How to become a Virtual Assistant while catering to Small Business

How to become a Virtual Assistant
(Secretary) on the internet
while catering to Small Business

by Anna Mattingly

The more we do our own clerical work independently for
our small business, the more we see how great the need
is for virtual assistants who can cater to the small
business community on the web. We have also noticed at
our employment site a great surge in internet traffic
indicating another need for stay at home mother's and
women in general to perform clerical duties in their
homes. And what's really interesting is that men need
this work as well today. Many who pass through our
virtual door simply want to start their own business
or to be hired as an administrative assistant of an
existing business. But for years we struggled with the
answer of how to do this successfully. Many said they
tried to do this but just simply could not find work.

Frustrating as it has been, we see a new frontier
emerging. The Information Highway, as some call it, or
the internet has created a home for new home business
owner's. Over the past 3-5 years many entrepreneurs
have been developing and establishing their own small
businesses just as we did. We see many store fronts
that are bringing in daily income for their owners
which in turn is creating more and more administrative
work and a new opportunity for administrative
assistant's. Good news for the struggling stay at home
secretary. Although it will take a bit of ingenuity
and hard work to get started it's no longer impossible
for women to stay home and perform the same office and
administrative duties they used to perform
traditionally in the office.

Since small business is still in it's infancy via the
internet, a new VA has the added job of enlightening
small business owners of their need for strong
administrative support. We've taken the liberty here
of incorperating this process into the few simple
steps needed to get started.........

Obviously you have a connection to the internet if you
are reading this. If you have your small home office
set up and you have experience and you're ready to
work at home here's all you will need to do.

1. Decide which services you will provide

Visit: http://www.abcsvcs.com/service.htm

2. Decide what rates you will charge.

Visit http://www.abcsvcs.com/rates.htm

3. Find a nice home on the web for your new business.
There are plenty of nice places to open a "VR"
business. A simple one page website is more than
sufficient.

------Visit: http://www.hypermart.net for one example
of a free virtual community that will assist you with
just about any need you have.

4. Set your business up. Basically you would just be
advertising yourself to the small business community
on the web with your website.

------Tell the small business owners why they need
you. You might want to mention how EXTREMELY
reasonable your rates are.

------Tell them who you are. (IE-I'm the answer to
your problem:)

One paragraph on your website alerting the business
person to all he needs to do while running an cyber
business and how you can solve that problem. An
example of this is advertising, website maintenance,
newsletter pre-preparation, etc

------Elaborate on ALL the skills you have.
(entrepreneurs never sleep and are really desperate
for someone like you) For example: Office support,
correspondence, internet research, typing or writing
their newsletter, database maintenance of customers
and leads, web design, sales literature design, etc.

------Give them your background and education.
(Mention too how much energy you have and how fast you
type and advertise also.)

------Provide a way for them to contact you. This is
as simple as ending your webpage advertisement with
your name, an email link, your address and your
telephone number.

5. Advertise yourself in every way imaginable on the
internet.

There are actual listings for virtual assistants where
you can add your business and get support such as:

http://www.abcsvcs.com/typists.htm
http://www.staffcentrix.com/
http://www.assistu.com/

You can buy materials from these sites to help you to
develop your business and these places may even help
you with setting up a website and advertising. Do a
search at alta vista search engine to find more
databases like these.

When you are advertising on your own we suggest
targeting the places small business people visit.
Mainly these are comprised of small business forums,
discussion lists and newsgroups. Take part in the
discussions and include a signature similar to the one
we added at the end of this article (Never blatantly
advertise in newsgroups, forums or a discussion list).
Here are the places you can look for "marketing
discussions":

for discussion lists: http://list-universe.com/ for
newsgroups: http://www.dejanews.com for forums:
http://www.entrepreneur-web.com/index_1.shtml

When your business is developed you can research press
releases and tell the world how you are helping the
small businessman via the internet. This will help you
a great deal with that and suppliment all the
information above as well:
http://www.techweb.com/smallbiz
http://prweb.com

Why wait another day, the opportunity has presented
itself. It's a wide open arena and a great need. You
could be one of the first to create this new income
generating line of work on the internet and be up and
running in no time. Many large staffing services may
not even realize this door of opportunity exists, get
in now. As business owners realize you are available
more and more will come to you for help. You could be
creating a new family owned business at home beginning
right now. There is even plenty of opportunity for an
online "VA temporary agency" or two which will cater
to the online small business world. Food for thought.
Seize the moment!