Di Chapman, Becoming a Virtual Assistant, The Virtual experience of a long standing VA

I am writing this site as I get more and more mail asking me how do 'I' start up a Virtual Assistant practice on a daily basis. I found the 'how can I do what you do' frustrating as there was and is so much behind my business that whatever I answered would be a very small part of the reality of it. It would also be a very personal answer. Taking that into consideration I decided to write a very personal website on becoming a virtual assistant. I am hoping that those who want to become VAs will get some help, advice and also come back to me with further information they want, or find useful, that could be included on this site.

I used to teach Internet Marketing for home workers and other Internet related subjects for Business Link in the UK so have a solid basis for my views, BUT that does not mean that they should be your views. Take what you can and what is useful from this site, help me by sharing your experiences and between us we should be able to build a site that goes some way to answering the question 'How can I become a Virtual Assistant'. If you think that anything is missing or have written an article you would like to see on this site, please contact me at our helpdesk

Whilst I was working full time from home as a Virtual Assistant, my company, Iceni-it won various awards including:

• The Essex Countywide Business Awards, E-Business, Small Company 
• Colchester and District Business Awards E-Business, Small Company
• We were also runners up in Technology and E-business in other local and regional finals.

This is from someone who is slightly dyslexic and so has to choose the skills she offers so that this does not affect the work produced.

We tested this site and didn't find any significant problems. - iceni-it.co.uk

We were also featured in the Readers Digest August 2007. The article was as I expected, a truthful article regarding working as a Virtual Assistant. I was interviewed and other sites were mentioned including the Alliance of UK Virtual Assistants - which I am proud to be a co-owner of.

Become A Virtual Assistant

A VA is anyone who works via the Internet - I would also add that they are normally self employed and are not home-workers, i.e. employed or necessarily working from home. Many people seem to have the view that you can pigeon-hole this profession and say that VAs work from home offices or offices and do mainly transcription. I think that nothing can be further from the truth. I have never yet met anyone who would not take on a challenge and go the extra mile to help their client and I know of 2 VAs who travel for their clients - one client I personally passed on, and she has been to Toronto and Barbados as well as other countries - she lives in Europe. Another has the opportunity to travel and enjoys that part of this client's work.

VAs run fully fledged businesses and have the skills necessary to work remotely with a variety of clients. This is not for everyone, but knowing that there are literally hundreds, if not thousands, out there who have gone before and have successful practices, should help to give you the courage to try and succeed. If you don't try you will never know...