Why Outsourcing To Virtual Assistants Is A Must

Why Outsourcing to Virtual Assistants is a Must

Introduction

            A decade ago, “virtual assistant” might have conjured up some a vision of some sort of real-time robot helper.  Today, however, there are professional organizations devoted to virtual assistants, numerous websites supporting the virtual assistant industry, and even a virtual assistant “Chamber of Commerce” on the Web.[i]

            Virtual assistants form a core of our company’s business.  We’ve commissioned this paper in order to explain what virtual assistants do and where the industry has come from.  In this report, we’ll provide:

background and definition of the virtual assistant industry examples of work that has been outsourced to virtual assistants a case study based on actual use of a virtual assistant questions for you to consider as you evaluate why outsourcing to virtual assistants is a must

 

            Of course, we’ll also provide you with information about how you can contact us to arrange the services of one of our professional virtual assistants.  Because you need to focus on the things that are core to your business and lifestyle, and virtual assistants are an essential part of helping you do that.

 

Virtual Assistant Defined

            Simply put, a virtual assistant is an administrative assistant who provides services to businesses, entrepreneurs, executives, or just busy people.[ii]  The International Virtual Assistants Association offers a more formal definition:

            A Virtual Assistant (VA) is an independent entrepreneur providing administrative, creative and/or technical services. Utilizing advanced technological modes of communication and data delivery, a professional VA assists clients in his/her area of expertise from his/her own office on a contractual basis.[iii]

 

            Virtual assistant assignments are usually communicated through e-mail, phone, fax, or mail-that’s why we’re called “virtual.”  Even though we may not be on-site, though, it’s important to remember that virtual assistants are entrepreneurs who are invested in their own business.  In other words, we make it our business to make your business and life run more smoothly.

            The virtual assistant industry has tracked closely with the development of the Web.  Email, Twitter, Facebook, even EBay, have created a multitude of ways for business relationships to grow.  But virtual assistants are also experienced in business before Web 2.0.  A 2008 study commissioned by the Virtual Assistant Chamber of Commerce quantifies how recently the industry has emerged.  Over half of the 500 virtual assistants surveyed had started their business in 2007 or 2008.[iv]  However, the virtual assistants surveyed were not inexperienced; 72 percent of those responding had over ten years of administrative experience and 27 percent had over 20 years of administrative experience (Figure 1).[v] 

 

Source: Survey of 375 virtual assistants (2008 Virtual Assistant Survey Highlights)

 

            As an experienced administrator, a virtual assistant will typically charge a base hourly rate between $30 and $60, as did nearly 70 percent of the virtual assistants surveyed in 2008.[vi]  Of course, rates can be lower-for less experienced or less specialized virtual assistants-or much higher for highly specialized tasks.  Most virtual assistants operate on a monthly retainer specifying a certain number of hours worked, while staying flexible to meet additional time demands placed by the client.

            For a company of any size to flourish in the kind of virtual environment that has caused the virtual assistant industry to emerge, help is needed to simply manage the daily tasks and relationships involved in everyday business.  But virtual assistants aren’t just there to help you with secretarial tasks.  Let’s now take a look at the realm of work that virtual assistants provide through the lens of a case study, based on the actual experience of an entrepreneur who has successfully utilized a virtual assistant’s services.

 

Common Services Provided By Virtual Assistants

Customer Support

Telephone Handling

Medical Billing

Data Entry

Travel Planning

Medical Transcription

Email Handling

Helpdesk

Office Administration

Event Planner

Visio

MS Outlook

Spreadsheets

Research

Power Point

Word

WordPerfect

Word Processing

 

 

Alan and the Brainstorm

            It began as another one of Alan’s great ideas.  He noticed that he was getting more and more calls from a particular sector of his client base related to one of the company’s products.  But he couldn’t justify the numbers for a full-blown market research report, and he simply didn’t have the time to put together all the information himself.

            He had heard about virtual assistants at a sales conference, and he decided to see if he could retain an assistant for three months to do the legwork that help him quantify his hunch.  He located a virtual assistant that had administrative experience within his specific industry.  He outlined his needs, listened to the assistant’s questions, and hired her within a week to begin his project.

            Alan knew that the project would interest him too much to simply forward the incoming emails to his assistant, so she handled everything directly to her inbox.  She formatted a short survey with questions that Alan had designed, and provided some skilled editing and layout-along with ideas to clarify the questions so he would get the information that he wanted.  She handled the arrangements for printing and mailing the survey, took all the phone calls from clients that had questions about it, and received all the hard copies while also summarizing on-line responses.  After Alan’s initial analysis of the data, she helped him create a Power Point for presentation at his next management meeting.

            As the project was finishing, Alan realized that his virtual assistant had done a skilled job and could be valuable long-term asset.  He had to focus more of his attention to financial analysis, one of his strongest management skills, and he needed someone to manage his email and help with creating the weekly reports that he sent to the sales and management teams.  So he retained the services of the virtual assistant, who had proven herself for the task, for the coming year.

 

Next Steps

            Maybe you find yourself in need of targeted administrative help, like Alan.  Or maybe you’re in need of an administrative generalist, someone who can simply spend the hours each week “doing it all” that you no longer have time to do.  Or, perhaps there’s a part of your non-business life that needs more planning-upcoming events, vacations, retreats, community activities.  If so, a virtual assistant is essential.

            Be sure to keep the following three things in mind as you seek out a virtual assistant.  For a more comprehensive list of other considerations, you may wish to surf to a helpful article called “How to Hire A Virtual Assistant,” referenced in the endnotes.[vii]

 

1.         A Virtual Assistant is Virtual

            Your primary connection to a virtual assistant, and their primary connection to you, is virtual.  So evaluate potential assistants based on their virtual presence.  Their website should be clean, crisp, and professional.  Their ability to respond to your emails, IMs, or other electronic communication during the interview process should indicate to you the eventual quality of their work. 

            Finally, ask for references or referrals that you can access virtually to see how the candidate’s network operates.  After all, everyone’s heard of (or interviewed) the candidates that seem perfect until the HR person views their Facebook page….

 

2.         A Virtual Assistant Should Be Highly Qualified

            Working virtually is no comment on someone’s qualifications.  In fact, many employers of virtual assistants find them even more qualified than their on-site options for completing administrative and professional tasks.

            Be sure to ask your potential virtual assistant not just about their past qualifications and experience, but also about how they are able to administrate.  Does their philosophy of business line up with yours?  Is their business experience at a similar level that you’re operating?  Ask for examples of how they’ve completed tasks, and how familiar they are with the things that are important to you.  Give candidates the opportunity to listen; the best virtual assistants, like the best employees, are superior listeners.

 

3.         Hiring a Virtual Assistant is B2B

            Quality virtual assistants are entrepreneurs; they own their businesses, write their own business and marketing plans, and develop their own sales strategies.  They’re an essential part of helping you do business and organize life; but they’ve also chosen to work as entrepreneurs.  We’ve found that, like any business relationship, the best virtual assistant-client relationships are built on the sort of mutual trust and respect that is founded between colleagues.

 

Your Next Step

            ThoughtPoint Virtual Assistants, Inc invites you to contact us to discuss how a virtual assistant might serve you.  Our team of assistants has already been filtered based on qualifications and experience, and we are prepared to listen closely to your needs to help find the optimal virtual assistant match for you.  You can contact us by visiting our website, www.mythoughtpoint.com, where you’ll find directions for reaching us at any time.  We appreciate your review of this information about our industry and look forward to your inquiry about how a ThoughtPointTM professional might assist you.

 

 

References

 

 

[i] For example, see the websites www.ivaa.org and www.virtualassistantnetworking.com

[ii] From our website, www.mythoughtpoint.com

[iii] The IVAA claims over 1,000 members. www.ivaa.org/

 

[iv] Virtual Assistant Chamber of Commerce.  2008 Virtual Assistant Survey Industry Highlights.  October 6, 2008, p. 13.  Accessed February 2009 at

” title=”http://www.virtualassistantnetworking.com/how-to-hire-a-virtual-assistant.htm

” target=”_blank”>www.virtualassistantnetworking.com/how-to-hire-a-virtual-assistant.htm

 

Gadgets You Can Buy As Gifts This Year

Choosing a gadget can be a complicated task. There are a huge number of gadget retailers, both online and off, and they offer a numbing array of items. If you’re looking to buy someone a gadget, a lot of your decision will depend on how much money you plan on spending. There are gadgets for every budget, and for every season.

Here’s a few gadgets that may be of interest:

Smartphones: Smartphones are just that, phones with a whole lot of additional smart features. SmartPhones are a new generation of handheld devices which allow you to make cellular and data calls with ease. More powerful than some PDAs, SmartPhones threaten the entire PDA business. The Palm Treo is a notable brand.

UMPCs – Ultra Mobile Personal Computers, also known as the Origami Form factor are geared for the market between PDAs and Laptops. Smaller than laptops, they boast of longer lasting battery life and more software. In fact, one of the main selling points of UMPCs is the fact they run Windows Tablet OS and are compatible with Office. Microsoft and Intel championed the UMPC form factor initially to be offered in the $500-$1000 price range. The reality is, the units will be closer to $1200. Samsung is the first OEM to market with its’innovative Q1 UMPC. They plan on offering it for sale in the US and most of the world in May 2006.

Robots – Domesticated robots like the Roomba are quite a sensation. People are definitely interested in the potential time saving qualities of robots. Robots that mow the lawn and clean the house are now a reality. In the future, more tasks will be assigned to robotic helpers.

Cameras and Camcorders – Sony Handycam has a very hot offering right now with it’s MiniDV Digital Video Recorders. The units have excellent picture quality and shoot straight to mini-DVDs, which should play anywhere. For the price, the HandyCam MiniDV has a rich feature set, which allows for flicker-free filming. You can’t beat a camcorder for capturing precious moments.

Tablet PCs and PDAs – Although feeling pressure from the UMPCs and SmartPhones, PDAs and Tablet PCs are still a popular item.

Blackberry and Palms are still extremely popular PDAs, and Blackberry has over 2 million people using its’ commercial email service. Tablet PCs carry a hefty price-tag, but have excellent features like hand-writing recognition. In fact, use of the stylus is natural, and anyone with an artistic bent would seemingly love this device.

Any of the above items would make an excellent gift for a gadget enthusiast. The main thing to do is consider the person’s lifestyle before making a purchase. Since almost all gadgets carry relatively high price tags, it’s worth finding out for sure what the person wants, or you run the risk of making an expensive mistake. Check all gadgets for the presence of extras, such as service plans, that aren’t included in the purchase price.

Aquabot Pool Cleaners – The Helper That Doesn’t Complain

Cleaning is my most hated household chore, more so if it’s cleaning the swimming-pool which never seems to stay clean anyway, no matter how often or how thorough I clean it.

If you your backyard, surrounded by landscaped trees and various plants just like what we have, or if you have young kids who enjoy throwing “stuff” into the water and reveling at how it floats for a while before finally sinking to the bottom of the abyss that is your swimming-pool, then you know exactly what kind of “mess” I’m talking about.

Unless you have a cover or are swimming in pure chlorine (which of course you couldn’t do that), your water is in need of constant cleaning because it is always exposed to (take your pick; I think we have all of them) dust, bird droppings, dog and people hair, leaves, mold, mildew and whatever else happens to fall into your water (again, “thrown” is a more likely how one should describe it when there are kids around), making it necessary to clean it more often than you have imagined when you first got it installed.

I was already at my wits end and was actually thinking of re-purposing the space our swimming-pool was sitting on into something less laborious to maintain, when I stumbled across Aquabot cleaners… robotic cleaners whose main purpose in life (my life actually) was to clean the water! How cool is that?

According to the sales person who gave me the Aquabot cleaners 101, unlike regular filtration systems, Aquabot cleaners not just filters the water in your s-pool. It actually takes pride in cleaning the “water itself” by vacuuming the floor and even walls, sucking up debris in the process, debris that might otherwise just be stuck at the bottom or floating on the water.

The Aquabot pool-cleaner turbo model that I’m getting is touted to suck up debris as small as 2 microns, and I think that’s as small as debris gets!

Other models of Aquabot cleaner line also have remote-controls, making the otherwise tedious task of cleaning, as easy as a push of a button… maybe next time, when it’s time to get an upgrade for my Aquabot cleaner.

Aquabot cleaners may cost more than your average vacuum cleaner, but at least you don’t have to be in the water to hold on to its handle and run the nozzle across the whole length of the floor to get it all cleaned up. You just literally throw in the water and watch it do its job.

Be careful not to throw in the transformer though because it is not waterproof, which is a bit of a drawback, but having your Aquabot cleaner is still a lot better than cleaning it by yourself every time.

Many consider the Aquabot Pool Cleaner to be one of the finest on the market. I would have to agree as I have recommended them to my customers for many years. They are an investment worth considering for your swimming pool.

Forex Automatic Trading Robots-Forex Robot Independent Testing

The “Forex MegaDroid Robot” is a Forex trading software robot made by Albert Perrie and John Grace. Together the two men have nearly forty years of Forex trading experience. Forex megadroid is one of the many number of forex vehicle trading androids that have been released into the market that claim to earn money for you. The thing that makes megadroid unique is it’s high prediction claim, an astonishing 95.82%, which by any standards is rather high. That experience is what drives the robot to make the choices it does. And everything they know has been programmed into the robot. Automated Forex trading is starting to become more and more popular. Read on more about forex megadroid automated system and best trading robot. And it is obvious that there are now many various androids that are available that may trade currencies automatically. Get more info about forex megadroid automated system and best trading robot. Listed below is a brief overview behind this Forex tool and a review of my own trading results.

Forex megadroid is certainly no scam, and there were actual cases where people have made money off it. Truly you get a load more than a robot with the MegaDroid. It is like hiring a research helper which will work for you the rest of your life and you never have to pay them. What else can a business man ask for? It’ll doubtless become your best buddy. Full details about forex megadroid automated system and best trading robot. As you can know, many trading androids are profitable only while they are new. When market conditions change, these androids often lose money. People who programmed MegaDroid claim that the theory behind it is based on what’s called “market changing intelligence”. As market conditions change, we are going to find out in the future if this EA is capable of adapting well. Another interesting thing about this robot is known as “Reverse linked Time and Price Analysis” ( RCTPA ). This algorithm is meant to outlook price movement inside a time-frame of 2 to 4 hours.

It uses a technique known as reverse linked time and price analysis wherein the robot is repeatedly monitoring past and future stocks to determine if the trades are worth your investment. Full details about forex megadroid automated system and best trading robot at our site. The robot never goes home so it never comes in late. Read on to know more about forex megadroid automated system and best trading robot.

The Forex MegaDroid Robot is marketed more as a fast, simple money generator. Almost like a get rich quick scheme or something. Anyone that buys it for that reason will be sorely disappointed. The program is really meant to be a Forex traders assistant, sieving thru the info and giving trustworthy trading advice based mostly on it. It is used to relieve you of the boring details so you can get on with other things. It is user friendly and most anybody with enough intelligence to be involved in Forex trading can quite easily do anything needed with a click or 2. I might strongly suggest hiring the Forex MegaDroid Robot for your Forex business. It is one employee you will profit from for future years.

Best Brokers For The Forex Markets-Forex Automatic Trading Robot

The “Forex MegaDroid Robot” is a Forex trading software robot made by Albert Perrie and John Grace. Together the two men have nearly 40 years of Forex trading experience. Forex megadroid is one of many number of forex vehicle trading androids that have been released into the market that claim to earn income for you. The thing that makes megadroid unique is it’s high prediction claim, a shocking 95.82%, which by any standards is pretty high. And everything they know has been programmed into the robot. Automated Forex trading is beginning to become more popular. Read on more about forex megadroid automated system and best trading robot. Get more info about forex megadroid automated system and best trading robot.

Forex megadroid is surely no scam, and there have been actual cases where folks have made money off it. Really you get a load more than a robot with the MegaDroid. It is like hiring a research helper that will work for you the rest of your life and you never need to pay them. What more can a business man ask for? It will possibly become your best buddy. Similarly, the forex megadroid scam also claims that there’s no way for any robot to have such a high prediction level. Full details about forex megadroid automated system and best trading robot. When market conditions change, these robots frequently lose cash. Folks who programmed MegaDroid claim that the logic behind it is predicated on what’s called “market adapting intelligence”. As market conditions change, we are going to find out in the future if this EA is capable of changing well. Another engaging thing about this robot is called “Reverse associated Time and Price Analysis” ( RCTPA ).

It has a very complicated and intricately programmed engine, which can help it exactly forecast what the market will be like in the next few hours, like say two or four hours, or even at the end of the session. Overall, it is safe to assert that Forex megadriod trick is just fictitious and something you shouldn’t pay heed to. Full details about forex megadroid automated system and best trading robot at our site. If Forex megadroid is what you feel will help you with your trades, then don’t hesitate to go out and get it. When it comes to judging the value of any product, time savings is the first thing you need to look at is will it save time. Another thing is accuracy, or reliability. Accuracy and timeliness go a long way in making Forex profits. Read on to know more about forex megadroid automated system and best trading robot. The final consideration is whether it will provide advantage to you on the final analysis. To paraphrase, is it able to put money in your pocket? The robot has proven to me time after time that it can do that.

The Forex MegaDroid Robot is marketed more as a fast, easy money generator. Anyone who buys it for that reason will be sorely disappointed. The program is truly meant to be a Forex traders assistant, sieving through the info and giving reliable trading recommendation based on it. It is used to relieve you of the boring details so you can get on with other things. It is user friendly and most anyone with enough intelligence to be involved in Forex trading can quite easily do anything required with a click or two. The program allows you to get more done in less time, making more cash at the same time. I would strongly suggest hiring the Forex MegaDroid Robot for your Forex business. It is one employee you may profit from for years to come.