Networking Now

I've been with my print company for 4 years. Love'em.
I've been with my host for 6 years. Love'em
I've been with my email people for 2 years. Love'em.
I've been with my accountant since day 1.
I've been at the business address for 4 years. Just moved.

I'm trying to find equally loveable people online. :-D,

It's no different online than offline finding solid service providers.

This is my first post, I meant to go straight to the intro section, but read this and wanted to reply.

What a wonderful topic, in my opinion, as a VA I am biased obviously. But this is what encouraged me to start my own business, to help other businesses.

I will say though that it is hard to initially get people thinking of handing tasks over to me.

And the other problem is, although you say you pay a fair price, some people out there only want to pay peanuts, I am battling against people in the Philippines! Tough market!

Really difficult one... I'm working on it though!

Vick x

PS - promise i'm off to the intro section now... :D

I live din the Philippines for a year, and although their English is faultless (except a septic accent!) They are a useless people once employed!

Their wit and intelligence is up there with the best, but in the workplace they do not think for themselves, have soooooo much experience with this, I have not looked at your site in detail, so you may have already covered this, but I would answer any questions and reserves any potential client may have when taking on a VA:

• Are your clients fans of foreign call centres?
• Do you think a foreign VA could help a local client?
• Is there a reason major companies are bringing their call centres back to the UK?

Hope that makes sense, just speculating really, but to answer a question or a niggle before they answer it is a guaranteed way of increasing business.

The trouble is that a lot don't make it to the enquiry stage, I think (and even some people have mentioned it to me) people see my prices and go... Oh my god, that's so expensive! And it's not. I am very reasonable compared to a lot of people, plus the cost when you're only hiring someone for a few hours a month compared to what it would cost to employ someone in a traditional manner for those hours, it's worlds apart. But people don't see that, they see my £12-£18 per hour, then they get someone from the phillippines offering £1 per hour!

Really hard sometimes, some do see it and look at it reasonably, and then some are silly and wonder why in this country, with minimum wage, tax and NI, I have to charge the prices I do!

But posts like this do help change people perception of outsourcing.

Vick

I think part of the problem is that we use the word assistant, it kind of undermines what we do. To me we are virtual PA's. We are offering, in my case anyway, over 20 years of solid experience, most of that as Office Manager or PA. We are not junior admin staff. This is the type of assistance that small companies would normally not be able to afford, however, by buying what they need, when they need it, they can benefit from that experience and knowledge.

I think that the key here is to stick to your rates. They have been carefully considered. When people query them, just let them know what they are getting in terms of experience and knowledge, that the PPH and Guru offers dont have.

Amen to that!

I am pretty sure as the UKBN side grows it would be the VA/PA route as opposed to bringing on staff, I see it as an excellent tool for the business, that's not to say I am calling PA's & VA's tools! :p

I seriously think that you guys offer a great nay awesome service, people pay IT companies to look after there equipment etc, and people like me to build their sites and adverts through design, instead of paying £30k a year for an IT employee, or £1,000,000 a year for me as a full time design employee, though I would certainly work for that!

I think you're right Helen, just gets a little frustrating at times!

Kip - if only everyone thought as you do!

Vick

I think that perception of outsourcing is slowly changing, as people get more involved in social media, more people realise that remote working is possible, and the profile of the VA industry is raised in the press (albeit the reporting misrepresents VA's) then people will outsource more work.

At the end of the day each VA can only handle a finite amount of work, and to me I would rather have a handful of quality Clients who appreciate what I can do for them, than juggle twenty or thirty clients who dont quite get it and want to pay peanuts.

I think that with the help of forums like this outsourcing in all its forms will increase.

People accept that they need a solicitor to help process the sale or purchase of a house, they go to an accountant for their end of year accounts, they go to a printer to get their printing done. These are all examples of outsourcing.

There are several businesses on this forum alone that will work with each other I suspect over the coming months, as they offer what the other business needs, outsourcing doesn't just mean a VA, it can be any provider who fulfils the need of the customer.