Operating a VA Business | VA Directory

The lucky winners of my anniversary giveaway

Well, just what you've been waiting for. Here are the list of winners for the 14th anniversary giveaway of last week. I don't have names for most, just email addresses so if the owners would like to contact me via email with their postal addresses I'll post the book of their choice (from my bookshop) to them. To protect their email addresses I'm not putting them in full. They are: beautystop at iprimus lorna_sue at hotmail rome69 at sbcglobal janica at adminismith stolenkiss at … [Read more...]

My Anniversary Week – one more gift

I thought it would be good to finish off this week of anniversary posts with one more gift from me. Some of you will be aware that I also provide web hosting services. This grew out of a client's need for support a few years ago - the host I was using at the time offered me a dedicated VDS so I could administer my client hosting accounts and maintain them on my own without having to wait for him to respond to support calls to set up new accounts. This was a good working partnership for me and … [Read more...]

More Anniversary gifts – I’m in a generous mood

Readers will know that this week marks the 14th anniversary of my Virtual Assistant business. And a couple of days ago I announced that 6 of my readers will receive a free printed copy of one of my books. Well, I decided that wasn't enough and I thought it would be good if I gifted someone the 10 week VA Trainer course. The course is ideal for anyone planning to become a VA, or perhaps have only been in the industry a year or two and need to fill in some gaps about how a VA business is run. … [Read more...]

My Anniversary but I have a Gift For You

Today (24th March) marks the 14th anniversary of my business "A Clayton's Secretary". I have no idea where that time has gone. In some ways it just feels like last year I got started but when I look at all of my achievements, and some failings too, I can see I've come a long way in that time. So has technology. What a privilege it has been to be part of the history making of the Virtual Assistant industry - that wasn't in my original business plan :-) . My intention was to start a small … [Read more...]

VAs Canvassing For Work

I get concerned when I learn that VAs are seeking work in areas that might not really be the right source for them.Â What am I talking about?Â One of my forum members advised that a new VA was contacting senior VAs from the forum canvassing for work. I suppose I can understand their mindset - that some VAs are probably so busy they have work to spare to hand over to someone else. But their thinking is all wrong and I'll tell you why. 1. Other VAs are not your prospective clients - they're … [Read more...]

Shifting Your Mindset

On so many of the forums I see new VAs wanting to get their businesses up and running as quickly as possible. And on these same forums I see promotions for this course, or that event, or lists to sign up with and so on. When we are in the corporate world we are so used to being told what we need to do, which courses we should attend, the events that would benefit the business the most and we're just automatically put on mailing lists for staff. But what about when we work for ourselves? How … [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...]