Guildford business explains how a Virtual Assistant (VA) can help home workers

We do the jobs you don’t want to do, jobs you don’t have time to do and the jobs you can’t do!

I attended Nicky Kriel’s Social Media Strategy course yesterday (www.nickykriel.com) and soon realised that the other people on the course were unclear of what my business was about.  So this blog gives a brief over view of what a Virtual Assistant (VA) is and how they can help you.

A VA is someone who provides professional administration and technical or creative assistance to clients from a home office.

Here at Get Ahead VA we support a wide range of clients, primarily people running their own business from their own home.

Main Advantages

• The client pays simply for the time worked down to the last minute - We use an online tool (www.toggl.com) to manage all our client work and we simply charge for the work done.
• There are no overheads for the client to take into consideration and the client isn’t paying for an employee and all the potential associated costs - This is a critical point – many of our clients don’t feel they can justify hiring someone full time so being able to use Get Ahead VA on a regular or adhoc basis works much better for them.  They love the flexibility and so do we!

Services Offered

As one of our clients said yesterday, a VA can do anything!  The main areas that our virtual assistance business concentrates on are the following:

• Administration – we are happy to work on anything.  It might be a boring activity for the client but for us it is an interesting task.  By doing it we are freeing up our clients to concentrate on other business matters.
• Research – we can do all sorts of research and a lot of our work is online e.g. surveys, competitor information, market analysis
• Business Development – this can include cold calling, help with marketing and advertising
• Telephone Answering – we help a large number of our clients with this service.  Their phone is diverted to a special landline and the call is answered within 3 rings with a personal greeting.  The client is then immediately emailed with a message and can respond in their own time.  This is perfect for clients who are out of the office a lot and want a personal service.
• Social Media – helping our clients with their online presence e.g. through LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook.  This can be time consuming for our clients to manage but is a key part of growing awareness of our clients business and profile.

Our Clients

The joy of running a VA business is simply the breadth of our client base.  Here are some examples of Get Ahead VA regular clients:

Nick is a financial advisor and needs help researching potential clients

Sarah runs a networking business and we support her on a daily basis enabling her to grow her business on a national level

Darren is a partner of a wealth management business and we are his right hand, helping with a huge range of daily activities

Andy owns a landscaping business and has the usual frustrations developing new business so we help him with business   development, advertising and are currently working on his new website

Kelly is a jewellery designer and we have developed a Facebook page for her business and also helped her manage her online client base

Louise has a flat abroad and needed some help with how best to market the property and manage the rentals

Mark has set up an online rental business and needed help with a nationwide email campaign

What type of clients is Get Ahead VA looking for?

Are you a small business that needs to delegate areas of their business so they can move on and concentrate on their key business drivers?

So many small business owners find that their business has suddenly grown and they simply can’t function on their own without some support.  Using a virtual assistant gives business owners the support whenever they need it.

Would you like to join our growing team of Virtual Assistants?

Are you skilled in administration and have a great attention to detail? Are you happy speaking on the phone?

If you would like work that fits around everything else do get in touch www.getaheadva.com