I had a young woman ring me the other day. She sounded a little nervous on the phone but the reason for that soon became obvious. You see, she'd signed up for a typing job at home on the web sometime back, paid out money and then nothing happened. She lost her money and felt 'burnt' and was nervous about trying again. However, she'd been researching the Virtual Assistant industry and was very keen to work at home with a genuine role, and anxious not to get caught by something bogus. So, she … [Read more...]
7 Keys to Successfully Work At Home
I want to share with you an article one of my business coach clients has written. I often speak about the same things to the VAs I chat with via forums, but this information is for anyone who runs a home based business. If you like what you read here, why not drop over to her site, read her blog and sign up for her newsletter? She has lots of valuable ideas that will help make you more productive on a daily basis. Increasing workloads are forcing people to spend more time in the office, even … [Read more...]
What Version Software?
When new software becomes available many new VAs are keen to upgrade as soon as possible, or buy the latest and greatest. But I want to encourage you to stop and think for a moment. Will this mean that you are no longer compatible with prospective clients? Will this cause some difficulty in clients being able to read files you send to them? Not always, but there are times when it will cause problems, and if the client is not very computer literate the challenge for them may prove too … [Read more...]
Is a job offer by email genuine?
If you're like me, you get lots of job offers by email. Let's face it, as soon as your email address is on display anywhere, it's going to get grabbed and used by others. Or even if you send an email to someone who has an infected machine, the address can then be picked up as well. A new member at one of the VA forums I belong to recently posted an email, asking about a particular group who had emailed her about a job. She wanted to know if anyone had heard of them and whether it was … [Read more...]
When Is An Hour Not An Hour?
This is a reprint of an article I wrote in September 2004. I feel it's important to bring this topic back up since there are new VAs on the scene all the time, and new clients. The team and I had an interesting discussion online the other day, which resulted from a client and team member having a different understanding about something. And that something was the time involved, and related costs, in transcribing a recording. What the client hadn’t understood was that there is a difference … [Read more...]
Membership to VA Networks – do they add value to my business?
I recently had a new VA email me about joining the network I manage. She asked a number of the usual questions but then also asked the question which is the subject heading of this post. Interesting question and one I thought I would share here. I know that whenever anyone starts up in business they are looking for value for their money. They want to spread the word about their business as far as possible without it costing them an arm and a leg. I wanted to do the same when I was first … [Read more...]
Be Careful of the Technology You Choose
I love exploring all the things available to us in various software programs but there are some things I prefer not to use, although they were designed to make my life easier. Read Receipts for example - I don't necessarily want people to know the minute I've read their email so I have my program set not to process read receipts, even when someone requests it. Which is probably frustrating for them. I had one person contact me on the weekend and said she was using them because she wanted to … [Read more...]
Presenting Your Business Via Email
Regular readers will have noted my recent absence but hopefully they will have known or realised I was away on leave - well and truly overdue and very much enjoyed. I went to Japan with my husband to visit one of our daughters - if you read my family blog you'll see some of my posts there with photos. Whilst I was away there was an innumerable amount of emails, even with my going 'nomail' on the chat forums I belong to, and so I did check regularly in case of important matters, i.e. family … [Read more...]
The Importance of Follow Up
As a Virtual Assistant looking after a number of clients, it is really important to diarise items that need following up. With the increased number of emails, phone calls, and information to read and take in, it is very easy to get in overload mode and not realise that someone didn't respond to your email or phone call till several days later, or even weeks later. I usually do make a note to follow up on behalf of clients but often forget to do this for my own personal things. I mean, you … [Read more...]
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