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.