Design Quotes Internet Business Ideas

Virtual Assistant Business

February 2, 2010 No comments yet

Internet Business Ideas Introduction

The Design Quotes "Internet Business Ideas" is an ongoing regular series of articles highlighting untapped niche internet business ideas. We believe the internet is a great place to start a business and to help budding entrepreneurs, we bring you this series. Included is an overview of the business idea and a step by step plan on how to get started.

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Overview

One of the easiest internet business ideas to get up and running with is to become a Virtual Assistant. A virtual assistant is someone who offers remote administrative support to other businesses.

Skills Needed

Desktop Publishing: You will need to have at least an intermediate knowledge of wordprocessing and spreadsheet usage.
Writing Skills: You will need to be able to write clearly and concisely. Much of this will be used writing emails.
Customer Service: It is likely that you will need to make and receive phone calls on behalf of the business that employs you.

Equipment Needed

A computer: You don't need an especially powerful computer, since most of the work you performed will be wordprocessing and emailing.
Internet connection: This is a no brainer. You will need to send files back and forth to your clients as well as regular emailing.
VOIP phone: This can be software or hardware. We recommend using Skype since the initial outlay is much lower.

Best Practice Guidelines

To be a successful virtual assistant (VA), you will need to be highly independent. Most of the people hiring you are hiring you because they do not have the time to complete the tasks themselves. As such, it is very common for them to provide you with only basic instructions. It's imporant to understand that this does not mean that the work you submit to them should also be basic. It should be thorough, detailed and clear. For example, a client might ask you to "provide a list of all flower shops in Melbourne". Firstly, ask as many questions as you can before starting. In this example useful questions to ask would be:

Do you want the list in a spreadsheet or a word document?
What information needs to be collected? I am thinking that Business Name, Address, City, Website URL, Email Address and Phone Number would be useful. Is there anything else that needs to be collected?
When do you need to work completed by?

Top 10 Tasks Required by Virtual Assistants

Research: Research is a broad area and can include anything from collecting mailing addresses to finding the latest trendy technology topics. Research definitely requires strong analytics skills.

Data Entry: This usually requires you to source a certain type of information and store it in a standardised format.

Transcription: Listen to recorded audio/video and type everything said.

Writing and Editing: You may be required to write/edit short articles, letters or even press releases.

Customer Service and Sales: Receiving and making phone calls to business contacts and customers.

Step by Step Plan

Set up a personal profile / portfolio website. This website promotes you personally and should include a CV and a history of any related work. We recommend using a free service called Magnetize: http://magntize.com/. This nifty site gives you a free online business card which you can use to link to all of your online profiles such as Twitter, Facebook and any online marketplaces you use to source work like oDesk.
Register yourself on at least one online job marketplace like oDesk. Create a profile and list your skills and experiences. oDesk is a hub that connects providers with jobs. They also handle all of the billing which is very handy.
Get yourself an invoicing system so you can bill clients you acquire outside of oDesk. We highly recommend using Freshbooks. Freshbooks is free to register and has the most professional and easy to use interface we have seen which is important from your client's perspective.
Register an account with PayPal so you can accept payments electronically. Freshbooks and PayPal integrate nicely together. When you invoice your clients with Freshbooks, they will be able to pay with their credit card or PayPal account.
Download and register a free Skype account. If your clients needs to you to accept calls, you can buy a dedicated local phone number in the client's place of business.
Finally, once you have had a few clients set up a dedicate website of your own and expand the business by hiring your own virtual assistants. Of course we recommend using Design Quotes to find the best web designer to build a professional website.