Being a virtual assistant and being a local assistant
Posted May 22nd, 2008 by Net SecretaryWhen I moved into my new office premises in January of this year, I was no longer the traditional Virtual Assistant who worked from their home office. It was a quandary - did I still call myself a Virtual Assistant, a secretarial service, an admin support business or something else? I have decided to stick with the term Virtual Assistant as I feel it describes what I still do as the majority of my work.
I am also local computer and office support for individuals and businesses in my area, but I also service them virtually, so I believe the term is still relevant. As I see it, I am merely adding another facet to my business by having a shopfront that people can come and physically meet me or hand over work. I still perform the work virtually (I don’t do onsite work) and in most cases can return the completed job via email. I think I have the best of both worlds.
Does anyone have any suggestions of titles to describe what I do? Perhaps Virtual and Personal Assistant (VAPA)?
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
Topic: VA Industry |
Email This Post
|
Print This Post
Help others find this article at:
May 22nd, 2008 at 8:52 pm
Great question Deanne. This is something I was asked when I moved into my office space. It didn’t even occur to me that other’s would perceive me to no longer be a Virtual Assistant just because I didn’t work from home anymore (or majority of the time). Besides moving into an office, nothing else has changed for me. I still work virtually, I still leverage technology and the internet to look after my clients and I am still a Virtual Assistant. If anything its the word Assistant that throw people off a little. I quite like the term Online Business Manager or Virtual Professional.
May 23rd, 2008 at 6:40 am
Deanne - do you mind if I ask why you’ve moved from a home office to office space? At the moment, I think the best part of being a VA is that I get to work from home. Of course, when my significant other retires and is home full-time, I may get an office, too!
Kylie - I like your term “Virtual Professional”!
May 23rd, 2008 at 7:54 am
Hi Melodee
Thanks for your comment. There are a couple of reasons why I moved into office space. The first is that I moved to a relatively small town about a year ago and I found that people do business a bit differently here. They like to have the personal contact with you (face to face) and I had a few requests from prospects to meet me. This usually ended up being at the local coffee shop but all expressed a wish to come to my home, which I wasn’t comfortable with (and not insured for!). There is also nothing like what I offer in my district, so I wanted to set myself up as THE secretarial/virtual admin support for the area and wanted a visible shopfront to achieve that. Thirdly, it has assisted me to separate home and work life as both were encroaching on each other.
Now thats not to say that I will always have my shopfront. I may ‘move back home’ at some point but for now I’m enjoying it, I still pop home for lunch and if my child is sick, I merely put a sign on the door of my office and forward the office phone to my mobile and work on my laptop at home. Best of both worlds!
Deanne