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So you want
to be a Virtual Assistant?
By, Lori
Redfield
More and more women today are
opting to stay at home to nurture their children. But this is
nearly always a financially stressful decision for a family to
make. Our economic situation often times demands two incomes -
and even so, many couples continue to find themselves sinking
further and further into financial debt.
The benefits of being at home for our children
are obvious. But how can we achieve it and still contribute
substantially to the financial end of things? Furthermore,
there are more expressions of ourselves than mother and wife -
and many of us yearn to continue building viable skills that
keep us 'marketable' and also enable us to make contributions
to society. How can we do it all? That is the puzzling
question that more and more women are successfully being able
to answer.
The advent of the World Wide Web has had a
significant impact on a women's ability to work from home.
There are an ever-increasing number of Internet based
companies who think in a completely contemporary way. These
companies are seeking to employ "Free Agents", independent
contractors - otherwise known as "Virtual Assistants".
Why is a Virtual Assistant a good idea? It saves
a company money. The company is not obligated with the typical
overhead costs that an "employee" usually represents. There is
no office building, no benefits - health, vacation, 401k or
otherwise. The Virtual Assistant is self-employed, pays their
own taxes, does their own invoicing and provides their
services from their own office.
A Virtual Assistant provides any number of
solutions to the Internet based company. There is the roll of
virtual support that many companies are implementing now which
allows a more personal relationship with the customer that had
been lacking in Internet stores and service sites. What this
is is a "Live Chat" service where the customer can request a
chat and a customer service representative on duty can respond
and chat real time - answering questions about products or
services instantly. This is still a new concept, but it is
quickly becoming the norm and there is a definite need for
people who can competently provide this service and represent
companies in a professional way.
Other solutions for customer support that a
Virtual Assistant may offer are email and phone support for
both Internet based and more traditional brick-and-mortar
companies.
Oftentimes VA's are offering editing and
proofreading services as well as 'beta testing' new websites
or portions of websites before they are launched to the
public. The beta testing mainly consists of clicking all of
the links on each page of the clients site, taking copious
notes of anything that is not functioning properly including
testing forms, surveys or other interactive elements on the
site. You would note weather or not you received a
confirmation email after signing up for their newsletter - if
you encountered any error pages, had suggestions for
improvements, etc.
Any webmaster or website owner will tell you
that a fresh pair of eyes is a tremendously valuable resource
that they are willing to pay for.
Other Virtual Assistant roles might be HTML
editing, updating website data, hand submitting websites to
search engines, researching competitor sites for website
owners. or more traditional secretarial functions like basic
accounting, data entry, or mailing list maintenance. The
possibilities truly are limitless.
More and more women are finding fulfilling roles
as Virtual Assistants, many with more work than they can
handle. Our aim is to help women obtain the necessary skills
they need to become successful Virtual Assistants, teach them
how to market themselves, and help to dig up current position
openings.
Interested in more information? Why not join the
FreelanceMom.com newsletter?
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Lori Redfield is a successful business woman,
working from home. Mother of three boys and creator of www.freelancemom.com,
an eSource for professional Mothers.
This article may be published in your ezine or
website so long as it isn't altered and the biography and
website link at the end remain intact.
Related articles:
Assisting You Virtually- How Virtual Assistants are changing the face of the workplace
By, Sharon Davis
Online Business: Work Smarter, not Harder
By, Keith Bryan
Related forums:
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