What is a Virtual Assistant?

As a thriving Virtual Assistance firm this is a question that we heard a great deal in the early days, but now potential clients have a very clear idea of just what a virtual assistant is and how they want their virtual assistant to partner with them. 

Our clients are not looking for simple administrative support any longer.  Rather they want, need, and expect their virtual assistant to become a strategic partner, almost a manager if you will, who will work energetically and proactively to help them build and grow their brick and mortar as well as online business(s).  Our clients recognize that we are not only home office based contractors, but entrepreneurs in our own right who bring a rich knowledge base to bear on client projects.  We live and work on the internet!

Virtual assistants provide much of the same services as an onsite employee, but without the added tax and insurance burdens that the employer must bear.  VA’s work from fully equipped home based offices which are often better equipped than the average professional office.  At a minimum, your virtual assistant will have the following basic office equipment and software:

Powerful computer with high speed connection (DSL, cable)

Backup server

Fax Machine

Scanner

Copier

Shredder

CD / DVD burner

Professional telephone system with unlimited long distance

Professional voice mail (We use GotVM)

Postage meter

Office supplies (printer and copier paper, mailing supplies, etc.)

Software

Microsoft Office Suite (Excel, PowerPoint,  Access,  Word, Outlook)

HTML editor: Dreamweaver, Microsoft FrontPage, Microsoft Expression Web

Adobe Acrobat

Instant Messenger (AOL, Yahoo, MSN, Skype, etc.)

Anti-virus software

Bookkeeping software

Client management software

Your Virtual Assistant is a consummate professional who looks at your projects and tasks with an eye to automating processes, building long-term relationships and growing with your business.  We are here to assist you by taking care of the tasks and projects that grow daily more burdensome and prevent you from doing what you love best.  Our clients are excited to learn that they can turn over the minutia of their daily business and turn their minds to the creative thought processes that brought them into business to begin with.

Please call us toll free at 888-719-6710 to schedule a free 30 minute telephone consultation.  At the end of the call, you will walk away relieved, energized, and excited about all of the possibilities that will open up to you after you hire professional help.

Ok, so you have a website, a cell phone and a wonderful plan to make your presence felt on the internet. What you probably don’t have, is a voice mail system that makes you sound like a Fortune 500 company.

In the highly competitive field of Web Development and Virtual Assistance, having a voice mail system in place has been essential for our marketing efforts.  We chose GotVM (Got Voice Mail) because it successfully handles every aspect of our toll free and messaging needs at a very affordable monthly cost.  Even if you are a start-up company with little to no cash flow you can afford this voice mail system at under $10 a month. You can even get local service and they offer a 30 day money back guarantee.

Potential clients can now call one of my toll free numbers and be routed to the proper person within our companies. Since we work virtually, our clients and staff are all located in different time zones and we can now make sure that no calls are missed. GotVM has been an excellent resource for our companies as has allowed us to link our cross-nation staff  via our toll free numbers.

GotVM is a VERY affordable service (starting at $9.95 month) and we recommend it to all of our clients who are in need of a reliable and affordable virtual voice mail service. Even if you only have a cell phone,  your calls will be answered and routed properly which makes your company sound much larger than it really is.

I just found an excellent article about working from your home office written by Carolyn Kepcher, who was Donald Trump’s right-hand woman for a number of years, both in his company and on the Celebrity Apprentice television series until she left to start her own company. She started her new company by working virtually. We can all certainly relate to that!

Your Money columnist Carolyn Kepcher, author of the best-selling business book, “Carolyn 101,” is the former “Apprentice” star who thrived working for one of America’s toughest bosses. She’s now CEO of Carolyn & Co. (carolynandco.com), an enterprise created by and for career women.

I am a telecommuting convert.

Before this year, I spent nearly 12 years working for a large corporation where I was trained to believe people who worked from home could never get the job done. I believed that, if I couldn’t see my staff, chances were the work was not getting done. Real work meant time in the office.

My first experience disproving this theory was a revelation. It came on a day a few years ago when I was feeling so ill I couldn’t make it to work. Since I’m not the kind of person who can happily sit back with a box of tissues and cold medicine in front of a television, I grabbed my BlackBerry and laptop and decided to catch up on e-mails. I got more work done in my pajamas that day than I had all week.

I’ve since moved on in my career, creating a startup venture called Carolyn & Co. My business partner and I began by working from our home offices. As the company grew, so did our demands. We needed staff, but didn’t have office space. We found ourselves hiring people willing to work from home.

I’ll admit: The whole scenario made me nervous. Very nervous.

What a lesson I learned. Not only was the work getting done in a timely matter, the results were impressive. We were able to negotiate contracts, make decisions, plan, create, implement - efficiently and seamlessly - without sharing one square foot of office space.

I don’t believe telecommuting is for everyone. Some industries and positions aren’t well-suited for it. And there are those employees who simply lack the discipline and organization to effectively work from home.

But it works well for many, especially people with kids. As important as it is to have face time in the office, it’s more important to have face time at home.

When I work from home, I see my 5- and 7-year-old off on the bus in the morning, then get right to work. I take a lunch break at noon with my 5-year-old when she gets off the bus, and then it’s back to business.

Work is still work, but life is a little easier when you have more flexibility to balance your career with all your other priorities.

For employers, there are adjustments to be made to accommodate telecommuters. But there are enough advantages to make it worth it.

For starters: There’s a whole pool of barely tapped talent out there; people with great skill and experience who simply can’t or won’t work in a traditional job or office setting. Being open to telecommuting naturally enhances the desirability of any employer with jobs to fill.

In return for giving them greater flexibility with their job, employees who telecommute tend to be highly motivated and loyal, gracing bosses with a lower rate of job turnover. Also, many telecommuters want to work part-time, decreasing the cost of their benefits. And telecommuters cut back on office space overhead.

Employees and employers need to think it through, but I’m now a true believer that, when it works, it works for everyone involved.