Press Releases

Create YOUR Perfect Virtual Assistant Business

by

VA Success GroupTwo of the Biggest Players in the UK Virtual Assistant industry have joined forces and this week launch the VA Success Group, a totally new and unique range of products and services to help you create the Virtual Assistant business you’ve always dreamed of.Justine Curtis, Director of her own successful VA practice My Virtual Assistant Limited (http://www.my-va.com/) and founder of the UK Association of Virtual Assistants (https://www.ukava.co.uk/) an organisation set up to raise awareness of the role of virtual pas, provide a Directory of UK Virtual Assistants and an information resource for both VA’s and their clients has teamed up with Emma Walker, another hugely successful VA and owner of CKPA Office Solutions (http://www.ckpa.co.uk/). A true entrepreneur, Emma also became involved with The Athena Network in June 2007 bringing the women’s networking group to the Black Country.

Emma said, “We are really excited to be launching such a unique service to new and established Virtual Assistants throughout the UK. We wanted to offer practical business building tools and services to help VAs create their perfect business without having to go through the steep learning curve that we did. It’s amazing that they can now benefit from our years of hands on experience”.

So is this just another training course? “Absolutely not” says Justine “this is unlike anything else available”.

The hub of all the activity is the web site at http://www.vasuccessgroup.co.uk/ where exclusive products and services are being added as soon as they are released. Justine said, “The best decision you can make for your business today is to go over to the web site and sign up for the free newsletter. That way you’ll be the first to know what’s happening and be best placed to take advantage of some very special limited offers”. To sign up for the newsletter visit: http://www.vasuccessgroup.co.uk/

Justine added, “We are also running a spectacular competition where you can win some incredible business development tools”. What are you waiting for? Visit http://www.vasuccessgroup.co.uk/ now!

The Average Employee Spends 95 Minutes a Week Surfing The Net

by

The CBI announced this week that the average employee spends 95 minutes a week surfing the Internet for personal use at a cost to the economy of £10.6bn a year.

Its research showed that while many organisations are supportive of staff visiting non-work related websites, and view it as a motivational perk or a modern-day tea break, others are troubled by the amount of use, or have had to sack staff for serious abuse.

The survey of 503 organisations, which together employ over one million workers, also revealed that nearly two-thirds (60%) of employers think staff regularly use office time outside of lunch hours and formal breaks to look at non-work sites, like those involving social networking, web email, shopping and holidays.

Employers across the public and private sectors estimate that 4.4% of working time is lost in this way, which accounts for 95 minutes a week, or ten days a year, at an average annual cost of £939 per employee.

So if potential employers want to get an extra 10 days a year of real work from each member of their team, isn’t it about time they thought of employing a Virtual Assistant? As we all know, with a virtual assistant you only pay for the hours worked on your business, no personal web surfing, no downtime, no holiday pay, sickness pay, maternity pay, training or equipments costs. What do you think?

Source: CBI.Org

My Virtual Assistant and UKAVA Assists BBC Live and Learn and Gets New Start Up on the Road to Success

by

My Virtual Assistant and UKAVA founder Justine Curtis was recently called upon by the BBC to give advice to a virtual business start up taking part in their Live and Learn series. As a successful virtual business owner herself, Justine was asked to pass on the benefit of her experience and expertise to a young mum setting up her own virtual marketing company.

Justine is the owner of My Virtual Assistant (www.my-va.com) a company offering PA and secretarial services to entrepreneurs and small businesses virtually from her home office in the UK. She is also the founder of the UK Association of Virtual Assistants, (www.ukava.co.uk) an organisation set up to raise awareness of the role of virtual assistants (VAs) and provide a one-stop shop for information and advice for both VAs and their clients.

The BBC’s Live and Learn program focused on Claire, a young mum setting up her own virtual Internet marketing company. At the time she was introduced to Justine by the BBC, Claire was in the initial stages of setting up her company and was keen to learn the next steps, how to build her client base and how to let the world know her business existed. In a filmed meeting that took place on a chilly day in February in Basingstoke, UK, Claire was given the opportunity to ask all her burning questions. Justine freely gave advice about how to approach previous and existing contacts, how to network for new contacts and various organisations that could help her. She also gave advice on the importance of marketing your web site when your business is virtual and how best to go about it. At the end of the meeting Claire took on board the advice about networking and began by taking Justine’s business card in case she thought of any more questions she’d like to ask in the future.

The whole interview can be seen on the BBCs Live and Learn series, presented by Melinda Messenger, and can be viewed on BBC Interactive by pressing the red button.

Resources: Justine Curtis is the founder of My Virtual Assistant, a virtual office service operating across the UK, providing virtual office support, personal assistance, secretarial services and administration services remotely from its UK based office. For more information about Virtual Assistants visit www.my-va.com.