Vritual Assistants With Bad Grammar

I came across this post when Googling "virtual assistants". Even though they are giving away 10 hours for free, you might want to consider the language barrier. If you operate your business in English, hire an english speaking VA, if your business operates in Spanish, hire a Spanish speaking VA. It is too easy for things to get lost in translation and this can cost you time and money trying to sort out. I don't want to pick on any particular company so I have taken out their name. The grammar is probably so bad in this post because it appears to be written in another language and then translated poorly into English.

"Many might be wondering how much would it cost them to hire the services of a Virtual Assistant as compared to hiring a conventional Personal Assistant, Admin Assistant or Secretary. We at ***** Services came up with Very Affordable Plans to be able to cater to all Busy Men for them to Outsource their Tasks to us for as low as USD$17/hour. These tasks could be as simple as data entry, task management, virtual secretary tasks and personal/administrative assistant tasks and complex tasks such as Website Design, Development, Internet Marketing and a lot more.
Most of you might also be thinking why you should entrust those tasks to us? ***** Services has the BEST Professional Backups in the field of Virtual Assistance today. Our Virtual Assistants are all College Degree Holders, Loyal and they are trained by Outstanding Professionals from various industry fields. Among these are; Management Consultants, Lawyers, Doctors, Accountants/Bookkeepers, Information Technology, Sales/Marketing & Customer Service Professionals. This simply means that in whatever field that you might be involved with, our Virtual Assistants are able to cater to almost any tasks that you would like to relegate to them.
Our facility houses Virtual Assistants working in shifts all day and at 24 hours, 7 days a week. These Virtual Assistants are Bachelors Degree holders and are fluent in speaking, writing correspondences or any articles using the International Medium which is of course, the English language. All of them are professionals working in a professional environment in our Offsite Office. They are all trained in various fields by Professional Trainors mentioned above. We anticipated the need of our customers and we at ***** prepared beforehand to meet their demands.
Right now, we have a FREE Ten (10) Hour Trial Promo for All Those Busy People out there who needs assistance in their tasks. Try Us Out and Enjoy Having Loyal Virtual Assistants working for you and live like a Royalty. Ain’t it nice to live like Kings and Queens? Leave Your Worries to Us!"

For the extra few dollars you would be spending to hire an English speaking virtual assistant from Canada, the US, Great Britain, Australia, etc. you would save in the end because tasks would not have to be done over due to grammatical errors.

You Never Know How Your Name Gets Around

I was searching through blogs today and low and behold, I found my website suggested as a place to go for more information on virtual assistants. It was on a blog called http://www.thewebwhisperers.com/ written by Bill O'Hanlon. Bill is a renowned speaker and author and has even appeared on Oprah and has been published in her magazine.

Thank you Mr. O'Hanlon for choosing to put my link in one of your blog posts. You can learn more about Bill O'Hanlon at http://www.billohanlon.com/.

Building a Successful Virtual Assistant Business

Having a successful virtual assistant practice takes more than hanging out your shingle and waiting for the clients to pour in. “Build it and they will come” means you have to constantly build your business.

In “Field of Dreams” the Kevin Costner character is told to “build it and they will come”. He worked and worked to build his field of dreams. If you have seen the movie, you know that he was ridiculed and there was a lot of work to do to turn that field of corn into a baseball diamond. But it was all worth it in the end.

What are you willing to go through to see your business become successful? How much work are you willing to do? Some people see becoming a virtual assistant as a get-rich-quick business. If you talk to any successful VA, you will find out this is just not true. They are successful because they have put the time and energy into their business.

I am not trying to discourage anyone from becoming a virtual assistant. I just want people to go into this field with their eyes wide open. Here are a few things to consider before you decide to take the plunge into the virtual assistant industry:

1. Definition – What is a virtual assistant? I like the Wikipedia definition: A Virtual Assistant (or simply VA), is an independent contractor providing administrative, technical, or sometimes creative assistance to clients--usually to other independent entrepreneurs and solo and small business practices, such as that of a lawyer or realtor. Virtual assistants work from their own office (hence "virtual"). Common modes of communication and data delivery include the Internet, File Transfer Protocol (FTP), and fax machine.

2. Experience – How much experience do you have in the non-virtual world in the area of expertise you are going to market? Some organizations believe you should have at least 5 years experience before you start your virtual assistant business. If you have the experience and skills then go for it. If not, why not wait another year or two before stepping out on your own.

3. Training – Virtual assistant training does not train you how to use a computer, build a website, or send an email. It does train you to run your own business, create a business plan, and how to market yourself and your VA business. There are a lot of training options available. Make sure you are comfortable with the format of the training as well as the content. Don’t purchase anything you won’t be able to learn from.

4. Web Presence – This used to mean that you would have a website, but now it means so much more. Having a web presence now means to have a website, a blog, at least 3 networking page memberships (like MySpace), and membership in various forums and groups. You have to get yourself out there in cyberspace as much as possible.

5. Marketing – Marketing your business can take many forms. You can do it through your local Chamber of Commerce, newspaper ads, and other traditional methods. Your web presence is basically marketing. You can spend hours keeping up with marketing. Writing articles, press releases, and commenting on forums are great ways to get your business into the minds of prospective customers. Networking is another effective method of marketing. This can be done online or in person, but you have to keep up with it. Experts say your prospective clients need to see your information 7 times before it registers.

I hope you haven’t been put off becoming a virtual assistant. I just wanted you to be aware that it is a lot of work. Not only do you have to complete your client work, but you will have a tonne of stuff to do to keep your business running. If you let either fall behind, you will have no business at all.

Build your “field of dreams” but remember how much work it will take to build.

New Poll Shows the Need for Virtual Assistants

A recent poll conducted by Harris Interactive, one of the largest and fastest-growing market research firms in the world, revealed some interesting facts about how people view virtual assistants.

It turns out that 64% of American adults would gladly outsource a whole range of tasks to someone else. When asked if hiring a virtual assistant would give them more time or reduce stress in their lives, more than 70% said that it would. An even higher number (75%) believe that personal assistants aren’t just for celebrities.

When asked what types of tasks they would have a virtual assistant do for them, the survey found a long list of things that people would rather have others do for them. Topping the list, 33% would rather not research and organize their own travel and vacation arrangements. Coming in a close second, 28% of the survey participants said that organizing and paying bills was something they would rather not do themselves. The survey found that men find this task more dreadful than women at 31% versus 25%.

There was a tie for the third most hated task. Answering calls and taking messages along with writing and mailing thank you, holiday, and birthday cards came in at 26%. It also turned out that younger adults, age 18-34, were 85% more likely to hire a virtual assistant to help them with these unwanted tasks.

The survey found American adults also feel strongly (73%) that hiring a virtual assistant would definitely be beneficial. 55% fell they would have more time for important tasks and errands if they had a virtual assistant while 34% percent feel they would perform better in their work, and 52% stated they would have more time to spend with family and friends or time to exercise or vacation time.

This particular survey also noted that almost three quarters (72%) of respondents would not feel comfortable hiring a virtual assistant from overseas. People also don’t feel comfortable in sharing their valuable information such as credit card information (67%).

And who would be more likely to hire a virtual assistant – a man or a woman? The survey found that men (77%) see the benefits of hiring a virtual assistant before women (69%). The total number of people surveyed was 1,005 with 503 respondents being women and 502 being men.

From the results of this survey, it seems that the virtual assistant will continue to grow. As the American adult gets busier, the need for virtual assistant services will become more evident. As the young adults move into busier lifestyles they will be more likely to look to a VA to help them succeed.

Press Release - Virtual Assistant Practice Adds Resources for Clients and Other VAs

This is my latest press release:

Right-Hand-Man Virtual Assistant Services, a multi-VA practice, is now offering resources to other VAs and their small business clients. You can now purchase the “7 Essential Keys for Responding to VA RFPs” e-book and its companion, “7 Essential Keys for Writing VA RFPs” on the new Resources page at the Right-Hand-Man website.

The new Resources page also offers the latest e-book, “Essential Article Marketing Secrets”, written by Darrell Williams, the owner of Right-Hand-Man Virtual Assistant Services. This e-book will help you to write articles that get noticed and comes with a list of 999 article directories where you can submit your article.

Williams says, “I wrote this book out of my own experiences with article marketing. Even though I haven’t written a great deal of articles, the articles I have written have been picked up by bloggers and published in newsletters and ezines. I just wanted to share what I learned with other business people.”

As the Resource page grows, Williams will add other content. He is on the lookout for other e-books and software created by small business for small business. He would like to see this one page grow into a whole new website offering products and services for small business owners. Williams says, “I see providing information and products as an integral part of being a virtual assistant. The more you can do for your clients the better you can serve them.”

Right-Hand-Man Virtual Assistant Services has been in business for 11 months. In that time it has been awarded the VANetworking.com’s “VAccolade Business Entrepreneur Award”, served clients from all over the world and has grown from one person to a multi-VA practice with a team of 7. The company offers a full range of services at industry standard rates.

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Darrell Williams
Right-Hand-Man Virtual Assistant Services
902-367-5019
contact@righthandmanva.com