Wednesday, May 31, 2006

Where is the summer?

Well it is certainly a very late spring and the snakes and lizards are taking every opportunity to get as much sun as possible - much to my OH's distress. We are progressing, we now have stairs, all doors and windows fitted and a railing along the mezzanine - and for a present today I got a small rotovator - ah the rural life...

The Become a Virtual Assistant site is now finished and apart from general updates should not change much. It is being used quite heavily by new and aspiring VAs and also some experienced ones and offers of articles etc are very welcome.

It is very comforting to know that all the hard work started so long ago has been well received. I have had quite a few testimonials and will get them up on the site during the next update.

There is a newsletter and also a resource area which is passworded. To get to this area you have to register for the newsletter - I am managing to get software and articles which will help VAs and those who work from home. As Google are starting to use Video adverts I am looking at sound and video software, video is currently outside of my budget but I have found some sound software which will take an external recording and turn it into an MP3. This could be very useful for those who want to turn sound files into MP3 for digital transcription or who want to put sound on their website - either Virtual Assistant or private (to go with holiday pictures perhaps).

I hope that your Virtual Assistance business is doing well or if you are thinking of starting one, I hope your plans are progressing well.

Tip for summer work

If you are short of work for the summer, now is the time to set up your Virtual Assistant services to help your clients during their holidays. Send out a mail to regular clients reminding them that you can monitor their mails, take their calls and generally 'mind the store' while they are away. I used to print flyers with a stork carrying a baby and head it up 'The Business Baby Sitting Service'. I would go to networking meetings and leave these on the display table, talk about the service to business people I met and generally get the idea across that they could go away on holiday or business and not worry.

They no longer had to check their mails every hour as I could text them if there was anything urgent. Quite often I would deal with clients work and not have to contact them at all. This side of the business grew and kept me busy during the summer which is often a slack time, I then got asked to cover if they went away for any length of time on business or pleasure at any other time. If you are looking for summer work, give this a try - you only need the client to give you their e-mail details and forward their phone.

Please send us any ideas you have for content - I am getting feedback and just need time to get everything done as well as keeping the business running. It is probably lucky that the weather is so bad otherwise I would have the sun on my mind.

Tomorrow is the 1st of June - summer is really here, we just have to wait for the sun to find this bit of France.

Di Chapman
The Virtual Experience of an Award Winning VA