Hiring a Virtual Assistant: A Professional VA Offers Advice

Written by Lori Davis


Many of you are just beginning to learn aboutrepparttar Virtual Assistant (VA) industry. Others have enjoyedrepparttar 102924 amazing talents of a Virtual Assistant for months or years! Whatever your exposure torepparttar 102925 Virtual Assistant industry may be, I’d loverepparttar 102926 opportunity to share with you some key points to remember when you’re ready to hire you first Virtual Assistant, or make a change from your current VA.

Before we continue, a definition is in order. A Virtual Assistant is a home-based entreprenuer who provides a wide variety of services, including but not limited to:

• Administrative • Technical • Creative • Financial

With so many advances in technology –repparttar 102927 Web,repparttar 102928 Internet, e-mail and instant messaging to name a few --repparttar 102929 tasks your VA can perform for you are innumerable.

Presented for your reading pleasure are a few of my tips when hiring your own Virtual Assistant.

Consideration #1: The Face-to-Face Factor

This is by farrepparttar 102930 biggest hurdle for some folks to overcome. I've interviewed a handful of potential clients who could not understand how I could assist them from my home office. You, dear business owner, must decide if you're able to deal withrepparttar 102931 fact that your VA works from her home office.

To start, be honest aboutrepparttar 102932 type of person you are. If you must have your hands on every sheet of paper, if you must see your assistant's face every day, hiring a VA is probably not a good idea for you.

Nine times out of 10, hiring a VA is a good fit forrepparttar 102933 typical business owner. If you comprise that 10% of business owners who simply must have an on-site assistant, well, that's just fine. I'd prefer to work with someone who's self-aware about their work style, than someone who's attempting to make a VA-client relationship work, just forrepparttar 102934 sake of making it work.

Consideration #2: Your Personality Type

If you think personality type doesn't play a role when choosing your VA, you are sorely mistaken my friend!

Example: If you're Power Player Pete, classic Type A personality, working with Suzy Granola is not a good choice for you. Whereas Suzy may be extraordinarily laid back and calm, your on-the-edge and hyper personality may make for uncomfortable work situations.

Remember, your VA doesn't necessarily have to mirror your personality. Instead, your personality and that of your Virtual Assistant should mesh very well.

Keep this in mind duringrepparttar 102935 interview process, askingrepparttar 102936 VA questions about her personality, how she handles stress, etc. Be honest about who you are andrepparttar 102937 type of VA you need to be successful.

Consideration #3: The VA's Work Hours

I have one thing to say about my work hours: my West Coast clients sure do love me!

All right folks, it's nuts and bolts time. Your VA's work hours and her availability must match your work hours, especially if your VA is to provide live telephone answering service. You also need to keep in mindrepparttar 102938 time zone difference, if any, between you and your Virtual Assistant.

Some VAs have set work hours while others, such as myself, are a bit looser with our time. While I do have "standard" hours of 9:00 - 6:00 (Eastern), I also provide "after-hours" support, especially to my West Coast clients. I know some VAs who, whenrepparttar 102939 clock strikes 5, are offrepparttar 102940 clock -- they don't respond to e-mail messages, telephone calls, etc.

Why Hire a Professional Transcriptionist to Convert Your Dictation or Audio Recordings to Typed Text?

Written by Laurie Kristensen


In a discussion forum for non-fiction writers (where I had posted my introduction of myself and my professional transcription business), another member replied and mentioned that for simple dictation, she uses a voice recognition software program.

When what she had said really sank in, I felt like someone had kicked me inrepparttar gut!

Then my reaction was huge dismay and questioning, "Why should I even stay in business?" This came JUST after spending almost two months getting clear on why my transcription business feels exciting to me and realizing that I want to assist and support creative, positive, motivated people to succeed in ways they have not been able to before, working on interesting projects!

I imagined emptying my transcription business website of all information -- just leaving a notice (as a ‘public service’) pointing out torepparttar 102923 people who THINK they need me to transcribe their audios that they should go and buy that software instead!

Yikes! Drastic thoughts!

But seriously, then I started thinking some more...

I mean, it's a legitimate question! Why SHOULD someone hire me if they can buy software for dictation?

In what situations would dictation software be inferior than having a live, intelligent human being (who is passionate about helping her clients succeed) listening and transcribing their audio material instead?

Knowing such software exists, ANYONE might appropriately ask that question!

Since I've never worked with this kind of software, I realize I may not understand it perfectly, so I decided to ask some questions...

With audio recordings of interviews, groups, or live teleclasses, seminars, and so forth, how doesrepparttar 102924 software distinguish between multiple speakers? How does it know to punctuate and breakrepparttar 102925 text into paragraphs appropriately?

When people just speak naturally, their speech is filled with tons of 'ahs' and 'ummms' and 'you know's' and so forth. Doesrepparttar 102926 software know to filter those out when appropriate? People also string multiple sentences together with 'and' forever! Doesrepparttar 102927 software know when to breakrepparttar 102928 sentences apart?

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