Virtual Assistant – THE Blog About Our Industry

About the Virtual Assistant industry for VAs and for clients

Monthly Archives: December 2009

Protecting your accounts

At this time of year (Christmas/New Year) scams will be on the rise and so will phishing emails with promises of all sorts of things through bogus promotions.

One of the VAs from my team posted a warning about a phishing email supposedly from her bank the other day.  A day prior a client forwarded to me an email she got from Paypal (supposedly) but I was soon able to detect that it was not a genuine email.

Here are some ideas to get you looking.

1. Usually not personally addressed. Banks rarely email us but Paypal and other similar groups do and it’s usually addressed to Dear and whatever your user name is.  It’s NEVER addressed to ‘Dear member’, ‘Dear user’ or similar.

2. Check the address it comes from. Often it’s a variation on the real address but not accurate. e.g. I’ve seen no-replay@paypal.com used.

3. Hold your mouse over the hyperlink of the supposed bank web address and you’ll see the reference is very different although if you clicked on it, it might look like the normal website. (I recommend you definitely DON’T click on it though)

4. Check the spelling – it’s usually full of errors and written by those who don’t have a good grasp of the English language.

Win a year’s membership with the ACS Team

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Are you a Virtual Assistant looking to get more exposure for your business?

Have you thought about joining a VA network but not sure whether it’s worth it or not? (I can tell you now, it certainly is worth it)

Perhaps you are looking to get started in the new year and membership of a VA network is on your to-do-list?

Whatever the reason I invite you to join our team at “A Clayton’s Secretary” and you may win a whole year’s membership free.

All you have to do is read the membership criteria to make sure you’re eligible and then fill out your application form.  If you are the lucky winner you will have the choice of having your membership fee refunded or have a whole extra year added to the year you’ve just purchased.  You can find out about member benefits here.

One lucky winner will be chosen for the free year’s membership of the ACS team providing they meet the membership criteria.  I’ll also throw in one year of web hosting for your own VA website.

Two other lucky winners will be given free web hosting for 1 year.

Please note: To be eligible you must select 1 year membership when going through the application process.

Looking forward to you joining our team!

P.S. Entries must be in by midnight 31st December AEST.

Do I have to have a niche?

The question asked by many new VAs is:  Do I have to have a niche?

I see this discussed on various forums and while the intentions are good on behalf of those VAs who respond, I find that sometimes their enthusiasm for what they feel is right may be holding others back.

The following is my answer:

I think as your business grows and develops you eventually discover a niche that’s right for you but unless you really do know what you want to do at the start, I don’t feel people should be limiting themselves. Some are very lucky and do know this but the majority don’t.

I was a generalist to start with and to some degree, still am.  However I tend to focus on WordPress blogs and sites, web hosting, database and shopping cart management today.  It was bookkeeping many years ago and for a 10 year period it was association management – something I fell into by accident but discovered was the perfect fit for me for that period of time.

While I agree it is good to find your niche, I’d hate for new VAs to feel like they cannot progress and move their businesses forward because they’re hung up on trying to work out what their niche is.  At the start they should stick with what they do best and if that service provision covers a lot of different types of people and industries (such as word-processing for example) then so be it. Eventually they’ll discover they’re either attracting the same type of clients (i.e. authors or Thesis students) or they will find there are particular types of work they enjoy (such as transcriptions).

For more articles on developing a niche for your VA business, why not read these?

Start with what you know

Developing a niche in the virtual assistant world

Be careful what you offer on your site

Discovering your niche

Developing your niche (My story)

AVAC bookings coming in

The Australian VA Conference (AVAC) is really only 3 months away.  Did you realise that?  It’s just occurred to me.

Early bird bookings are still available but not for too much longer.  It’s great to see we’ll have VAs from different states in Australia attending but also from overseas.  What a great event it’s shaping up to be.  We’ve even had an enquiry from a freelance journalist in Turkey who plans to attend!

We also have a fantastic lineup of speakers and expressions of interest from speakers will be closed this week.  It looks like we have a full complement for the program and we’re just finalising some details so we can update the website.

I was delighted to get a phone call from one interstate VA advising they are coming – that person has only met a few VAs in their state and apart from me and one other, they’ve never met VAs from other states or overseas. I’m delighted that I can help facilitate the meetings.

Accommodation has been organised and if you need to stay longer than one night, then the travel agent listed on the AVAC site can assist.

If you have any queries feel free to contact me direct or send a message via the AVAC website.

Looking forward to seeing you there next March!  It won’t take long to get here.

Am I an employer of Virtual Assistants?

Interesting question and I do understand why I get asked that periodically.

For the record, the answer is ‘no’.  I am not an employer.  I am, however, the founder of the VA Network, “A Clayton’s Secretary”, and that network operates as an industry based group to help those who want to be Virtual Assistants develop their businesses and meet clients.

There is a big difference.  Members pay a subscription fee to belong to the team and have to meet our criteria to be eligible.  They fill out the application form, submit their resume and choose which subscription option is right for them. After that their application is processed, they are added to our website and given access to our jobleads system and given information via a member’s pack and also via email and forums, to help them shape their businesses.  Each member is a self-employed business owner/operator, choose their own rates, run their own businesses the way they want and choose what type of services they wish to provide. They’re also responsible for paying their own taxes, and other overheads including insurances, furniture, hardware and software as well as their own training.

If I were an employer of Virtual Assistants I would be responsible for their rate of pay as well as taxes, insurances, training and their working environment.  I would also have to take responsibility for all the work completed by them and passed to the client – I wouldn’t have enough hours in the day for all of that!

No, I’m not an employer but I am a facilitator and help introduce clients to their Virtual Assistants through our job request process.  I prefer to keep it simple – connect the client to a VA or VAs and then let the two groups do the work and discussions between them. Why do they need a third party in the middle for that process to be completed? They don’t.

Virtual Assistants should be experienced in the service offerings they promote and should not take on work they don’t have the skills or ability for. In effect, they are totally responsible for the choices they make in their businesses because it is their business – no-one else’s. They don’t have a boss but the VA communities do give them the opportunity to have others to turn to when they need advice or assistance in any given job.