The Concept of being a Virtual Assistant/Person running your own Business

A virtual assistant runs their own business from a virtual location/area. When you run your own business you will do the same tasks as management would do in a larger company, the difference is you might be doing these tasks yourself unless you get assistance from other like-minded people. The concept of running a VA businesses is that you are running a business, you are doing the marketing, bookkeeping, networking, the work, debt collection, invoicing etc, you do it all yourself.

You are your own boss.

As you are running a company you are on the same level as other company bosses, CEO’s, managers, directors etc. You are no longer in the situation where you are a PA or Office Manager getting instructions from a Boss, you are not working for someone else that can give you instructions, you have to get the work, you have to draw the clients to you through having presence on social media, online/offline advertising, website, blog, networking, advertising in your area etc.

You organise your company, one of the tasks you organise is, your pricing structure, you as the company owner need to have prices/rates for the services you are offering or the products that you are selling. Part of running your company is setting up your pricing structures. You do not contact a potential client and wait for them to give you a price for the services you are offering, you have a pricing structure ready and you tell the client your price.

To run your company/business you need to have a company structure and follow set procedures to be organised. Specific things need to be done at specific times, like your office administration, invoicing your clients, keeping your work schedules up to date etc. You need to have a structure of how you are going to deal with clients; how you are going to be doing the work, a structure of dealing with subcontractors should you need to use them. You need to know how long it will take you to say transcribe a 1 hour file, how long would it take you to type up a 100 page document, how long will it take you to organise an event etc. These are things you need to know as working for many clients you need to be organised and be able to schedule the work and be able to meet deadlines that are set by your clients.

As a VA you need to be able to do multi-tasking, you could be working for a few clients at the same time, this is where you will use your time management and prioritising skills.

Being a VA is about running a business, being your own boss, scheduling your work times and procedures yourself. You are an Entrepreneur in a worldwide industry that is growing daily.

Barbara Blackburn, the World's Fastest Typist

http://rcranger.mysite.syr.edu/famhist/blackburn.htm

 

What is the secret as to how Barbara Blackburn could type so fast? The key, so to speak, is in the keyboard design. Blackburn would type on nothing but the Dvorak keyboard, which has vowels on one side and consonants on the other, with the most frequently used letters on the centre row. "It makes much more sense than the standard, so-called Qwerty keyboard (named after the first five letters on the top row)," Blackburn said. In fact, it was the Qwerty keyboard that was her undoing in high school typing class back in Pleasant Hill, Missouri.
 
"Typing was the bane of my existence." She remembered how her I-minus (I for Inferior) typing grade kept her from graduating at the top of her class. As it was, she graduated third in a class of 46 students. In 1938, as a freshman in Business College, Blackburn first laid hands on a Dvorak keyboard. She took to it like a fish to water. In only a few years her speed was up to 138 words per minute.

Blackburn had been such a whiz in her other high school classes, it was no surprise that she would attempt to better her record as a typist, given a chance. The Dvorak keyboard was what gave her the chance. When a representative of the Royal Typewriter Co. came to her business college looking for someone to train as a demonstrator of the Dvorak keyboard, she decided to give it a try.

In no time at all she was as good a typist as she was a bookkeeper and stenographer. She had won statewide contests in the latter two fields as a high school student, but the woman who taught all three courses at Pleasant Hill "was ashamed to admit I was in her typing class," Blackburn remembered.

Carrying her own Dvorak typewriter with her wherever she worked after graduation from Business College, Blackburn's extraordinary talents paved her way. From 1939 to 1945 she worked as a legal secretary, and when she decided she needed a change of pace and left the law firm, "I left with the reputation as the best legal secretary in Kansas City," she proudly recalled.

Suddenly there was a mad scramble of executives trying to nab her for their personal secretary.

Blackburn next worked at an electronics company, first as office manager and then as a sales engineer. She did speed typing demonstrations at the Canadian National Exposition and the Canadian Educational Conference. It was then that she was clocked for the Guinness Book of World Records, in which she was listed for a decade as the world's fastest typist (the category has since been removed). Blackburn went to work at State Farm Insurance in Salem, where she was employed in the word processing department until she retired in 2002.

Also, she starred in a television commercial for Apple Computers, which offered a switchable Dvorak-Qwerty keyboard with its Apple IIc model. When she was in New York to tape the commercial, she appeared on the David Letterman Show. But Letterman made a comedy routine out of what she thought was to be a serious demonstration of her typing speed, and Blackburn felt hurt by the experience. In her own words:

 "The show aired on Thursday night, after I had returned back to Salem. They had taken my PR photo and blown it up to gigantic size) with the typewriter sitting on a stand (covered with a Plexiglas cover) in front of me and a little to the side with three men seated at a table with a big copy of my Thursday night paper sitting on an easel at the side. My photo took up the entire area behind the men. Letterman was standing beside the typewriter - his opening remark was "No doubt Ms. Blackburn is a very nice lady, but she has to be the biggest fraud and con artist in the world." That he is still running it about every year completely astounds me! I have a complete tape of all of my TV appearances during my publicity reign, but I REFUSE TO WATCH THE LETTERMAN FIASCO."

In the intervening years, Letterman's comedy style has become better-understood and we've grown more accustomed to it. Nevertheless, anyone who has seen her whizzing fingers in action, as well as the flawless results on paper (her error frequency is two-tenths of one percent), can have no doubt that Barbara Blackburn will forever hold her place as the world's fastest typist. Mrs. Blackburn passed away in April, 2008.

-- End --

THE GUINNESS BOOK OF WORLD RECORDS Typing, Fastest. Mrs. Barbara Blackburn of Salem, Oregon maintained a speed of 150 wpm for 50 min (37,500 key strokes) and attained a speed of 170 wpm using the Dvorak Simplified Keyboard (DSK) system. Her top speed was recorded at 212 wpm. Source: Norris McWhirter, ed. (1985), THE GUINNESS BOOK OF WORLD RECORDS, 23rd US edition, New York: Sterling Publishing Co., Inc.

 

Permission granted to post Article about Barbara Blackburn by Sonya Pulvers (Barbara Blackburn's daughter)

 

From: Sam Sent: 07 January 2014 22:32 To: Alison Fourie Subject: Re: Feature article on website  Allison, Thank you so much for asking permission. Absolutely that would be fine, my mother was an incredible woman and an icon when it comes to the world of typing. Have a great day. Sincerely, Sonya Pulvers (Barbara Blackburn's daughter) -----Original Message----- From: Alison Fourie Sent: Jan 7, 2014 5:22 AM Subject: Feature article on website Hi I would like to ask your permission to place your article about Barbara Blackburn http://rcranger.mysite.syr.edu/famhist/blackburn.htm on my website http://www.amftyping.co.za. I run a typing company and I found your article very interesting, and would love to display it on my website. Looking forward to hearing from you.   Regards Alison    AMF Typing Services©® Est 2001

 

 

Social Media

Years ago when VAs started out working from home they used to advertise office administration, typing and transcription as their services, today there is many more services you can offer clients. One of these services is Social Media. It is important for every business no matter how big or small to be part of social media. Cell Phones, Tablets and IPads are all centred around Social Media, being part of it is part of doing business in the world today.

You have had to set up your own business and have to include Social Media in as part of your networking and marketing so why not offer this service to potential clients, especially to new businesses/entrepreneurs etc. You have learnt enough through doing this for your business to have the experience in it to offer it as a service.
You can offer it on a package basis or on an hourly rate. You can offer social media, or offer it in separate services like Twitter or Facebook etc. You can log into your clients twitter account on a daily basis or every other day and set up tweets ahead of time, interact on behalf of your client with like minded businesses on twitter, the same with Facebook, Linked In etc. You could offer a package for social medial including all 3 the most popular social media platforms which are Facebook, Twitter and Linked In.

Today a lot of company's/businesses networking is done by joining groups within Facebook, Linked In etc. Being part of forums online. You network and interact with people and build up friendships and relationships. Networking is not about selling your project, its about building relationships with likeminded people in the same business as you and maybe business can come from this.

It is a great service to offer clients as its a much in demand service today. People cannot do business today without belonging somehow to social media.

 



Does your client work all hours or do they work 8am to 5pm?

Does your client work all hours or do they work 8am to 5pm?


Your clients working hours will impact on your working hours, so make sure you are both in sync about the hours you work.

The reason I am asking is because if your clients are working all hours, weekends, you will be expected to be available these hours unless you state different. I am available to suit my clients and every one of them works all hours and weekends, but that is my preference. My children are at a stage where they are not dependent on me, they can do things for themselves, my husband understands my work and the hours that are needed for my clients so both of us work around our businesses and make things work for the family.

If you want to work 8am to 5pm make sure you go for the types of clients that work these hours.

Make your availability known to your clients as part of your client agreement contract which you should both sign at the beginning of your working relationship.

If you are starting out your business and still working full time, make sure you tell potential clients that you are working full time and only working on your business part time at present, as this will affect your deadlines. An idea can be for you when starting out is to subcontract jobs out to a full time VA till you are able to go full time within your own business.

Being a Virtual Assistant what you can expect

Its very scary starting any new business. But being a Virtual Assistant is about running a business, you need many skills:
Liase with clients, often daily
Market your services
Network to meet new potential clients
Advertise
Be resourceful
Be pro active
Being assertive
Drive and the ambition to do this
You have to sell your services and the concept of VAs to clients who have no idea you exist as a Virtual Assistant or know what a Virtual Assistant is
Be positive even when you are very down and negative, being able to pick yourself up
Debt Collector
Accountant/Bookkeeper
Web Designer for your website/blog
You need to be able to work on your own, be able to motivate yourself to work to schedule and be committed that you can be working a 7 day week
These are just a few of the skills you will need to become a Virtual Assistant, its well worth your while to do the research before you go down this path to make sure this is the careeer for you.