Hi, glad you started this group and hope lots more join. Since I work a day job, I'm still small time as far as my businesses are concerned. I have 2 businesses, one is genealogy research and the other a true VA business. I have clients with both businesses and keep pretty busy but my long term goal is a multi-va business. Looking forward to sharing all things VA with the group.

Thanks for joining Jenny! There's sooooo much info out there that I was hoping to narrow the field a little by means of this group. Kudos to you, a job and two businesses. Would love to hear your success stories!

Glad to see there are others who aren't going full blown with VA business. I have one monthly client now and want to limit the number of hours I work per week and/or # of clients with mo. retainer agreement. I am thinking about working on an e-book and other things which can generate revenue without having to take on clients.

Welcome Janniere! I love the idea of the e-book. What is your niche?

I'd also like to hear what you all do for marketing? I read all the threads on marketing, but with my small business I have to be choosey, otherwise I'd be marketing all the time and wouldn't have time for actually working! My best marketing strategy right now is word of mouth!

Hello all!

Even though I work a FT job, attend school FT, and have a PT virtual assistant business, I have high hopes and dreams of becoming a multi-VA in the future. I'm looking forward to great ideas, stories, and lots of fun!

Marcia,
It's actually about marketing/networking. An action plan that I put together when I had a job in sales. I have to figure out a way to either make it an e-book and/or workbook. It will be a couple of months before I'll start working on it seriously.

Hi everyone, my name is Kimberly, I am glad to be here.

Hi everyone, I juggle a job with 2 VA businesses and a husband who loves to travel. Needless to say, my businesses are still small time but I'm determined to grow them to the point where I can quit my day job. I have clients with both businesses and am preparing to go multi-va with my genealogy business. I wonder though if it really could be considered a VA business. I want to sub-contract researchers in every county in WV. What do you all think, is it a VA business or not? As for successes, I'm not sure I really have many yet. I'm getting ready to do some traveling and will take along business cards and welcome kits for both businesses. One way I cope with my day job is to pretend it is just another client who pays well and on time. I'm looking forward to getting to know each of you and learning how you are growing your business.

Hi there everyone - I am joining the group because I too work part time. A couple of days a week I provide administration advice for a government department. I work part time not for the money or security, but because the opportunies, information and knowledge that the machinery of companies expose you to is immense. For me, losing that is too much to lose. I never use it for my networking or business development, I keep those very separate. But the natural exposure you have to technology changes, business systems etc is a lot more frequent than would be if you were at home on your own. That's kind of what my thinking is anyway. Three cheers for part time! I love it.

NZ - I completely know what you mean. I'm a stay at home mom of three and have been out of the office for 8 years now. I've just started to notice that I'm getting "behind" on the technology and business operations because I'm removed from it on a daily basis. I've kept up as much as possible by being an avid volunteer and by being a part of forums and such like this. Your insight into such topics will be a HUGE benefit to this group! Thanks for joining and share with us often!

We've got a nice group started here! Thank you ALL for joining. Janniere touched on a great topic to start a conversation about... Marketing for the small VA business. I'd love to hear your ideas on simple ways you're marketed your business.

Hello everyone! Great to be here. I have a small practice - just me and a part time subcontractor. Looking to make many new friends and connections.

- Kate LaFrance

Hi there, just thought I'd share a great read (it's not a new book but it's interesting and really applicable for us VAs) - Wikinomics by Tapscott & Williams. Fab book about mass collaboration, how www has converted to what people term web 2.0 and if you're able to read between the lines how to convert your PC - from a tv our clients would simply watch advertisements of your products on into a customer service interface or as we put it in the not so old days a whole "service department" (but lots more than that!). If you haven't read it then it's likely you'll want to into this one asap.

Hi all, my name is Patti, I work full time during the day and part time nights and weekends trying to get my VA business up and running so that I can quit my day job. With the economy today I am scared to jump in with both feet.
I can wait to get to know all of you.

Hi there all you "Small Time VA's"! I'm excited to join your group. I've new in this industry and am looking forward to share with all of you my fears and ideas. I have an abundance of articles and have done research for about two years and have quitted my day job because I am NOT into sales and marketing and I realised that it is impacting negatively on my confidence. So... are you up to supporting me and sharing in my "library" of interesting articles? Looking forward to hear from ALL of you soon. By the way... I'm from South Africa and for us, the VA-industry is still very new, so I (and my fellow VA's in South Africa) have a big job on our hands. So... looking forward to hear from you! In the meantime, have a WHALE of a day! Yolande (VirtualYolande)

Hi everyone. My name is Celeste, I live in Indiana and started my business in August 2008. I had to leave the attorney I was working for in July and by August, VA work just fell into my lap. I had never thought of doing it before, and quite honestly, I didn't have the self confidence to do it. 2 weeks after I had quit, I had 2 different attorneys asking me to come work for them. Since that time, I have 2 additional clients and I do work on a weekly basis for all of them.
I would like to extend the conversation that Janniere brought up about marketing. I am looking to add to my client base and have been trying to come up with ways to market myself, aside from word of mouth. Here are a couple ideas that I have, your advice or expansion of these would be appreciated:
- Advertise on Craigslist
- Send a well written, short but to the point, letter to attorneys in my area trying to get their attention just enough that they will want to talk to me.

I look forward to sharing ideas and getting to know everyone!

Hello everyone. I posted earlier as Inpara (see post below), that is what happens when you don't read all of the instructions! lol. Can't wait to network with everyone!

Hello everyone.

Although I have experience in administrative and transcription services, I decided to scale my business back to a smaller VA business and concentrate on developing internet marketing and social media skills. I am looking forward to gleaning and sharing ideas on how to overcome frustrations and appreciate the successes of our businesses nevertheless.

Hi Everyone, I am definitely a small time va! In fact I have no clients ha ha.. Currently I live in California. I am taking VA classes at a local junior college that offers a VOP degree. So I am finally earning my AA-degree to go along with my previous college certificate. I am really excited about this business and would love to get to know more people in the field. I am attending my first VA meetup group on Saturday the 16th, looking forward to it, but a bit nervous too!

Welcome... we've doubled in size since my last visit! We have a great group of VAs here and I hope we can work together to provide insight and inspiration! I'd love to here about what you all want to talk about here. SEND ME YOUR IDEAS!

Celeste of Indiana - I LOVE your idea of sending out a letter to local attorneys! I think that's a great idea! Better yet, you could send an e-mail with a link to your website!

Speaking of websites... do you all have websites for your businesses? Do you pay for your website? Did you design your website? I find as a smaller business, I can't afford a fancy website. However I'm having trouble getting everything I want in a free website. Ideas?

Hi Venture:

I created my website, but of course I had templates supplied by GoDaddy that made things easier. The monthly fee is nominal and with the one-time fee for the domain name, it isn't costly to maintain in my opinion.

Frankly, I enjoyed playing around with it. I kept learning as time went along, adding more content and learning how to make it Google-friendly.

I have websites for both of my businesses. I'm learning CSS and know a bit about HTML but I used free CSS templates for both sites. I use Bluehost for my hosting and find it's pretty inexpensive since it includes registering the domain name, a Wordpress blog, email, and so on. I haven't touched on all the features yet but work a bit on this every day or so.