Start Up VAs
New Year – New business planner / diary!
If you are an organised Virtual Assistant, you may already have ordered the bible which keeps you on track… Planner, diary, journal, organiser, filofax – doesn’t matter what you call it, just that it works. Surprisingly for an online industry, there’s a big slice of the VA industry who rely on paper and pencil to…
Read MoreVirtual Assistant Skills – unique to the industry!
Virtual Assistant Skills: “I’ve been a PA for 26 years – I don’t need told how to write a document” – except this aspiring virtual assistant most definitely did need told, because she had just completed our virtual assistant skills spelling test and had spectacularly failed it leaving in misspelt words, inconsistent formatting and hadn’t…
Read MoreIs “virtual assistant” going out of fashion?
The USA tends to be about 5 years ahead of us here in the UK when it comes to the virtual assistant world… (Check out the history of the virtual assistant! https://www.societyofvirtualassistants.co.uk/2013/07/08/the-history-of-the-virtual-assistant-2/) But one trend I’ve noticed is that increasingly VAs are distancing themselves from the term “virtual assistant”. A variety of words are now…
Read MoreSo you want to be a subcontractor virtual assistant?
(Or how much a VA’s virtual assistant gets paid!) “They’re paying HOW MUCH for a virtual assistant subcontractor???” Yes, the outraged exclamations on Facebook Groups for a subcontract virtual assistant job this week raised a lot of eyebrows… But you know, the virtual assistants doing these subcontract jobs aren’t necessarily doing the same job as…
Read MoreThe Longest Ever VA Business Set-Up?
The Mourne Mountains In 2005 I found myself living at the foot of the Mourne Mountains in Ireland with my husband and children who were then 4, 12 and 14 years old. Of course, having a young family and moving away is always a difficult time and I wanted to do something other than applying…
Read MoreBecoming a new VA
“So what do you do as a job?” Since becoming a full-time V.A. in January this year I haven’t quite worked out a satisfactory reply to that question. So what do I do? Data entry, creating websites, researching CRMs, testing software, social media management, event planning, project planning, everything planning. Well, I do it all.…
Read MoreOutsourcing Masterclass
Hiring Your First VA – Outsourcing Masterclass When I hired my first VA, I made mistakes – BIG mistakes. It took me hours and hours and hours to set her up. It seemed like I was wasting time by explaining how to do stuff, and it would be quicker if I just did it myself. …
Read MoreOffice* – Virtual Assistant Myths!
Virtual Assistant Myths Here is our presentation from Office* 2017 – this year for the first time incorporating the PA Show and the VA Conference and Awards. Many thanks to John Palmer and the BeMyVA team for inviting me to present and launch the UK VA Survey data collection appeal! We had a really interesting…
Read More7 Habits of Highly Effective VAs
Shamefully stolen from Professor Stephen Covey’s book, these are a few habits that I’ve noticed successful VAs have in common – and I don’t think it’s by accident!
Read MoreVirtual Assistant Franchise – or buying a VA Business
Buying a VA Business – Virtual Assistant Franchises If you are serious about expanding your business, you might look at buying a VA business to expand rapidly. These deals can be an excellent way of expanding your client list, owning a ready-made business, and a shortcut to SEO supremacy… But they can also be extremely…
Read More