The answer is no. A virtual assistant is not an employee. A virtual assistant, also known as a VA, is a highly-skilled, independent professional who remotely provides administrative, technical and/or creative business support services.* Virtual assistants will use terms such as administrative assistant and executive assistant to describe their similarities, but they are not employees.

Clients need to understand the difference between working with an employee and hiring a virtual assistant.

Clients should not request a resume from a virtual assistant. Resumes are submitted by employees looking for jobs. As a client you are entering into an agreement with the virtual assistant for specific services. A virtual assistant can provide certifications that they have received and references from current / past clients.

Another important reason you do not want to think of your VA as an employee is when it comes to assigning routine tasks. It should be established from the beginning that this is a partnership. You are delegating a task or project to an expert just as if you were hiring an accountant or lawyer. A virtual assistant can easily become an invaluable partner in your business with an invested interest in its success. A VA can offer great new ideas and feedback to continue to help your business grow.

* http://www.vanetworking.com/

Do you need help taking your business to the next level? Do you need to be more organized?

One of the best ways to do this is to hire a Virtual Assistant. What is a Virtual Assistant? A Virtual Assistant (VA) is a highly-skilled, independent professional who remotely provides administrative, technical and/or creative business support services.*

When you hire a VA you can delegate tasks that take you away from growing your business.

What can a VA do for you? Below is a small list of things that a VA can do to help you grow your business and help you get organized.

• Calendar Management
• Database Management
• E-mail Management
• Presentations
• Spreadsheets
• Website Updates
• Research
• Social Network Account Management

The list goes on. With all the things a VA can do for you, you will be able to focus on growing your business. When you find that perfect VA, you will wonder how you ever managed without one!

*VAnetworking

November has seen some changes for me, a new website design is launched and after years of procrastinating I am posting my first blog post.

For those of you who don’t know, a Virtual Assistant (VA) is a highly-skilled, independent professional who remotely provides administrative, technical and/or creative business support services. http://www.vanetworking.com/

How do you handle working full-time and being a virtual assistant.  Not an easy thing to do. How would you manage the two? What should you tell a prospective client? What about taking client calls? Answering emails? So many questions.

You can do any VA work during your lunch, in the evening and if necessary, on the weekends. 

Telling a prospective client you work full-time is a common question among a lot of new and aspiring VAs. You can turn this in to a unique selling point by promoting the fact that you are available after hours and on weekends.

What about taking client calls? You can return calls during your breaks, before you go in to work and when you get home. With the invention of the smart phone you can answer emails at any time during the day.

For those of you considering working full-time while growing your VA business, all I can say is to plan your time, and don’t take on more than you can handle.