I saw an article in the EzineQueen's newsletter today which I want to share here because it's something that has concerned me too. In my case it's about Virtual Assistant Coaching & Training. I see many offering coaching and training and they've only been in the industry themselves for 5 mins - or so it would seem. They don't have the years of experience behind them and many are not aligned with a coaching or training organisation. I've always been open and up front about my experience … [Read more...]
Archives for March 2008
Free Training To Become a Virtual Assistant…
... were the words that greeted me in one of my web stats. I frequently check my stats to see where people are coming from and how they find me. That includes searches made on search engines. Are we truly in an age where people think they can get everything free or as much as possible? I know there is a lot of 'stuff' on the web that you can get free but often it comes with other items that cost, or limited use till a full copy is paid for, or advertising that someone has paid for (like those … [Read more...]
Looking For Work Online – A Message For New VAs
I received a poorly written email a couple of days ago from a young person seeking to join my team. I wrote back to them saying I did not believe they had read my website and that their email demonstrated a lack of ability in being able to type properly and that our clients would require that. They wrote back and said I was unfairly assessing their written English and that their skills were good and I shouldn't base it on just an email. I wrote back again and explained that their email was … [Read more...]
Be Careful What You Offer On Your Site
A VA posted a question over the weekend about a service (web design) a client asked her to provide. She wasn't sure how to go about doing it and asked at the forum. This is my response to her: It is important we only take on work we are equipped for and in that regard, also equally important we portray that on our websites as well. With the publicity around about our industry I guess it's easy for prospective clients to get confused and think that we (VAs) can do anything and everything. And … [Read more...]
Assumption Proves Professionalism Required
I received an email last week from a gentleman who was enquiring what a VA could do? I made the assumption that he was looking for someone to provide him support and told him the following: Basically we're like a Personal Assistant, except we operate Virtually - so instead of in your office, we work in our own. Work is handled mainly via email, phone, fax, courier, web upload and download. Rates vary considerably depending on who is doing it, what their rates are, where they live (cost of … [Read more...]
Benefit of Belonging to a Virtual Assistant Network
Some of the VA Networks have Requests for Proposal or Job Leads sent in by clients or other VAs. On a recent forum discussion a new VA was asking about getting jobs that paid higher than $10 an hour. She knew that it was possible but all the jobs she looked at was paying $10 or less an hour and she wanted to know what she was doing wrong. I gave the following advice: You're looking in the wrong places. You don't want to be searching job listings at all. What you want to be doing is listing … [Read more...]