Showing posts with label amf typing services. Show all posts

Friday, September 29, 2017

TAVASA - The Transcribers and Virtual Assistants of South Africa

Emails: gaynor@typewritetranscription.co.za or amftyping@mweb.co.za

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TAVASASouthAfrica/

Our group was founded 8th August 2008 by Gaynor Paynter from Typewrite Transcription and Typing Services cc, Cell: +27834424689, Web: www.typewritetranscription.co.za and Alison Fourie from AMF Typing Services cc, Cell: +270828713452, Web: www.amftyping.co.za. Tavasa was formed as there was a need for a support group within South Africa.

We provide support for people in our industries
We bring together a group of professionals who can support each other
We advertise job leads and subcontractor positions on the Tavasa forum, you are welcome to apply
We share our VA and Transcription knowledge with you

Because we like to have immediate access to queries that arise from our members, and because many people in South Africa still find it easier to access email on a regular basis as opposed to accessing an internet browser regularly, our main means of communication is an yahoo group online, email discussion forum, and you can join our group at http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/tavasa/ free membership.

Our aim is to promote the Transcribers and Virtual Assistants industries within South Africa.
To guide new Transcribers and Virtual Assistants to set up their businesses within the industry.

You will feel by belonging to our forum you have now joined the South Africa family of VAs and Transcribers within South Africa. All questions are welcome and we would love you to participate and meet everyone. No questions are too stupid to ask as there will always be someone wanting to ask that question. Join us. Send us an introduction email telling everyone what you do, if you are married or single, have children, what services you offer, how you feel about working from home, you will get lots of response saying welcome, our team is very friendly. Ebooks for sale:

Transcription EBook for sale R130.00 is packed with everything you need to know about working from home as a Transcriber in South Africa. https://typewritetranscription.co.za/e-book/ Conveniently purchase over the internet / email. I started out as a transcriber in 2005 and I’ve included everything I’ve learned along the way that I wish someone had told me. It’s an essential resource for transcribers starting out and for those who just want to brush up on their business skills. Contact: gaynor@typewritetranscription.co.zato place your order today.

VA Handbook for sale R130.00, explaining all about starting up a VA business within SA. This handbooks content includes marketing, networking, prices/rates, business plan details/info. Just send an email to amftyping@mweb.co.za, requesting the guide and I will then forward you an invoice, on receipt of your payment, I will forward your Guide to you via email, it is a PDF document. This Guide is updated on a continual basis.

Please note we are not a recruitment company, It is up to individual Virtual Assistants and Transcribers to find their own work and clients.

I hope the information above is helpful to you.

Contact us:

Emails: gaynor@typewritetranscription.co.za or amftyping@mweb.co.za

Monday, July 3, 2017

History of the First 25 Years of the Virtual Assistant Industry

Posted on June 26, 2017 by Sharon Williams

The Virtual Assistant Industry has a rich but little-known history of pioneering individuals and organizations that saw opportunity in the work-at-home arena to develop and grow businesses that could support and sustain families. This infographic recognizes and shares the story of the industry’s first 25-years. It acknowledges the many women and men who walked the walk and talked the talk that propelled virtual assisting to become the small business resource it is today.
Congratulations to all of the pioneering VAs, and Thank You.

Our Story (from my perspective):

Let’s go back in time, way back, way, way back, to 1981. That’s right! That’s when the concept of secretaries working from home was the exception instead of the norm. As a matter of fact, working from home was frowned upon and individuals who worked from home were considered “second-class workers”; not really contributing to an industry or their household incomes…hobbyist…you name it. Call it what you want, but working from home in the 80s always carried a negative connotation.

However, knowing where you come from, acknowledging all the hard work of those that paved the way — using determination, sweat, time and energy to build the industry, starting new, innovative thinking groups, professionally and positively — spreading the message of how businesses benefits.

Knowing your history helps you understand your foundation, where you come from and most important WHY you can now build a long term, sustainable business – it’s because of those that came before you, 10, 15, 20, 25 years ago – people who walked the walk, talked the talk, and spent many hours answering questions and overcoming obstacles, that have paved the way for you be the Virtual Assistant you are today.

Please don’t forget where you came from. Your History is Your Future!

Friday, February 26, 2016

The Early Bird always catches the Worm

My philosophy has always been ‘get in first’, ‘be ahead of the crowd’, and to ‘stand out from my peers’ and I do just that in South Africa. I go by the phrase ‘An early Bird always catches the Worm’ and I do. I have always had clients contacting me all the time and always found it easy to talk the client into using my services at my price rather than go to the next VA down the line. If I want a job I will go all out to get that job, I will convince the client of how good and how I am able to assist. My office has a continuous flow of typing and my main service that I offer clients is Typing. If it can be typed I can do it. I am very old school and I find that saying this to clients helps draw them to using my services.

I started out wanting to run a typing company and never thought I would get to this point, but I’ve done it and proved that you can run a company just doing typing. I know where to look for my clients, if I want to take on more clients, I know how to get clients and am not afraid to sell my services and tell clients how good I am at what I do.

I answer emails fasts, as an email comes in and I see that it’s from a prospective client I then quickly respond, clients are impressed with a fast response, they want a VA who is pro-active and assertive.

I love the variety that I get with typing. You would think typing would be boring, typing the same thing over and over, yet I don’t I have such a variety in typing from PowerPoint presentations to graphs, tables, charts, and graphics. This is the job I always wanted to do.

Be like me and be the early bird that catches the worm. The faster you respond the better chance to get the prospective client.

Tuesday, January 26, 2016

Typing Services

What is involved with offering Typing as a service?

Can anyone type, yes, but can everyone offer typing as a service? Typing can be more than just copy typing. Typing can involve creating spreadsheets, equations, figures, graphs, charts etc., or even creating graphics. So you need to ask your prospective client what is involved with the typing before quoting.

Is the typing just plain copy typing, what you see is what you type, is there any tables, graphs, charts as they must then be created, you might have to create a graph or chart in excel and copy it across to word, that is time taking and is not straight copy typing, as you must create the graph etc. Sometimes you might have to scan an image from an book, so that means you need to scan it on a scanner and then resize to insert it into your document, so that is not straight copy typing. You might need to find an image on the Internet, so that will involve research, finding the image. You might have to create a graphic, the client might have drawn an image, maybe a flow diagram, you will need to recreate this in the document this can also involve using graphic software then copy and insert within your document, and also this is very time consuming.
A client might send you to copy a PDF document for typing. Not all PDF conversion software works nicely when you convert a PDF document into word. You might find you still have to reformat the document this is time taking and often much quicker to just type the document from scratch. Note here the client will know the document is not typed from scratch, they will know you have used conversion software to convert the document and often this is not the quickest route to take.
You might need to firstly print out what the client has sent you so that you can type from it, it takes time to print out a document, and it costs to print from a printer.
At the end of your document you need to proofread and perform a spell check, this should be part of your quote or terms and condition; this task must always be done. Make sure you list this so that clients can see that you perform this task.
Sometimes clients might want their document saved to a memory stick (flash drive) you need to charge for this as it is time taking and you maybe you need to a buy the memory stick.
If you offer typing as a service make sure you state that you can create graphs, tables, charts, brochures, graphics, spreadsheets, PowerPoint presentations. Do not assume all typing is simple copy typing, often it is more involved.
You may need to insert equations, this takes extra time to do this, so make sure you feature this time into the length of time it will takes you to complete the typing.
You can no longer send large files through email and often you have to make use of Google docs, Dropbox, Send this File etc so make sure that your Internet bundle (capped or uncapped) can cope with offering typing. Files will need to be downloaded and uploaded. A file with graphics, graphs etc will take time to load and is very time consuming loading to Send this File or Dropbox etc, especially if it has more than 20 pages. A large manual with graphics, graphs and flows, a large spreadsheet, a PowerPoint presentation can take a few hours to upload, you have to remember this when it comes to your deadline and getting the work back to the client in time.
If you contract typing out to a subcontractor make sure you check the work thoroughly and ask the subcontractor to make sure they proof their own work then you double proof the work when you get it back. Often a subcontractor will just do the work and send it back to you and tell you it is proofed, don’t make the mistake of sending it to the client without you doing a proofread and spell check. You are the one the work is sent to from your client and not the subcontractor so it is up to you to make sure you send back a quality document.
When offering typing services sometimes you will get in tasks that you don’t like doing, maybe lots of figure typing, typing of tables, this can be boring for some, listen to music as you type, this will help the time go a bit quicker.
When pricing typing the norm is to charge on a per page basis but it can also be done on an hourly rate, whichever works out best for you, is what you offer.
Authors and students may ask you for a charge per word, roughly you normally get ±750/1000 words to an A4 page at Ariel at a size 12 font.
If you have a table within the document, check out the other tables within the document, maybe you can just copy and paste your first one and just change the data, this can save you time.
Know how many pages you can do in an hour, day, or week so that you can let the client know if you can reach their deadline, remember if you have graphics, graphs, charts etc within a document it might take you longer to create these so therefore affecting the time it takes to complete your document.
Ask for client preferences: fonts, size of text, colour in graphs, flow diagrams, spacing, justification, ask if the client can provide you with the company logo’s/graphics, templates if required. etc.
Do not take on typing work if you do not know how to do it, you can subcontract it out, if that is the case make sure your subcontract has the experience to do the job.

Saturday, April 4, 2015

AMF Typing Services celebrates 14 years in business, 1st April 2015.

http://www.amftyping.co.za

Thursday, April 2, 2015

Working as a Virtual Assistant

Wouldn’t it be nice not have to work. But as some of us have to work what better job than being a Virtual Assistant, we get to work from home. We get to work the hours we want to, we can wear what we like for work if we are not seeing clients, we can even do our work in PJs. We can schedule our day to suite us and our own way of working. We can listen to music while we work.

The reason lots of people want to become a Virtual Assistant (VA) is because they think it will give you more time to spend at home with your new-born, small children and families. In reality if you have a full business of clients then your spare time is spent doing the admin work that is required to keep your business going. You don’t just to the actual work but you do the business administration as well. You have to continually market your company, your books need to be kept up to date, you need to advertise to show other businesses that you are out there and also need to get potential clients attention.

You have to work and meet deadlines. Most of the work we get in is deadline related and that can mean long hours, working weekends and public holidays. A deadline must be met, simple as that. Our work does not stop like corporate hours and this is not the sort of business you can run on corporate hours, it simply want work. You have to be here as your clients demands to a certain extent.

We work hard as VAs as we have to meet deadlines but at least with working long hours we are working from our own virtual offices and do not have to travel backward and forward to and from work at all hours.

I love the fact that I don’t have to travel far to work every day, it takes me a minute to get to my desk and the best part is I don’t have to clear my desk every night because the cleaning ladies will be coming into the office at night. I can simply leave my desk exactly as I left it and pick up again in the morning.

I am glad in the winter when it’s cold that I don’t have to travel on a very cold bus for an hour or more to get to work and even in the summer when it is too hot on the bus as its hot outside, and there was nothing worse than coming home and getting off the bus in a thunder storm and have to run home to get out of the rain. Now I can sit and work even though there is heck of a thunder storm outside. I can sit in my office working and look out of the window at the storm and know I am warm and dry inside.

If you work in a corporate office you have to invest in working clothes. As we work from home offices we can choose our dress clothes and only really have to wear and dress nicely if we are seeing clients. We can dress casual and be comfortable working in any weather when working from home.

I don’t think there is any job which matches working for yourself, working from home; it must be one of the best jobs to have.