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What is a Virtual Personal Assistant?

Like the majority of their clients, Virtual Assistants - Virtual Personal Assistants are supporters -- highly skilled in their profession and able to have a powerful impact on the productivity of those that they work for.  Traditionally, assistants have been known by many names:   'secretaries, administrative assistants, executive assistants, girl fridays or even bookkeepers'. In the age where technology has made the world a much smaller place, and where more professionals are working from their homes or in a virtual office themselves, the ' assistant' has become ' virtual' -- and thanks to the internet, global.  Also, nobody but you and Your Virtual Personal Assistant need to know your assistant is in fact virtual.

The concept is still somewhat new, but it works so well with CatchFriday, and it can reduce your costs substantially.  Your Virtual Assistant can ensure that the entrepreneur who is working at home has access to all of the support benefits enjoyed by a business person in the corner office of a major corporation - without having to hire any employees!

Work assignments are communicated through e-mail, sightspeed, skype, phone, fax, mail and real-time online messaging.  The services offered by Your Virtual Assistant vary from one customer to the next, based on their area of need.  In addition to administrative support, Your Virtual Assistant offers other, more specialized skills, according to your requirements.

The Top 10 Ways to use your Virtual Assistant

A Virtual Assistant is just like a Girl Friday, an Executive Assistant or a Personal Assistant, except that the Virtual Assistant handles your affairs from a distance, and electronically. This Top 10 List reviews the 10 most common ways to utilize the services of a Virtual Assistant.

1. Get your bills paid.

Your Virtual Assistant, does all of this for you, using Quicken, CheckFree, and other payment services, via her PC. ALL of your bills use a mailing address at a mailbox-type place minutes from her/his home; she/he  picks up the mail/bills and pays the bills each week using your pass code from your Bank business checking account. Your virtual Assistant sends you the bank statement monthly which is your way you have to verify your bank balance. Of course, embezzlement is ALWAYS a risk, so don't turn over your checking account to someone who you don't know well or trust....Also, you may want to simply wire in or transfer funds from another account each month to your bill paying account if you're concerned about full access to your checking account funds.

2. Screens and forwards your mail.

Your Virtual Assistant is intelligent; she knows what you want to see and what you don't want to see, snail-mail wise. You get a weekly Priority Mail envelope from her with just the goodies. What a relief! She/he uses her/his good judgment.

Virtual Assistants can be male or female or even gay!

3. Solves problems that you don't want to solve.

You just tell Your Virtual Assistant what outcome you want, answer her questions and wait for the email that it's done. Now, this isn't always perfect, but it works most of the time. Just knowing that you have someone to delegate problems to is such a great feeling!

4. Screen and handle email.

I know of several business owners who have a Virtual Assistant look at all of their email and handle what they can, leaving the rest for the business owner to handle. This can free up an hour or two a day and is reason enough to have a VA. Your Virtual Assistant just goes into your incoming email queue and does her magic several times a day. Dealing with confidential matters? Just set up a secret/private email address that you only give out to selected people. Some of our clients at CatchFriday like gmail for example and SightSpeed can record the work as it's done.

5. Manage projects or reporting.

Your VA Virtual Assistant has a weekly checklist of the information, statistics or reports that you need for a number of your projects. Sure, you could compile them yourself, but why? You'd much rather the VA do this, and follow up the clients who haven't reported in. Sure, it's cheating, but what's wrong with having more time to yourself?

6. Follow up with clients or other contacts.

Your'll email your VA (Your Virtual Assistant) to follow up with a client who missed a call or to ask a colleague how you can help them do something that you know they are working on, or to schedule a time to chat with a client. Do your colleagues mind that you've delegated this to your VA? Yes, they can be offended sometimes, but only until they get their own Virtual Assistant.

Your VA (Virtual Assistant) will say that she is working out of your office, and where you are - she will not say that she is somewhere else. She will speak with a local accent.

7. Remind you of important dates.

You don't use Your Virtual Assistant for this, but some of your colleagues do. In some cases, Your Virtual Assistant handles all of their scheduling/appointments and even reminds them of anniversaries, birthdays, reporting dates, etc. And Why not!?

8. Point out what you cannot see/give advice.

Your VA (Your Virtual Assistant) sometimes says, "Hey, Bill, did you know that....." You love this! Let's you focus on what you want to focus on instead of having to keep your eye on everything or manage your own reminder system.

9. Screens/handles your phone messages.

Your Virtual Assistant plug into your voice mail several times a day and 'clean out' leaving you the calls that you need to handle. Again, Your Virtual Personal Assistant is more than an assistant and so much more than a message taker or message deliverer - she is unique. Your VA 'is' you and acts on your behalf, protecting you and your time/space from the demands of the your clients. You'll need to train your VA on how to do her job well, and this may take a few days, but it will pay off well. You empower your VA to set policy, make exceptions, solve problems, make mistakes, coordinate efforts, screen heavily, anticipate your needs and be a partner, not just a VA (virtual assistant.

10. Develop systems of support.

You don't just ask Your VA ( Virtual Assistant) to do stuff or handle tasks, but also to create systems so that things of a similar nature get handled automatically in the future. Most VAs need support and training on how to do this, but once they get it, you're set up for a lifetime of a problem-free and task-free atomosphere.

Now let's look at some of the Case Studies

Tony has a Web Design company and is a sole proprietor. He had trouble recruiting reliable staff in the UK. Tony was referred to Catch Friday through the Ecademy Business Network, and Tony took Alan one of our web designers on a trial, which after 30 days he changed the plan to a monthly contract. He was so pleased with Alan's work that he took on a graphic designer and run the designer for six months. Then due to a lull in the work, he changed the plan to part-time for the next three months, and then he took Alan back permanently. Tony has been doing business with us over 18 months.

Tony use his VA to be a web designer and even programmer.

A Limited Company in the UK has been doing business with us for a number of years. They outsource all their business processes with us, and have a telesales person, a programmer, a web designer, and a typist working in our office.

Ann is a business woman and has used one of our system's analysts. She has been very impressed with the skill and enthusiasm of Mylene, our IT Manager.

Dude who lives in New York State approached us to program a shopping cart for a charity site.

James who lives in Brisbane, Australia has used our PPC (pay per click) management service, and SEO service. He was delighted with the expertise of Karen who carried out the work.

Mike asked us to carry out market research calls on his behalf, and we carried out cold calling over the next two months. He was delighted with the response.

Sharon asked us to turn her brochure into an e-brochure, and then asked us to look at her website - the work is still going on.

Scott who lives in Auckland, New Zealand phoned us up and asked us to source Bus Windows for him.

These are but a fraction of the jobs that we have going, and we have masked the real names of our customers. We keep their records confidential.

If you require business references, we can provide them from certain clients who have given permission.

Why not take your VA Virtual Assistant from CatchFriday today, and fill in the enquiry form.

Or give one our VPAs (Virtual Personal Assistants) a ring..............

Angel Litel or Liz Ferraris on

E-mail: infodesk@catchfriday.com

UK Phone: +44 (0)20 8432 6450
US Phone: +1 315 753 0089
PH Phone: +63 2 8176035 

We have clients for our VPAs in Australia, New Zealand, United Kingdom, USA, Canada, Singapore, Japan, and Europe.
We service the world, why not contact us today. Our prices are on our web site.