What is a VA?
A Virtual Assistant:
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Provides a range of business services and functions for clients
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Is a self-employed professional
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Works virtually from home, not at the client’s place of work
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Usually comes from a secretarial, office, administrative or personal assistant background/environment
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Can work on an ad hoc (one-job) or ongoing basis
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Services provided include, but are not limited to:
o Hard copy and digital transcription
o Book-keeping and invoicing
o Diary Management
o Spreadsheet management
o Presentation formatting and production
‘Virtually’ unheard of in 1999 the virtual assistant industry is firmly established in the USA and the industry is rapidly growing in the UK.
There are many associations and directories (both online and offline) serving the VA industry in the UK, Europe and world-wide, including:
www.iava.org.uk
www.ukava.co.uk
www.svaclub.com
The emergence of the VA has caused a paradigm shift in the way is performed and outsourced.
A survey by the Alliance for Virtual Businesses found that VAs are providing support in over 400 industries. And they are working for clients located in many countries.
A search on Google.com returned 874,000 results for the term “virtual assistant”.
There are generally five types of VAs that we’ve been able to identify. The first type focuses strictly on “standard” business support services such as editing, proofreading, transcription, word processing, and administrative services. They work “virtually” and call themselves VAs. A second type focuses on the same “standard” business services, but they don’t call themselves “VAs.” The third type of virtual assistant calls themselves VAs and support a few clients. A fourth type also calls themselves VAs, but they support many clients. Then there are VAs who provide only graphic design, desktop publishing, or website design services. (Taken from a survey conducted by the Alliance for Virtual Businesses.)
Most VAs are women but there are a small number of male virtual assistants.
