A Virtual Assistant, sometimes called a Cyber Assistant, Virtual Office Manager, Virtual Executive Assistant or Virtual Secretary provides clients administrative support from their home office, all the services you would expect from an ‘in office’ secretary or assistant, plus a whole lot more. With a Virtual Assistant, you never cover payroll taxes, insurance or buy additional equipment or office space, plus most Virtual Assistants bill only for ‘time on task,’ saving your bottom line.

Once you find and retain a talented Virtual Assistant, they'll take over all of the mundane details that have bogged down your workday and prevented you from focusing on your core competency. They'll discuss your day to day operations, what projects are falling through the cracks and create a plan of action where you both decide what should be delegated, how long tasks should take, hours reserved each month on retainer, etc. They communicate with you via phone, fax and email and they utilize the best technology to ensure their support is seamless whether they're 10 miles or 1000 miles from your office.

A Virtual Assistant is the perfect blend - you get an assistant who can jump right into all those tasks you've either been dreading doing or have been doing until the wee hours. What is your time worth? What is your core competency? Do you find yourself so weighed down by all the administrative tasks that you're not getting any "real" work done? Perhaps you need help with marketing? Many Virtual Assistants are specialists in a particular field such as marketing, website design, bookkeeping, transcription and the list goes on and on.

There are several qualities you should keep in mind when choosing a Virtual Assistant. First, do they have experience? How long have they been in the industry? Do they have a solid reputation among the business community? Do they have experience in your field? Are they communicative? Do they seem to share your same business values? Are they responsive? Are they tenacious? You may not be able to ask these questions directly to your prospective Virtual Assistant, but they are questions to keep in mind as you visit their website, read their testimonials and even as you run a Google search on their business.

Why, right here - of course! We have a member directory where you can view the profiles of our Virtual Assistants and you can submit a Request for Proposal (RFP) free, using the menu link above. Off site, you can Google the phrase 'Virtual Assistant' and find many organizations and individual Virtual Assistant websites to find the perfect VA for your projects.

The possibilities are limited only by your imagination. What tasks seem to take up most of your business day? You could easily hire a Virtual Assistant to manage your marketing, increase your search engine rank, answer your emails when you're on vacation, field phone calls, make appointments, handle your listings, send out postcards, write press releases, design a website, manage your books, create flyers, and much more! You're in business to do business, not be an administrator. Handing off your administrative work to a professional administrative services person enables you to focus on your core competencies. Don't "BE" an assistant, hire an assistant - otherwise, you're paying top dollar for amateur results.

Your Virtual Assistant won't succeed unless you're getting solid results. Therefore, their top priority is communicating with you to ensure you're seeing the results. You should initially work with your VA to allow her to get familiar with your business and your core competencies.  Your VA can then make recommendations on how to engage systems and processes that will maximize your free time and increase your bottom line. They will work closely with you to accomplish your goals and they'll provide detailed reports of their time and results.