When 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!

I’ve had my blog site redesigned to look like Net Secretary’s website so visitors don’t think they’ve left the site (which they haven’t!). What do you think? I am thrilled with it. It is much easier to use, write and post blogs plus I have lots of new widgets and existing features from the website in the sidebars. There is even a handy Skype widget in the right hand column (you might need to scroll down) which tells visitors whether I’m online or not and they can Skype me.

It’s good to refresh the look of one’s website every once in a while and the blog was something I’ve been meaning to do for a while, so I’m glad I got around to it!

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

I wanted to share a really worthwhile tip for achieving extra exposure for your virtual assistant business and setting yourself up as an ‘expert’ in your field. I write a regular monthly column for my local community newspaper called ‘Know How by Net Secretary’. In it I share computer tips, tricks, interesting websites or a shortcut to doing something on your computer. This has helped to increase my customer mailing list as I always put a link to my website at the end of each of my articles. It also has increased Net Secretary’s visibility in the local community as many people enjoy the tips and recognise that Net Secretary brought it to them. I volunteer my time to write this monthly column but the extra exposure and recognition and goodwill it brings to my business is invaluable. So if you’re a Virtual Assistant, this is a great way to bring you back to grassroots in your local community or town and increase awareness of your brand.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Bookkeeping services were not something that Net Secretary offered previously, although a lot of virtual assistants do. I had previously not had formal training in bookkeeping and to be frank, it’s not really an area I was greatly interested in, having disliked Accounting at high school. However, times do change and the first inkling of change was getting my own books into a different bookkeeping system, having out grown the Tax Office’s E-record. Also, a local client approached me to do his books in Quickbooks, among other secretarial services for him. So that is the programme I have chosen to go with.

I am currently completing a bookkeeping course so that I have the basic knowledge behind it all. The Quickbooks programme itself is easy to pick up.

So there you have it, another virtual assistant service added to Net Secretary’s already wide range of services.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

I was recently interviewed by a journalist from my local regional newspaper about being a Virtual Assistant and IVAD (International Virtual Assistants Day). This was in response to a press release I had faxed to the newspaper a couple of days earlier. I was really thrilled to be speaking to this journalist because I have never received media coverage of any kind for Net Secretary and it was a great way to educate her about what Virtual Assistants do and how I got to be one and why. The journalist was extremely interested in the ‘how’ and couldn’t quite believe I do work for clients, some of whom I have never met. I think the key to getting good media coverage is to have a newsworthy angle that the publication is interested in. In my case, I played up the ‘local’ virtual assistant angle working in an international or global industry while still achieving work/life balance.

I have yet to see the story published in the local newspaper (I thought it may have been in on Friday) but I shall keep an eye out for it and post a link here when it is published.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

For the third year in a row, I will be celebrating with over 50,000 other Virtual Assistants the 3rd Annual International Virtual Assistants Day (IVAD) on Friday, 16 May 2008. On this day, VA’s celebrate individual accomplishments and the important contributions we make to the growth and stability of small businesses everywhere. According to the Alliance for Virtual Businesses, some 90 per cent of VA’s are highly-skilled working mothers who choose to start their own businesses to achieve a better work/life balance. My situation is no different. I started this new career in October 2004 to spend more time with my son, achieve better work/life balance, feel like I am making a difference to clients lives and achieve personal satisfaction from seeing the direct results of my labour. I feel that I have achieved all of this and more. My client list has increased 400% since then, I now have a shopfront in the main street of my town, I have an assistant, and I have won a Highly Recommended in the Australian Achievers Awards. I love what I do and couldn’t imagine being or doing anything else.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

I recently had to spend a few days in hospital with a serious infection. As a normally healthy person, this was a complete shock to me. The onset of the illness was quite sudden and I was very unprepared for managing my business during this incapacitation. This experience has taught me that one’s health is so very important but also the importance of having contingency plans in place for one’s business. Luckily, I was able to enlist the assistance of my cousin to email my clients and let them know what had happened and that I would be out of action for a week or so. My photographic memory enabled me to remember most of the email addresses off the top of my head and a little research by my cousin found the ones I could not remember. For the most part this worked quite well, but it also was a timely reminder that I need to finish putting together my business manual so that this information can be easily accessed in my absence.  Good planning can avoid this type of stress during an illness or while on vacation, times when one needs to be relaxing and not thinking about the business.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

I haven’t written here for a while - Net Secretary has been bubbling along nicely and life has got in the way a bit, so I thought I should stop by and blog. I’ve been thinking lately about how trusting your instincts in business is so imperative, both in terms of business practices but also when it comes to new clients. I always ensure I have an Agreement in place with all my clients as a protection for both myself and for them. However, there are some prospective clients that I just won’t work with. Call it a gut feeling or intuition, I just know these clients are going to be bad payers, difficult and demanding to work with or that we are just not a “good fit”. Thankfully as an independent contractor, I can choose who I want to to work with and who I don’t and if a client relationship is not working out, I have the right to terminate that relationship as per the terms of our Agreement. This is why trusting my intuition is so important because that inner voice saves me from a lot of heartache and stress. This can be a little more tricky with long distance clients and as a Virtual Assistant, I need to ask lots of questions before I agree to work with a client. I think being a good fit with each other is extremely important for a satisfying, long term, successful working relationship.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Hi everyone

I just had to repost this from an email Kathie Thomas sent to the Virtual Assistants Forum a couple of weeks ago. How many of these can you relate to hearing before?

• The Marathon Message: The extremely long voicemail that never ends.
• The Death March: Leaving a phone number at the end of a long voicemail. If you missed it, you then have to listen to the entire message again just to get the phone number.
• The Screaming Eagle: The voicemail left in a noisy bar or as a fire truck is passing by.
• The Drunken Dispatch: The drunk dial voicemail.
• Voicemail Interruptus: As the person is leaving the voicemail, they stop in the middle to have a conversation with someone else or answer another call before they return to finish the message.
• The Misguided Message: A person or telemarketer leaves a message for you that was actually intended for someone else.
• Voicemail Incognito: The anonymous voicemail.
• One Way Wonder: When the person thinks they are speaking to you when they are actually talking to your voicemail.
• The Pocket Dialer: The person that accidentally calls you because the phone is in their pocket or bag and isn’t locked, leading to an endless soundtrack of them walking down the street, driving or having a conversation with someone else.
• And, worst of all, the person who rattles off their telephone number at lightening speed, causing you to have to repeatedly go back over the entire message to try and decipher the digits.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

There has been recent attention in the media given to offshore outsourcing to VA’s in India and similar countries. Most recently was a story on the “Today” show on Channel 9 in Australia. The theme seems to be that it is a cheap option for business owners to save them money.

Most of these advocates pushing the “cheap” option don’t realise or just ignore the fact that we have a thriving Virtual Assistance industry in Australia, an industry filled with experienced, skilled, educated and professional VA’s. Going for the ‘cheap’ option in India may just prove to be a false economy - often English is not the first language and it can be tricky for someone to pick up the nuances of Australian English if they are not from here. I have heard first hand of businesses outsourcing their transcription to someone in India, only to have it returned in such bad shape, they then have to spend hours going over it themselves to make sense of it, or pay someone in Australia to tidy it up or re-transcribe it. Where is the cost saving in that? Or time saving for that matter?
I am sure that there are professionals in India just like there are in any other country (in fact I have dealt with a couple myself who were IT specialists and very, very good at what they do) but the advocates of this cheap option seem to be pushing the unskilled, non-professional workers as “VA”s which is misleading and gives our professional industry a tarnished image.

I firmly believe you get what you pay for - if you pay peanuts, you quite often get monkeys.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!