Monthly Archives: February 2008

New Product for Virtual Assistants and Their Clients

By RitaJo on February 29, 2008

It appears that the Virtual Assistant industry is gaining recognition. Tina Hilton, of Clerical Advantage, wrote a post regarding a new product that is being targeted specifically to the Virtual Assistant industry. Following is an excerpt from her blog over at Home Office Warrior. “FileWorks is now offering a product that is targeted specifically to virtual assistants and their clients. It’s called VA Exchange and it is touted as a virtual file cabinet for VA’s and their clients. With a history of providing technology to handle confidential documents and records for the healthcare industry, FileWorks seems a natural to provide a secure, client accessible place to store and share documents. The fact that the files are encrypted and protected when they are stored on the VA Exchange servers will keep both virtual assistants and clients from losing sleep at night. And the document management tools and access from anywhere make it a natural compliment to virtual assistance services.”

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Temp vs. Virtual Assistant

By RitaJo on February 26, 2008

You have just found out that Sally Sue is going to need a six weeks maternity leave in the near future. Your administrative staff already has an overload of work and cannot take on Sally Sue’s tasks. You consider calling a temporary staffing agency. Since you are a small business owner, you are constantly looking for ways to save money. If you hire a temp, you will have to pay the agency a fee that is going to much more than you pay your own staff. What about the downtime? You will have to pay for that also.

Before you call a temp agency, consider retaining a Virtual Assistant (VA). If you outsource your administrative tasks to a VA, you will pay only for the actual time spent on your projects. A Virtual Assistant can help you not only on a temporary basis, but also help your staff with their overflow of various tasks.

When you partner with a VA, they become familiar with your process of doing business. They become accustomed to the type of documents, projects, and/or tasks your business generates. They team up with your staff, which makes the outsourcing procedure seamless.

Now Sally Sue has returned from her maternity leave, and you have just been informed that Billy Bob has to go out of town on a family emergency. Who is going to take care of your bookkeeping until he returns? No need to worry, your trusted Virtual Assistant also provides that service. Since you have an ongoing business relationship with your VA, no time will be wasted on hiring and training a temp, as well as the time it will take the temp to become comfortable and familiar with your processes.

Whether you have a staff or not, a Virtual Assistant can help you run your business more efficiently and smoothly, in addition to saving you money, time, and headaches.

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Resources for Small Business Owners

By RitaJo on February 22, 2008

I came across this article, “Local Business Search 2.0” written by Marshall Tallman, which has websites listed for those of us who are targeting local businesses. Here is an excerpt from the article containing the websites information.

“1. Craigslist – The general public has fallen in love with this free classifieds website. Craigslist provides a great medium for buying, selling, finding jobs, and even finding dates in a local geographic communities. Craigslist receives millions of visits every day and provides its service free of charge, other than posts for employer job openings. A section on Cragslist is dedicated to ‘Services’ and many small and home based businesses use this to promote their business. Users are allowed to post information promoting their business once every 48 hours, although many businesses find ways to repost within this timeframe. The postings will stay online for up to 7 days, but they get the most attention when they are at the top of the list or right after they are posted. The main benefit of Craigslist is how quickly people can reach a number of interested consumers in their area. Some shortcomings of Craigslist are that business listings expire, and to reach customers businesses must re-list several times a day to generate more sales leads. Also, there is no quality assurance with Craigslist. There is no easy way to check the legitimacy or quality of the businesses that are listed on Craigslist.

2. MoreWorld – MoreWorld takes great web 2.0 technology and delivers it to small businesses, home based businesses, and their customers in an attractive and easy to use package. Businesses enjoy free registration and highly customizable company accounts. This includes a free business website, a complete menu of products and services and free inclusion in MoreWorld’s local search. Businesses may even use MoreWorld to manage a list of their customers and employees and send out group emails. MoreWorld also provides a comprehensive local search for companies, products and services. Users can also browse companies by category. Search results provide pricing details and customer feedback information. The most exciting part is that when a user views more details on a company, they get far more information than is available in traditional yellow pages. They get a detailed description of the company by the company, including a detailed description of the company’s products, services and prices. The greatest drawback to MoreWorld is that they only have information on company’s who have registered with the site.

3. Yelp – Yelp has found success by integrating social networking with a site designed for rating local businesses. Yelp provides a fun, easy and addictive platform for users to create and submit reviews on many types of local businesses. Further, all of the services available on Yelp are free, other than the sponsored search results for businesses. Users interested in finding a product or service may search or browse listings by distance and star rating as well as several other search areas. The website also provides a forum for users to discuss local businesses, events and other things in their area. All of the information on this site is managed and updated by Yelp users. All reviews and information change requests require the approval of a moderator to avoid biased reviews and misinformation. Yelp provides a great way to find detailed reviews on local businesses. The main drawbacks on yelp are the reliability of reviews and the lack of any business side interface. Also check out InsiderPages for another great site based on user reviews.

4. ServiceMagic – ServiceMagic delivers an interesting new approach to the local business front. ServiceMagic provides an attractive and easy to use platform that helps connect consumers to the contractor for their job. Service magic has a simple project description form for people to complete. Once the form is submitted, ServiceMagic matches them with a handful of qualified contractors, and the communications begin. Users may read ratings on different service providers as well as a detailed description provided by the company on themselves. Users seem very happy with the amount of time ServiceMagic saves them in finding the right business for their job. While ServiceMagic is great for finding a contractor it is limited to the types of businesses it can help you find. Another problem is that businesses must pay to be on service magic, so the best business for a job may not be available to the user because that company is not interested in paying. The final drawback is that there is no search feature for users, causing people to be limited to viewing only the companies that ServiceMagic allows.

5. Angie’s List – Angie’s List is another site that aggregates consumer reviews of local businesses, much like Yelp. Angie’s List separates itself from other similar sites in that they charge for membership. This includes charging both to see and write reviews. Angie’s List prides itself on their level of user participation and the credibility of their information. A major benefit to Angie’s list is that companies can’t pay to be on the list, they must be reviewed by a member in order to be listed. Major drawbacks to Angie’s list are that it is not free and that there is no interface for businesses.”

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Two Sides To Every Story

By RitaJo on February 15, 2008

I recently wrote a post titled, “Disadvantages of Outsourcing To Offshore Virtual Assistants.” Ella P. of Virtual Nook responded with a rebuttal in her blog, called “Bidding Wars of Virtual Assistants.” Since there are two sides to every story, I am posting her rebuttal:

I came across an interesting blog earlier about the disadvantages of getting an offshore Virtual Assistant. I can’t help but disagree! There are a lot of criticism thrown on offshore virtual assistants like me and I am compelled to react.

Language Barrier – Yes, I agree that English is my second language. In fact, I still feel more comfortable in speaking Filipino however, this doesn’t mean that we are not competitive enough to comprehend or communicate using other languages. If this is the case, then I guess the call center industry here in the Philippines wouldn’t be as successful as it is now if not for our good communication skills. Not all offshore virtual assistants have poor communication skills. Let’s not generalize.

Interest in the client’s business – I can’t seem to understand why offshore virtual assistants are being criticized for not having vested interest in our client’s business. I believe that this has nothing to do with geographical location. As a virtual assistant, your main goal is to protect and help your clients business achieve targets and increase sales. Loyalty and integrity is not based on geographical location of a person.

Internet access – yes, I agree that as virtual assistants, we rely on the internet. It is difficult or maybe impossible to work for a client without it. India’s internet outage is an isolated case and shouldn’t be taken against us.

The industry of Virtual Assistants is now becoming more and more competitive. Bidding wars between offshore and onshore providers continue to heat up at oDesk, iFreelance, etc…Business wouldn’t be fun without competition, right?

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Disadvantages of Outsourcing to Offshore Virtual Assistants

By RitaJo on February 8, 2008

As an onshore Virtual Assistant and small business owner, I feel obligated to inform small business owners about the disadvantages of outsourcing to offshore virtual assistants (VAs).

When you choose to outsource offshore, you are going to encounter virtual assistants who are not familiar with our culture and language. Although, they speak English, generally, it is not their first language. This causes language barriers, communication gaps, and lack of understanding. Is the frustration worth the money you save? Keep in mind, offshore VAs’ cost of living is much lower than ours. They can afford to work for less money. If you choose to outsource confidential personal data offshore, it may not be protected. Firms in India currently are not equally subject to any extensive legislative or regulatory data-protection controls.

Offshore VAs work for an outsourcing firm and are not business owners. They do not have a vested interest in your business other than getting more projects. Most of us, onshore virtual assistants, are business owners; therefore, we understand the operations of a small business, as well as what is required to develop it. Our goals are to establish an ongoing business relationship with you in order to help you reach your goals. We want you to succeed in your business. Erin Blaskie of Business Services, ETC stated in her blog, “These companies are working day and night going through a wide variety of tasks just to get them back out the door. They aren’t spending the time to strategize and become a partner in your business. They are simply providing cheap labor.”

Another disadvantage is offshore virtual assistants can’t operate without access to the Internet. On January 31, 2008, India had an Internet outage due to snapped cables in the Mediterranean Ocean. You can read the entire article here: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,326988,00.html. Onshore virtual assistants’ Internet providers are their phone companies, cable companies or satellite providers. We are not at the mercy of a cable under the ocean.

There are several disadvantages to offshore outsourcing, including drastic differences in time zones. The one main advantage to outsourcing to offshore virtual assistants is saving money. The old adage is true. “You get what you pay for.”

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