VA Survival Series #12

I want to wish you all a Merry Christmas!  We’ve made it to the 12th and final installment of the VA Survival Series.  I hope you’ve found it helpful to you and your virtual assistant business.

As I was writing this series, I realized that only so much information can go into a blog post, and had to cut a lot out in order for it to fit onto the blog. But as I’ve continued writing the series, it really began to bother me that what I felt could be extremely helpful information was being left out.  At the end of this post, you can find out just what I’ve done to get all of that information to you and more.
But first, let’s get to the final post in this series.
#12- Tools of the Trade

As a virtual assistant there are various tools you will rely on to conduct business on a daily basis as well as allowing you to provide services for your clients. I would be missing a key element of your virtual assistance business if I didnt’ mention some of them in this series. The following are some of the tools I’ve found to be important for me and my business.

A Professional Phone System
It’s important that you have a phone system set up that gives a business like impression when clients and potential clients call in.  This can be a seperate phone line or phone number on your current line or you can look into a Virtual Phone System like RingCentral or Onebox.

One of the benefits of a Virtual Phone System is that they usually allow for a toll free number and they can include voicemail and fax services, giving you a one stop shopping experience.

If you don’t receive fax services through your phone set up, you’ll want to be sure you’ve covered that either with a traditional fax machine or via an e-fax service.

You may also want to investigate Skype, which is a combination instant messaging , voice call, and video call software.  They offer extremely reasonable paid packages as well as a basic free service.  I love using Skype for interviews, as with a simple add in like Call Wave I can record the call and offer it to my classes as an mp3 download.

Webinar and Online Meeting tools
If you have a client who conducts seminars, classes or just regular meetings it makes sense to investigate online meeting tools.  There are plenty to choose from including GoToMeeting and DimDim.

Remote Login Applications
Remote login can be a very important aspect of your virtual assistant business, especially if you’re going to be inputting data into software that resides on a clients computer. Some of the better known applications are GoToMyPC and Log Me In.

Project Collaboration Sites
This is another often used item in the virtual assistants tool box.
Its like an online office where documents can be stored, worked on and accessed by a number of users.
There are several benefits to using a project collaboration site with your clients.
It is a way to pass along information and documents securely.  Confidentiality and security are very important concerns for clients, but especially so if you’re working with attorneys or someone in the medical profession.  Project management sites are secure and you aren’t required to keep sensitive documents on your own home computer.
You can access your projects from anywhere with any computer that has internet access. These sites are ‘in the cloud’ and not resident on your own computer, it gives both you and your clients the flexibility of being able to access them from anywhere.
Some of the better known project management sites are ClientSpot, BaseCamp, Zoho and GlassCubes.

PAYMENT TOOLS
It’s always nice to make it as easy as possible for your clients to pay you.  There are several tools available through PayPal and Google that allow for ease of payment for your clients.
You can invoice directly from both, add payment buttons to your website or e-mail and more. Be sure to check out the business tools that both have available.

NEWLETTERS AND AUTORESPONDER TOOLS
Whether it’s for clients or for your own business, chances are you’re going to need to know how to use a service for e-mail newsletters and/or autoresponders.

There are several really good services available, some of the more popular ones being AWeber, ConstantContact and MailChimp, which has a really great free program.
This is just scratching the surface of the number of tools that are available out there for virtual assistants, both for use with clients as well as to help your own business.
Remember that it’s important that you stay on top of these types of tools in order to offer your clients the most up to date services possible.

I could go on, but this is a blog post and as such I have to limit the information shared here.  But as I said at the beginning of this post, I felt it was important that all of the information I have gathered for virtual assistants is made available to them.
What I’ve decided to do is pull all of the information together into an e-book entitled VA Survival Tips.
In the spirit of Christmas, I’m gifting a copy to anyone that comments on this post today, December 25th, 2009. That’s a full week before it’s even going to be available for purchase, so you’ll be able to get a jump on everyone else in making a success of your virtual assistant business.