Start Up VAs
Virtual Assistant Business or VA job?
Many people dream of becoming a virtual assistant, being their own boss, and having the freedom to only take on clients and projects they love. What they don’t realise, though, is that there is a huge difference between building a virtual assistant business and being self-employed as one. Business owners scale their income. Self-employed people…
Read MoreChoose the best virtual assistant course
Virtual Assistant Training – what to look for If you’re a newbie VA, one of the first things you’ll look at is finding the best virtual assistant course or some virtual assistant training. I am probably going to get very nasty emails about this post – I know there are going to be good friends…
Read MoreOffering Call Answering as a VA
Call answering – how do I charge for it? We get asked about answering calls on behalf of clients often enough that we started copying and pasting the answers from old call answering threads… So we thought we’d do a blog post on it instead! The first thing I’ll say about answering phones: You cannot…
Read MoreHow many secretarial skills do you use in your VA business?
Had an interesting chat recently with Rosemary Parr who runs Scottish PA Network – we were chatting about the different skillsets VAs and PAs have…and that’s why the transition can sometimes be difficult. I thought it might be useful to run a poll: Certainly on the SVA Forum there’s some debate about what is unique…
Read MoreVAT Registration – for VAs!
It is very unlikely that you will have to register for VAT, at least initially, as a virtual assistant. You only have to register if: Your turnover (the amount you invoice your clients) for the previous 12 months is more than £85,000, the threshold at the time of writing, OR You expect to go over…
Read MoreTackling Late Payments
The Small Business Commissioner, Paul Uppal, has been tasked with tackling late payments for small businesses… We all know the pain of juggling cashflow because a client has been late to pay. The knock on effect means you can’t pay your own suppliers – or maybe it means you are late paying household bills? Getting…
Read MoreVirtual Assistant Insurance
Virtual Assistant Insurance Over the years we’ve done a variety of articles on why virtual assistant insurance is needed: Virtual Assistant Insurance Claims – what can go wrong? VA Nightmares Policy Bee – our recommended insurer And we included professional indemnity insurance in our VA Standards for Approved VAs who appear on our FIND A…
Read MoreVirtual Assistant Directory Advertising – is it worth it?
We’ve had a few virtual assistant directory sites pop up offering advertising recently. I typed out a long response on whether I thought it was was using these on one of the Facebook groups and thought it was worth posting here too: Why not use a Virtual Assistant Directory? Over the years we’ve had VA…
Read MoreTop 10 Tips for Becoming a Virtual Assistant
SVA put together 10 baby-steps to becoming a Virtual Assistant – a must-read for any aspiring assistant!
Read MorePrice increase letters
Over the years we’ve been asked for examples of price increase letters – each VA business is different and you will know your clients best, but here’s a few ideas about how you can increase your virtual assistant rates without alienating the clients. Why raise your virtual assistant rates? Firstly, remember that your clients will…
Read More