Tweet

Who and What is a Virtual Assistant?

Written by: Rita Cartwright

Article Overview: As an entrepreneur and small business owner, you’ve probably heard the term “Virtual Assistant (VA),” but you are still not quite sure exactly what a Virtual Assistant is or what they do or don’t do. Think of a Virtual Assistant as your online administrative assistant.

Who and What is a Virtual Assistant?

As an entrepreneur and small business owner, you've probably heard the term "Virtual Assistant (VA)," but you are still not quite sure exactly what a Virtual Assistant is or what they do or don't do. Think of a Virtual Assistant as your online administrative assistant. However, there are still misconceptions that exist. I'm going to attempt to clear those up. "A Virtual Assistant is a professional who specializes in providing administrative support and expertise," says Danielle Keister of Virtual Assistant Chamber of Commerce. The business community is still conditioned to think of virtual assistants as employees. This type of thinking can devalue the true worth of a VA; as a result, potential clients tend to focus on the cost of the services rather than the value a VA can bring to the table. When you pencil out the benefits you reap from working with them, you will realize that they are not as expensive as you first thought.

Since VAs are professional entrepreneurs, they are quite versed in business operations. You won't have to worry about time-consuming tasks; such as, e-mail marketing campaigns, maintaining your website, following up with your clients, bookkeeping, creating a new blog, updating your blog, to name a few. As Danielle points out, a Virtual Assistant can help you move your business forward.

The qualifications and skills that they possess as VAs enable them to be experts in their fields, as well as in their profession as entrepreneurs. You receive more than administrative support, you have someone you can consult with, bounce ideas off of, brainstorm with, as well as utilize some of their business practices. If it works for their business, it may work for yours. In addition, your VA becomes familiar with how you operate your business; as a result, s/he can help your business operations run smoothly.

The benefits you reap as an entrepreneur from this type of business relationship outweighs any fees that you may perceive as being expensive. If you choose to work with offshore virtual assistants to save a few bucks, you will not receive this type of value-added service and expertise, mainly due to cultural differences.

If you are trying to decide if it is time to retain the services of a Virtual Assistant, it depends on whether or not you find yourself spending more time working in your business rather than working on your business. If it is the former, you should work with a VA. S/he can assist you with those daily, time-consuming tasks, which divert your focus away from working on your business. Working on your business requires just as much concentration and is necessary if you want to grow your company.

There are several VA forums that have directories listing their members and how to contact them. You can start your search at VAnetworking, Virtual Assistant Chamber of Commerce, Search4VAs, Virtual Assistant Forums, and International Virtual Assistants Association, to name a few.

Although the VA industry has existed for nearly 10 years, due to workers becoming business owners because of downsizing and layoffs, VAs are suddenly in high demand. However, potential clients, and some VAs, need to recondition their concept of what a Virtual Assistant really is and what they do and don't do. They are independent contractors not employees.

Related Articles
  What Is A Virtual Assistant Business
  The Need for a Virtual Assistant Association
  What to Give the Exec Who Has Everything
  How To Hire A Virtual Assistant
  Virtual Assistants - Getting Started

Article Tags: administrative assistant, entrepreneur, small business owner, what is a virtual assistant



Related Forum Posts
Outsource your work? - Hi BinaryGuy - do you really need someone 4 days a week to do accounting work? If you bring someone more experienced on you won't have to take them around with you and you can spend the time building your business. There are a number of people who you can outsource the work to - either a Virtual Assistant or a bookkeeper - have you thought about these options and not having someone actually come into the office?
Why should I hire a virtual assistant for SEO purposes? - Do you find it hard to find time for rest because of promoting your business or your website all by yourself? Well, perhaps it is the right time for you to hire the services of an SEO virtual assistant. Virtual assistants for SEO services will help you on the process of improving your rankings within search engine results to achieve an increase in natural traffic. The higher your site in the search engine results page, the more traffic and sales conversions you will obtain. Using the services of virtual assistants (VAs) certainly is the best method to move in order immediate results and in reduced operational charges. This provides a great answer especially for a small business owner whoever company is actually considerably expanding, and the jobs have normally doubled. Here are some of the services that a virtual assistant can do for you: • Traffic Geyser • Main Street Marketing • Data Entry • Web Research • Market Samurai • Managing Facebook • Managing Twitter • SEO • Local Business Listing Robot • Traffic Revolution • Infusionsoft • Senuke • Angela’s Banklink • Linkjuicer • Blogging • SMM • Virtual Assistant • Personal Assistant • Article Writing • Spinning Article • Press release • Email Response Handling • Online Order Processing • Word Processing • Forum/Comment Posting • Social Bookmarking • Video Editor • Internet Marketing • Email Marketing • Link Building • Powerpoint Presentations • Web Development • Other Administrative Support
Re: Is This The Answer For A Busy Entrepreneur?? - [quote="litekepr":396nnmxn]Have any people on the forum had experiences with virtual assistants?? Did it work for you?? If not, what kind of problems did you have?? Did you find a way to resolve these problems?? Shri[/quote:396nnmxn] I tried to get a job as a virtual assistant - I would have loved to do it... - but the job fell through. I don't think my prospective employer realized how much it would have cost for me to be doing the work she wanted... and after a prelimary 10 hours just to see how it'd work, she figured it would be cheaper to do it all herself! And I've got to agree! Unless the "boss" is some big shot who thinks the Virtual Assistant is a status symbol and is willing to pay for it, most VAs won't last long....
Hello from Nova Scotia, Canada - Hello all! I'm a Virtual Assistant and just started my business this past summer. I specialize in freeing up time and saving money for my clients by taking care of the time consuming, yet necessary, tasks that keep them from working on the revenue generating aspect of the business. At present my clients are from one end of Canada to the other - Prince Edward Island, British Columbia and here in Nova Scotia. I do a variety of tasks for them; client contact management, newsletters, website and blog updating; social network support and maintenance, and admin support within the financial services industry to name a few. I joined this forum because I feel it would be valuable to connect with those outside the VA world. I'm looking to get a different perspective on business from the varied entrepreneurs here and be able to give something back as well. Looking forward to meeting everyone!
Kathie from Melbourne, Australia - Hello everyone, I've been a contributing author for quite sometime with Evan Carmichael but only recently became aware of this forum - I didn't know it existed. I'm a mother of 5 daughters and wife of Graham. We live in Melbourne, Australia. My business was begun early 1994 fulltime from home so I could be here with our girls as they were growing up. I began a homebased secretarial business which became a Virtual Assistant business and network as the internet took hold in the business world. Today I manage a network of VAs in 15 countries. Blogging became the perfect outlet for me as I'm an avid writer so I write several blogs, have authored some books as well and periodically do articles for printed publications and online ezines and newsletters. Finally I've recently entered the speaking 'circuit' speaking at conferences, seminars and teleseminars, mainly in Australia but have begun to do a few teleseminars and radio shows for the US. I've just been asked to do my first 'physical presence' conference in Canada in 2009 which I am quite excited about.


Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.

Tweet

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

Build Corporate Credit for Your Small Business

Business Coach Explains To You How To Add Value

How To Be Happy at Work? Acknowledge Yourself

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.