Best Money Making Ideas

Hidden Support

Do you have great administrative skills?

Do you want to work for more than one client?

Do you want to run your own business?

If so then working as a VA could be for you.

Virtual assistants (VA’s) are home-based professionals who perform a wide range of office functions for one or more clients without setting foot in the client’s office. Among the many services a virtual assistant can provide are word processing of documents and spreadsheets, research, contact management, appointment scheduling, meeting and event planning, mailings, and follow up with clients or other contacts. A VA partners with their client, learning their business and providing the support needed to help them effectively grow their business and create more free time.

A VA can tap into their client’s voice mail several times a day and ‘clean it out’ leaving the client the calls that they need to handle. A VA is more than an assistant and more than a message taker or message deliverer. A VA *is* their client and acts on their behalf, protecting the client and their time/space from the demands of the public/customers. Some clients even empower their VA to set policy, make exceptions, solve problems, make mistakes, coordinate efforts, screen heavily, anticipate their needs and be a partner, not just a VA.

A Virtual Assistant is just like an executive assistant or personal assistant, except that the Virtual Assistant handles clients’ affairs from a distance, and electronically.

Below are the 10 most common ways in which clients utilize the services of a Virtual Assistant

* Bill payments
* Screening and forwarding mail
* Screening and handling email
* Sending out mailings and follow up
* Managing projects or reporting
* Follow up with clients or other contacts
* Reminding clients of important dates
* As a sounding board for pointing out what clients cannot see/giving advice
* Screening/handling phone messages
* Developing systems of support

So as you can see it is a challenging and interesting role. In addition to carrying out the varied duties above the VA also gets the pleasure and satisfaction of running their own business. They are a businessperson rather than an employee. From an employer’s point of view Virtual Assistants offer several advantages over a paid employee, saving the client tax and employee benefit challenges. As businesspeople market and communicate more and more via the Internet, virtual assistants can be very useful especially if a client does not require the services of a fulltime employee. With more and more people setting up small consultancies and other businesses the demand for VA’s can only grow.

VA’s can work for one client or more than one client, performing a wide variety of time and money saving tasks. A virtual assistant is self-employed; bills only the hours worked or by tasks completed, and is dependent on referrals and steady workflow.

Professional VA’s bill at rates $30+ per hour.

The more professional, industry-specific education a VA has, more experience working with virtual clients, the more she can make happen for her clients, and the more vast her resources, the higher her fee will be. Many VA’s work on a retainer agreement with clients — they block a certain number of hours per month to be used by a client. The client pays a monthly fee (a certain number of hours X $/hour = monthly retainer) at the beginning of each month. Unused hours don’t roll over to the next month. Expenses are additional. The per hour rate on a retainer is usually discounted by about 10%, in recognition of the client’s willingness to buy a block of time. A retainer relationship comes with a higher level of commitment to the partnership created — for both people.

To find out more visit these web sites

http://www.sba.gov/

http://www.ivaa.org/International - Virtual Assistants Association

http://www.virtuasis.com/links.com - Virtual Assistance Industry links

Make Money Saving People Time

With the current economy, most families have both the father and mother working in order to maintain their household. Time is at a premium and there is never enough of it to accomplish all they need to. Bachelors often work long hours just to maintain a certain lifestyle.

This way of life requires skipping on little chores that don’t matter so much or putting them off until the last minute. That’s where you can come in especially if you are a stay-at-home mom!

You already have to do your families’ laundry, why not capitalize on it by helping others get their laundry done? The main investment for this type of business will be your time and the returns you will see in profit and people’s happiness can be great.

-How to Get Started

The best way to get started with your Laundry Pick-Up And Delivery Service is by creating some bright colored flyers. This can be done on your home computer with MS Word, Publisher or a similar program. Some of these programs will even add the little tabs for people to pull off to stick in their wallet or purse. Print some of the flyers on your home printer (or take them to a printing service which is a little more expensive) and take them around to places like the local gym, grocery stores, beauty salon or barber, local convenience stores, etc.. Make sure the flyer indicates that you pick up dirty laundry from people’s homes, and deliver it cleaned and pressed. Add your phone number and other contact information to make it easy for them to reach you. You may want to have an answering machine or similar service to take calls when you are not available, but make sure you call people back right away!

-The Little Details

You do not have to wash all of the clothes yourself, although you may want to do so in the beginning to maximize profits. After your business is established, you can pick up the clothes to be washed, and take them to a commercial laundry (who will do the actual work). You can then make the delivery to the customer once the clothes are cleaned and pressed.

-Pricing Your Services

Figuring your fee is fairly simple. If you call a local laundry and see what they charge for drop-off service, you will know the approximate beginning cost. Should you decide to do the laundry yourself, you will need to add in a small fee for your supplies (detergent, fabric softener, fabric spray or starch for ironing). You will also want to add a dollar or two for gas for the pickup and delivery service.

Once your price is set, only give discounts for steady customers or individual who have you do large amounts of laundry (and then only allow a 10-15% discount).

Once word gets around about your great new service, you may not need to advertise anymore. You may have more customers than you can handle!

Helpful Resources:

http://www.sba.gov/

http://www.businesstown.com/gettingstarted/index.asp