Would you use a Virtual Assistant?

Hi,

I have recently set up a virtual assistant admin & accountancy support business. I would be interested to hear your views - would you use a virtual support (i.e. someone remotely logging into your computer)? What would be your concerns? What do you think is good about the idea?

What sort of issue do you currently face with regards to your admin and/or accountancy that might convince you to ditch the conventional "full time worker" or agency approach and look into using a virtual assistant?

Hello Claire, I did see your ad where you focus on helping people cope with "paperwork". VAs offer a great service for people who need flexibility and can't justify a full time PA although I've never used one. The problem you highlight is wanting (not sure about needing?) to access the client's system and also in being remote how paper documents are handled. Do I have to scan things to you? What about my local filing? - that sort of thing. Also how will you charge, by the hour? You specifically mention accountancy (some VAs mention bookkeeping but not many I've met) so what do you offer in terms of experience there? Like any service make it clear what problems you solve for whom and why you are good value! And consider how you'll get the clients you want. Get along to your local 4N group and get talking to people would be a good start. And find a good accountant (just kidding - well maybe not, if you have some accounting expertise why not specialise in helping accountants?)

Yes, I have used a virtual pa in the past, helps takes some of the more everyday tasks away so I can concentrate on my business.

Denise

Hi Claire

I used to run a Virtual PA service.  To overcome client concerns about me logging into their servers I used to host all their calendars, contacts etc on my server.  They could log in to my server remotely and in terms of document sharing we used to email documents and track changes but over the years since I had that business I know that sharing documents has improved immensely with the advent of dropbox etc.

Good luck with your business.

Deb

Thanks for all the great input - I had consider using some kind of "joint" area where clients can upload and download documents, will need to look into it further. As we are still a fledgling business as this stage, funding is limited. I can certainly see where the concerns would come in and hopefully we can address all these when talking to future clients. Now I just need to get some more business coming in!

Hi Claire, 

Honestly, it would depend on competence/reliability/hourly or daily rate. 

Your biggest issue is likely to be the inclination of some towards hiring VAs in India etc for £3 per hour, or less. 

Thanks, 

Gareth

Hi Claire,

Time for a VA to step into this thread and say that YES - there are business owners out there that use a Virtual Assistant for many things.  I have several regular clients, all of whom have different needs and ways in which I provide support and assistance to them.  As Deb mentions, the advent of cloud computing has made the whole Virtual Office way of working easy and flexible - I use Dropbox with all my clients.

Gareth is right in saying that a lot of how successful your business is will depend on competence, reliablity and rates - and his next comment regarding VA's placed elsewhere in the world - if someone is willing to pay £3 an hour to get a job done, they shouldn't expect too much in the way of competence and reliability!

Chris has some good points too - tell people you meet about how you will help them in business and what it is you do to achieve that.  Whether it's bookkeeping, diary management or raising invoices - making it relevant to those you want to help will get their attention.  4N is a great way to meet potential clients - Chris' suggestion to go to a breakfast meeting is one that I definitely agree with!

There are lots of VA's on the 4N forum - I've spoken to some of them and we all agree that we are here to support each other!

Good luck with the business.

Jessie

Untrue - because you're missing the point.

It doesn't mean that they less competent and less reliable  - it just means that the cost of living in the less developed parts of the world is that much lower. Having said that, my VA is Hertfordshire based! But I am working with an excellent programmer based in the Philippines.

I was just about to post this...

I know MANY people who hire VAs in other parts of the world, and in a lot of instances they are more than impressed with the standard of work and reliability - £3 per hour is above the average wage in a lot of countries, too. Not only that, but English is like a first language in India...

In some instances it's a bit of guess work, trial and error and what not, but it can prove cost effective - same with SEOs in India too, providing you find the right one. 

I also know another business owner who has outsourced thousands of pounds of work to a Romanian designer/developer for well below what would be considered market value here, and has got above the kind of results you would typically get in the UK, even at market value. The logo he designed was amazingly impressive. 

I use a VA. They handle a number of things for me. None of the tasks require them to log into my server or my account. Why someone might use a VA is not tied to the access. It is all about getting work done that is better handled by the VA than by me.

As to the price of a person in another location vs. the quality. There is little real connection between what someone charges and their ability to do the work. As a few have pointed out, it comes down to the cost of living in one location vs. another. In my case I am using a VA who I can meet with so I can pass work back and forth. It works for me. It might be cheaper if I organized the work so it all could be sent electronically. That is not a priority so not what I do.

Thanks everyone, some valuable points.

Jessie - do you mind me asking what sort of industries and demographics your main clients are in? I'm still finding my footing with this, but have had some really positive feedback from accountants and smaller companies such as design. It would be interesting to see if there was anything I hadn't thought about!

I have used VA's - mostly in the UK as I found the overseas ones a pain in the you-know-what!

We have used dropbox and sharepoint to share files. They have done my admin/documents/events organising/transcribing/formatting documents and so on. I have a bookkeeper who does all my bookkeeping stuff!

Lovely...

Claire

The VA industry is so wide in its actually definition, more than just secretarial or administrative services. So not all VA's need to access their clients' servers, etc. As a VA myself, I've never needed to. But I have never marketed myself out for the kind of work that would require that. It all depends on what sort of services you want to offer. My personal experience is that it pays to specialise in a niche that plays to your key skills and to focus mainly on that niche.

When I first started out as a VA, I came in with very much a "scatter gun" approach, trying to be "all things to all people" and it just confused everyone. I've recently honed my services and started focusing on those that enable me to play to my strengths.

If you do decide to provide a service where you need access to clients' files, or the like, then Google Docs would be a good option, combined with Google Calendars, etc.

As far as marketing yourself goes, I'd suggest becoming a full passport member of 4N (if you're not already) so that you can do a few 4Sights at a number of your local 4N groups is a highly effective way of demonstrating your expertise without actually "selling". (If you need any help with PowerPoint, then please Inbox me.)

Another resource that I found useful during my start-up days was Virtual Assistant Forums (just Google them) you'll be able to find out what other VA's are doing and how they charge.

Well, that's my penny's worth. I hope it's been of help to you. :)

Hi Claire

exciting times for you and I wish you every success, I think the most important focus for you over the next few weeks is to build awareness of you (the brand) and what you can do to make other peoples lives easier.

Keep busy, have fun, keep your product range trim and your prices affordable and success will come. 

CW

As far as your "joint area" goes - Dropbox is the answer. Its a folder that sits on your computer and within that you can set permissions, so different people can access different ones. They have the folders on their computer that they have access to and everything syncronises between the different folders over the internet. If your away from your normal PC you can also use the web interface to manage documents.

So, the price of this lovely tool... FREE! (to start with - if you want loads of space you have to start paying). If your cleaver about it you can also set up the dropbox accounts for new clients who don't have it. This increases your mailbox size by 250MB each time! It is great!

To answer your question about VA's and would we use one - yes, when we get to the point of needing more time to spend on the company, but don't want to employ someone we probably would use a VA. Then I can pass the admin elsewhere. However, at the moment, not having enough time to do admin work isn't a challenge we are faced with.