Virtual Assistant – THE Blog About Our Industry

About the Virtual Assistant industry for VAs and for clients

Monthly Archives: January 2008

Ready To Share Your Expertise?

IF YOU ARE A MEMBER OF A VA FORUM and not seen the following promoted, please share it with your members:

Are you ready to share your expertise with your fellow VAs located around the globe?  Then don’t miss this opportunity to present at the upcoming Online International Virtual Assistants Convention, scheduled Thursday, May 15 through Saturday, May 17, 2008. Applications are being accepted through January 31, 2008 by completing the form located at: ttp://www.oivac.com/form-speaker.htm.

If you are interested in volunteering to make this convention the most memorable yet, please complete the volunteer registration form located at: http://www.oivac.com/form-volunteer.htm.

Please Note: If your specialty is working with the media, PR and/or marketing or if you enjoy conducting research, and have a few hours to spare, come join our team. We’ve several fun campaigns planned for this year and would love your participation.

I’ve been involved with the OIVAC since the planning of the first event.  This May marks our 3rd annual event and we look forward to ‘seeing’ you there!

Responding to client enquiries

One of the forums I belong to has had a great discussion on response times for client enquiries. This is a good topic for all to have a think about. I know that I often get clients contacting me saying they had rung someone or emailed someone before me and had had no response. There had been no voicemail message, or no autoresponder, or no-one had returned the call or replied to their email. Their contact with me is sometimes several days or a week later.

Virtual Assistants are business operators and it is most important that we respond as we would expect other businesses to – in a timely manner. Because the nature of our business is almost entirely virtual, it’s not unreasonable to expect that prospective clients will email us, and many will also use the phone. So, think about what you do to welcome that initial enquiry.

  • Do you have a voicemail message encouraging the client to leave their details and you’ll get back to them very soon?
  • Do you respond to email enquiries in a short period of time?
  • If you’re not in the office constantly, or away for a period of time do you have an autoresponder set up to give the client confidence there is someone at the other end?
  • Do you have Rules set up in your email program so that client enquiries are quickly identified amongst all the other emails you get?
  • If you’re on leave have you organised for your email and phone to be diverted to someone else to handle on your behalf?

Once a client has decided they need help, they want a response quickly. They won’t wait around for long and if you’re not there to respond when they attempt to make contact, they will move on to the next Virtual Assistant on the list, either in the phone book or on the web.

So, think about your processes and what it looks like to someone who is coming to you for service. Would you be happy with your response time?

Getting Started as a VA

I recently had a lady write to me to ask about how I got started. She’d read that I started out doing word processing and data entry and did I go do a course or did I already know how to do those things? She was wondering what training she might need to do and where to do it. My answer to her was this:

I never did a course to get started. When I began I was a homebased secretary and it was before the Virtual Assistant industry had begun. I already had 23 years corporate secretary experience behind me which meant I already knew how to do data entry and word processing. I would strongly recommend that you only offer services for which you have had good training otherwise you’ll find yourself in the company of others who can achieve so much more. For example, if you cannot type, when learning you’ll find you can only do 20-30 wpm whereas trained typists will do in excess of 80wpm. There is no way you’ll be able to do transcription work or copy typing in a reasonable time period and make good money. Same with data entry.

I do provide coaching and training for new and existing VAs but have the following on my website at www.vatrainer.com:

Criteria: It is expected that all participants have well developed administrative or secretarial skills, are computer and internet literate and able to work without supervision.

What the program does not deliver: Software training – participants should already know how to use the software they wish to provide VA services with. However, the course will give information on the use of programs/services that are not common to corporate administrative work, such as use of FTP programs and other web based programs.

If you do not know how to type (properly) or have very little software knowledge, then this course is not (yet) for you. You need first to go and do a course with a college or other institution to learn how to use your computer and its software properly. If you also have a challenge with written English, this course is not for you – you need to advance your ability with English before coming back to do this course. This course does not teach you software skills – it is assumed you already have them. Minimum requirements are:

  • Good knowledge of the computer keyboard and the ability to use it.
  • Good operating knowledge of a word processing package, either MS Word, WordPerfect or similar.
  • Basic knowledge of other programs with the ability to learn quickly.
  • Knowledge of how to use an email program.
  • Understanding of basic web and computer technology, i.e. menu, taskbar, icons, toolbar, etc.

Not to know the above will disadvantage you in developing your skills as a Virtual Assistant.

If you don’t have these type of skills I would like to suggest you get some temping work or part-time work, or perhaps another job, where you can build up your skills with the goal of eventually becoming a VA. However, if you have experience in other services such as bookkeeping, editing and proofreading, website management, etc then you could focus your VA business on those particular skills.

I hope I have been able to suitably answer your question and help you on your way with your future plans.

It’s important that those considering becoming VAs look at this vocation with their eyes open. It is not a case of simply having a computer and internet connection – it goes much further than that. And if you’re not suitably skilled and prepared you do stand to be bitterly disappointed and disillusioned when it doesn’t work out. And unfortunately the clients you will have tried to service during that time will feel the same way.

Time to Work ON and IN Your Business

If you’ve been to any time management courses or seminars, or have experienced business coaching, you’ll know that it’s important to set aside time to work ON your business as opposed to working IN your business.

When you first start out you probably spend 95% of your time working on your business, making plans, developing systems, trying things out, creating stationery, designing a business card and so on, and the other 5% on the small client base you’ve begun to grow.

But, somewhere along the line business begins to pick up. As you gain client after client your confidence grows, so do your abilities, and it seems you attract more and more clients in the process. And then suddenly you look around and realise it’s almost the end of another year and you haven’t achieved anywhere near what you wanted to do for the year and where did that time go anyway? What happened to time for ‘me’?

Don’t worry – you’re not alone. Many business owners go through the same thing. That’s why it’s important to make sure you do set aside time for self and having a business coach often means you have someone you have to report to – for accountability.

Last year I elected to take every second Friday ‘off’ in the first half of the year, and then every Friday off for the remainder of the year. For the most part, I did achieve this. It meant I could keep my bookkeeping up to date, revisit my goals, track my progress, and write the book I’d had on the backburner for quite some time. I like to call it my ‘non-client contact’ time. I still answer the phone and respond to emails, but I don’t book in client work and I spend Fridays ON my business instead of in it. That way I have been able to claim back my weekends to spend in the garden, with my family, or just going out and doing anything I want.

It’s taken quite some time to do this, as old habits are hard to break, but when you’re new in business and keen to make it work, then you tend to do everything you can and that can mean long hours. You need to build a good reputation and be known as reliable, but once you’ve achieved that, you should be able to tell a client that you’re ‘not available’ at a particular time without fearing you are going to lose them. Besides – it shows them you are busy, and that you use a diary and that you plan – which is important to them also.

Fridays might not be the ideal day for you, and if you’re new in business you probably have lots of ‘non-client contact’ time at the moment, but if it’s time to reclaim some time to work ON your business, now’s as good a time as any to start planning that for this year.

Tips for Working with a VA

There is an interesting discussion going on at ZenHabits.net about using a VA and the differences between using a professional, versus someone who doesn’t have the same experience or skills and therefore charges cheaper. If you’re interested in joining in, why not go pay a visit?

I recently joined a new yahoogroups forum (do I really need to belong to another one?) about the Four Hour Working Week. It’s funny that this book is about a lot of things to help people make better use of their time and yet everyone I hear from has zoomed into the VA versus cheap labour thing. Is that all the readers are interested in?

By the way – for those who don’t know. I’m in Australia and use the Aussie/UK version of the written English language. So if a word I spell looks like an error to you – it’s probably not. We tend to spell words ending in ‘ise’ instead of ‘ize’ and ‘our’ instead of ‘or’. That’s something that many VAs learn when servicing clients in other countries – the differences in the written language, but also the differences in meanings of words.