What is a Virtual Assistant?
How to get into Virtual Assisting...
Where to find work...
...and how to hire one!
A Virtual Assistant (VA/virtual office assistant)
is an entrepreneur who provides assistance to clients from a home office setting for a variety of administrative, technical, or creative tasks.
This new way of assisting is a growing niche for Administrative Assistants and can be extremely rewarding professionally and personally. Virtual Office Assisting is not only great for the assistant but can be a life saver for small or emerging businesses who cannot afford to hire 24/7 full time employees.
VAs are truly the CEOs of their own virtual business who can decide how much they work, when they work, and who they work for on a regular basis (much like a contractor). A major advantage to becoming one is the ability to work with your clients as though you are a business partner, unlike working for some corporations where you can be dumped on and treated like just the hired help.
There are some great sites on the web created for VAs promoting their own business and there are many more that serve as forums for VAs to offer their services. Better yet, there are groups of Virtual Assistants out there that work together in a partnership or as a team to not only get referrals and business but, to help each other on projects as well. A huge advantage of advertising your services with a group is to give clients options for a VA familiar with a target market. For example, some executives are looking for an assistant with some experience in the real estate or medical field.
What do Virtual Assistants do?
Many of the same tasks and projects an administrative assistant would perform. But, they can do much more and from the comfort of their own home in most cases. As an entrepreneurial Jill (or Jack) of all trades the possibilities are endless. There are many professionals like wedding or event planners, marketing companies, web designers, etc. that offer their services virtually. If you have experience with marketing or website design and how to make a website work on the net you take your job possibilities to a whole new level!
