You know, in the busy-ness of our lives, even in running our own businesses, it's sometimes easy to lose sight of our blessings. In this case, just being able to work at home. I had to be up at 5am today. That's not much earlier than a normal morning for me. I'm often awake at 5.30 as I take my husband to the train station some mornings but other mornings I get to sleep in till 7am because he is working at home too :-) Today I was taking the son of a Canadian friend to the airport. He'd been … [Read more...]
New Virtual Assistant Forum
Over the past month I've been setting up a new board forum for Virtual Assistants. While it has been primarily built with ACS members in mind, there is a portion of the forum that is open to any and all VAs. It is the VA Directory Forum and you are invited to come and check it out. While the membership and number of posts are low there currently, I expect it will grow quite quickly once the word is out. We have an active forum at yahoogroups (with over 1400 members) but there are some who … [Read more...]
How do I become a Virtual Assistant?
I get asked this question often and thought I'd share some hints and tips on things you can do if you would like to pursue this career. First you must have good computer skills but not only that, a good knowledge of how to do things online as well. They're not difficult things but if you don't know how to do them, then they can complicate your working day. Things like knowing how to upload or download files, attach files to email, send a large file to a client when it's too large to send via … [Read more...]
Virtual Assistants – Network or Agency?
I often get new VAs, or those planning to become a VA, contacting me to find out whether they should be joining my VA Network, or for advice about another group they are thinking of joining. I don't mind people contacting me to ask these questions and I'm always happy to help and give guidance. Ultimately the decision is their's but I like to give them things to think about, to help them with their decision-making. Let's look first at some definitions of these two words. On … [Read more...]
Anniversary Celebrations IV
This is the last week of celebrations for my business anniversary of 18 years, which was two days ago. So, what can I give to any VA that they would really appreciate and value. I don't want to disadvantage existing VAs and want to open it to all VAs, new and experienced. I thought about it long and hard and decided that a place at the Australian VA Conference being held on 4-5 May would be ideal. This event is suitable for all VAs and will help you move your business onto the next step, no … [Read more...]
Anniversary Celebrations III
By now you will have gotten the idea that a few lucky VAs have gone into the draw for various prizes (gifts) to help me celebrate my 18 years in business. What have I got in store this week? Jan King has been kind enough to offer a complimentary copy of her course "Virtual Assistant Speakers Course", teaching you how to become an assistant for one or more professional speakers. This is something I have been doing personally for many years and have been fortunate to work with some of the … [Read more...]
Anniversary celebrations II
Week two of my anniversary celebrations. What will I give away to a lucky new VA this week? You may be aware that I provide a 10 week coaching course guiding those who want to be a VA and don't know where to start, or simply filling in the gaps for those who have been a VA for awhile but feel there's still some information missing. Enter VATrainer.com. I wrote this program several years ago and it is updated from time to time. It covers things such as starting your business, what to expect, … [Read more...]
Watch your language!
As Virtual Assistants we are constantly using the written word to communicate with clients, potential clients, our peers and others online. We help our clients reach out to their clients as well and use many different mediums to achieve this. Ways to do this include blog posts and e-newsletters. The thing we have to remember is that our audience is global - not just local. And I find so many lists I am on forget this. Just simple things such as saying 'welcome to Spring' when, in fact, half … [Read more...]
Celebrating 18 years in business
Hi everyone, 24th March marks the 18th anniversary of my business being opened. It was National Secretaries Day on 24 March 1994 when I registered my business "A Clayton's Secretary" and officially announced to the world that I was open for business. Well, announced to anyone I met in Melbourne, Australia, really. The internet wasn't operating then so I didn't have any real way of announcing to the world, nor did I envisage wanting to. My focus was on finding clients as close to home as … [Read more...]
