In South Africa at the moment there is more newbie VAs coming through but still the clients are turning towards the older more established VAs. Yes we may have the VA experience but some of the newbie’s also have lots of office exposure as much as the oldies, but not the VA experience and to get this they need to work for clients to gain the experience. So potential clients if you read this be prepared to try our newbie VAs some of them do have the experience you need, especially the older ladies that have recently in the past few years started up virtual assistant businesses.
By oldies I mean VAs that have been in the VA business over 5 years. Newbies, new VAs that have been in the business a few years and are struggling to get started, a lot of these do not have the exposure of working for clients like the older VAs have.
Working in an office is no longer what it was. There is such a saying as ‘old school’ where secretaries used to work for anyone and do many tasks, we were taught different to today’s office assistant. I feel to be a VA you need to have a good 10 years office experience behind you. You need to have had exposure to running an office, delegating, multitasking, being pro-active, assertive, being able to communicate well, without these skills many VAs will struggle.
We do need to advertise our skills and experience well to get the attention of the clients. Make our websites look and feel different from our competitors/peers. We need to stand out to pull that client towards ourselves
To me what counts in a virtual assistant is her skills and experience. If a VA can’t be proactive and think for herself she will struggle big time as there is no one there to assist her, she is working on her own. If a VA is not used to being multi-skilled, she better get used to it quickly as you will use all your skills running a VA business.
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