Do you have a small business or are you a solo-preneur? Are you in need of administrative support help? Do you find that you use the time that you should be earning money to complete day-to-day support tasks? Hiring a virtual assistant may be the perfect solution for you.
According to the International Virtual Assistant Association, “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.”
Virtual assistants have a multitude of skills, and work with business owners as office support staff. In the business world, they are referred to as secretaries, office assistants, administrative, and executive assistants. Virtual assistants work from their own office and have their own equipment. They pay their own taxes, and charge only for actual time worked. By contrast, for in-house support staff, you are responsible for salaries, benefits, equipment, office space, and employment tax. Virtual assistants are a cost-effective way to run your business.
Hiring a virtual assistant is a necessity for many small business owners. VAs can be responsible for such tasks as general administrative support, web design, content creation, article writing, blog updates, and email campaigns – or your social marketing needs. With your busy work covered, you are able to concentrate on the task of earning revenue for your business.
Most virtual assistants see themselves as a partners working with you to help grow your business. They can also be a source of networking for business resources and tools. Although they work off-site and independently, they can become an important part of your team.
Finding and hiring the virtual assistant is not something that you want to rush into. Before choosing a VA, you should to discuss their skills, services, and fees, and you should check their references. Ask for referrals from friends, business contacts, and other small business owners. You can search online virtual assistant organizations such as www.ivaa.org or www.virtualassistantnetworking.com.
Virtual Admin Professionals is a virtual assistant company that provides online business management services to business owners seeking administrative help. If you are interested in hiring me as a VA, visit my website at www.virtual-admin-professionals.com. I offer a 30-minute free complimentary consultation so that we can discuss your needs, and how I can be of assistance to you and your business.
I admire people that pack up a good book along with their swimming attire before a summer vacation. Like most small business owners, I spend too much time working and thinking about work, so I decided to take a break and actually read a book for pleasure. I recommend that all of you overworked businesspeople try to work in some reading this summer too, and if you do, I wanted to offer this recommendation of a book coming out this July.
The small business blog reader can learn a lesson from the big political figures on “living with the consequences” of their actions.
Many Americans have already read the version published in the UK in January ‘09. The original came out in Sweden in 2006. It is the second book in a trilogy titled The Millennium Trilogy and is the posthumous work of Steig Larsson, a Swedish journalist and novelist. His politics are to the right; however, he engages a wide audience with his novel writing.
The first novel in the trilogy is The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. It was published by Knopf last fall and according to the Editor-In-Chief, Sonny Mehta, it appeals to the “darker elements in contemporary society”. Now we’re talking language that Americans can understand; this is a series of books about the moral bankruptcy of big business and its impact on individuals who try to operate within its system, only to discover they are dismissed by the political power at large.
Who could have known that Larsson, who died in 2004 of a heart attack at the age of fifty, could write such an exposé on crooked men in power and the corruption that government will allow to go on under their noses. For most of us…he could have written it yesterday.
In his first novel, an aging man hires a journalist, Mikael Bloomvist, and a pierced, tattooed computer genius, Lisbeth Salandor, to dig through the layers of greed, lust, and conspiracy that have spread like a cancer in Swedish industry. The man wants to find out why and how his niece disappeared some forty years ago.
Noted writer Hamish Ford, PhD, has pointed out “the danger of a revisionist approach to history and culture.” The recent buzz phrase “urban legend” comes to mind. Some of us like to get the facts and stories from the actual participants and not the media. Mr. Larsson has served his characterizations well, it seems. Let’s start looking for The Girl Who Played With Fire.
More on Swedish culture, politics and this author coming soon…