Virtual Assistant – THE Blog About Our Industry

About the Virtual Assistant industry for VAs and for clients

Monthly Archives: August 2008

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 each has different situations relating to experience, their financial commitments and so on.  It’s really, really important that you take the information you have relating to your situation and take it to the professionals who can advise you correctly.

Anything that is tax related with respect to how you process your income or how your business is set up are two key things that need to be discussed with the right people.  This may mean both your accountant and your solicitor, depending on what’s required.

The VA forums are great for discussing how to run your VA business, how to deal with different situations and how to respond to clients and the best way to help them, but with respect to setting up your business, the legalities and tax requirements – take it to the professionals in those fields.  VAs can tell you what they’ve done but your personal situation may be vastly different to their’s and only a professional in that field is best equipped to advise you on that matter.

Friday Finds

Google Reader has become an excellent tool for me to use and over breakfast each morning I can glance through all the latest posts that have come in the past 24 hours.  You can even read forum discussions and then go and participate if there’s a topic of interest to you.  Or, if like me, you like to find out about the Top 100 Hot New Releases at Amazon.com you can also check their feed daily. That’s how I found out my own book had reached #23 for its genre late June – it happened overnight whilst I was asleep otherwise I would have missed seeing the listing!

So, if you want to keep on top of the Top 100 at Amazon, you can simply go to the genre of books you’re interested in and subscribe to that feed. The one I follow is here.

Check the discussion (board) forums you belong to online and see if they have an RSS feed to subscribe to.

Mind you, now that I subscribe to blog feeds, forum feeds and all sorts of other feeds, I’ve currently got over 600 unread items in there.  I won’t get through all of them but when I need a break from work or am just looking for some casual reading, it doesn’t take much to skim through 100-200 posts for items of interest in a short period of time.

If you belong to BlogHer or have read their blogs, they also have a feed to keep you updated of all their new posts.

Here are some other great reads to help you on your blogging journey:

The Power of Blog Commenting

The 3 worst things I did for my network blogs

How to get the best out of Google Reader

Is writing great content enough to build a successful blog?

Happy blogging and reading!

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Longest job I’ve ever had!

I was chatting online the other day and we were discussing how long we’d stayed in jobs before starting up our own businesses.

I’d always been someone who moved on after a couple of years because I either got bored and needed new challenges or the path for advancement was blocked by someone who wouldn’t move on.  And yet, here I am, in my own business well after 14 years!

When I related this to my husband he quipped that I was pretty much unemployable these days too!  He also added it helped if you got along with the ‘boss’!  At least she and I always agree.  ;-)

After all, who would want to employ a woman who is used to getting her own way and having the freedom to make choices and come and go as she pleased?

Ah, I love being a Virtual Assistant and running my own business!

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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 reticular activation system.  Your mind works like a magnet or radar and you are automatically drawn towards things that are on your mind – and it doesn’t have to be foremost, it could be in the back of your mind.

Late in 1993 I won Secretary of the Year for my state in Australia and Microsoft sponsored it.  Part of my prize package was the MS Office 2.1 package (boy was that a long time ago!).  We didn’t have a computer at home but I did say to my husband that if we had one, perhaps I could start working at home. This was pre-internet!

From the moment I uttered that thought, it was like I’d set something in motion, I’d sown a seed and six months later I was in my home with an office set up and my first client.

What took place for that to happen?  Opportunities!  Those opportunities would still have been there anyway but I wouldn’t have seen them if my mind wasn’t focused on finding a way for me to start working at home.  We took the opportunity to go buy the first PC for our home. I already had an Atari but the MS Office package wouldn’t work on that so we went out and bought a PC – almost like a Christmas present to ourselves for that year.

When I was walking around in our shopping centre soon afterward I saw a ‘My Card’ machine where you could put in $8 and get 40 business cards printed.  So I got my first cards – simple black print on white card with my name and contact details.  I began giving those cards out and sure enough, secured my first client.

Next I began writing a flyer to put into letterboxes and I finished it off with ‘let me be the secretary you need when you haven’t got a secretary’ and immediately my business name came to me – “A Clayton’s Secretary”.  For an explanation of what that name means, particularly if you didn’t live in Australia in the 1980s, click here.

I began seeing and doing things because I had a thought – a thought to start my own business.  Now the mycard machine, the client, the business name, etc would all have still been there but I wouldn’t have made use of them or grabbed at them, if my mind hadn’t been focused on setting up and running a business.

Now, I mentioned that Peter told me that it also worked for the bad.  How many times have you worried about something happening and it did?  What about when you learning to drive a car and you were told to look out for… and you hit it or narrowly missed it?  It was because you were focused on that thing instead of focusing elsewhere.

So start thinking on good things for your business and seek out opportunities – keep your mind, eyes and ears attuned to possibilities and you may well be pleasantly surprised with what comes along!

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More about scams online

Further to my post on Friday, I recently received an email in my spam filter thanking me for my enquiry and application for this:

VA CERTIFICATION APPLICATION

I had never heard of the group sending the email, I don’t know who they are and I certainly didn’t apply.

Just so everyone knows (especially those new to the industry) – it’s you who approach networks and training groups to do things for your business – not the other way around. If they approach you they’re either desperate for members or students or are a scam and are trying to take you in and get your money.

This does not apply to training groups that promote via the VA networks – they are generally known to the networks and are supported and encouraged to assist with the personal and professional development of members of our industry.

The email I received gave no background information to explain who they are, what their experience is and how they are placed in this industry. Neither does their website. If I were to send out an email approaching people to do my VA Trainer course I would certainly be explaining who I am and what my background is to verify my knowledge and expertise of the industry. Frankly I don’t have the time to collect email addresses and then start spamming people – which is what this was. I didn’t invite the email or ask for information about their course.

This also goes for employment offers. Real employment agencies advertise for people to fill roles – they don’t spend/waste time emailing all and sundry in the hope that someone might fulfil a role and why should they? People come to them, not the other way around.

Real clients will approach you however – not in a blanket email 99% of the time, but usually an individually addressed email or phone call to find out if you can help them, how much you charge and so on.

Incidentally there are no contact details for the people I mention above and when I do a Google search on the two women’s names mentioned on the website and in the email, there comes up rather odd information about one of them being male and born in 1898. I expect the perpetrators just used names that are fairly ‘normal’ to appear real.

If anyone else has any knowledge of this group would be useful to know and if I’m wrong, I’m happy to be corrected, but having been in this industry for a long time it rather surprises me to be approached and thanked for contacting them to do their course – they obviously don’t know my experience and background at all!