I am pleased to announce that I have received VA certification with effect 12 November 2009.
For more information please visit http://vacertified.com/
Countless Virtual Assistants Join Your Industry Every Day.
How Will You Prove YOU Are the Right Choice?
As the first globally coordinated VA Certification Program of its kind, VACertified.com has brought together VA leaders from the 4 corners of the world to create a one of a kind program for virtual assistants. If you’re a proactive VA seeking the ultimate competitive edge, look no further.
In these tough economic times prospective clients aren’t just looking to save money, they’re looking to partner with someone they can trust. They not only need skill and talent, they need proof that you are the kind of VA you say you are.
Can you afford to leave money on the table every time a prospective client lets doubt creep in? How can you avoid this when chances are you’ll never get the chance to look them in the eye?
You know you have what it takes to do the job.
But how do you get prospects to TRUST you?
Fact is, nothing sells better than positive word of mouth. Likewise, nothing shows you are what you say you are like a glowing endorsement from the industry in which you’re trying to earn a profit.
Peer reviewed professionals get more clients and command more money.
And nowhere is the peer review process needed more than online where anyone can put up a website, anyone can post their skills “for hire,” and anyone can call themselves a VA.
As business becomes increasingly global—even for the small business professional—securing credible outsourced help is intimidating. Many business owners are afraid to make the leap, business owners with deep pockets.
Imagine having the thumbs up from an INTERNATIONALLY handpicked board of industry leaders.
Imagine what that might say about you to the prospect that is ready to put money on the table for the “right VA?”
Be the “right VA” every time with a VAcertified Seal Just for demonstrating the talent and know-how you already have TODAY. Successful entrepreneurs have proven again and again that it’s not what you know but how you bring that knowledge and experience together in one, synergistic benefit package for clients.
When you display the VAcertified Seal on your website and in your other marketing materials, it says to prospective clients that you are the VA you say you are. Virtual Assistants who display the VAcertified seal have demonstrated to an elite peer group that they possess a unique combination of:
Professional work experience
Education and training
Demonstrated contributions to the VA industry
Think you have what it takes to become VAcertified?
http://vacertified.com/
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
Multi-tasking/Prioritising
What do you do in this situation:
Client 1 sends you in a Business Plan to type, required today.
Client 2 sends you in 3 hours of transcription to type, required today.
Client 3 you arrange appointments for this client, so calls come in as and when.
Client 4 has a business presentation for you to type required tomorrow.
You first need to look at each task, put them into deadline date order, then put them into an order of the quickest one you can do first. Concentrate on each piece of work as you do them, do not stop and start another while you are still busy on a task, only do this if a client calls for that work and insists they have that work soon.
Then start working your way through the pile. Do one task at a time, you can stop quite easily in between to do your appointments as they come in, then quickly pick up where you left off.
Always work by prioritising and using time management skills when performing all your work. I love to multi-task. The more busy I am the more I can cope. I thrive on being busy and organised.
Feel free to comment back to me about multitasking and prioritising, I would love to hear your comments.
Client 1 sends you in a Business Plan to type, required today.
Client 2 sends you in 3 hours of transcription to type, required today.
Client 3 you arrange appointments for this client, so calls come in as and when.
Client 4 has a business presentation for you to type required tomorrow.
You first need to look at each task, put them into deadline date order, then put them into an order of the quickest one you can do first. Concentrate on each piece of work as you do them, do not stop and start another while you are still busy on a task, only do this if a client calls for that work and insists they have that work soon.
Then start working your way through the pile. Do one task at a time, you can stop quite easily in between to do your appointments as they come in, then quickly pick up where you left off.
Always work by prioritising and using time management skills when performing all your work. I love to multi-task. The more busy I am the more I can cope. I thrive on being busy and organised.
Feel free to comment back to me about multitasking and prioritising, I would love to hear your comments.
Dealing with clients
A lot of newbie Vas and Transcriptions have a Secretarial background, so should be used to dealing with clients...
The quicker you reply to an email, sms, fax or query from potential clients, you more liable you are to secure that client.
Clients must be treat as equals, you are both on the same level, and you are providing them with a service they require.
I learnt very early on in my career to provide a quality customer services and I have always done this with my clients. I treat each client as if they are my only client and they know I have a lot of clients, but I make them feel special and make them feel as if their work is very important to me and I would say that clients appreciate this.
Never try to sell a service to a client that you cannot perform, the client will immediately pick up on this and very soon you will be caught out. Only offer the services that you have experience in.
Be confident in your approach with potential clients, the more confidence you show in knowing what you are doing, this is again a way to bag the client.
Show an interest in getting to know your client, ask for company profile, company website so that you can see what that client does, that is a great help when sending out emails, doing PowerPoint presentations and doing press releases for clients and it shows you are interested in knowing more about them.
You as a VA or Transcriptionist should be the one who gives your client a rate for the job, not the client. You should be able to negotiate on deadlines, as you know how long jobs take to do. The client does not always know and often it is the case in transcription. The client has no idea how long it takes to transcribe an hour’s work, but you do. If the deadline is not reachable negotiate with the client and tell them it is unmanageable, be honest up front, never be afraid to approach a client, you are on equal terms.
Do not address clients as Sir, Madam, and Mr Brown etc; address them by their first name, as they do you. You are working with them, not for them, the way you address the client makes a difference in how they will treat you and the level in which they converse with you on.
VA and Transcriptionists are Business Owner, so make sure you portray this to prospective clients.
If you need help or assistance in dealing with clients, please approach me. Ihave lots of experience in dealing with all types of clients.
© Copyright 2009 Alison Fourie, All rights reserved.
The quicker you reply to an email, sms, fax or query from potential clients, you more liable you are to secure that client.
Clients must be treat as equals, you are both on the same level, and you are providing them with a service they require.
I learnt very early on in my career to provide a quality customer services and I have always done this with my clients. I treat each client as if they are my only client and they know I have a lot of clients, but I make them feel special and make them feel as if their work is very important to me and I would say that clients appreciate this.
Never try to sell a service to a client that you cannot perform, the client will immediately pick up on this and very soon you will be caught out. Only offer the services that you have experience in.
Be confident in your approach with potential clients, the more confidence you show in knowing what you are doing, this is again a way to bag the client.
Show an interest in getting to know your client, ask for company profile, company website so that you can see what that client does, that is a great help when sending out emails, doing PowerPoint presentations and doing press releases for clients and it shows you are interested in knowing more about them.
You as a VA or Transcriptionist should be the one who gives your client a rate for the job, not the client. You should be able to negotiate on deadlines, as you know how long jobs take to do. The client does not always know and often it is the case in transcription. The client has no idea how long it takes to transcribe an hour’s work, but you do. If the deadline is not reachable negotiate with the client and tell them it is unmanageable, be honest up front, never be afraid to approach a client, you are on equal terms.
Do not address clients as Sir, Madam, and Mr Brown etc; address them by their first name, as they do you. You are working with them, not for them, the way you address the client makes a difference in how they will treat you and the level in which they converse with you on.
VA and Transcriptionists are Business Owner, so make sure you portray this to prospective clients.
If you need help or assistance in dealing with clients, please approach me. Ihave lots of experience in dealing with all types of clients.
© Copyright 2009 Alison Fourie, All rights reserved.
New VAs against Older more established VAs
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.
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.
Friday, October 23, 2009
SARDA South Africa Riding for Disabled Association
SARDA - South Africa Riding for the Disabled Association
SA Riding for the Disabled Association was established in Cape Town in 1973.
Address: Highveld Branch, Peter Road, Ruimsig, Roodepoort.
Tel: 011 958 5044
Email: highveld@sarda.co.za
CHRISTMAS GOODIES FOR SALE
Please order as many as you like
Christmas Cards, assorted ponies at R30 per pack of 5
Gift Tags, assorted ponies at R15 per pack of 5
SARDA Calendar, R50 for one, R80 for two, R200 for five.
Please stipulate how you wish to receive your order, either collect from SARDA stables, address above, or via your trusted SARDA friend.
We thank you for your support .
PS Regret cash only with order.
SA Riding for the Disabled Association was established in Cape Town in 1973.
Address: Highveld Branch, Peter Road, Ruimsig, Roodepoort.
Tel: 011 958 5044
Email: highveld@sarda.co.za
CHRISTMAS GOODIES FOR SALE
Please order as many as you like
Christmas Cards, assorted ponies at R30 per pack of 5
Gift Tags, assorted ponies at R15 per pack of 5
SARDA Calendar, R50 for one, R80 for two, R200 for five.
Please stipulate how you wish to receive your order, either collect from SARDA stables, address above, or via your trusted SARDA friend.
We thank you for your support .
PS Regret cash only with order.
Friday, October 16, 2009
URGENTLY REQUIRED ZULU TRANSCRIPTIONISTS AND TRANSCRIBERS
URGENT: WE ARE LOOKING FOR A ZULU TRANSCRIPTIONIST, IF YOU CAN TRANSCRIBE/TRANSLATE IN ZULU, PLEASE CONTACT US URGENTLY.
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
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.
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.
Business Opportunity
Just to let you know if you have seen my business listed as a business opportunity, I am not selling this concept, and my business should not be listed like this.
I run a genuine business as a Virtual Assistant and I am not selling this as a business concept. The aims of a Virtual Assistant is to work for yourself from your own virtual office working for genuine clients who need your assistance.
This industry is new in our country but has been around in Australia and USA for sometime. This is a growing industry worldwide.
We provide services like typing, transcription, office administration, secretarial, event organisation, telephone management to companies, clients, businesses worldwide.
The aims of a virtual assistant is to advertise, marketing and network her business to get known in the corporate world as a means to drawing in potential clients. The aims also are to be able to run a small business and assist clients worldwide.
I run a genuine business as a Virtual Assistant and I am not selling this as a business concept. The aims of a Virtual Assistant is to work for yourself from your own virtual office working for genuine clients who need your assistance.
This industry is new in our country but has been around in Australia and USA for sometime. This is a growing industry worldwide.
We provide services like typing, transcription, office administration, secretarial, event organisation, telephone management to companies, clients, businesses worldwide.
The aims of a virtual assistant is to advertise, marketing and network her business to get known in the corporate world as a means to drawing in potential clients. The aims also are to be able to run a small business and assist clients worldwide.
Stand out from the crowd
It is difficult being a new Virtual Assistant or Transcriptionist or even if you have been in the industry a while and are still not established, there is plenty of competition out there at the moment, you need to make sure you stand out from the crowd.
Make sure your website content is original, keep it updated.
Create a fancy advert for yourself that stands out, making sure it is original content.
You need to sell your services hard at the moment, you need to be different, you need to stand out to draw potential clients to you.
The clients you need are not the clients who are looking for someone to do the work cheap, you are looking for the clients that need a VA or Transcriptionist to help them over and over. Original content is something that will draw in a client.
Look at your competition's websites and see what you can come up with that is different to what they have. I can still come up with new content and new looks for my blog and website after being in the business since 2001.
Make sure your adverts, web and blog look professional at all times, silly graphics will not draw a client to you, dont make your site look to flouncy, bouncy or feminine looking, your look must be professional as that is your business that you are advertising to draw in clients.
Animals, birds, butterflies dont really work or look professional. You are not selling these types of services, so why use these types of graphics etc.
Your adverts, blogs and website are all about drawing your client to you so make sure they have that professional finish and look.
Make sure your website content is original, keep it updated.
Create a fancy advert for yourself that stands out, making sure it is original content.
You need to sell your services hard at the moment, you need to be different, you need to stand out to draw potential clients to you.
The clients you need are not the clients who are looking for someone to do the work cheap, you are looking for the clients that need a VA or Transcriptionist to help them over and over. Original content is something that will draw in a client.
Look at your competition's websites and see what you can come up with that is different to what they have. I can still come up with new content and new looks for my blog and website after being in the business since 2001.
Make sure your adverts, web and blog look professional at all times, silly graphics will not draw a client to you, dont make your site look to flouncy, bouncy or feminine looking, your look must be professional as that is your business that you are advertising to draw in clients.
Animals, birds, butterflies dont really work or look professional. You are not selling these types of services, so why use these types of graphics etc.
Your adverts, blogs and website are all about drawing your client to you so make sure they have that professional finish and look.
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Basic price List
One of the things you need before you open your business to the public is a basic price list, never start your business without one, you will look darn silly to that first client with no idea what to price for their services.
Work out what you would like to earn as an hourly rate. Use this with VA services like office administration tasks. You can group many tasks under an hourly rate. You can offer a client so many hours per week or per day and work within those parameters with a client. You can use a retainer package which gives the client so many paid for hours and a free hour or so thrown in.
But not all tasks can be done via an hourly rate. Typing and Transcription are two of those services.
Typing, through my experience as my job is mostly typing, and ive typed for many many clients, a client prefers a per page price. At the moment up here in Gauteng pricing is around R20 - R30 for basic copy typing per page, with more things involve with the typing like graphics, flow diagrams, graphs, tables, etc then the price will go up as you are actually creating these additional things, so more work and time involved.
Powerpoint Business Presentations, Spreadsheets, Graphs, Flow Diagrams I start off with a basic of R30 per page, but if the tasks are more involved I then take this into account and also how long the job will take me and price accordingly.
Know how long it takes you to do a task so that you can give a client an idea of how long a job will take, but take into account, interrruptions, phone calls, etc. I can safely tell a client I can type 10 to 30 pages a day with interruptions as I know I can achieve this. Clients always want to know how long a job will take you, there is always deadlines to be met, make them reasonable and achieveable to yourself. If you know you cannot complete a task in a given period, tell the client this, they might not be aware of the length of time it takes.
With Transcription you need to look at what is involved with that file, quality of the file, how many speakers, type of transcription (court hearing, focus meeting etc), a one on one meeting is far easier to transcribe than a focus meeting and your pricing should reflect this. Transcription is a good task to have a basic price listing on, as it gives you a starting point to base transcription on depending on what its like. Know how long it will take you to transcribe, so that you can give your client some idea and if you need to negotiate on your time as you know how long it takes more than a client will, tell them if that time is unreasonable, negotiate if necessary, clients are not always unreasonable. It is up to us to education them in this task.
If you need assistance with pricing please contact me,
email: amftyping@mweb.co.za , alison@amftyping.co.za.
msn messenger: alison19558@hotmail.com or
skype: amftyping.
Work out what you would like to earn as an hourly rate. Use this with VA services like office administration tasks. You can group many tasks under an hourly rate. You can offer a client so many hours per week or per day and work within those parameters with a client. You can use a retainer package which gives the client so many paid for hours and a free hour or so thrown in.
But not all tasks can be done via an hourly rate. Typing and Transcription are two of those services.
Typing, through my experience as my job is mostly typing, and ive typed for many many clients, a client prefers a per page price. At the moment up here in Gauteng pricing is around R20 - R30 for basic copy typing per page, with more things involve with the typing like graphics, flow diagrams, graphs, tables, etc then the price will go up as you are actually creating these additional things, so more work and time involved.
Powerpoint Business Presentations, Spreadsheets, Graphs, Flow Diagrams I start off with a basic of R30 per page, but if the tasks are more involved I then take this into account and also how long the job will take me and price accordingly.
Know how long it takes you to do a task so that you can give a client an idea of how long a job will take, but take into account, interrruptions, phone calls, etc. I can safely tell a client I can type 10 to 30 pages a day with interruptions as I know I can achieve this. Clients always want to know how long a job will take you, there is always deadlines to be met, make them reasonable and achieveable to yourself. If you know you cannot complete a task in a given period, tell the client this, they might not be aware of the length of time it takes.
With Transcription you need to look at what is involved with that file, quality of the file, how many speakers, type of transcription (court hearing, focus meeting etc), a one on one meeting is far easier to transcribe than a focus meeting and your pricing should reflect this. Transcription is a good task to have a basic price listing on, as it gives you a starting point to base transcription on depending on what its like. Know how long it will take you to transcribe, so that you can give your client some idea and if you need to negotiate on your time as you know how long it takes more than a client will, tell them if that time is unreasonable, negotiate if necessary, clients are not always unreasonable. It is up to us to education them in this task.
If you need assistance with pricing please contact me,
email: amftyping@mweb.co.za , alison@amftyping.co.za.
msn messenger: alison19558@hotmail.com or
skype: amftyping.
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