Virtual Assistant – THE Blog About Our Industry

About the Virtual Assistant industry for VAs and for clients

Category Archives: Technology

Speaking of working at home…

A couple of days ago I shared how much I love working at home and that I don’t miss the traffic out there at all.  However, there are days (very occasional) when working at home can prove to be a challenge. Today was one of them.

We got a letter a week ago to say the power would be off between 8.30am and 3.30pm for one day and we needed to ensure that all electrical appliances were switched off and unplugged, especially computers.  What was I going to do?

I started to put out feelers to see whose place I could go to, along with my laptop and my mobile phone (with the land-line diverted).  There was room at our church office.  Our eldest daughter’s place was a possibility but I doubt I would get much work done as my grandson would be wanting my attention.  I sent out a message to clients advising I might not be able to get much work done because of the power being out and a client offered me his office as he was going to be at two workshops.  And then one of my BNI colleagues was visiting for a one-on-one meeting and asked if I could come and teach her to use LinkedIn.  I looked at my diary and realised that I had time on the day of ‘no power’. I laughed and said to her, ‘why didn’t I think of that before?  Just make appointments to be out visiting.’ She responded she does that all the time.

I’d gotten so entrenched with being home full-time working that I’d forgotten it was OK to be out for a whole day if I wanted to. So I did.  I booked 3 appointments and visited the local ‘maccas’ which had wifi available so I could catch up with emails while having something to eat and a cuppa.  Not as productive a day as I’d like but at least it meant I got some things done and the time wasn’t wasted.  After all, if I’m going to have a day off, I want it to be on my terms.

eziStart Social Media

Some of you will be aware that I’m a member of a local BNI chapter as their Virtual Assistant representative.  One of the members there, who is the resident website designer came up with a brilliant idea some months ago called eziStart.  The idea is that a number of services is provided by a small select group of service providers to help people get set up and started in their businesses.

These services include:  web design, logo design, copy-writing for the website, video and social media. I’m looking after the social media for business component. This is me with the guys below.

We’d love you to come and like our Facebook page and also check out the social media for business services I offer on the website to see what it’s all about.  If you know anyone who needs an eziStart to getting their online presence sorted then please contact us via the eziStart website or contact me direct.

I should add that these services are offered at a special price to help attract those who need all or most of these services but thought they couldn’t afford it all at once. It’s a one-stop shop basically!

Are you an Aussie VA that runs events?

Came across a great site this week, when helping a client organise an event he was promoting. He wanted to take bookings online and make it as painless as possible. He’d been told of a couple of sites by associates and I tried one of them out for him yesterday when sending out a broadcast email.  Very easy to use and set up, you can customise the page after setting up the initial information.

The site is called Trybooking.com and this morning I logged back in to see if he’d gotten any bookings.  He had!  He probably receives notification at his email address but you can create a pdf or printed report when you log in.  The site allows you to allocate how many seats are available and even seating positions, so if you have a theatre to book out, or a room with numbered seating, this site is ideal for it.  It will handle your payments for you, or you can simply have a ‘free’ event – which my client is running.

How much does it all cost? Very little. This page gives you the info.

The site collects all the information for you and makes it easy for those booking for your event.

So, if you’re an Aussie VA running an event, no matter what size, for yourself or a client, this site is definitely worth using. Think I’ll be using this for future events – wish I’d known before promoting AVAC this year!

Phone access for clients

I’ve chosen not to use my mobile (cell) phone for my VA business. Why? Because I’m in my office 95% of the time anyway and they can get me via the landline and email – why do I need them calling on my mobile phone too?

I use the mobile phone for personal use only, i.e. family, friends, emergencies.  If I’m out of my office I can’t be doing work for clients anyway, as the majority of what I do is done on a computer.

And yet, it seems I’m in a minority and I think it shocks some clients when they ask for my mobile number and I won’t give it to them.  I know what will happen if I do. They’ll start using it to ring me all the time – instead of my landline number.

If I need to be hearing from them when I’m away from my office then I’ll simply divert my landline to my mobile phone to receive their calls. But chances are, that if I’m going to be away from my office for sometime (like several days or more) then I’m more likely to divert my landline to one of my VA team members to handle calls in my absence.

So, do you use your mobile phone for business, or are you like me, and reserve it for family and friends only?  Let’s face it, there’s little opportunity to be ‘disconnected’ from the office with all of today’s technologies.  I like to be able to switch off now and then – it’s good for the mind, body and soul.

As a new VA, I can’t afford a website

I’ve been corresponding with a couple of new Virtual Assistants over the past couple of weeks. They found me via different VA forums and started emailing me for advice.

One said she couldn’t afford a website yet and was asking me what she could do to promote her business online. This is my response to her:

“What makes you think you can’t afford a website?  The reality is you could get webhosting and a domain for a year for a very minimal amount of money (I provide this service and I know that other VA organisations do too).  And if the webhost provides WordPress (which is free software) you could have a site up in a couple of hours. There are tons of free templates out there, you don’t have to know web coding – the program works very much like Word in lots of ways and you can publish online straight away.  It would also mean you would have a domain address that is yours to keep, people could look you up and learn about what you do and you can update it anytime you want. www.wordpress.org has a free support forum and many of the VA discussion groups can help answer questions too.

I’m much more experienced with WordPress now but was a beginner around 6 or 7 years ago and I love the program.  I’ve learnt enough html to tweak the coding and make changes if I want to – but you don’t have to at all. You don’t have to have a business name – you could buy yourname.com if it was available or even yourname-va.com or similar.  I’m sure you’d come up with a few possibilities if you thought of it.”

So, if you’ve been struggling with the idea of whether you can afford a website or not, I hope the above helps dispel that problem for you.