Orange County Virtual Assistants Offer Economic Advantages To Business Owners

This article discusses the economic advantages of hiring a virtual assistant over a temp or regular employee.

Building a successful business can turn into a nightmare of headaches, frustration and exhaustion, if you aren’t careful. Unfortunately, the more successful you are, the more administrative tasks you have; the more time you spend on administrative tasks, the less time you have to generate new revenue.

It’s a vicious, vicious cycle.

So what’s a business owner to do?

Hire a virtual assistant.

What’s a virtual assistant?

Virtual assistants (VA’s)are professional office assistants who provide office services and support without actually being physically present, by using the Internet, fax and telephone. Virtual Assistants also complete work through the use of online collaborative workstations. And since much of their work is done online, they can work locally or globally eliminating the need for you to search for local qualified help.

In a nutshell, the virtual assistant takes the traditional role of the temp worker and elevates it to the status of entrepreneur. Because the virtual assistant is self-employed, bills only the hours work or by tasks completed, and is dependent on referrals and steady work flow from existing clients, she can be the perfect solution for a growing business.

A virtual assistant offers several distinct advantages over a paid employee. When you hire a virtual assistant you get all the benefits of outsourcing - no employee tax and benefits issues. Yet, you still get the loyalty and reliability of a company employee.

How practical is a virtual assistant?

As more and more businesses move their marketing and communications to the Internet, virtual assistants become more and more the obvious solution to staffing problems. For an hourly fee of $25 to $35, less than the cost of temps or employees.

However, it should be pointed out, VA’s with specialized skills and backgrounds do charge higher rates. By using a virtual assistant, businesses can take advantage of professional assistance and a variety of skills at the click of a mouse.

Orange County Virtual assistants are already computer trained, and can assist with your specific needs from traditional office support services to highly specialized areas including web page design. Virtual assistants also provide basic word processing, phone answering, bill paying, appointment scheduling and calendar maintenance. You can even custom-train your virtual assistant to go beyond administrative support to client development and marketing support.

As cable Internet, wireless Internet, and other broadband solutions continue to grow at an amazing pace, virtual assistants will become even more vital to business owners.

If you would like more information regarding hiring a virtual assistant, contact Rosalind Harris at:rharris@instantassistant.net or visit http://instantassistant.net/

By Dale King Published: 11/4/2006

Top 10 Project Management Tools for Orange County Virtual Offices

A handy compilation of the best project management tools that a virtual office cannot do without.

With the concepts of remote offices, telecommuting, and working from home, a.k.a virtual assistants gaining momentum, it is imperative that we come up with a governance model that best suits our needs to manage projects within the team, and with the clients.
If you are a part of a large organization (lets assume it’s an MNC) which approves telecommuting and the remote office framework, then there is nothing to worry. The office will take care of custom management tools and will inform you about it. This post is not for you.

On the other hand, if you are an independent virtual assistant then my guess is you will be relying on your mail threads to keep track of conversations and using spreadsheets to keep track of the project status. If you are a bit smarter, you will be using labels (as in Gmail) or folders (as in Yahoo and Hotmail) to sort mail threads for easy access. Mail attachments may be stored on your desktop. Again, if you are smart, you will share the documents rather than mail them.

Being a freelancer, means all of your work will be online. You may be handling more than one project for the same client, or you have more than one client at any given point of time. Perhaps you might be interested in some of the online project management tools. Most of these are free (with limited features for a single user), and comes at a reasonable price (if you want advanced features). The list below is my top 10 recommendations for online project management systems.

Top 10 Online Project Management Systems

Do check out the sites to see the difference for free users and paid users

1. ProjectInsight

They have all the "required" features for a Project Management System. Try their demo. This is a little more than basic, and little less than advanced. So if you are a virtual assistant with average working knowledge of how a project management system works, then chances are you might get to like this. Strangely though, I could not locate the pricing page. If you can locate it, please pass me the link.

2. AceProject

The best project management system I have encountered so far.
They have about 22 features out of which I rate the discussion forum, task dependencies, and Multiple Project and Task management to be of the greatest value. They offer web-hosted and self-hosted option if you want it in your business’s intralink. You might be overwhelmed initially, but once you get to know it, things are a breeze. I would say this is a "complete" system for single and multi-user (e.g.:- Virtual Staffing Agencies) alike.

3. CoMindWork

I would say that this is the second best project management system on the web based on the features like project-specific Wiki and project-specific blog that are being offered. They allow integration with other PMS such as Basecamp and Salesforce, and also integrate with Gmail and OpenID. So with so many "dream features", why I rate this as second best is because free users have only one project. ( I need at least 5). Maybe a paid service will suit your business needs

4. MyClientSpot

The Project Management system has been designed for freelancers who operate independently. Short, small, and sweet. It is a very intuitive interface and up to 5 users sharing enables better interaction with team or client. If you handle 2 projects at a time (20MB space), then this is certainly for you. Otherwise, you might want to go for the paid version.

5. BaseCamp

A very clean dashboard that gives Project overview of things, without any frills and fireworks. The tabbed interface places message board, files area, milestones and to-do lists are just a click away. Try the free account to get the feel of things.

6. VirtuaAssistantManager

The demo gives a fairly good idea about what to expect when you actually signup. The list is lined up according to existing clients, giving you a picture of project status regarding a specific client. This is a paid service starting from 39$ /month for one virtual assistant. Their clients include Pepsi, Time Warner, and Comcast, among others. Personally, I think they are charging a premium. Certainly not fit for freelancers, unless you are minting money.

7. EasyProjects

This is especially good if you have a team, and want a single command center for all the client’s projects and also for in-house projects delegated to the team. The Employee Timesheet and Hierarchical Role Based Permissions are noteworthy features. Again, this is a paid service. (sorry, no freebies here )

8. Project.net

This is a complete enterprise edition of project management system. The demo gives an overview of features from the Project Manager’s point of view. However, it remains to be seen how this can be modified to suit a single user with multiple clients. They do offer customization of tabs and form fields. But you never know until you try.

9. IdidWork

I will not call this a project management tool, but if you are a part of a team that requires you to submit regular work updates as long emails or shared spreadsheets, you can make use of their Twitter like interface, to communicate your work status. Moreover all accumulated "status messages" can be emailed to the manager of the team. This also allows a performance overview over a period of time. Worth a try, though individual preferences might differ.

10. SmartSheet

If you are extremely comfortable with using spreadsheets, then this Project Management System is definitely for you. The concept of workspace is used to aggregate sheets for the same project and the likes of it. You can collaborate with clients and upload files for discussion. It does take a bit of time to get used to the system. This is free and they have the beta version underway.

The Magic Of Outsourcing
Read about work life balance, productivity tips, entrepreneurship ideas, outsourcing, virtual offices and more.

By Ishani Mitra Published: 9/26/2008

Orange County Virtual Assistant : Questions and Answers

What’s A Virtual Assistant?

A virtual assistant (VA) is an independent virtual office assistant who provides clerical, administrative, technical and personal support to clients from the VA’s remote virtual office. VA’s are very disciplined and able to work autonomously with minimal supervision. Virtual nature of business allows for flexibility to deliver products and services across a wide geographic area.

How Can A Virtual Assistant Help Me In My Business ?

In a nutshell, VA’s free up your valuable time. By outsourcing routine office administration and personal tasks, you are able to focus on what you do best…marketing and growing your business - or simply enjoy the extra time to spend with family and/or pursue personal interests and hobbies.

How Do I Know If I Need an Orange County Virtual Assistant?

Are you disorganized or overwhelmed? Missing out on business opportunities? Not networking or marketing your business? Drowning in paperwork? Feeling frustrated trying to do it all? Procrastinating because you don’t know where to begin? Suffering from "analysis paralysis"? Unable to spend time on strategic planning or business development? Do you end each day feeling as if you have not accomplished important tasks?

If you answered "Yes" to any of the above questions, you need to partner with a virtual assistant.

What Types Of Tasks Can A Virtual Assistant Help Me With?

Services offered vary from VA to VA due to specialized backgrounds. Consult with a professional VA and communicate your specific needs.

I’m Not Sure What Type Of Help I Need Or If A Virtual Assistant Will Work For Me.

A consultive needs assessment will help determine which tasks can be delegated and identify your communication and work style preferences. A good VA will work with you to ensure that you are comfortable with all aspects of the partnership.

How Will We Communicate?

Anyway you like. VA’s communicate via phone, fax, e-mail, internet, US Mail, and overnight mail. For local clients, in-person meetings are available. Remember, a VA service is designed for your convemience - to help you streamline and outsource administrative, clerical, technical and personal tasks.

Are Virtual Assistant Services Expensive?

Virtual Assistant rates vary based on specialized skills and background. VA’s are independent contractors and not an employee. They maintain and are responsible for their own office, equipment and software. Clients are only responsible for hourly, project or retainer fees plus any additional miscellaneous expenses (i.e. supplies, materials, postage, etc.). All fees are agreed upon in advance. And since clients pay only for the actual time VA’s spend working on a task or project, the overall cost of hiring a VA is significantly less than hiring a full-time office assistant with benefits.

What About Confidentiality?

Ask the VA that you’re considering if they will sign a confidentiality agreement, prior to commencing work. A written agreement will help protect you from anyone selling or disclosing your proprietary information or using information obtained during the course of business for personal gain.

Want More Information?

If you would like more information regarding hiring a virtual assistant, visit http://InstantAssistant.net

About the author:
Rosalind Harris is a professional virtual assistant (VA) with more than 25 years experience supporting C-Level Executives in the banking, insurance, retail, financial services and not-for-profit industries. She is the owner of her own professional VA service - http://www.InstantAssistant.net

By Rosalind Harris Published: 9/26/2008

Working from home as an Orange County Virtual Assistant

Starting your own home business as a Virtual Assistant may be the right option for you! This article will help give you an insight into becoming a Virtual Assistant and what it takes to get started.

A Virtual Assistant (VA) is an independent individual working remotely to provide much needed and valued services to clients located all over the world. These services can fall into the categories of clerical, administrative, technical or creative. With the engaging of virtual assistants by companies becoming more and more common, their services have even spread into areas such as graphic and web designing, IT support, marketing and even translations.

Many companies are most likely to hire orange county virtual assistants to save money. The client doesn’t need to provide equipment and office space, taxes, training, healthcare and insurance benefits when hiring a virtual assistant. Also some companies may only need an assistant for temporary projects.

A virtual assistant may work "on call" or may setup a work schedule with the client according to the time convenient for that individual. The nature of work carried out by a virtual assistant will depend on that person’s area of expertise. It could be appointment & reminder service, meeting and travel planning, billing and book keeping, database and contact management, desktop publishing, business writing, data entry, document preparation, website creation, market research, etc.

Virtual assistants work from their own home and the client would outsource the work on a contractual basis. The communication and data delivery between the virtual assistant and the client is carried out via phone, fax, email and online instant messaging. The virtual assistant and the client may even coordinate the work through online intranets and special software which allows them to access each others computers.

Since the virtual assistant is stationed at home, this facilitates more time to spend with the family and the decrease of many costs involved with working at an office. Also the profit potential in this profession is very good. As a result this profession is fast growing and becoming extremely popular.

In the modern era, many women strive very hard to achieve a work/family balance in their life. Due to work overload at office, office functions, heavy traffic congestions on roads while commuting to and from office, they rarely have time to spend with the family. So many of them now prefer to stay at home and start their own virtual assistant business. There are many advantages in becoming a virtual assistant. For example, more time to spend with your children, saving on day care costs, having more flexibility, cutting down costs of traveling and office attire, performing work which you love and investing more time for your betterment are to name a few.

It doesn’t involve a high cost to start up a home-based business. But before starting, a person should evaluate herself and see whether she could make a good virtual assistant. Computer literacy is a must and you should have good administrative skills as you would have to organize, plan and schedule your work. Self motivation, a willingness to learn new things and good communication skills are required when working as a virtual assistant.

You should decide what type of service you would want to offer your clients and determine how much time and energy you have, to commit to your business. A business plan and a marketing strategy are essential for your venture when managing and promoting your services to clients. By putting your best effort into it you can build up a very successful virtual assistant practice in a matter of months.

Bizymoms has been helping women start home business for over 10 years. Their Bizymoms’ ExpertVA career kit includes everything you need to start your VA Business including a basic business start up guide and an easy start program, which provides step-by-step guidance on how to build up your VA business within 29 days!

By Susan Hutson Published: 2/27/2008