If you would like to earn money in your home business right away, you will want to look into starting a service based business. A popular, and much needed, service based business idea is becoming a virtual assistant (also known as a VA).
The demand for virtual assistants is increasing two-fold. On one hand, more and more people are starting home based businesses and they need help in the day to day office tasks associated with their business.
Since they are working out of their home and do not have the space to hire a traditional in office administrative assistant, they turn to virtual assistants.
Even brick and mortar businesses are now hiring virtual assistants as the trend of working with freelancers continues to grow. It is more cost effective for a company to hire a virtual assistant on a contract basis, as they will not need to pay for benefits or other perks given to traditional employees.
As a VA, you may be asked to complete a variety of tasks, such as answering email, customer service, transcription, data entry, research, and more. Some virtual assistants decide to specialize in one area, such as marketing, public relations, or bookkeeping.
As with other service based providers, a virtual assistant can find work through online job boards. Check out www.justonlinejobs.com and www.craigslist.com for starters.
Freelance websites such as www.elance.com and www.guru.com are another great source. Online temp agencies, such as http://www.workaholics4hire.com/ are also popping up to help people find jobs in this field.
Don’t be afraid to contact someone you’d like to work with directly and offer your services. You don’t want to spam anyone, of course, but it is okay to write someone you admire and let them know that if they are hiring, you’d love to work with them.
It is very rare to find a 40 hour per week virtual assistant job. You will most likely have to juggle several clients to actually get the amount of hours you would like to work each week.
As technology continues to improve, more and more companies will be offering virtual assistant positions. This is a field that will continue to grown and flourish.
2 comments:
I enjoyed your post. For those out there thinking about becoming a virtual assistant, don't look at it like an "easy" way to work from home. It's a business and it takes work and effort to make it succeed. But if you are ready to commit time and energy to it, it is becoming more recognized and more widely known. Learn more here: http://clericaladvantage.wordpress.com/2008/07/26/so-you-want-to-be-a-virtual-assistant/
I so agree with T Hilton! It is not an instant job and you have to work to get work! You are no longer and employee when you become a VA you are the business owner and must hustle to get clients.
A great place to find info and support when starting out (it helped me sooo much!) is www.VAnetworking.com . No cost to join and the info in the forum is fantastic, tons of stuff to help you start out successfully as a Virtual Assistant
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