VA Start Up Story: Kelly of Pocket-PA

Today’s post comes from Kelly of Pocket-PA and is the first in our series of start up stories from everyday VAs.  So often we get asked “What’s it like to be a virtual assistant?” “What kind of clients do you work with?” Hopefully this series will show what real VAs get up to and demonstrate that all sorts of people are earning a living being a VA in the UK.My name is Kelly Oliver-Wilcox, I am 29 years old and I live in Telford, Shropshire.

I have been a Director level PA for some 10 years and in my previous employment I was streamlined from PA to the Sales Director to being the Bid Manager of the company. Although I loved the role I was undertaking, towards the end of my employment I was really starting to miss the fast paced, varied, changeable environment of being a PA. The company I was working for was at great risk due to the state of the economy and many employees were being made redundant and although my position never seemed to hit the ‘at risk list’ I was being warned that it really could just be a matter of time. So I gave some serious though to what I wanted to do and where I wanted to be and I realised that being my own boss and providing a second to none service which would give me an enormous amount of job satisfaction was the way to go. But not only that, I gave serious thought to the situation I had come from and how the economic climate was affecting companies and how I could actually help to provide a solution that many companies needed. So to that end I set up Pocket-pa. I am now 4/5 months in and there is no looking back!

Kelly with her first clients – the Kawasaki British Superbikes race team

The biggest challenge I have found is getting your name out there and building that level of trust with new prospective clients. I personally have been very lucky as before I was even in a position to start my new business my services had come highly recommended and my first major client was already there waiting for me.

When I was starting I scoured the internet for information and did lots of research on other VAs, looking at their websites and finding out what they had to offer. I also found it very useful to visit the VA forums.

My top tip for new VAs would be full of determination and be willing to go that extra mile!!

My website: www.pocket-pa.me.uk