The Virtual Perception

Today, a brand new book for VAs was released from fellow VA Alyssa Gregory named, VA Secrets Revealed!. The book is an insiders guide to becoming a successful virtual assistant from one who knows.

What’s covered in the book includes:

• Common mistakes VAs make
• Whether the VA Business is right for you
• Finding & keeping clients
• Marketing on a budget
• Secrets to success

Plus, when you purchase the group she gives access to her Online VA Resource Toolkit.

Alyssa is an experienced home-based business owner since 2001 and a successful Virtual Assistant since 2003. From her experience in the VA industry, Alyssa has gone into public speaking, has become coach and mentor for aspiring VAs. Along with her great new book, she also is offering a coaching program for new and aspiring VAs.

Way to go Alyssa!

This blog is intended for people exploring the Virtual Assistant world, new VAs and veteran VAs that want some tips, tricks and suggestions. When starting this blog, I accidentally left of a post about what an actual VA is. That is kind-of an important point, especially for those who are first exploring the idea.

So the definition of a Virtual Assistant as taken from my own website:

A Virtual Assistant (VA) is an highly skilled administrative professional who provides a wide range of business services including administrative, technical, creative, marketing & web support services to small business and entrepreneurs. A VA partners with their clients, learn about their business, and help them with your specific business needs for the long term, unlike most temps.  VA’s are independent contractors and work “virtually” out of their own office or from anywhere, and their clients can hail from all over the globe. VAs primarily communicate with their clients via internet, fax, telephone or other methods of communication.

One thing I want to stress above all that being a VA is not just another job one can get, but is a serious small business venture. You work as an independent business owner, being your own boss, setting your own hours, and finding your own clients, etc. As I’ve stated before, it isn’t always easy being a small business owner, and this is definitely not a “get rich quick” scheme at all.

Being a Virtual Assistant can be hard work, but it is a rich experience that I wouldn’t give up for the world.

In an earlier post, So How Do I Become a VA, I covered ways to become a Virtual Assistant since it is a question I get asked so often in my other networking sites I participate in. And while I mentioned 3 different ways, starting a business, working as a sub for other VAs, and working for a virtual staffing agency. the comment from Stacy Brice gave me a thought that I need to clarify on that subject.

Being a Virtual Assistant is not something one does on a whim or something you do for a hobby. It is not something you do to make a quick buck or something that takes little effort. Stacy is right in saying that working as an independent contractor, you ARE a business owner. And really, to be a successful VA, your endeavor needs to be taken seriously and really treated like a business. It takes some work and dedication, but you can be a successful VA if you set things up right and have the right frame of mind towards your business.

In my opinion, it is especially important to view being a VA as a business when you expect to support yourself or make your ideal income from it. Though there are the options of being a subcontracting VA or virtual “staff” for an agency, I don’t think one should ever rely on those sources alone to support your ideal income.

Since subcontracting work can be irregular or sparse at some times, waiting around for someone to hand over work to you is not going to make the money roll in. I mean as a subcontractor, you do receive the work without making the effort in marketing and securing the clients. But if you are looking for a situation to make steady income and by having work given to you without much effort, then you probably are better off getting a 9-5 job.

Successful VAs, part-time and full-time, subs and non-subs, put forth effort to set up their business properly, they market regularly, and snag clients of their own. It is a regular occurrence for a VA to sub for other VAs to help supplement their incomes while having their own clients. That is something I did that helped when I first started my business. But again, I don’t think subcontracting should be one’s sole source of VA work.

In my experience of adding Associate VA team members to my practice, I have decided that I will only accept those who are serious about their own VA business. It is a good sign to me when I see that they have some clients of their own and have their business set up properly (appropriate business filings, business name, etc.) It lets me know that they are dedicated and that they don’t view this as a hobby. If one is not passionate and working to make an effort in their own business, how can I know if they take the work I have them seriously and make a good effort?

One great idea that I have seen a few new and emerging VA’s go for is setting up their business and marketing specifically to other Virtual Assistants. If one wants to be a VA and work for other VAs, why not design your business to work with that niche?  Be a VA’s VA! Virtual Assistants need help too, and it is a great target market to get started with.

So, if you’re a new Virtual Assistant or still thinking about becoming a VA, hopefully I’ve given you some food for thought on how serious you should take the VA world.

I just wanted to let you know that I added a great new resource to my VA Resourcespage today. It is a new eBook just put out there by systems diva, Kristi Pavlik of Adonai Business Solutions, and it has created a bit of buzz already in the VA community. (3 different people happened to mention it to me yesterday alone)

Kristi’s eBook is called Systems of a Successful VAand contains great bits of information on process documentation, flow chart examples, and templates to help new and seasoned VAs create systems for their business.

I will be getting myself a copy (I can always use some help in getting my business to run smoother), and I recommend all other VAs to check it out too!

The importance of online social networking seems to be a subject I am preaching about a lot to my real estate clients. But it is also crucial to running a Virtual Assistant business.

By virtue of being “Virtual” the life blood of our business comes from online sources. So we must reach out and market ourselves online in any way possible. And the beauty is that online social networking is has very little to no cost involved with some of the top networking sites. (There are some that have fees, but I have personally found value in many of the free networks and have never had to pay and have had great results).

To start your social networking for you VA business, start with your peers. Join several of the VA networks available out there (many of them on my VA Resources page) and start conversing with other Virtual Assistants. It is a excellent place to get your questions answered about the industry, how to handle certain client situations, how to find more work. But don’t only glean information from them, contribute! Contribute to topics that you have interest in or extensive experience and knowledge in. Doing so will get you noticed, show what you know, and you may get thrown some subcontracting work from other VAs.

Other social networks you should consider joining if you haven’t already are Facebook, Myspace and LinkedIn. Before, may have felt that these first two of those sites had nothing to do with business and they were only for the kids. But as I posted in my other blog, I was definitely wrong.  In fact I have received many viable leads, and in fact I get more activity and leads, the more involved I am in the Facebook/Myspace/LinkedIn worlds.

And perhaps one of the most important places to venture into for social networking is exactly where your target market is.  Like mine, for example, is real estate. Real estate professionals are the “bread and butter” of my business. So I go to places like ActiveRain or Wanna Network, which are places geared specifically for the real estate community. I get to communicate and, in essence, market directly to my target. So find out where you niche or target market socializes, communicates and networks and go network where your money is made.

And if you want to find me and add me as a friend on various networks, find me here:

LinkedIn
Facebook
Myspace - I little more of my non-business personality shows through here (I like my rock music) 
MyBlogLog
Twitter

Happy Networking!

A few new things have gone on here at The Virtual Perception. First I’ve changed our look so a more workable theme for this blog. I hope my new readers like it!

I’ve also added 2 new pages, Resources for Virtual Assistants and General Business Resources. I designed both pages to feature a collection of resources that I have run across over my years in the business. Some of them I have used personally and others have come highly recommended by other successful VAs.

I will continue to add more resources as I comb through my files and find new ones to share. And you notice any important resource I may have left off my list, feel free to contact me and I will add them.

I have a confession to make… Working from home has taken a bit of a toll on my health.

When thinking of working from home, many think, “Oh, it’s easy” and “I can work all day in my pajamas if I wish”, or “My day is so flexible, I can do what I want, when I want.”

Though the above may be true at times, running a business from home, VA or otherwise, is not as easy as it sounds and can take a toll on your home and health if you let it.

In what I have been going through personally, I can tell you that it is very difficult to balance work, home, health and family time (and I don’t even have kids yet). With my original mentality on how nice it would be to “roll out of bed and start working”, it has taken great effort to stay focused and on task with my business, while keeping the rest of my life together.

In the beginning, I had the luxury (yes I say luxury) of not being very busy and not having many clients. I had a lot of flexible time, but the money wasn’t coming in. The first year of business was very hard and money was tight, but I was determined to go on and make my business a success. **As an aside here, I must thank my husband for his support and extreme patience, because without it, it would have made those montiarily tight months even more difficult**

After stepping up my marketing efforts (and a bit of luck) I had grown my business tremendously in it’s 2nd year and I had gotten to the point of where I could not physically handle all the client work that was coming my way plus the business development without working all hours. I was frazzled in my business, my laundry was piling up, my husband was wondering when he would get to see his wife, and I was putting on more weight.

Late 2007 I transitioned my business from a sole VA practice to the multi-VA model, and started assembling a team to help me. It did help alleviate some of my problems for a time, but not all.  And since I started delegating more client work to my team, I somehow decided to add more and more to my plate again. I could not shake the feeling that my business was running me, instead of me running my business. I was on the verge of throwing in the towel and walking away.

So recently, I’ve decided to take the reins of my life and my health and make ME a priority. I’ve joined a gym, and joined Weight Watchers and am adopting a healthier way of eating and living.  I have shortened my office hours that before had extended way beyond what they should, closing up shop to go to the gym, and focusing on spending time with my husband and doing things that are NOT work related. I’ve also added some additional ME time to my day with 5-10 minutes to reflect and write my thoughts on the day and my points of gratitude. And I have adopted versions of “law of attraction” principals and am putting to work the power of positive thinking. Already in this short few weeks, I am seeing some improvement,  a weight has been lifted off my shoulders and I am enjoying my life again. I’m not perfect, but small steps are making a difference.

So how does one not get into this small business/work at home trap? Here are some points one must consider with working from home or running a “soloprenuer” business from the get go.

1. -Make yourself and your family priority number one.  Without your family, you will have no support to fall back on.  Without your health… well it can make it really difficult to do anything.
2. -Eat Right! All the time! Working from home makes it so easy to walk to the the fridge or pantry to grab whatever you can stuff you face with. Throw out the junk and keep healthy whole foods, fruits and vegetable on had for easy snacking.
3. -Make your office hours reasonable, and stick to them! That extra reply to the email can wait until morning. It’s not life or death.
4. -Get out and away from your desk/business and do something active for 3o minutes. Whether it’s a walk, a trip to the gym, or house cleaning. Do something!
5. -Remove negative thoughts from your mind. Take out the “I can’t” “I’m not” “I’ll never” from your vocabulary and focus on want you CAN and WANT to do and what you WANT your life to look like.

The above things are what I got started with and have make the world of difference in my life so far.  I’m not perfect at it yet, but I’m setting myself up to make some healthier habits which in turn will help me have a happier life.

Google “work at home opportunities”, or any variation of that, and you will find pages and pages of sites claiming that their “proven” systems are the best work at home opportunities that will help you generate Thousands of dollars a week. And it’s FREE* and EASY! 

First, if any one tells you that working at home and starting a work at home business is easy, it is a scam or they are lying to you. Starting a business is never easy and takes persistence and a lot of hard work.

Nothing in life comes free or easy. Many of these work at home opportunities advertised on the net or heard on radio spots are not always exactly what they promise. Many times they involve you paying a fee to get their “system” that turns out to be a scheme where you turn around and sell this “system” to others.  Or have you ever heard of the vitamin or diet pill sales work at home opportunities? They offer big promises but rarely deliver.

 Many people that are hungry for a new life outside of the 9-5 grind can fall prey to schemes like these. They want something free and easy. Another sad reality is that some new Virtual Assistants that are hungry for business and new clients can also fall prey to scams.  Here are some things to look out for in work to make sure you don’t get taken advantage of.

1.  If they are selling a “proven” work at home system, but are way too ambiguous about what this “system” actually does or what it sells, that should send up warning flags.  Stray away from those and keep looking.
2. If anyone requires you pay a fee up front to get work or jobs from them, be wary of.  Many people can easily get taken advantage of by paying outlandish fees to gain access to lists of work at home jobs that never pan out, or could be fake. Get all the details BEFORE you pay.
3. Beware of places that require you to pay a fee just to get more information. Basically the “more information” consists of materials that tell you to turn around to sell the “more information” to other suckers like yourself. Again, get all the details BEFORE you pay.
4. Be wary of “check cashing” schemes.  Many VAs have fallen victim to this. If at any time someone offers you a ridiculous sum of money to receive cashiers checks, cash them and wire the money overseas, it is a scam and you should run very far away.  If you happen to cash these checks, you will later find out they were phony and you will be out the large sum of money you wired. If you get an email from Todd Mayer, hit DELETE.
5. Do not accept work that requires you to accept parcels at your address and then asks to send these packages overseas. This is another illegal scheme where items are bought with stolen credit cards sent to the victim who then ships off to an ambiguous address overseas. And in most cases the victims never actually get paid and can be on the hook for criminal charges because they are the only name they can find connected to the stolen credit card purchases.

A few sites great sites on the subject:

• The Virtual Assistant Forum Scam Library
• http://www.scambusters.org/work-at-home.html 
• http://www.fraud.org/tips/internet/workathome.htm

Through my various networking sites, the question gets asked quite often: What are some work at home opportunities that are not scams?” Business like freelance work or Virtual Assistant Businesses are not scams but are real opportunities. But opportunities that take a lot of hard work and personal time and investment.  Don’t get taken for a ride.

Every now and then I run across cool tools for my biz that I find so useful that I must share it.  Well today I would like to give some love to www.DocStoc.com.

Recently in one of my networking groups, someoneone turned my attention to DocStoc.com and when I went to visit, I saw what this site had to offer and immediately bookmarked it into my favorites.  I think docstoc.com is so incredibly valuable and should be in the arsenal of every VA out there. Why, you ask? This site contains numerous business, financial and legal documents & templates that can be used for many business and personal situations. And the best part about it is that is shared by it’s great users and it is all FREE!

No Virtual Assistant should start working with clients without a contract, and from experience I know how much hard work it takes to draw up a new contract to cover all my bases. Instead of making up your agreements and contracts from scratch or reinventing the wheel, you can find several documents and templates to get your contracts started, get your business going, add new services, and get your business organized. I wish I would have had known of something like this when I first started 3 years ago.  It would have saved me tons of time.

Have fun!

Warmest Regards,

Megan Barber
The Virtual Perception
Barber Virtual Assisting Solutions

The second most frequent question I get asked by those thinking of becoming a Virtual Assistant: Are specific trainings or certifications required to become a VA?  Opinions from VA to VA may differ, but my answer to this is no. Formal training and certifications are not required for one to become a Virtual Assistant, but they do help.

In my own experience, I had no formal training or certifications to become a VA and start my business. I only had my past work experience, an entrepreneurial spirit, and a great mentor in my father who encouraged me to take the plunge. Over the past 3 years of being in business, I have taken a few trainings and certifications along the way to gain education and credibility, but I’ve done a lot of learning as I’ve gone along. The whole reason many current VAs started their business is because many had the drive to do something more and drew upon past jobs work experiences to develop their services, and then reinvent themselves as they gather more education and experience.

Embarking on a new career and starting a new business can be a daunting enough task as it is. Business start up itself is not easy, and you can read all the books & ebooks, take all the seminars & classes in the world and they never totally prepare you for all the situations you may experience along the way. Same goes with Virtual Assistance. Though many of those VA education resources are very helpful, it is hard to gauge until you actually work through it in the real world. 

Receiving training and certifications certainly do not hurt. They not only give you a little extra education and insight on being a VA and learning your craft, but they can give you more credibility to your clients and prospects. Plain and simple, it gives them an indication that you know what you are doing. And when you gain certifications that pertain to their type of business (Real Estate for example), then that only increases your credibility along with additional understanding of their business.

You don’t need to do it all at once. There are some great training programs out there, but many of them can be budget busting to a new VA. It is not necessary to try to take all certifications and trainings at once (unless your budget is limitless) or before you start your VA business. I always advise to do it one step at a time, as your budget allows. Take into account your current skill-set, then prioritize your education needs and decide to take the most important trainings first. As your business builds, increase your trainings, learn a new product and never stop learning.

And above all, do it for the right reasons. Never take a training or certification just to get the little logo, or to say you have it. Take them because the education has real value to you and your clients.

In my opinion, when you start out as a Virtual Assistant the real important things needed are: drive and perseverance, a skill-set that is valuable to SOMEONE out there, an idea of a niche, and a mentor to encourage and help you through. The rest will come later.

Information on VA education and training resources to come. 

All the Best!

Megan Barber
The Virtual Perception &
Barber Virtual Assisting Solutions