Virtual Assistant – THE Blog About Our Industry

About the Virtual Assistant industry for VAs and for clients

Monthly Archives: January 2008

Going on leave?

The VA I mean. Even we need to make preparations for looking after our businesses when we take some time off. So here are some suggestions to help you plan your break.

  1. Notify your clients at least a month out, earlier if possible, so they can get any important items to you, or so you have time to source another VA to support them whilst you are away.
  2. Remind your clients again 2 weeks out and then a week before via email – even then you’ll still get last minute stuff the day before. But they can’t say you didn’t let them know.
  3. If you belong to any VA forums let the members there know so they don’t wonder where you’ve gone – especially if you’re an active participant.
  4. Put an autoresponder on the email address you use for clients so that if anyone new contacts you they won’t think you’re not interested – I get emails from prospective clients occasionally who have tried to contact a team member of mine with no response – it’s usually because they’re on leave but no indication was given of that. Don’t forget your business is listed on several sites so you could get client contact during that time.
  5. I hope you use a different email address for the VA forums any other groups you belong to – it’s not fair to lumber them with an autoresponder for every message that enters your inbox. Better yet – switch to ‘nomail’ if the facility exists or ask your moderator.
  6. If you have a VA you can lean on, redirect your phone, if it’s a business line, to them so that they can handle any queries for you.
  7. If you have clients who are really dependent on you (as I have) make sure they have an emergency contact they can speak to, or email, who in turn can contact you if the need arises. Hopefully it won’t but it’s worth making sure.
  8. Let your post office know so that your snail mail doesn’t pile up at home or the office. Or, if you have payments coming through that need banking or processing, seek local support to collect your mail and do this for you.
  9. If you maintain a blog, prepare a number of posts for the time you are away and set them to publish at intervals – WordPress is excellent for this.
  10. Make sure you have webmail access so you can read any urgent emails whilst you’re away for peace of mind.

Knowing you’ve put the preparations in place means you can enjoy your holiday with minimal thought towards your business. Whilst you might feel the need to check in periodically, at least it won’t be foremost in your mind and causing you to worry about what might be happening in your absence. Enjoy your break!

A 4-Hour Work Week Experiment

I came across an article a few weeks ago at SBInformer about someone who had read Tim Ferriss’ book and he thought he’d try it out and get a VA of his own. Trouble with this is the majority of people who read this book don’t do the research – they just read the book and go to the sources quoted without really understanding our industry or even realising that if they Googled ‘Virtual Assistants’ they would come across our industry associations and learn what a true VA is. They would also get a much better idea of the true value, both in monetary form and in support.

My response to the article is below.

Mr Ferriss neglected to mention all the Virtual Assistant networks that are available for sourcing VAs – true professional VAs. A Virtual Assistant is someone who has previous corporate experience and usually was a PA or similar, i.e. they have good business experience and are equipped to carry out PA roles for their clients. Generally they do not charge the rates he quoted in his book and this has been quite misleading for the industry in general and has proven to be a challenge or perhaps a disappointment to many who thought they were going to get cheap labour to run their businesses.

The Virtual Assistant industry grew out of corporate secretaries and PAs bringing their skills back home in the mid 1990s and using the Internet and other technologies to provide quality and professional support to their client base.

If you’re seeking a VA that is based in the US, Canada, UK, Australia and other similar countries then you need to expect to pay rates commensurate with the services you are receiving. After all, would you seek an Accountant, Lawyer, Business Coach, etc via the same sources as you tried out? I expect you’d want to seek a professional through their professional groups or via qualified referrals and it should be the same for Virtual Assistants. More details about our industry can be found at http://www.vadirectory.net/blog.

Looking for cheap or free…

On various VA forums I often see (newer) VAs seeking services for use in their business that are cheap or free. Whilst there are programs and services out there that don’t cost a great deal to obtain, the reality is that a lot of what you source for your business is going to cost you money.

Remember you are running a business. That any expenses you incur on behalf of clients should be billed accordingly. Or, if you purchase new software so you can service a particular client, look for ways to build on that service so you can also provide support to other clients. Plus that expense is tax deductible.

I know it’s hard at the start but no-one should be going into business with no cash at all. Apart from your computer and other hardware, software, printing equipment, etc, there will be other things you’ll need along the way and they are going to cost you money. So it’s up to you to find ways to recoup those funds in the services you provide. Some examples for you:

  1. A client asked me to investigate ACT!, a database program he’d seen promoted at a networking event. When I began to check into it I found that a PC Authority magazine my husband had did have a free copy of an earlier version. I installed that and experimented with it and once confident went and purchased the upgrade. That did cost me a couple hundred dollars but was worth the investment. Today I service 5 clients with this program and have recouped my funds (and time) over and over and over again. I’ve also become a kind of ‘ACT! expert’ and many people refer to me when they want to know something.
  2. A number of clients wanted me to source web hosting for them and look after their sites. I was already happy with my web host so referred the hosting to him but because he was busy with many other clients, he offered to rent me a VDS (Virtual Domain Server) so that I could have control of my own hosting clients. This costs me on a monthly basis but I now have many other web hosting clients and cover the costs every month. End result is that my own web hosting is very low cost.
  3. Another client wanted me to check out different shopping carts and autoresponder services. I researched several and did a cost comparison for her. In the end she chose one of the more expensive monthly onces because it had everything she was looking for, and she didn’t want to be shifting large lists from place to place. She has since built up her business to cover those costs. After about 2 years of using the program I also elected to pay for a monthly use of the same program and sought ways to generate more income to cover those costs. That has been worthwhile to do and I’ve been able to utilise all the extras that service provides, including their Affiliate program.

There’s an old saying that says “You’ve got to spend money to make money” and I believe this to be very true in many cases. If you want to provide quality services to clients and in return, receive quality payment, you need to be prepared to use the tools and services that are worth their $$ value. It’s up to you to make the best possible use of them and look for ways to increase your client base with those tools and services.

New Look Office

I’ve been hankering for a new desk and shelves for quite sometime. For a couple of years I’d been collecting photos of the types of desks I was interested in and had them sitting on my document holder. I’d look in Officeworks whenever they had specials but just couldn’t find what I was looking for, with respect to length and depth. Sometimes I thought perhaps I’d just buy a hutch and mount it on my old solid desk but again, I’d never find anything exactly the right width.

Just prior to Christmas I got an email from Bartercard, one of many from various Bartercard members with specials, and amongst them was an office furniture place. Not noticed them before but I contacted them and they had exactly what I was looking for! Great. I placed the order and had to wait till their office was back from the Christmas holidays so I could give them the measurements and confirm delivery details. The new desk and shelves arrived on Friday morning so I had fun playing and putting things back in order. Fridays are usually my non-client contact time – time for me, time for working on my business instead of in it, time for planning, writing, whatever. So, do you like the new look?

It won’t take long to fill those shelves I’m sure and the shelves in the background belong to my husband and are by his desk.  We share the office when he’s not at work.   My youngest daughter has inherited my old desk and drawers – I’d had them almost 15 years and they are made of good solid wood so should last quite some years yet.

Responding to Requests from Clients

When you respond to Job Requests or Requests for Proposals via the different VA networks do you send your CV? Because VAs are business owners and not employees, the general consensus is ‘no’ – we’re not applying for a job with an employer, we’re responding to a request for help with a client’s business. So, just how much information should you provide when responding to one of these requests?

On one of the VA forums I belong to there has been discussion about whether or not to send CVs to prospective clients.

I thought I’d bring the same conversation here as I’m sure the feedback below would be of interest to many of you.

This is feedback I got from a client who came through my webform a couple of weeks ago – I send out follow up emails. She was making comment that only one of my team who responded to the request offered their CV and the others didn’t. She gave the work to the one who furnished it.

I emailed her back and advised the VAs aren’t employees and so wouldn’t ordinarily offer their CVs but could have portfolios or an outline of their experience and perhaps some testimonials. Her response back to me was this and I thought it worth sharing here:

Thanks for that feedback – maybe I got the terminology wrong. I realise that these people are not employees – neither am I but I send a cv and a short history of previous assignments out to prospective clients.

Any information on the kind of work/assignments the respondents have done would be helpful eg the person I chose had experience in both the health sector and in governance, both of which I was after. I chose her because the documentation she sent me included this. The others only sent me price details with assertions that they were very experienced, but with no evidence.

Sorry to labour the point but I found the difference very important and would hate to have had the point missed because of my terminology – it’s the evidence of their experience that I thought would improve their responses.

I thanked her for her feedback – it is important that we can view things from the client perspective as much as possible. It is also important that sufficient information is provided to prospective clients when responding to job leads – particularly if you’ve responded to a request that has come via a VA network or VA job list. The client doesn’t know anything about you so needs to be given that information. Clients who approach you through your own website would possibly have a different view – they’ve already read about your skills and abilities on your website.