Ultimately, what virtual assistants do is fairly simple to explain: virtual assistants work from where they are to provide support to clients wherever they are.

One of the things that’s great about being a virtual assistant is having the ability to work from either a home office or an office near the home; one of the things that is even better is that, if you move, your business can move too:

(source)But moving has made me realize something very important and comforting…virtual assistance travels well! Even in the process of moving, I was able to work – and, most importantly, keep up! I still spoke to my clients via email and phone while on the road. It was seamless. My clients had no idea I was in the process of moving until I told them. Now that I am in Mobile, all I will have to do is change my address and my business cards. I have an 866 number so I don’t have to worry about that.

The above focuses on the biggest part of what virtual assistants do – probably more than you might think. The basic gist is clear: the key to what virtual assistants do is to provide services to clients.

Maybe you’re not planning to move, maybe it’s not even something that you’ve considered doing; however, if the time comes that you do have to move, you can be sure that your relationships with your clients will remain as strong as ever. There are very few other businesses for which this is the case.

One of the most interesting things about becoming a virtual assistant and running a business of your own is that, while many of your clients will have some understanding about what virtual assistants do, they may not fully understand the process.

When you’re the virtual assistant and you are asked what you do, how will you answer?

It’s something that’s good to think about – even if you’ve been in business as a virtual assistant for a while. In part, your answer is going to be, “well, some virtual assistants. . .” because, as you know, many of us have different specialties that we bring to the field, different services that we offer to out clients.

However, what you are likely to discover is that there are some benefits when the answer is more personal. “Here’s what I do as a virtual assistant,” is far more specific than trying to sum up the whole profession for everyone in one simple statement.

Of course, the flip side of that comes into play when your business involves a number of virtual assistants who provide different services. If that’s the case, work on a general explanation and then, before getting into anything more specific, ask your prospective client what he or she is looking for. That gives you a chance to target your answer to the individual – something that is likely to help you bring in additional clients.

When you’re running your VA business, one of the things that you are going to want to be sure of is that you are doing the best work that you can.

In order to gauge whether or not you are providing top notch virtual assistant services, ask yourself the following questions:

1. How well do I listen to the questions my clients ask? When your clients are asking you questions, it’s important to understand that what they are really doing is expressing a need. If you’re not fully listening to them, chances are good that you’re going to miss something. When you listen to the questions that your clients ask, you’ll find that you’re able to understand more about what they really want and what you can do to better meet their needs.
2. How well do I answer questions, provide information and help my clients to weigh the pros and cons of a decision they need to make? Part of listening to the questions that you clients ask is understanding what they are looking for, the other part is following through and being there to meet the needs that they have.
3. How well am I acting on the needs my clients have? When your goal is to provide top notch virtual assistant services, you need to be sure that your actions – and not just your words – address your clients’ needs.
4. How well am I working to establish a relationship with my clients? Simply put, providing top notch virtual assistant services comes down to one thing: building a solide relationship with your clients. Don’t just do the job to let them be happy it’s done, do the work and show them that you are committed to doing a good job.
5. How solid is my response time? When your client asks you to look into something, how quickly are you able to find the answers they are looking for? If you receive an email or a text message, how long does it take for you to reply?

Producing top notch virtual assistant services is all about the right relationship with your clients. Being accessible, really listening to what your clients have to say, answering their questions well and doing your best job are all key elements to building those relationships.

When you get right down to it, working with clients is the ultimate answer that explains what virtual assistants do. Virtual assistants provide services to clients.

When you start to scratch at the surface to see what’s underneath, you’ll find that there are many, many more answers. However, knowing how to explain what virtual assistants do is going to be a vital part of your business.

For the most part, virtual assistants provide administrative services to their clients. There’s answering calls, maintaining schedules, editing correspondence and similar tasks that can be provided. Most virtual assistants also offer a few other services – helping to coordinate travel, get things ready for a big meeting and get marketing materials to the printer.

Overall, these basic services are what your clients are going to be looking for: they are the services that virtual assistants are expected to provide.

You may decide within your own virtual assistant business to offer more specific services as well. If you want to provide web editing services, if you want to offer marketing services or to make travel arrangements for your clients – well, keep in mind that these too are things that virtual assistants do.

When you start your business providing virtual assistant services, however, you’ll want to make an effort to identify what other VAs do – and to use that information along with your skills to determine what you will do as a virtual assistant.

There are a number of things that fall into the category of what virtual assistants do – and it’s hard to touch on them all (in part because we all offer different services). However, regardless of what you do as a virtual assistant, it’s important to recognize that there are specific things that business professional are looking for when they make the choice to work with virtual assistants.

Why do business professionals work with virtual assistants? Here are a few of the reasons:

1. Business pros work with virtual assistants because even though they have an office, they feel like they don’t have enough space to brink another person into their physical space;
2. Business professionals look for virtual assistants because they know that there are services that they need that do not need to be provided from the same location;
3. Business professionals enjoy working with other professionals – particularly those who own their own businesses – because they know that the professionals are invested.

That investment in what you do is the thing that virtual assistants have that more traditional assistants do not have: when you work as a virtual assistant and own your own business, you are responsible for your own success. Other professionals see this and become far more willing to consider your contributions – and that’s what helps virtual assistants to become increasingly sought after especially as more and more professionals know what we do.

Assistants come in a wide variety of shapes and sizes, so what is it that virtual assistants do that makes them virtual?

After all, virtual assistants don’t merely exist as a function of the imagination. While we may not be sitting at a desk right outside of the executive’s door, we can still provide many of those same services from a distance. While those of us who offer creative or marketing services aren’t going to be found shuffled off into a particular office area, there’s nothing to say that we cannot design logos, brochures or advertisments just as well as someone who can have an eye kept on them.

What virtual assistants do that makes them virtual can best be explained by saying that virtual assistants do all of the same things that a traditional assistant would do, however, because they also are business owners in their own right, they don’t need that same chronic supervision.

When a business professional works with a virtual assistant, he or she will find that not only is the work being done well, but there’s also no need to train an assistant, less time spent worrying about whether or not priorities will be established: they simply know that the work will be done.

After all, what virtual assistants do are based on skills that they have developed over time; it’s not what we do that’s different, it’s just about how we do it.

When it comes to running a virtual assistant business, one of the things that is so essential for us all to do is to get the word out about what virtual assistants do.

On one hand, this is a matter of talking about the profession of being a virtual assistant and the VA business on the whole. While virtual assistants are increasingly common and more and more businesses are aware of what VAs do, there are still plenty of folks out there who just don’t know: it’s up to those of us in the field to make sure that people have accurate information.

On the other hand, it’s a matter of getting the word out about what you yourself do as a virtual assistant. Keep in mind, some of us offer general administrative services, some virtual assistants specialize – whether you will specialize in helping lawyers, real estate agents or you focus on providing marketing services, desktop publishing, bookkeeping services or something else altogether.

In other words, a lot of it is going to come down to marketing. Virtual assistants need to know what they are able to provide to their clients – both on a broad and an individual level; clients need to know what virtual assistants do.

The best way to market yourself as a virtual assistant is to show what you as a VA can do for your prospective clients.

Maybe it’s because virtual assistants do so many different things that it’s hard to pin down what they do. Maybe it’s because one of the best things about being a virtual assistant is that – at least to some extent – you can do what you want to do:

1. Want to focus on travel planning? You’ll find that there’s a market for it.
2. Want to maintain the basic administrative flow? Answering calls, responding to email, setting appointments – they are all necessary tasks.
3. Love to write? Create blog posts, write advertising copy, design brochures or simply put the text together. There are plenty of writing based services that virtual assistants can provide.

Of course, just because there are some things that you are great at doing doesn’t mean that there aren’t going to be some challenges that you face along the way. Because virtual assistants do such a wide variety of things, it’s important to recognize that there may be times when you need a bit of help (from someone whose specialties are different than your own). Becoming a member of a virtual assistant network can ensure that no matter what you do and no matter what your clients need everything can be done.

Many virtual assistants find that there are two types of clients who they will be working with. They will find that, in some cases, they will be working with clients who are looking for help on an ongoing basis; in other cases they’ll find themselves working with a client who needs help on a single project.

In either case, what a virtual assistant does is not altogether different.

For example, if a virtual assistant is working with a client on a project that needs to happen during a particularly busy period, he or she will need the details of the project and the time frame for its completion; payment will need to be negotiated and a contract developed.

In this case, the virtual assistant will then do the project – and will focus on providing the best work possible, knowing that the client could come back with another project in the future. Or the client could turn into someone who uses the services for the long haul.

When a VA is working with a client doing long term work, it remains important to be clear about the services that are being provided and the price of those services and providing quality work is essential.

As a VA, you’ll always want to put forth your best effort. Whether your working with a client for a single project or over an extended period of time, remember you’re working for yourself and with a client: whatever services you provide, make sure that you’re doing your best work.

Virtual assistants do a lot of different things for the clients that they work with. To some extent, because what virtual assistants do depends a lot on the virtual assistant you’re talking about.

So for today, let’s just consider a list of things that virtual assistants do – and take a look at some of the clients that they help as well:

1. Virtual assistants who work with real estate agents can focus on finding homes on a certain street or certain neighborhood for a house-hunter that they are working with
2. Virtual assistant can take the information that you’ve collected at a trade show and organize it into a database so that you’re able to follow up on your leads with the right information
3. Virtual assistants can cover your basic bookkeeping tasks and make sure that the numbers are all balanced out at the end of the day.
4. Virtual assistants can work with you to create content for your websites and blogs.
5. A virtual assistant can design a drip email campaign for your business so that you can be sure you’re getting the message out at intervals that work for your prospects
6. A virtual assistant can help to organize your schedule and get you prepared for meetings.
7. Virtual assistants can work with you to put a marketing campaign into place and help you to take your business to the next level – whatever that looks like for you.

What else do virtual assistants do? On a lot of levels, it’s entirely up to them.