I see this request on the web in many places with discussions on forums and articles written on blogs by people who have little knowledge of our industry. They’ve heard the term or read about it in books but have no idea where to look.
I don’t know about you but I always think ‘Google’ whenever I want to look something up. A search on “Virtual Assistants” at Google will bring up several VA networks and forums, as well as individual VA sites. But I know it’s hard to weed through and know the right place to go to.
Perhaps searching on the service you need will produce better results for you. Such as “secretarial support” for those who need more traditional type of support.
But for those who don’t want to do all those searches, then contacting a virtual assistant network direct is the best option. You can simply fill out their joblead or request for proposal form and have the VAs contact you direct with their ability to meet your needs, give you turnaround time and their rates and it saves you having to work out who to contact.
You can find a list of VA organisations here.
Janet Janowiak says
Kathie – This is great information. Now you need to get it into the print media for those who are un-web-friendly! Maybe someone should publish a “yellow pages of VA’s” and distribute it to those people. I find that when I am networking in person, there are a lot of people that 1. never heard the term “virtual assistant” or 2. don’t understand that anyone, regardless of computer skills, can benefit from a va’s services.
Akshob says
The main problem which I think is most of them don’t know what virtual assistants or never heard of them in the first place. So when they have very little information about it they won’t know where to find one.
There is one more organisation which you can add to that list,
http://www.p2w2.com/VirtualAssistant.php
It is indeed a very good one.
Regards
Akshob
http://www.p2w2.com/akshob
Eileen Williams says
Thanks, Kathie, for your helpful and practical suggestions. I’m not in need of a VA at this time but, hopefully, as my online presence grows, I will be. Now I know the best way to find one!
Beverly Mahone says
I didn’t know what a VA was uniril a couple of years ago so it surprised me to learn that this profession has been around as long as it has.
I have utilized VA’s on a number of occasions and they have been wonderful to work with–including YOU!
Pam Archer says
Have you tried the new search engine, BING? I’ve tried it a few times, but it’s all the talk on Twitter.