I had an interesting email conversation with a colleague recently about the promotion of admin support (virtual assistants) via Elance. I wanted to know why he wasn’t promoting the use of Virtual Assistants instead through other sources? This is also a follow on from my post “What Do You Think Of When You Hear…?” His response to me was rather interesting – it is always good to see things from the other side of the fence at times to help keep us on track.
Comments he made were that he’d had bad experiences from local VAs, and that it had not been a positive experience. I’d told him of an international group that had been working on plans for developing standards in our industry over the past 12 or so months and he made the comment that he was glad to hear steps were in place for making our industry more professional.
More professional? I’ve emailed him back to find out if the ‘local VAs’ were stand alone VAs or belonged to VA networks – still waiting to hear back on that one. But it concerned me that he felt our industry had to be made more professional and I really do believe this stems from the fact that over the past 3 or 4 years, many non-professionals, i.e. those without a corporate work experience background, had entered our industry. They saw an opportunity for using their computer and internet connection to make money at home and grabbed the title ‘Virtual Assistant’ to describe what they were doing. More than that but many sites like Elance had followed suit and then new organisations had developed for the sole purpose of employing large groups of mainly non-professionals to do data entry, transcriptions, etc at the low end cost ratio.
What does that mean to us today? It’s all the more important to maintain our professionalism and continue marketing to the general public and educating them on what a ‘real VA’ is. The birth of this industry saw experienced admin/secretarial people from the corporate world move back home to work, using the technologies that became available.
More and more professionals entered the arena, bringing with them a wide variety of skills, thereby increasing the services we provide collectively as an industry.
We brought our professionalism home with us and continued in that vein. But today there are many out there who do not have this work experience at all, and many with different levels of education.
If you are a professional VA but haven’t yet connected with a Virtual Assistant network, then I encourage you to do so. It will give you the opportunity to get to know your peers and share ideas and possibly resources, but more than that, it will allow you to show the general public that you belong to a professional organisation in the industry. Many of the networks have minimum criteria to be met and they also assist in the promotion of the industry and help you get further exposure to the client base. And when developments do take place in our industry it’s the networks that will be advised and then they can let their members know.
Let’s all work together to continue educating the public about Professional Virtual Assistants and how we can truly assist them in their business support needs, without them fearing that they are going to get support that doesn’t really know what it’s doing.
Helen Byrne says
What a good read and I agree with your point SO MUCH – I have to shout about it. I just set myself up 3 months ago after 25 years of administrative and PA background in Manchester University working for an international research project management team. I wanted to be a VA for years but never had the backing. A Voluntary Severance Scheme and the University sorted that one out for me! I’m networking both online and face to face, and the biggest problem I find here in the UK is that so many business people are still blissfully unaware of the existence of Virtual Assistants. I was so frustrated I set up my own information page “for dummies” at http://www.PA-as-you-go.com. I hope this will generate some interest in the industry here in the UK before too long.
Tara Fort says
I have been eager to start my VA business for the past 10 years, while working a full time job. I have finally structured my time differently and feel I can make an easy transition when I finally decide to leave my employer in the next 1-3 years. I am officially launching this month and have already landed a few new jobs. I LOVED your article, as I had been on-and-off discouraged with those who tout themselves as a VA because they have a computer and internet, as you mention. I have always considered myself a professional in my field, but I liked the global spin you put on the contributions we can make to the industry as a whole. My head is held high and I look forward to some great success for all. PS, I am going to check out the site Helen Byrne mentions in her comment — I love it!
Beth says
I think this is a really great article. I was intrigued to hear that there are views by certain individuals who feel that VA’s aren’t professional. I have worked very hard on my business and I being professional is something I take pride in. I realize with websites such as Elance and other freelancing sites, it is very easy for the average joe to go bid on projects with no real expereince and that bothers me a bit. I will definatly continue to teach others about what being a VA is – a professional with integrity and a big heart! Thanks.
Di Chapman says
Great article Kathy and so true.
I would like to take up on Helen Burne’s comments regarding the UK Virtual Assistant Industry. There have been professional organisations in the UK since 2000. I co-own the Alliance of UK Virtual Assistants http://www.aukva.com which is a free resource site for experienced VA’s and clients (opened 2000) and also own http://www.iceni-it.co.uk which is for new and aspiring VA’s – again totally free and has just under 2000 members.
We are just two of many organisations. I can think of 4 more off the top of my head. I also won awards when I lived in the UK for the promotion of the VA Industry – nothing as prestigious as Kathie’s which is a real boost to our industry.
The problem in the UK which I will own up to is that the organisations do not work together the way they seem to do in the rest of the world and I am trying to change that. I am afraid that is the UK mentality – we had our complete membership directory site stolen and put up by another VA as their organisation… That is not professional.
If you don’t want to join a UK VA organisation or can’t find one, do what I have also done, join a US or Kathie’s organisation. It gives you a great view on the whole industry and being virtual you can work for anyone anywhere.
Sorry, I did not mean to hi-jack the thread but wanted to ensure you all that we are professionals in the UK and have been so since before 2000 we just did not know we had a name :).