cma Press Coverage
RED MAGAZINE, December 2004
"I USED TO BE A PA, NOW I'M A VA"
Jane Hill, 39, has used her PA skills to work online from home as a VA - virtual assistant. She lives in Stansted, Essex, with per partner, Paul, 40, an aircraft engineer. She works around 20 hours a week and earns £18,000 a year.
"I had been working in the airline industry for 16 years as a PA/Administrator earning around £25,000 a year, but was getting really fed up with it. It was a nine-to-five job, but it wasn't so much the working conditions as the office politics that I hated. I'd continually find myself wishing I could go part time and focus on the rest of my life, rather than just worrying about the next meeting.
I'd been looking into what else I could do and had read articles about virtual assistants, but I was a bit nervous about making the leap. The basic idea seemed to be right up my street - you act as a PA for a few clients from home, doing everything a normal PA would do in the office - bar making coffee! It's challenging because you're constantly juggling people's diaries and networking, yet it gives you much more control over the hours you work and it's well paid.
Then, three years ago, I was suddenly made redundant and got a really good pay-off. That's when I seriously started considering setting myself up as a VA. It was ideal because it meant I'd have the money to get established and I’d have a safety net if it took me a while to build up my business.
I researched on the Internet and found there was a lot of information on VAs out there - even courses to help you develop your 'virtual' business! The most exciting bit was coming up with the name - Just Jane Virtual Assistance - over a bottle of wine with my friends.
Back home, Paul and I reorganised the smallest bedroom in the house into my office, bought new office furniture and set up a website. Finally, I enrolled on a course (the VA Mastery Course), which helped me focus on what I wanted to achieve. My start-up costs were around £2,000, which included the computer, furniture and the course. I got my first client - a risk management surveyor who'd spotted the advert I'd placed in the local paper - within two weeks. The rest followed within a year.
My clients include an electrician, a national non-profit organisation and a photographer. Every day if different, and I do usually meet up with them once in a while, so I'm not completely virtual. I might do invoicing, type up reports, book appointments and travel arrangements, chase up late payments, create and maintain databases, prepare presentations, co-ordinate networking events around the country, or just take care of their household administration so they can concentrate on their business. There are no limits and it makes life much more interesting.
The best bit is the spare time. I fill the extra hours with ‘me-time’.
But the best bit is the spare time. I work half the time I used to, and I fill the hours with me-time. I don't start work until 10 am - after a potter and a leisurely breakfast - and I do my shopping and go to the gym when it's less busy. My friends are so jealous when I call them from my mobile over a cappuccino! As I'm feeling so happy and relaxed, I've even been able to give up smoking.
The Independent - Published: 07 June 2007
How virtual assistants can sandwich work around family life
By Hazel Davis
How often does your heart sink when a colleague plumps down in her chair armed with 27 packs of holiday snaps and proceeds to talk to you through the first half-hour of your busy day? How often do you wish you had complete autonomy in your working life? You might want to consider becoming a virtual assistant (VA).
Vanessa Anderson from Leamington Spa set up her virtual assistance business, Anderson Remote Office Services, after feeling undervalued in her previous job as an administrator for an automotive systems firm.
"I enjoy administration and secretarial work – organising people, systems and diary management," she says. "But I was getting fed up with long hours, office politics and making sensible, cost-effective, team-building suggestions that were just ignored."
So she decided to work for herself, and began offering her services as a freelance secretary. "This was 1999," she says, "and I hadn't heard the term virtual assistant."
From those humble beginnings Anderson went on to scoop the title of Virtual Assistant of the Year at the National VA Conference and Awards Ceremony in Milton Keynes in April.
Anderson's day usually starts at 8am when she collects tapes and paperwork from a long-standing local client. Then, back at her office, she checks emails and messages. "Usually one or two other clients have detailed their requirements for the day, which can range from booking accommodation for a workshop to dealing with their invoices and expenses," she explains.
During the day she transcribes correspondence, deals with telephone calls and emails for clients, produces progress reports on work, sends out appointment letters, updates diaries and websites, and researches venues or equipment. Anderson now even has to make time to train a new assistant of her own.
The benefits of being virtual become clear at 6pm, when Anderson is able to organise the evening meal and bath and put her children to bed before heading back to the "office" to deal with work that can be done at any time. The downsides, however, are also evident. "I shut down at around 11pm – or when I'm told off by my partner for working too late as I sometimes slip into old habits and forget to leave my desk!" she says.
Anderson says that being a virtual assistant is not like being a freelance secretary. She says she always wanted to start her own business. "I had never expected to remain an individual sole trader who just earned a living," she says. "My intention had, and continues to be, to build a small business, having good people working for me enabling me to build a good client base and provide a high standard of support to our clients."
Employers find many advantages to hiring a virtual assistant, the most obvious being financial. "There's no PAYE, sickness or holiday pay to worry about, no training or equipment costs," Anderson says.
The biggest advantage, though, is flexibility. Clients use the service as little or often as they like, paying only for the time they use. That enables large organisations to outsource work, use a VA during unexpectedly busy periods or help deal with a backlog. This, in turn, saves on temp fees, as well as on the expense of having a staff member take time out from a busy day to show a temp the ropes.
Carmen MacDougall runs CMA Coaching, which offers courses for virtual assistants. She says that it's dangerous to think that all you need to be a VA is PA experience. "Some people think that if they offer themselves up as a general assistant they will get more work," she says. "But actually, the more niche you are, the more likely you are to get the clients.
Another important key to success is to know how to negotiate your fees, she says. "Don't charge less than someone else to get the business. You need to work with other VAs to use their skills, so you need to charge what you're worth."
The real joy of working for yourself as a VA is that you can choose which jobs to take and which to reject, making for a happier working life. It doesn't mean that VAs don't have bad days, of course. But it does mean that they are more in charge of their destinies. "Because of the vast variety of people and professions we work for, there is never a dull moment," says MacDougall. "Monday to Friday, nine to five – no thanks!"
