Technology these days has created jobs for millions of people around the world. It has helped existing businesses to find well educated, motivated, self-starters not just within the same city, but on the other side of the world as well.
How Virtual Assistants work and where to find them
Virtual Assistants use up to date technology that can make them “physically present” at your office, even if they are thousands of miles away. The client might work with a Virtual Assistant for many years without meeting up even ones in-person. Since many companies still work in an old fashion way by hiring someone in-office, Virtual Assistant world is taking-over slowly and many tasks these days have been outsourced. Regardless of the fact that thousands of resumes are posted on major job-search websites, it is hard to come across Virtual Assistant in these type of places. Virtual Assistants have their own market place on certain platforms such as oDesk and Elance. However, mentioned platforms are open for everyone in the world and many times clients look for “cheap and good” at the same time which in reality does not come hand-in-hand. So, we often come to conclusion that these two platforms are used these days as cost savers more than places where to look for quality Virtual Assistants, since they are becoming more and more over-saturated with “as cheap as possible” type of labor.
Best Virtual Assistants match best clients
As earlier mentioned, Virtual Assistants are becoming more and more present on the global labor market and at the same time online work looses it’s quality that use to have a decade ago, mostly due to a cheap labor Virtual Assistants coming from third world countries. On the other hand, term “quality client” stands for someone who cares about finding a quality Virtual Assistant, instead of the cheapest possible VA service provider. Well noticeable thing on the VA market would be shifting of job-search places. Best clients and Virtual Assistants these days are hiding in LinkedIn groups, where they learn about one another over certain period of time by exchanging ideas and advises. Finding a Virtual Assistant job on Social Media platforms such as LinkedIn might not happen right away, unless the job ad is posted. Professionals develop relationship in their groups and build confidence in their potential business partners / contractors, which turns to be the best way of working remotely with someone. LinkedIn groups are becoming a great marketing places where Virtual Assistants get hired based on developed trust in their little community.
Let’s list some of the tools that Virtual Assistant is using
By utilizing many tools, a good Virtual Assistant is able to provide to his/her clients more benefits than in–house employees at the lower cost overall.
The following tools are just “some of many” which Virtual Assistants use on daily basis.
Phone numbers though the Skype. Dialing some phone number with your area code thinking that you are just about to talk to someone nearby and a Virtual Assistant is picking up the phone from thousands of miles away. Skype is just one of many providers who sell “local” phone numbers to users in need of responding or making phone calls with the same area code ID like the one that you have.
Responding to emails can be done from anywhere in the world, as we all know. Where there is a need to “cover location” from which someone is responding to, remote IP address can be purchased for a few bucks and receiver will see IP address from the part of the world where the email has been “redirected”. In other words – someone from Europe can purchase remote IP address, let’s say from a U.S. server and email someone who is located in Australia. By looking up location of sender’s email, receiver will see that the sender is located in the United States.
E-faxing- same thing like with phone numbers and emails. This type of service could be setup in such a way to send and receive faxes with “local” area code number, all done through the internet connection. There are some variations when it comes to e-faxing services, which give to users some other options besides sending the fax from the number. E-fax service is possible to be done by email, making all the “fax tools” compatible.
Cloud Storage: Now, since we resolved the issues of making and responding to phone calls, sending and receiving faxes, the time has come to review what can be done for “physical” files, well known to be used in any office. There is a solution for that as well! There are many FREE services available online, such as DROPBOX and Cubby, which provide free storage with 5 to 10 gigs of space. For users in need of larger “cloud space” this type of service is available for a descent price. Here is how it works- Each user is required to have an email address, than he/she can open an account with one of mentioned service providers, at that time they will automatically receive “cloud space”. He/she can open files, drag and drop documents of any kind, as long as they do not cross the limit of assigned free space. The user can access these files from anywhere in the world, by simply logging into his/her account. If he/she wants to share certain files or documents with someone else- got very simple way to do so. Users can just simply add an email address in “share file with” option and by doing so- he/she actually authorizes access to that email account holder.
Besides all of the above mentioned capabilities, working with a Virtual Assistant has financial benefits, as well as, a positive outlook towards the work given. To learn more about these benefits – CLICK HERE
