I feel I’ve had the best introduction to the VA world since founding Do it DW, having worked alongside fellow VAs, The Prince’s Trust, and now the wonderful Heather Baker at Baker Thompson Associates. It’s been an incredible journey already and one I am so excited to see what the future holds!
Since coming into the VA world, I have been blown away with the support that VAs give each other, as well as the support that VAs can give to people and businesses.
It really is community over competition! I continue to see more and more fellow VAs supporting each other, giving advice/tips & how best to help all of our clients.
All of this goes a long way when VAs are supporting & helping their clients, not only just in business, but in their personal lives as well. A VA has developed quite a lot since the old typewriter PAs of the 20th century. We now have to cover all potential aspects of business, from keeping up to date on technology to ensure efficient business operations, to saving as much of people’s time & making it worthwhile for businesses.
Of course, we may be slightly biased when we talk about how good we all are, but we all see first-hand how much our help benefits our clients. Whether that starts off with saving clients an hour or 2 a week, then developing into more support or if you start supporting clients throughout their full daily life from the off.
Any support a VA usually gives, goes a long way. I’ve heard so many success stories where clients feel like they finally have time to not only focus on the parts of the business they’ve been putting off, but also time to focus on their personal lives, family lives, and their social life.
As VAs, our job is to make our clients’ days much easier than they’re used to (pre-VA). Any support we give can give clients the break they have desperately needed & the clients can reap the rewards of having some breathing space in life. Something which is hard to grab for most, in this fast-paced modern world.
I have been asking myself, why isn’t this a more commonly used way of doing business? Why don’t more and more people use this avenue? After some intensive research and discussions with VAs who have been in the industry for years, the main thing I seem to notice is the rapport between the VA & the client. It really does mean a lot. Sustaining a positive & effective rapport in business, which in turn helps personal lives also, means that longer term business relationships occur. Rather than a chop and change routine between different VAs and clients.
After some conversations with long term VAs, it seems that the VA world has vastly increased in numbers, and continues to grow. From this happening, more and more of these longer term business relationships are happening, opening up the VA world to more businesses each year. Whilst some have never heard of a VA or how much of a difference we can make, time & sheer number of VA’s will eventually completely rejuvenate how people operate in business.
Saying that, as many a VA will know, it takes a lot of dedication, time, patience and hard work to be a fully supportive VA to clients. So, VA work isn’t for everyone, but for those special ones who it is, it is imperative to remember how much our work can change our clients’ lives.