As a virtual assistant myself for several years, I was very interested to see what Tina Forsyth had to bring to the table in her book, Becoming An Online Business Manager. Well, for me, this is the way I have been conducting business, however, didn't realize to assign this title for the several duties I performed for my clients. In Tina's book, it really showcases the different areas to which a virtual assistant can expand their skill set and take it to a higher level -or as Tina calls … [Read more...]
Archives for October 2008
Include your currency when quoting
Recently a team member quoted a client for a job and she secured the work. However only a couple of days later another member advised she'd also quoted for the job but had been told that someone else had given a much lower quote and secured the work. She couldn't work out how someone could do the work for such a low fee. I began asking questions to see what had transpired to ensure that all was in order and it soon became apparent to me that the VA who quoted 'low' was in fact from another … [Read more...]
What does your voice say about you?
I'll probably get a bit of 'hate mail' for this one, but I'm going to say it here anyway. I received a phone call from a lady who had seen my advert in the Yellow Pages and she wanted to know how she could become one of the people on that list and do work from home too. Reasonable request and I often get calls like that. But this call was different. The lady was extremely hesitant on the phone and took quite some time to get out her questions and whilst I felt for her I also thought that if … [Read more...]
Self employed or employed?
Periodically on the Virtual Assistant forums we discuss items that relate to how the tax department would view us if certain scenarios arise. One of those is the number of clients we should have or the how much we're earning from clients. While the figures and percentages may differ from country to country, I believe it would be wise to make sure that you are not receiving the bulk of your income from one client only. In the early stages of your business this may be difficult to achieve but it … [Read more...]
How do I know it’s genuine?
Today Virtual Assistants are often approached by scammers to do things that relate to nothing more than money-laundering or passing on parcels that are illegal in one way or another. It means we need to keep our wits about us as we assess each approach individually. Many of us get the emails offering us 'jobs' whereby we process email or reports, receive payments, keep a portion and then send the rest on - this is a definite 'no no' and should be ignored, not responded to and totally left … [Read more...]
Will you be our 1,000th member?
In April 1996 I began the southern hemisphere's first online network of its kind, originally as homebased secretaries and then we adopted the term 'Virtual Assistant' as we saw it take hold worldwide and recognised that what we were doing was exactly that - providing virtual assistance to clients all over the world. Being based in Australia meant we weren't originally visible to the northern hemisphere but that has changed over the years and today we have a membership that spreads to 15 … [Read more...]
Virtual Assistant Forums – great resources
Over the years I've watched the Virtual Assistant forums grow and evolve into really active, useful sources of information, resources, lists of all sorts of things, great communities for connection. Many hold folders of links where members can list sites that have been really useful to them in their businesses or with samples of brochures, contracts and all other sorts of materials that have helped them in business. The forums have become a hub of very useful information discussing all manner … [Read more...]
Protecting your Virtual Assistant business
Recently on a VA forum a member commented about her computer woes. There were some things that stood out to me as possible concerns and I responded as below. She's since been in contact with me and filled in with a bit more detail so not everything I wrote was relevant to her situation but I thought the information is important for all to see. So, here it is: First - were you not doing backups before? If you're running a computer based business then backups are absolutely essential - they are … [Read more...]
Should I be paying someone to get work?
This is a common question amongst VA forums and one that many new VAs ask. And somewhere along the line, the thought and responses have become slightly skewed with responses like 'you should never pay for getting work'. Whilst on first sight this appears to be a sound response, I believe you need to look at this much deeper before answering with a 'yes' or 'no'. For example, the site you've visited - is it a membership based site that offers many benefits to its members? If so, and the … [Read more...]