I meet potential clients. I would be restricting my opportunities if I didn’t participate in several groups.

If you are new to the VA industry, don’t underestimate the value of exploring several networking possibilities and don’t overestimate any particular one as providing all the answers for your needs. They won’t as each will have a different set of benefits and focus for what they plan to achieve. Some VA forums provide client referrals but you will not get fulltime work out of this, so don’t expect it – it is your role to make sure you are marketing and promoting your business in other avenues as well. Some VA forums don’t have client referrals but do provide excellent 24/7 support for you in your business.

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Real Virtual Work

I live in Australia and manage a team of Virtual Assistants (VAs) that are in 16 countries altogether, so quite a widespread team.

I’ve recently been doing a survey of my team with respect to the job requests that come into our team via my office, or via one of the team members. One thing that is noticed with many of the job requests that are placed – so many of our prospective clients still perceive the need for a VA to be located close by so they can physically meet them – and often the type of work they need done doesn’t really warrant that. Perhaps it’s a sense of being made to feel comfortable – seeing us proves we don’t have two heads or something :D

Virtual Assistants are the virtual version of Personal Assistants and we do almost everything a PA does in the corporate world, except we’re in a different office – our own, and usually home based.

I left the corporate world 14 years ago this month and set up business at home a few months later after doing some research and preparations. Then the internet entered the scene approx 15 months after that and it totally changed how I run my business and how I connect with my clients. There is only one client I see face to face – because she frequently needs me to help set up things on her computer – and I live 5 mins away so it’s purely a matter of convenience – otherwise she would have had to get a computer support person in. All my other clients are serviced via email 98% of the time and occasionally by fax or phone, irrespective of where they are located.

Some clients I’ve never met face to face and yet they live in the same state I do. I manage their databases, data entry, broadcast emails, email responses to client needs and purchases of products and services, word processing and formatting of documents and website design and maintenance and occasionally handle their phone calls if they’re out of the state or the country.

Many of the A Clayton’s Secretary team do analogue and digital transcriptions for the legal, medical and conference industries but we also do some court reporting, police reports, memoirs, work with authors, public speakers and business coaches, etc. Also desktop publishing, Powerpoint presentations and the list goes on.

So, now that gives you a fairly good idea of what we can do – what does working virtually mean to you and has it occurred to you that you can outsource your admin and secretarial needs to a VA?

Looking forward to hearing from you.

More on ‘cheap VA labour’

Google Alert brings some interesting snippets in from time to time. Today there was an advert placed at Craig’s list for a Virtual Assistant (Php9k-Php15k) so I went to investigate.

Have a look at what this American businessman wants – someone who will work his hours, 8-10 hours a day, six days a week. That’s 192-240 hours a month. And for that he claims he will pay “good wages to highly qualified, hard-working individuals, including bonuses on any new business we develop together”. I did the sums. Using the currency conversion site I found that the maximum he lists of 15,000 Pesos equates to 1,400.50USD at today’s rates. That’s only $7.92- $5.83USD an hour. Oh, and there is mention of commission in very small writing at the bottom – since one of the duties mentions assisting identifying new clients I expect that means there’s some kind of sales involved?

So, let me get this straight. He wants a fully qualified VA (read the list of duties and qualifications he has which includes a B.A. or similar, and must be familiar with the US), for 192-240 hours a month, working his hours – so he wants someone virtual (read outside of his country and at cheap labour rates) to provide a service inside his work hours, monitoring his phone, voicemail, email, instant messaging contacts as well as handle his travel arrangements, general PA support and his website. Yeah, right.

For the record, I looked up information on the minimum wages in Mexico (since I believe this virtual assistant role is aimed at this workforce) and what he is offering is less than the minimum wage for a shorthand taker or accountant assistant – the closest roles I could find to match a VA.

Has anyone mentioned to this guy that means this ‘VA’ would actually be his employee? And that he will also then have to pay additional items such as their insurances, taxes, etc?

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Addendum: I’ve been informed the Pesos are actually Phillipine and not Mexican in the advert I mentioned above. I’ve done a currency conversion and find that it is now only $344USD per month he’s willing to pay – that’s even worse! And it means that the VA would have to work through the night to fit into his time frame. This by the way is less than the daily wage minimum from what I can work out – but perhaps I’m not reading it right.

15,000.00 PHP

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$343.985 USD