Virtual Assistant – THE Blog About Our Industry

About the Virtual Assistant industry for VAs and for clients

Monthly Archives: April 2008

The Tale of Two Assistants

Saw an interesting post a little while ago with the title ‘The Tale of Two Assistants‘. It was apparently about an ‘actual assistant’ and a ‘virtual assistant’. I wasn’t sure what they meant exactly by the ‘actual assistant’ as it seems that the ‘actual assistant’ had other clients anyway, so it would seem they were not an employee but someone they outsourced to.

So, I wonder what made the difference between the AA and the VA?

They were able to prove that the VA they hired was more efficient timewise and costwise than the AA however, not knowing what an AA is, makes it a little hard for understanding the comparison.

What did stand out to me was the extremely low rate they were paying the VA which they say was an American sourced through elance. The US based VAs I know do not charge $9 an hour and have a good understanding of their worth and the work that they provide.

I see so many people writing about our industry but having very little real knowledge of what the industry is about. If you’re seeking a Virtual Assistant or are wanting to become a Virtual Assistant, seek out the industry based networks that are there to assist you. They help clients find the right VA and they help VAs learn about the industry and develop a successful business.

Developing a niche in the Virtual Assistant world

I often see VAs talking about developing a niche for their practice. This is a good line of thought, however it’s important to consider that it could be awhile before you even know what your niche is. Some know straight away and others have no idea. I was in the latter category when I started my business. All I knew was how to type and that meant I would do documents in Word or WordPerfect and I could do data entry into spreadsheets. That was the limit of what I thought I could do in my own business.

I discovered many things by chance (or perhaps you could say it was by design, but it definitely wasn’t of my own accord) and found I had a love of working with databases and writing newsletters. So I learnt to hone my skills in these areas and eventually became the person to know if someone wanted to learn about ACT! Other things I found I enjoyed doing and were great matches for my skillset was Association Management and managing membership based groups. The net widened when I found that Business Coaches and Professional Speakers also had the same needs as membership based groups – newsletters produced (printed or in email format), databases maintained, documents typed up and formatted nicely and so on.

And whilst all that was happening I found I also enjoyed doing web based work – learning first on my own website and growing that to what it is today and then being asked by clients to start maintaining their’s and eventually even designing some from scratch.

Most of what I’ve learnt in my business over the years has been through client requests – wanting to know if I could find out about this… or find out about that… and do some research for them. It soon became obvious to me what I knew I was capable of doing and taking on versus finding someone else to assist my client for that particular thing.

So, today my own particular niche is looking after business coaches and professional speakers and that also includes authors. Association Management was something I did for 10 years before deciding not to take on any more associations but I do manage a VA network so that keeps my skills operating in that regard.

Some niche areas you could consider, based on your own skillsets, are:

  • Real Estate
  • Author’s Assistant
  • Association Management
  • Transcriptions (analogue or digital): medical, legal, conference, court reports, etc
  • Translations
  • Desktop publishing
  • Website design and management
  • Database design and management
  • Resume writing
  • Travel arrangements
  • Conference and event organisation

The above list is really a mixture of industries and skillsets. That is you could choose to target your services around a particular industry and build up your skills for that industry and/or you might decide to target clients who need a particular skillset. Your choice.

Perhaps you can add to this list?

How often are you backing up?

Having a discussion with some writers at a forum recently it became obvious that many were not backing up their computers at all, or their websites online. Consequently if they got a virus that affected their computer and put it out of action, they ran the risk of losing all of their material and/or not having access to it for awhile. A couple had had their websites hacked and destroyed and they had no way of replacing their websites quickly. Having a secure web server is a must, but that’s another story, for another time.

Now, if your computer is not your livelihood that might not be the end of the world, but just think for a moment if you’re dependent on what you do on that computer to help make a living, then it’s a different story altogether.

How often are you backing up? And what are you backing up to?

I have a Western Digital ‘Book’ and I choose to do manual backups almost nightly. Why do I do it manually? Because I like to have my computer running at an optimum (read: fast) during the day and having backup software continuously run its inventory program in the background drives me crazy as it slows things down. I much rather do the manual back up at night time when I’m not doing client work and just before I head off to bed. Besides I can see the back up is actually happening the way I want it to. And because I use straight drag’n'drop I can access the files on the back up system quickly without having to restore anything.

However, you can elect to use the backup software and change the settings to suit your needs – what I’ve outlined above works for me, it might not for you.

Whatever way you choose to operate, it is most important that you have a regular back up system happening and it should be to something that is very easy to disconnect and pickup and take with you so that it’s not left on your premises if you’re not around (in case of something happening) or so you can connect to another computer or laptop anytime you wish.

Now there are those handy jump drives too – they’re getting very heavy with diskspace and are minimal in size and lightweight to carry. You can choose to wear them on a chain around your neck or pop them in your wallet – very handy.  But they could be easy to lose too, so need for care is imperative.

I can remember when I used to back up on 12 floppy disks, then changed to a CD backup. Once that got to around a dozen CDs being constantly rewritten to, it was time to consider an external hard drive.  Amazing how quickly things change in such a short time, isn’t it?

What’s in a name?

I really feel for the new Virtual Assistant as many are struggling to develop an identity, and with that, a name for their businesses so that they can be seen as inviduals and not copycats. But sometimes I think they have got it a bit confused or in the wrong order.

A business name does not have to be established at the beginning of your business – it can be done later. As far as I know, in most regions, you can legally operate under your own name – which is individual for the most part, and reflects you as a person – it can also reflect you as a business person. It might also allow you to shape and mould your business without boundaries. A name right at the beginning, if you’re still not sure what what you want to do, could prove restricting.

Spending perhaps a few months just working out what you want to do, how you do it and defining your business could well lead you into your name in a natural way. Don’t rush it because you might find the business name you choose at the beginning is not a good fit for you further down the track and then you have to go to the expense of rebranding your business, your website, your business cards, get a new domain (and point the old one to the new one), new stationery and a new identity.

Much better to start off with just your name ‘Mary Smith’ and build your business first then name it a bit later on.

Some are fortunate and choose a fitting name early in the piece, others much later. Some find they have to go through that costly exercise of rebranding and it’s best if you can avoid that if possible, unless you’re looking for a fresh start!

It was when I wrote a brochure to describe my business that finished with ‘let me be the secretary you need when you haven’t got a secretary’ that suddenly my name came to me – A Clayton’s Secretary. Here in Australia there was advertising in the ’80s for a non-alcoholic drink called Claytons which was the drink you had when you weren’t having a drink.

For me, my name is an apt description in my own country. “A Clayton’s Secretary” means ‘the secretary you have when you haven’t got a secretary’. When I started I was doing secretarial type work and even today I still very much class myself in that way even though lots of my work is web based, I am my client’s personal secretary by all accounts. The ‘claytons’ part in Australia means the thing you have when you haven’t got the real thing – my clients don’t have their own secretary so they have me. I also run a team of VAs so it’s an apt umbrella name for the whole team too.

So, don’t panic if you don’t have a name for your new business straight away. Concentrate on the other things that help define what you will be doing in your business and you may find it comes to you naturally, just as mine did.

National Secretaries Day – when is it exactly?

Around the world this day has different names:

Administrative Professionals Day

National Secretaries Day

National Admin Professionals Day

National Professional Admin Officers Day and many others. And it has different dates around the world too.

In Australia radio stations and florists often get it mixed up, but this isn’t entirely their fault. The calendar publishers also get it wrong – taking the date from the US instead of checking with the originators of this special day here in Australia.

The celebration date is set by the Australian Institute of Office Professionals (AIOP), formerly the Institute of Professional Secretaries & Administrators (IPSA). Originally held the last Friday in March, it was changed in the 1990′s to bring it in line with the international celebration of Secretaries Week and the special day – Secretaries Day, held in April each year. The name changed with the change in technology and in the US is now known as ‘Administrative Professionals Day’; in Australia, ‘National Office Professionals Day’, ‘Administrative Professionals Day’ in New Zealand, whilst in the UK it is called ‘Professional Secretaries Day’. Because of clashes, however, with Easter, Anzac Day and school holidays in Australia, AIOP elected to change the date to the first Friday in May.

So, here are the dates, just in case you need to know.

Australia: 2nd May is official date but a couple of states are celebrating it on 23rd May. Please click on the country link to view the breakfasts in each state.

Brunei: April 16

New Zealand: April 30

Papau New Guinea (4th Friday) April 25

South Africa: (1st Wed) Sept 3 (corrected)

United Kingdom: April 23

United States: April 23

Zimbabwe: (1st Wed) Sept 3

You can find out more about this special day here at Secretaries Day.

For Virtual Assistants our day is Friday 16th May and it will be celebrated as a special event at the forthcoming OIVAC. See http://www.oivac.com/vaday.htm