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WHAT’S A VIRTUAL ASSISTANT? |
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Are you overwhelmed running your business? Are there not enough hours in the day? The more your business grows, the more administrative tasks you have; the more time you spend on administrative tasks, the less time you have to generate new business.
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How much is your time really worth? YOUR time is most valuable because it is your responsibility to generate new revenue for your business. Doing small and often trivial administrative chores yourself does not really add value to your business and the sensible solution is to delegate those less profitable tasks by hiring someone more than capable of carrying them out, but who’s hourly rate is somewhat less than your real financial worth. So what’s stopping you?
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You may have a multitude of reasons that prevent you from hiring a full time personal assistant. You may not need a full time, or even part time employee but just require someone for occasional or limited secretarial services. Then there are the employers responsibilities, employees are entitled to sick pay, maternity leave and paid holiday and often seek generous benefits packages. It is estimated that the true cost of an employee is over double and often up to triple the cost of their annual salary in terms of benefits and liabilities.
Significant for some potential employers is also the loss of privacy and space - are you working from home or have limited office space? You may not want an employee working from your home or simply not have the room for an additional employee in your office or all the equipment they may need.
Wouldn't it be perfect if you had a business assistant that was always ready to work for you, but only when you need them? Providing secretarial services from their own home or office, using their own equipment? Meet the Virtual Assistant (VA), an invaluable new work force that provides a practical solution for small businesses owners. A VA frees up your valuable time so you can concentrate on the important things that only you can do in your business.
There is no need to share office space or even for your VA to live in the same town or city. Work assignments are communicated through email; telephone, fax or post and web-based tools such as instant messengers and online calendars and planners are also often used as a means of keeping in touch.
Because your VA is self-employed, and invoices you only for the actual hours worked or by tasks completed, and is dependent on referrals and steady work flow from existing clients, s/he can be the perfect solution for a busy small business or entrepreneur. When you hire a VA you get all the benefits of outsourcing - no employer liabilities, tax and benefits issues, coupled with the loyalty and steadiness of a company executive PA.
With a VA, you have someone to whom you can delegate. Your VA can return telephone calls, answer e-mails, and draft letters for you. They can run your diary, deal with your post, run your marketing campaign, design your next presentation, book your doctors appointment and even remind you of your spouses birthday and source the perfect gift if necessary! VA’s are already computer trained, and can assist with your specific needs from traditional office support services to highly specialised areas including web site design. You can also equip your VA to go beyond traditional secretarial support to client development and marketing support.
You can easily justify a virtual assistant in terms of your greater productivity and your greater efficiency. You need to be the leader in your business and your VA will insure that you focus on what is important, rather than urgent. Your VA can also lend "size" to your company, which will impress potential clients.
As more and more businesses move their marketing and communications to the Internet, VA’s are becoming the obvious solution to staffing issues. For an hourly fee often less than the cost of temps or the real cost of employees, businesses can take advantage of professional assistance and a variety of skills at the click of a mouse.
Need a Virtual Assistant? Then you’ve come to the right place. We have details of all the best virtual assistants and pa’s in the business so click on the link and start delegating! DIRECTORY OF UK VIRTUAL ASSISTANTS
Are you a Virtual Assistant? Do you want to establish your presence as a professional virtual assistant and become an accredited member of the UK Association of Virtual Assistants? For more information about membership criteria, our CODE OF CONDUCT and how to add yourself to our DIRECTORY OF UK VIRTUAL ASSISTANTS visit our JOIN US section.
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| The Virtual Assistant Blog |
| Wed, 07 May 2008 08:40:41 +0000 New and Improved Services from the UKAVA |
| At the UK Association of Virtual Assistants, our continued investment in Internet Marketing has meant that the UKAVA generates a large amount of pre-qualified traffic to our web site, which in turn results in leads for our members. If you have an Enhanced Listing in our Virtual Assistant Directory these potential clients end up on [...] At the UK Association of Virtual Assistants, our continued investment in Internet Marketing has meant that the UKAVA generates a large amount of pre-qualified traffic to our web site, which in turn results in leads for our members. If you have an Enhanced Listing in our Virtual Assistant Directory these potential clients end up on your web site. But now we have introduced a FREE service for prospective Virtual Assistant clients to look for the perfect VA to suit their needs.
Prospects can now complete a short online form giving details of the work they have available and this information is emailed to all our members allowing you the chance to pick and chose who you want to work with. This means that you will be able to put your proposals direct to would-be clients through out the UK and Worldwide, not just those within your local area – we do work virtually after all! It also means that that you can tender for work as and when you need it. So if you’ve just lost your biggest client, or you’re just starting up and looking for your first clients, now is the time to start putting in those proposals!
If you are already a member of the UKAVA keep an eye on your email inbox for these alerts and if you’re not already a member, click on the link below to find out all the benefits membership brings.
http://www.ukava.co.uk/html/join_the_uk_association_of_vir.html
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| Thu, 01 May 2008 13:38:23 +0000 Virtual Assistants Networking Like Crazy at New Google Group |
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Yesterday saw the launch of the UK Association of Virtual Assistants Google Group. A user group or forum was something that had been in the pipeline for a while here at the UKAVA but we wanted a group that could be open to everyone, newbies and veterans alike. The group is free to join and [...] 
Yesterday saw the launch of the UK Association of Virtual Assistants Google Group. A user group or forum was something that had been in the pipeline for a while here at the UKAVA but we wanted a group that could be open to everyone, newbies and veterans alike. The group is free to join and participate in and boy have you all grabbed it by the horns. There I was yesterday sitting in my Google Group all alone and today, BAM, virtual assistants are coming from everywhere and all crazily networking to find complimentary skills, telephone answering services, transcription services, holiday cover - you name it. What are you waiting for? Get over there and join in!
http://groups.google.com/group/uk-association-of-virtual-assistants
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| Tue, 29 Apr 2008 10:58:24 +0000 MyOffice - EverythingYou Need, When and Where You Need It |
| Working virtually can be a challenge when it comes to managing diaries, checking email (both yours and your clients), sharing files and details of contacts, etc. Wouldn’t it be lovely if it could all be in one place where both you and your clients, and your associates if you have them, could access what you [...] Working virtually can be a challenge when it comes to managing diaries, checking email (both yours and your clients), sharing files and details of contacts, etc. Wouldn’t it be lovely if it could all be in one place where both you and your clients, and your associates if you have them, could access what you need, when you need it, anywhere in the world from any computer? Now you can.
MyOffice is a subscription based internet-hosted ‘virtual office’ designed for small and medium-sized businesses. It combines diaries / calendars, contacts, tasks, email, file store, reminders and notes into an integrated suite of collaboration tools to help you keep in touch with your colleagues.
Using MyOffice you can share diaries / calendars, manage your contacts, access your email from anywhere, organise and schedule tasks, store files, and much more. You don’t need any technical expertise or a huge financial outlay. My Office takes care of all operational aspects including security, round-the-clock support, software upgrades, server administration, and data backup … leaving you with more time to concentrate on the important things - like running your business!
Sign up for a free 30-day trial or purchase now for our fantastic Two for One offer. Buy one license for just £45 for a whole year and get another one absolutely free. That’s one for you and one for your client.
For more information, visit: http://www.myoffice.net/index.aspx?agentreferrer=ukava
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| Thu, 24 Apr 2008 12:03:13 +0000 VA Conference and Awards 2008 |
| This years VA Conference and Awards started with a bang for those of us able to make the drinks reception on the Friday night. Then what a fantastic day! We had four brilliant and inspiring speakers this year and lots of chance to network and put faces to names.
Congratulations to everyone who entered the awards. [...] This years VA Conference and Awards started with a bang for those of us able to make the drinks reception on the Friday night. Then what a fantastic day! We had four brilliant and inspiring speakers this year and lots of chance to network and put faces to names.
Congratulations to everyone who entered the awards. I was one of the judges this year, representing the UK Association of Virtual Assistants, along with along with Jacky Workman of the IAVA, Gillian Richmond of EUMA and Linda Barton of IQPS. I’m delighted to say that out of the four finalists in the Awards, two were already members of the UKAVA and a third has since joined. Congratulations go to: Susan Moore of Moore VA and Emma Walker of CKPA in the Over 18 months in business category, and in the Under 18 months in business category well done to Sam Cannell of Versatile Assistant and Shelly McCaughey of Fultus. Brilliant work ladies.
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| Wed, 23 Apr 2008 12:38:39 +0000 Internet Marketing - Getting Inbound Links, The Testimonial Way! |
| So we’ve already established that getting quality inbound links to your web site from industry related web sites is brilliant way to leapfrog your way up the search engines rankings. But how can you also get noticed specifically by potential clients within your target industries?
Testimonials. How does it work? Simple.
As an example lets say that [...] So we’ve already established that getting quality inbound links to your web site from industry related web sites is brilliant way to leapfrog your way up the search engines rankings. But how can you also get noticed specifically by potential clients within your target industries?
Testimonials. How does it work? Simple.
As an example lets say that you have chosen to work with aromatherapists. Have a chat with your aromatherapist client (or potential client!) and explain that you are intending to write a testimonial about them that they can add to their web site. Customer testimonials on a web site improve the credibility of any business and they will be glad to include your unsolicited one. Book yourself an aromatherapy massage and then write a testimonial saying how great the experience was. Don’t forget to include at the end of it your name, business name and WEB SITE ADDRESS. Send it in an email to your client so that they can easily cut and paste the testimonial onto their web site.
You can also ask for reciprocal testimonials. If your web site could do with a few more client testimonials, ask your clients for a reciprocal one in an “I’ll write one for you if you write one for me” fashion. If they are too busy, ask if you can write both, yours and theirs, and send them back to the client for approval before publishing “their” testimonial to your web site. This is great as you can highlight any service or industry you want to focus on within the text, and the client can just approve the content and their quote before you add it to your web site.
Inbound links to your web site keep the search engines happy and testimonials are great for establishing credibility with any potential clients visiting your web site so using testimonials for inbound links is a real win-win.
For more information, hints and tips for virtual assistants visit www.ukava.co.uk
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