Virtural Assistant Part I

Hi to all. If any of you were in the wake of Hurricane Ike, I hope all is well. I know it is not over yet with rebuilding and getting back to whatever normal you can. All our best thoughts and hopes are with you. On an aside, if you were fortunate enough not to have ever been caught in an emergency such as Katrina or Ike you will never know how needful relief can be. If some of my suggestions lead you to some extra money, please consider making a donation to the Red Cross or some other relief organization. The need is great and the funds are running low. Do what you can.

Now if you will forgive me for getting back to our pursuit here. Making some extra money without spending a ton in return. As many of you know we are coming along nicely with the corner stone of this project. The myhomepagefriends GPT surf the net program. Dan is building s for our members and things are coming together. If you haven’t signed up yet go to tenorman8@ymail.com he will give you all the facts and run downs.

With paid surveys being another avenue towards extra change in your pockets I went ahead and started another blog to concentrate on that area with reviews and tips on all things surveys at surveylowdown.blogspot.com . Any suggestion you have on how we can improve our intrepid project just chime in. This is a work in progress and we intend to try and help as many people as possible become wealthier and have some fun in the process.

Now this week’s idea is a bit of a challenge, but one that might pay great dividends. Market yourself as a Virtual Assistant. This has all the buzz going for it these days and is considered a growing field. With the nature of business changing every day, the way business is conducted must also change. Many a small business have an urgent need for help but don’t have the funds for full time staff such as a secretary or assistant.

In a nutshell a virtual assistant (VA) is an individual who provides services for businesses or professionals over the Internet. Communication is generally done online although there may be phone conversations. Files are sent back and forth via email or fax, and completed work is returned the same way. Virtual assistants can have clients in their local area or across the country, sometimes halfway around the world. VA’s can work anywhere depending on what services can be offered. VA’s often never even meet their clients face to face.
VA’s need not limit themselves to working for only one business or professional, instead they may work for numerous clients, whether long-term or a project at a time.
As a VA, you can offer wide-ranging services. Think about your strong points. Are you an experienced secretary? Is desktop publishing your passion? Do you have a law background that would allow you to offer legal assistance? The possibilities for the services you can offer really are endless. You can offer as many or as few services as you’d like. Just make sure you are strong in the services you are going to offer. It’s obviously better to offer one service in which you excel rather than a handful of services in which your expertise is only marginal. Lets take a list of the services a VA can offer that is by no means complete.. .
· Accounting
· Bookkeeping
· Data entry
· Desktop Publishing
· Dictation
· Event Planning
· Internet Research
· Legal
· Mailing
· Marketing
· Phone support
· Proofreading
· Secretarial
· Transcription (medical, legal, etc.)
· Translation
· Travel Arrangements
· Web site design and maintenance
· Word Processing

How much you earn will depend on what you have to offer. Some VA’s charge about $10 per hour while others as high as $50. So depending on what you want to charge it is what the market allows. You can find out what others are making. You can find this out by Googling virtual assistance or possibly checking with you local Chamber of Commerce.
Your level of experience will also have a bearing on your fee. Remember, this can be life experience as well as office experience. A beginner won’t want to charge as much as someone with ten years of solid experience in a fortune 500 firms. As you gain so will your ability to demand a higher fee.

Start up costs for a VA business could be virtually nothing, especially if you already have most of the equipment you’ll need. A computer, Internet connection, a phone with an answering machine and a fax and your ready to go.
Most computers already come equipped with some sort of fax program, and you can usually find a printer/scanner/copier combination for around $100, a worthy investment. Do you already have an office in your home? If not, is there an area you can designate specifically for your virtual assistant business? This is an issue for an accountant but treat what you do seriously and keep records.
In part 2 we will go over more of the fine points and some extra resources.