Work from Home as a Virtual Assistant

A Virtual Assistant is a home based secretary or administrative support person. A virtual assistant can provide a range of skills from basic secretarial skills to more complex executive assistant skills, working remotely for the business they are supporting. Often the client is a small business, an independent consultant or a professional, who does not need a full time administrative person, and/or who do not have the premises for them to work from.

Some of the services a virtual assistant might provide are:

- bookkeeping
- database setup and management
- desktop publishing
- editing/formatting documents
- email and fax
- flyers
- invitations
- mail merges
- newsletters/enewsletters
- presentations
- proofreading/copyediting
- repetitive letters
- reports
- spreadsheets
- submissions
- transcription services; tape, digital and shorthand
- web conferencing
- word processing

How do you become a virtual assistant?

If you have the basic skills i.e. any or all of the above, you will also need a computer, the relevant software, email and a phone.

Getting your clients is the hardest part, but there are quite a few agencies out there for virtual assistants. Some examples are:

A Clayton's secretary: www.asecretary.com.au

Executive Stress Office Support (www.execstress.com)

International Association of Virtual Office Assistants (IAVOA)

Virtually Yours: www.virtuallyyours.com.au

Australian Virtual Business Network: www.avbn.com.au

As a virtual assistant, you register your details on these websites, and clients can access the listing and contact you directly. Some charge a subscription fee to be listed on the website.

Some of the listings literally have contact details and a list of the skills the virtual assistant provides. Other virtual assistants include a link to their own website which provides more details, including references and examples of work completed.

The skeptic in me wants to know how many virtual assistants actually find subscribing to the websites pays off, so I will be doing a little digging to find out more.

Having said that, the creator of Virtually Yours was nominated for the Telstra Women's Business Awards and was a finalist in the Home Based Business Awards in 2006 and 2007, so she must be doing something right.

AVBN also has an award winning founder, recognised in both the specific field of virtual assistants and as a Business Achievers Award winner in 2007.

Work in children's activities

I have just got myself a little job, starting Saturday morning. I am going to be teaching a class called 'Ready Steady Go', which is a fun, high quality sports and exercise class for children from 2 1/2 to 5.

It's just 3 hours, but it fits with the other half being home to look after the children, and it uses my previous child care experience and qualification. Potentially there might be other classes I could teach during the week, and they are all done in the morning, starting at 9:30, so it fits perfectly with school and pre-school.

This is one area us mums can definitely work in. There are lots of classes for pre-school children out there, each requiring teachers, and for the majority you don't have to have a formal qualification, just experience.

You too could design your own class for children, or for mums and babies, based on your own skills and experience. Could you teach a kiddies art class, or music, or dance? Could you teach yoga for mums and hire a carer to look after the babies, or have a mums and bubs class?

Let me know your experience...

For more information on Ready Steady Go, see their website: http://www.readysteadygo.net.au/