My name is Cortni and I have worked in the office administration field for over 9 years now. I recently finished a contract job with the federal government as an administrative assistant and now I find myself unemployed with a great opportunity to start working from home. I had this great idea of freelancing my admin skills to businesses that can hire me by project or for a certain number of hours a week, all while I do the work from home. After a bit of searching online, I discovered that this has a name- being a virtual assistant!! While I know no one that does this sort of thing, I now know lots of people who do it through this forum! I'm looking forward to reading over this forum and getting lots of great advice and tips.

My office job ended just a few days ago and I really feel that working from home is the next step God is leading me to. I am married with no kids, but we hope to start trying for a baby early next year so I'm excited about the transition to being a work at home mom (currently I'm just a stay at home mom of a beagle). Ultimately I'd love to have enough business to hire other moms who want to work from home, but don't know how to do so.

I'm very skilled in admin work and with all MS Office products, and I also do some graphic design and freelance writing on the side, so I'm looking to incorporate all of these thing into my at-home-work. I like doing different things and having a change of scenery so I want to be versatile in what I offer clients.

I guess my biggest question starting out is what do you guys do to aquire clients? I plan to network with people i know and offer a discounted rate for first time customers and referrals. I also plan to make an excel spreadsheet of a lot of local business in my city and send an e-mail with a flyer outlining my services and the benefits of hiring a VA. Any other suggestions? I would also like to offer my services to businesses in other states and not just in my own city.

Any suggestions would be extremely helpful! Thanks!!
~Cortni

This is a great forum full of advice. Take a look at the suggested books section, 2 second commute and the VA series should be like your start up bibles.

Hi Cortni, sounds like you have a really great start to your business plan - congrats on taking those first steps! And welcome to the community!!

I guess the first place I would send you here on the boards would be the 'getting started checklist' - [and now that I've gone to get the link I can see you've been there already! ] other than that, do continue reading through the various topic sections and feel free to post your own questions and comments. You're in great company here so make yourself at home

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Hi Cortni,

Welcome. The forum is full of information to help you get started.

Sonya

Welcome Cortni to VAF. You have the right idea about Networking, it is a great way to get new clients and also to get your name know.

You have a lot to offer your prospective clients, so just get out there and network.

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Vicky
www.c-vas.eu