How to become a Virtual Assistant while catering to Small
Business
How to become a Virtual Assistant (Secretary) on the internet
while catering to Small Business
by Anna Mattingly
The more we do our own clerical work independently for our small
business, the more we see how great the need is for virtual
assistants who can cater to the small business community on the
web. We have also noticed at our employment site a great surge
in internet traffic indicating another need for stay at home
mother's and women in general to perform clerical duties in
their homes. And what's really interesting is that men need this
work as well today. Many who pass through our virtual door
simply want to start their own business or to be hired as an
administrative assistant of an existing business. But for years
we struggled with the answer of how to do this successfully.
Many said they tried to do this but just simply could not find
work.
Frustrating as it has been, we see a new frontier emerging. The
Information Highway, as some call it, or the internet has
created a home for new home business owner's. Over the past 3-5
years many entrepreneurs have been developing and establishing
their own small businesses just as we did. We see many store
fronts that are bringing in daily income for their owners which
in turn is creating more and more administrative work and a new
opportunity for administrative assistant's. Good news for the
struggling stay at home secretary. Although it will take a bit
of ingenuity and hard work to get started it's no longer
impossible for women to stay home and perform the same office
and administrative duties they used to perform traditionally in
the office.
Since small business is still in it's infancy via the internet,
a new VA has the added job of enlightening small business owners
of their need for strong administrative support. We've taken the
liberty here of incorperating this process into the few simple
steps needed to get started.........
Obviously you have a connection to the internet if you are
reading this. If you have your small home office set up and you
have experience and you're ready to work at home here's all you
will need to do.
1. Decide which services you will provide
Visit: http://www.abcsvcs.com/service.htm
2. Decide what rates you will charge.
Visit http://www.abcsvcs.com/rates.htm
3. Find a nice home on the web for your new business. There are
plenty of nice places to open a "VR" business. A simple one page
website is more than sufficient.
------Visit: http://www.hypermart.net for one example of a free
virtual community that will assist you with just about any need
you have.
4. Set your business up. Basically you would just be advertising
yourself to the small business community on the web with your
website.
------Tell the small business owners why they need you. You
might want to mention how EXTREMELY reasonable your rates are.
------Tell them who you are. (IE-I'm the answer to your problem:)
One paragraph on your website alerting the business person to
all he needs to do while running an cyber business and how you
can solve that problem. An example of this is advertising,
website maintenance, newsletter pre-preparation, etc
------Elaborate on ALL the skills you have. (entrepreneurs never
sleep and are really desperate for someone like you) For
example: Office support, correspondence, internet research,
typing or writing their newsletter, database maintenance of
customers and leads, web design, sales literature design, etc.
------Give them your background and education. (Mention too how
much energy you have and how fast you type and advertise also.)
------Provide a way for them to contact you. This is as simple
as ending your webpage advertisement with your name, an email
link, your address and your telephone number.
5. Advertise yourself in every way imaginable on the internet.
There are actual listings for virtual assistants where you can
add your business and get support such as:
http://www.abcsvcs.com/typists.htm http://www.staffcentrix.com/
http://www.assistu.com/
You can buy materials from these sites to help you to develop
your business and these places may even help you with setting up
a website and advertising. Do a search at alta vista search
engine to find more databases like these.
When you are advertising on your own we suggest targeting the
places small business people visit. Mainly these are comprised
of small business forums, discussion lists and newsgroups. Take
part in the discussions and include a signature similar to the
one we added at the end of this article (Never blatantly
advertise in newsgroups, forums or a discussion list). Here are
the places you can look for "marketing discussions":
for discussion lists: http://list-universe.com/ for newsgroups:
http://www.dejanews.com for forums:
http://www.entrepreneur-web.com/index_1.shtml
When your business is developed you can research press releases
and tell the world how you are helping the small businessman via
the internet. This will help you a great deal with that and
suppliment all the information above as well:
http://www.techweb.com/smallbiz http://prweb.com
Why wait another day, the opportunity has presented itself. It's
a wide open arena and a great need. You could be one of the
first to create this new income generating line of work on the
internet and be up and running in no time. Many large staffing
services may not even realize this door of opportunity exists,
get in now. As business owners realize you are available more
and more will come to you for help. You could be creating a new
family owned business at home beginning right now. There is even
plenty of opportunity for an online "VA temporary agency" or two
which will cater to the online small business world. Food for
thought. Seize the moment!